A CRUEL STAB.
My ship sails forth with sable sails
Over Life's stormy sea;
Thou knowest how heavy is my woe,
And still thou woundest me.
H. HEINE.
Alpine had come and gone. Under a mask of sweetness and love, she had
tortured Kathleen's heart.
"My dear girl, how fortunate you are to have caught Teddy Darrell!" she
exclaimed, after Kathleen had told her the story of her adventures,
save and excepting about Fedora's claim that she was Ralph Chainey's
wife. That one dread secret the girl kept locked close in her heart.
"Fortunate!" Kathleen echoed, dully.
"Yes," Alpine answered. "He is rich, and unless you are going to marry
him, it does not look well for you to remain with Mrs. Stone."
"But, Alpine, I have no other place to go. Mrs. Stone is my only
friend."
"She is your friend because her cousin wants to marry you, and if you
refuse Teddy, she will be very angry."
"Do you think so, Alpine?" the young girl exclaimed, startled at the
idea.
"I am sure of it. My advice to you is to marry Teddy."
"But I do not love him, Alpine. I--I loved Ralph Chainey--once--so
dearly that I feel that I can never love another."
"Why have you turned against Ralph?" asked her step-sister, curiously.
"I can not tell you," faltered Kathleen.
"Do you love him still?"
"No," Kathleen answered, spiritedly; but Alpine did not believe one
word.
"Kathleen, how would you like to come back home?" she asked.
"Your mother would not permit it," sighed the young girl.
"It is because she does not believe you are really Kathleen. She thinks
you an impostor. I have been talking to her, trying to get her consent
to bring you home."
Kathleen looked curiously at her step-sister, puzzled by her odd air of
hesitancy.
"Well, go on. What is it?" she asked, with that little imperious manner
inseparable from herself.
"She would not agree except on one condition."
Kathleen looked at her in silent wonder, and, with pretended sorrow,
Alpine said:
"The condition was that you come as a housemaid--as a paid servant."
She saw, with silent, secret malice, the angry crimson mount to
Kathleen's pearly cheek, and remained silent a few moments to enjoy the
sensation of proud Kathleen humiliated.
Kathleen was indeed furious with resentment, and for a moment she could
not speak for the great lump in her throat.
Then she fought down her emotion with an iron will and looked straight
at her tormentor, saying, coolly:
"I suppose it is so hard for your mother to forget the position she
once occupied in my father's house that she would be glad to sink his
daughter to the same level."
Alpine crimsoned. She always hated to remember that her mother had been
Zaidee Carew's governess, and that it was hinted that her arts had
driven the artless child-wife to despair and death.
But it was not her policy to seem offended with Kathleen. To propitiate
Ralph Chainey, she must still seem to be the friend of the girl he
loved so dearly.
So she looked at her lovely rival with a sad, sweet smile, and said:
"Of course, I knew that you would not come--that way--and I told mamma
so. But she made me promise to tell you what she said. You must not be
angry with me, dear, for I have a better plan for you."
The young girl looked at her in angry silence, asking herself: "What
new insult?"
"You know, of course, that your father, in a fit of anger against you,
left me all his money in a will?" asked Alpine.
Kathleen nodded coldly.
"I am going to make you an allowance to live on, Kathleen. I told mamma
I meant to do so, and she said your father did not intend for you to
have a penny of that money. Of course, I knew that. But it makes no
difference to me, for I can not bear to have you living on Mrs. Stone's
charity. It is better for you to depend on me for your support than on
a stranger. Don't you think so yourself?"
Kathleen rose up, white-faced, indignant, goaded to fury.
"No, I do not think so," she said, angrily. "I would rather starve in
the streets than support life on an allowance from you, made out of
the money that should be mine, but which you cheated me out of by some
cunning trick known only to yourself and your mother. I believe you
are deceitful, that you are only pretending a kind feeling for me to
serve some purpose of your own. Go, go, and leave me to myself and my
misery!"
There was something in the looks and words of that frail, beautiful
young girl that compelled obedience from Alpine. She rose instantly.
"Well, good-bye, since you will not let me be your friend," she said,
and glided from the room.
Kathleen walked up and down the floor in a passion of insulted pride,
her cheeks burning, her little fists clinched in impotent wrath, her
heart on fire with the longing to avenge herself on those two insolent
women.
It was a dangerous time to her for Teddy Darrell to enter--handsome,
loving Teddy who adored her, and who was wild with anger over the
insult she had received; for Kathleen could not keep back her
grievance; she told Teddy frankly of Mrs. Carew's message and of
Alpine's offer.
"Great Heaven! how mean some women can be! It was done purposely to
humiliate you!" he exclaimed, angrily.
He looked at beautiful Kathleen, with the fire of her dark eyes dim
with tears, and her cheeks burning with resentment, feeling himself
hardly able to refrain from taking her in his arms and kissing away the
tempestuous tears.
Suddenly his repressed passion burst forth:
"Kathleen, my darling, do marry me! Can't you learn to love me just a
little? I would be so fond of you, so devoted, that you could not help
but learn to love me. And I am rich, you know. I would help you queen
it over those insolent women."
Her heart leaped at his words; pride carried the day.
"I would do it--if--if--I--thought I _could_ learn to love you; and
that ought to be easy, because you have been so good to me, and I am so
grateful," she murmured.
It did seem easy at the moment. Teddy was true, Teddy loved her, while
Ralph Chainey was false and cruel. Why should she wear the willow for
_him_? Why lie down in the dust, while her heartless step-mother and
step-sister trampled on her rights and her feelings? So in a fury of
resentment, Kathleen gave Teddy her promise to marry him and to learn
to love him.