CHAPTER II.

I LOVED YOU BEST OF ALL.

“Oh, they are coming! I see the victoria climbing the hill!” cried Gipsy, eagerly craning her slender neck forward, her large, dark eyes sparkling with excitement, and her canine companion, a big, handsome St. Bernard, uttered a sharp yelp of joy in sympathy.

It was true. The fine, new vehicle, bought by Miss Willoughby expressly to add to the pleasure of her honored guests, was climbing the hill, drawn by two handsome, well-matched bay horses, their silver mounted harness glittering in the golden sunshine.

Laurie Willoughby, handsome and debonair, held the reins, and his beautiful sweetheart, the blond Lelia, sat beside him, frowning in real discontent as she exclaimed impatiently:

“To think of having to waste a whole summer month at the lonesome old Crags, when we might be at Newport or the Pier! I declare I never would have sacrificed myself so if it had not been for Aunt Cy’s money! But mama is always preaching at me that I must honey the old maid up, or she might not leave me her fortune.”

“Has Aunt Cy promised to make you her heiress?” inquired her lover carelessly.

“No, but mama says if I cut my cards straight, she will be sure to leave it to me, or both of us, Laurie, for, of course, you are as near of kin to her as I am.”

“But if she does not choose to leave us a penny, Lelia, we need not worry, we will have enough of our own, anyway,” Laurie answered placidly.

But Lelia frowned at his indifference, crying out impetuously:

“Oh, no--no, Laurie, one can never have enough money! Papa always said so--he was fond of saying that money is power, and both my parents always set their hearts on having me inherit Aunt Cy’s great fortune, that is as much, you know, as yours and mine put together, Laurie.”

His large, clear, brown eyes turned on her in keen rebuke.

“Oh, Lelia, I hate to have you appear so mercenary!” he sighed, in a reproachful tone.

“Laurie, you shall not scold me for nothing!” she retorted petulantly, rolling her great blue eyes at him in displeasure.

He did not notice her defiant words, save by a slight tightening of his lips as he turned his attention to the horses, and she pouted her rose-bud lips, and continued reproachfully:

“Now, you are angry with me, and trying to spoil all the pleasure of my trip by unjust fault-finding. But if I were as mercenary as you say I am, there are other men richer than you, that I refused before you asked me--just because I loved you best!”

At this artful plea Laurie looked down into his sweetheart’s face, and saw the great, blue-bell eyes moist with threatening tears.

He slipped one arm about her waist, and coaxed her into good humor with a lover’s kiss.

“Now smile again, my darling, for we will soon be at The Crags, and dear old Aunt Cy must not think we have been quarreling again, as when we were spoiled children. Look up and you will see the towers of the old mansion as we turn the bend in the road. And see, there’s some one on the verge of the highest cliff watching as if for the first glimpse of us. Aunt Cy has sent a boy, no doubt, to announce our arrival, so that she may have the whole household lined up on the front steps as usual, to do us honor,” he ended laughingly.

“I don’t think it’s a boy, Laurie dear, it looks more like a girl in short skirts. Get out the field-glasses, and let us look and test.”

Reining the bays in, he gave her the glasses out of the case, and presently she said:

“I told you so, it’s a girl. An odd sort of girl in a bloomer suit, with long hair flying under her cap, a summer tourist, I suppose.”

Laurie took his turn with the glasses, and answered:

“You are right, Lelia, it is a girl, and a deuced pretty one, too, I fancy! Beautiful pose that, but dangerous. Might topple over into space any moment. Say, Lelia, I fancy we know her, too. It looks like Gipsy Darke.”

“That girl! I thought you had forgotten her very existence, Laurie.”

“I don’t see how I could forget her so easily, after seeing her so often at The Crags--from youth to age, one might say. Besides, somehow I couldn’t get her out of my mind, because I’ve an uneasy conscience over the dusky little midget!” he confessed.

“I don’t understand,” the blue-eyed beauty returned, with lowering displeasure.

“Don’t you, dearest? Oh, well, you know we treated the poor little thing worse than the dirt under our feet, Lelia, that’s the truth!” he said, adding: “Do you remember how the poor girlie followed us all about wanting to play with us, and we drove her away with angry words and even blows?” generously taking half the blame to himself, though Lelia had done it all.

“She deserved all she got! We could not be expected to associate with a gipsy brat!” the beauty cried hotly.

