NEW EAGLE SERIES No. 1156

The Man She Hated

By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

The Man She Hated

OR,

WON BY STRATEGY

BY
MRS. ALEX. McVEIGH MILLER

Author of “A Married Flirt,” “Loyal Unto Death,” “Only a Kiss,” “My Pretty Maid,” etc. Published in the New Eagle Series.

STREET & SMITH CORPORATION
PUBLISHERS
79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York

Copyright, 1888 NORMAN L. MUNRO

Renewal for 28 years, from August 23, 1916, granted to Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

The Man She Hated

(Printed in the United States of America)

THE MAN SHE HATED.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I.
THE FACTORY GIRLS.

“Fair Fielding, I heard something about you last night,” said one of the sewing girls in an uptown factory in New York to her nearest neighbor, a very young girl, whose red-brown head was bent over a sewing machine as she deftly guided her work, a heap of fine white muslin, beneath the shining needle.

“What?” asked Fairfax Fielding, lifting her sparkling brown eyes—they were the brightest, softest, loveliest brown eyes, although their owner was only a little sewing girl—a garment maker. You would not find in a day’s journey a prettier face than hers, with its complexion as smooth and clear as the petals of a creamy tea rose, its piquant dimples whenever she smiled, its well-shaped features, and broad, intelligent, white brow, shaded by babyish, curling locks of hair that the girls teasingly called red, but which in reality was beautiful, dusky, red gold, with such warm glints of light in its dark waves that it made other colors appear tame and common by contrast. With that shining hair, those liquid brown eyes, and that expression of gentleness and purity marking the fair brow and rosebud lips, Fair was more than pretty.

Sadie Allen smiled roguishly, and said:

“I heard you were going to get married, that’s what!”

There was a little feminine titter from every girl in the range of hearing, and Fair’s dainty wild-rose bloom deepened to angry scarlet.

“It’s not true, and I don’t believe you ever heard it, Sadie Allen. You’re only trying to tease me, for you know I have no beaus; and, what’s more, don’t want any,” she retorted spiritedly.

“You forget Waverley Osborne,” said a teasing voice on the other side of Fair’s machine.

There was a double row of sewing machines in the large room, all fastened to two long, narrow tables, with small round niches cut on the sides, in which the operators sat at their machines.

In this factory a large number of women and girls were employed, and Fairfax Fielding, who had come here at twelve years old, as an errand girl, at three dollars per week, was in her apprenticeship to the business now, and earning her seven dollars per week at the sewing machine. She was seventeen years old, and if she stayed until she was twenty she would earn double that sum. In this establishment were many women and girls who had been here from childhood, and the employees were mostly well known to each other, and, with few exceptions, on amiable terms.

One of the exceptions in the present case was a new girl, a handsome blonde, who was an expert worker, and commanded the highest wages paid to a machine embroiderer. She had left another factory to apply at this one for work, and it was whispered among the girls that the cause was that her beau was a clerk in the warerooms below.

Whether this report was true or not, it is very certain that Miss Platt lifted her large, cold blue eyes with a stare of angry surprise when the name of Waverley Osborne was mentioned, and listened intently for the answer.

It was not long in coming, for Fair Fielding tossed her head petulantly, and exclaimed:

“Now, girls, please don’t plague me about him. You know I hate him.”

“Anyhow, he sent you flowers once, and walked home with you twice last week,” laughed Sadie Allen, who was fond of teasing Fair.

“No, he only walked with me once,” corrected Fair quickly. Her eyes flashed as she continued: “I told him then I didn’t want his company, but I couldn’t get rid of him. He would go, and insisted on calling on my mother, too, but,” emphatically, “I guess—she—made—him—understand.”

Miss Platt looked up quickly from the silken lilies she was embroidering on white cashmere.

“What did your mother make him understand?” she asked, in a voice thick with suppressed excitement.

Fair was not in the secret as to the cause of Miss Platt’s interest. The girls had decided that it would be a pity to spoil sport, and mar Mr. Osborne’s chances with Fair by telling her the truth.

So they listened eagerly for her answer, and, turning her bright eyes on the speaker’s face, she replied unhesitatingly:

“She told him she didn’t want him to walk home with me, call on me, nor show me any attention.”

“Why? Wasn’t he good enough?” sneeringly.

Fair looked at her in surprise.

“I don’t know why you should talk so snappish about it, Miss Platt,” she said resentfully. “If my mother doesn’t wish me to keep company with gentlemen, it isn’t any business of yours, is it?”

The greenish fire of a jealous hate leaped into the blue eyes regarding Fair so keenly, but, forcing a mirthless laugh, the embroiderer retorted:

“Oh, so she don’t want you to keep company with gentlemen at all—is that it? A strange notion. Why, I should think she would be glad to have you marry and get off her hands.”

Fair’s temper was rapidly rising under the sneering remarks of the new girl, and, with flashing eyes, she replied saucily:

“Glad to have me married and off her hands, indeed, when I am her only support! No, I thank you, Miss Platt. Besides, mother tells me often that she would rather see me in my grave than the wife of a poor man.”

“Wants you to marry a rich man, eh?” Miss Platt exclaimed bitterly, and Fair responded impudently:

“Yes, indeed, if I could get one, thank you.”

A peal of laughter followed the sally, for all the girls thought it very ridiculous, the idea of a poor little sewing girl aspiring to a rich husband. Fair colored high at their mirth, for she had been jesting, and now she said tartly:

“You needn’t any of you think I am expecting or hoping to get a rich husband, for I don’t desire it. I mean, I don’t want to marry anybody, rich or poor; but I may as well say what I think, and that is that I wouldn’t marry a poor man—no, not even if I loved him to distraction, for my mother says that when poverty comes in at the door love flies out at the window; and she ought to know, for her experience was hard enough.”

Fair had quoted “my mother” so often on this same subject that the girls were all familiar with her story, which was that of a pampered rich girl who had married beneath her own station in life, been disinherited, and then driven her impecunious husband to drink by her repinings after the luxuries she had lost, and reproaches because she had so hard a life. He was dead now, and his widow, battling for long years with the grim fiends of poverty and ill health, had industriously instilled into Fair’s pliant mind her own theories regarding marriage.

But the gray-haired, matronly forewoman of the room, who secretly despised Fair’s mother and openly loved the sweet young girl, now came forward, and said gently, but with latent sternness:

“My dear girl, I’ve heard you quote your mother so often on this subject that I feel like telling you a few plain facts. Will you listen to me?”

