f
DORA ELMYR'S WORST ENEMY.
By MRS. M. V. VICTOR.


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DORA ELMYR'S WORST ENEMY;
OR,
GUILTY, OR NOT GUILTY.
BY MRS. M. V. VICTOR,
Author of “Who Owned the Jewels,” “THE WIFE's For,”
“THE FoRGER's SISTER,” etc., etc.
NEW YORK :
STREET & SMITH, Publishers.
FRANCIS S. STREET. FRANCIS S. SMITH.
MDCCCLXXVIII,


- To
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note word, ase without who's aid we
could HAVE ACCOMPLISHED NOTH-
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*$ sPECTFULLY DEDI-
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S C A T E D
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>
R STREET & SMITH,
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**


DORA ELMYR'S WORST ENSEMY.
C O N TENTS.
CHAPTER. PAGE.
I.-Is IT AN ABDUCTION, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
II.—A CRY IN THE NIGHT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
III.—THE MISSING BoATs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
IV.—A LovER's QUESTION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . 23
V.—DoRA's VISIT To THE CITY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
VI. —A BROTHER's STRANGE CoNDUCT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
VII.—FoUND IN THE LAKE... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
VIII.—DUDLEY's PRESENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
IX.—“THAT IS MY SON's CoAT". . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
X.–GILBERT's SUSPICIONS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
XI. —A DETECTIVE AFTER A DETECTIVE. . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
XII. – THE CAPTAIN's WIFE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59


DORA ELMYR's WORST ENEMY.
CHAPTER I.
Is IT AN ABDUCTION?
“My child I my child!”
“Mother, be calm l”
“I won't be calm 1 I can't be calm | Dudley, let go my
arm. How do you dare to hold me back?”
“He is right, wife. You are not fit to go out alone. You
will do something very imprudent or desperate. Oh, my God,
what a morning this is for us all !”
A wretched morning, indeed, for the little family at “The
Lake,” yet it was as fair and sunny a summer day as ever shone.
The lake sparkled, the lawn glittered, the old stone house stood
clothed in roses and honeysuckle, a soft, cool wind stole in at
the open doors and windows of the breakfast-room, but there
all peace and quiet ceased.
Three pale faces, three sharp, unnatural voices, of father,
mother, and son, with a couple of servants standing irresolutely
at the back door, and a man outside holding an impatient horse


12 JS J7 AAV ABADUCTION A.
harnessed to a light buggy—this was the picture which marred
the calm morning with its passion, terror, and anguish. Only
three hours ago all had been so different!
Now the meal stood untasted on the table; the coffee was
cold in the urn; Dudley, alone, had drank a cupful, at his mo-
ther's bidding, as he had a long drive before him, but the
parents had not broken their fast. -
Mr. Elmyr, always an early riser, coming down about five
e'clock of that July morning, had found the front hall door
standing wide open; he had thought it a curious circumstance,
as he remembered having himself closed and locked it the previ-
ous evening; and going into the kitchen, where the two maids
had but just made their appearance from a back staircase, he
inquired if they had set open the hall door. Finding they had
nothing to do with it, he returned, looking into the parlor and
sitting-room, and casting a glance at the undisturbed sideboard
in the dining-room; for, although “The Lake” was forty miles
from New York, and in a retired situation, his first thought,
naturally, was of burglars. -
Nothing being disturbed in the lower part of the house, he
returned to his own room to make sure that while he slept the
burly wallet which he kept in the upper bureau-drawer, had not
been abstracted. - - -
The wallet he had found all right; so he went from this to
his son's chamber, who arose, at his bidding, and felt sleepily
in the pockets of his clothes, declaring that no robber had been
near him, and he wished his father would not startle a fellow


14 IS IT AN ABDUCTION A
“You speak to him, wife. I'll go out and look about the
place. Where shall I be most likely to find her, in ease she has
gone out for a little walk?”
“Oh, I don't know ! Along the gravel-path by the lake, I
suppose. But she's not there—she's not there I Benjamin,
would she take the jewels, and all these things, for a promenade
by the lake P”
The mother's tone was growing wild and her eyes anxious.
“Wife, you don't mean to say she has run away from
home?”,
“Dora run away!—that child ! Where would she run to ?
Who would she go with ? No, no, no! they have murdered
her to conceal their crime !”
“Don’t talk that way. She's not harmed. You'll find she's
only out for a little walk. I'll go this minute and bring her in.”


A CRP IAV 7"HE NIGHT! 15
CHAPTER II.
A CRY IN THE NIGHT.
But Mr. Elmyr did not bring his daughter in. He could
find no trace of her. There were marks of footsteps on the
gravelly beach by the little lake, but they were not her foot-
steps; they were those of men—probably his own and his
son's; for they had been out rowing by moonlight the previ-
ous evening and had tied their boat to its moorings by the
worn stone which for so many years had served as a landing.
One thing was singular—the boat was gone.
Mr. Elmyr went back with this information, and tried to per-
suade the alarmed mother that Dora had herself taken it and
gone off for an hour's exercise with the oars. But she would
not listen to such a suggestion. Dora would know that they
would miss her and be alarmed. Dudley, by this time, was
dressed, and joined in the search. His mother had shown him
the rifled bureau and the disorderly condition of the room, and
he had changed color, bit his lip, and said:
“If Dora had a lover, or any chance of one, I should say it
was a clear case of elopement.”
Then the mother had cried distractedly:


16 A CRP IV THE NIGHT!
“Don’t slander the poor child, Dudley I Don't slander your
own sister. I tell you she is murdered !”
“But if they murdered her, mother, why should they carry
away her corpse? Oh, no, let us pray it is not as bad as that. ,'
“Dudley, then it is worse ! If she is not dead, she is ab-
ducted. But, oh! why should any one drag away our darling,
in the night? She never went of her own accord. There is
some mystery here. Oh, where shall I go, which way shall I
fly, to rescue my child !”
He endeavored to soothe her thick-thronging fears, but she
bade him leave her and join in the search. The man-servant,
who managed the place, and who slept in a room over the car.
riage-house, was called, and asked if he had heard or seen any-
thing unusual during the night. > *
He hesitated, saying, at first, that he had slept like a top; but
afterward confessing that he had been half-awakened by a sound
which might have been a shriek, or only a sudden gust of air
whistling through the carriage-house; it had only partially
roused him, and he had slept again as soundly as before.
The poor mother burst into tears. ©
“It was Dora !” she cried, “and not one of us heard her,
crying to us to save her!"
“Mebbe she took a fancy to go out in the boat this fine
morning, and has got upset,” suggested the man. - , -
Mrs. Elmyr looked off wildly over the beautiful, smiling
lake.


