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* gleaming light o
NOVEMBER 26, 1892.
THE NEW YORK LEDGER.
7
pleasure of-a little talk with you, fairest
cousin, and I have too little of that.”
Dolores had put two beautiful amber-
colored roses together, and laid them
against the front of her corsage—it was
now June, and she wore a loose gown of
cool, white India silk, without color or any
ornament, for she was still in mourning.
But the golden hue of the flowers, like
prisoned sunshine against her dress, had a
perfectly daaaling effect, together with the
f her eyes through her
long Jashes and ‘the sheen of her bronze-
brown hair.
“You are very beautiful !” said Stanley.
How often he had said those words to
other women—how often he had laughed
in his heart at the other women to whom
¢ had said them. But now they reall.
seemed to have a meaning, and his breath
came quick and his pulses throbbed while
he watched this woman to whom they
seemed to have no meaning.
“*Do you think so?” asked Dolores, with
supreme indifference. “What do you
know of beauty
“e ch, yea deed, cousin, till I met
you,” said Stanley, with a humble sincerity
he had never practiced till that moment.
Yes, it was true, he said to himself—all
he had told Van Tassel, and more, too. He
loved, adored, worshiped this girl. She
might, if she cared, make of him what she
would—something even good enough to be
loved by herself—or good or bad, what
mattered it? He could give up the whole
world and all that it contained, content
only to sit at her feet and worship there, if
she would but let him.
“You must not call me ‘cousin,
laughed Dolores, mockingly. **T don’t be-
lieve we are even cousins.”
n something nearer, dearer, Do-
lores. I love you! I love you
He bent toward her and ‘vould have
taken her hand, but she snatched it from
his touch and pushed back her chair with
a movement of violent, passionate fear and
loathing.
“Don’t dare to touch me!” she cried.
“*You love me? Oh, you are mad !”
“*T am—mad, or-anything you choose to
make me; but listen, Dolores—you shall
listen! I love you! I have never before
loved any woman. I.did not know I could
love. Iam bad; Iamevil. I knowit; I
acknowledge it. But to love you would
redeem any man. I feel myself exalted,
purified when I am near you. You can
me an angel like yourself. Without
you, I shall be, as I have ever been, a
devil! Think, girl, that you can save a
soul from Satan. Does that mean nothing
to.an angel such as you are? Itis your
mission to save me. I belong to you. Is
it my fault that I have borne a heritage of
evil handed down to me for hundreds of
years, while you have inherited only good-
ness and purity? It is your duty to redeem
—the debt my Indian ancestor owes to
me. Dolores! Dolores! We are the last
of our race. To us belongs the countless
treasure of the Mendozas. It is ours to
enjoy, ours to possess it forever, ours to
lift the curse of the Indian woman from the
race of the Mendozas. You said but now
that I was not your cousin. Behold!
not this the birth-mark of the Mendozas?”
ith a sweeping gesture he pushed
back the golden hair from his temple, and
there Dolores beheld the well-known birth-
mark inherited from Pedro Mendoza.
“‘The black heart!” she cried. ‘Oh,
come not near me! Murderer, doubly,
trebly accursed! Yes, you do indeed bear
the mark of the Mendozas; but only those
- of the black heart are cursed past redemp-
tion. Maruja! Maruja!
cannot save him !”
She wrung her hands passionately to-
gether, while a Jow moan of the deepest
distress burst from her lips; her face be-
came set and white, her eyes rolled wildly,
then closed as if suddenly glued together ; 3
and, as she sank helpless into her chair,
her head fell back, and Stanley saw that
she had become unconscious.
It was so sudden, so unexpected, that he
could hardly comprehend what had hap-
pened; but in the next moment his heart
gave an exultant bound.
*“At last, at last!” he muttered. “1
would have loved her; I would have knelt
at her feet a slav c, but she would not have
it so; now she is at my mercy, and she
shall be the slave, not I!”
He would have taken a step teward her,
but his feet seemed glued to the floor; ie
raised his hands, but when he would have
waved them before her face they seemed
suddenly like lead, while a cold breeze
seemed to strike a chill to his very heart.
“What is this?” he thought. ‘‘AmI
then powerless over her?”
