CHAPTER XXVIII.

THAT WORD WAS LIKE A DAGGER IN HER HEART.

"Words are mighty, words are living; Serpents with their venomous stings, Or bright angels crowding round us, With heaven's light upon their wings.

"Every word has its own spirit, True or false, that never dies; Every word man's lips have uttered Echoes in God's skies."

Pete, the driver of the sleigh in which Clifford Standish had so successfully accomplished the abduction of Geraldine, had told the truth about the affair.

Geraldine had indeed fainted at some words he had said to her, and while in this condition he had lifted her in his arms and carried her aboard the train.

Ere she recovered from her long spell of unconsciousness, the train was flying across the country in the gloom of the falling night, that, dark as it was, could not equal the blackness of the fate to which Clifford Standish had destined his hapless victim.

On reaching the station he had said, abruptly, to Geraldine:

"Kindly wait here for me while I go and find Hawthorne."

In reality he secured tickets for Chicago, and, returning to her, he said, still in that strange, muffled voice of his:

"The time has come for me to explain why Hawthorne trusted you to my care to bring you here."

"Did you not find him?" exclaimed Geraldine, uneasily.

"Yes."

"Is he not coming to me? This looks strange!" she said, with rising resentment.

"Be patient, Miss Harding, and let me explain," he said, wheedlingly.

They were standing at an obscure place on the platform, and very few people were about except the depot officials. No one noticed the tall, bearded man and his beautiful companion, with her great starry brown eyes and masses of sunshiny hair.

Standish proceeded, in an oily voice:

"Something shocking happened to my friend Hawthorne this afternoon, and he is compelled to flee the city on this train that you see them making up now. He is watched for at every station in the city, so he dare not come to you now, for his arrest is certain. His sending for you was a desperate expedient to see you once more and bid you farewell forever, or--to take you with him in his flight from justice."

With every word he uttered he saw her face grow paler and paler, her large eyes widening with nameless fear; but, without pausing for her to speak, he continued, rapidly:

"He is mad with remorse over the awful deed he has done, and wild with grief at the thought of leaving you. He says that you have promised to marry him, and why not now as well as later? He prays you to go with him now on his exile, and to become his bride as soon as his destination is reached."

Her pale lips parted, and she interrupted.

"Oh, let me see him, let me speak to him! This is so horrible, so sudden!"

"You will have to board the train to see him. He is in the rear car, having slipped on almost under the eyes of an officer watching for him. Come," and he attempted to take her hand and draw her forward.

But she shrank back in nameless terror, moaning:

"Oh, I--can't--go! I am afraid. Oh, tell me what it is that he has done!"

He bent closer, muttering one terrible word:

"Murder!"

The word struck her like a blow in the face, then pierced like a dagger to her heart.

"Oh-h-h!" she gasped, throwing out her white, agonized hands as if to ward off a stroke of fate.

The next moment her senses gave way before the shock.

She reeled blindly forward and fell like a log at the dastard's feet.

This was what Jem Rhodes had hoped and expected.

With a laugh of demoniac satisfaction he lifted Geraldine in his arms, and bore her to a second-class coach, having bought tickets for this with a distinct purpose.

To his joy he found that he and Geraldine would be the only passengers on this coach.

"The foul fiend helps me! I'll have a fair field for my love-making," he thought, exultantly, as the train steamed out from the station.

Presently Geraldine, whom he had lain back on her seat, stirred and opened her eyes with a dazed look.

"Oh, what does this mean? Where am I?" she gasped.

Standish bent over her, and said, soothingly:

"Don't you remember, Miss Harding? I brought you here to see Hawthorne. He will be here in a moment."

"But--but--the train is moving," she cried, in a frightened voice.

"Hush!" he hissed, and suddenly Geraldine felt the cold muzzle of a pistol pressed against her warm, white temple, and a hoarse voice continued:

"You are at the mercy of a desperate man! Do not move or speak, or I will blow your brains out and then leap from the train in the darkness. I swear it. I have much to say to you, and I shall say it with my finger on the trigger of this pistol, ready to kill you if you utter one word without my permission. Now the conductor is coming in to take up our tickets. Do not dare to speak to him or show one sign of excitement."

