Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter. Lynch Lawrence L.

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СКАЧАТЬ was foul play? He paused at the foot of the stairs, irresolute.

      Suddenly there was a rush of feet, and Henry came flying down, the whites of his eyes looking as if they would never resume their natural proportions. Clarence intercepted the man as he essayed to pass, evidently without having seen him.

      "Oh, sir! – Oh, doctor, come right up stairs, quick, sir," he exclaimed.

      "Was that shot from here, my man?" inquired Doctor Vaughan, as he followed up the stairs.

      "Yes, sir," hurrying on.

      "Any people in the building besides your master and the lady?"

      "No, sir; not at this time. This way, sir."

      He threw open the door and stepped back. Entering the room, this is what Clarence Vaughan saw:

      Lying upon the floor in a pool of blood, the splendid form of Lucian Davlin, one arm dripping the red life fluid, the other clasping close the form of a beautiful girl. His eyes were closed and his face pallid as the dead. The eyes of the girl were staring wide and set, her face expressing unutterable fear and horror, every muscle rigid as if in a struggle still. One hand was clenched, and thrown out as if to ward off that death-like grasp, while the other clutched a pistol, still warm and smelling of powder.

      It was the work of a moment to stop the flow of blood, and restore the wounded man to consciousness. But first he had removed the insensible girl from Davlin's grasp, laid her upon a bed in the inner room and, removing the fatal weapon from her hand, instructed Henry how to apply the remedies a skilful surgeon has always about him, especially in the city.

      At the first sure symptoms of slowly returning life, Doctor Vaughan summoned Henry to look after his master, whom he left, with rather unprofessional alacrity, to attend to the fair patient in whose welfare he felt so much interest. As he bent over the still unconscious girl, his face was shadowed with troubled thought. She was in no common faint, and feeling fully assured what the result would be, he almost feared to see the first fluttering return of life.

      At last a shudder agitated her form, and looking up with just a gleam of recognition, she passed into another swoon, thence to another. Through long weary hours she only opened her eyes to close them, blinded with the vision of unutterable woe; and so the long night wore away.

      Dr. Vaughan had given brief, stern orders, in accordance with which Lucian Davlin had entrusted his wound to another surgeon for dressing, and then, still in obedience to orders, had swallowed a soothing potion and betaken himself to other apartments.

      Henry had summoned a trusty nurse well known to Clarence Vaughan, to assist him at the bedside of Madeline.

      In the gray of morning, pallid and interesting, with his arm in a sling, Lucian reappeared in the sick room. Evidently he had not employed all of the intervening time in slumber, for his course of action seemed to have been fully matured.

      "She won't be able to leave here for many days, I should fancy?" he half inquired in a low tone, sinking languidly into a sleepy-hollow, commanding a view of the face of the patient, and the back of the physician.

      "Not alive," was the brief but significant answer.

      "Not alive! Great heavens, doctor, don't tell me that my miserable accident will cost the little girl her life!"

      "Ah! your accident: how was that?" bending over Madeline.

      "Why, you see," explained Davlin, "She picked up the pistol, and not being acquainted with the use of fire-arms, desired to investigate under my instructions. Having loaded it, explaining the process by illustration, she, being timid, begged me to put it up. Laughing at her fear, I was about to obey, when moving around carelessly, my hand came in contact with that chair, setting the thing off. The sight of my bleeding arm frightened her so that I saw she was about to faint. As I caught her I myself lost consciousness, and we fell together. But how will she come out, doctor? tell me that; poor little girl!"

      "She will come out from this trance soon, to die almost immediately, or to pass through a fever stage that may result fatally later. Her bodily condition is one of unusual prostration from fatigue; and evidently, she has been sustaining some undue excitement for a considerable time."

      "Been traveling, and pretty well tired with the journey. That, I suppose, taken with this pistol affair – but tell me, doctor, what she will need, so that I may attend to it immediately."

      "If she is living at noon," said Dr. Vaughan, reflectively, "it will be out of the question to remove her from here, without risking her life for weeks to come. If she comes out of this, and you will leave her in my hands, I will, with the aid of this good woman," nodding toward the nurse, "undertake to pull her through. It will be necessary that she have perfect quiet, and sees no face that might in any manner excite her, during her illness and convalescence."

      Davlin mused for a few moments before making answer. He did not care to excite remark by calling in unnecessary attendants. Dr. Vaughan he knew by reputation as a skilful physician. As well trust him as another, he thought, and it was no part of his plan to let this girl die if skill could save her.

      In answer to his natural inquiry as to how the doctor was so speedily on the spot when needed, Henry had truthfully replied that he knew the medical man by sight, and that, fortunately, he was passing when he ran down to the street for assistance. Davlin was further convinced that he, Henry, knew nothing save that the young lady rang for him to show her out, and he, according to orders, had obeyed.

      "Well, sir," Davlin said, at last, "I shall leave the lady and the premises entirely in your hands, as soon as the crisis has passed. Then, as my presence might not prove beneficial, while I carry this arm in a sling, at least, I will run down into the country for a few days. My man, here, is entirely at your disposal. Don't spare any pains to pull her through safely, doctor. I will look in again at noon."

      He rose and went softly out of the room, the doctor having answered him only by a nod of assent.

      "Zounds, how weak I feel," he ejaculated. "I hope the girl won't die. Anyhow, I have no notion of figuring at a death-bed scene. So I'll just keep myself out of the way until the thing is decided. Then, I'll run down and let Cora coddle me up a bit. I can explain my wounded arm as the result of a little affair at the card-table."

      Noon came, and slowly, slowly, stern Death relaxed his grasp upon the miserable girl, for Death, like man, finds no satisfaction in claiming willing victims. Slowly the life fluttered back to her heart; and because Death had yielded her up, and to retain it would be to lose her life, reason forsook her.

      Under the watchful care of the skilled nurse, and the ministrations of the young physician, she now lay tossing in the delirium of fever.

      Nothing worse to fear, for days at least, reported the doctor. So the afternoon train bore Lucian Davlin away from the city and his victim, to seek repose and diversion in the society of his comrade, Cora.

      "She will come out of this now, I think," he muttered. "Then – Oh! I'll tame your proud spirit yet, my lady! I would not give you up now for half a million."

      And he meant it.

      CHAPTER VIII.

      THREADS OF THE FABRIC

      What had become of Madeline Payne?

      The question went the round of the village, as such questions do. The servants of Oakley fed upon it. They held secret conferences in the kitchen, and grew loud and argumentative when they knew John Arthur was safely СКАЧАТЬ