Dainty's Cruel Rivals Part 19

But her yearning arms touched empty air, and she found herself resting on a hard and narrow mattress, while her eyes, growing accustomed to the feeble light, showed her the bare stone wall of a narrow chamber like a dungeon, whose only ventilation came from narrow slits in the heavy oaken door.

Half-dazed, the girl lay and gazed about her unfamiliar surroundings until, suddenly overpowered with terror, she shrieked aloud, and springing up, dashed herself against the hard, unyielding door in the wild desire of escape.

In vain! The pressure of her light form did not even shake the heavy, cell-like door that was securely locked on the outside.

She could only sink back upon the narrow cot, while a terrified realization of the truth forced itself on her bewildered senses.

She was a prisoner in some unknown dungeon, locked away from her beloved forever.

The spite and malice of her enemies had triumphed at last. They had parted her from Love before the dawn of her wedding-day. The second attempt to kidnap her must have succeeded well, for she could remember nothing of how she had been brought here.

"Ah! I comprehend all now!" she cried, despairingly. "That pitcher of ice-water last night had somehow a bitter taste. We were drugged--mamma and I--and I was stolen away in the hope of preventing my marriage to Love, so that one of my rivals might be forced on him in my stead, lest he lose his inheritance!"

Then, in spite of her misery, a sweet, mocking laugh dimpled the girl's lips, as she added, gratefully:

"Oh, what a clever thought it was of Love's, that secret marriage! I feared I did wrong letting him persuade me into it; but I see now his presentiments of evil had good ground, and he did wisely in making me his wife two weeks ago."

She clasped her dimpled hands together in a sort of ecstacy, as she continued:

"And oh! how happy he has made me, my darling young husband! How full of bliss our secret honeymoon! Oh, I can never forget while life lasts the sweetness of our wedded love! But how chagrined Aunt Judith and my cruel cousins will be when Love tells them the startling truth. I can guess how they will try to deceive him. They will say to him: 'Dainty has eloped with Vernon Ashley. He was her lover all the while, though she made you think he was Ela's. Now that she has deceived you, it is imperative for you to marry some one else immediately, lest by the terms of your father's will you lose your grand inheritance!'"

The blue eyes beamed, and the rosy mouth dimpled proudly as Dainty's thoughts ran on happily.

"They will be fit to die of rage when they hear my darling laugh them to scorn, and say: 'All your wicked plots to part me from my love are in vain! I knew you were scheming to do this all along, so I forestalled you by making her my wife in secret two weeks ago, and the _denouement_ of to-day shows me how wisely I acted. Now you must restore my love to me, or I will denounce you to the world for your treachery!'"

This was how Dainty pictured it to herself, and in her excitement it seemed to her that Love would be coming directly to release her from her confinement, because they could have no interest in keeping them apart any longer, knowing that they were married now, and that there was no chance for Olive and Ela to get him away from his wedded wife.

Oh, how impatient she grew, waiting and hoping for him to come! But long hours of silence and solitude dragged by, till her brave heart began to fail, and she sobbed, piteously:

"Perhaps they are unrelenting in their hate, and will not tell him where to find me. They may leave me here to starve and die!"

Already she felt faint from lack of food, and her heart sank hopelessly from its new dread. She fell on her knees, and prayed to Heaven to have pity on her sorrow, and send her speedy rescue.

It was indeed a sight to move the pity of Heaven; the innocent, white-gowned girl kneeling on the cold stone floor of the damp cell, with her bare feet and naked arms and shoulders, her appealing blue eyes raised upward, the golden hair streaming like a shining veil about her slender form, her sweet lips moving in prayer to G.o.d. Would He indeed hear that prayer unmoved, or would He send her relief?

The slow hours dragged away without interruption, and she saw with terror that her miserable light began to flicker with exhaustion. Soon the desolation of darkness would be added to loneliness and hunger.

CHAPTER XXII.

UNMASKED.

Dainty fell back, sobbing, on her hard couch, her frame shaking as with an ague chill.

The horror of her position was enough to drive her mad.

It seemed to her that she was entombed alive, and left to her fate--left to die of darkness, terror, grief, and starvation, the wretched victim of a most cruel persecution; she who had so much to live for; youth, health, beauty, and a loving young husband!

Her faltering voice rang out in a despairing prayer:

"Oh, G.o.d, have mercy on me, and on my poor unhappy husband and mother, whose hearts I know are aching with grief over my mysterious absence!

