CHAPTER XXX.
"My God!" cried Basil Hurlhurst, starting to his feet, pale as death,his eyes fairly burning, and the veins standing out on his foreheadlike cords, "you do not know what you say, woman! My littlechild--Evalia's child and mine--not dead, but stolen on the night itsmother died! My God! it can not be; surely you are mad!" he shrieked.
"It is true, master," she moaned, "true as Heaven."
"You knew my child, for whom I grieved for seventeen long years, wasstolen--not dead--and dared to keep the knowledge from me?" he cried,passionately, beside himself with rage, agony and fear. "Tell mequickly, then, where I shall find my child!" he cried, breathlessly.
"I do not know, master," she moaned.
For a few moments Basil Hurlhurst strode up and down the room like aman bereft of reason.
"You will not curse me," wailed the tremulous voice from the bed; "Ihave your promise."
"I can not understand how Heaven could let your lips remain silencedall these long, agonizing years, if your story be true. Why, yourselftold me my wife and child had both died on that never-to-be-forgottennight, and were buried in one grave. How could you dare steep yourlips with a lie so foul and black? Heaven could have struck you deadwhile the false words were yet warm on your lips!"
"I dared not tell you, master," moaned the feeble voice, "lest theshock would kill you; then, after you recovered, I grew afraid of thesecret I had dared to keep, and dared not tell you."
"And yet you knew that somewhere in this cruel world my little childwas living--my tender, little fair-haired child--while I, her father,was wearing my life out with the grief of that terrible double loss.Oh, woman, woman, may God forgive you, for I never can, if your wordsbe true."
"I feared such anger as this; that is why I dared not tell you," shewhispered, faintly. "I appeal to your respect for me in the past tohear me, to your promise of forgiveness to shield me, to your love forthe little child to listen calmly while I have strength to speak."
He saw she was right. His head seemed on fire, and his heart seemedbursting with the acute intensity of his great excitement.
He must listen while she had strength to tell him of his child.
"Go on--go on!" he cried, hoarsely, burying his face in thebed-clothes; "tell me of my child!"
"You remember the terrible storm, master, how the tree moaned, andwithout against the western wing--where your beautiful young wife laydead, with the pretty, smiling, blue-eyed babe upon her breast?"
"Yes, yes--go on--you are driving me mad!" he groaned.
"You remember how you fell down senseless by her bedside when we toldyou the terrible news--the young child-bride was dead?"
She knew, by the quivering of his form, he heard her.
"As they carried you from the room, master, I thought I saw a woman'sform gliding stealthily on before, through the dark corridors. A blazeof lightning illumined the hall for one brief instant, and I can swearI saw a woman's face--a white, mocking, gloriously beautifulface--strangely like the face of your first wife, master, Pluma'smother. I knew it could not be her, for she was lying beneath thesea-waves. It was not a good omen, and I felt sorely afraid andgreatly troubled. When I returned to the room from which they hadcarried you--there lay your fair young wife with a smile on herlips--but the tiny babe that had slumbered on her breast was gone."
"Oh, God! if you had only told me this years ago," cried the unhappyfather. "Have you any idea who could have taken the child? It couldnot have been for gain, or I should have heard of it long ago. I didnot know I had an enemy in the wide world. You say you saw a woman'sface?" he asked, thoughtfully.
"It was the ghost of your first wife," asserted the old housekeeper,astutely. "I never saw her face but once; but there was somethingabout it one could not easily forget."
Basil Hurlhurst was not a superstitious man, yet he felt a strange,unaccountable dread stealing over him at the bare mention of such athing. It was more than he could endure to hear the name of the wifehe had loved, and the wife who slept beneath the wild sea-waves,coupled in one breath--the fair young wife he had idolized, and thedark, sparkling face of the wife who had brought upon him suchwretched folly in his youth!
"Have you not some clew to give me?" he cried out in agony--"some wayby which I can trace her and learn her fate?"
She shook her head.
