THE MISER SENDS FOR HIS BRIDE.
"What a nuisance!" muttered Mrs. Courtney, but she bathed Nita's face
until she came to herself with a long, low sigh of deepest pain.
"I have been dreaming--oh, such a dreadful dream!" she shuddered.
"No, it was not a dream, Nita. I was telling you your guardian was
alive, and you fainted--from excess of joy, I suppose," added the lady
maliciously.
Nita sat up and pressed her small hand wearily to her brow. Despair made
her brave.
"No, Mrs. Courtney, it was excess of sorrow," she answered frankly.
"Oh, you cruel, wicked girl!"
"Do you think so?" asked Nita, with calmness. "No matter, I was glad
when I heard that he was dead. I hated him--oh, I cannot tell you how I
feared and hated him."
"But why?" curiously.
"Can you ask?" cried Nita despairingly. "Who could love that grim,
horrible old man? And I told you once--you remember that night--that he
would never, never let me marry Dorian!"
"Yet you married him, all the same, so what does his life matter? He
cannot undo the elopement!" returned Mrs. Courtney, wondering at the
girl's strange words and manner.
"But I believed that he was dead. Oh, Mrs. Courtney, listen patiently,
please. I did not know that my impatient lover had made any plans to
elope with me when I went on the yacht for a moonlight trip. Then came
the duel, you know, and Dorian was so badly wounded. He sent his friend
to ask me to marry him, but at first I refused, for I knew my guardian
would never consent, and I did not dare disobey him! Oh, you cannot
guess how I fear that horrible old man! Then Captain Van Hise told me he
was dead, and I consented to marry Dorian. We were married, and only a
few minutes afterward I was swept into the sea by the great wave rolling
over the ship. Oh, God! why was I saved from death to meet this awful
fate?--to be parted forever from my own love, when happiness seemed so
near?"
"But your guardian cannot punish you for marrying your lover--these
fears are quite groundless, Nita," Mrs. Courtney said, coldly, but
decidedly.
"Oh, madam, I am the most friendless and unhappy girl in the whole
world!" she cried passionately. "I have no kindred hearts to pity me, no
one to care for me! You have never liked me, I know, but I plead with
you to have pity on me, and try to be my friend. Oh, I will be so
grateful for a little kindness and pity in this dark hour!"
An earthquake could hardly have shocked Mrs. Courtney more than this
humble plea from Nita, who had always resented her dislike and given
her scorn for scorn. She put out her slender, aristocratic hand and
clasped Nita's gently, drawing her to a seat by her side.
"My dear girl, of course I am your friend, and will do anything in the
world for you," she exclaimed. "But let me tell you that you are very
nervous and fanciful to-night. How can you call yourself friendless and
alone when you have a rich and noble husband like Dorian Mountcastle? I
assure you that a loving husband is always a woman's best friend. Then,
too, you have a doting guardian."
The girl rose from her seat and stood before the woman, pale as a ghost.
"Mrs. Courtney, do not call them my friends, those two men," she said,
almost sternly. "From to-night and henceforth forever, they are my
bitterest foes."
Surprise held the listener dumb, and Nita continued:
"Never again while the world stands will I consent ever to look upon the
face of Charles Farnham or Dorian Mountcastle."
"The girl is mad, mad as a March hare. Her adventures have turned her
brain," murmured Mrs. Courtney amazedly.
"No, madam, I am not mad, I am perfectly sane, and I wish to make you an
offer. Will you and Azalea go abroad with me, and travel wherever you
wish for a year? I am rich. I will pay every expense if you will
chaperon me on this trip. I will be perfectly frank with you. I want to
avoid the two men of whom we have been speaking. I am afraid of them
both. I have wronged them both, yet I am innocent of blame. Yet I fear
the miser's hate and Dorian's love in equal measure. Oh, madam, be kind
to me. Grant my prayer, and I will be forever grateful! And the time
will come, I swear it to you, when you will say to yourself and to the
world: 'I am glad I was kind to poor Nita, and had no hand in her tragic
fate.' What say you, madam? Shall we start to-morrow on our travels?"
Nita need not have felt any doubt over the answer. It was the strangest
turn of Fortune's wheel that Mrs. Courtney had ever known--the
strangest, and the most welcome.
