The girl answered straightforwardly, gazing round her the while in open-eyed admiration.

"Do you know her name?"

"We call her old Miriam; she refuses to tell her name. I have done little things for her since she has been ill, and she begged me so hard to fetch you this letter that I could not refuse."

"Do you know its contents?"

"Only that you are expected to return with me. She told me that she had something to say to you that you would give half your life to hear."

"Is the house far from this?"

"Yes, miss, a long way; but I came in a carriage. It is waiting round the corner. Miriam told me to hurry; that it was a matter of life or death, and she gave me money to pay for the hack. It was absolutely necessary you should know, she said, before you married any one."

Mollie mused a moment. She never thought of doubting all this. Of course, Miriam knew all about her, and of course it was likely she would wish to tell her on her death-bed.

"I will go," she said, suddenly. "Wait one instant."

She summoned the servant, gave her the message that had caused such consternation, locked the door, and threw over her glittering bridal robes a long water-proof cloak that covered her from head to foot. Drawing the hood over her head, she stood ready.

"Now," said Miss Dane, rapidly, "we will not go out by the front door, because I don't want any one to know I have quitted the house. Come this way."

She opened one of the long windows and stepped out on the piazza. Sarah followed.

Some distance on there was a flight of stairs leading to a paved back-yard. They descended the stairs, walked down the yard, passed through a little gate, and stood in the street, under the bright night sky.

"Now, Miss Grant," said Mollie, "where is your carriage?"

"At the corner of the avenue, miss. This way."

Two minutes brought them to the corner. There stood the hack.

Sarah made a motion for Miss Dane to precede her. Mollie stepped in; the girl followed, closing the door securely after her, and the hack started at a furious pace.

"How dark it is!" exclaimed Mollie, impatiently. "You should make your driver light up, Miss Grant."

"There is sufficient light for our work," a voice answered.

Mollie recoiled with a slight shriek, for it was not the voice of Sarah Grant.

A dark figure started out of the corner on the moment, her hands were grasped, and a handkerchief swiftly and surely bound round her mouth. It was no longer in her power to raise an alarm.

"Now bind her eyes, Sarah," said the voice. "I'll secure her hands. My pretty bird, it's of no use struggling. You're safely and surely snared."

Her eyes were bandaged, her hands bound, and Mollie sat utterly helpless and bewildered—a prisoner.

She could neither see, nor move, nor speak. The hack was rattling at a fearful pace over the stony streets. Its noise would have drowned her cries had it been in her power to utter any.

"Now, my dear Miss Dane," said that unknown voice, very close to her ear, and all at once, in French, "I'll answer all the questions I know you are dying to ask at this moment, and answer them truthfully. I speak in French, that the good Sarah beside us may not comprehend. You understand the language, I know."

He knew her, then! And yet she utterly failed to recognize that voice.

"In the first place, what does all this mean? Why this deception—this abduction? Who am I? Where are you being taken? When are you to be restored to your friends? This is what you would ask, is it not? Very well; now to answer you. What does this mean? Why, it means that you have made an enemy, by your atrocious flirting, of one whom you cruelly and shamefully jilted, who has vowed vengeance, and who knows how to keep that vow. Why this deception—this abduction? Well, without deception it was impossible to get you away, and we know just enough about you to serve our purpose. Miriam never sent that note; but Miriam exists. Who am I? Why, I am that enemy—if one can be your enemy who loves you to madness—a man you cruelly taught to love you, and then scornfully refused. Where are you being taken? To a safe place, my charming Mollie—safe as 'that deepest dungeon beneath the castle moat' which you have read of. When are you to be restored to your friends? When you have been my wife one week—not an instant sooner."

Mollie, bound and blindfolded, made one frantic gesture. The man by her side understood.

"That means you won't," he said, coolly. "Ah, my fairy Mollie, imprisonment is a hard thing to bear! I love you very dearly, I admire your high spirit intensely; but even eaglets have had their wings clipped before now. You treated me mercilessly—I am going to be merciless in my turn. You don't care for this old man I have saved you from marrying. I am young and good-looking—I blush as I say it—a far more suitable husband for you than he. You are trying to recognize my voice and place me, I know. Leave off trying, my dearest; you never will. I am perfectly disguised—voice, face, figure. When we part you will be no wiser than you are now."

He ceased speaking. The carriage rattled on and on through the shining, starlit night for endless hours, it seemed to Mollie.

Oh, where were they going, and what was to become of her? Was it a frightful reality, or only a dream? Was she really the same girl who this night was to have been the bride of a baronet? Was this the nineteenth century and New York City, or a chapter out of some old Venetian romance?

The carriage stopped at last; she heard the door open, she felt herself lifted out; there was a rush of cold air for an instant, then they entered a house; a door closed behind them, and she was being borne upstairs and into a room.

"Now that we have arrived, Miss Mollie," said that strange voice, "we will unbind you, and you really must overlook the hard necessity which compelled so strong a course toward a lady. I give you fair warning that it will be of no use straining your lungs screaming; for if you shrieked for a month, no one would hear you through these padded walls. Now, then!"

He took the gag from her mouth, and Mollie caught her breath with a gasp. He untied the bandage round her eyes, and for a second or two she was dazzled by the sudden blaze of light. The instant she could see, she turned full upon her abductor.

Alas and alas! he wore a black mask, a flowing wig, a beard, and a long cloak reaching to the floor.

He was a tall man—that was the only thing Mollie could make out of the disguise.

"Miss Dane does not spare me; but it is all in vain. She may gaze until her lovely eyes drop from their sockets, and she will not recognize me. And now I will leave you. I will intrude upon you as little as is absolutely possible. If you need anything, ring the bell. Good-night, my beautiful Mollie, and happy dreams."

He bowed politely and moved toward the door. Mollie made a step toward him, with upraised arm:

"Stay!"

The man halted at once.

"How long am I to be imprisoned here?"

"My fair one, I told you before: until you consent to become my wife."

"Are you mad?" exclaimed Mollie, scornfully; "or do you think I am? Your wife! I am here in your power—kill me, if you dare, you cowardly abductor! I will die ten thousand deaths—I'll live on here until my head is hoary—I'll dash my brains out against yonder wall, but I'll never, never, never become your wife!"

The man shrugged his shoulders.

"Strong language, my dear; but words, words, words! I won't kill you, and you won't live here until your head is hoary. Golden locks like yours are a long time turning gray. And you won't dash your brains out against the walls, because the walls are padded. Is there anything else you wish to say, Miss Dane?"

"Only this," with blazing eyes, "that whoever you are, you are the vilest, basest, most cowardly wretch on the wide earth! Go! I would murder you if I was able!"

"Not a doubt of it, my angel! Once more, good-night!"

He bowed low, passed out, and locked the door. Mollie was alone in her prison.

Now, little Cricket, fairy that she was, was yet brave as any giantess. Not a drop of craven blood flowed in her spirited veins. Therefore, left alone, she neither wept, nor raved, nor tore her hair; but took a prolonged survey of her surroundings.

It was a large, lofty room, lighted by a single gas-jet, dependent from the ceiling. The four walls were thickly wadded, and there were no windows, only one door, no pictures, no mirror—nothing but a few stuffed chairs, a table, a lavatory, a bed. Day-time and night-time would be the same here.

"Well," said Mollie to herself, drawing a long breath, "if this does not cap the globe! Am I really Mollie Dane, and is this New York City, or am I playing private theatricals, and gone back to the Dark Ages? Who, in the wide world, is that mysterious man? And, oh! what will they say at home this dreadful night?"

She removed her cumbersome mantle and threw it upon the bed, looking ruefully about her.

"I wonder how long I am to be kept here? Of course, I'll never yield; but it's going to be frightful, if I am to be imprisoned for weeks and weeks. I won't ring for that deceitful Sarah Grant, and I'll never give in, if they keep me until the day of judgment."

She began pacing up and down the room. Death-like stillness reigned. Hours passed. Weary with the long drive, she threw herself upon the bed at last, and fell fast asleep.

A noise near awoke her after a prolonged slumber. She looked up; the gas still burned, but she was no longer alone. Sarah stood by the table, arranging a tempting breakfast.

"What's that?" abruptly demanded Mollie.

Sarah courtesied respectfully.

"Your breakfast, miss."

"It is to-morrow, then?" said Mollie.

"It is to-day, miss," responded the girl, with a smile.

"What's the hour?"

"Past eight, Miss Dane."

"Are you going to stay here with me?"

"No, miss."

"Why did you tell me such lies last night, you shameful girl?"

"I told you what I was ordered to tell you."

"By whom?"

"My master."

"Who is your master? Old Satan?"

"I hope not, miss."

"Who, then? What is his name?"

"Excuse me. Miss Dane," said the girl, quietly. "I must answer no questions."

"You are a hard-hearted creature, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself!" exclaimed Mollie, indignantly. "Where is your master? Here?"

"Miss Dane, I repeat it—I can answer no questions, and I must go. Here is your breakfast. I hope you will enjoy it."

"Yes," said Mollie, scornfully, "it is very likely I enjoy eating and drinking in this place! Take it away. I don't want victuals—I mean to starve myself to death."

But she looked at the table as she spoke, and was inwardly not at all displeased to see the golden coffee, the buckwheat cakes, the eggs, and ham, and toast.

"I shall bring you your dinner at noon, miss." said Sarah, moving toward the door, and not heeding her. "If you want me before noon, please to ring."

"Stop!" said Mollie. "And, oh, for goodness gracious sake, do tell me where I am!"

She held up her hands imploringly—poor, caged little starling!

"I am sorry, miss," Sarah said, and her face showed it; "but indeed—indeed I can't! I daren't! I've promised, and my master trusts me. I can't break my word."

She was gone as she spoke, locking the door again, and Mollie got up with a heavy sigh. She had taken off only her outer garments before lying down; and after washing, and combing out her bright silken hair, she resumed the glittering, bride-like finery of the evening before. Poor Mollie looked at the silver-shining silk, the cobweb lace, the gleaming, milky pearls, with a very rueful face.

"And I was to have been away on my bridal tour by this time," she thought; "and poor Sir Roger is half mad before this, I know. Oh, dear! it's very nice to read about young ladies being carried off in this way, but the reading is much nicer than the reality. I shall die if they keep me here four-and-twenty hours longer."

