The Senator's Favorite

"I am sorry you object so much to have me for your husband, for I have sworn to make you my wife or to kill you!"

The beautiful girl sitting close to poor, gasping Hetty, answered him with a look of silent scorn.

"It is true," he continued, "I love you madly, and I have sworn to win you. I know the distance seems great to you between the poor drawing-master and the petted daughter of Senator Winans, but love has often bridged gulfs as deep. Once we are married your parents will forgive you, and your father can easily give me a lucrative Government position that will place me on a high social footing. You see how easy it all is, as I told your sister at the masquerade ball last night."

A startled cry came from her pale lips, and he laughed:

"Yes, I was there, and often near you, for, like your sister, I was jealous of the attentions of handsome King Arthur, who hovered so often near the princess. Do you remember the knight who tried to make love to you, and on whom you turned a cold shoulder? Your sister was not so unkind to me. We had a long talk in the conservatory, and she helped me plan this little scheme that placed you in my power."

Oh, the cry of agony that came from those lovely lips at his words! They pierced poor Hetty's heart with their doubt and pain!

"You speak falsely! My sister Ethel would not be so cruel!"

"Your sister Ethel had no choice. I held the secret of her desertion of you in the burning house that day—the secret you kept at her bidding! She dare not let it be known, for she knew that she was guilty of desiring your death, because she was jealous of you."

Hetty moaned feebly:

"Don't you believe him, Miss Precious. Miss Ethel would not be so wicked. It was the old woman, his mother, that set fire to the house and ran away, hoping you would both be burned up."

"Hold your tongue!" Lindsey Warwick said, glaring fiercely at the invalid. "What my mother did does not excuse the sin of Ethel Winans. She escaped from the fire and ran away, giving no alarm to let any one know that Precious was left to an awful fate. She is afraid to let the world know it, and when I threatened to betray her she paid the price of my silence by sacrificing her sister."

Everything rushed over Precious. She could not doubt that her proud, jealous sister hated her with an envious rage. It was like a sword in her tender heart.

"Oh, Heaven! I would sooner have died than heard this hideous truth!" she moaned, and the fair golden head sank until it rested on Hetty's coarse pillow, while the white lids drooped heavily over the violet eyes.

Lindsey Warwick sprang eagerly forward, but Hetty motioned him sternly back.

"You sha'n't touch her, you fiend, unless by her own consent, and I know you'll never get that! So go out and leave her to herself."

He laughed arrogantly in his consciousness of power and answered:

"Very well, I'll leave her alone a few moments to get used to her position; but no plotting for her escape, remember, for there are bolts and bars on every door and window; and none of the neighbors could hear her scream, if she tried it all day. You know that by your own experience. So you had just as well do me a good turn by persuading her to marry me without more trouble. You didn't find it hard to love me, so why should she?"

The look of scornful reproach she gave him might have shamed a fiend, but he only laughed and went out, shutting the door behind him.

"Miss Precious, look up, darling—he's gone now; look up, and don't grieve. Maybe something will happen, maybe Miss Ethel will repent and send your father to take you from Lindsey Warwick. Oh, I wish I had a good revolver; I'd shoot him like a dog, and let you go free! My life's going out fast, anyway, and I'd not mind paying off my score against him!"

Precious lifted up a pale, haggard face, murmuring:

"Oh, no, no, Hetty; you must not die with the sin of murder on your soul. Listen, while I whisper in your ear: I have a splendid little revolver in my pocket. Papa gave it to me after—that night last summer, you know. He taught me to use it, and told me to always carry it when I went out alone, and to defend myself with it, if necessary. So don't worry over me, Hetty; I will kill him if there is no other way of escape!"

But she shuddered, and grew so pale that Hetty muttered:

"Let me have it, dearie, and I'll do the deed for you quick enough!"

"No," Precious answered; and just then the door opened and the old woman came in, leering hideously at the hapless prisoner.

Precious rose from her chair, and catching the old woman's arm, suddenly asked imploringly:

"Won't you be good enough to open those doors, and let me go home to my mother?"

"Couldn't do it for nothing. My son's orders is to keep his pretty bird close!" was the chuckling reply.

Hetty half-raised herself in bed, and gazed curiously at the pair. Something in the white, resolute face of Precious prepared her for a startling denouement.

She saw the girl's hand slide into the folds of her dress and out again. The next moment Hetty's eyes were dazed by the gleam of a small silver-mounted revolver, whose muzzle pressed the old woman's temple.

"Open the doors and let me go free, or I will kill you! Not a word, or I fire!" breathed the desperate girl, low and distinctly.

The old woman was a coward at heart. She almost fainted from fear, and, forgetting her son's interests in her own deadly fears, put her shaking hand in her pocket and withdrew the key without one word, as she was bidden.

Precious and the eager, watching Hetty began to think that victory would be easy.

"Now open the doors, and I will follow you until I reach the street. Do not speak, or I shall certainly shoot you," continued Precious sternly, still covering the bent, cowering form with the lifted weapon.

Scarcely daring to breathe, the foiled hag pushed the key in the lock, turned it sharply and opened the door.

"Go on down the steps while I follow," commanded Precious hoarsely, and still keeping her weapon close to the bewigged head, while she wondered at her own desperate bravery and silently prayed Heaven to keep Lindsey Warwick away until she gained her freedom.

But it was not to be. The villain rushed upon his own fate.

Just as his mother placed her foot on the first step to descend, he entered by an opposite door.

That suggestive tableau, his mother on the step, Precious in the open doorway above, covering her descent with a revolver, flashed upon his sight. He instantly comprehended the truth. His prisoner, with an undreamed of bravery, was fighting her way to freedom, and the cowed old woman was permitting herself to be driven to submission.

With the howl of a baffled wild beast, the startled villain rushed forward and struck back the little hand that held the weapon, perhaps with some faint impulse of filial alarm for the old mother who seemed in such deadly peril.

But his aim was misdirected or rash. The weapon dropped indeed from the little hand that grasped it, but as he bent forward it fell upon the step and exploded, and the bullet, whistling as it ascended, struck him beneath the chin, crashing upward to his burning brain. He sprang convulsively erect, then toppled backward in a lifeless heap, dead as suddenly as though by a lightning stroke.

At the same instant the old woman, jarred from her position on the steps by his sudden onslaught, lost her balance and fell, rolling over and over the steep narrow stairs until her body bounded against the locked door at the foot with a terrible velocity that broke her neck.

Thus two wicked wretches were hurled at a breath into the presence of an offended God, to be judged and condemned for the deeds done while they dwelt on earth.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

"ARE YOU GLAD THAT REVENGE LIES IN YOUR HANDS?"

"Some there must be who must bear the burden and the loss;
Some there must be who must wear the thorny crown and cross.

"Some there must be who must lay their hopes the altar on;
Some there must be who must say, 'Thy will, not mine, be done!'"

    —Susie M. Best.

A desperate courage upheld Precious through that tragic scene, but at its fatal denouement she rushed back to Hetty, falling on her knees by the bed, and bursting into convulsive sobs.

And for a moment no other sound filled the room, for the sick girl, struck dumb by the suddenness of it all, could not utter a word, only lie still among her pillows breathing in great strangling gasps, like one dying. For those other two, they lay still and voiceless, stricken down in the fullness of their evil career, just as victory in their evil designs seemed assured. But she, the innocent victim of their persecution, sobbed on, distressfully, in the revulsion of feeling from fear and desperation, to relief mixed with shuddering horror at the fate of her enemies.