He found that Doctor Bertrand, the earnest young woman physician, and Doctor Merry, his other colleague, ably seconded him in every effort to alleviate the sadness of her fate.
Flowers were at first given her, rousing a faint interest and pleasure. She would keep them in her hands until they faded and more were brought, brooding over them with tender eyes.
Then they brought her novels and books of poetry. But it was some time before Eva showed any interest in these. The sweet flowers pleased her better.
Doctor Rupert remembered the roses that had grown in the front yard at Stony Ledge, with other homely vines and flowers dear to rural hearts—old-fashioned pinks and sweet lady-fingers, and hyacinths and bleeding-hearts, and many others that he had seen the fair golden head bending over as he rode by to tend his patients. His heart swelled with pain as he thought she would never be there again in the old home she had loved so well.
He would have been willing to lay down his life to convince the world of Eva’s innocence and purity, so that her grandfather would have taken her back to his heart again.
But he knew that if he went back to-morrow, and reiterated the story he had told to Eva—that he had been sent there by a pretense that she was ill—every one would laugh him to scorn.
But old Doctor Binks, on getting over his spree, plainly remembered sending Doctor Ludington to see his patient, and said so. Nay, more: He had sternly accused Dan Ellis of bringing him the hurry call to Eva’s bedside.
The frightened chore boy, acting under instructions from the twins, flatly denied the charge. He swore he had never been near the office of the drunken old doctor that night, and proved an alibi by the gang of neighborhood boys who had helped him in his mischievous Hallowe’en pranks.
He succeeded in convincing every one that Doctor Binks was mistaken—every one, at least, but the old man himself, who was quite sure of his facts, and horrified by the tragedy, raged at the liar, and started out to have his life for the falsehoods that made it impossible to clear little Eva’s name from obloquy.
Dan being warned in time of his murderous intentions, fled from the neighborhood, and it knew him no more for many a long day, while justice slumbered.