“Yes, ma’am,” answered Fair obediently, and looking a little bit frightened at this arraignment by this dignified forewoman, who smiled at her kindly, and said:

“The experience of your mother is not universal, my dear. She was unhappy with her poor husband because she did not adapt herself to circumstances, and was dissatisfied and unreasonable. But other women have married poor men and led happy lives with them. I married a poor man myself, and, as I had been raised to work, I did not grumble because I had to help to keep our simple home, but was happy in seeing the neat and comfortable home we kept up by our united labors—he at his trade of carpenter, I at my sewing machine. He is dead now, but I never cast a stone at his memory by advising my young daughters not to marry any one who is not rich, and I will offer you the same advice that I do them.

“If you are asked to marry a poor man, whose only fault is his poverty, take him, if you love him, and do your part toward getting along and making a happy home for your husband. Besides, Fair, it would be easier for you to be happy as a poor man’s wife than it was for your mother, as she had been raised in luxury and did not know how to labor. But as you are a working girl, you would not expect anything else than to help your husband get along. Excuse me for speaking so plainly, but it is for your own good, as I can’t bear to see your little head filled with foolish fancies about getting a rich husband. You are very pretty, I own, but rich men do not often marry factory girls, no matter how pretty they are,” and, so saying, she turned away, followed by a murmur of approbation from everybody except Sadie Allen, who remained very silent, because she saw that Fair’s eyes were full of tears.

CHAPTER II.
HER MOTHER’S ADVICE.

Poor little Fair! It was quite true, as the forewoman intimated, that she had not had a judicious training, for her mother was a foolish, weak-minded woman, who had, indeed, filled her child’s head with romantic notions about marrying above her station.

“You are pretty enough to marry a king, my darling, and you would be a little fool if you threw away all your chances by marrying a poor man,” she had said often; and, as if to make her advice more impressive, she would add: “Besides, what would become of me if you married a poor man? He would not want to take care of me, and you would be so busy caring for his house and minding his children you would have to desert your poor old mother.”

Little Fair shed tears at the thought of deserting her helpless mother.

“I shall always work for you and live with you, dear mother,” she said, adding, as a clincher: “I shall never marry any one.”

“Do not say that, my little Fair, for I should not like to have you live an old maid. I live in hopes that by a fortunate marriage you may some day be raised to the position in life that I once occupied,” answered the ambitious mother.

And it became tacitly understood between them that Fair was to marry no one unless he was rich; and, as she had no expectation of that, she had long ago made up her mind that she would be an old maid.

“Like that old crosspatch of a Miss Smith, who has worked in the factory thirty years, and hates the sight of a man,” the girl thought plaintively; but, in her devotion to her selfish mother, she vowed herself bravely to the sacrifice. Courtship, and love, and marriage such as her companions talked and dreamed of were not for her. Through her mother’s peculiar training, she had become quite worldly-wise.

The forewoman’s kindly meant advice only had the effect of making her indignant and resentful, although she was too politic to utter a word in reply, thus running the risk of losing the place by which she supported herself and her mother. She bowed her head in silence, and resentful tears coursed down her crimson cheeks.

Sadie Allen was a good-hearted girl, although fond of fun, and she regretted that her teasing remarks had led Fair on to the speech that provoked the forewoman’s displeasure and drew down upon her pretty head that stern reproof. There had been an innocent plot among the girls to tease Fair about Waverley Osborne, in order to aggravate Miss Platt; but Sadie was sorry for her share in it now, although she did not know what bitter cause there was yet to be to make her rue the occurrences of the past hour.

Fair’s hot tears dropped silently a while upon her snowy work. Then she sewed on in rather sullen mood for the rest of the day, taking no notice of her companions, and answering only in monosyllables when addressed; in fact, pouting like a spoiled child, and deaf to Sadie’s good-natured overtures. At five o’clock, the usual hour for leaving, she drew a sigh of relief as she put by her work.

“I’m glad I shall not see one of their hateful faces until to-morrow,” she muttered to herself, with the passion of a child, as she left the large building and turned her steps homeward through the crowded street. But suddenly a hand touched her arm, and, looking around with a start, she found Miss Platt by her side.

“I’m going your way,” said the embroiderer smoothly, and she kept close to Fair’s side, quite indifferent as to whether her company was desired or not. She had an object in view, from which she was not to be easily deterred. But Fair had no particular cause of dislike against the girl, and, after a moment’s silent vexation, responded with careless politeness to the overtures of the other. “I hope you don’t bear me any grudge for the foolish things I said to-day?” she began. “I was only joking. I saw that the girls were teasing you, and joined in just for fun. But I would have bitten my tongue off before I’d said anything, if I had known how that forewoman was going to reprove you. What business was it of hers, anyway, whether you chose to marry a poor man or not?”

“Oh, I guess what she said was true enough,” Fair answered, not caring to discuss her grievance with this stranger; but the embroiderer persevered:

“No, it was not true—at least, not all of it. How scornfully she spoke of factory girls! Yet I know two rich ladies to-day who were simple working girls like you and me. They were beautiful, and their faces won rich husbands for them, as yours ought to do, for you have a lovely face. Do you know that, Fairfax Fielding?”

Fair’s mother had told her that she was beautiful so often that she could not profess ignorance of that interesting fact, but she blushed rosily at the blunt words of Miss Platt, who continued, without waiting for a reply:

“I could marry a rich man myself, if I chose. I had the chance once, but I refused it, for I did not love the man; but I believe that I could whistle him back even now if I chose. I’ve a great mind to do it, just to show that upstart forewoman that a rich man would marry a factory girl.”

“Oh, I wish you would, Miss Platt!” cried Fair, with such vehemence that she betrayed at once her latent resentment at the forewoman’s words.

The blonde laughed merrily; then exclaimed:

“Ah, Fair, you will marry rich some day, and show her how mistaken she was—I see that now.”

“I shall never marry,” Fair answered; but the embroiderer only laughed more gayly than before, and exclaimed:

“You must, if only to get your revenge on that insolent woman. Oh, I saw what lay at the bottom of her talk! It was spite at your mother, who was born a lady, and of whom she was, therefore, jealous. Come, I’ve a mind to turn matchmaker, just to help you out. Why, Fair, I know a rich young man who is called a kind of crank because he despises fashion and society and vows he will marry a working girl. I believe I will introduce him to you. May I?” And with that speech, she forged the first link in the chain of a cruel plot that she had been revolving in her mind for several hours. “May I?” she repeated, looking eagerly into Fair’s sweet, wild-rose face; but a troubled light came into the bright brown eyes, and the girl shook her head decidedly.

