Chapter 14

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_ CHAPTER XIV When Lester Stanwick returned to the cottage he found that quite an unexpected turn of events had transpired. Miss Burton had gone out to Daisy--she lay so still and lifeless in the long green grass. "Heaven bless me!" she cried, in alarm, raising her voice to a pitch that brought both of the sisters quickly to her side. "Matilda, go at once and fetch the doctor. See, this child is ill, her cheeks are burning scarlet and her eyes are like stars." At that opportune moment they espied the doctor's carriage proceeding leisurely along the road. "Dear me, how lucky," cried Ruth, "Doctor West should happen along just now. Go to the gate, quick, Matilda, and ask him to stop." The keen eyes of the doctor, however, had observed the figure lying on the grass and the frantic movements of the three old ladies bending over it, and drew rein of his own accord to see what was the matter. He drew back with a cry of surprise as his eyes rested on the beautiful flushed face of the young girl lying among the blue harebells at his feet. "I am afraid this is a serious case," he said, thoughtfully, placing his cool hand on her burning forehead; "the child has all the symptoms of brain fever in its worst form, brought on probably through some great excitement." The three ladies looked at one another meaningly. "She must be taken into the house and put to bed at once," he continued, authoritatively, lifting the slight figure in his strong arms, and gazing pityingly down upon the beautiful flushed face framed in its sheen of golden hair resting against his broad shoulders. The doctor was young and unmarried and impressible; and the strangest sensation he had ever experienced thrilled through his heart as the blue, flaring eyes met his and the trembling red lips incoherently beseeched him to save her, hide her somewhere, anywhere, before the fifteen minutes were up. A low muttered curse burst from Stanwick's lips upon his return, as he took in the situation at a single glance. As Daisy's eyes fell upon Stanwick's face she uttered a piteous little cry: "Save me from him--save me!" she said, hysterically, growing rapidly so alarmingly worse that Stanwick was forced to leave the room, motioning the doctor to follow him into the hall. "The young lady is my wife," he said, with unflinching assurance, uttering the cruel falsehood, "and we intend leaving Elmwood to-day. I am in an uncomfortable dilemma. I must go, yet I can not leave my--my wife. She must be removed, doctor; can you not help me to arrange it in some way?" "No, sir," cried the doctor, emphatically; "she can not be removed. As her physician, I certainly would not give my consent to such a proceeding; her very life would pay the forfeit." For a few moments Lester Stanwick paced up and down the hall lost in deep thought; his lips were firmly set, and there was a determined gleam in his restless black eyes. Suddenly he stopped short directly before the doctor, who stood regarding him with no very agreeable expression in his honest gray eyes. "How long will it be before the crisis is past--that is, how long will it be before she is able to be removed?" "Not under three weeks," replied the doctor, determinedly. "Good heavens!" he ejaculated, sharply. "Why, I shall have to--" He bit his lip savagely, as if he had been on the point of disclosing some guarded secret. "Fate is against me," he said, "in more ways than one; these things can not be avoided, I suppose. Well, doctor, as I am forced to leave to-day I shall leave her in your charge. I will return in exactly two weeks. She has brain fever, you say?" The doctor nodded. "You assure me she can not leave her bed for two weeks to come?" he continued, anxiously. "I can safely promise that," replied the doctor, wondering at the strange, satisfied smile that flitted like a meteor over his companion's face for one brief instant. "This will defray her expenses in the meantime," he said, putting a few crisp bank-notes into the doctor's hand. "See that she has every luxury." He was about to re-enter the room where Daisy lay, but the doctor held him back. "I should advise you to remain away for the present," he said, "your presence produces such an unpleasant effect upon her. Wait until she sleeps." "I have often thought it so strange people in delirium shrink so from those they love best; I can not understand it," said Stanwick, with an odd, forced laugh. "As you are the doctor, I suppose your orders must be obeyed, however. If the fever should happen to take an unfavorable turn in the meantime, please drop a line to my address, 'care of Miss Pluma Hurlhurst, of Whitestone Hall, Allendale,'" he said, extending his card. "It will be forwarded to me promptly, and I can come on at once." Again the doctor