FLOWN
Yes, the strange man had mesmerized Editha Dalton.
He possessed that peculiar power, or magnetic influence, something of
which almost every one has either seen or heard, and which should never
be exercised except in the most judicious manner, and governed by
unquestionable principles.
To all appearances Editha was completely in his power, but whether it
was strong enough to make her comply with his every command or not yet
remained to be seen.
We have all learned something of the young girl’s strength of will, in
her resolute adherence to the right and her persistent opposition to
everything wrong.
Whether this was all instinct rooted and grounded in her nature, and
strengthened for years by conscientious cultivation, which would in a
measure protect her and prevent her from becoming his abject slave,
could not yet be determined. But he immediately proceeded to test his
power.
“Pick up and bring me that paper,” he commanded, pointing to the copy of
John Loker’s confession, which had fallen upon the floor.
She stooped obediently and handed it to him.
“Bring me your watch and chain,” was the next mandate.
She hesitated a moment. It had been a gift from Richard Forrester, was
very valuable, and she prized it above all her other trinkets.
“Bring it,” he repeated.
She went to do his bidding, and gave it to him without a murmur.
But he did not care for it, it seemed, as he laid it down upon her
writing-desk and left it there untouched.
“Now give me that ring from your finger,” he said, pointing to the
beautiful pearl that Earle had placed upon her hand.
She involuntarily clasped her hands tightly together, and stood staring
helplessly at him without obeying him.
“Take it off,” he repeated, more sternly; but she did not move.
He muttered a curse, and then bade her go bring the contents of her
jewel-box.
Instantly she turned to do his bidding, carefully gathered up every
article and brought them to him.
Then he commanded her to take them back and arrange them as they
belonged.
She unhesitatingly obeyed, quickly arranging everything in its place,
and giving no sign of the precious treasure concealed beneath.
Then she went and stood humbly before him again.
“Now go and get that paper signed by John Loker and bring it to me,” he
said, bending all the power of his will to influence her.
She took one step forward, her eyelids quivered, her nostrils dilated,
her bosom heaved; then she stopped, staring helplessly at him, while her
hands were again locked in a nervous clasp.
“Strange!” he muttered, with a frown.
He then issued several other commands, which she obediently executed,
and at last he told her once more to bring that paper, but with the same
result as before.
She would not do it. Her love for Earle, and her determination not to
yield anything connected with him, seemed to be an instinct stronger
than his power over her.
Again and again he tried to gain his point, but without avail, and, with
a perplexed and angry look, he muttered:
“It won’t do—my power is not strong enough yet—it will take time; but
she says no one knows where the paper is but herself, so _I will take
care of her_. She has hid what I want, and now I’ll hide her. It will be
risky business, but there is no other way; if I go away and leave her,
some one else will have it to-morrow morning, and then the whole world
will know.”
He sat thinking the matter over for some little time, Editha standing
patiently by him, as if waiting to do his bidding still further.
“Put those things on,” he said, at last, and pointing to a hat and
waterproof that had been thrown upon the floor.
She immediately put them on.
“Now get a vail and tie over your face.”
With the humility of a servant she obeyed him.
He then went to the door and looked out.
All was still.
The gas in both halls had been partially turned off, and now burned
dimly, and nothing was moving in all that great house.
He stepped back into the room, took Editha by the arm, and said,
roughly:
“You are to go with me—see that you make no noise.”
He then led her out, down the broad stairway, through the lower hall, to
the outer door.
In a moment more they were in the street, and he hurried her from the
place as fast as she was able to walk.
Reaching a corner several blocks away, he stopped by a carriage which
seemed to be waiting there.
This he bade Editha enter, then following her, gathered up the reins and
drove rapidly away.
Very early the next morning a very respectable appearing lady and her
invalid daughter, the latter much wrapped to shield her from the
weather, arrived at the quiet hotel before mentioned.
They had come from a distant part of the State—had been traveling all
night, madam said, in order that the sick girl might avail herself of
the skill of a noted physician residing in the city.
They took rooms in the upper story of the hotel; it was not so full
usually, and more quiet; besides, madam hinted, her daughter was
sometimes not quite herself, and they preferred being where they could
not disturb others.
She took a whole suite, as her son would occasionally visit them, and be
obliged to remain over night.
And thus Editha Dalton was spirited away from her home and hidden away
in the very heart of her own city, and there she remained for several
weeks until found so strangely by Earle.
