CHAPTER XXV.

ITALY’S CLUE.

The next day found Mrs. Vale and Italy tenderly cared for at the home of good Mrs. Mays.

Professor Doepkin had called a carriage and taken them there the night before, commending them to the care of the good landlady and beautiful Mrs. Severn, the sad-faced young widow.

Mrs. Vale was confined to her bed from the effects of severe nervous shock. Italy was up and about, although very pale and grave-looking, with the memory of last night. It seemed like a dream to her, the way she had awakened last night in the blinding smoke and glare, with the crackling of the flames in her ears, and the loud shouts of the excited throng outside blending with the pandemonium of noise.

She would never forget those few moments of awful anguish when she had realized the horror of her position, and, knowing herself caught like a rat in a trap, felt that escape was impossible, that she must die this awful death by fire. Then suddenly the door had been wrenched apart, and through the stifling smoke rang a familiar voice:

“Italy! Italy! Are you here? Speak!”

With a cry of joy, she moved toward the welcome voice, and through the awful heat and blinding smoke reached his arms that clutched her eagerly.

“Be brave. Fear nothing, for I will save you,” he cried, as he clasped her close, and a mighty flood of joy rolled over her even in the horror of the position. Then a sudden terror drove the blood coldly back upon her heart.

“Mama!” she shrieked.

“Is safe. I carried her out to the street ten minutes ago,” replied her rescuer, as he toiled through the corridor, and, reaching the stairway, began the descent, holding the blanket carefully over her head that not one hair of those dark, shining tresses should be scorched by the leaping flames that put out tongues of fire at them as they passed.

At last--after an eternity it seemed--he bore her into the street, and the fresh, cold air blew into her face like a breath from heaven.

She was safe, and not one hair of her head was harmed--safe, and there was her mother, too. Both owed their lives to this noble hero.

He with his face and hands almost blistered by the heat he had defied, his fair, curly beard and hair singed by the fire, had disappeared from sight as soon as he had put them in the care of Mrs. Mays, and the afternoon of another day had come, still he was missing.

Italy left her mother asleep and stole down to the parlor. It was just after luncheon.

Ralph Allen and Emmett Harlow were there reading. Mrs. Severn was at the window with a bit of sewing--a melancholy black figure with smileless lips and pallid cheeks, yet beautiful in a strange, haunting fashion that had tempted the young artist to ask her to set to him as “Niobe.”

She had refused gently but firmly, and their plan for winning her into the outside world had failed. She never crossed the threshold of her home. She was breaking her heart in silent grief for the dead.

“Where is Professor Doepkin? I wish to thank him for his bravery last night,” Italy said abruptly, and Emmett answered lightly:

“Pray do not attempt anything so rash. The professor is a very modest man--really bashful, I think--and he would be overwhelmed with confusion if you applauded his conduct last night.”

“I think you are jesting with me,” said the girl. “It would seem most ungrateful in me not to express my gratitude to this hero,” and her dark eyes kindled so fervently that Emmett sighed to himself:

“I wish I stood in the hero’s shoes. But never mind, my boy, you have done something to deserve her gratitude, after all, and some day she will know it and appreciate it, although it can never win for you that treasure--her love.”

“I wish very much to see him!” cried Italy almost yearningly.

“He is asleep, Italy, exhausted by his efforts last night,” said Ralph; and Emmett chimed in:

“If you are in a hurry to thank him, you may write a little note, for, really, I do not believe he will be willing to present himself before you for a week or so, as his personal appearance was seriously injured by getting his hair and whiskers singed last night. The handsome professor is very proud of his whiskers, and very likely he will not be visible until they grow again.”

“I fancy that he would be quite as handsome without his whiskers as with them,” Italy replied, with so significant a tone and glance that Emmett started, colored, and exclaimed:

“What do you mean?”

“Oh--nothing,” she answered, sitting down and taking up a newspaper; while Mrs. Severn said to her softly:

“The professor did sustain some painful burns on his hands, and his face is somewhat blistered, too. So he is keeping his room very quietly to-day--I think he quite understands all your gratitude without your expressing it.”

Italy thanked her with a smile, and just then Ralph Allen spoke:

“I am reading one of the most terrible tragedies ever printed or enacted.”

“The world is full of tragedies,” said Emmett Harlow. “What is this one, Ralph?”

“It is a story of love and insanity,” replied Ralph, and every one shuddered, while Mrs. Severn cried out eagerly:

“Read it, Mr. Allen.”

“It is too long--several columns of the New York _World_--so I will tell it to you in my own words. But it will sound very shocking to you ladies, for it is the story of one girl who murdered another one that she loved.”

“One that she loved--how could that be?” cried Emmett.

And Ralph answered:

“She was insane. But let me tell you the story:

“They were two beautiful young girls down South--let me see--yes, Memphis, Tennessee--and they loved each other devotedly and with such excess that Alice, the elder girl, declared she meant to marry the beautiful Freda that she loved so well. They wrote each other impassioned love-letters, and Alice was jealous of every one that admired her schoolmate, pretty Freda. The affair went on until Freda’s friends began to disapprove of it, and tried to break off the romantic, girlish intimacy. They parted them, and Alice almost went mad with despair. When she heard that Freda’s friends were going to remove her from the city she could not bear it. One day Alice was riding out in a buggy with Lillie, another friend of hers, and they saw Freda on the street with her sister and some friends.

“‘Let me get out one moment. I wish to bid Freda farewell,’ said Alice coolly.

