Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter. Lawrence L. Lynch

every tear, every heart pang, every sigh, you shall pay dearly; dearly! I will avenge my mother's wrongs, some day; for you are her murderer!"

      

"I will avenge my mother's wrongs some day; for you are her murderer."—page 42.

      John Arthur gazed in speechless amaze into the space before him—but she was gone! The stern, vengeful, set face was no longer there. The proud, ringing voice was no longer sounding in his ear. The uplifted, warning, threatening hand menaced him only in memory. And before the might of her purpose, and the force of her maledictions, he stood as in a trance.

      When he had so far recovered himself as to think of her sudden disappearance, he went out quickly. The entrance door stood wide open; the dim light flickered on an empty hall and stairway; the sky was black with clouds, and never a star; the wind moaned about the house; and across the meadow came the doleful howl of old Hagar's watch-dog.

      But Madeline was not to be found.

      Always, in the days to come, he remembered her face as it had looked on him that night. Often in dreams he would start and cry out, haunted by the sound of her scornful voice, the spectre of her threatening hand.

CHAPTER IV.

       Table of Contents

THE DIE IS CAST.

       Table of Contents

      Lucian Davlin paced the platform of the Bellair depot, in a very unpleasant frame of mind.

      His companion—half servant, half confederate, wholly and entirely a rascal—discerning his mood and, as ever, adapting himself to it, had withdrawn to a respectful distance. Only the shine of his cigar, glowing through the darkness, betokened his proximity, or the fact that the dark platform was not in the sole possession of the sullen man who paced its brief length, and questioned the Fate in which he trusted, and which, for once, had played him a sorry trick.

       "Gad! to be baffled like this!"—page 46.

      He had been deceived by a mere school-girl. She had not even deigned him a farewell word. He had lost a fair prize.

      "Gad!" he muttered, biting viciously at his cigar, "to be baffled like this; to lose that little beauty; to be foiled like a moon-struck idiot and never know how or why! I can't write her, with that cursed old step-father to interfere. I can't return again very soon. And she is such a little beauty!"

      He paused at the end of the darkened platform, and looked down the track; in the direction of the grove where they had met, and of Madeline's home. It was almost time for the train. At the upper end of the platform, the station master flashed his lantern, tumbled the luggage closer to the track and examined the checks critically; while the Man of Tact came out from his retirement and overlooked the proceeding.

      Something was coming down the track, swiftly, silently. He could just discern a shape moving toward him. It came nearer, and he moved up a few paces, and turned again where the lantern's rays fell upon him. It came nearer yet and paused in the shadow. It was a woman's form, and it beckoned. He approached carelessly.

      "Lucian!" She came close to him, and placed her hand upon his arm, drawing her breath hard and quick.

      He drew her farther into the shadow and clasped his arms about her. "Little one! You have walked fast—how your heart beats! I had given you up. Is it 'good by,' dear?"

      She silently held up the little chatelaine, which he felt rather than saw, and took from her hand. In the darkness, he smiled again the old exultant smile not good to see, and pressing her closer in his arms, said:

      "Don't try to talk, sweet one; see, yonder comes our fiery horse and soon we will be far on our way. Take my arm, little one, and trust him who loves you. Look your last at the scene of your past loneliness—to-morrow comes the gay world."

      Rattling and shrieking, the train approached. Lucian hurried his companion upon the rear platform; and neither his comrade, who entered the smoking car without looking about him, nor the station master, busy with his trunks and valises, observed that a third passenger quitted Bellair station on the night express.

      About them, the passengers nodded, yawned or slept. Outside, swiftly passing darkness. And every moment was hurrying her farther and farther away from all familiar scenes and objects, out to a life all untried, a world all new and strange. But she never thought of this. She was not elated, neither was she cast down. She felt no fear;—and, afterwards, she remembered that she indulged in no bright visions of the future during her swift flight.

      She had prepared herself to relate her story, to describe the scene she had just passed through, to tell him all. But he had other things to occupy his mind, and bidding her to rest and save all she might have to relate until the morrow, he relapsed into silence and thought, only now and then gently speaking a word, and looking after her comfort with a happy grace possessed by few, and so powerful in the winning of a woman.

      On, on, through the black night—youth and age, joy and sorrow, hope and despair, good and evil; on together through the night; on, on. Near to the great city; near to the welcome, dark or bright, awaiting the journey's end. Blacker grew the night, wilder shrieked the wind in angry protest against the defiant, fiery, resistless monster upon whom its rage fell impotent. Now pausing; now rushing on with a shriek and a roar; nearer, nearer to the scene of the new life, dawning grimly upon the fair girl, all unconscious, unheeding.

      They halted at a wayside station—just one of those little hamlets only a few miles removed from, and really a part of the great city. One passenger came on board, sauntering down the coach's length listlessly, wearily. He threw himself into a reversed seat in a half reclining attitude, and so his careless, wandering gaze fell first upon Madeline, seated opposite and very near.

      She sees him just as she sees the rest, vaguely. She remembers, later, that he had a good face and that she had thought it then. But confused and wearied in mind and body, she feels no inclination to observe or think. So they were hurried on, and no whisper of her heart, no quickening of the pulses, or sensation of joy or fear, warned her that she was sitting under the gaze and in the presence of the good and the evil forces that were to compass and shape her life.

      Open your eyes, oh, Madeline, before it is too late. See the snare that is spreading beneath your feet; read aright the bright glance that shines on you from those handsome, fateful eyes. Interpret truly the smile turned on you now. Alas! what woman ever saw guile in the eyes of the man she loved? Never one, until those eyes have ceased to smile upon her, and her fate is sealed. What one ever yet recognized the false ring of the voice that had never, as yet, addressed her save in honeyed tones, that seemed earth's sweetest music to her ears? None, until the voice had changed and forgotten its love words; none, until it was too late.

      What Madeline saw, was a man who was to her the embodiment of all manly grace, her all of joy and love, of truth and trust. And, sitting opposite, just a young man with fair curling hair, and frank blue eyes; with a fine manly face, and an air of refinement. A very nice young man; but not like her hero.

      Not like her hero? No, thank heaven for that, Madeline, else your way would have been far more drear, else your life might have known never a ray of sunlight, in the long days to come.

      On, on; nearer and yet nearer the long journey's