THE LEAVENWORTH CASE

By Anna Katherine Green

BOOK I. THE PROBLEM

I. "A GREAT CASE"

"A deed of dreadful note."
—Macbeth.

I had been a junior partner in the firm of Veeley, Carr & Raymond, attorneys and counsellors at law, for about a year, when one morning, in the temporary absence of both Mr. Veeley and Mr. Carr, there came into our office a young man whose whole appearance was so indicative of haste and agitation that I involuntarily rose at his approach and impetuously inquired:

"What is the matter? You have no bad news to tell, I hope."

"I have come to see Mr. Veeley; is he in?"

"No," I replied; "he was unexpectedly called away this morning to Washington; cannot be home before tomorrow; but if you will make your business known to me——"

"To you, sir?" he repeated, turning a very cold but steady eye on mine; then, seeming to be satisfied with his scrutiny, continued, "There is no reason why I shouldn't; my business is no secret. I came to inform him that Mr. Leavenworth is dead."

"Mr. Leavenworth!" I exclaimed, falling back a step. Mr. Leavenworth was an old client of our firm, to say nothing of his being the particular friend of Mr. Veeley.

"Yes, murdered; shot through the head by some unknown person while sitting at his library table."

"Shot! murdered!" I could scarcely believe my ears.

"How? when?" I gasped.

"Last night. At least, so we suppose. He was not found till this morning. I am Mr. Leavenworth's private secretary," he explained, "and live in the family. It was a dreadful shock," he went on, "especially to the ladies."

"Dreadful!" I repeated. "Mr. Veeley will be overwhelmed by it."

"They are all alone," he continued in a low businesslike way I afterwards found to be inseparable from the man; "the Misses Leavenworth, I mean—Mr. Leavenworth's nieces; and as an inquest is to be held there to-day it is deemed proper for them to have some one present capable of advising them. As Mr. Veeley was their uncle's best friend, they naturally sent me for him; but he being absent I am at a loss what to do or where to go."

"I am a stranger to the ladies," was my hesitating reply, "but if I can be of any assistance to them, my respect for their uncle is such——"

The expression of the secretary's eye stopped me. Without seeming to wander from my face, its pupil had suddenly dilated till it appeared to embrace my whole person with its scope.

"I don't know," he finally remarked, a slight frown, testifying to the fact that he was not altogether pleased with the turn affairs were taking. "Perhaps it would be best. The ladies must not be left alone——"

"Say no more; I will go." And, sitting down, I despatched a hurried message to Mr. Veeley, after which, and the few other preparations necessary, I accompanied the secretary to the street.

"Now," said I, "tell me all you know of this frightful affair."

"All I know? A few words will do that. I left him last night sitting as usual at his library table, and found him this morning, seated in the same place, almost in the same position, but with a. bullet-hole in his head as large as the end of my little finger."

"Dead?"

"Stone-dead."

"Horrible!" I exclaimed. Then, after a moment, "Could it have been a suicide?"

"No. The pistol with which the deed was committed is not to be found."

"But if it was a murder, there must have been some motive. Mr. Leavenworth was too benevolent a man to have enemies, and if robbery was intended——"

"There was no robbery. There is nothing missing," he again interrupted. "The whole affair is a mystery."

"A mystery?"

"An utter mystery."

Turning, I looked at my informant curiously. The inmate of a house in which a mysterious murder had occurred was rather an interesting object. But the good-featured and yet totally unimpressive countenance of the man beside me offered but little basis for even the wildest imagination to work upon, and, glancing almost immediately away, I asked:

"Are the ladies very much overcome?"

He took at least a half-dozen steps before replying.

"It would be unnatural if they were not." And whether it was the expression of his face at the time, or the nature of the reply itself, I felt that in speaking of these ladies to this uninteresting, self-possessed secretary of the late Mr. Leavenworth, I was somehow treading upon dangerous ground. As I had heard they were very accomplished women, I was not altogether pleased at this discovery. It was, therefore, with a certain consciousness of relief I saw a Fifth Avenue stage approach.

"We will defer our conversation," said I. "Here's the stage."

But, once seated within it, we soon discovered that all intercourse upon such a subject was impossible. Employing the time, therefore, in running over in my mind what I knew of Mr. Leavenworth, I found that my knowledge was limited to the bare fact of his being a retired merchant of great wealth and fine social position who, in default of possessing children of his own, had taken into his home two nieces, one of whom had already been declared his heiress. To be sure, I had heard Mr. Veeley speak of his eccentricities, giving as an instance this very fact of his making a will in favor of one niece to the utter exclusion of the other; but of his habits of life and connection with the world at large, I knew little or nothing.