“No, I’d rather not,” she said, and a frown whose malignancy Fair did not see came between the brows of Miss Platt.

She was undoubtedly angered at the reply, but she only said caressingly:

“As you please about it, though I know he’d fall dead in love with you at first sight. Oh, here’s Bond’s. I am going in here for a blue ribbon. Will you come?”

“No, thanks. My mother will be uneasy if I don’t get home promptly,” Fair answered, and, with a careless nod, she went on, disappearing in the dense throng on the street in an instant, while Miss Platt turned, without entering the store, and walked back in the direction she had come, her handsome face distorted by angry passion.

“So the little fish wouldn’t bite at my tempting bait?” she muttered angrily. “Never mind, I’ll lay a trap that she’ll fall into yet, for I swear I’ll punish her for taking my lover from me. I knew it must be some one in the factory, but until the girls let it out this morning I never suspected that red-headed little apprentice. To think of his leaving me for her—for her—a silly child that hadn’t even sense enough to appreciate the compliment!”

She laughed aloud, but the laugh had no mirth in it. It was rather a convulsive sound, thrilling with malignancy, and betokening a nature full of venom when fully aroused. Continuing her train of thought, she muttered:

“He shall return to me, and I will take him back, but, all the same, I shall take vengeance on both for what his fickleness caused me to suffer.”

CHAPTER III.
SAVED BY A YOUNG HERO.

All unconscious of the jealous hatred Belva Platt entertained toward her, Fair Fielding tripped along the crowded streets toward her humble home, her thoughts full of the occurrences of the day and of the tempting bait the embroiderer had held out.

“Can it be true that she knows a rich young man who would rather marry a working girl than a society belle?” she mused, in wonder. “I shall tell mother, and see what she thinks of it.”

And the pretty, giddy head immediately became full of visions of wealth and splendor, in which, to do her justice, her mother reigned supreme, for the dream of Fair’s life was to see her mother restored to the position she had once occupied in society.

“Poor darling, how proud I should be to dress her in silk and lace and diamonds, and take her away from that humble house in a grand motor car to a beautiful mansion full of flowers and magnificent furniture, with troops of servants to wait upon her!” she thought eagerly, and the brown eyes filled with quick tears, she had grown so earnest over the wish.

Perhaps those tears blinded her; perhaps she did not notice anything in her earnest self-absorption—for if she had been more careful she would have escaped the danger impending over her. Every one else was very careful not to pass under the scaffolding of the new building on the corner, loaded with bricks, as it was, that the bricklayers were using in their work. That very morning Fair had passed on the other side as carefully as any, but now she forgot where she was, or she did not notice. She walked straight on, with dazed, dreamy eyes, and was recalled to herself quite suddenly by a chorus of frenzied shouts that came, alas! too late, for the frail shelving above gave way and precipitated the heavy bricks to the pavement below just as she walked under.

There was a horrified cry close behind her, and then a strong hand clutched her arm and jerked her away, but not before the edge of a descending brick had sharply grazed her temple and inflicted a flesh wound from which the blood spurted in a purple stream.

The man who had caught her away from under the torrent of falling débris had done so at the risk of his own life, for one piece of plank, as it whirled through the air, had sharply struck his shoulder as he flung out an arm to turn it aside from Fair, whom, but for his timely intervention, it would have stricken to the earth.

He was a tall, fair, fine-looking young man, simply dressed in traveling costume, and he had been descending from a handsome motor car that had just drawn up to the curbstone when Fair’s deadly peril attracted his attention, and he leaped forward just in time to save her life, for in another moment she must have been crushed beneath the fallen planks and bricks of the treacherous scaffolding. But his swift rush to her assistance had saved her life, although for a moment, as her limp form slipped from his arm to the pavement, and her white face, with its closed eyes, was upturned to the light, it seemed as if she must, indeed, be dead.

A shocked, curious crowd surrounded the pair in a moment, among whom there was, very fortunately, a physician. He bent over Fair’s prostrate form, and gently lifted the wet locks from her brow to examine the wound. Some one brought water and a sponge from the store in front of which she lay, and with deft fingers he bathed and dressed the cut, which, he said, was an ugly one, yet not dangerous.

“See—she is recovering,” he added, for just as he finished placing the wide strip of court-plaster on the jagged wound she drew a long sigh, opened her beautiful brown eyes, and looked up bewilderedly. He assisted her to rise, and said good-naturedly:

“You are not much hurt, miss, but you owe your life to this young man, who risked his own to snatch you back from under the falling bricks yonder.”

Fair uttered a moan of pain, and looked up into a pair of dark-blue eyes that were gazing on her anxiously from a handsome face, now pale and drawn with pain. At the same moment the young man said quietly:

“Doctor, I am afraid my shoulder is dislocated. I threw up my arm to ward off a falling plank, and it struck me.”

“Oh, I am so sorry!” cried Fair involuntarily, and the dark-blue eyes looked at her gratefully just as the doctor turned and exclaimed:

“Ah, that is too bad!” He pulled off the patient’s coat, and, after a quick examination, said: “Yes, it is true. Come, can you bear a hard wrench? Now, if some strong man will assist me,” and in a few moments it was all right, and Fair’s rescuer, very pale and with compressed lips, was assisted into his car.

“Oh, he is gone, and I have not even thanked him!” said poor, trembling Fair, who was leaning heavily on the arm of a strange woman, who had stopped with the crowd. But just then the young man’s grave blue eyes looked at her over the doctor’s shoulder. He was pressing a bill into the physician’s hand, and saying eagerly:

“My dear doctor, we are forgetting the young lady. Please assist her to the car, and I will take her home, if she will permit me.”

“Oh, I shall be so grateful,” sighed Fair, who was so weak and trembling that she felt unable to walk, yet knew that there was not even a nickel in her little purse to pay her car fare home. With a sigh of relief, she allowed the physician to place her in the elegant automobile by the side of her rescuer, and then she was alone with him, for the door closed, and a kind, musical voice was saying:

“Now, tell the driver your address, please, and he will take you home at once.”

Very timidly she named a cheap lodging house in a distant, humble street, and as she saw his start of surprise she instantly added, with a touch of bitterness:

“If it is too far out of your way, I can get out and walk, sir, as I am used to walking.”