“It all happened in a minute. Alice ran after Freda, threw her arms around her neck, drew back the lovely head, and in an instant had cut her friend’s throat. Freda fell dead on the pavement, and Alice flew back to the buggy and sprang in as coolly as if nothing had happened.”

“Horrible!” shuddered Emmett.

But the girls sat still, pallid, and with dilated eyes.

“Only think of it, she murdered her dearest friend, the girl she loved to madness!” cried Ralph. “But she was insane. At the trial she was proved insane, and the _World_ tells here that she has been placed in a lunatic asylum for life. But how pale you ladies look! I ought not to have told you this awful story, especially after Italy’s shock last night. It is too much for her nerves----Italy!”

He ran to her assistance, for her face had whitened to the hue of death, and she was slipping inertly from her chair down to the floor.

Italy had indeed fainted, but it was not so much from the shock of hearing of that strange tragedy as from the awful and startling suspicion it had put into her mind.

Mrs. Severn quickly brought restoratives, and presently the young girl sat up, looking about with dazed, wondering eyes, while Ralph murmured contritely:

“Forgive me for telling that tragic story. I had forgotten that you were nervous from last night.”

A light of remembrance leaped into her eyes, and she faltered:

“You were very kind--that is, it was very interesting. I should like to read it in the papers, please.”

In some surprise, he placed it in her hand.

“I must return to mama now, I think,” she murmured, and hurried from the room.

Mrs. Vale was still sleeping calmly and sweetly, and Italy turned from the bed with wild excitement.

“We have all been blind--blind!” she ejaculated. “Only to think how that man has fooled us all! What was that gleam I saw sometimes in those strange, glittering eyes of his? It was madness, I feel sure of it now. It is he--my father’s dearest friend, as they called him--who murdered my father. I must send for Mr. Gardner. I must tell him all my suspicions.”

She went out and sent the message for the lawyer, then returned to the room and read and reread the revolting story, of that crime far away in the sunny southland where one beautiful young girl had murdered another one through insane love and jealousy.

“It is the clue I needed, the key to the mystery of my father’s murder, but, oh, can I prove it? How cunningly the fiend has drawn the network of safety around himself, while he blackened my mother’s fame and then threw his crime on the innocent shoulders of Francis Murray. Oh, could my father have loved this wretch? Did he ever suspect aught of his treachery? What was written in that missing diary that my father guarded so jealously from every eye? Where is it now? Oh, I would give the world to know!”

Mr. Gardner’s presence was announced at that moment, and she hurried down, to find him awaiting her in the little parlor quite alone.

“Read this. Do not ask me why, but read it,” she cried, thrusting the _World_ into his hand.

The lawyer adjusted his glasses and read, while she paced impatiently up and down like some beautiful caged creature.

“Well?” he asked, laying the paper down.

She paused in front of him, the incarnation of wild emotion, trembling, her eyes glowing like stars.

“You have no clue yet?” she demanded hoarsely.

“None. I have never chanced upon a more baffling mystery.”

“You hold the key to it all in your hand,” she replied, with a gesture toward the paper.

“Explain,” he cried eagerly.

“Look you,” she said, “that girl was murdered by her dearest friend--mark you, her dearest friend! And my father, my poor father, met his death in the same fashion. The murderer is Percy Seabright!”

“Impossible! He could prove an alibi. He was in New York.”

“I do not believe it. Investigation might prove the falsity of the assertion. Let me tell you everything,” and she poured forth rapidly the facts her mother had told her on Christmas day.

“Mrs. Vale did not tell me any of these facts,” he said, with a sudden frown.

“She did not deem them of the least importance. It was merely by accident that she told me,” explained Italy.

“And yet they are really of the gravest importance. You did right to send for me. I am almost convinced that your theory is correct. I have thought Mr. Seabright strange at times. His manners, alternating from reckless gaiety to the deepest gloom, were not those of a well-balanced person. And his eyes, so dark, so glittering, I have sometimes thought there was something uncanny in them. You know he was a student of hypnotism, and I have seen him try to influence people with a cold, hard stare that made me nervous. Yes, now that you have thrown so much light on my darkness, I begin to suspect him. That diary you place so much stress on may be concealed in his country home. It will be quite easy for me to introduce some person into the house to search for it.”

“Pray do so. I place all my hopes on the contents of that diary.”

“You are sanguine. It will never be found, I fear. But we will try to trap our game without it. But be wary, Italy. Keep your suspicions to yourself, lest he escape us. He must be watched every step now. Ah! I have just thought of his marriage. You know it takes place in January, and he sails for Europe on his bridal-tour. He will outwit us.”

There was dismay in his voice and face.

“You have a week to work in!” she exclaimed.

“Too short, my child. Ah, if only it could be postponed! Indeed, it ought to be, for, although I don’t admire his fiancée, we ought not to let her wed such a monster as we may prove him to be.”

“Mrs. Dunn is no saint, sir,” Italy replied, with a curling lip of utter scorn.

She hesitated a moment, then said:

“Mr. Gardner, I believe I know a way to prevent the marriage at the eleventh hour, and, if necessary to the success of our plans, I will not hesitate to use my power. But I will not do so yet. If all else fails, send me a note the last day, and I think I can prevent the bridal-tour and keep him here.”

He looked at her a little curiously, but she shook her head, and said:

“It would not be right for me to explain, for it would involve the betrayal of another’s secret. I wish to avoid that, if possible, and nothing would tempt me to reveal it unless in the event of peril to myself from keeping it!”

He left her; but one week later, on the very day of the bridal, there came to her a little note that said simply:

“Get that marriage postponed, if you can. I have discovered too much to permit him to escape.”