By way of preparing for death, Miss Dane promptly sat down to the table and eat her breakfast with the hearty appetite of youth and good health.

"It's better than being fed on bread and water, anyhow," she reflected, as she finished; "but I should greatly prefer the bread and water, if sweetened with freedom. What on earth shall I do with myself? If they had only left me a book!"

But they hadn't, and the long, dull hours wore on—how long and how dull only prisoners know. But noon came at last, and with it came Sarah, carrying a second tray. Mollie was on the watch for the door to open. She had some vague idea of making a rush for it, but there stood a stalwart man on guard.

"Here is your dinner, Miss Dane. I hope you liked your breakfast."

But the sight of the sentinel without had made Mollie sulky, and she turned her back upon the girl with silent contempt.

Sarah departed, and Mollie suffered her dinner to stand and grow cold. She was too cross to eat, but by and by she awoke to the fact that she was hungry.

"And then it will help to pass the time," thought the unhappy prisoner, sitting down. "If I could eat all the time, I shouldn't so much mind."

After dinner she coiled herself up in one of the arm-chairs and fell asleep. She slept long, and awoke refreshed, but what time it was she could not judge; eternal gas-light and silence reigned in her prison.

"Oh, dear, dear! what will become of me if this sort of thing goes on?" cried Mollie, aloud, starting up and wringing her hands. "I shall go stark, staring mad! Oh, what crime did my father and mother ever commit, that their sin should be visited upon me like this? I will stab myself with the carving-knife to-morrow, after dinner, if this keeps on!"

Mollie paced up and down like a bedlamite, sobbing and scolding to herself, and quite broken down with one day's imprisonment.

"I thought I could stand it—I thought I could defy him; I had no idea being imprisoned was so awful. I wish I could die and make an end of it! I'd starve myself to death, only I get so dreadful hungry, and I daren't cut my throat, because the sight of blood makes me sick, and I know it must hurt. Oh, Mollie Dane, you miserable little wretch! I wish you had never been born!"

Another dreary interval, and then for the third time came Sarah bearing a tray.

"Your supper, miss." said Sarah, going through the formula. "I hope you liked your dinner."

"Oh, take it away!" cried Millie, twisting her fingers. "I don't want any supper—I'm going crazy, I think! Oh, what a hard, flinty, unfeeling heart you must have, you wicked young woman!"

Sarah looked at her compassionately.

"It is hard, I know. But why didn't you do as master wished you, and get away?"

"Marry him! How dare you? I wish I could poison him! I'd do that with the greatest pleasure."

"Then you must stay here, miss, for weeks and weeks, months and months, and every day be like this. Your friends will never find you—never!"

"Sarah, look here! I shall be dead in a week, and I'll haunt you—I vow I will! I'll haunt you until I make your life a misery to you!"

Sarah smiled quietly.

"I am not afraid, miss. You're a great deal too young and too healthy to die; and you won't kill yourself, for life is too sweet, even in prison. The best thing you can do is to marry master, and be restored to your friends."

"Sarah Grant—if that be your name," said Mollie, with awful calmness—"go away! if you only come here to insult me like that, don't come here at all."

Sarah courtesied respectfully, and immediately left. But her words had made their mark. In spite of Mollie's appealing dignity, any avenue of escape—even that—was beginning to took inviting.

"Suppose I went through the form of a ceremony with this man?" mused Mollie. "It wouldn't mean anything, you know, because I did it upon compulsion; and, immediately I got out, I should go straight and marry Sir Roger. But I won't do it—of course, I won't! I'll be imprisoned forever before I yield!"

But you know it has got to be a proverb, "When a woman hesitates, she is lost." Mollie had begun to hesitate, and Mollie was lost.

All that long night she never slept a wink. She lay awake, tossing and tumbling on the bed, or pacing up and down the floor, in a sort of delirious fever. And—

"If I thought for certain sure he would let me go after the sham ceremony was performed, I would marry him," was the conclusion she had arrived at by morning. "No matter what happens, nothing can be half so bad as this."

It was morning, though Mollie did not know it, when she threw herself on the bed, and for the second time fell asleep. And sleeping, she dreamed. She was standing up before the minister, to be married to the masked man. The ceremony went on—Miriam was bride-maid and Sir Roger Trajenna gave her away. The ceremony ended, the bridegroom turned to salute the bride. "But first I must remove my mask," he said, in a strangely familiar voice; and lifting it off, Mollie saw smiling down upon her the most beautiful face ever mortal were, familiar as the voice, yet leaving her equally unable to place it.

It may seem a little thing, but little things weigh with young ladies in their seventeenth year, and this dream turned the scale. Mollie thought about it a great deal that morning as she made her toilet.

"I wonder if he is so very handsome? I like handsome men," mused Mollie. "He told me he was, and I know he must be, if he ever was a flirter of mine. Mr. Sardonyx is the plainest man I ever let make love to me, and even he was not absolutely plain. I shouldn't wonder if my captor were he, or else Doctor Oleander. Oh, why—why—why can't I recognize that voice?"

That day wore on, long, drearily, endlessly, it seemed to poor Mollie. Its dull course was broken, as usual, by Sarah fetching the daily meals; and it ended, and night came, and still Mollie had not spoken.

Another day dawned, and its dawning brought the climax. She had passed a sleepless night, and awoke feverish, unrefreshed, and utterly desperate.

"If it was death instead of marriage I had to undergo," said Mollie to herself, "I should prefer it to this slow torture. It's horrid to yield, but it's a great deal more horrid to hold out. I'll yield."

Accordingly, when Sarah came up with the morning meal, Miss Dane promptly addressed her:

"Sarah, is your master in the house?"

"Not at present, miss."

"Do you expect him?"

"Oh, yes, miss! He comes every day."

"Is he coming up here no more until I send for him?"

"I think not, miss. He is a great deal too polite to force himself upon a lady."

A glance of withering scorn from Mollie.

"He is a cowardly, contemptible tyrant, and you are a vile, lost creature and fool! But that is not what I wanted to say. As soon as he comes, tell him I wish to see him."

"Very well, miss."

Sarah departed. The long hours dragged on—oh, so long!—oh, so long! Mollie could take no breakfast that morning. She could only walk up and down her prison-chamber in a frenzy of impatience for the coming of the man she hated.

He came at last—cloaked and masked, and wearing the false hair and beard—utterly unrecognizable.

"At last, Miss Dane," he calmly said, "you have sent for me. You are tired of your prison? You long for freedom? You accede to my terms?"

"Yes," said Mollie, with a sort of sobbing cry, for she felt utterly broken down. "Anything, anything under heaven for freedom! Another week like this, and I should go mad! But, oh! if you are a man—if you have any pity in your heart—don't ask this sacrifice! Let me go as I am! See, I plead to you!—I, who never pleaded to mortal before! Let me go, for pity's sake, now, as I came! Don't, don't, don't ask me to marry you!"

She held up her clasped hands—bright tears standing in her passionate eyes. But the tall, masked man loomed up like a dark, stern ghost.

"You were merciless to me, Mollie Dane."

"But I am only a girl—only a silly, flirting girl of sixteen! Oh, forget and forgive, and let me go!"

"I can not, Mollie, for—I love you!"

"Love me?" Mollie repeated, scorn and anguish in her voice. "Love me, and torture me like this!"

"It is because I love you. I torture you because you shall be my wife. Mine, Mollie, mine! Because you would never consent of your own free will. It goes to my heart to hear you plead; but I love you with my whole heart and soul, and I can not yield."

"I shall plead no more," said Mollie, proudly, turning away; "your heart is of stone."

"Will you consent to marry me, Mollie? Remember the terms. One week from the hour that makes you my wife will see you going forth free, if you wish it."

"Free! wish it!" she repeated, with unutterable scorn. "Free, and bound to you! Wish it, when for that privilege I sacrifice myself forever! Oh, you know well I love my liberty dearly, when I can not lie here and rot sooner than leave my prison your wife! But, man—demon—whatever you are," she cried, with a sort of frenzy, "I do consent—I will become your wife, since my only chance of quitting this horrible dungeon lies that way!"

If Mollie could have seen the face behind the mask, she would have seen the red glow of triumph that overspread it at the words; but aloud he spoke calmly.

"My happiness is complete," he said. "But remember, Mollie, it will be no sham marriage, that you will be at liberty to break. A real clergyman shall unite us, and you must promise me to make no appeal to his sympathy—to make no attempt to converse with him. The attempt would be quite useless, but you must promise."

"I promise," she said, haughtily; "and Mollie Dane keeps her word."

"And I keep mine! A week from the ceremony you go forth free, never to be disturbed by me again. I love you, and I marry you for love and for revenge. It sounds inconsistent, but it is true. Yet, my promise of vengeance fulfilled, I shall retain you against your will no longer. I will love you always, and you will be my wife—my wife, Mollie. Nothing can ever alter that. I can always say hereafter, come what will, I have been blessed!"

There was a tremor in the steady voice. He paused an instant, and then went on:

"To-night the clergyman will be here. You will be ready? You will not retract your word?"

"I never retract my word," Mollie said, abruptly turning her back upon him. "I will not now. Go!"



CHAPTER VIII.

THE MIDNIGHT MARRIAGE.

The Reverend Raymond Rashleigh sat before a blazing sea-coal fire, in his cozy study, in comfortable, after-dinner mood. He lay back in his cushioned and carved arm-chair, a florid, portly, urbane prelate, with iron-gray hair and patriarchal whiskers, a steaming glass of wine punch at his elbow, that day's paper open upon his lap, an overfed pussy purring at his knee, the genius of comfort personified in his own portly person.

The world went well with the Reverend Raymond. Silks rustled and diamonds flashed every Sunday in the cushioned pews of his "uptown" church; the lite of Gotham sat under his teaching, and his sixty years and the cares of life rested lightly on his broad shoulders.

It had been a very smoothly flowing life—those sixty years—gliding along as sluggishly calm as the waters of a canal. But on this night the still surface was destined to be ruffled—on this night, so strange, so extraordinary an adventure was destined to happen to him, that it actually compensated, in five brief hours, for all the lack of excitement in those sixty years.

