Loved You Better
Than You Knew

By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

HART SERIES NO. 59

COPYRIGHT 1897
BY GEO. MUNRO’S SONS

Published By
THE ARTHUR WESTBROOK COMPANY
Cleveland, O., U. S. A.

CONTENTS.

Loved You Better Than You Knew

CHAPTER I.
CUPID IN THE RAIN.

“Love! It began with a glance,

Grew with the growing flowers,

Smiled in a dreamful trance,

Recked not the passage of hours.

“Grief! It began with a word,

Grew with the winds that raved,

A prayer for pardon unheard,

Pardon in turn uncraved.

The bridge so easy to sever,

The stream so swift to be free,

Till the brook became a river,

And the river became a sea.

“Life! It began with a sigh,

Grew with the leaves that are dead,

Its pleasures with wings to fly,

Its sorrows with wings of lead.”

Could one lift the impenetrable veil of mystery that hides the future from our curious eyes, what secrets would often be revealed, what shadows would fall upon hearts now light and thoughtless—shadows of grief, of horror, and despair!

“It is better not to know,” agree both the poets and sages.

Beautiful Cinthia Dawn did not think of that as she drummed upon the window-pane that rainy autumn day, exclaiming rebelliously:

“I wish something would happen to break up the dreadful monotony of my life.”

Widow Flint, who was her aunt and guardian, and as crabbed and crusty as her name, looked at her with dismay, and retorted:

“Some people don’t know when they’re well off. You have enough to eat, to drink, and to wear, and a good home. What more do you want?”

The girl looked at the dingy sitting-room, her own shabby gray gown, then out at the dismal landscape, blurred by the rain and low-hanging clouds, with something like frank contempt, and answered, recklessly:

“I want pretty clothes and jewels, beautiful surroundings, gay times, and lovers, such as other girls have instead of this humdrum, poky existence—so there!”

“Humph!”

It was all Mrs. Flint said aloud, but to herself she added:

“Good land! I do wish my brother would come home from his eternal wanderings and take charge of his rattled-brained daughter. She’s too pretty and restless, and I don’t see how I’m going to hold her down much longer.”

Cinthia Dawn was seventeen now, and ever since she had been given into her aunt’s sole keeping at five years old, the strait-laced soul, who was as prim and particular as an old maid, had been engaged in the difficult task of “holding down” her spirited young niece. She had even erred on the side of prudence, so great was her anxiety to bring her up in the way she should go.

When the lovely child first came her aunt said frankly to all:

“I don’t want anybody ever to tell Cinthy that she is pretty.”

“She can find it out for herself by just looking in the glass,” objected one of her cronies.

“I’ll tend to that,” said Mrs. Flint, crustily, and she furnished her rooms with cracked and distorted mirrors, whose blurred surfaces gave back indeed no fair reflection of the child’s beauty.

She carried out her programme further by dressing the child in the plainest, commonest clothing, and plaiting all her wealth of golden curls in a single tail down her back, though she could not prevent it even then from breaking out on her brow and neck in enchanting little ringlets that a ballroom belle might have envied.

To her dearest crony Mrs. Flint excused her course by saying, confidentially:

“Cinthy’s mother, who is dead now, was the vainest and prettiest creature on earth, and she did wicked work with her beauty. I don’t want to say aught against her now that she is dead; but Cinthy must have a different raising, that’s all. My brother said so when he put her in my charge. ‘Bring her up good and simple in your old-fashion way, Rebecca,’ was what he said.”

“That’s right. ‘Favor is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.’ That’s Cinthy’s Bible verse, and I hope she’ll live up to it,” returned the good crony, Deacon Rood’s wife.

So Cinthia Dawn was reared simply and plainly almost to severity. She received her education at the public school, and at home helped her aunt with the house-work. Surreptitiously she read poetry and novels.

Such a simple, quiet life—just like thousands and thousands of others—but Cinthia was outgrowing it now. She was seventeen—the most romantic age in the world—and she chafed at the dreariness of her life.

School-days were ended now, and her merry mates had their new gowns, their dances, and their lovers. There were none of these for Cinthia Dawn.

Mrs. Flint said her niece was nothing but a child yet, so she was not permitted to attend parties, and she vowed she had no money to spend on finery. As for lovers, if she had any, the bravest would not have dared present himself at Mrs. Flint’s door. She would have said to him as to the veriest tramp:

“Be off!”

It was just the life to drive a pretty, spirited girl frantic with impatience of the present, and longings for something better than she had known—the longing that found impatient expression that afternoon when she watched the dead leaves flying in sodden drifts beneath the chill November rain.

After Mrs. Flint’s curt rejoinder to her complaints she remained silent several minutes drumming impatiently on the pane, then burst out:

“Oh, Aunt Beck, don’t you want me to run down to the post-office for your Christian Advocate?”

“In all this storm?”

“Oh, I won’t mind it a bit! I’m in a mood for fighting the elements!”

“Then take your umbrella and overshoes, and hurry back.”

“Yes, aunt.”

Glad to escape from the monotony of the little brown house, she hurried out into the teeth of the storm, and made her way through the village streets to the little post-office. The rain blew in her face, and the wind crimsoned her cheeks and made her dark eyes flash like stars. Cinthia did not care. In her splendor of youth and health she found it exhilarating.

But going back, the storm, that had been gathering its forces for a fiercer onslaught, increased in angry violence.

She had left the paved main street, too, now, and was emerging into the thinly populated suburbs where her home was situated.

A great gust of wind met her at the corner of a street, taking her breath with its fierce onslaught, wrapping her damp skirts about her ankles, and whisking her umbrella from her grasp. She chased it wildly almost a block, only to see it whirled into the middle of the street and crushed under the wheels of a heavily loaded farm wagon lumbering into the little town. Meanwhile, the vagrant wind pelted her with drifts of dead leaves, and the flood-gates of heaven opened and poured down torrents of water.

“Take my umbrella, Miss Dawn!” cried the gay musical voice of a young man who had been chasing her as fast as she flew after the umbrella.

Turning with a quick start, she looked into the face of Arthur Varian, a new comer in the town, with whom she had recently formed an acquaintance. His laughing blue eyes were irresistible, and she cried merrily as she took shelter under the umbrella:

“Didn’t I look comical chasing the parachute? I was hoping no one saw me. Thank you, but I can not deprive you of it.”

“Then you will let me hold it over you? It is large enough for both,” stepping along by her side, and giving her the best half of it as they struggled along against the high wind. “I saw you coming out of the post-office and have been trying to overtake you ever since. I thought perhaps you would allow me the pleasure of walking home with you,” continued Arthur Varian, bending his admiring blue eyes on the beautiful face by his side—the bright, arch face with its large, soft dark eyes set off by that aureole of curly golden hair, now blown into the most enchanting spiral rings by the wind and rain.

He had met her several times before, and he knew enough of her lonely life to make him sympathize with her forlornness, even if her beauty had not already charmed him with its girlish perfection.

Cinthia met that glance and looked down with a kindling blush and a wildly beating heart, for—it was of him she had been thinking when she uttered her complaints to Mrs. Flint, longing for the privileges of other young girls of her class that she might have opportunities of meeting him and winning his heart.

Who could blame her? for Arthur Varian was very winning and handsome—tall, with wavy brown hair, regular features, a slight brown mustache, a beautiful mouth—“just made for kissing,” vowed all the girls—well dressed, and having that indefinable air of ease and elegance that betokens good breeding joined to prosperity.

Perhaps the fates had heard Cinthia’s longing for something to happen, for the storm now gathered fresh force, and the darkening earth was irradiated by a vivid and brilliant flash of lightning, followed by a terrific thunder peal.

The rain poured out of heaven like a waterfall, and the fierce driving gale caught the frightened girl up like a feather and tossed her against the young man’s breast and into his arms, that clasped and held her protectingly, while all about them the air was darkened with flying débris and broken branches of trees that swayed, and creaked, and bent, and crashed in agony beneath the cyclonic force of the elements.

Cinthia was not a coward, but the situation was enough to strike terror to the bravest heart. The edge of a cyclone had indeed struck the village, and in almost an instant of time dozens of trees had been uprooted, several houses unroofed, and the air filled with flying projectiles, one of which suddenly struck Arthur Varian with such force that both he and his companion were hurled to the ground. It was a portion of a tin roof, and cut a gash on the young man’s hand from which the blood began to stream in a ruddy tide.

In another minute the wind began to abate, and they struggled up to their feet.

“Oh, you are cut, you are bleeding! and you did it to save me! I saw you ward off that horrible missile from me with your hand. It must have killed me had I received the blow, for, as it was, it grazed my head. Oh, what can I do? Let me bind your hand to stop the blood,” sobbed Cinthia, unwinding the silk scarf from her neck and wrapping it tightly, with untaught skill, about his wrist above the wound to stop the spurting blood.

CHAPTER II.
ONE GOLDEN HOUR.

She trembled and paled as the warm blood spurted over her own white and dainty hands as she essayed the task, and her heart throbbed wildly with new and sweet emotion. She could have clasped her arms about his neck and wept over the cruel wound he had received in her defense and for her sake.

“Thank you. That will do very well,” Arthur Varian cried, gratefully; and taking her hand gently, he added: “I see we are almost at the gates of my home. You must come in with me till the storm is over, then I will take you home in the carriage.”

Thoroughly frightened, and glad of a shelter from the still angry elements, Cinthia accompanied him inside the gates of the finest residence in the county—Idlewild, as it was called—being a large rambling old stone mansion, exceedingly picturesque in style, and surrounded by a fine estate in lawns, gardens, and virgin woodlands. For many years the place had been tenantless, save for the old housekeeper in charge, but last summer it had been carefully renovated, and Arthur Varian and his widowed mother, who owned the place, had come there to live.

As the young man led Cinthia in, he added, thoughtfully:

“You are quite drenched, but my mother will give you some hot tea and dry clothing, and perhaps that will prevent your getting sick.”

“Oh, I don’t think the wetting will hurt me. I’m very strong,” Cinthia answered; adding, bashfully: “I shouldn’t like your mother to see me looking like I had been fished out of the river. You had better take me to the housekeeper. I know her well. She has been lending me novels and poetry from your library ever since I was a little girl.”

And, in fact, before they rang the bell the front door flew open, and the old woman appeared, pouncing upon Cinthia, and exclaiming:

“Come right in out of the wet, you poor, dear child! I saw it all from the window, and I thought you both were killed when the piece of tin knocked you both down. I believe it is a piece off of our own roof. My heart jumped in my mouth, and I was about to faint when I saw you both rising to your feet, and I got better at once. But, law sakes! wasn’t it terrible? Your hand’s cut, too, ain’t it, Mr. Varian? Well, I’ll see to’t in a minute, as soon as I take Cinthy to my room.”

Leading the dripping girl along the corridors to a plain, neat bedroom, she produced a dainty white night-gown, saying:

“There, honey; jest strip off your wet clothes and put on that, and jump into my bed and kiver up warm, whiles I go and sew up that cut on Mr. Arthur’s hand, for I can do it jest as neat as any doctor. Then I’ll dry your clothes and brew you both some bone-set tea to keep you from ketching cold.”

She bustled away, and Cinthia gladly did as she was bid, looking ruefully at the puddles of water that streamed from her clothing on to the neat Brussels carpet.

When Mrs. Bowles returned she was indeed covered up in the warm bed, with only her bright eyes and the top of her golden head visible.

“Do you feel chilly, dearie? Drink this, to warm your blood,” she said, forcing a bitter concoction of bone-set tea on the protesting girl; adding: “Law, now, ’tisn’t so bad, after all, is it? Why, Mr. Varian drank his dose without so much as a wry face. Law, honey, but that was a deep cut! It almost severed an artery. It took all my nerve to sew it up, I tell you, and he’ll have to carry his hand in a sling some time, sure.”

“He saved my life!” cried Cinthia, eagerly. “I would have received that blow on my head but that he so quickly warded it off with his hand. See, it just grazed my temple,” showing a little bleeding scratch under her ringlets.

“Dearie me, let me put a strip of court-plaster on it! There, it’ll be well in a day or two. Now, Cinthia, you take a little nap whiles I hang your clothes to dry in the laundry,” gathering them up into a bucket.

“I’ve ruined your carpet,” sighed the girl.

“Oh, no; it’ll be all right when it’s dry. Them colors won’t run. Don’t worrit over that, but shet your eyes and go to sleep,” bustling out again.

“Dear old soul!” sighed Cinthia, grateful for the kiss pressed on top of her curly head. She shut her eyes, but she was too nervous to sleep.

She lay listening to the storm that still raged outside, and wondering what her aunt would think of her protracted stay, if she would be angry, or just frightened. Then her thoughts flew to Arthur Varian, his tender smiles, his bonny blue eyes.

“I will never marry any man but a blue-eyed one,” she thought, thrillingly, and at last fell into a gentle doze induced by weariness, the warmth of the bed, and the dose she had swallowed.

The nap lasted an hour, and when she opened her eyes Mrs. Bowles was rocking placidly by the cozy fire in the twilight.

“Oh, I have been asleep! How long?” she cried, uneasily.

“Most an hour. Do you feel rested?”

“Oh, yes, indeed, and I’d like to get up and go home. Are my clothes dry?”

“Oh, no—not yet; and as for that gray woolen frock of yours, it has shrunk that much you can never hook it up again, I can tell you that! But no matter. You’ve had it two years a’ready. I know, and it was too skimp for a growing girl, anyway. But Mrs. Varian has sent you in a suit of her clothes to put on, and when you’re dressed you are to take tea with her and her son.”

“Oh, but, Mrs. Bowles, I ought to go home at once. Aunt Beck will be so uneasy over me.”

“Listen to the wind and the rain, child. The storm is still raging, and the horses can’t be taken out till the weather clears up. So make your mind easy, and get up and dress, for Mrs. Varian will be in to see you presently.”

Cinthia got up rather nervously, with a little dread of Mrs. Varian, whom she had seen at church and out riding—a beautiful, haughty-looking woman, with olive skin and flashing dark eyes, very young looking to have a grown son of twenty-three or four.

“I would rather have my own clothes,” she said pleadingly.

“They are all over mud and water, child, and I don’t think the maid can have them fit for you till to-morrow. Mrs. Varian very kindly offered the loan of hers, and unless you wear them, you’ll have to go to bed again, that’s all. Here, let me help you,” said Mrs. Bowles, beginning to slip the garments over Cinthia’s shining head.

“But this crimson silk with white lace trimmings—it is too fine for me, dear Mrs. Bowles.”

“It can’t be helped, for this is more likely to fit—too tight in the waist for her, she said, and she never wore it but twice; and see, it laps over two inches on you. But I can hide that with the lace at the neck and the bow at the waist. Now let me comb your hair loose over your shoulders, it’s so damp yet. My! how it crimples up and curls, and shines in the light! You look well, Cinthy Dawn!” She would have said beautiful, but she was mindful of Mrs. Flint’s objection, though she said to herself:

“She can’t keep Mr. Arthur from finding it out, that’s sure. He knows it a’ready, by the look in his eyes when he brought her in. And it’s hot, impulsive blood that flows in the Varians’ veins. What is going to come of this accident, I wonder? for I saw love in her eyes when she told me how he saved her life. I hope he didn’t save it just to blight it.”

Cinthia went to the old woman’s mirror and looked at herself in the unaccustomed gown.

The glass was not blurred and cracked like those at home, and it gave back her charming reflection truthfully.

“Why, how pretty I look!” she cried, gazing in frank delight at the beautiful vision, the lissom form, just above medium height, the regular features, the fair arch face, the starry dark eyes, the rose-red mouth, the enchanting dimples, and the aureole of golden hair that set it off like a halo of light. “Why, Mrs. Bowles, I did not know I was so pretty! But perhaps it’s only the dress.”

“Fine feathers make fine birds,” returned the housekeeper, discreetly.

“Yes,” sighed Cinthia; but she continued to gaze at herself in delight, wondering, shyly, what Arthur Varian would think of her in his mother’s fine gown.

