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Chapter XXXVII
Quietly the doctors filed into the room, and one of them turned the key in the door.
It was Dr. Crandall who undertook the delicate task of unmasking the suspected would-be murderess.
"I will tell you," he said, slowly. "The poor girl on the couch beside which you have often knelt is dying of slow poison, administered to her by some person beneath this roof."
Dorothy sprang from her chair and reeled backward, looking at him with widely dilated eyes. She never knew how it happened, but in that instant of time a terrible thought came to her. Could Jack Garner be guilty of administering it to her, to free himself from the bonds he so cruelly hated?
Oh, God! how the thought tortured her. She would not – she could not believe it.
"Some one under this roof has been guilty of this most atrocious act," continued the doctor, in a stern voice. "We suspect – we know the guilty party, and that party is in this very room!"
Dorothy clasped her hands in dumb agony, and her terrified eyes never left the form of him who had once been her lover.
"You do not answer me, Mrs. Brown," said the doctor, frowning. "What have you to say?"
"What could I say?" she sobbed, piteously.
"The one who is guilty of this diabolical deed must be held accountable for it," said the doctor, facing her sternly. "A just punishment must and shall be meted out to the wicked party. If you say that you will not admit the truth, then I will turn the affair over to Mr. Garner, here and now!"
What would they do with Jack? In imagination she saw him in a prison cell, perhaps doomed to drag out all the after years of his life there, and the thought seemed to drive her to madness.
"I will take it upon myself, and Jack shall go free," she said to herself – "yes blameless and free."
Slowly the doctor stepped around to Jack's side.
"What have you to say in this matter, Mr. Garner?" he said.
"Let me answer instead of him," Dorothy panted, hoarsely. "He knows nothing about it. Oh, hear me! – listen to me, I pray you! It is I – I whom you must hold guilty. Do with me as you will!"
Both of the doctors nodded toward each other. A groan broke from Garner's lips – this acknowledgement was so terrible for him to hear from this strange woman's lips.
"Who are you, and what was your motive for this horrible crime?" asked the doctor, sternly. "You must make a clean breast of why you attempted to poison Miss Staples, here and now."
There was one person in that room who listened to Dorothy's most extraordinary confession, white with terror, and that was – Nadine Holt.
She knew full well that the stranger was entirely guiltless; then why under heaven had she placed herself in such a horrible position?
Nadine recovered her outward composure by a great effort, and listened intently to what they were saying.
"You must reveal your identity here and now," Doctor Crandall was repeating, vehemently, "or I shall force you to do so. When we once become convinced who you are, and your motive for this crime, then we will know how to proceed against you. In the first place, I order you to remove both the wig and glasses which we have discovered that you are wearing. Your identity is the first step in this matter."
Like a flash Dorothy flung herself at Jack Garner's feet.
Ere he could put out his hand toward her, Doctor Crandall had sprung forward, and with a quick motion gently but deftly snatched the wig from her head and the glasses from her eyes, and Dorothy – Dorothy Glenn stood revealed, in all her terror, before the astonished gaze of Jack Garner and Nadine Holt.
"You – you!" cried Jack, in horror too great for words.
"Save me – save me!" gasped the girl.
He wondered that he did not go mad, then and there at the sight of her.
"Let me go!" she panted, imploring.
The doctor shook his head.
"You must be held answerable for your crime," he said, sternly. "You showed no pity to the girl lying here so helpless, and why should it be shown you? She lies here in a deep sleep, and when she awakens we shall know whether it is life or death she has to face. We hope it is life, but we can not be too sure. In the interim, while we decide your fate, you should thank Heaven that your plans are frustrated. We can not decide, until the crisis is past, as to what is best to be done."
"Jack," she whispered again, "let me go far away and leave you with Jessie. She will recover, and you will marry her and be happy after all, and I – I will never cross your path again."
He tore away the white little hands that clung to him, and turned to the doctors. They were awed at the sight of his white, desperate face.
"You have both assured me that Miss Staples will not die from this poisoning," he said, hoarsely; "and I – I, the one most vitally interested in this affair, say to you: Open that door and let her go her way."
Ah, God! that they should meet and part like this, after all those weary months of heartache!
"God only knows her object in coming here in disguise and committing this awful crime," was his mental thought; but aloud, he only said:
"Go, and may Heaven forgive you! Go to the father of your child."
A terrible lump rose in his throat; he could say no more.
The little one had crept out of Dorothy's arms, and out into the middle of the floor; but Dorothy never, in that awful moment, thought of the child. She was so stunned that the full import of his words did not strike her just then.
She only knew that he was opening the door for her, and harshly commanding her to go.
