When Charles reached the inn he found a group of excited people gathered near the steps, and the word "cholera" floated to his ears, but it meant little to him.

In a moment he was standing by his brother's bedside.

Harrington turned away from him with a groan.

"Is it only you?" he muttered angrily. "I sent for Father."

"Father was not in. He will come as soon as he returns. I will do anything you want done. I have sent for the doctor. But before I do anything, you must answer me one question. Do you know where Dawn is?

Have you seen her since the day of the wedding?"

Harrington turned bloodshot eyes upon his brother.

"Who is Dawn?" he sneered. "Oh, I see! You mean Miss Van Rensselaer.

Yes, I remember you were smitten with her the only time you ever saw her. I believe in my soul it was you who cheated me out of my little game, and not Alberta at all. Well, it doesn't matter. I've got something better on the string now, if I ever get out of this cursed hole. Let the doll-faced baby go. She wasn't worth all the trouble it took to keep track of her."

Then suddenly he was seized in the vise of an awful agony, and cried out with oaths and curses.

Down below his window a group of huddled negroes heard, and a shudder went through them. They drew away, and whispered in sepulchral tones.

Charles stood over his brother in helpless horror until the agony was pa.s.sed, and Harrington gasped out:

"Go for the doctor, you fool! Do you want to see me die before your eyes?"

Charles's voice was grave and commanding as he stood over his brother and demanded once more:

"Answer me, Harrington. Have you seen her since the day of the wedding?

Answer me quickly. I will help you just as soon as I know all. I shall not do a thing until you tell me."

A groan and a curse were all the answer he got, and a cold frenzy seized him, lest he should never get Harrington to tell what he knew. He understood that his brother was a very sick man. Great beads of perspiration stood upon his forehead.

"Get me some whiskey, you brute!" cried out the stricken man. "That awful agony is coming again. Well, if you must know, she's teaching school in a little forsaken village over beyond Schoharie-b.u.t.ternuts, they call it. At least, she was till I appeared on the scene. Then she made away with herself somehow. I stayed three days, waiting for her, but she didn't come back. I stopped off last week, and the people said she'd never returned. No one knew anything about her but a tow-headed boy who called himself Daniel and said he helped carry her bag to the stage-coach. Now get me that whiskey quick. I feel the pain coming again."

Charles turned without a word and dashed downstairs to the landlady, demanding hot water and blankets. He knew little about illness, save what his mother's semi-invalid state had taught him, but he had read enough in the papers lately to make him sure that Harrington had the cholera, and he knew that whiskey was not a remedy. Before he could return to his brother the doctor arrived, and together they went up to the sick man, who was writhing in agony, and again demanding whiskey.

The old doctor shook his head when he saw the patient.

"He has indulged in that article far too much already," he said.

Then began a night of horror, followed by a day of stupor on the part of the patient. The doctor had said from the start that it was cholera, and that the disease was almost always fatal to persons of intemperate habits. Charles held himself steadily to the task of the moment, and tried to still the calling of his heart to fly at once and find Dawn.

Not another word had he been able to get from his brother. The pain had been so intolerable that Harrington had been unable to speak, and little by little he grew delirious until he did not recognize any of them. At times he cried out as if in wild carouse. Once or twice he called "Alberta!" in an angry tone, then muttered Mr. Van Rensselaer's name.

Never once did he speak the name of Dawn. This fact gave Charles unspeakable relief.

All through the night and day the doctor, the brother, and the father worked side by side, but each knew from the first that there was no hope, and at evening he died.

They buried Harrington Winthrop in the old lot where rested the mortal remains of other more worthy members of the family; and the father turned away with bowed head and broken heart for such an ending to his elder son's misspent life, and kept saying over to himself, "Has it been my fault? Has it been my fault?"

They were almost home when Charles, who had been silent and thoughtful, touched the older man on the shoulder.

"Father, shall you mind my going away at once?" he asked. "I have a clue, and must follow it."

Mr. Winthrop lifted his grief-stricken head, and, looking at his son tenderly, said:

"Go, my boy, and may you gain your heart's desire!"

CHAPTER XXV

The next evening at sunset Charles stood beside the b.u.t.terworth gate, about to enter, when Daniel came out. The boy had finished his early supper, and was going to the village on an errand. His face was grave and thoughtful, as always since the teacher's departure.

Charles watched him coming down to the gate, and liked his broad shoulders, and the blue eyes under his curly yellow lashes as he looked up.

"Are you Daniel b.u.t.terworth?" asked Charles.

"I am," said Dan, eying him keenly.

"Are you the one"-Charles was going to say "boy," but that did not seem to apply exactly to this grave young fellow-"are you the one who carried the teacher's baggage to the stage-coach when she went away so suddenly?"

Charles had studied the question carefully. He did not know by what name Dawn had gone, whether she had used his or kept her own maiden name, or had a.s.sumed still another. He would not cast a shadow of reflection upon her, or risk his chance of finding her by using the wrong name, therefore he called her "the teacher." On inquiring about her at the inn where the stage-coach stopped, he had been referred at once to Peggy Gillette, who immediately guided him to the point in the road where he could see the b.u.t.terworth house.

Daniel started, and looked the stranger over suspiciously. There was a something about this clean-faced, long, strong fellow that reminded him a little, just a very little, of the scoundrel who had frightened the teacher away; yet he instinctively liked this man, and felt that he was to be trusted. Rags, too, generally suspicious of strangers, had been smelling and snuffing about this man, and now stood wagging his tail with a smile on his homely, s.h.a.ggy face. Rags's judgment was generally to be trusted.

"I might be," responded Daniel slowly, "and then again I mightn't. Who are you?"

Charles understood that the boy was testing him, and he liked him the better for it. His heart warmed toward the one who had protected Dawn.

"That's all right," responded Charles heartily. "I'm ready to identify myself. I'm one who loves her better than my life, and I've done nothing for a year but search for her."

He let Daniel see the depth of his meaning in his eyes, as the boy looked keenly, wistfully, into his face. Daniel was satisfied, and with a great sigh of renunciation, he said:

"I knew it, I told her so. I knew you would be half crazy, hunting her.

You're the one she said she belonged to, aren't you?"

A great light broke over Charles's face, bringing out all the beauty of his soul, all the lines of character that suffering had set upon his youth, and that love had wrought into his fibre.

"Oh, Daniel, bless you! Did she tell you that? Yes, she belongs to me, and I to her, and if you'll only tell me where to find her, you'll make me the happiest man on earth!" He grasped the boy's hand in his firm, smooth one, and they stood as if making a life compact, each glad of the other's touch. "Daniel, I feel as if you were an angel of light!" broke out Charles.

The angel in blue homespun lifted his eyes to the stranger's face, and was glad, since he might not have the one he loved, that she belonged to this other. He had done the best he could do for her, and his was the part of sacrifice.

"I can't tell you just where she is," said Daniel gravely. "I thought mebbe you'd know from this. She's sent me two books since she went away, and they're both post-marked 'New York.' That's all I know."

He pulled out a tattered paper that had wrapped a parcel, and together they studied the marks. Charles's face grew grave. New York was a large place even in those days. Yet it was more definite than the whole United States, which had been his field of action thus far. He would not despair. He would take heart of grace and go forward.

"Daniel," said he, handing back the paper to its owner, with a delicate feeling that the boy had the first right to it, since he was the link between them, "will you go to New York to-night with me and help me to find her?"

Dan's face lit up until he was actually handsome.