CHAPTER IX.
A FAITHFUL FRIEND
"I am mad!
The torture of unnumbered hours is o'er,
The strong cord is broken, and my heart
Riots in free delirium! Oh, Heaven!
I struggled with it, but it mastered me!
I fought against it, but it beat me down!
I prayed, I wept, but Heaven was deaf to me,
And every tear rolled backward on my heart,
To blast and poison!"—George Henry Boker.
A crowd soon collected and the fire engines quickly came upon the scene.
Streams of water began to play on the burning house, but to no avail. The fire had made too much headway to be checked now. The old ramshackle building was doomed. In the large crowd that had collected were two very elegant-looking young men—Earle Winans and Lord Chester.
The two young men, although acquainted but a few days, had become fast friends.
It was the nobleman's deep solicitude over the fate of Precious that had first drawn Earle toward him. Lord Chester's services were always ready in any new plan for finding Precious; he was as eager as Earle himself in the search.
The Winans family believed that all this zeal was for the sake of Ethel, whom the nobleman had seemed to admire so much that gossip said he would certainly make her Lady Chester at no distant date.
So Earle had taken the handsome young nobleman warmly into his heart and confidence.
They had been walking together that chilly afternoon, several blocks away from the place, when the light of the burning building drew them to follow the crowd to the spot.
They arrived but a few moments after Ethel had turned away from the dreadful scene, hardening her jealous heart against the voice of accusing conscience, and answering to its reproaches: "I tried to save her, and it was through her own cowardice she perished."
When her brother and Lord Chester came on the scene they heard some one saying:
"There is a dog shut up in that house. Hear his frightful baying!"
They could hear it distinctly, the prolonged mournful howls, and it seemed as if the sounds came from an open window.
"The window is open. Why don't the foolish animal come out?" cried Earle Winans, and just then the streams of water playing on the side of the wall cleared away the smoke a little, and the animal was seen a moment dimly, then with another howl he fell back into the room.
"He is bewildered and afraid to jump," cried a fireman, as poor Kay's dismal wails came distinctly to the ears of the crowd.
"Perhaps there is some person in the room, and he is too faithful to desert his post. Dogs are often more faithful than friends. Put up a ladder, and I will go and see," exclaimed Lord Chester suddenly.
"No, no! you must not risk your life for a dog, even a faithful one," cried Earle, trying to hold his friend back, for the situation was very perilous.
"No, no! I must save that poor dog!" Lord Chester cried, breaking loose and ascending the ladder, while the shouts of the tumultuous crowd rang to heaven.
Slowly, carefully, through the blinding smoke and heat and threatening flame he went, and presently his head rose above the sill of the open window and he peered into the room, which seemed full of black smoke and leaping flames.
He put out his hand and it touched a big tawny head.
"Come, good fellow, come," he cried, and tried to drag him out.
Then he made a startling discovery.
The faithful mastiff had dragged an unconscious human being to the window with his teeth, and was holding her up by a mass of golden hair in a vain effort to get her up to the sill, where she might be seen and rescued by the crowd.
CHAPTER X.
"HIS HEART WILL TURN BACK TO ME."
"Eyes that loved me once, I pray
Be not crueler than death;
Hide each sharp-edged glance away
Underneath its cruel sheath!
Make me not, sweet eyes, with scorn,
Mourn that I was ever born!"—Alice Cary.
Through the falling twilight of the bleak March day Ethel Winans sped away like a guilty creature, nor paused until she reached her home.
Entering by a private door she gained her own room unobserved and hastened to bathe her face and hands and rearrange her disordered tresses.
Then she summoned Hetty, and the maid stared in surprise at her corpse-like pallor and heavy eyes.
"Oh, Miss Ethel, you look awful! Are you sick?"
"I am tired to death," sighed Ethel. "I have had such a long, weary chase after Kay! Oh, Hetty, I have lost him, but you must never, never tell, for papa would never forgive me if he knew. He ran off with some other dogs in a park, and though I ran and ran I could not get him back."
"You ought not to worry so about the dog, Miss Ethel. Lordy, he'll be sure to find his way back home," declared the maid cheerfully.
Ethel looked on the verge of tears. She half sobbed:
"Do you think so? I hope he will, for Precious loved him so dearly, and papa will be so sorry to find him gone, and he will be so angry with me for taking him out. Please don't say anything about it to any one, Hetty, and you may have that coral bracelet of mine."
"Thank you kindly, Miss Ethel, and of course it's not my business to find out that Kay is missing. So now it's time to dress for dinner, if you please. What dress will you wear, Miss Ethel? That new gold-colored silk with the black lace draperies, or something plainer? There's no one to dinner but the two gentlemen of the family. Your mamma is not well enough to dine."
