CHAPTER XXIV.

THE DARKEST HOUR.

A week had passed since the fatal birthday of Lovelace Ellsworth, and at

the quiet twilight hour he lay among his pillows, a pale, breathing

image of the splendid man whose life had been so cruelly blighted on his

wedding morn.

It was the strangest thing the medical fraternity had ever heard of--how

the young man lingered on with a bullet in his brain; but it was

certain, they said, to have a fatal ending soon. The strange, speechless

stupor in which he had lain for a week would soon close with death.

And meanwhile, his most faithful nurse was Dainty's mother.

The gentle woman had awakened from her drugged sleep directly after the

exciting interview held in her room by Mrs. Ellsworth and her step-son,

and her awakening had indeed been a most cruel one.

The news they had to tell her about Dainty was almost a death-blow.

She did not know how to credit the startling story, for she knew that

her fair daughter never had a lover before coming to Ellsworth; but she

did not know how to contradict the letter they showed her that seemed to

be written in Dainty's own hand. She could only weep incessantly, and

wonder why Heaven had dealt her so cruel a blow.

Then followed the attempted murder of Ellsworth; and rousing herself

from the hopeless despair into which she was sinking, the noble woman

gave all her time and attention to caring for the sufferer, trying to

lose her own keen sense of trouble in care for another.

And Love owed much to her tender care; for the hired nurse proved very

incompetent, and the ladies of the household gave no help, Mrs.

Ellsworth continuing so ill for days as to engross the attention of

Olive and Ela.

In fact, they took no further interest in Lovelace Ellsworth, now that

he lay unconscious and dying, for what could be gained by kindness to

him now? It was better to cling to Mrs. Ellsworth, for she would inherit

all her step-son's money by his failure to marry, and perhaps they might

come in for a share through her favor.

So Mrs. Chase devoted herself to the sick man, weeping, hoping, and

praying for him to recover and help her to find Dainty; for in

struggling back to consciousness that morning, she had heard vaguely, as

in a dream, Love's assertion to his step-mother that he was already the

husband of her daughter.

This very day, a week after Dainty's disappearance, she had sought an

interview with the now recovered Mrs. Ellsworth, and begged her to use

some of her abundant means, as Love's agent, in searching for Dainty.

"It can not be true--that story that Dainty eloped with another for she

never had any lover but Mr. Ellsworth. Besides, when I was awakening

from my strange sleep that morning, I heard him telling you he had

married my daughter two weeks before," she said, wondering why Mrs.

Ellsworth gasped and grew so deathly pale before she burst into that

strange laugh, declaring that Mrs. Chase had dreamed the whole thing.

"Nothing of the kind was said by my step-son," she declared, firmly;

adding, with a sneer: "Your trouble must have turned your brain, causing

you to imagine such a ridiculous thing; and I hope you will not mention

it to any one else, for Lovelace Ellsworth was the soul of honor, I

assure you, and the last person in the world to lead an innocent young

girl into anything so disgraceful as a secret marriage."

"I know that he was very noble," faltered the poor little woman, "and I

must indeed have dreamed it if you deny that I heard such a statement.

Yet the dream was as vivid as a reality."

"Dreams often are, and this was only another instance," replied the

haughty woman, coldly, adding: "I see no use trying to find Dainty. She

went away of her own free will, and she will not communicate her

whereabouts till she chooses. With that you must rest content. As for my

part, I am free to confess that I am so indignant at her treachery to

Love that I don't care if I never see her face again!"

Mrs. Chase shrank sensitively from the angry flash of her

sister-in-law's black eyes, and returned meekly to Love's bedside to

watch the slowly sinking life and wipe the moisture from the pale brow

that Dainty had so loved to kiss, and her tortured heart prayed hourly:

"Oh, God, give back his life! Raise him up from this bed of illness,

that he may unravel the web of mystery that entangles the fate of my

lost darling!"

Mrs. Ellsworth was terribly frightened, for Sheila Kelly had promptly

told her of Dainty's declaration that she was already married to Love,

and her offer that Love would make her rich if she would set her free.

If the proud woman had felt the least pity for Dainty, it all died now

in the dread lest she should escape and rob her of the rich inheritance

that would be hers if Love died unmarried. She said to herself

resolutely that there was no help for it now. Dainty's life must be

sacrificed to the terrible exigencies of her position.

Not that Mrs. Ellsworth would have taken the girl's life with her own

white hands, or even deputed another to do so. Oh, no, no! Of course she

would not be so wicked, she told herself complacently.

