CHAPTER x.x.xVIII.

GOOD NEWS.

The two personals caught the eyes of Ailsa Scott the eighteenth day of April, as she was tying up a bundle in a copy of _The Richmond Times_ several days old.

Her sad thoughts had been fixed on Dainty; for only to-day Miss White had called to acquaint her with Dainty's flight.

She had also mentioned the girl's bad behavior and delicate condition, blaming Ailsa for having recommended such a girl to her favor.

The young girl's brown eyes flashed with resentment as she answered:

"Miss White, I will not allow you to speak unkindly of my dear friend.

She was very unhappy, I know, and, to speak plainly, I suspected her condition some time ago; but I would not wound her feelings by referring to it, hoping that she would see fit to explain matters herself later on. But she is a n.o.ble girl, and I have not lost confidence in her by what you tell me, for I believe Dainty was secretly married, and that the truth will come out some day."

"Perhaps you know where she is now? I feel very uneasy over her fate, and am sorry now that I spoke so harshly to the poor girl in my surprise!" exclaimed Miss White, softening under the influence of Ailsa's loving faith.

"Sorrow will not bring her back now. You should have shown a more Christian spirit to the unhappy girl, and perhaps she might have given you her confidence, showing you that she was not as bad as you thought.

But I do not know where she is. You know, Miss White, I have had to nurse the dear little children through bad colds, and have not seen Dainty for over two weeks. Perhaps the poor girl thought I had forsaken her, too," added Ailsa, bursting into tears.

Miss White was a weak woman, but not a cruel one. Ailsa's distress moved her to such keen sympathy that she wept too, declaring that if only she could find the sweet, unfortunate child she would make amends for her unkindness.

"If you hear from her you'll let me know, Ailsa, won't you? And I shall tell Mr. Sparks he did wrong to try to turn me against Dainty. She is a good girl, I believe, after all, and I'll stand her friend, even after I'm married, if she will forgive me for last night," she said, before she went away.

Ailsa wept most bitterly, for she feared that it would be long ere she saw Dainty's sweet face again.

"She thinks I have forsaken her, and she will be too proud to let me know where she is," she thought.

Then came the startling discovery of the personals offering a reward for news of Dainty Chase, and of the marriage license that had been granted to her and Love Ellsworth.

Ailsa hunted up the back numbers of the newspapers, and found that the personals had been running more than a week, and that they were inserted in all the city journals.

She thought:

"Fidelio--that means faithful--so it must be some dear friend of Dainty's that wants to find her so badly--perhaps her husband; for I am bound to believe she was secretly married. So I will write to Fidelio, and tell him all I know of the dear girl's fate."

On the same day, almost the same hour, a pretty, sad-faced woman at the insane asylum in Staunton sat reading the same personals in some newspapers the matron had given her that morning.

It was Mrs. Chase, and a great change had come over the sweet little woman. In fact, the doctors and attendants declared that she was quite well of her suicidal mania, and that at the next meeting of the board of directors, on the twentieth of April, her discharge would be asked for as a cured woman. Every one would be sorry to see her go, she was so gentle and refined and helpful now, and the violence of her first sorrow had subsided into patient, uncomplaining resignation.

But the strangest thing about her was that she did not seem to have a friend in the world. No one ever came to see her or wrote to inquire how she was. They wondered where she would go when she was discharged.

One of the new supervisors, a pale, middle-aged woman in widow's weeds, pa.s.sed through the ward when Mrs. Chase was reading the papers, and found her weeping violently. She stopped, and asked kindly what was the matter.

"Read these personals and I will tell you," was the sobbing reply.

The supervisor, Mrs. Middleton by name, obeyed, and cried out in surprise:

"How very, very strange!"

"Is it not?" cried Mrs. Chase, pathetically. "You see, that girl, Dainty Chase, is my own child. I went crazy about her, they say; but between you and me, Mrs. Middleton, I don't believe I ever was really insane, you know, only just wild and hysterical over my lost child, fearing her cruel enemies had killed her, and if only they had not shut me up in this place, I believe I should have found her long ago. If you had time to listen, I would like to tell you my whole sad story."

"I will take time, for I am more deeply interested than you can possibly guess," said the kind supervisor.

"Did you ever hear anything so sad? And is it any wonder that I temporarily lost my mind and tried to throw away my life?" cried Mrs.

Chase; adding: "Is it not strange that the search for Dainty is being revived now? It would almost seem as if Lovelace Ellsworth has recovered the use of his senses."

"Perhaps the bullet in his head has been discovered by the use of that wonderful X-ray we have been reading about in the newspapers. It must be so, for who else could have an interest in that marriage license?"

exclaimed the supervisor, excitedly; adding: "I have something wonderful to tell you, Mrs. Chase. I am the widow of the preacher that married your daughter to Lovelace Ellsworth, and I have in my possession the license and the certificate of marriage, given me by my husband to keep until called for. And I also witnessed the marriage ceremony, peeping through the vestry door, as Mr. Middleton said there ought really to be one witness, although the young pair insisted not. But now you see how important it was, for my husband died soon after, and in my grief I forgot all about the secret marriage till recalled to memory of it by this personal. So now I shall write to this Fidelio with my good news, and tell him all about your case too, poor thing!"

CHAPTER x.x.xIX.

"FOR ALL ETERNITY."

Ah, what ineffable joy those two letters of Mrs. Middleton and Ailsa Scott carried to the heart of Fidelio in New York!--joy that his darling still lived, and that the proof of their marriage could be so readily obtained, to confound the woman who thought herself secure in the enjoyment of his wealth.

And who could blame him that he wept like a woman on reading Ailsa's long letter, telling all she knew of Dainty's fate, not concealing the fact that had caused her banishment from the dressmaker's house?

"Dear little wife, soon to be the mother of my child! Oh, heavens! what must she not have suffered in her lonely grief! Oh, we must find her quickly, and take her home to Ellsworth!" he cried, pa.s.sionately, to his friends, who agreed with him in everything.

Letters were hastily forwarded to Ailsa and Mrs. Middleton, thanking them for their information and saying that "Fidelio," who was ill in New York, hoped to be well enough to travel soon, and would make a personal call on them within the week.

Happiness made his recovery so swift that within a week he was able to leave New York for Richmond, accompanied by Doctor Platt and the faithful Franklin.

He hurried to Ailsa's humble home at once, and the lovely girl wept for joy at the wonderful story he had to tell her about his own and Dainty's trials, that he hoped would soon be happily ended.

"How I thank you for your n.o.ble faith in my poor girl, when all the world was against her, I can not express in mere words; but I shall rejoice in my ability to supplement it by a solid reward as soon as I am reinstated in my property," he exclaimed, as he wrung her hand in pa.s.sionate grat.i.tude.

But Ailsa protested that she wished for no reward beyond the pleasure of continuing her friendship with her dear school-mate and friend.

"You shall come to live at Ellsworth, and be our dear sister, if you will," he exclaimed, generously; and the young girl smiled happily as she answered:

"I shall be very happy to come and spend my vacation with Dainty this summer."

Then they discussed the mystery of Dainty's whereabouts. Ailsa told him she had inquired all around, but could not get any clew at all.

"Sometimes I think she may have returned to West Virginia," she said; but Love shuddered at the idea lest his darling had fallen into some new trap set by her enemies.

After two days in Richmond, he was informed by the private detective he had put on the case that Dainty had indeed left the city--a young girl answering her description having bought a ticket at the Chesapeake and Ohio railway station for West Virginia on the night of the last of March.

"We must go at once! Heaven only knows what new evil has befallen my poor love, thus venturing alone into the lion's den!" Love exclaimed, in wild agitation.