KATHLEEN MAKES A STARTLING DISCOVERY.
"Who that feels what Love is here--
All its falsehood, all its pain--
Would, for even Elysium's sphere,
Risk the fatal dream again?"
When Kathleen Carew recovered consciousness she found herself on a bed
in a shabby garret bed-room, with the eyes of the blonde beauty looking
into hers.
"So you are come to at last? I began to think you were dead, child.
Here! smell this, and you'll soon be better," she exclaimed,
vivaciously, as she held a bottle of camphor under Kathleen's nose.
Kathleen pushed it away like a petulant child.
"What am I doing here?" she sobbed, in a frightened voice.
"This is my home, you know. I offered to bring you here to save you
from Ralph Chainey, that wicked actor. Oh, my! what a scene there was
after you fainted. He came back, and I can tell you, he was frightened
at finding _me_ there. I told him he must go away, that I had told you
all, and you hated him. He tried to brazen it all out at first, but
presently he was humble enough, and I made him carry you out and put
you in my carriage. Then he went away, vowing he would get you into his
power some day."
Kathleen shuddered from head to foot, and cried, appealingly:
"Oh, madame, is he really your husband? For the sake of Heaven, do not
tell me an untruth, for it is more bitter than death to lose faith in
one's lover!"
"Alas! if it is so hard to lose faith in a lover, how much worse to be
deceived by a husband?" cried the blonde, pathetically.
She dashed her white hand across her dry eyes, and Kathleen caught the
glitter of a diamond ring flashing like a little sun. In her small,
pink ears there were magnificent diamonds, too, and Kathleen began to
watch them with fascinated eyes.
"What a beautiful diamond ring! Won't you let me try it on, please?"
she asked, humbly.
The blonde, flattered by the admiration for her ring, slipped it off
with some difficulty, and allowed Kathleen to take it in her fingers.
She held it up and gazed inside the gold circle, reading aloud:
"'Kathleen Carew!'"
"Why, I never knew before that a name was cut----" began the woman,
then bit her lip and checked herself, abruptly.
"Where did you get this ring?" asked Kathleen, excitedly.
"My husband gave it to me."
"And your beautiful ear-rings?"
"They, too, were gifts from my husband."
"From Ralph Chainey?"
"Of course. Didn't I tell you he was my husband? Do you want to see my
marriage certificate?" holding out her finger for the ring.
"Presently," said Kathleen, sitting erect, with a strange fire in her
eyes. "Is this," she continued, in a strange voice, "_your_ name inside
the ring?"
"Of course," airily answered the blonde.
Kathleen's slumbrous eyes began to glow with an angry light, and she
exclaimed, passionately:
"It is false! It is my own name, and the ring is mine! The ear-rings
also are mine! My father gave them to me!"
"You must be crazy, girl!" exclaimed the blonde, in honest surprise.
She snatched the ring and slipped it back on her finger.
"I tell you I am in earnest," stormed Kathleen, roused to a sudden fury
by the thought of her wrongs. "I tell you I am Kathleen Carew, and
those jewels were stolen from me by a man who choked me and left me for
dead on the ground, while he tore those gems from my bleeding hands
and ears. And you say it was your husband----" she stopped, shuddering
violently. Was she criminating Ralph Chainey?