The Unseen Bridegroom Part 23

She rose up impatiently and began pacing the room--always her first impulse in moments of perplexity.

"I'm a mystery and a puzzle to myself and to everybody else. I don't know who I am, nor what my real name may be--if I have any right to a name! I don't know what I am to this Mr. Walraven, and I don't know who that mysterious woman, Miriam, is. I don't know anything. I have a husband, and I don't know him--shouldn't recognize him if I met him face to face this instant. I'm like the mysterious orphans in the story-books, and I expect it will turn out I have a duke for a father, somewhere or other."

Miss Dane walked to the window, drew the curtain, and looked out.

The full April moon, round and white, shone down in silvery radiance upon the deserted avenue; the sky was aglitter with myriad stars; the rattling of belated vehicles came, faint and far off, on the windless night.

No-one was visible--not even a stray "guardian of the night," treading his solitary round--and Mollie, after one glance at the starry concave, was about to drop the curtain and retire, when a tall, dark figure came fluttering up the street, pausing before the Walraven mansion, and gazing up earnestly at its palatial front.

Mollie recognized that towering form instantly, and, impulsively opening the sash, she leaned forward and called:

"Miriam!"

The woman heard her, responded, and advanced.

Mollie leaned further out.

"Have you come to see me?"

"I should like to see you. I heard you had returned, and came here, though I did not expect to meet you at this hour."

"Wait one moment," said Mollie; "I will go down and let you in."

She closed the window and flew down-stairs, opened the house door softly, and beckoned.

Miriam entered. Ten minutes later, and they were safely closeted in the young lady's cozy room.

"Sit down, Aunt Miriam, and take off your shawl. You look cold and wretched and half starved."

The woman turned her hollow eyes mournfully upon her. They were indeed a contrast--the bright vision in the rose silk dress, the floating amber curls, the milky pearls, the foamy lace, and the weird woman in the wretched rags, with sunken cheeks and hollow, spectral eyes.

"I am cold and wretched and half starved," she said, in a harsh voice--"a miserable, homeless outcast, forsaken of G.o.d and man. My bed is a bundle of filthy straw, my food a crust or a bone, my garments rags from the gutters. And yet I accept my fate, since you are rich and well and happy."

"My poor, poor Miriam! Let me go and get you something to eat, and a gla.s.s of wine to refresh you. It is dreadful to see any human being so dest.i.tute."

She started impetuously up, but Miriam stretched forth her hand to detain her, her fierce eyes flaming up.

"Not half so dreadful, Mollie Dane, as the eating the bread or drinking the cup of Carl Walraven! No; I told him before, and I tell you now, I would die in a kennel, like a stray dog, before I would accept help from him."

"Miriam!"

Miriam made an impatient gesture.

"Don't let us talk about me. Let us talk about yourself. It is my first chance since you came here. You are well and happy, are you not? You look both."

"I am well and I am happy; that is, as happy as I can be, shrouded in mystery. Miriam, I have been thinking about myself. I have learned to think, of late, and I would give a year of my life to know who I am."

"What do you want to know?" Miriam asked, gloomily.

"Who I am; what my name may be; who were my parents--everything that I ought to know."

"Why do you speak to me about it?"

"Because you know, I am certain; because you can tell me, if you will.

Tell me, Miriam--tell me!"

She leaned forward, her ringed hands clasped, her blue eyes lighted and eager, her pretty face aglow. But Miriam drew back with a frown.

"I have nothing to tell you, Mollie--nothing that would make you better or happier to hear. Be content and ask no questions."

"I can't be content, and I must ask questions!" the girl cried, pa.s.sionately. "If you cared for me, as you seem to, you would tell me!

What is Mr. Walraven to me? Why has he brought me here?"

"Ask him."

"He won't tell me. He says he took a fancy to me, seeing me play 'Fanchon' at K----, and brought me here and adopted me. A very likely story! No, Miriam; I am silly enough, Heaven knows, but I am not quite so silly as that. He came after me because you sent him, and because I have some claim on him he dare not forego. What is it, Miriam? Am I his daughter?"

Miriam sat and stared at her a moment in admiring wonder, then her dark, gaunt face relaxed into a grim smile.

"What a sharp little witch it is! His daughter, indeed! What do you think about it yourself? Does the voice of nature speak in your filial heart, or is the resemblance between you so strong?"

Mollie shook her sunny curls.

"The 'voice of nature' has nothing to say in the matter, and I am no more like him than a white chick is like a mastiff. But it might be so, you know, for all that."

"I know. Would it make you any happier to know you were his daughter?"

"I don't know," said Mollie, thoughtfully. "I dare say not. For, if I were his daughter and had a right to his name, I would probably bear it, and be publicly acknowledged as such before now; and if I am his daughter, with no right to his name, I know I would not live ten-minutes under the same roof with him after finding it out."

"Sharp little Mollie! Ask no questions, then, and I'll tell you no lies.

Take the goods the G.o.ds provide, and be content."

"But, Miriam, are you really my aunt?"

"Yes; that much is true."

"And your name is Dane?"

"It is."

"And my mother was your sister, and I bear my mother's name?"

The dark, weather-beaten face of the haggard woman lighted up with a fiery glow, and into either eye leaped a devil.

"Mollie Dane, if you ever want me to speak to you again, never breathe the name of your mother. Whatever she did, and whatever she was, the grave has closed over her, and there let her lie. I never want to hear her name this side of eternity."

Mollie looked almost frightened; she shrunk away with a wistful little sigh.