Mischievous Maid Faynie Read online

  CHAPTER VII.

  HE RAISED HIS CLINCHED HAND, AND THE BLOW FELL HEAVILY UPON THEBEAUTIFUL UPTURNED FACE.

  With returning consciousness, Faynie's violet eyes opened slowly--takingin, by the flickering light of the candle, the strange room in which shefound herself; then, as they opened wider, in amazement too great forwords, she beheld the figure of a man, half hidden among the shadows,standing but a few feet away from the couch, his eyes fastened upon her;she could even hear his nervous breathing.

  With a gasp of terror Faynie sprang from the couch with a single bound;but the cry she would have uttered was strangled upon her lips by theheavy hand that fell suddenly over them, pressing so tightly againstthem as to almost take her breath away.

  "Don't attempt to scream or make any fuss," cried a hissing voice in herear--"submit to the inevitable--you are my wife--there is nothing out ofthe way in your being here with me. Come, now, take mattersphilosophically and we shall get along all right."

  He attempted to draw the girl into his encircling arms, her wonderfulbeauty suddenly dawning upon him; but she shrank from his embrace, andfrom the approach of his brandy-reeking lips, as though he had been ascorpion.

  With a suddenness that took him greatly aback, and for an instant at adisadvantage, she freed herself from his grasp, and stood facing himlike a young tragedy queen in all her furious anger and outraged pride.

  "Do not utter another word, Lester Armstrong!" she panted, "you only addinsult to injury--why it seems to me some horrible trick of thesenses--some nightmare--to imagine even that I could ever have cared foryou--to have believed you noble, honorable and--a gentleman. Why, youalmost seem to be a different person in his guise--you are so changed intone and manner from him to whom I gave my heart. The affection that Ithought I had for you died a violent death."

  She did not notice that the man before her started violently at thesewords--but the look of fear in his eyes gave place the next instant tobraggadocio.

  He would have answered her, but she held up her little white hand with agesture commanding silence, saying, slowly, with quivering lips:

  "I repeat, the affection that I believed filled my heart for you diedsuddenly when I told you that I had changed my mind about eloping, andinstead of studying my desires you insisted that the arrangement must becarried out."

  "My--my--love for you prompted it, Faynie," he exclaimed, in a maudlinvoice. He knew he had the name wrong, but could not think what it was tosave his life. "Come, now, let's kiss and make up, and love each otherin the same old way, as the song goes."

  "What! love a man who thrusts me into a coach despite my entreaties,takes me to a church, and with a revolver pressed close to myheart--beneath my cloak--forces me to become his wife! No. No! I loathe,abhor you--open that door and let me go!"

  With an unsteady spring he placed himself between her and the door,crying angrily as he ground out a fierce imprecation from between hiswhite teeth. "Come, now, none of that, my beauty. You're my wife allright, no matter how much of a fuss you make over it. I want to beagreeable, but you persist in raising the devil in me, and though youmay not know it, I've a deuce of a temper when I'm thoroughly roused toanger--at least that's what the folks who know me say.

  "Sit right down here now, and let's talk the matter over--if you want togo home to the old gent, why I'm sure I have no objection, providing heagrees to take your hubby along with you. There'll be a scene ofcourse--we may expect that--but when you tell him how you love me, andcouldn't live without me and all that--and mind, you put it on heavy--itwill end by his saying: 'Youth is youth, and love goes where it is sent.I forgive you, my children; come right back to the paternalroof--consider it yours in fact.' And when the occasion is ripe, youcould suggest that the old gent start your hubby in business. Your wishwould be law; he might demur a trifle at first, but if you stuck wellto your point he'd soon cave in and ask what figure I'd take to--"

  "Stop!--stop right where you are, you mercenary wretch!" cried Faynie ina ringing voice. "I see it all now--as clear as day. You--you--havemarried me because you have believed me my father's heiress, and--"

  "You couldn't help but be, my dear," he hiccoughed. "An only child--noone else on earth to come in for his gold--couldn't help but be hisheiress, you know--couldn't disinherit you if he wanted to. You've gotthe old chap foul enough there, ha, ha, ha!"

  "You seem to have suddenly lost sight of the fact that there is some onebeside myself--my stepmother and her daughter Claire."

  He fell back a step and looked at her with dilated eyes--despite thebrandy he had imbibed he still understood thoroughly every word she wassaying.

  "A stepmother--and--another daughter!" he cried, in astonishment--almostincoherently.

  "You seem to forget that you always used to say to me--that you hopedthey were well," said Faynie with deepening scorn in her clear, youngvoice.

  "Oh--ah--yes," he muttered, "but you see I was not thinking ofthem---only of you," and deep in his heart he was cursing the haplesscousin--whom he believed dead by this time--for not mentioning that thegirl had a stepmother and sister.

  "Had you taken the time to listen to something else that I had to tellyou, you might have reconsidered the advisability of eloping with me insuch haste," went on the girl in her clear, ringing tones, "for it hasbecome apparent to me--with even as little knowledge of the world as Ipossess--that you are a fortune hunter--that most despicable of allcreatures--but in this instance your dastardly scheme has entangled yourown feet. Your well-aimed arrow has missed the mark. You have weddedthis night a penniless girl. An hour before you met me at the archedgate my father disinherited me, and when he has once made up his mindupon any course of action--nothing human, nothing on earth or in heavenwould have power enough to induce him to change it."

  The effect of her words were magical upon him. With a bound he was ather side grasping her slender wrists with so tight a hold that theynearly snapped asunder.

  Intense as the pain was, Faynie would not cry aloud. He should not seethat he had power to hurt her, even though she dropped dead at his feetat last from the excruciating torture of it.

  "What is it you say--the old rascal has--disinherited you?" he cried,scarcely crediting the evidence of his own ears.

  "That is just what I said--my father has disinherited me," she repliedslowly and distinctly, adding: "His money was his own--to do with as hepleased--he gave me the choice of--of--marrying to suit him or being cutoff entirely. I--I--refused to accept the man he had selected for me.That ended the matter. 'Then from this hour know that you shall notinherit one penny of my wealth,' he cried. 'I will cut you off with butthe small amount required by law. There is nothing more to be said. Youare a Fairfax. You have taken your choice, and as a Fairfax you mustabide by your decision!' You will remember I told you I had something totell you the moment you came up to me at the arched gate, but you wouldnot listen. Now the consequence is upon your own head."

  "I have married a beggar, when I thought I was marrying an--heiress!" hecried in a rage so horrible that Faynie, brave as she was, recoiled fromhim in terror and, dismay.

  "You have married a penniless young girl," she corrected, halfinaudibly.

  He raised his clinched hand with a terrible volley of oaths, beforewhich she quailed, despite her bravery.

  "When the old man cast you off you thought you would tie yourself on tome," he cried. "You women are cunning--oh, yes, you are, don't tell meyou're not; and you are the shrewdest one I've come across yet. You liewhen you say you meant to tell me what had happened beforehand, and youknow it. But you'll find out at your cost what it means to bind me to amillstone for a wife. But you shan't be a millstone. You'll do yourshare toward the support. Yes, by George, you shall. I'll put you on thestage--and you--"

  "Never!" cried the girl with a bitter sob. "I'd die first."

  "Don't set up your authority against mine," he cried, and as he utteredthe words--half crazed by the brandy he had drunk so copiously--hisclinched fist came do
wn with a heavy blow upon the girl's beautiful,upturned face, and she fell like one dead at his feet.