"This is unbearable!" he cried, pacing up and down the room like onewho had received an unexpected death-blow. "I am bewildered! MercifulHeaven! which way shall I turn? This accounts for my restlessness allthese years, when I thought of my child--my restless longing andfanciful dreams! I thought her quietly sleeping on Evalia's breast.God only knows what my tender little darling has suffered, or in whatpart of the world she lives, or if she lives at all!"
It had been just one hour since Basil Hurlhurst had entered that room,a placid-faced, gray-haired man. When he left it his hair was white assnow from the terrible ordeal through which he had just passed.
He scarcely dared hope that he should yet find her--where or how heshould find her, if ever.
In the corridor he passed groups of maidens, but he neither saw norheard them. He was thinking of the child that had been stolen from himin her infancy--the sweet little babe with the large blue eyes andshining rings of golden hair.
He saw Pluma and Rex greeting some new arrivals out on the flower-borderedterrace, but he did not stop until he had reached his own apartments.
He did not send for Pluma, to divulge the wonderful discovery he hadmade. There was little sympathy or confidence between the father anddaughter.
"I can never sleep again until I have some clew to my child!" hecried, frantically wringing his hands.
Hastily he touched the bell-rope.
"Mason," he said to the servant who answered the summons, "pack myvalise at once. I am going to take the first train to Baltimore. Youhave no time to lose."
He did not hear the man's ejaculation of surprise as his eyes fell onthe face of the master who stood before him with hair white assnow--so utterly changed in one short hour.
"You couldn't possibly make the next train, sir; it leaves in a fewmoments."
"I tell you you _must_ make it!" cried Basil Hurlhurst. "Go and do asI bid you at once! Don't stand there staring at me; you are losinggolden moments. Fly at once, I tell you!"
Poor old Mason was literally astounded. What had come over his kind,courteous master?
"I have nothing that could aid them in the search," he said tohimself, pacing restlessly up and down the room. "Ah! stay!--there isEvalia's portrait! The little one must look like her mother if she isliving yet!"
He went to his writing-desk and drew from a private drawer a littlepackage tied with a faded ribbon, which he carefully untied withtrembling fingers.
It was a portrait on ivory of a beautiful, girlish, dimpled face, withshy, upraised blue eyes, a smiling rosebud mouth, soft pink cheeks,and a wealth of rippling, sunny-golden hair.
"She must look like this," he whispered. "God grant that I may findher!"
"Mr. Rex Lyon says, please may he see you a few moments, sir," saidMason, popping his black head in at the door.
"No; I do not wish to see any one, and I will not see any one. Haveyou that satchel packed, I say?"
"Yes, sir; it will be ready directly, sir," said the man, obediently.
"Don't come to me with any more messages--lock everybody out. Do youhear me, Mason? I _will_ be obeyed!"
"Yes, sir, I hear. No one shall disturb you."
Again Basil Hurlhurst turned to the portrait, paying little attentionto what was transpiring around him. "I shall put it at once in thehands of the cleverest detectives," he mused; "surely they will beable to find some trace of my lost darling."
Seventeen years! Ah, what might have happened her in that time? Themaster of Whitestone Hall always kept a file of the Baltimore papers;he rapidly ran his eye down the different columns.
"Ah, here is what I want," he exclaimed, stopping short. "Messrs.
Tudor, Peck & Co., Experienced Detectives, ---- Street, Baltimore.They are noted for their skill. I will give the case into their hands.If they restore my darling child alive and well into my hands I willmake them wealthy men--if she is dead, the blow will surely kill me."
He heard voices debating in the corridor without.
"Did you tell him I wished particularly to see him?" asked Rex, ratherdiscomfited at the refusal.
"Yes, sir," said Mason, dubiously.
"Miss Pluma, his daughter, wishes me to speak with him on a veryimportant matter. I am surprised that he so persistently refuses tosee me," said Rex, proudly, wondering if Pluma's father had heard thatgossip--among the guests--that he did not love his daughter. "I do notknow that I have offended the old gentleman in any way," he toldhimself. "If it comes to that," he thought, "I can do no more thanconfess the truth to him--the whole truth about poor little Daisy--nomatter what the consequences may be."
Fate was playing at cross-purposes with handsome Rex, but no subtlewarning came to him.