Then she turned with a start, for a light tap at the door announced the entrance of Mrs. Varian, and the housekeeper hastened to present the young girl to her mistress.

Both thrilled with admiration, for both were rarely beautiful in their opposite types, the elder a brunette of the finest style, the younger a dark-eyed blonde, so rarely seen, so much admired.

“I hope you have quite recovered from your fright, Miss Dawn,” her hostess said, in a voice so exquisitely modulated that it was as pleasant as music.

Cinthia murmured in reply that she had enjoyed a delicious rest, and was so grateful for the loan of the clothes that made it possible for her to escape from bed.

“I dare say our good Mrs. Bowles would have liked to keep you there all night. She suggested that plan to Arthur after dosing him with bitter herb tea; but he disregarded her advice, and is now waiting impatiently for you,” rejoined the lady, casting an arch glance at the old woman while she took Cinthia’s hand and drew her toward the door.

When the door closed on them the old housekeeper wagged her head doubtfully.

“How sweet my mistress can be when she pleases; but I wonder if she would be as kind if she guessed what I have read in those young peoples’ eyes—that story of love—love between a rich young man and a poor young girl, that folks like Mrs. Varian call misalliances?” she muttered, uneasily.

No matter what the outcome was to be, Cinthia Dawn had come to the happiest night of her life.

Though outside the windows the wild wind and rain swirled and beat with ghostly fingers, inside Mrs. Varian’s luxurious drawing-room all was warmth and light and pleasure.

The lady and her son exerted themselves to make their young guest happy, and she was so glad and grateful in her pleasant surroundings that all were mutually sorry when toward ten o’clock the storm abated, and the moon struggled fitfully through the lowering clouds.

“I must go home!” cried Cinthia, with wholesome dread of Mrs. Flint’s wrath; and their warmest urgings could not prevail on her to stay—though in her secret heart she longed to do so forever. “I shall bring back your clothes to-morrow,” she laughed, as Mrs. Varian bid her a cordial good-night.

Then Arthur handed her into the waiting carriage, stepped in by her side, and the driver closed the door; and of that ride home we shall hear more in our next chapter.

CHAPTER III.
THE SWEET OLD STORY.

Mrs. Flint grew very uneasy over her absent niece as the short afternoon waned and the fury of the storm increased to positive danger for any luckless pedestrian. After fidgeting and worrying until the early twilight fell, she began to say to herself that Cinthia was probably all right, anyway. She had doubtless gone into some friend’s for shelter, and would not likely return until morning.

She took her frugal tea alone and in something like sadness, for Cinthia had seldom been absent from a meal before, and she began to feel what a loss it was to miss the fair young face about the house. She suddenly realized the tenderness lying dormant in her heart for the wilful girl.

She sat down by the cozy fire with her knitting, and listened to the tempest of wind and rain soughing in the trees outside, and Cinthia’s rebellion that afternoon kept repeating itself over and over in her brain until she muttered aloud:

“She wants fine things and parties and lovers, does she? Well, well, I s’pose it’s natural enough for her mother’s child, and for any young girl for that matter, but where’s she going to get them? The lovers would be easy enough—she’s as pretty as a pink—but I don’t want to encourage her vanity, and it’s better to save the money her father sends till she needs it worse. What if he should die way off yonder somewhere, and maybe not leave her a penny? I wish he’d come home, I do, or I wish she was homely as sin, with red hair and freckles, and a snub nose like Jane Ann Johnson!”

So she fretted and fumed until past ten o’clock, and that was an hour beyond her usual bed-time; but somehow she could not get Cinthia out of her mind, could not bear to retire while she was away, so she kept glancing at the window, though scarcely expecting her to arrive before morning. How could she, in such a storm, though the wind had lulled somewhat, and the patter of the rain was dulled on the drifts of dead leaves that muffled the sound of carriage-wheels, pausing too, so that Mrs. Flint almost jumped out of her skin when there suddenly came a loud rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat, upon the front door.

But she was not naturally nervous, so after a moment’s startled indecision, she flew to the door and demanded, through the key-hole, to know who was there.

“It is Cinthia, aunt,” returned a sweet, mirthful voice.

With a sigh of relief the old lady unlocked the door, and there stepped into the narrow hall a vision that took her breath away.

Was it Cinthia Dawn or a fairy princess, this beautiful creature in the crimson silk and misty lace, the furred white opera-cloak falling from her shoulders, the rippling lengths of sunny hair enveloping her like a halo, the dark eyes beaming with “that light that never was on sea or land,” but only in the glance of the happy and the loving?

“Cinthia Dawn!” she began, in a dazed voice; but just then she became aware that a tall and handsome young man, hat in hand, was standing on the threshold. She knew who he was. Her pastor had introduced her last Sunday, at church, to the master of Idlewild.

“Good-evening, Mrs. Flint,” he began, beamingly. “I have brought Cinthia home safe to you. My mother took care of her during the storm.” He paused, faintly hoping that she would ask him to enter, it was so early yet.

But he did not yet know Mrs. Flint, much as he had heard of her eccentricities. She simply bridled, and returned, in her stiffest manner:

“I’m sure we are very much obliged to your mother, and you, too. Good-evening.”

Thus curtly dismissed, the young man shot a tender glance at his sweetheart, and bowed himself out into the night again, the lady slamming the door behind him before he was fairly down the steps.

“Oh, Aunt Beck! how could you be so rude after all their kindness to me? And he saved my life, too. Didn’t you see his arm in a sling?” indignantly.

“I don’t know as I noticed it. I was so flustrated seeing you bringing a beau home, and you nothing but a child yet!” snapped the old lady.

“Child!” echoed Cinthia, scornfully, as she held her chilly fingers to the blaze and the ruddy light played over her beautiful garments.

“But what are you doing with the silk gown, and that grand white cloak, all brocade and ermine? I don’t understand!” cried the old lady, suspiciously.

Cinthia laughed out gayly, happily, her eyes shining, her voice as sweet as silver bells.

“Why, I was caught in the rain and almost drowned, Aunt Beck, and my wretched old duds were nothing but mud and water, so Mrs. Varian lent me these things to come home in. Aren’t they becoming? Don’t I look pretty?” setting her graceful head one side, like a bird.

“Humph! ‘Pretty is as pretty does,’” grunted her aunt, though she could not keep her eyes off the charming creature as she flung herself back in an easy-chair and continued, gayly:

“If you are not sleepy, Aunt Beck, I’ll tell you all about it.”

“I guess I can keep my eyes open!” ungraciously, though she was dying of curiosity.

Thereupon Cinthia related all the events of the evening, from the time she had left home until she bid Mrs. Varian good-night to return in the grand carriage with the handsome master of Idlewild. Clasping her tiny hands, she cried, in an ecstacy:

“Oh, aunt, I can’t tell you how I enjoyed it all! Mrs. Varian is as proud and beautiful as a queen; but she was so kind and sweet to me that I felt quite at home in her grand house. As for her son—oh!” and Cinthia paused and blushed divinely.

Mrs. Flint snapped, irately:

“Now, Cinthia Dawn, don’t you go getting your head turned by idle flatteries from rich young men. Anybody but a silly child would know they don’t mean anything.”

“Oh, Aunt Beck, please don’t call me a child any more. I am as grown up as anybody, and you know it—seventeen last April. And—and”—wistfully and defiantly all at once—“he does mean it. He loves me dearly—and—we—are—engaged!”

Aunt Beck gave a jump of uncontrollable surprise.

“Cinthy Dawn, you don’t mean it?”

“Yes, I do, Aunt Beck. I have promised to marry Arthur Varian.”

“But, land sakes, child—oh, I forgot; well girl, then—you don’t hardly know each other!”

“Oh, yes, we do. We have been acquainted some time. We fell in love weeks ago, and—and—he told me in the carriage he loved me and wanted to marry me.”

CHAPTER IV.
BREAKERS AHEAD.

Mrs. Flint was so surprised she could not speak; she could only stare in wonder at the beautiful, excited creature with her happy face.

“Oh, aunt, you are not angry, are you? He’s very, very nice, I’m sure—and rich, too! He said my every fancy should be gratified—that he would worship me. You will give your consent, won’t you, because he’s coming here to-morrow morning to ask you.”

Mrs. Flint found her voice, and muttered, sarcastically:

“A wonder he didn’t ask me to-night! Why didn’t you tell him you would have to get your father’s consent?”

“Because papa has deserted me ever since I was small, and cares nothing for me. It is you I’ve had to look for the care of father and mother both. Why, look you, papa has never written me a line all these years! He does not care what becomes of me. And we shall not ask him anything. You are my guardian, and will give us leave to marry, won’t you, dear?”

“When, Cinthy?”

“Oh, very soon, he said—not later than Christmas, anyway. We don’t want to wait long. You’ll be willing, won’t you?” impetuously.

“I don’t know, dear. I’ll have to sleep on it before I make up my mind; you’ve given me such a surprise. Though I don’t say but that it’s a grand match for a girl like you, Cinthy.”

“He said I was made for a prince.”

“Of course. People in love are silly enough to say anything. But take your candle and go to bed now, Cinthy, and we will talk about this again to-morrow.”

“Good-night, aunt,” and she lingered, perhaps hoping for a kindlier word.

The old lady, moved in spite of herself, and secretly proud of Cinthia’s conquest, actually kissed the rosy cheek, saying, merrily:

“Good-night—Mrs. Varian that is to be.”

Cinthia’s heart leaped with joy and pride, for she took this concession to mean approbation of her choice.

With the chorus of a love song Arthur had sung that evening on her happy lips, she went upstairs to her pretty bed-room, and was soon fast asleep and dreaming sweetly of her splendid lover.

But as for Mrs. Flint, she sat down again by the fire, in a sort of dazed condition, to think it all over.

Little Cinthia engaged to be married! Why, it was like some strange dream!

But the more she thought it over, the better pleased she was, for Cinthia’s future had been a burden to her mind, and this would be such a relief, marrying her off to such a good catch as Arthur Varian. Why, the little girl had done as well for herself as the most anxious father could desire, and she decided to give her consent to the match to-morrow without the formality of asking his advice.

Just as she came to this conclusion, she was startled again by another rat-a-tat upon the door.

“Good gracious! Who can it be knocking there at midnight almost? Some lunatic, surely! Or maybe Cinthia’s beau come back to ask for her to-night, too impatient to wait for morning!” she soliloquized, as she sallied out into the hall, with the demand:

“Who’s there?”

To her utter consternation and amazement, a manly voice replied, impatiently:

“Your long-lost brother, Rebecca. Open the door. This wind is very cutting!”

Unlocking the door, a traveler stepped into the hall—a tall, brown-bearded man of perhaps forty-five, blue-eyed, and rarely handsome.

“Welcome, Everard!” she cried, and put her arm around his neck and kissed him with unwonted affection.

He had been her baby half-brother when she was married, the pet and pride of the family.

“Oh, I have such news for you! This return is very timely!” she exclaimed, when they were seated again by the fireside.

Thereupon she poured out the exciting story of his daughter’s engagement, dilating with unusual volubility on the eligibility of the suitor.

“I suppose I shall have to consent,” he said, carelessly; then: “Oh, by the way, what is the young man’s name?”

“Arthur Varian.”

The man sprung to his feet as if she had thrust a knife into his heart.

“Arthur Varian!” he repeated, trembling like a leaf in a storm, his face growing deathly white under the bronze of travel.

“Why, Everard, what is the matter? Do you know him? Is there anything wrong about him?”

“Yes, no—that is, I must see him first! Oh, Rebecca, this is a terrible thing! How fortunate that I came in time to nip this in the bud, for Arthur Varian can never marry my daughter.”

“You will break her heart.”

He dropped back into his seat, groaning:

“I can not help it, miserable man that I am; for Cinthia Dawn had better be dead than the bride of Arthur Varian!”

CHAPTER V.
RETROSPECTION.

I remember I was young once,

Ah! how long ago it seems

Since the happy days and months

Passed away like pleasant dreams!

For I loved then. I can smile now

At myself. ’Twas long ago,

Ere time’s hand had sprinkled snow

To cool love’s fever on my brow.

—Rosalie Osborne.

Everard Dawn’s words fell on his sister’s ears with a great shock, so deep was the anguish of his tone and the emotion of his face, his lips trembling under the rich brown beard, and his eyes gleaming under their heavy brows like shadowed surfaces of deep blue pools, while the pallor of his face was ghastly to behold.

She studied the agitated man in wonder and terror, for he was almost like a stranger to his sister, having never met her since he was a youth of sixteen, just entering college.

Since she had married in Virginia while on a visit from her home in the far South, her communications with her relatives had been almost broken off; the death of her father soon followed her marriage, and her only visit home had been to the death-bed of her step-mother when Everard was just entering college.

She was his only near relative, and she had urged the lonely boy to visit her often, but he had never accepted the invitation but once, having to work too hard at his chosen profession—the law—to find time, he said.

Their correspondence had been infrequent, and she knew little of him, save that he had been married twice, and that on the death of his second wife he had brought her his child to raise, and gone away abruptly, a broken-hearted, lonely man.

Yet, as she looked at him sitting there, so handsome still in his young, splendid prime, with threads of premature silver creeping into the thick locks on his temples, and remembered how heavily the shadows of grief had stretched across his life, the woman’s heart was moved to pity and tenderness, such as she had felt in his babyhood days, when he was the pet and darling of all. Her cold gray eyes softened with sympathy, as she cried:

“Surely, Everard, you have had more than your share of sorrow in life! What new trouble is this? For, of course, you would not oppose such a splendid match for your daughter without grave reasons.”

He lifted his heavy eyes to her troubled face, and answered, bitterly:

“Yes, I have reasons, grave and bitter reasons, for forbidding this marriage, and I thank Heaven I came in time to prevent it. But ask me nothing, Rebecca, for I shall never willingly divulge my reasons, not even to the man whom I must send away sorrowing to-morrow over a broken love-dream.”

His voice fell to exquisite pathos, as if he almost pitied the man he intended to wound so cruelly.

Mrs. Flint was disappointed, crest-fallen, she had been so elated over [her] niece’s prospects.

She rejoined, uneasily:

“I don’t know what Cinthy will say to this. Her heart is set on Arthur Varian. He stands for everything she longs for most, and her hatred of her life with me is intense and rebellious. You can never reconcile her to it again.”

“I must make a change in it, then, though my means are not large,” he sighed.

“So much the worse, for she loves luxury and pleasure, and her heart is almost starved for love. You know I have a reserved nature, Everard, and never pet anything. I have brought her up kindly, but rigidly, and she resents my discipline and your neglect almost equally.”

“Poor girl! Perhaps she has cause. I have certainly almost forgotten her existence in these years of exile. But what alleviation was there to my misery except to forget?” he cried, passionately.

“Poor boy!” she sighed, forgetting that he was forty-five. She was twenty years older, and to her he appeared young.

He made a movement of keen self-scorn.

“I don’t deserve your pity!” he cried. “I have been a coward, shifting my burden on your shoulders, hating to come home, weary of my life. But at last the voice of duty clamored at my heart. I remembered you were growing old, and that the child was almost a woman. I came at last, but even then reluctantly. Can you ever forgive my fault?”

Many times she had said to herself, in her impatience of Cinthia’s discontent, that she could never forgive her brother for saddling her with the care of a child in her old age; but at the sight of him, so sad, so broken, so self-accusing, she could not utter the words of blame that at first had trembled on her tongue. She answered instead:

“What could you have done with a girl-child? And I was the only one you could turn to in your trouble. But I must warn you that you will not find an affectionate daughter. You have been away so long that she scarcely remembers your face, and she has chafed bitterly at your neglect.”

“I suppose that is natural, and—I do not think we shall ever be very fond of each other,” he replied, with strange bitterness.

“When do you wish to see her, Everard? She is in bed now.”

“Do not disturb her sweet dreams. Our interview can easily wait till to-morrow,” he said, with strange coldness for a man whose nearest tie was this beautiful, neglected daughter.

He got up and stood with his back to the fire, his pale troubled face in shadow.

“Don’t let me keep you up longer. You look pale and tired, poor soul!” he said, kindly; adding: “Can you give me a bed, or shall I go to the hotel?”

