He released her hand with a slight involuntary sigh, as at that instant Miss Stanhope re-entered the room. The two were standing by the piano, Mr. Travilla having risen from one of the cushioned chairs to draw near to Elsie while talking to her. Miss Stanhope flew to the chair, caught up the cushion, shook it, laid it down again, and with two or three little loving pats restored it to its normal condition of perfect roundness. Mr. Travilla watched her with a surprised, puzzled look.

"Have I done any mischief, Elsie?" he asked in an undertone.

"Oh, no!" she answered with a faint smile, "it's only auntie's way."

Their visitor had gone, and Elsie turned to her aunt to say good-night.

"Something is wrong with you, child; can't you tell the trouble to your old auntie, and let her try to comfort you?" Miss Stanhope asked, putting an arm about the slender waist, and scanning the sweet face, usually so bright and rosy, now so pale and agitated, with a look of keen but loving scrutiny.

Then, in broken words, and with many a little half-sobbing sigh and one or two scalding tears, hastily brushed away, Elsie told the whole painful story, secure of warm sympathy from the kind heart to which she was so tenderly folded.

Miss Stanhope believed in Bromly Egerton almost as firmly as Elsie herself; what comfort there was in that! She believed too in the inspired a.s.surances that "all things work together for good to them that love G.o.d," and that He is the hearer and answerer of prayer. She reminded her niece of them; bade her cast her burden on the Lord and leave it there, and cheered her with the hope that Bromly would be able to prove to her father that Mr. Travilla was entirely mistaken.

CHAPTER XVII.

My heart has been like summer skies, When they are fair to view; But there never yet were hearts or skies Clouds might not wander through.

--MRS. L.P. SMITH.

Walter Dinsmore was doing well at college, studying hard, and keeping himself out of bad company. In this last he might not have been so successful but for his brother's a.s.sistance; for, though choosing his own a.s.sociates from among the dissolute and vile, Arthur resolutely exerted himself to preserve this young brother from such contamination. "I've enough sins of my own to answer for, Wal," he would say, sometimes almost fiercely, "and I won't have any of yours added to 'em; n.o.body shall say I led you into bad company, or initiated you into my own evil courses."

For months Arthur's spirits had been very variable, his frequent fits of gloom, alternating with unnatural gayety, exciting Walter's wonder and sympathy.

"I cannot imagine what ails him," he said to himself again and again; for Arthur utterly refused to tell him the secret of his despondency.

It had been almost constant since the receipt of Egerton's last epistle, and Walter was debating in his own mind whether he ought not to speak of it in his next letter to their mother, when one night he was wakened by a sudden blow from Arthur's hand, and started up to find him rolling and tossing, throwing his arms about, and muttering incoherently in the delirium of fever.

It was the beginning of a very serious illness. It was p.r.o.nounced such by the physician called in by Walter at an early hour the next morning, and the boy sat down with a heavy heart to write the sad tidings to his parents.

While doing so he was startled by hearing Arthur p.r.o.nounce Elsie's name in connection with words that seemed to imply that some danger threatened her. He rose and went to the bedside, asking, "What's wrong with Elsie, Art?"

"I say, Tom Jackson, she'll never take you. Horace won't consent."

"I should think not, indeed!" muttered Walter. Then leaning over his brother, "Art, I say, Art! what is it all about? Has Tom Jackson gone to Lansdale?"

No answer, save an inarticulate murmur that might be either a.s.sent or dissent.

The doctor had promised to send a nurse and, as Walter now glanced about the room, the thought occurred to him that it would seem very disorderly to the woman. Arthur's clothes lay in a heap over the back of a chair, just as he had thrown them down on retiring.

"I can at least hang these in the closet," thought Walter, picking up the jacket.

A letter fell from the pocket upon the floor.

"Jackson's handwriting, I declare!" he exclaimed, with a start of surprise, as he stooped to pick it up. It was without an envelope, written in a bold, legible hand, and unintentionally he read the date, "Lansdale, Ohio, Aug. -- 185-," and farther down the page some parts of sentences connected with the "D---- family" ... "can't help themselves" ... "the girl loves me and believes in me."

He glanced at the bed. Arthur's eyes were closed. He looked down at the letter again; there was the signature "T. J., alias B. E."