There was a great crowd in front of the house when we arrived there, and I had barely time to observe that it was a corner dwelling of unusual depth when I was seized by the throng and carried quite to the foot of the broad stone steps. Extricating myself, though with some difficulty, owing to the importunities of a bootblack and butcher-boy, who seemed to think that by clinging to my arms they might succeed in smuggling themselves into the house, I mounted the steps and, finding the secretary, by some unaccountable good fortune, close to my side, hurriedly rang the bell. Immediately the door opened, and a face I recognized as that of one of our city detectives appeared in the gap.

"Mr. Gryce!" I exclaimed.

"The same," he replied. "Come in, Mr. Raymond." And drawing us quietly into the house, he shut the door with a grim smile on the disappointed crowd without. "I trust you are not surprised to see me here," said he, holding out his hand, with a side glance at my companion.

"No," I returned. Then, with a vague idea that I ought to introduce the young man at my side, continued: "This is Mr. ——, Mr. ——, —excuse me, but I do not know your name," I said inquiringly to my companion. "The private secretary of the late Mr. Leavenworth," I hastened to add.

"Oh," he returned, "the secretary! The coroner has been asking for you, sir."

"The coroner is here, then?"

"Yes; the jury have just gone upstairs to view the body; would you like to follow them?"

"No, it is not necessary. I have merely come in the hope of being of some assistance to the young ladies. Mr. Veeley is away."

"And you thought the opportunity too good to be lost," he went on; "just so. Still, now that you are here, and as the case promises to be a marked one, I should think that, as a rising young lawyer, you would wish to make yourself acquainted with it in all its details. But follow your own judgment."

I made an effort and overcame my repugnance. "I will go," said I.

"Very well, then, follow me."

But just as I set foot on the stairs I heard the jury descending, so, drawing back with Mr. Gryce into a recess between the reception room and the parlor, I had time to remark:

"The young man says it could not have been the work of a burglar."

"Indeed!" fixing his eye on a door-knob near by.

"That nothing has been found missing—"

"And that the fastenings to the house were all found secure this morning; just so."

"He did not tell me that. In that case"—and I shuddered—"the murderer must have been in the house all night."

Mr. Gryce smiled darkly at the door-knob.

"It has a dreadful look!" I exclaimed.

Mr. Gryce immediately frowned at the door-knob.

And here let me say that Mr. Gryce, the detective, was not the thin, wiry individual with the piercing eye you are doubtless expecting to see. On the contrary, Mr. Gryce was a portly, comfortable personage with an eye that never pierced, that did not even rest on you. If it rested anywhere, it was always on some insignificant object in the vicinity, some vase, inkstand, book, or button. These things he would seem to take into his confidence, make the repositories of his conclusions; but as for you—you might as well be the steeple on Trinity Church, for all connection you ever appeared to have with him or his thoughts. At present, then, Mr. Gryce was, as I have already suggested, on intimate terms with the door-knob.

"A dreadful look," I repeated.

His eye shifted to the button on my sleeve.

"Come," he said, "the coast is clear at last."

Leading the way, he mounted the stairs, but stopped on the upper landing. "Mr. Raymond," said he, "I am not in the habit of talking much about the secrets of my profession, but in this case everything depends upon getting the right clue at the start. We have no common villainy to deal with here; genius has been at work. Now sometimes an absolutely uninitiated mind will intuitively catch at something which the most highly trained intellect will miss. If such a thing should occur, remember that I am your man. Don't go round talking, but come to me. For this is going to be a great case, mind you, a great case. Now, come on."

"But the ladies?"

"They are in the rooms above; in grief, of course, but tolerably composed for all that, I hear." And advancing to a door, he pushed it open and beckoned me in.

All was dark for a moment, but presently, my eyes becoming accustomed to the place, I saw that we were in the library.

"It was here he was found," said he; "in this room and upon this very spot." And advancing, he laid his hand on the end of a large baize-covered table that, together with its attendant chairs, occupied the centre of the room. "You see for yourself that it is directly opposite this door," and, crossing the floor, he paused in front of the threshold of a narrow passageway, opening into a room beyond. "As the murdered man was discovered sitting in this chair, and consequently with his back towards the passageway, the assassin must have advanced through the doorway to deliver his shot, pausing, let us say, about here." And Mr. Gryce planted his feet firmly upon a certain spot in the carpet, about a foot from the threshold before mentioned.

"But—" I hastened to interpose.

"There is no room for 'but,'" he cried. "We have studied the situation." And without deigning to dilate upon the subject, he turned immediately about and, stepping swiftly before me, led the way into the passage named. "Wine closet, clothes closet, washing apparatus, towel-rack," he explained, waving his hand from side to side as we hurried through, finishing with "Mr. Leavenworth's private apartment," as that room of comfortable aspect opened upon us.

Mr. Leavenworth's private apartment! It was here then that it ought to be, the horrible, blood-curdling it that yesterday was a living, breathing man. Advancing to the bed that was hung with heavy curtains, I raised my hand to put them back, when Mr. Gryce, drawing them from my clasp, disclosed lying upon the pillow a cold, calm face looking so natural I involuntarily started.

