A STRANGE FATE.
I never thought that I should see thine eyelids shut in death,
Thy bright brow cold, thy spirit quenched that glowed and bloomed
beneath.
SUMNER LINCOLN FAIRFIELD.
Poor Kathleen! she had passed through a strange and terrible experience.
On that night when she had been so suddenly choked and robbed by an
unseen foe, the young girl had swooned from terror.
That quick relapse into unconsciousness had saved her life.
Thinking her dead, the murderer had relaxed his hold on her throat, and
throwing her roughly from him, escaped with his booty in time to board
the other train.
Kathleen, by one of those strange psychological conditions sometimes
induced by severe mental strain or shock, passed from her swoon into a
state of coma or trance. Through the two nights and one day in which
she lay thus, her senses seemed to be preternaturally acute, although
her bodily faculties were bound in iron bands of inaction.
What was her agony during the two hours when she lay alone in the murky
darkness and the snow and rain--what her joy when the voice of her
beloved penetrated her senses!
Saved, saved! And by _him_! How she longed to speak--to utter aloud her
joy and relief; but she could not voice her gladness--she could only
lie passive and inert, and hear him proclaim her dead in a voice of the
bitterest despair.
Oh, the blended rapture and agony of those hours! To lie still like a
stone, mute, moveless, and hear _his_ voice breathing his love for
her, feel his kisses on her cold face and hands!
She longed with a terrible yearning to move, to stir beneath his touch,
to cry out to him that she was alive, that she loved him even as he
loved her; but her body seemed to be as entirely dead as her soul was
alive--alive and in agony.
She knew that strangers came and went; that they talked of her as
dead; that they spoke of her beauty in pitying admiration; that they
shuddered at the red finger-marks on her throat, the wounds on her
hands and ears where her jewels had been torn away. She felt tears fall
often on her cold white face; she heard them talk of an inquest on the
morrow, and wonder if her relations from Boston would soon arrive.
Then came the moment when Ralph Chainey had to tear himself away
from her. She heard gentle Mrs. Churchman talking to him about her,
and saying that she was not changed in the least--she was a very
natural-looking corpse.
It seemed to the girl as if her heart leaped wildly enough to stir the
flowers on her breast at that awful word.
A corpse!
That was what they called her--when she was so full of agonized
life! Why could they not see that she was not dead? They said she
was unchanged. Why did they not suspect the truth, that she was in a
trance, not dead?
Then the doctor's wife went out and left Ralph Chainey alone with
the lovely corpse. Then it was he kissed her brow and hands, and
his tears fell on her face. She heard him utter words of love and
of farewell. She knew that he took a flower from under her hand
and went away, and then she realized that the man she loved better
than any one else in the world had gone away and left her to her
fate. No one else would greatly care if she were dead or living.
Perhaps--they--would--bury--her--alive!
At this stage of thought Kathleen seemed to die indeed. Her acute
consciousness of everything became mercifully suspended; she did not
know who came or went; she did not know when she was placed in the
elegant casket, with its silver plate bearing her name; she did not
know when the two women, her step-mother and step-sister, came and
looked at her in her pallid, silent beauty. All was a merciful blank.
Then the lamp was turned down to a weak glimmer, and they left her
alone until the morrow. Mrs. Carew went upstairs to be with her secret,
silent exultation, Alpine with her keen, stinging remorse.
The hours crept on toward midnight, and if any one had been there to
notice, they would have seen a marked change on the face of the girl in
the coffin.
The complexion had lost its deadly pallor and become more life-like in
its hue. The breast was faintly heaving, the beautiful veil of long,
curling black lashes was fluttering faintly against the cheeks.
Suddenly the black lashes rolled upward; a pair of large, glorious
dark eyes were revealed. In them was for a moment the blankness of one
rousing from a deep sleep.
Then Kathleen weakly lifted her hands, and as they dropped at her
sides they touched the cold, metallic edges of the casket. A low,
inarticulate cry came from her lips, and she rose upright, staring
about her with bewildered eyes.
She comprehended that she was about to be buried alive. Nothing
returned to her yet of the past--everything merged itself into one
startling consciousness of utter horror, and with a blind instinct of
fear struggling in her dazed mind, Kathleen climbed down out of the
casket, that stood on long trestles, and escaped from the house.
Doctor Churchman was attending a patient in the neighborhood, and the
front hall door was unlocked. Kathleen tore it open with a shaking
hand and ran out into the street. A white flood of moonlight shone
down upon the sleeping town, but no one noticed the black clad figure,
bareheaded, with white flowers falling from its breast, running along
with terror-winged feet toward the open highway, until out of sight of
the glimmering white houses.
Just as Kathleen emerged into the open country, she saw lights flashing
in the gloom, and several men who seemed to be searching for something
or some one. She shrunk back in alarm, but she was too late. They had
seen her, and came toward her with eager shouts and made her a prisoner.
"It is she!" exclaimed one. "See, she answers the description
exactly--young, pretty, dark eyes, light hair, and a black silk dress!"
"I do not know you. What do you want with me?" wailed Kathleen,
wringing her little white hands piteously.
But they did not answer her. They dragged her away from the spot and
placed her in a waiting carriage. Then they drove away, and one of them
said, significantly:
"She is so exhausted by her long tramp that she will not be violent,
and we shall get her back to the asylum without any trouble."
Kathleen did not notice what they said. She was so dazed and frightened
by her troubles that her memory was almost gone. She put her white
hands to her brow and tried to recall her wandering thoughts, to
remember her name, and why she was here. But she could not do
it--everything was cloudy and vague. With a helpless, fluttering sigh,
she resigned herself to her strange fate, and crouched shiveringly into
the corner of the carriage that lumbered along the country road a good
seven miles before it came to a standstill before a large, gloomy,
prison-like building.
It was a lunatic asylum, and hapless Kathleen had rushed upon a strange
fate.
A handsome young woman, who had gone mad over the treachery of a false
lover, was being conveyed to the asylum, and had cunningly eluded
her keepers and escaped into the woods. A reward was offered for her
apprehension, and a large number of men had formed themselves into
searching parties. As none of them had seen her, and she answered
perfectly to the description, one of these parties had taken Kathleen
into custody. At the asylum it was the same way. No one had seen her,
so the captive was accepted without any doubts as to her identity, her
hatless condition and dazed manners keeping up the illusion of her
insanity. The men received their reward and went away, never doubting
that they had found the right girl.
Kathleen was put to bed in a small cell by a kind but illiterate
attendant, and, still dazed and dumb with horror, sunk into a deep
sleep. Food had been offered her, and she had eaten a very little,
then pushed it away with a repellant gesture. After that, she was left
alone, and slept wearily for long hours, awaking refreshed and in her
right mind.
She could remember everything now--her flight from home, her journey
that had been interrupted by her terrible experience of robbery and
attempted murder. Then the long trance, her terrified revival in
her coffin, and the frenzied flight into the darkness of the chilly
night. All flashed over her mind in the first, walking moment, and she
wondered why those strange men had captured and brought her here to
this strange place.
"And what a miserable little room and bed; not one quarter as good as
Susette's," she murmured, with a glance of disdain around her at the
tiny cell.
Alas! she soon became aware of the painful fact that she was an inmate
of an asylum for the insane, was believed to be insane herself, and was
called by the name of Daisy Lynn.
In vain did Kathleen eagerly assure the attendants, and every one
else that would listen to her tale of woe, that there was a dreadful
mistake--that she was not the girl they thought her, but Kathleen
Carew, of Boston.
They listened to her with significant smiles, and said to each other:
"In her wanderings she has heard about that poor murdered girl, and now
assumes her identity."