child.

8

“Go away, you miserable beggar-woman,” she cried, “or I shall set the hounds on you at once. Do you hear me, I say?”

“Who are you?” questioned the woman, in the same low, guarded voice.

The child threw her head back proudly, her voice rising shrilly above the wild warring of the elements, as she answered:

“Know, then, I am Pluma, the heiress of Whitestone Hall.”

The child formed a strange picture––her dark, wild face, so strangely like the mysterious woman’s own, standing vividly out against the crimson lightning flashes, her dark curls blown about the gypsy-like face, the red lips curling scornfully, her dark eyes gleaming.

“Pluma,” called the woman, softly, “come here.”

“How dare you, a beggar-woman, call me!” cried the child, furiously.

“Pluma––come––here––instantly!”

There was a subtle something in the stranger’s voice that throbbed through the child’s pulses like leaping fire––a strange, mysterious influence that bound her, heart and soul, like the mesmeric influence a serpent exerts over a fascinated dove. Slowly, hesitatingly, this child, whose fiery will had never bowed before human power, came timidly forward, step by step, close to the iron gate against which the woman’s face was pressed. She stretched out her hand, and it rested for a moment on the child’s dark curls.

“Pluma, the gate is locked,” she said. “Do you know where the keys are?”

“No,” answered the child.

“They used to hang behind the pantry door––a great bunch of them. Don’t they hang there now?”

“Ye––es.”

“I thought so,” muttered the woman, triumphantly. “Now, listen, Pluma; I want you to do exactly as I bid you. I want you to go quickly and quietly, and bring me the longest and thinnest one. You are not to breathe one word of this to any living soul. Do you understand, Pluma––I command you to do it.”

“Yes,” answered the child, dubiously.

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