It was the most pitiful scene that pen could describe. The beautiful young girl, in her dress of fleecy white, with the faded purple blossoms on her breast entwined among the meshes of her disheveled golden hair, crouching back among the green leaves, and the white-faced, handsome, angry man clutching her white arm, crying out hoarsely that never again should they both breathe the same air beneath that roof – that she must leave Gray Gables within the hour, or he would.

"I did not know that I had done so terribly wrong," moaned the girl, shrinking back from those angry, fiery eyes that glowered down so fiercely into her own.

A laugh that was more horrible than the wildest imprecation could have been broke from his lips.

"You seem to have a remarkably mixed idea of right and wrong," he retorted, sternly, relaxing his hold and standing before her with rigid, folded arms, his anger growing more intense with each passing instant as he looked down into the girl's agonized face.

Had she done so very, very wrong in remaining in the conservatory, and in listening to her betrothed make love to her rival? she wondered vaguely.

Surely, she should have been the one to have cried out in bitter anger, not he.

"Let me tell you how it all came about," she gasped, faintly.

"I – I was in the ball-room with Katy, when it grew so warm that I sent for an ice. She did not return as soon as I had expected her, and – and I groped my way out into the garden to await her there. But as I stepped from the porch a wonderful thing happened, Harry. I – I missed my footing and fell headlong down the steps to the graveled walk below, and the shock restored my sight. Oh! look at me, Harry!" she exclaimed, with quivering intensity, holding out her white arms toward him. "I can see now. I can see your idolized face, oh, my beloved! I – I came here to tell you this – to tell you the wonderful tidings! I intended to send to the ball-room for you, but before I could put my intention into execution I – I heard steps approaching, and drew back among the screening leaves till they should pass. You came in with Iris Vincent, and I heard what you said, and my brain whirled – I grew dazed. You – you know the rest!"

He was not overwhelmed by the great tidings that she had regained her sight, as she had expected he would be. Instead, he retorted brusquely:

"It was a pity that your sight returned to you to enable you to do so dastardly a deed; and I am beginning to have my doubts whether or not you have not been duping us all along, and, under that guise, spying upon us – which seems to be your forte. This revelation makes me angrier than ever," he went on, "for it leaves you with no possible hope of pardon for your atrocious conduct, which merits the whole world's scorn and contempt!"

"I see it all!" cried Dorothy, springing to her feet and facing him. "You have prearranged this quarrel with me to break our betrothal, that you might wed your new love – Iris Vincent. But, just for pure spite, I will not release you – never! I will tell the whole world of your duplicity. An engagement is a solemn thing. It takes two to enter into it and two to break it."

The scorn on his handsome face deepened.

"I do not very well see how you can marry a man when he makes up his mind not to have you," he declared. "That is a difficult feat, and I shall have to see it done before I can be convinced that it can be accomplished," he replied, icily, adding: "There are many women in this world who would stand back and watch such a proceeding with the wildest anxiety, I imagine;" this sneeringly.

"You shall never marry Iris Vincent!" Dorothy panted. "I – I would prevent it at any cost. Once before you forsook me when I needed you most; you left me to die when I fell from the steamer down into the dark water, when we were returning from Staten Island, that never-to-be-forgotten night; so why should I be surprised at your willingness to desert me now?"

He turned on his heel.

"It is now two o'clock in the morning," he said. "My duty requires me to go down to the ball-room and bid the guests adieu as they take their departure, and when that is over I shall leave this house until this difficulty has been settled. The reading of Doctor Bryan's will is to take place at noon. I shall be present then, and after that – well – well, we shall see what will take place."

With these words Kendal quitted the room, and left Dorothy standing there with the tears falling like rain down her cheeks – surely the most piteous object in the whole wide world.

When Kendal found himself alone his intense anger against Dorothy began to cool a little.

"It is true she attempted to do a horrible deed," he muttered; "but I must not forget that love for me prompted her to it, and show her some mercy."

After all the guests had taken their departure, and the house had settled down into the darkness and quiet of the waning night, Kendal paced his room in a greatly perturbed state of mind, thinking the matter over.

He was terribly in love with Iris, he admitted to himself; but he had done wrong, fearfully wrong, in breaking off his engagement with Dorothy until after the reading of the will. Iris was beautiful, bewitching – his idea of all that a proud, imperious, willful sweetheart should be – but Dorothy would have what was much better than all this, the golden shekels; and then, too, now that the girl was no longer blind, she would have plenty of admirers; and he could have cursed himself for those hasty words, that no longer should she live under the same roof with himself.

