Democratic Sentinel, Volume 13, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 March 1889 — GROPING IN DARKNESS. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

GROPING IN DARKNESS.

BY JESSIE ETHEL.

BEAUTIFUL girl of eighteen sat writing a delicately scented note wt a table near the open window of the tower room of an antiquated >but pretentious mansion, located on the lake shore

a few miles from the city of Chicago, and hidden by heavy vines in the garden below a dark-eyed man of sinister face was watching her. His surveillance was apparently unsuspected, for the maiden seemed absorbed in her task, and her rich color came and went as she read the few lines she had written in a low, shy tone, sweet and mellow as golden beads dropped into a crystal dish. “My love,” it read simply, “our dream is ended! For the last time, meet me at the trysting place—Raven Cliff.”

It was directed “Victor,” and it was signed “Adrienne.” She folded the note over and over, until it was small and compact as a lozenge. Then she took up a piece of narrow silk ribbon, secured it round and round the missive, leaving the long ends free, and went to a wicker cage in wni h, pe king at the bars as if pining and fretting for liberty, was a snow-white dove of perfect plumage. It Muttered, yet lingered in her grasp as she gently urew it irom the cage and attached the note to its neck by securing the ribbon about it. Then she caressed it and set it free, with the sighing words: “Take a kiss to my own, swift mes senger—the last mission of a hopeless love!”

She saw the carrier dove pierce the ether, straight wing ng its flight into the face of the dazzling sun. watched it a speck beyond thicket and dale, and then, leaning her fair head on the table, wept a < if her heart would break. “Confu-ion!” A fierce, hissing anath•ema, ground out by the lurking tpy in the shrubbery below. The word seemed to expresi the pent-up hatred and rage of a baffled, chagr.ned plotter." “So this is her means of communicating with the man I hate!” went on the harsh, grinding voice. “Locks and ■bribed servants do not avail—love laughs at obstacles! Shall I tell her father of this? No, no! I will wait! I will watch! I will learn all! Tonight ends all. With another day, doves, lover, and mansion will be many leagues from Adrienne—and he—revenge ! ere my plans are consummated. ” An hour went by. The girl had not -changed her position. Suddenly there was a rustling sound at the window, a soft, cooing note, and a second dove, steel-blue in color, flutters I to her bosom, and her trembling hands unloosed the return message secured at its wing. With swimming eyes the girl kissed the few brief words that told her that her lover would meet her as desired. Then she placed the dove in its cage and left the room. The man in the garden smiled a sinister, cruel smite, as he lit a cigar, wandered from the house, crossed a lawn, threaded a narrow, daisy-starred path that led to a bluff overlooking the lake, and, secreting himself amid some bushes, waited, and waited, as might a fowler, sure of his prey and his snare alike. Dusk came down with slow, trailing ; garments of gray, sweeping the red from the sky and the gold from the forest aisles. A second f irm, that of a ’man graceful as an Apollo, reached the summit of Haven Cliff and lingered there. Then a quivering form, in light, pretty muslin, came to meet him. The soft caresses were fearful, the tones that spoke tremulous. The cruel eyes of the watcher glowed like lurid flame, as he heard the bold, cheering words - of the lover, the desponding accents of the girl. “No, no, Victor!” she quavered; “better let love die in sadness, grief, hopelessness, than add to it some dreaded token of revengs that will break my heart. It is useless to appeal to my father; this man Despard has him completely under his influence. He has promised him that I shall wed him, and Despard has induced him

to leave here. Should they go tonight ” “To-night!” echoed Victor, with a gasp of dismay. “I must know if they do. They shall not bear you away, and I never know to what misery they have condemned you. Promise, if they seek to leave, you will send a message—the carrier-dove ?” “I promise, but of what avail ? Would you follow us? Then Despard will do you some deadly injury. As it is, he thirsts for revenge on the man I can never cease to love. Victor! Victor! my heart will break!” Sighs, kisses, tears, a last “Promise! you will send me the message?” aud then the lovers parted, and Despaid clenched his teeth venomously. “Torture!” he groaned out. “Ah, my lady, you shall leave to-night, an.l you, Victor Dane—look your last on the love you stole from me, for my revenge is very near!” One hour later, a broken, helpless creature, Adrienne Dacre, stole to the tower room. Her face was a pall of despair. She knew the worst. By specious promises, baneful influence, Despard had induced her father to leave at midnight for his own home in the far West, where troublesome rivals would no longer annoy, and Adrienne would, amid new scenes, forget the “romanticfolly” that, teemed a bar to a favorable union.

