CHAPTER VII.
"IT IS WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF FATE THAT YOU WILL SIN AND YOU WILL SUFFER."
"Man's love is like the restless waves,
Ever at rise and fall;
The only love a woman craves
It must be all in all.
Ask me no more if I regret—
You need not care to know,
A woman's heart does not forget–"
The fortune-teller, who was no other than Mrs. Warwick, the laundress, became terribly agitated at the finding of the glove, and the excited shriek of Ethel.
"Oh, God! my sister's glove!" shrieked the girl, and the woman cowered before her, and turned ashy pale.
The immense mastiff permitted Ethel to take the little white glove from his mouth, but he pressed close to her side with his great fore-paws in her lap, and fixing his big intelligent eyes on her face with an imploring expression, kept on yelping and whining in a dismal strain that was almost terrifying.
Kay had loved his fair young mistress with intense canine devotion, and as soon as he entered the old house his keenness of scent had made him acquainted with her presence there. He was following up the trail with blended joy and perplexity, when Ethel had called him into the room, where he had at once renewed his investigations, with the result that he had found the glove.
It was hers, Kay knew it, and with almost human excitement he carried it to Ethel, while his dismal yelps said as plain as words:
"My darling little mistress is somewhere near to us, but I cannot find her. Help me! oh, help me!"
Mrs. Warwick stared at both in horror, for the fatal truth dawned on her mind. This girl was the sister of the captive upstairs, and the faithful dog had penetrated the mystery.
While she was collecting her scattered self-possession Ethel turned to her, exclaiming agitatedly:
"My sister is in this house, a prisoner! Lead me to her at once."
The expression of fear on Mrs. Warwick's face changed to one of cunning, and she cried sullenly:
"Lady, I don't know what you mean! What would your sister be doing in this old house, where nobody lives but me? That glove was left here a week ago by a beautiful young lady that wanted her fortune told. I kept it, a-thinking she'd likely come back for it, but she never did."
"The girl was my sister. Did she come alone?" asked Ethel, fancying that perhaps her maid had told Precious about the fortune-teller, too. It made the woman's story sound plausible.
"That dog makes me nervous. But get him to stop his racket, and I'll tell you all about the girl."
Ethel pressed Kay's head down upon her knee, and soothed him until his sharp, impatient yelps subsided into low, dismal whining, and then the woman said:
"It was Inauguration night, about midnight, I guess, that I was aroused by a couple, a pretty, blue-eyed girl in white, with long yellow curls, and a handsome young man. They told me they had run away from the ball to get married, and the girl was afraid of her father, and wanted me to tell her if he would ever forgive her for doing it. It seemed as how he was a swell, and rich, but her young man was poor, and worked for a living. I read the cards for them, and told them to go ahead, that the old man would come round and take them home to live in the grand mansion. The girl laughed for joy, and the young man paid me a double fee, then they went away in their carriage, and presently I found the girl's glove on the floor where she had dropped it."
Her story had a plausible sound, but Ethel looked at her suspiciously, and said:
"The girl's description answers to that of my sister, Precious Winans, who was abducted from the Inauguration Ball; but there is something strange about your story, for my sister was not willing to marry the man. I'm certain of that."
"Then it couldn't be the same young lady, for the one I saw here was desperate fond of her young man, I'm sure," returned the woman maliciously, hoping that this falsehood would help her son's cause with the senator.
"It is very strange," said Ethel, with a perplexed air, for she did not believe in her heart that Precious was in love with anybody. She rose abruptly, restraining Kay by a hand on his silver collar. "I will take the glove to papa and tell him what you have told me. Perhaps it may give him a clew."
"Oh, but, miss, I haven't told your fortune yet. Just stay a little longer, and keep that brute quiet, and I'll go into a trance, and tell you all you want to know."
Ethel paused irresolute. She did not really have much faith in the old woman's powers of divination, but she was curious, and—"the woman who hesitates is lost."
The fortune-teller threw herself into a chair, leaned her head back, closed her eyes, and feigned sleep.
Ethel, with her hand on Kay's collar, waited nervously.
