DONALD KAYNE'S STORY.
All unconscious that Azalea had penetrated their secret, the three men
pursued their way to the fortune-teller's cabin. But they were doomed to
disappointment. The place was deserted, the doors locked, the small
windows securely boarded over.
Evidently Meg had gone away, and, judging from the preparation made,
intended to be absent some time. And yet that could not be, for Nita's
trial would come off in a week, and she was one of the witnesses for the
prosecution. Chagrined and baffled, they sat down on the low bench
before the cabin, wondering what they should do next.
It was a dull and gloomy day, the sea was rough, and the tide rolled in
to the shore with a hollow, reverberating moan. They watched it with sad
eyes and heavy hearts, each busy with his own thoughts. Suddenly Donald
Kayne spoke:
"My friends, I am minded to tell you my story."
They looked into his face. It was pale and wan with a great despair, and
his voice faltered as he continued:
"You and I, Dorian, have been friends for ten years, ever since you were
a boy of sixteen, in fact. You, too, Van Hise, have known me for years;
but it was before I met either of you that I lost my darling wife!"
"Your wife!" cried Dorian.
"Yes, Pepita was my wife," said Kayne, "my wife dead to me now for
almost fifteen years, yet with the mystery of her fate unsolved till
yesterday. Is it not a wonder I have escaped madness?"
They could not reply save by mute looks of sympathy. Their feelings
overpowered them.
"I will tell you how I first met her," he continued dreamily, with his
sad eyes fixed on the sea. "It was on Broadway. I saw a beautiful,
young, dark-eyed girl crossing the street in such a careless,
preoccupied fashion that she only escaped death from the hoofs of an
advancing team by the celerity with which I sprang forward and dragged
her out of the way. As it was, she had been thrown down and trampled on,
and as I laid her down on the pavement I at first believed her dead. She
was dressed in costly garments, made in a quaint, foreign fashion that,
with her dark eyes and hair and olive skin, proclaimed her Spanish. A
crowd gathered around, but no one could tell who she was, so, as she
remained unconscious, a physician was called, and she was removed to the
hospital.
"The hoofs of the horses had severely injured the poor girl, and she
remained at the hospital several weeks. I saw her daily, for it is
needless to tell you that the first moment I saw her I lost my heart. I
won Pepita's friendship, and she told me she was a Spanish girl, an
orphan, who had come to America from old Madrid to seek an only brother
in New York, only to find him dead. Of this brother she told me a
romantic story. On attaining his majority, some years before, her
brother had come to America, and had met in New York a beautiful, poor
girl, whom he made his bride. On taking her home to Spain his proud
parents had refused to receive their son's choice, and in anger he
returned to America, never to see them again.
"In a few years misfortune overtook them. They became poor and
miserable, and longed for the son they had cast off in their pride. They
died, and their only remaining child, beautiful Pepita, crossed the seas
to find her brother. On the day that I saved her life she had just
learned that her brother and his wife were both dead. Despair made her
reckless. Alone and friendless in a strange land, with but a few dollars
in her purse, she wandered along, wondering if she could ever return to
her native land.
"The tears blinded her as she crossed the street, and she did not notice
that she was under the horses' heads until they trampled her beneath
their feet. You guess the end, my friends. I married the lovely Spanish
stranger, although my friends blamed me, and for a year we were
blissfully happy. We traveled several months, and it was in Paris I had
the serpent ring made especially for her and the design destroyed. She
had a great fondness for unique trifles, and I always gratified her
fancy to the utmost in everything. We returned to this country, and over
our home Pepita reigned a lovely queen, seeming not to have a wish
ungratified. Our happiness seemed as pure and perfect as mortals could
enjoy.
"Suddenly as a thunder-bolt falling from a clear sky my happiness came
to an end. My wife left home one day in my absence and never returned.
