Dangerous Ground Part 27

"Madam, let us understand each other. One year ago the name of Warburton had never known a stain; now--"

He let the wrath in his eyes, the scorn in his face, finish what his lips left unsaid.

But the eyes of his beautiful opponent flashed him back scorn for scorn.

"Now," she said, with calm contempt in her voice, "now, the proudest man of the Warburton race has stepped down from his pedestal to play the spy, and upon a woman! I thank you for rescuing me, Alan Warburton, but I have no thanks to offer for _that_!"

"A spy!" He winced as his lips framed the word. "We are calling hard names, Mrs. Warburton. If I was a spy in that house, _what_ were you! I _have_ been a spy upon your actions, and I have seen that which has caused me to blush for my brother's wife, and tremble for my brother's honor. More than once I have seen you leave this house, and return to it, clandestinely. It was one of these secret expeditions, which I discovered by the merest chance, that aroused my watchfulness. More than once have letters pa.s.sed to and fro through some disreputable-looking messenger. To-night, for the first time, I discovered _where_ you paid your visits, but not to _whom_. To-night I traced you to the vilest den in all the city. Madam, this mystery must be cleared up. What wretched secret have you brought into my brother's house? What sin or shame are you hiding under his name? What is this disgrace that is likely to burst upon us at any moment?"

Slowly she moved toward him, looking straight into his angry, scornful face. Slowly she answered:

"Alan Warburton, you have appointed yourself my accuser; you shall not be my judge. I am answerable to you for nothing. From this moment I owe you neither courtesy nor grat.i.tude. I _have_ a secret, but it shall be told to my husband, not to you. If I have done wrong, I have wronged him, not you. You have insulted me under my own roof to-night, for the last time. I will tell my story to Archibald now; he shall judge between us."

She turned away, but he laid a detaining hand upon her arm.

"Stop!" he said, "you must not go to Archibald with this; you shall not!"

"Shall not!" she exclaimed scornfully; "and who will prevent it?"

"I will prevent it. Woman, have you neither heart nor conscience? Would you add murder to your list of transgressions?"

"Let me go, Alan Warburton," she answered impatiently; "I have done with you."

"But I have not done with you! Oh, you know my brother well; he is trusting, confiding, blind where you are concerned. He believes in your truth, and he must continue so to believe. He must not hear of this night's work."

"But he shall; every word of it."

"Every word! Take care, Mrs. Warburton. Will you tell him of the lover who was here to-night, disguised as a woman, the better to hover about you?"

"You wretch!" She threw off his restraining hand and turned upon him, her eyes blazing. Then, after a moment, the fierce look of indignation gave place to a smile of contempt.

"Yes," she said, turning again toward the door, "I shall tell him of that too."

"Then you will give him his death-blow; understand that! Yesterday, when his physician visited him, he told us the truth. Archibald's life is short at best; any shock, any strong emotion or undue excitement, will cause his death. Quiet and rest are indispensable. To-morrow--to-day, you were to be told these things. By Archibald's wish they were withheld from you until now, lest they should spoil your pleasure in the masquerade."

The last words were mockingly uttered, but Leslie paid no heed to the tone.

"Are you telling me the truth?" she demanded. "Must I play my part still?"

"I am telling you the truth. You must continue to play your part, so far as he is concerned. For his sake I ask you to trust me. You bear our name, our honor is in your keeping. Whatever your faults, your misdeeds, have been, they must be kept secrets still. I ask you to trust me,--not that I may denounce you, but to enable me to protect us all from the consequences of your follies."

If the words were conciliatory, the tone was hard and stern. Alan Warburton could ill play the role he had undertaken.

The look she now turned upon him was one of mingled wonder and scorn.

"You are incomprehensible," she said. "I am gratified to know that it was not my life nor my honor, but your own name, that you saved to-night,--it lessens my obligation. Being a woman, I am nothing; being a Warburton, disgrace must not touch me! So be it. If I may not confide in my husband, I will keep my own counsel still. And if I cannot master my trouble alone, then, perhaps, as a last resort, and for the sake of the Warburton honor, I will call upon you for aid."