He seemed to hear the hollow echo of a
mocking laugh, and every evil instinct of
his nature rose to fight for him. Let come
Even your love
what might, he would compel her to see
the treasure and describe its hiding-place.
Gold, gold! That was the passion of his
soul, “and now he returned to it with fever-
ish gladness, all the more its devoted slave
because of his brief infidelity, his fleeting
fancy for a woman’s love.
**Can you see the hiding-place of the
Mendoza treasure in the Santiago Can-
yon? ?” he asked i imperious! ly.
“Tam there,” said the voice of Dolores;
yet not her voice, as it seemed to Stanley,
though speaking through her lips.
‘Describe the plac
“Near a sycamore “tree, far up the can-
yon, where the wild pansies, the poppies
and the blue. forget-me-nots star the
ground.”
“*Can you see beneath the earth ?”
“Yes, where gold lies in veins through
the earth and a thousand rich and rare
Jewels lie buried.”
“How can I reach it?”
“That I shall not tell you?”
“You shall; I command you!”
“*T will not obey
Stanley bent. forward and, with all the
force of his strong and evil ‘will, fixed his
gleaming eyes on the still, white face be-
fore him, and with set teeth and hands
clenched, he hissed in low, vibrant tones:
command you, by the strength of my
will and by all the depths of evil in my
soul, that evil which you fear and tremble
at, to answer and obey me! .
“T refuse and I defy y:
Choking with rage, eat "vith fury, he
would have rushed on the slight and quiv-
ering form in the effort to wrench by physi-
cal force the obedience he could not com-
mand; but when he would have seized the
insensible form of Dolores, his arms once
more fell, powerless, to his sides and a shock
as if from an clectrie battery thrilled
through him from head to foot. Again a
cold breeze, chill, benumbing, horrible,
smote on his face, and a pale, silvery mist,
shot through with glittering dust of fire,
scemed to rise between him and Dolores.
t grew denser and the air grew colder;
and a shadowy face, dark, menacing, ter-
rible, looked at him, while two great, glow-
ing eyes glared on him so fiercely they
seemed to burn into his brain. With a
smothered imprecation of fear and impo-
tent rage, Stanley fell back before the look
of those eyes; and when they had faded
away ‘and a the air was clear again, he
rubbed his own eyes as one awaking from
sleep and darted forward toward Dolores.
The chair in which she had been seated
was empty; the door close beside it was
open, and she had evidently left the room.
“*What is the meaning of all this?” ex-
claimed Clarence. “Ts it magic? Witch-
craft? Or have I been asleep, drugged,
hypnotized ?”
He turned and strode across the room
toward the other door, and as he parted
the curtains he found himself confronted
by a face, so drawn, contorted, livid with
suffering that’ he looked long upon the once
familiar features before he recognized them.
Then he said:
“Polly t “Oh, Polly! Is it you?”
“Yes, Clarence—it i is I!’
CHAPTER XXIII.
SOME OF THE RESULTS,
Her voice was changed as greatly as her
face; and, pushing aside the curtain, she
entered the room, sinking heavily into the
nearest chair.
“How long have you | been here?” he
said at last.
“T don’t know;
long while.
“* How much have you heard ?”
“Everything, I suppose; but I under-
stand nothing—nothing, except that you
love Dolores—only Dolores. You have
never loved me—never loved ary one but
Dolores, only Dolores—always and always
Dolores! Oh, my Rita, my Rita, whom I
loved! Oh, my Clarence, my Clarence,
who never loved me !
“Polly, Polly, won't you listen? Can
you forgive ?”
“Please, don’t—oh, please, don’t speak
tome! Only go away now and leave me!
Please, only go away just now and Iet me
be alone !” -
Stanley turned from her quickly, He
was, indeed, stifling, choking, and he gladly
rushed into the hall and out into the street.
The situation was becoming too much even
for his iron nerves, and although the cool
air seemed to brighten his mind and bring
back his scattered wits, he walked as in a
nightmare.
It was Mrs, Hamilton, who, coming into
the drawing-room a few minutes later,
found her daughter | fallen in a heap upon
the floor, her hands tightly clenched as if
in maddening pain and her poor, distraught,
tortured face pallid as if stamped with the
seal of deat!
