GONE!
Hours that seemed days; days that seemed years; weeks that seemed
centuries; yet they all passed, and Madeline Payne scarce knew, when
they were actually gone, that they were not all a dream.
Life, after that first yielding of heart and brain, had been a
delirium; then a conscious torture of mind and body; next a burden
almost too great to bear; and then a dreamy lethargy. Heaven be
praised for such moods; they are saviors of life and reason in crises
such as this through which the stricken girl was passing.
Madness had wrought upon her, and her ravings had revealed some
otherwise dark places and blanks in her story to her guardian and
nurses. Pain had tortured her. Death wrestled with her, and then,
because he could inspire her with no fear of him, because she mocked
at his terrors and wooed him, fled away.
In his place came Life, to whom she gave no welcoming smile. But Life
stayed, for Life is as regardless of our wishes as is Death.
Forms had hovered about her; kindly voices, sweet voices, had murmured
at her bedside. At times, an angel had held the cooling draught to her
thirsty lips. At last these dream-creatures resolved themselves into
realities:
Doctor Vaughan, who had ministered to her with the solicitude of a
brother, the gentleness of a woman, and the goodness of an angel.
Olive Girard who, leaving all other cares, was ever at her bedside,
and who came to that place at a sacrifice of feeling, after a
wrestling with pride, bringing a bitterness of memory, and a patient
courage of heart, that the girl could not then realize.
Henry, too, black of skin, warm of heart; who waited in the outer
court, and seemed to allow himself full and free respiration only when
the girl was pronounced out of danger.
Out of danger! What a misapplication of words!
From the scene of conflict, at the last flutter of Death's gloomy
mantle, comes the man of medicine; watch in hand, boots a tiptoe, face
grave but triumphant. His voice bids a subdued farewell to the
somberness proper to a probable death-bed, coming up just a note
higher in the scale of solemnities, as it announces to the eager,
trembling, waiting ones,
"_The danger is past!_"
Death, the calm, the restful, the never weary; Death, the friend of
long suffering, and world weariness and despair; Death, the rescuer,
the sometime comforter--has gone away with empty arms and reluctant
tread, and--Life, flushed, triumphant, seizes his rescued subject and
flings her out into the sea of human lives, perchance to alight upon
some tiny green islet or, likelier yet, to buffet about among black
waters, or encounter winds and storms, upheld only by a half-wrecked
raft or floated by a scarce-supporting spar.
And she is out of danger!
Hedged around about by sorrow, assailed by temptation, overshadowed by
sin. And, "the danger is over!"
Buffeted by the waves of adversity; longing for things out of reach;
running after _ignis fatui_ with eager outstretched hands, and
careless, hurrying feet, among pitfalls and snares. And, out of
danger!
Open your eyes, Madeline Payne; lift up your voice in thanksgiving;
you have come back to the world. Back where the sun shines and the dew
falls; where the flowers are shedding their perfume and song birds are
making glad music; where men make merry and women smile; where gold
shapes itself into palaces and fame wreathes crowns for fair and noble
brows; where beauty crowns valor and valor kisses the lips of beauty.
And where the rivers sparkle in the sunlight, and, sometimes, yield up
from their embrace cold, dripping, dead things, that yet bear the
semblance of your kind--all that is left of beings that were once like
you!
Out of danger!
Where want, and poverty, and--God help us!--vice, hide their heads in
dim alleys and under smoky garret roofs. Where beaten mothers and
starving children dare hardly aspire to the pure air and sunlight, the
whole world for them being enshrined in a crust of bread. Where
thieves mount upwards on ladders beaten from pilfered gold, and
command cities and sway nations. Where wantonness laughs and thrives
in gilded cages, and starves and dies in mouldy cellars.
Out of danger!
Madeline, the place that was almost yours, in the land of the
unknowable, is given to another. The waters of death have cast you
back upon the shores of the living. You are "out of danger!"
What was to become of Madeline, now that they had brought her back to
life? This was a question which occurred to the two who so kindly
interested themselves in the fate of the unknown and headstrong girl.
While they planned a little, as was only natural, yet they knew from
what they had seen of their charge that, decide for her how they
would, only so far as that decision corresponded with her own
inclinations would she abide by it. So they left Madeline's future for
Madeline to decide, and found occupation for their kindliness in
ministering to her needs of the present.
Once during her illness, and just as the light of reason had returned
to the lovely hazel eyes, Lucian Davlin came. But he found the door of
the sick chamber closely shut and closely guarded. The slightest shock
to her nerves would be fatal now,--they told him. And he, having done
the proper thing, as he termed it, and not being in any way fond of
the sight of pain and pallor, yielded with a graceful simulation of
reluctance. Having been assured that with careful nursing, there was
nothing to fear, he deposited a check on his bankers in the hands of
her attendants, and went away contentedly, smiling under his mustache
at the novelty of being turned away from his own door.
He went back to Bellair, to Cora, and to the web they were weaving,
little dreaming whose hands would take up the thread and continue and
complete what they had thus begun.
And now the day has come for Madeline to leave the shelter that she
hates. Pale and weak, she sits in the great easy chair that had served
as a barrier between herself and her enemy, and converses with Olive
Girard while they await the arrival of Clarence Vaughan, who is to
take them from the place so distasteful to all three.
It has been settled that, for the present, Madeline will be the guest
of Olive. What will come after health and strength are fully restored,
they have not discussed much. Olive Girard and Doctor Vaughan had
agreed that all thoughts of the future must bring a grief and care
with them, and the mind of the invalid was in no condition for painful
thought and study. So Olive has been careful to avoid all topics that
might bring her troubles too vividly to mind.
