CHAPTER I
When Disaster is bigger than its victim its bolt o'erlaps the innocent.
It was some time after Gwen had fallen before Alice had succeeded in getting her upon the lounge, and then all her efforts to revive her had failed.She had remained in the same nerveless stupor as that in which I had found her.I asked Alice if she knew why this announcement had produced such an effect upon Gwen, and she returned my question with a look of amazement.
"Have you forgotten Gwen's promise to her father in this matter?"she replied."Has she not already told you that she should keep that promise, whatever the sacrifice cost her? She is, therefore, entirely at the mercy of this M.Godin, and she is also obliged to advise him of this fact, if she would carry out her father's wishes.
Is this nothing for a sensitive nature like hers? If she has any love for anyone else she must crush it out of her heart, for she is M.Godin's now.Surely, Ned, you are not so stupid as your question would indicate.""We won't discuss that," I rejoined."Let us go to Gwen and get her to bed."This done, and the sufferer made easy for the night, I glanced at the article which had so upset her, and read its sensational "scare-head." In full it ran as follows:
THE DARROW MYSTERY SOLVED!
JOHN DARROW WAS MURDERED!
The Assassin's Inability to Pay a Gambling Debt the Motive for the Crime.
EXTRAORDINARY WORK OF A FRENCH DETECTIVE!
The Net so Completely Woven About the Alleged Assassin That it is Thought He Will Confess.
The Arrest Entirely Due to the Unassisted Efforts of M.LOUIS GODIN!
I did not stop to read the article, but seized my hat and hastened at once to Maitland.
A copy of the Herald lay upon his table, advising me that he was already acquainted with the strange turn affairs had taken.He told me that he had heard the newsboys in the street calling out "The Darrow Mystery Solved!" and had at once rushed out and bought a paper.
I informed him of Gwen's condition and he wished to go to her at once, but I told him he must wait until the morrow, as she had already retired, and was, I had reason to hope, fast asleep.Ireassured him with the information that a night's sleep and the medicine I had given her would probably put Gwen in full possession of her faculties.Having thus satisfied his fears, I thought it fitting he should satisfy mine.I asked him what had become of the young woman in the next room.He did not reply, but quietly led me into his camera obscura that I might see for myself.She was sitting at the table in the centre of the room, with her face buried in her hands.I watched her for a long time, and the only movement I could discern was that occasioned ever and anon by a convulsive catching of her breath.The pet monkey was nowhere to be seen.
"They took her father away early this morning," Maitland said, "and, after the first shock, she sank into this condition.She has not moved since.When I see the despair her father's arrest has occasioned I am almost tempted to rejoice that I had no hand in it, and yet - well, there's no great harm without some small good - no one will say now that John Darrow took his own life, eh? What do you think our friends, Osborne and Allen, will say now? They were so sure their theory was the only tenable one.Ah, well! we should ever hold ourselves in readiness=20for surprises."
"And for emergencies too," I continued; "and this strikes me as being very like one.That young woman needs attention, if I am any judge of appearances, and I'm going in there." "No use, Doc,"Maitland replied, "the door is locked, and she either cannot or will not open it.I knocked there for an hour, hoping to be able to comfort her.It's no use for you to try, she won't open the door." "Won't, eh! then I'll go through it!" I exclaimed, in a tone that so amazed Maitland that he seized me by the shoulders and gazed fixedly into my face."It's all right, George," I said, answering his look."I'm going in there, and I'm not going to be at all delicate about my entrance either."He looked at me a little doubtfully, but I could see that, on the whole, he was pleased with my decision.I went into the hall and knocked loudly on the door.There was no response.I kicked it till I must have been heard all over the house, but still there was no response.It was now clear I should not enter by invitation, so I went up four or five stairs of the flight opposite the door and from that position sprang against it.I am not, if you remember, a heavy man, but momentum is MV and I made up in the 'V' what I lacked in the 'M.' The door opened inwardly, and I tore it from its hinges and precipitated both myself and it into the centre of the apartment.
As I look back upon this incident I regard it as the most precipitous thing I ever did in the way of a professional visit.If the young lady started at all, she did so before I had gathered myself together sufficiently to notice it.I spoke to her, but she gave no evidence of hearing me.I raised her head.Her eyes were wide open and stared full at me, yet in such a blank way that I knew she did not hear me.The contraction of the brows, the knotted appearance of the forehead, and the rigor of the face told me she was under an all-but-breaking tension.There were tear-stains from tears which long since had ceased to flow.The fire of fever had dried them up.
I regarded her case as far more desperate than Gwen's and determined to lose no time in taking charge of it.It seemed to me so like sacrilege to touch her without an explanation that, though I knew she could not understand me, I said to her, as I took her in my arms.
"You are ill, and I must take you away from here."She was just blossoming into womanhood and her form had that exquisite roundness and grace which it is the particular function of fashion to annihilate.If I held her closely, I think all bachelors will agree that it was because this very roundness made her heavy; if I did not put her down immediately I reached Maitland's room, it is because, as a doctor of medicine, I have my own ideas as to how a couch should be fixed before a patient is laid upon it.
