KATHLEEN AND DAISY MEET AT LAST.
No, no, 'tis vain to hover
Thus round a hope that's dead;
At last my dream is over;
'Twas sweet--'twas false--'tis fled!
T. MOORE.
It was the day following Kathleen's petulant rejection of her cousin's
love, and the young girl, embarrassed by Chester's grieved and dejected
looks, had gone to her room to nurse in solitude the pain at her heart.
"Why does no one come to me? Am I forgotten by my uncle, Mrs. Stone,
and Teddy? Their silence and delay is very, very strange," she
murmured, sadly; and just then she heard a low murmur of voices in
the parlor, where she had left Mrs. Franklyn and Chester a while ago,
pleading a headache as an excuse for retiring to her room.
"They have company. I am glad I came upstairs," she thought, feeling
far too dejected to meet strangers.
The murmur of voices continued a while, then the front door closed, and
Kathleen thought the guests were leaving.
Directly afterward, Mrs. Franklyn entered the room with an excited face.
"Kathleen, do you remember the strange story you told us about Daisy
Lynn?" she asked. "Well, she is here in this house! She is no more
insane than you are, and is your living image--only, perhaps, not
_quite_ as pretty. She knows all you suffered in her place, and is just
dying to meet you. Will you come down?"
"I should like to have her come up here," answered Kathleen, who felt
as if she would like to be quite alone at first with Daisy Lynn, the
fair young girl whose line of life had so strangely and tragically
crossed her own.
Mrs. Franklyn understood her wish, and a few minutes afterward she led
Daisy to Kathleen's door and gently withdrew.
They looked at each other--the two beautiful young creatures--then they
smiled at the likeness they saw in each other's faces. At that smile
their hearts leaped to each other.
"Daisy Lynn! Oh, you poor darling!" cried Kathleen, holding out her
arms.
Daisy ran into them. They kissed, then wept together.
They sat down side by side on the bed, like two sisters, and wept like
little children for a while; then Daisy wiped her eyes, and said,
piteously:
"Oh, Miss Carew, can you _ever_ forgive me?"
"It was not your fault, Daisy, darling. But you must call me Kathleen;
you know we are not strangers to each other. I know all about you. I
have lived at your home, slept in your pretty room, and--can _you_ ever
forgive _me_, dear?--I read your sweet diary! I was so lonely and so
curious over the girl whose identity had become mixed with mine."
"It was very silly, was it not?--that is all I regret about it," Daisy
Lynn answered, blushing crimson. Then she looked fearlessly into
Kathleen's eyes as she added: "But I am cured now. I despise him. I
could not love him now if he begged me on his knees!"
"I am glad of that, dear, for he was not worthy of you," said Kathleen,
fervently.
"You know him?" cried the other girl, in surprise, and then Kathleen
told her all about her wicked step-brother.
She was rejoiced to see how disgusted Daisy Lynn became with the
accomplished villain who had once been the hero of her girlish dreams.
"But, Daisy, tell me where you have been all this time?" said Kathleen,
curiously; and Daisy smiled as she answered:
"Most of the time with an old couple in the country, to whose lonely
little house I wandered that night after I escaped from my keeper and
wandered into the woods. You see, Kathleen, I was not violently insane,
only sort of melancholy mad for a while; and because I foolishly
attempted to poison myself, an incompetent physician pronounced me
mad, and persuaded my aunt to send me to a lunatic asylum. Well, in my
horror and grief I confided my cruel distress to those good old people,
and they believed me and pitied me. They let me stay with them, and
were as good to me as if they had been my parents. A few months ago
the good old man died, and his gentle old wife soon followed him to
the grave. Then the little farm passed into the ownership of a distant
connection of theirs, Lawyer Perkins, of Richmond. He employed me to
teach his children."
She went on then and told Kathleen how strangely the detective had
found her, and all that had happened afterward.
"So Uncle Ben is alive, thank Heaven! I must go to him!" cried
Kathleen, springing to her feet in wild excitement.
"No, dear, for Mr. Wren has gone to bring them here to you. Mrs.
Franklyn told him you were here," replied Daisy; then she started as a
low rap sounded on Kathleen's door.
When she opened it, there was Chester, looking so remorseful and
dejected that her tender heart leaped with pity for his woe.
"May I speak to you alone for one moment, dear cousin?" he asked,
humbly.
She went out into the little hall with him, and Chester manfully
confessed his sin, and humbly begged her forgiveness.
"All my foolish plans for keeping you away from your own true lover and
winning you for myself have come to naught. Heaven watched over you,
dear Kathleen, and foiled my selfish love. Oh, Heaven! how ashamed I
am, how wretched! and you can never forgive me!"
"Yes, I can," answered the girl, nobly. She pressed his hand gently in
hers as she added: "I forgive you, dear cousin, and I will forget all
about it, and remember nothing but that I owe you my life."
"God bless you!" he said, chokingly, and went down-stairs. But he was
not brave enough to meet his rival yet. He went away for a long walk,
unwilling to witness the meeting between Kathleen and her betrothed,
the man that Jack Wren said was so rich and handsome. Poor fellow!
he might have felt happier had he known how little Kathleen cared for
Teddy. It was Ralph who filled all her thoughts, hopeless as they were.
"How am I changed! My hopes were once like fire;
I loved, and I believed that life was love. . . .
I love, but I believe in love no more."
"Love is a tyrant that has no mercy. I wish I could forget all my
past!" she sighed nightly to her pillow; but Shelley's lines would
recur to her with cruel pathos:
"Forget the dead, the _past_? O yet
There are ghosts that may take revenge for it;
Memories that make the heart a tomb,
Regrets that glide through the spirit's gloom,
And with ghastly whispers tell
That joy, once lost, is _pain_."
Chester had scarcely left the house before the detective returned with
Mr. Carew and Teddy Darrell. Kathleen flew down-stairs, vouchsafed
Teddy a sedate kiss, and fell into her uncle's arms.