LITMIR.BIZ

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bier in Doctor Churchman's pretty parlor. Very pale and beautiful she looked, and as Ralph Chainey bent over her for one farewell look, she did not seem like one dead, but just asleep. It even seemed as though the white flowers on her breast moved softly, as with a gentle breath; but when he hastened to hold a mirror over her lips, it remained clear, without any moisture. He laid it down with a bitter groan.

      His delayed train would arrive in a few moments and he was compelled to leave the dead girl's side for a death-bed. He must leave Kathleen here with these kind, sympathetic people; but he would return as soon as he could; for there must be an inquest, at which he must be the chief witness.

      He wondered how her relatives would take it—her stately step-mother, her pretty step-sister, who had told him such unblushing falsehoods about Kathleen.

      "Helen Fox will be sorry, I know, for she loved Kathleen dearly," he murmured aloud. Tears fell from his beautiful brown eyes upon the angelic face, and he went on talking to the girl in a low monotone, almost forgetting that she could not hear him, or perhaps fancying that her gentle spirit hovered near: "My darling, you will never know how dearly I loved you, nor how I shall mourn you all my life long! Once I saved your life and oh! why did not Heaven give me that joy again? Why did I come too late to-night?" With a groan, he laid his hand softly on the one that clasped the white flowers on her breast, and added: "Kathleen, I swear that I will avenge your murder, if it takes me all my life to do it and costs me all my fortune!"

      He bent and pressed his lips on her white brow and her soft curls, took a white rosebud from under her pulseless hand and placed it in his breast, then he was gone. Presently, when the excited villagers began filing in to look at the murdered girl, they saw a tear-drop that had fallen from his eyes glittering like a pearl on the bosom of her black silk dress.

      The little community was wild with horror and excitement at the finding of the murdered girl in their midst, and when it became known that she had been recognized as a great Boston heiress, the furore became even greater. The telegraph wires flashed the news from town to city, and the newspapers that one day had chronicled the news of Kathleen's elopement, printed twenty-four hours afterward in flaring head-lines the awful story of her robbery and murder.

      Even Mrs. Carew, wicked as she was, paled to the lips as she read it, and Alpine fainted outright. Weak, selfish, cruel as the girl was, she had cared for Kathleen more than she knew. The girl's charms had won upon her, in spite of herself.

      "Good heavens! that actor, he has robbed and murdered her, the fiend!" Mrs. Carew cried, violently. "He is even worse than I thought!"

      "I do not believe it, mamma. There is some mistake—there must be. Ralph Chainey was a gentleman, and rich in his own right," Alpine answered, speaking the truth for once.

      Like every one else, she admired the young actor, and though his preference for Kathleen had angered her, she was not prepared to do him the flagrant injustice of believing him as wicked as her mother asserted.

      There was a moment's silence; then Mrs. Carew exclaimed, with a startled air:

      "Good heavens, Alpine! think what this means to us! Kathleen dead, the whole Carew fortune is ours!"

      Alpine had the grace to be ashamed.

      "How can you think of that now?" she exclaimed, reproachfully. "I—I had rather know that—that Kathleen was alive than have the wealth of the Vanderbilts!"

      Then she burst into tears and left the room in a hurry.

      Mrs. Carew looked after her aghast.

      "I did not think she would take it so hard, but then I always suspected her at times of a sneaking fondness for that black-eyed witch," she mused. "Well, I don't mind. It will look better in society, a little real grief on Alpine's part. As for me, I'm glad she's out of the way, and the Carew wealth assured to me and mine."

      She gave a low laugh of satisfaction, but her hands were shaking with excitement, and her heart fluttered strangely. She was recalling the coincidence of Kathleen's and her mother's deaths—both at nearly the same age—sixteen—and both by violent means.

      The maid came so suddenly into the room that it gave her a violent shock. She started and looked around angrily.

      "Why do you enter the room so rudely, without knocking, Ellen?"

      "I beg pardon, madame. I knocked, but you did not hear, so I made bold to enter, because Miss Belmont sent me in a hurry."

      "Well?"

      "She desires to know if I shall get your things ready to go after Miss Carew's body?"

      The woman spoke in an unmoved tone. Her mistress had taught her to hate the fair young heiress.

      "She means to go?" interrogated Mrs. Carew.

      "She is getting ready, madame, and told me you were going."

      "Yes, of course, Ellen. In the absence of my husband and son, it is my harrowing duty." Mrs. Carew put her handkerchief to her dry eyes and sighed: "Make haste, Ellen."

      CHAPTER XIII.

      ANOTHER MYSTERY

      "Ah, you or I must look

      Into the other's coffin, far or near,

      And read, as in a book,

      Words we made bitter here,

      Some time!"

      There was a little flutter of excitement at Doctor Churchman's pretty cottage.

      The Carews had at last arrived, after being vainly looked for for more than two days, and their aristocratic airs and their stylish maid created quite a sensation.

      Kathleen was waiting for them in the little parlor—Kathleen with shut eyes and pallid lips and folded, waxen hands—so unlike the brilliant beauty they remembered, with this awful calm upon her face.

      They gazed upon her, and Mrs. Carew's lips twitched nervously, while Alpine wept genuine tears, remembering remorsefully how kind Kathleen had been, and how illy she had repaid her goodness.

      Ralph had not come yet, but a telegram from Richmond had arrived announcing that he would come early in the morning when arrangements had been made to hold an inquest.

      Mrs. Churchman placed rooms at the service of the ladies and they retired early, pleading fatigue, but really to talk over all that they had heard.

      They had inquired as to the strange telegram that had been received, and learned the true contents of it. They knew now that it was of Kathleen's death, not her marriage, they had been informed.

      "She must have arrived here on an earlier train than Mr. Chainey, so she was evidently running away from home," said Mrs. Carew, and she added: "I think that wicked Susette eavesdropped and blabbed my intentions to her mistress."

      "It is very likely," said Alpine, dejectedly. She was sitting with her pale cheek in her hand, thinking of the dead girl down-stairs whom she had been taught to hate and envy. The latter had come easy enough, the former was a lesson not so easily learned. She wished now, in her sudden accession of remorse, that she had let herself love winsome Kathleen, whom it was so hard to hate.

      An exquisite casket had been ordered, in which Kathleen was now resting easily like one asleep. Although she had been two days dead, there was no sign of change about her. Beautiful and fair as a flawless pearl lay Kathleen in her last sleep.

      "Immediately after the inquest to-morrow, we will remove the body to Boston for burial," Mrs. Carew had said in her haughty manner to Doctor Churchman.

      As the night advanced, the whole family retired to rest. It was not deemed necessary to sit up with the corpse. She was left alone in the open coffin, the lid being placed on a table. Not until after the inquest would it be fastened down on the murdered girl.

      Alpine Belmont tossed restlessly upon her couch by the side of her sleeping mother. She could not rest, this girl whose conscience had at last awakened. She was haunted by the ghosts of her evil deeds—the cruelties she had shown her little step-sister.

      "If she had not run away,

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