CHAPTER LII

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BREAKING THE NEWS TO EVERARD.

It was an hour behind the usual time when the train from the north stopped for a moment at Rothsay, and four people, or rather three, stepped out into the storm, and hurried to the shelter of the carriage waiting for them. The fourth, whose face was carefully hidden from sight, was carried in the strong arms of Yulah, and held like a child until Beatrice’s house was reached, where it was taken at once to the room which Rossie used to occupy, when visiting at Elm Park. Rossie was very tired and very weak, both in body and mind, but had not seemed at all excited during the journey from New York until Rothsay was reached, and she was in the carriage riding along the old familiar road she had once thought she should never see again. Then she roused from her apathy, and sitting upright looked eagerly out through the driving rain toward the Forrest House, which lay to their right, and seemed to blaze with lights, as the startled servants moved rapidly from room to room,—for it was just then that the soul had taken wing and was on its flight to the world untried.

“Look, look!” she said, “so many lights in the old home, as if to welcome me back. Is Everard there waiting for me?”

“No, Rossie,” Beatrice said. “We are not going there to-night. I thought it best to bring you home with me until you have seen Everard.”

There was a little sigh of disappointment, and then Rossie laid her head on Yulah’s arm, and did not speak again until she was on the soft bed in the blue room at Elm Park, where, when Bee asked her how she felt, she whispered: “So happy and glad, because I shall see him in the morning; send for him very early.”

And when the morning came a message was dispatched to Everard to the effect that Mr. and Mrs. Morton had returned and wished to see him immediately. But another message had found its way to the office before this one, for knots of crape were streaming in the November wind from every door-knob at the Forrest House, and the village bell was tolling in token that some soul had gone to the God who gave it.

In his office Everard sat listening to the bell, every stroke of which thrilled him with a sensation of something like dread, as if that knell of death were in some way connected with himself. Who was it dead that day that the bell should clamor so long, and would it never strike the age, he asked himself, just as the door opened and Lawyer Russell came in, flurried and excited, and red and white by turns as he shook the rain-drops from his overcoat, for the storm, though greatly abated, was not over yet.

“Who is dead? Do you know?” Everard asked, and Mr. Russell replied:

“Yes, Ned; it will be a great shock to you,—an infernal shock,—though of course you were all over any hankering after her; but it’s that Matthewson woman. She died last night, and there’s about forty yards of crape flying from the doors up there, and the doctor, they say, is actually taking on to kill, and blubbering like a calf; but we’ll fix him. You’ll see; he’s watched; there’s a po——oh, Lord! what have I said, or come near saying?”

And in his disgust at himself for having nearly let out the secret before the time, the lawyer retreated into the adjoining room, leaving Everard alone to meet what _had_ been a terrible shock to him, for though he had heard at different times from Agnes of Josephine’s illness, he had never believed her dangerous; and now she was dead; the woman he once fancied that he loved. There were great drops of sweat about his mouth and under his hair, and his lips quivered nervously while, human as he was, there came over him with a rush the thought that now indeed he was free in a way which even Rossie would have recognized had she been alive. But Rossie, too, was dead; his freedom had come too late.

“Everybody is dead,” he whispered, sadly, while hot tears sprang to his eyes and rolled down his cheeks,—tears, not for the woman at the Forrest House, for whom the bell kept steadily tolling, but for the dear little girl dead, as he believed, so far away, but who, in reality, was so very near, and even then asking when he would come.

“Soon, darling, soon,” Beatrice said, for she had sent a note to Everard, and the messenger was at his office door and in the room before Everard was aware of his presence.

“Mrs. Morton at home!” he exclaimed, as he took the note from the servant’s hand.

“DEAR EVERARD,” Beatrice wrote, “we came home last night on the late train, and I am so anxious to see you, and have so much to tell. Don’t delay a minute, but come at once.

Yours, BEE.”

She had something to tell him of Rossie, of course, and in an instant he was in the street, speeding along toward Elm Park, and glancing but once in the direction of the Forrest House, where every blind was closed, and where, through the leafless trees, he could see the flapping of the yards of crape which Lawyer Russell had said were streaming from the doors. For an instant a cold shudder went over him as if he had seen a corpse, but that soon passed away, and when Elm Park was reached he was in such a fever of excitement that the sweat-drops stood like rain upon his face, which, nevertheless, was very pale, as he greeted Beatrice, and asked:

“Did you hear anything of her? Did you find her grave, or see any one who was with her at the last?”