Soon the woman began to mutter, like one asleep.
And as she was very angry at Ethel for coming there and getting her into what she foresaw would be a very bad scrape, she determined to give the young lady a very grewsome fortune. She accordingly began:
"You have a rich and handsome lover, and every girl in Washington has envied you, but now they laugh in derision."
Ethel started violently, her dark eyes flashing luridly.
"They laugh," continued the pretended clairvoyant, "because another girl has cut you out with your grand lover. He has almost forgotten you already, and worships the blue eyes and golden hair of his new love."
She heard a repressed gasp of agony that assured her that the chance shot had hit the mark, but her malice was not satiated yet, and she continued solemnly and dreamily:
"You will have a bad, black, bitter future. Your jealous hate of your successful rival will cause you to commit a crime. I cannot tell you for certain whether you will be sent to prison or hung for it, for I cannot clearly read the jurors' minds; besides, much will depend on the great influence of your powerful relations, so I don't know exactly how much punishment you will get, but it is written in the book of fate that you will sin and you will suffer."
It was the merest malicious jargon, guess-work, based on Ethel's first statement that she had lost her lover's heart, but it struck home to Ethel's proud, passionate heart with the awful certainty of prophecy. She trembled with terror, and the cold dew of fear started out on her brow, beneath the dark wavy tresses of her rich hair. With an effort she shook the woman's shoulder loathingly.
"Wake up! I don't want to hear any more of your dismal stuff! I'm going," she cried imperiously.
Mrs. Warwick shuddered, gasped, and seemed to come out of a deep sleep. Her guest was already going through the doorway into the hall.
Just then Kay broke from Ethel's grasp, and bounded up the rickety stairs to the narrow passageway above. They heard him, reared up on his hind feet, beating with his fore-paws on a door, and barking furiously.
"Call your dog down, or I will kill him!" shrieked the woman.
"You will not dare to do it. Papa brought him from Europe for my sister, and he cost several hundred dollars," answered Ethel quickly, but she stood at the foot of the stairway and called the mastiff repeatedly, first persuasively, then authoritatively.
But one tone had no more effect than the other.
Kay continued his vociferous barking, and the sound of his huge body as he hurled it against the resisting door echoed through the house.
"The brute is devilish! If I had a pistol I'd shoot him, even if he cost ten thousand dollars!" vowed the irate fortune-teller.
"I will go and bring him down," cried Ethel, but the woman pushed her away.
"No, no! you must not go up there! He is only after my big cat! I will go myself, and drive him down!"
"But you must not strike him. Precious never allowed any one to strike him," Ethel called anxiously.
The woman did not answer; she rushed on, and caught up a stick in the hall. Furious with anger she brought it down on Kay's back.
There was a savage howl of pain and fury.
The petted mastiff that had never felt the weight of a blow in his life, turned glaring red eyes on his assailant, and sprang at her ferociously.
In a minute she was down under the huge paws.
Ethel heard the blow, the savage howl of the startled dog, the fall of the woman's body on the floor, borne down by Kay's strong paws, then strangling shrieks:
"Help! Help! He will kill me!"
The girl bounded up the stairs and saw the infuriated Kay at the throat of the prostrate woman.
With a cry of horror Ethel caught his collar in both hands, trying to drag him off.
But Kay resisted all the efforts of her puny strength, and the contest must have ended in a tragedy but for a sudden happening.
From within the closed and locked door where Kay had been struggling to effect an entrance sounded a low, clear, eager voice:
"Kay! Kay! come to Precious!"
The woman on the floor was kicking, struggling, shrieking, and the dog, with his paws on her breast had his fangs at her throat, but at that sweet, clear voice everything changed on the instant.
The dog, with his jaws wide open, emitted a howl of savage joy, and leaped upward to the height of a man, then turned from the woman and back to the door. His victim scrambled to her feet, her garments hanging in tatters, her face ashy pale and absolutely fiendish, but before she could utter a word she saw Ethel come up to her with blazing eyes.
The girl cried sternly:
"My sister is in that room. Open the door this instant, I command you."
"I will not obey you!"
"You shall!"
"I will not!"
