As nearly hopeless as Everard Dawn’s pursuit of the fugitives had
appeared even to himself when he began it, he had succeeded better than
he could have expected.
His only hope had been to catch them at the station before the arrival
of the train; but, owing to Arthur’s careful driving in the storm, and
the stoppage to take in the woman found unconscious in the road, he had
overtaken them while yet half a mile from the station.
He had run all the way to the livery stable, and as soon as a sleigh
was furnished, leaped in and drove off at the highest speed possible in
the condition of the weather, his mind wrought to the highest tension
of trouble, rendering him unconscious of personal danger. As the
horse trotted briskly along, under the urging of voice and whip, the
light sleigh rocked from side to side, almost overturning twice, but
eventually gaining on Arthur’s horse, until he perceived the stoppage
in the road by the light that streamed from Arthur’s lamps upon the
snow.
He heard their voices blending with the wind, he saw something lifted
into the sleigh, and wondered if his daughter had fallen out. Then, as
Arthur leaped in and chirruped to his pony, he rose in his seat and
shouted furiously:
“Halt, or I fire! Choose between death or instant surrender!”
And to emphasize his words, he instantly fired into the air, making
both their horses snort and rear with terror.
Arthur’s only reply was to touch his horse with the whip, making it
bound furiously forward.
A most unequal race ensued, Arthur’s sleigh being encumbered with the
weight of three, while Mr. Dawn was quite alone.
One, two, three minutes, and Mr. Dawn’s horse flashed past Arthur’s.
Then he drove across the front of the road, shouting, hoarsely:
“Stop! There will be a collision!”
Cinthia had slipped down senseless in her seat, and nothing but
surrender was possible now. With a silent curse at his evil fate,
Arthur pulled the lines, forcing his plunging pony to a stand-still,
as Everard Dawn continued, menacingly:
“I do not wish to harm you, Mr. Varian, but you must give me back my
daughter!”
Arthur felt like a coward, but he realized that no other course was
possible now. With a groan, he answered:
“I would rather part with my life than this dear girl, Mr. Dawn. Oh,
think a moment, before you sunder our loving hearts, of the despair you
are bringing into both our lives!”
Everard Dawn drove back to the side of the sleigh where Arthur waited,
and said, sternly:
“Cinthia!”
“She is unconscious, sir.”
“Ah, then, it was Cinthia you lifted into the sleigh. Is she hurt?”
“It was not Cinthia, but an unconscious woman I found in the road.”
“If Cinthia is unconscious, so much the better. We will have no scene
with her in transferring her to my charge, and she will not hear what I
must say to you.”
“Speak on, sir,” Arthur answered most bitterly in his keen resentment.
And Mr. Dawn began:
“I think very hardly of you, Arthur Varian, for disregarding my words
to you this morning. I said frankly to you that reasons of the gravest
import forbid the marriage of yourself and Cinthia.”
“I had a right to be informed of those reasons, sir,” Arthur said,
hotly.
“Say you so? Then go to your mother, Arthur Varian, and ask of her the
reason why my daughter can never be your wife!”
Arthur started in surprise that this man should know aught of his
mother, but answered, quickly:
“She can not know anything against it, since only this morning she gave
her pleased consent.”
“She knows better now; and I say again, go to her and ask her for the
truth,” replied Everard Dawn, as he stepped out of the sleigh to take
possession of Cinthia.
Arthur was before him. He lifted the inanimate form in his arms, and
kissed the cold, white face in despairing love before he resigned her
to the impatient father’s arms.
“Ah, you can not surely guess of what a priceless treasure you are
robbing me, Mr. Dawn! May Heaven judge between us whether you have been
merciful to me!” he cried, reproachfully.
“I rest my cause with Heaven,” Mr. Dawn answered, reverently, as he
placed Cinthia in the sleigh, covered her with warm robes, and drove
away with a cold good-night to the young man, who continued his course
to the station as fast as he could urge his horse to go.
In his agony of grief at losing his beautiful, promised bride, and
in hot resentment of what he deemed hardness of heart in her father,
Arthur Varian had yielded without reflection upon the baseness of it,
to a sudden, overmastering temptation.
His caresses and emotion on handing the unconscious woman to Mr.
Dawn had been simply a superb bit of acting. It was the poor waif of
the road he had placed in the arms of Everard Dawn, thus completely
outwitting the unhappy father while he drove rapidly on to the station,
hoping to board the train before his deception was discovered.
In a moment the few scattering midnight lights of the railway town
began to appear, and Cinthia gasped and opened her eyes, beginning to
sob with alarm:
“Oh, oh, oh!”
“It is all right, darling. We have distanced our pursuers,” said
Arthur, cheerfully. “And here we are at the station, and the train is
coming. We have not time to go into the waiting-room.”
He helped her out, and called a negro boy, to whom he intrusted his
sleigh, telling him to return it to Idlewild next day, and pressing a
liberal reward into his willing hand.
Then he helped the bewildered Cinthia aboard the train and led her at
once to a stove, saying, tenderly:
“Warm yourself, my darling, while I try to secure seats in the parlor
car.”
“It is very unfortunate, indeed,” said the conductor, “but the Pullman
sleeper is crowded. Only one berth was vacant when they came into the
station, and it has just been engaged by a lady _en route_ for New
York.”
The lady had indeed just taken possession of her berth, brushing
haughtily past without taking notice of either. Neither did Arthur
notice her, or he would have seen with surprise that it was his own
mother. Deeply chagrined that he could not get quarters for Cinthia in
the parlor car, he returned to her side, and they spent the hours very
happily till morning.