DOCTOR ST. CLAIR’S REVENGE.
The chagrined superintendent had indeed gone away with a distinct
purpose of doing some little detective work of his own, by which he
hoped, in the malignity of his heart, to get Doctor Rupert ousted from
his position at the hospital.
He hardly knew what he was hoping for; he barely expected success to
crown his mission. But he vaguely scented a mystery about the young
physician because he had been appointed from another State, over the
heads of several applicants from West Virginia, who felt aggrieved at
the preference shown the handsome stranger.
Doctor St. Clair knew that the governor himself had recommended Rupert,
therefore he called on him first, and, while cleverly reporting on
affairs at Weston, adroitly threw in some leading questions on the
subject nearest his thoughts.
To his keen disappointment he found the chief executive dumb as an
oyster regarding Doctor Rupert’s claims for recognition by the party
in power. He said in an off-hand way that the young doctor was an old
acquaintance whom he had been glad to favor. After that he was genially
non-committal, and the private secretary, when cautiously interviewed
afterward, was in the same mood. He knew absolutely nothing about
Doctor Rupert. He had never seen him but once, and was not sure he
should recognize him if he ever met him again.
The amateur detective went away despondent, and if chance had not
furnished him the right clue in the very nick of time, he would have
been disappointed of the revenge he craved.
* * * * *
Ada Winton was the lovers’ veritable good angel in those brief happy
days.
“I am going to get up a hasty trousseau for the bride,” she said gayly,
but with latent earnestness, and every minute she could spare from her
work she spent at the cottage helping Aunt Susan to get Eva ready.
Ada was in mourning for her father, and in her trunk she had several
pretty dresses, scarcely worn, among them her dainty white graduating
gown.
With slight alteration the sweet white organdie fitted Eva as if it had
been made for her, and it was the same with the dark-brown tailor-made
suit, just the thing for the short wedding journey that had been
planned.
“Oh, how can I take your pretty gowns?” cried Eva timidly.
“Say no more about it. They will get moth-eaten and old-fashioned
locked away while I am in mourning. If it will ease your mind, you may
buy my wedding gown when I get married,” laughed the brilliant Ada
jestingly.
“I shall take the greatest delight in doing it,” cried Eva earnestly,
feeling the weight of obligation thus removed from her mind.
How happily the days flew. To her and her lover that week between their
betrothal and their wedding day stood out forever in memory like a
beautiful gem in a golden setting.
They were not rich nor famous, but they were young and loving, with
the whole world before them, and they asked nothing of fate but each
other’s love.
So the golden days, love-freighted, slipped away and brought the
fateful hour.
They were to be married very quietly at the cottage with just a few
friends, such as Doctor Bertrand, Doctor Merry, and others from
the hospital. After an hour or so of pleasant converse and light
refreshments they were to start on a little wedding journey.
Doctor St. Clair, who returned on the day before the wedding, was
courteously invited to the ceremony by Rupert, who, in ignorance of his
hidden vileness, chose to bear him no ill will for discharging Eva.
“It has only hastened my wedding day--the happiest hour of my life,” he
said, in his blindness.
The superintendent accepted the invitation with one of his blandest
smiles and a few words of congratulation, ending with:
“You seem to be made for each other.”
Others thought so, too, when the handsome pair stood before the
minister that balmy May evening in the flower-decked room, surrounded
by their admiring friends.
Doctor Rupert was pale and trembling with exquisite happiness. As
the aged minister opened his book to begin the wedding service, the
bridegroom, looking down at the sweet white figure by his side,
wondered if indeed it could be a reality and no dream that God was
going to give him bonnie Eva for his own.
As though in answer to his thought, the rude tramp of two uninvited
guests sounded loudly in the stillness of the room, and a heavy hand
fell on his shoulder, whirling him around to face a grim, stern officer
of the law, whose words fell on his ears like the trump of doom:
“Doctor Ludington, your identity is known, and I have a warrant here to
arrest you for the murder of Terry Groves!”
It was like the bursting of a bombshell.
