Kitabı oku: «Kathleen's Diamonds; or, She Loved a Handsome Actor», sayfa 5

"Ivan Belmont, my step-mother's hateful son, whom she wanted me to marry, so that I might endow him with a fortune."

It was some time before she could command her nerves sufficiently to read Daisy Lynn's diary, and then her tears fell freely, for the story of the young girl's love was all written there, gay and joyous at first, then sad and plaintive, then drifting into deep despair, followed by the disjointed ravings of a mind distraught.

"Oh, how sweet, and then how sad!" exclaimed Kathleen. "Love comes to all young girls with the same symptoms, I suppose, for I felt just as she wrote in the first after meeting Ralph Chainey—so gay, so glad, so joyous. The sky seemed brighter, the flowers sweeter, the whole world was a new place. There is nothing in the world as sweet as love."

CHAPTER XVI.
KATHLEEN'S DESPERATION AND HER ESCAPE

 
"And then she sang a song
That made the tear-drops start;
She sang of home, sweet home,
The song that reached my heart."
 

Popular Song.

Kathleen sighed restlessly as she turned the pages with her little white hands.

"Love is sweet, but, oh, how sad it is, too!" she sighed. "Oh, how cruel it is to love and be beloved again, yet be severed from one's love by so strange and cruel a fate as mine."

She read aloud, in a soft, murmuring voice, like sweetest music, some verses from Daisy Lynn's book:

 
"It is the spirit's bitterest pain
To love and be beloved again,
And yet between a gulf that ever
The hearts that burn to meet must sever!"
 

 
"With me the hope of life is gone,
The sun of joy is set;
One wish my heart still dwells upon,
The wish it could forget!
I would forget that look, that tone,
My heart has all too dearly known.
But who could ever yet efface
From memory love's enduring trace?
All may revolt, all my complain,
But who is there may break the chain?"
 

"Poor Daisy Lynn! how could she love Ivan Belmont like that?" exclaimed Kathleen, in disgust, forgetting that he was a rather handsome man, and that tastes differ. A longing to see what Daisy Lynn looked like came over her, and she searched the room in vain for her picture.

Then she went down and asked Miss Watts if she might see her niece's photograph.

The old blind lady looked up with gentle displeasure.

"Daisy, child, have you no memory of the past?" she exclaimed. "You know very well that in all your life I have never allowed you to have your picture taken!"

"But why not?" asked Kathleen, in wonder.

"Because it is a sin," replied the old lady, who was rigidly religious. "Have you forgotten," she continued, "the second commandment that you used to read every Lord's day at Sabbath-school?" and she repeated, solemnly:

"'Thou shalt not make unto thyself any graven image, nor the likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth; thou shalt not bow down to them nor worship them.'"

Kathleen stared in amazement at this liberal interpretation of the Scriptures, and retired regretting that she could not have the sad pleasure of gazing on the features of the unfortunate girl in whose fate her own was so strangely bound up.

"Poor, poor Daisy Lynn! I wonder what became of her when she escaped her keeper and wandered abroad that cold, dark night?" she mused; and she thought that the girl must be dead and at rest from her sorrows.

A long week of waiting elapsed, but no answer came to Kathleen's letters.

Kathleen grew desperate with suspense and trouble. She could no longer while away the dreary winter days by reading poor Daisy Lynn's novels, or playing sad melodies on her pretty little piano. She began to pace up and down the little room for long hours, revolving plans for escape from Miss Watts.

The three servants whom the old lady employed guarded the young girl, by the order of their mistress, as jealously as if she had been a convict in a penitentiary. All the doors were locked and guarded by burglar chains. She had appealed to their mercy in vain; and she was empty-handed and had nothing with which to bribe them. They had been told she was melancholy mad, and saw no reason to doubt the story. Her sad, white face, her beautiful dark eyes, in which the tears so often gathered, and her mournful little songs, all lent color to the charge.

Desperate emergencies require desperate remedies. Kathleen decided, in spite of Mrs. Hoover's warnings, to run away.

She had no money; but that did not deter her from her purpose. She would beg in the street for money to go to Boston before she would remain here any longer, she told herself, with a burst of tears.

Her old fear of her step-mother had died out in the conviction that her father had, of course, returned home ere now, and that, under his protection, no harm could befall his beloved child.

From the curtained alcove where Daisy Lynn's soft, white sheets and blankets and counterpanes were stored on shelves, Kathleen brought the sheets and tore them into strips, working on them every night until she had succeeded in making a strong plaited rope with which to let herself down from the window.

"Heaven help me—dear Heaven help me!" she prayed all the while; and one dark night toward midnight she fastened the rope to the shutter hinge and let herself safely down to the street.

