Chapter 22

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_ CHAPTER XXII It was the most pitiful scene that pen could describe. The beautiful young girl, in her dress of fleecy white, with the faded purple blossoms on her breast entwined among the meshes of her disheveled golden hair, crouching back among the green leaves, and the white-faced, handsome, angry man clutching her white arm, crying out hoarsely that never again should they both breathe the same air beneath that roof--that she must leave Gray Gables within the hour, or he would. "I did not know that I had done so terribly wrong," moaned the girl, shrinking back from those angry, fiery eyes that glowered down so fiercely into her own. A laugh that was more horrible than the wildest imprecation could have been broke from his lips. "You seem to have a remarkably mixed idea of right and wrong," he retorted, sternly, relaxing his hold and standing before her with rigid, folded arms, his anger growing more intense with each passing instant as he looked down into the girl's agonized face. Had she done so very, very wrong in remaining in the conservatory, and in listening to her betrothed make love to her rival? she wondered vaguely. Surely, she should have been the one to have cried out in bitter anger, not he. "Let me tell you how it all came about," she gasped, faintly. "I--I was in the ball-room with Katy, when it grew so warm that I sent for an ice. She did not return as soon as I had expected her, and--and I groped my way out into the garden to await her there. But as I stepped from the porch a wonderful thing happened, Harry. I--I missed my footing and fell headlong down the steps to the graveled walk below, and the shock restored my sight. Oh! look at me, Harry!" she exclaimed, with quivering intensity, holding out her white arms toward him. "I can see now. I can see your idolized face, oh, my beloved! I--I came here to tell you this--to tell you the wonderful tidings! I intended to send to the ball-room for you, but before I could put my intention into execution I--I heard steps approaching, and drew back among the screening leaves till they should pass. You came in with Iris Vincent, and I heard what you said, and my brain whirled--I grew dazed. You--you know the rest!" He was not overwhelmed by the great tidings that she had regained her sight, as she had expected he would be. Instead, he retorted brusquely: "It was a pity that your sight returned to you to enable you to do so dastardly a deed; and I am beginning to have my doubts whether or not you have not been duping us all along, and, under that guise, spying upon us--which seems to be your forte. This revelation makes me angrier than ever," he went on, "for it leaves you with no possible hope of pardon for your atrocious conduct, which merits the whole world's scorn and contempt!" "I see it all!" cried Dorothy, springing to her feet and facing him. "You have prearranged this quarrel with me to break our betrothal, that you might wed your new love--Iris Vincent. But, just for pure spite, I will not release you--never! I will tell the whole world of your duplicity. An engagement is a solemn thing. It takes two to enter into it and two to break it." The scorn on his handsome face deepened. "I do not very well see how you can marry a man when he makes up his mind not to have you," he declared. "That is a difficult feat, and I shall have to see it done before I can be convinced that it can be accomplished," he replied, icily, adding: "There are many women in this world who would stand back and watch such a proceeding with the wildest anxiety, I imagine;" this sneeringly. "You shall never marry Iris Vincent!" Dorothy panted. "I--I would prevent it at any cost. Once before you forsook me when I needed you most; you left me to die when I fell from the steamer down into the dark water, when we were returning from Staten Island, that never-to-be-forgotten night; so why should I be surprised at your willingness to desert me now?" He turned on his heel. "It is now two o'clock in the morning," he said. "My duty requires me to go down to the ball-room and bid the guests adieu as they take their departure, and when that is over I shall leave this house until this difficulty has been settled. The reading of Doctor Bryan's will is to take place at noon. I shall be present then, and after that--well--well, we shall see what will take place." With these words Kendal quitted the room, and left Dorothy standing there with the tears falling like rain down her cheeks--surely the most piteous object in the whole wide world. When Kendal found himself alone his intense anger against Dorothy began to cool a little. "It is true she attempted to do a horrible deed," he muttered; "but I must not forget that love for me prompted her to it, and show her some mercy." After all the guests had taken their departure, and the house had settled down into the darkness and quiet of the waning night, Kendal paced his room in a greatly perturbed state of mind, thinking the matter over. He was terribly in love with Iris, he admitted to himself; but he had done wrong, fearfully wrong, in breaking off his engagement with Dorothy until after the reading of the will. Iris was beautiful, bewitching--his idea of all that a proud, imperious, willful sweetheart should be--but Dorothy would have what was much better than all this, the golden shekels; and then, too, now that the girl was no longer blind, she would have plenty of admirers; and he could have cursed himself for those hasty words, that no longer should she live under the same roof with himself. It was daylight when he threw himself down on the bed, fairly worn out; and his head no sooner touched the pillow than he fell into a deep sleep, and it was almost noon ere he opened his eyes again, and then it was the slow, measured chime of the clock as it struck the half hour which awakened him. "Great Heaven! half past eleven!" he ejaculated, springing from the couch. "I shall barely have time to get downstairs to be present at the reading of the will. I must make all haste; but first of all I must find out how Iris is, and if her shoulder pains her much." He rang the bell hastily, and to the servant who answered the summons he gave his verbal message to Miss Vincent. But in a very short time the man returned, placing a letter in his hand. Kendal was mystified, for he saw that it was Iris' delicate chirography. He tore open the envelope with the fever of impatience, and as his eye fell upon the delicately written lines his handsome face turned white as marble.

"My DEAR HARRY," it commenced, "you will feel greatly surprised at the contents of this letter. I think it best to break into the subject at once, and to tell you the plain truth of just what has happened. "Shortly after I left you and retired to my own apartments the pain in my shoulder became so intense that, remembering there was a young surgeon among the invited guests, I sent for him at once. I can never tell you just exactly how it came about, but the upshot of the whole matter was that he asked me to marry him. "I wanted time to consider it; but he said it must be then and there, within the hour, or never. I demurred, but he was resolute. "I realized that I held my future in my own hands, and that I had to decide upon my own destiny at once. "He is a millionaire's son, and you are only a poor, struggling physician. Can you wonder that it could terminate only in one way? "I accepted him, and by the time that you are reading this we shall be married and far away. So good-bye, Harry. Try and forgive me, if you can. "IRIS."

With a horrible imprecation, Kendal tore the note into a thousand fragments, hurled them upon the floor, and ground his heel into them. "False!" he cried. "I might have known it. It is always these beautiful women who are so heartless. They draw men on with their smiles and their bewitching fascinations, only to throw them over when a more eligible parti appears upon the scene." Deeply as he had been smitten with her charms, her action caused an instantaneous revulsion of feeling. "'What care I how fair she be, if she be not fair to me?'" he cried out, bitterly, to himself. "What a fool I was, to be duped by her so long! The iron has entered deep into my soul, but she shall see that she can not quite crush me. I will live to be revenged upon Iris Vincent if it costs me my life! If Dorothy inherits the million, I will marry her before the sun sets to-night. I only wish that I had known the way that affairs were shaping themselves. I--I should not have treated Dorothy so harshly." It seemed as though all in an instant his heart went back to her in the rebound. He rushed hurriedly down into the dining-room, there to be met by Mrs. Kemp, who advanced toward him with a white, startled face. "Oh, Mr. Kendal," she gasped, breathlessly, "you can never in the world guess what has happened!" "I rather think I can," retorted the young man, harshly: "your niece, Miss Vincent, has eloped with the millionaire's son across the way." "That--that is not what I had reference to," said Mrs. Kemp, with a sob. "I--I admit that Iris has eloped, but it is not she whom I meant, but Dorothy." "What of her?" cried Kendal, sharply, little dreaming the truth. _

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