"YOU MUST NOT MARRY HIM--HEAVEN INTENDED YOU FOR ME."
Slowly but surely the sturdy engine struggled on through the huge
snowdrifts, reaching Beechwood a little after seven, over an hour and a
half behind time.
Lester Armstrong swung himself off the rear platform into fully five
feet of snow, floundering helplessly about for an instant, while the
train plunged onward, and at last struck the path that led up over the
hills in the village beyond.
Beechwood consisted of but a few elegant homes owned and occupied by
retired New Yorkers of wealth. Horace Fairfax was perhaps the most
influential, as well as the wealthiest of these; his magnificent home on
the brow of the farthest hill was certainly the most imposing and
pretentious.
Lester Armstrong's heart gave a great bound as he came within sight of
it, standing like a great castle, with its peaks and gables, and windows
all blazing with light and the red glow of inward warmth against its
dark background of fir trees more than a century old, and the white
wilderness of snow stretching out and losing itself in the darkness
beyond.
All heedless of the terrible storm raging about him, the young man
paused at the arched gate and looked with sad wistfulness, as he leaned
his arms on one of the stone pillars, up the serpentine path that led to
the main entrance.
"What I ought to do is never to see Faynie again," he murmured, but as
the bare thought rushed through his mind, his handsome face paled to the
lips and his strong frame trembled. Never see Faynie again! That would
mean shut out the only gleam of sunshine that had ever lighted up the
gray somberness of his existence; take away from him the only dear joy
that had made life worth the living for the few months. He had drifted
into these clandestine meetings, not by design; chance, or fate, rather,
had forced him into it.
Mr. Marsh, the senior member of the firm by whom he was employed, also
resided in Beechwood. It was his whim that the keys of the private
office should be brought to him each night. Thus it happened that the
performance of his duties led Lester each evening past the Fairfax home.
One summer evening he espied Faynie, the object of his ardent
admiration, standing in the flower garden, herself the fairest flower of
all. It was beyond human nature to resist stopping still to gaze upon
her. This he did, believing himself unseen, but Faynie Fairfax had
beheld the tall, well-known form afar down the road, and she was not
displeased at the prospect of having a delightful little chat with the
handsome young cashier.
Faynie's home was not as congenial to the young girl as it might have
been, for a stepmother reigned supreme there, and all of her love was
lavished upon her own daughter Claire, a crippled, quiet girl of about
Faynie's own age, and Faynie was left to do about as she pleased. Her
father almost lived in his library among his books, and she saw little
of him for days at a time.
Therefore there was no one to notice why Faynie suddenly developed such
a liking for roaming in the garden at twilight; no one to notice the
growing attachment that sprang up and deepened into the strongest of
love between the petted heiress and the poor young cashier.
Lester Armstrong had struggled manfully against it, but it was for a
higher power than man's to direct where the love of his heart should go.
He made strong resolutions that the lovely maiden should never guess the
existing state of affairs, but he might as well have attempted to stay
the mighty waters of the ocean by his weak will. All in an unforeseen
moment the words burst from his lips--the secret he had attempted to
guard so carefully was out.
He had expected that beautiful Faynie Fairfax would turn from him in
anger and dismay, but to his intense surprise, she burst into a flood of
tears, even though she looked at him with smiling lips, April sunshine
and showers commingled, confessing with all a young girl's pretty,
hesitating shyness that she loved him, even as he loved her, with all
her heart. Then followed half an hour of bliss for the lovers such as
the poets tell of in their verses of a glimpse of Paradise.
Although they exchanged a hundred vows of eternal affection, Lester
Armstrong hesitated to speak of marriage yet. Faynie was young--only
eighteen. There was plenty of time. And to tell the truth, he dared not
face the possibilities of it just yet. It required a little more courage
than he had been able to muster up to seek an audience with the
millionaire--beard the lion in his den, as it were--and dare propose
such a monstrously preposterous thing as the asking of his lovely,
dainty young daughter's hand in marriage. Lester was timid. He dreaded
beyond words the setting of the ball rolling which would tear his
beautiful love and himself asunder. Heaven help him, he was so
unutterably happy in the bewildering present.