“I can give you a room,” she answered, lighting a bedroom-candle for him and leading the way to a cozy down-stairs chamber.

“Good-night. I hope you will sleep well,” she said, leaving him to ascend to her own quarters opposite Cinthia’s own little white-hung room that she took much pains in beautifying after her girlish fancies.

She peeped in at the girl and saw that she was wrapped in pleasant dreams, for the murmured name of Arthur passed her lips, and she smiled in joy beneath the gazer’s troubled eyes.

“Poor little girl—poor little girl!” she murmured, as she withdrew, her heart heavy with sympathy for the sweet love-dream so soon to be blighted by the father’s stern edict of separation.

“It is very, very, strange, the way Everard takes on about it. Why, he went wild just at the very name of Varian,” she said aloud to the large portrait of her long dead husband, Deacon Flint, good soul, that hung over her mantel. She had acquired a habit of talking absently to this portrait as if it were alive.

She read her short chapter in the Bible, mumbled over her prayer, and crept shivering into bed. But slumber was far from her eyes. The events of the evening had unstrung her nerves, and she lay awake, dreading the dawn of the morrow that was to usher in such disappointment and sorrow to the sleeping girl now dreaming so happily of the lover who was never to be her husband.

CHAPTER VI.
REBELLION.

Cinthia would have slept later than usual that morning but for her aunt’s hand gently shaking her as she said:

“Get up, Cinthy. Breakfast is almost ready. Put on your Sunday gown, and try to look your best when you come down-stairs.”

“Is—is—Arthur here—already?” cried the girl, a beautiful flash of joy illuminating her face.

“Never mind about that; only come down as soon as you can, or the biscuit will be soggy,” returned the old lady, hurrying out in trepidation. The sight of the beautiful, happy face made her nervous.

Cinthia hurried her toilet, not taking time to plait her hair, but letting the bright mass fall in careless waves over the brown cloth gown—her “Sunday best.”

“How ugly it is!” she cried, with an envious glance at Mrs. Varian’s finery spread over a chair; then she sped down-stairs, wondering happily if Arthur had indeed arrived so soon to ask her aunt’s consent.

But a strange man, tall, grave, brown-bearded, stood with his back to the fire, scanning her with moody blue eyes as she fluttered in, and Aunt Beck said in nervous tones:

“Your father, Cinthy.”

“Oh!” she faltered, in more surprise than joy, and paused, irresolute.

“What a pretty girl you have grown, my dear!” said Everard Dawn, coming forward and giving her a careless kiss. Then he took her hand and seated her at the table, saying laughingly that her aunt had been fretting about the biscuits.

No emotion had been shown on either side. The man seemed indifferent, with an under-current of repressed agitation; the girl was secretly wounded and indignant. Her own father! yet he had never shown her a sign of real love. Between this pair her poor heart had been starved for tenderness.

A little triumphant thought thrilled her through and through:

“What do I care for his coming or going now? I shall soon be happy with my darling!”

She was wondrously beautiful this morning, even in the plain dark gown that simply served as a foil to her fairness. Everard Dawn could not help from seeing it, and saying to himself:

“What peerless beauty! No wonder Arthur Varian lost his head!”

He felt like groaning aloud, his sudden home-coming had precipitated him into such a tragic plight, for the task that lay before him was most bitter.

He could not help from seeing the pride and resentment in her eyes, and something moved him to say, apologetically:

“I dare say you have been vexed with me for staying away so long, Cinthia; but I have been working for you, trying to lay aside a little pile, so that you could enjoy your young ladyhood. You shall have pretty gowns and pleasures henceforth. Are you not glad?”

It cost him effort to say so much, but there was no gratitude in his daughter’s proud face, only a mutinous flash of the great dark eyes as she answered:

“I shall not need your belated kindness now.”

“What do you mean?” impatiently.

“Haven’t you told him, Aunt Beck, about—about—Arthur?” blushing vividly.

“Yes—yes, dear.”

Cinthia nodded her head at him with a mixture of childish triumph and womanliness.

“You see,” she said, proudly, “I am going to be married soon. I shall have a husband who will give me all I want—even,” bitterly, “the love I have missed all my life!” tears sparkling into her eyes under the curling lashes.

He felt the keen reproach deeply, and exclaimed, gently and sadly:

“Poor little Cinthia.”

“Not poor now,” she answered, quickly. “It is rich Cinthia now—rich in Arthur’s love and the certainty of a happy future.”

She meant to be scathing, poor, neglected, wounded Cinthia, but she could never guess how the words cut into his heart and tortured him with secret agony—he who meant to lay her love and hopes in ruins, to blight all the joys of her life by the exercise of a father’s privilege of breaking her will.

But no shadow crossed his face, no trouble was apparent in his manner as he laughed easily, and answered:

“Nonsense! you are scarcely more than a child yet—too young to be dreaming of marriage. I shall send you to school to complete your education before you can begin to think of lovers.”

“I will not go!” she said rebelliously, with startled eyes upon his inscrutable face.

“Cinthy!” reproved her aunt.

“I will not go!” the girl repeated, defiantly. “I shall marry Arthur, as I promised, before Christmas!”

She sprung from her seat and rushed to the window, drumming tempestuously upon the pane, her habit when greatly excited.

Outside the prospect was dreary. The débris of yesterday’s storm littered the ground, the limbs of some of the trees hung broken, the sun was hidden under clouds that hinted at snow.

Mrs. Flint whispered to her brother, apprehensively:

“I told you so. She has a rebellious will, and she thinks you have no authority over her now, because you stayed away so long.”

“She will find out better about that before long,” he answered, decisively, though the curious paleness of last night settled again upon his handsome face.

He went over and stood by Cinthia’s side.

“It will snow before to-morrow,” he said, quietly.

“Yes;” and she looked around at him with a flushed face, crying: “Oh, papa, you were jesting?”

“No. I can not give you to Arthur Varian, Cinthia. You must forget him, my dear child.”

“I can not, will not! I should die without him!” passionately.

“No, no, you will soon get over this fancy, for you have known Mr. Varian but a little time, and to-morrow I shall take you away from this place, and amid new surroundings you will forget the face that dazzled you here.”

“I will never forget Arthur, nor will I go away!” she protested.

“You can not set at naught a father’s authority, Cinthia.”

“I disclaim it, I defy it! You have given me neither love nor care, so you forfeit every right! Oh, I am sorry you ever came back here!” stormed the angry girl.

“Cinthy, Cinthy, come and help me with the work!” her aunt called, sharply; and she left him with the mien of an offended princess.

He took refuge in a cigar, and smoked moodily, till the click of the gate-latch made him look up, with a face working with emotion, at a handsome, elegantly clad young man walking up to the door.

Cinthia had gone upstairs to make the beds, and her aunt went to admit the caller.

In a minute she ushered him into the little sitting-room, saying nervously:

“Mr. Varian—my brother, Mr. Dawn.”

CHAPTER VII.
“THE FATES FORBID IT.”

Arthur Varian gave a slight start of surprise as he was presented to Mr. Dawn, but the latter, more prepared for the encounter, bowed with gracious courtesy, frankly shook hands with the visitor, and pushed forward a chair.

Then they looked at each other silently a moment, and that glance prepossessed each in favor of the other—a natural sequence for Arthur, since he guessed that his new acquaintance must be Cinthia’s father.

They conversed several moments on indifferent subjects, both rather grave and constrained, with a feeling of something serious in the air, then Arthur came to the point with manly frankness:

“I have found you here most opportunely this morning, Mr. Dawn. I came to see Mrs. Flint on a particular subject, but of course you are the proper person to consult,” ingratiatingly.

“Cinthia has already told me of your suit for her hand, Mr. Varian,” gently helping him out, as if anxious for it to be over.

“You know, then, that I love your daughter—that she has promised me her hand. I can give you every assurance, sir, of my possession of those requisites every good man wishes to find in a suitor for his daughter. I am rich, of the best blood of the South, my character irreproachable. May I hope to have your approval?”

He spoke diffidently, yet eagerly and with superb manliness, his dark-blue eyes shining with hope, his cheek glowing with honest pride that he had so much to offer to the lady of his choice. Without vanity, he knew that he was, in worldly parlance, an eligible parti. No thought of refusal crossed his mind.

Yet Everard Dawn was slow in replying to what many might have considered a compliment.

His eyes rested steadily and gravely on Cinthia’s lover, while his cheek paled to an ashen hue, and the hand that rested on his knee trembled as with an ague chill.

Arthur Varian noticed these signs of deep agitation, and attributed them to parental love. He added, gently:

“It seems cruel to harass you, almost in the first moment of your return, with this matter; but it is not as if I proposed taking Cinthia away from you immediately. We had planned for a Christmas wedding.”

“This is the first of November, Mr. Varian,” he reminded him, coldly.

“Yes, sir; so it would be almost two months before I took Cinthia away,” smilingly.

“My daughter is too young to marry yet. I came home to place her at a convent school in Canada for two years, not dreaming that she had notions of lovers in her childish head,” Everard Dawn continued, gravely.

“You see, sir, we have made other plans,” said Arthur, lightly, not taking him au serieux.

To his surprise, Mr. Dawn answered, frigidly:

“Of course, those plans made without my consent do not carry.”

Arthur began to grow excited by the portentous gravity of the other. He exclaimed, almost pleadingly:

“Mr. Dawn, you do not surely mean that you will make me wait two years for Cinthia?”

And to his utter horror and despair, the gentleman replied slowly, sadly, and gravely, as if every word cost him a pang:

“No, I do not wish you to wait for Cinthia, Arthur Varian, for the truth may as well be known to you first as last, cruel as it must seem at first. Believe me, I am sorry for your disappointment, and I hope your fancy for Cinthia has not taken very deep root, for—she can never be your wife.”

“Mr. Dawn!”

Arthur Varian sprung to his feet, and faced the speaker, with such a grief and amazement on his handsome face as might have melted the sternest heart.

“Mr. Dawn, you can not surely mean this refusal! What reasons could exist for deliberately wrecking two fond, loving hearts?”

“Unfortunately, the reasons exist; but such as they are, I can not explain them, Mr. Varian.”

Arthur cried out, eagerly:

“If you are offended at my impatience to claim Cinthia for my own, I will agree to wait the two years you mentioned, or even more. Nay, so deep and constant is my love, that I would rather serve seven years for her, as Jacob did for Rachel, than lose the dear hope of winning her at last for my own.”

Everard Dawn rose from his chair, and grasping the back, to still the great trembling of his frame, answered, with passionate energy:

“Arthur Varian, there can never be a marriage between you and my daughter. The fates forbid it, the unknown forces that control your life and hers cry out upon it. You must forget each other, for your love is the most ill-fated and hopeless the world ever knew. Arguments and entreaties are alike useless. You will believe that I am in terrible earnest when I tell you that I would sooner see my daughter dead than give her to you as a bride.”

“This is strange—passing strange, Mr. Dawn,” the young man uttered, indignantly, yet still not as angrily as might have been expected.

A subtle something about the man, with his grave, sad, handsome visage, claimed his respectful admiration, in spite of the mystery that surrounded his rejection of his daughter’s suitor.

“It is strange, but true,” answered Everard Dawn, wearily; and he added: “Do not let us prolong this most painful conversation. Nothing can change the decrees of relentless fate.”

Arthur felt himself politely dismissed, and turned toward the door.

“You will at least permit me a parting interview with Cinthia?” he murmured.

“You must forego it. It is better so. To-morrow she leaves this place with me forever. Your two lives must never cross again!”

With a heart full of pain, and anger, and silent rebellion, the young man bowed, and walked out of the house; but ere he reached the gate, he heard flying footsteps behind him, and turned to greet Cinthia, bareheaded and breathless, her cheeks pale, the tears hanging on the curly fringe of her dark lashes.

She clasped her tiny hands around his arm, reckless of her father’s eyes watching disapprovingly from the window, and murmured:

“Well?”

“He refuses his consent, Cinthia, and says he will take you away to-morrow where we shall never meet again.”

“Arthur, you will never let him do it; you will not forsake me if you love me!” wildly, passionately.

“My darling, you know I can not live without you! Would you elope with me?”

“Yes, yes!” she began, eagerly; but just then her father appeared at the door.

“Cinthia, you must come in out of the cold!” he called, sternly; and Arthur said:

“Go, my darling!”

CHAPTER VIII.
A DARK SECRET.

Cinthia did not obey. She only clung closer to her sorrowing lover.

“Oh, Arthur, don’t leave me! Take me home with you to your sweet, kind mother! I hate that man!” she sobbed in wild abandon.

Her father came down the walk toward them, and Arthur bent and whispered rapidly in her ear:

“Go in with him now, my own sweet love, for we can not defy him openly, we can only defeat him by strategy. Be brave, darling, for—I will come for you and take you away to-night.”

He kissed her, in spite of Mr. Dawn’s great eyes, and pushed her from him with gentle violence just as her father came out and took her hand.

“Come, Cinthia,” he said, with gentle firmness, and she followed, though she shook off his touch as though it had been a viper.

“Don’t touch me! I hate you—hate you!” she cried, like a little fury, her eyes flashing fire. “Do you think I will go with you to-morrow? Never—never! You have made my life empty of joy, and now you envy the sunshine that love has brought me! But you shall not part me from Arthur—no, no, no!” and desperately sobbing, she flung herself face downward on the floor.

He sought Mrs. Flint in terrible perturbation.

“Come, she is in hysterics!” he exclaimed, anxiously.

“I told you it would go hard with Cinthy,” she answered, curtly.

“Yes, I feared she would grieve; but, good Heaven! she is a little fury—all rage and rebellion, swearing she will not go with me to-morrow. She must be closely watched to-day, for there is no telling what such a desperate girl may do,” he said in alarm mixed with anger.

“Pshaw! she will simmer down when her fit of crying is over. I’ll get her upstairs and give her a soothing dose. Her temper-fits never last long, for Cinthy is a good child, after all, and I am sorry over her disappointment, she sets such store by love,” returned the old woman, in real sympathy for the girl and secret disapproval of his cold attitude to his neglected daughter.

He felt the implied reproach and answered, in weary self-excuse:

“Rebecca, I know you think me hard and cold, but my heart seems dead within me.”

“That is no excuse for neglect of duty,” she answered with telling effect as she went to the difficult task of soothing Cinthia and getting her upstairs to her room.

“A bitter home-coming!” he muttered, as he went out into the bleak morning air, with its scurrying flakes of threatening snow, to try to walk off some of his perturbation.

Somehow the dreary day dragged through to the drearier late afternoon.

Upstairs, Cinthia lay still and exhausted upon the bed after such a day of tears, and sobs, and passionate rebellion as Mrs. Flint hoped never to go through again.

Everard Dawn took his hat and great-coat, and set out for another long walk—this time in the direction of Arthur Varian’s home.

Had he repented his harshness? Was he going to recall Cinthia’s banished lover?

The air was keen with a biting east wind, the sky was gray with threatening clouds, and occasional light scurries of snow flew in his face and flecked his thick brown beard as he stepped briskly along, gazing over the low evergreen hedge at the beautiful grounds of the fine old estate he had refused for his daughter.

As he almost paused in his walk to gaze with deep interest at the picturesque old stone house, he saw a lady come out of a side-door and turn into an avenue of tall dark cedars that made a pleasant promenade, shutting off the rigorous wind very effectively.

He followed her progress with wistful eyes and tense lips.

It was indeed the stately mistress of the mansion. Wearying of its warmth and luxury, she had come out, wrapped in sealskin, for her favorite constitutional along the cedar avenue.

She walked slowly, with her hands behind her, and her large, flashing dark eyes bent on the ground, as if in profound thought.

Everard Dawn gazed eagerly after Mrs. Varian till she was lost to view among the cedars, then, searching for a gate in the hedge, he entered and turned his steps toward the avenue, so as to meet her on her lonely walk.

Slowly they came on toward each other, the echo of their footsteps dulled by the carpet of dead leaves, dank and sodden with last night’s rain, and the face of the man, with its gleaming eyes and deep pallor, bore signs of unusual agitation.