It was daylight when he threw himself down on the bed, fairly worn out; and his head no sooner touched the pillow than he fell into a deep sleep, and it was almost noon ere he opened his eyes again, and then it was the slow, measured chime of the clock as it struck the half hour which awakened him.

"Great Heaven! half past eleven!" he ejaculated, springing from the couch. "I shall barely have time to get downstairs to be present at the reading of the will. I must make all haste; but first of all I must find out how Iris is, and if her shoulder pains her much."

He rang the bell hastily, and to the servant who answered the summons he gave his verbal message to Miss Vincent. But in a very short time the man returned, placing a letter in his hand.

Kendal was mystified, for he saw that it was Iris' delicate chirography. He tore open the envelope with the fever of impatience, and as his eye fell upon the delicately written lines his handsome face turned white as marble.

"My dear Harry," it commenced, "you will feel greatly surprised at the contents of this letter. I think it best to break into the subject at once, and to tell you the plain truth of just what has happened.

"Shortly after I left you and retired to my own apartments the pain in my shoulder became so intense that, remembering there was a young surgeon among the invited guests, I sent for him at once. I can never tell you just exactly how it came about, but the upshot of the whole matter was that he asked me to marry him.

"I wanted time to consider it; but he said it must be then and there, within the hour, or never. I demurred, but he was resolute.

"I realized that I held my future in my own hands, and that I had to decide upon my own destiny at once.

"He is a millionaire's son, and you are only a poor, struggling physician. Can you wonder that it could terminate only in one way?

"I accepted him, and by the time that you are reading this we shall be married and far away. So good-bye, Harry. Try and forgive me, if you can.

"Iris."

With a horrible imprecation, Kendal tore the note into a thousand fragments, hurled them upon the floor, and ground his heel into them.

"False!" he cried. "I might have known it. It is always these beautiful women who are so heartless. They draw men on with their smiles and their bewitching fascinations, only to throw them over when a more eligible parti appears upon the scene."

Deeply as he had been smitten with her charms, her action caused an instantaneous revulsion of feeling.

"'What care I how fair she be, if she be not fair to me?'" he cried out, bitterly, to himself. "What a fool I was, to be duped by her so long! The iron has entered deep into my soul, but she shall see that she can not quite crush me. I will live to be revenged upon Iris Vincent if it costs me my life! If Dorothy inherits the million, I will marry her before the sun sets to-night. I only wish that I had known the way that affairs were shaping themselves. I – I should not have treated Dorothy so harshly."

It seemed as though all in an instant his heart went back to her in the rebound.

He rushed hurriedly down into the dining-room, there to be met by Mrs. Kemp, who advanced toward him with a white, startled face.

"Oh, Mr. Kendal," she gasped, breathlessly, "you can never in the world guess what has happened!"

"I rather think I can," retorted the young man, harshly: "your niece, Miss Vincent, has eloped with the millionaire's son across the way."

"That – that is not what I had reference to," said Mrs. Kemp, with a sob. "I – I admit that Iris has eloped, but it is not she whom I meant, but Dorothy."

"What of her?" cried Kendal, sharply, little dreaming the truth.

Chapter XXIII

For an instant Kendal looked at the housekeeper in amazement.

"What of Dorothy?" he repeated, breathlessly.

"She has disappeared too!" returned the housekeeper, faintly, adding: "She did not go with Iris, as you may imagine."

"No?" he echoed, faintly, inquiringly.

"No," she responded; "she went alone. She said to Katy, last night, 'If you wake up on the morrow, and do not find me here, do not weep. I shall be where I will be better off. No one will miss me – no one will know or care whither I have gone.' Katy thought them idle words, and paid little heed to them; but this morning, when she awoke and found that Dorothy was not in her room, in the greatest of alarm she came to me and told me what had occurred. At that moment I was just smarting under the blow of Iris' elopement, and words fail to describe my feelings at this second and most terrible catastrophe, for I realized how it would affect you, my poor boy."

Kendal had sunk down into the nearest chair, white as death, and trembling like an aspen-leaf.

He could hardly grasp the meaning of her words. "Dorothy gone – Iris fled with another!" His lips twitched convulsively, but he uttered no sound.

