Helen Ford

“You are at liberty to do so as soon as you like,” he said, coldly.

“Good heavens!” she exclaimed; “and this to your wedded wife!”

“That is a slight mistake of yours,” he returned, with a sneer, resting his calculating eyes upon her face, as if to mark the effect of his words.

Her hand released its hold upon his arm, and she staggered back as if about to fall.

“My God! what do you mean? What can you mean? Tell me quickly, if you would not have me go mad before your eyes.”

“That might be the best way of ending the matter,” said he, with deliberate cruelty. “Nevertheless I will not refuse to gratify your reasonable curiosity. I declare to you solemnly that you are not my wedded wife.”

“You would deceive me,” she said, with sudden anger.

“Not in this matter, though I acknowledge having deceived you once. The priest who performed the ceremony was so only for that occasion.”

Margaret passed her hand across her eyes as if she were trying to rouse herself from some stupefying dream.

“Surely you are jesting, Jacob,” she said, at length. “You are only saying this to try me. Is it not so? I will only ask you this once. Are you in earnest?”

“I declare to you, Margaret, that you are not my wedded wife.”

“Then,” she said in a sudden burst of fury, to which she was urged by the sharpness of her despair. “Then I have only one thing to live for now.”

She turned away.

“What do you mean?” asked Jacob, almost involuntarily, her manner producing a vague uneasiness.

“Revenge!”

She drew her tattered shawl closely about her, and, though the heat was intense, actually shivered in her fierce emotion. Jacob looked after her as she walked rapidly away, turning neither to the right nor to the left, and a half feeling of compunction came over him. It was only for a moment, however, for he shook it off, muttering impatiently,—

“Pshaw! what’s the use of fretting! It must have come sooner or later. I suppose it was only natural to expect a scene. Well, I’m glad it’s over, at any rate. Now I shall have one impediment out of my path.”

Jacob’s nature was cold and cowardly, and, as may be inferred, essentially selfish. Destitute of all the finer feelings, it was quite impossible to understand the pain which he had inflicted on a nature so sensitive and high-strung as that of Margaret. Nor, had he been able to understand, would the instinct of humanity have bidden him to refrain.

He retraced his steps to obtain another glass of water, for the one in his hand had been spilled in the surprise of his first meeting with Margaret.

“Did you get tired of waiting, Ellen?” he asked, as on his return he presented the glass to his companion.

The suspicions excited in her mind by the mysterious warning had been strengthened by his protracted absence.

“You were long absent,” she said, coldly.

“Yes,” he replied, somewhat confused. “I was unexpectedly detained.”

“Perhaps you can explain this,” she continued, handing him the paper she had received.

He turned pale with anger and vexation, and incautiously muttered, “This is some of Margaret’s work. Curse her!”

“Who is Margaret?” asked his companion, suspiciously.

“She,” said Jacob, hesitating, in embarrassment. “Oh, she is an acquaintance of mine whose mind has lost its balance. You may have seen her on the ground here. She was muffled up in a shawl and cape-bonnet. She is always making trouble in some unexpected way.”

That this was a fabrication, Jacob’s confused manner clearly evinced.

“I wish to go home,” was the only response. Jacob offered his arm.

It was rejected. They walked on, not exchanging a word.

When they parted in New York, Jacob gave full vent to his indignation, and hastened home to pour out his fury on Margaret, who had so seriously interfered with his plan of allying himself with one for whom he cared little, except that she would have brought him a small property which he coveted. He hurried up stairs, and dashed into the room occupied by Margaret and himself. He looked about him eagerly, but saw no one.

Margaret had disappeared.

CHAPTER XVIII.

MARGARET’S FLIGHT

When Margaret left Staten Island after her stormy interview with Jacob Wynne, it was with a fevered brain, and a heart torn with the fiercest emotions. This man, whom despite his unworthiness, she had loved with all the intensity of her woman’s nature, had spurned her affection, had ruthlessly thrown it back upon her, and with a cold refinement of cruelty had acknowledged without reserve the gross deception he had practised upon her.

