Ida sunk on her knees before him.
"Come," he said; "you must go quietly with me."
"Inhuman monster!" moaned Ida.
"Come. This is no time to exchange compliments," he said. "We have parleyed here too long already."
His grasp tightened on the slender wrist, but she did not seem to heed the pain of it.
"I can not, I will not go with you!" she panted.
A taunting laugh answered her. He was dragging her by main force down the path, when the figure of a man suddenly sprung before him.
"You!" cried Royal Ainsley, furiously.
"Yes, it is I!" returned Eugene Mallard, sternly. "I am just in time, it appears, to save my—this lady from you."
At the sight of Eugene, Ida flung up her hands with a wild cry, and sunk at his feet unconscious. Royal Ainsley sprung forward to catch her in his arms, but Eugene dashed up to him.
"Lay one hand on her at your peril!" he commanded.
"And who shall prevent me, when she is my wife?" sneered Royal Ainsley.
"She is not your wife!" cried Eugene Mallard, his face darkening; "and here and now, I propose to avenge the wrongs you have done her. There will be a duel to the death between us! I have two pistols in my pocket, you shall take one and defend yourself, I will use the other."
[249]
Royal Ainsley sprung forward. Quick as a flash he drew something from his vest-pocket. It was a sharp steel dagger which he always carried.
He made a lunge forward, but his foot slipped, and he fell to the earth in mortal pain. The dagger he had intended to plunge into the body of his cousin had been the cause of his own death.
In an instant Eugene was bending over him.
"It is too late!" gasped the miserable man—"it is all over with me now. I am about to pass in my checks. Don't you think so?"
"Yes," said Eugene; "you are mortally wounded, I can see that. Heaven forgive you for the sins you have committed!"
Eugene carried Ida to her own room, thanking Heaven that he had met no one. No one would know of her presence in the grounds.
Then he quickly summoned the servants.
Royal Ainsley, lying there with his face upturned to the sunlight and his hand clutching the fatal dagger, told its own story.
As soon as Ida was able to see him Eugene sent for her to come to the library.
When she received the summons, the poor soul, white as death, fell upon her knees.
"He is going to denounce me for my sin, and for not telling him when I found it out," she said.
Could she face him, now that he knew all?
As she knelt there she caught a glimpse of herself in the great mirror opposite.
Again the girl knocked at the door.
"Tell your master that I will see him to-morrow," she[250] whispered in a strained, strange voice; and the girl went away.
Strange fancies seemed to throng through her brain.
Royal Ainsley was dead, she had heard them say; and she fancied that her child was dead, too.
And now the man she loved had sent for her to turn her from the house, and she would never see him again.
Then she thought of the brook, so deep, so wide, that struggled on to meet the sea.
Yes, she would go there where some of the happiest, ay, and some of the most sorrowful moments of her life had been spent. The deep waters would carry her away on their bosom.
At intervals the girl came to the door to inquire if she wanted anything. The answer was always the same—"No."
She never knew how the long hours passed; she was like one in a dream.
At last night came. She waited until the house was dark and still. There was silence in the hall. All the lights were out, every one was asleep, and the troubles of the day were blotted out.
She raised the long French window that opened out onto the lawn and stepped out into the garden.
As she passed the room in which Eugene Mallard was quietly sleeping, she knelt and laid her cold white lips on the threshold his feet would press.
How cruelly Heaven had punished her, because in those other days she had longed to be a lady, like the heroines she had read of in the great world of beauty and fashion.
She reached the brook and knelt down beside it. The moon threw a silvery light upon it, and in its song she[251] seemed to hear Eugene's voice mingled with that of the little child she had lost.
"I am coming to you, little baby!" she muttered below her breath. Then aloud, she said: "Good-bye, Eugene—good-bye forever!"
Suddenly a pair of strong arms clasped her, and Eugene's voice whispered:
"Not good-bye, my darling!"
Only the stars and the moonlight and the rippling waters of the brook heard what he said—how he pleaded with her to live only for him and her little child.
Ida could not believe the great happiness that had suddenly fallen upon her like a mantle from God's hands.
They talked by the brook-side for long hours. The next day the master and mistress of the great mansion went away.
When they reached New York, another ceremony was performed, which made Ida Eugene Mallard's wife until death should part them.
Then they quietly went and obtained the little child, whom both idolized, and went abroad, where they remained for years.
No one learned the strange romance of the fair young girl whom Eugene Mallard worshipped so fondly.
When they returned to their home, years after, with a lovely, dark-eyed little girl and a sturdy, blue-eyed boy, no one guessed but that they were Eugene Mallard's children.
While they had been abroad they read of the marriage of Hildegarde Cramer to Philip Ravenswood, the noble young man who had loved her ever since they had first met on the Newport sands.
The same paper also brought the intelligence of the[252] engagement of Arthur Hollis and pretty Dora Staples, and the sad ending, in a railroad accident, of beautiful, hapless Vivian Deane and her maid Nora.
Eugene passed the paper to his wife, and Ida read it, making no comments. But after awhile, as though the subject weighed heavily on her mind, she went up to Eugene, and laid her soft white arms round his neck, and whispered:
"Does the knowledge of Hildegarde's marriage bring you any regrets, Eugene?"
"No, my darling!" he cried, clasping her in his strong arms. "For all the love of my heart is yours now, and—and—our children's."
"I have often wanted to ask you, Eugene," she murmured, with her face hidden on his breast, "if the story of my past were known, how would people judge me? Would the world say, 'Ida May had sinned'?"
Let us hope all our readers will join heartily in his answer—"No."
The End