The Bride of the Tomb and Queenie's Part 90

"He shook her off and ran away. She sprang after him.

"She followed him to a house, but he escaped from it, or eluded her somehow, and she took quarters in the vicinity, and was watching the place when I found her.

"With the information she gave me I succeeded in tracing him further, and finally we tracked him down.

"He is at this moment in prison, and if he gets his dues he will swing from the gallows right speedily. A blacker-hearted villain never walked upon the earth."

There was silence for a time, and then the detective added:

"When I landed herein this city, with Jennie in my charge, we found that her mother was dead.

"The poor girl has not a friend on earth, and she has promised to marry me to-day, and after the trial is over she will return to England with me.

"She is a good, sweet, true girl, and I don't bear any grudge against her because she has suffered from the arts of a villain through her too confiding innocence."

"You have my congratulations, my fine fellow," said Captain Ernscliffe, heartily. "But do you know that you have forgotten to tell me the name of the man who murdered my poor Sydney?"

"Why, really, have I neglected to mention his name? You must excuse me, Captain Ernscliffe, for it is one of the traits of my profession to be chary of mentioning names. The man belongs right here in this city, and is a notorious gambler and rogue. He is as handsome as a prince, as wicked as the devil, and his name is Leon Vinton."

CHAPTER XLI.

"If there be any whom you have not yet forgiven; if there be any wrong you yet may right, let not the sun go down upon your wrath, my son, for verily, you must forgive as you would be forgiven. Upon no less terms than these can you win the pardon and absolution of Heaven."

It was the voice of the solemn, black-robed priest, and he stood in the gloomy cell of a convicted murderer, who, before the sunset of another day was to expiate his terrible sin by a felon's death.

Even now from the gloomy prison-yard outside could be heard the awful sound of the hammers driving the nails into his scaffold.

Upon the low, cot bed reclined the handsome demon whom we have known in our story as Leon Vinton.

Wasted and worn in his coa.r.s.e prison garb and clanking fetters, there was still much of that princely beauty left that had lured youth and innocence to their deadly ruin.

But the reckless, Satanic smile was gone from his pallid, marble-like features now, and a glance of anguished terror and dread shone forth from his hollow, black eyes.

Like many another wretched sinner in his dying hour, Leon Vinton was afraid of the vengeance of that G.o.d whom he had despised and defied all his wicked life.

All day the priests had been with him, praying, chanting, exhorting, and now the chilly, gloomy December day was fading to its close, and the long, dreary night hurried on--his last night upon the beautiful earth, through which he had walked as a destroying demon, scattering the fire-brand of ruin and remorse along his evil pathway.

"And now he feels, and yet shall know, In realms where guilt shall end no gloom, The perils of inflicted woe, The anguish of the liar's doom!

He hears a voice none else may hear, It bids his burning spirit pause; It bids thee, murderer! appear Where angels plead the victim's cause!"

Almost a year had pa.s.sed since the tragic death of unhappy Sydney Lyle.

Now outraged justice was about to avenge her death.

Conviction had followed swiftly upon the murderer's arrest and imprisonment.

When he had left poor Jennie Thorn, his betrayed and ruined victim, fainting upon the floor, with his demoniacal words ringing in her ears, he had little dreamed how and when he should meet her again.

Perhaps he thought she would pa.s.s silently from his life as other wronged ones had done, and never be seen or heard of again.

Not the slightest premonition of evil had come to tell him that the hatred he had stirred to life in her once loving heart would pursue him to the scaffold.

Yet so it was, and Jennie Thorn had stood up in the witness-box and given, under oath, the testimony that had cost him his life--had given it gladly, triumphantly, without one thrill of pity or regard for the man she had once loved and trusted.

Well, it was all over now--the trial was a thing of the past--to-morrow the sentence of the law would be carried out and his neck would be broken upon the scaffold.

Many a time when he thought of it now with a sick and shuddering horror, he recalled the angry words that Queenie Lyle had spoken to him years ago:

"_They cannot be drowned who are born to be hung._"

His reckless, wicked career was over. He had cheated men of their substance at the gaming-table, he had robbed women of what was dearer, their peace and honor, without a thought of the retribution that would fall on him from the G.o.d he had offended.

But now when the priest came to him and told him solemnly and sadly what terrors awaited him if he died unrepentant, remorse and terror struck their terrible fangs into his guilty heart.

"I have done many wrongs that nothing can ever set right, father," he said humbly to the meek priest. "But there is one black falsehood hanging heavy on my heart, one sin I may in some little way atone for.

Will you send Lawrence Ernscliffe to see me to-night? I will tell him how cruelly I wronged the lovely woman he married and how pure and innocent she was then and ever. And Jennie Thorn, father. Will you ask her to come and see me? I will beg her to forgive me."

"I will send Captain Ernscliffe to you, my son, if he will come, but Jennie Thorn--that is impossible!"

"Is she so bitter and unrelenting, then!" said the prisoner, sadly.

"Let us hope not," said the gentle priest. "But she is gone away, my son.

"Immediately after your trial and conviction she left the United States and returned to England as the wife of the detective who effected your arrest."

The prisoner sighed and bent his head.

The priest bowed over him a moment, murmured a benediction and pa.s.sed out through the heavy iron door that shut Leon Vinton in forever from the busy, beautiful world.

CHAPTER XLII.

A few hours later the heavy iron door was unlocked, then clanged together again, shutting Lawrence Ernscliffe in alone with the condemned prisoner.

They looked at each other in blank silence for a minute, then the visitor said coldly:

"You sent for me?"

"Yes, I sent for you," said the prisoner, eagerly. "I have wronged you and would make reparation before--before to-morrow."

The fire of rage and hatred that flared up in the listener's eyes was dreadful to behold.

"You lied to me--how dared you do it?" he exclaimed, hoa.r.s.ely. "Did I not say I would have your life if I found you out?"