"His death was too sudden to distort the features," he remarked, turning the head to one side in a way to make visible a ghastly wound in the back of the cranium. "Such a hole as that sends a man out of the world without much notice. The surgeon will convince you it could never have been inflicted by himself. It is a case of deliberate murder."

Horrified, I drew hastily back, when my glance fell upon a door situated directly opposite me in the side of the wall towards the hall. It appeared to be the only outlet from the room, with the exception of the passage through which we had entered, and I could not help wondering if it was through this door the assassin had entered on his roundabout course to the library. But Mr. Gryce, seemingly observant of my glance, though his own was fixed upon the chandelier, made haste to remark, as if in reply to the inquiry in my face:

"Found locked on the inside; may have come that way and may not; we don't pretend to say."

Observing now that the bed was undisturbed in its arrangement, I remarked, "He had not retired, then?"

"No; the tragedy must be ten hours old. Time for the murderer to have studied the situation and provided for all contingencies."

"The murderer? Whom do you suspect?" I whispered.

He looked impassively at the ring on my finger.

"Every one and nobody. It is not for me to suspect, but to detect." And dropping the curtain into its former position he led me from the room.

The coroner's inquest being now in session, I felt a strong desire to be present, so, requesting Mr. Gryce to inform the ladies that Mr. Veeley was absent from town, and that I had come as his substitute, to render them any assistance they might require on so melancholy an occasion, I proceeded to the large parlor below, and took my seat among the various persons there assembled.

II. THE CORONER'S INQUEST

"The baby figure of the giant mass
Of things to come."
—Troilus and Cressida.

FOR a few minutes I sat dazed by the sudden flood of light greeting me from the many open windows; then, as the strongly contrasting features of the scene before me began to impress themselves upon my consciousness, I found myself experiencing something of the same sensation of double personality which years before had followed an enforced use of ether. As at that time, I appeared to be living two lives at once: in two distinct places, with two separate sets of incidents going on; so now I seemed to be divided between two irreconcilable trains of thought; the gorgeous house, its elaborate furnishing, the little glimpses of yesterday's life, as seen in the open piano, with its sheet of music held in place by a lady's fan, occupying my attention fully as much as the aspect of the throng of incongruous and impatient people huddled about me.

Perhaps one reason of this lay in the extraordinary splendor of the room I was in; the glow of satin, glitter of bronze, and glimmer of marble meeting the eye at every turn. But I am rather inclined to think it was mainly due to the force and eloquence of a certain picture which confronted me from the opposite wall. A sweet picture—sweet enough and poetic enough to have been conceived by the most idealistic of artists: simple, too—the vision of a young flaxen-haired, blue-eyed coquette, dressed in the costume of the First Empire, standing in a wood-path, looking back over her shoulder at some one following—yet with such a dash of something not altogether saint-like in the corners of her meek eyes and baby-like lips, that it impressed me with the individuality of life. Had it not been for the open dress, with its waist almost beneath the armpits, the hair cut short on the forehead, and the perfection of the neck and shoulders, I should have taken it for a literal portrait of one of the ladies of the house. As it was, I could not rid myself of the idea that one, if not both, of Mr. Leavenworth's nieces looked down upon me from the eyes of this entrancing blonde with the beckoning glance and forbidding hand. So vividly did this fancy impress me that I half shuddered as I looked, wondering if this sweet creature did not know what had occurred in this house since the happy yesterday; and if so, how she could stand there smiling so invitingly,—when suddenly I became aware that I had been watching the little crowd of men about me with as complete an absorption as if nothing else in the room had attracted my attention; that the face of the coroner, sternly intelligent and attentive, was as distinctly imprinted upon my mind as that of this lovely picture, or the clearer-cut and more noble features of the sculptured Psyche, shining in mellow beauty from the crimson-hung window at his right; yes, even that the various countenances of the jurymen clustered before me, commonplace and insignificant as most of them were; the trembling forms of the excited servants crowded into a far corner; and the still more disagreeable aspect of the pale-faced, seedy reporter, seated at a small table and writing with a ghoul-like avidity that made my flesh creep, were each and all as fixed an element in the remarkable scene before me as the splendor of the surroundings which made their presence such a nightmare of discord and unreality.

I have spoken of the coroner. As fortune would have it, he was no stranger to me. I had not only seen him before, but had held frequent conversation with him; in fact, knew him. His name was Hammond, and he was universally regarded as a man of more than ordinary acuteness, fully capable of conducting an important examination, with the necessary skill and address. Interested as I was, or rather was likely to be, in this particular inquiry, I could not but congratulate myself upon our good fortune in having so intelligent a coroner.

As for his jurymen, they were, as I have intimated, very much like all other bodies of a similar character. Picked up at random from the streets, but from such streets as the Fifth and Sixth Avenues, they presented much the same appearance of average intelligence and refinement as might be seen in the chance occupants of one of our city stages. Indeed, I marked but one amongst them all who seemed to take any interest in the inquiry as an inquiry; all the rest appearing to be actuated in the fulfilment of their duty by the commoner instincts of pity and indignation.

