Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter Page 10

  CHAPTER IX.

  GONE!

  Hours that seemed days; days that seemed years; weeks that seemedcenturies; yet they all passed, and Madeline Payne scarce knew, whenthey were actually gone, that they were not all a dream.

  Life, after that first yielding of heart and brain, had been adelirium; then a conscious torture of mind and body; next a burdenalmost too great to bear; and then a dreamy lethargy. Heaven bepraised for such moods; they are saviors of life and reason in crisessuch as this through which the stricken girl was passing.

  Madness had wrought upon her, and her ravings had revealed someotherwise dark places and blanks in her story to her guardian andnurses. Pain had tortured her. Death wrestled with her, and then,because he could inspire her with no fear of him, because she mockedat his terrors and wooed him, fled away.

  In his place came Life, to whom she gave no welcoming smile. But Lifestayed, for Life is as regardless of our wishes as is Death.

  Forms had hovered about her; kindly voices, sweet voices, had murmuredat her bedside. At times, an angel had held the cooling draught to herthirsty lips. At last these dream-creatures resolved themselves intorealities:

  Doctor Vaughan, who had ministered to her with the solicitude of abrother, the gentleness of a woman, and the goodness of an angel.

  Olive Girard who, leaving all other cares, was ever at her bedside,and who came to that place at a sacrifice of feeling, after awrestling with pride, bringing a bitterness of memory, and a patientcourage of heart, that the girl could not then realize.

  Henry, too, black of skin, warm of heart; who waited in the outercourt, and seemed to allow himself full and free respiration only whenthe girl was pronounced out of danger.

  Out of danger! What a misapplication of words!

  From the scene of conflict, at the last flutter of Death's gloomymantle, comes the man of medicine; watch in hand, boots a tiptoe, facegrave but triumphant. His voice bids a subdued farewell to thesomberness proper to a probable death-bed, coming up just a notehigher in the scale of solemnities, as it announces to the eager,trembling, waiting ones,

  "_The danger is past!_"

  Death, the calm, the restful, the never weary; Death, the friend oflong suffering, and world weariness and despair; Death, the rescuer,the sometime comforter--has gone away with empty arms and reluctanttread, and--Life, flushed, triumphant, seizes his rescued subject andflings her out into the sea of human lives, perchance to alight uponsome tiny green islet or, likelier yet, to buffet about among blackwaters, or encounter winds and storms, upheld only by a half-wreckedraft or floated by a scarce-supporting spar.

  And she is out of danger!

  Hedged around about by sorrow, assailed by temptation, overshadowed bysin. And, "the danger is over!"

  Buffeted by the waves of adversity; longing for things out of reach;running after _ignis fatui_ with eager outstretched hands, andcareless, hurrying feet, among pitfalls and snares. And, out ofdanger!

  Open your eyes, Madeline Payne; lift up your voice in thanksgiving;you have come back to the world. Back where the sun shines and the dewfalls; where the flowers are shedding their perfume and song birds aremaking glad music; where men make merry and women smile; where goldshapes itself into palaces and fame wreathes crowns for fair and noblebrows; where beauty crowns valor and valor kisses the lips of beauty.And where the rivers sparkle in the sunlight, and, sometimes, yield upfrom their embrace cold, dripping, dead things, that yet bear thesemblance of your kind--all that is left of beings that were once likeyou!

  Out of danger!

  Where want, and poverty, and--God help us!--vice, hide their heads indim alleys and under smoky garret roofs. Where beaten mothers andstarving children dare hardly aspire to the pure air and sunlight, thewhole world for them being enshrined in a crust of bread. Wherethieves mount upwards on ladders beaten from pilfered gold, andcommand cities and sway nations. Where wantonness laughs and thrivesin gilded cages, and starves and dies in mouldy cellars.

  Out of danger!

  Madeline, the place that was almost yours, in the land of theunknowable, is given to another. The waters of death have cast youback upon the shores of the living. You are "out of danger!"

  What was to become of Madeline, now that they had brought her back tolife? This was a question which occurred to the two who so kindlyinterested themselves in the fate of the unknown and headstrong girl.

  While they planned a little, as was only natural, yet they knew fromwhat they had seen of their charge that, decide for her how theywould, only so far as that decision corresponded with her owninclinations would she abide by it. So they left Madeline's future forMadeline to decide, and found occupation for their kindliness inministering to her needs of the present.

  Once during her illness, and just as the light of reason had returnedto the lovely hazel eyes, Lucian Davlin came. But he found the door ofthe sick chamber closely shut and closely guarded. The slightest shockto her nerves would be fatal now,--they told him. And he, having donethe proper thing, as he termed it, and not being in any way fond ofthe sight of pain and pallor, yielded with a graceful simulation ofreluctance. Having been assured that with careful nursing, there wasnothing to fear, he deposited a check on his bankers in the hands ofher attendants, and went away contentedly, smiling under his mustacheat the novelty of being turned away from his own door.

  He went back to Bellair, to Cora, and to the web they were weaving,little dreaming whose hands would take up the thread and continue andcomplete what they had thus begun.

  And now the day has come for Madeline to leave the shelter that shehates. Pale and weak, she sits in the great easy chair that had servedas a barrier between herself and her enemy, and converses with OliveGirard while they await the arrival of Clarence Vaughan, who is totake them from the place so distasteful to all three.

  It has been settled that, for the present, Madeline will be the guestof Olive. What will come after health and strength are fully restored,they have not discussed much. Olive Girard and Doctor Vaughan hadagreed that all thoughts of the future must bring a grief and carewith them, and the mind of the invalid was in no condition for painfulthought and study. So Olive has been careful to avoid all topics thatmight bring her troubles too vividly to mind.