“Oh, of course not, only after all, it couldn’t have hurt us, and might have saved the poor midget some heartaches. She was desperately in love with us both, don’t you know--it must have been for our good looks, not our amiability! I think that a kind word or smile from us would have made her perfectly happy. I am haunted especially by one incident: The midget approached us with her chubby little fists extended full of wild flowers and sweet grass. Her lovely big black eyes swam in tenderness, and seemed to plead mutely for friendship, her rosy mouth smiled sweetly, she was really a very fascinating baby girl in her white gown and cloud of dark curls, and I was feeling softened beyond description, and must inevitably have responded amiably to her advances, but, alas! something direful happened! Do you remember it, Lelia?”

The beauty, flushing with resentful anger, exclaimed:

“Your memory is good, and so is mine, although I never dreamed you had such a vital interest in Gipsy Darke, or I am sure I should have slapped her face harder than I did when I knocked the flowers out of her hands!”

“You pulled her hair, too,” Laurie said quietly.

“Yes, I pulled her hair, and I would do it again if she tried to come between our hearts as she did then--the little vixen!” she cried passionately, bitterly angered at his frank pity for Gipsy, the waif.

He was half-tempted to remind her that it was she, not Gipsy, who had played the rôle of vixen in their past encounters, but he hated to see her lovely face distorted by malice, so he forbore, and taking the reins again, drove on silently out of sight of the slender figure on the cliff, outlined so clearly in the golden light--the girl watching for the coming of her fate, though she did not know it.

Laurie Willoughby had spoken out too impulsively the secret thoughts that had lain dormant in his mind for years; but it was a pity that he had even betrayed them to the jealous-minded and selfish young beauty by his side. For now she would be on the alert for causes to persecute the hapless waif, whom she hated with added intensity now that Laurie had confessed to a pity and admiration for her helpless childhood.

A portentous frown swept over her brow, and as though nature sympathized with the girl’s somber mood, a sudden cloud passed over the sun, and from the darkened heavens leaped a bolt of fierce blue lightning, followed by a crash of thunder long, loud, reverberating, that seemed to shake the solid earth and rive the rocks apart. Then several boulders rattled down the cliff and fell into the road before the horses’ feet, while one, rebounding from the top of the victoria, struck Lelia’s snowy temple, eliciting a shriek of terror from her blanched lips.

It was one of those sudden storms that break unexpectedly on sultry days over West Virginia, and the thunder’s roll was followed by a swift downpour of rain, mixed with large hailstones, quickly cooling the overheated atmosphere.

The young, mettlesome bays, frenzied by the suddenness and fury of the whole incident, and stung by some small flying boulders, immediately precipitated a dangerous situation.

Snorting with fear and rage, they reared upward, pawing the air with their forefeet, and straining on their bits with a force that nearly dragged the reins from Laurie’s grasp.

He stood up in the swaying vehicle, holding on with might and main, though with a heart as heavy as lead, for he realized that at any moment the maddened animals might shy to the left, and plunge over the precipitous side that sloped down to certain death in the river far below.

But for muscles like steel, developed by years of athletic exercise, he never could have sustained his grip on the lines against the frantic force of the plunging, rearing bays; but with tremendous pluck, he clung and shouted until he brought them down to their feet again, but only to break and run with terrific speed over the up-hill ground, goaded by the shrill screams of Lelia, and the pelting, pouring storm of rain and hail.

What a change from barely ten minutes ago, from a summer scene overarched by blue and sunny skies, to the mountain tempest, the air dark with clouds and rain, the eyes dazzled by the zigzag streaks of lightning, the ears stunned by the crash of thunder and the hoarse snorting of the maddened bays, dashing forward to impending destruction.

For the mountain road, a mere wagon way around the cliffs, offered no escape. On one side it rose like a sheer wall for hundreds of feet, on the other it descended steeply to the bed of the river. A slight swerving from their headlong course in the middle of the road, and death was sure and speedy; but with terrific strength he was holding them straight now.

If only he could hold out to the end!

Then Lelia, driven mad with fear and pain, sprang up and clung to his arm, senselessly adding her weight to the strain upon him.

“Sit down!” he thundered angrily, in his alarm and anxiety; but in that moment she dropped across his breast, a dead weight--swooning, and the bays tore the reins from his grasp with hoarse whinnies of exultation, and again reared upward, this time so near the verge that the vehicle must surely topple over backward.

In that terrible moment, as he was closing his eyes to meet instant destruction, a sweet, high-pitched voice rang out through the wind and rain:

“Whoa, Saint and Satan, whoa!”