"Poor mamma! But, Hetty, I am too tired to dress and dine to-night. I think I will send down excuses and retire. My head is throbbing with pain. I believe I should like a sedative."
Hetty brought the sedative and helped her to bed, saying as she tucked in the silken coverlet:
"Miss Miller called for you this afternoon, and I told her you had gone to keep an engagement with her. She said there must be some mistake; she hadn't seen you. I thought to myself that maybe you changed your mind and went to the old clairvoyant after all."
"I didn't have time to go anywhere after I lost Kay and had that long chase after him, so I hurried home," Ethel answered evasively. Then she nestled her head in the pillow and closed her eyes.
"Now, Hetty, I don't need you any longer. You can go and tell mamma I was so weary from my long walk that I retired."
Hetty dimmed the light and went out, but she thought sagely:
"Miss Ethel fibbed when she said she hadn't been anywhere. I'll bet a dime she's been to the old fortune-teller, and she told her something she didn't like and she's gone to bed to cry over it."
Ah, Hetty, your young mistress had more to grieve over than you guessed, and the pillow of down might have been full of thorns for all the rest she found that night.
For, shut her eyes as she might, there was one vision always before them—a wan little face like a snowdrop, luminous blue eyes, golden hair like an aureole of light; then it would fade and fall away into a cloud of smoke and flame, only to reappear again, until Ethel writhed in anguish and sobbed:
"It was not my fault. I could have saved her if she had not fainted. But no one must ever know I was there. They would blame me for her awful death."
She sat up in bed staring with gloomy eyes and writhing hands, trying to put from her the horror of her sister's death and to think what life would be like now when there was no pretty, willful Precious any more to envy for her fatal power of winning hearts.
"They must learn to love me now, papa, mamma, Earle and—Lord Chester, for his heart will turn back to me when there is no witching Precious to distract his thoughts. They loved her too well and fate has punished them by taking their idol away. It is my turn now," she thought with a bitter triumph.
Ah, Ethel, could the straining gaze of those somber eyes have pierced the shadows of the gloomy twilight they would have beheld a sight to blast them with its surprise.
Down the ladder came Lord Chester bearing the unconscious form of golden-haired Precious, whom Ethel had forsaken, and who never would have been saved but for the devotion of the faithful mastiff, noble Kay.
The shouts that rose from the crowd, as Lord Chester came down with the girl in his arms and the brave mastiff leaped from the window might almost have reached Ethel's ears, they were so loud and ringing.
Lord Chester was so blind and dizzy from the heat and smoke that as soon as his burden was drawn from his arms he sank exhausted to the ground.
The next instant the roof of the building fell in, leaving only the outer walls standing. Lord Chester had saved a life that but for his bravery must have perished in the raging flames.
Earle Winans pressed forward to his friend's assistance with a pang of keen remorse as he remembered how he had tried to restrain his friend from that perilous undertaking.
"How little I dreamed that a human being was in deadly peril within the house," he thought as he gazed curiously at the girl his friend had rescued from such an awful fate.
His dark eyes noted the golden hair all tossed and tangled in a curly mass, the closed eyes, the waxen fair face in its pallid beauty. Then a loud cry burst from his lips:
"Oh, Heaven! it is my missing sister—little Precious!"
And he reeled and would have fallen but for the restraining arm of a stranger.
Water was poured on his face and he quickly revived from his momentary faintness.
He knelt by the silent form of the unconscious girl, crying in anguish:
"It is Precious! my little sister! Oh, do not tell me she is dead."
A physician pushed through the crowd and made a hasty examination. His face was very grave.
"She is not dead, but her unconsciousness is very deep," he said. "If it is a simple swoon she may revive, but if asphyxiated by the smoke and heat, as I greatly fear, she will very likely soon expire."
Lord Chester, recovering from his momentary exhaustion, heard their words and looked with a bitter heart-pang at the face of Precious. Never before had he gazed at that face, yet there came a swift despair at thought of her death—a swift despair that blotted out all memory of Ethel's sparkling beauty that such a little while ago had charmed him so.
"We must have a carriage and take her home," cried Earle huskily, then wrung his friend's hand and thanked him for the rescue of his sister.
"From this hour you are dear to me as a brother," he cried with deep emotion.
So it happened that while Ethel sat up in bed staring with wild eyes into a possible future that held no lovely sister for a rival, a carriage was pausing at the door that held Earle Winans, his unconscious sister, and a physician, and presently there came ringing to Ethel's ear the long cry of anguish wrung from a mother's heart while bending over her dead.