His reverie was suddenly interrupted by seeing a little black figure
hurrying down the path. Another instant, and the little breathless
figure was clasped in his arms, close, close to his madly throbbing
heart.
"Oh, Faynie, my love, my darling, my precious, why did you brave the
fury of the tempest to keep the tryst to-night? I am here, but I did not
expect you, much as I love to see you. I was praying you would not
venture out. Oh, my precious, what is it?" he cried in alarm, as the
fitful light of the gas lamp that hung over the arched gate fell full
upon her. "Your sweet face is as white as marble, and your beautiful
golden hair is wet with drifted snow, as is your cloak."
To his intense amazement and distress, she burst into the wildest of
sobs and clung to him like a terrified child. All in vain he attempted
to soothe her and find out what it was all about.
The first thought that flashed through his mind was that their meetings
had been discovered, and that they meant to put him from Faynie, and he
strained her closer to his heart, crying out that whatever it was,
nothing save death should separate them.
Little by little the story came out, and the two young lovers, clasped
so fondly in each other's arms, did not feel the intense cold or hear
the wild moaning of the winds around them. Through her tears Faynie told
her handsome, strong young lover just what had happened. Her father had
sent for her to come to his library that morning, and when she had
complied with the summons, he had informed her that a friend of his had
asked for her hand in marriage, and he had consented, literally settling
the matter without consulting her, the one most vitally interested. She
had most furiously rebelled, there had been a terrible scene, and it had
ended by her father harshly bidding her to prepare for the wedding,
which would take place on the morrow, adding that a father was supposed
to know best what to do for his daughter's interests; that the fiat had
gone forth; that she would marry the husband he had selected for her on
the morrow, though all the angels above or the demons below attempted to
frustrate it.
"You will save me, Lester?" cried the girl, wildly clinging to him with
death-cold hands. "Oh, Lester, my love, tell me, what am I to do? He is
very old, quite forty, and I am only eighteen. I abhor him quite as much
as I love you, Lester. Tell me, dear, what am I to do?"
He gathered her close in his arms in an agony that words are too weak to
portray.
"You shall not, you must not, marry the man your father has selected for
you, my darling. You are mine, Faynie, and you must marry me," he cried,
hoarsely. "Heaven intended us for each other, and for no one else. You
shall be mine past the power of any one human to part us ere the
morrow's light dawns, if--if you wish it so."
She clung to him, weeping hysterically, answering:
"Oh, yes, Lester, let it be so. I will marry you, and you will take me
away from this place, where no one, save Claire--not even my
father--loves me."
He strained her to his throbbing heart with broken words, but at that
instant the shriek of an approaching train sounded upon his ears. He
tore himself away from her encircling embrace.
"To do all that I have to do, I must return to the city, quickly arrange
for the marriage and a suitable place to take my bride. I will return by
ten o'clock. Be at this gate, my darling, with whatever change of
clothing you wish to take with you. I will bring a carriage. The way by
carriage road from the city is less than seven miles, you know. We will
drive to the minister's in the village below. A few words and I shall
have the right to protect you through life, and oh! my darling, my idol,
my trusting little love, may God deal by me as I deal with you!"
Those were the last words Faynie heard, for in the next instant her
lover had torn himself free from her clinging arms and was dashing like
one mad through the drifts toward the railroad station again. Then, with
a strange, unaccountable presentiment of coming evil, Faynie Fairfax
turned and stole up the serpentine path into the house again.
In just an hour's time Lester Armstrong was hurrying along Broadway
again, making all haste toward his lodgings. Suddenly some one tapped
him on the shoulder, and a voice which he instantly recognised as his
cousin's said, laughingly:
"Both bent in the same direction, it seems. Well, we'll travel along
together to your lodging house, Lester."
But alas! Who can see the strange workings of destiny? In that instant
Lester Armstrong slipped on the icy pavement, and Kendale, bending
quickly over him, exclaimed:
"He has broken his neck! He is dying. He won't last five minutes!"