Adrienne appealed to her father vainly. He seemed completely in Despard's power, and carelessly averred that time weuld bring her to consider a wealthy lover far more preferable than one who had a fortune and a name yet to earn. Outside, a revolver in his clasp, just beyond the garden wail, stood Despard, his basilisk glance fixed on the lighted tower-room. “If she seeks to send a message to Dane I will prevent it!” he hissed. “It would bring him here, and Dacre’s whim to remain or treat with him would be fatal to my plans. Ha! she dares. ” Yes, the casement opened. A dove, love-winged, missive-freighted, flew out into the night. The cruel marksman steadied his wrist. A quick report m ngled in echo with a despairing wp.il at the window; the dove circled, ree'ed, and, limp and disabled, disappeared amid the foliage of a great tree.

“I am revenged!” The speaker wits Despard, and his dark face was aglow with brutal triumph, as he glared down on his sec-, ond helpless victim of the night. Two miles across the country he had gone stiaight fiom the Dacre mansion, to the small villa where Victor Dane made h!s summer home.

Dane was a chemist, high in esteem among scientists, and he had filled up a room, a kind of laboratory, where he worked and experimented with retort, acid and poisons. Here he had received his messages from Adrienne, two small windows looking north just showing the turrets of the Dacre mansion.

Lost in a. reverie, "he had not heard stealthy footsteps on the stairs. The door had opened, and his rival Despard, dealing him a heavy blow, had forced him senseless to the floor. When he awoke to consciousness, Victor found himself in an arm chair, tied to it with strong cords, hand and foot, and Despard glowering wickedly down upon him. “I said look your last on your love!” he hissed, venomously. “Victor Dane, this night I carry away wife and fortune and you. Ah! I have a slow, pleasant death for you! Gigged, bound, count the minutes as they tick away, and close your eyes to waken no more. lam revenged!” In mute horror \ i dor saw the preparations made for his murder. Near by was a large retort that held a deadly, noxious gas. His rival knew of its death-dealing qualities, for he had shut the two windows closelv, turned on the nozzle, and the air of 1126 ropm began to grow dense. “Half an hour—an hour!” hissed Despard, his face like that of a demon, “and I return to find you dead. I release you, remove your bonds, and when you are discox ered people will say that you fell a victim—ha! ha!—to your love for science! ” He left the room as he spoke. Victor Dane, pale as death, tried to force his bonds. They loosened, but, alas! the insidious gas robbed mind and frame of strength. His senses reeled, his brain seemed bursting. Tap! tap! tap! At ths window a fluttering sound greeted his dull hearing. Oh! would help not come!—the base assassin relent! “Adrienne, my love!” and then Tap! tap! tap! Crash!—but the limp, palded form was motionless. “Saved! With a gasp Victor Dane opened his eyes. That horrible throbbing and choking was gone. The air was still rank and dense, but mingled with it was a cui rent of cool ar, pure as crystal as it fought the vapor with which it mingled. With a prodigious effort Victor loosened his hands. He was free an instant later. He stared at a shattered pane of glass. He picked up a warm, soft object lying beneath the window. He staggered, it in his hand, to the stairway, to the lighted study, below. The dove!—wounded, it had faltered from the shot of the cruel Despard. Then, winging its flight painfully homeward, it had tapped at its accustomed window, shattered the glass in its frantic efforts to enter, and had saved the life of its master. “Faithful dove! the message brought at the cost of love!” murmured Victor, brokenly. “Despard, woula-be assas-

sin, the law shall prevent you now!” He ran hatless from the place. He stopped at the tiist house. The sheriff of the county r'sided there. When Victor Dane again came forth it wa? with a companion, commissioned to arrest Despard for attempted murder. At the Dacre mansion they found its owner, cross, whimsical, impatient; Adrienne, veiled and in tears; the trunks pa-bed, the carriage waiting for Despard. But no Despard! Dacre stared incredulously story of the sheriff. Ha believed that Despard, affrighted : at his crime, had fled, and looked as it he was glsd of it. He only scowled when A ictor, leaving with the sheriff, i said to Adrienne in fervent tones: “Courage! Do not be prevailed on i to leave here under any circumstances. *Despards plans shall fail, believe me!” They sought Despard everywhere. At morn, wearied and unsuccessful, V ctor and the sheriff returned to his home. They entered the laboratory. "Look!” cried the sheriff in a startled tone, pointing to the floor. “Despard!” “Yes, and dead!” Dead, and horribly disfigured! Beside him lay an overturned jar, recognized by Victor as having contained a deadly acid. Despard had evidently returned the preceding night to remove all traces of murder from his victim. He had stumbled in the darkness. The fall had probably stunned him, and, his face falling in the liquid, he had inhaled its noxious poison and been suffocated. Dacre confessed that he had been duped and deluded, and did not withhold his consent to the happy marriage that took place a month later. And, treasured among relics, love tokens and bijouterie more than aught else by happy Adrienne and Victor, is the dove, rendered almost lifelike by an art preservative—the beautiful carrier dove that saved Victor Dane’s life.