SENTENCE OF DEATH.
"Alas, a wicked man am I;
With temper fierce, too prone to strife,
And quick to wrath, my hands I ply
To evil deeds."
BENJAMIN HATHAWAY.
Geraldine gave the smooth villain a glance of measureless contempt as
she answered, bitterly:
"The sight of his satanic majesty would be more welcome than you,
Clifford Standish!"
"Still defiant!" he laughed, mockingly. "Why, I thought that a week of
Mrs. Crabtree's society would bring you to your senses!"
"Say rather would cause me to lose my senses!" she retorted,
bitterly, and there was a moment's silence, which he broke by saying,
impatiently:
"I will come to the purpose of my visit, Geraldine, I wish to marry
you."
"So you have told me before," disdainfully.
"Well, I tell you so again, and I am fully determined that you shall
become my wife!"
"You have a wife already, you villain!"
"She died in New York recently, and I am free to offer you my hand in
honorable marriage. Will you accept it, Geraldine?"
"Never! I would die before I would marry you!"
"It is the alternative you must accept unless you become my bride!"
The steel-blue glitter of his eyes was diabolical as he fixed them upon
her, and continued:
"Of course you understand that I have run a great risk in bringing you
here, and made myself liable to the law for kidnaping--that is, unless
you marry me, and give the affair the color of an elopement."
He paused, but she did not speak, so he went on:
"No search is being made for you by your friends, for a note was left
in your room, stating that you had fled to marry your lover, Harry
Hawthorne. Your mother believes that statement, and so there is not the
least suspicion that I carried you off."
"You fiend!" she cried; then added: "But Harry Hawthorne will search
for me!"
"Harry Hawthorne gave up the search for you weeks ago, and sailed for
Europe."
"It is false!"
"It is perfectly true. Why he went, I know not, but I have read in
a New York paper of his going. Believe me or not, as you will, my
charmer, but you are entirely in my power, without hope of rescue, and
I am desperate with love for you. I will not permit rivalry from any
living man. Either my bride you shall be, or the bride of Death!"
She sat listening and shuddering before the terrible decision of his
words, and the blue fire of his determined eyes. She felt that neither
prayers nor tears would move him. He was mad with love, stubborn with a
sense of power.
Changing his mood, he began to pour out in burning words all the mighty
strength of his passion, pleading, raving, imploring her kindness in
return.
He might as well have prayed to a statue, so changeless was the scorn
of her silent lips.
He asked her, almost frantically:
"Do you understand that unless you marry me there is no appeal from the
sentence of death?"
"Yes, I understand; but I consider death preferable to a union with
you."
Angered by the scorn of her words, he retorted:
"It will be a cruel death, I warn you, at the hands of old Jane
Crabtree and your body will not even have Christian burial. It will be
flung into an old disused well on the premises, and the secret of your
fate will never be known."
"Be it so. At least, you cannot murder my soul. It will return to the
God who gave it," she replied, dauntlessly bravely, determined that he
should not have the satisfaction of seeing her wince before his threats.
He rose, with a baffled air, exclaiming:
"I shall not consider this answer final. I shall give you one more week
in which to decide your fate."
Geraldine's heart leaped with joy. Another week's respite! And who
could tell what might happen in that time? She had been praying,
praying, praying all the while. Perhaps God would save her from her
enemy's wiles.
Smiling grimly, Clifford Standish continued:
"I shall leave old Jane to plead my cause with you, and I believe
that she will prove a powerful advocate. So sure am I of her ultimate
success, that in a week I shall return, bringing with me a justice of
the peace, empowered with authority to join us in matrimonial bonds. If
you refuse, I shall go away, leaving you in the hands of old Jane, to
be tortured to death and buried in the old well!"
Not a word came from the white lips of the girl, but the scorn of
her eyes was fiery enough to make him hurry from her presence with a
stifled oath.
She saw him leave with a great strangling sob of relief, and murmured:
"Thank Heaven, he will not come again for a week. Something will surely
happen in all that time."
But she did not know yet all the horrors that week held in store for
her, or why Clifford Standish had smiled so grimly, when he spoke of
old Jane's advocacy of his suit.
They had planned a desperate expedient.
Each day the cruel woman presented herself with the harsh question:
"Will you marry Clifford Standish?"
Geraldine always answered "Never!" and each time the old woman flew at
her in a fury, and administered a severe beating.
"He told me to do it," she would exclaim, angrily.
The prints of her cruel hands would be left on Geraldine's tender face
in crimson streaks; her arms and shoulders bore purple bruises on their
whiteness, but though each day brought a more severe chastisement than
the last, Geraldine's answer was still the same:
"Never! Never!"
Her daily portions of food grew less in quantity, and more inferior
in quality, so that only the severest pangs of hunger forced her to
swallow the coarse mess. But for the hope of rescue, she would have
left it untouched, and starved herself.
The old fiend began also to neglect the fire, so that the freezing
winter winds, as they swept across the snow-covered prairie land,
penetrated the cracks of the old frame house and chilled poor Geraldine
until her fair face looked blue and pinched from the cold.
"I shall beat, and starve, and freeze you into consent!" snarled wicked
old Jane, in a rage at the girl's stubbornness.
"You may kill my body, but you cannot bend my will!" answered the
resolute victim.
But from weakness of the body her hopefulness began to fail. She cried
out that God had forgotten her; she ceased to pray for rescue; she
asked only that death would come quickly.
But the slow days and nights dragged on till the week was at an end,
and still the strength of youth kept life in her sore and aching frame.
Late that afternoon old Jane came up stairs.
"He is coming. I see the sleigh off in the distance now. He will bring
the justice to marry you to him!" she snarled.
Geraldine did not answer; she had already been beaten and kicked that
day so that she was barely able to rise from the chair where she was
crouching.
The woman continued, threateningly:
"If you do not marry him, he will leave you here for me to kill. Do you
know how I shall do it?"
"No."
"I shall turn the dog on you. He has been kept without food two days,
to make him savage. He would tear a stranger to pieces. He has never
seen you, so when I 'sic' him on you, he will spring at your throat and
make mincemeat of you. While you are still warm and bleeding, I shall
throw your body into the old well!"
It was horrible to listen to her, but Geraldine only trembled and hid
her face. Two weeks of misery had inured her to such brutality.
"I must go now and chain up Towser, so they can get in," added the old
wretch, going down, after locking the door as usual, to receive her
guests.
They came in, Standish and the justice of the peace he had bribed to
accompany him--a villain, if ever a man's face spoke truly, who would
stop at nothing if tempted by gold.
The actor whispered to Jane Crabtree, nervously:
"Has she consented?"
"No--although I've half-killed her tryin' to break her will."
Curses, low and deep, breathed over his lips; then he said:
"Well, we won't go up stairs to see her yet. We're half-frozen with
this beastly cold, anyway, so we'll thaw out over the fire and a bottle
of wine."