She felt that behind it lay some strange dark mystery, a baffling
mystery that it should be her task to ferret out if it lay in mortal
power, but in the meantime she accepted Nita's offer with pretended
reluctance, putting it solely as a favor to the young girl. Then, after
recommending her to retire as early as possible, she returned to her
guests with a heart full of secret exultation.
Nita locked her door and fell down on her couch in a fit of hysterical
sobbing. Mrs. Courtney's revelation had shown her all the horror of her
position. Wife to two living men, she loathed the one who had the legal
right to claim her.
And Nita knew, and the knowledge added poignancy to her pain, that it
was her own fault. Why had she betrothed herself to Dorian when she was
not free, cheating herself with a little semblance of happiness, and so
led him on to the elopement that must now wreck his life?
She believed that Miser Farnham's wrath would be murderous when he
recovered and learned what she had done. And Dorian, how he would hate
her for her sin!
She would rather die than meet Dorian again--he whom she had so terribly
deceived. If he cursed her for her folly she could not bear it; she must
die at his feet of her bitter shame--and if he forgave her madness and
loved her still, what then? Still she was not free! And how could she
own the truth to him? She could never do that. She would sooner fly to
the other end of the world.
She leaned from the window, and gazed upon the great ocean and the
starlit sky.
"Oh, how beautiful the world is, and why should there be so much
unhappiness in it?" she cried.
Nita's musings were interrupted by the sudden entrance of Mrs. Hill, the
housekeeper, who was wild with joy over the news of Nita's return.
"Mrs. Courtney has told me how you were saved by a sailor, and brought
back," she cried gladly, and added in a more subdued key: "But poor
Lizette, that dear, good girl, what a pity she was not saved, too."
Nita was about to exclaim that Lizette was alive, but she suddenly
remembered Donald Kayne's entreaty for her silence, and made no reply.
In spite of his cruelty, she pitied the man.
Jack Dineheart had told her that the maid, on finding herself entrapped
and deserted, had jumped from the window and broken her neck, but she
tried not to believe the horrible story.
All that Donald Kayne had told in New York about Dorian Mountcastle was
true. When concealment was no longer possible his friends had been
obliged to break to him, as gently as might be, the news of Nita's
death, and that it was her wraith, and not a living girl, that had
appeared to him on board the yacht that fateful night. The despair of
the bereaved young husband was awful in its intensity. His reason
tottered, and it was found necessary to place him in strict confinement,
and guard him closely for several days until his violent mood subsided
into moody melancholy.
Captain Van Hise was tender and devoted as a woman to his stricken
friend, and when Dorian, after weeks of despair, became a pale, quiet
shadow of his former self, he persuaded him to go abroad with him.
They went, but Dorian dwelt ceaselessly on the memory of that strange
night when Nita had come to him and laid her head on his breast and her
arms about his neck--aye, and kissed him, too, with ardent lips that
seemed to burn with the breath of life. He prayed Heaven to grant him
that sweet vision of his lost love again.
Van Hise was in despair.
"He will go crazy in earnest if he keeps on this way," he said to
himself, despondently.
It was nearing spring then, and they were in Paris. But Dorian was
familiar with Paris. Perhaps he had exhausted its delights long ago. He
wearied of its splendors.
"I am tired. Let us go somewhere else," he said impatiently.
"But, my dear fellow, we have been everywhere."
"No, we have not. I know some men who are going on a journey into the
interior of Norway. I have accepted for us both their invitation to join
the party," said reckless Dorian.
"It will be quite out of the world," groaned the soldier, but he
yielded.
It was strange that Dorian and Nita should both be abroad so many months
without meeting each other, or even being aware of each other's
movements.
And yet it was a fact that Captain Van Hise and Dorian had never even
heard that Nita was alive, and Nita knew nothing of Dorian since the
fateful night when Jack Dineheart had torn her from his arms and carried
her back to Pirate Beach.
Since she had gone abroad with the Courtneys, life had been one feverish
whirl of gayety, change, and sight-seeing. Nita, with her heart upon the
rack, and a smile upon her lips, had borne her part bravely in all,
lavishing gold like water in the pursuit of forgetfulness. The
Courtneys, nothing loath, accepted her munificence, and made the most of
it, although wondering at her reckless extravagance. They did not know
how often she said to herself:
"The chest of gold is melting like snow in the sun, but why should I
care? There remain to me but a few more months of life and liberty,
then--darkness, nothingness, and death. Let me make the most of it!"