Like a storm-driven swallow, with one quick glance in his face, the girl turned and fled from the room, and out of the house.
"You were too generous toward her," cried one of the doctors. "See! she has abandoned her little child, Mr. Garner."
Then suddenly the doctor stopped short, and looked first at the fair-haired, beautiful babe, then at Mr. Garner, and said no more.
Chapter XXXVIII
When Dorothy fled so precipitately from the room, she fairly ran into the arms of a man who was crouching at one side, listening intently. With a muttered imprecation, he drew back, and it was then Dorothy saw his face.
"Hush! On your life, don't dare to make an outcry!" cried the harsh voice of Harry Kendal.
Before she could utter the scream that welled up from her heart, he had seized her in his strong arms, thrown a dark shawl over her head, dashed out into the street with her, and into a cab in waiting.
Too weak to struggle, too weak to cry out, her head fell backward upon her abductor's shoulder, and she knew no more.
When she awoke to consciousness of what was transpiring about her, she found herself still in the coach beside Kendal, and the vehicle was whirling along through the sunshine and shadow of a country road with alarming rapidity.
"Dorothy – my darling Dorothy!" he cried, clasping her hands and showering kisses upon her upturned face. "Oh, Dorothy, my little bride that is to be, why did you fly from me so cruelly the morning after the great ball at our home in Yonkers?"
"Do not speak to me! Stop this coach immediately, and let me get out!" she cried. "How dare you attempt to thrust your unwelcome face in my way again? Go back to Iris Vincent, for whom you left me; or to Nadine Holt, whose heart and whose life you have wrecked. I know you for what you are, and I abhor you a thousand times more than I ever imagined I fancied you."
"Do you mean that you do not wish to go back to the Yonkers home and marry me?" he demanded.
But before she could find time to reply, he went on:
"You were terribly foolish to grow so jealous of Iris Vincent as to run away from me. Why, I – I was merely flirting with her because she was pretty.
"Why, she is married now, and at the other end of the world, for aught I know or care. I can only add that, from the moment I learned of your disappearance, I have been searching for you night and day. Oh, Dorothy, now that I have found you, do not treat me like this, I beseech you! Let us kiss and make up. We are driving direct toward the parsonage, where we are to be married.
"Few men would care for you so much upon making the terrible discovery that you had fled from home and directly to the arms of an old lover, remaining under his roof until you were cast out from it by that lover himself. I do not know even what your quarrel with him was about. I do not ask to know. The object which took me there, I do not mind telling you. I had a quarrel with your lover, Jack Garner. We were to meet early this morning to settle the affair of honor; but as he did not show up to make the arrangements, I forced my way into his house, in order that I might not miss him. I heard him turning you from his door. Then amazement held me spell-bound. I shall take this into account when – when I have my settlement with him, later on. Any indignity offered to you shall be my affair, as your husband, to settle."
Dorothy had drawn back from him listening with horror to the words that fell from his lips.
"The duel must be averted at any cost," she told herself; yet she could not – oh, she could not! – marry him. "I must think of some way out of this," thought Dorothy, in the wildest agony. "I must save myself, and save him, too."
But in a moment, while she was pondering over the affair, the vehicle came to a sudden stop, and, looking out, she saw it was standing before the wide entrance-gate of a parsonage.
"Here we are!" cried Kendal, holding out his hand to her.
"I have not said that I would marry you," she cried. "How dared you bring me here?"
"That fact was settled between you and me so long ago that you surprise me by your words," he said, angrily.
"There is such a thing as a person changing her mind," said Dorothy, as she leaped from the carriage, and stood facing him under the trees.
"Surely you do not mean that you have changed yours?" retorted Kendal, knowing that his best policy was to temporize with her.
"I have, indeed," declared the girl; "and you will therefore oblige me, Mr. Kendal, by re-entering your carriage and driving along."
"Do you think I would leave you here, Dorothy," he said, in his most winning voice – "here, at this strange parsonage? I should say not! If you object to marrying me now, I know it is only through pique; but still I say that I shall await your own good time; and, as the song goes, 'When love has conquered pride and anger, you will call me back again.' Do get in, Dorothy, darling; do not make a scene here. See! they are watching us from the window. Get in, and we will drive on to Yonkers. It is only four miles farther up the road. I promise you you shall have your own way. Mrs. Kemp is at the old home. You will be welcomed with open arms."
"Take your hand off my arm, or I shall scream!" cried the girl, struggling to free herself.
Quick as a flash he seized her, and, with the rapidity of lightning, thrust her back into the coach.
"Drive on – drive on!" Kendal yelled to the driver – "you know where!" and despite Dorothy's wild, piercing cries, the coach fairly flew down the white, winding road, and was soon lost to view amid the dense trees.
