In a single instant, with the swiftness of a lioness, the woman who had been examining the desk, cleared the s.p.a.ce that divided her from the girl, and clutched her by the shoulder.

"You!" she panted, in a voice that was scarcely human, it was so full of venomous hatred. "You!" she repeated, flinging the girl from her, as though she had been something vile to the touch. "How dare you come here?"

Faynie looked at her for a moment with dilated eyes gazing out from her pale face.

Had her stepmother suddenly gone mad? was the thought that flashed through the girl's brain.

"I--I have come back to my father, and--and to his home--and mine. Any explanation I have to offer will be made to him alone."

The woman laughed a sneering, demoniac laugh, and her clutch on the girl's shoulder grew stronger, fiercer.

"How lovely, how beautifully worded, how dutiful!" she sneered. "By that I judge that you have not been keeping abreast of the times, or you would have known, girl, that your father is dead, and that he has disinherited you, leaving every dollar of his wealth to me."

"Dead!" Faynie repeated the words in an awful whisper.

It seemed to her that every drop of blood in her veins seemed suddenly turned to ice. A mist swam before her eyes and she put out her hand gropingly, grasping the back of the nearest chair for support.

She did not even hear the last of the sentence. Her thoughts and hearing seemed to end with that one awful word.

"That is what I said," replied her stepmother, nonchalantly, "and you are his murderess, girl, quite as much as though you had plunged a dagger in his heart. Your elopement caused him to have a terrible hemorrhage. He knew all the details about it in less than an hour's time, learning from one of the servants how you stole out of the house and met the tall man at the gate, who took you off in a closed carriage, and just as he made this discovery one of the maids handed him your note, which you left pinned to the pillow, addressed to him. He had no sooner read it than he fell into a rage so horrible that it ended as I have said, in a hemorrhage. Within ten minutes' time your name, which he cursed, was stricken from his will, and he left everything to me, disinheriting you. Do you comprehend the force of my remark?"

The steady, awful look in the young girl's eyes made the woman quail in spite of her bravado. "I--I do not care for my father's wealth, but that he should curse me--oh, that is too much--too much. Oh, G.o.d, let me die here and now, that I may follow him to the Great White Throne and there kneel before him and tell him all my pitiful story!"

"That is a pretty theory, but people cannot go to and come at will from the Great White Throne, as you call it. You had better get back to the realities of life on this mundane sphere, where you find yourself just at present. I repeat for the third time that you are disinherited. I cannot seem to make you grasp that fact. This home and everything in it belongs absolutely to me."

Faynie heard and realized, and without a word, turned and staggered like one dying toward the door, but her stepmother put herself quickly before her.

"Sit down there. I have something else to say to you," she added in a shrill whisper, pushing the girl into the nearest seat.

"I must go. I will not listen," cried Faynie, struggling to her feet.

"Yes, you shall listen and comply with my proposition," exclaimed her stepmother, her glittering eyes fastened on the beautiful face of the girl she hated so intensely.

CHAPTER XII.

IMPENDING EVIL.

We must return for one brief instant, dear reader, to our hero, Lester Armstrong, whom we left as he was being hurried off to the hospital on the night which proved so thrillingly eventful.

At the first rapid glance, the surgeon had believed his patient dying, but upon examination after he had reached the hospital, it was discovered that his injury was by no means as serious as had been apprehended; but a trouble quite as grave confronted the patient.

"An injury to the base of the brain, such as he has received, no matter how slight, might, in this instance, produce either insanity or partial loss of memory, which is almost as bad," said the surgeon. "It will soon be determined when consciousness, returns to him."

This indeed proved to be the case. Just as daylight broke Lester Armstrong opened his eyes, looking in amazement around the strange apartment in which he found himself.

A kindly-faced nurse bent over him, who, in answer to his look of inquiry, said:

"You had a severe fall and hurt yourself last night and was brought to the hospital. You are doing finely. Can you remember anything about the incident?"

Lester looked up vacantly into the dark-gray eyes. "I--I was in a hurry to close my books at the office; that is all I recollect," he murmured.

From doc.u.ments found in his pockets, it was learned that he had some connection with the great dry goods house of Marsh & Co., and the senior member of the firm was notified. Within an hour Mr. Marsh responded in person. He was greatly distressed over the occurrence and took it deeply to heart.

"I think as much of that young man as if he were my own son. Do everything in human power for him. Let no pains be spared. I will stand every expense," he said, and then and there he also confided a startling secret to the surgeon.

"I am a lone man in this world, without one kindred tie on earth. Some little time since I made my will. I left every dollar I possessed on earth to my young cashier, Lester Armstrong, though he never even dreamed of such an existing state of affairs. I never intended that he should know that I had made him my heir for perhaps years to come yet."

"Lester Armstrong!" exclaimed the surgeon. "Why, that is not the name he is entered here under, Mr. Marsh. The friend who was with him did not call him that."

"Then the friend who was with him evidently did not know him. I identify him as my cashier, Lester Armstrong."

The surgeon bowed courteously.

"I would also suggest no mention whatever of this affair be given to the newspapers," continued the gentleman. "They would make a sensational story out of it, and I detest notoriety."

"Your wishes shall be respected, sir," replied the surgeon, who had a great reverence for men of wealth.

His prediction proved quite correct. When Lester Armstrong arose from that bed of sickness ten days later, his mind, although as bright and keen as ever on some subjects, on others was hopelessly clouded. Even the slightest recollection of beautiful Faynie Fairfax, the little sweetheart whom he had loved better than his own life, was completely obliterated from his mind. He did not even remember such a being had ever existed.

Another event had transpired on the eventful night of his injury. The humble boarding house where he had made his home so many years, had been destroyed by fire, and the people had gone none knew whither. This was indeed a trying blow to Lester, for the fire had completely wiped out all of his savings which he had kept in the little haircloth trunk in his room. But, without a murmur, he took up the burden of life over again and went back to his work at his desk.

In going over his accounts he suddenly came across the name of Faynie Fairfax.

The pen fell from his fingers and he brushed his hand over his brow.

"What a strangely familiar ring that name has to me!" he muttered, "but I cannot imagine who it can be. Her checks seem to be paid in here. I must remember to notice who she is when next she comes to this window."

Life had dropped into the same old groove again for Lester Armstrong, the only difference in the routine of his daily life being that he was not obliged to take his daily trips to Beechwood any more, for the reason that his employer, Mr. Marsh, had taken up his residence in the city again.

But in less than a fortnight another event happened.

Mr. Marsh died suddenly, and to the great surprise of every one, Lester Armstrong was named as his sole heir. At first the young man was dumfounded. He could not believe the evidence of his own senses, when first the news was conveyed to him.

The papers contained columns concerning the young man's wonderful luck.

Those who knew Lester Armstrong said the great fortune which had come to him would not spoil him.

There was one who read this account with amazed eyes, and that was Halloran.

"Great G.o.d!" he muttered, his hands shaking, his teeth chattering.

"Kendale told me that Armstrong was taken to the hospital in a precarious condition and died there."

He made all haste to Kendale's lodgings. The latter, who was still masquerading under the name of Lester Armstrong, had been on a continuous spree ever since the night he had wedded the little beauty, and Halloran had let him take his course, saying to himself that there was plenty of time in the future to carry out their scheme.

For once he found Kendale partially sober. He knew by Halloran's face that something out of the usual order of events had transpired.