Wenona Gilman

“ He smiled with the delight of a lover, that slow, sweet smile for which she had begun to watch with pleasure.
"You don't know what happiness your words give me when I remember that I have been your only companion," he said softly. "How beautiful you are as you lie there with that crimson glow just touching you! You are a tropical plant, Carlita, and should be grown in a tropical country. Warmth suits you. The bewildering delight of flaming colors make you like some superb bird of plumage. You will love Italy with a sort of savage delight, I fancy. You have never traveled?" ”

“ Leonie grasped the hand and shook it. There were tears in her voice and in her eyes, tears that were the result of hysteria.
"I have been fighting with a maniac," she exclaimed, hastily. "For God's sake look!"
She had glanced up at the window through which she had escaped, and as she did so the street lamp showed her the figure of a woman standing in it.
"Don't jump, Liz! Don't, for the love of Heaven!" she shrieked, wildly. "You will kill yourself! There is no rope to save you, and there would not be a chance! Oh, Liz, for God's sake go back!" ”

“ I am in most deadly earnest, Carlita. You know that we are descendants of Pocahontas. She married a white man—John Rolf, if you remember—and died a broken-hearted woman. She left one son, and upon her death-bed she pronounced a curse—a curse that has never failed to fall. It was that one girl descendant of each generation should suffer, through her love, even as she had suffered. It was that she should know no happiness; that if she dared to love, the most bitter misery should fall upon her and the man of her choice. And the curse has never failed, Carlita. ”

“ There was another gasp for breath, a wild clutching at the collar, and for the first time Leonie saw. She sprung to her feet and seized his hand wildly.
"Dad," she gasped—"dad! in Heaven's name what is the matter?"
"Nothing," he answered, his throat closing over the word with a peculiar choking. "You must—not be—frightened. I—am—often—so."
"Not like that. Oh, God, dad! it looks like—death!"
His face was not more ghastly than her own. She had forgotten the terrible secret of her birth, forgotten her mother's suffering, forgotten everything save the danger that was menacing him. ”

“ That Leith Pierrepont is not guilty of murder! Tell him that news has come from the South, and Leith is free! Tell him that which he knows but too well, that it was his own daughter who was the murderess!"
No cry from the lips of woman ever equaled in mortal anguish that which fell from Mrs. Chalmers. She staggered back against the wall, her eyes wild in their insane rolling.
"His daughter!" she gasped. "Muriel Meriaz!"
"If that is her name," returned Jessica, sullenly. "You appear to know her better than I. Yes, she is the murderess. ”

“ There are others to whom you are necessary. Leonie, I must tell you, great sin though I am committing in doing so. My darling, I love you with all the soul in my body, with all the strength of my being. Can you not see it? Do you not know it? Leonie, what have I said to cause you to look at me like that?"
"You love me?" she whispered, the words more a breath than an articulation—"you love me?"
"Dearest, can you doubt it? I know that I am the greatest scoundrel living, to tell you so. But how can I see you in such distress and not speak, when my heart is full to overflowing? ”

“ We seem of no use in the world;
Our fancies hang gray and uncurled
About men's eyes indifferently;
Our voice, which thrilled you so, will let
You sleep; our tears are only wet;
What do we here, my heart and I?"
But the last words were not spoken. They ended in a little sob, a little sob that would not be drowned by the power of the will. She would have risen and escaped from the room, but that Olney caught her about the waist, his face white and wistful and filled with apprehension.
"Carlita," he exclaimed, his voice low and soft with tenderness, "what is it? What has distressed you? ”

“ Leonie heard the closing of the door, and entered immediately.
How dreary and desolate it seemed!
Deliberately she had cut herself from him, leaving herself absolutely alone, with not one human being that she could call her friend.
A great pity for herself surged into her heart, pity for the loneliness of her situation, for the isolation that had been thrust upon her through no fault of her own.
She sat down for a moment, burying her face in her hands; then she lifted it, ghastly with fierce determination.
"This is no time for inactivity or irresolution!" she cried passionately. ”

“ Jessica laughed—the hatefulest sound, perhaps, that had ever issued from those handsome lips. She dropped Carlita's wrist, and placed her back nonchalantly against the door.
"Do you think that I will let you go?" she demanded, coldly, calmly. "Do you think that I shall let you leave this room?"
"You would not prevent me? What revenge have you to win?"
A crimson flame seemed to lick out from the brown eyes, and a dull red glow flashed into the oval cheeks. She stretched her arms across the door and bent her head toward her victim.
"What revenge have I to win?" ”

