IN THE MAD-HOUSE.

What were those whispered words of McGinnis' which so affected Helen Dilt?

Let them be what they might, there could be no doubt that they struck terror to her soul.

She sank back in the corner of the conveyance, and audibly moaned.

Poor girl!

She was a heroine in her way, and could have borne a great deal were it to advance some good cause, or because she merited it.

But to be compelled to endure untold horrors, why and wherefore she knew not, was terrible.

"Why am I persecuted?"

So she asked McGinnis a little later, appealingly, in a wavering voice.

"Can't tell you—don't know."

"You are employed by that monster whom I saw in that cellar?"

"I am. There's no good denying that."

"Has he no heart? Have you no heart, that you conspire with him to persecute a friendless girl?"

"I gets paid for it."

So McGinnis dryly replied.

"Paid for it? Then you lack conscience as well as heart. I beg of you, do not do this horrible thing. Release me, restore me to my friends, and I will pray for you as long as I live."

"Pray for me? Ha-ha!" laughed McGinnis. "That's a good one!"

Helen moaned bitterly.

Nothing could move the villain except money, and that Helen did not have.

McGinnis watched her for some time in silence, a gloating expression in his eyes.

He had something in his mind, and presently it came out.

"There is one way," he said to Helen, "to escape this thing which you appear not to hanker after very much.

"And that?" she exclaimed eagerly.

"Can't you guess?"

As he asked the question he leered at her in a meaning way.

The girl's heart sank.

She knew at once what he meant.

"What do you say?"

Helen made no reply, only shuddered and shrank away from the villain besides her.

"It's your last chance," urged McGinnis. "And you'll not get another, I kin tell ye. Once them doors close behind your back you're done for. Got any answer for me?"

"Mercy!" gasped Helen. "Anything but that. Pity me—spare me—do not stain your soul with a crime so dreadful as this."

"Yes or no, plain," growled McGinnis. "Come now, speak up right sharp and don't waste any time in palavering. Yes or no? And remember, it's your last chance. Say 'yes,' and yer gits McGinnis for a husband, McGinnis as is known to be one of the sharpest and best men on a 'lay' in the country. Say 'no,' and you're done for. Into the mad-house you'll go, never to come out until you're carried out, feet first."

She could never marry him, after he had imbrued his hands in the blood of the woman he now called his wife. She could never have married him anyhow. Better the mad-house, better death itself, than that.

There was nothing gained by attempting to fool him. Suppose she did say 'yes,' and by means of it staved off incarceration in the mad-house for several days, what would it amount to in the end? Nothing. Had there been any reason for her to expect a rescue, she might have tried on the game. But she knew of no efforts being made to find her.

Then a shudder convulsed her frame.

"Yes," she could not say, now that a new thought came to her, even though she knew it would lead to her rescue before such time as McGinnis claimed the fulfillment of her pledge.

The little word "yes" would be the death-warrant of a living human being—no matter how fallen and wicked, a human being all the same.

To say "yes" would seal the fate of the woman McGinnis now called his wife.

Poor Helen!

She bent her head and hid her face in her hands, and wept bitterly as the closed carriage rolled swiftly onward.

A strange fancy, a love for Helen had taken root in the evil heart of McGinnis.

That it possessed depth was evidenced by his being willing to brave the wrath of the man in whose hands his life rested, provided Helen would become his wife.

"It will be 'yes,' won't it, deary?"

His tone was softer, more affectionate, more tender than we could have expected from such a man.

He had leaned over toward Helen, and as he asked the question, he placed one arm about her.

With a shiver she sprang to her feet, wrenching herself from his grasp, and then she cried:

"No, no! I would sooner die than marry you! Help—help—HELP! Oh, Heaven! is there no one to help me?"

Like lightning came a change in McGinnis' tone and demeanor.

"Silence!" he hoarsely and angrily hissed. "Silence, I say! Do you hear me?"

"Help!" shrieked Helen.

"Silence!" and now the villain threw both arms about her to pull her down.

"Help!"

McGinnis wasted no more breath in senseless orders.

Down beside him he dragged the girl.

Bravely Helen battled, but her strength was insufficient to maintain the struggle long.

He seized her by the throat, and tightened his grasp on it.

She gasped for breath.

Her brain reeled.

Consciousness finally fled.

McGinnis now glanced from the carriage window. The driver perfectly understood his business, and at the instant of Helen's first cry had commenced winding a tortuous course through the crooked streets.

His prompt action prevented Helen's cries procuring for her the help for which she had shrieked.

"Get there as quick as you can," McGinnis told the driver, and then sat there and watched Helen until the carriage rolled up and paused before the gate of a private insane asylum.

Into this she was carried in her unconscious condition, the carriage departing as soon as she was removed from it.

To the sour-visaged dame who was encountered in the hall McGinnis handed a note.

"Brown, eh?" as she read it. "Well, the poor dear's room is ready. Right this way with her."

When she had been deposited on a bed McGinnis took his departure.

At the door he paused for a last glance at the pale face of Helen.

"Blast it!" he muttered. "It's too bad. Such a plucky critter ought to a been married to a good feller like me, who could make somethin' outen her."

An hour later Helen recovered her senses with a wild start.

Opening her eyes she saw an evil-faced hag above her, who laughed, held up a big bloody pin, and remarked:

"Pins is better'n water to bring a pusson outen a fainting fit."

Helen tried to move.

She found on doing so that her feet and hands were secured by stout cords to the four corners of the bedstead.

"Now, my gal," said her tormentor, "how is it agoin' to be? Are you goin' for to be good an' docile, or are agoin' to give me a heap of trouble? There," jabbing the pin into Helen, "how do you like that? That's what I allers does when my patients is bad."

Poor Helen!

A terrible fate opened before her.