Oh, God! how did I ever live through it? The shame, the horror, the
agony! For the world sneered and said I had married unwisely, and that
my darling had fled from me with some favored lover. I could not believe
it, although her maid told me she had received a letter that had
agitated her very much, and that she had gone away directly afterward,
saying that she intended to spend the day with a friend. I had gone to
Boston at the time, and when I returned two days later I found that she
had not returned, and that the city was ringing with the news of her
flight. I employed detectives. I almost wrecked my health in the vain
search for her, for I would not believe there was anything guilty in her
flight. No--no, I was too sure of her love and truth for that. But,
alas! the days and weeks and months lengthened into weary years, and
there came no news of the lost one, nor even the faintest clue until
that night you remember, Dorian, when I first saw Pepita's ring on
Nita's hand, and almost went mad over her refusal to tell me how she
came by it."
"I can no longer wonder at your passionate vehemence!" answered Dorian
gently.
"Yes, think of what I suffered from her refusal. I knew not if Pepita
were dead or alive--until this spring, when, lingering one twilight hour
in the grounds at Gray Gables, my lost wife appeared to me in
spirit-form and led me to the basement wall, where she disappeared. Ah,
then I knew at last that my darling was dead, and I know now that she
was seeking to lead me to her hiding-place in the miser's gold-vault."
The listeners were silent. Could it be true, or was it but a vision of
superstitious fancy? Donald Kayne would always believe that he had seen
a spirit from another world.
When they all grew calmer, they agreed that he had been right in
believing his wife was faithful. It must have been a decoy letter that
had called her away, perhaps some promised news of her brother or his
child, although Pepita had never spoken of any child.
"She fell into a trap set for unwary feet, and was murdered, although
for what cause we may perhaps never know unless we can wring the secret
from old Meg," said Donald Kayne.
The rest of the day was spent in making very quiet and private
arrangements for removing all that remained of Donald Kayne's young
bride from Gray Gables and conveying it to New York, where the unhappy
man wished to have the interment in his family vault.
"And after I have solved the mystery of my darling's death the world
that wronged her so cruelly by its base suspicions shall know the
truth," he said bitterly.
They made arrangements with Mrs. Hill to come back at midnight, having
taken her into their confidence regarding the finding of the skeleton.
She was full of interest and sympathy, and they found her waiting in the
dark to admit them into the house.
"Every soul is asleep but me," she whispered, and they went noiselessly
to the room where they had left the shrouded skeleton on the bed, Mrs.
Hill waiting at the front door for them.
They closed the door, struck a light, and turned to the bed.
The white coverlet was drawn up as they had left it, and the slight
outline of something was visible beneath.
Donald threw down the cover and lifted the bundle of white silk in his
arms. He laid it down again, turned back a fold of silk and looked
within.
A cry of horror came from his lips. Some one had taken away the skeleton
and left the bed-bolster in its place.
Dorian brought Mrs. Hill to the room, and they talked in whispers of the
strange loss. The housekeeper soon jumped at a conclusion.
"I believe the Courtneys have done this," she said. "They came in to-day
while you were shut in here, and maybe they saw you go out and suspected
something. I will tell you why I think so. Azalea came to me soon after,
as sweet as sugar, and got me to go to the druggist's, a mile away, on a
silly little errand for some cosmetic she wanted. I expect she wanted to
get me out of the way so she could ransack the room in my absence. It is
nobody but she that has taken it away and hid it for spite, I'm sure of
that! Don't make any outcry for a few days, please, gentlemen, and don't
let her know you suspect her, and I'll watch the little cat and find out
where she has hidden it away."
It seemed best to follow her advice, and they went away together,
heavy-hearted enough, for fate seemed to baffle them at every turn. But
they hoped much from Mrs. Hill, for they did not believe that Azalea
could have taken the skeleton away from the house, and it seemed as if
she must surely be detected in her wickedness by the espionage of the
clever housekeeper.
Tears fell from Nita's eyes the next day when Dorian told her all that
had happened, and added:
"All the evidence points to the fact that poor Pepita was your own aunt,
and must have met her death seeking for you."
"Surely, surely Miss Courtney could not be so vile as to secrete those
poor remains," she cried indignantly.
