The Unseen Bridegroom | Page 5

her, and adopt her as your daughter.
There is the skeleton for you to clothe with flesh."
"And suppose she refuses?"
"She will not refuse. She likes handsome dresses and jewelry as well as
any other little fool of seventeen. You make her the offer, and my word
for it, it will be accepted."

"I will go, Miriam. Upon my word I feel curious to see the witch. Who
is she like, Miriam--mamma or me?"
The woman's eyes flashed fire.
"Not like you, you son of Satan! If she was I would have strangled her
in her cradle! Let me go, for the air you breathe chokes me! Dare to
disobey at your peril!"
"I will start for K---- to-morrow. She will be here--my adopted
daughter--before the week ends."
"Good! And this old mother of yours, will she be kind to the girl? I
won't have her treated badly, you understand."
"My mother will do whatever her son wishes. She would be kind to a
young gorilla if I said so. Don't fear for your niece--she will be treated
well."
"Let it be so, or beware! A blood-hound on your track would be less
deadly than I! I will be here again, and yet again, to see for myself that
you keep your word."
She strode to the door, opened it, and stood in the illuminated ball.
Johnson just had time to vanish from the key-hole and no more. Down
the stair-way pealed the wild, melancholy music of a German waltz;
from the dining-room came the clink and jingle of silver, and china,
and glass. The woman's haggard face filled with scorn and bitterness as
she gave one fleeting, backward glance.
"They say there is a just and avenging Heaven, yet Carl Walraven is
master of all this. Wealth, love, and honor for him, and a nameless
grave for her; the streets, foul and deadly, for me. The mill of the gods
may grind sure, but it grinds fearfully slow--fearfully slow!"
They were the last words Carl Walraven heard her utter. She opened
the house door, gathered her threadbare shawl closer around her, and
fluttered away in the wild, wet night.

CHAPTER II.
"CRICKET."
The little provincial theater was crowded from pit to dome--long tiers
of changing faces and luminous eyes. There was a prevalent odor of
stale tobacco, and orange-peel, and bad gas; and there was bustle, and
noise, and laughter, and a harsh collection of stringed instruments
grinding out the overture.
There were stamps and calls for the tawdry curtain to rise, when a
gentleman entered, sauntered up to a front seat, took up a bill and began
to read it--a tall, middle-aged, rather distinguished-looking man, black
and bearded, with piercing eyes, superfine clothes, and a general
aristocratic air about him.
People paused to look again at him--for he was a stranger there--but
nobody recognized him, and Mr. Carl Walraven read his bill
undisturbed.
The play was "Fanchon the Cricket," and the bill announced, in very
big capitals, that the part of Fanchon was to be played by that
"distinguished and beautiful young English actress, Miss Mollie Dane."
Mr. Walraven saw no more; he sat holding the strip of paper before him,
and staring at the one name as if the fat letters fascinated
him--"Fanchon, Miss Mollie Dane."
A shrill-voiced bell tinkled, and the drop-curtain went up, and the
household of Father Barbeaud was revealed. There was a general
settling into seats, hats flew off, the noises ceased, and the play began.
A moment or two, and, in rags and tatters, hair streaming, and feet bare,
on the stage bounded Fanchon, the Cricket.
There was an uproarious greeting. Evidently it was not Miss Dane's
first appearance before that audience, and still more evidently she was a

prime favorite.
Mr. Walraven dropped his bill, poised his lorgnette, and prepared to
stare his fill.
She was very well worth looking at, this clear-voiced Mollie
Dane--through the tatters and unkempt hair he could see that. The stars
in the frosty November sky without were not brighter than her dark,
bright eyes; no silvery music that the heir of all the Walravens had ever
heard was clearer or sweeter than her free, girlish laugh; no golden
sunburst ever more beautiful than the waving banner of wild, yellow
hair. Mollie Dane stood before him a beauty born.
Every nerve in Carl Walraven's body thrilled as he looked at her. How
lovely that face! How sweet that voice, that laugh! How eminently well
she acted!
He had seen women of whom the world raved play that very part; but
he had never, no, never seen it better played than he saw it to-night.
"She will make the world ring with her name if she adheres to the
stage," Carl Walraven said to himself, enthusiastically; "and she never