Part 6 (1/2)
”Stop!--stop right where you are, you mercenary wretch!” cried Faynie in a ringing voice. ”I see it all now--as clear as day. You--you--have married me because you have believed me my father's heiress, and--”
”You couldn't help but be, my dear,” he hiccoughed. ”An only child--no one else on earth to come in for his gold--couldn't help but be his heiress, you know--couldn't disinherit you if he wanted to. You've got the old chap foul enough there, ha, ha, ha!”
”You seem to have suddenly lost sight of the fact that there is some one beside myself--my stepmother and her daughter Claire.”
He fell back a step and looked at her with dilated eyes--despite the brandy he had imbibed he still understood thoroughly every word she was saying.
”A stepmother--and--another daughter!” he cried, in astonishment--almost incoherently.
”You seem to forget that you always used to say to me--that you hoped they were well,” said Faynie with deepening scorn in her clear, young voice.
”Oh--ah--yes,” he muttered, ”but you see I was not thinking of them---only of you,” and deep in his heart he was cursing the hapless cousin--whom he believed dead by this time--for not mentioning that the girl had a stepmother and sister.
”Had you taken the time to listen to something else that I had to tell you, you might have reconsidered the advisability of eloping with me in such haste,” went on the girl in her clear, ringing tones, ”for it has become apparent to me--with even as little knowledge of the world as I possess--that you are a fortune hunter--that most despicable of all creatures--but in this instance your dastardly scheme has entangled your own feet. Your well-aimed arrow has missed the mark. You have wedded this night a penniless girl. An hour before you met me at the arched gate my father disinherited me, and when he has once made up his mind upon any course of action--nothing human, nothing on earth or in heaven would have power enough to induce him to change it.”
The effect of her words were magical upon him. With a bound he was at her side grasping her slender wrists with so tight a hold that they nearly snapped asunder.
Intense as the pain was, Faynie would not cry aloud. He should not see that he had power to hurt her, even though she dropped dead at his feet at last from the excruciating torture of it.
”What is it you say--the old rascal has--disinherited you?” he cried, scarcely crediting the evidence of his own ears.
”That is just what I said--my father has disinherited me,” she replied slowly and distinctly, adding: ”His money was his own--to do with as he pleased--he gave me the choice of--of--marrying to suit him or being cut off entirely. I--I--refused to accept the man he had selected for me.
That ended the matter. 'Then from this hour know that you shall not inherit one penny of my wealth,' he cried. 'I will cut you off with but the small amount required by law. There is nothing more to be said. You are a Fairfax. You have taken your choice, and as a Fairfax you must abide by your decision!' You will remember I told you I had something to tell you the moment you came up to me at the arched gate, but you would not listen. Now the consequence is upon your own head.”
”I have married a beggar, when I thought I was marrying an--heiress!” he cried in a rage so horrible that Faynie, brave as she was, recoiled from him in terror and, dismay.
”You have married a penniless young girl,” she corrected, half inaudibly.
He raised his clinched hand with a terrible volley of oaths, before which she quailed, despite her bravery.
”When the old man cast you off you thought you would tie yourself on to me,” he cried. ”You women are cunning--oh, yes, you are, don't tell me you're not; and you are the shrewdest one I've come across yet. You lie when you say you meant to tell me what had happened beforehand, and you know it. But you'll find out at your cost what it means to bind me to a millstone for a wife. But you shan't be a millstone. You'll do your share toward the support. Yes, by George, you shall. I'll put you on the stage--and you--”
”Never!” cried the girl with a bitter sob. ”I'd die first.”
”Don't set up your authority against mine,” he cried, and as he uttered the words--half crazed by the brandy he had drunk so copiously--his clinched fist came down with a heavy blow upon the girl's beautiful, upturned face, and she fell like one dead at his feet.
CHAPTER VIII.
WHAT HAPPENED AT MIDNIGHT ON THE LONELY RIVER ROAD.
For one moment he looked down half stupefied at his work--the girl lay in a little dark heap at his feet just as he had struck her down--the crimson blood pouring from a wound on her temple which his ring had caused.
”I--I've killed her,” he muttered, setting his teeth together hard--”she--she provoked me to it--curse her! My G.o.d! the girl is actually dying.” Then, through his half-dazed brain came the thought that his crime would soon be discovered, and his only safety lay in instant flight.
It was but the work of a moment to hurry from the room, making his way through the inky darkness as best he could to the barroom, where he knew he should find Halloran and the cabby dozing in the big armchairs.
The full realization of his crime had quite sobered him by this time.