CHAPTER XXIX.
LEONARD HEARS ALL.
Half wild with jealous wrath, and nearly heart-broken, for he had loved her well, Leonard Yorke rode like a madman back to Yorke Towers, back to his mother to break the shameful news.
He took a different road home from the one by which he had traveled to the town. This road lay through the dense forest which stretched out, dark and gloomy, in the rear of Yorke Towers.
As he rode on through the sweet-scented pine woods, his eyes fell upon a small object, a fragment of cloth, which hung upon a blackberry bush and fluttered in the breeze as he passed by.
It was a little thing, an insignificant thing; but, somehow, Leonard felt a strange impulse to stop and investigate.
Dismounting, he approached the bush and carefully examined the bit of cloth. He uttered an exclamation of surprise.
It was a fragment of the very dress that Violet had worn the night before—a bit of black lawn, soft and fine in texture. Surely there was no mistake. He carefully detached it from the bush and placed it in his pocket.
As he was about to turn away, his eyes chanced to fall upon some foot-prints plainly imbedded in the damp, moist earth at his feet—small, dainty foot-prints—and near by a larger impress, evidently the foot-prints of a man.
As Leonard paused to examine with eager anxiety those tell-tale signs, he saw something black lying on the ground at the foot of a tree. It looked like a small, black snake coiled up in the sunshine.
He stooped closely and gazed eagerly at the thing. Surely, he was on the right track; he had made no mistake. Violet had been at this place the night before. What he saw lying at the foot of the tree was a jet bracelet, one of the very pair which Violet had worn the previous night when she had so strangely and mysteriously disappeared from Yorke Towers. With a stifled groan he picked it up, and slipping it into his pocket, turned away.
He knew now; he was convinced; he saw it all. Violet had indeed gone away with Will Venners; though why she should have taken such a course, Leonard was unable to guess.
They had evidently come by this secluded and unfrequented route to the town and the train; they had halted at this spot, perhaps to arrange their future course; for at this lonely place they would be quite alone, and in no danger of being interrupted or overheard.
Sick at heart, and fully satisfied that the woman he loved was false, Leonard mounted his horse once more and turned to go back to Yorke Towers. Overwhelmed with his trouble, his mind quite preoccupied, he did not observe the course that his horse was taking. He sat with bowed head, his thoughts busy; and as he forgot to guide his horse, the animal had everything his own way. So he carried Leonard on, playing, as it happened, into the very hands of Destiny.
When at last Leonard lifted his head, arousing himself with an effort from the heart-broken reverie into which he had fallen, he found himself in a lonely and secluded spot on the edge of a dreary swamp; and there at his very feet, lying upon the ground, was the body of a man.
With a suppressed cry, Leonard leaped from his horse and made his way hastily to the side of the prostrate man. Something familiar in his aspect struck to the young man’s heart, and with a feeling of horror stealing over him, he lifted the man’s head upon his knee and gazed into the death-like face.
Powers above! it was Will Venners! He lay there utterly unconscious, his head bleeding profusely from a severe wound just above the temple. A trifle lower and he would have been dead. For, although at first Leonard believed that it was a corpse upon which he was gazing, he soon discovered that the poor fellow’s heart was beating a little—faintly and feebly, it is true, but still it was beating.
Leonard laid the poor head gently down upon the ground once more, his heart stirred to profoundest pity. Yet all the time he was conscious of a wild thrill of joy and ecstatic delight to know that Violet had not eloped with Will Venners, after all. And since it was not Will Venners, why, then, there was some mistake, surely; for there was no one else whom Leonard had the least reason to suspect or fear.
He brought water in his hat from the bayou near and bathed the brow of the unconscious man, and stanched the blood, which, as it flowed profusely, would doubtless be the means of saving his life.
At last Will opened his eyes.
“Jessie,” he murmured, faintly.
Leonard Yorke’s heart leaped up into his throat. Could he have been on the wrong track all this time?