"I made diligent search for Iris and Dorothy," Mrs. Kemp went on, tearfully. "I found my niece had been married at the rectory, and had taken the first train to the city with her newly made husband; they intend starting on the steamer which leaves New York for Europe to-day. So, of course, there was nothing to be done in Iris' case, so I turned my attention to Dorothy. But, as I remarked before, it was useless. I think she must have gone to New York City, and if she has, trying to find her will be like hunting for a needle in a hay-stack. I was shocked that she should have left to-day, because she well knew that this was the day on which the will was to be read, and that concerns her so vitally. Ah! here is the lawyer now," and before Kendal could frame a reply the gentleman was ushered into the old-fashioned library.

He greeted both Mrs. Kemp and the young man gravely, and they knew by his demeanor that he had heard what occurred.

His very first words assured them of that fact, and he went on to say that Dorothy's disappearance, however, would make no difference in the reading of Doctor Bryan's will, which was set for that day and hour.

"As my time is rather limited," he continued, "you will, I trust, pardon me if I proceed to business at once."

He looked sharply from one to the other, and, as they both bowed assent, he opened the satchel he had brought with him, and proceeded to take out the document which meant so much to Kendal, unfolded it with great precision, and in his high, metallic voice he read it through slowly and impressively.

Kendal had quite imagined that the old doctor would leave him a goodly share of his vast estate – perhaps something like a hundred thousand or so – indeed, he would not have been surprised to have learned that the doctor had left him a quarter of a million dollars.

To his unspeakable horror he found that he had been cut off without a dollar; all had been left to Dorothy, without reserve or condition, save one, and that condition was a most important one: that she should marry Kendal six months after his decease, or relinquish the fortune bequeathed to her.

"I may as well explain to you my old friend's idea in making this will," said the lawyer, turning to the young man. "He wished Miss Glenn to marry you, and thought this the most expedient and effectual way of bringing about the marriage of two young people whose interests he had so deeply at heart. Had he lived long enough to have made a new will, I am sure it would have been entirely different."

But not one word of all this did Harry Kendal hear. His brain was on fire. He only realized one thing – that he was a beggar on the face of God's earth; and, to make matters worse, he had by his own rash act driven Dorothy from beneath that roof, thereby cutting off his own chance of marrying her and being master of Gray Gables.

He clinched his hand and ground his handsome white teeth together in terrible rage.

There was but one thing to do, and that was to find Dorothy ere the fortnight waned, and marry her at once – that is, if he could ever persuade her to forgive him.

He had parted from her in bitter anger, and said words to her that women never forgive when uttered by those whom they love. The worst part of the whole affair was, their quarrel had been over another girl.

"No steps will be taken until the fortnight has elapsed," said the lawyer in his metallic voice; "and at the expiration of that time, if we do not congratulate you, Mr. Kendal, upon your marriage to Miss Dorothy, we shall have to make great changes at Gray Gables. Allow me to wish you both a very good-morning."

With these brief words the brisk little lawyer took a hasty departure.

Mrs. Kemp and Kendal stood looking at each other long after his departure with faces pale as death.

It was the housekeeper who broke the silence.

"I am sorry for you, Mr. Kendal," she said. "It is a terrible thing to have one's hopes dashed after that fashion – and when one doesn't deserve it, either. You were always so good and faithful and true to Dorothy, sir; even keeping your promise with her through the most terrible affliction that ever could have befallen her – that of blindness. It is dreadful to think that the moment she regained her sight, and believing herself to be the possessor of a great fortune, that she should show every one so plainly that she thought you were not good enough for her to marry by running away from you, Mr. Kendal!"

Every word she so innocently uttered cut him like a sharp sword.

"Not good enough for her?" he echoed, crushing back the imprecation that sprang to his lips. His blood boiled at the construction which she put upon the matter. It was a terrible blow to his pride, yet he dared not utter the truth until he should know whether or not he should be able to find Dorothy and marry her within the allotted fortnight.

Without a word Kendal turned on his heel and quitted the room, slamming the door after him with a decided bang.

Before the sun set that night he was in New York City again and searching for Dorothy.

It meant a fortune for him. He must find her. He dared not think of what failure would mean to him – of the ruin that would stare him in the face.