There are some of sensitive natures that would shrink and die under such treatment. Margaret was differently constituted. The blow was terrible, but she did not give way under it. It hardened her whole nature, and excited in her a burning thirst for vengeance. Strong in hate as in love, there sprang up in her soul a determined purpose, that, as Jacob Wynne had ruthlessly laid waste the garden of her life, she would never rest till she had made his as desolate as her own.

During the half-hour spent from wharf to wharf, she paced the deck of the steamer with hasty strides, her shawl clasped tightly over her throbbing bosom, and her face concealed as before by the capacious sun-bonnet. She heeded not that she was the object of curious attention on the part of her fellow-passengers. She never noticed how sedulously the children avoided coming in her way—what glances, half of wonder, half of awe, they cast upon the tall, stately, ill-dressed woman who strode by them with such an impatient step. She had far other thoughts to occupy her. She could not force herself to sit down. With her mind in such a whirl, motion was absolutely necessary. Her hands were fiercely clenched till the nails penetrated the skin, and caused the blood to flow, but she neither saw the blood nor felt the injury.

At length they reached the slip. She disembarked with the other passengers, and with the same quick, hasty, impatient strides hurried through the streets, choosing instinctively the most obscure and unfrequented, until she reached the lodgings occupied by Jacob and herself.

Here she sat down for a few minutes, and looked about her.

The room was more ambitiously furnished than when first the reader was introduced to it. Jacob’s connection with Lewis Rand had given him a push upward, and enabled him to live more comfortably than before. But in this prosperity Margaret had not been permitted to participate. She had asked even humbly for money to provide herself with more comfortable and befitting clothing, but Jacob, with cold selfishness, had refused all her applications. He had grown tired of her, and, as we have seen, had already formed a plan by which he hoped, through marriage, to get possession of a small property which would place his new prosperity on a more permanent footing. His treatment of Margaret, therefore, was only part of a deliberate plan to rid himself of her, and thus remove the only obstacle to the success of his suit. He had not indeed intended to reveal his plans to her until marriage had secured the property he coveted. We have seen how Margaret’s jealous espionage forced a premature disclosure of his object, and even defeated it altogether.

Margaret looked about the room, which she had so long regarded as home. Then her eye rested on herself disfigured by the faded and unsightly garments which Jacob’s parsimony compelled her to wear, and she smiled,—a smile of such bitter mockery, such deep and woful despair,—that she almost shuddered to see it reflected in the mirror opposite.

“There is no time to waste,” she muttered, slowly. “This can be my home no longer. I must do what I have to do and be gone.”

She opened a small drawer in the bureau, and drew out a half sheet of paper. It seemed to have been used for trying the pen, the same names together with particular letters, being several times repeated on it. Among the names that of Rand occurred most frequently.

Margaret smiled—this time a smile of triumph.

“Jacob Wynne! Jacob Wynne!” she repeated to herself, “what would you say if you knew that I hold in my hand the evidence of your crime,—forgery! forgery!”

Her eyes sparkled with vindictive joy.

“You would not sleep so quietly in your bed to-night, Jacob Wynne, if you knew that I hold it in my power to hurl you into prison a convicted forger! Why should I not do it? Tell me that, Jacob Wynne. Why, indeed; shall I have compassion upon you who have had no pity for me? Never! never!”

“When you are in prison,” she continued, in a tone of yet deeper vindictiveness, “I will come and visit you, and taunt you with the knowledge that it is to me you owe your disgrace. Think you that she will smile upon you then; that she will be ready to stand before the altar as I did?—Heaven help me!—and plight her faith to a convicted forger?”

Margaret’s whole nature seemed changed. Her love seemed to have given place to a deadly resentment.

She collected a few articles, and packed them in a small bundle.