Dorian

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

The sec­ond week in De­cem­ber Do­ri­an went in­to ac­tion in search of Car­lia Duke. He ac­knowl­edged to him­self that it was like search­ing for the prover­bial nee­dle in the haystack, but in­ac­tion was no longer pos­si­ble.

Car­lia very like­ly had no large amount of mon­ey with her, so she would have to seek em­ploy­ment. She could have hid­den her­self in the city, but Do­ri­an rea­soned that she would be fear­ful of be­ing found, so would have gone to some near­by town; but which one, he had no way of know­ing. He vis­it­ed a num­ber of ad­ja­cent towns and made dili­gent en­quiries at ho­tels, stores, and some pri­vate hous­es. Noth­ing came of this first week's search.

A num­ber of min­ing towns could eas­ily be reached by train from the city. In these towns many peo­ple came and went with­out no­tice or com­ment. Do­ri­an spent near­ly a week in one of them, but he found no clue. He went to an­oth­er. The girl would nec­es­sar­ily have to go to a ho­tel at first, so the searcher ex­am­ined a num­ber of ho­tel reg­is­ters. She had been gone now about six months, so the search had to be in some books long since dis­card­ed, much to the an­noy­ance of the clerks.

Do­ri­an left the sec­ond town for the third which was sit­uat­ed well up in the moun­tains. The weath­er was cold, and the snow lay two feet deep over the hills and val­leys. He be­came dis­heart­ened at times, but al­ways he rea­soned that he must try a lit­tle longer; and then one day in a ho­tel reg­is­ter dat­ed near­ly five months back, he found this en­try:

“Car­lia Davis.”

Do­ri­an's heart gave a bound when he saw the name. Car­lia was not a com­mon name, and the hand­writ­ing was fa­mil­iar. But why Davis? He ex­am­ined the sig­na­ture close­ly. The girl, un­ex­pe­ri­enced in the art of sub­terfuge, had start­ed to write her name, and had got­ten to the D in Duke, when the thought of dis­guise had come to her. Yes; there was an un­usu­al break be­tween that first let­ter and the rest of the name. Car­lia had been here. He was on the right track, thank the Lord!

Do­ri­an en­quired of the ho­tel clerk if he re­mem­bered the la­dy. Did he know any­thing about her? No; that was so long ago. His peo­ple came and went. That was all. But Car­lia had been here. That much was cer­tain. Here was at least a fixed point in the sea of noth­ing­ness from which he could work. His wea­ried and con­fused mind could at least come back to that name in the ho­tel reg­is­ter.

He be­gan a sys­tem­at­ic search of the town. First he vis­it­ed the small busi­ness sec­tion, but with­out re­sults. Then he took up the res­iden­tial dis­trict, sys­tem­at­ical­ly, so that he would not miss any. One af­ter­noon he knocked on the door of what ap­peared to be one of the best res­idences. Af­ter a short wait, the door was opened by a girl, high­ly paint­ed but light­ly clad, who smiled at the hand­some young fel­low and bade him come in. He stepped in­to the hall and was shown in­to what seemed to be a par­lor, though the par­lors he had known had not smelled so of stale to­bac­co smoke. He made his usu­al in­quiry. No; no such girl was here, she was sor­ry, but--the words which came from the carmine lips of the girl so star­tled Do­ri­an that he stood, hat in hand, star­ing at her, and shocked be­yond ex­pres­sion. He know, of course, that evil hous­es ex­ist­ed es­pe­cial­ly in min­ing towns, in­hab­it­ed by cor­rupt wom­en, but this was the first time he had ev­er been in such a place. When he re­al­ized where he was, a re­al ter­ror seized him, and with un­cer­emo­ni­ous haste he got out and away, the girl's laugh­ter of de­ri­sion ring­ing in his ears.

Do­ri­an was un­nerved. He went back to his room, his thoughts in a whirl, his ap­pre­hen­sions sink­ing to gloomy depths. What if Car­lia should be in such a place? A cold sweat of suf­fer­ing broke over him be­fore he could drive away the thought. But at last he did get rid of it. His mind cleared again, and he set out de­ter­mined to con­tin­ued the search. How­ev­er, he went no more in­to the hous­es by the in­vi­ta­tion of in­mates of doubt­ful char­ac­ter, but made his in­quiries at the open door.

Then it oc­curred to Do­ri­an that Car­lia, be­ing a coun­try bred girl and ac­cus­tomed to work about farm hous­es, might ap­ply to some of the ad­ja­cent farms down in the val­ley be­low the town for work. The whole coun­try lay un­der deep snow, but the roads were well bro­ken. Do­ri­an walked out to a num­ber of the farms and made en­quiries. At the third house he was met by a pleas­ant faced, el­der­ly wom­an who lis­tened at­ten­tive­ly to what he said, and then in­vit­ed him in. When they were both seat­ed, she asked him his name. Do­ri­an told her.