Life is sweet to the young and loving, and Geraldine dared not disobey that hoarse command. She crouched, trembling in her seat while the gruff conductor took up the tickets and passed on to the next car.

They were again alone, and in a whirlwind of conflicting emotions Geraldine waited for the next words of her companion.

In his hoarse voice, vibrant with passion, she had suddenly recognized Clifford Standish.

She comprehended that he had set a trap for her, and that she had fallen into it. The horror of her thoughts no pen could tell!

He bent toward her as he sat on the opposite seat, and though her heart swelled with a terrible hate, she dared not utter a word of remonstrance, for she saw that, half-hidden by his coat-sleeve, he carried his deadly weapon ready to wreak vengeance on her for the least disobedience.

But though she dared not speak, Geraldine could not restrain the indignation that flashed upon him from her contemptuous eyes, and surely that glance was enough to wither him with its burning scorn.

But, unmoved by her wrath, Clifford Standish asked, calmly:

"Have you recognized me yet, Geraldine?"

She nodded in silent, ineffable scorn, and he went on:

"I have much to tell you, and when I am done you will not despise me as you do now, for I have been cruelly wronged and defamed, just to gratify the spite of envious people."

The dark, scornful eyes looked at him in silent amazement as he went on:

"Geraldine, that arrest on the stage last night was simply for the purpose of turning your heart against me. Another man envied me, and concocted that villainous plot to make you believe I was married, that he might win you himself. I have no wife, nor ever shall have, unless you will keep your promise to be mine."

His voice sank to the low, tremulous cadence that he had found so effective on the stage, but the unchanging scorn of the bright eyes assured him that she was not moved by his ranting.

Heaving a deep sigh, he went on, passionately:

"It was a deep-laid scheme of that contemptible fireman, that low fellow, to turn you against me. And you know I had no time to explain anything to you. I was simply dragged away like a dog! Well, when my case came up in court this morning, the woman who had been hired to testify against me broke down in the witness chair, and owned that she did not even know me. Hawthorne had bribed her, she said, to claim me for her husband. I was discharged, as I told you last night that I would be to-day. Had you not heard, Geraldine, of my discharge, cleared of the foul imputation on my honor?" he demanded, anxiously, wondering if her knowledge of the truth would enable her to cast back the falsehood in his teeth.

But Geraldine had heard nothing, so, when he said again, "Speak Geraldine, did you not know I was free?" she answered, simply:

"No, I did not know it."

He breathed a sigh of relief at her ignorance of his escape, and resumed his falsehoods with more self-confidence:

"I was free, but half broken-hearted over the thought of the ignominy to which I had been subjected and the cruel impression it had made on my betrothed bride."

He saw her shudder at the last two words, but he was pitiless in his resolve to sacrifice her to his mad passion.

"Ah, Geraldine, was it not a fiendish act to turn your heart against me like that?" he cried. "I left the court-house and went to the hotel to see you. All the members of the company received me joyfully, but they had cruel news for me. They told me you had left them for Hawthorne--that you were betrothed to him, and he had demanded your retirement from the stage. Was this true, Geraldine?"

She bowed a cold, affirmative answer.

"It was true! I knew it, and I was in despair," ranted Standish. "Oh, how easily a woman's heart can turn against a man! You might have waited a day, Geraldine, and given me a chance to clear myself from that false charge. But, no! in your wounded pride you turned against me, and pledged yourself to the traitor who had plotted that vile outrage--my arrest on the stage--to further his own base ends."

She sat listening dumbly while the train rushed on and on, bearing her farther and farther away from New York and her own true lover--for she knew in her heart that he was true, and that the actor was telling her vile falsehoods--and her poor heart sank like a stone in her breast.

Oh, what would be her fate now, she wondered in anguish, hating herself because she had fallen so easily into this fatal trap.

Standish continued, in a pleading tone:

"What could I do in my despair, darling, but oppose cunning to cunning, and fraud to fraud? I knew that if I came to you in my own person, I should not even be allowed to see you. My enemies would separate us, keep us apart so that you should never know how cruelly I had been wronged. So I planned to get you away from them and into my power. I determined to have my promised bride if I had to steal her away from our enemies. I knew," eagerly, "that when you heard the truth, sweet Geraldine, you would forgive me for this bold move, and love me again. So--we are on our way now to Chicago, and there you shall become my bride!"