“What is the matter, old fellow?” he cried, feeling all at once a wild desire to do something, anything, everything, for this man, whom, until this moment, he had madly, unreasonably hated. “How came you here?”
Will tried to lift his head, but he was too weak. An awful, ghastly pallor overspread his face, and he fell back upon the ground once more at Leonard’s feet.
“I—I was coming to her rescue,” he murmured in a half whisper, speaking with great difficulty. “For—oh, it is you, Yorke?” for the first time recognizing his companion. “I am glad you are here, for you will help to find her now. That man, that villain, I don’t really know who he is, but it is some one whom Miss Arleigh fears and hates, has carried her away!”
“What?”
Leonard Yorke thundered forth the word like a madman.
“Explain!” he panted, fiercely.
“Very well, I will speak as rapidly and lucidly as possible, Yorke, but I’ll confess I am pretty badly done up, and it is very difficult to speak. You know, perhaps, that I called at Yorke Towers last night to see Miss Jessie Glyndon? I wished to bid her good-bye, as I intended going over to Texas to remain. I’ll tell you why: I love Jessie Glyndon, and I fear that I shall never win her, she is so cold and proud, and reserved. It is evident to me that she has heard frightful tales concerning me. Some may be true, I am sorry to say, but no doubt they have come to her highly spiced, and make me out much worse than I am, or ever have been. Leonard, if I could win that woman for my wife, I swear that I would be a better man, that I would turn over a new clean leaf in the history of my life. Well, I called to see Jessie, and I met Miss Arleigh in the grounds. She was running away from some one who had frightened her, a tall dark man in a military cloak. She was frightened half to death, and as I turned the corner of the avenue which leads to the house, she nearly fell into my arms. After I had quieted her, I begged her to let me see Jessie for a few moments, and like the dear, good young lady that she is—she is an angel, Leonard—she proposed to help me.
“Her plan was to go into the house and try and coax Jessie out into the grounds; once there, she would leave us alone, and we might be able to come to an understanding. She did all as she had proposed. Jessie and I were sitting under the magnolia-tree near the library windows, when we heard a fearful shriek which seemed to come from your mother’s room. Jessie rushed to her assistance. I would have followed, but she bid me not to come, and knowing that you were in the house to assist in the emergency, and thinking that it might be embarrassing for Jessie, I obeyed her, and with a hasty good-bye, I left her. I hastened away from Yorke Towers, and attempting to take the shorter route, I lost my way. About an hour afterward, while knocking about in the woods, I came face to face with the same man who had frightened Miss Arleigh, and he was carrying her in his arms. She was, to all appearance, unconscious. I stepped boldly up to him and called him to account. But he struck me over the head with something which he drew from his pocket—I think it was a sand-bag—and I fell to the ground like a dead thing. He must have brought me to this forsaken place and left me. I do not know, for I became insensible, and knew no more until I opened my eyes just now to see you bending over me. That is my story, told to the best of my ability. Where Miss Arleigh is now, I do not know.”
Leonard grasped Will’s hand in a firm grip.
“I want to beg your pardon, Venners!” he cried. “I have wronged you cruelly. I have accused you of gross wrong. I—I believed that you and Violet had eloped.”
Will started up with a wild cry, forgetting his injuries.
“You must be mad!” he panted. “I have never thought of such a thing as caring for Miss Arleigh, only as a dear, true friend. She loves you with all her heart, even as I love Jessie Glyndon. It is the dearest hope of my heart to one day win Jessie for my wife.”
Leonard caught the young man’s hand, and tears stood in his eyes.
“Can you ever forgive me, Will?” he cried. “I have a long story to tell you; and then you will understand me better. But first I am going to take you home with me to Yorke Towers—to Jessie—she will nurse you all right. After you are safe in her care, I am going to search for my lost darling—my pure, sweet Violet whom I have so foully wronged. I will never rest until I have found her and begged her upon my knees to forgive me.”
