CHAPTER V.

JACK STRIKES A BLOW.

“Well! Miss Lillian Leigh!”

Lillian glanced up with a start at sound of that voice--or was it the hiss of a serpent?--and her pale face flushed a little as she arose to her feet. It was in Miss Raleigh’s sleeping-room, and she had been dreaming over the fire, awaiting the coming of her tyrannical task-mistress, and while she sat there these thoughts had been flitting through her brain:

“I wonder what was the matter to-night? Just as I was about to open the library door, when I went to carry Mrs. Raleigh’s fan, it opened suddenly from within, and a strange, weird-looking old woman rushed out, flew down the hall, and was out of the front door and gone before I could recover my breath. And there were the library lights all extinguished; and Mrs. Van Alstyne--that pale, proud-looking lady--had fainted dead away. And Miss Raleigh looked so overcome with terror! It must have been some very unusual excitement; but, of course, I dared ask no questions, and it is no concern of mine. I am afraid of Mr. Richard Raleigh,” she went on, after a brief pause, her busy brain full of the late strange occurrences, “and but for Mr. Lyndon he might have said more. I must avoid Mr. Raleigh as much as possible. How good Mr. Lyndon is--so noble, so kind! I wonder--I wonder if he cares for Miss Rosamond? And how she smiles upon him! I should think that--”

And then that shrill, high-pitched voice had broken in upon the girl’s reverie, calling her name in a tone of authority.

“Get up, you lazy creature! Why have you not a chair before the fire all ready for me when I come in, as--as my other maid used to do? Here, I enter my room tired to death, and the hour late, and I find my maid--my--maid,” with inexpressible scorn in the cutting voice, “seated before my fire without a thought of my comfort. How dare you?”

Lillian stood still, quite overcome by this tirade; then she made haste to wheel the chair which she had just vacated closer to the fire.

“I--I beg you pardon, Miss Raleigh,” she said, quietly. “I did not mean to do anything wrong. I am tired, and as you told me to wait for you, I naturally sat before the fire this cold night.”

With awful dignity Miss Raleigh motioned the chair aside.

“Get me another!” she commanded, insolently. “I do not care for a seat which my servant occupies.”

The red blood crimsoned Lillian’s pale face, and her beautiful brown eyes flashed. But she compressed her lips firmly, and brought another chair, into which Miss Raleigh sunk with an air of intense fatigue.

“I am tired to death!” she exclaimed, savagely. “Come and take my hair down, and brush it thoroughly. I am accustomed to having it brushed every night for at least an hour before I retire!”

Poor Lillian glanced at the clock ticking away upon the velvet-draped bracket near. The hands pointed to the hour of two.

Rosamond laughed disdainfully at sight of the consternation upon Lillian’s face.

“Oh! you will soon find that you must keep all sorts of hours if you remain in my employ, Miss Lillian Leigh!” she sneered, coarsely. “I always make my waiting-maid earn her salary, you may well believe! Whoever fills that position must earn the money, though the effort should cost her her life. Ah! what is that?”

The ivory-backed brush trembled in Lillian’s grasp as she stood with uplifted hand, the rosy fire-light flashing up painted a vivid red spot upon Rosamond Raleigh’s pale cheek; then the flame sunk down into feathery ashes once more. A sound had fallen upon their ears plainly, distinctly; it was a low, hollow groan! Trembling like a leaf Miss Raleigh started to her feet. Her long hair fell over her shoulders in a streaming golden shower; she looked unearthly in the loose white wrapper which she had already donned. Pale, and shaking like an aspen, she went over to the door of the little octagonal room, and threw it open wide.

“Lillian, come here!” she commanded; and slowly and wonderingly Lillian obeyed. “Go into that room,” continued Miss Raleigh, authoritatively, “and see if there is anybody hidden there! Look behind the curtains and furniture; leave nothing unsearched.”

Wondering greatly, Lillian lighted a small bronze lamp which stood upon a bracket, and slowly and hesitatingly she entered the little room. She returned, after a brief absence, very pale and grave.

“There is no one there, Miss Raleigh,” she announced, placing the lamp upon a marble table near.

“Come with me!”

Rosamond snatched up the lamp and forced her trembling slave to follow her back into the little room once more. Everything was just as it had been left that day when they had carried something away from it--something stark and stiff and white, something which would never come back again--would never come back. Would it not?

Rosamond Raleigh’s memory was a good one; she shivered involuntarily. With mad haste she explored every corner of the room; peering behind furniture, lifting silken curtains, leaving no chance for any human being to remain concealed. Then she left the room and locked the door behind her; after which she extinguished the lamp and threw herself into the easy-chair once more.

