"Of—course," she replied; but her voice faltered as she thought how impossible it was for her to love Teddy, because of that other passion in her heart.
"Oh, Chester, please let me alone!" she cried, with sudden petulance. "You have not known me two weeks, and I don't want your love! I do not want anybody's love!"
Suddenly she burst into hysterical tears.
[CHAPTER LII.]
THE SEARCH FOR KATHLEEN.
Oh! when shall the grave hide forever my sorrow?
Oh! when shall the soul wing her flight from this clay?
The present is hell, and the coming to-morrow
But brings with new torture the curse of to-day.
Byron.
On the night when Kathleen was so strangely rescued from the river a man and woman left Richmond by a midnight train for New York.
They were Ivan Belmont and Fedora, the woman who had played such a cruel part in the life of Ralph Chainey.
Whatever their mission in Richmond, it could not have been an honest one, since they were leaving the city in partial disguise—Ivan with a luxuriant blonde beard, and his companion with a curly brown wig over her flaxen hair, and a dotted veil drawn over her bold, handsome face.