CHAPTER IV.

IN A SPIDER’S WEB.

Mrs. Murray was right in believing that Italy would seek the protection of the lawyer who had been her mother’s trusted friend.

A railway-journey of only half an hour took the girl away from the pretty New England hamlet, Winthrop, and brought her into the noise and bustle of busy Boston. She engaged a cab at the station, and drove straight to the lawyer’s office on Tremont Street.

It had been late in the afternoon when she held that angry interview with Francis Murray. It was nearly sunset when she paid and dismissed her cab, and, passing across the pavement through the hurrying throngs of people, stepped into the office.

A pert office-boy dashed past as she entered--quitting-time, evidently, and he did not mean to be hindered.

She found herself quite alone in a gloomy little anteroom. But a door was ajar at one end, and she heard the busy scratching of a clerk’s pen. She crossed and looked in.

She saw a handsome office, well furnished, and before a large desk a young man sat alone, scribbling very busily. She rapped softly.

“Come in,” said a curt voice, and the young man looked around, showing a dark, strong face, good-looking, but rather sinister in its impatient scowl. But the frown turned into a smile at sight of the beautiful intruder.

“I--I wish to see Mr. Gardner,” she said timidly.

“Certainly, certainly, miss”--he sprang to his feet with a courteous bow--“I am Craig Severn, his head clerk, and I will hand him your card, please, as our office-boy has gone.”

Italy handed him a dainty bit of pasteboard. He glanced at the pretty name, and again at the pretty face, then disappeared through an open door that led into a narrow hallway. In a few minutes he returned, and said regretfully:

“Mr. Gardner is out at present. Be seated, Miss Vale; he will probably return in a short time.”

He placed a chair for her, and assumed an engaging air.

“Client of Mr. Gardner?”

“No.”

“Relative, eh?”

Italy had heard something about Yankee inquisitiveness, so she smiled just a little, and answered again:

“No.”

“Ah, friend!”

“Ye-es,” she answered timidly, without comprehending the veiled significance of the tone.

She had never known Mr. Gardner, but she felt she had a right to claim her mother’s friend as her own.

Craig Severn smiled broadly, and added:

“Mr. Gardner is a married man, you know?”

“Of course,” she replied carelessly, and added:

“Do you think he will come in soon?”

“I cannot tell. In fact, I expect he has gone home. It is past office-hours now, and I only remained to finish up some papers I was working on.”

Italy rose hastily, her beautiful face clouded with disappointment.

“Where is his home? I must take a cab there at once,” she cried.

“Then you did not know that he lived in the country?” asked the inquisitive clerk.

“No, no”--impatiently. “I may as well tell you, sir, I am a stranger in Boston. Although I was born in America, I have lived abroad since my early childhood. But now I am an orphan, with no near relations, and as Lawyer Gardner was my mother’s true friend, I sailed for this country thinking, thinking----” but her voice faltered and she paused.

“Does he know--does he expect you?” Craig Severn asked eagerly.

“No; I shall take him quite by surprise,” she replied; then, weary of his questioning, that began to appear almost rude, she crested her dark head almost haughtily, and added:

“You must not detain me, sir, with idle questions. Please give me Mr. Gardner’s address at once.”

Craig Severn’s intensely black eyes were glittering strangely. It was most unfortunate for her that she had thoughtlessly confided her sad story to his ears--an orphan and a stranger, alone and friendless in a great, wicked city--and she so beautiful!

“Mr. Gardner’s house is out in the suburbs of Boston--several miles distant,” declared the clerk. “But I am going in that direction, for I live close to him, so I will be glad to show you the way, if you will accept my escort.”

Unnerved and troubled by the occurrences of the day, she did not notice how ambiguous his words were. She bowed assent to his offer, glad of assistance in her search for the only friend she could claim in all wide America.

A few moments later they were seated side by side in a cab, riding rapidly toward their destination. Italy’s companion exerted himself to be entertaining while she listened almost in silence and with a desolate pain at her heart as she thought how easily she had been vanquished in her brave attempt at piercing the dark veil of a hidden and torturing mystery.

