It was then that Virginia again proved her great courage and resourcefulness. Watching her chance, she hooked her left forearm under Rutley's chin about his throat, and simultaneously pressing her little right clenched fist against the small of his back, pulled his head backward, and screamed, "Help! Help!" [The act is a form of garrotte used in asylums and when resolutely applied quickly reduces the most powerful and refractory subject to submission.]

The suddenness of the attack and from such an unexpected quarter, accompanied by the choking pressure on his throat, caused Rutley to loosen his grip on the knife, which fell to the floor, and he exclaimed with a gurgling sound, "Oh, G.o.d!"

Sam instantly locked his arms around his body.

Rutley was powerless. His arms were firmly bound to his sides in a grip of iron. Meantime Smith stalked back and forth looking for trouble. He had arrived in front of the main entrance when the cry of "Help, help!" broke upon the still air. It proceeded from the second story of the house, and he at once recognized it as the voice of Virginia.

"By hivvins, the girl do be in throuble!" he muttered anxiously. "Ave it do be the blackguard we be lookin' for--sure!" And without further hesitation, Smith rushed up the steps and into the house.

Again the cry of "Help!" rang out.

"I'll help ye, darlint, be me soul, I will that. Hould him for wan minnit, and I'll attind to him. Oh, the skulkin' blackguard! 'E do be a bad divil, so 'e do. Just lave him to me, darlint; lave him to me, and I'll settle his nerves wid this bit of fir."

By this time Smith had mounted the stairs, when he was again startled to hear her cry: "Help! Oh, hasten, or blood will be shed!"

"I'm comin', darlint. Hould him wan minnit and I'll attind to him."

Upon entering the room, he at once seized Rutley's hands and twisted them behind his back.

"A bit of stout cord, miss, is what we want to bind the divil."

"Hold him!" and she flew to the linen closet.

"Hould him, is it!" exclaimed Smith, with a laugh. "Sure, miss, yees nadn't hint that to me at all, at all. Indade, miss, it's a nate bit ave wurruk well done, and I do be proud of yees, too, so I do."

Virginia soon entered the room with a stout piece of cord, which she handed to Sam, saying, "Oh, I'm so thankful for your opportune arrival!"

On seeing Rutley thoroughly secured, and her excitement subsiding, Virginia expressed her gratefulness to Sam and Smith for rescuing her from what she believed to be a terrible fate, then s.n.a.t.c.hing up the shawl from the floor, flew down the stairs with a cry of pain on her lips for Constance.

Having at last securely bound Rutley's hands, Sam signalized the event with a broad grin.

"There, old chappie! I don't think you will break away a second time."

"Sure, ave 'e do, 'twill be after this bit of Arigin fir's been splintered on his hid," answered Smith.

Rutley made no reply. He seemed absorbed in thought, and though chagrin and disgust on his face betrayed a sense of his plight, no expression of bitterness escaped him. His dauntless, debonair spirit was still unbroken.

"I had her bound and shut up in the closet," he muttered to himself.

It was an involuntary exclamation in an undertone, and at the moment he seemed quite oblivious to his position.

"Yees did!" explosively exclaimed Smith. "The likes of yees, a dirty, thavin' blackguard, to bind the young lady and shut her up in a closet! Sure, if I had seen yees do it, there'd be somethin' doin'."

And Smith flourished his stick in a threatening manner.

"The sissy is no match for a fool-killer," grinned Sam, as he wound the cord several additional turns around Rutley's arms and body.

"Outcla.s.sed by a slip of a girl," Rutley muttered abstractedly, and enslaved by her witchery; "surely h.e.l.l hath no cunning to match her genius for strategems!"

"Indade, the divil's imp is azey mark for the wit ave an Arigin girl, an' be the token ave it, yees'l go back and jine yees mate with the bracelets," said Smith ironically.

"Aunty is coming!" exclaimed Sam in a listening att.i.tude. "We must get him out of the house at once!"

"March, yees blackguard, march!" promptly ordered Smith, laying his hand roughly on Rutley's arm to urge him along.

"Hands off!" sharply exclaimed the latter, shaking Smith's hand off and regarding him with a haughty stare; then, in a cutting high-pitched voice, he went on: "No liberties, flannel-mouthed cur--scat!"