“ I have never opened my mouth against it, and I never shall, if you kill me; but you have done your last to Dick. Listen, Ben; he is dying. Do you hear? Dying, Ben, and you are the cause of it. That girl whom you beat, and almost killed, has more love for your own child than you have, for she gave the liberty that she might have secured for his sake; and as there is a God above us, I will protect her with my life! I have been a coward just as long as I shall. As far as I am concerned I am willing to bear anything, but for Dick's sake the end has come. ”

“ Ah, darling, in spite of all, even the treachery you aver, you could have offered me no greater proof of your love than you have done tonight. Do you think that I can ever forget that you would have sacrificed all the years of your life in order to bring forgetfulness to a murderer? Do you think I can forget that you would have shared my exile, with the promise that no word of unfaith should ever escape you? The Good Book says: 'Greater love hath no man than this, that he give his life for his friend.' But that was more than life, Carlita. ”

“ Oh, my God, what am I to do?"
"Go for the doctor, quick!" commanded Leonie, "Ben can think that I was locked up, for I swear to you that I will make no attempt to escape. If he undertakes to hurt Dick when he comes home I will find a way to prevent him if I get killed myself for it! Oh, Liz, go! Is it possible that you can stop to think of anything when this poor child is dying?"
"Dying! dying!" repeated the unhappy woman, in an awe-stricken voice. "Now, God hear my vow! If he dies I will kill the man that has caused it, I swear it! ”

“ There was a glitter in Jessica's eyes as she observed—a glitter of malicious hatred—and for a moment the small teeth closed upon the crimson underlip.
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"Curse her!" she muttered, in voiceless hatred—"curse her! She shall rue the day that she robbed me of Leith Pierrepont's love! There is nothing so sweet in life as vengeance!"
But she went forward with a bewilderingly fascinating smile upon her lips.
"Ah, chèrie, how lovely you are," she exclaimed, clasping her arms in delight. "If I were a man, I should commit any folly, any madness to win you. ”

“ Already a hazy red was beginning to glow in the western sky, that had changed from gold to pink in opalescent splendor. The wind was freshening with the dying sun, and the caress of the waves licked higher upon the dainty craft.
Leith went below and had wraps brought in profusion; but about Carlita he placed them himself, tucking them in carefully that she might not feel the influence of the breeze.
"You will not care to get home too early?" he asked, caressingly. "The moon will be superb, and there will be no roughness to speak of. You will remain a while?" ”

“ A nebulous gleam of light from an almost exhausted candle fell upon Leonie and Liz as they sat silently in the room where Dick lay in a disturbed slumber.
He had been placed upon the almost comfortable bed that Ben Mauprat had used as his exclusive resting-place, and appeared more comfortable than they could have hoped.
An old-fashioned clock upon the mantelpiece tolled the hour of two, and, with a shiver of horror and dread that she could not control, Liz drew nearer to Leonie.
"You go to bed," she whispered in a tone that would not disturb the child. "You must be almost dead!" ”

“ It was not until eleven o'clock, when supper was announced, that he got an opportunity of saying a word alone to Carlita.
"And so you are trying to unlearn Puritanism," he said to her, with a little wistful smile upon his lips that made him so singularly handsome. "Do you think you will like the change from saint to satyr?"
"I was never a saint, and there is no reason why I should be a satyr," she answered, forcing herself to smile in return. "Puritanism must be an awfully trying thing to one's friends." ”

“ I love you as no man ever loved a woman before. My whole soul seems swallowed up in my passion! I am the betrothed husband of another woman, but you have but to speak the word to make me false to my promise! I will give up everything for you, even to life itself were that necessary. I care not what shadow darkens your existence. Say but the word, promise that you will be my wife, and I will throw aside every consideration for your sake! Leonie, speak to me! ”

“ The first thing I know you will cry, then I shall cry, and then I shall never forgive you as long as I live for making my nose red. Did you ever read in a novel about how beautiful the heroine looks when she cries? That is the baldest kind of rot! I never saw a girl in my life who looked pretty when she cried. I am not presentable for hours afterward."
It was a charity in its way, this new friendship, for in spite of its odious treachery on one side, it kept Carlita from going mad in those first days, and later gave her courage to play the part which Stolliker had mapped out for her. ”

