"MY LOVE SHALL CALL HIM BACK FROM THE GRAVE!"
"Oh, my dear, how ill you look this morning. Surely you did not sleep
well!" Helen Fox exclaimed, gazing in surprise and pain at Kathleen's
pale cheeks and heavy, somber eyes.
It was the morning after her painful interview with Ralph. Kathleen had
not closed her heavy eyes all night for thinking of her lost lover and
his cruel, parting words. They had pierced her heart like a thorn, and
some sweet, sad lines, strangely appropriate, rang in dizzy changes
through her brain:
"It came with the merry May, love,
It bloomed with the summer prime;
In a dying year's decay, love,
It brightened the fading time.
I thought it would last for years, love,
But it went with the winter snow--
Only a year ago, love--
Only a year ago!
"'Twas a plant with a deeper root, love,
Than the blighting Eastern tree;
For it grew in my heart, and its fruit, love,
Was a bitter morsel to me.
The poison is yet in my brain, love,
The thorn in my heart, for you know,
'Twas only a year ago, love--
Only a year ago!"
"Yes," the girl thought, sadly, bitterly, "the root of that love went
so deep in my heart that I can never pluck it out unless my life goes
with it! Oh, God! that I _could_ forget--that I could give _all_ my
heart to the one who holds the promise of my hand! Oh, Teddy, Teddy!
you deserve more of me than this! You are so good, so noble, you
believe in me so fully, little dreaming that the heart which should be
yours is given to another!"
She looked at Helen with a smile so faint that it was sadder than
tears. She could not speak, and Helen put her arm tenderly about
the drooping little figure, so pathetic in its unspoken despair,
understanding without one word all the sorrow in Kathleen's heart.
And even then the newsboys running through the streets were shouting
wildly:
"Extra copies of _The Globe_--all about the murder of the handsome
actor, Ralph Chainey, by his jealous wife!"
Their startled ears caught the sound--the name. Starting apart, the two
beautiful young girls gazed with blanched faces into each other's eyes.
The words were repeated clearly just beneath the window--blasting
words, that coldly drove the shuddering blood back from Kathleen's lips
to her heart. With a moan, she slipped down to the floor, winding her
arms about Helen's knees, leaning her head against her while she wailed:
"Dead! Murdered! Oh, my love, Ralph!"
Then consciousness fled, she slipped inertly to the floor, and Helen,
with a pallid face and trembling limbs, ran out to purchase a copy of
_The Globe_.
Ere Kathleen had recovered from her swoon, Helen had hastily run over
the startling news--the attempted murder of Ralph Chainey by Fedora,
the woman whom he was suing in the courts for divorce.
"But for the opportune entrance of his brother, Mr. Earl Chainey," ran
the paragraph, "the fiend would have succeeded in her fell design.
The deadly blade was descending a second time to sheath itself in
the victim's breast, when she was caught and violently hurled aside
by Earl Chainey. She proved to be Fedora, the wife whom he was suing
for divorce. She now lies in a prison cell, awaiting her punishment,
which will probably be a capital one, as Ralph Chainey has never
regained consciousness, owing to the loss of blood, and his death is
momentarily expected."
It was to bear this terrible shock to her heart that Kathleen recovered
consciousness. Was it not a wonder she did not go mad with the horror
of it all?
Parting from her only yesterday in despair and anger--lying dead,
perhaps, this moment--dying at least, and dying before he had forgiven
her for her coldness and hardness. Oh, God, the pity of it all!
Weeping, she lay upon Helen's breast. Pride all gone, she laid her
heart bare to her sympathetic friend.
"Oh, Helen, it will kill me unless I go to him--unless he speaks my
forgiveness before he dies!"
"You _shall_ go my darling," was the answer; and in less than an hour
the carriage was at the door. The two girls stepped into it, and they
were rapidly driven to Mrs. Chainey's suburban home.
All the way Kathleen lay upon her friend's breast, weeping, always
weeping. In all her long after-life she could never forget that long
hour of misery and suspense, in which she could not tell whether she
should find him dead or alive. Would he pronounce her forgiveness, or
would his lips be stiff in death, and the memory of his anger remain
forever a thorn in her heart?
How the cold March rain swirled through the leafless shrubbery about
the great stone house, with its closed doors and windows, suggesting
so vividly the presence of death. Thank God! there was one thing
lacking--the funereal crape upon the door. At the worst, he was still
alive.
"Alive, alive! oh, thank God!" murmured Kathleen through her raining
tears.
Helen tenderly supported her as they left the carriage. Soon they were
within the house; Kathleen was waiting with a wildly beating heart for
some one to come to them.
But when Ralph's mother came to them, Kathleen was beyond speech.
It was Helen who had to prefer the request that they should see
Ralph--"Friends, old and dear friends," she said, in excuse.
The gentle, gray-haired lady looked in wonder at the beautiful, weeping
girl, the fairest she had ever beheld. Her heart went out to her at
those tears.
"They are for my boy," she thought, tenderly.
But she hesitated, for the doctors had forbidden any one to enter the
room.
"He knows no one. He has spoken but twice, and then just to utter a
name," she said, looking doubtfully at the two fair supplicants.
"A name?" whispered Kathleen, eagerly.
"Yes; it is that of a young girl whom I fancy he loves. If it were only
_her_ now," she said, musingly.
"The name?" questioned Helen Fox, with eager impatience.
"Kathleen!" replied Mrs. Chainey.
Oh, what a cry came from Kathleen's lips!
"Oh, my love, my love, you have not forgotten me! I am Kathleen! Oh,
madame, let me go to him!"
"Come!" was the thrilling answer, and as she led the girl away,
Kathleen's heart throbbed wildly with the thought that she should hear
his lips pronounce her forgiveness.
"And he shall not die! My love shall call him back from the grave!" she
sobbed.