Ethel started and listened in terror. What did it mean, that long, low cry of grief in her mother's voice?
Then Hetty Wilkins rushed in, pale and tearful, crying out:
"Oh, Miss Ethel, such dreadful news! They have bought Miss Precious home dead."
But from behind her came Earle Winans, and he exclaimed angrily:
"Hetty, you are a cruel girl to frighten Ethel so. You had no business to come to her with such news. My mother sent me to break it to her gently. Ethel, dear, do not sob so bitterly. We have brought Precious home, but a little life lingers still and we hope she may not die."
Ethel had dropped her face in her hands. When her brother lifted it he was startled at its expression, the ghastly face, the eyes wide and dark with horror.
He scolded Hetty roundly for her rashness in blurting out the news to his sister, and the girl stood aside sulkily at his reproof.
"Never mind Hetty; she meant no harm, Earle; but tell me all about it. Where did you find Precious?" gasped Ethel, clinging to him in wild excitement.
And holding her head against his arm and smoothing the dark waves of her hair with a loving hand Earle told the story as far as he knew it—the story of his young sister's rescue by Arthur, Lord Chester.
Kay, the splendid mastiff, came in for a share of praise too, and Hetty, the maid, listened intently to it all and nodded excitedly when Earle said:
"The greatest wonder of all is how Kay came to be there; but of course if Precious revives she can explain all that."
He felt Ethel shuddering against his arm, and Hetty saw how she trembled, and said to herself:
"I think Miss Ethel could explain it too, if she would, and if she don't speak I shall begin to think she has some strange secret worth more than the gift of a bracelet."
"I must go back to my mother now, for our father is too wretched himself to comfort her. Ethel, try to come down if you can," he said, as he left the room.
Ethel dragged herself out of bed, moaning:
"You must dress me, Hetty, and let me go to my poor sister."
Hetty brought her slippers and a pretty wrapper, and while she was putting them on she exclaimed:
"What a brave young man Lord Chester must be!"
Ethel's heart gave a fierce throb of mingled pride and pain.
"And," pursued the loquacious maid, "he is the rich lord that they all say you are going to marry, isn't he, Miss Ethel?"
"Yes," answered Ethel carelessly, then added:
"But I don't think I shall accept him."
She turned away from the maid as she spoke and went from her own apartments toward those of Precious, nearer to her mother.
She opened the door very softly and glided in.
They were all there, her father, mother, brother, and the physician.
Precious lay on her bed, white as a lily, but breathing faintly. She had revived from her swoon, but she had not yet spoken. Her half-open blue eyes seemed to know that they were all there, but she was too exhausted to utter a word.
Ethel bent down and pressed her lips on the wasted little hand, and when she met the gaze of the half-conscious blue eyes she whispered, too low for any one to hear:
"Please don't tell any one I was there with you, Precious, until you get well enough for me to explain."
The little hand she was holding gave hers a weak pressure that showed her that Precious understood and would not speak.
The others, looking on at the little by-play, thought that Ethel was only whispering to Precious of her joy at her return.
A week passed and the sick girl slowly gained strength enough to tell the story of her persecutions at the hands of Lindsey Warwick and his mother, but the pair of plotters had made good their escape and were now beyond the senator's vengeance.
There was one thing that always seemed strange to them, and that was how Kay had found the way to his mistress. The girl always explained it in an embarrassed, halting fashion.
"The old woman just unlocked the door, pushed Kay in, and went away again," she said. "And just a little later the flames burst through the side of the wall. I—I—looked out of the window and saw that I could not escape, then I fainted."
"Lindsey Warwick probably stole Kay and took him there, thinking to please you," said the senator, and his black eyes flashed as he thought of the vengeance he would take on the kidnaper if he ever found him.
They did not dream of the dark secret that lay behind the reluctance of Precious to talk of the mastiff's presence in her prison. They could not guess of the twilight hour when Ethel, sitting alone by her sister for a little while, had knelt down by Precious and begged her not to tell of her presence the day of the fire.
"When I saw you fall back in the smoke, Precious, I thought you were dead, and I ran away in a frenzy of despair and came home, afraid to tell mamma because I believed the awful news would kill her. I thought a merciful silence would be best, so I kept the awful secret. And if you told them now, dear, perhaps they would blame me. They would say I ought to have sent you down the rope first, but you know how that was, dear. I wanted to be at the bottom to catch you if you should fall."
"Yes, I know, dear sister, and I don't think they would blame you if we told them," sighed Precious; but because Ethel insisted on it she gave the promise of silence.
CHAPTER XI.
