How could Mollie Dane tell him she had ever suspected, ever hoped, it might be himself? It was evidently a matter of very little moment to him.

"And you can not forgive the love that resorts to such extreme measures, Mollie?" he asked, after a pause.

"No more than I can forgive Doctor Oleander for carrying me off and holding me captive in his dreary farmhouse," answered Mollie, steadily.

"No, Mr. Ingelow, I will never forgive the man who married me against my will."

"Not even if you cared a little for him, Mollie?"

He asked the question hesitatingly, as if he had something at stake in the answer. And Mollie's eyes flashed and her cheeks flushed angry red as she heard it.

"I care for no one in that way, Mr. Ingelow," she said, in a ringing voice. "You ought to know that. If I did, I should hate him for his dastardly deed."

Dead silence fell. Mollie stood looking down at the bustle of Broadway at one window, Mr. Ingelow at the other. He was pale--she flushed indignant red. She was grieved, and hurt, and cruelly mortified. She had found out how dearly she loved him, only to find out with it he was absolutely indifferent to her; he was ready to plead another man's cause, yield her up to her bolder lover.

She could have cried with disappointment and mortification, and crying was not at all in Mollie's line. Never until now had she given up the hope that he still loved her.

"It serves me right, I dare say," she thought, bitterly. "I have been a flirt and a triller, and I refused him cruelly, heartlessly, for that old man. Oh! if the past could be but undone, what a happy, happy creature I should be!"

The oppressive silence lasted until Mrs. Sharpe re-entered with some needle-work. Then Mr. Ingelow rose and looked at his watch.

"I believe I'll take a stroll down Broadway," he said, a little coldly.

"Your friend Miriam will probably be here before I return. If not, there are books yonder with which to beguile the time."

Mollie bowed, proudly silent, and Mr. Ingelow left the room for his morning const.i.tutional. Miss Dane walked over, took a book, opened it, and held it before her face a full hour without turning a leaf. The face it screened looked darkly bitter and overcast. She was free from prison, only to find herself in a worse captivity--fettered by a love that could meet with no return.

The bright morning wore on; noon came. Two o'clock brought dinner and Mr. Ingelow, breezy from his walk.

"What!" he exclaimed, looking round, "no Miriam?"

"No Miriam," said Mollie, laying down her book. "Mrs. Sharpe and I have been quite alone--she sewing, I reading."

Mrs. Sharpe smiled to herself. She had been watching the young lady, and surmised how much she had read.

"Why, that's odd, too," Mr. Ingelow said. "She promised to be here this morning, and Miriam keeps her promises, I think. However, the afternoon may bring her. And now for dinner, mesdames."

But the afternoon did not bring her. The hours wore on--Mr. Ingelow at his easel, Mollie with her book, Susan Sharpe with her needle, conversation desultory and lagging.

Since the morning a restraint had fallen between the knight-errant and the rescued lady--a restraint Mollie saw clearly enough, but could not properly understand.

Evening came. Twilight, hazy and blue, fell like a silvery veil over the city, and the street-lamps twinkled through it like stars.

Mr. Ingelow in an inner room had made his toilet, and stood before Mollie, hat in hand, ready to depart for the Walraven mansion.

"Remain here another half hour," he was saying; "then follow and strike the conspirators dumb. It will be better than a melodrama. I saw Oleander to-day, and I know information of your escape has not yet reached him. You had better enter the house by the most private entrance, so that, all unknown, you can appear before us and scare us out of a year's growth."

"I know how to get in," said Mollie. "Trust me to play my part."

Mr. Ingelow departed, full of delightful antic.i.p.ations of the fun to come. He found all the guests a.s.sembled before him. It was quite a select little family party, and Mr. Walraven and Sir Roger Trajenna were in a state of despondent gloom that had become chronic of late.

Mollie, the apple of their eye, their treasure, their darling, was not present, and the whole universe held nothing to compensate them for her loss.

Mrs. Walraven, superbly attired, and looking more like Queen Cleopatra than ever, with, a circlet of red gold in her blue-black hair, and her polished shoulders and arms gleaming like ivory against bronze in her golden-brown silk, presided like an empress. She was quite radiant to-night, and so was Dr. Guy. All their plans had succeeded admirably.

Mollie was absolutely in their power. This time to-morrow scores of broad sea miles would roll between her and New York.

The conversation turned upon her ere they had been a quarter of an hour at table. Mr. Walraven never could leave the subject uppermost in his thoughts for long.

"It is altogether extraordinary," Sir Roger Trajenna said, slowly.

"The first absence was unaccountable enough, but this second is more unaccountable still. Some enemy is at the bottom."

"Surely Miss Dane could have no enemies," said Hugh Ingelow. "We all know how amiable and lovable she was."

"Lovable, certainly. We know that," remarked Sardonyx, with a grim smile.

"And I adhere to my former opinion," said Dr. Oleander, with consummate coolness--"that Miss Mollie is playing tricks on her friends, to try their affection. We know what a tricksy sprite she is. Believe me, both absences were practical jokes. She has disappeared of her own free will.

It was very well in the Dark Ages--this abducting young ladies and carrying them off to castle-keeps--but it won't do in New York, in the present year of grace."

"My opinion precisely, Guy," chimed in his fair cousin. "Mollie likes to create sensations. Her first absence set the avenue on the _qui vive_ and made her a heroine, so she is resolved to try it again. If people would be guided by me," glancing significantly at her husband, "they would cease to worry themselves about her, and let her return at her own good pleasure, as she went."

"Yes, Mr. Walraven," said Dr. Oleander, flushed and triumphant, "Blanche is right. It is useless to trouble yourself so much about it. Of her own accord she will come back, and you may safely swear of her own accord she went."

"Guy Oleander, you lie!"

The voice rang silver-sweet, clear as a bugle-blast, through the room.

All sprung to their feet.

"Ah-h-h-h-h!"

The wordless cry of affright came from Mrs. Carl Walraven. Dr. Oleander stood paralyzed, his eyes starting from their sockets, his face like the face of a dead man.

And there in the door-way, like a picture in a frame, like a Saxon pythoness, her golden hair falling theatrically loose, her arm upraised, her face pale, her eyes flashing, stood Mollie.

CHAPTER XXIV.

MOLLIE'S TRIUMPH.

The tableau was magnificent.

There was a dead pause of unutterable consternation. All stood rooted to the spot with staring eyes and open mouths. Before the first electric charge had subsided, Mollie Dane advanced and walked straight up to the confounded doctor, confronting him with eyes that literally blazed.

"Liar! traitor! coward! Whose turn is it now?"

Dr. Oleander fairly gasped for breath. The awful suddenness of the blow stunned him. He could not speak--he made the attempt, but his white lips failed him.

"Before all here," cried Mollie Dane, arm and hand still upraised with an action indescribably grand, "I accuse you, Guy Oleander, of high felony! I accuse you of forcibly tearing me from my home, of forcibly holding me a prisoner for nearly two weeks, and of intending to carry me off by force to-morrow to Cuba. And you, madame," turning suddenly as lightning strikes upon Mrs. Carl, "you, madame, I accuse as his aider and abettor."