The idea suggested itself to him that in all probability Dorothy would seek out her old companions of the book-bindery. He felt that it would be rather daring to go there, where he would meet Nadine Holt, after his so abrupt desertion of her; but his anxiety over Dorothy overcame all scruples, and late that afternoon the girls of the Hollingsworth book-bindery were astonished at the door being flung suddenly open and seeing the handsome young man whom they had known as the street-car conductor and Nadine Holt's lover standing on the threshold.

His eyes ran rapidly over the scores of girls at their tables, resting at length upon a fair, pale thoughtful young girl standing nearest him. He remembered having often seen her with Dorothy. He recollected, too, that her name was Nannie Switzer. He stepped up to her and raised his hat with that courteous bow that was always so fascinating to young girls.

"I beg your pardon," he said, "but, finding myself in your vicinity, I dropped in to look up my old friend. I refer to the young girl with whom I used to see you so much – Dorothy Glenn."

To his utmost surprise, the young girl burst into a flood of tears.

"Oh, sir, you can not tell how your words affect me!" she sobbed.

"Why?" he asked, surprisedly.

The girl hung her pretty head, and her blue eyes sought the floor in the greatest embarrassment.

"Will you tell me why?" he repeated, earnestly. "It is my right to know, is it not, Miss Nannie?"

"Well, you see, sir," she stammered, confusedly, "we have not seen or heard anything from Dorothy Glenn since Labor Day and every one hereabouts thought that – that you knew where she was."

He flushed a dark crimson and gave a guilty start.

"I am so glad to know that our suspicions were groundless," she breathed, thankfully; adding: "I am indeed sorry that I can not tell you where Dorothy is; we would all give the world to know, I assure you."

He could not help asking next, in a low, husky voice:

"What of Nadine Holt? Where is she?"

Again the girl's face clouded.

"She has worked right along here with us up to a week ago," she answered, "and then Nadine went away suddenly, without saying so much as good-bye to any of us." She could not help but add: "She has changed so greatly that you would never know her. She is no longer the dark-eyed beauty whom you remember; she looks ten years older. She never smiles now, and there is a horrible look in her eyes – like the cunning gleam one sees in the eyes of the insane; and, oh! sir, let me warn you —you, of all men – for the love of Heaven, do not cross her path! Remember, I – I warn you."

Chapter XXIV

Harry Kendal threw back his dark, handsome head with a gesture of disdain and looked at the girl.

"I do not know of any reason why you should warn me, above all other men, that it is dangerous to cross Miss Holt's path," he said. "Almost any young man will flirt with a pretty girl when he finds her so very willing. She understood that it was only a flirtation; but when I met your little friend Dorothy, of course all that nonsense with Nadine ceased."

"Nadine did not call it a flirtation," returned the girl, gravely. "You might call it that. She thought of it differently, I am sure."

"Where is Jessie Staples?" he asked, abruptly, to change the embarrassing subject.

"She, too, has left the bindery," was the unexpected reply. "There have been great changes among the people in this book-bindery within the last few months. A young man connected with the place had quite a sum of money left him, and Jessie Staples was a great favorite with this young man's mother, so at their invitation Jessie went to live with them."

Finding that she had nothing more to tell him, Kendal soon after took his departure.

He was desperate as he walked along the street.

"What in the name of Heaven shall I do?" he cried. "One day of the fortnight has already passed, and I have not even the slightest clew to Dorothy's whereabouts." And in that hour in which he realized that she was indeed lost to him he knew how well he actually loved the girl. Iris' fickleness had killed his mad infatuation at one blow, and, man-like, his heart returned at once to its old allegiance.

Now that he knew that it was only a question of the merest chance of ever finding Dorothy, his very soul seemed to grow wild with anxiety.

Suddenly a thought born of desperation occurred to him – why not consult a fortune-teller as a last resort? It just flashed across his brain, an advertisement he had read and laughed over in one of the New York papers a few days before:

"Madame – , seventh daughter of the seventh daughter, reveals to those who wish to consult her all the main incidents of their past, present, and future life; brings together the hearts of those who are suffering from the pangs of lovers' quarrels, though the whole wide earth should separate them; indicates the whereabouts of missing ones, though they should be hidden as deeply and securely from sight as the bowels of the earth. The madame can with ease secure for you the love of any person whom you may choose to win, put each and every person in the way of making fabulous fortunes in the shortest possible space of time, and all this for the small sum of fifty cents. Madame can be found, between the hours of nine and twelve in the forenoon, one and six in the afternoon, and from seven until eleven in the evening, by those who wish to consult her marvelous powers, on the fourth floor of the last tenement house on Hester Street. Visitors will please take note that Madame's consultation studio is in the rear of the building. A candle lights the way."

