SHE FANCIED THAT ONLY THE CONDEMNED IN TORMENT COULD FEEL SUCH PANGS.
Again Amber was speechless from surprise.
She could scarcely credit her own hearing, and stared dumbly at her
grandfather for confirmation of his startling statement.
He watched her in silence a few moments, then said, peevishly:
“I did not intend to tell you all this until I got better, for I’m
tired and sick from the awful strain on my nerves, and it fatigues me
to talk much; but you have somehow wormed it out of me; so I will try
and finish the story.”
“Please do, for I am very curious,” answered Amber, disregarding his
confession of weakness, and he continued:
“Harold Castello, in the excitement of extinguishing the fire in the
room, burned his hands and scorched his hair, but did not suppose he
had seriously injured himself until he reached the physician’s office,
where he became alarmingly ill. To be brief, he had, in his combat with
the fiery element, swallowed fire, as the common saying is. His life
was doomed.”
“Heavens!” muttered Amber, with glaring eyes of horror.
“Yes, it was terrible,” exclaimed Judge Camden. “He was carried home
by the physician and his valet, and put to bed, never to rise again.
Horrible suffering supervened, rendered more terrible by his agony of
mind when he learned of Violet’s flight. But no search was made at
first, for he believed that she had returned to Golden Willows. At
length, realizing that he could not live, he sent for me, begging that
I would bring Violet to his bedside, as he had one request to make of
her before he died.”
The judge paused in his narration with a gasp of weakness, and motioned
for a glass of the wine that stood on the little stand by the bed.
Amber obeyed his gesture, and after swallowing the wine he rested a few
moments, and resumed:
“You know how hastily I left, Amber, without confiding in any one. I
hurried to Harold Castello’s dying bed, and soon learned what I have
told you of Violet’s flight. He was bitterly distressed because we
could not find Violet, and gave me a parting message for her. I also
witnessed his will, in which he left her his entire two millions, as an
atonement for the persecutions she had suffered at his hands.”
“Two millions! To atone for his honorable love!” sneered Amber, almost
wild with rage and envy of her hated cousin.
“Yes, and it was well earned by her sufferings when she found herself
his wife,” protested the judge, stoutly, and he added: “Ah, you did
not know that you were pushing Violet into a union with a fiend, or
you never would have planned that awful marriage. But Violet knew him
better--she had heard of him before; and if she killed herself rather
than be his wife, I dare not sit in judgment on the hapless girl. He
was a villain, and his punishment seemed a just one. He confessed to
me that he had led a wicked life, and was not a fitting mate for my
pure Violet. Why, look you, Amber, when the funeral cortege was moving
to the cemetery, it was stopped by a young girl as lovely as a queen,
and with the most tragically sad face I ever looked upon. The valet
got out and spoke to her, and he told me afterward, that she was one
among several beautiful girls that his dead master had lured to ruin
and disgrace. Is it any wonder that poor Violet shrank in fear from the
villain that we chose for her husband?”
Amber sat trembling, overwhelmed, crying out in her heart that fate had
played her a cruel, a terrible trick.
Violet was free, a rich young widow, and at any moment she might come
to Bonnycastle and tell Cecil how cruelly they both had been deceived.
Their reconciliation and marriage would soon follow. They would be
fortunate and happy; while for her--wicked, unscrupulous Amber--nothing
would remain but disgrace and sorrow and endless despair.
Pale as she would ever be in her coffin, but with fiery, burning eyes,
she sat and listened to the old judge’s story, hating him madly in her
heart because at the last he had repented of his wickedness, because
his soul stood aghast at the horrors to which he had doomed hapless
Violet.
Very solemnly the old man continued:
“I have come to my senses, Amber, and I realize the enormity of my
sin against my grandchild, although perhaps too late, for my heart
forebodes that gentle Violet is dead. Alas! if Heaven had only spared
her, all would come right now. She would be free, and I would no longer
oppose her love for Cecil Grant!”
Amber’s voice rang sharply, despairingly, through the room:
“You would let them marry--Cecil and Violet?”
He answered, peevishly, reproachfully:
“Yes, Amber; it is the only atonement I could make them for all my
cruelty. And he is a noble man, this Cecil Grant. I have wronged him
by my enmity when I ought to have held out a helping hand to the manly
young fellow. But I have thought of a plan,” eagerly. “I shall send for
him and tell him all, and he shall search for Violet. Love is so keen
and strong, you know, and----”
“My God!” shuddered Amber, the cry wrung from her by such agony as she
fancied only the condemned in torment could know.
Then she forced her writhing lips to utter calmer words:
“Grandpapa, I am terribly unnerved by this story you have told me, but
I am hopeful that Violet is not dead. And, yes, I think you are right
to intrust the search for her to Cecil Grant. Love is keen and strong,
as you say. You ought not to be kept in suspense over this matter; and
if you will permit me, I will go myself for Cecil Grant.”
“Yes, bring him to me at once!” he exclaimed, feverishly.