A wet and stormy night. The rain beat ceaselessly against the curtained windows; the wild spring wind shrieked through the city streets, icily cold; a bad, black night—starless, moonless.

The Reverend Raymond Rashleigh gave a little comfortable shiver as he listened to it. It was very pleasant to listen to it in that cozy little room. He poked the blazing coals, sipped his red port, stroked pussy, who bore a most absurd feline resemblance to himself, and took up his paper again.

For the second time he read over a brief paragraph among the "Personals:"

"LEFT HER HOME.—On the fifteenth instant—whether forcibly or of her own free will is unknown—a young lady of sixteen years, by name Mollie Dane. Is undersized, very slight of figure, a profusion of light, curling hair, large blue eyes, handsome features, and remarkably self-possessed and straightforward of manner. Was dressed as a bride, in white silk and lace. Any information concerning her will be thankfully received and liberally rewarded by her afflicted friends. Apply personally or by letter to MR. CARL WALRAVEN, No —— Fifth Avenue, New York."

Very slowly the Reverend Mr. Rashleigh read this paragraph to its end. He laid down the paper and looked thoughtfully at the cat.

"Extraordinary!" murmured the Reverend Raymond, half aloud—"most extraordinary! Like a scene in a novel; like nothing in real life. Has the earth opened and swallowed her up? Has she gone off with some younger and handsomer lover? Or has she been decoyed from home by the machinations of some enemy? She had many, poor child! That unfortunate Sir Roger is like a man insane. He is offering half his fortune for her recovery. It is really very, very extraordinary. Quite a romance in real life. Come in!"

There had been a tap at the study door; a maid-servant entered.

"There's a young woman down-stairs, sir, wishes to see you most particular."

"Ah, indeed! Who is she? What is her business with me?"

"I don't know, sir. Something very important, she says."

"Show her up."

The girl departed, ran down-stairs, ran up again, followed by a respectable-looking young woman of pleasing aspect.

"Well, my child,"—he was very fatherly and bland, was the Reverend Raymond Rashleigh—"and what may you want with me?"

"My Mistress sent me, sir. I am Mrs. Holywell's maid."

"Indeed!" said Mr. Rashleigh, vividly interested at once; "and how is Mrs. Holywell?"

"Very poorly, sir. She thinks she's dying herself. She wants to make her will to-night; that's why she sent for you."

Mr. Rashleigh rose with very unwonted alacrity.

She was a distant relative of his, this dying Mrs. Holywell; ridiculously rich for a childless widow, and with no nearer heir than the reverend pastor of St. Pancras' Church.

"I will accompany you at once, my dear! Poor Mrs. Holywell! But it is the fate of all flesh! How did you come, pray? It rains, does it not?"

A fierce gust of wind rattled the double windows, and frantically beat the rain against them by way of answer.

"I came in a carriage, sir. It is at the door now."

"That is well. I will not detain you an instant. Ah! poor Mrs. Holywell!"

The parson's hat and overcoat hung in the room. In a moment they were on; in another he was following the very respectable young woman down-stairs; in a third he was scrambling after her into the carriage; in a fourth they were rattling wildly over the wet, stony streets; in a fifth the reverend gentleman was grasped in a vise-like grip, and a voice close to his ear—a man's voice—hissed:

"Speak one word, make the least outcry, and you are a dead man!"

The interior of the carriage was in utter darkness.

The Reverend Mr. Rashleigh gave one panting gasp, and fell back in his seat. High living and long indolence had made him a complete craven. Life was inestimably precious to the portly pastor of St. Pancras'. After that one choking gasp, he sat quivering all over, like calves'-foot jelly.

"Bandage his eyes, Sarah, while I tie his hands," said the man's voice. "My dear sir, don't shake so; it is almost impossible to do anything with you in this hysterical state. Now, bind his mouth, Sarah. There! I think that will do."

Bound hands, and eyes, and mouth, half suffocated, wholly blinded, the Reverend Raymond Rashleigh was a pitiable object at that instant. But there was no one to pity him, no one to see him, no one to help him.

The carriage whirled on, and on, and on at dizzy speed, the wind sighing by in long, lamentable gales, the rain dashing clamorously against the closed glass.

Paralyzed with intense terror, Mr. Rashleigh sat trembling to that extent that he threatened to topple off his seat.

"Pray calm yourself, my reverend friend," said that masculine voice beside him. "No personal harm is intended you, and I have no designs upon your watch and purse. I merely want the loan of you in your clerical capacity, to perform the ceremony of marriage over a runaway couple. I knew you wouldn't come of your own free will; therefore, I took the trouble to ascertain about those little expectations of yours from Mrs. Holywell, and used that good lady, whose health, I trust, is no worse than usual, as a cat's-paw. You must pardon the deception, dear sir, and you must perform the marriage ceremony without inconvenient scruples, or hesitation, or questions. Be thankful, for the sake of morality, we see the propriety of getting married at all. You are listening to me and paying attention to me, I hope?"

Paying attention! Yes, his whole soul was absorbed in listening.

"Where I take you, who I am, you will never find out. Don't try, my dear Mr. Rashleigh, even if you have the opportunity. Marry me—for I am to be the happy bridegroom—and don't utter another word, save and except the words of the ceremony, from the time you enter my house until you leave it. If you do your part like the prudent, elderly gentleman I take you to be, you will find yourself back in your pleasant study, safe and sound, before morning dawns. If not—"

There was an awful sound, the sharp click of a pistol. No words in any known language—and the parson knew all the languages, dead and alive—could have filled up the hiatus so eloquently or so convincingly.

The cold perspiration started from every pore, and each tooth in his clerical jaws clattered like pairs of castanets.

They drove, and they drove, and they drove through the wild, wet night, as if they meant to drive forever.

But they stopped, after a horribly long interval, and the parson was helped out into the rain, out of the rain into a house, led up a flight of stairs, and seated in a chair.

"Now, my dear sir, permit me to remove these uncomfortable incumbrances, and do, do try to overlook the painful necessity which compelled me to use them. It goes to my heart, I assure you. There!"

The last bandage dropped to the ground—eyes, hands, mouth were free. But Mr. Rashleigh could make no use of his freedom; he sat pale, benumbed, confounded, helpless.

"Rouse yourself, my dear sir," said his persecutor, giving him a gentle shake; "don't drop into a cataleptic trance. Look up and speak to me."

The reverend gentleman did look up, and uttered a sort of scream at sight of the ugly black mask frowning ghastily down upon him.

"Don't be alarmed," said the masked man, soothingly; "no harm is meant you. My mask won't hurt you. I merely don't want you to recognize me to-morrow, should we chance to meet. My bride will be masked, too, and you will marry us by our Christian names alone. Hers is Mary; mine is Ernest. Do you understand?"

"Yes, yes!" responded Mr. Rashleigh, quaking with unutterable terror. Oh! was this a dreadful nightmare, induced by a too luxurious dinner, or was it a horrible reality?

"And you are ready to perform the ceremony? to ask no questions? to marry us, and be gone?"

"Yes, yes, yes! Oh, good heavens!" groaned the Reverend Raymond: "am I asleep or awake?"

"Very well, then," said this dreadful man in the mask; "I will go for the bride. She is Mary, remember; I am Ernest I will return in a moment."

He quitted the room. Mr. Rashleigh stared helplessly about him, in a pitiable state of terror and bewilderment. The room was large, well, even elegantly, furnished, with nothing at all remarkable about, its elegance; such another as Mr. Rashleigh's own drawing-room at home. It was lighted by a cluster of gas-jets, and the piano, the arm-chairs, the sofas, the tables, the pictures, were all very handsome and very common, indeed.

Ten minutes elapsed. The commonplace, everyday look of the mysterious room did more toward reassuring the trembling prelate than all the masked man's words.

The door opened, and the masked man stalked in again, this time with a lady hanging on his arm.

The lady was small and slender, robed in flowing white silk; a rich veil of rare lace falling over her from head to foot like a cloud; a wreath of orange-blossoms on her fair head; jewels sparkling about her—everything just as it should be, save that, the face was hidden. A mask of white silk, giving her a corpse-like and ghastly look, covered it from forehead to chin.

The very respectable young woman who had inveigled him out of his study, and a slouchy-looking young man followed, and took their places behind the masked pair.

"Begin," authoritatively commanded the bridegroom.

The Reverend Raymond Rashleigh stood up. It was a wild and lawless proceeding, and all wrong; but life is sweet to portly prelates of sixty, and he stood up and began at once.

Mr. Rashleigh needed no book—he knew the marriage service as pat as his prayers. The ring was at hand; the questions were asked; the responses made.

In five minutes the two masks were man and wife.

"Make out a certificate of marriage," said the bridegroom; "these two people will be witnesses. Their names are Sarah Grant and John Jones."

Pens, ink and paper were placed before him. Mr. Rashleigh essayed to write, as well as his trembling fingers would allow him, and handed a smeared and blotted document to the bridegroom.

"You will enter this marriage on your register, Mr. Rashleigh," said the man. "I am very much obliged to you. Pray accept this for your trouble."

This was a glistening rouleau of gold. Mr. Rashleigh liked gold, and in spite of his trepidation, managed to put it in his pocket.

"Now, my dear," the happy man said, turning to the little white bride, "you and Sarah had better retire. Our reverend friend will wish to return home. I must see him there."

The bride and her attendant left the room without a word. The bridegroom produced the bandages again.

"I regret the necessity, but I must bind you again. However, it will not be for long; in a couple of hours you will be at home."

With wonderful skill and rapidity, hands, eyes, and mouth were bound once more; the parson was led down-stairs, out into the wet night, and back to his seat in the carriage. The masked man took his place beside him. John Jones mounted to the driver's perch, and they were off like the wind.

The promised two hours were very long to the rector, but they ended at last. The carriage stopped abruptly; he was helped out, and the bandage taken from his eyes and hands.

"The other must remain for a moment or two," said the mysterious man with the mask, speaking rapidly. "You are at the corner of your own street. Good-bye, and many thanks!"

He sprung into the carriage, and it was gone like a flash. And the Reverend Raymond Rashleigh, in the gray and dismal dawn of a wet morning, was left all agape in the deserted street.



CHAPTER IX.

ONE WEEK AFTER.

