Chapter 20

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_ CHAPTER XX With her heart throbbing with the most intense excitement, Dorothy pushed aside the great clusters of crimson creepers and thick green leaves, pressed her white face close against the window-pane, and gazed in upon the gorgeous scene. For an instant the great blaze of light dazzled her weak eyes, and everything seemed to swim before her. But gradually, little by little, she began to distinguish objects, and at last her eyes fell upon the face of Harry Kendal. With a great cry, the girl clutched her hands tightly over her heart. She never thought that she would look upon his face again in this world. It was his face--the face of her hero, her king, before which all else paled as the moonbeams pale before the glaring light of the rising sun. Then suddenly she saw the face beside him into which he was gazing, and it was then that the heart in her bosom almost turned to stone. Never in all her life had she beheld such a vision of loveliness, and she knew in an instant that the proud beauty must be Iris Vincent. Slowly Dorothy crept around to the other side of the porch, up to the window, that she might have a better view of them, and perhaps she could hear what they were saying. But as she reached it, to her great disappointment she saw them link arms and stroll out of the ball-room toward the conservatory, and thither she bent her steps, intent upon reaching it before they did. She had barely screened herself behind a tall jardinière of roses and flowering plants, ere, laughing and chattering, the two entered the floral bower. "The ball is a grand success, Iris," he was saying, gayly; "they all seem to be enjoying themselves immensely. How is it with you?" "It is a night that will stand out forever in my life," she responded, glancing up at him with those dangerously dark eyes, and a smile on her red lips. The girl who watched them breathlessly from behind the roses clutched her hands over her heart. The sight maddened her. They were so near each other, their heads bent so close; and while she gazed, suddenly Kendal bent still closer and kissed the girl's lips. Dorothy tried to cry aloud, to spring out and confront them. Her brain reeled; the blood, chill as ice, stood still in her veins, and without a cry, or even a moan she sank down unconscious in her hiding-place. "What is that sound?" cried Iris, with a start. "Only some of the clumsy servants in the corridor without," replied Kendal. "But, Iris, are you trying to avoid me? I have brought you here to tell you something, and you must listen. The time has come when we must fully understand each other. You know quite as well as I that the life we are leading, Iris, can not go on like this forever. From the first moment we met the attraction I felt toward you changed the whole current of my life." Iris hid her face in the bouquet of white hyacinths which she carried. "It is too late to talk of that now," she murmured. "Your heart went out to another before--before I met you." "There is such a thing as affections waning when one discovers that one's heart is not truly mated, Iris," he cried. She did not answer; and thus emboldened by her silence, he went on, huskily: "Let me give you the whole history of my meeting with Dorothy Glenn, from first to last, and you will understand the situation better. You can realize, Iris, that an acquaintance which commences through a flirtation, as it were, can never end in true love. Such an acquaintance is not a lasting one. Come and sit down on this rustic seat, Iris, and listen; and as we sit here in the dim, mellow light, you shall judge me, and your decision shall seal my fate." At the self-same moment in which Harry Kendal was beginning his narrative, there was quite a commotion at the outer gate which guarded the main entrance of Gray Gables. One of the servants, lounging lazily at his post of duty, was suddenly startled out of the doze into which he had fallen by the shadow of a woman flitting hurriedly past him. "Hold on, there! Hold on, I say! Who are you, and what do you want?" A figure clad in a long dark cloak, hooded and veiled, stopped short with a little exclamation, which he could not quite catch. "Hold on, there! Where are you going?" he repeated, springing to her side. "There is something going on here to-night. You can't enter these grounds until I know who you are and what your business is." "This is Gray Gables, is it not?" exclaimed a tremulous voice from behind the veil. "I should have supposed you would have found that out before you entered the grounds," declared the man, suspiciously. She saw her mistake, and started. "I only wanted to make sure that I was right," she said, apologetically. "I--I have business with the housekeeper; I