CHAPTER XXVII
THE SEARCH FOR EDITHA
Three months later saw Earle Wayne firmly established as the master of Wycliffe, and over all other property belonging to the former Marquis of Wycliffe and Viscount Wayne. His mother’s character was cleared of every imputation of evil, her body removed to the vaults of her ancestors, where it rested as peacefully and quietly as the noblest of all the race of Vance, and the friends of her youth now looked back with sadness and regret upon the sufferings of the beautiful injured girl, which their own sneers and coldness had helped to aggravate.
All this change made no small stir in the social world.
Paul Tressalia first of all went down to Winchelsea, where he interviewed the old sexton of St. John’s Chapel, who told him exactly the same story that he had told Earle seven years before. He next sought Miss Isabel Grafton, and craved permission to peruse her father’s diary.
She received him with the same graciousness that she had accorded Earle, and talked long and freely with him upon the strange, sad events of Marion Vance’s history, while he in return related much regarding Earle’s manly battling with the cold world, omitting, of course, that sad epoch wherein he, too, had suffered so much for another’s wrong.
In a simple, manly fashion he mentioned the fact that the establishment of his young kinsman’s identity dethroned him from Wycliffe and one of the proudest positions in England, and Miss Grafton’s expressions of sincere regret and sympathy were the sweetest and most comforting sounds that had fallen on his ear since that night when Editha Dalton had crushed his last hope of ever winning her love.
He was convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt that Earle was the rightful heir, and he gave up everything to his possession without a demur; and then, out of the nobility of his nature, took upon himself the defense of Marion Vance’s character.
He caused a notice of the marriage to be inserted in all the leading papers, with the date of the event, wrote a brief and simple account of the manner in which it had occurred, the wrong that had been attempted but fortunately outwitted, and how at last the real heir, her son, had been restored to his rights.
It was not long after this before the whole world—Marion’s world—knew of her innocence, and immediately recognized and cordially received Earle as Marquis of Wycliffe and Viscount Wayne.
This accomplished, Earle’s impatient heart told him he now might return to Editha and claim the reward of all his patient waiting, and to make one last effort to discover the criminals for whom he had so unjustly suffered.
He did not dream that when he should inform Mr. Dalton of the great change in his prospects, and the position to which he had attained, he would longer withhold his consent to his marriage with his daughter, and so it was with a light heart that he left Paul Tressalia to rule at Wycliffe until his return, and set sail for the United States.
The “wings of the wind” were not half rapid enough to bear him thither, for, for several weeks past, his heart had been filled with great anxiety.
Editha’s letters had suddenly ceased, and though he wrote again and again, it was ever with the same result—not one came in reply.
He did not for a moment doubt her constancy; he knew she simply could not be untrue to him, and he was forced to believe that Mr. Dalton had discovered the fact of their correspondence, and had taken measures to stop it, in perhaps the same way that he had before intercepted her flowers.
The passage across the Atlantic was an unusually long one, owing to unfavorable winds and storms, and he was nearly sick with the delay and his patience exhausted, when at last the vessel touched her pier, and he sprang ashore like a restless bird escaped from its cage.
Two hours later he stood on the steps of Mr. Dalton’s residence, his heart beating with a strange, unaccountable fear of something wrong, though he knew not what.
A servant answered his impatient ring, and to his eager inquiry, “Is Miss Dalton at home?” returned a surprised “No, sir.”
He then inquired for Mr. Dalton, and the reply suddenly stilled his rapid heartbeat and drove every shade of color from his face and lips.
“No, sir, Mr. Dalton is not at home; he has been searching for Miss Dalton ever since her strange disappearance,” the man said.
“Strange disappearance! Man! what do you mean?” gasped Earle, actually staggering beneath the unexpected blow.
The servant, pitying his distress, asked him to come in, saying he would tell him all about the affair.
He mechanically obeyed, and his heart nearly died within him as he listened to the strange account of her sudden disappearance and protracted absence.
Nothing had been heard of her during all that time beyond what has already been related in a previous chapter, although everyone reasoned, from the account which the policeman gave of her encounter with the ruffian on her return from John Loker’s house, that he must have had something to do with it since she seemed to possess something that he was bound to have, and she as determined not to relinquish.
The detectives employed to unravel the mystery could learn nothing; they were baffled at every point. They would seem to gain a clue to her whereabouts, and then would suddenly lose it again.
Her fate remained a dark and perplexing mystery and seemed likely to remain so indefinitely, and it had created a great deal of excitement, not only in her own city but all over the State.
At first, Earle inclined to think that Mr. Dalton himself was criminally concerned in the affair, remembering as he did his excessive anger upon discovering that Editha had promised to be his wife, and also his insulting language, sneers, and sarcasm both to her and him the day before his departure for Europe.
But after he had seen and conversed with Mr. Felton, Editha’s lawyer, he changed his mind upon this point.
Mr. Felton asserted that Mr. Dalton was now traveling in search of her, and had been unwearied in his efforts to find her ever since her disappearance.
He privately informed him also that his business affairs were inextricably involved, and that for a long time, he had been dependent upon Editha’s income, which she had freely and generously shared with him.
Now, however, since she was of age and controlled her property, he would be cut off from that source of supply until she was found, as Mr. Felton had no right to pay over anything to him without her sanction; so it was for his interest that he exert every effort in his power to find her.
Earle’s every interest and thought for himself was now also swallowed up in this great and unexpected trouble.
He no longer thought of seeking those unpunished criminals, or of clearing his own name from dishonor.
