“Hello! What is this? Looks romantic!” cried a gay, female voice, as the owner ran forward, followed by several curious people, who united in concern for the drenched and hapless strangers thus cast upon their care.
With lively ejaculations of wonder, they got the pair into a large, shabby sitting room, where a troupe of stage people were making merry.
The most warm-hearted people on earth, they began, without any questions, to relieve their guests. Presently Bonair was able to explain reservedly:
“I was driving out with that young lady, a friend of mine, when my horse became frightened and ran away, throwing us both out. The accident happened about a mile back, and I carried the young girl in my arms, hoping to find a doctor somewhere.”
“There is one in the house and he has already gone to her assistance,” they told him.
“Tell him to save her life at whatever cost. I would give my own life to save that girl,” he cried anxiously, causing a sympathetic smile all around.
No one blamed him, for one look at Berry’s lovely face seemed to them sufficient excuse for the greatest devotion.
Meanwhile they found Bonair needing attention, also, for his injured foot was rapidly swelling and causing pain. The doctor came in presently and gave it the necessary attention, saying that his patient was reviving, and would presently be herself again, he hoped. There were some superficial bruises, but he hoped there was no internal injury.
“Thank Heaven!” cried Bonair fervently, pressing a roll of bills into the physician’s hand, while he added:
“If a covered vehicle can be had, I would like to take the young girl home to her mother, who may be uneasy at her delay.”
“But, my dear sir, that will be most imprudent; I should not like my patient to be moved until to-morrow. As for you, you might send word to her mother to come here.”
The young fellow shrank a little. He wondered how Mrs. Vining would take the news. He would doubtless get a sound berating from the old woman.
“But I have fully deserved it, and I will take my punishment like a man,” he thought grimly, and ordered the vehicle to be got ready quickly.
“There is a terrible storm raging—it is equinoctial weather, you know. Better wait till it clears up,” they said.
“No, I will not wait, if a man can be found to drive me. That poor mother will be very anxious,” he answered firmly.
In the teeth of the driving storm they set forth, but Charley Bonair never reached his destination.
The driver, a sulky-looking fellow, who had observed Bonair’s display of money at the inn, as well as his diamond ring, assaulted and robbed his passenger on the way to town, and left him for dead upon the highway.
When found the next morning, there was indeed but little life left in him—not enough to recognize any one, or to remember aught that had happened. Life became a blank to him for many days.
The return of his horse to the stable with the fragments of the trap clinging to the harness told what had happened to him, and no one suspected that a beautiful young girl had been his companion on that mad ride.
He could not speak and tell the story, for he lay ill and unconscious many days, and none guessed that the strange and continued disappearance of Berry Vining lay at his door.
The mother herself had found a plausible reason for her daughter’s absence.
She believed that Berry had fled in anger over their quarrel that night, dreading lest she should be coerced into a marriage with the merchant tailor.
“We had a quarrel, and I believe she ran away in a fret. No, I don’t think she has committed suicide. Berry wasn’t that kind of a girl,” she said, adding hopefully, “she has maybe gone and got a situation in a store in New York, and will write to me when she gets over her mad spell.”
The neighbors accepted this view of the matter, and no one could gainsay it. Mrs. Vining’s misfortunes with her children were an old story! She was always bewailing the disappearance of her handsome son by a former marriage: a son who had deserted her and gone none knew where.
Berry did not return, and no tidings came of her, but the deserted mother kept on at her work in patient sadness, hoping and praying for the welfare of her headstrong child, though too poor to make a search for the truant.
Thus the hand of Fate abruptly closed the first chapter in the acquaintance of Charley Bonair and the pretty village maid.
For when he recovered memory and consciousness far into October, they told him weeks had elapsed since he had been thrown from his trap and nearly killed, and that only the most skillful nursing had saved his life.
No one could answer the mute question in his eyes, for the secret of that night had never transpired, though he wondered how it had been so, saying to himself that Berry was a girl in a thousand to have held her tongue over such an accident.
“It is better so,” he said to himself, in keen relief, yet he resolved he would write her a note of thanks, which he hastily did, only to get it returned with the information that Miss Vining was gone away.
When cautious inquiries brought out the reputed facts of her disappearance, he was dazed with wonder. He made a secret trip to the old inn, but he found it closed and uninhabited.
It was a very bad moment that came just then to handsome, reckless Charley Bonair.
He was terrified at the mysterious disappearance of the winsome little beauty. He asked himself in an agony what had been her fate, cursing himself for having left her at the inn that night.
“What did I know of those people there? How dared I leave her unprotected among them? Judging from the fellow that robbed and nearly murdered me that night, the whole gang must have been rough and dangerous. Ah, little one, what has been your cruel fate?” he groaned to himself, tormented by the mystery that was so hard to fathom, because he dared not make any public hue and cry through fear of betraying Berry’s wild ride with him that, if known, must inevitably compromise her in every one’s eyes, despite her innocence.
The upshot of it all was that he went, privately, to a detective, and saying nothing of his real purpose, employed him to find out where the people had gone who kept the inn.
The owner of the house was found, and reported that the tenant, an old man, had died of apoplexy a month before. His servants were scattered and could not be found.
The identity of the theatrical troupe was next inquired into, and soon learned to be the Janice James Company. They could not be traced now, only in so far as that they had disbanded and scattered, some joining other companies, others going back to their homes, so that Bonair’s next move through the detective was to offer a reward through the personal columns of the New York papers for information regarding any member of the troupe. But weeks elapsed without bringing any reply.
Not even to the detective did Bonair confide his real motive for his quest. A new respect and tenderness for the girl he had tried to trifle with filled his mind, and made him as tenacious of her good name as if she had been his sister or his wife.