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Show IN THE GLOAMING. "You're the best judge of your own heart, but I do not think your future promises much happiness as the wife of Godfrey Hill. Remember who and what he is. <br><br> These were the words over which Alice Hill pondered as she walked slowly through the grove at Bullows Falls. It was her favorite walk when she wished for solitude, though it lay at some distance from her home, the stately house that crowned an inclined stretch of ground overlooking the village. Remember who and what he is. <br><br> Mrs. Hill said these words very slowly, and with due emphasis, only a few hours before, when Alice had read to her a letter in which Godfrey Hill had asked her to be his wife. <br><br> Who was he, then? He was the second cousin of Alice, a man of about twenty-seven, who had been brought up by his grandfather in the house upon Bellows Height, and had supposed his inheritance of the house and fortune assured. Alice and her widowed mother had never entered the stately house while old Mr. Hill lived, but had supported themselves by keeping a school for young children after Godfrey's cousin, Alices father, had died. <br><br> It had never crossed their wildest imagination that the old gentleman at Bellows Falls would remember them by even a trifling legacy, and they were inclined to think that they were the victims of a practical joke, when they received the lawyer's letter informing them that Alice was the heiress of the entire estate of John Hill, of Bellows Falls. <br><br> It was like a dream, to come to the splendid home, to know there were to be no more weary struggles for daily bread, to wander through magnificent rooms and extensive grounds with the deliciously novel sensation of ownership. <br><br> And it must be confessed that Alice at first thought but little of the dispossessed heir. But he introduced himself soon as a cousin, and visited the house as a welcomed guest. For in answer to the second clause of Mrs. Hill's question, what was he? Alice could have answered truly that he was the most fascinating man she had ever seen. And Alice Hill, though a bread-winner in the busy world, had moved in good society, having aristocratic family connections both on her father's and mother's side. <br><br> She was no novice to be won by a merely courtly manner, but she had never met a man whose intellect was so broad, whose courtesy was so winning, whose face was so handsome, as were those of Godfrey Hill. <br><br> And yet there was a letter in her writing-desk, written by the dead man whose heiress she was, warning her that because he is unworthy, because he has betrayed the trust I put in him, I have disinherited Godfrey Hill. There was no specific charge, no discrete accusation, but the young heiress was warned against her cousin. <br><br> Yet in the many long conversations the two had held together, Godfrey Hill had endeavored to convince his fair cousin that his grandfather had been influenced by false friends to believe statements to his discredit utterly untrue. <br><br> He had almost convinced her that he was an innocent victim to unfortunate circumstances, a victim to a mistaken sense of honor. <br><br> She was young, naturally trustful and her heart was free; so it was not wonderful that Alice Hill was inclined to restore the disinherited man to his estate by accepting the offer of his heart and hand. Absorbed in her collections, Alice did not notice that clouds were gathering, till a sudden summer shower broke with violence over the treetops. <br><br> The rain came through the branches suddenly, drenching through her thin black dress, and she ran quickly to the nearest house for shelter. The nearest refuge proved to be the cottage where Mrs. Mason, who did washing for the great house, lived with her daughter Lizzie, one of the village beauties. There was a great bustling about when Alice presented herself at the door. <br><br> "Mercy sakes! You're half drowned," the old woman cried, hurrying her unexpected guest to the kitchen. "You're wet to the skin, dearie. Now ain't it a blessing there's a whole washing in the basket to go home? You can just go into Lizzie's room and change your clothes, and I'll do them up you've got on. Dear, dear! Your hat is just rained -crape won't bear waiting- and you've got no shawl. You must just put on a dress of Lizzie's to go home in. It's nearly dark, anyhow." <br><br> "Where's Lizzie?" Alice asked. "Sewing at Mrs. Gothams, dearie. She'll be coming home soon. I allers makes that part of the bargain that she's to be let home afore dark, and it gets dark now by six - fall days are shorter than summer ones. So she'll be here soon. It's clearing up." <br><br> It was clearing up, and it was also growing dark, so, promising to send home the borrowed dress in the morning, Alice started for home. She smiled at herself as she stood before the cottage mirror, for she had not worn a gay color since her father's death five years before. <br><br> Lizzie' blue dress, scarlet red shawl and gay Sunday hat were oddly out of place upon the slender figure, and setting off the pale, refined face of Alice Hill. <br><br> "Dear me," said the old woman. "I hope you'll soon chirk up a bit, Miss Alice, and take off your black. The old gentleman has been dead a year now. Them roses do suit you beautiful." <br><br> Alice glanced at the staring red flowers reflected in the mirror and smiled as she said: "I will take great care of Lizzie's hat, Mrs. Mason. Good-by and thank you." <br><br> It was nearly dusk and there was a quarter of a mile to walk before home was reached, so Alice hurried through the grove, where the trees had already shut out the lingering daylight. She had tied a small veil of gay tissue over the gaudy hat, as she left the cottage and she hoped, if she met any acquaintance, she would escape recognition. <br><br> When she was half way through the grove she heard quick footsteps coming from the village, and a moment later a voice said:-- "You are punctual," and she was caught for a moment in Godfrey