CHAPTER XVI.
NO HOPE.
Alive! Could it be possible?
The negro uttered an exclamation, half terror, half surprise.
“Lawd ha’ marcy!” he ejaculated, scratching his woolly head in blank perplexity. “Dat ’ar ’ooman sho’ly is a quare ’un! Done got a lick side de head ’nuff to knock over a mule! So ’pears to me,” reflectively; “but den some folks kin stand a heap.”
Now it happened that the force of the blow was greatly exaggerated in appearance; at all events, Rosamond had made a wonderful escape; for the logs had rushed violently down the swirling stream just as she had turned aside in her mad scramble for the shore, and had dipped beneath the water like a sea-bird, coming up just in time to receive a blow upon the head, but not the brunt of the collision.
It was bad enough, however, and the negro was certainly not to be wondered at for looking upon her as a dead woman.
But now her eyes were open and staring wildly before her.
The man stooped and peered into the white face, removing his hat with the natural deference of his race for the white woman.
“Good-mawnin’, lady!” he cried, eagerly. To tell the truth, he felt wonderfully relieved to discover that she still lived. “Is you much hurt?”
But there was no answer. The great dark eyes stared blankly into the kindly black face, but there was no gleam of intelligence in their depths. They seemed utterly devoid of expression, and to all appearance sightless, as they stared up into the good-natured countenance of the black man.
He felt a strange sensation of terror quite new to him.
“Kin I do anythin’ for ye, missis?” he persisted.
But still there was no answer, no sign or motion. She lay as still as a graven image, and there was no sign of life.
But the man was relieved. She was living, and therefore, he was guiltless of having caused her death. But what could he do for her?
“I’se gwine git her over to New Orleans,” he muttered at length, decisively; “den I gwine git her inter de hospital.”
On, on, went the little boat. The still, rigid form of the woman lay motionless. Not even her eyelids quivered nor a muscle contracted. And so, at last, just about noon—at nearly the same hour when Rosamond Arleigh’s funeral services were concluded, and the coffin hidden away under the red earth piled high in the old grave-yard—poor Rosamond reached the schooner, was placed on board, and the trip to the city begun.
The negro, whose name was Clark, informed the captain of the vessel that the lady had met with an accident; and he begged so hard that the poor creature might be allowed to make the trip upon his schooner, that the captain had not the heart to refuse.
The schooner reached the city the next morning. A little later, the kind-hearted captain had made arrangements for the reception of Rosamond Arleigh at the charity hospital.
She lay upon her white bed in the accident ward, and two of the most learned physicians in the city bent over the silent form. A long and careful examination disclosed the fact that the skull had been fractured, and a bit of bone had been forced upon the brain. The physicians looked at each other.
Doctor Dane shook his head. He was the younger and less experienced of the two.
“She will die,” he said, slowly, “or——”
“Or she will live, but with a shattered intellect,” interposed Doctor Bruce, quickly. “Perhaps it would be kinder to let her die, for the alternative is horrible. But one must do the humane in such a case. One can not stand idly by and see a human creature perish, when even one frail chance remains.”
“Then you think that there may be a chance?” inquired the other physician, softly.
Doctor Bruce nodded.
“There may be; but it is a frail one, and attended with great difficulty and danger. You forget, Dane, that if the fractured skull, or the bit of bone which presses upon the brain itself should be lifted, and the brain relieved from the pressure, the probability is that the patient will be restored to her right mind. On the other hand, the prospect is that she will go down to her grave a hopeless idiot. Fine-looking woman, isn’t she? And the entire case is shrouded in mystery. Captain Cloyne, of the schooner Reine, brought her here this morning, with a brief explanation that she had been placed in his care by a negro who had rescued the woman from drowning in one of the small rivers tributary to the lake. Cloyne is really to blame for not finding out the particulars; but he looked overjoyed to get her off his hands, and really no one can wonder at it; so I was obliged to accept his meager explanation. Well, Dane, what do you say, my boy? Shall we attempt the remedy? It is all that I can prescribe; and in her case she is very frail and delicate evidently. I doubt if she can endure the operation. And I dare not administer chloroform or anything of the sort, for, if I mistake not, she has been suffering from a severe affection of the heart, and I do not think it safe to administer such a thing.”
So at length it was decided to make the attempt; but, after a delicate and tedious operation, the case was resigned as hopeless, for no good results were apparent.
A tiny portion of the skull still pressed upon the brain. Small as it was, it was enough to prevent the success of the operation, and the case was relinquished, reluctantly enough, by the two physicians as one beyond their skill.
So, after long days and nights of patient nursing, during which Rosamond slowly recovered her strength, she was removed to the Louisiana Retreat for the Insane. The case was entered upon the books in the department for unknown and mysterious cases; the newspapers published a brief paragraph; but as no one knew the name of the stream in which the unknown woman had been found, neither of the parties concerned in regard to Rosamond Arleigh’s fate for a moment thought of connecting the heroine of the newspaper paragraph with Rosamond Arleigh.
And so the affair died away into silence, and in time it was no longer discussed.
In her cell at the retreat poor Rosamond sat in stolid silence day after day, staring out between the bars of the iron grating which shut out the world beyond. Nothing interested her; there was no gleam of intelligence left within her brain. She was a hopeless idiot, perfectly harmless, but incurable. So the wise physicians had decided.
The days came and went, and weeks glided into months, but still she lived on in her dreary, aimless existence, surely the most pitiful under the sun.
And away at her old home—The Oaks—poor Violet was mourning for her mother, whom she felt certain had perished in the treacherous waters, but whom the world believed to be lying in her little grave in the old green cemetery.
Violet felt that it would be better far to know that she was indeed sleeping in the grave, rather than to feel this dreadful and secret uncertainty as to her fate.
In the meantime, Dunbar had not been idle. He had haunted the country-side; passed hours near the bridge where the cloak and slippers had been discovered; interviewed every lumberman and laborer engaged in work near the spot; but all in vain.
It chanced that the negro, Clark, who had befriended Rosamond, had remained in New Orleans, having procured employment there; so there was no chance for Dunbar to encounter him—no way for the truth to become known.
There seemed to be a strange fatality in regard to the entire affair. Poor Rosamond seemed destined to be cut off from all hope and hold on life and the world in which she no longer played her weary part. She was like one who is dead, yet is still living.
Dunbar was indefatigable. He was a true detective, and would follow the slightest clew with dogged persistency, tracking down the least hint until it dwindled away into nothing.
Doctor Danton spent money like water in his mad efforts to find some trace of Rosamond; and between the two, the truth must surely have come to light, but for the perverse fate which detained the negro in New Orleans—the only person capable of setting the detective upon the track.
It was like “looking for a needle in a bottle of hay,” so Dunbar declared; but all the same, he had sworn never to give up the search until every hope, every chance was exhausted, no matter how faint and feeble it might be.
But at last the day came when even Dunbar ceased to hope, and Rosamond’s fate was shrouded in mystery.