Suddenly the lowering clouds parted, and a dull sunset glow sent gleams of light down through the cedar boughs upon the sodden path. The woman lifted her large, passionate orbs to the sky.

Then she stopped short and uttered a startled cry.

She had caught sight of the advancing man, the intruder upon her grounds.

He removed his hat and stood bowing before her in the dying sunset glow, the light shining on his pallid face and the streaks of gray in his thick locks.

“Mrs. Varian!” he exclaimed.

“Everard Dawn!” she answered, in a hollow voice, and her eyes glowed like live coals among dead embers, so ashy-pale was her beautiful face.

Pressing her gloved hand upon her side, as if her heart’s wild throbbings threatened to suffocate her, she [called], hoarsely:

“Why are you here? How dare you face me, traitor?”

“I have not come to forgive you, Mrs. Varian, be sure of that!” he answered, sternly.

“You do well to talk of forgiveness—you!” she sneered, stamping the ground with her dainty foot.

“And—you—madame—would—do—well to crave it—not that it would ever be granted you, remember. Only angels could forgive injuries like mine!” the man answered, stormily, with upraised hand, as if longing to strike her down in her defiant beauty.

She did not shrink nor blanch, but her face was a picture of emotional rage, dead white against the setting of satin-black tresses and rich seal fur, her eyes flashing as only great oriental black eyes can flash, and her rare beauty of form showing to advantage as she drew herself haughtily erect, hissing out:

“Go, Everard Dawn! Take your hated form from my sight ere I summon my servants to drive you from the grounds!”

Turning, as if to put her threat into execution, she was arrested by a stern voice that said significantly:

“It is more to your interest to listen to me one moment, Mrs. Varian.”

She whirled back toward him again, saying, imperiously:

“Be brief, then, Everard Dawn, for you should know that it suffocates me to breathe the same air with such as you!”

Evidently there was some strange secret between this haughty pair, for he flashed her a glance of kindling scorn, as he returned:

“What I have to say needs but one sentence to assure you of its importance. Your son, Mrs. Varian, wishes to wed—my daughter!”

A hoarse, strangled cry, and she fell back against the trunk of a tree, clasping its great bole, as if to prevent herself from falling. Her face wore such a look of agony as if he had plunged a knife into her heart.

Everard Dawn impetuously started forward, as if to catch her in his arms—the natural impulse of manhood at seeing a woman suffer.

Then he suddenly remembered himself, and drew haughtily back, waiting for her to speak again; but she was silent several moments, gazing at him with the reproachful eyes of a wounded animal at bay.

Then she gasped, faintly:

“Is she—is she—that Cinthia Dawn?”

“Yes. Cinthia Dawn is my daughter,” finishing the unended sentence. “She lives here with my sister, and I came home last night, after being self-exiled for weary years, and found Arthur Varian and Cinthia plighted lovers. I have forbidden their love, and sent him away; but they are defiant and rebellious. I shall take her away to-morrow—but in the meantime I came to you, for you must help me to keep them apart.”

“I—oh, Heaven! what is there I can do?” she moaned, in piteous distress.

He looked at her in dead silence a moment, then answered, firmly:

“Cinthia is only a tender girl, and I will not have her young life blasted with the hideous truth. Arthur is a man, and if the dark secret that comes between their love must ever be divulged, it is to him alone it need be revealed. Will you charge yourself with this duty should he persist in his resolve to marry Cinthia?”

“If you asked me for all my fortune, I would rather give it you—but you are right. The duty is mine. I will not shirk it, though it slay me. Poor, poor Arthur!”

“That is well. I shall depend on you to curb his passion. Farewell, Mrs. Varian;” and with a lingering glance, he turned away just as the last sun-ray glimmered and faded in the west.

CHAPTER IX.
A BUNCH OF ROSES.

Cinthia had never spent such an unhappy day in the whole of her young life. She could not realize that only yesterday she had been railing at the monotony of existence.

It was only twenty-four hours later, and a tragedy of woe had overwhelmed her in its grim embrace.

Only yesterday she had been planning, and hoping, and wishing for some way to know Arthur Varian better, and now he was won, now he was her promised husband; and through all the bitterness of her father’s cruelty, that thought made glad her warm heart.

She had shed little rivers of tears, she had sulked at her father and aunt, she had refused to eat her dinner, and pouted among the pillows all day long; but through it all ran one thrilling thought, Arthur was coming to take her away to-night. He had promised, and she knew he would keep his word.

When her aunt went down about her household duties, she laughed to herself at the thought of outwitting those two—her cold-hearted aunt and her cruel father. The thought of their surprise, when they should find her gone in the morning was pure delight.

“There he goes now. I wish he would go and stay forever!” she cried, petulantly, as she heard the gate-latch click, and springing to the window, saw her father walking away into the gloomy distance.

She sat down and watched him out of sight, adding:

“He is very handsome and noble looking, and if he had treated me better, I should have learned to love him well. But now I hate and fear him, and I would die before I would go with him to-morrow. Dear, dear [Arthur], I hope nothing will prevent him from taking me away to-night.”

And while she was moping, her aunt came up with a magnificent bunch of roses, saying kindly:

“Cheer up now, Cinthy! Here’s a splendid big nosegay for you, and a box of French candy. I ’spose your pa sent it, because he went down into the town a while ago, and said he’d get you a present.”

“I don’t want any of his presents! Take them away!” Cinthia answered, angrily.

“Don’t be a little fool, Cinthy. I’m getting out of patience with your airs,” Mrs. Flint returned, severely, putting down the gifts and slamming the door as she stalked out.

Cinthia loved flowers dearly, and the scent of the roses wooed her to caress them presently, burying her face in the fragrant red and white beauties.

A note hidden among them scratched the tip of her nose, and she drew it out with a cry of wonder.

It was from Arthur Varian, and ran thus:

“I have thought it all over, darling, and I think the only way for us is to elope to Washington to-night and be married. I do not like to steal a man’s daughter away from him this way, but his obstinacy leaves us no other hope, and as there is really no reason to prevent our marrying, I hope he will soon be reconciled. No doubt, mother will help us to bring him around afterward, she is so very clever. And I shall not let her into the secret of to-night, so that he can not accuse her of connivance in our plans. I will be waiting near your house with a carriage at twelve o’clock to-night, and you must slip out and join me. Then it is only two miles to the station, and away we go on the midnight train to Washington. Keep up your courage, my sweet love, for we are going to be the happiest pair in the world.

“Arthur.”

Cinthia refused to go down to supper, and made a meal of sweetmeats. The hours between dark and midnight seemed endless. She heard her aunt retire to her room at an early hour, and her father later on. The house was wrapped for an hour in profound silence, then she heard the hall-clock chiming twelve.

Cinthia was all ready, even to her hat and jacket, her face pale with eagerness, her heart throbbing wildly. She stepped to the door and turned the knob. Horrors! it did not yield to her touch. They had suspected her and locked her into the room.

An impulse came to her to shriek aloud in her wrath and defiance, and to try and batter down the door and escape; but a timely thought restrained her, and she drew back from the temptation, her eyes flaming luridly, her temper raging.

“They shall not baffle us, the cunning wretches! Arthur, my love, I am coming to you, though the whole world oppose!” she cried, wildly, rushing to the window and throwing up the sash.

It had been snowing steadily for hours, though she did not know it. As she leaned out into the darkness a great gust of wind and big swirling flakes of snow stormed into the room, blowing out the light and clasping her in a cold embrace.

CHAPTER X.
A FEMININE WEAKNESS.

In the small compass of thy clasping arms,

In reach and sight of thy dear lips and eyes,

There, there, for me the joy of Heaven lies.

Outside, lo! chaos, terrors, wild alarms,

And all the desolation fierce and fell

Of void and aching nothingness makes hell.

—Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

The night was black as Erebus, the wind cut like a knife, and the air was full of blinding snow that must have been falling for hours, it was banked so heavily against the window-ledge, almost freezing Cinthia’s hands as they plunged into it on leaning forward, for though she gasped and caught her breath as the wild elements blew in her face and tried to beat her back, she did not recoil from her fixed purpose, which was to drop out upon the top of the porch and climb down to the ground by the aid of a honeysuckle vine that wreathed over the trellis frame at one end. The icy blast that shrieked in her ears was not enough to chill the fiery ardor of her resentment at her father, and the yearning of her heart for the dear lover from whom she feared to be separated forever.

Her tender young heart went out to him with an intensity of feeling as she peered out into the stormy darkness of the night, wondering if he was there waiting, and if he was growing impatient at her delay.

“Ah, my love,” she murmured, impetuously, “I am coming to you—coming! Neither bolts nor bars, nor storm nor darkness, nor anything under Heaven, shall keep us apart!”

The wind whistled past the eaves and seemed to take on an almost human voice of sorrowing, as though it echoed those dismal words: “Shall keep us apart, shall keep us apart!”

Cinthia caught her breath and listened, it was so strange, that almost human wail of the wind sighing through the great pine tree on the corner. It seemed to be sobbing: “Apart, apart!”

“How mournful it sounds!” she uttered, in an awe-stricken tone; then she climbed through the window and dropped with a dull thud out on the porch. Mrs. Flint heard the sound in her adjoining room, and muttered, drowsily:

“It is the snow sliding down from off the roof.”

Cinthia crawled to edge of the porch, and felt out carefully for the thick mat of the honeysuckle.

She knew she was making a desperate venture, but she said to herself, bitterly, that desperate emergencies require desperate remedies.

With infinite care and patience she managed to get hold of the strong matted vines, and swung herself carefully over the trellis, beginning to make the perilous descent with bated breath, for a fall might mean a broken limb, or, at the least, a sprained ankle.

The wet snow clung to her face and garments and chilled her to the bone; but she persevered, though the high wind threatened to loosen her hold and blow her down every instant. What did she care for it all, poor Cinthia fleeing from her dull life and her hated persecutors to the tender arms of love? She would endure anything rather than be cheated of her happiness.

The cold snow flecked her benumbed face and hands, the high wind swung her light form to and fro like a flower upon the vine, her breath seemed to freeze on her lips, but her courage never flagged. Out there in the night and the storm her lover was waiting. The thought kept her young heart warm.

She was more than half-way down now, and the wind began to lull. Courage, Cinthia; the danger will soon be over, sweetheart, and love rewarded for its brave struggles.

But, alas! how often bathos overcomes pathos.

Cinthia was only a girl, after all, with the usual feminine attributes.

As she swung herself carefully from branch to branch of the vine, hoping and longing for her feet to touch terra firma, yet sustained by unfaltering courage, there came to her a sudden wild and terrifying thought that made the blood run colder in her veins than all the raging storm had force to do.

She had remembered that of late the immense vine to which she clung had afforded a delightful gymnasium for a score or so of large rodents, causing her aunt to threaten to cut it down.

The feminine mind has one idiosyncrasy known of all men, and accordingly ridiculed, but never overcome. Cinthia did not pretend to be stronger than her sex. With that sudden terrifying thought an uncontrollable shriek burst from her lips, her numb hands relaxed their grasp, and she went crashing down through space plump into a great, great bank of drifted snow blown into a heap below the vine.

Everard Dawn heard that shriek as he tossed on his pillow in restless dreams, and suddenly raised his head.

“What a night!” he cried, for he had been watching the storm ere he retired. “How the wind howls to-night, shrieking like a human voice through that splendid pine on the corner! How I used to love the wind in the pines in my far Southern home until—afterward! But since then it is an embodied grief to me, as in the plaint of one of our Southern poets:

“‘I hear the wind in the pines

With its soughing of wordless woe,

And the whisper of leafless vines,

Like a sad heart’s overflow.

Sigh on! they seem to say,

Sigh on, sad heart, to the night,

For the world is cold and gray,

And life has no delight.’”

He listened with his head on his arm but the wind had lulled for the moment, and the strangely human shriek he had heard began to affect him very unpleasantly.

“Was it really the wind?” he began to ask himself, wondering if it might not be an hysterical shriek of his rebellious daughter.

“Poor little Cinthia, God help her!” he uttered, sadly, and rising from his bed, began to dress hurriedly. “I will go and see if there is anything wrong,” he muttered.

He had been very angry when he returned at dusk from his strange interview with the scornful Mrs. Varian, and heard from his worried sister about the flowers and candy she had taken up to Cinthia.

“How is my little girl now?” he asked, anxiously, and started when she replied:

“She is in a dreadful temper, and when I took up the flowers and candy you sent her, she ordered me to throw them away.”

“Did you do it?”

“No; I told her not to be a little fool, put them down on the table, and came away.”

“Rebecca, I fear you have made a grave mistake. I did not send Cinthia anything. I intended to purchase a gift for her, but—I was—so troubled—I quite forgot it.”

Mrs. Flint studied a moment, then frankly admitted that the boy who brought the flowers had not said Mr. Dawn sent them, in fact, had merely said, “For Miss Cinthia,” and she had jumped at the conclusion that they came from her brother.

“They must have come from Arthur Varian. I take this very ill of him after what I said to him this morning,” angrily. “Are you sure,” he continued, “that no letter accompanied the flowers?”

“I did not see any,” the old lady replied, uneasily.

Everard Dawn was more versed in the ways of romantic lovers than his prosaic sister, so he said, with a troubled air:

“You may be sure that a sentimental note accompanied the gift, and they may possibly have planned an elopement this very night. I desire that you will lock her door on the outside without her knowledge when you retire to-night.”

“Very well,” she replied, and obeyed him to the letter.

Recalling all this, the thought came to him that perhaps Cinthia, finding her door locked, was indulging herself in a fit of hysterics.

“God help us all,” he sighed, as he finished dressing; and, taking his night-lamp, stole upstairs to listen outside her door.

But all was still as death at first, then the wind rose again, and he heard strange noises within the room. It was, in fact, the wind rushing through the window and banging things about in confusion.

He went and tapped on Mrs. Flint’s door, and she soon confronted him in her cap and gown, exclaiming:

“I thought I heard creaking steps in the hall. What is the matter? Are you ill, Everard?”

“No; but I fancied I heard strange noises from Cinthia’s room. Did you notice anything?”

“I heard the snow sliding off the roof, and the wind shrieking in the branches of that great pine out there. It always sounds so human in a storm, that I would cut it down only that Deacon Flint set store by it. He said he planted it when he was a little boy. But I will go in and peep at Cinthia just to ease your mind, Everard. ’Sh-h! we must not wake her if she is asleep,” turning the knob with a cautious hand and opening wide the door.

Whew! how the cold air rushed in her face and thrust her back. By the light that Everard carried she saw the window wide open and the snow-flakes flying in on the carpet.

“Why, how strange that the window should be open. Cinthia must be crazy. Wait till I shut it, Everard, and bring in the light,” she ejaculated.

He obeyed, and when he entered, they saw what had happened. The room was empty and Cinthia was gone.

Mrs. Flint could not believe it at first. She ran all about the room, and then all over the house, crying in wild dismay:

“Cinthia! Cinthia! Cinthia! where are you hiding, honey?”

But no reply came back, and very soon the unhappy father found out the truth. She had actually escaped by way of the window. Securing a lantern from the kitchen, he went out for a short while, and returned with a very accurate report.

She had slid down the honeysuckle vine to the ground, and there were tracks in the snow leading to a sleigh that had been in waiting not far away. The marks of the runners were quite distinct, in spite of the drifting snow.

“She has eloped with Arthur Varian. I must follow and bring them back,” he said, with terrible calmness.

“Yes, for I found the letter that must have come with the flowers blowing about the floor of her room,” she answered, giving it to him.

He read it, groaned bitterly, and thrust it into his pocket.

“I must pursue them,” he said again. “Tell me where to find [the] nearest livery stable, Rebecca.”

“It is half a mile,” she said, giving him clear directions, but adding: “Oh, Everard, you will not venture out in such a storm. You may catch your death of cold!”

“You know not what you talk of, my sister. I would rather catch my death, as you say, than permit Arthur Varian to marry Cinthia Dawn!” he hurled back at her, hoarsely, as he rushed from the house out into the night and storm.

