Dainty's Cruel Rivals Part 23

The hot tears that fell on each dainty piece of clothing as she packed it away only the angels knew, for the mother's heart was breaking over the loss of her child.

She could not bring herself to believe that Dainty had fled with another man, for having accidentally made the acquaintance of the old black mammy, she had been favored with a thrilling narration of all that her daughter had suffered from the persecution of ghosts and the attempt at kidnapping.

It was a terrible shock to the mother's heart, and after that she could not believe that Dainty had eloped. She was sure that the girl had been stolen away, and perhaps murdered.

Oh, the curse of poverty! How it goaded the poor mother's heart!

Too poor to spend a penny in search of the beloved only child who had met such a mysterious fate, alone in the world, and almost friendless, she journeyed sorrowfully back to Richmond, only to find that a fire on the previous night had destroyed the cottage where her furniture was stored, and that she had no shelter for her head and no work for her hands. Was it any wonder her poor brain went wild?

CHAPTER XXVII.

IT SEEMED LIKE SOME BEAUTIFUL DREAM WHEN SHE ENTERED THE GATES IN THE CHILLY SUNSET OF A WINDY OCTOBER DAY.

"Thank Heaven! the crisis, The danger is past, And the lingering illness Is over at last-- The fever called 'Living'

Is conquered at last!"

The day came, late in September, when the autumn leaves were turning red and gold, that Dainty Chase opened wide her startled blue eyes upon the world again.

She had closed them consciously over six weeks ago in the gloomy dungeon beneath Ellsworth Castle, when, pressing to her desperate lips the bitter draught of death, she had bidden the cruel world farewell.

In the long weeks of illness and delirium that followed, many things had come and gone without her knowledge; and now, when consciousness returned again; there was a dazed look in the beautiful pansy-blue eyes that stared wide and dark out of her wan and wasted face, with the blue veins wandering plainly beneath the transparent skin.

"Where am I?" she gasped, faintly, putting her weak little hands up to her head, and wondering in a bewildered way what made her hair feel so thin and short and curly, like that of a year-old infant.

The fact was, that Sairy Ann Peters had been compelled to cut off all of Dainty's golden tresses to stay the progress of the devastating fever, and she had antic.i.p.ated with womanly grief the sadness of the hour when the girl should realize her cruel loss.

She came quickly to the bedside and took the little trembling hands in her toil-hardened but motherly ones, and said, tenderly:

"So you've come to yourself at last, dearie, and beginning to worrit the fust thing because all your beautiful long curly hair is cut off! But never mind, chile; it will grow again as pretty as ever all over in shiny leetle rings like a babby's; and I was jest obleeged to crop it off to save your sweet life, you had the fever so miserable bad."

"Where am I?" Dainty repeated, in amazement, her gaze lingering confidently on the homely but gentle face before her and receiving in return the smiling reply:

"Where you are is soon told, honey; you're in a logging-camp, where my husband and nine grown sons are running a saw-mill till the first of October, way up in the mountings, where we hain't seen but two faces besides our own sence we come here the first day of April. It's 'bout six weeks sence my husband found you at day-break, lying sick and raving on the bank of the trout stream where he was fishing for our breakfast, and brought you home with him. I gin you my best bed, and been nussin'

you all this while like you was my own darter, which I never had one, but al'ays hankered arter one; but the good Lord He sent me sons every time till I've nine on 'em; and I'm past fifty, and no more hopes of a darter now, though there'll be darters-in-law a-plenty, no doubt, when my boys begin to mate. Well, now you know all you ast me about, chile, and I'm jest as cur'us over you. What mought your name be, and wherever did you drap from, anyway?"

"I--I don't know," Dainty faltered, weakly, with a bewildered air.

"Sho! you don't know? Ah, well! I see how 'tis. Your memory ain't come back clear yet; and no wonder, after sech a hard sickness as you've come through! Never mind, dearie, it'll all come back arter awhile. Are you hungry now?"