Dorian gave one of those cynical laughs of old, and answered:
"Azalea Courtney is vile enough for anything. She has no more heart or
soul than a stone, and her only god is herself. She would like to have
the whole world fall down and worship her, and no words can describe the
virulence of her hate toward any one who discovers her true character
and despises her as she deserves."
"And she is one of the witnesses against me. She will try to hound me to
my doom!" cried Nita.
"Yes, she will certainly do all she can against you," admitted Dorian.
"But you need not fear her malice, my darling. She cannot harm you, for
Heaven itself is watching to defend you!" and he smiled at her
cheerfully, for he had the greatest faith that a fitting retribution for
all her wickedness would yet come to Azalea.
Meanwhile the jealous beauty was already suffering the punishment for
her curiosity, for her nerves had been so shocked by the finding of the
skeleton that fit had succeeded fit, and for several days she was quite
ill from the effects of her scare, and talked wildly in her dreams of
the terrible thing, fancying herself a bride, in white-silk robes, about
to be wedded to a skeleton, and often screaming out wildly in her sleep.
But Mrs. Courtney kept the secret of Azalea's illness carefully to
herself, and gave out to the servants that her daughter was suffering
from a persistent headache. Only Mrs. Hill suspected what was the
matter, and laughed in her sleeve at thought of the fright Azalea had
received.
"It was good for her, the sly cat, and I wish it had turned every hair
of her head white when she found it!" she said to herself, chuckling
with delight over Azalea's discomfiture.
But outwardly good Mrs. Hill was very solicitous over the young lady's
welfare, and quite won over Mrs. Courtney by her kind inquiries. In
truth, that lady was glad of the courteous manner of the housekeeper,
for there had always been furtive enmity between them, and the
interloper feared lest it might now come to open warfare. She knew that
she had now no shadow of right at Gray Gables, and that after the
antagonism she had displayed toward Nita, she should in common decency
have taken her departure from the place.
But since her poverty had fallen on her she had developed what Mrs. Hill
slangily called "a very hard cheek," and she was determined to stand her
ground until she was ordered to leave. Knowing how noble and high-minded
Nita was, she had no fears of being thus dispossessed, and stayed coolly
on, looking every day for the advent of Sir George Merlin, who had
promised to soon follow his betrothed across the water.
Mrs. Courtney had contrived to make the baronet believe her a rich
woman, and she had no mind to let him find out the imposition until he
had married Azalea. But, in the meantime, the question of Azalea's
trousseau became an all-absorbing thought. Where could they get the
wherewithal to purchase it?
They had jewels, but they did not want to sacrifice them, and they could
not expect anything more from Nita. She was becoming very despondent
over it when her daughter's discovery of the hidden skeleton put a
clever idea into her head. She hid it away carefully, believing that a
handsome ransom would be offered for its recovery.
Several days passed, but, to her chagrin, no notice seemed to be taken
of the disappearance of the skeleton, so she decided to write a
blackmailing letter to the parties concerned in secreting it,
threatening them with arrest by the authorities unless they paid a large
sum for its return. The epistle was signed by a fictitious masculine
name, and arrangements were made for the payment of the money in a way
by which the receivers need not be detected. Unless the sum demanded was
forthcoming in a week the authorities would be informed, or the skeleton
would be destroyed.
Dorian Mountcastle was the party to whom this precious epistle was sent,
and he decided not to inform Donald Kayne of its receipt until after he
had held an interview with Mrs. Hill.
"Make no reply to it," advised Mrs. Hill. "I am almost certain that Mrs.
Courtney has got it concealed, and as soon as her daughter gets well
enough for them to go out riding together I will make a careful search
for it. She will not destroy it, for she hopes to get money for it;
neither will she inform the authorities, for that would defeat her hopes
of gain. Only keep silent, and trust all to me, and, I will promise, you
shall have it back safe. But don't tell Mr. Kayne about the blackmailing
letter, for it would excite him so much that he would probably gratify
Mrs. Courtney by giving her the thousands she is after."
Dorian thanked her gratefully for her faithful interest, and promised
not to let Kayne hear anything of the blackmailing project, for he was
anxious to defeat the Courtneys if he could.