The Masked Bridal Part 42

He instantly summoned the servants, and took them to task for their negligence.

Both the cook and the chambermaid avowed that no one but the gas-man had entered or gone out by the area door that afternoon.

But, upon questioning them closely, Emil Correlli ascertained that the outer door had been left unfastened "just a moment, while the man went to the meter, to take the figures."

A close search revealed the fact that the key to the stairway door was missing, and, putting this and that together, the keen-witted man reasoned out just what had happened.

He believed that Giulia had stolen in through the area door close upon the heels of the gas-man; that she had found the key, unlocked the stairway-door, and made her way up to the library to seek an interview with him--he did not once suspect her of having seen Edith--while Edith, upon reconnoitering and finding the back way clear, had taken advantage of the situation and flown.

He was almost frantic with mingled rage and despair.

He angrily berated the servants for their carelessness, and vowed that he would have them discharged; then, having exhausted his vocabulary upon them, he went back to the library, wrathfully cursing Giulia for having forced herself into his presence to distract his attention, and thus allow his captive an opportunity to escape.

Mr. and Mrs. G.o.ddard returned about this time, both looking as if they also had met with some crushing blow, for the former was white and haggard, and the latter wild-eyed, and shivering from time to time, as if from a chill.

Both were apparently too absorbed in some trouble of their own to feel very much disturbed by the flight of Edith, although Mr. G.o.ddard's face involuntarily lighted for an instant when he was told of her escape.

Emil Correlli flew to the nearest telegraph office and dashed off a message to a New York policeman, with whom he had had some dealings while living in that city, giving him a description of Edith, and ordering him, if he could lay his hands upon her, to telegraph back, and then detain her until he could arrive and relieve him of his charge.

He reasoned--and rightly, as we have seen--that Edith, would be more likely to return to her old home, where she knew every crook and turn, rather than to seek refuge in Boston, where she was friendless and a comparative stranger.

A few hours later he received a reply from the policeman, giving him an account of his adventure with Miss Edith Allandale and her escort.

"By heavens, she shall not thus escape me!" he exclaimed; and at once made rapid preparations for a journey.

Half an hour afterward he was on the eleven o'clock express train, in pursuit of the fair fugitive, in a state of mind that was far from enviable.

CHAPTER XXVII.

MRS. G.o.dDARD BECOMES AN EAVESDROPPER.

When, after her interview with Edith, Mrs. G.o.ddard went out to make her call, leaving her brother to keep watch and ward over their fair captive, she proceeded with all possible speed to the Copley Square Hotel, where she inquired for Mrs. Stewart.

The elevator bore her to the second floor, and the pretty maid, who answered her ring at the door of the elegant suite to which she had been directed, told her that her mistress was engaged just at present, but, if madam would walk into the reception-room and wait a while, she had no doubt that Mrs. Stewart would soon be at liberty. "Would madam be kind enough to give her a card to take in?"

Mrs. G.o.ddard pretended to look for her card-case, first in one pocket of her wrap, then in another.

"Ah!" she exclaimed, "I must have left my cards at home! How unfortunate! But it does not matter," she added, with one of her brilliant smiles; "I am an old acquaintance, and you can simply announce me when I am admitted."

The girl bowed and went away, leaving the visitor by herself in the pretty reception-room, for she had been told not to disturb her mistress until she should ring for her.

Mrs. G.o.ddard looked curiously around her, and was impressed with the elegance of everything in the apartment.

Exquisite paintings and engravings graced the delicately tinted walls; choice statuettes, bric-a-brac, and old-world curios of every description, which she knew must have cost a small fortune even in the countries where they were produced, were artistically arranged about the room.

There was also an air of refinement and rare taste in the draperies, carpets, and blending of color, which proclaimed the occupant of the place to be above the average lady in point of culture and appreciation of all that was beautiful.

Impressed with all this, and looking back to her meeting with Mrs.

