The Unseen Bridegroom; Or, Wedded For a Week. May Agnes Fleming

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СКАЧАТЬ night after night, a homeless, houseless wretch? No; not if I chose, not if I ordered—do you hear?—ordered my aristocratic friend, Mr. Walraven, of Fifth Avenue, to empty his plethoric purse in my dirty pocket. Ah, yes," with a shrill laugh, "Miriam knows her power!"

      "Are you almost done?" Mr. Walraven replied, calmly. "Have you come here for anything but talk? If so, for what?"

      "Not your money—be sure of that. I would starve—I would die the death of a dog in a kennel—before I would eat a mouthful of bread bought with your gold. I come for justice!"

      "Justice"—he lifted a pair of sullen, inquiring eyes—"justice! To whom?"

      "To one whom you have injured beyond reparation—Mary Dane!"

      She hissed the name in a sharp, sibilant whisper, and the man recoiled as if an adder had stung him.

      "What do you mean?" he asked, with dry, parched lips. "Why do you come here to torment me? Mary Dane is dead."

      "Mary Dane's daughter lives not twenty miles from where we stand. Justice to the dead is beyond the power of even the wealthy Carl Walraven. Justice to the living can yet be rendered, and shall be to the uttermost farthing."

      "What do you want?"

      "I want you to find Mary Dane, and bring her here, educate her, dress her, treat as your own child."

      "Where shall I find her?"

      "At K——, twenty miles from here."

      "Who is she? What is she?"

      "An actress, traveling about with a strolling troupe; an actress since her sixth year—on the stage eleven years to-night. This is her seventeenth birthday, as you know."

      "Is this all?"

      "All at present. Are you prepared to obey, or shall I—"

      "There!" interrupted Mr. Walraven, "that will do. There is no need of threats, Miriam—I am very willing to obey you in this. If I had known Mary Dane—why the deuce did you give her that name?—was on this continent, I would have hunted her up of my own accord. I would, upon my honor!"

      "Swear by something you possess," the woman said, with a sneer; "honor you never had since I first knew you."

      "Come, come, Miriam," said Mr. Walraven, uneasily, "don't be cantankerous. Let by-gones be by-gones. I'm sorry for the past—I am indeed, and am willing to do well for the future. Sit down and be sociable, and tell me all about it. How came you to let the little one go on the stage first?"

      Miriam spurned away the proffered chair.

      "I spurn it as I would your dead body if it lay before me, Carl Walraven! Sit down with you? Never, if my life depended on it! The child became an actress because I could keep her no longer—I couldn't keep myself—and because she had the voice and face of an angel—poor little wretch! The manager of a band of strolling players, passing through our village, heard her baby voice singing some baby song, and pounced upon her on the instant. We struck a bargain, and I sold her, Mr. Walraven—yes, sold her."

      "You wretch! Well?"

      "Well, I went to see her occasionally afterward, but not often, for the strolling troupe were here, there, and everywhere—from pillar to post. But I never lost sight of her, and I saw her grow up a pretty, slender, bright-eyed lass, well dressed, well fed, and happy—perfectly happy in her wandering life. Her great-grandmother—old Peter Dane's wife—was a gypsy, Mr. Walraven, and I dare say the wild blood broke out. She liked the life, and became the star of the little band—the queen of the troupe. I kept her in view even when she crossed the Atlantic last year, and paid her a visit a week ago to-night."

      "Humph!" was Carl Walraven's comment. "Well, Mistress Miriam, it might have been worse; no thanks to you, though. And now—what does she know of her own story?"

      "Nothing."

      "What?"

      "Nothing, I tell you. Her name is Mary Dane, and she is seventeen years old on the twenty-fifth of November. Her father and mother are dead—poor but honest people, of course—and I am Aunt Miriam, earning a respectable living by washing clothes and scrubbing floors. That is what she knows. How much of that is true, Mr. Walraven?"

      "Then she never heard of me?"

      "She has never had that misfortune yet; it has been reserved for yourself. You are a rich man, and you will go to K——, and you will see her play, and will take a fancy to her, and adopt her as your daughter. There is the skeleton for you to clothe with flesh."

      "And suppose she refuses?"

      "She will not refuse. She likes handsome dresses and jewelry as well as any other little fool of seventeen. You make her the offer, and my word for it, it will be accepted."

      "I will go, Miriam. Upon my word I feel curious to see the witch. Who is she like, Miriam—mamma or me?"

      The woman's eyes flashed fire.

      "Not like you, you son of Satan! If she was I would have strangled her in her cradle! Let me go, for the air you breathe chokes me! Dare to disobey at your peril!"

      "I will start for K—— to-morrow. She will be here—my adopted daughter—before the week ends."

      "Good! And this old mother of yours, will she be kind to the girl? I won't have her treated badly, you understand."

      "My mother will do whatever her son wishes. She would be kind to a young gorilla if I said so. Don't fear for your niece—she will be treated well."

      "Let it be so, or beware! A blood-hound on your track would be less deadly than I! I will be here again, and yet again, to see for myself that you keep your word."

      She strode to the door, opened it, and stood in the illuminated ball. Johnson just had time to vanish from the key-hole and no more. Down the stair-way pealed the wild, melancholy music of a German waltz; from the dining-room came the clink and jingle of silver, and china, and glass. The woman's haggard face filled with scorn and bitterness as she gave one fleeting, backward glance.

      "They say there is a just and avenging Heaven, yet Carl Walraven is master of all this. Wealth, love, and honor for him, and a nameless grave for her; the streets, foul and deadly, for me. The mill of the gods may grind sure, but it grinds fearfully slow—fearfully slow!"

      They were the last words Carl Walraven heard her utter. She opened the house door, gathered her threadbare shawl closer around her, and fluttered away in the wild, wet night.

CHAPTER II.

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"CRICKET."

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      The little provincial theater was crowded from pit to dome—long tiers of changing faces and luminous СКАЧАТЬ