KATHLEEN'S WEARY WAITING.
Oh! you tangled my life in your hair;
'Twas a silken and golden snare,
But so gentle the bondage my soul did implore
The right to continue your slave evermore.
MILES O'REILLY.
Teddy Darrell sent up a doctor to see Kathleen, and he was startled
when he found that the young girl was suffering from arsenical
poisoning.
"It is quite well that you sent for me, because if this had gone any
further, she might have died. But I will go at once to work to remove
the effects of the poison from her system," Doctor Spicer said, gravely.
Mrs. Stone was shocked, but she readily comprehended that the woman
Fedora had placed the deadly drug in Kathleen's food, intending to
compass her death by slow degrees. What mystified her was the woman's
motive.
Kathleen, while confiding the rest of her harrowing story to these
kind friends, Teddy Darrell and his cousin, had withheld the story
of Ralph Chainey's connection with her trouble. She could not bring
herself to mention his name. Something in her heart pleaded mutely for
the culprit. What if the woman had lied to her? What if she had been
lured from Ralph by a cunning ruse? Her brain reeled sometimes with
this suspicion, and she felt that she should go mad with the miserable
uncertainty of it all. Where was Ralph? Oh, if she could only see
him--find out the real truth!
So she did not tell her friends anything about Ralph, and Mrs. Stone
had no clew to the mystery of this attempt on her life.
"She does not dream of it, and perhaps it will be as well not to tell
her, she has already suffered so much through her unknown foes,"
thought the kind lady.
Several weeks passed, and Kathleen began to grow stronger and better
under the physician's treatment, but in all this time no reply to her
letter to her Southern relatives had been received. Neither had the
fact of Kathleen's return to Boston ever transpired among her former
friends in the city.
Mrs. Carew was the only one who knew that Kathleen really lived, and it
was to her interest to keep it a secret.
Teddy Darrell remained silent on the subject, because the natural
selfishness of a lover made him wish to keep away all other lovers
until he had had his own chance
"To win or lose it all."
Mrs. Stone's quiet and retired life helped to keep Kathleen's presence
in her house unknown. She was a rising authoress, devoted to her
children and her pen. She had first commenced to write after her
husband's death as a solace to her loneliness and grief. Success had
made literature her life work, and she devoted herself to it, going but
little into society and receiving few friends.
Kathleen began to look better, but she chafed bitterly in secret over
the strange silence of her relatives.
Why would they not write her a few lines, even if they did not want her
with them? Did they care nothing, then, for the unhappy child of their
poor dead Zaidee? She had written to them so frankly, so appealingly,
tried to open her whole heart to them, but there came no response.
And dearly as she loved her good friend, Mrs. Stone, Kathleen chafed
at her enforced dependence on her kindness. She saw so plainly through
her little matchmaking scheme, and she was so touched by Teddy's
devotion, silent and unobtrusive since that day when he had spoken out
so impulsively, but still patent to all observers.
She was so lonely, so friendless; and she knew it was nobler in him to
cling to her now when she was no longer a belle and heiress, but only
a waif tossed back almost from the grave into a world that denied and
disowned her. Teddy never seemed to remember that. He was as courteous
and deferential as he had ever been to Miss Carew, the courted heiress.
Every day he brought her gifts of books and flowers; often he came with
a carriage to take her and Mrs. Stone to ride. He did not speak to
Kathleen of his love again, but his great black eyes looked unutterable
things, and she knew that, despite his usual variableness, he was
true, at least, to this love.
Yes, Teddy's heart was touched for once, and he loved bonny Kathleen
even more warmly than in the former time when:
"She had all that love could give, all that makes it sweet to live--
Fond caresses, jewels, dresses; and with eloquent appeal
Many a proud and rich adorer knelt--in metaphor--before her."
Teddy could not realize but that Kathleen would return his love some
time. He knew he was "a catch," in worldly parlance, and he knew that
he was good to look upon. Why, then, should not beautiful Kathleen
learn to love him? Other girls had found it easy to do so--girls for
whom he had not cared an iota, only to amuse himself.
This was different. Teddy--flirting Teddy--had found heaven at last
in a girl's eyes!--deep, dark eyes like shady pools in their thick
fringes. Her glance thrilled him; the touch of her soft, cool little
hand burned like fire. He could think of nothing but his love for
her, and his desire to marry her and lift her again to her old proud
position.
"Once my wife, she should queen it over that _fat_ Alpine Belmont, who
got all her money," he said to his cousin. "She should have one of the
finest houses in Boston, horses and carriages, jewels and fine dresses,
and I would worship the very ground she trod on!"