Stunned by the velocity of her descent, and with bleeding hands rasped by the rough rope, Kathleen fell upon the ground and lay there pantingly a few moments.

"Free at last, thank Heaven—free!" she murmured, gladly, and wrapping her long circular cloak around her, and drawing the warm hood close about her beautiful face, she ran breathlessly along, flashed around a corner, and had left her prison behind her, fleeing, as she hoped, to home and happiness.

It was growing late, and in the quiet city of Philadelphia there were few pedestrians abroad, and those mostly men. In any other city of that size Kathleen, with her beautiful face, would have been insulted over and over, but the Quaker City of Brotherly Love had in it a smaller ruffianly element than the others. When she stopped and appealed to those she met she invariably received a coin instead of a leer; but they were so small—so small, and, oh, it would take so much money to get to Boston!

She had stopped a policeman on his beat and asked him timidly how much money it would take to get to Boston.

"Oh, as much as twenty dollars, I guess!" he replied; and at his curious stare she thanked him and ran away, pausing under a street lamp to count her money.

"Only two dollars and twenty cents! I shall never, never get enough!" she sighed, and then she gave a shriek. A thief had snatched the money from her little white hand and run down a side street.

Kathleen started to run after him, but there was no policeman in sight, and the thief had quite disappeared. She ran till her limbs trembled with weariness, and suddenly emerged into Walnut Street. People were coming out of the Walnut Street Theater, and crowding the pavement. She saw a handsome man handing a fair young girl to her carriage, and the sight awoke memories of the past when she, Kathleen Carew, heiress then to a million, now a beggar in the streets, had been handed to her carriage by Ralph Chainey, the handsome young actor, who had whispered in her ear:

"I hope we shall meet again."

A dry sob rose in her throat, but she choked it back, and advancing till she was in the midst of the throng, paused suddenly, and began to sing in a low but thrilling voice that favorite old song, "Home, Sweet Home," at the same time holding out her tiny white hand for largess.

It was a desperate deed, but poor Kathleen was a desperate girl, and knew little more of the evil of the world than a little baby. She was so eager to get money to go home, and she thought that out of this great crowd there might be many who would pay her for singing the simple little song that everybody loved so well—"Home, Sweet Home—The Song That Reached My Heart."

CHAPTER XVII.
"WILL YOU BE MY OWN SWEET WIFE, KATHLEEN?"

 
"Love thee? So well, so tenderly,
Thou'rt loved, adored by me,
Fame, fortune, wealth, and happiness
Are worthless without thee!"
 

Kathleen had a sweet and bird-like voice, that had held crowded drawing-rooms entranced in the happier days that now seemed so far away.

As that exquisite voice—timid at first, and faltering, but gradually gaining strength and volume—rose upon the night air the young girl was at once surrounded by a wondering and admiring throng.

Her desperate courage began to give way as she saw herself hemmed in by the crowd, and the impulse seized her to fly; but she beat it bravely back, for already silver coins began to rain into the small, white, outstretched hand that seemed so ridiculously dainty and aristocratic for a street beggar.

"Jove! what a regular beauty!" one man whispered to another, as he gazed eagerly into the sweet, flower-like face.

She heard him, and her voice shook with indignation, but she kept on, holding fast meanwhile to her earnings, determined that no bold thief should capture them this time.

Suddenly she became aware that the crowd's attention was being diverted from her, and resolved to escape at this auspicious moment.

The fact was that the popular actor, Ralph Chainey, who had just carried staid Philadelphia by storm in his popular impersonation of Prince Karl, was just leaving the theater for his hotel, and almost every one turned away from the beautiful singer for a glimpse of the tall, dark, handsome young fellow, with his swinging stride, as he came among them.

He, on his part, had been standing back a little, arrested, like the others, by that sweet, sad, thrilling song. As it neared the end, he pressed forward to make a generous contribution to pay for his share in the rare entertainment.

The crowd fell back and made way for him, and Kathleen, dreaming not of the nearness of the lover who haunted all her thoughts, started to fly.

Ralph Chainey had not yet seen her face, but he hurried in pursuit of the slight cloaked figure, generously anxious that she should not lose the money he was going to bestow on her for the song.

The crowd began to disperse, and Kathleen, unconscious of pursuit, ran half a square, then slackened her pace. So it was that Ralph Chainey caught up with her, and laid a strong, detaining hand upon her arm.

With a low moan of terror Kathleen raised her beautiful, frightened dark eyes to the face of her assailant.

For a moment they gazed, spell-bound, into each other's eyes.

To both it seemed like the shock of a life-time—that sudden rencontre; and to the man it was more startling then to the girl, for he had long sorrowed over the fate of Kathleen Carew, believing her dead.

