ENEMIES AT BAY.
"Punishment o'ertakes the transgression,
In time;
Fate compels a full confession,
In time.
None can safely sin forever--
Conscience leaves the bosom never--
It will crush guilt's best endeavor,
In time."
FRANCIS S. SMITH.
Clifford Standish paused to note the effect of his boasting on Mrs.
Fitzgerald.
Every statement he had made was a falsehood, but he knew that she could
not disprove a single one.
The magnificent salary of which he boasted was only fifty dollars
a week, and as for his rich mother who made him such a handsome
allowance, and would leave him a fortune when she died, the old woman
was as poor as poverty itself, and took in washing. But as she lived
away off in Colorado, he was not afraid that she would ever appear to
contradict his statement. In fact, he had told the same story to every
new acquaintance, until he had almost come to believe it himself.
He judged that Mrs. Fitzgerald was proud and arrogant, and would prefer
her daughter to marry rich; so, after telling his boastful story, he
waited with some confidence for her reply.
She drew herself erect to her stateliest height, and if scorn could
have killed, the lightnings of her dark eyes would have stretched him
dead at her aristocratic feet.
"You contemptible villain!" she exclaimed, angrily.
"Madame!"
"You perjured wretch! You cowardly wife-deserter! You escaped criminal!
You persecutor of innocence! You--you--fiend!" concluded Mrs.
Fitzgerald, losing her temper in her righteous indignation and piling
opprobrious epithets one upon another in the white heat of her wrath.
Startled, cowed by this most unexpected onslaught, the wretch could
only cower in pallid amazement before the lady as she continued her
scathing denunciation.
"How dare you intrude yourself here after your vile persecutions of
Geraldine? Your audacity is startling, and I should do quite right to
hand you over to the police on the charge of abducting and intimidating
an innocent young girl! But I abhor scandal, and for this reason I
shall not have you punished, unless--you dare to annoy us again!"
Recovering his hardihood, he muttered, sullenly:
"Madame, I deny the truth of your statements. Your daughter promised to
marry me!"
"At the point of a revolver, yes, when, fearing for her life, she
determined to temporize with you, hoping to throw you off your guard
that she might escape your cowardly persecution. She has told me her
story from beginning to end, and I shudder to think what might have
been my dear girl's fate but for our meeting on the train!" exclaimed
Mrs. Fitzgerald, flashing on him the scornful lightnings of her
reproachful eyes.
Realizing for the first time that Geraldine had duped him in her
apparent acquiescence to his will, and feeling himself beaten for the
time in the dangerous game he had played, he cowered sullenly before
her as she pointed to the door, saying, authoritatively:
"Now go, you hound! and never let me see your craven face again!"
Defeated, humiliated, writhing under her womanly scorn, he slunk out of
the room and from her presence, into the wintry streets whose chill he
could not feel, so hotly was he raging in his inmost heart against the
two women who had scorned him for his wickedness.
"So you were playing on my credulity, laughing at me in your sleeve,
pretty Geraldine!" he muttered, with a stifled oath. "Very well. You
defeated me this time, but--look to yourself in the future!"
So muttering, he turned toward the sleigh that he had left waiting for
him, but, to his surprise, it was gone.
For some unknown reason the driver had proved false to his engagement,
and deserted his post.
Cursing the man's stupidity, he walked some distance along the snowy
streets in the piercing cold of the western air before he boarded a
car to take him to his boarding-house on State street.
Leaving the car, however, at an obscure side street with the intention
of seeking a near-by saloon and concert hall, he crossed the street,
and was proceeding on his way when suddenly he heard hurried footsteps
behind, and then a hand clutched his arm whirling him fiercely around.
"Wretch!" hissed a man's voice, vibrant with hate. "Wretch! So I have
caught you at last! Where is she? Where is my Geraldine?"
Under the glare of the electric lights that shone with ghastly
whiteness on the snowy pavement, he found himself looking into the
stern blue eyes of Harry Hawthorne.
For two days the young man had been on his track, without one clew
to reward his efforts, for the villain, hiding his identity under an
assumed name, had been swallowed up, like a wave breaking on the shore,
in the vast city of Chicago.
Now, by chance, they were face to face, on an obscure street, almost
deserted by reason of the piercing cold, and they looked at each other
with mortal hate in their flashing eyes.
"Where is she? Where is my Geraldine?" demanded Hawthorne, hoarsely,
tightening his grip on his enemy's arm so that he vainly tried to throw
it off.
Standish looked at him a moment in fear and indecision then a devilish
thought came to him, and he laughed aloud, mockingly.
"Your Geraldine, ha! ha! Your Geraldine!"
Something in his voice and laughter seemed to freeze the blood in
Hawthorne's veins, but he said, in deadly wrath:
"You stole her from me by a vile trick. I saw the forged note you sent
to her, and I know that you have betrayed her to some terrible fate;
but by the God above us, if she has suffered wrong at your hands,
Standish, your vile life shall pay the forfeit!"
"Bah! Hawthorne, this ranting is useless. She is alive, she is well,
she is happy, and I have just come from keeping an appointment with the
charming little beauty."
"Liar!"
"Do not bandy epithets so generously, Hawthorne. We really have no
quarrel with each other--for she isn't worth it!"
"Liar! Hound!" and Hawthorne looked as if he could barely restrain
himself from throttling his defiant foe.
But Standish kept his temper well in check, knowing that he could gain
more thus than by losing it.
He smiled mockingly, and said:
"Those are hard words, but I think you will offer an apology for them
presently. See! here is Geraldine's note to me. It is yours if you wish
to keep it."
He thrust a crumpled sheet of paper into Hawthorne's hand, and by the
glaring electric light he read:
"MR. STANDISH:--You may call at eight o'clock this evening.
GERALDINE HARDING.
"Dec. 29th, 1894."
How the words glared up at him, for he knew the writing well, and a
groan burst from his lips as he flung it from him, crying:
"Where is she? I must see her! I must have an explanation!"
"I cannot tell you where she is. She would not wish it. You may as well
give up the game, Hawthorne, for I have won!"
The triumph in his voice was hateful.
Hawthorne did not speak for a moment, and his opponent continued:
"Let us understand each other. We have been rivals for Geraldine
Harding's love, and she has coquetted with us both, promised her hand
to both. Well, all is fair in love or war. My little scheme succeeded,
and she is satisfied!"
"You have married her, Standish?"
"How could I when I have a wife living in New York, and Geraldine knows
it? But I tell you she loves me and is satisfied. We stage people are
not at all prudish, you know."
The next moment Hawthorne's strong fingers were about his throat.
"You have lied, you miserable dastard! Geraldine is as pure as snow,
and unless you take back your falsehoods I will strangle them in your
throat!"
A hoarse, gurgling laugh issued from the convulsed throat of Standish,
and the next moment they closed in deadly combat.
Both were strong and athletic men, both brave, both desperate, and for
a few minutes the contest they waged was an equal one.
But suddenly Hawthorne began to get the advantage.
He had his foe down and his knee on his breast.
"Will you take back your foul lie, hound?" he hissed, fiercely.
Standish made no answer in words.
He had been struggling all the while to get at his hip-pocket, and now
he succeeded in drawing out a dagger and plunging it in Hawthorne's
breast. There was a horrible ripping sound, and he rolled over bleeding
in the snow.