Lawrence Lynch - Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter

Accordingly her escort threw himself upon the soft grass, and betook himself to his inevitable cigar, while he closed his eyes and allowed the vision of Madeline to occupy the place now usurped by Cora. Very absorbing the vision must have been, for he gave an almost nervous start as Cora's voice broke the stillness:

"Lucian, did you ever see this runaway daughter of Mr. Arthur's?"

Lucian started unmistakably now. Then he employed himself in pulling up tufts of the soft grass, pretending not to have heard.

"Lucian!" impatiently.

"Eh, Co., what is it?" affecting a yawn.

"I ask, did you ever see this Madeline Payne, who ran away recently?"

"I? Oh, no. Old fellow always kept her shut up too close, I fancy. They say she was pretty, and you are the first pretty woman I have seen in these parts, Co."

"Well, then, I'm sorry you didn't," quoth Cora, "for from motives of delicacy I really don't care to inquire of others, and I have just curiosity enough to wish to know how she looked."

"Sorry I can't enlighten you, Co. Get it all out of the old fellow after the joyful event."

"Umph! Well, that business prospers, mon brave . We shall win, I think, as usual."

"Yes; and never easier, Co."

"Well, I don't anticipate much trouble in landing our fish. But come along, Lucian, this romantic dell might make you forget luncheon; it can't have that effect on me."

Cora gathered her draperies about her, and prepared to quit the little grove, her companion following half reluctantly.

Hours that seemed days; days that seemed years; weeks that seemed centuries; yet they all passed, and Madeline Payne scarce knew, when they were actually gone, that they were not all a dream.

Life, after that first yielding of heart and brain, had been a delirium; then a conscious torture of mind and body; next a burden almost too great to bear; and then a dreamy lethargy. Heaven be praised for such moods; they are saviors of life and reason in crises such as this through which the stricken girl was passing.

Madness had wrought upon her, and her ravings had revealed some otherwise dark places and blanks in her story to her guardian and nurses. Pain had tortured her. Death wrestled with her, and then, because he could inspire her with no fear of him, because she mocked at his terrors and wooed him, fled away.

In his place came Life, to whom she gave no welcoming smile. But Life stayed, for Life is as regardless of our wishes as is Death.

Forms had hovered about her; kindly voices, sweet voices, had murmured at her bedside. At times, an angel had held the cooling draught to her thirsty lips. At last these dream-creatures resolved themselves into realities:

Doctor Vaughan, who had ministered to her with the solicitude of a brother, the gentleness of a woman, and the goodness of an angel.

Olive Girard who, leaving all other cares, was ever at her bedside, and who came to that place at a sacrifice of feeling, after a wrestling with pride, bringing a bitterness of memory, and a patient courage of heart, that the girl could not then realize.

Henry, too, black of skin, warm of heart; who waited in the outer court, and seemed to allow himself full and free respiration only when the girl was pronounced out of danger.

Out of danger! What a misapplication of words!

From the scene of conflict, at the last flutter of Death's gloomy mantle, comes the man of medicine; watch in hand, boots a tiptoe, face grave but triumphant. His voice bids a subdued farewell to the somberness proper to a probable death-bed, coming up just a note higher in the scale of solemnities, as it announces to the eager, trembling, waiting ones,

" The danger is past! "

Death, the calm, the restful, the never weary; Death, the friend of long suffering, and world weariness and despair; Death, the rescuer, the sometime comforter – has gone away with empty arms and reluctant tread, and – Life, flushed, triumphant, seizes his rescued subject and flings her out into the sea of human lives, perchance to alight upon some tiny green islet or, likelier yet, to buffet about among black waters, or encounter winds and storms, upheld only by a half-wrecked raft or floated by a scarce-supporting spar.

And she is out of danger!

Hedged around about by sorrow, assailed by temptation, overshadowed by sin. And, "the danger is over!"

Buffeted by the waves of adversity; longing for things out of reach; running after ignis fatui with eager outstretched hands, and careless, hurrying feet, among pitfalls and snares. And, out of danger!

Open your eyes, Madeline Payne; lift up your voice in thanksgiving; you have come back to the world. Back where the sun shines and the dew falls; where the flowers are shedding their perfume and song birds are making glad music; where men make merry and women smile; where gold shapes itself into palaces and fame wreathes crowns for fair and noble brows; where beauty crowns valor and valor kisses the lips of beauty. And where the rivers sparkle in the sunlight, and, sometimes, yield up from their embrace cold, dripping, dead things, that yet bear the semblance of your kind – all that is left of beings that were once like you!

Out of danger!

Where want, and poverty, and – God help us! – vice, hide their heads in dim alleys and under smoky garret roofs. Where beaten mothers and starving children dare hardly aspire to the pure air and sunlight, the whole world for them being enshrined in a crust of bread. Where thieves mount upwards on ladders beaten from pilfered gold, and command cities and sway nations. Where wantonness laughs and thrives in gilded cages, and starves and dies in mouldy cellars.

Out of danger!

Madeline, the place that was almost yours, in the land of the unknowable, is given to another. The waters of death have cast you back upon the shores of the living. You are "out of danger!"

What was to become of Madeline, now that they had brought her back to life? This was a question which occurred to the two who so kindly interested themselves in the fate of the unknown and headstrong girl.

While they planned a little, as was only natural, yet they knew from what they had seen of their charge that, decide for her how they would, only so far as that decision corresponded with her own inclinations would she abide by it. So they left Madeline's future for Madeline to decide, and found occupation for their kindliness in ministering to her needs of the present.

Once during her illness, and just as the light of reason had returned to the lovely hazel eyes, Lucian Davlin came. But he found the door of the sick chamber closely shut and closely guarded. The slightest shock to her nerves would be fatal now, – they told him. And he, having done the proper thing, as he termed it, and not being in any way fond of the sight of pain and pallor, yielded with a graceful simulation of reluctance. Having been assured that with careful nursing, there was nothing to fear, he deposited a check on his bankers in the hands of her attendants, and went away contentedly, smiling under his mustache at the novelty of being turned away from his own door.

He went back to Bellair, to Cora, and to the web they were weaving, little dreaming whose hands would take up the thread and continue and complete what they had thus begun.

And now the day has come for Madeline to leave the shelter that she hates. Pale and weak, she sits in the great easy chair that had served as a barrier between herself and her enemy, and converses with Olive Girard while they await the arrival of Clarence Vaughan, who is to take them from the place so distasteful to all three.

It has been settled that, for the present, Madeline will be the guest of Olive. What will come after health and strength are fully restored, they have not discussed much. Olive Girard and Doctor Vaughan had agreed that all thoughts of the future must bring a grief and care with them, and the mind of the invalid was in no condition for painful thought and study. So Olive has been careful to avoid all topics that might bring her troubles too vividly to mind.