want to see her." Before she could utter another word he whistled sharply. His call brought a small lad to his side. "Tell Mrs. Kemp there's a young woman here who would like to see her. What name, please?" he asked, abruptly, turning to the veiled figure. "I--I am afraid she wouldn't know; but you might, mention the name--Miss Mead"--this rather stutteringly. Very soon the answer came back that the housekeeper did not know Miss Mead, and hadn't time to see strangers. "But I must see her!" implored the excited voice from behind the thick veil. "Do let me go to the house to her. I will detain her but a moment, I assure you. She would be so sorry if she missed seeing me." With no suspicion of the terrible catastrophe that was to follow on the heels of it, the man without further ado allowed her to pass. The stranger sped quickly up the graveled walk, and, as Dorothy had done but a short time before, drew cautiously up to the brilliantly lighted window, threw back her veil, and peered breathlessly in upon the gorgeous scene. As the light fell athwart her, you and I, dear reader, can easily recognize the marble-white face of--Nadine Holt. "So!" she muttered, between her clinched teeth, "I have tracked my false, perfidious lover to his home at last. When Harry Kendal lighted the fire of love in my heart, he little knew that the blaze would in time consume himself. I am not one to be made love to and cast off at will, as he shall soon see. "From the hour that he eloped with Dorothy Glenn, on that memorable Labor Day, life lost all its charms for me, and I vowed to Heaven that I would find them, and deal out vengeance to them. They crushed my heart, and now I shall crush theirs. Ah, how I watched for him in the crowded streets, the ferries, and on the elevated roads! "I believed sooner or later that I should find him, and I was right. Only a week ago I met him face to face, but he did not know me because of the thick veil I wore. I might have raised my veil and he would never have recognized in the pinched and haggard features the countenance of Nadine Holt, whose beauty he was wont to praise so lavishly. Ah, the traitor! "He turned into a florist's shop, and he never dreamed who the woman was who entered the place and stood silently beside him while he gave the order for the great decorations for the grand ball which was to take place at his home in Gray Gables, in Yonkers, a fortnight from that date. "When he quitted the shop I flew out after him; but all in an instant he disappeared from my sight as though the ground had suddenly opened and swallowed him. But I laughed aloud. What cared I then. I knew just where to find him. The place was written indelibly on my brain in letters of fire--Gray Gables, Yonkers! "Only Heaven knows how I have worked to get a day off and to earn extra money to make this little trip! And now I am here to face him. Is he married to Dorothy Glenn, I wonder? It would take only that knowledge to make a fiend incarnate of me!" At that moment one of the servants passing along the porch stopped short at sight of the young woman in black, with the death-white face and flashing black eyes, peering into the ball-room from the long porch window. "They are having a great time in there," he said, jerking his head with a nod in the direction of the ball-room. "Yes!" returned Nadine Holt, sharply. Then it occurred to her that she could find out something about the lover who had deserted her. And there was another thing which puzzled her greatly. The name which he had given the florist was not the one by which she had known him--she would find out all by this man. Now he was calling himself Mr. Harry Kendal--that was the name he had given the florist. "In whose honor is the ball given, my good fellow?" she asked, with an assumption of carelessness. For a moment he looked stupidly at her. "I mean, who is giving the ball?" she added. "Oh, it's Mr. Kendal, ma'am--leastwise, he and Miss Dorothy are giving it together." She started as though a serpent had stung her, then stood perfectly still and looked at the man with gleaming eyes. "Miss Dorothy--who?" she asked, knowing full well what his answer must be. "Miss Dorothy Glenn, ma'am," he replied. "But she won't be 'miss' very long, for she is soon to marry Mr. Kendal." "Soon to marry him!" she repeated, vaguely, saying in the next breath, "then they are not already married," muttering the words more to herself than to the man. "Where does this girl, Dorothy live?" she asked, suddenly. "That I couldn't say, ma'am," he replied. "I only came to Gray Gables to-day, to work. I know only the little that I have heard the servants say while at their work this afternoon. They say Miss Dorothy is very beautiful." _

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