CHAPTER XXIII.

A MEMORABLE SLEIGH-RIDE.

But fate had another surprise in store for Italy ere the sun set that day. In the early afternoon a double sleigh stopped before the door, and from it descended three persons--Alexie Audenreid, Ralph Allen, and Emmett Harlow.

Emmett had returned three weeks previous, and had made his first call ten days ago, so Italy was not surprised to see him.

The young man was boarding in the same house with Ralph Allen, as also the friend that had come with him from Europe, a big, handsome German professor, with a fine curly blond beard, and long hair as curly as his beard and almost as fair. His dark-blue eyes were so weak that he used glasses habitually, and had a lazy, slouching manner peculiar to profound students. But for this, and his slovenly style of dressing, Professor Doepkin would have appeared a remarkably attractive personage.

Italy had not met the German yet, but she had heard of him from her other three friends and knew that he and Emmett were inseparable friends, although the professor was so absorbed in his books that he had no time for general society.

“But he has made friends with Mrs. Severn and admires her immensely,” said Ralph, and then Emmett added:

“Do you know, Miss Vale, I think there is quite a likeness between you and Mrs. Severn? Of course she is a little older and the sadness of her manner spoils the charm of her beauty to some extent, but yet she is very lovely.”

“I admire Mrs. Severn very much,” Italy answered cordially.

So now here were the three friends clamoring for Italy’s company on their sleigh-ride.

“We will take no denial,” cried Alexie.

“You cannot refuse a bride anything, you know,” chimed in Ralph, laughing. The wedding, in fact, was but ten days off, and cards were already out.

“Go, dear,” said Mrs. Vale persuasively, and then Italy hesitated no longer. She felt that the fresh, cold air would cool her burning temples.

How delightful it was under the warm fur robes. Her color rose and the light came back to her eyes. Emmett looked at the glowing beauty so fitly framed in sealskin cap and cloak, and sighed to himself:

“She has many lovers, they tell me, but no one will ever worship her more faithfully than I do.”

He loved to watch every line of that young and charming face, and unconsciously to himself he had grown fond of watching Isabel Severn’s face as they met daily at table, just for the likeness he fancied in its dusky beauty to that of Italy. It lacked brightness and color, for tears had washed away its girlish bloom, or the haunting resemblance would have been even more striking.

How brightly the sun shone on the dazzling crust of snow, how pure was the keen, cold air, how joyously the sleigh-bells rang! Italy’s spirits began to rise a little from the leaden weight that had pressed them down all day.

They were miles out into the country now; the houses were few and far between, the open fields, the tree-branches, the roofs, the fences all lay white and dazzling under that royal mantle of spotless, new-fallen snow.

“Look, there is Mr. Seabright’s house! How beautiful the place is under all that snow!” suddenly cried out Alexie.

Italy turned her head, and then she received a shock that she never forgot to her dying day.

The red brick house setting back among the thick evergreen shrubberies, now bending down under the weight of the snow, was the same house to which Craig Severn had carried her that never-to-be-forgotten night when he was murdered--the house from which she had escaped, she knew not how, to be found at midnight wandering the streets of Boston in her night-robe.

With these rushing thoughts came the memory of the portrait of Percy Seabright that she had seen on the wall.

“It is _his_ house. Why did I never suspect it before?” she wondered; then she heard Emmett Harlow saying, in a voice of disgust:

“That old house ought to be razed to the ground. Percy Seabright has made it a sort of club-house for a fast lot of men, and the most reckless gambling goes on inside its walls. There are dark hints of several suicides committed there by men stripped of everything in reckless play.”

“Oh, I don’t think it can be as bad as that!” cried generous Alexie. “Mr. Seabright keeps up the house all the time, though, he says, and gives card-parties now and then to his young friends; but Aunt Ione detests the place as much as you do, Emmett, and she says as soon as she is back from her wedding-tour she means to have it torn down.”

