Mischievous Maid Faynie | Page 2

to you why I
must have it, old fellow," said Kendale, always ready with some
plausible story on his glib tongue.
"Haven't time now," declared Armstrong. "I must catch the five-twenty
train from the Grand Central Depot; haven't a moment to lose. I will be
back on the nine o'clock train. If you will come over to my lodging
house then I'll talk with you. I cannot let you have the sum you want.
I'll tell you why then, and you will readily understand my position. Ah,
this is your corner. We part here. Wish me luck on the trip I am about
to take, for I never had more need for your good wishes."
"You are not going off to be married, I hope?" exclaimed Kendale in
the greatest of astonishment.
A light-hearted, happy, ringing laugh broke from Armstrong's
mustached lips, the color rushed into his face, and his brown eyes
twinkled merrily.
"There's the dearest little girl in all the world in the case," he admitted,
"but I haven't time to tell you about it now. I'll see you later."
With this remark he plunged forward into the gathering gloom, leaving
Clinton Kendale standing motionless gazing after him in the greatest

surprise. But the cold was too intense for him to remain there but an
instant; then wheeling about, he hastily struck into a side street,
muttering between his teeth:
"He must let me have that five hundred dollars, or I am ruined. I must
have it from him by fair means or foul, ere the light of another day
dawns. I've borrowed a cool two thousand from him in four months. I
wonder how much more he has laid by? I must have that five hundred,
no matter what I have to resort to to get it, that's all there is about it. I
am desperate to-night, and a person in my terrible fix fears neither God
nor man."
Meanwhile Lester Armstrong pushed rapidly onward, scarcely heeding
the bitter cold and terrible, raging storm, for his heart was in a glow.
He reached the Grand Central Depot just as the gates were closing, but
managed to dash through them and swing himself aboard of the train
just as it was moving out of the station.
The car was crowded; standing room only seemed to be the prospect,
but the young man did not seem disturbed by it, but settled his broad
frame against the door and looked out at the sharp sleet that lashed
against the window panes with something like a smile on his lips.
He had scarcely twenty miles to ride thus, but that comforting
remembrance did not cause the pleasant smile to deepen about the
mobile mouth.
He was thinking of the lovely young girl who had written him a note to
say that she expected him at the trysting place, without fail, at seven
that evening, as she had something of the greatest importance to
communicate to him.
"Of course my dear little girl will not keep the appointment in such a
blizzard as this. She could not have foreseen how the weather would be
when she wrote the precious little note that is tucked away so carefully
in my breast pocket; but, like a true knight, I must obey my little lady's
commands, no matter what they may be, despite storm or tempests--ay,

even though I rode through seas of blood!"
Half a score of times the engine became firmly wedged in snowdrifts in
traversing as many miles. There were loud exclamations of
discomfiture on all sides, but the handsome young man never heard
them. He was still staring out of the window--staring without
seeing--and the smile on his face had given place to an expression of
deep wistfulness.
"Sometimes I wonder how I have dared to aspire to her love--the
beautiful, petted daughter of a millionaire, and I only an assistant
cashier on a very humble salary--ay, a salary so small that my whole
year's earnings is less than the pin money she spends each month.
"If she were but poor like myself, how quickly I would make her mine.
How can I, how dare I, ask her to share my lot? Will her father be
amused, or terribly angry at my presumption?
"This sort of thing must stop. I cannot be meeting my darling
clandestinely any longer. My honor forbids, my manhood cries out
against it.
"But, oh, God! how the thought terrifies me that from the moment they
find out that we have met, and are lovers, they will try to part us--tear
my darling from me!"
They had met in a very ordinary manner, but to the infatuated young
lover it seemed the most ideal, most romantic of meetings. The pretty
little heiress had gone to the office of Marsh