On that eventful night of wind and rain upon which the Reverend Raymond Rashleigh performed that mysterious midnight marriage, Mr. Carl Walraven paced alone his stately library, lost in thought—painful thought; for his dark brows were contracted, and the Grecian heads in the brackets around him had no severer lines than those about his mouth.

While he paces up and down, up and down, like some restless ghost, the library door opens, and his wife, magnificently arrayed, with jewels in her raven hair, a sparkling fan dangling from her wrist, an odor of rich perfume following her, appears before him like a picture in a frame.

She is superbly handsome in that rose-colored opera-cloak, and she knows it, and is smiling graciously; but the swarth frown on her husband's face only grows blacker as he looks at her.

"You are going, then?" said Mr. Carl Walraven.

"Going?" Mrs. Walraven arches her black eyebrows in pretty surprise at the word. "Of course, my dear. I would not miss 'Robert le Diable' and the charming new tenor for worlds."

"Nor would you obey your husband for worlds, madame. I expressly desired you to stay at home."

"I know it, my love. Should be happy to oblige you, but in this case it is simply impossible."

"Have you no regard for the opinion of the world?"

"Every regard, my dear."

"What do you suppose society will say to see you at the opera, dressed like a queen, while we are all mourning poor Mollie's loss?"

"Society will say, if society has common sense, that Mrs. Walraven scorns to play hypocrite. I don't care for Mollie Dane—I never did care for her—and I don't mourn her loss in the least. I don't care that"—the lady snapped her jeweled fingers somewhat vulgarly—"if I never see her again. It is as well to tell you the truth, my dear. One should have no secrets from one's husband, they say."

She laughed lightly, and drew her opera-cloak up over her superb bare shoulders. Mr. Walraven's darkest scowl did not intimidate her in the least.

"Leave the room, madame!" ordered her husband, authoritatively; "and take you care that I don't assert my right and compel you to obey me, before long."

"Compel!" It was such a good joke that Mrs. Blanche's silvery laugh rang through the apartment. "You compelled me once, against my will, when you took your ward with you on your wedding-tour. I don't think it will ever happen again, Mr. Walraven. And now, how do you like my dress? I came in expressly to ask you, for the carriage waits."

"Leave the room!" cried Carl Walraven, in a voice of thunder. "Be gone!"

"You are violent," said Blanche, with a provoking shrug and smile, but prudently retreating. "You forget your voice may be heard beyond this room. Since you lost your ward you appear also to have lost your temper—never of the best, I must say. Well, my love, by-bye for the present. Don't quite wear out the carpet before I return."

With the last sneer and a sweeping bow, the lady quitted the library. As she closed the door, the house-bell rang violently.

"The devoted baronet, no doubt," she said to herself, with an unpleasant smile; "come to condole with his brother in affliction. Poor old noodle! Truly, a fool of forty will never be wise! A fool of seventy, in his case."

One of the tall footmen opened the door. But it was not the stately baronet. The footman recoiled with a little yelp of terror—he had admitted this visitor before. A gaunt and haggard woman, clad in rags, soaking with rain—a wretched object as ever the sun shone on.

"Is Carl Walraven within?" demanded this grisly apparition, striding in and confronting the tottering footman with blazing black eyes. "Tell him Miriam is here."

The footman recoiled further with another feeble yelp, and Blanche Walraven haughtily and angrily faced the intruder.

"Who are you?"

The blazing eyes burning in hollow sockets turned upon the glittering, perfumed vision.

"Who am I? What would you give to know? Who are you? Carl Walraven's wife, I suppose. His wife! Ha! ha!" she laughed—a weird, blood-curdling laugh. "I wish you joy of your husband, most magnificent madame! Tell me, fellow," turning with sudden fierceness upon the dismayed understrapper, "is your master at home?"

"Y-e-e-s! That is, I think so, ma'am."

"Go and tell him to come here, then. Go, or I'll—"

The dreadful object made one stride toward the lofty servitor, who turned and fled toward the library.

But Mr. Walraven had heard loud and angry voices, and at this moment the door opened and he appeared on the threshold.

"What is this?" he demanded, angrily. "What the deuce do you mean, Wilson, wrangling in the hall? Not gone yet, Blanche? Good Heaven! Miriam!"

"Yes, Miriam!" She strode fiercely forward. "Yes, Miriam! Come to demand revenge! Where is Mollie Dane? You promised to protect her, and see how you keep your word!"

"In the demon's name, hush!" cried Carl Walraven, savagely. "What you have to say to me, say to me—not to the whole house. Come in here, you hag of Satan, and blow out as much as you please! Good Lord! Wasn't I in trouble enough before, without you coming to drive me mad?"

He caught her by one fleshless arm in a sort of frenzy of desperation, and swung her into the library. Then he turned to his audience of two with flashing eyes:

"Wilson, be gone! or I'll break every bone in your body! Mrs. Walraven, be good enough to take yourself off at once. I don't want eavesdroppers."

And having thus paid his elegant lady-wife back in her own coin, Mr. Walraven stalked into the library like a sulky lion, banged the door and locked it.

Mrs. Carl stood a moment in petrified silence in the hall, then sailed in majestic displeasure out of the house, into the waiting carriage, and was whirled away to the Academy.

"Turn and turn about. Mr. Carl Walraven," she said, between set, white teeth. "My turn next! I'll ferret out your guilty secrets before long, as sure as my name is Blanche!"

Mr. Walraven faced Miriam in the library with folded arms and fiery eyes, goaded to recklessness, a panther at bay.

"Well, you she-devil, what do you want?"

"Mary Dane."

"Find her, then!" said Carl Walraven, fiercely. "I know nothing about her."

The woman looked at him long and keenly. The change in him evidently puzzled her.

"You sing a new song lately," she said with deliberation. "Do you want me to think you are out of my power?"

"Think what you please, and be hanged to you!" howled Mr. Walraven. "I am driven to the verge of madness among you! Mollie Dane and her disappearance, my wife and her cursed taunts, you and your infernal threats! Do your worst, the whole of you! I defy the whole lot!"

"Softly, softly," said Miriam, cooling down as he heated up. "I want an explanation. You have lost Mollie! How was she lost?"

"Yes—how? You've asked the question, and I wish you would answer it. I've been driving myself wild over it for the past few days, but I don't seem to get to the solution. Can't your Familiar," pointing downward, "help you guess the enigma, Miriam?"

Miriam frowned darkly.

"Do you really intend to say you have not made away with the girl yourself?"

"Now what does the woman mean by that? What the deuce should I make away with her for? I liked Mollie—upon my soul I did, Miriam! I liked her better than any one in this house—the little, saucy, mischievous witch! She was on the eve of marrying a baronet, and going to her castle in Spain—I mean in Wales—when, lo! she vanishes like a ghost in a child's tale. I've scoured the city after her—I've paid detectives fabulous amounts. I've been worried, and harassed, and goaded, and mystified until I'm half mad, and here you come with your infernal nonsense about 'making away' with her. That means murdering her, I suppose. I always took you to be more or less mad, Miriam Dane, but I never before took you to be a fool."

The woman looked at him keenly—he was evidently telling the truth. Yet still she doubted.

"Who but you, Carl Walraven, had any interest in her, one way or the other? What enemies could a girl of sixteen have?"

"Ah! what, indeed? If a girl of sixteen will flirt with every eligible man she meets until she renders him idiotic, she must expect to pay the penalty. But I don't pretend to understand this affair; it is wrapped in blacker mystery than the Man in the Iron Mask. All I've got to say is—I had no hand in it; so no more of your black looks, Mistress Miriam."

"And all I've got to say, Mr. Walraven," said Miriam, steadfastly fixing her eyes upon him, "is that if Mollie Dane is not found before the month is out, I will publish your story to the world. What will Madame Walraven, what will Mrs. Carl, what will the chief metropolitan circles say then?"

"You hag of Hades! Ain't you afraid I will strangle you where you stand?"

"Not the least," folding her shawl deliberately around her, and moving toward the door: "not in the slightest degree. Good-night, Carl Walraven—I have said it, and I always keep my word."

"Keep it, and—"

But Miriam did not hear that last forcible adjuration. She was out of the library, and out of the house, ere it was well uttered—lost in the wet, black night.

Left alone, Carl Walraven resumed his march up and down the apartment, with a gloomier face and more frowning brows than ever.

It was bad enough before, without this tiger-cat of a Miriam coming to make things ten times worse. It was all bravado, his defiance of her, and he knew it. He was completely in her power, to ruin for life if she chose to speak.

"And she will choose!" growled Carl Walraven, in a rage, "the accursed old hag! if Mollie Dane doesn't turn up before the month ends. By the Lord Harry! I'll twist that wizen gullet of hers the next time she shows her ugly black face here! Confound Mollie Dane and all belonging to her! I've never known a day's rest since I met them first."

There was a tap at the door. The tall footman threw it open and ushered in Sir Roger Trajenna. The stately old baronet looked ten years older in these few days. Anxiety told upon him more hardly than his seventy yews.

"Good-evening, Sir Roger!" cried Mr. Walraven, advancing eagerly. "Any news of Mollie?"

He expected to hear "No," but the baronet said "Yes." He was deeply agitated, and held forth, in a hand that shook, a note to Carl Walraven.

"I received that an hour ago, through the post-office. For Heaven's sake, read, and tell me what you think of it!"

He dropped exhausted into a chair. Carl Walraven tore open the brief epistle, and devoured its contents:

"SIR ROGER TRAJENNA,—Give up your search for Mollie Dane. It is useless; a waste of time and money. She is safe and well, and will be at home in a week, but she will never be your wife.

"ONE WHO KNOWS."

Mr. Walraven read and reread these brief lines, and stood and stared at Sir Roger Trajenna.

"Good heavens! You got this through the post-office?"

"I did, an hour ago, and came here at once. Do you believe it?"

"How can I tell? Let us hope it may be true. It is of a piece with the rest of the mystery. The writing, as usual in these anonymous letters, is disguised. Can Mollie herself be the writer?"

"Mollie!" The baronet grew fearfully pale at the bare suggestion. "Why on earth should my affianced wife write like that? Don't you see it say a there, 'She will never be your wife?' Mollie, my bride, would never say that."

