Part 14 (1/2)
”What! You have lost your great fortune? _You are penniless?_” fairly shrieked Sally, springing to her feet and looking with amazement into the wrinkled face above her.
Miss Rogers nodded a.s.sent, inwardly asking Heaven to pardon her for this, her first deliberate falsehood.
”And you came here to us, got the best room in our house, and all of mamma's best clothes, and you a beggar!”
Miss Rogers fairly trembled under the storm of wrath she had evoked.
”I--I did not mention it when I first came, because I had somehow hoped you would care for me for myself, even though my money was gone, dear child.”
A sneering, scornful laugh broke from Sally's lips, a glare hateful to behold flashed from her eyes.
”You have deceived us shamefully!” she cried. ”How angry papa and mamma and Louisa will be to learn that we have been entertaining a pauper!”
”Perhaps you have been entertaining an angel unawares,” murmured Miss Rogers.
”G.o.d forgive you, girl, for showing so little heart!” exclaimed Miss Rogers, rising slowly to her feet.
”I shall take no saucy remarks from you!” cried Sally, harshly. ”Come, make haste! Take off those fine clothes, and be gone as fast as you can!”
”But I have nothing to put on,” said Miss Rogers.
Sally instantly touched the bell, and when the maid came in response to her summons, she said, quickly:
”Bring me that bundle of clothes mamma laid out for you to give to the charity collector to-day.”
Wonderingly the maid brought the bundle, and she wondered still more when Miss Sally ordered her to go down to the servants' hall, and not to come up until she was called for.
”Now, then,” she cried, harshly, after the door had closed upon the maid, ”get into these duds at once!”
Miss Rogers obeyed; and when at length the change was made, Sally pointed to the door and cried, shrilly:
”Now go!”
”But the storm!” persisted Miss Rogers, piteously. ”Oh, Sally, at least let me stay until the storm has spent its fury!”
”Not an instant!” cried Sally Pendleton, fairly dragging her from the room and down the corridor to the main door, which she flung open, thrust her victim through it, and out into the storm.
CHAPTER XVIII.
FATE WEAVES A STRANGE WEB.
If Sally Pendleton had taken the trouble to look out after the trembling old woman she had thrust so unceremoniously into the raging storm, she would not have gone up to her own room with such a self-satisfied smile on her face.
Just as that little scene was taking place, a brougham, drawn by a pair of spirited horses, was being driven rapidly down the street, and was almost abreast of the house as this extraordinary little drama was being enacted.
Its occupant had ordered the driver to halt at the Pendleton mansion, and looking out of the window, he had seen with amazement the whole occurrence--had seen Sally Pendleton, who had always posed before him as a sweet-tempered angel--actually thrust a feeble-looking, poorly-dressed woman out of the house and into the street to face a storm so wild and pitiless that most people would have hesitated before even turning a homeless, wandering cur out into it.
Doctor Gardiner's carriage drew up quickly before the curbstone, and as he sprung from the vehicle, his astonishment can better be imagined than described at finding himself face to face with his friend, Miss Rogers, and that it was she who had been ejected so summarily. The poor soul almost fainted for joy when she beheld the young physician.