Slighted love or, At her heart's expense

inquest, was buried the next day. Italy returned with Mrs. Mays, the German, and Emmett Harlow to their boarding-house. She found her mother sitting quietly in the parlor. A moment later Isabel Severn abruptly entered the room. The young widow’s beautiful face looked like marble against her sable mourning-robes and jet-black locks, and her somber dark eyes fastened themselves on Italy with an expression of keen despair. She went up to the young girl, extending her slender white hands with a gesture of pleading. “Oh, for God’s sake! tell me it is not true!” she cried. “Ah, I have loved you so, loved and trusted you, believing you an angel. It breaks my heart to think that you are wicked and deceitful.” They gathered around her in wonder and amazement. Professor Doepkin drew close to Italy’s side. He saw that she had turned deadly white, that she was trembling so that she could hardly falter: “What is it that you mean, my dear Isabel?” “Ah, Italy, you know. He has succeeded at last, that boy at Mr. Gardner’s who has been watching so long for the beautiful face of the girl who went away with my husband from the office the evening he was murdered. To-day the boy, Robert, saw her face again in the crowded court-room. He came here to tell me; he is waiting now to identify you--_you_--Italy Vale!--as the girl whom I believe to be concerned in the killing of my husband. Oh, God! how horrible it is to know you are the woman I have sought so long. How could you keep silence when I poured my misery into your ears? Are you indeed false and wicked? Speak! tell me how my poor husband died, and what part you had in the crime. Speak--ere I fall dead at your feet!” and she knelt before Italy with streaming eyes and upraised hands in piteous pleading. Mrs. Mays had looked and listened to her daughter in the wildest consternation. She believed that Isabel’s sorrows must have driven her mad. She hurried forward and tried to lead her from the room. “Come away to your own room, my dear, you must not speak to Miss Vale in this strange fashion!” she cried distressedly. But Isabel resisted her efforts and Italy begged her to desist. “Let her stay and hear the cruel truth, for now I cannot hide it any longer,” she said firmly. And to the surprise of every one, she took Isabel’s hands gently in hers and led her to a chair. “Sit here and listen to my story,” she continued, “for I _do_ know how your husband died, and it was to shield another woman that I have kept the secret so long. But, my dear friend, it is a very sad story for the ears of a loving wife. I would spare you if I could, but it is now impossible.” “Go on,” Isabel answered with burning impatience; and then Italy looked around, her glance lingering longest on Professor Doepkin, who stood nearest to her of all. “I wish you all to stay,” she said. “You have all heard Isabel’s accusation, you must hear my defense.” There were Professor Doepkin, Mrs. Vale, Mrs. Mays, Emmett Harlow, beside herself and Isabel. They all drew near, and then Italy began her story. She was pale as death, she trembled, and her dark eyes were heavy with unshed tears. It was a cruel ordeal for any young girl--to tell the story of a man’s wickedness to the wife who loved him and believed him true! She did not know how she would ever hold out to do it, but she did, and with a dramatic force and fire that held her hearers spell-bound. They hardly drew breath while she talked, and there were tears on every cheek, it was so thrilling, the story of that night when she had left The Lodge to place herself in Mr. Gardner’s protection, and fallen into a villain’s power. “Perhaps I have done wrong to keep the secret so long,” she said. “I did not want to betray Mrs. Dunn; that is why I kept silent.” “Isabel, I always said that Craig Severn was a bad man. I heard it before you married him, but you would not listen to me,” cried her mother almost exultantly. But the stricken widow turned upon her with such reproachful eyes that she could say no more. Then Italy bent before her pleadingly. “Will you take back your unkind words now?” she begged wistfully. “Oh, Italy, forgive me, dear, for my heart is broken.” And Isabel burst into a passion of tears. They led her gently to her own room, to wrestle with her terrible sorrow, while the others agreed to keep silent over what had just passed until Mrs. Severn had decided whether she would prosecute the murderess. Every one wondered why Mrs. Dunn had wished to kill Craig Severn, until clever Emmett said: “I have a plausible theory. Perhaps she saw only his back and believed it was Percy Seabright. She was madly jealous of him, you all know, and perhaps her jealousy led her to go to that house to look for him. Seeing him in company with a beautiful young girl, perhaps drove her to murderous fury. Yet I hope Mrs. Severn will not make it public for the sake of her relatives, especially sweet Alexie, whom we all admire and love. It would be very sad for her to hear this story on returning from her wedding-tour.” CHAPTER XXXI. THE WAGES OF SIN. On the next day Percy Seabright’s trial was continued. The reading of the diary was resumed by Mr. Gardner. Surely no one but a madman would have criminated himself like this, by writing down the details of all his wicked deeds. Everything was written there--the murder of Ronald Vale, the hasty flight to New York, the hurried return, the attendance on Mrs. Vale’s trial for murder, the dastardly persecution of the hapless widow that he had begun by telling Francis Murray a slanderous story, pretending that she was in love with himself. With ghoulish glee he exulted over the misery of the woman who had come between himself and Ronald Vale, explaining how his base anonymous letters had hounded her from place to place and