Dainty's Cruel Rivals; Or, The Fatal Birthday

by Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

  CHAPTER XXXVII.

  A WONDERFUL DISCOVERY.

  Fortune had indeed seemed to favor Mrs. Ellsworth.

  Nearly nine months had passed since her step-son's attempted murder; andthough his bodily health seemed good, no change for the better had takenplace in his mental condition.

  Another very pleasing fact was that Dainty Chase had never turned upagain to annoy her with assertions of a secret marriage, to which shecould produce no proof but her simple word. She wondered in her secretmind what had become of the girl, for her nieces were too prudent toconfess to her the crime by which they supposed their beautiful cousinto have perished.

  They suspected that while glad to have the girl out of the way, shemight feel squeamish over downright murder.

  So they decided that it was just as well not to tell her that they hadtracked the hapless girl to the negro cabin, and having seen her fallsenseless on the floor, had fired the ramshackle old place in front ofboth doors and fled.

  As the cabin had burned completely to the ground, they supposed thattheir victim had perished in the flames; but their guilty conscienceshad never permitted them to venture near the _debris_ to see if hercharred bones remained a mute witness of their awful deed.

  As the winter wore away and no more was heard of Dainty or her mother,they confidently looked on the girl as dead; but if their consciencesreproached them for their sin, they allowed no sign of it to appear ontheir careless faces as they plunged into every gayety offered by theirnew position. The winter had been an epoch in their hithertopoverty-stricken lives, and they made the most of it, Mrs. Ellsworthgiving them a lavish allowance, and permitting them to travel withfriends wherever they chose.

  Thus they had had a trip to California in December, and on returning inFebruary had been given glimpses of the gay season in New York andWashington before returning in March to silent, gloomy Ellsworth, wherethe mistress had remained inflexibly on guard over her step-son, lestthe doctors, peradventure, should do something to restore his mind.

  "That meddlesome old Doctor Platt keeps on hoping for something tohappen. The other physicians have given it up, and say that Love will bean idiot for life. He is sure that if the bullet could be removed, hewould be restored; but I will not permit them to cut into the poor boy'shead, and perhaps destroy his life as well as his reason," she oftencomplained, until the old doctor gave up all hopes of gaining herconsent to the operation that he wished performed.

  But he still came to visit Love in a friendly way, although the youngman continued in the same state of seeming hopeless idiocy, neverimproving with the lapse of time, until, in desperation, the old man,with Franklin's assistance, concocted a daring scheme.

  He had read with contempt and abhorrence the mind of the woman, and knewthat she wished to keep her step-son in his present state, and that noproposition looking to his cure would be entertained by the selfishcreature who wished to keep her grip on the young man's property. Shewould rather see him dead than restored to his rich dower of brains andwealth.

  So when, late in March, she was first informed by Franklin, andafterward by Doctor Platt himself, of a change for the worse in thepatient, she was more pleased than sorry.

  Love's condition was changing, they said, from simple idiocy to activeinsanity that would necessitate his removal from Ellsworth to a place ofclose confinement.

  "He may develop at any moment a homicidal mania, and prove terriblydangerous to his attendants. Indeed, Franklin has grown nervous alreadyover some of his more violent moods, and threatens to resign his place,"said Doctor Platt.

  This was indeed most welcome news for Mrs. Ellsworth. Nothing exceptLove's death could have pleased her better.

  Though she had been fond of him once, his opposition to her will, andhis contempt of her two favorite nieces, had turned her lukewarmfondness to active hate.

  So it was hard for her to assume a look of concern when it was all shecould do to keep from openly rejoicing. She dropped her face in herhands to keep the keen old doctor from openly reading its expression.

  "It is a very delicate and peculiar case," continued Doctor Platt. "Youcan not place him in an idiot asylum, because he is not now anidiot--yet his lunacy is not developed enough to commit him for lunacy.At the same time, he may become violent at any time and--do murder! Itis not right to keep him at Ellsworth with such terrible risks attachedto his staying. I have a plan, if you choose to consider it. If not,you may consult other physicians."

  "Let me hear your plan first," she answered, affably, in her secret joy.

  "Let me take him to a private sanitarium in New York, well known to meas the best place in the United States for a person in his condition. Itis a high-priced place, but you can afford it for the sake of the reliefof mind you would experience in removing this threatening danger fromEllsworth, and in knowing that his hopelessly incurable insanity had thekindest treatment."

  Those two words caught her instant attention.

  "You honestly believe him hopelessly insane?" she cried.

  "Yes," he replied; saying, inwardly: "God forgive me for lying, but itis in a righteous cause!"

  In fact, he was quaking with fear lest she should suspect the motivelying at the bottom of his anxiety to take his patient to New York.

  If she had been a well-read woman, he would have been afraid to risksuch a plot; but he knew that she scarcely ever scanned the columns of anewspaper.

