The Unseen Bridegroom Part 30

But Mollie shrunk back. Some nameless thrill of terror suddenly made her dread the man.

"You must--you must!" cried the man, in an impetuous whisper. "We can not stand here in this down-pour. Don't you see it is impossible? And the first policeman who comes along will be walking us off to the station-house."

He caught her arm and half led her to the carriage. Shrinking instinctively, yet hardly knowing what to do, she found herself in it, and seated, before she quite knew it.

He sprung after her, closed the door, the carriage started at once at a great pace, and the poor little fly was fairly caught in the spider's web.

"I don't like this," said Mollie, decisively. "I had no idea of entering a carriage when I appointed this meeting. Where are you taking me to?"

"There is no need to be alarmed, pretty Mollie," said the man, still speaking French. "I have given the coachman orders to rattle along through the streets. We can talk here at our leisure, and as long as we please. You must perceive the utter impossibility of conversation at a street corner and in a down-pour of rain."

Mollie did, but she fidgeted in her seat, and felt particularly uncomfortable, all the same. Now that it was too late, she began to think she had acted unwisely in appointing this meeting.

"Why didn't I let well enough alone?" thought the young lady. "At a distance, it seemed the easiest thing in the world; now that I am in the man's power, I am afraid of him, more so than I ever was before."

The man had taken his seat beside her. At this juncture he put his arm around her waist.

"Why can't we be comfortable and affectionate, as man and wife should--eh, Mollie? You don't know how much obliged to you I am for this interview."

There was a ring of triumph in his tone that Mollie could not fail to perceive. Her heart gave a great jump of terror, but she angrily flung herself out of his arm.

"Keep your distance, sir! How dare you? You sing quite a new song since I saw you last! Don't you lay a finger on me, or I'll--"

"What, pretty Cricket?" with a sardonic laugh.

Mollie caught her breath. That name, that tone--both were altogether new in the unknown man.

The sound of the voice, now that he spoke French, was quite unlike that of the man she had come to meet. And he was not wont to call her Cricket.

Had she made some horrible mistake--been caught in some dreadful trap?

But, no; that was impossible.

"Look here, Mr. Mask," said Mollie, fiercely, "I don't want any of your familiarity, and I trust to your honor to respect my unprotected situation. I appointed this meeting because you kept your word, and behaved with tolerable decency when we last parted. I want to end this matter. I want to know who you are."

"My precious Mollie, your husband!"

"But who are you?"

"One of your rejected suitors."

"But which of them?--there were so many."

"The one who loved you best."

"Pshaw! I don't want trifling! What is your name?"

"Ernest."

"I never had a lover of that name," said Mollie, decidedly. "You are only mocking me. Are you--are you--Hugh Ingelow?"

Her voice shook a little. The man by her side noted it, and burst into a derisive laugh.

"You are not Hugh Ingelow!" Mollie cried in a voice of sharp, sudden pain--"you are not!"

"And you are sorry, pretty Mollie? Why, that's odd, too! He was a rejected lover, was he not?"

"Let me out!" exclaimed the girl, frantically--"let me go! I thought you were Hugh Ingelow, or I never would have come! Let me out! Let me out!"

She made a rush at the door, with a shrill cry of affright. A sudden panic had seized her--a horrible dread of the man beside her--a stunning sense that it was not the man she loved.

Again that strident laugh--mocking, sardonic, triumphant--rang through the carriage. Her arms were caught and held as in a vise.

"Not so fast, my fair one; there is no escape: I can't live without you, and I see no reason why a man should live without his wife. You appointed this meeting yourself, and I'm excessively obliged to you. I am taking you to the sea-side to spend the honey-moon. Don't struggle so--we'll return to New York by and by. As for Hugh Ingelow, you mustn't think of him now; it isn't proper in a respectable married woman to know there is another man in the scheme of the universe except her husband.

Mollie! Mollie! if you scream in that manner you'll compel me to resort to chloroform--a vulgar alternative, my dearest."

But Mollie struggled like a mad thing, and screamed--wild, shrill, womanly shrieks that rang out even above the rattle and roll of the carriage wheels.

The man, with an oath, placed his hand tightly over her mouth. They were going at a frightful pace, and already the city, with its lights and pa.s.sengers, was left far behind. They were flying over a dark, wet road, and the wind roared through distant trees, and the rain fell down like a second deluge.

"Let me go--let me go!" Mollie strove madly to cry, but the tightening grasp of that large hand suffocated her.

The carriage seemed suddenly to reel, a thousand lights flashed before her eyes, a roar like the roar of many waters surged in her ears, a deathly sickness and coldness crept over her, and with a gasping sob she slipped back, fainting away for the first time in her life.

CHAPTER XV.

THE MAN IN THE MASK.

Dizzily Mollie opened her eyes. Confused, bewildered, she strove to sit up and catch her breath in broken gasps.

"So sorry, Mollie," said an odious voice in her ear. "Quite shocked, I am sure, to have you faint; but you've not been insensible half an hour.

It wasn't my fault, you know. You would scream, you would struggle, you would exhaust yourself! And what is the consequence of all this excitement? Why, you pop over in a dead swoon."

Mollie raised herself up, still dazed and confused. She put her hand to her forehead and strove to recall her drifting senses.

They were still bowling along at a sharp pace over a muddy country road; still fell the rain; still howled the wind; still pitch darkness wrapped all without. Were they going on forever? Was it a reality or a horrible nightmare?

"We are almost at our journey's end," said the man, soothingly. "Come, cheer up, Cricket. I love you, and I won't hurt a hair of your head."

"Where are we?" Mollie faintly asked.

"Rattling over a beastly country road," answered her companion, "under a sky as black as Erebus, and in a down-pour that threatens a second flood. There's the sea. We're down by the sad sea waves now, Mollie."

Mollie listened. Above the roar of the elemental strife she could hear the deep and mighty ba.s.s of the roaring sea.

"We will be there in ten minutes more," said the man, briskly.