CHAPTER XI.
CINTHIA’S ELOPEMENT.

Meanwhile Cinthia’s fall and shriek had been heard by other alert ears—no less than Arthur Varian’s, who had been waiting impatiently in the shadow of the trees for ten minutes, wondering whether Cinthia would come or not, fearing lest the fury of the storm should daunt her courage and hold her back.

With his eager eyes on her window, he presently saw the sash fly up and Cinthia’s beautiful face and form outlined against the background of the lighted room. The next moment the gale blew in and extinguished the lamp and darkened the beautiful picture.

But in that moment he saw enough to relieve his fears. Cinthia wore her hat and jacket ready for traveling. She was coming to him, his brave little darling, and out yonder waited a swift horse and sleigh, and plenty of cozy buffalo robes to shelter her from the cold in their swift drive to the station.

He advanced to the gate and stood with his eyes fixed on the door, eager to give her a joyous welcome when she appeared, lest the thick darkness frighten her back.

Then his ears caught the soft thud on the top of the porch, and, like Mrs. Flint, he thought at first it might be snow sliding off the roof.

The wind arose with a great bang and clatter among the loose shutters, deadening the sound of the branches as Cinthia swung herself off the vine and began her descent to the ground, while her eager lover strained his eyes through the thick darkness, watching the door to see her come.

Then suddenly the wind lulled so that he could catch his breath, and he heard a soft rustling in the vines, as if they strained under a dead weight.

“Heavens! what is that?” he muttered, with a half suspicion of the truth; and, tearing open the gate, he rushed across the yard through the wet, impeding snow, already half a foot deep, to the corner of the house just as Cinthia shrieked and fell into the little bank of drifted snow so soft and cold.

With a bound, Arthur was by her side, stretching out eager hands, crying, in a passion of love and grief:

“Cinthia, dearest, are you hurt?”

He reached down and gathered her up like a child in his strong arms.

“Oh, my love—my treasure! What a terrible risk you ran for me! Tell me if you are hurt!”

She whispered nervously against his breast:

“I don’t think I am, only frightened almost to death. I thought—thought—every bone—would be broken—but the snow was as soft as a feather bed! Oh, let us get away, Arthur, before they hear us! You may carry me if you will—I am trembling so,” her teeth chattering so that she could scarcely speak.

“That’s what I meant to do,” Arthur replied, managing to find her face somehow in the darkness and imprint a kiss upon it ere he strode away with her to the sleigh, and tucked her in among the robes so that not a breath of cold could reach her, while he kept up her courage with the tenderest words, assuring her that she should never repent trusting herself to him.

“Oh, how dark it is! How shall you find your way along the dark country road?” she cried in alarm.

“Don’t you see my sleigh-lamps? Besides, I know the road well. I shall have to drive slowly, but that will not matter, as there is no one in pursuit, and the train is not due till one o’clock,” returned Arthur, confidently, as he seated himself, took the reins, and chirruped to his fleet pony.

Cinthia snuggled up to his side, and sobbed and laughed hysterically till he almost exhausted the whole vocabulary of love-words before she said:

“Oh, Arthur, I must tell you why I fell, and you will not call me your brave little heroine any more, but only the greatest coward in the world!”

And the wicked young elopers, flying through the storm and darkness of night toward the happy haven of marriage, laughed together till they almost forgot their surroundings at Cinthia’s sudden fear, while vowing but a moment before to fly to Arthur though the whole world oppose.

“To be frightened at the thought of a rat—not at a rat, but just the bare thought of touching one lurking in the vines—was it not utterly ridiculous?” she queried, though not at all sure but that she would do the same thing again.

Arthur could only laugh at her confession, and rejoice that she had sustained no hurt from her fall, so they sped along through the night and storm, each very, very happy in their youthful love, and confident of forgiveness from the obdurate father when he should learn that they were married.

“We shall be in Washington by breakfast-time to-morrow, and we’ll go at once to a minister and have the ceremony over. Then we will telegraph your father and my mother that we are one, and that we shall spend our honey-moon North,” said the young man, planning everything happily without a thought of failure.

“Papa will be simply furious!” laughed Cinthia; “but he can not take me away from you and send me off to school, thank Heaven, as he proposed to do. And as for his forgiveness, I feel quite indifferent to it. I don’t care if I never see his face again. But your mother—what will she say, Arthur? Perhaps she preferred for you to marry some beautiful rich girl?” anxiously.

Arthur squeezed her to his side with one free arm, as he replied, gayly:

“Don’t worry over that, love, for my mother was so charmed with your beauty and sweetness last night, that I felt sure she would be glad to have you for a daughter, so I made bold to propose to you on the way to your house, and told her all about it at breakfast this morning. Dear heart, she has never crossed a wish of mine since I was born, and she said I had taken her by surprise, but she would give me her blessing, and did not care how soon we set the wedding-day, it would be so pleasant to have a young girl in the house. Was she not a darling? So when I came to ask for your hand this morning, and your father snubbed me so cruelly, I did not have the heart to go back to her then, for I feared she might not countenance an elopement, the Varians are so proud. I stayed away, making arrangements for our flitting, and sent her a note that I had gone off on a sudden trip, and would wire particulars. But, bless you, she will be all right when she hears we are married, though she will never forgive your father for crossing the will of her spoiled boy.”

Laughing and chatting happily in the joy of being together they drove along very slowly, for fear of an accident, and because Arthur thought they had plenty of time to reach the station.

But suddenly and most inexplicably, the gentle little pony began to balk, starting backward so quickly as to almost throw the occupants out of the sleigh.

At the same time it began to neigh in a frightened way, requiring all of Arthur’s skill to reassure it.

Trembling violently and neighing distressfully, it stood still in the road, refusing to budge forward an inch.

“He is frightened, poor fellow, at some little obstruction in the road. I had better get out and remove it,” said Arthur, giving Cinthia the reins, and springing out into the snow.

Giving the trembling pony a reassuring pat and word, he passed him and went on to examine the road.

Cinthia heard him cry out in alarm and wonder as he stooped down.

“Oh, what is it?” she exclaimed, curiously.

“Cinthia, there is a human being lying here unconscious in the snow—a woman!”

“Oh, heavens!”

“What shall we do?” continued Arthur, distressfully.

“Oh, Arthur, we must take her into the sleigh with us and carry her to the station! Oh, how terrible to fall down unconscious in the snow on such a wild night!” cried Cinthia, beginning to sob with sympathy, the cold air turning the tears into pearls upon her cheeks.

Without more ado, Arthur dragged the inert form up out of the snow, and staggering under the heavy weight of a large, unconscious woman, managed to deposit his burden in the bottom of the sleigh, after which he got in himself, saying, as he took up the reins:

“I am sorry this happened, because it will draw upon us undesirable notoriety at the station; but it can not be helped now, and I must hasten on, for I have driven so slowly that we have not much time to spare.”

But just as they started off, he caught the sudden sound of sleigh bells and the neigh of a horse quickly gaining on them, as a loud, angry voice thundered:

“Halt, or I fire! Choose death or instant surrender!”

CHAPTER XII.
OUTWITTED.

As nearly hopeless as Everard Dawn’s pursuit of the fugitives had appeared even to himself when he began it, he had succeeded better than he could have expected.

His only hope had been to catch them at the station before the arrival of the train; but, owing to Arthur’s careful driving in the storm, and the stoppage to take in the woman found unconscious in the road, he had overtaken them while yet half a mile from the station.

He had run all the way to the livery stable, and as soon as a sleigh was furnished, leaped in and drove off at the highest speed possible in the condition of the weather, his mind wrought to the highest tension of trouble, rendering him unconscious of personal danger. As the horse trotted briskly along, under the urging of voice and whip, the light sleigh rocked from side to side, almost overturning twice, but eventually gaining on Arthur’s horse, until he perceived the stoppage in the road by the light that streamed from Arthur’s lamps upon the snow.

He heard their voices blending with the wind, he saw something lifted into the sleigh, and wondered if his daughter had fallen out. Then, as Arthur leaped in and chirruped to his pony, he rose in his seat and shouted furiously:

“Halt, or I fire! Choose between death or instant surrender!”

And to emphasize his words, he instantly fired into the air, making both their horses snort and rear with terror.

Arthur’s only reply was to touch his horse with the whip, making it bound furiously forward.

A most unequal race ensued, Arthur’s sleigh being encumbered with the weight of three, while Mr. Dawn was quite alone.

One, two, three minutes, and Mr. Dawn’s horse flashed past Arthur’s. Then he drove across the front of the road, shouting, hoarsely:

“Stop! There will be a collision!”

Cinthia had slipped down senseless in her seat, and nothing but surrender was possible now. With a silent curse at his evil fate, Arthur pulled the lines, forcing his plunging pony to a stand-still, as Everard Dawn continued, menacingly:

“I do not wish to harm you, Mr. Varian, but you must give me back my daughter!”

Arthur felt like a coward, but he realized that no other course was possible now. With a groan, he answered:

“I would rather part with my life than this dear girl, Mr. Dawn. Oh, think a moment, before you sunder our loving hearts, of the despair you are bringing into both our lives!”

Everard Dawn drove back to the side of the sleigh where Arthur waited, and said, sternly:

“Cinthia!”

“She is unconscious, sir.”

“Ah, then, it was Cinthia you lifted into the sleigh. Is she hurt?”

“It was not Cinthia, but an unconscious woman I found in the road.”

“If Cinthia is unconscious, so much the better. We will have no scene with her in transferring her to my charge, and she will not hear what I must say to you.”

“Speak on, sir,” Arthur answered most bitterly in his keen resentment. And Mr. Dawn began:

“I think very hardly of you, Arthur Varian, for disregarding my words to you this morning. I said frankly to you that reasons of the gravest import forbid the marriage of yourself and Cinthia.”

“I had a right to be informed of those reasons, sir,” Arthur said, hotly.

“Say you so? Then go to your mother, Arthur Varian, and ask of her the reason why my daughter can never be your wife!”

Arthur started in surprise that this man should know aught of his mother, but answered, quickly:

“She can not know anything against it, since only this morning she gave her pleased consent.”

“She knows better now; and I say again, go to her and ask her for the truth,” replied Everard Dawn, as he stepped out of the sleigh to take possession of Cinthia.

Arthur was before him. He lifted the inanimate form in his arms, and kissed the cold, white face in despairing love before he resigned her to the impatient father’s arms.

“Ah, you can not surely guess of what a priceless treasure you are robbing me, Mr. Dawn! May Heaven judge between us whether you have been merciful to me!” he cried, reproachfully.

“I rest my cause with Heaven,” Mr. Dawn answered, reverently, as he placed Cinthia in the sleigh, covered her with warm robes, and drove away with a cold good-night to the young man, who continued his course to the station as fast as he could urge his horse to go.

In his agony of grief at losing his beautiful, promised bride, and in hot resentment of what he deemed hardness of heart in her father, Arthur Varian had yielded without reflection upon the baseness of it, to a sudden, overmastering temptation.

His caresses and emotion on handing the unconscious woman to Mr. Dawn had been simply a superb bit of acting. It was the poor waif of the road he had placed in the arms of Everard Dawn, thus completely outwitting the unhappy father while he drove rapidly on to the station, hoping to board the train before his deception was discovered.

In a moment the few scattering midnight lights of the railway town began to appear, and Cinthia gasped and opened her eyes, beginning to sob with alarm:

“Oh, oh, oh!”

“It is all right, darling. We have distanced our pursuers,” said Arthur, cheerfully. “And here we are at the station, and the train is coming. We have not time to go into the waiting-room.”

He helped her out, and called a negro boy, to whom he intrusted his sleigh, telling him to return it to Idlewild next day, and pressing a liberal reward into his willing hand.

Then he helped the bewildered Cinthia aboard the train and led her at once to a stove, saying, tenderly:

“Warm yourself, my darling, while I try to secure seats in the parlor car.”

“It is very unfortunate, indeed,” said the conductor, “but the Pullman sleeper is crowded. Only one berth was vacant when they came into the station, and it has just been engaged by a lady en route for New York.”

The lady had indeed just taken possession of her berth, brushing haughtily past without taking notice of either. Neither did Arthur notice her, or he would have seen with surprise that it was his own mother. Deeply chagrined that he could not get quarters for Cinthia in the parlor car, he returned to her side, and they spent the hours very happily till morning.

CHAPTER XIII.
OH, WHAT A NIGHT!

All unconscious of the deception that had been practiced on him, Everard Dawn drove briskly back to his home, making no effort to restore Cinthia, and, in fact, rather hoping that her unconsciousness would last until he could place her in Mrs. Flint’s care. In common with most men, he had a holy horror of sensational scenes, and shrunk from hearing his daughter’s reproaches when she should revive and find herself so cruelly sundered from her lover.

So he made haste to reach home, and his thoughts on the way were most sad and bitter, for in this man’s past was a tragedy of sorrow that might have driven a weaker man to cut loose the bonds of unbearable life with his own hands and hurl himself recklessly into the great unknown future beyond.

With his return to his sister’s house, everything had rushed back upon him like the swell of some great river, and seared wounds had been opened afresh, bleeding in secret beneath his outward calmness. However handsome and prosperous he appeared to the outward eye, no man could have envied Everard Dawn, having looked once into his tortured heart and seen its secrets laid bare.

Mrs. Flint was watching and listening for him, and as soon as the sleigh stopped, she seized a lantern, and bundling herself in a shawl, rushed out to the gate.

Springing out and fastening the lines to a post, he said, triumphantly:

“I overtook them, Rebecca, and Cinthia fainted with fear. I brought her back in that condition, thus escaping a scene in the sleigh. I will carry her in, and you can revive her at your leisure, while I return the sleigh to the stable.”

He lifted out the form, carefully shrouded in a large, warm robe, and, almost staggering under the burden, followed the lead of his sister into the sitting-room, depositing it on the long sofa, panting:

“Cinthia looked so slender, I did not suppose she was so heavy. My arms fairly ache. Now do you revive her, Rebecca, and soothe the poor girl as tenderly as you can until I return presently.”

“Well, I declare, I never saw such an unfeeling father in my life! There he rushes off again, without so much as glancing at her face to see if she is dead or alive. He doesn’t seem to bear one bit of love for the poor, neglected girl, and I wish in my heart she had got away with Arthur Varian and married him, that I do!” ejaculated the old lady, as she heard her brother drive away, her usually cold heart melting with sympathy for the hapless girl over whom she bent, drawing aside the folds of the heavy robe from her face, adding, sharply: “And a pretty how-d’ye-do there’ll be when she revives and finds herself parted from her lover. Not that I believe he can keep them apart, for there’s an old saying that true love always finds a way, and——Oh, my goodness gracious, what in the world——!”

With that dismayed exclamation, the Widow Flint dropped the corner of the robe, and recoiled as if she had encountered a nest of serpents.

It was not quite so bad as that, but she certainly had good reason for her surprise and dismay.

For instead of her beautiful niece, slender, golden-haired Cinthia, there lay a large woman of middle age, shabbily attired, with a pinched face, whose cadaverous hue was outlined by long, straggling locks of jet-black hair.

“Dead!” cried Mrs. Flint, in horror; and the shock to her nerves was so great that she rushed from the room and banged open the front door, calling wildly down the road: “Everard! Everard! Come back!”

But the homeless wind and vagrant snow blew mockingly in her face, and no other sound came back, so she knew it was all in vain to stand there shouting for one who could not hear.

She went in and shut the door, groaning loudly:

“What a night—what a night—and what a mistake Everard has made, or is he only playing a foolish joke on me? Who is the woman, anyway? I never saw her face in these parts before.”

And presently conquering her terror, she stole back into the room for a second look.

The strange intruder lay there speechless, motionless, as if life had indeed fled from her body. Mrs. Flint ventured to touch her hand, and it felt like ice.

“She is frozen to death!” she muttered, pityingly. “Oh, how I wish Everard would return and explain this mysterious thing. I had better feel her heart. Why, it seems to beat faintly, poor creature! I wish I knew just what to do to bring her to life, for this is just awful! Oh, what a night!”