At first the shocked and horrified mother
T can’t ‘tell It scems a
could not even call for help; but as soon
as her voice returned, the whole household
was in a state of the wildest confusion ; and
it was not until Doctor Macdonald arrived
and assured her that Mary was not dead,
although sunk in a prolonged and danger-
ous swoon, that Mrs. Hamilton could put
on the outward semblance of cllmness. At
length, the poor girl returned to conscious-
ness, and the long-drawn sighs and pitiful
moans that then escaped her lips were
arder still to bear than the silence which
had preceded them.
With instinctive precaution, the poor
mother had dismissed every one from the
room, except the physician, at the first
sign of returning consciousness on the part
of her child.
© one except those who love her—
and Doctor Mac does love Polly—shall
hear what she may say, poor darling, if she
ever speaks again !”
Something like this was the unformu-
lated thought of Mrs. Hamilton’s mind,
and although she acted upon it, she was
hardly aware of her own wisdom in doing
so. But Mary did not sees disposed to
speak, only gazing pitifully at her mother
and at the doctor when she had sufficiently
recovered to recognize them. Then her
eyes filled with tears, which slowly rolled
down her pallid face, while strangling gasps
and sighs broke from her
Irs. Hamilton would ee clasped her
daughter in her arms, and would have
held her head to her heart as when a little
—for when had Polly ever known a
coir ane she could not soothe and hush
and kiss away—and it was maddening now
that she could not so much as put in words
her sympathy and sorrow, But Doctor
Macdonald checked her with an impera-
tive look, and placing his finger on his lips
indicated that the tears which were now
being forced from Polly's eyes, and the
sobs and sighs that were shaking her slight
form would do more to carry off the first
weight of her sorrow than anything that
could be put into words.
“Let her weep,” he whispered, pres-
ently. ‘* Words will only stop the flow of
tears—Ict her weep. The grief that dis-
solves in tears will never break the heart.”
Mrs. Hamilton could only reply by fran-
tic but helpless wringing of her hands.
Why should any one speak of Polly’s heart
breaking? What cruel grief had been cast
on her innocent, sweet child to cause such
tears? Oh, it was surely unjust of Heaven
to torture any one so good and kind and
gentle! Her dear little Polly, who had
never caused a moment’s pain or sorrow to
any living thin
Meantime Polly wept silently, bitterly
and with a fearful sinking of the heart—a
terrible despair—as she told herself over
and over again the words which had caused
her anguish; but as her tears increased
and as her sobs grew more convulsive
and then slowly calmed and finally ceased,
the first, awful burning pain of her grief
passed away, and she thought suddenly
and with a strange frantic hopefulness:
“‘There must be some mistake—I did
not quite understand, I know—I am sure
it cannot be so dreadful as I have thought.”
Then suddenly sitting up, she said:
“Mamma, where is Rita? Won't you
send her tome? I must speak with her!
I am quite well now, quite well—it was
nothing but a shock, and I haven’t quite
understood-—but I must sce Rita, and then,
mamma dear, afterward—I will tell you all
about it. .
“But, Polly—
Doctor Mcdonald quickly made a ae
to Mrs. Hamilton, and then said to Poll
“*You shall do just as you please, RS
dear. A nice, confidential talk with your
young friend will do you all the good in
the world; and if you will promise to take
a certain bitter drink that I will send you
—very bitter, but very toning and quieting
for the nerves—I think I will say good-bye,
for the present.”
He had taken Mary’s hand while he
spoke and held his finger on her pulse for
just one minute, and then, gently patting
her check, he turned away, and Mrs. Ham.
ilton, promising to send Dolores immedi-
ately, followed Doctor Macdonald from the
room..
This kind-hearted physician had seen
the inside workings of too many: house-
holds to ask any questions when he saw
signs of sudden and terrible mental and
nervous trouble; but he was certainly
amazed to find them here ; 3 for Mrs. Ham-
ilton had already told him all she knew of
the condition of her daughter, and that she
had left her in a state of perfect health, to
receive a visit from her fiancé, only half an
hour before the time she found her utterly
collapsed and unconscious on the floor,
s there any danger, doctor?” she
asked. ‘Don’t deecive me. s it her
eart? Is it some unknown malady that
we have never suspected?”