Was it a mockery of Fate that within a few blocks of the law-office there whirled past them a light, open vehicle, in which sat a man of magnificent physique, with a fair, handsome face, clouded and grave now with keen anxiety? Italy saw him and drew back from sight with a stifled cry.

“What is the matter?” asked Craig Severn, and she answered evasively:

“Nothing.”

But to herself she said:

“Mr. Murray suspected I had gone to Mr. Gardner for protection. He is following, searching for me. Perhaps he repents his harshness, and has come to take me back. He will soon find me at the lawyer’s,” and somehow the desolate pain at her heart grew less keen and bitter.

“Here we are,” said Craig Severn presently, and, having dismissed the cab, he led Italy up a broad, graveled path to a house built of red bricks in an old-fashioned style, and standing in a thick grove of trees. It was at some distance from any other habitation, and the dark front and shuttered windows looked very gloomy in the deepening twilight and the shadows of the trees.

Italy’s heart sank strangely while they waited after ringing the door-bell. Would Mr. Gardner be angry at her unceremonious invasion? Would his wife be kind and tender? Would they help her in her quest, or, like Francis Murray, “command her not to interfere with the long-pronounced verdict of the jury--and the world?”

A trim maid admitted them into a dim, square hall, and then to a bright, well-furnished parlor.

“You will wait here just one moment, while I bring Mr. Gardner from his study to welcome you,” Craig Severn said, disappearing.

Italy’s glance, roving carelessly at first from one to another of the handsome pictures that adorned the walls, suddenly paused with some interest before a portrait, half life-size, that hung over the mantel.

It was a man’s face, not strictly handsome, but fascinating, as many faces are. The brow was high and white, the hair dark and thin, with curling locks at the parting; the eyes were dark, keen, and mirthful, closely set together over a handsome nose, large in size and almost Roman in shape, just enough to give the face a slight Jewish cast.

A round, almost womanish chin, indented with a very slight dimple, supplemented a weak mouth, the curve of whose thin red lips was scarcely hidden by a thin black mustache, elaborately curled at the ends, bespeaking some masculine vanity. At first glance this face seemed very boyish. A closer inspection showed the lines of at least thirty years. To this portrait Italy’s eyes returned again and again while she waited.

“How handsome it is, how winning,” she thought; then she grew restless.

She contrasted it in her thoughts with the fair, grave, intellectual face of Francis Murray.

“Pshaw! I do not think it compares with Mr. Murray. It looks like a Jew!” she murmured, beginning to find flaws all at once; and she was just turning her back on it, when the door opened and Craig Severn returned, accompanied by a fine-looking, showily dressed woman past the middle age.

“Mrs. Gardner, your husband’s friend, Miss Vale,” he said smoothly.

Mrs. Gardner welcomed her effusively.

“I am charmed to welcome you to my home, dear Miss Vale, and I hope you will remain our guest for a long time. I am so sorry that my husband went out to a neighbor’s a while ago, to write a will for a dying man, but he will be back in about an hour, I think. Let me help you to remove your hat, dear child, and then, if you will excuse me, I will go out and send a servant to hasten my husband’s return.”

Purring like a graceful tabby cat, she hastened out, leaving the pair of young people alone.

Craig Severn immediately drew his own chair close to Italy’s side, and murmured tenderly:

“I am very glad to have this opportunity of declaring my sentiments for you, Miss Vale. Fair one, your grace and beauty have carried my heart by storm. I love you!”

He attempted to take her hand, but she withdrew it indignantly, her large eyes flashing with surprise and scorn.

“Sir, your words are presumptuous. You are little more than a stranger to me!”

“No, no. I love you as fondly as though I had known you for years!” he cried, and flung himself at her feet with passionate protestations of devotion.

Italy was bitterly disgusted. She repulsed her would-be lover angrily.

“Rise. I will hear no more,” she exclaimed.

“You _shall_ listen!”

“I will not. I dislike you very much, and no power could force me to marry you!” she cried.

Craig Severn laughed harshly, and sprang to his feet.