Mrs. Courtney had been in London in her days of prosperity, and had
acquaintances among the nobility. In the spring, when the London season
set in, she introduced her ward into the most fashionable set. And the
fashionable world raved over the charms of _la belle Americaine_.
She had lovers by the score. Hearts and titles were laid at her feet,
but all soon echoed what Mrs. Courtney had frankly told them of Nita:
"She has no heart."
Nita only smiled when they accused her of her fault.
"It is quite true," she said. "I have no heart to give any one. Why do
you not fall in love with pretty, golden-haired Azalea?"
One man, piqued at her indifference, tried to take her advice. He
transferred his attention to the affable blonde.
He was Sir George Merlin, a wealthy baronet, middle-aged, but very
goodlooking. He was vain and conceited, and Nita's rejection hurt his
pride as well as his love. He proposed to Azalea through pure pique.
The blonde accepted gladly, and Mrs. Courtney was transported with joy.
The only drawback to her bliss was that the baronet did not seem in any
hurry to name the wedding-day. But the engagement was formally
announced, and his sister gave a ball in honor of the fair Azalea.
Nita's thoughts often wandered to Dorian. Where was he? What was he
doing? Did he know that she was alive, or did he mourn her dead?
Somehow, at first she had looked for him, dreaded his appearance with
mingled pain and pleasure. As the months went past she gave up the
thought of his coming. She began to fancy that he must be dead.
Sometimes it all seemed to her like a feverish dream, those strange past
days of love and pain; yet all the time she was drawing nearer and
nearer to the fatal end of the year, to the moment when her hated master
would claim her as his bride.
It was May now, and the world was all in bloom. Charles Farnham would be
coming to claim his bride.
On the very day of Lady Landon's ball for Azalea, Mrs. Courtney received
a letter commanding her to return at once to New York with her charge.
Mrs. Courtney went at once to Nita in her room.
"Nita, I must break through your rule, never to mention your guardian's
name to you. I have a letter from him."
Nita turned a pale face of fear and despair.
"A--letter!" she faltered; "so, then--he--he--is coming for--me?"
The white terror of her face was enough to move a heart of stone. Mrs.
Courtney smiled reassuringly.
"Do not look so frightened, Nita, there is no need, for he writes very
kindly of you, and makes no mention of your marriage. Perhaps he means
to forgive you and Dorian," she said, feeling magnanimous toward the
girl now that Azalea's market was made.
Nita only sunk helplessly into a chair, her face white, her eyes wild.
It seemed as if she could not reply. Mrs. Courtney, with her eyes on the
letter, continued:
"Mr. Farnham is quite well again, and wants me to hasten home with you.
He says that he has bought and furnished a Fifth Avenue palace for you,
with carriages and horses of the finest, and is most anxious to see you
queening it in New York society. Indeed, Nita, after the training I have
given you, it will be easy for you to do so"--complacently. "Really, my
dear, the old man seems very proud and fond of you, and I never heard of
a more generous guardian. You are a very fortunate girl, and I am sure
you have only to ask him, and he will pardon you and Dorian."
"Ah! you do not know, you do not dream," moaned the girl, hiding her
face in her hands.
Must she go? must she obey the old miser's command?
"This letter has been following us about for some time, and I must reply
to it to-morrow," continued the lady. "What shall I say to him, Nita?
That we will cross next week?"
"I will not go!" cried Nita, with a frantic gesture.
"But, really, Nita, I think we must go. I cannot understand this strange
fear of your guardian. A young girl like you must obey either her
guardian or her husband. You repudiate the claim of Dorian Mountcastle,
and so you remain subject to the orders of Mr. Farnham."
"Let us speak no more of it now. I will decide to-morrow," Nita
answered.
Mrs. Courtney knew that it was almost time to dress for the ball, so she
retired, determined in her own mind that she would take Nita speedily
back to New York and Fifth Avenue.
"Our leaving now will force Sir George to ask Azalea to name the
wedding-day," she thought sagely. "And Nita is so generous I think she
will readily purchase the trousseau. The marriage can take place from
the miser's place, and Sir George need never know how very poor we
are."