She had quickly comprehended that he was rich and proud, and fancied that he might feel himself above her, hence her resentful speech, to which he answered, with a slight smile at her petulance:

“You may be used to walking usually, but I do not think you could do so at present, after the shock and hurt you have received.”

“Oh, yes, I’m almost certain I could,” she began to say resentfully again, and, observing a keen, almost quizzical, glance in the stranger’s blue eyes, she added desperately:

“I have to walk always, whether sick or well, for I have no automobile to ride in. I’m only a working girl—a sewing girl.”

Something had seemed to compel her to the humiliating confession, for to her proud young nature, so badly tutored by her mother, it did seem humiliating to own it to this aristocratic-looking man, whose liveried chauffeur had turned up his nose—she distinctly observed it—when she had so timidly told him her address.

But the car was rattling along smartly now over the stony streets, and she was sitting there on the cushions, going home in magnificent style, and with something stirring at her heart that had never thrilled it before—something new and sweet and strange that had seemed to start into life at the first glance of those splendid dark-blue eyes that now turned on her with something like pitying wonder, as their owner said gravely:

“You look very young to have to work for your living. Are you an orphan?”

“My father is dead. My mother is living, but she is sick, and I am her only child,” Fair said, then stopped abruptly.

He had winced and shut his eyes as if in pain.

“His poor shoulder hurts,” Fair thought, in dismay.

She sat very still, watching his pale, handsome face with an earnest gaze until suddenly the car came to a stop, and he opened his eyes quickly, and met the wistful glance full.

He smiled, and Fair, so pale a moment before, blushed crimson, and hastily dropped her long-fringed lashes.

“Are you sure you are not much hurt?” he asked gently, and she answered eagerly:

“It is not very bad, thanks; but you—you are suffering; I see it in your face. Oh, I am so sorry, and I thank you so much for saving my life. I—I——”

The chauffeur opened the door, and stood impatiently waiting, having said “Home, miss!” twice while she was making her impulsive little speech.

Again she saw her rescuer’s handsome face pale, contract with pain, and he held out his hand and touched hers gently, saying kindly:

“I am glad I had the pleasure of saving your life, little one. Good-by.”

CHAPTER IV.
A THROBBING HEART.

Was it all a dream? Fair stood like one dazed on the pavement, watching the car roll around the corner out of sight, and, but for the throbbing wound on her temple, she would have thought it but a dream, so swiftly had everything passed.

But as the vehicle disappeared, a strange aching sense of loss and loneliness filled her heart, and, with a half sob, she turned and entered the dreary, shabby lodging house, where, away up in the fourth story, was a little back room that she called home.

It was a poorly furnished, shabby little room, yet with traces of refinement in its perfect cleanliness, its small stand of books, and the neat white cloth spread upon a small table, which held the evening meal, several slices of brown toast and a tiny pat of butter.

A little brown teapot was singing merrily on a small vapor stove, and Fair’s mother, a faded, melancholy-looking woman, who must once have been very handsome, was waiting every moment for the return of her daughter from work.

She did not have long to wait, for at last a slow, lagging step, very unlike Fair’s usual merry bound, paused at the door, and Fair entered.

Mrs. Fielding glanced up, saw her daughter’s lovely face ghastly pale and grave, with a long, disfiguring strip of court-plaster across one temple, over which her curls drooped, wet and matted, and uttered a shriek of alarm and dismay.

“Mother!” cried Fair, with a loud, hysterical sob, and, springing to her mother’s arm, she hid her face on her neck and wept aloud in passionate excitement.

It was long before the anxious, frightened mother could elicit from Fair the story of what had happened to her, and then she sobbed for a while almost as wildly as her daughter over the peril she had escaped.

“Oh, my precious child, to think that at this moment you might be lying dead! It is horrible—horrible!” she cried. “Oh, I can never cease to thank the noble young man who saved your life at the imminent risk of his own. But, my dear, it seems strange that you did not think of asking him to come in the house, that I, too, might have thanked him for his bravery,” she added, rather reproachfully.

“Oh, I did not like to ask, for—somehow—I fancied he was in a great hurry.”

“Too modest to wait and be praised and thanked for his bravery—that was natural,” said Mrs. Fielding. “But no matter; of course I shall go to him and express my gratitude. I declare, Fair, you haven’t told me his name!”

“I don’t know it, mamma.”

“Fair!”

Mrs. Fielding’s glance and tone were full of reproachful amazement. She drew a long, long breath, and added:

“You have forgotten your preserver’s name, you ungrateful child!”

Fair’s pale and tear-wet face suddenly grew rosy red, and she said quickly:

“Oh, no, for I never knew his name. He did not tell me, and, of course, I did not like to ask him.”

Mrs. Fielding cried out in dismay:

“You did not find out his name, nor where he lives?”

“No, mamma,” despondently.

“But, of course, you told him your name?” pursued the mother.

“Of course I did not. As he did not show interest enough in me to ask it,” Fair retorted hotly, for she resented bitterly, in secret, her preserver’s proud indifference as shown in the fact that he did not even care to know the name of her he had saved from a horrible death.

Mrs. Fielding was perplexed and disappointed beyond expression.

“Why, I really do not know what to think,” she exclaimed. “He must be the strangest young man that ever was born, not to take any more interest than that in such a lovely girl, and one whose life he had saved at the peril of his own. And I really hoped something would come of it. It was so much like novels I had read that I hoped it would end like a novel; but I fear it will always remain a mystery.”

To Fair Fielding, as well as to her mother, the events of that day seemed most romantic; but she did not, like the ambitious woman, cherish any fancy that anything would “come of it.” The kindly carelessness of her preserver’s manner had been too decided to foster anything like a hope that he had taken any interest in her beyond the humane one of saving her life.

Her young heart, fascinated by his heroism and his manly beauty, had gone out to him in a rush of tenderness. Pity, too, had helped to strengthen the flowery chain, for she felt that he had suffered severely from the hurt received in her behalf. It was according to the dictates of her woman’s nature to yearn over and to compassionate him for the pain he had endured without a sign, except the marble pallor of his handsome face.

But, alas! by his proud reserve and lack of curiosity over the girl he had rescued, the young man had excited, together with gratitude and tenderness, a bitter pique that swelled the young heart almost to bursting. She tossed and turned restlessly all night on the pillow by her mother’s side, thinking of the dark-blue eyes that had looked at her so gravely, and wondering if her confession that she was only a working girl had indeed been the cause of his coldness. More than once she sighed to herself, with earnestness:

“Oh, if only I were his equal in birth and wealth, and he was my lover, I should have nothing left to ask for on earth!”

