"Dorian, my love, Dorian, it breaks my heart to know that you are lost to me forever!"
"Your Dorian is here, darling Nita," answered a voice by her side, and his arm drew her fondly to his breast.
A low, shuddering cry, and Nita struggled out of those fond, clasping arms, and faced her lover with startled eyes.
"Dorian," she breathed, in mingled joy and pain—"Dorian, oh, why are you here?"
"I followed you, my sweet. Ah, Nita, I know the story of your mad attempt to end your life. Love, love, why did you do it?"
"Fate was against us, Dorian, and I could not live without you, I begged you to die with me, but you were cruel. Life was more to you than love. That is a man's way. But, being only a weak woman, I chose death—only they were so hard they would not let me die."
Her voice sank into his heart.
"Oh, my poor, little love. I did not believe your wild words. How could I think you would try to end so sweet a life?" he cried, but Nita did not reply; she only gazed at him with the fixity of despair.
"Nita, I distrusted you that night. I spoke cruelly to you. Will you forgive me my harshness, my dear wife?"
"Oh, not that word—not that!" and Nita shrank and shivered, drawing back as he approached her. "Oh, Dorian, do not think of me, nor speak to me as your wife ever again," she continued wildly. "Remember that grim old man—remember Miser Farnham, Dorian. Have I not told you I never can be your wife while he lives! Oh, why does Heaven permit such wretches to walk the earth, a barrier to the happiness of true lovers?" and she wrung her hands despairingly.
"Do not give up like this to your sorrow, my darling," he said soothingly, "for I believe that the mysterious barrier to our happiness will soon be removed. I do not like to fight with shadows, Nita, so after my interview with you in London, I came to New York to see your guardian, and ask him frankly what was the secret of his objection to your marriage."
"You asked him—that?" Nita faltered in an indescribable tone.
"Yes, dearest, for it seemed best to know his reasons and combat them in a practical fashion."
"But he did not tell you—he dare not yet!" she muttered, rather to herself than him.
"He did not tell me then, but he made an appointment to meet me here to-night, the tenth of June—when he said I should hear the secret, Nita, from your own lips."
He never forgot the awful look on Nita's lovely face. It was convulsed with agony and deadly fear.
"To-night," she muttered hoarsely—"to-night, the tenth of June—oh, how could I forget that day—of all days in the world? And he—is coming here to-night?" The voice did not sound like her own.
"Yes, Nita; and bade me meet him here with my friend, Van Hise, who went with me to see him. Mrs. Courtney told me you were in the garden, so I left my friend with her and came to seek you here. Farnham will be here presently, and soon the worst will be over. Courage, sweetheart; you are my wife, after all, and he cannot really keep us apart!"
But it seemed as if she had forgotten him. Her form trembled like a reed in the wind, her eyes were fixed upon the ground, she muttered hoarsely:
"It is diabolical! That old fiend has planned his triumph with cold-blooded malice! How he will exult in my shame and despair! I cannot bear it—no, no, no!" And with the spring of a startled fawn, Nita flew past her lover, a vanishing white shape, toward the garden-gate.
Dorian stood like one stunned a moment, then followed in swift pursuit. But he was suddenly arrested by an outstretched arm.
"Where are you flying to, Dorian?" demanded Captain Van Hise, who had just come out to look for his friend.
"Do not detain me, Van Hise. I am following Nita, who has just fled from me in some strange alarm. She went out at the garden-gate. Come! let us pursue her, for I fear her terrors will lead her into something dreadful," faltered Dorian, dragging his friend with him in pursuit of the flying girl.
But the slight delay had given her the advantage of them. She flew like the wind along the sands, flying from the degradation that she could not face, flying to seek refuge in the deep, dark sea from her wretched life and its crowding ills.
They could never have overtaken her, she had gained too much the start of them, and terror lent wings to her feet, but—suddenly she stumbled and fell prostrate over an inert body lying directly in her path.
In her frenzied flight she had not perceived it, but now—now, as she struggled to rise again, a startled cry shrilled over her lips.
She comprehended the ghastly truth—here, almost at the gates of Gray Gables, murder had been done! Recoiling with a strangled cry, she looked down at the body at her feet—the ugly, twisted body, the hideous face, the evil eyes set in a ghastly stare of death. On the instant she recognized him—Miser Farnham!
He was dead—murdered almost at the gates of Gray Gables, while on his way to claim his bride, to score his horrid triumph and break two loving hearts. It was a dastardly deed, and fate or retribution had met him on his way.
But who had done that awful deed? Some enemy, of course—perhaps the wicked old fortune-teller. But, though she trembled and shuddered, it came to her with a thrill of joy that now she was free—now Dorian need never know the secret of which she was so bitterly ashamed—that she had been for one cruel year a wife in name to the wicked miser.
She would fly back to the house—she would steal up to her own room and remove the white dress with its blood-stains where she had slipped and fallen on the body. No one should know that she had found the murdered man there.
With a stifled moan she turned to retrace her steps, and—ran almost into the arms of the two men coming in pursuit. In the near distance they had seen her kneeling there, they came up just as she turned to fly.
"Who is this? What is this?" cried the soldier, bending down over the body at his feet.
Nita answered with a hysterical sob:
"Look, I found him lying here when I was flying to cast myself in the sea. It is—it is—my guardian—and some one has—murdered—him!" with the last words she shuddered violently, and fell unconscious at Dorian's feet.
He lifted her up in his arms, and his hands were wet with the blood-spatters on her white gown—the bridelike robe that looked so stainless when she stood there by the fountain a few minutes ago.
"I will carry her up to the house, Van Hise, and you had better remain here by the body until I send some one back to help remove it," he said, in a shaken voice, turning away.
At that moment there appeared on the scene the hobbling form of Meg, the fortune-teller. After a few moments of unconsciousness she had come to herself in the lonely cabin, and curiosity had induced her to follow the old miser up to Gray Gables.
She stopped short with a shrill cry, and, stooping down, examined the dead, drawing back with a shudder as her hand became wet with blood.
"Ugh! it is the old miser—and murdered! Who has done this?" she croaked dismally.
Van Hise explained to her that he did not know anything about it, that Miss Farnham found the body there but a moment ago.
"And it is not more than half an hour since he left my cabin alive and well, going up to Gray Gables to keep an important appointment with Nita," croaked the old woman. She looked after the retreating form of Dorian, and sneered:
"Perhaps she grew impatient and came out to meet the old man, did she not?"
"She came out alone, certainly, but for what purpose I cannot tell," answered the puzzled soldier, who had never seen old Meg before, and he added:
"I know nothing about the matter except that she was very unhappy and excited, and my friend and I followed her as fast as we could, fearing she might commit some desperate deed."
"Some desperate deed, ha, ha! yes, and so she did!" shrieked the old crone, in horrid glee. "She met the old man she feared and hated, and she murdered him—murdered him so that he should not betray her secret!"
"Woman, woman! how dare you utter such a fiendish lie!" exclaimed the soldier angrily.