CHAPTER XLIII.

Upon the day following the scenes described in our preceding chapter, a strange interview was in progress in a magnificent apartment in a house situated in one of the most fashionable quarters of New York.

A beautiful young lady, richly attired, had been sitting alone in the elegant apartment described when a man of dark complexion entered the room, and, with silent step and a pleased smile upon his dark face, he advanced toward the girl.

Just a moment preceding the entrance of the dark-faced man, the girl had indulged in a brief soliloquy.  She murmured: 

“Well-well, my mind is made up.  I have fooled that villain!  He thinks I love him.  He thinks I have been dazzled and bewildered by the possession of all these fine clothes and the wearing of these costly jewels; but he is mistaken.  I hate him—­I abhor him!  He is an assassin!  He thinks I do not know it; but I saw him strike down that good old man, Tom Pearce, and I have but hired him on with a promise of my love, only that I might hold him until an opportunity offers to hand him over to justice.”

A moment the girl was thoughtful and silent, but speedily she resumed her soliloquy, salving: 

“I wonder what could have become of Vance!  He lives—­he has been successful, I saw in a paper yesterday.  Why does he not come to me?  Well, well! as he does not come to me, I will go to him.  It is time that I unmasked before this scoundrel, who thinks he has won me by the tragedy through which he temporarily obtained possession of me.  But we shall see!  I am ‘Renie, the Wild Girl of the Shore,’ as Vance once called rue, and I will prove myself more than a match for this deep, designing scoundrel.”

The girl had just uttered the words above quoted when the door opened, and the man entered the room.

As stated, he advanced with a pleased smile upon his face.

“Renie, darling,” he said.  “I have pleasant news for you.”

“Indeed!”

“Yes, my dear.  To-day we sail for my beautiful home in Cuba where you will be the belle of society, and where we shall be married.”

“We sail for Cuba to-day?”

“Yes, to-day.”

“I thought you did not intend to go until the season was more advanced?”

“I have decided to go to-day; business calls me there.”

“And you sail to-day?”

“Yes.”

“I cannot go with you.”

“You cannot go with me?”

“No.”

At that moment a most extraordinary incident occurred, but its real character cannot be revealed until our narrative has progressed.  The incident, however, caused a complete change to come over the girl.  She had glanced in a mirror behind the man who had just made the announcement to her, and she had beheld a sight which caused, as stated, a complete change to come over her demeanor.  “You must go without me,” sail the girl.  The latter spoke in a different tone.