The Senator's Favorite

There was a savage howl of pain and fury.

The petted mastiff that had never felt the weight of a blow in his life, turned glaring red eyes on his assailant, and sprang at her ferociously.

In a minute she was down under the huge paws.

Ethel heard the blow, the savage howl of the startled dog, the fall of the woman's body on the floor, borne down by Kay's strong paws, then strangling shrieks:

"Help! Help! He will kill me!"

The girl bounded up the stairs and saw the infuriated Kay at the throat of the prostrate woman.

With a cry of horror Ethel caught his collar in both hands, trying to drag him off.

But Kay resisted all the efforts of her puny strength, and the contest must have ended in a tragedy but for a sudden happening.

From within the closed and locked door where Kay had been struggling to effect an entrance sounded a low, clear, eager voice:

"Kay! Kay! come to Precious!"

The woman on the floor was kicking, struggling, shrieking, and the dog, with his paws on her breast had his fangs at her throat, but at that sweet, clear voice everything changed on the instant.

The dog, with his jaws wide open, emitted a howl of savage joy, and leaped upward to the height of a man, then turned from the woman and back to the door. His victim scrambled to her feet, her garments hanging in tatters, her face ashy pale and absolutely fiendish, but before she could utter a word she saw Ethel come up to her with blazing eyes.

The girl cried sternly:

"My sister is in that room. Open the door this instant, I command you."

"I will not obey you!"

"You shall!"

"I will not!"

Ethel's face was corpse-like in its pallor, her black eyes glowed with light.

"Kay!" she called, in a low, menacing voice, and the woman shuddered. At the same time a voice in the locked room called plaintively:

"Ethel! Ethel! darling sister Ethel!"

"That is my sister's voice," cried Ethel wildly. "Woman, your defiance drives me mad! If you do not instantly open that door and release Precious I shall set the mastiff on you. He will tear you limb from limb!"

"I'll murder you first!" growled the woman, edging toward the club on the floor.

"Kay will protect me," the girl answered dauntlessly. "Once more, will you open the door? No? Kay!"

The mastiff, leaping and yelping at the door, turned his head, and the woman's defiance all fled.

"Take him away; let me get at the door, and I'll open it. The key's in my pocket," she growled.

Ethel drew Kay away and talked to him coaxingly while Mrs. Warwick pushed the key in the lock, turned it, and opened the door a little way.

"Go in now, you and the dog," she cried. "The girl's bed-rid, and can't come out to you, and you can't leave that devil outside to devour me."

Ethel was so excited that she did not dream of danger or treachery to herself. She and Kay pushed past the woman, and entered the room. That instant the door was banged and locked on the outside.

CHAPTER VIII.

"IF I EVER HAVE A LOVER HE MUST BE GRAND AND HANDSOME."

"He to whom I give affection
Must have princely mien and guise;
If devotion lay below me
I would stoop not for the prize.
Bend down to me very gently,
But bend always from above;
I would scorn where I could pity,
I must honor where I love."—Phebe Cary.

Ethel heard the key click in the lock, but in the excitement of finding her sister she attached no significance to the fact.

She turned eagerly to the bed where lay a slender form clothed in a cheap blue wrapper of eider-down, over which swept a torrent of curling hair like sunshine.

But, oh, that face! Could it be Precious, the laughing, dimple-faced darling, with her cheeks like rose-leaves, her ripe red lips, her glorious eyes like blue pansies in the sunshine?

That wan little face on the coarse pillow was all thin and pale, with great shadows under the hollow eyes that were dim and faded from constant weeping. The little white hands were wasted so that the bewitching dimples were gone from the knuckles and the blue veins showed with painful clearness through the transparent skin.

At that piteous sight all the jealous hardness went out of Ethel's heart. She sprang with open arms to Precious, and clasped her to her breast, while Kay hovered over them in delight, licking the little feeble hands of his darling young mistress.

"Oh, Ethel, why didn't you come sooner? Where is papa? Why didn't he come with you? I shall die, and never see him any more," sobbed Precious plaintively.

"Die! Oh, no, my darling!" soothed Ethel, but she was startled by the words and the weakness and pallor of her sister.

"Precious, what has changed you so? Have you been ill?" she exclaimed anxiously.

"I am starving. I have never tasted food since the night I was kidnaped from the ball," answered Precious, in her faint, weak, hollow voice.

Ethel could scarcely credit the words, for a small stand near the bed was heaped high with edibles, fruits, and wines.

But Precious explained that she had determined to starve herself to death unless she was released from the power of the hated Lindsey Warwick.

"Yesterday I fainted from weakness when I tried to walk across the floor, and those two wretches came in and poured wine down my throat while I was too weak to resist, and again this morning she forced wine between my lips, and made me live a little longer, or else I think I should be dead already," and here Precious paused and gasped, too weak to continue.

"But you must eat and drink now, for I shall want you to go home with me," said Ethel tenderly, and she fed Precious like a little child, the poor girl taking food readily, for the pangs of hunger had been terrible to bear.

She ate and drank with grateful eagerness, and Ethel watched her with moist, dark eyes, and thought:

"Poor child, if I had stayed away a little longer she would have been dead; my little sister, that I have hated and envied in my evil moments, would never have crossed my path again, and I should not lose my lover as I shall surely do when once he sees Precious."