Farmer Thorn stepped out of the gate, and was about to proceed on his
way, when his attention was arrested by the rather unusual sight of a
gentleman tearing madly along the road on a fine black horse.
The farmer was so impressed with the parting injunction of his wife as
to the necessity of a physician's immediate presence, that a wild fancy
that this hurrying horseman might belong to the medical fraternity
darted directly into his mind.
He accordingly lifted his hand as a signal for the impetuous rider to
pause.
The gentleman checked his impatient steed, and inquired with a smothered
oath.
"What the deuce is your business with me? I'm in a devil of a hurry!"
"I mistrusted you might be a doctor?" said the farmer, inquiringly.
"The devil! Who's sick?" was the exceedingly civil rejoinder.
"A strange lady that we found in the road this morning. She's like to
die," said Mr. Thorn.
In the twinkling of an eye the rider was off his horse, with the bridle
thrown over his arm.
"Yes, I'm a doctor," he said, briskly. "Here, tie up my horse, and let
me see the patient at once."
Mr. Thorn was so impressed by the confident air of the man that he
readily obeyed the somewhat arrogant command, and Mrs. Thorn and Jennie
were somewhat surprised at his quick return, accompanied by an utter
stranger.
"I met a doctor right at the gate, wife," he explained; "so I did not go
for Dr. Pillsbury."
"Here's your patient, sir," said Mrs. Thorn, turning back the gay
patchwork counterpane, in which she had carefully enveloped the
unconscious Queenie.
What was her surprise to see him fall upon his knees and clasp his
hands, while his dark, handsome features became luminous with mingled
joy and sorrow.
"Oh, my dear sister, my sweet, unhappy girl!" he exclaimed, "is it thus
I find you. Oh! madam, is she indeed dead?" he inquired, turning sadly
to Mrs. Thorn.
"Her heart beats just a little, sir," said Mrs. Thorn, looking at him in
surprise.
"Do you know the lady, sir?" asked Jennie Thorn, a little timidly.
The man turned around, and looked at the farmer's exceedingly pretty
daughter with a furtive look of admiration. Instead of answering her he
spoke to the farmer.
"Your daughter, I suppose, sir?"
"Yes, sir, my daughter Jennie," said the farmer, with a glance of pride
at his pretty daughter. "She's been out at service this three years,
sir, but at present she's out of a place."
"Ah!" he said, politely; then turning back to the motionless form before
him, he said: "Yes, Miss Jennie, I know this lady. She is my own
sister. Unfortunately she is insane--driven mad by an unhappy love
affair. She persists in dressing herself in white and calling herself a
bride. This morning, just before daybreak, she escaped from us, and I
have been seeking her everywhere. It was a fortunate chance that led me
here.
"Do you think that she will revive, sir?" inquired Mrs. Thorn, who was
watching the patient anxiously.
He turned and laid his hand over the girl's heart, knitting his brows
with an air of medical wisdom.
"Oh, yes," he said, confidently. "There is life here yet. She is weak
and exhausted, having eaten but little for several days. Have you tried
forcing a little wine between her lips?"
"No; we had none," apologized the farmer; "we are but poor folks."
Pretty Jennie Thorn blushed and looked away at her father's frank
admission. She felt ashamed of their poverty before the haughty glance
of the handsome stranger.
The man took a little cut-glass flask with a golden stopper from his
pocket. It was full of wine, and he lifted Queenie's head on his arm,
poured a few drops between her pale lips and suffered them to trickle
down her throat. He repeated the operation several times, then laid her
head gently back on the pillow.
"You will soon see her rally now," he said, looking at Jennie with a
smile. "And now I must be making arrangements to take my poor little
sister home again."
A startled cry came from the lips of the invalid.
The man's last words had penetrated her reviving senses.
She raised herself on her arm and looked about her at the unfamiliar
room and the strange faces around her.
"Leon Vinton, _you_ here?" she exclaimed in a piteous tone. "Oh, Heaven,
where am I?"
"We are all friends, miss," said Mrs. Thorn, soothingly. "You fell
exhausted by the roadside, and we took you in and cared for you until
your brother came along and found you here."
Queenie's eyes flashed scornfully into Leon Vinton's face.
"Does _he_ say that he is my brother?" she demanded, pointing her finger
at him and looking at Mrs. Thorn.
"Yes, miss," answered the woman.
"He lies!" exclaimed Queenie, passionately, gaining strength with her
anger. "I am nothing to him, nothing! He is trying to deceive you that
he may get me into his power!"
Leon Vinton sighed mournfully, and shook his head as he looked around at
the girl's auditors.
"Ah, my friends, I told you she was mad," he said, sadly. "You see she
denies her own brother!"
"You are _not_ my brother, villain!" exclaimed Queenie, angrily; and
looking round at the others, she said: "My good friends, do not believe
this man--I am no relative of his, and he is trying to deceive you, and
get me into his power to torture my life out! Oh, sir, I appeal to you,
and to you, madam, also, to protect me from this villain. Drive him
forth this moment from this honest house whose pure air he pollutes with
his foul presence!"