Ethel's face was corpse-like in its pallor, her black eyes glowed with light.
"Kay!" she called, in a low, menacing voice, and the woman shuddered. At the same time a voice in the locked room called plaintively:
"Ethel! Ethel! darling sister Ethel!"
"That is my sister's voice," cried Ethel wildly. "Woman, your defiance drives me mad! If you do not instantly open that door and release Precious I shall set the mastiff on you. He will tear you limb from limb!"
"I'll murder you first!" growled the woman, edging toward the club on the floor.
"Kay will protect me," the girl answered dauntlessly. "Once more, will you open the door? No? Kay!"
The mastiff, leaping and yelping at the door, turned his head, and the woman's defiance all fled.
"Take him away; let me get at the door, and I'll open it. The key's in my pocket," she growled.
Ethel drew Kay away and talked to him coaxingly while Mrs. Warwick pushed the key in the lock, turned it, and opened the door a little way.
"Go in now, you and the dog," she cried. "The girl's bed-rid, and can't come out to you, and you can't leave that devil outside to devour me."
Ethel was so excited that she did not dream of danger or treachery to herself. She and Kay pushed past the woman, and entered the room. That instant the door was banged and locked on the outside.
CHAPTER VIII.
"IF I EVER HAVE A LOVER HE MUST BE GRAND AND HANDSOME."
"He to whom I give affection
Must have princely mien and guise;
If devotion lay below me
I would stoop not for the prize.
Bend down to me very gently,
But bend always from above;
I would scorn where I could pity,
I must honor where I love."—Phebe Cary.
Ethel heard the key click in the lock, but in the excitement of finding her sister she attached no significance to the fact.
She turned eagerly to the bed where lay a slender form clothed in a cheap blue wrapper of eider-down, over which swept a torrent of curling hair like sunshine.
But, oh, that face! Could it be Precious, the laughing, dimple-faced darling, with her cheeks like rose-leaves, her ripe red lips, her glorious eyes like blue pansies in the sunshine?
That wan little face on the coarse pillow was all thin and pale, with great shadows under the hollow eyes that were dim and faded from constant weeping. The little white hands were wasted so that the bewitching dimples were gone from the knuckles and the blue veins showed with painful clearness through the transparent skin.
At that piteous sight all the jealous hardness went out of Ethel's heart. She sprang with open arms to Precious, and clasped her to her breast, while Kay hovered over them in delight, licking the little feeble hands of his darling young mistress.
"Oh, Ethel, why didn't you come sooner? Where is papa? Why didn't he come with you? I shall die, and never see him any more," sobbed Precious plaintively.
"Die! Oh, no, my darling!" soothed Ethel, but she was startled by the words and the weakness and pallor of her sister.
"Precious, what has changed you so? Have you been ill?" she exclaimed anxiously.
"I am starving. I have never tasted food since the night I was kidnaped from the ball," answered Precious, in her faint, weak, hollow voice.
Ethel could scarcely credit the words, for a small stand near the bed was heaped high with edibles, fruits, and wines.
But Precious explained that she had determined to starve herself to death unless she was released from the power of the hated Lindsey Warwick.
"Yesterday I fainted from weakness when I tried to walk across the floor, and those two wretches came in and poured wine down my throat while I was too weak to resist, and again this morning she forced wine between my lips, and made me live a little longer, or else I think I should be dead already," and here Precious paused and gasped, too weak to continue.
"But you must eat and drink now, for I shall want you to go home with me," said Ethel tenderly, and she fed Precious like a little child, the poor girl taking food readily, for the pangs of hunger had been terrible to bear.
She ate and drank with grateful eagerness, and Ethel watched her with moist, dark eyes, and thought:
"Poor child, if I had stayed away a little longer she would have been dead; my little sister, that I have hated and envied in my evil moments, would never have crossed my path again, and I should not lose my lover as I shall surely do when once he sees Precious."
Was she glad or sorry that she had come?
She was glad!
It was one of the moments when good triumphed over evil in the complex nature of Ethel Winans.
"It was Heaven that sent me here to rescue Precious," she thought happily, and for awhile Lord Chester was forgotten while the sisters made mutual explanations.