  But partly to divert Madeline's mind from her own woes, partly toenable the unfortunate girl to feel less a stranger among them, shehas talked to her of Doctor Vaughan, of her sister, and at last ofherself.

  And Madeline has listened to her description of merry, lovely ClaireKeith, and wondered what she could have in common with this buoyant,care-free girl, who was evidently her sister's idol. Yet she foundherself thinking often of Olive's beautiful sister. Once, in the briefabsence of Olive, she had said to Doctor Vaughan:

  "Mrs. Girard has told me of her sister; is she very lovely? And do youknow her well?"

  "She is very fair, and sweet, and good. You will love her when youknow her, and I think you will be friends."

  "Pale and weak, she sits in the great easychair."--page 108.]

  She had not needed this; the tell-tale eye was sufficient to revealthe fact that it was not, as she had at first supposed, Olive Girard,but the younger sister, whom Clarence Vaughan loved.

  "I might have known," she murmured to herself. "Olive Girard has theface of one whose love dream has passed away and lost itself insorrow; and he looks, full of strength and hope, straight into thefuture."

  As they sat together waiting, there was still that same contrast,which you felt rather than saw, between these two. They might haveposed as the models of Resignation and Unrest.

  The look of patient waiting was five years old upon the face of OliveGirard. Five years ago she had been so happy--a bride, beautiful andbeloved. Beautiful she was still--with the beauty of shadow; belovedtoo, but how sadly! Philip Girard had been convicted of a great crime,and for five long years had worn a felon's garb, and borne the anguishof one set apart from all the world.

  The hand that had darkened the life of
Olive Girard, and the hand thathad turned the young days of the girl Madeline into a burden, was oneand the same.

  Afterwards Madeline listened to the pathetic history of Olive'ssorrow.

  Sitting in that great lounging chair, Madeline looked very fair, verychildlike. Sadly sweet were her large, deep eyes, and her hair, shornwhile the fever raged, clustered in soft tiny rings about her slender,snowy neck and blue-veined temples. She had not been permitted to talkmuch during her convalescence, and Olive had as yet gleaned only ageneral outline of her story.

  "Mrs. Girard," said the girl, resting her pale cheek in the palm of athin, tiny hand, "you once said something to me about--about some onewho had been wronged by--" Something sadder than tears choked herutterance.

  As Olive turned her grave clear eyes away from the window, and fixedthem in expectation upon her; Madeline's own eyes fell. She sat beforeher benefactress with downcast lids, and the hateful name unuttered.

  "I know," said Olive, after a brief silence; "I referred to a girl nowlying in the hospital. She is very young, and has been cruelly wrongedby him. She is poor, as you may judge, and earned her living in theballet at the theater. She was thrown from a carriage which had beenfurnished her by _him_, to carry her home from some rendezvous--ofcourse the driver took care of himself and his horses. The poor girlwas picked up and carried to the hospital. She was without friends andalmost penniless. She sent to him--for him; he returned no answer. Shebegged for help, for enough to enable her to obtain what was needed inher illness. Message after message was sent, and finally a reply came,brought by a messenger who had been bidden to insist upon receiving ananswer. The servant said that his master had directed him to say toany messenger who called, that he was out of town."

  "The wretch! He deserves death!"

  Madeline's eyes blazed, and she lifted her head with some of her oldenenergy.

  "Softly, my dear: 'Thou shalt do no murder.'"

  "It is not murder to kill a human tiger!"

  Olive made no answer.

  "Is she still very ill, this girl?" questioned Madeline.

  "She can not recover."

  "Shall I see her?"

  "If you wish to; do you?"

  "Yes."

  Another long pause; then Madeline glanced up at her friend, and saidlistlessly: "What do you intend to do with me?"

  "Do with you?" smiling at her. "Make you well again, and then try andcoax you to be my other sister. Don't you think I need one?"

  No answer.

  "Life has much in store for you yet, Madeline."

  "Yes;" bitterly again.

  "You are so young."

  "And so old."

  "Madeline, you are too young for somber thoughts and repining."

  "I shall not repine."

  "Good! You will try to forget?"

  "Impossible!"

  "No; not impossible."

  "I do not wish to, then."

  "And why?"

  "Wait and see."

  "Madeline, you will do nothing rash? You will trust me, and confide inme?"

  The girl raised her eyes slowly, in surprise. "I have not so manyfriends that I can afford to lose one."

  "Thank you, dear; then we will let the subject drop until we arestronger. And here is the carriage, and Doctor Vaughan."

  Out into the sunny Summer morning went Madeline, and soon she wasestablished in a lovely little room which, Olive said, was hers solong as she could be persuaded to occupy it. Here the girl rested and,ministered unto by gentle hands, she felt life coming back.

  * * * * *

  And Lucian?

  Late in the afternoon of the day that saw Madeline depart from hiselegant rooms, Mr. Davlin arrived, and found no one to deny himadmittance. All the doors stood ajar, and Henry was flitting aboutwith an air of putting things to rights. The bird had flown.

  He gained from Henry the following: "I don't know, sir, where shewent. A gentleman came with a carriage, and the young lady and thenurse went away with him."

  Lucian was not aware what manner of nurse Madeline had had in herillness. And Henry, having purposely misled him, enjoyed hisdiscomfiture.

  "She told me to give you this, sir," said he, handing his master alittle package.

  Tearing off the wrapper, Lucian held in his hand the little pistolthat had inflicted upon him the wounded arm. From its mouth he drew ascrap of paper, and this is what it said:

  When next we meet, I shall have other weapons!