Beadle's New York Dime Library No. 114 — page 16: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

16 leaves lifted her face again to the light, gazing at it with such incredulous questioning as that with which he might look upon one returned from the grave, and with such despair as if he stood face to face with his doom. The woman submitted passively, then suddenly caught his hand and pressed it to her lips and bosom, crying in an agony of piteous appeal: Oh, Will!” As if it were the coil of a serpent, he threw off her clasp with a gasping shudder, and leaped back, Then, with his hand to his head, he | staggered against the trunk of a tree, groaning: ‘*She!l—alive! My God!” : A wail of despair escaped the woman’s lips, and she drooped again, as if beneath a blight. From the darkness that surrounded the moon- | lit glade came a faint sigh. The tension of jealous hatred to which the Frisco Sharp was | wrought relaxed. He returned his pistol to its | holster. The temptation to murder passed by | him for the time. He waited and watched in | silence. | Then, a throb of mad jealousy piercing her | heart, the woman threw off her despair and | ree to her feet ready to do battle for her | claims. ye CHAPTER XXIL THE WOMAN’S APPEAL. PEN can but faintly Soi the marked tran- sition in Mrs. Seaford’s demeanor. She had | fairly groveled at this man’s feet in her abject | supplication. Now she stood with her head | thrown defiantly back, her diminutive figure | drawn to its greatest hight. “So!” she fairly hissed, ‘‘my being alive is matter of chagrin to you. And you make little | effort to conceal the fact, I fear Mr. Carleton hae forgotten the high chivalry of his earlier 11eé, The man did not reply to her sarcasm. He had not yet recovered from the shock of her un- expected appearance. he woman continued in the same passionate tone: ‘*One would think that the knowledge that | your soul was not indelibly stained by blood | would come to you with a sense of relief. Has | Mess oe been so implacable as to keep remorse | at bay Still the man was silent, struggling with emo- | tions that completely mastered him. This one thought kept throbbing in bis brain: ‘* She /—alive |” Yesterday he would have hailed this knowl- edge with a sense ofrelief. But to-day—Ah! what change a few short hours had wrought! What did her life signify to him now? ‘* Ruin!—utter ruin!” he reflected, the hightof | his hope only realized by the shock with which | it had been dashed to earth. ‘‘ Ruin to me, and —God help my darling—toher/ Until this very bour 1 have n blind to the love that has Enver day by day, in my heart; and now it has urst upon me like a glimpse of heaven, only that the gate should be closed in my very face! And she—what has she done? Could not I have | been made to suffer, and she, the innocent one, have been spared?” But the woman’s voice cut short his bitter re- | flections, Her eyes snapped viciously. Her lips drew | back with a feline disclosure of the teeth. Her | nostrils became pinched, showing a white spot | on either side. She was the impersonation of mad jealousy. ‘**But no,” she sneered, ‘‘I am losing sight of a circumstance which no doubt more than off- sets any relief of conscience. I have seen the lady "—throwing the venom of an adder’s sting , into the insult—"' of whose caresses my coming | will rob you—” But now the man was galvanized into a pa- roxysm of passionate life, Springing forward he towered above her with uplifted hand and brows as black as night, like a terrible des- troyer. ‘““Not a word!” he thundered—‘‘ not a word from such as you!—or, as there is a God in heaven—” But he choked with the intensity of his pas- sion. j A man would have been awed by his terrible | presence, An enraged woman knows no per- sonal fear. ‘‘ Such as I?” she repeated. ‘‘Ay! Let not your polluted lips sully the name of oneas pure as you are foul! I have. suffered much from you. You can add nothing — to the past.” It was now the woman’s turn to struggle with emotion so violent that she could scarcely speak. | “Liar! Slanderer!” she finally burst forth. “‘T defy you to the proof! Traitor to obliga-— tions the most sacred!