She was so troubled and restless all night that her mother became very anxious over her wound, and in the morning forbade her going to work. Fair did not insist upon it, for she felt weak and nervous, and dreaded meeting the girls who had rallied her so much yesterday.

“I do not like to lose the money for my day’s work, yet I am glad to stay at home to-day and rest,” she owned frankly; and when Mrs. Fielding looked at the pale face and heavy eyes with dark circles under them from her sleepless night, she felt that she had done wisely in keeping her at home.

“I feel almost certain that that young gentleman will call to-day to inquire how you are,” she said presently, and at the words Fair started and colored.

“Oh, you do not think so!” she exclaimed, with a ring of hopefulness in her voice.

“I should not be the least surprised,” declared Mrs. Fielding.

She had puzzled over the matter until she had come to the conclusion that the young man was romantic. He had purposely withheld his name in order to excite Fair’s curiosity, and to-day he would certainly call and clear up the mystery that now surrounded him.

So the summer day dawned and waned, and all day long the mother and daughter, while busy over their domestic tasks, listened with almost equal eagerness for a step upon the stairs and a hand upon the door, but no one came until almost sunset, and then it was Sadie Allen’s homely yet cheerful face that beamed upon them as she entered and exclaimed:

“I couldn’t rest easy until I found out the reason you didn’t come to work to-day, Fair, so I came as soon as I had my tea. You are sick, aren’t you?” Then, catching sight of the disfiguring plaster on her temple: “Oh, then, you were the heroine of the accident yesterday? I said so. I told the girls, when you didn’t come this morning, that it was Fairfax Fielding, and nobody else. Oh, are you much hurt? Tell me all about it.”

And in a little while, by her curious questions, she had elicited the whole story.

“Oh, how romantic!” she cried, with sparkling eyes. “It’s just like a novel, isn’t it, Mrs. Fielding?”

The lady assented with a smile, and the talkative Sadie continued, with genuine regret:

“For my part, I’d like to see it end like a novel. Own up now, Fair, weren’t you sorry he was just going off to Europe to marry another girl? You must have fallen in love with him at sight. I know I should.”

Fair’s brown eyes flashed proudly.

“In love—nonsense!” she retorted, with pretended gayety. Then her lashes drooped to hide the anxious look she wore as she continued: “But I don’t understand what you mean about his going to Europe.”

“Didn’t he tell you he was going?” demanded Sadie, in surprise.

“N-no; you see, he was suffering so much with his arm,” stammered Fair, trying to seem indifferent.

“We are expecting him to call soon, when, of course, he will explain,” Mrs. Fielding said, with a grand air.

Sadie stared.

“To call? Why, how can he, when he’s on the ocean?” she inquired brusquely.

Mrs. Fielding began to look anxious.

“Please explain yourself, Miss Allen,” she said, in a haughty tone, and the girl asked quickly:

“Have you seen the morning papers?”

“No.”

“Oh, that accounts for everything, then,” replied Sadie, and she went on to say that an account of the accident had appeared in the morning papers.

“We do not take the papers. We cannot afford it,” Mrs. Fielding said bitterly. “But go on with your story, Sadie.”

“The papers stated that Bayard Lorraine, one of the wealthiest young men in New York, was on his way to the steamer to embark for Europe, when he stopped to enter a cigar store for the purchase of some trifle, and, on stepping from his car, beheld a pretty little working girl in imminent danger from a falling scaffolding, loaded with bricks. He rushed to her assistance at the risk of his own life, and, in dragging her from the dangerous spot, had his shoulder dislocated, but was fortunate enough to find a physician, who attended to the hurt immediately. The young working girl, whose name was not ascertained, escaped with a slight cut on the temple, but the brave young man nobly placed her in his car and drove her to her humble home, although the delay caused by taking her so long a distance to her residence in a humble quarter of the city almost caused him to lose his steamer, which was on the point of leaving the wharf when he reached it. His bravery and nobility in the whole affair were the more striking as it was known that he was most anxious to get off, as his affianced bride was across the water, and the gossips said the wedding would take place in Paris at an early date.”

Sadie paused and took breath, and the mother and daughter looked at each other with heavy eyes—the older woman’s dim with disappointed ambition, the younger’s dark with unspoken pain.

The timid, trembling, unacknowledged hope in the young heart had fallen dead in a moment, and it was impossible for her to move or speak, so cruel was the pang that tore her breast.

To herself she was saying sadly:

“Bayard Lorraine! So that was his name? It has a proud sound. And he is going away to bring back a bride, alas!”

For in that moment pretty Fair realized that the events of yesterday had changed her life forever, and that her heart had gone out beyond recall to the man she had met but once and could never hope to meet again.

Sadie Allen’s quick eyes read the disappointment in both faces, and she thought shrewdly:

“That foolish woman has been deluding her daughter with the thought that Bayard Lorraine would fall in love with her pretty face, and she was silly enough to believe it. Poor little Fair! I like her very much, but I wish she did not have such a weak-minded mother.”

But, of course, she could not speak out her thoughts, and as neither Fair nor her mother made any remark, she rose to take leave, expressing the hope that Fair would be well enough to come to work to-morrow.

“Of course she will,” Mrs. Fielding answered, with returning self-possession. “She wanted to go this morning, but she was looking so ill and feeling so badly I kept her at home to rest.”

“I shall be all right in the morning,” said Fair, with a poor attempt at a smile.

Poor child! She felt crushed and miserable. A bright, beautiful hope had flashed across the horizon of her dull, toilsome life, only to fade in rayless darkness, whose gloom pierced her soul. She sat down when Sadie was gone, and leaned her head on her hands, with a sigh that made Mrs. Fielding look around quickly.

“You are disappointed, aren’t you, dear?” she asked.

Fair struggled a moment with her feelings, then, with a brave resolve that no one should ever know of her unsought love, she answered quietly:

“No, mother, only tired.”

But the elder woman, who knew how much is sometimes hidden by those simple words “only tired,” comprehended more than Fair wished she should, and nodded her head in silent sorrow, for her own disappointment was very keen.

