Miriam spurned away the proffered chair.
"I spurn it as I would your dead body if it lay before me, Carl Walraven! Sit down with you? Never, if my life depended on it! The child became an actress because I could keep her no longer—I couldn't keep myself—and because she had the voice and face of an angel—poor little wretch! The manager of a band of strolling players, passing through our village, heard her baby voice singing some baby song, and pounced upon her on the instant. We struck a bargain, and I sold her, Mr. Walraven—yes, sold her."
"You wretch! Well?"
"Well, I went to see her occasionally afterward, but not often, for the strolling troupe were here, there, and everywhere—from pillar to post. But I never lost sight of her, and I saw her grow up a pretty, slender, bright-eyed lass, well dressed, well fed, and happy—perfectly happy in her wandering life. Her great-grandmother—old Peter Dane's wife—was a gypsy, Mr. Walraven, and I dare say the wild blood broke out. She liked the life, and became the star of the little band—the queen of the troupe. I kept her in view even when she crossed the Atlantic last year, and paid her a visit a week ago to-night."
"Humph!" was Carl Walraven's comment. "Well, Mistress Miriam, it might have been worse; no thanks to you, though. And now—what does she know of her own story?"
"Nothing."
"What?"
"Nothing, I tell you. Her name is Mary Dane, and she is seventeen years old on the twenty-fifth of November. Her father and mother are dead—poor but honest people, of course—and I am Aunt Miriam, earning a respectable living by washing clothes and scrubbing floors. That is what she knows. How much of that is true, Mr. Walraven?"
"Then she never heard of me?"
"She has never had that misfortune yet; it has been reserved for yourself. You are a rich man, and you will go to K——, and you will see her play, and will take a fancy to 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 will play anything better than she plays the 'Cricket.' She is Fanchon herself—saucy, daring, generous, irresistible Fanchon! And she is beautiful as the angels above."
The play went on; Fanchon danced, and sobbed, and sung, and wept, and was mischievous as a scratching kitten, and gentle as a turtle-dove; took all the hearts by storm, and was triumphantly reunited to her lover at last.
I don't know how many young men in that audience were left without an atom of heart, how many would have given their two ears to be in handsome Landry Barbeaud's boots.
The roof nearly rose with the thunders of applause when the curtain fell, and Carl Walraven got up with the rest, his head whirling, his brain dizzy.