But, leaving poor Mrs. Flint to her dazed condition and perplexity, we must follow the eloping couple as their train rushed on through the night and darkness to Washington.

They had spent several happy hours together on the train, heedless of the other passengers, who mostly slept or talked together, apparently taking slight notice of the young pair who sat apart conversing with shy dignity and permitting themselves no slightest caresses, such as might have drawn ready ridicule upon their love.

Almost before they realized it, the day dawned, and the train rushed into the city on time at eight o’clock.

Arthur took a carriage, and he and his bride to be were driven to a hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, where he always stopped when visiting the city.

Calling the proprietor aside, he said, in his most genial fashion:

“As I have known you a long time, sir, I wish to say that I desire to be married to the young lady who accompanies me before I register our names. Can you send out for the nearest minister?”

The host congratulated him, and answered laughingly:

“Cupid never was in such luck before, for the Reverend Doctor Sprague is in the office at this moment, having called in to inquire about a subscription for his new church. You will both please step into the parlor, and I will bring him there in a jiffy!”

Cinthia was all in a tremor now.

“Must I not even bathe my face and brush my hair first?” she queried, clinging to him.

“No, love, not till the little ceremony is over. I can not rest till I know you are mine and out of your father’s power,” Arthur cried, ardently. “And, see, there is the minister! Be brave, love; it will all be over in a moment.”

“Doctor Sprague—Mr. Varian and his intended bride. I am to be the best man, and give the bride away,” said the host, genially; and the minister bowed, and opened his book, saying:

“I should like two witnesses, please. Perhaps that lady looking out of the window will oblige us.”

CHAPTER XIV.
PARTED AT THE ALTAR.

Doctor Sprague, the minister, had noticed on entering that a tall, stately lady in a long traveling-wrap stood at one of the windows, looking down absently on the busy avenue.

It was, in fact, Mrs. Varian, who had arrived but a few minutes ago, and was waiting in the parlor until her room should be made ready.

Tortured by a cruel unrest after her interview of the evening before with Everard Dawn, she had decided to leave Idlewild for a few days, until after he went away with his daughter.

Her mind was quite easy over the breaking up of the untoward love affair, as Arthur had written her a note earlier in the day, saying he was off on a short trip with a friend, and would wire particulars to-morrow.

On learning from Mr. Dawn that he had rejected Arthur’s suit for his daughter’s hand, she guessed readily enough that her boy had gone away to drown his sorrow. She was glad of this, believing that change of scene is a great panacea for hopeless grief.

Acting on this idea herself, she determined to make a short journey to Washington, and perhaps New York, in the hope of obliterating from her mind certain painful impressions produced, or, rather, renewed on it by the encounter with Everard Dawn at Idlewild.

The man’s face and voice haunted her and brought back memories fraught with pain. To escape them, she had fled from her home that stormy night to seek “respite and nepenthe.”

“I would not dig my past

Up from its grave of weakness and regret,

Up from its hopes that glimmered but to set,

Its dreams that did not last.”

Absorbed in painful thought, she had not observed the entrance of any one until the raised voice of the minister made her look over her shoulder in cold inquiry:

“I shall need two witnesses, please. Perhaps that lady looking out of the window would oblige us.”

Then the host advanced toward her, saying, courteously:

“Madame, will you honor us by becoming the witness to a ceremony of marriage?”

Mrs. Varian inclined her proud, dark head in assent, and moved gracefully forward toward the young couple who stood before the minister, the girl bashful and trembling, the man pale, but with an eager smile on his handsome face.

The next moment a startled cry rang on the air.

“Arthur!”

The young man dropped Cinthia’s hand and looked around.

“Mother!” in surprise.

“Oh, Arthur! what is the meaning of this strange scene?” she cried, coming up between him and Cinthia.

The young man laughed easily, soon getting over his surprise, and answered:

“It means, mother, that Mr. Dawn refused to give me Cinthia, so we took the bit between our teeth and ran away. But how came you here? You did not pursue us, did you, dear?”

“No, no; for I did not dream of this. I made up my mind last night to come to Washington on a little—business trip while you were away. When—when—did you arrive?”

“Just a few minutes ago. And I thought we had better get married before we registered, or even had breakfast, for fear Mr. Dawn might be on our track.”

“We must have traveled on the same train. How strange we did not meet—how fortunate that we meet now!” she cried, with almost tragic emphasis.

“Yes, mother, for now you can witness our marriage and give us your blessing. Cinthia, dear, shake hands with my mother.”

Cinthia put out a little trembling hand, and looked timidly out of the corner of her drooping eyes at the beautiful lady.

She met a cold glance, and the hand that just touched hers without the slightest pressure was icy.

“Are you ready now?” asked the minister, again opening his book.

“Yes,” answered Arthur, taking Cinthia’s hand, and turning to him eagerly.

But there came a low, heart-wrung cry from the mother’s lips:

“Wait!”

All turned toward her in surprise.

Her eyes were like coals of fire, her face wore a bluish pallor, her very lips were white as she uttered, hoarsely:

“I beg pardon, but the ceremony must not go on—until—until—I speak—to—Arthur!”

Every word came jerkily between the pallid lips, and her outstretched hand clutched Arthur’s arm.

“Come with me—let me speak to you alone!” she implored.

Every one realized that she was laboring under the most terrible agitation. It seemed plain to all that she meant to forbid the marriage.

Arthur frowned at her—the son whose wishes she had never thwarted—and exclaimed, impatiently:

“Can you not wait till the ceremony is over? Remember, Mr. Dawn may come at any moment.”

“No—I can not wait! Come,” eagerly, “I will not detain you long. Miss Dawn, will you not wait here just a few moments while—I—I—tell Arthur—the truth?”

“Go, Arthur,” answered the girl, faintly; and she sunk upon a chair, trembling in every limb, sure in her heart that something was going to happen.

Mrs. Varian was angry with her—she was sure. How coldly she had looked at her, how reluctantly she had touched her hand with icy fingers!

Mrs. Varian dragged Arthur away with her to her own room, and then the genial host said kindly, in sympathy for the suffering girl:

“I will send a maid to show you to a room to rest, Miss Dawn, while you are waiting for your friends.”

“Oh, I thank you,” she answered, gratefully, desperately glad to be alone.

When she was gone, the minister said, uneasily:

“I do not believe there is any use in my waiting. There will be no marriage if that proud Mrs. Varian can have her own way.”

“You are right,” returned the host. “I could see plainly that she intended to break off the marriage. I believe that she pursued them here, instead of just meeting them by accident, as she pretended. I never heard of such a coincidence. I suppose the girl is poor, as her clothing was plain and cheap, and the mother and son are rich. In fact, I know they are, because the young fellow has stayed here several times before and he throws money about like a young prince.”

“He said that her father had refused him her hand, so he must be a very black sheep, as poor men are usually glad to welcome a rich son-in-law,” said the minister; adding: “I believe I had better go, if you think I shall not be needed. I am sorry for that sweet young girl, for I am sure that proud lady will show her no mercy.”

“If you are needed, I will send to the parsonage for you, but it would be a surprise to me if the marriage comes off now,” the host said, candidly.

So presently the minister went away, rather disappointed at losing the expected liberal wedding fee.

Cinthia locked herself into the luxurious room, and laid aside her hat and jacket, so that she might bathe her face and neck, and brush out the golden waves of her beautiful hair.

When she had finished, she gazed at herself in the long mirror, and saw an exquisitely beautiful young creature, although her face was pale, and there were dark circles under her heavy eyes, caused by the excitement and emotion of the last thirty-six hours.

She sunk into a large easy-chair, and waited, with a wildly throbbing heart, for the end of the interview between Arthur and his mother.

She had a lurking presentiment of evil. It had fallen on her at the touch of Mrs. Varian’s cold hand, and the strange glance of her eyes—so different from her sweet friendliness the night she had been her guest at Idlewild.

Yet Arthur had said his mother was pleased at their engagement. What could it all mean?

The lids drooped over her tired young eyes, and in spite of her anxiety, weariness overcame her, and she fell into a heavy sleep—so she did not have to undergo the suspense of waiting, for more than half an hour passed away before there came a low, half-deprecating rap upon the door.

It startled Cinthia, and she sprung awake, looking about her in confusion, before she comprehended her position.

The rap came again, and a little impatiently, so she hastily opened the door to Mrs. Varian, saying:

“Pardon me if I have kept you waiting. I was fatigued with travel, and fell asleep.”

CHAPTER XV.
“AN ETERNAL FAREWELL!”

“I am glad you could sleep,” Mrs. Varian answered, as she stepped across the threshold and confronted the lovely girl whose heart she was about to wound so cruelly.

But, somehow, she did not shrink from the task for a change had come over her feelings toward Cinthia, and she experienced a sort of fierce pleasure in the task now before her. In a way, it would be taking revenge on a woman who had wronged Mrs. Varian, and who was dead now—dead, but unforgiven in her lonely grave.

For this girl, her daughter, how could Mrs. Varian cherish any love?

Perhaps something like pity touched her heart as the large, soft dark eyes turned upon her so wistfully, but she fought down the sympathy, saying to herself:

“Her mother had no mercy on me—none! And the same blood runs in Cinthia’s veins. She could not be trusted to bring her husband anything but ill.”

She threw back her magnificent head with a haughty motion, and said, curtly:

“Sit down, Cinthia, for what I am about to tell you may possibly ruffle your nerves.”

Cinthia obeyed with surprising meekness for one so proud; but the imperious woman before her had the habit of command, and every one seemed to obey.

She, too, took a chair, as if perhaps her own nerves were not quite steady. Then she said:

“Cinthia, you have done wrong in disobeying your father’s commands, when he told you there were reasons why you should not marry my son.”

Cinthia bowed without answering. She had no defense to make, only the mute protest of her wistful eyes.

“I am here to tell you,” continued Mrs. Varian, “that on my side there exist as grave reasons as your father’s for protesting against your marrying Arthur.”

The blood rose in the girl’s face, mounted to her fair brow, and receded, leaving her pale as death, her eyes beginning to flash with pride. She essayed to speak, and faltered:

“Arthur told me—that you—were pleased—with our engagement. I—I—did not think it mattered much—disobeying a cold, unloving father who has neglected me all my life. If he had been fond of me, kind to me, I would have acted differently.”

A strange gleam shot into the brilliant eyes of Mrs. Varian, almost as if it pleased her to know that Everard Dawn had been cold and cruel to his only daughter. Then she looked down and played with the diamonds that flashed on her white hands, as she continued, gravely:

“Arthur and I have talked matters over together—there are things we would rather not confide to you, best for you not to hear—and we have decided that your father is right. You can never be Arthur’s wife.”

Perhaps Cinthia had expected something like this, but it struck her with the force of a great shock. She began to tremble like a leaf in a gale, crying out:

“You do not mean that he—Arthur—rejects me—after bringing me away from my father’s home to marry me—[jilts] me at the very altar!”

It was piteous, that heartcry wrung from the profoundest depths of feeling, and for a moment Mrs. Varian was silent, sympathetic. Then she looked down again at her rings, and answered:

“I beg that you will not blame Arthur; he is the soul of honor; but in this matter he has no choice save to give back your promise.”

“He sent you to tell me this? Why was he not brave enough to come himself?”

“He believed it was better not to see you again,” the lady answered; and Cinthia gasped in a sort of terror.

Not to see him again—her Arthur, her love, her king, who was just now to have been her happy bridegroom! Why, this was too terrible to believe! Parted in an hour, torn asunder at the altar by the cruelty of those cold hearts that age and time had taught forgetfulness of love. Why, this was too hard to bear!

It seemed to her that she was swooning, dying; the same sick feeling came to her that she had felt last night, when her father’s voice shouted to them in the blackness of the night; but a sudden hope, a lightning suspicion, restored her fainting senses, and she sat erect again.

“I—I—” she began incoherently. “Oh, Mrs. Varian, it would break my heart to believe the cruel thing you have just said! My Arthur—mine—who was to be my husband—to turn against me all in one moment, to wish never to see me again! You are deceiving me. I will not believe such an impossible story save from his own lips.”

With that passionate defiance she lay back pale and panting, gazing with half-shut eyes at her tormentor.

“Is it so?” said Mrs. Varian. “Then you shall be satisfied. It was only to spare you and Arthur pain. But perhaps it will please you to hear that he suffers as much as you do over this pang of parting.”

There came to her the first intimation of an unsuspected nobility in the girl’s nature when Cinthia uttered, drearily:

“It would be cruel—nay, wicked—in me to wish any one to feel the agony of soul that is my portion.”

“Yet Arthur shares it with you, child, to the deepest, bitterest dregs. Come with me, and see.”

She took Cinthia’s cold, unresisting hand, and led her along the corridor; continuing in an explanatory manner:

“He should have come to you, but the shock of his broken love dream almost stretched him dead at my feet. I had to call in a physician, but he is better now.”

She pushed open a door, and led Cinthia in. She saw Arthur lying on a lounge, with a ghastly face and closed eyes.

“Are you asleep, my son? because, after all, it will be better for you to tell Cinthia yourself. She can not believe me.”

He started and opened his dark-blue eyes. When they fell on the placid sorrowful face of his lost little love, the burning tears sparkled into them and rolled down upon his cheeks. Years of anguish could not have changed him more than this keen stroke of an hour ago.

“Cinthia”—he breathed hollowly, and she came and bent over him, impulsively slipping her little hand into his as he went on—“Cinthia, do not think me false or fickle, or turned against you by the arbitrary wishes of our parents. I never loved you better than in this hour when I must part from you forever. Cinthia, it is the most fortunate thing in the world that my mother chanced on us in time to prevent our mad marriage. A great gulf is fixed between us that neither our love nor our hopes can ever cross. My mother has telegraphed for your father to come and take you home, and we must bid each other an eternal farewell.”

Cinthia felt herself sinking, falling; but an arm slipped round her waist, and Mrs. Varian, with a sigh, pillowed the unconscious head against her breast.

CHAPTER XVI.
“OH, WHAT A TIME!”

Mrs. Flint was at her wits’ end to know what to do for the strange woman whom her brother had mistakenly brought home as his daughter.

The upshot was that she simply did nothing at all but to sit still and stare, and wonder where the woman came from, how Everard came to bring her home, and what had become of Cinthia.

Presently she heard steps and voices, and rushed to the door, glad that her vigil with the seemingly dead woman was ended.

Everard Dawn, alarmed at the duration of Cinthia’s swoon, had brought a physician with him, and exclaimed as soon as he saw his sister:

“Has Cinthia recovered yet?”

“You can see for yourself,” she answered, in a dazed way, as she ushered them into the room.

The two men, almost blinded by the brightness of the room, after the outer storm and darkness, advanced to the sofa and bent over the patient in keen anxiety, while Mrs. Flint blurted out, nervously:

“Everard; what is the matter? Why did you bring that strange woman here instead of Cinthia?”

At the same moment the old doctor added:

“It is not little Cinthia but a stranger.”

Everard Dawn bent down with an air of incredulity that quickly changed as he saw what a terrible mistake he had made.

The cry that rose from his tortured heart, the baffled purpose, the agony, the pain, rang forever in the ears of the two who heard it. Then exhausted nature gave way. He fell writhing to the floor in convulsions.

Then [Mrs. Flint] and the doctor had their hands full with the two patients.

They ignored the strange woman until Mr. Dawn had been quieted and removed to his bed, where the doctor kept him quiescent by the use of opiates while he turned his attention to his other charge.

“Who is she? Where did she come from? I’ve never seen her face around here,” he said curiously to Mrs. Flint, who replied by confiding in him all that she knew, which, of course, threw no light upon the mystery; so without more ado they set to work to restore the poor creature to life.

It was a serious undertaking, and lasted until the gray dawn of another dreary day glimmered in through the windows of the sitting-room.

Then the woman lay asleep, having recovered sufficiently to open her eyes, stare at them uncomprehendingly, and to swallow some broth with the avidity produced by starvation.