Dr. Maynard, the well-known surgeon of Thirty-sixth Street, was the first witness called. His testimony concerned the nature of the wound found in the murdered man's head. As some of the facts presented by him are likely to prove of importance to us in our narrative, I will proceed to give a synopsis of what he said.

Prefacing his remarks with some account of himself, and the manner in which he had been summoned to the house by one of the servants, he went on to state that, upon his arrival, he found the deceased lying on a bed in the second-story front room, with the blood clotted about a pistol-wound in the back of the head; having evidently been carried there from the adjoining apartment some hours after death. It was the only wound discovered on the body, and having probed it, he had found and extracted the bullet which he now handed to the jury. It was lying in the brain, having entered at the base of the skull, passed obliquely upward, and at once struck the medulla oblongata, causing instant death. The fact of the ball having entered the brain in this peculiar manner he deemed worthy of note, since it would produce not only instantaneous death, but an utterly motionless one. Further, from the position of the bullet-hole and the direction taken by the bullet, it was manifestly impossible that the shot should have been fired by the man himself, even if the condition of the hair about the wound did not completely demonstrate the fact that the shot was fired from a point some three or four feet distant. Still further, considering the angle at which the bullet had entered the skull, it was evident that the deceased must not only have been seated at the time, a fact about which there could be no dispute, but he must also have been engaged in some occupation which drew his head forward. For, in order that a ball should enter the head of a man sitting erect at the angle seen here, of 45 degrees, it would be necessary, not only for the pistol to be held very low down, but in a peculiar position; while if the head had been bent forward, as in the act of writing, a man holding a pistol naturally with the elbow bent, might very easily fire a ball into the brain at the angle observed.

Upon being questioned in regard to the bodily health of Mr. Leavenworth, he replied that the deceased appeared to have been in good condition at the time of his death, but that, not being his attendant physician, he could not speak conclusively upon the subject without further examination; and, to the remark of a juryman, observed that he had not seen pistol or weapon lying upon the floor, or, indeed, anywhere else in either of the above-mentioned rooms.

I might as well add here what he afterwards stated, that from the position of the table, the chair, and the door behind it, the murderer, in order to satisfy all the conditions imposed by the situation, must have stood upon, or just within, the threshold of the passageway leading into the room beyond. Also, that as the ball was small, and from a rifled barrel, and thus especially liable to deflections while passing through bones and integuments, it seemed to him evident that the victim had made no effort to raise or turn his head when advanced upon by his destroyer; the fearful conclusion being that the footstep was an accustomed one, and the presence of its possessor in the room either known or expected.

The physician's testimony being ended, the coroner picked up the bullet which had been laid on the table before him, and for a moment rolled it contemplatively between his fingers; then, drawing a pencil from his pocket, hastily scrawled a line or two on a piece of paper and, calling an officer to his side, delivered some command in a low tone. The officer, taking up the slip, looked at it for an instant knowingly, then catching up his hat left the room. Another moment, and the front door closed on him, and a wild halloo from the crowd of urchins without told of his appearance in the street. Sitting where I did, I had a full view of the corner. Looking out, I saw the officer stop there, hail a cab, hastily enter it, and disappear in the direction of Broadway.

III. FACTS AND DEDUCTIONS

"Confusion now hath made his master-piece;
Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope
The Lord's anointed temple, and stolen thence
The life of the building."
—Macbeth.

TURNING my attention back into the room where I was, I found the coroner consulting a memorandum through a very impressive pair of gold eye-glasses.

"Is the butler here?" he asked.

Immediately there was a stir among the group of servants in the corner, and an intelligent-looking, though somewhat pompous, Irishman stepped out from their midst and confronted the jury. "Ah," thought I to myself, as my glance encountered his precise whiskers, steady eye, and respectfully attentive, though by no means humble, expression, "here is a model servant, who is likely to prove a model witness." And I was not mistaken; Thomas, the butler, was in all respects one in a thousand—and he knew it.

The coroner, upon whom, as upon all others in the room, he seemed to have made the like favorable impression, proceeded without hesitation to interrogate him.

"Your name, I am told, is Thomas Dougherty?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, Thomas, how long have you been employed in your present situation?"

"It must be a matter of two years now, sir."

"You are the person who first discovered the body of Mr. Leavenworth?"

"Yes, sir; I and Mr. Harwell."

"And who is Mr. Harwell?"

"Mr. Harwell is Mr. Leavenworth's private secretary, sir; the one who did his writing."

"Very good. Now at what time of the day or night did you make this discovery?"

"It was early, sir; early this morning, about eight."

"And where?"

"In the library, sir, off Mr. Leavenworth's bedroom. We had forced our way in, feeling anxious about his not coming to breakfast."

"You forced your way in; the door was locked, then?"