Once established there, paying regularly for their accommodations, and
giving no trouble, they were regarded as very quiet and respectable
boarders, seldom going out except when the young lady was able to ride,
closely wrapped, and vailed, and magnetized, and always in a closed
carriage, always taking their meals in their own room, as the invalid
was “unable to go to the public table,” and madam was “unwilling to
leave her poor, dear child.”
Once in awhile a servant or the clerk, in passing through the upper hall
late at night, thought they heard a low sobbing and moaning in their
rooms, but they had been told something of the invalid’s infirmity, and
so gave themselves no uneasiness upon the subject.
And so right there in the very midst of the great city, with the
detectives at work all about them, and the excitement that the deep
mystery was creating, this great wrong was being perpetrated; and had it
not been for Earle Wayne’s strange whim to change his hotel upon that
particular night, when the house was so full, and madam’s “son” absent,
the story of Editha’s remarkable disappearance and rescue would never
have been related.
* * * * *
When Editha awoke, after two hours of undisturbed refreshing sleep, she
found Earle still sitting beside her, and her former attendant, with her
face buried in her hands, sitting in sullen silence upon the lounge
opposite.
“I _did_ not dream it, then?” she said, looking up into her lover’s face
with a long-drawn, trembling sigh.
“No, my darling; you have slept too soundly to dream of anything. Are
you rested?” he asked, bending down to kiss the sweet quivering lips.
“Yes; but, oh! Earle, don’t let _him_ come back again,” she pleaded,
with a shudder, as she reached out her thin hand and grasped his with
nervous strength.
He bent his lips to her ear, and whispered:
“No, my own; he is safely locked within the next room, and he can never
hurt you again. Bring some more of that drink,” he added, addressing the
woman opposite.
She arose and obeyed, and Editha drank as eagerly as before.
“Could you eat something?” he asked, regarding with a thrill of pain the
thin hands that held the bowl.
“No, not now, Earle; I will wait and take breakfast with you by and by,”
she answered, with a bright, hopeful look into his anxious face.
“You are feeling better already?” he asked, eagerly.
“Yes,” she returned, with a ripple of happy laughter. “You know ‘a merry
heart doeth good like a medicine,’ and I feel very happy and _safe_ just
now.”
Indeed, she did not look like the same person that Earle had seen
through the transom.
Her eyes were now bright and hopeful, and her face shining with
happiness and content.
“You will let me talk now? I cannot sleep any more,” she said, as she
settled back upon the pillow which he arranged for her.
“If you are able, a little. I do not wish you to get too weary.”
“I want to tell you how I happen to be here—at least, all that I know
about it myself—and I have _such_ good news for you.”
“Then let it be in just as few words as possible, or the excitement will
be too much for you,” he replied, feeling greatly relieved to see her
looking so much brighter, and to hear her speak in her natural tone once
more.
She began by relating her visit to the Loker’s family, and the
confession of John Loker, her adventure with the ruffian upon the
street, her escape, and his subsequent entrance to her room during the
same night.
His face grew grave and troubled as she told him how persistently she
had refused to reveal the hiding-place of the precious paper.
“My darling, you ran a terrible risk; he might have taken your life,” he
said, with a shudder.
“But it was the only proof of _your honor_; it alone would give you back
the respect and esteem of men, and I _would not_ give it to him,” she
said, with a sparkle of the old defiance in her eye, then continued: “I
did not think he would quite dare do me any personal violence, and I was
willing to suffer a great deal rather than lose anything so precious. I
do not seem to remember much of what happened after he seized my hands
and looked at me in that dreadful way; only it seemed at times, when he
spoke to me, as if some force within me was trying to part soul and
body—until I found myself here with this strange woman. I was left
quietly with her for two or three days, when he came again and tried to
frighten me into telling him what he wanted to know. I always refused
until he lost his patience and temper, when he would dart toward me,
seize my hands, look into my eyes, and almost instantly everything would
be a blank to me, and when I came to myself again I would be so
exhausted and ill I could not rise.”
“The villain mesmerized you,” Earle said, with a white, stern face.
“Yes, that was the only explanation that I could think of to account for
his peculiar power over me. He has told me almost every time he came
that he would allow me to go home if I would tell him my secret; but, of
course, I would not do that when I was myself, and, from the fact of his
continuing to exercise his influence, I suppose I am just as wilful when
under his magnetic control regarding that one thing. Earle,” she
concluded, slipping her hand confidingly into his, “you have given me a
blessed release. I do not believe I could have borne it very much
longer, for I have been growing very weak of late; but my prayer night
and day has been that I might be spared to you, and that God would not
allow him to wring my precious secret from me.”
