



Produced by Rich Magahiz, David Moynihan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team








THE LIVING LINK.

A Novel

By James De Mille

Author of "The Dodge Club," "Cord and Creese," "The Cryptogram," "The
American Baron," &c, &c.



THE LIVING LINK.



CHAPTER I.


A TERRIBLE SECRET.

On a pleasant evening in the month of May, 1840, a group of young ladies
might have been seen on the portico of Plympton Terrace, a fashionable
boarding-school near Derwentwater. They all moved about with those
effusive demonstrations so characteristic of young girls; but on this
occasion there was a general hush among them, which evidently arose from
some unusual cause. As they walked up and down arm in arm, or with arms
entwined, or with clasped hands, as young girls will, they talked in low
earnest tones over some one engrossing subject, or occasionally gathered
in little knots to debate some point, in which, while each offered a
differing opinion, all were oppressed by one common sadness.

While they were thus engaged there arose in the distance the sound of a
rapidly galloping horse. At once all the murmur of conversation died
out, and the company stood in silence awaiting the new-comer. They did
not have to wait long. Out from a place where the avenue wound amidst
groves and thickets a young girl mounted on a spirited bay came at full
speed toward the portico. Arriving there, she stopped abruptly; then
leaping lightly down, she flung the reins over the horse's neck, who
forthwith galloped away to his stall.

The rider who thus dismounted was young girl of about eighteen, and of
very striking appearance. Her complexion was dark, her hair black, with
its rich voluminous folds gathered in great glossy plaits behind. Her
eyes were of a deep hazel color, radiant, and full of energetic life. In
those eyes there was a certain earnestness of expression, however,
deepening down into something that seemed like melancholy, which showed
that even in her young life she had experienced sorrow. Her figure was
slender and graceful, being well displayed by her close-fitting
riding-habit, while a plumed hat completed her equipment, and served to
heighten the effect of her beauty.

At her approach a sudden silence had fallen over the company, and they
all stood motionless, looking at her as she dismounted.

"Why, what makes you all look at me so strangely?" she asked, in a tone
of surprise, throwing a hasty glance over them. "Has any thing
happened?"

To this question no answer was given, but each seemed waiting for the
other to speak. At length a little thing of about twelve came up, and
encircling the new-comer's waist with her arm, looked up with a
sorrowful expression, and whispered,

"Edith dearest, Miss Plympton wants to see you."

The silence and ominous looks of the others, and the whispered words of
the little girl, together with her mournful face, increased the surprise
and anxiety of Edith. She looked with a strange air of apprehension
over the company.

"What is it?" she asked, hurriedly. "Something has happened. Do any of
you know? What is it?"

She spoke breathlessly, and her eyes once more wandered with anxious
inquiry over all of them. But no one spoke, for, whatever it was, they
felt the news to be serious--something, in fact, which could not well be
communicated by themselves. Once more Edith repeated her question, and
finding that no answer was forth-coming, her impatience allowed her to
wait no longer; and so, gathering up her long skirts in one hand and
holding her whip in the other, she hurried into the house to see Miss
Plympton.

Miss Plympton's room was on the second floor, and that lady herself was
seated by the window as Edith entered. In the young girl's face there
was now a deeper anxiety, and seating herself near the centre-table, she
looked inquiringly at Miss Plympton.

The latter regarded her for some moments in silence.

"Did you wish to see me, auntie dear?" said Edith.

Miss Plympton sighed.

"Yes," she said, slowly; "but, my poor darling Edie, I hardly know how
to say to you what I have to say. I--I--do you think you can bear to
hear it, dear?"

At this Edith looked more disturbed than ever; and placing her elbow on
the centre-table, she leaned her cheek upon her hand, and fixed her
melancholy eyes upon Miss Plympton. Her heart throbbed painfully, and
the hand against which her head leaned trembled visibly. But these signs
of agitation did not serve to lessen the emotion of the other; on the
contrary, she seemed more distressed, and quite at a loss how to
proceed.

"Edith," said she at last, "my child, you know how tenderly I love you.
I have always tried to be a mother to you, and to save you from all
sorrow; but now my love and care are all useless, for the sorrow has
come, and I do not know any way by which I can break bad news
to--to--a--a bereaved heart."

