“This is startling!” cried the doctor, but Cora listened silently with a ghastly face and burning eyes.
Frank Laurier continued:
“We know that it is true because I went, by Mrs. Dalrymple’s request, to her vault in Greenwood this morning, and opened the casket that we saw closed on the dead face of her daughter. It was empty.”
“Is it possible?”
“And,” continued Frank, “as if to prove correct the suspicions of our friend that her divorced husband had taken away the corpse, I found on the floor a glove that was marked inside with the name Leon Dalrymple.”
“Ah, it is true, it is true!” cried the invalid faintly, triumphantly. “My daughter lives! I shall not die now that I have that happy knowledge. And you will find her for me, Frank? Every moment is an hour till my Darling is restored to me!” cried the anxious mother.
“I will do all that is possible,” he answered, but in her anxiety she made him promise to insert personals in all the newspapers begging Jessie Lyndon to come at once to her sick mother, V. D.
Frank’s first effort was to find the chauffeur who had taken Jessie away from the steamer, but he was unsuccessful.
Days came and went with no tidings, and then more personals appeared offering rewards for news of Jessie Lyndon.
In the meantime, she had never returned to the Widow Doyle’s humble cot nor sent any message.