A CRP IV THE NIGHT 17
“It is far more probable that they have murdered her, and
hidden her in its depths,” she said.
The three men went in different directions, while the mother
roamed the house and garden, searching out every tree and nook
on the lawn, and wandering aimlessly up and down the beach,
devouring the blue water with her eyes.
The lake was small ; she could search it from one end to the
other with her sweeping glance as she climbed a knoll whereon
stood a rustic summer-house—three miles, at most, in length,
and one in breadth. -
There was no boat anywhere upon its surface; but from the
southern extremity of the little lake flowed a stream, through
which a light boat might be pushed, with little care, until the
narrow brook widened out and blended with the noble river,
flowing only six miles away, in its broad channel toward the
sea. So if any desperadoes had been about the lonely country-
house that night, there was ample opportunity for noiseless and
trackless escape. Once safe upon the Hudson, and received by
their confederates into some hired sloop, or larger boat, their
immunity was insured. A course less open to pursuit and more
certain to escape the wary observation of officers of the law,
should they be placed upon the track, it was hardly possible to
contrive. Footsteps in water are quickly washed out. And
these criminals might make port in Florida, if so they chose.
The unhappy mother knew and realized this, as she wandered
aimlessly about, awaiting the return of the men; for she had al-
ready settled in her mind that her child was either murdered,


18 A CRP IV THE NIGHT
and her body sunk to the bottom of the lake, or what in all
human probability would be a thousand times more cruel iate
than death, abducted, and borne against her will, either into the
city, or to some yet more distant, undiscovered spot.
Dudley's suggestion, to which he still clung, that she had
been persuaded by some one to elope, or that she had run away
in a girlish freak of discontent, was treated by Mrs. Elmyr with
scorn and anger. Indeed, there seemed not a shadow of reason
for such a suspicion. And when her family forced themselves
to consider it in every light, it grew, every moment, more ab-
surd and improbable, to suppose that Dora Elmyr could have
stolen from her home in this secret manner, of her own free
will. - - - - - - - - -


2O THE MISSING BOATS.
incipient mustache, and given, for the third or fourth time, an
amusing and spirited account of her expedition to New York.
Finally she had dropped asleep on her father's shoulder, and
when laughingly pinched and shaken to arouse her, and sent to
bed, like a four-year old baby, she had gone off drowsily, but
turned, at the door, to shoot a last parting arrow of wit at her
brother, which rattled harmlessly against his hardened suscepti-
bilities.
They recalled now her every gesture and tone—the pink flush
of the cheek which had rested on her father's breast, the curl-
ing, drooping lashes raised from the blue eyes to let forth the
lightning flash of mirth, the bright hair shaken back from the
sweet, sleepy face, the pink sash which, loosened from its belt,
trailed after her over the carpet, painting her more beautiful, in
their fond memories, if that were possible, than she had seemed
at the time.
The three men, coming back without tidings, and the moth-
er, met in the dining-room where the servants had placed the
breakfast, and held a brief consultation. -
It was decided that Dudley should drive to the small town,
six miles distant, where the family always went to take the boat
or cars for the city, and there make every possible inquiry, at the
depot and dock, after the missing girl. Hiram, the man-ser-
vant, immediately got up the buggy, while the young gentle-
man drank a cup of coffee. -
It was at sight of the vehicle, and of her son going off on
such an errand, that Mrs. Elmyr broke out afresh into distract-


THE MISSA/VG BOATS. 2 I
ed cries, saying that she knew her darling was at the bottom of.
the lake, and that she would go forth and find her corpse with-
out assistance, if some one did not speedily fetch a boat and
begin the search.
There were but two families in the neighborhood with whom
the Elmyrs were on visiting terms. These, like themselves, had
country-seats upon the borders of the lake, and were their near-
est neighbors upon either side. A message had already been
dispatched to each, and an answer received that Dora had not
been seen by them. So, now, the matter every moment grow
ing more serious, Dudley wrung his mother's hand, and with a
kiss on her cold cheek, sprang into his buggy, and gave rein to
his horse.
In the meantime Hiram went again to Mr. Ketchum's to bor-
row his boat, with which the father intended to row about the
lake and up the little stream, looking for some clew to the lost
one. But, upon going down to the little dock where Mr. Ket-
chum's boat was usually moored, Hiram made the discovery
that that too, like their own, was missing.
From thence, back, past the house, to Mr. Van Eyck's, a half
mile above—his boat had also mysteriously disappeared l Not
so much as a cockle-shell left upon the lake to give those eager
people opportunity to allay or confirm their fears that Dora
Elmyr might be buried in its depths.
This circumstance, so evidently the result of collusion, could
not be regarded otherwise than as bearing upon the disappear-
ance of the young lady, and it gave a yet darker color to the


22 THE MISSING BOATS.
fears of all who learned it. The neighbors gathered in at Mr.
Elmyr's, the ladies to support the mother under this terrible
trial, the gentlemen to offer such active assistance as was in
their power.


24 A LOVER'S QUESTION
nored the fact that Dora was no longer a little girl, never
dreamed that while he found such enjoyment in Dudley's
society, his eyes, his heart, soul, and mind, were being drawn
to his young sister.
So lar, Gilbert had kept his sweet, hopeful secret even from
her brother. He was too timid about it—his passion was too
novel and too sacred for him to speak of it lightly. Yet, at col-
lege, he had been a daring, outspoken, rather wild young fel-
low, ready for mischief, and ever casting glances of bold admi-
ration at we mankind. His classmates would have jeered at
the idea of his being a bashful lover. But at Dora Elmyr he
could only gaze shyly, when she was unaware of his admiring
and courteous eye. She did not seem aware of the power of
her own young beauty, did not even picture it when she pleased
him; so, of course, he was the more fascinated. -
There had been no words of love between the two. In fact,
he would have sworn that Dora never suspected the existence of
love upon his part. But two young creatures like these, mutu-
ally attractive to each other, could hardly be thrown so much
together, and the girl remain unconscious of her conquest, or
indifferent to it. Dora had seen more between those curling
gold-brown lashes, which knew so well how to keep the secrets
of their own bright tenants, than Gilbert would have given her
credit for. -
Five minutes after Dudley dashed down the road toward
Monthaven, the nearest town, Gilbert came into the Elmyr's
along with his parents. His mother, a nervous woman, and
-


A LOVER'S QUESTION 25
not very great in an emergency, fell to crying as soon as she saw
Mrs. Elmyr, and his father went aside with Mr. Elmyr to con-
sult upon what was to be done; but Gilbert was the first who
gave the bereaved, distracted mother any real comfort. He took
her hand, and looked into her eyes as he said:
“Please God, Mrs. Elmyr, your child shall be restored to
you. If she is in this world, I'll find her,” vehemently—add-
ing, however, the next moment in a lower voice—“if she is
dead there will still be one thing left—revenge! Let them who
have harmed her tremble and keep watch, night and day, for I
am one who never release my hold.”
It may seem poor comfort which was in these words. But
the mother saw in an instant, by instinct, that there was one
who loved her child, and that of itself was a comfort; while the
decision, the will which breathed in his words and manner, ap-
peared to her almost like an assurance that Dora would be res-
cued, unharmed, from the dangers which encircled her. Gil-
bert might be utterly powerless to do one thing for her salva-
tion, but it did not seem so in that moment of his resolve and
inspiration.
“Ah, Gilbert, you love my poor Dora then I" cried she,
“I do—more than the world and all in it. Love her | Oh,
Dora I Dora ! but you shall see whether I love her. Now, tell
me explicitly every circumstance. I must know in what direc-
tion it is wisest to begin the search. Yet, oh! tell me, Mrs.
Elmyr, first, are you sure, very sure, she had no lover—that she
has not gone away of her own free will? This taking of her
•


