The Masked Bridal Part 29

"Will nothing move you?" he pa.s.sionately cried.

"Nothing."

"By Heaven! then I will meet you blade to blade!" he cried, furiously, and springing to his feet, his eyes blazing with pa.s.sion. "If entreaties will not move you--if neither bribes nor promises will cause you to yield--we will try what lawful authority will do. I have no intention of being made the laughing stock of the world, I a.s.sure you; and, hereafter, I command that you conduct yourself in a manner becoming the position which I have given you. In the first place, then, to-morrow morning, you will breakfast in the dining-room with the family--do you hear?"

Edith had stood calmly regarding him during this speech; but, wis.h.i.+ng him to go on, if he had anything further to say, she did not attempt to reply as he paused after the above question.

"Immediately after breakfast," he resumed, with something less of excitement, and not feeling very comfortable beneath her unwavering glance, "we shall return to the city, and the following morning you and I will start for St. Augustine, Florida--thence go to California and later to Europe."

The young girl straightened herself to her full height, and she had never seemed more lovely than at that moment.

"Monsieur Correlli," she said, in a voice that rang with an irrevocable decision, "I shall never go to Florida with you, nor yet to California, neither to Europe; I shall never appear anywhere with you in public, neither will I ever break bread with you, at any table.

There, sir, you have my answer to your 'commands.' Now, let me pa.s.s."

Without waiting to see what effect her remarks might have upon him, she pushed resolutely by him and went swiftly upstairs to her room.

The man gazed after her in undisguised astonishment.

"By St. Michael! the girl has a tremendous spirit in that slight frame of hers. She has always seemed such a sweet little angel, too--no one would have suspected it. However, there are more ways than one to accomplish my purpose, and I flatter myself that I shall yet conquer her."

With this comforting reflection, he sought his sister, to relate what had occurred, and enlist her crafty talents in planning his next move in the desperate game he was playing.

CHAPTER XX.

EDITH RESOLVES TO MEET HER ENEMIES WITH THEIR OWN WEAPONS.

The morning following her interview with Emil Correlli, when Edith attempted to leave her room to go down to breakfast, she found, to her dismay, that her door had been fastened on the outside.

An angry flush leaped to her brow.

"So they imagine they can make me bend to their will by making a prisoner of me, do they?" she exclaimed, with flas.h.i.+ng eyes and scornful lips. "We shall see!"

But she was powerless just then to help herself, and so was obliged to make the best of her situation for the present.

Presently some one knocked upon her door, and she heard a bolt moved--it having been placed there during the night. Then Mrs. G.o.ddard appeared before her, smiling a gracious good-morning, and bearing a tray, upon which there was a daintily arranged breakfast.

"We thought it best for you to eat here, since you do not feel like coming down to the dining-room," she kindly remarked, as she set the tray upon the table.

Edith opened her lips to make some scathing retort; but, a bright thought suddenly flas.h.i.+ng through her mind, she checked herself, and replied, appreciatively:

"Thank you, Mrs. G.o.ddard."

The woman turned a surprised look upon her, for she had expected only tears and reproaches from her because of her imprisonment.

But Edith, without appearing to notice it, sat down and quietly prepared to eat her breakfast.

"Ah! she is beginning to come around," thought the wily woman.

But, concealing her secret pleasure at this change in her victim, she remarked, in her ordinary tone:

"We shall leave for the city very soon after breakfast, so please have everything ready so as not to keep the horses standing in the cold."

"Everything is ready now," said Edith, glancing at her trunk, which she had locked just before trying the door.

"That is well, and I will send for you when the carriage comes around."

Edith simply bowed to show that she heard, and then her companion retired, locking the door after her, but marveling at the girl's apparent submission.

"There is no way to outwit rogues except with their own weapons--cunning and deceit," murmured the fair prisoner, bitterly, as she began to eat her breakfast. "I will be very wary and apparently submissive until I have matured my plans, and then they may chew their cud of defeat as long as it pleases them to do so."

After finis.h.i.+ng her meal she dressed herself for the coming drive, but wondered why Mrs. Weld had not been up to see her, for, of course, she must know that something unusual had happened, or that she was ill again, since she had not joined her at breakfast.

A little later she heard a stealthy step outside her door, and the next moment an envelope was slipped beneath it into her room; then the steps retreated, and all was still again.

Rising, Edith picked up the missive and opened it, when another sealed envelope, addressed to her, in a beautiful, lady-like hand, and postmarked Boston, was revealed, together with a brief note hastily written with a pencil.

This latter proved to be from Mrs. Weld.

"Dear Child," it ran, "I have been requested not to go to you this morning, as you are particularly engaged, which, of course, I understand as a command to keep out of the way.

But I want you to know that I mean to stand by you, and shall do all in my power to help you. I shall manage to see or write to you again in a day or two. Meantime, don't lose heart.

"Affectionately yours,

"GERTRUDE WELD.

"P.S.--The inclosed letter came for you in last night's mail. I captured it for you."

With an eager light in her eyes, Edith opened it and read:

"Boston, Feb. --, 18--.

"MY DEAR MISS ALLEN:--I have learned of the wretched deception that has been practiced upon you, and hasten to write this to a.s.sure you that my previous offer of friends.h.i.+p--when we met at the time of the accident to my coachman--was not a mere matter of form. Again I say, if you need a friend, come to me, and I will do my utmost to s.h.i.+eld you from those who have shown themselves your worst enemies, and whom I know to be unworthy of the position which they occupy in the social world. Come to me when you will, and I promise to protect you from them. I cannot say more upon paper.

"Sincerely yours,

ISABEL STEWART."

"How very kind, and yet how very strange!" murmured Edith, as she refolded the letter. "I wonder who could have told her about that wretched affair of Tuesday evening. I wonder, too, what she knows about the G.o.ddards, and if I had better accept her friendly offer."

She reflected upon the matter for a few minutes, and then continued:

"I think I will go to New York first, as I had planned, see what Mr.

Bryant can do for me, and ascertain the meaning of that strange personal; then I think I will come back and ask her to take me as a companion--for I do not believe that what I shall learn to my financial advantage will amount to enough to preclude the necessity of my doing something for my support. I suppose I ought to answer this letter, though," she added, meditatively; "but I believe I shall not dare to until I am safely away from Boston, for if my reply should fall into the hands of any member of this family, my plans might be frustrated."