Yet here stood this slight girl whose voice had so thrilled him a few minutes ago gazing at him with Kathleen Carew's eyes, looking out of Kathleen Carew's face.

Was she ghost or human?

Was she a phantom of his brain, this slight, pale girl?

He had thought of her so often, he had mourned her so passionately, that perhaps his brain was distraught—perhaps the vision was the figment of a mind diseased.

But suddenly the moan died away on the sweet, red lips; the hunted look faded from the somber dark eyes and was succeeded by a look of joy as she faltered:

"Ralph Chainey!"

His hand had slipped from her arm in the first shock of recognition. Now he hastily put it back and pressed it to see if it was real flesh and blood or only a phantom woman. He muttered, hoarsely:

"Kathleen Carew, are you ghost or human?"

Kathleen's dark-eyes laughed radiantly into his.

"I am human, Mr. Chainey, as I think you ought to realize from the way you're pinching my arm," she returned, with pretty archness.

All in a moment she had changed from a sad, persecuted young girl, begging her way in the dark street, to a very queen of love and happiness.

Looking into his luminous brown eyes, all her sorrow seemed to flee away, and the sunlit sky of love seemed glowing over her head, instead of dark, wintery skies.

Her archness, her smiles, and the warm, human touch of her wrist, recalled him from his ghostly fears, and he said, faintly, but eagerly:

"I can hardly believe my senses, Kathleen. You—alive—after all these months, when I sorrowed for you dead! Where have you been?"

Her face paled, and she looked apprehensively over her shoulder.

"I—I—can not tell you here!" she faltered. "I might be missed and followed. If—if—you would only take me to the depot, and send me home to Boston to papa, I will be so grateful. I—I—think I have enough money to pay my way."

Ralph Chainey signaled a passing cab, and lifted the young girl gently into it.

"Drive slowly about the streets for an hour until further orders," he said to the driver, as he sprung in and took his seat by Kathleen. "Oh, what happiness this is to find you alive, Kathleen!" he exclaimed, searching for her little hand, and holding it warmly clasped in his.

She nestled slightly toward him, and he thrilled with happiness at the confiding motion.

"You will send me home to papa?" she repeated, sweetly.

Then he said:

"It will be several hours before the next train for Boston leaves, Kathleen, so you can tell me all about yourself while we ride about and beguile the time of waiting. Or, would you prefer to go to a hotel and rest, and have some refreshments?"

"I am not hungry nor tired, and prefer to ride about with you this way," answered the girl, with naïve simplicity; and he drew a sigh of relief.

He was young, but more worldly wise than Kathleen. He preferred not to take her to a hotel until she had some claim on him, to silence carping tongues. But first he must know the secret of her mysterious whereabouts ever since the night when he had kissed and wept over her beautiful dead face, and gone away on a mission that brooked no delay.

But for a few minutes he was silent from sheer happiness. Alive, his beautiful Kathleen, whom he had adored in secret, but never told of his love! What happiness, when he and happiness had so long been strangers!

Her tremulous voice broke the silence:

"Do you understand it all—that I was in a trance that night when you bade me farewell and went away?"

"My God! a trance? Yes, you did look natural. Mrs. Churchman remarked upon it before she left me alone with you."

"I heard what she said," Kathleen answered, shuddering, and Ralph Chainey put his arm about her and drew her closer, murmuring:

"Did you hear what I said, too, my bonnie Kathleen?"

"Yes," she answered, trembling in a sort of ecstasy and feeling warm blushes redden her cheeks as she whispered:

"You kissed me—you wept over me—you—said—said—that you loved me!"

"And you, sweet Kathleen? Were you vexed at me for my presumption?" questioned the young man, drawing her closer with a fond but reverent arm.

"No; oh, no!" faltered the girl, shyly, yet blissfully.

"And you will let me tell you the same thing over, darling Kathleen, that I worship you, and you will promise me, dear, to be my own sweet wife? Yes, is it not, my own one? There, do not draw away from me in fear. One kiss, my own love, my beautiful treasure, given back to me from the grave itself!"

Then one kiss became a dozen. He pressed her close to his heart, and she rested there with a blissful sigh, happy in this haven of rest.

Presently:

"Now, darling, you may tell me all your story; then I have a startling proposition to make to you," he said.

From what she had said to him about taking her home to her father, he perceived that she was entirely ignorant of all that had transpired since her supposed death.

She was mercifully ignorant of her father's loss at sea, and the will made in London just before he sailed, disinheriting his only daughter, and giving her portion of his wealth to Alpine Belmont.