But the name of Bayard Lorraine was tacitly dropped between them. He went out of their lives suddenly, as he had come into them, although not out of Fair’s thoughts, for, try to thrust his image from her heart as she would, it intruded into her thoughts, and with it came many a silent wonder over the bride that he had chosen. Was she young? Was she rich? Was she beautiful?

CHAPTER V.
A PERSISTENT SUITOR.

Belva Platt did not find it as easy to force her recreant lover back to her feet as she had expected.

Waverley Osborne was a good-looking, clever young man, with a good opinion of himself, and his love for the handsome blonde had taken flight the first time he beheld the piquant face of Fair Fielding.

Although deeply disappointed and indignant at the treatment he had received at the hands of Fair and her mother, he had by no means given up the hope of winning the young girl’s regard. He was conceited, and he made up his mind that Fair only repulsed him through fear of her mother.

“She would go with me fast enough only for that old cat, who wants to keep her daughter from getting married that she may support her in her laziness,” he said angrily to himself, and he made up his mind not to cease his attentions to Fair, but to conduct them more cautiously, so that he might make an impression on her girlish heart and induce her to meet him clandestinely, since her mother was opposed to his suit.

So he began to write her surreptitious love letters, which he conveyed to her hands by means of the little boys about the establishment, generally as she was leaving the factory after her day’s work was done.

Pretty Fair opened the first two of these epistles, and, finding them filled with praises of her beauty and protestations of love, returned both to the writer, with a curt message that she desired nothing to do with him.

But Waverley Osborne told himself that these were but the coquetries of a pretty young girl, who adopted these coy repulses only to lead him on. So he persevered, and every day sent her a fresh letter, which she, with resentful haste, returned, unopened, so that Belva Platt, who was watching her lover’s movements in Fair’s direction very closely, one day secured one of these letters by bribing a little messenger boy, and forthwith possessed herself of the tender contents.

The fury of the girl whose love had been slighted and rejected for a rival knew no bounds.

“I could kill them both!” she said savagely, through her clenched teeth, as she paced restlessly up and down her room, crushing the perfumed sheet in her angry hands and calling down furious maledictions on the head of the girl on whom she had vowed to take a bitter revenge.

“I will bear it no longer. I will go to see her mother, and if she is as weak and foolish as the girls say she is, why, I will cajole her into helping me to carry out my scheme of vengeance,” she muttered grimly.

And on Sunday afternoon, the only day on which she had any time for visiting, she dressed herself in her best attire, and boldly called on Mrs. Fielding.

“I hope you will excuse me for taking the liberty, but I am so fond of Fair that I could not help calling,” she said blandly, and, having thus paved her way, she proceeded: “Oh, my dear girl, I have something to tell you—quite a coincidence, really. You remember what I was telling you about a friend of mine, a rich young man, who vows he will marry no one but a working girl?”

“Eh?” exclaimed Mrs. Fielding, with deep interest, and Belva mentally hugged herself.

“Good! She snaps at the tempting bait,” she muttered grimly, and, turning to the lady, she exclaimed: “Hasn’t Fair told you? Why, what a sly little puss she is, never to tell you of her grand opportunity! You see, I wanted to introduce her to a particular friend of mine, an extremely wealthy young man, and she positively refused to know him. Think of that! And, you see, it certainly did pique him, for I had told him how pretty she was, and he is just crazy to get acquainted with her. He came past the factory one day just as we were leaving, and I pointed her out to him. He told me afterward that it was curiosity to see her that brought him. He said she must be a wonderful girl to refuse a young man’s acquaintance simply because he was rich.”

“Oh, Miss Platt, it wasn’t that, of course. I simply didn’t care about him,” Fair explained quickly, adding, after an instant: “I really meant to tell mother—but—I forgot.”

Yes, poor child, she had truly forgotten, for on the same fated afternoon Bayard Lorraine’s blue eyes had flashed across the horizon of her life, and all things else had grown obscure. She was blinded by looking on the sun.

Mrs. Fielding, all eager interest, turned to artful Belva.

“Did I really understand you to say that the young man actually wanted to marry a working girl?”

“Yes, that was what I said. He told me he was disgusted with society belles, and meant to seek a bride among the working classes. As soon as I saw Fair, I thought that she was the very one for him, as she was so superior to the generality of working girls; and, then, too, I knew that her beauty would create a sensation if she became a rich man’s bride.”

“Please don’t flatter me, Miss Platt!” exclaimed Fair, blushing warmly.

“It is no flattery, my dear girl. It is the plain truth,” replied Belva, as she rattled on: “But what I was about to tell you, Fair, was that this rich young man is a cousin of Bayard Lorraine, the person that saved your life that day. Now, doesn’t it seem like a coincidence?”

“I don’t know,” Fair answered vaguely. She blushed and trembled at the very mention of the name that was always in her secret thoughts.

“The strangest part, to me,” continued Belva vivaciously, “is that while Bayard Lorraine is very proud and haughty, and never associates with any but rich girls, his cousin, George Lorraine, thinks as much of a poor girl as a rich one—even more—for he says rich girls never love a man for himself, but only for the amount of money he has, and he is so disgusted that he means to have a dear little working girl, who will love him for himself alone.”

Mrs. Fielding was wondering to herself what manner of man this could be, and, looking at Belva, she said dubiously:

“Your friend must be a strange kind of man; or perhaps he has done something so bad that it has placed him outside the pale of polite society? He may be a black sheep.”

Belva protested eagerly that such was not the case, that George Lorraine was the most intimate friend of his Cousin Bayard.

“He is peculiar, that is all, and is a sort of crank on the subject of marrying for love,” she said. “His relations object very much to his sentiments, but it does no good. Now, Bayard Lorraine is the proudest man in New York. You know that yourself, Fair, for, although he was brave enough to save your life, he did not take enough interest in you to find out your name.”

She had wormed this out of Fair by ceaseless persistency.

Fair made no answer, but sat with drooping head and nervous fingers, smoothing down the folds of her white apron. What was there for her to say? Belva’s words were only too true.

But Mrs. Fielding and Belva carried on the conversation quite briskly, and the end was that Fair’s mother gave the artful schemer leave to bring George Lorraine to call.

Belva lost no time in taking advantage of the permission, and the very next evening she climbed the stairs to the little four-story room with a young man whom she introduced to Fair and her mother as Mr. George Lorraine.

Fair looked with much interest at her new acquaintance, to see if he bore any resemblance to his cousin. She could not find any, as George was small and dark, with an Italian type of beauty, for he was certainly very good-looking.