What cared he for any disgrace that might cling to him, so long as her fate remained such a dark mystery, and she, perhaps, sick and suffering, or—dead, for all anyone would ever know?
For a week he was nearly mad, neither eating nor sleeping, but wandering aimlessly about the streets, peering into every face he met, as if he hoped that by some chance he might meet her. At night he was like some restless, caged lion, helplessly shut in by the darkness, as it were, behind its bars, against which he constantly fretted and fumed, until, with the first sign of dawn, he could return to his vain search.
But at the end of a week, he began to realize the uselessness of his present course and then determined to settle down to some methodical plan upon which to work.
He resolved that he would visit every town, village, and hamlet in the State and that failing, he would search every other State in the Union in the same way.
Of course, this would entail upon him a life-long search, and the detectives told him he would only have his labor for his pains—that he would never find her in that way. They held to the belief that she was either in that city, or else in one of the adjoining cities, and within easy reach of the great metropolis, and they declared that they should confine their efforts to those places.
Earle wrote something of all this to Paul Tressalia, begging him to remain and rule at Wycliffe until his return, even though it should not be for a long time, and then he began his weary search.
It would be wearisome in the extreme to follow him, step by step, through the long weeks that followed, and during which he spared neither himself nor his money. He grew pale, thin and nervous, and disheartened, too, as the time went by, and he seemed no nearer the accomplishment of his object than at the very first.
“What shall I do?” he wrote, almost in despair, to Mr. Felton from a distant town. “I am nearly distracted, for all my efforts are vain. I have interviewed a number of detectives in different cities, and no two advise the same mode of procedure, and have advanced so many plans and theories that I am like a ship far out at sea, without either rudder or sail. I suffer continually the tortures of the rack. There is no rest for me, and there will be no charm in life for me until I find my lost one. Can you give me any hope? Has any clue been discovered? Telegraph me instantly if there is a single ray of hope.”
“Poor fellow!” the lawyer sighed, as he folded the letter after reading it; “it is a hard case. It is a most trying case, and no one can tell how it will end,” he mused, “else, with her resolution and natural keenness, it seems as if she must have found some way of giving us a hint of her whereabouts if she is detained anywhere against her will.”
But he could only telegraph to Earle: “No clue has yet been discovered.”
And the weary lover resumed his sad quest by himself.
But poor, frail humanity cannot endure everything; there is a point beyond which tired nature refuses to go, and at last, worn almost to a shadow, Earle felt that he must do something to recruit his strength, or he would give out entirely. A fever seemed to be burning in his veins, drying his blood and parching his skin; his appetite failed him, his strength was leaving him, and he grew so nervous and irritable that the slightest noise startled him painfully, the least opposition or disappointment tried him almost beyond endurance.
“I am going to be sick,” he said one day when he was nearly prostrated, and looking at his thin, trembling hands. “This anxiety and ceaseless search are fast wearing me out. I must rest, or I shall die, and who then will find my Editha?”
Longing for the sight of some familiar face, and hoping that Mr. Felton might by this time be able to give him a “drop of comfort,” he returned with all speed to the city whence he had started.
Arriving in the evening, some unaccountable repugnance to repairing to the hotel where he usually stopped, and where he had before spent so many restless, miserable nights, seized him, and calling a coach, he gave the name of a smaller, but no less respectable house, located in a quiet street, and was driven thither.
He sought the clerk and asked for a room.
As it happened, the hotel that week was overflowing with transient visitors, and at first the clerk told him that there was not a room to be had in the house.
“You must manage some way to accommodate me, for I am too weary and ill to move another step,” Earle said; and indeed his looks did not belie his words.
The clerk went to consult with one of the proprietors and then returned, saying they would give him a room in which to sleep that night if he did not mind a little noise now and then, and by another day there would probably be better accommodations for him.
“I shall mind nothing, so that I can have a bed on which to rest,” the tired traveler said, much relieved by the intelligence.
“I shall have to give you one of a suite of rooms hired by a lady and her daughter. It is reserved for her son, who occasionally visits her and remains overnight. He went away this morning, and, as he probably will not be here tonight, you can have that room,” explained the clerk.
“Will not the madam object?” Earle asked, instinctively recoiling from the idea of in any way incommoding a lady.
“Oh, no; we have done the same thing, with her consent, once or twice before, when the house has been full,” was the confident and reassuring reply.
“All right; I am ready to occupy it at once,” Earle said, rising, and anxious to be at rest.
The clerk hesitated before leading the way.
“I ought perhaps to tell you, sir,” he began, “that madam’s daughter is an invalid—she is a little cracked,” he added, touching his forehead significantly, “and sometimes takes on a little during the night. I thought you ought to be told this so that if you were disturbed you might know the cause and not be alarmed.”
“The door between the rooms can be locked, of course?” Earle asked.
“Oh, yes; madam keeps it locked on her side, and there is also a bolt upon the other side. The young lady is perfectly harmless, only her brother informed me that when the spells come upon her she moans constantly, as if in distress, and they come on mostly in the night. She may not disturb you at all, however.”
“I shall not mind it, now that you have told me this; it might have disturbed me otherwise,” Earle answered, as he wearily turned to follow his guide.
Taking the elevator, they were borne into the fourth story, and he was shown into a room at the top of the house.
It was a long, rather narrow room, comfortably furnished, and having two doors to it, one leading into the hall, the other into the room adjoining. There was a transom over both doors, and through the one leading into the others of the suite Earle could see a dim light, but all was perfectly quiet within.
He looked to see that the bolt was perfectly fast in its socket, and then, giving his neighbors no further thought, he hastily disrobed, and, wearied out, crept into bed.
Kommentare