The way she had always dreamed of being loved. Berserker love! To be swept off her feet and carried away to an enchanted palace! That little magic green feather! Malachi! She pressed her cheek against this wonderful lover's and her hand instinctively found his.
"Mat, you lubber!" grumbled Malachi, from the rosy hearth.
CHAPTER XVIII
The Mathison estate was in the foothills of the Adirondacks. There were farmlands, pulp-mills, forests, and streams. At the northern extremity of the estate there was a small lake. The manor proper stood on the south shore of this lake, four miles from the village and the railway station. It was a lonely habitation in the winter.
The house was of limestone, beautifully weathered, and was dated 1812. Here Mathison had been born; here he had spent his early youth. With the father almost constantly at sea, the mother had preferred the quiet of the woods to the noise and bluster of New York.
Hilda went into ecstasies over chairs and sofas that had become antique in these very rooms. She saw the mother's hand everywhere, the quiet artistry of a hand guided by a noble mind. Hilda romped about the rooms with the eager curiosity of a child; and it might be truthfully added that Mathison romped with her. They were so completely in love that they saw beauty in everything, in the hard, brilliant sunsets, in the Northern Lights, in the yellow dawns. Every day they skated or snow-shoed; and there was always a roaring chestnut fire to greet them.
And yet there were shadows, deep and somber shadows, that fell across the sunshine of their happiness. They never said anything about these shadows to each other; but always during the hour that comes before candles the shadows pressed in and down. Hilda could not shut out the thought of Berta. Where was she, what was she doing? Berta might deny the blood, but Hilda could not. Berta was her twin. During this twilight hour she saw this beautiful counterpart of herself moving furtively, flying by night, hiding by day, alone, alone; perhaps penniless and hungry. When the thought of the wayward one became too strong Hilda sought the piano, which she played exquisitely.
Mathison's shadow lay upon him perpetually, but more keenly when he and Hilda sat before the fire, waiting for the lights. The man Lysgaard had escaped. Free! Beaten and to all appearances broken, he had escaped on the way to the Tombs. A forced pause before a fire in a chemical establishment had opened the way for him. The crowd, the noise and confusion, and the insatiable curiosity and over-confidence of his captors had given him his chance. The strength of the rogue, after that beating! They had left one man in the patrol with him, and Lysgaard had suddenly dashed his manacled hands into the man's face and then choked him into insensibility. He had coolly taken the operative's hat and overcoat. The latter he had wrapped across his shoulders, holding it together from the inside. He had then stepped into the seething crowd and vanished completely. Search for him had been in vain. He had probably known where to find a haven. The real menace in his being at large lay in the fact that undoubtedly he did not know that Berta was a twin. He would have means of finding what had become of John Mathison. He would learn that a woman had accompanied his enemy. A trifling description of that woman would be enough. Being a Prussian, there would be only one idea in Lysgaard's head—Berta had run away with the man who had beaten him. Vengeance, before they found him and dropped the noose over his head.