CHAPTER VIII.
“SHE SHALL BE MINE?”
With an evil smile on his face, Carey Doyle whipped up the horse and drove swiftly back to his aunt’s house, his eyes gloating on the pale, unconscious beauty of Jessie’s face as it lay across his knee where he had carefully placed it.
The man’s heart was aroused as it had never been before by this lovely girl, and he vowed to himself that she should become his own.
In the gray dusk of the November day he carried her into the house, to the dismay of Madame Barto, who exclaimed:
“So you were as good as your word! You tried to kill the poor child!”
Carey Doyle denied the impeachment with the greatest sang-froid, protesting that on the contrary he had saved the poor girl’s life in a runaway accident.
“And as soon as you bring her around I want to have a serious talk with you,” he said, as she turned him out of the little hall bedroom where Jessie lay on her narrow cot.
He waited impatiently in the parlor about half an hour before she reappeared, saying:
“She was hard to revive, and hardly knows what has happened to her yet, so I just gave her a sedative and left her to fall asleep while I come to hear what you have to say, Carey.”
“Well, as I told you just now, Laurier’s horses bolted in the park and ran away, pitching him out, and leaving Jessie in. I happened to be looking on and stopped the team and saved her life.”