It soon became evident to Dorothy that she was only losing her strength in shouting for help.
Kendal was leaning back in his seat, with the most mocking smile on his lips that ever was seen.
"It is a pity to waste so much breath on the desert air," he sneered. "I would advise you to stop before you become exhausted, as there is no one to hear you and to come to your aid."
But Dorothy did not heed, and renewed her cries the more vociferously.
He had said thoughtlessly, that her cries would startle the horses, never dreaming that this would indeed be the case. But, much to his alarm, he noticed that their speed was increasing with every instant of time. It broke upon him all too soon that they were indeed running away, and that the driver was powerless to check them.
In great alarm, Kendal sprang to his feet and threw open the door. That action was fatal; for at that instant the horses suddenly swerved to the right, and he was flung head foremost from the vehicle; the wheels passed over him, and the next instant the coach collided with a large tree by the road-side, and Dorothy knew no more.
Up this lonely path walked a woman, young and very fair, but with a face white as it would ever be in death. And as her despairing eyes traveled up and down the scene they suddenly encountered the white upturned face of a woman lying in the long grass.
With a great cry she reached her side.
"Dead!" she whispered in a voice of horror, as she knelt beside the figure lying there, and placed her hand over her heart. But no; the heart beneath her light touch beat ever so faintly. "Thank God! this poor creature is not dead," murmured the stranger, fervently.
Chapter XXXIX
Dorothy opened her eyes wide, looking up in wonder at the pale, sweet face bending over her.
"Poor child!" murmured a sweet, pathetic voice.
A kindly hand raised her, gently but firmly, from the dew-wet grass, and pushed the damp, golden curls back from her face.
The caressing touch thrilled the girl's being through every fiber.
"You ask why I am here!" she sobbed. "Let me tell you: I came here to die. Death would have come to me, I feel sure, if you had not crossed my path. I should have crept to the brink of the bank yonder, and thrown myself down into the river, and ended a life that is not worth the living."
"You must have seen a great deal of trouble to cause you to talk like that."
"I have seen more trouble than any other person on earth," retorted Dorothy, bitterly.
"Have you lost friends, or those nearer and dearer to you?" came the gentle question, and Dorothy did not hesitate, strangely enough, to answer it.
"I never had a relative that I can remember," she answered, with a little sob. "But I have lost my lover – my lover! He is to wed another, and that other a girl who was once my dearest friend."
"Your story is a sad one," replied the stranger, soothingly; "but it might have been worse – much worse. What if you had lost a husband whom you loved, or a little child whom you idolized? That would have been trouble before which such as you are grieving over now would have paled as the stars pale before a strong noon-day sun.
"I do not ask you your story, my poor girl, but listen, and I will tell you mine, and you can then judge how much mightier is my grief than yours."
"If you look through the trees yonder you will see a great stone mansion on the brow of the hill.
"It is my home. I live there with a dear young husband who adores me; my slightest wish is his law.
"I have liveried servants who anticipate and execute my slightest wish. I have all that wealth can buy and love can lavish upon me, but, God help me! I am the most unhappy creature that walks this flower-strewn earth.
"I have endured a sorrow so great that the wonder is it has not turned my brain. Some few months since I was happy in the love of a little child. Oh! I idolized my babe with a love that seemed greater than human affection. It was the loadstar of my life.
"'Take care! Beware!' cried one and all. 'Such idolatry is not wise; it displeases Heaven.'
"I laughed, and did not heed. One day we discharged a worthless servant and he cried out to my husband, as he turned away from the door: 'You shall repent this! I will yet wring the heart of you and yours to the very core; and in that moment, remember me!'
"A week passed. One night I suddenly awoke from a troubled dream about my babe.
"I put out my hand. It was not in its little crib of white and gold. I sprang from my couch with wild cries that alarmed the household, for I could not find my child. She was gone, as if the earth had opened and swallowed her. But on the pillow of the crib the servants found a note which bore these words:
"'My revenge is complete. It is useless to search for your child, for by the time this meets your eye your little one will have found a watery grave.'
"I was wild with grief for days and weeks. And when I became somewhat rational, and could understand what was passing about me, I learned the terrible truth – the sad, pitiful story: my babe had indeed found a watery grave. They found a little shoe, its cape, and portions of its dress floating on the waves the next morning. But the body was never recovered; it had drifted out to sea. Now you will not wonder why I wander up and down this lonely path at midnight – why I listen on my bended knees for hours to the whispering voice of the waves. It seems to me like the voice of my little child; and some day I shall follow her into the dark, cold waves, and be at rest with my darling whose tiny hands beckon me down to death in the cold, watery depths whose waves are glinted by the golden light of the flickering stars."