—defamer of her you had | sworn to protect—the blightning of my lifeI owe | to your infamous misconstruction of a foolish girl’s caprice! Now do you think by this blus- ter to deter me from pment may rights, even if they cannot be maintained where one is so | . lost to honor and manhood as you? No! Iswear | to drag from her u position this vile crea- | ture who shares your life in despite of the legiti- Tpate claimant. You may hope to find a bul- ~ eee | wrecked life. ae ne ee wark of defense in the lax moral sentiment of this community; but I will make the moun- tains ring with her infamy and yours, until for Me shame you will put her away, if this thing without shame does not slink away and hide herself! Oh, you may threaten! How your manhood has improved by association with her! Do you knock her down when she displeases you! Strike! I defy you!” For one terrible moment it seemed as if he were indeed about to strike to the earth this woman who dared to vilify the being he had ex- alted above all others for purity and holiness. Then he gained a sudden self-mastery; and his whole manner changed. His voice was husky, but its menace had given place to deep get His eyes no longer threatening, were ed upon the woman’s white, passionate face with something between pity and earnest entreaty. His towering frame seemed collapsed, as if years had suddenly fal- len upon him. “Stop!” he said. ‘‘ You are beside yourself. I have been wrong. A word of explanation would have saved us this misunderstanding. In a calmer moment, if not now, you will do me justice, and in your thoughts right an innocent girl whom you have wronged by suspicions as aseless as they are cruel. ‘‘Tf you have seen her, scarcely more than a child, I have been her ardian—her brother, if you will. She has earned to so call me, and regard me as such. An hour’s converse with her would satisfy you of this truth, in spite of your oh bag “Ten years ago I received her, a little child, from her mother’s arms, and saved her from the flood in which that mother perished. I have been faithful to the doomed woman’s charge. I have learned to look upon it as a blessing sent by Heaven to ameliorate the bitterness of my I do love her as the one bright thing in my wretched existence; but, in spite of your passionate disparagement, you know me ou know that she is | well enough to need no assurance that I am in- capable 0 betraying such innocence. ‘That is my explanation. Listen to it, look at the child herself, and you cannot resist its truth. Convinced, you have not the heart to do such deadly injury to one who has never harmed you.” His changed manner constrained the woman’s attention. She weighed every word as it fell from his lips. She believed him. Perhaps she had never really thought evil of the girl after ire J her open countenance, bearing on its up- lifted brow the seal of innocence. Now achange came over her. The mad fire of jealousy was eliminated from her boundin blood. Renewed hope came to her like a cool, balm-laden breeze. That the girl loved him she still believed. Her woman’s instinct clung to this conviction. But if he regarded her as a child?—if he loved her as a daughter, or as a sister? A new impulse caused her pulses to leap. The blood driven from her face by passion, returned in a warm glow. The tense muscles relaxed. The hard lines flowed into curves of grace and softness. The woman was transformed, trans- ed! She was beautiful again! oting this sudden change, the man shud- _ dered, “The same angel and devil!” he reflected, bitterly. ‘‘ Ah! how the one lured me that the other might destroy! But I am proof against her witcheries now. I have seen the ensan- guined claws of the siren!” But the woman knew nothing of what was ing in the man’s thoughts. She gave her- self up to the accomplishment of an object on which her whole heart was set. The sinuous motions of her body were like the graceful flexures of a serpent. Her voice glided into sweet, wooing cadences, gentle de- precation curbing an eager longing. Ab! hers was the cunning to sway men’s hearts! “T believe you,” she said. “I have been hasty. I did not weigh my words, Oh! forgive me! It is not the first time that my impulsive- ness has bred arp ge a8 2 and dissension between us. But believe me, if I have yielded to blind passion and given myself up to desper- ate action as well as reckless speech, I have always been goaded by my love for you!” The Gentleman from Pike could not repress a shudder of disgust. He raised his hand with a motion to restrain her, but her importunity pressed on. ‘No! hear me out!” she pleaded. ‘‘I know our harsh judgment, and admit the seeming Jostification of appearances. But were. she alive, your mother could testify—” “Stop!” cried the other, hoarsely, his frame convulsed with a spasm of pain—‘‘ you must not speak of her!” The repulse of his manner more than his words fell upon the woman like the chill of an icy wind: but she rallied, and went on: “Oh! will you not listen? Have all the years not turned the edge of your resentment? Il, too, have suffered! y Goa! what have I not suffered? Were not repudiation p:nishment bitter enough where the t is real? What, then, is it to have rested all these years under unjust condemnation? I swear to you now, as e Gentleman from Pike. _ | this woman, eee ee pe H+ ee te I would have proved to you