Hill's arms. She knew his voice, and struggled to free herself, before realizing that he had mistaken her for the village beauty. <br><br> "Pooh!" he said, releasing her. "Don't put on airs Liz. Were you going to the house?" "Yes," She answered, faintly indignant and yet curious, her woman's wits quickly seeing his error. "I must go, too, before long, though I had far rather stay here in the woods with you, sweetheart." "Your sweetheart is at the house." Alice said, trying to assume the jealous tone of an uneducated girl. <br><br> "What! That chalky-faced girl in black? Not a bit of it. Didn't I love you long before she came to take what is mine?" And a curse followed, coupled with her own name, that filled Alice Hill with horror. "But they say you will marry her." She persisted, calming her voice as well as she could. "They say right! I will marry her, and have my own! Then, when she is dead, you shall have your old beau again, Lizzie, and come to the great house, my wife. It is only waiting a year or two." "But she may not die!" gasped the horror-stricken girl. <br><br> "She will die! I'll have no fine lady taking what is mine - mine, I tell you! But what ails you? You are shaking as if you had an ague fit. I've talked it all over often enough before, and you never went off into such shakes! It is nothing new I'm telling you." <br><br> "But - you - would - not - murder - her?" the poor girl gasped, drawing her veil closer. "Come, now, none of that," was the rough answer; "you're not going back on me, now, after all you've heard of my plans. You've sworn to keep my secrets, or I'd never have told you them. But what is the matter?" <br><br> And here Alice found herself shaken with no gentle hand, to her great indignation. But her fears overwhelmed her anger. Godfrey was heir-in-law to her newly acquired fortune, and, if he suspected her identity, in those dark woods she did not doubt, after what he had already said, that he would take her life. <br><br> "I am not well," she said, freeing herself from the rough grasp on her arm, and I must hurry on. Wait for me here until I do my errand at the house and come back." <br><br> "Be quick, then," was the gruff reply. And if he was in haste, the scoundrel might well be satisfied at the rapidity with which his companion left him. She scarcely knew how she reached her home, tore off her borrowed finery, and wrote Godfrey Hill, declining the honor that he had proposed to her, but giving no other reason for her refusal that the statement that she did not love him sufficiently to be his wife. <br><br> "Mamma," she said, going into the drawing room, "I have written Godfrey, refusing his offer, and sent the letter to him by James. I have remembered who and what he is." <br><br> Mr. Godfrey Hill's amazement was unbounded, when, on returning to his home, a room in the village hotel, to dress for his promised call upon Alice Hill, he found her note awaiting him. <br><br> But he did not renounce his hope of shaking her resolution until the next day, when he met the true Lizzie Mason in the shaded grove, and, in the course of their lover-like conversation, that damsel told him who had worn her gay hat and red shawl on the previous evening. <br><br> "An' she sent a five-dollar bill with the dress, because it got wet," said the girl. "An' that I call real handsome of her. Why, what ails you- you're white as chalk." "Nothing - nothing. You were not in the grove at all, then, yesterday?" "No; I couldn't get off till long after dark, and so I stayed all night. I knowed you'd be mad, waiting for me, but I couldn't help it this time. Why?" For her lover had started for the village without even the ceremony of a good-by. <br><br> He lost no time on his way, till he stood in the office of Jermyu & Jermyu, his grandfather's lawyers. White as death, with his voice hoarse and thick, he said to the older partner,-- "You told me that my grandfather left me ten thousand dollars, upon certain conditions." <br><br> "Quite right. The conditions are that you leave Bellows Falls and never return to it, and that you sign a deed relinquishing all claims as heir-in-law, in case Miss Hill dies before she is of age. Mr. Hill did not draw up this paper until his will was signed and sealed, and he was reminded that he had made no stipulation for the reversion of the estate." <br><br> "Reminded by you," was the bitter rejoinder. "Reminded by me. He was shown the danger that you might become a suitor to the young heiress." "Well, that danger is over. I have been a sincere suitor to the heiress, and she has refused the honor of an alliance." "Hum!" "So, having lost that stake, I am prepared to accept the conditions, take the ten thousand dollars, and turn my back on Bellows Falls for life." <br><br> It was with a sense of great relief from a very urgent fear that Alice Hill heard from her lawyer of the demand upon the estate, that made her poorer by ten thousand dollars, and removed Godfrey Hill from her path for life. <br><br> She told no one of the walk in the gloaming that had revealed her to the black treachery of the man who had wooed her so gently, and had so nearly won the treasure of her young heart. It made her shy of suitors for a long time, fearing that her money was the magnet that drew them to her side; but there came a true lover at last - one that she trusted and loved -and who won her for his tender and faithful wife. And Godfrey Hill left his old home, never to return. <br><br> There was no thought of revenge in Alice Hill's heart when she heard of the death of her cousin, nearly three years after his departure from Bellows Falls; but she could not restrain a fervent though of thanksgiving, when she realized that there was no murderous thought hanging upon her possible death. <br><br> And in her relief she told her husband, for the first time, of that voluntary masquerade that saved her from the power of a villain. "It was at this hour, Will," she whispered, "and this is the first time since that day that I have been able to sit, without a shudder, in the gloaming." |