Beatrice had planned everything thus far with great coolness and nerve. She had kept Rossie quiet, and made her very sweet and attractive in one of her own dainty, white wrappers, and arranged her beautiful hair, which had been kept short at the _Maison de Sante_, but which was now growing in soft, curling rings, giving to her small, white face a singularly young expression, so that she might easily have passed for a child of fourteen as she reclined upon the pillows, a smile upon her lips, and an eager, expectant look in her large, bright eyes, turning constantly to the door at every sound which met her ear. At last she heard the well-remembered voice in the hall below and the step upon the stairs, for Bee had after all lost her self-control, and in answer to Everard’s rapid questions, had said: “We did hear news of Rossie, and, oh, Everard, don’t let anything astonish or startle you, but go up stairs to the blue room, Rossie’s old room, you know.”

He did not wait to hear more, but darted up the stairs, expecting, not to find his darling there alive, but dead, perhaps, and thus brought back to him, for Bee was capable of anything; so he sped on his way, and entered the room where the fire burned so brightly in the grate, and flowers were everywhere, while through the window came a sudden gleam of sunlight, which fell directly on the couch where lay, not a dead, but a living Rossie, with a halo of gladness on her face, and in her beautiful eyes, which met him as he came so swiftly into the room, pausing suddenly with a cry, half of terror, half of joy, as he saw the little girl among the pillows raise herself upright and stretch her arms towards him, while she called so clearly and sweetly: “Oh, Everard, I am home again, and you _may_ kiss me once.”

There was a sudden movement of his hand to his head as if the blow had struck him there, and then he staggered rather than walked toward the white-robed figure, which sprang into his arms and nestled there like a frightened bird which has been torn from its nest and suddenly finds itself safe in its shelter again. For an instant Everard recoiled from the embrace as if it were a phantom he held, but only for an instant, for there was nothing phantom-like in the warm flesh and blood trembling in his arms; nothing corpse-like in the soft hands caressing his face, or in the eyes meeting his so fondly. It was Rossie herself come back to him from the grave where he had thought her buried, and the shock was at first so overpowering that he could not utter a word; he could only look at her with wildly staring eyes, and face which quivered all over with strong emotions, while his heart beat so loudly that every throb was audible to himself and Rossie, who, as he did not speak, lifted her head from his shoulder and said, “What is it, Everard? Are you not glad to have me home again?”

That broke the spell, and brought a shower of kisses upon her face and lips, while he murmured words of fondness and love, and poured forth question after question, until Rossie grew bewildered and confused, and whispered faintly: “I don’t know; I don’t understand; I am very tired; ask Beatrice, she knows; she did it; let me lie down again.”

He saw how pale and weary she looked, and placed her among the pillows, but held her hands in his, while he turned to Beatrice, who had been standing just outside the door, and who now came forward.

“Not here; Rossie is too tired. She cannot bear it,” she said, as he asked her what it meant, and where she had found his darling.

Then, drawing him into the adjoining room, she told him very rapidly all the steps which had led to Rossie’s release from the mad-house, which had been intended as her living tomb. And as he listened to the story, Everard grew more and more enraged, until he seemed like some wild animal roused to the highest pitch of fury; and seizing his hat, was about rushing from the room, when Beatrice detained him; and, locking the door to prevent his egress, said to him: “I know what is in your mind. You wish to arrest the doctor at once, but there is no haste at present. Everything has been attended to for you. Ever since Lawyer Russell heard from me that Rossie was alive, the Forrest House has been under close espionage, and escape for the doctor made impossible. Last night, in all that storm, officers were on guard, so that he could not get away if he had received a hint of what has been done.”

“Yes, I know; but now,—now,—why not seize him now? Why wait any longer, when I long to tear him limb from limb?” Everard exclaimed, gnashing his teeth in his rage, and seeming to Beatrice like a tiger doing battle for its young.

“Because,” she answered, and she spoke softly now, “we must hold his sorrow sacred. We must let him bury his dead. Surely you know that Josephine died last night?”

“Yes, yes, but I’d forgotten it in my excitement,” he gasped, and his face was whiter, if possible, than before. “You are right; we must not molest him now, but have a double watch,—yes, treble, if necessary. He must not escape.”

There was terrible vengeance in Everard’s flashing eyes as he paced up and down the room. Dr. Matthewson, though he were ten times Rossie’s brother, had nothing to hope from him; but for the sake of the dead woman lying in such state at the Forrest House, he must keep quiet and bide his time. So, after another interview with Rossie, whose weak state he began to understand more plainly, he left her, and schooled himself to go quietly back to his office and transact his business as if he were not treading the borders of a mine which would explode when he bade it do so. At his request, the number of officers was doubled, and every possible precaution taken lest the victim should escape, which he did not seem likely to do, for he made a great show of his grief, and sat all day by the side of his dead wife, seeing no one but Agnes and those who had the funeral in charge. Thus, he did not even know of Beatrice’s sudden return, which took the people so by surprise, and was the theme of wonder and comment second only to the grand funeral for which such great preparations were making, and which was to take place the third day after the death.

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