By dint of much perseverance Kendal found the place.

Taking the candle, he groped his way through the long, narrow, grimy passage, and found himself at length standing before Room 106, as the advertisement had indicated.

His loud, impatient knock was answered, after some little delay, by a tall figure hooded and cloaked, the face almost concealed by a long, thick veil that was thrown about the head, and which reached almost to the feet.

In a black-gloved hand this strange apparition held a lighted candle.

"I trust I have found the right place," said Kendal. "I am in search of Madame Morlacci, the fortune-teller."

At the sound of the deep, rich, mellow voice, the figure started back as though it had been struck a sudden blow, the black-shrouded hand that held the candle shook as if from palsy.

"Come in," replied a muffled voice, that sounded like nothing human, it was so weird.

Kendal stepped fearlessly into the room, the corners of which were in deepest gloom, which the flickering rays of the candle could not penetrate.

"Well," said Kendal, impatiently, "I should be grateful to commence the preliminaries of this fortune-telling business at your earliest convenience, if you please, madam; my time is somewhat limited."

Kendal drew forth his pocket-book, took out a bank-bill and handed it to the strange creature; but, to his intense surprise, she flung it back almost in his face.

"I can tell you all you wish to know without a fee," cried the hoarse, muffled voice, which somehow made every drop of blood in Kendal's veins run cold as he heard it.

"That would not be very profitable to you, I am sure, madame," he said, wonderingly.

"That makes no difference to you," was the almost rude answer. He felt quite disconcerted; he hardly knew what to say next. This certainly was an odd contretemps, to say the least. "You are here to learn the whereabouts of – a woman?" she whispered, in a deep, uncanny voice. "Is it not so?"

"By Heaven! you are quite right," cried Kendal, in amazement, quite startled out of his usual politeness.

This woman had never laid eyes on him before, he told himself. Now, how, in the name of all that was wonderful, could she have known this? He had sneered at fortune-telling all his whole life through; now he began to wonder if there was not something in it, after all.

"This woman, who is young, and by some called beautiful, will be your evil genius!" she hissed. "You wronged her through your fickle-mindedness, and wrecked her young life."

"Great God!" he cried, "are you woman or devil, or a combination of both? But go on – go on!" he cried, excitedly. "I see you know all my past. There is no use in my attempting to hide anything from you. But tell me, where shall I find this young woman of whom you speak? I must track her down."

A laugh that was horrible to hear broke from the lips of the veiled woman opposite him.

"That you will never be able to do!" she cried, fiercely. "Though she may cross your path at will, you might as well hunt for a particular grain of sand along the sea-shore, a needle in a haystack, a special blade of grass in a whole field. You may recognize this fact, and abide by it. But, hark you! listen to what I have to say: The fates have decreed that your heart shall be wrung as you have wrung hers – pang for pang!"

"Who and what are you," he cried, "who talk to me in this way? You act more like a vengeful spirit than a woman unconcerned in my affairs. Who and what are you, anyhow?"

"I tell you only what I see," was the muttered response.

"See where?" demanded Kendal in agitation.

"That is not for you to know."

"But I shall – I will know!" he cried, furiously. "There is something underneath all this trumpery. I am not a man to be trifled with in this fashion, I can tell you, with your fortune-telling nonsense – humbuggery!"

"Then, pray, what brings you here? what is your object in coming?" asked the other, with a covert sneer.

"To hear what lies you could trump up," replied Kendal boldly.

"Our interview is ended," said the veiled figure, rising and pointing her long arm toward the door.

He knew that he must temporize with her if he would find out Dorothy's whereabouts, which he was beginning to believe she might find out for him.

"Will you pardon me?" he asked, humbling himself. "I – I must know more."

"You have heard all that I have to say, Harry Kendal!" she cried.

Who was this creature who knew him – aye, knew his name, his most secret affairs? He must – he would know.

With a quick bound he cleared the space which divided them, and in a trice he had grasped her wrists firmly and torn the veil from her face.

This was followed by a mighty cry.