MRS. CAREW TRIUMPHS IN HER SWEET REVENGE UPON KATHLEEN.
Revenge is a two-edged sword;
It has neither hilt nor guard.
Wouldst thou wield this sword of the Lord?
Is thy grasp, then, firm and hard?
CHARLES H. WEBB.
"Kathleen, you and Uncle Ben must come to me soon for a visit. It is
such a little time now before your marriage, and I can never have you
to myself again after that!" exclaimed Helen Fox.
"Uncle Ben is going back to the country to-morrow, but I shall be glad
to come," Kathleen answered.
She had been back at Mrs. Stone's for a week, but neither Mrs. Carew
nor Alpine had called on her or sent any message--"the heartless
wretches!" as Mrs. Stone said, indignantly.
Rumor said that the mother and daughter were making hasty preparations
to sail for Europe, to be absent several years. It was rumored also
that the disreputable Ivan had crossed the sea before them, flying from
justice. The story of Kathleen's lost diamonds was public property now;
but there was no chance that she would ever recover the jewels or their
value, for Ivan had disappeared, and his mother and sister angrily
repudiated the debt.
Uncle Ben himself went to the two proud women, begging them to do his
niece justice.
"Think, madame," he said; "you and your daughter have stripped Kathleen
of everything. The jewels were all that remained to her, and now that
she is to marry a rich man, she would like to have the money for her
wedding _trousseau_. It is very little to you out of your great wealth,
but to her it is _all_. Be just and fair, and make good what she has
lost by your son's dishonesty."
Mrs. Carew laughed mockingly.
"I would not give her a penny if she were starving to death!" she said.
"Your own husband's daughter!" he said, reproachfully.
"I hate her the more for that. I hate everybody he ever loved!" she
replied, vindictively.
"You hated poor Zaidee and caused her death, I know," he replied,
bitterly.
Her face suddenly grew livid, and she looked at her accuser with
startled eyes.
"It--it is false!" she muttered, weakly.
"It is God's truth," answered the old man. "You told Zaidee Carew
a trumped-up story of her husband's falsity, and then--her death
followed. Answer me this, madame: Was her death a suicide or--a murder?"
She quailed before the stern old man, pale as death, trembling with
nervous alarm; but Alpine rose up suddenly and interposed between him
and her mother.
"How dare you distress my mother so with your shocking hints and
suspicions?" she cried, violently. "Get out of here at once, you old
wretch, or I will call Jones to throw you out into the street!"
"As your mother did poor Kathleen," he sneered.
"And served her right," she hissed. Then she rang the bell violently.
When Jones appeared, she said: "Take this old beggar and throw him into
the street! If you ever admit him again, you will be discharged."
Uncle Ben moved toward the door with Jones, but, looking back, asked,
pleadingly:
"Will _you_ not pay your brother's debt?"
"Never! Now go!" she stormed, and the rich curtains fell behind the
bent retreating form; but from the hall a strange, exultant laugh came
back to them, and Mrs. Carew shuddered.
"Heavens! how horribly that laugh sounded like my husband's laugh!"