I didn't want to see you the wife of an old dotard you didn't care a fillip for."

"So, to mend matters, you've made me the wife of a scoundrel. I must forever hate and despise--yourself."

"Not so, Mollie! I mean you to be very fond of me one of these days. I don't see why you shouldn't. I'm young; I'm well off; I'm clever; I'm not bad-looking. There's no reason why you shouldn't be very fond of me, indeed. Love begets love, they say, and I love you to madness."

"So it appears. A lunatic asylum would be the fitter place for you, if you must escape state prison. Are we to stand here and bandy words all night? Show me who you are and go."

The man laid his hand on his hat.

"Have you no suspicions, Mollie? Can't you meet me half-way--can't you guess?"

"I don't want to guess."

She spoke defiantly; but her heart was going in great, suffocating plunges against her side, now that the supreme moment had come.

"Then, Mollie, behold your husband!"

With a theatrical flourish he whipped off slouched hat, flowing beard and wig, dropped the disguising cloak, and stood before her revealed--Dr. Guy Oleander!

She gave one gasping cry, no more. She stood looking at him as if turning to stone, her face marble white--awfully rigid--her eyes starting from their sockets. The man's face was lighted with a sinister, triumphant glow.

"Look long, Mollie," he said, exultantly, "and look well. You see your husband for the first time."

And then Mollie caught her gasping breath at the taunt, and the blood rushed in a dark, red torrent of rage and shame to her fair face.

"Never!" she cried, raising her arm aloft--"never, so help me Heaven! I will sit in this prison and starve to death! I will throw myself out of yonder window into the black, boiling sea! I would be torn to pieces by wild horses! I will die ten thousand deaths, but I will never, never, never be wife of yours, Guy Oleander!"

Her voice rose to a shriek--hysterical, frenzied. For the instant she felt as though she were going mad, and she looked it, and the man recoiled before her.

"Mollie!" he gasped, in consternation.

The girl stamped her foot on the floor.

"Don't call me Mollie:" she screamed, pa.s.sionately. "Don't dare to speak to me, to look at me, to come near me! I have heard of women murdering men, and if I had a loaded pistol this moment, G.o.d help you, Doctor Oleander!"

She looked like a mad thing--like a crazed pythoness. Her wild, fair hair fell loose about her; her blue eyes blazed steely flame; her face was crimson with the intensity of her rage, and shame, and despair, from forehead to chin.

"Go!" she cried, fiercely, "you snake, you coward, you felon, you abductor of feeble girls, you poisoner! Yes, you poison the very air I breathe! Go, or, by all that is holy, I will spring at your throat and strangle you with my bare hands!"

"Good Heaven!" exclaimed the petrified doctor, retreating precipitately, "what a little devil it is! Mollie, Mollie, for pity's sake--"

Another furious stamp, a spring like a wild cat toward him, and the aghast doctor was at the door.

"There, there, there, Mollie! I'm going. By Jove! what a little fiend you are! I didn't think you would take it like this. I--Great powers!

Yes, I'm going!"

He flew out, closing the door with a bang. Then he opened it an inch and peeped in.

"I'll come again to-morrow, Mollie. Try, for goodness' sake, to calm yourself in the meantime. Yes, yes, yes, I'm going!"

For, with a shriek of madness, she made a spring at him, and the doctor just managed to slam the door and turn the key before her little, wiry hands were upon his throat.

"Great Heaven!" Dr. Oleander cried to himself, pale and aghast, wiping the cold perspiration off his face; "was ever such a mad creature born on the earth before? She looked like a little yellow-haired demon, glaring upon me with those blazing eyes. Little tiger-cat! I told them she was a raving lunatic, and, by George! she's going to prove me a prophet. It's enough to make a man's blood run cold."

CHAPTER XVI.

MOLLIE'S DESPAIR.

Dr. Oleander descended the stairs, pa.s.sed through the lower hall, and entered the kitchen--a big, square room, bleak and draughty, like all the rest of the old, rickety place, but lighted by a roaring fire.

Old Sally was bustling about over pots and stew-pans, getting supper; old Peter stood at the table peeling potatoes. In an arm-chair before the fire sat another old woman with snaky-black eyes, hooked nose, and incipient black mustache.

Old Sally was volubly narrating what had transpired upstairs, and cut herself short upon the entrance of her master.

"How are you, mother?" said Dr. Oleander, nodding to the venerable party in the arm-chair. "Sally's telling you about my patient, is she?"

His mother's answer was a stifled scream, which Sally echoed.

"Well, what now?" demanded the doctor.

"You look like a ghost! Gracious me, Guy!" cried his mother, in consternation; "you're whiter than the tablecloth."

Dr. Oleander ground out an oath.

"I dare say I am. I've just had a scare from that little, crazy imp that would blanch any man. I thought, in my soul, she was going to spring upon me like a panther and choke me. She would have, too, by Jove, if I hadn't cleared out."

"Lor'!" cried Sally, in consternation, "and I've just been a-telling the missis how sweet, and gentle, and innocent, and pretty she looked."

"Innocent and gentle be--hanged!" growled the doctor. "She's the old Satan in female form. If you don't look out, Sally, she'll throttle you to-morrow when you go in."

Sally gave a little yelp of dismay.

"Lor' a ma.s.sy, Master Guy! then I'll not go near her. I ain't a-going to be scared out of my senses by mad-women in my old age. I won't go into her room a step to-morrow, Master Guy. If you wants to turn honest people's houses into lunatic asylums, then set lunatic-keepers to see after them. I shan't do it, and so I tell you."

With which short and sharp ultimatum Sally began vigorously laying the cloth for supper.

Before Dr. Oleander could open his mouth to expostulate, his mother struck in:

"I really don't think it's safe to live in the house with such a violent lunatic, Guy. I wish you had taken your crazy patient elsewhere."

"Oh, it's all right, mother. She's only subject to these noisy fits at periodical times. On certain occasions she appears and talks as sanely as you or I. Sally can tell you."

"That I can," said Sally. "You'd oughter heerd her, missis, when she fust came in, a-pleading, you know, with me to a.s.sist her, and not help to keep her a prisoner here. I declare, it quite went to my heart. And she looked so little, and so young, and so helpless, poor creature!"

"You're sure her room's all safe and secure, Sally--windows and all?"