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Her Dark Inheritance

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<h1>HER DARK INHERITANCE</h1> By MRS. E. BURKE COLLINS <hr class="chap" /> <h2>CHAPTER I.</h2> A DARK NIGHT'S SECRET. A night of storm and tempest, the wind blowing a perfect gale; and above its mad shrieking the sullen roar of the ocean, as it beat against the shore in angry vehemence, recoiling with wrathful force, as though to gather strength for a fresh onslaught. The little town of Chester, Massachusetts, near the beach, lay wrapped in gloom and darkness, under the lowering midnight sky, "while the rains descended and the floods came." It was a terrible night, that tenth of November. One man was destined to remember that night as long as he lived. Alone in his dingy little office, Doctor Frederick Lynne sat, absorbed in the contents of a medical journal, his grave face bent over the printed page upon which his eyes were fixed with eager interest, while the moments came and went unnoticed. He closed the journal at last with an impatient gesture, and pushed it aside. Arising slowly to his feet—a tall, dark, elderly man, with a troubled, anxious expression—he went slowly over to the bright wood-fire which burned upon the broad hearth, and stood gazing down into the bed of rosy coals, the anxious look deepening in[Pg 4] his eyes. A poor country physician, with a wife and child depending upon his exertions, he found the struggle for subsistence growing harder every day. "Ugh! what a night!" he muttered, "I dread to start for home. I believe I will wait until the storm subsides a little. Heigh-ho!" clasping his hands behind his head with a weary little gesture; "if only the struggle were not quite so hard—so desperate! If only I need not slave as I do! Hard work and poor pay. It is enough to make a man discouraged, especially a man with a wife like mine. She is always longing and wishing for fine clothes, and a better home and all the luxuries that only money can supply. It drives me nearly mad at times; and there's no way of escape only to come down here to the office and lock myself in. Heavens! I wish that I were rich. I would do almost anything in the world for money; anything—almost." Tap, tap, tap, at the outer door of the office. The entire building consisted of two rooms—a private consulting-room, and the office proper, which opened out upon the long, straight village street, with its sleepy-looking stores and the great, bare, unpainted hotel, which seemed perennially empty. At sound of that unexpected summons, Doctor Lynne started in surprise. For five long years he had occupied that office, whose weather-beaten shingle told the passers-by that Frederick Lynne, M. D., might be found within; but never before within memory had he been summoned upon a night like this. Sickness was at a discount in healthy Chester, where people usually died of old age. But as he stood there, staring vacantly[Pg 5] about him, trying to persuade himself that it had been only a freak of the imagination, once more that ghostly tapping sounded upon the stout oaken panels of the office door. "It is some one!" ejaculated the astonished physician, going swiftly to the door and unbolting it. "You'd better be all night about it," growled a voice from the door-step; and Lynne saw before him a tall man wrapped in a long dark cloak, the high collar turned up about his ears, a broad-brimmed sombrero pulled down over his brows so that no feature of the face was visible save a pair of flashing dark eyes and a prominent nose. "Doctor Lynne, I presume?" queried the stranger. The physician bowed. "I am Doctor Lynne, sir," he returned, simply. "Are my services required?" "Yes. Wait a moment." The physician stood there in the open door, through which the wind swept madly, nearly extinguishing the dim light of the little oil lamp upon the reading-table, his astonished eyes fixed upon an unwonted spectacle. A closed carriage which stood without, its driver, enveloped in an oil-skin coat, sitting like a statue upon the box. The stranger walked swiftly to the carriage door and opened it. A pause ensued, during which Doctor Lynne began to feel strangely uncomfortable; then, to his relief, the stranger reappeared at the office door, bearing in his arms the slight figure of a woman. "Have you any brandy or other stimulant?" he asked, as he placed the limp, unresisting figure upon the old-fashioned sofa which stood in a corner. [Pg 6] "Certainly. Shall I administer some? The lady is—ill?" "Very ill. Will you kindly take charge of her while I go to the hotel and make arrangements for our reception there? This lady is my wife. She was taken suddenly ill on the road, and I am a stranger here." Doctor Lynne was hurriedly searching the old-fashioned corner cupboard for brandy and