made her life a torture. Then the coming of Italy Vale to Winthrop was dwelt on. Foiled for once by the girl’s plans, he believed Mrs. Vale dead at last, and transferred his hatred to her daughter. The discovery that Italy was on the track of her father’s murderer filled him with rage and dismay. He felt certain that unless he could compass her death she would track him down, for the soul of a heroine beat in her breast, and he instinctively recognized the force of her strong character. Then began his attempts to murder her, beginning with the cunning plot the day of the yachting-party when he had adroitly pushed her overboard. Furious was his rage at the failure of this attempt, but other schemes were tried soon, and Providence defeated his malignity until it seemed to him as if the girl bore a charmed life. All the time he was pretending the greatest friendship for her, although secretly thirsting for her fair young life. It was in vain that he tried to throw suspicions on Francis Murray; she scorned them all, and he realized that her life was a constant menace to his liberty. She would never give up the battle until she had won it, but if she were only dead the matter would rest, where she had been advised to leave it--with the long-ago given verdict of the jury and the world. Suddenly came the tragic happening of the moonlight party, and Percy Seabright raved with fury because the winds and waves had spared Italy Vale again, but in the supposed death of Francis Murray he saw his opportunity. It was no wonder that the sailor who had carried to Mrs. Murray the news of her son’s death could never be found. With the preternatural cunning of insanity, Percy Seabright had prepared the confession and, disguised as a rough sailor, delivered it himself. He now believed that Italy would believe Francis Murray guilty, and give up the search. Following upon these events came the return of Mrs. Vale to Boston, reawakening all his sleepless hatred. His call on Mrs. Vale when she had declined to see him was only a blind to hide his wicked intentions. He had already plotted to burn her house that night and destroy both herself and daughter. But for Professor Doepkin’s heroism, he would have succeeded in his malignant designs. It was a most revolting record of crime that the man had written in the stolen diary, little dreaming that it would ever see the light of day until after his death, when, in his love of sensation, it is probable he would have left it to the public. The remaining few paragraphs related to his approaching marriage with his detested fiancée, and were not of interest to the general public. It scarcely needed the testimony of the medical experts who had been summoned in the case to prove Percy Seabright a maniac whose liberty menaced all. An insane asylum would be his prison, and his career of crime was over, but the general public declared that his punishment was too light. They declared that hanging was too good for him, and that he ought to be burned at the stake. But the prisoner’s brother, his only living relative, was very glad to be spared the disgrace of having a brother hanged for murder. He hurried Percy at once into a lunatic asylum. And none too soon, for the defeat of all his plans, and the tragic death of Elizabeth, the good soul who had so tenderly cared for him in his periods of dementia, so preyed on his mind that he soon became violently insane, and the paroxysms lasted so long that every remnant of reason left him. A padded cell became his permanent abode, and in the summer following his conviction he committed suicide, during a furious spell, by strangling himself to death with his bedclothes. And what of his widowed bride, who all this time had been enjoying herself abroad to the utmost extent that a lacerated heart and very slim purse would permit? Her humiliation at the hands of her beloved Percy had turned her love to hate, so she was rather glad than otherwise to learn of his disasters at home. “Had he sailed with me he would have escaped them all. He is well punished!” she thought maliciously. But while she lingered abroad a great cholera scare seized upon the Old World. The cholera broke out, and among the victims that were chronicled duly in the New York papers was Mrs. Seabright. * * * * * But in our haste to relate the end of the wicked characters of our story we have somewhat anticipated events. We must return therefore to the moment when Mr. Gardner, having finished the reading of the diary, stood looking around in silence on the interested throng. He had a dramatic surprise in store for them, and was preparing to unfold it. Looking around upon the judge and jury he observed: “Referring to the fiendish plot to ruin the good name of the supposed-to-be-dead Francis Murray, I have a very interesting story to relate.” And he told in a graphic manner the story of Francis Murray’s rescue at sea, and the interest taken in him by young Doctor Loring, his recognition by Emmett Harlow, and the surgical operation that had raised the patient from a living death to full life and consciousness again. How the great crowd hung on his words, how eagerly Mrs. Murray and Italy Vale bent forward to listen. Emmett Harlow and Professor Doepkin seemed quite nervous, too. The story sounded like a romance. Mr. Gardner paused for a few impressive moments, then continued: “Francis Murray, whose mother and friends mourned him as dead, was alive and well, and eager to go home. But think of his position! “By the story of the mysterious sailor he was proved dead and guilty of a great crime. The public had accepted the story, and cleared Mrs. Vale of the shadow of suspicion that had rested on her for years. She, too, believed in his guilt. What if he came back now and denied the sailor’s story, and proved his own innocence?