26 A LOVER'S QUESTION
purse, and watch, and jewelry, looks so much like it. If the
villains were robbers, surely they would have taken the other
spoils which lay on every side about them.”
His agonized eye sought the mother's inquiringly, whose own
flashed back fire in reply.
“You do not know my child, or you would not ask the
question.”
“Forgive me. I do know her. I have studied each page
of her pure heart, written on her changing cheek, and in her
innocent looks. No, no! I am as certain as you that she has
been decoyed away by ralse pretenses, or forcibly abducted !
Ah! grant, merciful Heaven, that she be still alive! Now, tell
me, you, who are her mother, what can be the motive of this
act? It is that we must look for, if we would have success in
our attempts to discover and rescue her, always admitting the
chances that she may have been murdered. Tell me,” he ex-
claimed, suddenly, “does she ever walk in her sleep? She
may have gone out, in a dream, with some necessity of a jour-
ney impressed upon her mind which caused her to gather up
such articles as she did. I have heard of such things. She
may have gone off in the boat, and may, at any moment, re-
turn, laughing at her and our discomfiture. Or, also, she may
have drowned herself in such an attempt.”
Mrs. Elmyr shook her head.
“She never was disturbed or troubled in her sleep. Never
talked or walked in dreams. Besides, you forget the other
boats. Their being stolen is to me dark and dreadful proof of


A LOVER'S QUESTION 27
some conspiracy against my child. Oh, God, what, what, what
could any one want of her? Who could have the heart to harm
her?”
Gilbert echoed her groan. His own heart was convulsed with
a maddening fear. With the keen instinct of one who loves,
and with the sharp judgment of a man of intellect combined,
he at once, after a moment of silent thought, fixed upon Dora's
last visit to the city as having some connection with this strange
drama of a night. He drew Mrs. Elmyr to a chair and seated
her, while he questioned her most closely about this visit.
There was not much to tell—nothing which could give a clew
to the present state of affairs. At the same time nothing to
forbid the conclusion that some one might have noticed and
followed her, and laid plans to effect her abduction.


28 ADORA'S VISIT TO THE CATP.
CHAPTER V.
DoRA's visiT TO THE CITY.
In the early part of the previous week she had gone down to
New York with Dudley—a little excursion which the two were
in the habit of making every few weeks, traveling by cars in
winter, by boat in summer. The distance was but forty miles,
and the Elmyr ladies, like most of the suburban residents, did
their shopping in the city.
Dudley, having a little business to transact for his father in
the way of depositing a sum of money at their bankers', draw-
ing interest on other sums, purchasing a reaper for a farmer,
and a new suit of clothes for himself, had taken Dora with him,
not only to give her opportunity to select some new music and
new dresses, but to show her a little of the gayety of the me-
tropolis. They had stopped at a hotel and staid over two
nights, returning home on the third day. Both these nights
they had visited places of amusement—the first going to
Wallack's Theater, the second to one of Theodore Thomas'
ConCertS.
If the city people were in the country, many of the country
people were in the city; there had been good audiences at both


DORA 'S VISIT ZO THE CITP. 29
places, and Dora had been amused with the people as well as
the play. Then, in the day-time she had been in two or three
of the principal dry-goods stores, had been in at Tiffany's to
have her watch mended, and while there, had talked with one
of the salesmen about her diamonds, left her by her Aunt Beth-
el, and inquired particularly as to the expense of having them
reset. The gentleman had expressed a curiosity to see the
stones, and had assured her that they were well worth mount-
ing in more modern style; and she had promised to bring
them on her next visit to the city.
All this, and whatever else she could recall of Dora's gos-
sip about the pleasures and dissipations of her little trip, the
mother told over to an eager listener. Gilbert easily inferred
that some professional thief, lingering in the jewelry establish-
ment, had overheard the conversation between Dora and the
clerk, and had tracked her all the way to her secluded home
with the purpose of securing for himself the treasures of which
she had so freely spoken. He guessed that the burglar might
have spent some days in making himself thoroughly familiar
with the house, the neighborhood, and the means of escape.
All was simple and plain thus far. But why should the
young lady be taken, as well as the jewels? It were compara-
tively easy to steal into her room and abstract her property while
she slept. But to carry off a woman alive were a much more
difficult affair, and the motive not so clearly to be discerned.
As a second inference, he feared that the beautiful young
girl, whose innocence was apparent as her loveliness, had at-


3O DORA'S VISIT TO THE CITV.
tracted the unhallowed admiration of some hanger-on at the
hotel where the pair had stopped; and that that this bold ad-
mirer, rich, perhaps, and with nothing to do but nurse his own
bad fancies, had followed her to her home, secretly, and with
the hired assistance of such scoundrels as are always to be found
when their worth in money is laid down, had stolen upon her
in her child-like sleep, and silencing her cries, had carried her
with them to the boat, already provided to their wicked use,
and making their way in the darkness to the Hudson, had
transferred their captive to some larger boat or vessel which they
had provided for the occasion. A deed so bold as this, and
with no other motive than the abduction of a young lady whose
friends would doubtless raise heaven and earth to discover and
rescue her, appeared astonishing if not incredible.
Turn the matter in any light he chose there would be aspects
which were improbable or absurd. Gilbert saw at once that he
must not abandon any one theory because there were improba-
bilities in it. For instance, if some villain had taken Dora for
her own sweet sake, why had he selected so many articles of her
own to accompany her? A man bent on getting safely off with
his prize would hardly think of these trifles. Yet, as suggested
before, why would a mere robber incumber himself with the
girl? And why not rob the other rooms as well as hers, after
safely securing the casket and the watch


A BROTHER'S STRAAVGE CoMovcz. 3 I
CHAPTER VI
A BROTHER's STRANGE conDUCT.
Again and again it occurred to the mind of the young man
that Dora Elmyr must have gone away, of her own free will,
with some lover whose acquaintance she had formed clandes-
tinely. Once or twice, lifting his fiery eyes to the mother's hag-
gard face, he was about to say so again, and to say her friends
were making egregious fools in thus distressing themselves about
her; but he could not meet the mother's look and say it. Aye,
nor recall that stainless forehead, those shy, sweet eyes, that
flushing cheek, and believe it ! His heart recoiled upon itself
with a vicious, stinging snap when he stretched it to that fancy.
“I can't sit here,” he exclaimed, after some silent reflection—
“I shall choke, or die, if I don't do something. Mr. Elmyr,
you and father carry on such search about the premises as you
can without the aid of boats, and I will ride post-haste after
Dudley. If I learn that he gains no tidings at Monthaven, I
will at once hire or buy one or two boats, and will return by
way of the river with them, that we may drag the lake; and I
shall keep a sharp lookout for any token, along the brook,
which may proclaim she has passed along that route. In the


