Elliott had had a succession of busy months, when the case was called
for the notorious moonshiner, Burr Chester, who had killed the sheriff
while resisting arrest. The Grand Jury had found a true bill against
him for murder in the first degree and Elliott Harding had been engaged
to aid in the prosecution. It was no common case to deal with, and he
was keenly conscious of this fact. After two long weeks of incessant
work, a verdict of guilty was brought in, but as a last resort to save
his client’s neck, an appeal was taken to the higher courts.
After this Elliott had gone home weak, nervous and excited beyond
natural tension. He spent a restless night, and the next morning was
unexpectedly called to Boston to attend to business that required his
immediate presence. He went over to let Dorothy know of his plans.
Under a spell of sadness and impulse he said passionately:
“If I left, not knowing that a near day was to bring me back to you I
could not bear it. Our wedding day is just three weeks off, and from
that time on you are to be inseparably mine--mine forever!”
She clung to him quivering, tears, despite her efforts to be strong,
escaping down her cheek. He held her to his heart and soothed her back
to something of the calm she had lost.
Just ten days he expected to be gone.
The intervening time busily passed in preparations for the approaching
wedding. Besides that, Dorothy’s heart had feasted upon the letters
that had daily come on the noon train out of the North. Each afternoon
since Elliott’s absence, she had been to town for the mail, having
no patience to await its coming from the office by any neighboring
messenger who chanced to pass that way.
To-day’s expected letter was to be the last, for to-morrow Elliott
would be with her again.
Oh, Love! Love! life is sweet to all mortals, but it was particularly
sweet to these two.
After receiving her letter Dorothy started the short way home, singing
lightly some old love tune. In the deep forest around her the faithful
ring-dove poured forth his anthem of abiding peace.
* * * * *
John Holmes, the staunch friend of the family, had an engagement that
evening with the Carr’s; so he started out to overtake Dorothy, hearing
she had gone on just ahead of him.
As he hurried along through the coming night, the moon’s white beams
fell deep down in the beechen stems. Now and again wood-folk wakened
from their dreams and carolled brokenly. The spirit of delicious peace
that pervaded the lowering twilight enriched and beautified the reverie
that rendered the dreamer oblivious to the present. His thoughts,
his hopes were far afield--wandering along beckoning paths of the
unexplored future. The office of prosecuting attorney was only the
first step. He dreamed of Congress, too.
“Why shouldn’t one do whatever one wants to do?”
Thus he mused, when suddenly the sound of crashing underbrush startled
him into consciousness of the present and a dark outline dashed into
the road just ahead from out of the dense thicket that lay to his left.
Before he could collect his scattered senses sufficiently to question
or intercept the excited runner, the man dodged to one side, and sped
along the road until he passed out of sight around an angle of the
wood. Holmes called after him to stop, but his command was not obeyed.
“What’s the matter?” he shouted after the flying figure; but receiving
no answer, again he cried:
“Stop, I say.” And this time a reply came in the shape of a faint groan
from near by in the wood. He dashed into the darkness of the forest in
the direction from whence the sound had come, his flesh quivering and
his breath coming in gasps as an overwhelming sense of apprehension
seized him.
At first the gloom was such that he could see nothing distinctly and
he groped his way forward with difficulty. The moon that for a moment
had passed under a cloud now again shone brightly out, filling all
the open spaces with a play of wavering light. He forced himself into
the thicket from where he again heard a low sound--writhing, twisting
his way through the thick, hindering stems, and there before him, in a
little opening, he saw what appeared to be a prostrate human form.
He sprang toward it and drew the clinging boughs aside to let the
moonlight in. Then he saw it was the figure of a woman. Two ghastly
gashes, edged with crimson, stained the white flesh of her throat.
The awful meaning of the crime, as he thought of the headlong haste of
the flying man, surged over Holmes. He quickly knelt to gaze into her
face and as he gazed a terrible cry broke from his lips.
“Dorothy! Oh, my God!”
Raising the light form in his arms, he cried passionately on her name.
The wind sobbed a dirge in the bare boughs above, but beside that, all
the country-side was still.
The girl hung heavy and limp in his arms as he bore her to the
road. She made no answer to his cry--he felt blindly for a pulse--a
heart--but found none.
One short, sharp gasp convulsed her breast as he gently laid her
down--a faint tremor passed over her frame, and she was dead!
John Holmes looked into her face, distraught with agony. The blood
drummed in his ears, his heart beat wildly; dazed and bewildered, a
moment he stood--the power of action almost paralyzed. But he felt
that something must be done, and done quickly.
With a superhuman effort he lifted the dead girl and carried her toward
her home. When he reached the door, after what seemed an eternity of
travel, he waited, struggling for composure. How could he meet her
father and break the news? Seeing no one around he slipped quietly in
and laid the body upon a couch in the room which so long had been her
own. When he entered the father’s room a deep calm filled the place.
There sat the old man in his armchair, his head fallen to one side in
the unstudied attitude of slumber. Upon his face there was more than a
smile--a radiance--his countenance was lit up with a vague expression
of content and happiness. His white hairs added sweet majesty to the
cheerful light upon his face. He slept peacefully--perhaps dreaming
that his child was well and would soon be home.
An inexpressible pity was in his voice as John Holmes gently aroused
the sleeper and told him the mournful truth. He would never forget that
old face so full of startled grief--that awful appeal to him--that
withered hand upraised to heaven. Then darkness came before the dim old
eyes, when for a time all things were blotted out of his remembrance.
The truth was so terrible that at first he could not grasp it. The
moan he uttered was inarticulate and stifled. Gently John Holmes led
him tremblingly to the couch where Dorothy lay--the blood still oozing
from her throat; the dew of agony yet fresh on her brow, her dainty
nostrils expanded by their last convulsive effort to retain the breath
of life, appearing almost to quiver.
A moment, motionless and staring, he stood above her--dead!
Slowly awaking to the awful reality, he threw his hands up with the
vehemence of despair and horror--then fell forward by her side, saying
by the motion of his lips, “Dead!”
Slowly his speech returned, and he reached out one hand.
“My boy, she is not dead. I feel her heart in mine, I see her love for
me in her face. No! she is not dead!--not dead!” his voice fell to a
whispered groan.
The other tried to stay his tears and to reply, but he could only
touch her cold, bruised hand, hoping that he might grow to a perfect
understanding of the tragedy.
The father turned his head. His look was full of supplicating agony. In
a plaintive and quivering voice he cried:
“My God! My God! My God!”
Presently John Holmes went away to give the alarm. Returning later, he
went through the dreary house and darkened the windows--the windows
of the room where the dead girl lay he darkened last. He lifted her
cold hand and held it to his heart--and all the world seemed death and
silence, broken only by the father’s moaning.