“Poor soul! it is the want of food that has brought her to this pass. See how flabby her flesh is, and how loosely it hangs on her large frame! Look at her shabby, worn clothing, not much better than a tramp’s; and her broken shoes, how pitiful. It is doubtful if she survives even after the long spell of sickness that threatens her,” said the doctor.

“Good land, doctor, a long spell, you say? Why, what are you going to do about it? Can’t she be sent to the almshouse?”

“‘I was a stranger, and ye took me in!’” quoted the old physician, reverently.

The old lady thus referred to her bible, muttered repentantly:

“Lord, forgive my hardness of heart! I’ll do the best I can, Doctor Savoy; but I’m an old woman, and the nursing will go hard with me, you see, along with my other troubles.”

“You shall have help—there are plenty good women willing to help you,” he replied, and rose to go, adding: “I will go and bring one right away.”

“Get me a trained nurse, doctor—I’ll pay the cost—for what with Everard and her sick on my hands, I’ll need skilled help.”

“Oh, Mr. Dawn will be up and about in twenty-four hours, I believe, and out and gone after his eloping daughter. You need not give him any more of that opiate, and he will be awake for his breakfast. Tell him to remain quiet in his room till I call again this afternoon.”

So saying, the good old physician bustled out and away, and he did not leave Mrs. Flint long alone with her burden of perplexities and worry, but directly sent to her the best nurse the neighborhood afforded, a stout middle-aged woman, with a keen eye and cheery smile, who at once took on her younger shoulders the burden of Mrs. Flint’s care.

Together they arranged a tiny hall bedroom—all there was to spare—and removed the sleeping woman to the comfortable bed.

“Now, Mrs. Flint, you go and lie down; you look dead beat, that’s a fact,” the nurse said, compassionately.

“I must start my kitchen fire and have a bite of breakfast first. Afterward I’ll rest.”

When the breakfast was over, she stole into her brother’s room, but he was still sleeping heavily from the drug Doctor Savoy had administered.

Mrs. Flint went to her room and snatched two hours of rest, from which she was aroused by an impatient rapping on the door.

“Mercy sake, who can that be?” she ejaculated, making haste to answer the summons.

She opened the door, and found a telegraph-messenger with a message for her brother. He ran away shivering in the cold air as soon as she had signed the receipt.

Mrs. Flint turned it over in her shaking fingers, soliloquizing:

“From Washington—to tell us of course that they’re married! Oh, dear, what a time!” and she hurried to her brother’s room.

To her surprise, she found him up and dressed, putting the finishing touches to his toilet. The tears rushed to her eyes at the sight of his haggard, miserable face.

“Rebecca, I was fooled last night. Arthur Varian gave me that tramp he had picked up in the road for my own child, and I let him deceive me. But I shall go on their tracks at once,” he said weakly.

For answer she held out the telegram.

He snatched it with a cry of anguish, and quickly mastered the contents.

His face changed marvelously, and he exclaimed hoarsely:

“Thank God!” and tossed her the telegram. She read:

“Cinthia is here safe with me, and not married. Please come at once and take her home.

“Mrs. Varian.”

The address was carefully given, and the man’s face, from anger and distress, changed to keenest joy.

“This is better than I could have hoped,” he cried. “Can you give me some breakfast at once, Rebecca, for I must leave for Washington on the earliest train.”

CHAPTER XVII.
A DEADLY FEUD.

When Cinthia recovered her senses she found herself lying on her bed and the air was heavy with the scent of eau-de-Cologne, with which Mrs. Varian was gently bathing her face and hands.

“Do you feel better now?” the lady gently inquired, and Cinthia mechanically answered:

“Oh, yes.”

In fact her head was aching wretchedly, and her heart was heavy as lead, but she would seek no sympathy from Arthur Varian’s mother, who had turned against her so cruelly.

“I am glad to hear it. Perhaps you will feel like taking breakfast now,” touching the bell.

“Oh, no, no, no!” cried Cinthia; feeling as if she could never swallow a morsel of food again.

“But yes,” returned Mrs. Varian, smiling, as she rose as if to go.

Cinthia raised her heavy head and held out a deprecatory hand.

“You are going,” she said, “and it is not likely that we shall ever meet again. Wait till I ask you one question. Why is it that you hate me?”

“I do not hate you, child.”

“Why deny it, when I have read it in your eyes?” cried the girl, accusingly.

Mrs. Varian’s face worked with emotion, and she started forward as if she would have embraced the girl, then suddenly drew back, saying huskily:

“Cinthia, you are mistaken. I—I—do not hate—you! It was—your mother!”

“My mother!” the girl gasped, in bewilderment, gazing in wonder at the beautiful and agitated face of the lady.

Mrs. Varian continued, hoarsely:

“My feelings toward you are complex, Cinthia. For your own sake, I could love you—you are beautiful and winning, but between your parents and me there has been a deadly feud—they both wronged me! I have hated them both for years and years, and that hatred comes between you and me, child, like an impassable gulf. That first night I saw you I did not guess at your parentage, hence my attraction to you. When I learned the truth upon the return of your father, my feelings changed. I do not deny it. I could not contemplate with any calmness the thought of a marriage between you and Arthur.

“Now ask me no more. I have said more than I intended to do, and can reveal nothing further of that past which lies like a dead weight on my happiness. I must leave you to return to my son, but I will come back when you have had your breakfast served to you, and—”

Cinthia was sitting up on the side of the bed, her hair a disheveled tangle of gold about her pallid face, with its great star-like eyes. They flashed with sudden pride now as she interrupted:

“Let me beg you to remain away, nor seek to cross again the gulf that you say yawns between us. I am better alone with my humiliation,” bitterly.

“Do not call it that, Cinthia—you do not understand! And I must take charge of you until your father comes,” insisted Mrs. Varian.

“I prefer to remain alone.”

“It would appear cruel in me to leave you like this, seemingly forlorn and friendless.”

Cinthia laughed mirthlessly, and reiterated:

“I prefer to wait alone for my father.”

“Very well, I must bow to your will. God bless you, my poor girl,” and the haughty woman moved with a stately step from the room.

Cinthia threw herself back upon the bed with closed eyes and pallid lips. The agony of that moment no pen could describe.

Was it only two days ago she had been wishing for something to occur and break up the monotony of her life, and resenting Mrs. Flint’s homilies upon her discontent?

Something had happened with a vengeance.

The love that had nestled in her heart that day, a shy, sweet new-comer, had been fanned into strong, passionate life by hurrying events that now closed round her like a grasp of steel threatening to crush out all the sweetness of life forever.

She had tasted the sweetness of loving and being loved, she who had been lonely and heart-hungry so long; but now the sweet cup of joy was dashed from her lips and bitter dregs offered in its stead.

They had parted her from her heart’s love, Arthur. With his own lips, that so lately had sworn eternal fealty to her, he had uttered the edict of their eternal separation, for no cause save that their parents cherished an old feud.

It was cruel, bitter, and Cinthia’s heart hardened with rebellion against her fate.

She longed desperately for death to end the agony of love and humiliation under which she suffered.

“Oh, if I could just slip away out of life now—this moment!” she cried, in fierce intolerance of her pain; and a lightning temptation came to her to end it all.

She began to pace restlessly up and down the room, wondering what would be the easiest way to take her own life—her life that was so unbearable now!

It would be so easy to close all the apertures for air, turn on the gas, and lie down on her bed until asphyxiation came to her relief and wrenched life out of its suffering frame.

“I wonder if it would be painful. I don’t want to suffer,” she said to herself, with keen physical shrinking, while her active mind pictured the scene when they should come to seek her and find her cold and dead—her cruel father, fickle Arthur, and his revengeful mother, who, for the sake of an old-time wrong, was willing to break two fond young hearts.

What keen remorse would pierce their hearts when they saw that they had driven her to desperation and death! Perhaps they would repent when it was all too late. At the moving thought, Cinthia dissolved into floods of tears.

She knelt down by a chair, with her head on her arm, and heavy sobs shook her slight frame like a reed in the wind.

She cried out that she wished she had never seen Arthur Varian, who had taught her the sweet meaning of love only to make her more lonely and wretched than she had been before.

But a rap on the door made her start up in alarm and hastily dash away her tears before she opened it to a white-clad waiter bearing a tray containing a dainty breakfast, which he arranged on a little table, then withdrew.

Then Cinthia, in spite of her grief, discovered that she was unromantically hungry.

On yesterday, while sulking in her chamber at home she had refused food all day, and on the train last night had only taken some fruit.

The appetizing aroma of hot rolls, broiled birds, and steaming chocolate began to appeal to her irresistibly, and she ended by drawing up a chair and making a tolerable meal for a girl who thought her heart was broken and was actually contemplating suicide.

She did not feel half so morbid when she finished her chocolate. Life was bitter still, but death did not seem so desirable.

Her first temptation to suicide changed to a thought of flight.

“What if I should slip away and hide myself in the great world, where they could never find me again? I might make a career for myself, become a great actress, maybe, and when they saw me successful on the stage, they would think I had forgotten cruel Arthur, as I wish them to do, for I would not have him think I love him still,” she thought, bitterly, her mind running on novels she had read in which romantic girls, thrown alone on the world, had encountered wonderful adventures, and finally carved their names on the rock of [love.]

Cinthia was utterly wretched and despairing, and in the mood for anything reckless.

She flung on her hat and jacket, and turned toward the door.

She was actually going to venture out into the world alone, a desperate victim whom fate had used most cruelly, and who longed to escape from everything she had known into some new, untried sphere.

She had no idea where she was going. She would escape into the street, and wander aimlessly up and down with the busy throngs; that was just now her only thought.

She stretched out her hand to the door-knob, and at the instant a light rap on the outside startled her.

“It is Mrs. Varian; but she cannot forbid my going,” she thought, defiantly, and flung wide the door.

A stranger stood on the threshold—a lovely woman richly dressed, faint, delicate perfume exhaling from her silks and furs.

“Ah, you are going out? I beg pardon; but will you permit me to enter your room for a moment? I have lately occupied it—in fact, only went away this morning—and I have discovered that I forgot two of my rings,” she exclaimed in a sweet, silvery voice like liquid music.

Cinthia stood aside to let her enter; and, floating to the dressing-case, she lifted the scarf and displayed two sparkling rings.

“See! It is fortunate that the chamber-maid is honest, or that she did not discover these. I thank you for your courtesy. But, excuse me, you were going out. My dear young lady are you feeling well? I assure you that you look extremely ill; and there is a sharp east wind blowing outside. You are trembling; your face is as pale as chalk; your beautiful hair is all in disorder. You ought to be in bed with your mother watching over you.”

“My mother, alas!” cried Cinthia; and again her slight form shook with a tempest of sobs and tears that startled the handsome stranger, who forced her gently into a chair.

Meanwhile, Everard Dawn was speeding to Washington on the fastest train. He arrived there at dusk, and took a cab to the hotel where Mrs. Varian was staying, immediately sending up his card to that lady, and receiving a summons to her private parlor.

She was waiting there alone, and their greeting was cold and formal, though she could not help noting the signs of last night’s agitation on his pale face.

Waving him to a seat, she recounted briefly all that had transpired since their meeting yesterday.

“I came away last night—frankly, I could not breathe the same air with you—and I found them here. It was one of the greatest shocks of my life,” she said, and he bowed coldly.

She continued, stiffly:

“She is here waiting for you, but in a most rebellious mood: in fact, forbade me to re-enter her room to-day, so she must have spent a lonely time, poor girl! But before you go to her, Arthur wishes an interview with you on a very particular subject relating to Cinthia. You will find him alone in there,” indicating a door.

Everard Dawn looked fixedly at her a moment then bowed and left her standing there, while he went in to Arthur Varian.

CHAPTER XVIII.
“REMEMBER THAT I LOVED YOU WELL.”

The beautiful stranger pushed Cinthia gently into a chair, and sat down by her side.

“I hope you will not think me intruding, my dear girl; but you inspire me with a strange interest. Are you here alone?” she cried, earnestly.

“Alone!” answered Cinthia in a tragic tone, as she lifted her anguished dark eyes and scanned the other’s face.

She beheld one of the sweetest, fairest faces she had ever beheld.

The lady might have been thirty-five or more, but she possessed that charm of beauty that always suggests youth—perfect features, a complexion fresh as the morning; large, tender eyes of the brightest blue, and abundant tresses of shining golden brown hair, while a mouth like Cupid’s bow in form, and crimson as a rose, revealed in a dazzling smile small pearly white teeth, that added the last charm to her winsome loveliness.

Cinthia gazed fixedly at that winning face, drew a long breath of emotion, and instantly became captive to beauty’s bow and spear.

She was irresistibly drawn to the graceful woman whose sweet, silvery voice sounded like music in her ears as she exclaimed:

“You are in trouble, dear; I feel it, see it in your pale face and sad eyes. I hear it in the anguish of your voice. And you are alone, you say! Then I dare not go away and leave you like this, lest harm befall you. Let me help you!”

“No one can help me,” Cinthia answered in stubborn despair; but all the while that voice and smile were thrilling her heart with subtle tenderness.

“Then the case must indeed be serious,” cried the lady, gently slipping her arm around Cinthia’s waist, moved by an impulse she scarcely understood herself; while she continued, gently:

“My heart aches for your sorrow, dear, and although we are strangers to each other, I long to comfort you. Confide in me, and perhaps I can help you. Is it a question of lack of means? Or, sadder still, of—love?”

“Of love!” burst out Cinthia; and she dropped her head on that silken shoulder in a passionate outburst of tears, won in spite of herself by the divine art of sympathy.

And then, since both were strangely, magnetically attracted to each other, it was not hard for her to draw from Cinthia the brief, sad story of her life and love down to the very moment when she had opened the door to fly out into the street with the half-formed plan of suicide yet in her mind.

Oh, what a pathetic, moving story it was! And how it touched the listener’s tender heart, moving her to tears!

She could sympathize with all that Cinthia told her, and could share in her resentment against her unloving father, her strict aunt, and the lover whose affection had not been proof against the schemes of his proud mother. To her eyes, as to Cinthia’s, it all looked as if Mrs. Varian and Everard Dawn had made of the hapless lovers a sacrifice to a family feud vaguely hinted at in the lady’s confession to Cinthia, that her mother had been her bitterest enemy and was unforgiven in her grave.

With all her heart she espoused Cinthia’s side, and freely expressed contempt for Arthur’s part in the girl’s sorrow.

“He has acted the part of a coward, forsaking you thus at the command of his haughty mother, and I would think no more of him, dear, for he is not worth it,” she exclaimed, warmly.

Cinthia only sighed. She did not believe now that she could ever put Arthur out of her thoughts.

In spite of his seeming injustice to her, and the humiliation he had put upon her, something in her heart vaguely pleaded in his defense—perhaps his illness and pallor, and the keen anguish of his voice when he had said to her so sadly that they must bid each other an eternal farewell.

There had been something solemn, even tragic, in that parting, almost like the farewell of death. Resentment did not have any part in its supreme despair. It was rather

“As those who love

Are parted by the hand of death,

And one stands hushed, with reverent breath,

Gazing on funeral bier and pall.

But ere we close the coffin lid,

Let bitter memories all be hid;

If memory needs must break the spell,

Remember that I loved you well,

And o’er the rest let silence fall.”

The lovely stranger continued earnestly;

“You are young yet, and in time a new love may replace this lost one, and bring you great happiness.”

“Happiness is not for me. I am ill-fated!” moaned Cinthia.

“Do not feel so despondent. The young are naturally morbid. I know that by experience. I have had a great sorrow in my own life, and overlived it.”

Cinthia looked at her almost incredulously, she seemed so fair and bright, and her inexperienced eyes could not read the signs of a past grief in the delicate lines about the lips and eyes.

“I have overlived it, and so will you,” repeated the lady.

“Tell me how to do it. Help me!” cried Cinthia, appealingly; and as the lady remained gravely silent a moment, she added:

“Oh, if I could be filled with some great excitement that would occupy my thoughts, I believe I could put him out of my mind, except in very quiet moments. I was thinking just before you came in that I would like to go on the stage to become a great actress.”

