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

As the cabin had burned completely to the ground, they supposed that their victim had perished in the flames; but their guilty consciences had never permitted them to venture near the _debris_ to see if her charred 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 consciences reproached them for their sin, they allowed no sign of it to appear on their careless faces as they plunged into every gayety offered by their new position. The winter had been an epoch in their hitherto poverty-stricken lives, and they made the most of it, Mrs. Ellsworth giving them a lavish allowance, and permitting them to travel with friends wherever they chose.

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

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

But he still came to visit Love in a friendly way, although the young man continued in the same state of seeming hopeless idiocy, never improving with the lapse of time, until, in desperation, the old man, with Franklin's a.s.sistance, concocted a daring scheme.

He had read with contempt and abhorrence the mind of the woman, and knew that she wished to keep her step-son in his present state, and that no proposition looking to his cure would be entertained by the selfish creature who wished to keep her grip on the young man's property. She would rather see him dead than restored to his rich dower of brains and wealth.

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

Love's condition was changing, they said, from simple idiocy to active insanity that would necessitate his removal from Ellsworth to a place of close confinement.

"He may develop at any moment a homicidal mania, and prove terribly dangerous to his attendants. Indeed, Franklin has grown nervous already over 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 except Love's death could have pleased her better.

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

So it was hard for her to a.s.sume a look of concern when it was all she could do to keep from openly rejoicing. She dropped her face in her hands to keep the keen old doctor from openly reading its expression.

"It is a very delicate and peculiar case," continued Doctor Platt. "You can not place him in an idiot asylum, because he is not now an idiot--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! It is not right to keep him at Ellsworth with such terrible risks attached to 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 me as the best place in the United States for a person in his condition. It is a high-priced place, but you can afford it for the sake of the relief of mind you would experience in removing this threatening danger from Ellsworth, and in knowing that his hopelessly incurable insanity had the kindest treatment."

Those two words caught her instant attention.

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

"Yes," he replied; saying, inwardly: "G.o.d forgive me for lying, but it is in a righteous cause!"

In fact, he was quaking with fear lest she should suspect the motive lying 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 risk such a plot; but he knew that she scarcely ever scanned the columns of a newspaper.

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

She would have known that by the operation of this X-ray the formerly dense human body could be made transparent enough to be seen through, revealing not only the skeleton with all its delicate mechanism, but the presence of every foreign element, so that already bullets had been located and removed from the bodies of patients who had suffered tortures from them for years. These wonderful facts filled the columns of newspapers and the pages of magazines. The whole world was wild with enthusiasm. It was the greatest and most beneficial discovery of the nineteenth century, they said, and Professor Roentgen's thoughtful brow was 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 asked her she would not have understood what you meant.

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

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

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

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

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

Mrs. Ellsworth had had so many triumphs, that she regarded this one as only 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 old doctor 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 at having gained his point.

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

For, removed from the influence of Mrs. Ellsworth's threat, the faithful servant decided that he would keep silence no longer. He confided to Doctor Platt the pathetic story of Dainty's return to Ellsworth, her claim to be Love's wife, her banishment by her wicked aunt, the wrong that Olive and Ela had attempted, and lastly, how, at the peril of his own life, he had rescued the poor girl from the burning cabin, and sent her 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 the house-tops, and punished as they deserve. I would give anything I own if you had brought that worse than widowed bride to me and given me the task of righting her cruel wrongs."

"She is no doubt safe with her mother, and your help now will be as welcome as it would have been last fall," replied Franklin, consolingly.

So they postponed the search for the girl, who was presumably safe in Richmond, until after they had taken Lovelace to the New York doctors for treatment.

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

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

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

"My friends, I am here to tell you that a foul crime has been perpetrated; but the design of the guilty party will not succeed, thanks to 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 our marriage this morning, and a false story has been circulated that she has eloped with another. But Mrs. Ellsworth has overreached herself in her eagerness to forward the interests of Miss Peyton and Miss Craye.

She will realize this fact when she hears that I was married secretly to Dainty Chase two weeks ago, and--" Here he rolled his large dark eyes around the room, and gave a start of surprise, faltering, "Where are they 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, leaving out all of the worst, to be told when he was strong and well again.

The result was a terrible agitation, coupled with a pa.s.sionate yearning to go at once in search of his missing bride.

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

He took counsel with his n.o.ble friend, Doctor Platt, and the result was that two personals were sent to the leading newspapers of Virginia and West Virginia. One personal asked for news of the whereabouts of Miss Dainty Chase; the other for information regarding a marriage license issued in July to Lovelace Ellsworth and Dainty Chase. In both cases large rewards were offered, and the address was given fict.i.tiously as "Fidelio, New York City."