“ Lynde Pyne came to her assistance, and tenderly drew her back into the room, while he closed the door. She raised herself in his arms after a moment of inactivity, like a fiend.
"Let me go there!" she cried, madly. "Let me tell them what he is! He has betrayed me, and publicly in the courtroom I will tell the world what he is. I will pay him for this if it takes my life."
"Calm yourself, dear!" exclaimed Lynde, gently. "There is nothing that you can do against him. Come! You will be summoned to the courtroom in a few minutes for preliminary examination. ”

“ Will not God Himself turn from me in loathing for my treachery? Have I the right to sin that punishment may come to another? Has not He said, 'Vengeance is mine! I will repay?'"
It was with the greatest difficulty that Jessica concealed her hatred and disgust. She stepped back slightly and folded her arms curiously across her breast.
"You should have thought of all that before you began this—investigation," she said, calmly, "before you swore the oath that bound you soul and body to the dead. The laws of your country tell you that murder is punishable with death." ”

“ You don't know Ben as I do. He is not the only man in the world that cares nothing for his wife and yet forces her to live with him, because the devil in his nature tells him that it is a good way to torture her. I don't go because I am afraid, like a thousand other poor women who inhabit the world. Some day I know that I shall kill him. If he would confine his beatings to me, I might endure it, but when he treats Dick in the way that he does, there will come a time when the worm will turn, and I, who have been trampled upon, will become a fiend of his own creating. ”

“ Very many persons present had observed that no woman ever found her way into that box, and that most of the men concealed themselves in the rear, or even contented themselves with a visit to the anteroom. But Jessica never troubled her head about that. She didn't like women, didn't want women, and their absence affected her not at all.
Carlita was at home, as usual, beautiful as a dream in her soft chiffon gown, the exquisite dark hair rippling from her forehead in great waves that no hair-dresser's art could ever imitate. ”

“ She had meant to say disgrace, but the word was drowned in a horrible groan. She fell into a chair, and holding to the back buried her face upon her arm. Lynde Pyne stood beside her. He laid his hand upon her bowed head, and smoothed the soft hair caressingly.
The expression of his face was one of keenest pain.
"Leonie," he said, pausing between each word as though to control an almost irresistible desire, "you must not speak with such despair. You are not—alone. If a steadfast friendship—the love of a—brother—will be a consolation to you, I offer you myself. Leonie, little girl, trust me." ”

“ Knowing what he knew, he could force his lips to say no word of blame.
"Let me hide my face while I tell you!" she cried, concealing it in his bosom. "I have betrayed you! I have sought your ruin! I discovered that you had killed Olney Winthrop—see? I can say it without so much as a shiver now—and I have put you in the hands of the law with every chain of the ghastly story complete. They are coming even now to arrest you. There is not a moment to lose. You must go at once!" ”

“ The house had barely become quiet again than a noiseless step descended the stairs, a light hand turned the key in the door of the library, and Evelyn Chandler once more entered the presence of her sister.
"I have risked my father's displeasure to give you your liberty," said Miss Chandler, coldly. "If you are wise, you will leave here at once and forever. My father is a man whose justice is not tempered with mercy. I tell you frankly that if he can find you he will most certainly punish you as he has threatened to do." ”

“ No wonder you break our hearts, and then still your conscience by making yourselves believe that you were not in fault, that you had said nothing by which your honors were compromised."
"Do you believe that hearts break?" asked Leith, mockingly.
"Not the heart of the 'new woman,'" answered Jessica, laughing. "She is too familiar with the genus homo."
"The 'new woman' has no heart. She is all brain."
"Then you acknowledge that woman has, until recently, had a 'corner on heart,' so to speak, and that man for all time has been without one, being a creature simply of brain?" ”

“ Mr. Pryor staggered back as though the officer had threatened to arrest him.
"A girl!" he gasped. "Have you all gone mad? Why, that boy is Neil Lowell, and he worked for me as my private secretary. He is the best fellow in existence, and never did a wrong act in his life!"
"She is a girl, for all that!" returned the officer, serenely.
Andrew Pryor sat down very suddenly. He seemed to be utterly overcome by the intelligence he had received.
His eyes were riveted upon Leonie as though they could never be removed. ”