An expression of dismay lowered over the fair face regarding her so intently, as Cinthia continued, eagerly:

“As we came to the hotel this morning, I saw through the carriage windows large posters announcing the appearance of a great actress to-night and this afternoon in a popular play. I have been thinking of her, and that I would like to have such a life. Do you think if I tried that I—might succeed?”

“Ah, child, you do not know what labor and trouble would be involved in such an undertaking.”

“I should not care for that—it would be what I need to turn my thoughts away from Arthur. And, indeed, the desire has taken hold on me, fascinates me. I intend to try.”

“No, dear, you must not do it. It is not wise, nor desirable. I am glad that I happened in on you this morning, for there is no one more capable of advising you in this crisis of your life. I tell you stage-work is heartache and sorrow even when crowned with a little success such as Madame Ray’s, whose name you read on the posters this morning. I tell you this, and I ought to know, for I am that woman!”

“You?” Cinthia cried, wide-eyed and wondering, and with a sad smile. The other answered:

“Yes.”

Taking Cinthia’s hand, and caressing it softly in both her own, she added:

“When I was young, like you, I had a great sorrow that sent my thoughts wandering, like yours, in search of a sensation in which to drown memory and grief. I turned to the stage, and after a period of drudgery and patience most painful to remember, earned a measure of success; so I am in a position to know what I am talking about, and to advise you against the course that I myself adopted. Not for worlds, my dear, would I have you go on the stage. No, no; it is a feverish life in the glare of the foot-lights. When I am rich enough to live without my work, I shall immediately retire to a private life.”

But she saw that her words had not convinced Cinthia. The feverish fascination was still in her mind, the longing to escape from the painful present into something new and strange.

But she persevered:

“If you will listen to me, dear child, you will yield to your father’s wish to place you in school for two years. Believe me, the course of study will be far less hard than the training for the stage. Suppose you come with me now to our rehearsal, and remain for our matinée performance? It will give you a glimpse of theatrical life behind the scenes that may perhaps turn your mind from this fascination.”

“I will be glad to go with you,” answered Cinthia, eager for escape from the wretched present, and with strange reluctance to part from the charming actress.

“We will go at once, then,” said Madame Ray, rising, and adding: “Perhaps you should ask Mrs. Varian’s leave?”

“I shall do nothing of the kind,” Cinthia answered, rebelliously. “I have told her I wished to be alone, and she will not even know I am gone.”

“But your father might arrive.”

“He can not do so until very late, and I will probably be back when he comes,” Cinthia answered, but wishing in her heart that she were going this moment so far out of her old life that she need never encounter her father again—the stern, unloving father for whom she did not pretend an affection.

CHAPTER XIX.
A TRAGIC PAST.

The actress did not urge her any further. Taking her hand as fondly as if she had been her own daughter, she led her from the room, down to her waiting carriage. At dusk that evening she had not returned, and when Everard Dawn went to seek her, in company with Mrs. Varian, they found the room untenanted.

Mr. Dawn had come out of Arthur’s room with a pale, agitated face, and a look about the eyes that in a woman would have betokened recent tears. It had, in fact, been a most emotional interview, and one from which he was glad to escape.

But the softness of his expression gave place to pride and coldness when he saw Mrs. Varian waiting for him, and he said, with a haughtiness that equaled her own:

“Will you have the kindness to conduct me to Cinthia?”

She wondered why he did not say “my daughter,” instead of Cinthia; but it pleased her, nevertheless, the indifference he showed toward his child. She was selfish enough to feel glad that he had no love for the daughter of the woman who had been her enemy in life, and whose sin against her had been too heinous for any possibility of forgiveness.

With a slight bow of assent she moved on by his side to Cinthia’s room, where she knocked several times without receiving any answer.

With a sudden misgiving at the memory of the girl’s desperate mood that morning, she opened the door and looked inside.

“Good heavens, she is gone!” turning to him with startled eyes.

He answered sternly, rebukingly:

“She should not have been left alone. But, of course, I could not expect you to watch over her mother’s daughter.”

Her great eyes flashed in her pale face as she retorted:

“I certainly had no cause to love her, but I would not wish her any ill. We had better inquire about her down at the office.”

They did so, and were startled and mystified by the news that Madame Ray, the actress, had called on Miss Dawn that morning, and soon afterward took her away with her in the carriage.

“The lady is playing at the Metropolitan Theater. Perhaps the young lady has gone to the matinée,” said the polite clerk, wondering at their blank faces.

“Yes, yes, of course,” Mr. Dawn returned, unwilling to make his perturbation known. He turned away with Mrs. Varian, saying to her in an undertone: “I will go in search of her, and—you had better keep this news from Arthur.”

“I will,” she answered; and he left her with a slight, cold bow.

She stood still in the corridor and watched him out of sight with a stony gaze ere she retreated to her own room and sunk half fainting upon a chair, murmuring:

“Ah! cruel fate that made him cross my path again! Was I not wretched enough already?”

Whatever there had been in the past between those two it had surely been most tragic, judging by their present scorn of each other, and their impatience of the fate that had brought them together again.

For more than an hour she crouched in her chair with drooping head and a gray, ashen face, from which her great burning eyes shone like live coals; then she rose and stared at herself in the long mirror, muttering, bleakly:

“What a wreck I look after one of those spells, wan and gray, like a woman aged in an hour. It would frighten Arthur to see me like this, and he would surely guess at the hidden fires that slumber, volcano-like, in my breast, eating away love and hope and joy. He must not see me thus;” and with the aid of cosmetics, skillfully applied, she soon hid the traces of the passion-storm that had swept with devastating force over her soul. Then swallowing a light draught of wine, she sought her son.

He lay quiescent upon the couch, as he had lain all day, after his illness of the morning, with his white hand before his eyes. There had been a most exciting interview between him and Mr. Dawn, and he was now temporarily utterly worn out and exhausted.

The unhappy mother sat down by her son and ran her slender fingers caressingly through the soft clustering locks of his abundant hair.

She saw his pale face writhe with a spasm of inward feeling, as he muttered through trembling lips:

“Are they gone?”

She answered, evasively:

“Yes.”

CHAPTER XX.
LOVE AND LOSS.

Meanwhile, Everard Dawn flung himself into a cab and hurried to the theater, his mind divided between thoughts of his daughter and the magnificent woman he had left behind him.

Arrived at the theater, he purchased a ticket, and entered just as the last act was being performed; but without glancing at the stage, he threw a hurried, anxious glance around the glittering horseshoe in search of Cinthia’s face.

To his surprise and unutterable relief, he presently beheld her fair face and shining hair half hidden behind the sweeping curtain in a private box, from which she watched the stage with kindling eyes of delight.

Quickly he made his way to her side, and she glanced around at him with suddenly gloomy eyes of fear and dislike.

Bending over her, he whispered, agitatedly:

“Cinthia, do not look at me so coldly and angrily. I am your father.”

“You do well to remind me of your claim,” she answered, bitterly, turning her glance back to the stage.

The keen reproach cut deep, and for a moment he found no words for reply, only followed her eyes to the scene where Madame Ray, magnificently beautiful in white brocade and diamonds, was the center of an emotional scene.

“What a fascinating woman! It is the star, of course?” he exclaimed.

“Yes; it is Madame Ray. She is more than fascinating. She is an angel,” his daughter returned, warmly.

“May I ask how long you have known the lady?”

Cinthia looked around at him, and answered, perversely:

“Long enough to love her better than any one else that I know.”

“Is she so charming?”

“Adorable!”

“And Mrs. Varian?” anxiously.

“I hate her!” Cinthia answered, frankly, with a flash of the eyes.

“Because she parted you from Arthur?” he asked, anxiously.

“Yes,” mutinously.

“Ah, Cinthia, in that act she only showed you truest kindness.”

“She hated my mother!”

“And with good reason!” he replied, with a transient flash in his dark blue eyes.

Cinthia looked suddenly curious.

“I should like to hear all about it!” she exclaimed.

“Ah, my child, it is too sad a story for your ears, that old feud. I pray Heaven you need never hear it all. We will go away to-morrow, and bury the dead past forever,” he answered, earnestly, while he wondered over and over how she had formed Madame Ray’s acquaintance, though he saw that in her present perverse mood she would disclose nothing.

They both watched the stage in silence for some moments, then she startled him by saying:

“I believe my kind friend Madame Ray would help me to become an actress if I insist upon it. Would you consent?”

“Certainly not. I have other plans for you,” he answered, with instant decision.

“But, I can not bear the idea of that boarding-school! I give you fair notice that I am likely to run away from it and drown myself.”

“Poor Cinthia, poor unhappy child!” and his voice grew suddenly deep and tender, while he gazed with dim eyes at her flushed, defiant face.

A great pity and sympathy rose in his heart for the hapless girl whose life was blighted in its dawning by a hopeless love.

He said to himself that he must rise superior to the self-absorption of years and give time and thought to brightening his daughter’s life.

Perhaps she might turn out more lovable than he had ever dared hope; but even if not, there was his neglected duty staring him in the face. He could not shirk it any longer, now that Cinthia had cut adrift from the old life, and had no one to depend on but him. He must win her from the despair and desperation of her present mood to contentment with life.

Speaking very gently and kindly, he said:

“If you think you can not endure the school, I must make other plans for you. How would you like to travel awhile?”

Her dark eyes gleamed with sudden interest, and she cried, quickly:

“It would please me more than anything else you can offer. I tell you frankly that I am wretched, and that change of scene and constant excitement offer the only panacea for my troubles.”

“You shall have it; and I pray Heaven it may effect a cure. Listen, Cinthia, I have very agreeable news for you.”

She looked at him with a slightly incredulous air, and he continued:

“A relative of ours has recently left you a small fortune, that will enable you to lead a very pleasant future life according to your own wishes. I am appointed your guardian, and you will have an income of ten thousand a year.”

“Ten thousand a year!” gasped Cinthia, in surprise and delight at her good luck, for it seemed a great fortune to one who had been reared so plainly and frugally.

She was young and beautiful and always longed for the pleasures that money could buy, and the sudden news that she was to realize her dream did indeed dazzle her so that a smile came to her sad lips and a flash of pleasure to her eyes.

Her father thought, cynically:

“Her sorrow did not lie so deep after all, and it will easily be soothed by the gewgaws foolish women prize. Well, I am glad that it is so.”

He resumed, cordially:

“I am glad of this good luck for you, Cinthia, for I have never been rich myself, and my income has never been more than half what yours is now, and that was earned by diligent practice at the law. I had intended to do my best toward brightening your sad young life, but this legacy comes most opportunely to enable you to gratify your desires.”

“Yes, I am very grateful for it. Now I can seek constant diversion to drown memory,” she answered, with a long-drawn sigh that showed him she would not forget so easily as he had hoped.

It did not occur to her to ask the name of the relative who had left her so handsome a legacy, or to notice that her father had not spoken of any one’s death. In her eagerness she accepted her good fortune without curiosity, and clasping her little hands in growing excitement, cried:

“Papa, I have always wished to cross the sea. Will you take me?”

“Yes, Cinthia; but should you not see something of your own land first?”

“That can wait, papa. My first wish is to put the whole breadth of the world between me and Arthur Varian.”

“Perhaps that will be best,” he assented; for her words touched an aching chord in his own heart.

Who could know better the aching pangs of love and loss than Everard Dawn, who had tasted both to the bitter dregs?

And how could he blame any one for the mad instinct of flight from memory when he had been a restless exile weary years for no better reason?

“And I have wandered far away to quell my spirit’s wild unrest,

From place to place a lonely one,

And rocked on ocean’s heaving breast.

“But in the sound of winds and waves

For evermore I heard thy tone,

Gazed down the mountain’s verdant slope,

And thought of thee, and thee alone.

“The eyes whose sparkling light I loved

Shone on me from the midnight stars,

The crimson of the lips once kissed

Glowed in the sunset’s rosy bars.”

The curtain fell to the crash of orchestra music and the crowded building began to be emptied and the lights turned low.

Both rose, and Cinthia’s father said, abruptly:

“Shall we return to the hotel? Or would you like to go on to New York to-night to get ready for sailing on the first steamer?”

“We will go to New York to-night, but first let me go and say farewell to my dear friend Madame Ray,” she said, hurrying to the greenroom.

Everard Dawn went out and sent a note to Mrs. Varian, while he waited for his daughter.

It ran simply:

“I found Cinthia at the theater, and we go on at once to New York, to sail this week for Europe, by her earnestly expressed wish. In change of scene and the rush of excitement she will seek oblivion of this painful episode in her life.

“E. D.”

Presently Cinthia came to him from Madame Ray’s dressing-room, where she had spent a long half hour, and her father saw that the dew of tears hung heavily on the thick fringe of her dark lashes. Wondering greatly at this mysterious friendship, he drew her hand through his arm and led her away to the new life that lay before her in the untried future.

CHAPTER XXI.
A QUARREL WITH FATE.

Mrs. Flint would have been very lonely after her brother’s departure, but for the fact that she had her hands and her mind both full with helping the nurse to care for the poor wayfarer so strangely thrown on her hands.

As it was, her anxiety over Cinthia was soon dissipated by the receipt of a telegram from Mr. Dawn, announcing that he had found his daughter safe in Washington, and that they would go on a trip to New York.

Several days later a short letter followed the telegram, saying they had concluded to take a run over to Europe for an indefinite stay. He believed that change of scene was the best way to wean Cinthia from her infatuation for Arthur Varian.

No mention was made of the legacy that had so opportunely fallen to Cinthia, but Mr. Dawn inclosed a liberal check to his sister, and asked that she would use some of it in behalf of the woman he had brought home that night, stating that he had recognized in her a former servant of Cinthia’s mother.

Mrs. Flint began to take considerable more interest in the invalid when she learned this interesting fact.

She had always cherished a lively curiosity over Cinthia’s mother, and it had never been properly gratified, but the little knowledge she had made her thirsty for more. That she was beautiful, vain, and unprincipled, Everard Dawn had acknowledged; but he did not even possess a picture of her, although Mrs. Flint fancied he must have loved her well from the way he had exiled himself at her death.

She was anxious for the sick woman’s recovery, for she fancied the woman could tell her more of Everard’s dead wife than her brother had ever chosen to divulge himself.

So she was unremitting in her care, as were also Doctor Savoy and the trained nurse; but for several weeks the woman’s life hung on a thread, and it was evident that exposure of that wintery night had been preceded by keen privation and almost starvation, making her hold on life so frail that she had almost let it go.

It was far into December before she became convalescent enough to impart her name and some curt information about herself.

“My name is Rachel Dane, and I came from Florida in search of work,” she said, rather sullenly; adding: “I’m a capital sick-nurse, but I could get no more work of that kind, and I thought I’d hire out for a ladies’-maid, or even a cook, for I can do anything I have a mind to turn my hand to.”

Old Doctor Savoy to whom she was talking, smiled benevolently, and beaming on Mrs. Flint, remarked:

“I don’t think you’ll have to fare any further for a job as maid of all work when you get strong enough, for my old friend here certainly needs a good domestic, now that she isn’t as young as she once was.”

Mrs. Flint had never thought of the subject in that way before, but when her old friend, Doctor Savoy, presented it so artfully to her mind, she consented to the plan, knowing that she would be very lonely in the quiet house, now that willful Cinthia’s bright presence was removed.

So when the snows of Christmas lay deep on the ground, the new servant was up and about the little house, serving her new mistress skillfully and well, but preserving a rather sullen and taciturn demeanor, as if somehow she had a quarrel with fate and could not be reconciled to some scurvy trick it had played upon her now or in past days.

While Mrs. Flint was wondering how to put to her some plain questions as to her service with her brother’s wife, Rachel Dane forestalled her by saying, in a sort of casual way:

“When I got off the train at the station, I saw a man I used to know—Mr. Everard Dawn. Does he live hereabout?”

“No,” replied Mrs. Flint.

“Visiting, maybe?” with veiled anxiety.

“Yes.”

“Oh! At whose house?”

“At mine; but he has gone to Europe, now,” returned Mrs. Flint, succinctly.

The woman started, and muttered some inaudible words, as though she had received an unpleasant surprise.