"Yes, sir."

"On the inside?"

"That I cannot tell; there was no key in the door."

"Where was Mr. Leavenworth lying when you first found him?"

"He was not lying, sir. He was seated at the large table in the centre of his room, his back to the bedroom door, leaning forward, his head on his hands."

"How was he dressed?"

"In his dinner suit, sir, just as he came from the table last night."

"Were there any evidences in the room that a struggle had taken place?"

"No, sir."

"Any pistol on the floor or table?"

"No, sir?"

"Any reason to suppose that robbery had been attempted?"

"No, sir. Mr. Leavenworth's watch and purse were both in his pockets."

Being asked to mention who were in the house at the time of the discovery, he replied, "The young ladies, Miss Mary Leavenworth and Miss Eleanore, Mr. Harwell, Kate the cook, Molly the upstairs girl, and myself."

"The usual members of the household?"

"Yes, sir."

"Now tell me whose duty it is to close up the house at night."

"Mine, sir."

"Did you secure it as usual, last night?"

"I did, sir."

"Who unfastened it this morning?"

"I, sir."

"How did you find it?"

"Just as I left it."

"What, not a window open nor a door unlocked?"

"No, sir."

By this time you could have heard a pin drop. The certainty that the murderer, whoever he was, had not left the house, at least till after it was opened in the morning, seemed to weigh upon all minds. Forewarned as I had been of the fact, I could not but feel a certain degree of emotion at having it thus brought before me; and, moving so as to bring the butler's face within view, searched it for some secret token that he had spoken thus emphatically in order to cover up some failure of duty on his own part. But it was unmoved in its candor, and sustained the concentrated gaze of all in the room like a rock.

Being now asked when he had last seen Mr. Leavenworth alive, he replied, "At dinner last night."

"He was, however, seen later by some of you?"

"Yes, sir; Mr. Harwell says he saw him as late as half-past ten in the evening."

"What room do you occupy in this house?"

"A little one on the basement floor."

"And where do the other members of the household sleep?"

"Mostly on the third floor, sir; the ladies in the large back rooms, and Mr. Harwell in the little one in front. The girls sleep above."

"There was no one on the same floor with Mr. Leavenworth?"

"No, sir."

"At what hour did you go to bed?"

"Well, I should say about eleven."

"Did you hear any noise in the house either before or after that time, that you remember?"

"No, sir."

"So that the discovery you made this morning was a surprise to you?"

"Yes, sir."

Requested now to give a more detailed account of that discovery, he went on to say it was not till Mr. Leavenworth failed to come to his breakfast at the call of the bell that any suspicion arose in the house that all was not right. Even then they waited some little time before doing anything, but as minute after minute went by and he did not come, Miss Eleanore grew anxious, and finally left the room saying she would go and see what was the matter, but soon returned looking very much frightened, saying she had knocked at her uncle's door, and had even called to him, but could get no answer. At which Mr. Harwell and himself had gone up and together tried both doors, and, finding them locked, burst open that of the library, when they came upon Mr. Leavenworth, as he had already said, sitting at the table, dead.

"And the ladies?"

"Oh, they followed us up and came into the room and Miss Eleanore fainted away."

"And the other one,—Miss Mary, I believe they call her?"

"I don't remember anything about her; I was so busy fetching water to restore Miss Eleanore, I didn't notice."

"Well, how long was it before Mr. Leavenworth was carried into the next room?"

"Almost immediate, as soon as Miss Eleanore recovered, and that was as soon as ever the water touched her lips."

"Who proposed that the body should be carried from the spot?"

"She, sir. As soon as ever she stood up she went over to it and looked at it and shuddered, and then calling Mr. Harwell and me, bade us carry him in and lay him on the bed and go for the doctor, which we did."

"Wait a moment; did she go with you when you went into the other room?"

"No, sir."

"What did she do?"

"She stayed by the library table."

"What doing?"

"I couldn't see; her back was to me."

"How long did she stay there?"

"She was gone when we came back."

"Gone from the table?"

"Gone from the room."

"Humph! when did you see her again?"

"In a minute. She came in at the library door as we went out."

"Anything in her hand?"

"Not as I see."

"Did you miss anything from the table?"

"I never thought to look, sir. The table was nothing to me. I was only thinking of going for the doctor, though I knew it was of no use."

"Whom did you leave in the room when you went out?"

"The cook, sir, and Molly, sir, and Miss Eleanore."

"Not Miss Mary?"

"No, sir."

"Very well. Have the jury any questions to put to this man?"

A movement at once took place in that profound body.

"I should like to ask a few," exclaimed a weazen-faced, excitable little man whom I had before noticed shifting in his seat in a restless manner strongly suggestive of an intense but hitherto repressed desire to interrupt the proceedings.

"Very well, sir," returned Thomas.