"He is game," muttered Sam.

The stigma uttered in tones of withering contempt fairly lashed Smith into a foaming pa.s.sion. He instantly dropped his stick, tore off his coat, spat on his hands, and while squaring off to Rutley, pranced about, beside himself with rage, and when he at last found speech, he said explosively: "Flannel-mouthed cur, is it yees be callin' me?

Sure, Oi'll attind to yees blackguard. Och, sure Oi wouldn't strike yees wid yees hands tied, ye murtherin' villain! Oi mane to be fair wid yees, too, so Oi do, though ye little desarve it, and be the token ave it, Oi'll sit ye free to recave the batin' that will make yees respect my nation!" and in the heat of his rage and quite forgetful of place and environment, furiously untied the knot Sam had made to fasten the cord which he wound several times around Rutley's body, and then giving it a vigorous pull, sent Rutley spinning around like a top.

The thing was done so quick that Sam in his surprise was unable to check Smith, and had difficulty in restraining him from untying Rutley's hands also.

"Hold, Smith! Have it out with him some other time, not now or here,"

he said, laying his hand on Smith's arm, and then observing Smith with an angry stare, directed at him, Sam grinned and went on mockingly:

"His lordship wants you to keep your hands off."

"'E do, do 'e?" replied Smith, his anger abating, and breaking into a hoa.r.s.e laugh; "sure, Oi would not touch yees at all, at all except wid a pair ave steel nippers." Then he put on his coat, picked up the stick and commenced to poke Rutley toward the door, saying meanwhile, much to Rutley's frowning mortification, but helpless resistance: "March, yees blue-blooded gintleman, with the appet.i.te for a pinitintiary risidence. March, yees thavin' ruffian, march!"

Scowling and turning, yet maintaining his always haughty bearing, Rutley pa.s.sed "off the stage" by the back stairs, accompanied by his guards, but as Sam had declared, "game to the last."

In order to avoid creating excitement by appearing within view of the little sorrowful group, now near the front of the house, they placed him in a vine-covered arbor, which was convenient and, leaving Smith to guard him, Sam hurried off to inform the officers of their capture.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Down on the beach they found her--the woman upon whom the blow had fallen so cruelly, and from whom the "grim sickle" had so recently turned aside.

She was sitting on a low gra.s.sy knoll, gentle and pensive, a vacant stare in her sweet brown eyes as they wistfully scanned the surface of the water.

"Oh, heavens! We must get her to the house at once! Go, Sam, bring the carriage down. Haste, haste!" urged Mr. Harris.

And then John Thorpe saw her. Absorbed in deep meditation of his wrong to his innocent wife, ashamed and sorrowful, he was proceeding to the little depot, when, observing the frantic rush down the slope, and desiring to ascertain its cause, yet with an indefinable panicky feeling that seemed to freeze the very blood in his veins, he followed on. Without an instant of delay, in a moment, he had leaped to her side, tenderly clasped her to his heart, and with a voice trembling with emotion, said:

"Oh, my darling wife, my pure, sweet, injured Constance! Forgive me!

It was all a terrible mistake!"

"I must go now. The storm is nearly over. I know that she is in the water, and the lilies are hiding her from me. But I shall find her.

Give me the paddles. Save Dorothy."

Constance had spoken in a soft, quiet voice. It had no touch of bitterness, no plaint of sadness; yet the yearning note of a heart dry with most intense grief was there--sounded on the chord of dethroned reason.

When she began to speak, he looked into her eyes with an eager, appealing tenderness, expecting a responsive, forgiving tear, but instead he met a gentle, strange, vacant stare. As she proceeded he held her from him at arms' length, bewildered and confused for the moment in his interpretation of her meaning, and then the truth burst upon him. Shocked and horrified, he cried out in the anguish of his heart, "Merciful heaven, she is mad!" And then his eyes fell on her wet garments.

"G.o.d forgive me, darling! I know you never can!" he said in a voice made husky with a great sob that rose up in his throat. Without further delay, he gathered her unresisting form in his arms and tenderly bore her up to the house. The grave little procession followed.

He had arrived with his precious burden close to the great steps of the piazza, when she struggled from his arms, and stood half turned about, her wistful brown eyes looking blankly at him.