nodded, putting the card safely away in his wallet, and soon after Lester Stanwick took his departure, roundly cursing his luck, yet congratulating himself upon the fact that Daisy could not leave Elmwood--he could rest content on that score. Meanwhile the three venerable sisters and the young doctor were watching anxiously at Daisy's bedside. "Oh, my poor little dear--my pretty little dear!" sobbed Ruth, caressing the burning little hands that clung to her so tightly. "Won't you hide me?" pleaded Daisy, laying her hot cheek against the wrinkled hand that held hers. "Hide me, please, just as if I were your own child; I have no mother, you know." "God help the pretty, innocent darling!" cried the doctor, turning hastily away to hide the suspicious moisture that gathered in his eyes. "No one is going to harm you, little one," he said, soothingly; "no one shall annoy you." "Was it so great a sin? He would not let me explain. He has gone out of my life!" she wailed, pathetically, putting back the golden rings of hair from her flushed face. "Rex! Rex!" she sobbed, incoherently, "I shall die--or, worse, I shall go mad, if you do not come back to me!" The three ladies looked at one another questioningly, in alarm. "You must not mind the strange ravings of a person in delirium," said the doctor, curtly; "they are liable to imagine and say all sorts of nonsense. Pay no attention to what she says, my dear ladies; don't disturb her with questions. That poor little brain needs absolute rest; every nerve seems to have been strained to its utmost." After leaving the proper medicines and giving minute instructions as to how and when it should be administered, Dr. West took his departure, with a strange, vague uneasiness at his heart. "Pshaw!" he muttered to himself, as he drove briskly along the shadowy road, yet seeing none of its beauty, "how strange it is these young girls will fall in love and marry such fellows as that!" he mused. "There is something about his face that I don't like; he is a scoundrel, and I'll bet my life on it!" The doctor brought his fist down on his knee with such a resounding blow that poor old Dobbin broke into a gallop. But, drive as fast he would, he could not forget the sweet, childish face that had taken such a strong hold upon his fancy. The trembling red lips and pleading blue eyes haunted him all the morning, as though they held some secret they would fain have whispered. All the night long Daisy clung to the hands that held hers, begging and praying her not to leave her alone, until the poor old lady was quite overcome by the fatigue of continued watching beside her couch. Rest or sleep seemed to have fled from Daisy's bright, restless eyes. "Don't go away," she cried; "everybody goes away. I do not belong to any one. I am all--all--alone," she would sigh, drearily. Again she fancied she was with Rex, standing beneath the magnolia boughs in the sunshine; again, she was clinging to his arm--while some cruel woman insulted her--sobbing pitifully upon his breast; again, she was parting from him at the gate, asking him if what they had done was right; then she was in some school-room, begging piteously for some cruel letter; then out on the waves in the storm and the on-coming darkness of night. The sisters relieved one another at regular intervals. They had ceased to listen to her pathetic little appeals for help, or the wild cries of agony that burst from the red feverish lips as she started up from her slumbers with stifled sobs, moaning out that the time was flying; that she must escape anywhere, anywhere, while there were still fifteen minutes left her. She never once mentioned Stanwick's name, or Septima's, but called incessantly for Rex and poor old Uncle John. "Who in the world do you suppose Rex is?" said Matilda, thoughtfully. "That name is continually on her lips--the last word she utters when she closes her eyes, the first word to cross her lips when she awakes. That must certainly be the handsome young fellow she met at the gate. If he is Rex I do not wonder the poor child loved him so. He was the handsomest, most noble-looking, frank-faced young man I have ever seen; and he took on in a way that made me actually cry when I told him she was married. He would not believe it, until I called the child and she told him herself it was the truth. I was sorry from the bottom of my heart that young fellow had not won her instead of this Stanwick, they were so suited to each other." "Ah," said Ruth, after a moment's pause, "I think I have the key to this mystery. She loves this handsome Rex, that is evident; perhaps they have had a lovers' quarrel, and she has married this one on the spur of the moment through pique. Oh, the pretty little dear!" sighed Ruth. "I hope she will never rue it." _

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