Mr. Walraven was not so sure, but he did not say so. He had very little faith in Miss Dane's stability, even in a matter of this kind.

"It is the work of some enemy," said Sir Roger, "and, as such, to be disregarded. Like all anonymous letters, it is only worthy of contempt."

People always say that of anonymous communications; but the anonymous communications invariably have their effect, notwithstanding.

"I will continue my search," pursued Sir Roger, firmly. "I will offer yet higher rewards. I will employ still more detectives. I will place this letter in their hands. No stone shall be left unturned—no money shall be spared. If I lose Mollie, life is not worth the having."

He rose to go. Mr. Walraven folded up the mysterious epistle and handed it back.

"I see it is postmarked in the city. If the writer really knows aught of Mollie, she must be nearer at hand than we imagine. Would to Heaven the week were up."

"Then you have faith in this?" said the baronet, looking astonished.

"I have hope, my dear sir. It is very easy believing in what we wish to come true. There may be something in it. Who knows?"

The baronet shook his head.

"I wish I could think so. I sometimes fear we will never see her again. Poor child! Poor little Mollie! Heaven only knows what you may not have suffered ere this!"

"Let us not despair. Pray, resume your seat. I am quite alone this stormy night, Sir Roger. Mrs. Walraven has gone to the opera."

But the baronet moved resolutely to the door.

"Thanks, Mr. Walraven; but I am fit company for no one. I have been utterly miserable since that fatal night. I can find rest nowhere. I will not inflict my wearisome society upon you, my friend. Good-night!"

The week passed. As Sir Roger said, the inquiries and rewards were doubled—trebled; but all in vain. No trace—not the faintest shadow of trace—of the lost one could be found. The mystery deepened and darkened every day.

The week expired. On its last night there met at the Walraven mansion a few friends, to debate what steps had better next be taken.

"In the council of many there is wisdom," thought Mr. Carl Walraven; so that there were present, besides Sir Roger Trajenna, Dr. Oleander, Mr. Sardonyx, Hugh Ingelow, and one or two more wiseacres, all anxious about the missing bride.

The bevy of gentlemen were assembled in the drawing-room, conversing with solemn, serious faces, and many dubious shakes of the head.

Sir Roger sat the picture of pale despair. Mr. Walraven looked harassed half to death. The other gentlemen, were preternaturally grave.

"It is of no use." Sir Roger was saying. "Those who abducted her have laid their plans too well. She will never be found."

"Are you sure she was abducted?" asked Dr. Oleander, doubtfully. "Is it not just possible, my dear Sir Roger, she may have gone off of herself?"

Everybody stared at this audacious suggestion.

"There is no such possibility, Doctor Oleander," said Sir Roger, haughtily. "The bare insinuation is an insult. Miss Dane was my plighted wife of her own free will."

"Your pardon, Sir Roger. Yet, please remember, Miss Dane was a highly eccentric young lady, and the rules that hold good in other cases fail here. She was accustomed to do most extraordinary things, for the mere sake of being odd and uncommon, as I take it. Her guardian will bear me out; therefore I still cling to the possibility."

"Besides, young ladies possessing sound lungs will hardly permit themselves to be carried off without raising an outcry," said Mr. Sardonyx; "and in this case there was none. The faintest cry would have been heard."

"Neither were there any traces of a struggle," put in Mr. Ingelow, "and the chamber window was found unfastened, as if the bride had loosed it herself and stepped out."

Sir Roger looked angrily around, with a glance that seemed to ask if they were all in a conspiracy against him; but, before he could speak, the door-bell rang loudly.

Mr. Walraven remembered the anonymous note, and started violently. An instant later, they heard a servant open the door, and then a wild, ringing shriek echoed through the house.

There was one simultaneous rush out of the drawing-room, and down-stairs. There, in the hall, stood Wilson, the footman, staring and gasping as if he had seen a ghost; and there, in the door-way, a silvery, shining vision, in the snowy bridal robes she had worn last, stood Mollie Dane!



CHAPTER X.

THE PARSON'S LITTLE STORY.

There was a dead pause; blank amazement sat on every face; no one stirred for an instant. Then, with a great cry of joy, the Welsh baronet sprung forward and caught his lost bride in his arms.

"My Mollie—my Mollie! My darling!"

But his darling, instead of returning his rapturous embrace, disengaged herself with a sudden jerk.

"Pray, Sir Roger, don't make a scene! Guardy, how d'ye do? Is it after dinner? I'm dreadfully tired and hungry!"

"Mollie! Good heavens, Mollie! is this really you?" gasped Mr. Walraven, staring aghast.

"Now—now!" cried Miss Dane, testily; "what's the good of your asking ridiculous questions, Guardy Walraven? Where's your eyesight? Don't you see it's me? Will you kindly let me pass, gentlemen? or am I to stand here all night on exhibition?"

Evidently the stray lamb had returned to the fold in shocking bad temper. The gentlemen barring her passage instantly made way, and Mollie turned to ascend the staircase.

"I'm going to my room, Guardy," she condescended to say, with her foot on the first carpeted step, "and you will please send Lucy up with tea and toast immediately. I'm a great deal too tired to offer any explanation to-night. I feel as if I had been riding about in a hackney-carriage for a century or two, like Peter Rugg, the missing man—if you heard of Peter;" with which Miss Dane toiled slowly and wearily up the grand staircase, and the group of gentlemen were left in the hall below blankly gazing in one another's faces.

"Eminently characteristic," observed Mr. Ingelow, the first to break the silence, with a soft laugh.

"Upon my word," said Dr. Oleander, with his death's-head smile, "Miss Mollie's return is far more remarkable than her departure! That young lady's sang-froid requires to be seen to be believed in."

"Where can she have been?" asked Lawyer Sardonyx, helplessly taking snuff.

The two men most interested in the young lady's return said nothing: they were far beyond that. They could only look at each other in mute astonishment. At last—

"The anonymous letter did speak the truth," observed Mr. Walraven.

"What anonymous letter?" asked Lawyer Sardonyx, sharply.

"Sir Roger received an anonymous letter a week ago, informing him Mollie would be back a week after its date. We neither of us paid any attention to it, and yet, lo! it has come true."

"Have you that letter about you, Sir Roger?" inquired the lawyer. "I should like to see it, if you have no objection."

Mechanically Sir Roger put his hand in his pocket, and produced the document. The lawyer glanced keenly over it.

"'One Who Knows.' Ah! 'One Who Knows' is a woman, I am certain. That's a woman's hand, I am positive. Look here, Oleander!"

"My opinion exactly! Couldn't possibly be Miss Dane's own writing, could it?" once more with his spectral smile.

"Sir!" cried the baronet, reddening angrily.

"I beg your pardon. But look at the case dispassionately, Sir Roger. My previous impression that Miss Dane was not forcibly abducted is continued by the strange manner of her return."

"Mine also," chimed in Lawyer Sardonyx.

"Suppose we all postpone forming an opinion on the subject," said the lazy voice of the young artist, "until to-morrow, and allow Miss Dane, when the has recovered from her present fatigue and hunger, to explain for herself."

"Thanks, Ingelow"—Mr. Walraven turned a grateful glance upon the lounging artist—"and, meantime, gentlemen, let us adjourn to the drawing-room. Standing talking here I don't admire."

He led the way; the others followed—Sir Roger last of all, lost in a maze of bewilderment that utterly spoiled his joy at his bride's return.

"What can it mean? What can it mean?" he kept perpetually asking himself. "What is all this mystery? Surely—surely it can not be as these men say! Mollie can not have gone off of herself!"

It was rather dull the remainder of the evening. The guests took their departure early. Sir Roger lingered behind the rest, and when alone with him the master of the house summoned Lucy. That handmaiden appeared, her eyes dancing with delight in her head.

"Where is your mistress, Lucy?" Mr. Walraven asked.

"Gone to bed, sir," said Lucy, promptly.

"You brought her up supper?"

"Yes, sir."

"What did she say to you?"

"Nothing much, sir, only that she was famished, and jolted to death in that old carriage; and then she turned me out, saying she felt as though she could sleep a week."

"Nothing more?"

"Nothing more, sir."

Lucy was dismissed.

Mr. Walraven turned to the baronet sympathizingly.

"I feel as deeply mystified and distressed about this matter as even you can do, my dear Sir Roger; but you perceive there is nothing for it but to wait. Oleander was right this evening when he said the rules that measure other women fail with Mollie. She is an original, and we must be content to bide her time. Come early to-morrow—come to breakfast—and doubtless all will be explained to our satisfaction."

And so Mr. Walraven thought, and he fancied he understood Mollie pretty well; but even Mr. Walraven did not know the depth of aggravation his flighty ward was capable of.

Sir Roger did come early on the morrow—ridiculously early, Mrs. Carl said, sharply; but then Mrs. Carl was exasperated beyond everything at Mollie presuming to return at all. She was sure she had got rid of her so nicely—so sure Mistress Mollie had come to grief in some way for her sins—that it was a little too bad to have her come walking coolly back and taking possession again, as if nothing had happened.

Breakfast hour arrived, but Miss Dane did not arrive with it. They waited ten minutes, when Mrs. Carl lost patience and protested angrily she would not wait an instant longer.

"Eccentricity is a little too mild a word to apply to your ward's actions, Mr. Walraven," she said, turning angrily upon her husband. "Mollie Dane is either a very mad girl or a very wicked one. In either case, she is a fit subject for a lunatic asylum, and the sooner she is incased in a strait-jacket and her antics ended, the better."

"Madame!" thundered Mr. Walraven, furiously, while the baronet reddened with rage to the roots of his silvery hair.

"Oh, I'm not afraid of you, Mr. Walraven," said Mrs. Walraven, coolly, "not afraid to speak my mind, either. None but a lunatic would act as she has acted, running away on her wedding-night and coming back a fortnight after. The idea of her being forcibly abducted is all stuff and nonsense. Heaven only knows where the past two weeks have been spent!"

"Mrs. Walraven," said the Welsh baronet; with awful, suppressed passion, "you forget you speak of my future wife."

"I forget nothing, Sir Roger Trajenna. When Miss Dane gives a satisfactory explanation of her conduct it will be quite time enough to take her part. Mr. Walraven are you going to eat your breakfast, or am I to take it alone?"