But partly to divert Madeline's mind from her own woes, partly to
enable the unfortunate girl to feel less a stranger among them, she
has talked to her of Doctor Vaughan, of her sister, and at last of
herself.
And Madeline has listened to her description of merry, lovely Claire
Keith, and wondered what she could have in common with this buoyant,
care-free girl, who was evidently her sister's idol. Yet she found
herself thinking often of Olive's beautiful sister. Once, in the brief
absence of Olive, she had said to Doctor Vaughan:
"Mrs. Girard has told me of her sister; is she very lovely? And do you
know her well?"
"She is very fair, and sweet, and good. You will love her when you
know her, and I think you will be friends."
[Illustration: "Pale and weak, she sits in the great easy
chair."--page 108.]
She had not needed this; the tell-tale eye was sufficient to reveal
the fact that it was not, as she had at first supposed, Olive Girard,
but the younger sister, whom Clarence Vaughan loved.
"I might have known," she murmured to herself. "Olive Girard has the
face of one whose love dream has passed away and lost itself in
sorrow; and he looks, full of strength and hope, straight into the
future."
As they sat together waiting, there was still that same contrast,
which you felt rather than saw, between these two. They might have
posed as the models of Resignation and Unrest.
The look of patient waiting was five years old upon the face of Olive
Girard. Five years ago she had been so happy--a bride, beautiful and
beloved. Beautiful she was still--with the beauty of shadow; beloved
too, but how sadly! Philip Girard had been convicted of a great crime,
and for five long years had worn a felon's garb, and borne the anguish
of one set apart from all the world.
The hand that had darkened the life of Olive Girard, and the hand that
had turned the young days of the girl Madeline into a burden, was one
and the same.
Afterwards Madeline listened to the pathetic history of Olive's
sorrow.
Sitting in that great lounging chair, Madeline looked very fair, very
childlike. Sadly sweet were her large, deep eyes, and her hair, shorn
while the fever raged, clustered in soft tiny rings about her slender,
snowy neck and blue-veined temples. She had not been permitted to talk
much during her convalescence, and Olive had as yet gleaned only a
general outline of her story.
"Mrs. Girard," said the girl, resting her pale cheek in the palm of a
thin, tiny hand, "you once said something to me about--about some one
who had been wronged by--" Something sadder than tears choked her
utterance.
As Olive turned her grave clear eyes away from the window, and fixed
them in expectation upon her; Madeline's own eyes fell. She sat before
her benefactress with downcast lids, and the hateful name unuttered.
"I know," said Olive, after a brief silence; "I referred to a girl now
lying in the hospital. She is very young, and has been cruelly wronged
by him. She is poor, as you may judge, and earned her living in the
ballet at the theater. She was thrown from a carriage which had been
furnished her by _him_, to carry her home from some rendezvous--of
course the driver took care of himself and his horses. The poor girl
was picked up and carried to the hospital. She was without friends and
almost penniless. She sent to him--for him; he returned no answer. She
begged for help, for enough to enable her to obtain what was needed in
her illness. Message after message was sent, and finally a reply came,
brought by a messenger who had been bidden to insist upon receiving an
answer. The servant said that his master had directed him to say to
any messenger who called, that he was out of town."
"The wretch! He deserves death!"
Madeline's eyes blazed, and she lifted her head with some of her olden
energy.
"Softly, my dear: 'Thou shalt do no murder.'"
"It is not murder to kill a human tiger!"
Olive made no answer.
"Is she still very ill, this girl?" questioned Madeline.
"She can not recover."
"Shall I see her?"
"If you wish to; do you?"
"Yes."
Another long pause; then Madeline glanced up at her friend, and said
listlessly: "What do you intend to do with me?"
"Do with you?" smiling at her. "Make you well again, and then try and
coax you to be my other sister. Don't you think I need one?"
No answer.
"Life has much in store for you yet, Madeline."
"Yes;" bitterly again.
"You are so young."
"And so old."
"Madeline, you are too young for somber thoughts and repining."
"I shall not repine."
"Good! You will try to forget?"
"Impossible!"
"No; not impossible."
"I do not wish to, then."
"And why?"
"Wait and see."
"Madeline, you will do nothing rash? You will trust me, and confide in
me?"
The girl raised her eyes slowly, in surprise. "I have not so many
friends that I can afford to lose one."
"Thank you, dear; then we will let the subject drop until we are
stronger. And here is the carriage, and Doctor Vaughan."
Out into the sunny Summer morning went Madeline, and soon she was
established in a lovely little room which, Olive said, was hers so
long as she could be persuaded to occupy it. Here the girl rested and,
ministered unto by gentle hands, she felt life coming back.
* * * * *
And Lucian?
Late in the afternoon of the day that saw Madeline depart from his
elegant rooms, Mr. Davlin arrived, and found no one to deny him
admittance. All the doors stood ajar, and Henry was flitting about
with an air of putting things to rights. The bird had flown.
He gained from Henry the following: "I don't know, sir, where she
went. A gentleman came with a carriage, and the young lady and the
nurse went away with him."
Lucian was not aware what manner of nurse Madeline had had in her
illness. And Henry, having purposely misled him, enjoyed his
discomfiture.
"She told me to give you this, sir," said he, handing his master a
little package.
Tearing off the wrapper, Lucian held in his hand the little pistol
that had inflicted upon him the wounded arm. From its mouth he drew a
scrap of paper, and this is what it said:
When next we meet, I shall have other weapons!