CHAPTER XII.

A WAYSIDE FLOWER.

“Look in my face; my name is Might-have-been; I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell.”

Leola sat up in bed among the white covers, scarcely whiter than her face, and smiled wanly into Miss Tuttle’s anxious eyes.

“I am sorry that I am better. I wish I had died,” she said, bitterly.

For twenty-four hours she had been threatened with brain fever, but now the crisis had passed, and she was improving.

Doctor Barnes, who had been very uneasy all this time, had said just now she would soon be well--that her youth and fine constitution had tided her safely over the danger point.

These two days Miss Tuttle had nursed her most carefully, admitting, by the doctor’s orders, no one but himself.

In vain Jessie Stirling pleaded to come in and help nurse the patient; Miss Tuttle sent her ruthlessly away.

“Doctor Barnes exacts perfect quiet, and trusts her only to me,” she said, proudly.

Jessie retired, baffled and angry, to cogitate over the mystery of Chester Olyphant’s disappearance.

For since he had gone to bring the doctor to Leola, no one had seen his face.

Jessie had by no means expected him to retreat from the field of battle. Instead, she had looked for him to march off with victory on his banners, the battle gained, the prize won. She knew that if Chester could get an opportunity to tell her uncle that he was rich and would pay off the mortgage on Wheatlands, he could easily gain his ends and marry Leola.

It was in dread of this that she had incited him to anger against Chester, hoping to prevent their coming to an understanding.

But Chester’s unexplained disappearance had startled and surprised everyone, for only this morning Mrs. Gray, the widow at whose cottage home he boarded, had come to Wheatlands to seek him, saying he had not been back for two days.

Diligent inquiry revealed the fact that Doctor Barnes was the last person who had seen him at all, having left him alone in the hall the day he had brought him to see Leola.

Widow Gray was quite alarmed, and did not know what to think.

“He certainly expected to return, for he did not take his trunk away,” she said, but Mr. Hermann made light of the matter.

“Go home, and don’t worry--he has perhaps been called away by a telegram, and will be back in due time,” he said.

“Indeed, I hope so, sir. He was a very fine young man, and I hope he has come to no harm,” she protested.

And again the wizard laughed:

“How could he come to harm in broad daylight in my house?”

“That’s so, sir; I don’t see how he could indeed, but I hope I shall hear from him soon, for I had bad dreams last night, and my mind misgives me,” she sighed.

Then she asked if she might see the sick girl, but was told she was too