CHAPTER X.
SNATCHED FROM THE GRAVE.
Back over that terrible road of drifting snow the old grave digger madehis way as swiftly as his trembling limbs could carry him.
He had endeavored to mark carefully the spot where he had made thatlonely grave, but the snow was drifting so hard with each furious gustof wind as to make it almost impossible to find it upon retracing hissteps.
Quaking with terror, and with a prayer on his lips to Heaven to guidehim, old Adam sat down his lantern, and by its dim, flickering lightpeered breathlessly around.
There was the blasted pine tree and toward the right of it the stump.The grave must be less than a rod below it.
With a heart beating with great strangling throbs, he paced off thedistance, and then stood quite still, holding his lantern down close tothe frozen earth.
For an instant his heart almost ceased beating--there was no sign of thelittle mound, with the leafless branch of bush he had been so careful toplace there.
Then, suddenly a moan from beneath his very feet fell upon his ear,causing him to fairly gasp for breath.
"Thank God! I have found it!" he cried.
In an instant he had thrown off his coat, thin though it was, and set towork as he had never worked in all his life before--against time.
He had thrown in the earth loosely, taking care to leave the headexposed, for he felt as sure as he did of his own existence that lifewas not yet extinct in the body of the young girl for whom he was forcedto prepare that grave at the point of a revolver in the hands of the twodesperate strangers.
He had taken his own life in his hands when he had announced the workfinished satisfactorily, for had the man stepped from the coach toexamine the work he would have found the deep hole which left the headuncovered.
The cold winds and the drifting snow blew into the old grave digger'sface, but he worked on with desperate zeal, realizing that another lifemight depend upon the swiftness of his rescue.
At last, after what seemed to him an eternity of time, he reached thebody, and quickly lifted it from its resting place.
Half an hour later he reached his own humble cottage home, bearing theslender burden in his strong arms.
His good wife had waited up for him. She could never sleep when Adam wasaway from home.
She heard his footstep on the crunching snow and hastened to open thedoor for him, starting back with a cry of great surprise as she caughtsight of the figure in his arms.
"Is it some neighbor's little girl lost in the storm, Adam?" she cried,clasping her hands together in affright.
"Don't ask any questions now, Mary," he exclaimed, delivering the burdeninto her willing, motherly arms, and sinking down into the nearestchair, thoroughly exhausted. "I'll tell you all about it later, when Iget my breath and my nerves are settled. Do everything you can to revivethe poor young creature. She is freezing to death."
As old Adam's kindly wife threw back the dark cloak which had envelopedthe fair young face and form, an exclamation of surprise broke from herwondering lips.
"She is a stranger hereabouts," she observed, but she wisely obeyed herhusband's injunctions, making no further remark, knowing she would hearall about it in good time.
In less time than it takes to tell it, the beautiful young stranger wasput to bed in the little spare room up under the eaves, wrapped inflannel blankets, with bottles of hot water at the feet, and a generousdraught of brandy, which the grave digger's wife always kept in thehouse for emergencies, forced down her throat.
"She will soon return to consciousness now," she exclaimed to herhusband, who stood beside the bedside anxiously watching her labors;"see that flush on her cheeks. We will sit down quietly and wait untilshe opens her eyes. It won't be long."
And while they waited thus, Adam told his wife the story he had to tellconcerning the young girl--this fair, hapless, beautiful young strangerwhose wedding he had witnessed and burial he had assisted in within thehour, first binding his wife to solemn secrecy.
The good woman's amazement as she listened can better be imagined thandescribed. For once in her life she was too dumfounded to offer even atheory.
As they glanced toward the bed, to their amazement they saw the girl'seyes fastened upon old Adam with an expression of horror in them,heartrending to behold, and they realized that she had heard every wordhe had said.
In an instant they were on their feet bending over the couch.
"Is it true--they buried me--and--you--you--rescued me?" she asked, in aterrified whisper, catching at the old man's hands and clutching them ina grasp from which he could not draw them away, her teeth chattering,her violet eyes almost bulging from their sockets.
"Since you have heard all, I might as well confess that it is quitetrue," he answered. "And God forgive that brute of a husband you justmarried. He ought to swing for the crime as sure as there is a heavenabove us. There will be no end of the good minister's wrath when hehears the story, my poor girl."
Again the beautiful young stranger caught at his hands.
"He must never know!" she cried, incoherently. "Promise me, by all youhold dear, that both you and your wife will keep my secret--will neverreveal one word of what has happened this night."
"It is not right that we should keep silent upon such an amazingprocedure. That would be letting escape the man who should be punished,if there is any law in the land to reach him for committing such aheinous crime."
"I plead with you--I, who know best and am the one wronged, and mostvitally interested, to utter no word that would cause the story tobecome blazoned all over the world. Let me make my words a prayer to youboth--to keep my pitiful secret."
It was beyond human power to look into those beautiful violet eyes,drowned in the most agonized tears, and the white, terrified, anxiousface, without yielding to her prayer.
"I do not know what good reason you may have for binding us to secrecy,"he said, slowly and reluctantly, "but we cannot choose but to give youthe promise--nay, the pledge--you plead for. I can answer for my Mary aswell as myself--the story of to-night's happenings shall never pass ourlips until you give us leave to speak."
"Thank you! Oh, I thank you a thousand times!" sobbed the girl. "Youhave lifted a terrible load from my heart. If the time ever comes when Ican repay you, rest assured it shall surely be done."
She tried to rise from her couch, but the good wife held her back uponher pillow with a detaining hand, exclaiming:
"What are you about to do, my dear child?"
"Go away from here," sobbed the girl, again attempting to arise from thecouch, but falling back upon the pillow from sheer weakness.
She did not leave that couch for many a day. What she had undergone hadbeen too much for her shattered nerves.
Brain fever threatened the hapless girl, but was warded off by thefaithful nursing of old Adam's faithful wife.
And during those weeks the good woman could learn nothing of the historyof the beautiful young stranger, who persistently refused to divulge oneword concerning herself. She would turn her face to the wall and weep soviolently when any allusion was made to her past that the grave digger'swife gave up questioning her.
One morning the bed was empty. It had not been slept in. The girl hadfled in the night.
Who she was, or where she had gone, was to them the darkest, deepestmystery. Would it ever be revealed? They could not discuss it with theold minister or any of the neighbors, for their lips were sealed ineternal silence concerning the matter.
"I feel sure the end of this matter is not yet," said old Adam,prophetically. "When the girl comes face to face with the dastardlyvillain she wedded that night, it will end in a tragedy."
"God forbid!" murmured his wife with a shudder; but down in her ownheart she felt that her husband had spoken the truth; the tragic end ofthis affair had not yet come.