  Otherwise she would have been cognizant of the new scientific discovery,one of the greatest of the nineteenth century triumphs, and mostimportant to the medical cult--the discovery of the wonderful X-ray oflight by the famous German savant, Professor Roentgen.

  She would have known that by the operation of this X-ray the formerlydense human body could be made transparent enough to be seen through,revealing not only the skeleton with all its delicate mechanism, but thepresence of every foreign element, so that already bullets had beenlocated and removed from the bodies of patients who had sufferedtortures from them for years. These wonderful facts filled the columnsof newspapers and the pages of magazines. The whole world was wild withenthusiasm. It was the greatest and most beneficial discovery of thenineteenth century, they said, and Professor Roentgen's thoughtful browwas laureled with a fame that made him greater than a king.

  Mrs. Ellsworth had never read a line about the X-ray. If you had askedher she would not have understood what you meant.

  But every fiber of the intelligent old doctor's body vibrated with joyof the new discovery, and the hope that through its means his patientmight be restored to health.

  The dream that he dreamed night and day was to carry Lovelace Ellsworthto New York and have the bullet in his head located by means of thewonderful X-ray.

  "Once located it might in all probability be removed, and your masterrestored to himself," he said confidentially to the clever Franklin, whorejoiced exceedingly at this little ray of hope in the darkness of hismaster's fate.

  But realizing the deep interest Mrs. Ellsworth had in preventing Love'srestoration to reason, they knew it was useless to tell her of the newdiscovery with any hope of her consent to having any experiment tried onher step-son.

  Nothing remained to them but strategy, and they resorted to its use withflattering success.

  Mrs. Ellsworth had had so many triumphs, that she regarded this one asonly her due--a reward of her clever plotting, as it were.

  The removal of Love to a sanitarium would be a great relief to her mind;and she jumped at the proposition with alacrity, even twitting the olddoctor with her superior judgment.

  "I told you all along that you were foolish ever to expect his recovery,and you see I was right."

  "The women are always right," he replied, gallantly, in his joy athaving gained his point.

  So armed with a liberal check from her hand, the old doctor and Franklinjourneyed to New York with the patient, in the hope of restoring hiswrecked mind and of righting a great wrong.

  For, removed from the influence
of Mrs. Ellsworth's threat, the faithfulservant decided that he would keep silence no longer. He confided toDoctor Platt the pathetic story of Dainty's return to Ellsworth, herclaim to be Love's wife, her banishment by her wicked aunt, the wrongthat Olive and Ela had attempted, and lastly, how, at the peril of hisown life, he had rescued the poor girl from the burning cabin, and senther away secretly to Richmond.

  Doctor Platt listened aghast to these startling disclosures, and said,angrily:

  "You should not have been intimidated by that wicked woman's threats,for such crimes as hers and her nieces' should be proclaimed from thehouse-tops, and punished as they deserve. I would give anything I own ifyou had brought that worse than widowed bride to me and given me thetask of righting her cruel wrongs."

  "She is no doubt safe with her mother, and your help now will be aswelcome as it would have been last fall," replied Franklin, consolingly.So they postponed the search for the girl, who was presumably safe inRichmond, until after they had taken Lovelace to the New York doctorsfor treatment.

  By the middle of April they met with a reward of their labors and therealization of their hopes in the complete success of the X-rayexperiment on Love.

  The murderer's bullet had not entered the victim's brain. It wasimbedded in the thick part of the skull, and its pressure on the brainhad benumbed the intellectual faculties, producing all the phenomena ofidiocy.

  A very delicate surgical operation removed the cause of trouble, andLovelace Ellsworth took up life instantly again where he had left it offat the moment when the fatal bullet had pierced his head.

  "My friends, I am here to tell you that a foul crime has beenperpetrated; but the design of the guilty party will not succeed, thanksto precautions that I took two weeks ago in the fear of this treachery.My precious Dainty has been stolen away in the hope of preventing ourmarriage this morning, and a false story has been circulated that shehas eloped with another. But Mrs. Ellsworth has overreached herself inher eagerness to forward the interests of Miss Peyton and Miss Craye.She will realize this fact when she hears that I was married secretly toDainty Chase two weeks ago, and--" Here he rolled his large dark eyesaround the room, and gave a start of surprise, faltering, "Where arethey all--my wedding guests?"

  The moment had come when he must learn all the cruel truth.

  But they broke it to him as gently and favorably as they could, leavingout all of the worst, to be told when he was strong and well again.

  The result was a terrible agitation, coupled with a passionate yearningto go at once in search of his missing bride.

  But that was impossible, said the doctors. He must remain quietly at thehospital until the incision they had made in his head healed.

  He took counsel with his noble friend, Doctor Platt, and the result wasthat two personals were sent to the leading newspapers of Virginia andWest Virginia. One personal asked for news of the whereabouts of MissDainty Chase; the other for information regarding a marriage licenseissued in July to Lovelace Ellsworth and Dainty Chase. In both caseslarge rewards were offered, and the address was given fictitiously as"Fidelio, New York City."