Mr. Walraven seized the bell-rope and nearly tore it down. A maid-servant appeared.

"Go up to Miss Dane's room and tell her we are waiting breakfast!" roared Mr. Walraven in a stentorian voice.

The girl obeyed in dire alarm. In an instant she was back.

"Miss Dane's not up yet, and says she doesn't expect to be for some time. She says you'd better not wait for her, as you will very likely be painfully hungry if you do."

"I thought so," remarked Mrs. Carl, shortly.

Mr. Walraven bit his lip, the baronet looked like a thundercloud, but both took their places. To all but the mistress of the mansion the breakfast business was a dead failure. Mrs. Carl ate with a very good appetite, finished her meal, arose, rang the bell, and ordered the carriage to be ready in an hour.

The gentlemen adjourned to the library to smoke and wait. The hour elapsed. Mrs. Walraven departed in state, and dead calm fell upon the house. Another hour—the waiting twain were growing fidgety and nervous, crackling their newspapers and puffing at their cigars.

"I vow that mad girl is making me as hysterical as a cranky old maid!" growled Mr. Walraven. "If she doesn't appear in half an hour, I'll go up to her room and carry her down willy-nilly!"

"Would yon really be so cruel, guardy?" said a soft voice, and wheeling round, the astonished pair saw the culprit before them. "Have you no pity for your poor little Mollie, and can't you let her be as lazy as she pleases? Good-morning, Sir Roger Trajenna."

How lovely Mollie looked! The golden curls fell in a shining shower over the dainty white cashmere robe, belted with blue velvet, soft white lace and a diamond pin sparkling at the rounded throat. She came forward with a bright smile and outstretched hand to greet them.

"I was cross last night, you know," she said, "and couldn't properly speak to my friends. Traveling steadily, for goodness knows how many hours, in a bumping coach, would wear out the patience of a saint—and you know I'm not a saint!"

"No," said Mr. Walraven; "very far from it. Nearer the other thing, I suspect."

"Now, guardy," said Mollie, reproachfully, "how can you? And after I've been lost, and you've been all distracted about me, too! Oh, how I should like to have seen the fuss and the uproar, and the dismay and distraction generally! Do tell me what you all thought."

"I'll tell you nothing of the sort," said her guardian, sternly. "Have you no feeling in that flinty heart of yours, Mollie Dane?"

"Well, now, guardy, if you'll believe me, I'm not so sure I've got a heart at all. There's something that beats in here"—tapping lightly on her white bodice—"but for going frantic with love or hate, or jealousy or sorrow, or any of those hysterical things that other people's hearts seem made for, I don't believe I have. I tell you this frankly"—glancing sideways at Sir Roger Trajenna—"in order to warn you and everybody not to be too fond of me. I'm not worth it, you see, and if you take me for more than my value, and get disappointed afterward, the fault's not mine, but yours."

Mr. Walraven looked at her in surprise.

"Rather a lengthy speech, isn't it, Mollie? Suppose you leave off lecturing, and tell us where you've been for the last two weeks."

"Where do you suppose I've been?"

"We can't suppose on such a question; it is impossible. I desire you to tell us."

"And if I don't, guardy?"

She looked up at him rather defiantly—seated on a low stool, her elfish chin in her elfish hand, her pretty little rose-bloom face peeping brightly out from the scented yellow curls.

"Mollie!"

"Guardy, see here: it's of no use getting cross. I can't tell you where I've been, because I don't know myself."

"Mollie!"

"It's true as preaching, guardy. You know I don't tell fibs—except in fun. I don't know where I was, and so I can't tell you, and I'd a good deal rather you wouldn't ask me."

"Mollie!"

"Oh, what's the use of Mollieing?" cried the young lady, waxing impatient. "I was taken somewhere, and I don't know where—'pon my word and honor, I don't—and I was kept a prisoner in a nasty room, by people I don't know, to punish me for flirting, I was told; and when I was there two weeks, and punished sufficiently, Heaven knows, I was fetched home. Guardy, there's everything I know or can tell you about the matter. Now, please be good, and don't bother with tiresome questions."

Mr. Walraven stood and looked at her, a petrified gazer. Such unheard-of impudence! Sir Roger Trajenna took up the catechism.

"Your pardon, Mollie, but I must ask you a few more questions. There was a young person brought you a letter on the night we were—" His voice failed. "May I ask who was that young person, and what were the contents of that letter?"

Mollie looked up, frowning impatiently. But the baronet was so pale and troubled asking his questions that she had not the heart to refuse.

"That young person, Sir Roger, called herself Sarah Grant. The letter purported to come from a woman who knew me before I knew myself. It told me she was dying, and had important revelations to make to me—implored me to hasten at once if I would see her alive. I believed the letter, and went with Sarah. That letter, Sir Roger, was a forgery and a trap."

"Into which you fell?"

"Into which I fell headlong. The greatest ninny alive could not have been snared more easily."

"You have no idea who perpetrated this atrocity?"

"No," said Mollie, "no idea. I wish I had! If I wouldn't make him sup sorrow in spoonfuls, my name's not Mollie! There, Sir Roger, that will do. You've heard all I've got to tell, and the better way will be to ask no more questions. If you think I am not sufficiently explicit—if you think I keep anything back that you have a right to know—why, there is only one course left. You can take it, and welcome. I release you from all ties to me. I shall think you perfectly justified, and we will continue the best possible friends." She said it firmly, with an eye that flashed and a cheek that burned. "There is only one thing can make us quarrel, Sir Roger—that is, asking me questions I don't choose to answer. And I don't choose to answer in the present case."

"But I insist upon your answering, Mollie Dane!" burst out Carl Walraven. "I don't choose to be mystified and humbugged in this egregious manner. I insist upon a complete explanation."

"Do you, indeed, Mr. Walraven? And how are you going to get it?"

"From you, Mollie Dane."

"Not if I know myself—and I rather fancy I do! Oh, no, Mr. Walraven—no, you don't! I shan't say another word to you, or to any other living being, until I choose; and it's no use bullying, for you can't make me, you know. I've given Sir Roger his alternative, and I can give you yours. If you don't fancy my remaining here under a cloud, why, I can go as I came, free as the wind that blows. You've only to say the word, Guardy Walraven!"

The blue eyes flashed as Carl Walraven had never seen them flash before; the pink-tinged cheeks flamed rose-red; but her voice never rose, and she kept her quaint seat on the stool.

"Cricket! Cricket! Cricket!" was "guardy's" reproachful cry.

"You dear old thing! You wouldn't like to lose your hateful little tom-boy, would you? Well, you shan't, either. I only meant to scare you that time. You'll ask me no more nasty questions, and I'll stay and be your Cricket the same as ever, and we'll try and forget the little episode of the past two weeks. And as for you, Sir Roger, don't you do anything rash. Just think things over, and make sure you're perfectly satisfied, before you have anything to do with me, for I don't intend to explain any more than I have explained. I'm a good-for-nothing, giddy little moth, I know; but I don't really want to deceive anybody. No; don't speak on impulse, dear Sir Roger. Take a week or two, and think about it."

She kissed her hand coquettishly to the two gentlemen, and tripped out of the room.

And there they sat, looking at each other, altogether bewildered and dazed, and altogether more infatuated about her than ever.

Society was electrified at finding Miss Dane back, and looked eagerly for the sequel to this little romance. They got it from Mr. Walraven.

Mr. Walraven, bland as oil, told them his ward had received on her bridal night a summons to the bedside of a dying and very near relative. Miss Dane, ever impulsive and eccentric, had gone. She had remained with the dying relative for a fortnight, and merely for mischief—no need to tell them how mischievous his ward was—had kept the whole matter a secret. It was very provoking, certainly, but was just like provoking Mollie Dane.

Mr. Walraven related this little fable smiling sweetly, and with excellent grace. But society took the story for what it was worth, and shook its head portentously over Miss Dane and her mysteries.

Nobody knew who she was, where she came from, or what relation she bore to Mr. Walraven, and nobody believed Mr. Walraven and his little romance.

But as Mesdames Walraven, mother and wife, countenanced the extraordinary creature with the flighty way and amber curls, and as she was the ward of a millionaire, why, society smiled graciously, and welcomed Mollie back with charming sweetness.

A fortnight passed—the fortnight of probation she had given Sir Roger. There was a grand dinner-party at some commercial nabob's up the avenue, and all the Walraven family were there. There, too, was the Welsh baronet, stately and grand-seigneur-like as ever; there were Dr. Oleander, Lawyer Sardonyx, Hugh Ingelow, and the little witch who had thrown her wicked sorceries over them, brighter, more sparkling, more lovely than ever.

And at the dinner-party Mollie was destined to receive a shock; for, just before they paired off to the dining-room, there entered a late guest, announced as the "Reverend Mr. Rashleigh," and, looking in the Reverend Mr. Rashleigh's face, Mollie Dane recognized him at once.

She was standing at the instant, as it chanced, beside Hugh Ingelow, gayly helping him to satirize a magnificent "diamond wedding" they had lately attended; but at the sight of the portly, commonplace gentleman, the words seemed to freeze on her lips.

With her eyes fixed on his face, her own slowly whitening until it was blanched, Mollie stood and gazed and gazed. Hugh Ingelow looked curiously from one to the other.

"In Heaven's name, Miss Mollie, do you see the Marble Guest, or some invisible familiar, peeping over that fat gentleman's shoulder? What do you see? You look as though you were going to faint."

"Do you know that gentleman?" she managed to ask.

"Do I know him—Reverend Raymond Rashleigh? Better than I know myself, Miss Dane. When I was a little chap in roundabouts they used to take me to his church every Sunday, and keep me in wriggling torments through a three-hours' sermon. Yes, I know him, to my sorrow."

"He is a clergyman, then?" Mollie said, slowly.

Mr. Ingelow stared at the odd question.

"I have always labored under that impression, Miss Dane, and so does the Reverend Mr. Rashleigh himself, I fancy. If you choose, I'll present him, and then you can cross-question him at your leisure."

"No, no!" cried Mollie, detaining him; "not for the world! I don't wish to make his acquaintance. See, they are filing off! I fall to your lot, I suppose."

