"There is one thing I crave more than I ought on earth, and perhaps some one might manage it for me; it is to see my husband's face again!"
A dark cloud seemed suddenly to fall over them all, and she cried in dismay:
"Why do you all look so strange and frightened? Oh, my God! do not tell me he is dead!"
"No, deares', yo' husban' ain't dead!" sighed mammy, and burst into sudden loud sobs, as she added: "Dey done tooken him away dis larst week to New York, honey. Doctor Platt, dat good ole man, yo' know, and Franklin, his body-servant, as sabed yo' from de fire, yo' know. And yo' kain't nebber look on his face no mo', fer Doctor Platt say he was gettin' dang'ous an' might hurt somebuddy, so he 'suaded Missis Ellsworth to fasten him up in a 'sylum way off yonder, an' him'll nebber come home no mo'!"
CHAPTER XXXVII.
A WONDERFUL DISCOVERY.
Fortune had indeed seemed to favor Mrs. Ellsworth.
Nearly nine months had passed since her step-son's attempted murder; and though his bodily health seemed good, no change for the better had taken place in his mental condition.
Another very pleasing fact was that Dainty Chase had never turned up again to annoy her with assertions of a secret marriage, to which she could produce no proof but her simple word. She wondered in her secret mind what had become of the girl, for her nieces were too prudent to confess to her the crime by which they supposed their beautiful cousin to have perished.