“Oh, Everard, it is all so dreadful, and sometimes my head buzzes and feels so big that I am afraid I shall go crazy, as they say I am. I have written and written to you and Bee and Lawyer Russell, and even to my brother, hoping he might be living; but no answer has come, and now I do not think my letters ever left this Maison de Sante, as they call the institution, which stands several miles back from the Danube. Take the boat at Lintz, and get off at ——, and come quick, and get me away from here before I die. I wonder I have not died before this, it is so awful to be shut up and called somebody else, and hear only a foreign language, of which at first I could not understand a word, and they tried not to let me learn. Only the doctor speaks English, and a woman called Yulah Van Eisner, who came as attendant two months ago, and who has promised to get this letter off for me.
“I spoke brother’s name to her,—Dr. Matthewson,—and she almost foamed at the mouth, and actually spit upon me because I was his sister; but I made her know I was good, made her listen to me; and she became my friend, and taught me to speak with her, and will help me to get away if she can. She says my brother is not dead; he is a villain, and wants my money; and that Myra Van Schoisner is in the grave where they say I am; and it’s all horrible, and I am so sick and frightened, and so afraid I shall be mad if you don’t come quick.
“Dear, dear Everard, come to your poor
“Rossie.”
This was all Rossie had written, but a postscript had been added, in a cramped, uneducated hand, and broken English, to this effect:
“I open this paper to tell when comes come to Hotel Rother Krebs, in Lintz, where I is work zu hause, and wait for die Amerikaner. Asks for Yulah Van Eisner. I hates him much.”
To say that Beatrice’s nerves were shaken by this letter would be putting in very mild language just how she felt. With her usual quickness of perception, she saw and understood the diabolical plot which had been so long successful, and her first impulse was to rush through the streets of Rothsay, and, proclaiming the doctor’s perfidy, have him arrested at once. Her next and soberer thought was to proceed in the matter more quietly and surely, and to this end she questioned Agnes minutely as to where and how she found the letter, and if she could throw any light upon the way in which it came there. But Agnes could not; she only knew she had found it, and that she believed Dr. Matthewson himself had by some foul method obtained possession of it and hidden it away for safe keeping, though why he had not destroyed it and so made its discovery impossible, neither she nor Beatrice could guess. Her sister, she said, was in a very strange, nervous state of mind, but she could not connect her with the crime in any way, for, unscrupulous as she might be, she would not dare make herself amenable to the law by being a party to her husband’s guilt.
This was Agnes’ view of the matter, and Beatrice coincided with her, but bade her to be very watchful at the Forrest House and see if any search was made for the missing letter, and by whom.
Beatrice’s next interview was with Lawyer Russell, who, in his surprise, bounded from his chair half-way across the room as he exclaimed:
“Lord bless my soul, Rossie alive! Rossie not dead! but hid away in a private mad-house! It’s the most hellish plot I ever heard of,—ever,—and it is State prison for him, the villain; but we must move cautiously, Miss Belknap, very cautiously, as we have the very Old Nick to deal with in that doctor. I’m glad the boy is gone just now, as it would have been like you to have blated it out to him, and then all creation couldn’t have stopped him from throttling the wretch in the street and spoiling everything. This letter was written long ago, and there’s no knowing what may have happened since to our little girl. She may be dead sure enough now, or, what is worse, mad in real earnest. So don’t go to kicking up a row just yet, till we get more proof, and then we’ll spring the trap so tight that he cannot get away. I’m honestly afraid, though, that he has done something worse with the little girl since he had this letter, which the Lord only knows how he got. He must have a key to Everard’s drawer; but we’ll fix him! and, Miss Belknap, I say, you or somebody must go to Europe and hunt up poor little Rossie. I’ll be hanged if it don’t make me cry to think of her shut up, and waiting and waiting for us to come. Go on your wedding trip. You and the parson will do better than Everard, whose name they have heard, and for whom they may be on the watch. Morton is new to them, and will excite no suspicion. This girl,—what’s her name,—Yulah Van Eisner, must be found first, of course, if she is not already put out of the way, and with her help you’ll fetch her, poor little girl. You ought to go right away, and we’ll say nothing to Everard till you’ve found her. Suspense and then disappointment would kill him outright. And he must not go; that hound would track him sure, and everything be spoiled. You must do it, and you can, better than anybody else.”