“There is no danger, madam,” the
physician hastened to assure her, as he
continued to fill out a prescription which
was only a simple tonic and nervine com-
bined. ‘Miss Polly is not the girl to die
ofa hheart-ache ; 3 but you may as well un-
derstand that she has had a severe shock,
No doubt you will soon know much more
about it than I ever shall; but my advice
is to take her away from here as soon as
you can; let her have new scenes, new
friends; but above everything else, a new
lover. Pardon me for saying so, 1 mean
it only for your child’s good, but I never
liked the old lover; he had the look of a
cruel and treacherous villain under his in-
fernal beauty. I know I shock you, but I
a physiognomist and a physiologist,
and I speak painful truths.”
“‘Oh, Doctor Macdonald, you are preju-
diced !” exclaimed Mrs. Hamilton. ‘* You
don’t like handsome men—
“‘We won’t discuss that, my dear lady,
but don’t keep Miss poly waiting; send
her young friend to
He hurried away before Mrs. Hamilton,
who was indeed too much dazed to pursue
the conversation, could say anything fur-
ther; and she mechanically proceeded to-
ward the room o ores; remembering
now what she had been too excited to re-
mark, although dimly conscious of it all
the time, that notwithstanding the tumult
of alarm concerning Polly, Dolores had not
yet appeared to inquire into the cause of it.
“Mary would like to speak to you, Do-
lores,” she said, when the latter opened the
door. ,
“* She is in her room.”
Never had Mrs. Hamilton addressed her
in such a tone, and Dolores, who had been
colorless as marble, felt her face flush to
the very roots of her hair; for there was
contempt, anger, scorn and wounded feel-
ing in the voice of Polly’s mother—that
voice which had always been filled with
maternal gentleness toward the Jonely and
motherless girl.
«7 will come to her at once,” was the
answer in low and tremulous tones, which
went to Mrs. Hamilton’s heart; but she
would not permit herself to be moved.
What kind of a girl was this, who could
remain in her. room without so much
anxiety as to ask a question when the
whole household had been turned upside-
down by Mary’s inexplicable illness? It
was evidently not inexplicable to her, or
why was she so pale and agitated? And
by this time Mrs. Hamilton had remem-
bered that Dolores was in the drawing-
room when Stanley had been shown into
it. She must, then, have still been there
when Mary entered. She must have known
why she had fainted. More than that, she
was, perhaps, the cause of that dreadful
and unexplained swoon which had seemed
to threaten the very life of her child.
Il this passed through the anxious
mother’s mind in an instant, and produced
its effect before she was aware of it; and
although she felt the unconscious pathos in
Dolores’s voice, she hardened her heart
against it and turned resolutely away,
Dolores was only vaguely aware that
something terrible had occurred. She
knew that the nervous scizure, trance, or
whatever it was to which she was occasion-
ally subject, had overtaken her while listen-
ing to the frantic address of Clarence
Stanley. She knew that he had professed
to love her; but of all that had been said,
cither by him or through her own lips w hile
she was in the mesmeric condition, she
was entirely ignorant. ie only knew
that when she recovered from it, like a
person awaking suddenly but completely
from a brief sleep, she saw him as through
some luminous mist, staring straight before
him, with fixed gaze and apparently ion
tified. She was herself aware of t
strengthening, comforting and tranquilizing
presence that had so often come to her in
moments of peril or other critical times ;
and then she glided quickly from the recom,
and in doing so, she seemed to be obeying
a directing voice which, without being
heard, made itself entirely understood.
But she had neither seen Polly Hamilton
enter, nor had she any suspicion that Polly
kad come upon the scene unperceived.
She seemed to herself to have awakened
from a dream, which she vainly tried to
remember ; and she was thinking, in a
rather frightened way, of this curious
“trance,” which had now twice overtaken
her. in Stanley’s presence, when she be-
came aware of the sudden commotion in
the house; and opening her door to inquire
the cause, she heard Mrs. Hamilton giving
wild directions about sending for a doctor.
olores retreated into her room, as if
she had received a blow.
With appalling clearness, she felt what
had taken place, and she was overcome
with all the horror of one who has unwit-
tingly but surely killed, the dearest friend
on earth. She sank into a chairand rocked
. Continued on page 9,