But he was well dressed and agreeable, and talked so constantly about “my Cousin Bayard, you know,” that Fair found him, on the whole, a very pleasant acquaintance.

“Bayard is going to marry an heiress, you know,” he confided to her, adding, with an admiring glance into the bright brown eyes: “But, by Jove, you know, if I’d had such a chance as that beggar the day he sailed, I’d have stayed at home and let that girl go, in spite of her moneybags.”

CHAPTER VI.
A MARRIAGE PROPOSAL.

“Marry you!” cried Fair, starting back, half frightened. “Why, I’ve scarcely known you a month, Mr. Lorraine!”

They were alone in the room, for Mrs. Fielding had discreetly left the room. The evening was warm, and Fair was sitting by the open window, dressed in white, with her red-gold curls loose on her shoulders, and a pink rose in her belt, a lovely picture of youth and innocence—and George Lorraine appeared to think so, for he looked very earnest as he bent over her, begging for the gift of her heart and hand.

“Yes, I’ve only known you for a month,” he said, “and, my dear girl, if you were rich and fashionable, I should wait longer before I asked you to marry me; but it is for your sake and your mother’s, as much as for my own. Do you not know, dearest, that I am anxious to remove you from these humble surroundings”—and he flashed a glance of disdain around the shabby little room—“to my beautiful Fifth Avenue home, where you will have such surroundings as befit your beauty and your worth?”

The beautiful face before him grew pale with emotion. Fair was frightened at the thought of marrying George Lorraine, yet dazzled at the glittering prospect he held out to her. Besides, what would her mother say if she refused him? Fair knew quite well that she would be bitterly disappointed, even angry.

“I do not think you are indifferent to me, Fair,” continued her lover. “You have accepted my attentions, and you have seemed to take pleasure in my company and conversation.”

It was all true; she could not deny it. Yet what would he say if she dared tell him that she had welcomed his coming, listened to him with delight, because he talked so much of his cousin—of Bayard Lorraine, whose image filled her heart, whom she loved with the maddest, most foolish love the world ever knew—since, for the one hope of meeting her ideal again, she was thinking of giving her hand to George Lorraine?

“It is not so much his wealth, poor as I am, that tempts me, as the thought that, being his wife, I should meet Bayard Lorraine again—meet him on equal terms, with a name as proud as his own,” she thought, finding a strange balm for her wounded pride in the prospect. “He despises the poor working girl, they say; but, as his cousin’s wife, he cannot look down on me. I shall meet him in society. I shall meet his haughty bride. And when I am dressed in jewels and satins and laces I shall, perhaps, be as beautiful as she is,” ran the tenor of her thoughts; and she was so young, so innocent, so untaught that she did not know that to marry George Lorraine in such a mood would be deadly sin. What did she know of the sanctity of marriage? Her mother had always railed against it as having been the cause of all her trouble.

She kept a little journal, to which alone she confided her girlish, romantic thoughts, and to which the struggles of these days were freely told. It would have brought tears to any eyes to have read there the story of her hopeless love, the tender little verses that flowed from her full heart, and the last entry that was made that night, which ran simply:

“I have promised to marry George Lorraine. He is not the rose, but he has lived near it.”

Poor Fair—a child in her knowledge of life and the world, a woman in her love—was trying to cheat her heart with a fatal delusion, and one that she paid for most bitterly in the dark days yet to come.

But at present she believed that she was doing what was best and right for herself and her mother, and as far as that mother was concerned she would not have permitted her daughter to turn back if she had desired to do so.

So it was all settled, and George Lorraine begged that a very early date might be named for the marriage, and Mrs. Fielding seconded the motion.

In vain, Fair pleaded that it should not take place until winter. They laughed at her petition, and declared that a month’s time was quite sufficient for her to prepare her simple trousseau.

“For you can buy all you want as soon as we are married,” said her lover.

Mrs. Fielding thought it was very strange that George Lorraine should be willing for his bride-elect to go on working at the factory after their betrothal. But he made no request that Fair should stop; so things went on much the same as before.

She worked all day, and in the afternoon Mr. Lorraine was usually on hand to take her home, creating quite a sensation among the factory girls by his fine clothes and foppish airs, and entirely squelching the pretensions of Waverley Osborne, who, having heard it rumored that Fair was engaged to marry a very rich young man, resigned himself to despair, and talked gloomily to his best friend on the topic of putting an end to a blighted existence by means of pistols or poisons.

Fair’s approaching marriage became known speedily to the working girls, and many of them were pleased with her good fortune, while others were consumed with envy and malice.

As for Mrs. Jones, the sensible forewoman, who had declared that no rich man would marry a working girl, she became quite unpopular with the majority, and had many a sly reminder of her false prophecy from one or another of the ambitious ones who hoped to do as well as Fair some day.

The lovely Fair bore her honors very meekly, and did not seem elated by the brilliant prospect before her.

Indeed, some of the girls decided that her heart was not in the affair, and that it was purely a mercenary match.

“I do not believe it,” said another. “I think she is very much in love with him.”

“But she is always so serious nowadays—always in a brown study,” said Sadie Allen, who was one of those who declared it was a mercenary match.

One of the knowing ones, a girl who had had several love affairs, answered that that was one of the best signs of love.

“She is always thinking of her lover, and pays no attention to anything else; that is all,” she declared.

“Young ladies, please attend to your work!” put in the forewoman, a little sharply, and the merry girls who had been discussing love and marriage so gayly became mute as their fingers took up their tasks again.

It was arranged that Fair should be married at church, and that the newly married pair, with the happy mother, should go at once to the elegant Fifth Avenue residence, where they were to spend a few weeks getting acquainted with their new life; then, leaving Mrs. Fielding in charge of the house, they were to start upon a European tour.

“After the ceremony, we will hold a reception at home,” Mr. Lorraine said, adding: “As it is August, and all my fashionable friends are out of town, we will only ask a few people.”

“Oh, George!” Fair exclaimed, then looked at him pleadingly.

“Well, dearest?” he asked encouragingly, and she faltered:

“I should like—like—to invite—some of the working girls to my reception.”

He frowned slightly.

“But, Fair, you know you will move in a different circle hereafter. And, besides, what would my cousin, Bayard Lorraine, say if he knew that, in addition to the crime of marrying a working girl, I actually invited sewing girls to my wedding reception?”

The hot color flew to the creamy, fair cheeks, as it always did when he spoke that name, and Fair exclaimed angrily:

“Who cares what he thinks? I hate him, and I wish he had not saved my life, so there!” And, to his consternation, she burst into a babyish fit of crying.

