The innkeeper followed the tall stranger with his burden to see that everything was made comfortable, put more logs in the fireplace, then turning, said:

"Is there anything else I can do for you, stranger?"

"Nothing," replied the man curtly, but as the old innkeeper reached the door he called sharply: "Yes, I think there is something else that would add to my comfort, and that is a good stiff gla.s.s of brandy, if you have such a thing about the place."

The old man hesitated.

"I'll pay well for it," said the other, eagerly.

"You see, we haven't a license, stranger, to sell drinks, and they're pretty strict with us hereabouts. I generally let a man have it when I know him pretty well, but I can't say how it would affect you."

"Have no fear on that score," returned the other. "Here's a five-dollar note for a pint bottle of brandy. Will that pay you?"

"Yes," returned the innkeeper. It was the golden key. The man laughed to see how quickly he trotted off on his errand, returning with the bottle in a trice.

"Anything else, sir?" he said.

"No," replied the other, "save," adding, "do not call us too early to-morrow. We're not of the kind that rise with the sun. Nine o'clock will answer. And see that that wife of yours gets up the best breakfast that can be obtained."

"You won't have to complain of that, sir," exclaimed the innkeeper, pompously. "You'll get a piece of steak with the blood followin' the knife; crisp potatoes, a plate of buckwheat cakes, with b.u.t.ter as is b.u.t.ter, and honey that's the real thing; a mug of coffee that would bear up an egg, with good old-fashioned cream, not skim milk, to say nothing of--"

"That will do," exclaimed the stranger, with an impatient wave of his white hand. "I never like to know beforehand what I'm going to get."

"But the lady, sir? Mebbe she'd like somethin' kind a delicate like--a bit o' bird or somethin' like that?"

"We'll see about that to-morrow all in good time," fairly closing the door in the garrulous innkeeper's face "Good-night," and he shut the door with a click and turned the key in the lock, and for the first time he was alone with the girl he had forced so dastardly into the cruellest of marriages. He had placed Faynie on the white couch. He crossed the room and stood looking down at her, with his hands behind his back, and a sardonic smile on his face.

"You and your millions of money belong to me," he cried, under his breath. "Ye G.o.ds! what a lucky dog I am after all!" and a low laugh that was not pleasant to hear broke from his lips.

At that instant a broken sigh stirred the girl's white lips.

"Ah, you are coming to, are you?" he muttered. "The old lady's toddy is beginning to revive you."

He could not help but notice how unusually beautiful the girl was.

"What a chance of fortune this is for me, but it does not follow, even though she was madly in love with my cousin, that she will hold me in the same favor. But I'll stand none of her airs. I'll show her right from the start that I'm the boss, and see how that will strike her fancy. There'll be a terrible time when she comes to--screams, shrieks of anger, that will call everybody to the door."

He turned on his heel and walked over to the mantel, where the innkeeper had deposited the bottle and the gla.s.s.

He poured out a heavy draught and drank it at a single swallow. This was followed by another and yet another.

"Ah, there's nothing like bracing oneself up for a scene like this," he muttered, with a sardonic laugh.

The liquor seemed to turn the blood in his veins to fire and set his heart in a glow. He laughed aloud. In that moment he felt as rich as a king, and as diabolical as Satan himself.

He was nerved for any emergency; he was the girl's lord and master, her wedded husband. She would be made to understand that fact with little ceremony.

He threw himself down in a chair, where he could watch her, and waited results, and each instant he sat there the fumes of the brandy rose higher and higher, until it reached his brain.

"There was a laughing devil in his sneer That woke emotions of both hate and fear; And where his scowl of fierceness darkly fell, Hope, withering, fled and mercy sighed farewell."

Yes, a few short moments and consciousness would return to the girl--the stormy scene would begin.

Would the sharp eyes of love detect the difference between himself and Lester Armstrong, whom he was impersonating? He knew every tone of his cousin's voice so perfectly that he would have little difficulty in imitating that. The more closely he watched the girl, the more conscious he became of her wonderful beauty, and his heart gave a bound of triumph.

It was worth a struggle, after all, to have as beautiful a bride as she, even though she hated him.

"If I watch her much longer it will end by my being madly in love with her," he mused. "I never could withstand a pretty face."

