"Oh, my dearest, what have they done to you, my treasure, the ruthless enemies who hated you!"

At that moment a stately figure in rustling silk crossed the threshold, and a haughty voice exclaimed:

"Doctor Platt and Mr. Chilton, will you kindly withdraw for a few moments? I wish to speak privately with my step-son."

She closed the door on their retreating forms, glanced scornfully at the silent, sleeping face of Mrs. Chase, and exclaimed, eagerly:

"What strange story is this that is being whispered around, Love, that Dainty has deserted you and eloped with a more favored lover?"

"There is the note I found on her pillow. You are welcome to read it,"

he replied, coldly.

She took it up from the table, glanced quickly over the contents, and groaned:

"What a wicked girl to throw you over at the eleventh hour like this!

How will you bear the shame of it, my poor boy, jilted like this, at the very altar, by the poor n.o.body whom you had stooped to raise to your side?"

Love answered not one word. He simply rested his head on his elbow, and stared curiously into Mrs. Ellsworth's eager, excited face with his dark, penetrating eyes as she continued:

"I am pained for you, my dear Love, but not at all surprised. I feared something like this, for I knew that Vernon Ashley was Dainty's lover, not Ela's, and I believed that love would triumph in the end over the greed for gold. Poor Dainty! she must have loved him well to sacrifice all her ambitions for a poor man's love. But she will be happier with him than she could have been with you. The hand without the heart does not promise well for wedded bliss."

Still without a word, he listened to the fluent tide of her speech, a strange, mocking light in his eyes, whose portent she could not fathom.

She continued, insinuatingly:

"But Dainty Chase has done you a cruel injustice, Love, for, besides depriving you of a bride to-day, she has cheated you out of your inheritance. Remember, unless you are married to-day, your fortune reverts to me!"

He bowed in silence, and Mrs. Ellsworth added, nervously:

"No wonder you are stricken dumb by the magnitude of your misfortune, losing everything that made life worth living, as it were. But cheer up, my dear boy, for I am not so selfish as to wish to deprive you of your fortune; and as soon as I heard that Dainty had eloped with another, I began to plan to help you, and I soon saw that there was a way out of your difficulty."

"Yes?" Love said, inquiringly, and his pale lips curled with a sneer whose subtle meaning she could not understand; but taking it for encouragement, she blurted out, boldly:

"The preacher is here, the people are here, and the wedding-breakfast waits. You can vanquish fate if you will. Though Dainty is gone, I have two other nieces."

Again that cold, scornful smile as she added, desperately:

"I see that Dainty advises you here to marry either Olive or Ela. Well, you can have either one for the asking."

His pale, writhing lips unclosed to ask, curtly:

"Are you speaking with their permission?"

"Yes," she replied, eagerly and hopefully, feeling sure that he must capitulate now and yield to her wishes. It was better to marry the wrong girl than lose such a princely fortune. It was impossible that he should hesitate over such a question.

She waited, almost confident of his answer, only wondering which he would choose--Olive, who was her secret preference, or the equally pretty Ela.

But he was slow in making his choice. Suddenly sitting upright, he gazed curiously at her excited face several minutes without replying, until the silence grew irksome, and she cried, with veiled impatience:

"I do not wish to hurry you, Love, but you must see for yourself how important it is that you should make a speedy decision. The bishop and the guests are waiting for the wedding, and unless it comes off soon the breakfast will be spoiled."

Slowly Love got upon his feet, and steadying his trembling frame by a hand on the back of a chair, startled her with the mocking words:

"You have plotted cleverly, madame, but you have lost the game. Neither Olive nor Ela will ever be bride of mine!"

Her eyes flashed in her pale face, and she said, insolently:

"Very well, then; I am the mistress of Ellsworth, and you a pauper!"

"Not so fast; you have not heard all," he answered coolly. "I understand the little game you have been playing, madame, you and your two clever nieces. You have plotted to frighten Dainty to death, but foiled in that, you kidnaped her at the eleventh hour, hoping to frighten me into marrying one of your nieces by the threat of disinheritance; but your malicious scheme has failed. There exists an insuperable objection to my marriage with Olive or Ela."

"Insuperable?" she muttered, incredulously.

"Yes; I am a married man already."

A bolt of lightning would not have startled her as much as those calmly spoken words.

It was her turn now to stare speechlessly, while Love continued, earnestly:

"You are detected in your h.e.l.lish plotting, madame. The proof of it is in that letter there. A base forgery, since Dainty Chase could not possibly have written it--Dainty Ellsworth, I should say rather, for she has been my wife two weeks."

"Your wife?" she faltered, wildly.

"Yes; there was a secret marriage two weeks ago, designed to prevent just what has happened now--some treachery on the part of the three women who hated Dainty and were trying to work her ill. Yes, I understand your game; as I said just now, Dainty was kidnaped, and you know where she is, but your malice can not undo the fact that she is my wife, and my inheritance safe. I go now to break the truth to the wedding guests, and their indignation will compel you to restore me my bride!"

He rushed from the room, heedless of her shrieks for him to stay, and sought the thronged parlor, where the disappointed guests waited for an explanation.

Within the door he paused, raised his hand, and began:

"My dear friends, I--"

The sentence stopped abruptly, for through the window near by hurtled a bullet, sent by a madman's brutal hand. It crashed through his head, and he fell senseless and bleeding to the floor.

CHAPTER XX.

THE END OF THE DAY.

Ah, how terrible a _finale_ to a birthday wedding that had dawned so fairly and been antic.i.p.ated with such happiness.

The bride mysteriously vanished, the bridegroom weltering in his blood!

Both the victims of wrong and crime heinous enough to make the very angels turn away from watching such a wicked world.

Yet the sun shone on as brightly, the flowers bloomed as fairly, the birds sang as sweetly as if two beautiful young lives had not been blasted in their happiest hour.