“And why are you in­ter­est­ed in this girl?” she con­tin­ued.

“Has she been here?” he asked ea­ger­ly.

“Nev­er mind. You an­swer my ques­tion.”

Do­ri­an ex­plained as much as he thought prop­er, but the wom­an still ap­peared sus­pi­cious.

“Are you her broth­er?”

“No.”

“Her young man?”

“Not ex­act­ly; on­ly a dear friend.”

“Well, you look all right, but looks are de­ceivin'.” The wom­an tried to be very se­vere with him, but some­how she did not suc­ceed very well. She looked quite moth­er­ly as she sat with her fold­ed hands in her am­ple lap and a shrewd look in her face. Do­ri­an gained courage to say:

“I be­lieve you know some­thing about the girl I am seek­ing. Tell me.”

“You haven't told me the name of the girl you are look­ing for.”

“Her name is Car­lia Duke.”

“That isn't what she called her­self.”

“Oh, then you do know.”

“This girl was Car­lia Davis.”

“Yes--is she here!”

“No.”

“Do you know where she is?”

“No, I don't.”

Do­ri­an's hopes fell. “But tell me what you know about her--you know some­thing.”

“It was the lat­ter part of Au­gust when she came to us. She had walked from town, an' she said she was want­ing a place to work. As she was used to farm life, she pre­ferred to work at a coun­try home, she said.”

“Was she a dark-​haired, rosy-​cheeked girl?”

“Her hair was dark, but there was no ros­es in her cheeks. There might have been once. I was glad to say yes to her for I need­ed help bad. Of course, it was strange, this girl comin' from the city a' want­ing to work in the coun­try. It's usu­al­ly the oth­er way.”

“Yes; I sup­pose so.”

“So I was a lit­tle sus­pi­cious.”

“Of what?”

“That she hadn't come to work at all; though I'll say that she did her best. I tried to pre­vent her, but she worked right up to the last.”

“To the last? I don't un­der­stand?”

“Don't you know that she was to be sick? That she came here to be sick?”

“To be sick?” Do­ri­an was gen­uine­ly at loss to un­der­stand.

“At first I called her a cheat, and threat­ened to send her away; but the poor child plead­ed so to stay that I hadn't the heart to turn her out. She had no where to go, she was a long way from home, an' so I let her stay, an' we did the best for her.”

Do­ri­an, in the sim­plic­ity of his mind, did not yet re­al­ize what the wom­an was talk­ing about. He let her con­tin­ue.

“We had one of the best doc­tors in the city 'tend her, an' I did the nurs­ing my­self which I con­sid­er was as good as any of the new-​fan­gled trained nurs­es can do; but the poor girl had been un­der a strain so long that the ba­by died soon af­ter it was born.”

“The ba­by?” gasped Do­ri­an.

“Yes,” went on the wom­an, all un­con­scious­ly that the lis­ten­er had not ful­ly un­der­stood. “Yes, it didn't live long, which, I sup­pose, in such cas­es, is a bless­ing.”

Do­ri­an stared at the wom­an, then in a dazed way, he looked about the plain farm-​house fur­nish­ings, some de­tails of which strange­ly im­pressed him. The wom­an went on talk­ing, which seemed easy for her, now she had fair­ly start­ed; but Do­ri­an did not hear all she said. One big fact was forc­ing it­self in­to his brain, to the ex­clu­sion of all mi­nor re­al­ities.

“She left a month ago,” Do­ri­an heard the wom­an say when again he was in a con­di­tion to lis­ten. “We did our best to get her to stay, for we had be­come fond of her. Some­how, she got the no­tion that the scoundrel who had be­trayed her had found her hid­ing place, an' she was afraid. So she left.”

“Where did she go? Did she tell you?”

“No; she wouldn't say. The fact is, she didn't know her­self. I'm sure of that. She just seemed anx­ious to hide her­self again. Poor girl.” The wom­an wiped a tear away with the cor­ner of her apron.

Do­ri­an arose, thanked her, and went out. He looked about the snow-​cov­ered earth and the clouds which threat­ened storm. He walked on up to the road back to the town. He was be­numbed, but not with cold. He went in­to his room, and, al­though it was mid-​af­ter­noon, he did not go out any more that day. He sat supine­ly on his bed. He paced the floor. He looked with­out see­ing out of the win­dow at the pass­ing crowds. He could not think at all clear­ly. His whole be­ing was in an up­roar of con­fu­sion. The hours passed. Night came on with its blaze of lights in the streets. What could he do now? What should he do now?

“Oh, God, help me,” he prayed, “help me to or­der my thoughts, tell me what to do.”

If ev­er in his life Do­ri­an had need of help from high­er pow­er, it was now.