"It's a conspiracy; there's mischief brewing, and I believe I ought to read it," he muttered; then, turning his back toward the bed, perused every word of it with close attention.

It was sufficient to give him a clear insight into the whole affair.

Elsie's letters had of late spoken quite frequently of Mr. Bromly Egerton, and so he was the "T. J., alias B. E." of this epistle, the Tom Jackson who had been the ruin of Arthur.

"The wretch! the sneaking, hypocritical scoundrel!" muttered Walter between his teeth, and glancing again at the bed, though the epithet was meant to apply to Jackson and not to Arthur. "What can I do to circ.u.mvent him? Write to Horace, of course, and warn him of Elsie's danger." And though usually vacillating and infirm of purpose, on this occasion Walter showed himself both prompt and decided. The next mail carried the news of his discovery to Elsie's natural protector,--her father, who with Rose, the Allison family, and little Horace, was still at Cape May.

This letter and the three from Lansdale were handed Mr. Dinsmore together. He opened Elsie's first. The contents puzzled, surprised, and alarmed him. They were merely a few hastily written lines of touching entreaty that he would not be angry, but would please forgive her for giving her heart to one of whom he knew nothing, and daring to let him speak to her of love; and that he would not believe anything against him until he had heard his defence.

With a murmured "My poor darling! you have been too long away from your father," Mr. Dinsmore laid it down and opened the one directed in a strange hand; rightly supposing it to come from the person to whom she alluded.

Egerton spoke in glowing terms of his admiration for Elsie's character and personal charms, and the ardent love with which they had inspired him, and modestly of his own merits. Ignoring all knowledge of her fortune, he said that he had none, but was engaged in a flourishing business which would enable him to support her in comfort and to surround her with most of the elegancies and luxuries of life to which she had been accustomed. Lastly he alluded in a very pious strain to the deep debt of grat.i.tude he owed her as the one who had been the means of his hopeful conversion; said she had acknowledged that she returned his affection, and earnestly begged for the gift of her hand.

Mr. Dinsmore gave this missive an attentive perusal, laid it aside, and opened Mr. Travilla's.

Rose was in the room, putting little Horace to bed. She had heard his little prayer, given him his good-night kiss, and now the child ran to his father to claim the same from him.

It was given mechanically, and Mr. Dinsmore returned to his letter.

The child lingered a moment, gazing earnestly into his father's face, troubled by its paleness and the frown on his brow.

"Papa," he said softly, leaning with confiding affection upon his knee, "dear papa, are you angry with me? have I been a naughty boy, to-day?"

"No, son; but I am reading; don't disturb me now."

Mr. Dinsmore's hand rested caressingly on the curly head for an instant and the boy turned away satisfied. But Rose was not. Coming to her husband's side the next moment, and laying her hand affectionately on his shoulder, "What is it, dear?" she asked, "has anything gone wrong with our darling, or at home?"

"Trouble for her, I fear, Rose. Read these," he answered with emotion, putting Elsie's, Egerton's, and Travilla's letters into her hands, then opening Walter's.

"Travilla is right! the man is an unmitigated scoundrel!" he cried, starting up with great excitement. "Rose, I must be off by the next train; it leaves in half an hour. I shall go alone and take only a portmanteau with me. Can it be got ready in season?"

"Yes, dear, I will pack it at once myself. But what is wrong? Where are you going? and how long will you be away?"

"To my brother's first--Arthur is seriously ill, and I must get hold of evidence that Walter can supply--then on to Lansdale with all speed to rescue Elsie from the wiles of a gambling, swindling, hypocritical, fortune-hunting rascal!"

At a very early hour of the next morning, Walter Dinsmore was roused from his slumbers by, a knock at his door.

"Who's there?" he asked, starting up in bed.

"I, Walter," answered a well-known voice, and with a joyful exclamation he sprang to the door, and opened it.

"Horace! how glad I am to see you! I hardly dared hope you could get here so soon."

"Your news was of the sort to hasten a man's movements," returned Mr.

Dinsmore, holding the lad's hand in a warm brotherly grasp. "How are you? and how's Arthur now?"

"About the same. Hark! you may hear him moaning and muttering. This is our study. I have had that cot-bed brought in here, and given up the bedroom to him and the nurse; though I'm with him a good deal too."