The minister dropped his holy book in consternation.
The guests exclaimed loudly in amazement all together.
And the man most concerned, turning on his interlocutors a face of
startled terror, demanded hoarsely:
“Your proofs?”
The officer of the law answered sternly:
“They will be forthcoming at the proper time, and you must come with me
now, for Miss Somerville will surely not wish the ceremony to go on,
now that she knows your identity as the murderer of her cousin!”
The malicious thrust seemed to quiver like a sword point in the accused
man’s heart.
He started, shuddered, then looked down with burning blue eyes at the
white-faced girl clinging to his arm with both trembling white hands,
while she cried out to him wildly, beseechingly:
“Tell them they are mistaken, that they have accused you falsely! Tell
them you never could have won my heart if you had been gran’ther’s
enemy!”
But over both their minds flashed at the same moment a memory of the
words she had said to him when she believed him dying:
“If you had lived I would have loved you!”
How he had treasured those words, hugged them to his heart in rapture,
found in them a palliation for his deceit.
“If you had lived I would have loved you!”
She would have loved him, knowing he was a Ludington, a son of the
man her grandfather despised. She would have loved him despite that
barrier, her sweet, girlish lips had frankly told him so as she gazed
with pity and sorrow into his dying eyes.
Her words had come true. He had wooed and won sweet Eva, believing
that his deception was no great harm at all, since she had in a manner
consented to it in the impulsive words with which she bade him, as she
believed, an eternal adieu.
But with her last words, uttered under the stress of terrible shock,
she was gainsaying her former declaration, cutting the ground from
beneath his feet.
There was a breathless moment in which they gazed silently into each
other’s anguished eyes, searching each the other’s heart, while every
one wondered what would be the outcome.
The young doctor’s dark-blue eyes, beautiful, tender, troubled, like
some hunted creature’s at bay, mutely implored her pardon and her
love. Hers, wild, incredulous, agonized, were seeking and finding the
startling truth.
Yes, she recognized him now, understood her subtle, half recognition of
him all along.
Oh, why had she been so blind that a little alteration in his personal
appearance had misled her so fatally that she had been tricked into a
misplaced love, had found heaven in his presence, bliss in his voice,
and touch, and glance, happiness with him and no one else.
A sense of ingratitude, of remorse, of falsehood to gran’ther’s revered
memory pierced her tender heart like a thorn.
Oh, he was looking down on her from heaven; could he know that she had
been about to wed his enemy, at whose door, whether willfully or in
self-defense, lay her cousin’s blood?
The tortured lover searched her face with eager, haggard eyes for some
sign of relenting.
“Eva, Eva!” he murmured imploringly, but he would never forget the
reproach, the despair, the anger of the beautiful upturned face, or the
bitterness of the voice in which she answered:
“Oh, I know you now, Doctor Ludington, and I will never forgive you!”
Then her senses reeled with agony, her white hands slipped from his
arm, and she sank like one dead at his feet.
No one who saw the piteous sight ever forgot how like a dead girl she
looked, the beautiful little bride, lying prone on the floor in her
filmy white robes, and the fragrant garlands crushed in her golden
locks even as her heart was crushed with the weight of despair.
Doctor St. Clair would have felt himself well avenged for her scorn
if he had witnessed that scene, but he had absented himself from the
wedding, contenting himself that he had set in motion the adverse
influences to wreck the budding happiness of the lovers.
The women all flung themselves down by unconscious Eva, and the
officers hurried Doctor Ludington away, scarcely giving him time for a
word with the few men friends who gave him the hand of sympathy.
He attempted no denial of his true identity. What was the use?
Eva was lost to him forever. Nothing else mattered much.
On the one hand had stood home, kindred, wealth--for the Ludingtons had
struck oil, too, and were fast getting rich--but he had been willing to
sacrifice them all for the little dark-eyed girl on the other side.
Fate had snatched her away, and given him back what he had forsaken.
A telegram went flying to his father confessing all; then he started
with the officers on a journey to Clarksburg that was to end in prison
instead of bridal happiness.