Oh, send some pitying angel to guide them to my dreary prison!"

As if in answer to the wild aspiration, a key suddenly clicked in the lock outside, and she sprang upright on the cot with a strangling gasp of fear and hope commingled.

Slowly the heavy oaken door swung outward wide enough to admit a tall, dark-gowned figure, then shut inward again, locking Dainty in with the feared and abhorred ghost of the old monk.

In the dim, flickering light of the cell, the horrible figure towered above the girl, who crouched low in breathless fear at the dreaded apparition, speech frozen on her lips, her heart sinking till the blood seemed freezing in her veins, not observing in her alarm that the ghost had a rather prosaic air by reason of carrying a large basket on one arm.

Suddenly the ghastly creature spoke: the first time it had ever opened its lips in all its visitations to Dainty.

"You don't seem glad to see me," it observed, in hoa.r.s.e, mocking accents that somehow had a familiar ring in her ears.

There flashed over her mind some words that Lovelace Ellsworth had said to her lately:

"I am convinced that the pretended monk is a creature of flesh and blood, and if you could only summon courage to tear away its mask when it calls on you again, you would most likely find beneath it the coa.r.s.e Sheila Kelly, or very probably one of your malicious cousins. Try it next time, and you will see that I am right, darling."

At sound of that gibing voice, with its oddly familiar ring, a desperate courage came to poor Dainty, and suddenly springing erect on her bed, she made a fierce onslaught on her foe, tearing away in one frantic clutch the ghastly mask, skull-cap, wig, and all, and leaving exposed the astonished features of the coa.r.s.e Irish woman, Sheila Kelly.

The woman uttered a fierce imprecation in her surprise, recoiling a step, then laughing coa.r.s.ely:

"What a little wild-cat, to be sure! But why didn't you do it long ago?"

"I never thought of it being you, Sheila Kelly! How could I, when I've seen you lying asleep in my room and the old monk standing by my bed?"

faltered Dainty in surprise and bewilderment.

"Och, thin it was Miss Peyton playing the part. Shure, she's as tall as mesilf, and I don't mind satisfyin' yer cur'osity now, seein' as yer'll never git out o' this alive to blow on us!" returned the woman, with cool effrontery.

"What do you mean, Sheila?" cried the young girl in alarm.

"Shure, I mane what I say! Ye're a pris'ner fer life, Miss Dainty Chase, sintenced by yer aunt and cousins to solitary confinement on bread and water till you die--and the sooner you do that last the better they will be pleased!" returned the coa.r.s.e woman letting down her basket and taking out a gla.s.s tumbler, two large bottles of water, some loaves of stale bread, and some of Dainty's clothes, saying, facetiously: "Here's yer duds and yer grub--enough o' both ter last yer a week--and at the end of a week I'll call again with more provisions, miss--and likewise, if you get tired of living in such luxury, here's a bottle of laudanum to pa.s.s yer into purgatory," coolly putting it on the only chair the room contained, while Dainty's blue eyes dilated in horror at her fiendish brutality.

"Sheila, Sheila, surely this is some cruel jest! You can not mean to leave me here alone as you say! Oh, what harm have I ever done to you that you treat me so cruelly?" she cried in anguish.

"As for the harrum, none; but I always hated ye from the first time I looked on yer bonny face. As for the raison, 'tis soon towld. I fell in love with the young masther soon's ever he kem home from Yurrup, and I did me best ter make up ter him; but he would none of me. And I seen straight away his heart was wid you, and I hated yer ever since, and forby yer two cousins and t' ould Leddy Ellsworth turned against yer for the same raison, because yer won the masther's heart. So whin they offered ter make me fortune for scaring yer ter death, I was ready and glad ter take the job ter pay off me own score agin ye! So there now, ye see it's small good luck yer pritty face got ye!" concluded the cruel Irish woman, exultantly.

Poor Dainty, gazing into that hard face, felt the utter uselessness of all appeals for mercy. The woman had the heart of a fiend, and was openly glad of her victim's misery.

She determined to appeal to her cupidity, and ventured, timidly:

"If you will only give me my liberty, Sheila, I give you my word of honor Mr. Ellsworth will make you rich."

"Rich, is it? and him a-dying!" grunted Sheila Kelly, indifferently.

"Dying! Oh, what mean you, Sheila? Speak! What has happened to my darling?" shrieked poor Dainty, in wild alarm.