She took her rejected suitor's arm—somehow, she was growing to like to be with Hugh Ingelow—and they entered the dining-room together. But Mollie was still very, very pale, and very unusually quiet.

Her face and neck gleamed against her pink dinner-dress like snow, and her eyes wandered furtively ever and anon over to the Reverend Mr. Rashleigh.

She listened to every word that he spoke as though they were the fabled pearls and diamonds of the fairy tale that dropped from his lips.

"Positively, Miss Dane," Hugh Ingelow remarked in his lazy voice, "it is love at first sight with the Reverend Raymond. Think better of it, pray; he's fat and forty, and has one wife already."

"Hush!" said Mollie, imperiously.

And Mr. Ingelow, stroking his mustache meditatively, hushed, and listened to a story the Reverend Mr. Rashleigh was about to relate.

"So extraordinary a story," he said, glancing around him, "that I can hardly realize it myself or credit my own senses. It is the only adventure of my life, and I am free to confess I wish it may remain so.

"It is about three weeks ago. I was sitting, one stormy night—Tuesday night it was—in my study, in after-dinner mood, enjoying the luxury of a good fire and a private clerical cigar, when a young woman—respectable-looking young person—entered, and informed me that a sickly relative, from whom I have expectations, was dying, and wished to see me immediately.

"Of course I started up at once, donned hat and greatcoat, and followed my respectable young person into a cab waiting at the door. Hardly was I in when I was seized by some invisible personage, bound, blindfolded, and gagged, and driven through the starry spheres, for all I know, for hours and hours interminable.

"Presently we stopped. I was led out—led into a house, upstairs, my uncomfortable bandages removed, and the use of my eyesight restored.

"I was in a large room, furnished very much like anybody's parlor, and brilliantly lighted. My companion of the carriage was still at my elbow. I turned to regard him. My friends, he was masked like a Venetian bravo, and wore a romantic inky cloak, like a Roman toga, that swept the floor.

"I sat aghast, the cold perspiration oozing from every pore. I make light of it now, but I could see nothing to laugh at then. Was I going to be robbed and murdered? Why had I been decoyed here?

"My friend of the mask did not leave me long in suspense. Not death and its horrors was to be enacted, but marriage—marriage, my friends—and I was to perform the ceremony.

"I listened to him like a man in a dream. He himself was the bridegroom. The bride was to appear masked, also, and I was only to hear their Christian names—Ernest—Mary. He offered no explanations, no apologies; he simply stated facts. I was to marry them and ask no questions, and I was to be conveyed safely home the same night. If I refused—

"My masked gentleman paused, and left an awful hiatus for me to fill up. I did not refuse—by no means. It has always been my way to make the best of a bad bargain—of two evils to choose the lesser. I consented.

"The bridegroom with the black mask quitted the room, and returned with a bride in a white mask. She was all in white, as it is right and proper to be—flowing veil, orange wreath, trailing silk robe—everything quite nice. But the white mask spoiled all. She was undersized and very slender, and there was one peculiarity about her I noticed—an abundance of bright, golden ringlets."

The reverend gentleman paused an instant to take breath.

Mollie Dane, scarcely breathing herself, listening absorbed, here became conscious, by some sort of prescience, of the basilisk gaze her guardian's wife had fixed upon her.

The strangest, smile sat on her arrogant face as she looked steadfastly at Mollie's flowing yellow curls.

"I married that mysterious pair," went on the clergyman—"Ernest and Mary. There were two witnesses—my respectable young woman and the coachman; there was the ring—everything necessary and proper."

Mollie's left hand was on the table. A plain, thick band of gold gleamed on the third finger. She hastily snatched it away, but not before Mrs. Walraven's black eyes saw it.

"I was brought home," concluded the clergyman, "and left standing, as morning broke, close to my own door, and I have never heard or seen my mysterious masks since. There's an adventure for you!"

The ladies rose from the table. As they passed into the drawing-room, a hand fell upon Mollie's shoulder. Glancing back, she saw the face of Mrs. Carl Walraven, lighted with a malicious smile.

"Such a queer story, Mollie! And such an odd bride—undersized, very slender, golden ringlets—name, Mary! My pretty Cricket, I think I know where you passed that mysterious fortnight!"



CHAPTER XI.

A MIDNIGHT TETE-A-TETE.

Mollie Dane sat alone in her pretty room. A bright fire burned in the grate. Old Mme. Walraven liked coal-fires, and would have them throughout the house. It was very late—past midnight—but the gas burned full flare, its garish flame subdued by globes of tinted glass, and Mollie, on a low stool before the fire, was still in all the splendor of her pink silk dinner-dress, her laces, her pearls.

Mollie's considering-cap was on, and Mollie's dainty brows were contracted, and the rosebud month ominously puckered. Miss Dane was doing what she did not often do—thinking—and the thoughts chasing one another through her flighty brain were evidently the reverse of pleasant.

"So I'm really married," mused the young lady—"really and truly married!—and I've been thinking all along it was only a sham ceremony."

She lifted up her left hand and looked at the shining wedding-ring.

"Ernest! Such a pretty name! And that's all I know about him. Oh, who is he, among all the men I know—who? It's not Doctor Oleander—I'm certain it's not, although the height and shape are the same; and I don't think it's Sardonyx, and I know it's not Hugh Ingelow—handsome Hugh!—because he hasn't the pluck, and he's a great deal too lazy. If it's the lawyer or the doctor, I'll have a divorce, certain. If it were the artist—more's the pity it's not—I—well, I shouldn't ask for a divorce. I do like Hugh! I like him more and more every day, and I almost wish I hadn't played that shameful trick upon him. I know he loves me dearly—poor little, mad-headed me! And I—oh! how could I think to marry Sir Roger Trajenna, knowing in my heart I loved Hugh? Dear, dear! it's such a pity I can't be good, and take to love-making, and marriage, and shirt-buttons, like other girls! But I can't; it's not in me. I was born a rattle-pate, and I don't see how any one can blame me for letting 'nater caper.'"

She rose up impatiently and began pacing the room—always her first impulse in moments of perplexity.

"I'm a mystery and a puzzle to myself and to everybody else. I don't know who I am, nor what my real name may be—if I have any right to a name! I don't know what I am to this Mr. Walraven, and I don't know who that mysterious woman, Miriam, is. I don't know anything. I have a husband, and I don't know him—shouldn't recognize him if I met him face to face this instant. I'm like the mysterious orphans in the story-books, and I expect it will turn out I have a duke for a father, somewhere or other."

Miss Dane walked to the window, drew the curtain, and looked out.

The full April moon, round and white, shone down in silvery radiance upon the deserted avenue; the sky was aglitter with myriad stars; the rattling of belated vehicles came, faint and far off, on the windless night.

No-one was visible—not even a stray "guardian of the night," treading his solitary round—and Mollie, after one glance at the starry concave, was about to drop the curtain and retire, when a tall, dark figure came fluttering up the street, pausing before the Walraven mansion, and gazing up earnestly at its palatial front.

Mollie recognized that towering form instantly, and, impulsively opening the sash, she leaned forward and called:

"Miriam!"

The woman heard her, responded, and advanced.

Mollie leaned further out.

"Have you come to see me?"

"I should like to see you. I heard you had returned, and came here, though I did not expect to meet you at this hour."

"Wait one moment," said Mollie; "I will go down and let you in."

She closed the window and flew down-stairs, opened the house door softly, and beckoned.

Miriam entered. Ten minutes later, and they were safely closeted in the young lady's cozy room.

"Sit down, Aunt Miriam, and take off your shawl. You look cold and wretched and half starved."

The woman turned her hollow eyes mournfully upon her. They were indeed a contrast—the bright vision in the rose silk dress, the floating amber curls, the milky pearls, the foamy lace, and the weird woman in the wretched rags, with sunken cheeks and hollow, spectral eyes.

"I am cold and wretched and half starved," she said, in a harsh voice—"a miserable, homeless outcast, forsaken of God and man. My bed is a bundle of filthy straw, my food a crust or a bone, my garments rags from the gutters. And yet I accept my fate, since you are rich and well and happy."

"My poor, poor Miriam! Let me go and get you something to eat, and a glass of wine to refresh you. It is dreadful to see any human being so destitute."

She started impetuously up, but Miriam stretched forth her hand to detain her, her fierce eyes flaming up.

"Not half so dreadful, Mollie Dane, as the eating the bread or drinking the cup of Carl Walraven! No; I told him before, and I tell you now, I would die in a kennel, like a stray dog, before I would accept help from him."

"Miriam!"

Miriam made an impatient gesture.

"Don't let us talk about me. Let us talk about yourself. It is my first chance since you came here. You are well and happy, are you not? You look both."

"I am well and I am happy; that is, as happy as I can be, shrouded in mystery. Miriam, I have been thinking about myself. I have learned to think, of late, and I would give a year of my life to know who I am."

"What do you want to know?" Miriam asked, gloomily.

"Who I am; what my name may be; who were my parents—everything that I ought to know."

"Why do you speak to me about it?"

"Because you know, I am certain; because you can tell me, if you will. Tell me, Miriam—tell me!"

She leaned forward, her ringed hands clasped, her blue eyes lighted and eager, her pretty face aglow. But Miriam drew back with a frown.

"I have nothing to tell you, Mollie—nothing that would make you better or happier to hear. Be content and ask no questions."

"I can't be content, and I must ask questions!" the girl cried, passionately. "If you cared for me, as you seem to, you would tell me! What is Mr. Walraven to me? Why has he brought me here?"

"Ask him."

"He won't tell me. He says he took a fancy to me, seeing me play 'Fanchon' at K——, and brought me here and adopted me. A very likely story! No, Miriam; I am silly enough, Heaven knows, but I am not quite so silly as that. He came after me because you sent him, and because I have some claim on him he dare not forego. What is it, Miriam? Am I his daughter?"

Miriam sat and stared at her a moment in admiring wonder, then her dark, gaunt face relaxed into a grim smile.

"What a sharp little witch it is! His daughter, indeed! What do you think about it yourself? Does the voice of nature speak in your filial heart, or is the resemblance between you so strong?"

Mollie shook her sunny curls.

"The 'voice of nature' has nothing to say in the matter, and I am no more like him than a white chick is like a mastiff. But it might be so, you know, for all that."