34 A BAOZ"HER'S STRAAVGE CONDUCT
“You surprise me. I had not discovered that you were in
love with Dora. She is very young.”
“Well, I am very young also. We are well matched in
years, Dudley; you have no objection to my loving your
sister?”
“Objections? Oh, no. Why should I have The families
agree, I believe, and are about equal in fortune and station.
But I'm sorry for you, Gilbert. This makes to-day a sadder
day still. It was enough to break her mother's heart—if she
breaks yours too—why, there's a double calamity.”
“What do..you mean ?”
“Gilbert, there's no use in deceiving you. You are a man,
young and strong, able to bear any blow, but my mother is
delicate and feeble. How could I venture to tell her that I feel
certain no harm has come to Dora except what she has brought
upon herself? Better for her to believe that her child, her only
daughter, is dead, than that she has willfully sullied the family
name by a secret elopement with some dastard. This between
us two, Gilbert, remember. Now, upon your honor, as a man
of reason and common sense, when you think of it dispas-
sionately, can you view it in any other light?”
Gilbert's head went down in his hand, and a groan burst from
his young heart.
“Think of the personal articles of adornment which she took
away with her. Think of the imprebability of her having been
abducted bodily, against her will, from the house.”
Another groan was his friend's only answer. *


36 A BROTHER'S STRANGE CONDUCT
“I did not count upon his interference,” he muttered to him-
self.
Then, as if yielding to a necessity against his will, he quick-
ened his movements, and the two were soon at the railroad sta-
tion.


JTOUND IN THE LAKE. 37
CHAPTER VII.
F O U N D IN T H E L A K E .
A close questioning of the depot-master, and of all about
the premises, resulted in ascertaining that no person answering
to Dora's description had boarded any of the morning trains.
No strangers had arrived the previous evening having about
them anything which would attract attention or suspicion.
“Of course not. Of course not. Why betray themselves
on the cars and in the station, when they could steal up, un-
seen and unknown, by the river?” observed Gilbert, impa-
tiently. -
They proceeded to the dock from whence the daily steamer
had departed two hours earlier, and inquired there for any
young lady who might have taken passage that morning; but
they obtained not the slightest clew to any such person. Then
then they telegraphed the New York police to watch the arrival
of the boat and arrest Miss Elmyr should she be on board. It
was too late to have the cars watched, as the earlier trains must
already have arrived.
After this, the young men parted for a time, Dudley driving
back in his buggy, Gilbert putting up his horse at the hotel
*



FOUND IN THE LAKE. 39
stream rippled down into the tiny bay, he took off his hat, and
dipping it up in his hand, wet his hair and forehead as well as
his lips.
A sunbeam, piercing the shallow wave, struck against some-
thing in the sandy bottom which burned and sparkled more
brightly than any pebble. However, it might have been a bit
of glass. At any other time Gilbert would not have given it a
second thought. But now his eye was strained to catch some
thread which might mark the course of his lost darling. He
looked back as his boat floated over it, and a whole rainbow
glimmered and glittered under the water. Plunging his oar
into the sand to steady the boat, he leaped out into the cove,
and feeling about with his fingers in the sand came upon some-
thing tangible which he drew up to the light. His heart gave
a wild throb when he saw what it was—a woman's necklace of
diamonds.
It shone like fire in the broad sunlight, a chain of jewels
linked together with an old-fashioned setting of real Guinea
gold.
He had never seen the ornaments bequeathed to Dora by
her Aunt bethel, though he had heard the family speak of
them; but he never doubted this was one of them. How came
it there ? Had Dora, silenced and captive, contrived to drop it,
as a clew to guide her friends to her rescue? Alas! if so, whither
could he look? The blue Hudson was dotted with a hundred
merry sails within reach of his eye, and in any one of those
innocent-appearing craft, might be the prisoner he would give his


4O POUND IN THE LAKE.
life to ransom. But he could not reach them all. He had no
warrant to board a single one of them. Dora Elmyr might as
well be in mid-ocean, so far as hopes of her friend's assistance
went, as on any vessel there, if the crew were hired to further
her concealment.
If she were fleeing from home of her own accord, she must
have lost the necklace in the hurry and excitement of her flight.
Not knowing what better to do, Gilbert kissed it, placed it in
his purse, and climbing back into his boat, rowed as speedily
as possible back to the lake to convey to her friends this start-
ling and yet unsatisfactory glimpse of tidings.
We cannot account for the course our thoughts may take, any
more than for the strange vagaries which come to us in dreams.
Rowing rapidly along the quiet, rock-lined stream, alone with
himself and his musings, the young man's thoughts went from
the necklace to its giver—to that quaint Aunt Bethel, dying when
Dora was a child of five, and leaving her a hoard of faded but
once splendid dresses and shawls, many rich garments and toys
from China and Japan, and all her jewels and personal pro-
perty. It seemed curious that she should pass her own sister,
Mrs. Elmyr, then a woman young enough to have made much
use of this odd magnificence of hoarded treasures, and make the
little girl her heir. But Aunt Bethel had thus attested either
her love for the sweet child or her desire to disappoint others.
Impossible for any to tell which motive was more powerful.
Gilbert had heard the whole history of the aunt freely dis-
cussed in the family. Things to which he had paid no heed


DUDLEY'S PRESENT 43
If the young lady was really won, it had been with some dif-
ficulties to encounter, and Dudley had not, at any moment, felt
certain of his seeming good fortune. The Ketchums were a
haughty and overbearing brood—not pleasant neighbors like the
Van Eycks—and had always maintained a formality of inter-
course which was chilling. Not that they were one whit better
educated, better bred, or wealthier than the other two families;
but they had presumed a tradition that the Ketchums had once
been great people, and being, by inheritance, of cold and re-
served dispositions, they kept their pride in a high state of pol-
ish, and wore such an-air generally, that any young gentleman
who might chance to admire the daughter would as soon have
sued for one of Queen Victoria's princesses as for her.
Dudley, himself ambitious, and with a good deal of egotism
and dignity for a young fellow, rather admired this trait of the
Ketchums; and, although it long kept him at arm's length from
Gertrude, it rendered him all the more anxious to ally himself
with her.
Gertrude Hildebrand Ketchum was as stately as her name—a
tall, graceful girl, with a white skin, a cold, blue eye, a hand-
some mouth, and a wealth of flaxen hair which none of the
German baronesses, her ancestors, could ever have surpassed.
She was as opposite as possible in her ways of thinking and act-
ing, to the sweet, impulsive, rosy Dora Elmyr, toward whom she
had long extended a condescending friendship. This friendship
had warmed, somewhat, of late, under the influence of that
softer passion which she had begun to cherish for her brother,


44 DUDLEY'S PRESENT
The young of the grandest pedigrees must mate, or the grand
pedigree become extinct; and it is probable that nature and
love rested as snugly in Gertrude's breast as if her great-grand-
father had not been a baron, and as if her own swan-like throat,
and delicate nostrils, and tapering finger-ends, had not pro-
claimed the fact.
“I wish this affair could have waited until after to-night,”
muttered Dudley, as he glanced toward the turreted and castel-
lated house which should have contained her whom he preferred
—“then I should have had her promise; and she is too honor-
able to have broken it, for what was no fault of mine. Her
father, and mother, and all, will be down upon us, even if she,
herself, does not retreat." *.
He put his hand to his vest-pocket, where lurked the ring
which had thrilled him with a consciousness of its presence so
many times since that happy evening on the porch. Just then
he saw the flutter of a blue dress by the large gate which opened
from the road into the lawn, and the next instant beheld Ger-
trude coming through to intercept him. She was pale, and her
usually calm eyes showed traces of tears; never had the sight of
her so agitated Dudley as it did then—to see her thus moved,
and on his and Dora's account.
“Oh, tell me, have you any tidings? Mother is with your
mother; but she thought it no place for me. It has been hard
for me to remain alone, thinking upon your trouble. Poor
Dora!. Have you heard anything?”
“Nothing—nothing at all, Gertrude. I dread to go home;
- - - -