She spoke in a tremulous voice and with frequent pauses.

"Bereaved!" exclaimed Edith, with white lips. "Oh, auntie! Bereaved! Is
it that? Oh, tell me all. Don't keep me in suspense. Let me know the
worst."

Miss Plympton looked still more troubled. "I--I--don't know what to
say," she faltered.

"You mean _death_!" cried Edith, in an excited voice; "and oh! I
needn't ask who. There's only one--only one. I had only one--only
one--and now--he is--gone!"

"Gone," repeated Miss Plympton, mechanically, and she said no more; for
in the presence of Edith's grief, and of other facts which had yet to be
disclosed--facts which would reveal to this innocent girl something
worse than even bereavement--words were useless, and she could find
nothing to say. Her hand wandered through the folds of her dress, and
at length she drew forth a black-edged letter, at which she gazed in an
abstracted way.

"Let me see it," cried Edith, hurriedly and eagerly; and before Miss
Plympton could prevent her, or even imagine what she was about, she
darted forward and snatched the letter from her hand. Then she tore it
open and read it breathlessly. The letter was very short, and was
written in a stiff, constrained hand. It was as follows:

"DALTON HALL, _May_ 6, 1840.

"Madame,--It is my painful duty to communicate to you the death of
Frederick Dalton, Esq., of Dalton Hall, who died at Hobart Town, Van
Diemen's Land, on the 2d of December, 1839. I beg that you will impart
this intelligence to Miss Dalton, for as she is now of age, she may wish
to return to Dalton Hall.

"I remain, madame,

"Your most obedient servant,

"JOHN WIGGINS.

"MISS PLYMPTON, _Plympton Terrace_."


Of this letter Edith took in the meaning of the first three lines only.
Then it dropped from her trembling hands, and sinking into a chair, she
burst into a torrent of tears. Miss Plympton regarded her with a face
full of anxiety, and for some moments Edith wept without restraint; but
at length, when the first outburst of grief was past, she picked up the
letter once more and read it over and over.

Deep as Edith's grief evidently was, this bereavement was not, after
all, so sore a blow as it might have been under other circumstances.
For this father whom she had lost was virtually a stranger. Losing her
mother at the age of eight, she had lived ever since with Miss Plympton,
and during this time her father had never seen her, nor even written to
her. Once or twice she had written to him a pretty childish letter, but
he had never deigned any reply. If in that unknown nature there had been
any thing of a father's love, no possible hint had ever been given of
it. Of her strange isolation she was never forgetful, and she felt it
most keenly during the summer holidays, when all her companions had gone
to their homes. At such times she brooded much over her loneliness, and
out of this feeling there arose a hope, which she never ceased to
cherish, that the time would come when she might join her father, and
live with him wherever he might be, and set herself to the task of
winning his affections.

She had always understood that her father had been living in the East
since her mother's death. The only communication which she had with him
was indirect, and consisted of business letters which his English agent
wrote to Miss Plympton. These were never any thing more than short,
formal notes. Such neglect was keenly felt, and Edith, unwilling to
blame her father altogether, tried to make some one else responsible for
it. As she knew of no other human being who had any connection with her
father except this agent, she brought herself gradually to look upon him
as the cause of her father's coldness, and so at length came to regard
him with a hatred that was unreasoning and intense. She considered him
her father's evil genius, and believed him to be somehow at the bottom
of the troubles of her life. Thus every year this man, John Wiggins,
grew more hateful, and she accustomed herself to think of him as an evil
fiend, a Mephistopheles, by whose crafty wiles her father's heart had
been estranged from her. Such, then, was the nature of Edith's
bereavement; and as she mourned over it she did not mourn so much over
the reality as over her vanished hope. He was gone, and with him was
gone the expectation of meeting him and winning his affection. She
would never see him--never be able to tell how she loved him, and hear
him say with a father's voice that he loved his child!

These thoughts and feelings overwhelmed Edith even as she held the
letter in her hand for a new perusal, and she read it over and over
without attaching any meaning to the words. At length her attention was
arrested by one