"I know. Would it make you any happier to know you were his daughter?"

"I don't know," said Mollie, thoughtfully. "I dare say not. For, if I were his daughter and had a right to his name, I would probably bear it, and be publicly acknowledged as such before now; and if I am his daughter, with no right to his name, I know I would not live ten-minutes under the same roof with him after finding it out."

"Sharp little Mollie! Ask no questions, then, and I'll tell you no lies. Take the goods the gods provide, and be content."

"But, Miriam, are you really my aunt?"

"Yes; that much is true."

"And your name is Dane?"

"It is."

"And my mother was your sister, and I bear my mother's name?"

The dark, weather-beaten face of the haggard woman lighted up with a fiery glow, and into either eye leaped a devil.

"Mollie Dane, if you ever want me to speak to you again, never breathe the name of your mother. Whatever she did, and whatever she was, the grave has closed over her, and there let her lie. I never want to hear her name this side of eternity."

Mollie looked almost frightened; she shrunk away with a wistful little sigh.

"I am never to know, then, if seems, and I am to go on through life a cheat and a lie. It is very hard. People have found out already I am not what I seem."

"How?" sharply.

"Why, the night I was deluded from home, it was by a letter signed 'Miriam' purporting to come from you, saying you were dying, and that you wanted to tell me all. I went, and walked straight into the cunningest trap that ever was set for a poor little girl."

"You have no idea from whom that letter came?"

"Not the slightest. I am pretty sure, though, it came from my husband."

"Your—what?"

"My husband, Miriam! You didn't know Miss Dane was a respectable married woman, did you? It's true, however. I've been married over a month."

There was no doubting the face with which it was said. Miriam sat staring, utterly confounded.

"Good heavens! Married! You never mean it, Mollie?"

"I do mean it. It's an accomplished fact, Mrs. Miriam Dane, and there's my wedding-ring."

She held up her left hand. Among the opals, and pearls, and pale emeralds flashing there, gleamed a little circlet of plain gold—badge of woman's servitude.

"Married!" Miriam gasped, in indescribable consternation. "I thought you were to marry Sir Roger Trajenna?"

"So I was—so I would have, if I had been let alone. But that letter from you came—that forgery, you know—and I was carried off and married, willy-nilly, to somebody else. Who that somebody else is, I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"Haven't the slightest idea! I've a good mind to tell you the story. I haven't told any one yet, and the weight of a secret a month old is getting a little too much for me. It would be a relief to get some one else to keep it for me, and I fancy you could keep a secret as well as any one else I know."

"I can keep your secret, Mollie. Go on."

So Mollie began and related the romantic story of that fortnight she had passed away from home.

"And you consented to marry him," Miriam exclaimed, when she had got that far—"you consented to marry a man totally unknown to you, whose face you had not even seen, whose name you did not even know, for the sake of freedom? Mollie, you're nothing but a miserable little coward, after all!"

"Perhaps so," said Mollie, defiantly. "But I would do it again, and twice as much, for freedom. Think of being cooped up in four stifling walls, shut in from the blessed sunshine and fresh air of heaven. I tell you that man would have kept me there until now, and should have gone stark, staring mad in half the time. Oh, dear!" cried Mollie, impatiently, "I wish I was a gypsy, free and happy, to wander about all day long, singing in the sunshine, to sleep at night under the waving trees, to tell fortunes, and wear a pretty scarlet cloak, and never know, when I got up in the morning, where I would lie down at night. It's nothing but a nuisance, and a trouble, and a bother, being rich, and dressing for dinner, and going to the opera and two or three parties of a night, and being obliged to talk and walk and eat and sleep by line and plummet. I hate it all!"

"You're tired of it, then?" Miriam asked, with a curious smile.

"Yes; just now I am. The fit will pass away, I suppose, as other similar fits have passed."

"I wonder you never take it into your head to go back upon the stage. You liked that life?"

"Liked it? Yes: and I will, too," said Mollie, recklessly, "some day, when I'm more than usually aggravated. It strikes me, however, I should like to find out my husband first."

"Finish your story. You married this masked man?"

"Yes; that very night, about midnight, we were married. Sarah came to me early in the evening, and told me to be ready, that the clergyman would be there, and that I was to be wedded under my Christian name, Mary, alone. I still wore the wedding-robes in which I was to have been made Lady Trajenna. To these a white silk mask, completely hiding my face, was added, and I was led forth by my masked bridegroom into another apartment, and stood face to face with a portly, reverend gentleman of most clerical aspect and most alarmed face. I thought he had a familiar look, but in the confusion of such a moment I could not place him. I know him now, though—it was the Reverend Raymond Rashleigh, of St. Pancras'. I've heard him preach dozens of times."

"How came he to lend himself to such an irregular proceeding?"

"By force, as I did. He was carried off in much the same fashion, and scared pretty nearly out of his wits—married us to get free—like me again. At the conclusion of the ceremony, I returned with Sarah to the inner room, and the Reverend Mr. Rashleigh was safely taken home."

There was a pause. Mollie sat looking with knitted brows into the fire.

"Well?" questioned Miriam, sharply.

"I stayed there a week," went on Mollie, hurriedly. "It was part of the compact, and if he was to keep his, and liberate me, I was to remain quietly as long as I had promised. But it was not so long in passing. I had the range of two or three rooms—all with carefully closed blinds, however—and I had a piano and plenty of books, and as much of Miss Sarah Grant's society as I chose. There was nothing to be got out of her, however, and I tried hard enough, goodness knows. You might as well wring a dry sponge."

"And the man you married?"

"Oh, he was there, too—off and on everyday; but he kept me as much in the dark as Sarah. He always persisted in speaking French to me—that I might fail to recognize his voice, I dare say; and he spoke it as fluently as a Frenchman. But he was really an agreeable companion, could talk about everything I liked to talk about, could play the piano to a charm, and I should have liked him immensely if he had not been my husband, and if he had not worn that odious mask. Do you know, Miriam," flashing a sudden look up, "if he had taken off that mask, and showed me the handsome face of one of my rejected suitors I did not absolutely abhor, I think I should have consented to stay with him always. He was so nice to talk to, and I liked his bold stroke for a wife—so much in the 'Dare-Devil Dick' style. But I would have been torn to pieces before I'd have dropped a hint to that effect."

"If it had been Doctor Oleander, would you have consented to stay with him as his wife?"

"Doctor Oleander? No. Didn't I say if it were some one I did not absolutely abhor? I absolutely and utterly and altogether abhor and detest Doctor Oleander!"

"What is that? Some one is listening."

Miriam had started in alarm to her feet; Mollie rose up also, and stood hearkening. There had been a suppressed sound, like a convulsive sneeze, outside the door. Mollie flung it wide in an instant. The hall lamp poured down its subdued light all along the stately corridor, on pictures and statues and cabinets, but no living thing was visible.

"There is no one," said Mollie. "It was cats or rats, or the rising wind. Every one in the house is asleep."

She closed the door and went back to the fire. As she did so, a face peeped out from behind a great, carved Indian cabinet, not far from the door—a face lighted with a diabolical smile of triumph.



CHAPTER XII.

"BLACK MASK"—"WHITE MASK."

"Finish your story!" exclaimed Miriam, impatiently. "Morning is coming, and like owls and bats and other noxious creatures, I hide from the daylight. How did you escape?"

"I didn't escape," said Mollie. "I couldn't. The week expired—my masked husband kept his word and sent me home."

"Sent you! Did he not fetch you?"

"No; the man who drove the carriage—who, with the girl Sarah, witnessed the marriage—brought me. Sarah bound me, although there was no occasion, and the man led me down and put me in. Sarah accompanied me, and I was driven to the very corner here. They let me out, and, before I had time to catch my breath, were off and away."

"And that is all?" said Miriam, wonderingly.

"All! I should think it was enough. It sounds more like a chapter out of the 'Castle of Otranto,' or the 'Mysteries of Udolpho,' than an incident in the life of a modern New York belle. For, of course, you know, Madame Miriam," concluded the pretty coquette, tossing back airily all her bright curls, "I am a belle—a reigning belle—the beauty of the season!"

"A little conceited, goosey girl—that's what you are, Mollie Dane, whom ever this terrible event can not make serious and sensible."

"Terrible event! Now, Miriam, I'm not so sure about that. If I liked the hero of the adventure—and I have liked some of my rejected flirtees, poor fellows!—I should admire his pluck, and fall straightway in love with him for his romantic daring. It is so like what those old fellows—knights and barons and things—used to do, you know. And if I didn't like him—if it were Sardonyx or Oleander—sure, there would be the fun and fame of having my name in all the papers in the country as the heroine of the most romantic adventure of modern times. There would be sensation novels and high-pressure melodramas manufactured out of it, and I would figure in the Divorce Court, and wake up some day, like Lord Byron, and find myself famous."

Miriam listened to this rattle with a face of infinite contempt.

"Silly child! It will ruin your prospects for life. Sir Roger will never marry you now."

"No," said Mollie, composedly, "I don't think he will; for the simple reason that I wouldn't have him."

"Wouldn't have him? What do you mean?"

"What I say, auntie. I wouldn't marry him, or anybody else, just now. I mean to find out who is my husband first."

"Do they know this extraordinary story?"

Mollie laughed.

"No, poor things! And he and guardy are dying by inches of curiosity. Guardy has concocted a story, and tells it with his blandest air to everybody; and everybody smiles, and bows, and listens, and nobody believes a word of it. And that odious Mrs. Carl—there's no keeping her in the dark. She has the cunning of a serpent, that woman. She has an inkling of the truth, already."

"How?"

"Well, Mr. Rashleigh—the clergyman, you know, who was abducted to marry us—was at a dinner-party this very day—or, rather, yesterday, for it's two in the morning now—and at dinner he related his whole wonderful adventure. Of course, he didn't see my face or know me; but he described the bride—small, slender, with a profusion of golden ringlets. You should have seen Mrs. Carl look across the table at me—you should have heard her hiss in my ear, in her venomous, serpent-like way: 'I think I know where you spent that fortnight.' I couldn't sleep to-night for thinking of it, and that's how I came to be awake so late, and to see you from the window. I'm not afraid of her; but I know she means me mischief, if she can."