Down-stairs Doctor Danton and the detective sat conversing for awhile in low, eager tones. Outside the grounds of The Oaks, near a rear entrance, a closed carriage had been waiting for a half-hour or more, the driver on the box waiting with calm patience for the[Pg 56] coming of his master. Danton and Dunbar were busily arranging every detail of the hard work before them, going carefully over every point lest there be some misunderstanding, which, even though slight, might wreck the whole plot. Doctor Danton glanced at the clock on the mantel at last. [Pg 56] “It is nearly one o’clock,” he exclaimed, in a cautious tone. “It is quite time for us to start, Dunbar; and I heard Tom’s whistle a moment ago, which proves that my faithful coachman is in waiting. I will wrap Mrs. Arleigh up in a cloak and carry her out to the carriage, and we will drive like mad to my house. You remain here to close the coffin lid. In your assumed character of my assistant, no one will recognize the eminent New Orleans detective. Mrs. Rutledge must be told in the morning—I will be back here to do it—that on account of decomposition the body must not be exposed. I think that we will be able to carry out our plans. Only one must be very, very careful, for one little slip will ruin all. And——” He came to a startled halt. The two men had entered the room where Rosamond Arleigh’s supposed corpse lay upon the couch. But there was nothing there; the body was gone! [Pg 57] [Pg 57] CHAPTER VII. Rosamond Arleigh opened her eyes. It was as still as death within the room which had been prepared to receive her body. The mirrors were draped in white; there were bouquets of white flowers, white roses, bridal wreath, and lilies, pure white, and long-throated, pink-tinted lilies. A faint, sickening perfume pervaded the apartment, and over the whole house a dead silence rested. How long she had lain in that state she did not know. She had been dimly conscious of Violet’s presence there, knew that the girl was sobbing forth her name, calling upon her mother to come back to her, to stand at her side in the hard battle with the cold, cruel world. Come back to her! Where had she, Rosamond, been? For a whole hour she had lain there without moving a muscle, her thoughts—strange, wild, disconnected—wandering back over the past, trying to disentangle the threads, and smooth out the fabric of her life; but all was confused, dim, irregular. All at once the
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