"So it was Lindsey Warwick, after all. The detectives suspected him at first, but he hoodwinked them very cleverly," said Ethel.
"Oh, he is a fiend!" cried Precious shudderingly.
"Then you could never accept him as a lover?" Ethel asked curiously.
"Oh, never, never! He is very repulsive to me, with his keen little eyes, and his thick lips, and his perpetual smirk. If I ever have a lover I must have a grand, handsome one, as noble as papa, or perhaps like your lover, Ethel—I do not know his name, but I saw him at the ball with you, and I thought he was splendid. Well, when I have a real lover he must be like that, Ethel!" cried Precious innocently.
A shadow gleamed over Ethel's dusky beauty, and she thought:
"They are mutually attracted to each other. It is fate."
But she said carelessly:
"You are too young to dream of lovers yet, my dear, and when you get safe home again you must devote yourself to your studies, and not tease about going to balls. It was your willfulness about the Inauguration Ball that brought you into this trouble."
"And papa will put that villain into prison for this, I know," cried Precious, her voice a little stronger from the food and wine she had taken. Then she hugged Kay around his neck and kissed the top of his head.
"Darling old fellow, if it had not been for you Ethel would have come and gone without finding me. Oh, how shall I ever pay you for this? You shall have a golden collar with your name set in rubies—yes, you shall. Papa will buy it for you, I know, to pay you for saving his pet."
Kay showed as much boisterous delight as if he understood every word, and kept licking her little hands with joy unutterable.
"And now, dear, we must get out of this place, and go home if you think you are ready," smiled Ethel.
"Ready!" cried Precious gayly. "Well, I know I am very weak from my long fast, but joy makes me feel like a new girl. I have nothing to wear home but this blue wrapper over my ball dress, but no matter—let us start at once. If I am too weak to walk I can crawl there, or perhaps Kay will let me ride on his back," patting him tenderly.
Ethel turned the handle of the door, but it resisted her efforts, and she recoiled with a low cry.
"Oh, Heaven, I had forgotten! I heard that old hag lock the door on the outside as I entered. I am a prisoner too. What shall I do?"
The tears rushed into her sister's blue eyes.
"There is no use in screaming, for I cried that day and night until I was hoarse as a raven, but no one ever seemed to hear me. And the only window is nailed down, you see. But, oh, Ethel, they will miss you at home and come here to look for you presently, won't they dear?"
"I did not tell them I was coming here. I felt ashamed of going to see a fortune-teller to find out about you. They would have laughed at me. I let my maid think that I was going to see a friend. Oh, what shall I do? Why did I ever come here?" wept Ethel, wringing her hands in terror, and forgetting that she had told herself just now that God himself had sent her to the aid of Precious.
She shrieked aloud; she tore at the door with frantic hands.
"It will soon be night, and they will wonder what has become of me. This double sorrow will drive our poor mother mad. Oh, what shall I do?" she cried again in agony.
"If we could only get that window open," cried Precious eagerly. "But I have tried it every day, and my hands bled, but the nails would not come out. But if we could only open it, Ethel, we could plait a rope of the bedclothes, and get out."
Kay looked from one to the other, whining in unison with their grief.
Ethel turned a flashing glance on the window, then caught up a thick wash pitcher of heavy iron-stone ware. She poured the water out, and rushed at the window, dealing blow after blow on the panes. Joy! the thin glass and slight framework gave way before her furious onslaught. Then she attacked the shutters with the same signal success. They tumbled from their fastenings down to the ground two stories below. The sash was all gone, too, and the fresh outer air rushed into their faces—fresh, but full of the fog and damp of early twilight.
"Quick! now the bedclothes! We will sit at the window while we tear them in strips, and if we see any one passing we will scream to them for help," cried Ethel bravely, though her lovely hands were torn and bleeding from fragments of flying glass. They set to work, but Precious was so weak from her long fast that she could not help much. The little hands were strengthless and nerveless.
"She must have heard you breaking in the window, and she will come up here presently and kill us," she shuddered, with terrified eyes.