But the juryman stopping to draw a deep breath, a large and decidedly pompous man who sat at his right hand seized the opportunity to inquire in a round, listen-to-me sort of voice:

"You say you have been in the family for two years. Was it what you might call a united family?"

"United?"

"Affectionate, you know,—on good terms with each other." And the juryman lifted the very long and heavy watch-chain that hung across his vest as if that as well as himself had a right to a suitable and well-considered reply.

The butler, impressed perhaps by his manner, glanced uneasily around. "Yes, sir, so far as I know."

"The young ladies were attached to their uncle?"

"O yes, sir."

"And to each other?"

"Well, yes, I suppose so; it's not for me to say."

"You suppose so. Have you any reason to think otherwise?" And he doubled the watch-chain about his fingers as if he would double its attention as well as his own.

Thomas hesitated a moment. But just as his interlocutor was about to repeat his question, he drew himself up into a rather stiff and formal attitude and replied:

"Well, sir, no."

The juryman, for all his self-assertion, seemed to respect the reticence of a servant who declined to give his opinion in regard to such a matter, and drawing complacently back, signified with a wave of his hand that he had no more to say.

Immediately the excitable little man, before mentioned, slipped forward to the edge of his chair and asked, this time without hesitation: "At what time did you unfasten the house this morning?"

"About six, sir."

"Now, could any one leave the house after that time without your knowledge?"

Thomas glanced a trifle uneasily at his' fellow-servants, but answered up promptly and as if without reserve;

"I don't think it would be possible for anybody to leave this house after six in the morning without either myself or the cook's knowing of it. Folks don't jump from second-story windows in broad daylight, and as to leaving by the doors, the front door closes with such a slam all the house can hear it from top to bottom, and as for the backdoor, no one that goes out of that can get clear of the yard without going by the kitchen window, and no one can go by our kitchen window without the cook's a-seeing of them, that I can just swear to." And he cast a half-quizzing, half-malicious look at the round, red-faced individual in question, strongly suggestive of late and unforgotten bickerings over the kitchen coffee-urn and castor.

This reply, which was of a nature calculated to deepen the forebodings which had already settled upon the minds of those present, produced a visible effect. The house found locked, and no one seen to leave it! Evidently, then, we had not far to look for the assassin.

Shifting on his chair with increased fervor, if I may so speak, the juryman glanced sharply around. But perceiving the renewed interest in the faces about him, declined to weaken the effect of the last admission, by any further questions. Settling, therefore, comfortably back, he left the field open for any other juror who might choose to press the inquiry. But no one seeming to be ready to do this, Thomas in his turn evinced impatience, and at last, looking respectfully around, inquired:

"Would any other gentleman like to ask me anything?"

No one replying, he threw a hurried glance of relief towards the servants at his side, then, while each one marvelled at the sudden change that had taken place in his countenance, withdrew with an eager alacrity and evident satisfaction for which I could not at the moment account.

But the next witness proving to be none other than my acquaintance of the morning, Mr. Harwell, I soon forgot both Thomas and the doubts his last movement had awakened, in the interest which the examination of so important a person as the secretary and right-hand man of Mr. Leavenworth was likely to create.

Advancing with the calm and determined air of one who realized that life and death itself might hang upon his words, Mr. Harwell took his stand before the jury with a degree of dignity not only highly prepossessing in itself, but to me, who had not been over and above pleased with him in our first interview, admirable and surprising. Lacking, as I have said, any distinctive quality of face or form agreeable or otherwise—being what you might call in appearance a negative sort of person, his pale, regular features, dark, well-smoothed hair and simple whiskers, all belonging to a recognized type and very commonplace—there was still visible, on this occasion at least, a certain self-possession in his carriage, which went far towards making up for the want of impressiveness in his countenance and expression. Not that even this was in any way remarkable. Indeed, there was nothing remarkable about the man, any more than there is about a thousand others you meet every day on Broadway, unless you except the look of concentration and solemnity which pervaded his whole person; a solemnity which at this time would not have been noticeable, perhaps, if it had not appeared to be the habitual expression of one who in his short life had seen more of sorrow than joy, less of pleasure than care and anxiety.

The coroner, to whom his appearance one way or the other seemed to be a matter of no moment, addressed him immediately and without reserve:

"Your name?"

"James Trueman Harwell."

"Your business?"

"I have occupied the position of private secretary and amanuensis to Mr. Leavenworth for the past eight months."

"You are the person who last saw Mr. Leavenworth alive, are you not?"

The young man raised his head with a haughty gesture which well-nigh transfigured it.

"Certainly not, as I am not the man who killed him."

This answer, which seemed to introduce something akin to levity or badinage into an examination the seriousness of which we were all beginning to realize, produced an immediate revulsion of feeling toward the man who, in face of facts revealed and to be revealed, could so lightly make use of it. A hum of disapproval swept through the room, and in that one remark, James Harwell lost all that he had previously won by the self-possession of his bearing and the unflinching regard of his eye. He seemed himself to realize this, for he lifted his head still higher, though his general aspect remained unchanged.

