American fiction -- 19th century; Dime novels; Popular literature
“It won’t do—my power is not strong enough yet—it will take time; but
she says no one knows where the paper is but herself, so _I will take
care of her_. She has hid what I want, and now I’ll hide her. It will be
risky business, but there is no other way; if I go away and leave her,
some one else will have it to-morrow morning, and then the whole world
will know.”
He sat thinking the matter over for some little time, Editha standing
patiently by him, as if waiting to do his bidding still further.
“Put those things on,” he said, at last, and pointing to a hat and
waterproof that had been thrown upon the floor.
She immediately put them on.
“Now get a vail and tie over your face.”
With the humility of a servant she obeyed him.
He then went to the door and looked out.
All was still.
The gas in both halls had been partially turned off, and now burned
dimly, and nothing was moving in all that great house.
He stepped back into the room, took Editha by the arm, and said,
roughly:
“You are to go with me—see that you make no noise.”
He then led her out, down the broad stairway, through the lower hall, to
the outer door.
In a moment more they were in the street, and he hurried her from the
place as fast as she was able to walk.
Reaching a corner several blocks away, he stopped by a carriage which
seemed to be waiting there.
This he bade Editha enter, then following her, gathered up the reins and
drove rapidly away.
Very early the next morning a very respectable appearing lady and her
invalid daughter, the latter much wrapped to shield her from the
weather, arrived at the quiet hotel before mentioned.
They had come from a distant part of the State—had been traveling all
night, madam said, in order that the sick girl might avail herself of
the skill of a noted physician residing in the city.
They took rooms in the upper story of the hotel; it was not so full
usually, and more quiet; besides, madam hinted, her daughter was
sometimes not quite herself, and they preferred being where they could
not disturb others.
She took a whole suite, as her son would occasionally visit them, and be
obliged to remain over night.
And thus Editha Dalton was spirited away from her home and hidden away
in the very heart of her own city, and there she remained for several
weeks until found so strangely by Earle.
Once established there, paying regularly for their accommodations, and
giving no trouble, they were regarded as very quiet and respectable
boarders, seldom going out except when the young lady was able to ride,
closely wrapped, and vailed, and magnetized, and always in a closed
carriage, always taking their meals in their own room, as the invalid
was “unable to go to the public table,” and madam was “unwilling to
leave her poor, dear child.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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