CHAPTER VII.
THE FATAL WEDDING.

But she carried her point, after all, and a few of her companions at the factory—Sadie Allen, Belva Platt, Mrs. Jones, the forewoman, and a few others—were specially invited, and Fair delivered to each a message from Mr. Lorraine to the effect that they would be conveyed in carriages from the church to his residence.

The carriages were really there, and so were the bridal party—Fair in a simple white dress and hat such as a pretty girl may wear to church any Sunday, and the invited guests all in gala attire, and on the tiptoe of expectation. The groom looked pale and grave, but remarkably handsome, in his black suit, and Fair felt him tremble perceptibly as he drew her hand through his arm and led her before the waiting minister, who, with the short, simple ritual of the Baptist Church, soon made them one.

Mrs. Fielding was beaming with pride and pleasure. She felt that her aim was accomplished. With all her disadvantages, she had married her daughter off as well as any scheming society mamma. She drew a sigh of relief at the thought that there was no more work for beautiful Fair, nor herself—only luxury, ease, and pleasure, with jewels and fine dresses.

She kissed her daughter most fondly, and followed the bridal party out to the carriages that were waiting to convey them to the Fifth Avenue mansion. She found herself placed in one with Mrs. Jones, Miss Platt, and Sadie Allen as companions. As she was being borne through the streets to her destination, she thought complacently:

“It is the last time I expect to associate with any of the factory people except Miss Platt. I shall make an exception in her favor, as she is the friend of my son-in-law, and as she, in a manner, helped Fair to win him—as, but for her, we would never have known him. Yes. I will invite her to Fifth Avenue sometimes, and I will try to make a good match for her among some of George’s rich friends.”

The carriage came to an abrupt pause, and the driver appeared at the door to help the ladies out. Mrs. Fielding glanced out at the narrow, ill-lighted street, lined with rows of shabby tenement houses, and exclaimed:

“Don’t get out, ladies. That is not Fifth Avenue. There is some mistake, driver.”

“No mistake, mum. Gentl’man told me this street and number,” replied the man; and Miss Platt, who had already sprung to the pavement, looked back and observed:

“There certainly must be some mistake, but all the others have gone into the house, so we had better follow them and find out what is the matter.”

So Mrs. Fielding followed with foreboding curiosity, and Belva Platt led them into a shabby, creaky, moldy old tenement house, and up two illy lighted and steep staircases to the third story, where, in a small room, they came upon an interesting tableau.

The room was poor and mean, but scrupulously neat, and the cane-seated chairs ranged around the room had a forlorn company look, as had also the table in the middle of the floor, which was generously loaded with refreshments, consisting of stale pound cake, beer, oranges, bananas, and a plate of candy. In this festal apartment, dimly lighted by a flaring kerosene lamp, stood George Lorraine and his astonished bride, with several of the girls whom he had invited to the wedding reception. They had apparently just entered the room, and before any one else could utter a word Mrs. Fielding burst upon the scene, exclaiming:

“Mr. Lorraine, why have we come to this house? Surely there must be some mistake!”

Belva Platt laughed aloud, a malicious laugh that drew all eyes upon her; and George Lorraine, who had suddenly grown very pale, and whose frame was trembling with emotion, answered:

“No-o, Mrs. Fielding, there isn’t any mistake. This is my—my—home. I have suddenly lost all my riches!”

Mrs. Fielding stood like a statue of despair, glaring at her son-in-law, with his strange words ringing in her ears like the knell of hope.

The pale young bride had heard, too. Whiter she could not grow, for she had looked like a lily ever since she had left home to go to church, and her lovely face wore a shadow very unlike that of a happy bride. But at those words from her new-made husband’s lips, she started and gazed intently at him, with a blank despair in her glance that was lost on him, for his eyes were bent upon the floor, and, in place of his usual jaunty, confident mien, he seemed dejected and abashed; and no wonder, for a buzzing whisper of surprise sounded all around him from the surprised guests, and above it all there echoed a low, derisive laugh replete with enjoyment of the scene. It came from the lips of Belva Platt, and her blue eyes glowed with ghoulish glee as she fixed them on the pale, startled face of the hapless girl on whom she had taken such a cruel revenge.

It pleased her to see the lovely, dimpled, childish face that had wiled away Waverley Osborne’s heart looking so wan and wild and frightened.

Mrs. Fielding, who had been choking and gasping in the effort to speak, after the shock of surprise she had received, suddenly turned her eyes upon Belva, and said, sternly as her unsteady voice would permit:

“Miss Platt, I would like to know what amuses you? Is this a laughing matter?”

Belva made her a mocking bow, and answered:

“Yes, madam, I find it very amusing.” Then she went off into a peal of sardonic laughter, crying maliciously: “So the bridegroom has suddenly lost all his riches—ha, ha, ha! What a good joke!”

Sadie Allen went up to her and roughly shook her arm.

“Belva Platt, behave yourself! You are acting like a crazy woman. Have you no decency?”

But Belva shook off the remonstrating hand, and, laughing more wildly than before, looked at Mrs. Fielding. She saw that the pale bride had glided to her mother’s side, and was clinging to her with trembling hands.

“Mother,” she faltered, “you will make them explain, won’t you, dear? This is horrible! She frightens me with her laughter; it has such a dreadful sound.”

“Yes—what does it all mean?” exclaimed Mrs. Jones curiously. “Why, I heard that Mr. Lorraine was rich, and that we were invited to his wedding reception at a Fifth Avenue mansion,” and she glanced contemptuously around the mean apartment, and then looked, with a little feminine triumph, at Mrs. Fielding, the woman whom she cordially despised for her aristocratic airs.

Sadie Allen came forward to the silent, half-dazed bridegroom, and said curtly:

“Come, Mr. Lorraine, we want you to explain the meaning of this. You have pretended to be rich all this time, and if you have fooled Fair Fielding, why, I say you are no gentleman—that’s all.”

He looked up at her helplessly, and, with an appealing glance in his dark eyes, muttered incoherently:

“I couldn’t help it! She made me do it. I was in her power. She threatened——”

“She? Who is she? Not Fair? Not Mrs. Fielding?” exclaimed Sadie, and before he could answer Belva Platt come up to them, and, dropping a mocking curtsy, interposed defiantly:

“I am she! I planned it all. I made him marry Fairfax Fielding!”