"I mean," the coroner exclaimed, evidently nettled that the young man had been able to draw such a conclusion from his words, "that you were the last one to see him previous to his assassination by some unknown individual?"

The secretary folded his arms, whether to hide a certain tremble which had seized him, or by that simple action to gain time for a moment's further thought, I could not then determine. "Sir," he replied at length, "I cannot answer yes or no to that question. In all probability I was the last to see him in good health and spirits, but in a house as large as this I cannot be sure of even so simple a fact as that." Then, observing the unsatisfied look on the faces around, added slowly, "It is my business to see him late."

"Your business? Oh, as his secretary, I suppose?"

He gravely nodded.

"Mr. Harwell," the coroner went on, "the office of private secretary in this country is not a common one. Will you explain to us what your duties were in that capacity; in short, what use Mr. Leavenworth had for such an assistant and how he employed you?"

"Certainly. Mr. Leavenworth was, as you perhaps know, a man of great wealth. Connected with various societies, clubs, institutions, etc., besides being known far and near as a giving man, he was accustomed every day of his life to receive numerous letters, begging and otherwise, which it was my business to open and answer, his private correspondence always bearing a mark upon it which distinguished it from the rest. But this was not all I was expected to do. Having in his early life been engaged in the tea-trade, he had made more than one voyage to China, and was consequently much interested in the question of international communication between that country and our own. Thinking that in his various visits there, he had learned much which, if known to the American people, would conduce to our better understanding of the nation, its peculiarities, and the best manner of dealing with it, he has been engaged for some time in writing a book on the subject, which same it has been my business for the last eight months to assist him in preparing, by writing at his dictation three hours out of the twenty-four, the last hour being commonly taken from the evening, say from half-past nine to half-past ten, Mr. Leavenworth being a very methodical man and accustomed to regulate his own life and that of those about him with almost mathematical precision."

"You say you were accustomed to write at his dictation evenings? Did you do this as usual last evening?"

"I did, sir."

"What can you tell us of his manner and appearance at the time? Were they in any way unusual?"

A frown crossed the secretary's brow.

"As he probably had no premonition of his doom, why should there have been any change in his manner?"

This giving the coroner an opportunity to revenge himself for his discomfiture of a moment before, he said somewhat severely:

"It is the business of a witness to answer questions, not to put them."

The secretary flushed and the account stood even.

"Very well, then, sir; if Mr. Leavenworth felt any forebodings of his end, he did not reveal them to me. On the contrary, he seemed to be more absorbed in his work than usual. One of the last words he said to me was, 'In a month we will have this book in press, eh, Trueman?' I remember this particularly, as he was filling his wineglass at the time. He always drank one glass of wine before retiring, it being my duty to bring the decanter of sherry from the closet the last thing before leaving him. I was standing with my hand on the knob of the hall-door, but advanced as he said this and replied, 'I hope so, indeed, Mr. Leavenworth.' 'Then join me in drinking a glass of sherry,' said he, motioning me to procure another glass from the closet. I did so, and he poured me out the wine with his own hand. I am not especially fond of sherry, but the occasion was a pleasant one and I drained my glass. I remember being slightly ashamed of doing so, for Mr. Leavenworth set his down half full. It was half full when we found him this morning."

Do what he would, and being a reserved man he appeared anxious to control his emotion, the horror of his first shock seemed to overwhelm him here. Pulling his handkerchief from his pocket, he wiped his forehead. "Gentlemen, that is the last action of Mr. Leavenworth I ever saw. As he set the glass down on the table, I said good-night to him and left the room."

The coroner, with a characteristic imperviousness to all expressions of emotion, leaned back and surveyed the young man with a scrutinizing glance. "And where did you go then?" he asked.

"To my own room."

"Did you meet anybody on the way?"

"No, sir."

"Hear any thing or see anything unusual?"

The secretary's voice fell a trifle. "No, sir."

"Mr. Harwell, think again. Are you ready to swear that you neither met anybody, heard anybody, nor saw anything which lingers yet in your memory as unusual?"

His face grew quite distressed. Twice he opened his lips to speak, and as often closed them without doing so. At last, with an effort, he replied:

"I saw one thing, a little thing, too slight to mention, but it was unusual, and I could not help thinking of it when you spoke."

"What was it?"

"Only a door half open."

"Whose door?"

"Miss Eleanore Leavenworth's." His voice was almost a whisper now.

"Where were you when you observed this fact?"

"I cannot say exactly. Probably at my own door, as I did not stop on the way. If this frightful occurrence had not taken place I should never have thought of it again."

"When you went into your room did you close your door?"

"I did, sir."

"How soon did you retire?"

"Immediately."

"Did you hear nothing before you fell asleep?"

Again that indefinable hesitation.

"Barely nothing."

"Not a footstep in the hall?"

"I might have heard a footstep."

"Did you?"

"I cannot swear I did."

