The Masked Bridal Part 11

"There is something very, very queer about Mrs. Weld," she mused. "I do not believe she is what she appears at all. She has come into this house for some mysterious purpose--as mysterious, I believe, as the people who have employed her."

CHAPTER X.

"THE GIRL IS DOOMED!--SHE HAS SEALED HER OWN FATE!"

Edith looked very lovely when her toilet for the evening was completed.

We have never seen her in any but very ordinary costumes, for she had worn mourning for her dear ones for two years, but if she was attractive in these somber garments, symbols of her sorrows, she was a hundred-fold more so in the spotless and dainty dress which was almost the only souvenir that she possessed of those happy, beautiful days when she had lived in a Fifth avenue palace, and was the petted darling of fortune.

There was not a single ornament about her, excepting the pretty chain and diamond-hearted shamrock which Mrs. Weld had that evening given to her, and which she had involuntarily kissed before clasping it about her neck.

Mrs. G.o.ddard had commissioned her to superintend the dressing-rooms, to see that the maids provided everything needful for the comfort of her guests and to look in upon them occasionally and ascertain if they were attending to their duties, until everybody had arrived; after which she was to come to her behind the scenes in the carriage-house.

Thus, after her toilet was completed, she descended to the second floor, to see that these orders were carried out.

In the ladies' dressing-rooms, she found everything in the nicest possible order, and then pa.s.sed on to those allotted to the gentlemen, in one of which she found that the maids had neglected to provide drinking water.

She was upon the point of leaving the room to have the matter attended to, when Mr. G.o.ddard, attired in full evening dress, even to gloves, entered.

"Where is Mollie?" he inquired, but with a visible start of surprise, as he noticed Edith's exceeding loveliness.

"I think she is in one of the other rooms," she replied. "Shall I call her for you?"

"Yes, if you please; or--" with a lingering glance of admiration--"perhaps you will help me with these gloves. I find it troublesome to b.u.t.ton them."

"Certainly," replied the young girl, but flus.h.i.+ng beneath his look, and, taking the silver b.u.t.ton-hook from him, she proceeded to perform the simple service for him, but noticed, while doing so, the taint of liquor on his breath.

"Thank you," he said, appreciatively, when the last b.u.t.ton was fastened. Then bending lower to look into her eyes, he added, softly: "How lovely you are to-night, Miss Edith!"

She drew herself away from him, with an air of offended dignity, and would have pa.s.sed from the room had he not placed himself directly in her way, thus cutting off her escape.

"Nay, nay, pretty one; do not be so shy of me," he went on, insinuatingly. "Why have you avoided me of late? We have not had one of our cozy social chats for a long time. Did madam's unreasonable fit of jealousy that day in the library frighten you? Pray, do not mind her--she has always been like that ever since--well, for many years."

"Mr. G.o.ddard! I beg you will cease. I cannot listen to you!" cried Edith. "Let me pa.s.s, if you please. I have an order to give one of the housemaids."

"Tut! tut! little one; the order can wait, and it is not kind of you to fly at me like that. I have been drawn toward you ever since you came into the family, and every day only serves to strengthen the spell that you have been weaving about me. Come now, tell me that you will try to return my fondness for you--"

"Mr. G.o.ddard! what is the meaning of this strange language? You have no right to address me thus; it is an insult to me--a wicked wrong against your wife--"

"My wife!" the man burst forth, mockingly, and with a strangely bitter laugh.

A frown contracted his brow, and his lips were compressed into a vindictive line, as he again bent toward the fair girl.

"I do not love her," he said, hoa.r.s.ely; "she has killed all my affection for her by her infernally variable moods, her jealousy, her vanity, and her inordinate pa.s.sion for worldly pleasure, to the exclusion of all home responsibilities. Moreover--"

"I must not listen to you! Oh! let me go!" cried Edith, in a voice of distress.

Before Edith was aware of his intention, he bent his lips close to her face, and whispered something, in swift sentences, that made her shrink from him with a sudden cry of mingled pain and dismay, and cover her ears with her pretty hands.

"I do not believe it!" she panted; "oh! I cannot believe it. I am sure you do not know what you are saying, Mr. G.o.ddard."

Her words appeared to arouse him to a sense of the fact that he was compromising himself most miserably in her estimation.

"No, I don't suppose you can," he muttered, a half-dazed expression on his face; "and I've no business to be telling you any such things.

But, all the same, I am very fond of you, pretty one, and I do not believe this is any place for you. You are too fair and sweet to serve a woman with such a disposition as madam possesses, and I wish you would leave her when we go back to the city. I know you are poor, and have no friends upon whom you can depend; but I would settle a comfortable annuity upon you, so that you could be independent, and make a pretty little home for your--"

"How dare you talk to me like this? Do you think I have no pride--no self-respect?" Edith demanded, as she haughtily threw back her proud head and confronted the man with blazing eyes.

Her act and the flash of the diamond attracted his attention to the little chain and shamrock upon her breast.

The sight seemed to paralyze him for a moment, for he stood like one turned to marble.

"Where did you get it?" he at last demanded, in a scarcely, audible voice, as he pointed a trembling finger at the jewel. "Tell me!--tell me! how came you by it?"

Edith regarded him with astonishment.

Involuntarily she put up her hand and covered the ornament from his gaze.

"It was given to me," she briefly replied.

"Who gave it to you?"

"A friend."

"Was it your--a relative?" cried the man, in a hoa.r.s.e whisper.

"No, it was simply a friend."

"Tell me who!"

Edith thought a moment. If she should tell Mr. G.o.ddard that the shamrock had been given to her by the housekeeper, it might subject the woman to an unpleasant interview with the master of the house, and, perhaps, place her in a very awkward position.

She resolved upon the only course left--that of refusing to reveal the name of the giver.

"All that I can tell you, Mr. G.o.ddard," she gravely said, at last, "is that the chain and ornament were given to me very recently by an aged friend--"

"Aged!" the man interposed, eagerly.

"Yes, by a person who must be at least sixty years of age," the young girl replied.

"Ah!" The e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n was one of supreme relief. "Excuse me, Miss Allen!" he continued, in a more natural manner than he had yet spoken.

"I did not mean to be curious, but--a--a person whom I once knew had an ornament very similar to the one you wear--"

He was interrupted just at this point by the sound of a rich, mellow laugh that echoed down the hall like a strain of sweetest music; whereupon Gerald G.o.ddard jumped as if some one had dealt him a heavy blow on the back.