Lizette was not averse to his attentions. They lent a little spiciness to the dull days, and so she let a little coquetry creep into her looks and words, just a little kittenish mischief that amused them both, and made old Rhodus and his wife wag their gray heads knowingly, as if to say:
"That will be a match."
In the spring days, when Lizette's sprain began to mend, she promised Jack that on his next trip she would go home with him to Pirate Beach.
"For I took your mistress safely back there, and I sha'n't feel right until I deliver you safe, too," he said.
So it happened that Lizette sailed with him in that golden June time back to Pirate Beach, her heart full of joy at the thought of a reunion with her beloved Miss Nita.
"But somehow, Lizette, I feel like you may be disappointed. I don't believe she has ever come home from Europe yet," Jack said to her, as they sat together on deck that twilight hour of the tenth of June, as they were nearing the familiar shores of New Jersey. "Tell you what, old girl, suppose we don't land at home unless she is up at Gray Gables. We'll drop anchor near the beach and I'll go over to mom and see if the folks are back. If they are not we can go on up to New York and have a lark. You said there was some one there you wanted to see, didn't you?"
"Yes, if they're not dead, for I've written and written and got no answer," returned Lizette, with an anxious look in her soft-blue eyes. So it happened that Jack's bark came to anchor near the shore, and Jack rowed over alone in the twilight to seek his mother.
Lizette waited a while on deck, but as the wind freshened and the waves began to put on white-caps, she grew nervous and went into the tiny cabin to talk to the woman who did the cooking and mending for the very small crew.
Presently the woman went off to attend to some small duty, and then the maid sat down by the light with a book and began to read to pass the time away.
She had just reached a very thrilling point in her novel when a stumbling step made her look up, and—Jack Dineheart was by her side.
"Oh, Jack, what is it?" cried the young woman, in dismay, for as he sank into a seat by her side she saw that his face was ashy white, his eyes wild, his frame trembling.
"It is nothing, you foolish girl, nothing. Go get me a drink of whisky," he answered hoarsely, and put up his hand to shield his face from her inquisitive gaze.
Then, indeed, a shudder ran through all her frame, and she cried in sickening terror:
"Oh, Jack, what have you been doing? There is blood on your hand—wet blood—and blood on your sleeve!"
With a frightened oath the man looked, and found her words were true. His hand was red with blood, and so was his light coat-sleeve.
For a minute they gazed at each other in startled silence. His eyes were wolfish—hers frightened, questioning. A moment, and he broke through the spell that held him, with an uneasy laugh.
"Good Lud! don't look so scared," he cried roughly. "I'll tell you the truth, Lizette. My arm's hurt—a shark bit at me in the little boat, and I had a tussle to get away. I didn't mean to tell, only you saw the blood. Now don't tell any one, will you? See here, Lizette, I won't allow any tattling"—roughly. "I'll go wash the blood off and get a drink; and you'll hold your tongue, you hear?"
"Very well, Jack," Lizette answered, with dignity, offended by his rough, menacing manner; then she caught at his coat as he was turning to go, and asked eagerly:
"But, Miss Nita, Jack? Is she up there at Gray Gables, or not?"
"No, she has never come back from Europe, so we will go on to New York, as we planned, and have a jolly good time; but, mind, Lizette, not a word about the shark and the blood, or I'll cut off the end of your tongue!" and Jack wrenched himself free, and disappeared.
Lizette wept with disappointment because she should not see her mistress yet.
"But I'll spend a few hours in New York, then go back to Pirate Beach and see Mrs. Hill, and find out all about Miss Nita," she thought, as she threw herself on her bunk, and sobbed herself to sleep.
When she awoke again she found herself a prisoner in a low den by the river-side in New York, guarded by a fiendish-looking old woman, who thrust some coarse food inside the door, and disappeared without answering a word to her imploring questions. Jack Dineheart was nowhere to be seen, but in a few days Lizette was horrified to find that his mother had taken the place of the mute attendant.
"Meg Dineheart, what does this mean?" she demanded angrily, but with a jeering laugh Meg vanished, and she heard the key grate harshly in the lock of the door.
"Oh, what is the mystery of this strange persecution?" wondered the half-maddened prisoner, forebodingly, but all her fears for the future did not approach the reality of the awful fate that hung suspended over her head ready to fall and destroy her very life.
CHAPTER XXXII.
ON TRIAL FOR HER LIFE
When the day of Nita's trial approached the popular verdict had adjudged her guilty. It was believed that if the jury cleared her it would only be to send her for life to an insane asylum.
Azalea Courtney and her mother read the papers with deepest interest, they exulted in every harsh criticism aimed at Nita, and they hoped that she would get the severest sentence.
"If she is spared to be Dorian's wife, I shall hate her even more bitterly than I do now," asserted Azalea vindictively.
"I thought you had gotten over your passion for Dorian, now that you are going to make such a grand match," her mother returned uneasily.
Azalea was lounging on a sofa, the picture of indolence. She raised herself on her elbow and looked into her mother's face with a spark of fire leaping into her large blue eyes.
"Dorian Mountcastle is the only man I ever loved, or ever shall love," she answered, "I shall marry Sir George of course, but I shall love Dorian as long as I live. I thought that time when I threw him over that I should soon forget, but I was young, and did not realize the power of love. Fancy then how horribly I hate Nita, whom he loves so dearly."
"Somehow I think it would have been more to our interest if we had taken her part and hidden our hatred in our own hearts," said Mrs. Courtney. "Soon we shall be turned out of doors penniless, with no claim on her pity or protection."
"But, mama, you will get the ransom for that—thing," returned Azalea, growing pale at the memory of her fright.
"I am not so sure of that. There are no answers to my letters."
"Then, mama, it may not be as important as we thought. We had better destroy it before we are suspected," cried Azalea, unconscious that a woman listening at the keyhole gave a start of dismay.
"Yes, I will burn it, and keep the white silk for your wedding-gown," said Mrs. Courtney thriftily, unheeding her daughter's shudder.
"Perhaps I'll never need a wedding-gown, mama. I have not had a letter from the baronet for two weeks. He only proposed to me to pique Nita, you know, and he may intend to back out of the engagement now."
"If he does he will have a suit for breach of promise on his hands," exclaimed Mrs. Courtney viciously, and the woman listening outside the door sneered as she grasped closer in her hands a thin, foreign-looking letter, bordered and sealed with black.
Then she retreated a few paces, gave a loud cough, and, again advancing, rapped on the door and delivered her letter.
"Good Heavens, mama! a London letter in mourning. And, see, it is in a strange hand—a woman's! What can it mean?"
"Open it, Azalea, and see!"
Her daughter obeyed, exclaiming in another moment:
"Sir George's sister, mama—Lady Landon—oh, mama, this is terrible. Sir George was thrown from his horse two weeks ago, down at his country place, and fatally injured, dying in a few hours. He never spoke, never was conscious again—so farewell to all my ambitious dreams! Fate has baffled me again."
Mrs. Hill, who had taken the liberty of lingering, now had to help bring Azalea out of a fit of hysteria induced by the failure of her brilliant prospects. Mrs. Courtney dismissed the housekeeper, and began to comfort her daughter.