第102章 Voices of Nature.(1)

Before retiring,Ida had unfastened her door,so that her mother,finding her sleeping,might leave her undisturbed as late as possible the following day;and the sun was almost in mid-heaven before she began slowly to revive from her lethargy.

But as her stupor departed she became conscious of such acute physical and mental suffering that she almost wished she had carried out her purpose the night before.Her headache was equaled only by her heartache,and her wronged,overtaxed nervous system was jangling with torturing discord.But with the persistence of a simple and positive nature she resolved to carry out the tragic programme that she had already arranged.

She was glad to find herself alone.Her mother,with her usual sagacity,had concluded that she would sleep off her troubles as she often had before,and so left her to herself.

The poor,lost child made some pathetic attempts to put her little house in order.She destroyed all her letters.She arranged her drawers with many sudden rushes of tears as various articles called up memories of earlier and happier days.Among other things she came across a little birthday present that her father had given her when she was but six years of age,and she vividly recalled the happy child she was that day.

"Oh,that I had died then!"she sobbed."What a wretched failure my life has been!Never was there a fitter emblem than the imperfect flower he threw away.I wish I could find the poor,withered,trampled thing,and that he might find it in my hand with his letter."She wrote a farewell to her father that was inexpressibly sad,in which she humbly asked his forgiveness,and entreated him,as her dying wish,to cease destroying himself with liquor.

"But it is of no use,"she moaned."He has lost hope and courage like myself,and one can't bear trouble for which there is no remedy.I'm afraid my act will only make him do worse;but I can't help it."To her mother she wrote merely,"Good-by.Think of me as well as you can till I am forgotten."Her thoughts of her mother were very bitter,for she felt that she had been neglected as a child,and permitted to grow up so faulty and superficial that she repelled the man her beauty might have aided her in winning;and it was chiefly through her mother that her last bitter and unendurable humiliation had come.

Mrs.Mayhew bustled in from her drive with Stanton,just before dinner,and commenced volubly:

"Glad to see you up and looking so much better."(Ida knew she was almost ghastly pale from the effects of the opiate and her distress,but she recognized her mother's tactics.)"Come now,go down with me and make a good dinner;then a drive this afternoon,to which Ik has invited you,and you will look like your old beautiful self.""I do not wish to look like my old self,"said Ida coldly.

"Who in the world ever looked better?"

"Every one who had a cultivated mind and a clear conscience.""I declare,Ida,you've changed so since you came to the country that I can't understand you at all.""Do not try to any longer,mother,for you never will.""Won't you go down to dinner?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I don't wish to,for one thing;and I'm too ill,for another.

Send me up something,if it's not too much trouble.""I'm going to have a doctor see you this very afternoon,"said Mrs.

Mayhew,emphatically,as she left the room.

To do her justice she did send up a very nice dinner to Ida before eating her own.As far as doctors and dinners were concerned,she could do her whole duty in an emergency.

"Isn't Ida coming down?"whispered Stanton to his aunt.

"No.I can't make her out at all,and she looks dreadfully.You must go for a doctor,right after dinner."Van Berg could not hear their words,but their ominous looks added greatly to his disquietude.He had been too ill at ease to seek even Miss Burton's society during the morning,and had spent the time in making a sketch of Ida as she stood in the doorway before entering the parlor the previous evening.

But Jennie Burton did not seem to feel or resent his neglect in the slightest degree.Indeed,her thoughts,like his own,were apparently engrossed with the one whose chair had been vacant so often of late,and who,when present,seemed so unlike her former self.

"I fear you daughter is more seriously indisposed than you think,"she said anxiously to Mrs.Mayhew.

"I'm going to take Ida in hand,"replied the matter-of-fact lady.

"She IS ill--far more so than she'll admit.I'm going to have the doctor at once and put her under a course of treatment.""Curse it all!"thought Van Berg,"that is just the trouble.She has been under a course of treatment that would make any woman ill,save her mother,and I'm inclined to think that I was the veriest quack of them all in my treatment.""I wish she would let me call upon her this afternoon,"said Miss Burton,gently.

"Oh,I think she'll be glad to see you!--at least she ought to be;"but it was too evident that Mrs.Mayhew was at last beginning to grow very anxious,and she made a simpler meal than usual.Stanton in his solicitude,hastened through dinner,and started at once for the physician who usually attended the guests of the house.

Ida,in the meantime,had forced herself to eat a little of the food sent to her,and then informing the woman who had charge of their floor that she was going out for a walk,stole down and out unperceived,and soon gained a secluded path that led into an extensive tract of woodland.

Stanton brought the doctor promptly,but no patient could be found.

All that could be learned was that "Miss Mayhew had gone for a walk.""Her case cannot be very critical,"the physician remarked,smilingly;"I will call again."

Stanton and his aunt looked at each other in a way that proved the case was beginning to trouble them seriously.

"She knew the doctor would be here,"said Mrs.Mayhew.

"I fear her complaint is one that the doctors can't help,and that she knows it,"replied the young man,gloomily."But you seem to know less about her than any one else.I shall try to find her."But he did not succeed.