There was no time for a reply. While the last words were yet on her lips, the heavy curtains were thrust hastily aside and Winnie French, pallid and trembling, stood in the doorway.

"Leslie! Alan!" she cried, coming toward them with a sob in her throat, "we have lost little Daisy!"

"Lost her!"

Alan Warburton uttered the two words as one who does not comprehend their meaning. But Leslie stood transfixed, like one stunned, yet not startled, by an antic.i.p.ated blow.

"We have hunted everywhere," Winnie continued wildly. "She is not in the house, she is not--"

She catches her breath at the cry that breaks from Leslie's lips, and for a moment those three, their festive garments in startling contrast with their woe-stricken faces, regard each other silently.

Then Leslie, overcome at last by the acc.u.mulating horrors of this terrible night, sways, gasps, and falls forward, pallid and senseless, at Alan Warburton's feet.

CHAPTER XX.

BETRAYED BY A PICTURE.

Little Daisy Warburton was missing. The blow that had prostrated Leslie at its first announcement, struck Archibald Warburton with still heavier force. It was impossible to keep the truth from him, and when it became known, his feeble frame would not support the shock. At day-dawn, he lay in a death-like lethargy. At night, he was raving with delirium. And on the second day, the physicians said:

"There is no hope. His life is only a thing of days."

Leslie and Alan were faithful at his bedside,--she, the tenderest of nurses; he, the most sleepless of watchers. But they avoided an interchange of word or glance. To all appearance, they had lost sight of themselves in the presence of these new calamities--Archibald's hopeless condition, and the loss of little Daisy.

No time had been wasted in prosecuting the search for the missing child.

When all had been done that could be done,--when monstrous rewards had been offered, when the police were scouring the city, and private detectives were making careful investigations,--Leslie and Alan took their places at the bedside of the stricken father, and waited, the heart of each heavy with a burden of unspoken fear and a new, terrible suspicion.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Leslie! Alan!" she cried, coming toward them with a sob in her throat, "we have lost little Daisy!"--page 155.]

So two long, dreary days pa.s.sed away, with no tidings from the lost and no hope for the dying.

During these two days, Van Vernet and Richard Stanhope were not idle.

The struggle between them had commenced on the night of the masquerade, and now there would be no turning back until the one became victor, the other vanquished.

Having fully convinced himself that Vernet had deliberately ignored all their past friends.h.i.+p, and taken up the cudgel against him, for reward and honor, Stanhope resolved at least to vindicate himself; while Vernet, dominated by his ambition, had for his watchword, "success!

success!"

Fully convinced that behind that which was visible at the Francoise hovel, lay a mystery, Vernet resolved upon fathoming that mystery, and he set to work with rare vigor.

Having first aroused the interest of the authorities in the case, Vernet caused three rewards to be offered. One for the apprehension of the murderer of the man who had been identified as one Josef Siebel, professional rag-picker, and of Jewish extraction, having a sister who ran a thieving "old clo'" business, and a brother who kept a disreputable p.a.w.n shop.

The second and third rewards were for the arrest of, or information concerning, the fellow calling himself "Silly Charlie," and the parties who had occupied the hovel up to the night of the murder.

These last "rewards" were accompanied by such descriptions of Papa and Mamma Francoise as Vernet could obtain at second-hand, and by more accurate descriptions of the Sailor, and Silly Charlie.

Rightly judging that sooner or later Papa Francoise, or some of his confederates, would attempt to remove the concealed booty from the deserted hovel,--which, upon being searched, furnished conclusive proof that buying rags at a bargain was not Papa's sole occupation,--Van Vernet set a constant watch upon the house, hoping thus to discover the new hiding-place of the two Francoise's. Having accomplished thus much, he next turned his attention to his affairs with the aristocrat of Warburton Place.