CHAPTER VII.

A BROTHER’S STORY.

Adele Ray was as pale as death when she spoke again, but her hands were clenched in a resolute manner.

She was a woman of twenty-five, whose life had been a sad one, and her handsome face was marred by lines of grief and bitterness.

In a low, vibrating voice she told her story, making it as brief as possible so as not to distress them.

“My dear brother has had a bitter experience,” she said, “for, like many a thoughtless youth he became enamored with a young girl while he was a boy at college, and without any of us knowing it he made her his wife. She was a vain, silly creature, who looked like a big wax doll, and in less than a year Archie discovered that she was faithless. He left her at once, but made her a generous allowance—he had money of his own, and no one asked him to account for it. One more year passed and he heard that the girl was dead—he took pains to prove it and considered the reports verified. Meanwhile not one of his family knew it. When he came home from college he was only twenty, and to think, my brother thought himself a widower.”

There were tears running down her face as she paused for a moment. Dollie had forgotten to weep, she was so interested in the story.

“It was in London, six weeks ago, that the awful revelations occurred,” she went on after a minute. “Archie and I were walking together on the Strand one day when all of a sudden he gripped my arm and the next moment he dropped—he had fainted like a woman. I had only time to see that a young ‘bleached blonde’ was passing us; after that, for an hour, I was busy with my brother. Well, to make this story short, Archie told me everything. He had to, you see, for the blonde woman was his wife—he recognized her instantly—she was living!”

“How horrible!” cried Miss Allyn, as Miss Ray stopped speaking. She had thought just then of what Dr. Brookes had said and was beginning to put “two and two” together.

“Oh, and I thought he loved Marion!” burst out Dollie impetuously. “I was as sure as anything that she would marry him some time.”

“That is the hardest part of it! He does love her,” sighed Miss Ray, “but I was obliged to tell her his miserable secret, and it is that which has brought her into this awful trouble.”

Miss Allyn said nothing, but Dollie cried out in astonishment.

“She has a picture of Archie’s wife that I gave her,” explained Miss Ray, “and she promised to watch for and to try and save her. You see, Mary, Archie’s wife has gone to the bad altogether, and of course we feel pretty sure that she will drift to Blackwell’s Island, and in case that happens we thought Marion would see her, and oh, to think that the woman should have tricked us. For it was she, my brother’s shameless wife, that Marion tried to rescue to-day, and now to think that the dear girl is in her power and she knows, that drunken creature, that Archie is in love with her.”

This time even Miss Allyn gave her a questioning glance, then suddenly Miss Ray blushed scarlet as she turned her face from her companions.

“Forgive me, please, for wounding you,” she said, very softly, “but, Mary, that dreadful woman is in the constant companionship of a man who has met Marion here, as your friend, Miss Allyn. He goes by the name of George Harris Colebrooke.”

With a little groan Miss Allyn rose from her chair.

“The black-hearted scoundrel!” she muttered, savagely. “And he hates her, Miss Ray; because she was loyal to me George Colebrooke hates her.”

Dollie burst out crying again and it took both women to comfort her. She was now thoroughly alarmed about the condition of her sister.

She had entirely forgotten the doctor’s allusion to “May Osgood,” but Miss Allyn was pondering it over and over in silence.

It was almost midnight when the three young men returned, but they came triumphant, bringing Marion with them.

“Put her right to bed,” said Dr. Brookes, authoritatively. “The poor girl is worn out from this evening’s experience. If the shock is not too great she will be all right to-morrow.”

“I am all right now,” cried Marion, decidedly, as she insisted upon walking to a chair unsupported. “Oh, what a dreadful experience it has been. To think that I was only trying to do the woman a kindness and she deliberately connived to get me in to her rooms in order that I might be insulted by—by that villain!”

“We all know who you mean!” said Miss Allyn, promptly. “George Colebrooke hates you, and the woman is his friend! Oh, how could I ever have been so deceived—so foolish as to trust him.”

“Thank Heaven you are done with him!” said Marion gladly, then she glanced at her rescuers with a pitiful look, but she could not yet understand Mr. Ray and the doctor being together.

She was very pale and almost radiantly beautiful as she said good-night to her friends a little later. If there was any preference in her heart for either of these noble young men, there was not an expression or glance to show it.

As Dr. Brookes said good-night and walked away by himself he had fully decided that Bert’s information was erroneous—if that woman was Mrs. Ray, how could she be “May Osgood?”

“Marion, I believe you are a coquette,” said Miss Allyn, when the girls were alone. “I don’t see how else you could possibly be so entirely neutral.”

“I act as I feel,” said Marion, simply, “I don’t know which I like best and to-night I am too tired to think—they were both as brave as lions and Bert held his own with them nobly.”

After the three girls were in bed Marion told them what had happened. She had only to speak distinctly, for Miss Allyn’s bed-room was adjoining.

“I knew her by her picture, and, of course, I remembered my promise,” she began, “and I am sure she must have known me by some means or other, for she began eyeing me very curiously as soon as she was in the carriage. When we got to her house she pleaded helplessness,” she continued, “so I assisted her up the stairs in spite of my weak condition. Then the moment we were in her flat she burst out laughing. In a second she had locked the door and I was a prisoner. Of course I demanded to be let out, but she said she was Archie Ray’s wife and that I was his sweetheart and that she would smirch my reputation so that he would never again care for me. At that very minute who should come from another room but George Colebrooke and another man, both fairly reeking with liquor.

”I was horribly frightened, but I did not show it. I demanded to be let out. They only laughed at me. Then one of them put his arms around me and held me tightly while the woman mixed something in a glass and Colebrooke tried to make me swallow it.”

“Oh, Marion, what did you do?” gasped Dollie, breathlessly.

Marion smiled a little, now that the frightful thing was over.

“Why, I bit his hand so badly that he dropped the glass,” was her answer, “and just at that second the door was burst in and the next thing I knew my friends were all there and that fellow Colebrook had vanished like magic.”