“Why did I find him torturing you with such strange questions about your
name and parentage to-night?” Earle asked.
Editha shook her head with a sad smile.
“He almost always came in the night; I suppose there was less danger of
his being discovered then; but as for his questions and my answers, I
know no more about them than you could have done during all these weeks.
Everything became a blank as soon as he touched me and looked at me in a
certain way, and I do not know, what I have done or said; I only know
that I have suffered horribly sometimes;” and a trembling seized her at
the remembrance.
“Woman, what have you to say regarding this strange story?” Earle
demanded, turning to the attendant, who had sat motionless during
Editha’s narrative.
“I have nothing to say,” she returned, lifting a defiant face to him.
“It will be better for you to show a friendly disposition,” Earle
returned, quietly. “I have this villain of whom Miss Dalton speaks
securely locked up and ready for the officers as soon as morning breaks,
and I will punish you to the extent of the law, also, unless you show a
disposition to do what is right.”
He then related how he happened to be there that night—how he had
searched for her so wearily, until he felt that he must have rest, and
coming there, and hearing her sobbing, he had been strangely impressed
that something was wrong, and had proceeded to investigate the matter.
He told how he had attacked Tom Drake in the hall, dragged and locked
him within his own room, and then resolved to enter hers.
The woman appeared greatly disturbed as she listened to this; she
evidently had not supposed anything so serious had happened to her
partner, and it was a very pale face that Earle looked into as he asked:
“Was it not mesmeric power that the wretch used to try to force Miss
Dalton’s secret from her?”
“Yes; it can do no harm to tell that much,” she muttered.
“What was the meaning of those very strange questions he put to her
to-night?”
She thought a moment, and then said:
“It was necessary for Miss Dalton’s health that she should go out at
times and get the air; but we never took her out unless she was
mesmerized, and Tom thought that if anything happened to us at any time,
and she should be questioned, if she answered as he taught her, no one
would suspect or molest her.”
“Is he in the habit of exercising his power over people in this way in
carrying on his nefarious business?” Earle demanded.
The woman would not reply, and Editha said:
“Whether he has ever carried it so far with any one else is doubtful;
but I heard him say once, when they both thought I was asleep, that
unless something turned up pretty soon he would be obliged to go to
lecturing again, and showing off in the old way, which I took to mean
that he had once lectured upon the subject of mesmerism, and tried his
experiments upon the public.”
“The wretch! He will have an opportunity to practice something else, and
show off in a different way before long, I’m thinking,” Earle answered,
sternly.
Day was beginning to break, and the occupants of the house were arousing
from their slumbers.
“My darling,” Earle said to Editha, “you must have a larger and more
airy room than this immediately;” and he arose and rang the bell.
“Earle, you will not leave me?” she said, the frightened look returning
to her face.
“No; I shall only go to the door to speak with the waiter; and you,”
turning to her attendant, “will please assist Miss Dalton to dress
meanwhile, so that she can be moved.”
The waiter soon knocked at the door, and Earle stepped just outside to
converse with him.
He told him something of what had happened during the night, and the man
expressed no little surprise at what he heard, and that the long lost
Miss Dalton had been concealed in that house. He then asked him if it
would be possible for him to give Miss Dalton a better room, and he
replied that some of the guests had already departed on an early train,
and he should have a first-class room at his disposal in fifteen
minutes.
A half-hour later Editha was borne into a beautiful apartment, where not
long after she and Earle breakfasted together, a heavy burden lifted
from both their hearts, while the former, happy in the presence of her
lover, seemed to grow brighter, stronger, and more like herself every
moment.
At eight o’clock Earle bethought himself of his prisoner, he having
locked the woman into the room as soon as Editha had been removed.
“When I have attended to that matter,” he said, drawing her tenderly to
him and kissing her now smiling lips, “I will telegraph immediately to
Mr. Dalton; and, darling, when he comes I have some joyful news to tell
you both. I do not fear that he will oppose any obstacles to our
marriage now. I trust all our troubles are over.”
Alas! they could not know that they were standing upon the brink of even
a more fearful precipice—about to be plunged into a deeper abyss of
grief and trouble than either had yet known. Earle went out for an
officer to arrest his prisoners, and, soon returning, proceeded to the
rooms where he had left them, as he thought, so secure.
Both doors were open! Both birds had flown!