“Brush my hair!” she commanded, ungraciously. “I am half dead with fatigue.”

And there poor Lillian stood for a whole mortal hour, brushing out the beauty’s shining, silken hair until her brain reeled, and her cold hand shook so that she could scarcely move the brush, and the white lids began to droop over the weary eyes, while the cat-like orbs of her cruel task-mistress seemed never to court slumber. At last, in sheer exhaustion, Lillian came to a halt.

“Miss Raleigh, excuse me to-night, will you not?” she pleaded. “I am not accustomed to such late hours, and I have been through a great deal to-day, and am so tired that I can scarcely stand.”

Rosamond snatched the brush from her hand and threw it across the room in a childish outburst of temper.

“Go!” she cried, stamping her foot savagely. “I see plainly the sort of a maid you will make!”

Pale and resolute, Lillian faced the woman before her.

“Miss Raleigh, will you please bear in mind that I did not apply for the position of waiting-maid? Your advertisement said a companion; and I, of course, believed that my duties would be simply those of a companion--to read to you, sew, sing and play if you desired it, write, go errands--all such light duties. But to dress and undress you, to keep the fire burning in your room indefinitely, and to stand and brush your hair all night long, I must confess my inability to cope with all that. I am young and not very strong. I have never worked before in my life--only a little type-writing, and my health would soon break down under such endless work as this, which keeps a girl employed all day and all night, too. Good-morning, Miss Raleigh; the clock is about to strike three. I beg leave to retire.”

Rosamond gathered up her mass of shining hair and secured it for the night.

“Very well,” her steely eyes fixed upon the girl with cold disdain, “we will speak further upon this subject in the morning. After to-night I intend to have you sleep in the little round room next to mine. I am lonely here in the wing of the house away from every one else.”

“Very well.”

Lillian grew deathly pale. She had heard the story of the round room hinted at by the servants, even during her brief sojourn at the Raleigh mansion, and she was afraid--afraid. For she was timid, and the whispers in the servants’ quarters hinted at a dark deed.

But, glad to escape from her task-mistress, she hastened away to the little room which had been assigned her, at the furthest end of the hall, and hastily retiring, the friendless orphan girl was soon fast asleep. And in dreams she was no longer poor, and alone, and forsaken; but happy as mortals are never happy upon this earth--only in dreams.

“Only in dreams is a ladder thrown From the lonely earth to the vaulted skies; But the dream departs, and the vision flies, And the sleeper awakes on his pillow of stone.”

The next day passed quite uneventfully. Rosamond had compromised with Lillian, retaining her as general factotum, on condition that she should not be compulsively detained from her rest after midnight. So night came down once more, and Rosamond, in her sumptuous apartment, was preparing to attend the opera.

“I will wear blue silk and pearls!” she announced. “Mamma and I are going to hear ‘Il Trovatore’ with Mr. Lyndon. He is quite the fashion now, so I venture to go with him, although of course he is not in our set, and is only a poor journalist. And--oh, yes, Lillian, before it gets too late, I want you to run down to the greenhouse--the one away at the further end of the grounds--and tell Barnes, the gardener, to send me a bouquet of pink rosebuds. Make haste now, for I don’t like to be kept waiting.”

To hear was to obey. Lillian made haste to do so. Five minutes later she was standing at the entrance to the long greenhouse, dimly lighted by a hanging lamp, and lying like a great dark shadow athwart the dusk of early night. She peered eagerly through the gloom.

“Barnes!” she called, timidly, “Miss Raleigh has sent me to--”

An arm stole around her waist, and a slim, dark hand crowned by a flashing diamond closed down upon Lillian’s hand, while Richard Raleigh’s silky voice cried:

“Ah! my pretty wild bird--caged at last!”

With a wild cry Lillian wrenched herself away from his hold, her face pale, her eyes blazing.

“How dare you?” she gasped, brokenly.

And at that very instant her quick eyes caught sight of a tall form hastening through the grounds, and she called, wildly:

“Barnes, is it you? Oh, come--quick--help!”

With a muttered oath, Raleigh had grasped her arm once more, and held her fast, trying to calm her wild outcries.

The tall figure turned swiftly and hurried footsteps reached her side. Not Barnes the gardener, but tall, handsome Jack Lyndon, who had heard her frenzied cry, and had come to the rescue.

“Mr. Raleigh, unhand that lady!” a low voice panted, furiously, “or, by Heaven! you cowardly dog, I will kill you!”