CHAPTER XXIV.
AN AWFUL APPARITION.
When Faynie awoke to consciousness she found the housekeeper bendingover her. Hours had passed and Claire had long since retired to herroom.
Faynie opened her eyes slowly, in a half-dazed manner, but as she did somemory returned to her with startling force; but she bravely restrainedthe cry that rose to her lips.
Claire had called her lover "Lester!" She wondered that the sound ofthat name had: not stricken her head.
Could Claire's lover be--Ah! she dared not even imagine such a horriblepossibility. Then she laughed aloud, thinking how foolish she had beento be so needlessly alarmed.
The false lover who had wooed and won her so cruelly was not the onlyman in the world who bore the fateful name of Lester.
"Ah, you are better, my dear," exclaimed the old housekeeper in greatrelief. "Your swoon lasted so long that I was greatly alarmed; Whatcaused you to faint, my dear child?"
Faynie murmured some reply which she could not quite catch, for thehousekeeper was old and very deaf.
"Take this and go to sleep," she said, holding a soothing, quietingdraught to the girl's white, hot, parched lips. "You will awaken as wellas ever to-morrow."
Faynie did as she was requested, closing her eyes. She was glad when thekindly old face was turned away and she was left alone--not to sleep,but to think.
Of course it could not be Lester Armstrong who was Claire's suitor, forhe was poor, and her haughty stepmother would never encourage the suitof a man who did not have wealth at his command.
If Faynie had but read the papers she would have known what wastranspiring, but, alas! she did not and was utterly unaware of thestrange turn of fortune's wheel which had occurred in the life of theyoung assistant cashier to whom she had given the wealth of her love,when he was poor.
Lying there, going over every detail of, the past, which seemed now butthe idle vagaries of a fleeting dream, she hardly knew, Heaven help her,whether she still loved--or hated with all the strength of hernature--Lester Armstrong.
Her heart would fill with yearning tenderness almost unbearable when shelooked back at the early days of that brief, sweet courtship.
How strong, noble, true and brave he had seemed--how kind of heart!
She had seen him pick up a little birdling that had fallen from itsnest, lying with a bruised wing in the dust of the roadside, and restoreit to the mother bird to be nursed back to health and life, and go outof his way to rescue a butterfly that had fallen in the millpond.
It seemed like the distorted imagination of some diseased brain to bringherself to the realization that this same gentle hand that had rescuedthe robin and the butterfly had struck her down to death--that the kind,earnest voice that had been wont to whisper nothing but words ofdevotion and eternal love should fling out the vilest and bitterest ofoaths at her, because she was not the heiress he had taken her to be.
And without one tear, one bitter regret, he had consigned her to thatlonely grave and gone back to the life which he had declared he couldnever live without her.
Where was he now? she wondered vaguely; then she laughed a low, bitterlaugh, sadder than any tears.
He had missed the fortune he had hoped for and was back again in theoffice of Marsh & Co.
Then the thought came to her again with crushing, alarming force--wouldhe not (believing her dead and himself free to woo and wed again) seekout some other heiress, since that was his design? Many young girls cameto the assistant cashier's window just as she had done; he would selectthe richest and marry her.
The very thought seemed to stab her to the heart with a keen, subtlepain which she could neither understand nor clearly define, even toherself.
"Heaven pity her in the hour when she finds that she has beendeceived--that he married her for gold, not love," she sobbed, coveringher face with her little trembling hands.
She prayed to Heaven silently that Claire's lover, whoever he might be,was marrying her for love, and for love alone.
So restless was she that, despite the quieting draught which thehousekeeper had induced her to swallow, she could not sleep.
But one thing remained for her to do, and that was to get up and dressand go down to her father's library and read herself into forgetfulnessuntil day dawned.
Faynie acted upon the impulse, noting as she stepped from her room intothe corridor that the clock on her mantel chimed the hour of two.
She had proceeded scarcely half a dozen steps ere she became aware thatshe was not alone in the corridor.
She stopped short.
The time was when Faynie would have shrieked aloud or swooned fromterror; but she had gone through so many thrilling scenes during thelast few weeks of her eventful young life that fear within her breasthad quite died out.
Was it only her wild, fanciful imagination, or did she hear the sound oflow breathing? Faynie stood quite still, leaning behind a marble Flora,and listened.
Yes, the sound was audible enough now. There was somebody in thecorridor creeping toward the spot where she stood, with swift butnoiseless feet.
Nearer, nearer the footsteps crept, the soft, low-bated breathingsounding closer with every step.
With a presence of mind which few young girls possessed, Fayniesuddenly stepped forward and turned on the gas jet from an electricbutton, full head.
The sight which met her gaze fairly rooted her to the spot.
For one brief instant of time it seemed to Faynie as though her breathwas leaving her body.
She stood paralyzed, unable to stir hand or foot, if her very life haddepended upon it.
Outside the wind blew dismally; the shutters creaked to and fro on theirhinges; the leafless branches of the trees tapped their ghostly fingersagainst the panes.
Faynie tried to speak--to cry out--but her tongue seemed to cleave tothe roof of her mouth, powerless. Her hands fell to her side a deadweight, her eyes fairly bulging from their sockets.
It almost seemed to the girl that she was passing through the awfultransition of death.
The blood in her veins was turning to ice, and the heart in her bosom tomarble.
In an upper room, afar off, she heard one of the servants coughingprotractedly in her sleep.
Oh, God! if she could but burst the icy bonds that bound her hand andfoot and cry out--bring the household about her. Her lips opened, but nosound came from them.
The very breath in her body seemed dying out with each faint gasp thatbroke over the white, mute lips.
Outside the night winds grew wilder and fiercer. A gust of hail batteredagainst the window panes and rattled down the wide-throated chimneys.Then suddenly; all was still again!
Oh, pitiful heavens! how hard Faynie tried to break the awful bonds thatheld her there, still, silent, motionless, unable to move or utter anysound, staring in horror words cannot picture at the sight that met herstrained gaze.
It had only been an instant of time since the bright blaze of the gashad illuminated the darkened corridor, yet it seemed to Faynie, standingthere, white and cold as an image carved in marble, that long years hadpassed.
Mischievous Maid Faynie Page 24