Ere Lady Vera fully recovers consciousness again, she has reached her
destination, the ruins of a once fine old mansion in the heart of a
dense wood near the sea.
She opens her eyes in a large and lofty upper chamber to find herself
lying in a high, old-fashioned, four posted bed, with faded hangings
of crimson velvet. Two waxen candles in silver candelabra on the tall,
carved mantel shed a soft, steady light through the room, and by their
aid Vera deciphers the features of a stout, middle-aged woman, in cap
and apron, who is bending over her, bathing her face and hands with
aromatic vinegar.
The beautiful girl springs up to a sitting posture with a cry of fear
and indignation, and with outstretched hands repulses the woman.
"Do not touch me, wretch!" she cries. "How dared you bring me here,
away from my home and friends? You shall suffer for this."
But the woman only smiles as if at the ravings of a spoiled child.
"My lady, you are mistaken," she answers, not unkindly. "It was your
husband who brought you here. I am only your maid. I am here to wait
upon you."
"I have no husband," Lady Vera answers, with a cold thrill of fear
creeping around her heart.
"Oh, my lady, don't go for to say that," the woman answers, cajolingly.
"Such a kind, handsome man as Mr. Noble is ought not to be denied by
his wife. I'm sure it was very good in him to carry you off, and hide
you from the people as wanted to put you into a lunatic asylum. The
keepers would have abused you dreadfully, my poor dear, but I shall be
as kind and patient with you as your own mother. Your husband is that
tender-hearted he couldn't bear to see you ill-used."
"So it is Leslie Noble who has abducted me," Lady Vera thinks to
herself, with a start. Up to that moment her suspicions had turned upon
Marcia Cleveland. "The wretch! And he has pretended to this woman that
I am crazy."
The crimson color flies into the captive's face, then retreats, leaving
her deathly pale again. She rises and walks up to the woman, who
retreats half-fearfully before her.
"You need not fear me," Lady Vera tells her, sadly. "I have no
intention of harming you. I only wish to ask you a simple question."
Thus adjured, the woman waits respectfully, humoring the whim of her
mistress.
"Look at me," says Lady Vera, lifting the dark fringe of her brilliant,
star-like eyes, and fixing a calm, steady gaze on the woman's face. "Do
I look like a mad person? You know that lunatics have a wild, dangerous
glare in their eyes. Are not mine calm, reasonable, steady?"
"She is one of the cunning ones," the maid mutters to herself, then
aloud, soothingly, she answers: "They are beautiful eyes, my lady, so
bright and black! No wonder my master adores you, so lovely as you are."
"I tell you I am not mad," Vera cries impatiently, vexed at the woman's
stolid persistence in her belief. "I am as sane as you are, and your
master is a villain. He has abducted me from my friends and my home,
but they will trace me out and punish him for his villany, be sure of
that."
"Come, my dear, do not excite yourself. It will all come well. Sit
down in this arm-chair, and make yourself comfortable, while I go and
fetch your lunch and a cup of tea. I dare say you have had no dinner,
traveling so far."
She wheels forward a large, crimson-cushioned easy-chair, but Lady Vera
rejects it with a gesture of scorn.
"Where is the man you call your master?" she inquires, haughtily. "Is
he in the house?"
"Yes, my lady. Should you be pleased to see him?" inquires her keeper,
deferentially.
"Yes; tell him to come. I wish to know the meaning of this dastardly
outrage," the countess answers, indignantly.
The woman withdraws with a bow. The click of a key in the lock informs
Lady Vera that she is a prisoner. She paces up and down the floor, a
storm of indignation raging in her breast, mixed with a wild hope that
her friends will soon deliver her from the trap into which she had
walked so unsuspectingly.
Suddenly the key clicks in the lock, and Leslie Noble walks boldly into
the room.