the vindictive face of Isabella Drury. Older, careworn, faded—but still Isabella, and wearing the head of a Medusa. "You shall never marry that girl, Egbert Mason! I have sworn it! If you attempt it I will kill one or both of you!" and the face of the speaker was like a mad woman. "Oh, I know all you would say," she went on, striding about the rooms she had entered by strategy. "But she shall not have you if I can not. Pshaw! What fools men are! Do you know who and what she is? Where is your boasted pride, that shrank from a thing like me! Let me tell you, [pg 67] then, you scornful, high mightiness! Eleanor Carleton is——" and she hissed the hateful word in his ears. [pg 67] "Woman! You lie!" shouted Egbert Mason, stung to frenzy by her taunts, and sick unto death of her persecution. His was not a quiet nature, and she had touched him in his sorest point. "You lie, and you know it! Out of my sight! Tell all you will. I, too, can threaten. Your vile secret is still safe with me, but I shall find means to be rid of you—Go!" "Stop!" she commanded, coming nearer and dropping her voice to a sibillant whisper. "Go back seventeen years to a summer night at Crab Orchard Springs! Aha! you start, I see you have not forgotten. Do you recollect the part you played that night? She is that child!" and with a malicious laugh she swiftly passed from the room. The man sat stunned where she had left him. Could it be true? And what was the mystery of that far-away night of his youth? The more he pondered the more complete grew the chain. Senator Carleton had married a Kentucky girl, it was true; but her youth had been passed on a Mississippi plantation. He had years ago heard more or less idle gossip about the hard, miserly nature of the old planter, Hamilton, and of his bitter opposition to his daughter's match with penniless young Carleton. There [pg 68] had been an elopement, or something. It came back to him like some [pg 68] hideous nightmare. His pure, spotless darling—his promised wife! Could there be sin or shame enveloping such a being? He must know. He wrote to Mrs. Carleton. In earnest words of manly truth and honor he besought her to explain to him the past. Eleanor was visiting a friend in a distant city. No answer came. He went to the house and was denied admittance. He followed Eleanor only to learn that she had been hastily summoned home. That was not the day of rapid transit.
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