But to imprison the poor girl on bread and water in a sunless dungeon,

and goad her to despair till she died of persecution, or even took her

own life--oh, that was quite another thing! thought the heartless woman,

stifling the voice of conscience in her determination to succeed in her

wicked aims.

With Sheila Kelly, as with Mrs. Chase, the mistress of Ellsworth laughed

to scorn the assertion of Dainty that she was Love Ellsworth's wife.

"She was only trying to work on your feelings--do not pay any attention

to her falsehoods," she said; and Sheila, who had half-way determined to

make capital some way out of her important secret, stupidly yielded the

point, and again became the tool of her wily mistress.

When Dainty had been imprisoned a week, Sheila visited her again, and,

as a result, hurried to her mistress with a pale, scared face,

whispering:

"I have earned the promised reward, madame. The girl is out of the way!"

"Dead!" whispered the woman, with an uncontrollable shudder.

"Yes, cowld and dead for hours, pore craythur!" answered the woman,

displaying at last a touch of natural feeling in something like remorse

over her hellish work.

"How?" demanded her mistress, hoarsely.

"By the poison, madame. It was all black on her lips, and spilt on the

bed-clothes, and the vial broken on the floor; but she got enough to

kill her stone dead."

"That is well. If she chose to die by suicide, we are not accountable,"

she said, heartlessly, though her frame shook as with an ague chill.

No amount of sophistry could make her believe herself guiltless of this

terrible deed.

"Will you come and look at the corp', madame? I want you to be satisfied

I'm telling the truth," continued the Irish woman, eagerly; and after a

moment of hesitation, Mrs. Ellsworth decided to go.

It was best to make sure of her cruel work.

In the twilight gloom they stole away, and threaded the dark, noisome

corridors of the ruined wing down to the underground passages, till they

reached the dark cell where poor Dainty's life had ebbed away in

untended illness and fever, till, crazed and delirious, she had ended

all with the tempting draught that promised oblivion of her sorrows in

welcome death.

It was a sight to make the angels weep with pity when Sheila flashed her

light in the gloomy place, and revealed to Mrs. Ellsworth's shrinking

eyes the pale, still form of the girl she had hated and wronged, lying

on the squalid couch, with her golden tresses veiling her wasted form

and framing the fair, dead face like sunshine; the blue eyes closed on

the world that had been so cruel to her; the pale lips stained with the

dark liquid she had drained in the madness of her desperation.

On the chair lay the broken remains of the bread she had been too ill to

swallow; but the bottles of water were quite empty, and perhaps they

could guess how she had drained them and wept for more in the terrible

feverish thirst of her last hours; but they spoke no word to each other

of this, only gazed and gazed with a sort of conscience-stricken awe on

the dead girl, until at last Mrs. Ellsworth stooped and placed her hand

on the white breast.

"Yes, she is gone, poor girl! Her heart is cold and still, her form

seems quite rigid; she must have been dead quite a long while," she

muttered, in a tone of relief.

In reality, it was but a few hours ago that Dainty had swallowed the

laudanum while just sinking into the stupor of a malignant fever; but to

all intents and purposes, in the garish light, she looked like a corpse

of ten hours' duration.

And now came an important question--how to dispose of the fair, dead

girl; for it would never do to leave her here, lest the body be

discovered in future, and the crime traced to the door of those who were

responsible for her death.

Sheila Kelly had a plan, and she quickly proposed it.

"Yer want iverybody to know she's dead, because if Mr. Ellsworth gets

well, he'll be searching for her till kingdom come, unless he knows the

truth."

"Yes, you are right; although there is not one chance in a hundred of

his recovery. He just lies with closed lips and eyes like a breathing

corpse," said Mrs. Ellsworth, impatiently.

"I was a-thinkin' this," said Sheila. "It's a dark night, and there'll

be no moon till midnight. I can carry her body in me arrums down to the

road, and lay her under the tree by the creek, with the bottle of

laudanum in her hand, and a little note, if ye choose to write it,

a-sayin' she is deserted by her lover, who refused to make her an honest

wife, so she chooses ter die. Then the coroner's 'quest will find the

poison in her stomach, and all is over, and no suspicion of our part in

her taking off."

"Capital, Sheila!" cried her mistress, approvingly, though she added: "I

hate the sensation that will follow the finding of the body; but it is

best, as you say, to let the world know she is dead; then, should

Lovelace survive, he can not doubt he is a widower, if he was ever

married. So you may carry out your plan, Sheila, and come to me at once

for your pay."