TO FORGET THE LURING BLUE EYES
"Droop and darken, eyes of blue,
Love hath only tears for you;
Love, begone, and lightly flee,
Since thy smiles are not for me!
Lips of scarlet, quench your fire,
Torches vain of love's desire;
Love, begone, and lightly flee,
Since thy sweets are not for me!"
But Precious improved too slowly to please the careful doctor.
The long fast and the subsequent shock had told severely on her young frame, and it was almost the last of March when she was able to come out of her room. Then she looked too thin, too frail, too lily-like, to please those who loved her best.
"Mrs. Winans, you must take her away from Washington to the country; she needs mountain air," said Doctor Heron.
"Oh, doctor, what an idea! Leave Washington before the season is over! How can you tell mamma that?" pouted Ethel.
The selfish, dark-eyed beauty had resumed all the gayeties of the brilliant Washington season as soon as her sister was declared out of danger, and dragged her gentle, yielding mother day after day from receptions to balls, from dinners to operas. Ethel was a belle, and would not yield her scepter; so Norah nursed the sick girl; and the mother who, because she loved Precious best, indulged Ethel most, followed with a sad heart into scenes of revelry, leaving her tenderest thoughts at home.
So Ethel was almost indignant when the physician ordered Mrs. Winans to the mountains with her ailing daughter.
At the proud beauty's protest Doctor Heron smiled and answered carelessly:
"You can remain in Washington, Miss Winans."
"But mamma—my chaperon! Of course I couldn't go into society without her. Really, I think that Precious can get on here till May, when we will go away for the summer."
The physician looked disgusted at her selfishness, and turned again to her mother.
"I repeat that Miss Precious should be taken to the mountains before the first of April, or her recovery will be very tedious. It is a case of nervous prostration," he said.
"You can send Norah with her, mamma; that will do very well, don't you think so?" Ethel cried airily; but there was a look of pain on the gentle face of Mrs. Winans, and she did not reply.
Earle, who was present at the conclave, broke in:
"How fortunate that your distant relative in Virginia left you her lovely mountain estate when she died last fall, mother. It is the very place to take Precious, doctor, and not more than a hundred miles from here. The kind spinster who left it to us had it elegantly appointed, and nothing has been changed. I think even the old family servants are yet in charge."
"Yes," assented his mother. "You see, I intended going there for a part of this summer. It is a charming mountain country, doctor. The estate is called Rosemont, and there is a pretty country town of the same name near by. The air is fine and pure."
"The very place for your drooping daughter," cried Doctor Heron. "Send her as soon as you can, Mrs. Winans, and if you can't be spared from Washington just now, let the good nurse Norah take your place. She will do excellently well."
"And I will go, too, to take care of the little one. I'm tired of the social whirl," cried Earle Winans, and was rewarded by a beaming smile of gratitude from his adoring mother. He did not care for Ethel's sullen brow, and inwardly characterized her as selfish and unloving.
"To keep mother dancing attendance on her here when she looks so pale and worn and needs a change almost as much as Precious does!" the noble young man thought indignantly.
So the plan was carried out. The delicate, drooping girl was sent to Rosemont with her brother and the good nurse Norah, and Ethel drew a long breath of relief when they were gone.
"Two months of relief from their silly worship at least, for I shall not go to Rosemont any sooner if I can possibly avoid it," she cried angrily.
One thing that pleased her well was that Lord Chester and Precious had not yet met, for the young lord had gone away from the city as soon as it was announced that Precious would recover. Washington had lionized him after his heroic act, and in sheer bashfulness he had run away to travel round a few weeks until his fame blew over, he laughingly explained to his friend Earle.
Perhaps there was more in it than he had confessed.
Lord Chester regretted with a bitter pain that he had given Ethel Winans cause to expect an offer of his hand and heart.
From the day that he had first seen the portrait of Precious his heart had turned away from proud, queenly Ethel to her gentle younger sister. The strange chance by which he had saved her sweet young life only drew her closer to his heart.
Yet in all honor his fealty belonged to dark-eyed Ethel.
In desperation he went away to try to forget the blue eyes that were luring him from his honor.
And he remained away until he received a letter from Earle Winans, telling him of all that had happened since he left Washington.
"We are here at Rosemont—Precious and I; the mater and Ethel are still in the Capitol City. Precious is improving slowly but surely in the fine mountain air, and I—well, I fear I'm losing my heart to a village coquette, the daintiest fairy I ever saw. Rosemont is a very gay little town, with some nice people—old Virginia stock, you know."
Then Lord Chester resolved to go back to Washington and see Ethel again. Perhaps now that Precious was gone his heart might return to its first love.