Dorothy scarcely breathed, so intense was her effort to restrain herself until the other had finished.
In fewer words than we can explain it she had flung her arms about the stranger's neck and breathed out to her the startling story of that never-to-be-forgotten night when she had rescued from the waves the child this poor young mother was describing.
"Oh, take me to my child!" she cried. "Now – now! Let not an instant's time elapse. Every moment is precious. I can not wait – I can not!"
Then Dorothy had her own story to tell: that she dared not return to Jack Garner's home, where she had left little Pearl; and she told her the whole story from beginning to end. Then came another revelation:
"Jack Garner is my husband's partner!" the strange lady cried. "Come back with me, and leave it to me to fully establish your innocence of the atrocious crime of which they believe you guilty.
"We have never visited at each other's homes, strangely enough, because of some slight disagreement in the firm at the very time Mr. Garner was taken in.
"Come and talk it over with my husband. We will do whatever he decides."
Oh, the great rejoicing in the old stone mansion! The horses were hitched up without an instant's delay, and driven like mad into the city, arriving at the Garner mansion just as the clock was striking twelve.
The old servant who answered the loud peal of the bell was shocked at the sight of the beautiful lady who rushed past him in the corridor, crying out: "Oh, for the love of Heaven, bring quickly to me the baby whom you call Pearl!"
Dorothy and the lady's husband followed.
The great disturbance awoke Jack Garner. He heard the scurrying of feet past his door. They stopped at the next room, where the little abandoned babe was sleeping.
The next instant a great, wild, happy cry rent the air, which the angels must have heard and wept rejoicingly over; and he heard the joyful cry:
"Yes; it is my child – my own little, lost child!"
Robing himself hurriedly, Jack quickly opened the door; but his partner was standing there, and thrust him back.
Jack knew of the loss of the little one, and his partner explained to him how mysteriously it had been found, and by Jack's old sweetheart, Dorothy Glenn.
"Then the child she had here was not her own?" cried Jack, white as death.
And as the whole story began to dawn upon him, Jack buried his fair, handsome, haggard face in his hands, and wept for joy.
But when his partner touched upon the subject of Dorothy's being accused of poisoning Miss Staples, he sprang up hastily and grasped the other's hand.
"The accusation was not true," cried Jack. "Dorothy was not guilty. A girl whom Jessie had known for years, and who was at her bedside, did the deed. She wrote a full confession. I found it under my plate at the dinner-table. Nadine Holt has fled to escape just punishment. Oh, how I wish I could find poor, abused Dorothy, to tell her the truth!"
And when he found Dorothy was beneath that roof, and at Jessie Staples' bedside, his joy knew no bounds.
He sought her there at once to crave her pardon for the unjust suspicion, and no one ever knew just exactly what passed between the sick girl lying there, Dorothy, and her old lover.
In his great generous-heartedness, Jack sent hurriedly out to learn the fate of the hapless Kendal. He was not dead, they soon discovered, but in a very critical condition. And Jack's generosity went so far as to bring his rival beneath that roof, and nurse him back to health and strength.
From the first, even while lying on her sick-bed, Jessie took the greatest interest in the young doctor who, she remembered, had always been so kind to her; and as soon as she was able, she begged that her chair might be drawn up to his bedside, that she might show him her kindly sympathy. And in the days and weeks that they were thus thrown together, Jessie learned to care for the handsome, dark-eyed Harry Kendal quite as much as she had ever cared for Jack.
One day, when the sun was shining, and the birds were twittering to each other of early spring, Harry Kendal asked the pale, sweet girl who knelt beside his couch to be his bride.
And she answered him, through her bitter tears, that though she had been mad enough to learn to love him, it could never be, for she was betrothed to Jack.
Jack had entered the room unperceived by both, and had heard all, and with the magnanimity so characteristic of him, he stepped nobly forward and placed Jessie's hand in that of the man she loved.
"I absolve you from your promise, my dear girl," he said. "You must wed him whom you love best. Never mind me."
"But you?" sobbed Jessie. "I – I will accept my freedom only on one condition, Jack; and that is, that you ask Dorothy to fill my place – aye, to take her own old place again in your heart and life!"
"Not now," he said; "but perhaps I may speak to her some time in the future."
And he must have spoken to her, for three weeks later there was a double wedding at the Garner mansion; and there never were two more beautiful brides than Jessie and Dorothy, nor two happier young husbands than Harry Kendal and Jack Garner; and Jack never ceased blessing the fates that gave to him for his bride, after all his trials, pretty Madcap Dorothy. But, then, the course of true love never did ran smooth.
