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Ai
Jezebel's Friends
A NOVEL.
By DORA RUSSELL,
Author of ''Footprints in the Snow;' '' The Broken
Seal;' " The Track ofthe Storing' etc., etc.
MONTREAL:
JOHN LOVELL & SON,
23 St. Nicholas Street.
1949
Entered according to Act of Parliament in the year 1889, by
John Lovell 6^ Son, in the office of the Minister of Agriculture
and Statistics at Ottawa.
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bai
JEZEBEL'S FRIENDS.
CHAPTER
I.
HIDDEN.
It was a dull, dark night ; so dark that the tall cliffs round
Headfort's sea-pent bay seemed but like dusky shadows
in the murky air. Heedless of the gloom, a woman,
carrying what to her appeared to be a heavy burden, was
hurrying, about eleven o'clock, down the steep and nar-
row pathway which led from the rocks to the shore.
The tide was sweeping slowly in, but so deep was the
gloom that she could only hear, not see, the waves break
when she got to the shore. Keeping close to the foot of
the cliffs, she now almost ran until she came near the
centre ofthewide circular bay, and then paused to breathe.
Having satisfied herself that no one was near, she hastily
laid d—own the burden wh—ich she had carried beneath her
cloak a strange burden a long box, rolled and swathed
in a woman's black gown.
To this box was tied a small spade, the string of which
her trembling fingers now unfastened. With this spade
she began digging vigorously in the sand.
^Suddenly a vivid fiash of lightning gleamed across the
sky, and for an instant lit up the strange scene. Then a
loud peal of thunder broke overhead, and the girl stopped
in momentary terror and crouched down. The storm had
begun in earnest, and heavy rain commenced to fall. An-
other flash, another peal, and with a sort of desperation
the girl once more raised her head, and forced herself to
begin her work anew. She had but one thought to bury
;
her burden deep enough, that it might lie hidden until fhe
sea gave up its dead, and the secrets of all hearts were
bare.
—
-wi;..
JEZEBKVS FRIENDS,
4
With a kind of shudder she Hftcd the black-covered box,
and carried it to the edge of the grave-hke trench; and,
after a moment's pause, after something l)etween a gasp
and a sigli had passed her i)ale lips, she lowered it down
into the hole, and began hastily to cover it u]), pausing
not until the sand above it wvis level with the rest.
She knelt down and with her hands flattened it; the
gleaming lights darting athwart the sky, one second show-
ing her figure plainly, and the next vanishing away. Then
the fight above grew fiercer the storm-clouds warring in
;
their wrath, and the lightning leaping out in its wild play.
A moment later and the world seemed ablaze. In an in-
stant the girl, kneeling on the sand, with her face now
turned towards the sea, saw as in a vast panorama the
whole scene around her the brown shaggy rocks tower-
;
ing aloft the patches ofverdure between their crests the
; ;
rents and rifts on the huge rocks.
The next all was darkness, and a crash so loud, so ter-
rible, that the earth seemed to shake, fell on the listener's
appalled ears, who uttered a cry of terror and covered her
face. Then she sprang to her feet, and overwhelmed with
fear, fled homewards.
Just as she reached the top of the cHffanother blinding
flash of lightning showed plainly everything around. It
showed this girl, rain-drenched, white-faced, with rigid
features and wide open terrified eyes, to a man wrapped in
a military cloak, wiio was walking leisurely, considering
the weather, along the path at the head of the clifi's.
" Ruth Forth ! it cannot be ! "
Then he began hastily to follow the flying figure of the
girl before him. She had seen, but not recognised him,
but she saw so?neone, and this fact made her hasten on
a
even faster than before. —
At last she stopped, where he had expected feared "it
Hec
that she would stop; before a little house in a garden,
built backfrom the roadway. She opened the latch ofthe thr(
wooden gate, and he watched her go cautiously in, and S
whin
disappear amid the wet evergreens. She did not go to the
front door of the house, but evidently intended to enter at prej
the back, and the man watching her saw all this with a <<
feeling of intense anger and astoi^ishment in his heart. hinj
"If it had been the other one," he was thinking as he <i
leaned a moment or two on the gate, " I should not have
—
JEZRBEVS FRIENDS.
5
d box, wondered much, but Ruth —confound it, what can she
and, have—been after? JiuL I'll bo at the bottcjiii of th—is esca-
a; gasp pade she came iq) by the stej)s from the bay I'li go
down down and try to see who she has been meeting there, for I
)Lausing suppose there must Ix^ sf)mcone. Ah ! what trust can you
have in them?" And he gave a bitter smile, shrugged his
shoulders and turned away.
It ; the
show- In the meanwhile the girl had stolen noiselessly in at the
. Then back door of the little house in the garden, which she
found unlocked. Then she crept through the kitchen, and
ring in
d play, cautiously ascended the staircase, at the head of which
an in- stood a beautiful woman in a white wrapper.
ce now They looked at each other, these two, but neither spoke.
ima the There was intense excitement depicted on the face of the
tower- beautiful woman at the head of the stairs, and she eagerly
scanned the slender, cloaked form of the girl. Then she
sts ; the breathed a sort of a sigh of relief, and turned back, still
without a word, into the bedroom, from which she had
so ter-
only emerged when she heard the light footstep she had
istener's
watched and waited for.
ered her
The girl followed her, and then sank down on the side
Lied with
of the bed like one whose strength is utterly spent. The
Woman saw this, and hastily shut the room door, and took
blinding
offthe drenched cloak and pouredout some brandy, which
und. It
iatphperidgiidn tshhee ghiarld's swthaintdeinligpsi,nwrheaodilnoeosks,ediinntao gtlhaess,otahenrd'shfealcde iwtittho
isidering eyes stil—l full of fear.
'* But it is safe, is it not? " whispered the woman, see-
ffs. ^ ing this expression with a sudden pang ofdread.—
"Yes," faltered the girl; "no one saw me but oh
re of the !
Frances, Frances, I would rather have died than have
ised him, "
asten on don"eHuwshha,t hIudsihd,"tos-aniidghtthe! woman she had called Frances;
"it is done and over now. Don't give way, Ruth, for
-feared Heaven's sake don't give way now after all we have gone
L garden, through " ;
tch ofthe !
Suddenly Ruth gave a half cry, and sprang to her feet,
and
' in, while a look of absolute consternation passed over her ex-
go to the
pressive face.
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