"IT IS LOVELY TO LOVE AND BE LOVED."
"Love is as bitter as the dregs of sin,
As sweet as clover honey in its cell;
Love is the password whereby souls get in
To heaven--the gate that leads sometimes to hell.
Dear God above
Pity the hearts that know--or know not--Love!"
--ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.
In due time Ethel received a letter from Lord Chester, announcing his
safe arrival in England.
But to her surprise and chagrin the young man made no mention of the
mysterious matter that had called him away.
"Can it be that Arthur deceived me? That he invented an excuse to get
away from me? What if he means to break his troth?" she thought, with
instant, angry suspicion.
But when she noticed how pale her sister's young cheek had grown while
she read her letter, she smoothed the frown from her brow and cried out
gayly:
"Ah, Precious, I wish you had an adoring lover like mine! It would
thrill your heart to read some of the tender passages in dear Arthur's
letter."
She read aloud, blushingly, some tender words and phrases, but the
blush was for her own falsehood, for Arthur's letter held nothing like
what she read. It was brief and almost indifferent, and the poor fellow
had tried to excuse its coldness by pleading haste.
If Precious was surprised at those ardent words of love to her sister,
she was also glad in her tender, unselfish heart that Arthur had
returned to his first love. She crushed down her own bitter pangs and
answered sweetly:
"I am glad that he loves you so dearly, Ethel!"
In the quiet months at Rosemont, Precious had recovered from the
nervous prostration that had followed upon the horror of her kidnaping
by Lindsey Warwick, and the subsequent escape from the haunted house.
The failure to apprehend the villain had made every one believe he
was a fugitive far away. So the careful guard over the young girl had
relaxed its vigilance, and she wandered at her own sweet will about the
pretty ornamental grounds surrounding the house.
One evening she wandered at twilight down to the river bank toward the
spot where she had parted with Lord Chester that fateful night. She
stood beneath the wide-spreading oak with the first faint rays of the
moon on her face, and the river murmuring at her feet.
The true and tender little heart was very heavy, despite all her
efforts to be brave and strong; and although she had sent Arthur back
to Ethel so nobly she could not banish him yet from her sorrowful
thoughts.
With half-shut eyes and two burning tears on her pale cheeks, Precious
stood still, living over in fancy the thrilling moment when Arthur had
clasped and kissed her, and claimed her for his own.
Precious loved the young hero who had saved her life with all the
passion of her soul, and her fond heart was breaking for his loss.
"But he can never be mine--never!" she sobbed faintly, and the river's
voice echoed the plaintive words:
"Never! Never!"
Absorbed in her own sad thoughts, Precious did not catch the faint
sound of footsteps creeping nearer and nearer, did not dream that this
was the opportunity long waited and desired by a sinister intruder. Her
downcast gaze did not see the tall form gliding round the tree, nor the
burning eyes whose gaze seemed to scorch her face!
But suddenly a shawl was thrown over her head, stifling her shriek of
surprise and horror, two strong arms closed around her form, and in
another moment Precious would have been borne away a helpless captive
to a dreadful fate; but at that moment Earle Winans, who had followed
Precious, came opportunely upon the scene.
He beheld with horror the attempted outrage, and lifting a cane he
carried struck the wretch a blow that made him reel and drop the girl's
inanimate form on the ground.
There was an oath from the foiled villain, but Earle's hands were about
his throat, forcing him to his knees.
"You hound! How dare you touch my sister?" thundered Earle, and the
wretch whined as well as he could for the clutch on his throat:
"Your sister, sir? Oh, a thousand pardons! I thought it was my
sweetheart, Hetty Wilkins, the maid of Miss Winans. We were courting
here under the tree, and she sent me up to the servants' entrance to
bring her shawl. In play only I threw it over her head, to give her a
fright! It was a mistake. I beg your and the lady's pardon, and if you
will let me go I'll never intrude on the grounds again!"
The story was so plausible, the wretch's abject terror so pitiable,
that Earle permitted him to sneak away, little dreaming that it was
the veritable Lindsey Warwick he had held in his grasp--the detestable
villain who, under the guise of Hetty's lover, was still pursuing the
mad purpose of winning the senator's beautiful daughter, who was as far
above him as the stars from the earth.
He slunk away, and Earle knelt down by Precious, drawing the shawl from
her white, unconscious face.
"Darling, speak to me!" he cried anxiously.
She shuddered, and opened her eyes.
"Oh, brother, is it you?" clinging to him distractedly. One fearful
glance around her, and she moaned:
"Where is Lindsey Warwick? He came upon me suddenly and as I shrieked
and turned to fly he threw a shawl over my head and----"
"Lindsey Warwick! Is it possible? and I have let the wretch escape!
Come, darling, to the house, that I may pursue the villain!" Earle
cried in bitter anger and chagrin that he had been so easily duped.
But though Senator Winans, with his son and a dozen other men, followed
the trail all night, the search was hopeless, for Lindsey Warwick
cleverly eluded capture.
And through the long night hours the mother watched by the bedside
of the nervous girl, who tossed restlessly upon her pillow, starting
in alarm at every sound, and begging piteously to be taken away from
Rosemont.
"We will go to-morrow, dear," Mrs. Winans promised tenderly.
Hetty Wilkins wept and protested when she was told the story of the man
who claimed to be her lover.
"There is some mistake," she cried. "My young man's name is Watson
Hunter. And he wasn't here to-night at all."
But Mrs. Winans insisted on dismissing Hetty next day, with a month's
wages in lieu of a warning. This plan seemed best to them all.