“It strikes me that Mrs. Dunn is preparing to rule her husband with a heavy hand. I hope you are not inoculated with her propensity to rule or ruin,” Ralph cried, a little testily, and the girl laughed good-naturedly. She was as sweet and gentle a soul as ever lived, and would always yield to Love’s gentle guidance.

They had left the red-brick house in the distance now, and perhaps no one thought of it again but Italy--Italy who had such cause to remember it.

“I wish,” she said to herself, “I wish I could get into that old house and search--for my father’s missing diary that my mother believes holds the clue to my father’s fate. Perhaps--perhaps--Percy Seabright has it! My mother’s revelations to-day have roused in me suspicions that can never be dispelled until I know the truth. Oh, what shall I do, what shall I do?”

Alexie’s voice broke in suddenly on the girl’s troubled thoughts:

“Speaking of Aunt Ione, reminds me that she has refused to chaperon our theater-party to-night. Going with Mr. Seabright to a grand ball, you know--and grandmama seldom goes out in public. Italy, will you come with us--you and Mrs. Vale?”

“We can ask her when we go back. She admires Bernhardt very much.”

“So does Professor Doepkin. He has actually promised to make one of our box-party to-night,” said Emmett, and that decided Italy to go.

She had heard so much of the big blond German she felt quite curious over him. But when the second act of the play was over and he had not come, she began to think she was going to be disappointed.

“He has forgotten his engagement,” said Alexie.

“No, he could not find his dress-coat,” laughed Ralph.

“It is neither, for I saw him just now down there near the orchestra watching us. I beckoned him, and he dodged. The fact is, he is as bashful as a school-boy, and too timid, I suppose, to join us,” said Emmett.

A minute later he said to Italy:

“Look, I will point him out to you. You see that big man with the shock of blond curls and whiskers, and the broad shoulders?--Ralph, you’re right, he didn’t find his dress-coat--well, that is he. He’s looking at us now through those glasses.”

Italy looked, and saw the German looking at her through his opera-glasses.

A strange, unaccountable thrill shook her from head to foot.

“Oh, I feel so strangely!”--she half-shuddered and tried to laugh. “Oh, Mr. Harlow, your German hasn’t got the evil eye, I hope.”

“No, indeed; the prettiest blue-gray eyes in the world, only so near-sighted. Perhaps he will get ashamed of his shyness and come to us presently.”

From that moment Italy could see no one in the vast, fashionable throng except the broad shoulders and leonine hair and beard of the near-sighted German.

She kept watching him, and always with a strange and subtile thrill of blended pain and pleasure. Even when the curtain rose, and the peerless Bernhardt came on the stage again, her glance would wander to him.

“You seem to admire my German,” whispered Emmett, and Italy blushed vividly.

“I--oh, no--that is----” she began incoherently, then paused and said, with lovely frankness:

“I _am_ interested in him, and I have just found out why. There is something about him that makes me think of--Francis Murray!”

The last word came with a sort of gasp.

“His broad shoulders, yes, and he is blond, too, like Mr. Murray,” returned Emmett. “And, do you know, I think if Doepkin would make the most of himself, he would make as rarely a handsome man as Francis Murray was. I say _was_; for, poor fellow, I begin to fear there can’t be any mistake in the report of his death.”

“Oh, don’t!” she half-sobbed. “I--I can’t bear to believe him dead, for I was with him, you know, and I feel--I feel as though I had killed him.”

He caught a repressed note of anguish in the clear young voice, and looked at her keenly.

A light broke in on his mind, a pang like a dagger-thrust stabbed his heart. By the light of his own love he read her guarded secret. No wonder he had wooed her in vain. Her heart belonged to noble, handsome Francis Murray.

The German professor was watching them both. As he saw them gazing into each other’s eyes he started violently:

“What! has she learned to love him, after all? Must I lose her--my love, my love?” he thought in sudden agony; and, rising impulsively, made his way to the box.