ADUDLEY”.S. PRESENT 45
for I know the first thing they will do will be to drag the lake,
and I have a presentiment that they will find her there.”
Miss Ketchum shuddered, and hid her face in her hands.
“I suppose I cannot come to-night,” he added, in a low
voice, “so that I am doubly miserable. If you have any sym-
pathy with me, Gertrude, in this hour of trial—if this event does
not change the current of your feelings, you can show it now as
well as any time, and be a comfort to me. I was to bring you
this to-night. If, the next time we meet, I see it on your hand,
I shall feel that I have a right to come to you with my sorrows.”
He dropped the little package in her hand, and hurried away.
Some untruth there must have been in his assertions, since he
had told his friend Gilbert that his conviction was that Dora had
run away, and Miss Ketchum that he feared to find his sister in
the bottom of the lake. It may be that he spoke the truth to
the former, and that the fear of losing the lady, should her pride
rebel at the shadow which hung over his house, had tempted
him to keep her in the thought that some accident had befallen
the missing girl.
Rods before reaching home, his mother met him, rushing
eagerly for tidings; and when he shook his head in silence, she
went back wailing.


46 ‘‘THAT IS MY SON'S COA.T.’”
CHAPTER IX.
‘‘THAT IS MY soN's coAT.”
In the meantime, Gilbert, rowing up the stream, found peo-
ple on its banks some time before he reached the lake. He had
nothing to tell them until all clustered about him on the worn
stone by the landing, when he took the necklace from his pock-
et and handed it to Mr. Elmyr.
“It is hers—it is my poor child's I”
“I found it in the water just where the stream runs out into
the cove. She, or they, have been over that track.”
Dudley, who had reached home first by the less devious road,
was one of the little crowd who saw the necklace produced. He
uttered a repressed cry, staggered, and grew so faint that Mr.
Van Eyck, senior, supported him with his arm. He rallied
after a moment, and carried the jewels to his mother, who
sobbed over them and kissed them, declaring that her child
had been murdered.
Indeed, it was the fear of many that the evil visitants who had
robbed the mansion of its dearest treasure, had killed the young
girl and secreted her body in the lake before making off with
such spoils as they had obtained in her room.


GILBERT'S SUSP/CIONS. 49
-
(CHAPTER X.
GILBERT's sus P1 c 1 on s.
Gilbert Van Eyck wheeled swiftly, and gazed upon Dudley
where he stood, a little in the rear of the crowd, with blanched
face, and arms folded against his breast.
“Is it my coat, mother?” he forced himself to say, coming
forward. His voice sounded hollow, and so changed it startled
even himself. “So it is. You remember it grew cool in the
evening, and I took off this coat and hung it on the rack in the
hall in place of my black one which I had left there. They
must have taken it from the rack. I have not missed it before.
You remember it, mother?”
“No, no,” shaking her head pitifully, “I remember noth-
ing. It seems to me you had on a white coat last night, Dud-
ley. Dora asked you if it was your bridal robe Yes, yes, the
poor child jested with you, Dudley. How gay she was "with a
heart-rending sigh.
“That was night before last. What possesses you, mother?
If Dora were here, she would remember it well enough.”
He spoke a little irritably, and looking up, met the dark,
piercing eyes of Gilbert, his friend, fixed searchingly upon him.


GILBERT's SUSPACIONS. 51
ten minutes at a time. But every fresh recollection of Dora's
fair young face opposed this theory, and then, always, there was
the fact that she had had no opportunity for forming such an
acquaintance. It was not so much that an innocent girl might
not be deceived in the character of the man who addressed her,
and persuaded by her love for him to blind father and mother,
and stifle her conscience, in obeying his wishes—such things had
been with girls as timid and truthful as Dora—but it was in the
apparent impossibility of her having had any chance for forming
such a connection. Even Dudley, when asked during their per-
egrinations through Monthaven, if he had any particular person
in view, confessed that there was not Qne on whom he could fix
his suspicions.
In the look which the two young men gave each other across
the blood-stained coat, it was as if one had challenged the other
to mortal combat. No words were exchanged between them at
the time. Gilbert's heart, almost bounding from his breast,
urged him on to fresh exertions.
“A little more effort now,” he said, or rather gasped, “and
we shall have that which we seek”—he could not say “her
corpse.”
Springing back into the boat, he renewed his labors with the
energy of one to whose torture exertion is a relief The sun of
that long summer day, which had so scorched and tormented
them in their work, declined and set before the men gave over
their task. By that time all were assured, even the parents, that
she whom they sought was not under these waters, now rosy-red


52 GILBERT S S USPICAONS.
and smiling before the coming twilight. Every inch of the bot-
tom of the lake had been explored. In many places the water
was so clear that they could distinguish every pebble lying eight
or ten feet below. All the deeper spots had been thoroughly
dragged.
Joy and disappointment were mingled in the feelings with
which they abandoned the lake. They were glad that a hope
still existed to sustain her wretched relatives; yet so strong was
the belief, since the finding of the blood-stained coat so myste-
riously sunken for concealment, that the young lady had been
murdered, that they were loth to give up the sad consolation of
securing her poor mutilated corpse for burial.
One by one the neighbors departed, not knowing what fur-
ther steps to take. The sheriff of the county took possession
of the coat, to hold it in evidence, should the perpetrators of
the crime ever be arrested. It never occurred to a single other
spectator than Gilbert to doubt the assertion of the brother that
he had changed his thin coat for a thicker one, and hung this
one in the hall. No one paused, in the excitement, to discuss
the probabilities of the murderer exchanging his coat before the
deed was done, instead of after, if he had exchanged it. Such
quibbles were dwelt upon long after, but not then.
Mr. and Mrs. Van Eyck, their son, and two or three others
remained, not feeling it possible to leave the afflicted family
alone with its burden of suspense and sorrow. Dudley partook
of a hurried supper, and was off again, for the third time that
day, to Monthaven. His purpose now was to catch the even-


GILBERT'S SUSPICZOAVS. 53
ing train for New York, that he might see the police authorities
and consult with them that very night. All felt that if the girl
were alive she had been taken to the city, where it is so much
easier to conceal crime, or carry out peculiar plans, than in the
country, where, if one does but “nod in a meeting,” it is
known to the whole community.
Every one consulted felt the propriety of continuing the
search in that direction the most earnestly of all, while not re-
mitting it in others. When it was first mentioned, Mr. Elmyr
expected to go; but the sufferings of the day had so shaken his
nerves that to Dudley, calm, quick, and equal to a prolonged
strain upon his energies, it was at last given over. He went
very willingly, not only to escape the almost unbearable scenes
at home, but because he hoped to find his sister, perhaps quiet-
ly lodged at some hotel with an adventurous husband—in which
case there would be nothing to do but turn upon his heel and
go back to the lake, to silence gossip, and to begin in the
household the hard lesson of learning to do without Miss
Dora.
After kissing his mother good-by, and shaking hands with his
father, he turned, as if he would say something to Gilbert, but
whatever the words were they stuck in his throat, and, bowing
hastily to the other friends, he sprang into the buggy which
Hiram was to drive over with an order to bring it back.
“Look for a telegram as early as possible in the morning, as
I shall send cne, whether or not I have tidings,” he said, as the
horse started, and waving his hand as if to re-assure his weeping
mother, he was whirled from sight, followed by a moan from
every woman present, and a deep sigh from the men.