The farmer and his wife began to cast dark looks at Leon Vinton, so
impressed were they with the earnestness of the girl's words and looks.
They began to think it was the truth she spoke instead of the ravings of
madness. The arch villain soon saw that they were inclined to doubt his
word, and threw fresh earnestness and eloquence into his dramatic
manner.
"Oh, my darling, unfortunate little sister," he cried, dropping on one
knee beside her, and trying to take her hands in his, "how it grieves me
that your distraught mind should take me for the accursed villain who
has destroyed your happiness forever--me, your devoted brother, whose
whole life is devoted to your service!"
"Villain! wretch!" exclaimed Queenie, "out of my sight before I try to
kill you! Oh, will no one drive the monster away?" she wildly cried.
"She grows violent," said Vinton, looking sadly around him. "I must
remove her from here before her frenzy leads her to harm some of you.
Have you any kind of a comfortable trap that I could take her home in?"
he inquired, looking at the farmer.
"I will not go with you!" exclaimed the unhappy girl. "I am going home
to my husband. You shall not prevent me! Oh, sir," she cried, turning
her streaming eyes on Mr. Thorn's face, "you will not suffer this man to
take me away from here! I assure you, I am no kin of his, and that he is
seeking my destruction. Grant me the shelter of your roof, and your
manly protection against this villain's arts, till I can send word to my
father and my husband to come for me."
Mr. Thorn looked at the agonized face of the beautiful girl, and he
could not believe that she was insane. There seemed too much "method in
her madness." He cast a suspicious look on Vinton, and answered firmly:
"Be calm, lady. He shall not take you away without proof of what he says
about you. I will protect you!"
"Oh, father! how can you presume to doubt the gentleman's word?"
exclaimed Jennie Thorn impulsively, for the man's handsome face and
consummate acting had quite won her young, impressionable heart over to
his side.
Leon Vinton cast a grateful look upon her, throwing so much
impressiveness into his look that she dropped her eyes and blushed
deeply. In that moment the villain saw the impression he had made upon
her innocent heart, and the simple, trusting girl was from that instant
marked as his victim.
"Sir," he said, turning to the farmer, and speaking in an imperious
tone, "do not you know that I can take legal means to punish you for
thus depriving me of the custody of my insane sister?"
"I do not believe she is insane," said the farmer, doggedly. "Neither do
I believe that she is your sister. And you can't take her away from here
without proving your right."
"Well said, husband!" exclaimed Mrs. Thorn, approvingly, for her
motherly heart was full of sympathy for the distressed girl, who had so
touchingly implored her protection.
Queenie cast a look of heartfelt gratitude upon these homely friends,
who had espoused her cause in so outspoken a way; but simple Jennie
Thorn exclaimed quickly:
"Oh, mother! oh, father! I'm sure the gent speaks the truth. The lady
_must_ be crazy; for how else could she be wandering in the night and
the storm, in her white dress and thin satin slippers?"
"Hold your peace, girl. This is a matter for wiser heads than yours!"
answered her father, rather shortly; and Jennie subsided into silence,
not, however, without receiving the reward in another beaming look of
gratitude from the dark eyes of the man whom she was defending.
Mr. Vinton tried another tack. Finding the farmer's sense of justice
impregnable to threats, he put his hand in his pocket, and withdrew it
filled with gold pieces. He held them toward the man with a significant
look.
"Put your gold back, sir," said the farmer, sturdily. "We are poor folks
enough, but gold can't buy our honor!" and though he was but a poor
tiller of the soil, his mien was princely as he thus defended his honor.
Leon Vinton's brow grew black as night. He muttered some inaudible
curses between his teeth. Only his sense of policy restrained him from
knocking Mr. Thorn down.
"What am I to do?" he said, with an air of great perplexity. "Here is my
poor sister lying here needing the care of her friends, and the comforts
and luxuries of her home. Yet you will not permit me to exercise my
right to remove her."
"Prove your right, sir," said the farmer, firmly; "that's all I want you
to do."
"And if I prove my right to remove her you will suffer me to do so?"
asked Leon, after a moment's earnest thought.
"Why, of course, sir. I'd have no right to detain her after that."
"He cannot prove his right!" exclaimed Queenie, who had lain silent for
some minutes.
"Have you an errand boy?" asked Vinton, disregarding the interruption.
Mr. Thorn went to the door, and called "Jotham," and the boy-of-all-work
shambled in.
"Do you know a cottage on the banks of the river, two miles from here,
Jotham?"
"Ya'as, sur," said the boy, broadly.
Leon Vinton wrote these words on a slip of paper:
"_Take the carriage and come here immediately._"
He directed the note to Mrs. Bowers, and gave it to the boy, with
instructions to deliver it at the cottage by the river.