other restoratives. "I will do all in my power, certainly," he returned. "Have you come far?" He turned swiftly as he spoke and found that the stranger had disappeared. The physician rushed to the door and peered out into the night and storm. The carriage had disappeared also; there was no one to be seen. A strange oppression settled slowly down upon Doctor Lynne's spirits; he closed the door and went back to the fire. The silent figure upon the sofa had neither moved nor stirred; the face was hidden from view by a thick veil. But as the doctor paused before the fire to measure some brandy into the glass in his hand, the silence of the room was broken by an unexpected sound—the cry of a little child. With a start of surprise Doctor Lynne hastened to the sofa, and saw for the first time that the sick woman held a child in her arms. He stooped and attempted to remove it—a lovely, smiling little creature of some nine or ten months. "Allow me, madame," he began, gently. "The babe is too heavy, and you are ill. What is the trouble?" No answer. No sound to break the silence of the stormy night. Only, off in the distance the shriek of[Pg 7] an engine as the down express—having halted as usual at the station—the brief pause which was considered long enough for a dead-and-alive place like Chester—dashed madly on its way once more. Doctor Lynne's eyes sought the silent, recumbent form of the woman, and something in her attitude and the strange and inexplicable silence that she maintained struck to his heart with an uneasy sensation. "Madame," he repeated, venturing to lay his hand upon her shoulder, "you are ill—suffering. Tell me, where is the pain?" No answer. Something in that awful silence made his heart grow faint and cold. He lifted his hand and swiftly, reverently removed the veil from the woman's face. With a cry of horror he recoiled from the sight. The woman was dead—dead and cold, and had been for hours! He rushed to the door, and opening it glared wildly out into the night and darkness. There was no sign of any living creature. Doctor Lynne closed the door once more and went back to the silent figure upon the sofa. The face before him was very beautiful—a woman of some five-and-twenty years. The body was attired in handsome garments, and one hand—a beautiful white hand, with a plain gold ring upon the third finger—grasped, even in death, a tiny vial. The vial was empty, but it bore the hideous skull and crossbones, together with the significant legend: "Laudanum—poison." Clasped in the death-cold arms lay the child, a lovely little girl; while pinned to its dainty white slip was a folded paper addressed to "Doctor Frederick[Pg 8] Lynne." Bewildered at the strange occurrences, the physician hurriedly opened the folded paper and read these words: <blockquote> "Doctor Frederick Lynne,—You have wished many a time for wealth; the chance to acquire a competence is now in your grasp. Keep this child and rear it as your own, and every year a sum of money sufficient for her support and that of your entire family shall be forwarded to you, on condition that you make no effort to discover the child's parents or antecedents. Should you attempt such a discovery the remittance will cease. But remember this, she is of good family, well-born, and legitimate. You may call her Beatrix Dane." </blockquote> Accompanying the letter was a crisp one thousand-dollar bill. This was all, but surely it was enough to make the worthy physician stare in surprise. Inquiry the next morning elicited the information that a strange man had suddenly appeared at the station the night previous and boarded the down express. The carriage had disappeared as mysteriously as it had come, no one knew whither. The whole affair was shrouded in mystery. The coroner's inquest resulted in the verdict of "Death from laudanum, administered by some person unknown." The body was buried away in the village grave-yard, and Doctor Lynne took the infant to his humble home. It was received unwillingly enough by Mrs. Lynne—a hard-featured, high-tempered woman, who ruled her husband and household with a rod of[Pg 9] iron; but for the sake of the money she consented reluctantly to receive the child. And so Beatrix Dane grew up to womanhood; but before she reached her seventeenth year the remittances ceased, and the black shadow of poverty brooded over the cheerless home of the Lynnes. "Troubles never come singly." So just at this juncture Doctor Lynne was stricken with partial paralysis of the limbs, which would render him an invalid for life. All the future looked gloomy and threatening, and the gaunt wolf hovered at the door of the Lynnes' humble home. <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 10] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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