"Don't be a coward, Precious. I think the old wretch has very likely run off to tell her son what has happened, and we must get away before they come back, for, of course, he will be very angry, and, as you suggested, he may kill us," answered Ethel, working away in a perfect frenzy of fear and excitement.
But Precious was very weak and nervous; she could not bear the strain of this horrible dread, following on the hope of a few minutes ago. She dropped back quietly in her chair and fainted.
Ethel would not relax her frantic labor to resuscitate her, but Kay fell to licking the white face with such a rough, energetic tongue that presently Precious sighed and revived, pushing him down with feeble hands.
"Down, sir! down! You must not be so impudent," she sighed faintly.
"Come, Precious, our rope is done. Can you help me to fasten it to the leg of the bed? Then we will throw it from the window. I will slide down first, and you will follow. I will catch you at the bottom if you fall. And Kay can jump out after us. Oh, Heaven, what is that?"
She might well exclaim, for at that moment the wall at the opposite side of the room was suddenly divided by a burst of smoke and flame that lighted up the gloom with a lurid glare.
They had thought it was the wind, the strange, crackling noises they had faintly heard for some time, but now they understood the full horror of their situation.
The old house was in flames—fired doubtless by the fiendish old hag who had thus wreaked her vengeance and fled, leaving them to their fate.
It was a moment of the most sublime horror, the most deadly peril.
The two girls gazed at each other with horror-stricken faces, and the mastiff lifted up his voice in a prolonged and dismal howl like a banshee.
"We are trapped," cried Ethel wildly. "She has fired the house and gone. But we shall escape. Come, dear." She drew Precious to the window, and climbed upon the sill. "I will go first; you follow."
She grasped the rope, and swung outward, her heart beating wildly, her eyes watching the face of Precious as it leaned forward against the awful background of smoke and flame. The small pale face, like a snowdrop, the luminous blue eyes, the aureole of golden hair, made Precious look angelic.
Ethel felt herself rushing through the cold March air, and—suddenly she shot down wildly, and fell on the wet ground where the thick spongy turf broke the severity of the fall. Safe!
But an awful cry escaped her lips.
The plaited rope had proved treacherous, and broken off midway, dangling its useless length about a yard below the window sill, above which that beautiful white face looked down in a frenzy of despair.
Ethel staggered to her feet; she flung out her arms, she shrieked:
"Come, darling, climb out upon the rope, and drop. I will catch you—I will break the fall."
But Precious scarcely heard. Her senses had deserted her at sight of the broken rope. Ethel saw the dilated blue eyes close again, saw her sister fall backward into the blinding smoke, heard the frenzied yelp of Kay as he sprang upon the window sill, and felt that no earthly power could save her doomed sister now.
She held out her arms to Kay, and shrieked wildly:
"Come to me, Kay, come!"
But the poor beast gave a desolate howl, and sprang back into the room where Precious lay unconscious. Then a great black volume of smoke poured through the window, and from the front of the house Ethel saw the red glaring flame shoot quickly.
"The front of the house is all in flames. No one can save my sister now," she thought. Then something seemed to say in her heart:
"You are to blame. You should have sent her down the rope first. She was so light and small it would have carried her safely, and both would have been saved."
It made her angry, that still small voice of conscience, for she knew that it was a selfish anxiety over her own safety that made her descend first. Moving away she muttered:
"Why should I run the risk of my life for her? I tried to save her, and if she had not been so cowardly I would have succeeded. She will perish, but it is not my fault."
Why did she not run and spread the alarm? Some man might be found who would be brave enough to scale the window and bring out the unconscious girl.
But Ethel moved away, going backward, watching with fascinated eyes the burning building, her sister's funeral pyre.
Shrieks began to fill the air from the occupants of the shanties around, just discovering the fire. A crowd began to gather. Why did not the retreating girl pray the people to rescue her sister?
A tempting devil had recalled to her mind her sister's words of admiration for Lord Chester a little while ago—her longing for just such a splendid lover.
"Precious dead he would be yours; living she would win him from you," whispered the tempter, and she turned away muttering, "It is too late. No one could save her now."