The wild winds moaned like demons outside. The bare branches writhed and twisted in the storm, tapping weirdly against the window pane. The room grew warmer as the fire took hold of the logs in the grate, and with the heat the fumes of the brandy rose into his brain, and with it his color heightened, his cheeks and lips were flushed and his eyes scintillating. With unsteady hand he reached out for the flask again, uncorked it, and without taking the trouble to reach for the gla.s.s, placed the bottle to his lips and drained it to the dregs.

"She is awaking," he muttered, with a maudlin laugh, and springing from his seat with unsteady steps, he crossed the room and stood by the couch, looking down eagerly into the beautiful white face upon the pillow. As if impelled by that steady, serpentine, fiery glance, the girl moaned uneasily.

"Awaking at last!" he muttered, with a diabolical smile. At that moment Faynie's violet eyes opened wide and stared up into his face.

CHAPTER VII.

HE RAISED HIS CLINCHED HAND, AND THE BLOW FELL HEAVILY UPON THE BEAUTIFUL UPTURNED FACE.

With returning consciousness, Faynie's violet eyes opened slowly--taking in, by the flickering light of the candle, the strange room in which she found herself; then, as they opened wider, in amazement too great for words, she beheld the figure of a man, half hidden among the shadows, standing but a few feet away from the couch, his eyes fastened upon her; she could even hear his nervous breathing.

With a gasp of terror Faynie sprang from the couch with a single bound; but the cry she would have uttered was strangled upon her lips by the heavy hand that fell suddenly over them, pressing so tightly against them as to almost take her breath away.

"Don't attempt to scream or make any fuss," cried a hissing voice in her ear--"submit to the inevitable--you are my wife--there is nothing out of the way in your being here with me. Come, now, take matters philosophically and we shall get along all right."

He attempted to draw the girl into his encircling arms, her wonderful beauty suddenly dawning upon him; but she shrank from his embrace, and from the approach of his brandy-reeking lips, as though he had been a scorpion.

With a suddenness that took him greatly aback, and for an instant at a disadvantage, she freed herself from his grasp, and stood facing him like a young tragedy queen in all her furious anger and outraged pride.

"Do not utter another word, Lester Armstrong!" she panted, "you only add insult to injury--why it seems to me some horrible trick of the senses--some nightmare--to imagine even that I could ever have cared for you--to have believed you n.o.ble, honorable and--a gentleman. Why, you almost seem to be a different person in his guise--you are so changed in tone and manner from him to whom I gave my heart. The affection that I thought I had for you died a violent death."

She did not notice that the man before her started violently at these words--but the look of fear in his eyes gave place the next instant to braggadocio.

He would have answered her, but she held up her little white hand with a gesture commanding silence, saying, slowly, with quivering lips:

"I repeat, the affection that I believed filled my heart for you died suddenly when I told you that I had changed my mind about eloping, and instead of studying my desires you insisted that the arrangement must be carried out."

"My--my--love for you prompted it, Faynie," he exclaimed, in a maudlin voice. He knew he had the name wrong, but could not think what it was to save his life. "Come, now, let's kiss and make up, and love each other in the same old way, as the song goes."

"What! love a man who thrusts me into a coach despite my entreaties, takes me to a church, and with a revolver pressed close to my heart--beneath my cloak--forces me to become his wife! No. No! I loathe, abhor you--open that door and let me go!"

With an unsteady spring he placed himself between her and the door, crying angrily as he ground out a fierce imprecation from between his white teeth. "Come, now, none of that, my beauty. You're my wife all right, no matter how much of a fuss you make over it. I want to be agreeable, but you persist in raising the devil in me, and though you may not know it, I've a deuce of a temper when I'm thoroughly roused to anger--at least that's what the folks who know me say.

"Sit right down here now, and let's talk the matter over--if you want to go home to the old gent, why I'm sure I have no objection, providing he agrees to take your hubby along with you. There'll be a scene of course--we may expect that--but when you tell him how you love me, and couldn't live without me and all that--and mind, you put it on heavy--it will end by his saying: 'Youth is youth, and love goes where it is sent.

I forgive you, my children; come right back to the paternal roof--consider it yours in fact.' And when the occasion is ripe, you could suggest that the old gent start your hubby in business. Your wish would be law; he might demur a trifle at first, but if you stuck well to your point he'd soon cave in and ask what figure I'd take to--"