FOND LOVE TO HATRED TURNED.
Despite the severe shock which caused Faynie to swoon, her
unconsciousness lasted but a few moments, then, dazed and bewildered,
her blue eyes opened slowly, and she realized with horror too great for
words that she was whirling swiftly over the snowy road, still in the
company of the two men, her lover and his companion.
They were talking together in low, guarded tones. She could not help but
hear every word distinctly, and they fell upon her ears with horror so
intense she wondered that she lived through it from moment to moment.
It was Lester Armstrong who was speaking at that moment, and she was
obliged to clutch her hands tightly together to keep from screaming
aloud as she heard him say to his companion:
"I have always been a free lance among the pretty girls, drifting about
much after the fashion of the bee wherever my fancy listed, and it will
be more than irksome to yoke myself in the matrimonial harness to this
girl. She is not of the kind--face, figure, temperament, anything--that
is calculated to arouse my admiration. I detest your baby-faced
creatures of her stamp, but she's heiress to a million, and I have
concluded to swallow the gilded pill.
"There's one thing I assure you of, before she is married to me a
fortnight I'll break that cursed temper of hers, if I have to break her
neck or her heart, or both, to do it. She shall find that I'm her lord
and master from this hour henceforth, and my word is law."
"I'd advise you not to rush the scheme for getting that big sum of money
until you have gained her confidence a little. More flies can be caught
with molasses than vinegar, you know."
"I shall have little patience with her," declared her lover. "I detested
her the first instant my eyes rested upon her, and I am positive the
feeling will grow upon me with every passing hour, instead of
diminishing."
"It is easy enough to guess the reason for that," laughed the other.
"You are in love with the queenly Gertrude, who has already more adorers
than she can count. It is common report that you are the beauty's
favorite, however, and if you weren't both so confoundedly poor, you'd
make a first-class couple. As it is, of course it's not to be thought
of."
"Except in one way," cut in the other in a sharp, dry, hard voice. "If
this girl whom I marry to-night were to die suddenly on the wedding
trip, for instance, I would come in for her fortune; then, when the
excitement blew over, I could go to Gertrude and say--"
The sentence was never finished, for at that moment the door of the
vehicle was suddenly wrenched open, and with a piercing cry Faynie
sprang out into the raging storm and the inky blackness of the night.
A terrible imprecation broke from the lips of the handsome scoundrel by
her side.
"I'll bet a dollar to a doughnut that that little fool tricked us by
feigning unconsciousness, and has heard every word we uttered. Of
course, it's to be regretted, but that doesn't change my plans a
particle. I'll be the husband of the willful little heiress in an hour's
time, or my name isn't--"
"Lester Armstrong," put in the other, laconically.
The coach was instantly stopped, and both men made a flying leap into
the huge snowdrift that banked both sides of the country road, calling
back to the driver to light a lantern, if he had been careful enough to
bring one with him, and hand it to them in double-quick order.
The search lasted for fully half an hour. Had the ground suddenly opened
and swallowed her? they asked each other, with imprecations both loud
and furious.
To have a fortune of a cool million so near his clutches, and suddenly
lose it, was more than the villain could endure calmly. He was frenzied.
His rage at the girl slipping so cleverly, so audaciously, through his
fingers knew no bounds, and he made no attempt to stifle the fierce
exclamations that sprang to his lips of what he should do when he once
found her.
When Faynie had jumped from the vehicle she lay for an instant half
stunned upon the cold, frozen ground where she had fallen. It had taken
the coach a minute to stop, but that minute had carried it several rods
beyond the spot where she lay. She saw by the uncertain glimmer of the
carriage lamp the two forms spring out into the darkness and come back
in search of her, and a piteous cry of unutterable fear rose to her
blanched lips from the very depths of her panting, terror-stricken
heart.
She tried to spring to her feet and fly, but the depth to which she sank
with every step exhausted her quickly, and she sank down among the white
drifts awaiting her doom like a wounded bird in the brush whom the
cruel sportsmen are nearing with their hounds.
She raised her lovely young face to the dark night sky, calling upon God
and the angels to protect her, to save her from the man she had loved
with all the passionate strength of her heart up to that hour, and whom
she hated and feared now a thousandfold more than she had ever loved
him.
All in a few moments of time her idol had fallen from its high pedestal
of manly honor and lay in ruins at her feet.
How could she ever have believed Lester Armstrong noble, good and true,
a king among men? Where was the tenderness in voice and manner that had
won her heart from her, and his oft-repeated assurance that he cared for
her for herself alone; that he wished to Heaven she were no heiress, but
as poor as himself, that he might show her the power of his great love?
An hour ago--only an hour ago--yet it seemed the length of a lifetime in
the shadowy past, she had crept out of the house to meet her lover at
the trysting place, her heart beating with love for him, sobbing out to
Heaven to send her true love quickly back to her.
As she had closed the door of the great mansion noiselessly behind her,
she realized that she was putting wealth and luxury away from her
deliberately and choosing a life of rigid economy with the lover whose
earnings were, alas, so much smaller than even the pin money she had
been accustomed to.
But with love to brighten the way, she felt that she could endure any
hardship with noble Lester Armstrong, who loved her so dearly and
devotedly.
After a time, perhaps, her father would forgive her for this step, and
take her back to his home and heart, and welcome Lester, too. She had
read of such things.
The night air blew bitterly cold against her face as she stepped bravely
forth, but she did not waver.
The great hall clock chimed the hour of ten, and her heart beat faster,
for she said to herself that her lover was nearing the trysting place
and she had not much time to spare.
"Good-by, papa," she murmured, turning for an instant and looking up at
his lighted window. "Good-by, my stepmamma," she whispered. "You have
always hated me and wished me out of the way. I am going now, and you
will rejoice. Good-by, Claire," she added, as her eyes wandered upward
to the little lighted window in the western wing. "You never hated me.
You always loved me as though we had indeed been sisters. Good-by, kind
old family servants. You will all miss me, I know, but I am going to
happiness and love. What fate could be better?"
She waited some moments at the trysting place ere she heard the sound of
crunching wheels on the snow. A moment later she heard the welcome voice
saying: "Faynie, where are you?" The next instant she was folded in a
pair of strong, masculine arms.
But as the owner of them touched her lips with his own Faynie had
started back with a terrible feeling of faintness rushing over her. For
the first time her lover's breath was strong with the odor of brandy.
And the voice, which was always so gentle, kind and endearing, was
muttering something about "the cursed darkness of the night."
No wonder the girl's soul revolted, and that she changed her mind
suddenly about the elopement, which was to make or mar her young life.
And what she heard after he forced her into the coach only added to the
terror which had grown into her heart against him, and when she made
that flying leap from the coach, her one cry to Heaven was that she
might escape the man whom she had but so lately madly adored, but whom
she now so thoroughly abhorred.