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.
CHAPTER XVII.
JEALOUSY.
Leonard Yorke rode away from The Oaks with a heart full of angry resentment. So, Captain Venners was coming to call upon Violet that evening. Violet was evidently deeply interested in the handsome, dashing young fellow who had won the reputation of a flirt, and who was such an immense favorite with the ladies.
Could he have been deceived in Violet Arleigh? Could it be that she was not the simple-hearted girl that he had believed her? She was fond of admiration—too fond; and, worse than all, to Leonard’s jealous fancy, she was too fond of handsome, dark-eyed Will Venners.