“Who was talking of marriage? I only asked you for your love, my pretty queen,” he cried insolently.

With a face of horror, Italy flew to the door.

“I will appeal to Mr. Gardner for protection from your insults!” she cried stormily.

Her persecutor laughed tauntingly, for the door resisted her efforts. It was locked on the outside.

“Open the door at once, or I will scream and rouse the whole house!” she exclaimed imperiously.

But he stood calmly in the middle of the room, surveying her ineffectual struggles with the door-knob with a tantalizing smile.

“Scream as much as you like, pretty one, but no one will heed you,” he returned coolly; “Mrs. Gardner--Smith is her real name, by the way--is only the housekeeper here, and will not interfere with me. I’ll make a clean breast of the whole thing, my sweet little girlie. Mr. Gardner is abroad, and I’m in charge of his office till he returns. When you came to seek him I fell in love with your black eyes and red lips, and as soon as you owned up to the facts about yourself, I pitied your loneliness and fixed up this little plan to win your heart!”

“Fiend!” cried the girl indignantly; but with that cool smile, he continued:

“This house isn’t Gardner’s, either. It belongs to a rich bachelor friend of mine, now absent, who keeps up the place as a sort of private club-house for his intimates. We have jolly times here, I tell you--suppers, cards, wine, and--sometimes--pretty women, actresses and dancers, you know, but all on the strictly quiet, for if it were known of any woman that she ever set foot here she could never have any social standing afterward.”

He paused, for the white horror and anguish of her lovely face showed that she took in all his brutal meaning.

“Oh, Heaven!” she thought, “how careless I was to fall into this trap! To think, only to think, how I drew back from Mr. Murray’s sight but a few hours ago, when I ought to have been crying out to him to save me from this demon! May Heaven guide me now!”

Her tormentor resumed calmly:

“You came here with me willingly, and in so doing placed the stain upon your reputation that nothing can ever wipe out. But what does that matter, since you have no friends to miss you? I love you madly, and you are wholly in my power. I shall keep you shut up in this house until you consent to love me and be mine. That will not be long, I’m sure, for many other women have loved me, and so will you at last. You need not look so pale and alarmed. I shall attempt no harshness. I shall woo you like a lover till I win your heart. I will be patient, darling, but one kiss you must give me now to pay me for my waiting!”

“Back! Do not dare to touch me!” she cried madly.

But his outstretched arms clasped the shuddering form, his hot breath fanned her cheek.

She struggled wildly, but she was like a reed in his strong grasp, and his lips almost touched hers, when--suddenly there rang through the room a pistol-shot!

A pistol-shot--a flash of light so close that it scorched Italy’s cheek, a thread of thin blue smoke, a sharp report--then--the arms that held Italy so tight fell apart, the lips that would have pressed hers parted with a groan, the blood spurted from Craig Severn’s heart, and he fell backward--gasping, dying, _dead_! But who had fired the fatal shot?

As the victim fell Italy heard one great cry of horror and despair.

“Oh, God, I have killed _him_!”

Her eyes flashed toward the window, for she recalled the crashing of glass mingling with the sound of the shot.

She saw that the silken curtains were looped aside, and that some one had opened the outside shutters of the window. In the sash there was one pane, shattered into fragments. Above it Italy saw gleaming a wild, white, anguished face, a woman’s face--one that she knew, one that she had seen only that forenoon, bright, insolent, smiling.

One moment that face gleamed ghostlike in the gloom outside the window, and it seemed to her, too, that there were white hands flung upward--white, jeweled hands, writhing in fierce despair--then the eerie vision faded from her sight, and Italy was alone--alone with the dead man whose treachery had brought her to this awful pass, and whose punishment had been meted out to him so swiftly.

She stood silent one moment, like one in a trance. She heard, as in a painful dream, steps and voices in the hall outside the door--the key grated in the lock. Somebody was coming. Perhaps it would be said that she killed this monster--Craig Severn.

Her tortured senses reeled and failed. She fell in a crouching, senseless heap behind the door, and her dark robes trailed in the pool of warm blood.