CHAPTER IV.

Rutley had found time during the frantic appearance of Constance at the "fete," to threaten Virginia with public exposure if she failed to keep their secret. It was that threat that induced her to pause in a momentary conceived intention to demand an explanation from her brother. The passionate earnestness--the uncontrollable fury she discovered in her brother--produced an awe, and aroused her to a sense of some terrible mistake, and of the far-reaching effect her conspiracy with Rutley was likely to have. Each moment, instead of exultation, increased her sorrow at the course she had pursued.

Between fear of publicity of the part she had played, coupled with her hatred of Corway, and consequent satisfaction in her triumph at his discomfiture--at the same time alarmed at her brother's imminent danger in a probably tragic affair--all contributed to indecision, and she realized to her dismay that she had placed herself in the power of a man who had proved himself a master "Iago."

Her intuition caused her to shrink from him. He comprehended and pressed closer. Despite her powerful will and keen perception, and possession of those womanly attributes of sympathy and kindness to suffering humanity, she felt herself incapable, just then, of defying him.

The cry of Constance that Dorothy was in the water scattered the quarreling party, which rushed to the river's edge.

Virginia and Mrs. Harris remained with Constance, but Rutley made it his business to keep his eyes on her and under pretense of searching the grounds, remained near by, in order to restrain her from approaching her brother.

Her opportunity to undo all, which under a more prompt determination would have succeeded--was lost, simply because it had taken her some time to care for Constance, and also to arrive at a fixed conclusion, irrespective of the threats or cajoling of Rutley--and then John Thorpe disappeared. Two days she diligently searched for him, surmising that he was searching for Dorothy, but all her efforts to locate him were fruitless. She had just returned from a stubborn search of the hotels, when she heard the frenzied cry of, "A passage to my darling beyond." She recognized the voice and stole through the doorway, just in time to see Constance pass upstairs.

As Virginia entered the room, she passed the table on which lay the divorce paper. The printed word attracted her attention, and at once arrested her onward course. She picked it up. "John Thorpe, from his wife, Constance." Horror and dismay swept across her face with lightning rapidity. Here, then, was the key to Rutley's horrible revenge. Now she knew that Constance was made to stand for Hazel.

The document dropped from her nerveless hand, and with wildly beating heart she flew up the stairs after Constance. Noiselessly she opened the door. Before her--on her knees, with bowed head, the phial of laudanum between her clasped hands, was the woman who had received the terrible blow intended for Corway.

Virginia's heart seemed to still its beating. Her blood seemed to be congealing to ice as she stood incapable of motion, and listened to the piteous appeal from that pure, broken heart.

In a moment she understood it all--the intent--the arresting hand of fate--the startled submission of a meek and contrite spirit to the Divine will, and below--the divorce paper.

Satisfied that Constance would not again attempt an act of self-destruction, and unequal, in her present frame of mind, to the task of ministering comfort to the woman whose grief must be partially laid to her door--for it must be remembered that Virginia had not in any manner contributed to the abduction of Dorothy, and was as much at a loss to account for the child's disappearance as her mother--she withdrew, her mission unfilled--her atonement inconceivably harder to accomplish. She seemed overcome with a suffocating sensation. She must have air. Out of the house she mechanically passed. Down the steps and around the grounds--under the silent falling vine and russet and golden-colored leaves she hurried, neither looking to the right nor to the left.

Born on her father's Willamette Valley farm, yet this city home, of her childhood and of her womanhood, now so enchantingly beautiful in its Autumn glory, its fragrant coying whisper had no charm to impede her onward flight, no power to lift her bowed head.

She was thinking of the one within. "And it is all my fault. I feel sure of that, for it would have been impossible for Rutley to have angered John so much with any other name. I must have been mad ever to have confided in him that it was Constance's ring.

"Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do? God forgive me!" she moaned, as she sought solace under a maple. But there was no rest for her. She returned to the house. Mechanically she opened the door and with one longing heartsore purpose--to seek the seclusion of her apartment--to throw herself on the couch and bury her face in her hands in a vain hope to get relief in tears. But there, just inside the door, on the hall table, she saw through moist-swollen eyes, something white.

She picked it up. It was a letter addressed to her, in a coarse scrawl. She fled to her room, there she sat on a chair near the window and opened the letter. The characters were bold, but slovenly written, and almost illegible, and then somehow the light did not appear strong or bright as it should be. She bent over close to the window--no better, save that she could make out the word "Virginia."

Becoming more interested, she turned on the electric light, and even then her eyes seemed weak, and the letters so run together as to appear blurred. She took up a magnifying glass that lay on the table, and by its aid was at last able to decipher the note.

Virginia, ther party as sends er this kin tell yer somethink about er party yer wud lie ter knows, perwiden yer meets me nere the top of the long steps at or eleven ternight--alone, mind yer--alone in ther city park. Yerl be safe if alone.

She was at once convinced that the note had a deep significance. She turned it over and over and read and re-read it again and again.

It was clearly meant for a clandestine meeting--with whom? Ha!

The handwriting was evidently disguised, for it was quite different from that on the envelop, and the illiteracy plainly intended to deceive. Nevertheless the information might be of inestimable value--perhaps John, maybe of Dorothy.

Her mind was almost in a state of frenzy at her impotent efforts to undo the mischief she had wrought, and even this "straw" gave a certain measure of relief, by offering work for solution.

"I will go!" she said aloud. Having made up her mind to take the risk, her spirits lightened perceptibly.

As the envelop bore no postmark, she at once plied the housemaid with questions. Who delivered the letter? How had it come on the hall table? The questions were put in a quiet, indifferent manner, so as not to excite curiosity.

At the usual time the maid had taken it from the private mail box, which was of iron and old-fashioned, and fastened to the porch buttress, and she guessed that the mail carrier had brought it with the other mail. Virginia spoke kindly to the girl, and after casually commenting on the beautiful sunshine, returned to her room and prepared for the adventure. She utterly disregarded in her mind that the mail carrier had brought the letter. Since it was not postmarked, it could not have passed through the postoffice.

Some one had sneaked in some time during the night or early in the morning and placed it in the box. That was her decision.