Part 9 (1/2)
”Is it true--they buried me--and--you--you--rescued me?” she asked, in a terrified whisper, catching at the old man's hands and clutching them in a grasp from which he could not draw them away, her teeth chattering, her violet eyes almost bulging from their sockets.
”Since you have heard all, I might as well confess that it is quite true,” he answered. ”And G.o.d forgive that brute of a husband you just married. He ought to swing for the crime as sure as there is a heaven above us. There will be no end of the good minister's wrath when he hears the story, my poor girl.”
Again the beautiful young stranger caught at his hands.
”He must never know!” she cried, incoherently. ”Promise me, by all you hold dear, that both you and your wife will keep my secret--will never reveal one word of what has happened this night.”
”It is not right that we should keep silent upon such an amazing procedure. That would be letting escape the man who should be punished, if there is any law in the land to reach him for committing such a heinous crime.”
”I plead with you--I, who know best and am the one wronged, and most vitally interested, to utter no word that would cause the story to become blazoned all over the world. Let me make my words a prayer to you both--to keep my pitiful secret.”
It was beyond human power to look into those beautiful violet eyes, drowned in the most agonized tears, and the white, terrified, anxious face, without yielding to her prayer.
”I do not know what good reason you may have for binding us to secrecy,”
he said, slowly and reluctantly, ”but we cannot choose but to give you the promise--nay, the pledge--you plead for. I can answer for my Mary as well as myself--the story of to-night's happenings shall never pa.s.s our lips until you give us leave to speak.”
”Thank you! Oh, I thank you a thousand times!” sobbed the girl. ”You have lifted a terrible load from my heart. If the time ever comes when I can repay you, rest a.s.sured it shall surely be done.”
She tried to rise from her couch, but the good wife held her back upon her pillow with a detaining hand, exclaiming:
”What are you about to do, my dear child?”
”Go away from here,” sobbed the girl, again attempting to arise from the couch, but falling back upon the pillow from sheer weakness.
She did not leave that couch for many a day. What she had undergone had been too much for her shattered nerves.
Brain fever threatened the hapless girl, but was warded off by the faithful nursing of old Adam's faithful wife.
And during those weeks the good woman could learn nothing of the history of the beautiful young stranger, who persistently refused to divulge one word concerning herself. She would turn her face to the wall and weep so violently when any allusion was made to her past that the grave digger's wife gave up questioning her.
One morning the bed was empty. It had not been slept in. The girl had fled in the night.
Who she was, or where she had gone, was to them the darkest, deepest mystery. Would it ever be revealed? They could not discuss it with the old minister or any of the neighbors, for their lips were sealed in eternal silence concerning the matter.
”I feel sure the end of this matter is not yet,” said old Adam, prophetically. ”When the girl comes face to face with the dastardly villain she wedded that night, it will end in a tragedy.”
”G.o.d forbid!” murmured his wife with a shudder; but down in her own heart she felt that her husband had spoken the truth; the tragic end of this affair had not yet come.
CHAPTER XI.
”YOU ARE DISINHERITED--EVERYTHING IN THIS HOUSE IS MINE.”
Faynie had indeed departed from that humble home as she had entered it, in the dark, dim silence of the bitter-cold night.
She made her way as best she could to the station which, fortunately enough, was not far distant. The station master was old and anxious to get home, and therefore paid little heed to the little dark-robed figure who bought a ticket to New York, and soon after crept silently aboard of the train which steamed into the little depot of the hamlet, almost buried in the snowdrifts across the hills.
Weak and faint from her recent illness, Faynie, the beautiful, petted little heiress of a short time before, huddled into a corner of the seat by the door, and drawing her veil carefully over her face, wept silently and unheeded as the midnight express bore her along to her destination.