Poor little Kathleen, who believed that she had still a loving father and was the heiress to all his wealth, was in reality orphaned and penniless—a beggar in reality.

But Ralph Chainey, in the greatness of his noble heart, decided to spare her the pain of knowing all this yet, and he could see but one way out of the difficulty—one very agreeable to himself, and not unkind to the lovely waif so strangely thrown on his protecting care.

He knew well that the selfish Belmonts would refuse to care for the homeless girl, would deny her identity, refuse to admit her claims on them. He determined to propose an immediate marriage to Kathleen, by which her future could be made secure.

CHAPTER XVIII.
KATHLEEN'S DISAPPEARANCE

 
"Ay, call her on the barren moor,
And call her on the hill;
'Tis nothing but the heron's cry,
And plover's answer shrill."
 

Kathleen told her lover, between sobs and tears, while she rested close in the shelter of his loving arms, all her sad story.

Ralph Chainey listened with bated breath, his eyes dim with moisture, to the story of Kathleen's persecutions.

"What stupid people they must have been at the asylum not to listen to your strange story! I will have them indicted for unlawfully detaining you!" he exclaimed indignantly.

"Never mind that, as they can never find me again," she replied, happily.

"They could not take you if they did," he answered; and then he unfolded to her, gently and tenderly, his wish to make her his wife at once, and asked her if she would consent. "It is the most proper thing for us to marry at once," he said. "Unfortunately, we can not be married in Philadelphia without a license, which, as it is near midnight now, I could not procure until to-morrow. But we can take a train within the hour for Washington, and be married, without the necessity of a license, by the first minister we can wake up there. Do you think you can agree to this, darling?"

She hesitated; she said, anxiously:

"Had we not better go straight to Boston and ask papa's leave? Perhaps he would not like it if we were married without his consent."

Why did he not tell her the truth—that there was no use in going to Boston; that her father was dead and she had no home there; that her step-mother and her selfish daughter had inherited the Carew millions?

He could not bear to inflict this shock upon her so soon. She had suffered so much already, poor little darling! that he would save her this added blow for a little while. He could fancy how hard she would take it, to come back to the world, fatherless, penniless, homeless. Let him make her his wife first, and she would have love, wealth, and position almost equal to what she had lost. Then he would have the right to comfort her with his devotion.

So he began to urge his suit with all a lover's devotion, picturing to her the possibility of her father's refusal.

"You are so young, dear Kathleen, he might want us to wait years and years, and there are so many things that might come between our love," he urged, anxiously.

She shuddered and thought of Alpine Belmont's cruelty. The remembrance decided her; she consented to his wish.

They were driven to the station to take the train for Washington.

"In about three hours we shall be there, and then you shall soon be my little wife," he whispered, joyfully.

They learned that the train was more than an hour late. They went into the reception-room to wait.

Then it suddenly occurred to him that the members of his company at the hotel would be so alarmed at his non-appearance that night that they would think he had been foully dealt with, and raise a great hue and cry.

He hastened to explain these facts to his lovely, girlish fiancée.

"Do you think you would mind staying alone here, long enough for me to go and excuse myself to them?" he inquired, tenderly.

Her throat ached with the impulse to sob out to him that she was frightened—that she did not wish for him to leave her there alone.

But she was ashamed of her weakness; she would not confess it to her bright, handsome lover.

In a low, tremulous voice, and with a sad little smile on her quivering red lips, she bade him go.

"It is only for a little while, my own little love!" he whispered; but her heart sunk heavily with fear and dread. He found her a secluded seat in a dim corner. "You can sit here quietly and unobserved until I return," he said, and stole a parting kiss from the sweet red lips that smiled at him with such pathetic love.

Then he was gone, and she no longer tried to check her bursting sobs. Leaning far back in the corner, her little cobwebby handkerchief was soon drenched with her raining tears.

She told herself that he would soon return and laugh at her for being such a great baby, but she could not help it. A terrible presentiment of coming evil weighed down her spirits.

Ralph Chainey entered a cab and was driven rapidly to his hotel. He explained that business of great importance called him in haste to Washington, but that he would return the next day in time for the evening performance, "Beau Brummel."

Then he drove as fast as possible back to the depot, where his little darling, as he called her in his fond thoughts, was impatiently awaiting his return.

"My little darling, so soon to be my adored wife," he murmured, as he hurried eagerly into the waiting-room, where the second great shock of his life awaited him.

Kathleen Carew was gone!

He stared with dazed eyes at the empty seat where he had left his beautiful young sweetheart less than an hour ago.

She was gone!

Then commenced a frantic search that lasted so long that by and by the train that was to have taken the pair to Washington thundered into the station and away again, while he still pursued his unavailing quest.