FEDORA'S ESCAPE.
Let me see him once more, for a moment or two;
Let him tell me himself of his purpose, dear, do;
Let him gaze in these eyes while he lays out his plan
To escape me, and then he may go--if he can!
FRANCES SARGENT OSGOOD.
Kathleen had promised to write to Samuel Hall and let him know when
she arrived safely in Boston, and the next morning, although she felt
really weak and ill, she kept her promise.
She wrote a kind and grateful letter to the noble clerk, again
thanking him for his goodness to her, and telling him of her terrible
disappointment on reaching home.
"I can not understand it all, I am so dazed with my trouble," she
wrote. "But papa is dead--lost at sea--and the strangest thing I
ever heard of, he made a will just before he sailed for America, and
disinherited me--his only child. Think of the strangeness--the cruelty
of it. But he is dead; I must not harbor unkind thoughts of him. I am
sure some malignant influence was brought to bear. But I am homeless,
penniless, but for this friend, Mrs. Stone, with whom I am staying.
I can not now repay you the sum of money you so nobly advanced me to
return home on, but I shall never forget it, and the time may come
when I shall be able to restore it fourfold. Till then God bless you
is the prayer of your friend till death.
"KATHLEEN CAREW."
Sammy Hall was all excitement over the letter, and at the first
opportunity confided the news to his sympathetic girl friends.
Of course they talked it over at that quietest hour in the day when the
throng of shoppers are out at lunch or gone home to dinner.
Tessie Mays, who had the news direct from Sammy, retailed it all to
the eager listeners; and no one noticed a handsome, showily dressed
young woman who had entered the store and come up to Tessie's
counter--Fedora, who, having given the wrong address the other day, had
now returned to complain that she had never received her package of
gold passementerie.
Just as she was approaching the counter she heard the name of Kathleen
Carew called, and drawing back with a great start, pretended to be
examining some gorgeous brocade silk that was displayed on the end of
the counter. The pretty, animated young girls did not observe her, and
went on talking.
Fedora did not lose a word.
Pretty soon she became aware that her prey had escaped her through
the efforts of Sammy Hall, and that she was now safe in Boston with a
friend, although her father was dead and had disinherited her, and her
step-mother had denied her identity.
"It is just like a novel, isn't it?" commented one of the young girls.
"I would give anything I own for one good look at the beautiful Miss
Kathleen Carew, with the bronze-gold hair and proud dark eyes that
Sammy raves over."
"Tessie Mays, I'd think you would be jealous!" exclaimed another girl,
with a meaning laugh.
Tessie tossed her dark curly head carelessly.
"Why, Sammy Hall is not my beau! I think it was you, Dolly Wade, that
he took to church Sunday night--wasn't it?"
It was Dolly's turn to blush and bridle. She laughed.
"Oh, pshaw! Mr. Hall's only a friend of mine, and I don't think he
wants to marry you, anyhow! He is cut out for an old bachelor if ever a
man was!"
"Have you ever seen that woman again, Tessie?" asked another girl,
turning the conversation.
"What woman?"
"Why, the one that Sammy recognized and is going to arrest, if she ever
comes in here again, for kidnapping Miss Carew."
"Why, no; and it's strange, too, for she made a mistake, gave me the
address of a vacant house, and her gold passementerie came back here. I
was certain she would be back here, fussing about it; and I tell Sammy
it's lucky she made the mistake, so she will _have_ to come back here.
He has the warrant for her arrest, and she'll never get out of Haines &
Co.'s without a policeman's escort!"
"Won't she?" muttered Fedora, with a low, gurgling laugh of sarcastic
amusement. She tripped away in a hurry, in spite of her pretended
mirth, and did not breathe freely until she was out of the store and in
the cab that was waiting for her near the sidewalk.
"Whew! what a narrow escape!" she muttered. "So I have been watched and
almost trapped while I believed myself triumphant!"
An ugly look crossed the pretty blonde face, and she continued, angrily:
"I wonder who Sammy Hall can be that those girls talked about so
familiarly? He must be the man that helped me put the girl in the
carriage, and that I met afterward in the street, and snubbed so
coolly. He has taken revenge on me by ferreting out the place where I
left Kathleen Carew, and rescuing her from her fate. Heigho! I think I
had better leave for New York right away. Philadelphia will be too hot
a place to hold me for a while. If I had the money I would go to Boston
and look up my runaway bird, and Ivan at the same time. He promised to
send me three hundred dollars this week. He had better do it, for I've
got a hold on him, now, thanks to that girl's disclosure, that he can't
shake off."