Mr. Vinton suddenly a.s.sumed an expression of deep concern.

"Ah! my little darling," he said, as he bent down and kissed her ruby lips, "that is just where the trouble comes in. If I marry you now, as my ardent love prompts me to do, I cannot ask your father to give you to me, for our marriage must be a secret, unknown to any but ourselves."

"Why so?" she inquired, looking disappointed.

"I cannot tell you the reason now, Jennie," he replied, evasively.

"There are several things which would prevent our marriage if I declared our intention beforehand; but there is one reason I can give you. My sister, though she is fond of you in her way would never consent to it.

She is very proud, and she wishes me to marry a rich woman of her choosing. If I openly defy her she has the power to keep me out of my fortune and make me a poor man."

Jennie was too simple and innocent to be undeceived by that transparent lie.

"Darling, after this explanation you will surely consent to a private marriage--will you not? Remember how well I love you," pleaded the wretch.

"How could we manage a secret marriage?" asked Jennie, blushing with delight at his fond words.

"Easily enough. You can tell my sister that you wish to go home and spend a week with your parents. Then I can take you to the city right away and marry you. We can spend a week traveling about and enjoying our honeymoon, after which I can send you back here, and Mrs. Bowers will think that you have been at the farm the whole time. By-and-bye, when my affairs get straight, we will declare our marriage to everybody. By George, how surprised they will be then! Now, my dear little wife that is to be, will you consent to my plan?"

Jennie hesitated a moment, then murmured a timid and joyful "yes."

CHAPTER XVII.

The summer sunshine waned, the summer roses faded, and the "melancholy days--the saddest of the year," hurried swiftly on. The chilling winds howled drearily about the river cottage, but long ere the last autumn leaf was whirled from the tall trees standing round about like giant sentinels, the fickle fancy that Leon Vinton had felt for the farmer's dark-eyed daughter had perished like the frailest flower of the summer.

"The illusion was soon over," he said to himself. "It was the briefest fancy I ever had. But that was her own fault. She was too easily won.

The game was not worth the candle."

Simple little Jennie had been living in a "Fool's Paradise" ever since the mock-marriage which the deceiver had duly caused to be celebrated.

Ostensibly she remained as the companion of Mrs. Bowers, and that kind lady appeared to be perfectly blind and deaf to all the strange things that went on around her.

If Jennie had not been the most innocent of women she could not have failed to know that Mrs. Bowers was perfectly cognizant of her secret, and was only laughing in her sleeve all the while that she appeared so stupid and good-natured to the new victim of her employer.

"I am heartily tired of the little fool," he said to her one day in confidence, when the autumn days had given place to the freezing ones of winter; "I wish I could get rid of her."

"Your fancy was soon over this time," remarked Mrs. Bowers.

"Her own fault," grumbled the wretch. "In the first place she was too lightly won. In love more than half the pleasure lies in the pursuit, and 'lightly won is lightly lost.' She is changed now, also. How rosy and bright she was at first--how pale, how altered, how plain she is now!"

"She is _ill_," said Mrs. Bowers, in a significant tone.

"The deuce!" exclaimed Leon Vinton, angrily. "Why, then, I surely _must_ get rid of her. But how to do it--that's the question!"

"Tell her the truth--that she is not married at all--and send her home to her parents," said the woman, heartlessly.

He did not reply for a moment, but paused to light a cigar and place it between his lips. Then he threw himself back on the lounge where he sat, and remarked indifferently:

"Yes; I suppose I shall have to do that. There will be a scene, I suppose."

Mrs. Bowers merely laughed in reply, as if he had uttered the most harmless jest. She was thoroughly wicked and heartless, and cared not a jot for the miseries of the whole world.

"Well, the sooner the better," went on Vinton, heartlessly. "I believe I'll go and have it out with her now."

He arose as heartlessly and indifferently as if he were going about a mission of happiness instead of being about to strike the cold steel of despair into the young heart that trusted him so fondly.

Jennie was sitting by a window in the parlor looking out at the great, blinding flakes of snow that whirled through the air and covered the ground with a pure white carpet.

She looked pale, but very pretty in a black dress with scarlet tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, and a scarlet shawl was draped about her shoulders, partly concealing her form.

As Mr. Vinton entered the room her dark eyes turned from the window and rested on him with a very fond and loving smile.

"You've come at last," she said, in a tone of joy and relief. "Where have you been all this long week?"

"In town," he answered, laconically, as he dropped into a chair near her.

A look of disappointment came into her eyes. She rose and went to his side, winding her arms about his neck, and pressing her lips on his brow.

"I've missed you so much," she said, lovingly. "I sha'n't let you leave me so long again."

"I shall not ask your leave!" he answered, sharply, and muttering an oath between his teeth as he rudely pushed her off.

The movement was so sudden that she nearly fell. It was only by catching the back of a convenient chair that she steadied herself. She turned a white, frightened face toward him.

"What's the matter?" she said. "Are you angry with me, Leon?"

"I'm sick of your baby fondness," he answered brutally. "Have done with it."

Jennie fell back into her chair as if shot, and looked at him with reproachful eyes.

"You're angry with me," she said, plaintively; "and I had something to tell you--something very particular."

"Tell it, then," he answered, with a frown as black as night on his handsome face.

The trembling young creature before him remained silent for a few minutes, so utterly confounded was she by the unaccountable change in her husband. His manner had always been the perfection of gentlemanly refinement before. This sudden change to coa.r.s.e brutality amazed and frightened her. When she spoke her voice was low and broken, and her eyes rested on the carpet.

"I waited to tell you, Leon," she said, with a scarlet blush, "that--that we will have to make some change soon. You'll be obliged to tell Mrs. Bowers that we are married, or take me to some other place. If you don't she'll find out our secret pretty soon. We are compelled to make a change!"

"I have been thinking so myself," he answered, coolly.

"You have," she said, with an accent of gladness. "Then what do you think we had better do?"

"I think you had better go home to your mother," he answered, brutally.

She looked up at him in surprise and doubt.

"You mean to own our marriage, then, do you?" she asked, and there was a faint suggestion of hope in her tone.