Stewart, on the evening of the ball at Wyoming--remembering her beauty and grace, and the elegance of her costume, madam's heart sank within her, and she seemed to age with every pa.s.sing moment.

"Oh, to think of it!--to think of it, after all these years! I will not believe it!" she murmured, with white, trembling lips, as she arose and nervously paced the room.

Presently the sound of m.u.f.fled voices in a room beyond attracted her attention.

She started and bent her ear to listen.

She could catch no word that was spoken, although she could distinguish now a man's and then a woman's tones.

With stealthy movements she glided into the next room, which was even more luxuriously furnished than the one she had left, when she observed that the portieres, draping an arch leading into still another apartment, were closely drawn.

And now, although she could not hear what was being said, she suddenly recognized, with a pang of agony that made her gasp for breath, the voice of her husband in earnest conversation with the woman who had been her guest two nights previous.

As noiselessly as a cat creeps after her prey, Anna G.o.ddard stole across that s.p.a.cious apartment and concealed herself among the voluminous folds of the draperies, where she found that she could easily hear all that was said.

"You are very hard, Isabel," she heard Gerald G.o.ddard remark, in a reproachful voice.

"I grant you that," responded the liquid tones of his companion, "as far as you and--that woman are concerned, I have no more feeling than a stone."

At those words, "that woman," spoken in accents of supreme contempt, the eyes of Anna G.o.ddard began to blaze with a baneful gleam.

"And you will never forgive me for the wrong I did you so long ago?"

pleaded the man, with a sigh.

"What do you mean by that word 'forgive?'" coldly inquired Mrs.

Stewart.

"Pardon, remission--as Shakespeare has it, 'forgive and quite forget old faults,'" returned Gerald G.o.ddard, in a voice tremulous with repressed emotion.

"Forget!" repeated the beautiful woman, in a wondering tone.

"Ah, if you could," eagerly cried her visitor; then, as if he could control himself no longer, he went on, with pa.s.sionate vehemence: "Oh, Isabel! when you burst upon me, so like a radiant star, the other night, and I realized that you were still in the flesh, instead of lying in that lonely grave in far-off-Italy--when I saw you so grandly beautiful--saw how wonderfully you had developed in every way, all the old love came back to me, and I realized my foolish mistake of that by-gone time as I had never realized it before."

Ah! if the man could have seen the white, set face concealed among the draperies so near him--if he could have caught the deadly gleam that shone with tiger-like fury in Anna G.o.ddard's dusky eyes--he never would have dared to face her again after giving utterance to those maddening words.

"It strikes me, Mr. G.o.ddard, that it is rather late--after twenty years--to make such an acknowledgment to me," Isabel Stewart retorted, with quiet irony.

"I know it--I feel it now," he responded, in accents of despair. "I know that I forfeited both your love and respect when I began to yield to the charms and flatteries of Anna Correlli. She was handsome, as you know; she began to be fond of me from the moment of our introduction; and when, in an unguarded moment, I revealed the--the fact that you were not my wife, she resolved that she would supplant you--"

"Yes, 'the woman--she gavest me and I did eat,'" interposed his companion, with a scathing ring of scorn in the words. "That is always the cry of cowards like you, when they find themselves worsted by their own folly," she went on, indignantly. "Woman must always bear the scorpion lash of blame from her betrayer while the world also awards her only shame and ostracism from society, if she yields to the persuasive voice of her charmer, admiring and believing in him and allowing him to go unsmirched by the venomous breath of scandal. It is only his victim--his innocent victim oftentimes, as in my case--who suffers; he is greeted everywhere with open arms and flattering smiles, even though he repeats his offenses again and again."

"Isabel! spare me!"

"No, I will not spare you," she continued, sternly. "You know, Gerald G.o.ddard, that I was a pure and innocent girl when you tempted me to leave my father's house and flee with you to Italy. You were older than I, by eight years; you had seen much of the world, and you knew your power. You cunningly planned that secret marriage, which you intended from the first should be only a farce, but which, I have learned since, was in every respect a legal ceremony--"