then, but for your impetuosity, that 1am an innocent, an injured woman! e were victims in common of one man’s base treachery! Why did you Pv pa 88 me? Why did you give me no chance for self- vindication? After all these years, what would have been easy then is now, alas! almost a hope- less task.” But for the ringing passion of her voice they might have heard a sound proceeding from the darkness that surrounded their little spot of moonlight. Throughout this interview the Frisco = had listened with an agitation which woul have surprised those familiar with his wonted imperturbable nonchalance. t was remarkable that both these men, usually so impassive, were stirred to their souls centers when brought under the influence of Though the result was nearly the same, yet the causes of their impassivity were diametrically opposed. One lived in a fortress of sand into which the missiles of the world sunk and smothered, leaving no trace; the other el sented a wall of granite against which they were shattered or glanced harmlessly aside. The defense of one was an inert apathy—of the other an indomitable will. Now this woman awoke passions that burst through the will of the one, and scattered to the winds the fatalistic indifference of the other. Again and again the Frisco Sharp was so wrought upon that he could scarcely resist the impulse to interrupt the interview. Heretofore it fad been in the woman’s behalf; but When she declared that they had both been victims of another’s treachery, he flushed scarlet and mut- ered: ‘What effrontery! And she has seen and re- cognized me almost within the hour! Tl not be her scapegoat! I will denounce her if he is weak enough to yield the evidence of his own senses to her blandishments!” But the Gentleman from Pike was not weak. He had himself well in hand now. The iron of his nature came to the surface—its hardness, its immutability. His voice was not harsb, but immovably firm. ‘‘Your words are futile,” he said. ‘ Daily, almost hourly, since that fatal time I have re- viewed my judgment only to approve its jus- tice. I was infatuated before; 1 awakened to reason at last. Do not add to the mountain of deceit by useless falsehood now. The hateful past is dead; let us bury it out of sight and re- collection, Go your way and leave me in peace!” To this dispassionate yet inflexible decision the woman listened breathlessly, with distending eyes and face whitening with terror. ‘*Stop! Stop!” she cried, casting herself on her knees again, and extending her armsin su lication. *‘ See, Will!—I am at your feet! Ob! isten tome! All these years I have kept on loving you, not asking for hope! A mont ago IT learned that you had been seen here in the mountains. Only somuch. Nota word about you. I did not know howI might find you. I asked only the opportunity to come face to face I flew to you. When he uise of a common high- wayman, I was thunderstruck. But my vail protected me. He did not recog- nize me. You came next, I could scarce- ly support the thrill of delight and the agony of fear inspired by the sight of you. You followed him. Ihave heard the story of that meeting. Then you came back to me, Oh! that ride, unknown! I touched your foot with mine, so geet that you did not perceive it! I bree thed he air that you breathed! I gazed upon you unchided! Then you helped me from the coach and my hand touched yours! I thought 1 should die! How did I restrain the impulse to tear aside my vail and cast myself at your feet then and there! Ah! I dared not make myself known, lest my paradise should topple in ruins about my head! I was unspeakably happy and unutterably wretched! It was heaven and hell at the same moment! Now I have revealed myself. You can lift me toa delirium of ha piness with a word! Do not dash me to the depths of despair! Hear me! I love you! I have alwaysloved you! Never for a moment as my heart— ** A—A--A—AH!” It was an indescribable deepens andfury. In her abandon the woman had clasped the knees of the man to whom she made her wild appeal in words that followed each other with lightning rapidity; and he had shaken ber off witha shudder of repulsion. In that she read the death of her hopes more clearly than any form of words could have con- veyed it; and with that maniac cry she fell for- ward on her face. Was she unconscious? No; for she clutched the ground with her hands, and every drawn breath was an audible gasp, while every exha- lation was a wailing moan. It was terrible to look at her. Itseemed as if that stormy spirit would shake the frail body to ruin, But the man made no effort tocalm her. Hae did not lift her up. Instead, he wo had neve been upgaliant towomen turned ard reeled with you once more, came to me in the , 80 full of blended MIGDOOKS: GO (E(0) (E