THE CAFTAAV'S WIFE. 59
CHAPTER XII.
T H E cAPTAIN’s w 1 F E.
A clock, striking nine, aroused him from the reverie into
which he was sinking. Descending the stairs, he sought Mrs.
Elmyr, and telling her that he had made up his mind to follow
Dudley to New York, he besought her to tell him everything
with regard to Aunt Bethel, or her relatives, which might bear
upon Dora's interests as the inheritor of her estate—especially if
there were any living who had disputed the will.
While she was trying to collect her distracted thoughts to give
him the information he desired, he turned to Mr. Elmyr with a
remark:
“I see the front door was opened from the inside by the usu-
al means. The lock has not been tampered with. Whoever
went out that way did not come in that way. Have you discow.
ered how the kidnapper or kidnappers effected an entrance?–
from what part of the house?”
Mr. Elmyr shook his head.
“All the windows on the second floor were open,” he said,
drearily, “You know we do not think of any greater danger
here than is guarded against by locking the lower story, Per-


6o THE CAATAAN’S WIFE
sons may have clambered to the roof of the porch, or on the
trellis by the south windows.”
“Ay,” said. Gilbert, “but there are no traces of such a pro-
ceeding.”
He hen gave his undivided attention to Mrs. Elmyr's state-
ments, which were something more of a story than he had
looked for.
We cannot give it in her broken, almost incoherent words,
but will convey the substance of it to the reader, as it will have
an important bearing on this narrative.
Aunt Bethel, own sister of Mrs. Elmyr, whose father had
been a New York merchant of good standing, in her early youth
was a beautiful, high-spirited girl, always a surprise to her own
family, and sometimes the subject of their admiration, at others
of their displeasure. She had ended her brief, troublously-
brilliant career as a young lady, by running away with a sea-
captain—a handsome, jolly sailor, who owned half the vessel
which he sailed, and who had brought a cargo of East Indian
goods to her father, to take back with him a freight far more
precious than he had brought. For three years after her clan-
destine marriage her family saw nothing of Bethel—she was
roaming the high seas with the husband of her choice.
If she wearied of this life, she would not confess it; however,
she did not accompany the captain on his next voyage, but re-
mained quietly at home with the parents who had opened their
arms to her, after her long absence. She was as haughty and
changeable as ever; but seemed to have lost her fondness for


THE CAPTAIN’S WIFE. 61
society, and would remain shut up in her chamber, with a novel
and a sofa, and scattered all about her, as if to remind her of
the scenes in which she had gathered them, crepe shawls from
China, rare Indian muslins, gorgeous scarfs, oriental boxes and
fans, while sandal-wood burned in a Persian vase, and a red
paroquet chattered in its cage, and a bright-eyed monkey, about
the size of a squirrel, trod the rounds of its prison, squeaking
to attract the attention of his mistress.
Mrs. Elmyr seemed almost to forget, for a moment, her own
agony of suspense, as she recalled the peculiarities of that elder
sister, who had always been to her an object of wonder and
adoration.
Bethel never had any children. When Captain Whittier
came home from his long cruises, sometimes to remain with
her for months, she was the most animated, most beautiful of
creatures; when he went away, she would again seclude herself
in her chamber—cabin she called it—-and spend her time read-
ing and dreaming, petting her foreign animals, and taking out
and putting away the rare presents with which her husband
never failed to overwhelm her. She could almost have set up a
store of Indian curiosities, so well was she supplied.
The continuation of ** IDOR A H. LM YR2S EN EMY 22
will be found in No. 51 of Street & Smith's NEw York WEEK-
LY, now ready and for sale by every news dealer.


A THORN IN HER HEART.
CHAPTER I.
MATED, NOT MATCHED. f
In after wears, when people came to know her story, it was
agreed on all sides that no life had ever been more strange or
solitary than that of Lady Hilda Dunhaven, the only daughter
of the Earl of Dunhaven. An eagle is alone in its eirie, a dove
sometimes is solitary in its nest; hermits have lived and died
without the sound of a human voice, or one look at a human
face. But no solitude, either of mountain, wood, or desert,
could be more complete than that of Hurst Sea, where the earl
had made his home.
It was the old story. He had been one of the favorites of
fortune; he had been wealthy, handsome, talented, blessed with
every good gift. He had squandered them all—his health and
strength in riotous living, his fortune in every kind of extrava-
gance that he could devise. He woke up at the age of fifty to
find himself ruined in health, strength, and fortune; his hair had
turned gray, his sight had grown dim; the high spirits and


AMATED, NOT MATCHED. 75
good-nature had all given place to a soured, cynical frame of
mind; then Robert, Earl of Dunhaven, began to wonder how
his life should end.
“The only thing for you to do, my lord,” said his solicitor to
him, “is to marry money—look out for a city heiress.”
Sad to say, one was found for him—a shy, timid, half-fright-
ened girl of nineteen, the heiress of a wealthy stock-broker—a
girl whose mother died soon after her birth, and whose father
knew but one source of interest, one hope, one love, and that
was—money. -
Genevieve Bowden, daughter of Joseph Bowden, who had
amassed a large fortune on the stock exchange. The equivalent
of money is wealth, and Joseph Bowden had always intended
his daughter, with her large fortune, to marry into the peerage.
Either peers were scarce, or none of them passed that way, for
no offers were made for Miss Bowden's splendid fortune. Young
earls, good-looking baronets, all found heiresses willing to ex-
change gold for rank; but no suitor came to the stock-broker's
wealthy daughter.
She had her dreams of poetry and romance; she had dreamed
of a handsome young Iover, whose fair head should bend over
her, of a voice that should whisper sweetest words to her, of a
love that should make her heart beat and her pulse thrill. All
her dreams came suddenly to an end when she was brought face
to face with the Earl of Dunhaven, and was told that she had to
marry him. She looked at the stooping figure, the gray head, "
the eyes dim with having looked on too much of the the world's


76 MATED, NOT MATCHED.
false light. She looked gravely, thoughtfully at him, then fold-
ed her hands with the calm of despair. A wild desire to avoid
her fate came to her; then a keen conviction that all such at-
tempt at escape was in vain; she had neither courage nor
bravery to withstand any wish her father might form.
She married him, and none of the people who crowded to see
what was thought to be a fashionable marriage, knew or under-
stood that no lastern market had ever witnessed a more cruel
sale. Her fortune was large, and the grand estate, the beautiful
house belonging to Havendale were soon restored to their ancient
grandeur.
What kind of life the hapless bride-elect, who had dreamed of
love, led with her ill-matched husband, no one knew and no
one cared. Every day she grew thinner and paler; every day
the youth seemed to die from her. She went to court, she gave
and attended balls, dying slowly all the time, while the earl led
the old kind of life. He had one keen desire, and it was for a
son, for one to succeed him, and when his little daughter was
born, in his anger he could have flung the child from the castle
to Wer.


