“Oh, Lena, the awful threatening, the dread import of his looks and words almost struck me dead at his feet! I gasped, like one dying:
“‘Open the door and let me go, and I will never betray your agency in this awful deed!’
“He knew I spoke the truth; he knew that a young girl’s honor is dearer to her than life. His awful secret was safe in my hands.
“‘You shall go unharmed,’ he said. ‘I am sorry to give you up, but it is the price I must pay for my crime. Luckily I brought you in by a private door, and no one saw your face. It need never be known that one of the most beautiful and virtuous girls in the world entered this house, and after remaining half an hour, left it as pure as when she came into it. That old man’s death saved your honor, beautiful one. Now come,’ and drawing my vail close, I followed him unnoticed into the street, where the rain was still pouring in sheets like another deluge.
“‘You must endure my presence until I can find you a carriage,’ he said; but this was soon accomplished, and I thanked Heaven when the carriage door closed on his evil, smiling face, and I was rolling toward my hotel.
“Mrs. Maynard and the girls were wild with joy to see me. They had sought me vainly in the Fair grounds and outside, and then returned to the hotel, hoping to find me there. I told them the truth, as nearly as I could, that I had missed them at the Virginia Building, and a gentleman had secured a carriage for me and sent me home. As I told it, it seemed a very commonplace story, and no one dreamed of the secret tragedy it held—not even when Chicago was ringing the next day with the story of the mysterious murder of an old man at a notorious house in the suburbs. I was ill with a deep cold during our remaining time in Chicago, and went out no more until my return to Virginia.”
In a few more words Violet told of her grandfather’s visit to Chicago, his acquaintance with Harold Castello, and the attempt to force an elopement which had ended so disastrously in her wedding the wrong man. Harold Castello had doubtless brooded over the fear of Violet betraying him until he had decided that the safest plan was to make her his wife, and thus place it forever out of her power to testify in a court of law to his infamous crime, the murder of a noble old man whose innocent daughter he had cruelly betrayed.
While she was talking the moon went down, and the first gray beams of daylight began to lighten the darkness of the world.
Lena Lavarre rose and took Violet’s hand.
“We will go home now to my mother,” she said. “Our house is but two miles from this place, and we can soon reach it. Our enemy will never think of looking for you there. He believes that poor Lena Lavarre died in Chicago of brain fever, and he would not suspect you of knowing her mother.”