"But I am only a girl--only a silly, flirting girl of sixteen! Oh, forget and forgive, and let me go!"

"I can not, Mollie, for--I love you!"

"Love me?" Mollie repeated, scorn and anguish in her voice. "Love me, and torture me like this!"

"It is because I love you. I torture you because you shall be my wife.

Mine, Mollie, mine! Because you would never consent of your own free will. It goes to my heart to hear you plead; but I love you with my whole heart and soul, and I can not yield."

"I shall plead no more," said Mollie, proudly, turning away; "your heart is of stone."

"Will you consent to marry me, Mollie? Remember the terms. One week from the hour that makes you my wife will see you going forth free, if you wish it."

"Free! wish it!" she repeated, with unutterable scorn. "Free, and bound to you! Wish it, when for that privilege I sacrifice myself forever! Oh, you know well I love my liberty dearly, when I can not lie here and rot sooner than leave my prison your wife! But, man--demon--whatever you are," she cried, with a sort of frenzy, "I do consent--I will become your wife, since my only chance of quitting this horrible dungeon lies that way!"

If Mollie could have seen the face behind the mask, she would have seen the red glow of triumph that overspread it at the words; but aloud he spoke calmly.

"My happiness is complete," he said. "But remember, Mollie, it will be no sham marriage, that you will be at liberty to break. A real clergyman shall unite us, and you must promise me to make no appeal to his sympathy--to make no attempt to converse with him. The attempt would be quite useless, but you must promise."

"I promise," she said, haughtily; "and Mollie Dane keeps her word."

"And I keep mine! A week from the ceremony you go forth free, never to be disturbed by me again. I love you, and I marry you for love and for revenge. It sounds inconsistent, but it is true. Yet, my promise of vengeance fulfilled, I shall retain you against your will no longer. I will love you always, and you will be my wife--my wife, Mollie. Nothing can ever alter that. I can always say hereafter, come what will, I have been blessed!"

There was a tremor in the steady voice. He paused an instant, and then went on:

"To-night the clergyman will be here. You will be ready? You will not retract your word?"

"I never retract my word," Mollie said, abruptly turning her back upon him. "I will not now. Go!"

CHAPTER VIII.

THE MIDNIGHT MARRIAGE.

The Reverend Raymond Rashleigh sat before a blazing sea-coal fire, in his cozy study, in comfortable, after-dinner mood. He lay back in his cushioned and carved arm-chair, a florid, portly, urbane prelate, with iron-gray hair and patriarchal whiskers, a steaming gla.s.s of wine punch at his elbow, that day's paper open upon his lap, an overfed p.u.s.s.y purring at his knee, the genius of comfort personified in his own portly person.

The world went well with the Reverend Raymond. Silks rustled and diamonds flashed every Sunday in the cushioned pews of his "uptown"

church; the _elite_ of Gotham sat under his teaching, and his sixty years and the cares of life rested lightly on his broad shoulders.

It had been a very smoothly flowing life--those sixty years--gliding along as sluggishly calm as the waters of a ca.n.a.l. But on this night the still surface was destined to be ruffled--on this night, so strange, so extraordinary an adventure was destined to happen to him, that it actually compensated, in five brief hours, for all the lack of excitement in those sixty years.

A wet and stormy night. The rain beat ceaselessly against the curtained windows; the wild spring wind shrieked through the city streets, icily cold; a bad, black night--starless, moonless.

The Reverend Raymond Rashleigh gave a little comfortable shiver as he listened to it. It was very pleasant to listen to it in that cozy little room. He poked the blazing coals, sipped his red port, stroked p.u.s.s.y, who bore a most absurd feline resemblance to himself, and took up his paper again.

For the second time he read over a brief paragraph among the "Personals:"

"LEFT HER HOME.--On the fifteenth instant--whether forcibly or of her own free will is unknown--a young lady of sixteen years, by name Mollie Dane.

Is undersized, very slight of figure, a profusion of light, curling hair, large blue eyes, handsome features, and remarkably self-possessed and straightforward of manner. Was dressed as a bride, in white silk and lace. Any information concerning her will be thankfully received and liberally rewarded by her afflicted friends. Apply personally or by letter to MR. CARL WALRAVEN, No ---- Fifth Avenue, New York."

Very slowly the Reverend Mr. Rashleigh read this paragraph to its end.

He laid down the paper and looked thoughtfully at the cat.

"Extraordinary!" murmured the Reverend Raymond, half aloud--"most extraordinary! Like a scene in a novel; like nothing in real life. Has the earth opened and swallowed her up? Has she gone off with some younger and handsomer lover? Or has she been decoyed from home by the machinations of some enemy? She had many, poor child! That unfortunate Sir Roger is like a man insane. He is offering half his fortune for her recovery. It is really very, very extraordinary. Quite a romance in real life. Come in!"

There had been a tap at the study door; a maid-servant entered.

"There's a young woman down-stairs, sir, wishes to see you most particular."

"Ah, indeed! Who is she? What is her business with me?"

"I don't know, sir. Something very important, she says."

"Show her up."

The girl departed, ran down-stairs, ran up again, followed by a respectable-looking young woman of pleasing aspect.

"Well, my child,"--he was very fatherly and bland, was the Reverend Raymond Rashleigh--"and what may you want with me?"

"My Mistress sent me, sir. I am Mrs. Holywell's maid."

"Indeed!" said Mr. Rashleigh, vividly interested at once; "and how is Mrs. Holywell?"

"Very poorly, sir. She thinks she's dying herself. She wants to make her will to-night; that's why she sent for you."

Mr. Rashleigh rose with very unwonted alacrity.

She was a distant relative of his, this dying Mrs. Holywell; ridiculously rich for a childless widow, and with no nearer heir than the reverend pastor of St. Pancras' Church.

"I will accompany you at once, my dear! Poor Mrs. Holywell! But it is the fate of all flesh! How did you come, pray? It rains, does it not?"

A fierce gust of wind rattled the double windows, and frantically beat the rain against them by way of answer.

"I came in a carriage, sir. It is at the door now."

"That is well. I will not detain you an instant. Ah! poor Mrs.

Holywell!"

The parson's hat and overcoat hung in the room. In a moment they were on; in another he was following the very respectable young woman down-stairs; in a third he was scrambling after her into the carriage; in a fourth they were rattling wildly over the wet, stony streets; in a fifth the reverend gentleman was grasped in a vise-like grip, and a voice close to his ear--a man's voice--hissed:

"Speak one word, make the least outcry, and you are a dead man!"

The interior of the carriage was in utter darkness.

The Reverend Mr. Rashleigh gave one panting gasp, and fell back in his seat. High living and long indolence had made him a complete craven.

Life was inestimably precious to the portly pastor of St. Pancras'.

After that one choking gasp, he sat quivering all over, like calves'-foot jelly.