78 AAW UNLOVED CHILD.
but to see it accumulate; he let the magnificent home of his
forefathers, Havendale Park, for a term of fifteen years, and
with his little daughter he went to live at a solitary place in
Norfold, called Hurst Sea.
It was wonderful how soon he was forgotten; the old Earl of
Dunhaven, people called him when they spoke of him, but few
ever so spoke. His old friends were most of them dead, and
the younger generation who cared for him—the miserly earl
who had let his ancestral home; he died out ef the minds of
men. There was no aunt or cousin to think of the lirtle Hilda,
and wonder how she was to be brought up; the child was
more desolate than one would have deemed it possible for a
daughter of the noble house of Dunhaven to be. The house
at Hurst Sea was an old one; it had been for many generations
the property of the Dunhaven family; why they kept it no one
knew; legends were told of one strong room, where a mad-
man, one of the Dunhavens, had spent his life; there was an-
other story of a pale, fair woman, who died there, crying out
with her latest breath that treachery had killed her.
Every one knew the story of the Lady Mora Dunhaven,
whose portrait was the gem of all the pictures in the long gal-
lery at Dunhaven. A fair girl with golden hair, and a mouth
like a cloven rose. The story tells how she loved a young sol-
dier, and he was sent away to the wars. She was told to marry
a Scotch lord, but grief for loss of her lover drove her mad, then
she was sent to Hurst Sea; there she lived until the golden
hair had grown gray, and the sea sang her requiem. There


AN UNLOVED CHILD. 79
were no cheerful memories connected with the old Elizabethan
house; there was not one cheerful story told of it, or one cheer-
ful room in it.


“WHP HAD HE AWO SOAVA’” 81
general servant and housekeeper in one. To these he added a
third person, a faded spinster of fifty, to whom he intrusted the
entire charge, education, and management of his only child, the
little daughter whom he hated. The burden of his complaint
during all these years was that he had “no son.”
Leonard Darel was his next-of-kin, and Leonard Darel would
be Earl of Dunhaven when he died.
It was the strangest household in England. For himself the
old earl had chosen the two best rooms; he spent his whole time
in them, reading, writing, and, it is but just to add, drinking the
finest wines that money could buy. His interest in the outer
world was all dead; here he counted his money—by some
strange oversight the whole of his wife's money had been left to
him—here he thought over the purchase of shares, the validity of
bonds—here, by some wonderful fortune, he seemed to turn
everything into gold. He never saw his child, he never asked
for her; if, by chance, he met her in any of those dark passages,
he frowned upon her, and she ran from him, frightened; he
never asked about her studies, her comforts, her likes or her dis-
likes. He grumbled when the faded spinster, Miss Darwin,
asked him for her quarter's salary. Why had he no son? How
different life would be to him if he had a son |
When Miss Darwin mildly suggested that Lady Hilda must
have dresses, he said that anything would do for her. There
would have been some pleasure in dressing a son—there was
none in providing clothes for a daughter.
When Miss Darwin found that she was left entirely to herself,


82 “WHP HAD HE MO SOMA”
and that whether she did her duty or not it was all the same-
whether she gave the child her lessions or not—she neglected
them ; there was no one to blame her, no one to remonstrate
with her. The consequence was, that the child ran wild, just
as she would; she spent her time in dreaming over the old
house, in weaving romances about the dark, gloomy rooms;
and the result of such a training was the story we have to tell.


“zIKE MY LIFE." 37
CHAPTER V.
“L I K E M Y L I F E.”
With quick, rapid, light steps she crossed the broad tract of
of green land that faced the sea, leaving Miss Darwin to gaze
after her with wide-open eyes.
“That girl will go wrong in life,” she said to herself as she
walked home. “The Dunhavens are all alike, mad either with
impulse or pride.” -
She walked through the gathering shadows of night, and en-
joyed the warm muffins none the less because there was no one
to share them with her. Lady Hilda walked down to the sandy
beach, the passion of sorrow growing in her. The waves came
in slowly; they broke with a gentle, wailing sound on the shore.
No boat, no ship broke the great, wide calm; no ripple of sun-
light touched the water; no silver gleam came from the lady
moon; all was gray, sad, and silent.
“Like my life,” cried Lady Hilda, as she knelt on the sands,
holding out her hands that the salt water might run over them.
“Like my life, without a ray of light or color. I am an earl's
daughter, and no peasant girl in the village is so lonely, so neg-
lected. I wonder if I went out into the world whether people
would like me; I wonder what I am like in the eyes of others.
>


“LIKE MP LIFE” 89
There were times when her youth rose in hot rebellion against
the strange, unnatural life of gloom and confusion; times when
she hated the dull house and the ribbed sand, the fir woods and
the moor, with a fierce hatred; when she longed for the sight
of a young face and the sound of a young voice; when all the
passion of her nature, the longing of her youth, the vague
beautiful desires that had no name, rose in fierce revolt. Then
there was no human appeal; her father would have laughed or
sneered, Miss Darwin did not understand, and Joan—she could
not confide in Joan; in those restless, passionate hours she
rushed away to her only friend, the restless, passionate sea;
there seemed some little comfort in the waves. She understood
something of what they said, their music was plain and clear to
her. There were times when she longed for those clear green
waters to carry her away. She was only sixteen, and had never
had one day's happiness, yet she was tired of her life.
I


“POUR FATHER IS DEAD.” 91
p
she said to herself.
“Some girls at sixteen have a life bright as opening day; I may
“I am sixteen, and an earl's daughter,’
live here ten, twenty years longer, without one hope or one
promise. Better to lie out here on the sands and die than live
two more such years.”
Night came at last; the gray tints of the water mingled with
the gray tints of the sky; the waves rose and fell with a sob, as
though the waters were weary. Then she rose to go home;
the silence and mystery of night had done what it always
does to human passion—it had soothed and calmed her. She
walked across the yellow-ribbed sand, over the green sward.
There, in the solemn light, stood the great, gloomy house. She
looked up at the window, so dark and mysterious.
“I could fancy a ghostly face looking at me from each win-
dow,” she said. “I know how the shadows lie in every room
—I know the great sighs and strange sounds that make the long
passages so terrible.”
She stood still for a few minutes watching the house, and as
she stood there, with the solemn, silent night around her, a
deadly chill, a deadly fear seemed to infold her—a presentiment
of some coming dread, of some indescribable horror. She has-
tened to the house. Joan met her at the door—Joan with a
scared face and wild eyes.
“I was just coming to look for you, my lady,” she said;
“your father is dead.”
“Is what, Joan *" asked the horrified girl,


92 “POUR FATHER IS DEAD.”
“Your father is dead, my lady,” repeated Joan, as she closed
the ponderous door, “and Miss Darwin wants you at once in
her room.”


