CHAPTER XII.
“Look in my face; my name is Might-have-been;I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell.”
“Look in my face; my name is Might-have-been;I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell.”
“Look in my face; my name is Might-have-been;I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell.”
“Look in my face; my name is Might-have-been;
I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell.”
Leola sat up in bed among the white covers, scarcely whiter than her face, and smiled wanly into Miss Tuttle’s anxious eyes.
“I am sorry that I am better. I wish I had died,” she said, bitterly.
For twenty-four hours she had been threatened with brain fever, but now the crisis had passed, and she was improving.
Doctor Barnes, who had been very uneasy all this time, had said just now she would soon be well—that her youth and fine constitution had tided her safely over the danger point.
These two days Miss Tuttle had nursed her most carefully, admitting, by the doctor’s orders, no one but himself.
In vain Jessie Stirling pleaded to come in and help nurse the patient; Miss Tuttle sent her ruthlessly away.
“Doctor Barnes exacts perfect quiet, and trusts her only to me,” she said, proudly.
Jessie retired, baffled and angry, to cogitate over the mystery of Chester Olyphant’s disappearance.
For since he had gone to bring the doctor to Leola, no one had seen his face.
Jessie had by no means expected him to retreat from the field of battle. Instead, she had looked for him to march off with victory on his banners, the battle gained, the prize won. She knew that if Chester could get an opportunity to tell her uncle that he was rich and would pay off the mortgage on Wheatlands, he could easily gain his ends and marry Leola.
It was in dread of this that she had incited him to anger against Chester, hoping to prevent their coming to an understanding.
But Chester’s unexplained disappearance had startled and surprised everyone, for only this morning Mrs. Gray, the widow at whose cottage home he boarded, had come to Wheatlands to seek him, saying he had not been back for two days.
Diligent inquiry revealed the fact that Doctor Barnes was the last person who had seen him at all, having left him alone in the hall the day he had brought him to see Leola.
Widow Gray was quite alarmed, and did not know what to think.
“He certainly expected to return, for he did not take his trunk away,” she said, but Mr. Hermann made light of the matter.
“Go home, and don’t worry—he has perhaps been called away by a telegram, and will be back in due time,” he said.
“Indeed, I hope so, sir. He was a very fine young man, and I hope he has come to no harm,” she protested.
And again the wizard laughed:
“How could he come to harm in broad daylight in my house?”
“That’s so, sir; I don’t see how he could indeed, but I hope I shall hear from him soon, for I had bad dreams last night, and my mind misgives me,” she sighed.
Then she asked if she might see the sick girl, but was told she was too ill. Thereupon she went away, sighing, with a very long face, saying to herself:
“If I had told that horrid old man he would not have believed me, but last night I heard spirit voices sobbing in the pine tree outside my window, and whenever I hear that, it’s a sure sign of trouble.”
While she went slowly out of the gate Miss Tuttle was watching her from the window, and she said to the pale girl sitting back among the pillows:
“There goes Mrs. Gray. I suppose she has been to inquire about you.”
Leola’s wistful eyes looked at her with a mute question, and she answered, gently:
“You’re thinking of Mr. Chester Olyphant, I know, dearie, and I had better tell you and get it off your mind. He has gone away.”
“Gone away!” Leola repeated, trembling, her lips white, her eyes somber with misery.
“Yes, gone away, and a good riddance, I say, for how could he face you again after all that has happened? He has nearly broken Miss Stirling’s heart as well as yours, and she vows she will never speak to him again for your sake! Only think of the great monster, engaged to her, andcoming off down here to make love to you, because you were so pretty and so innocent. There was not a word he could say in his own defence, nothing but to sneak away like a hound beaten for stealing! Yes, he is gone, and I hope that is the last of him!”
Leola’s white, trembling hands hid her face, but presently she spoke wearily through her fingers:
“I have just one favor to ask you, dear Miss Tuttle. Never mention his name to me again, so that I may find it easier to forget.”
Alas, would she find oblivion of pain so easily?
“When vain desire at last and vain regretGo hand in hand to death, and all is vain,What shall assuage the unforgotten painAnd teach the unforgetful to forget?”
“When vain desire at last and vain regretGo hand in hand to death, and all is vain,What shall assuage the unforgotten painAnd teach the unforgetful to forget?”
“When vain desire at last and vain regretGo hand in hand to death, and all is vain,What shall assuage the unforgotten painAnd teach the unforgetful to forget?”
“When vain desire at last and vain regret
Go hand in hand to death, and all is vain,
What shall assuage the unforgotten pain
And teach the unforgetful to forget?”
To her own heart the unhappy girl was saying:
“Oh, why did I not die when I found that he was false, and my dream of love over? Why linger on when the charm is gone from life, and I must live on, shamed, humiliated, by the thought that Jessie Stirling’s proud, rich lover stooped from the height where he should dwell to pluck a wayside flower, then trample it beneath his feet? Oh, it is torture to think he held me so lightly!”