"Thirsty!" faltered the girl; and like a flash the past came back to her, conjured up by that single word, presenting to her mind the dark, noisome cell where she had suffered so terribly with the cruel, burning fever and the terrible thirst, until longing for death, she had pressed the bitter poison to her parched lips.

Then all was blank till now, and she wondered feebly how she had escaped death, and still more, how she had been released from her terrible captivity, and been brought here to this remote mountain camp.

The woman gave her a draught of clear, cold, sparkling water that cleared her faculties immensely, and closing her heavy-lidded eyes again, she began to recall the past from the dim shades of memory.

It was a bitter task, and the hot tears flashed beneath her lashes as she remembered that Sheila Kelly had told her that Love, her husband, was wounded and dying.

The next morning she said wistfully to the kind woman:

"I am beginning to remember things now. Do you know a place called Ellsworth?"

"I've heerd tell of it; it's quite seven miles from here."

"Seven miles! Then how on earth did I ever get to this place?" wondered Dainty, but she only said, reticently:

"A lady named Chase is there, and I am her daughter. I was very ill, and I can not remember how I came to be out in the woods; but I would like for you to send word to my mother."

"I will see about it," replied Mrs. Peters; and after consulting her family, she reported that all were too busy to go to Ellsworth now, but they intended to break up camp the first of October, to return to their winter home at the station, and if she could be patient till then, she should have a bed in the wagon, and they could easily leave her at Ellsworth on their way past.

With this she was forced to be content, having no claim on her simple entertainers, save that of humanity; but the week, after all, slipped away quite fast in the delicious languor of returning health; and one day the Peters family loaded up three long wagons with their household goods, and set forth for home, having made Dainty and the mother quite comfortable on a mattress for the long journey over the worst stretch of rocky mountain road known in that section of a very rough country.

It seemed like some beautiful dream at last, when, after kindly farewells from her homely benefactors, she stood at the gates of Ellsworth in the chilly sunset of a windy October day, walking slowly and weakly along the graveled paths, past fading summer flowers and flaunting autumn blooms, on her way to the great house, her heart leaping with joy at the thought of her mother's kiss of welcome, and sinking with pain in the fear that she should find her darling dead and buried, according to Sheila's story.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

MORE BITTER THAN DEATH.

"No--there's nothing left us now But to mourn the past; Vain was every ardent vow-- Never yet did Heaven allow Love so warm, so wild to last.

Not even hope could now deceive me, Life itself looks dark and cold; Oh, thou never more canst give me One dear smile like those of old!"

Dainty dragged her trembling limbs as fast as her strength would permit toward the great house, lifting her large blue eyes eagerly up to the windows in search of some familiar face, though hope was very weak in her trembling heart.

It was two long, weary months since the first day of August, and what might not have happened in that time?

If Sheila Kelly had told her the truth, her young husband must be dead and buried long ago, and the only friend left to her in the wide, cruel world would be her mother, if indeed that dear mother lived, for what more likely than that she had died of heart-break at her daughter's mysterious disappearance?

Dainty, who knew so well her mother's devotion, feared that such a calamity was but too possible.

But she realized that even if her mother lived she was very unlikely to be found at Ellsworth now. Her bitter enemies would have driven her away long ago.

Still a subtle yearning drew her to the home of her beloved, though, as she drew near to the scene of her hopes or fears, her keen emotion almost overwhelmed her, driving the faint color back from her wan cheeks to her weak heart, and making her tremble so that she could scarcely advance one foot beyond the other.

How changed and lonely everything seemed since she had gone away? She did not even meet one of the servants as she hurried on, wrapping closely about her shivering form a thin cashmere scarf that kind Sairy Ann Peters had pressed on her to protect her, in her light summer dress, from the cold autumn winds. Thus panting, trembling, starting, and alternately hoping and despairing, she came close enough at last to gaze at the upper windows of the handsome suite of apartments that belonged to Lovelace Ellsworth.

She paused with a suppressed sob of excitement, and swept her glance rapidly from window to window.

Suddenly, with a cry of ecstatic joy, the girl sank to her knees with clasped, upraised hands.

"G.o.d in Heaven, I thank Thee!"