ACOMG/NG FOR LOVE. 93
CHAPTER VII.
L O N G I N G F O R L 0 V E .
“Dead!” Lady Hilda Dunhaven repeated the word with
more of wonder than sorrow. It was a new word to her. She
had seen little enough of life, but she had seen even less of
death; she hardly knew what it meant. She had never seen
death; she had but a faint notion of what it meant. She said
the word over and over again to herself as she went up the great
staircase; it was but fancy, yet it seemed to her as though from
every corner she heard the whisper of that one word—“Dead.”
What was death like, she wondered, as, white, cold, and shud-
dering, she hastened to the room Miss Darwin called her own.
For once in her life that lady was roused from her apathy, and
the sight of her emotion was almost more wonderful than the
fact of the death. Miss Darwin's face was pale, her eyes dim
with tears, her voice broken with emotion.
“Your father is dead, my dear,” she cried, taking the girl's
passive hands in her own, and Lady Hilda repeated the word
“dead.” “Poor child you do not seem to understand it.”
“No,” she replied, “I do not understand it I have never
seen death, How was it?—tell me, Miss Darwin?”


94 LOWGING FOR LOVE
She stood before her calm and still, her young face white with
fear and wonder, but no realization of what had happened.
“There is so little to tell, yet it is all so dreadful; the poor,
dear earl must have been dead when we went, Hilda—only
think of it. He took luncheon as usual at one o'clock, and
Stephen left him reading with a bottle of claret just opened; he
was the same as usual; he told Stephen that he must not be
disturbed, he had some writing to do. At seven o'clock Stephen
went to speak to him and found him dead in his chair—not
only dead but cold.”
She stopped abruptly, and Lady Hilda repeated the word in
tones of wonder.
“Cold—dead and cold—poor papal”
He must have been dead for some hours,” continued Miss
Darwin; “of course I sent Stephen at once for a doctor, but all
the doctors on earth could do him no good.”
The wondering eyes looked fixedly at her.
“Why did he die?" she asked, slowly. “What killed him?"
Her lips were white and stiff, her voice sounded strangely in
its unnatural calm.
“He died of heart-disease, my dear; Dr. Hudson says that
he has consulted him several times about it; everything has been
done for him. You would like to see him, of course.”
“See him—he is dead, you say.” -
“Certainly, he is dead; but you would like to look at him,
would you not?”


LONGIWG FOR LOVE. 95
“I do not know—I should be frightened, I think, Miss Dar-
win,” she answered.
“Just as you like, my dear. You know, of course, what a
great difference this will made in your life. I have sent for
Lady Darel and Mr. Leonard–Lord Dunhaven he will be
now.”
Lady Hilda looked at her with wondering eyes. -
“Lady Darel! Who is she? Who is Lord Dunhaven? I
do not understand in the least.”
Miss Darwin sighed.
“Heaven forbid,” she said, “that I should say one evil word
of the poor dead earl—but he might have trusted you a little
more, his own child. He forbade me ever to talk to you about
family affairs.”
“He did not love me,” said the girl, sadly.
“No, he did not—he wanted a son; and he seemed as though
he could not forgive you for coming in the place of a son.”
A quiver of pain passed over the girlish face. Miss Darwin
continued :
“Mr. Leonard Darel is the late earl's next-of-kin and heir;
he succeeds to the title and estates. He will be the thirteenth
Earl of Dunhaven. Havendale Park, Fairoaks, and this house
all go to him—he takes your father's place.”
“My father's place l’ murmured the girl, sadly. “Who is
Lady Darel?”
Miss Darwin looked up with a little more animation.
“Lady Darel is the young earl's mother,” she replied; “and


LONGING FOR LOVE. 97
“You are not very complimentary to me, Lady Hilda; I
have done my best.”
“It has been a very poor best,” said the girl, sadly, “for I am
quite ignorant.” -
“It will not matter,” was the answer; “money is everything.
If your mother's fortune comes to you, you will be more sought
after than the wisest and best educated of women; you will have
money and rank; no one could desire more.”
Money and rank | The words seemed to mingle strangely
with those other words, “dead and cold;" it was like some hor-
rible jingling rhyme. She said them over and over again.
Neither she nor Miss Darwin thought of going to rest at stated
intervals. Joan brought them strong tea, and there was a great
deal said about “keeping up,” and not breaking down.
They sat and watched through the long, silent night. Miss
Darwin talked incessantly, and her one subject was the large
fortune coming to Lady Hilda, and all it would do for her. She
explained to her that nothing belonged to her, everything to the
new earl, and the girl's mind was bewildered; between the novelty
of death and the novelty of the coming fortune, she was lost.
“I may have money,” she said to herself. “I shall prize
money; but if I had been offered my choice, I would far rather
have had love. Love seems to me the most precious gift on
earth.”
She fell asleep with these ideas all struggling for pre-eminence
in her mind—her father's death, the coming fortune, and her
one great longing for love.


98 LORD DUNHAVEN
CHAPTER VIII
L OR D D UN H A V E N.
It was strange on the next day to find the gloomy house even
more gloomy, with the darkened windows and closed doors,
with the awful presence of the King of Terrors. Lady Hilda
would fain have gone to the sea, would fain have listened to what
the waves had to say about her new life; but Miss Darwin as-
sured her it must not be done; that if Lady Darel should come
and find her out, she would be seriously displeased, and Lady
Hilda was compelled to yield.
Another long, silent day passed, and on the morning of the
next they came. Lady Hilda was alone in her room; she
heard the sounds that announced the arrival; she heard the
subdued voices, the hushed footsteps, and she waited in a fever
of suspense. It seemed to her hours before Miss Darwin came
for her; then that self-satisfied lady looked as though she had
been roused from her calm.
“Come quickly, Lady Hilda,” she said; “Lady Darel has
asked to see you, and we must not keep her waiting.”
“What is she like?” asked the young girl, eagerly.
Miss Darwin raised her hands and eyes in wonder,


IOO LORD DUAVHA VEAV.
excuse me, is it possible that I am speaking to the late earl's
daughter ?”
The proud face said so plainly she could not believe the
shabby, untrained girl before her was a daughter of one of the
noblest houses in England. Lady Hilda read the thought.
“You are surprised to find me badly dressed, and without
any manners,” she said, calmly. “It is not my fault; I am an
earl's daughter, it is true, but I have envied the fisher girls.”
“You speak freely,” said her ladyship; “that is not good
manners. I must see about getting you some decent dresses at
once. What could the earl have been thinking about?”
Her face flushed suddenly as they heard the sound of foot-
steps.
“That is my son,” she said. “Lord Dunhaven.” Her eyes
added plainly: “What will he think of you?”
he door opened, and a young man entered the room.
Despite her fears and timidity, Lady Hilda looked at him with
interest—she had seen so few young people in her life.
The continuation of 46A THORN IN HER HEART2?
will be found in No. 51 of Street & Smith's NEw York WEEK-
LY, now ready and for sale by every news dealer.
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