"Do you think you did?"

"Yes, I think I did. To tell the whole: I remember hearing, just as I was falling into a doze, a rustle and a footstep in the hall; but it made no impression upon me, and I dropped asleep."

"Well?"

"Some time later I woke, woke suddenly, as if something had startled me, but what, a noise or move, I cannot say. I remember rising up in my bed and looking around, but hearing nothing further, soon yielded to the drowsiness which possessed me and fell into a deep sleep. I did not wake again till morning."

Here requested to relate how and when he became acquainted with the fact of the murder, he substantiated, in all particulars, the account of the matter already given by the butler; which subject being exhausted, the coroner went on to ask if he had noted the condition of the library table after the body had been removed.

"Somewhat; yes, sir."

"What was on it?"

"The usual properties, sir, books, paper, a pen with the ink dried on it, besides the decanter and the wineglass from which he drank the night before."

"Nothing more?"

"I remember nothing more."

"In regard to that decanter and glass," broke in the juryman of the watch and chain, "did you not say that the latter was found in the same condition in which you saw it at the time you left Mr. Leavenworth sitting in his library?"

"Yes, sir, very much."

"Yet he was in the habit of drinking a full glass?"

"Yes, sir."

"An interruption must then have ensued very close upon your departure, Mr. Harwell."

A cold bluish pallor suddenly broke out upon the young man's face. He started, and for a moment looked as if struck by some horrible thought. "That does not follow, sir," he articulated with some difficulty. "Mr. Leavenworth might—" but suddenly stopped, as if too much distressed to proceed.

"Go on, Mr. Harwell, let us hear what you have to say."

"There is nothing," he returned faintly, as if battling with some strong emotion.

As he had not been answering a question, only volunteering an explanation, the coroner let it pass; but I saw more than one pair of eyes roll suspiciously from side to side, as if many there felt that some sort of clue had been offered them in this man's emotion. The coroner, ignoring in his easy way both the emotion and the universal excitement it had produced, now proceeded to ask: "Do you know whether the key to the library was in its place when you left the room last night?"

"No, sir; I did not notice."

"The presumption is, it was?"

"I suppose so."

"At all events, the door was locked in the morning, and the key gone?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then whoever committed this murder locked the door on passing out, and took away the key?"

"It would seem so."

The coroner turning, faced the jury with an earnest look. "Gentlemen," said he, "there seems to be a mystery in regard to this key which must be looked into."

Immediately a universal murmur swept through the room, testifying to the acquiescence of all present. The little juryman hastily rising proposed that an instant search should be made for it; but the coroner, turning upon him with what I should denominate as a quelling look, decided that the inquest should proceed in the usual manner, till the verbal testimony was all in.

"Then allow me to ask a question," again volunteered the irrepressible. "Mr. Harwell, we are told that upon the breaking in of the library door this morning, Mr. Leavenworth's two nieces followed you into the room."

"One of them, sir, Miss Eleanore."

"Is Miss Eleanore the one who is said to be Mr. Leavenworth's sole heiress?" the coroner here interposed.

"No, sir, that is Miss Mary."

"That she gave orders," pursued the juryman, "for the removal of the body into the further room?"

"Yes, sir."

"And that you obeyed her by helping to carry it in?"

"Yes, sir."

"Now, in thus passing through the rooms, did you observe anything to lead you to form a suspicion of the murderer?"

The secretary shook his head. "I have no suspicion," he emphatically said.

Somehow, I did not believe him. Whether it was the tone of his voice, the clutch of his hand on his sleeve—and the hand will often reveal more than the countenance—I felt that this man was not to be relied upon in making this assertion.

"I should like to ask Mr. Harwell a question," said a juryman who had not yet spoken. "We have had a detailed account of what looks like the discovery of a murdered man. Now, murder is never committed without some motive. Does the secretary know whether Mr. Leavenworth had any secret enemy?"

"I do not."

"Every one in the house seemed to be on good terms with him?"

"Yes, sir," with a little quaver of dissent in the assertion, however.

"Not a shadow lay between him and any other member of his household, so far as you know?"

"I am not ready to say that," he returned, quite distressed. "A shadow is a very slight thing. There might have been a shadow——"

"Between him and whom?"

A long hesitation. "One of his nieces, sir."

"Which one?"

Again that defiant lift of the head. "Miss Eleanore."

"How long has this shadow been observable?"

"I cannot say."

"You do not know the cause?"

"I do not."

"Nor the extent of the feeling?"

"No, sir."

"You open Mr. Leavenworth's letters?"

"I do."

"Has there been anything in his correspondence of late calculated to throw any light upon this deed?"

It actually seemed as if he never would answer. Was he simply pondering over his reply, or was the man turned to stone?

"Mr. Harwell, did you hear the juryman?" inquired the coroner.

"Yes, sir; I was thinking."

"Very well, now answer."

"Sir," he replied, turning and looking the juryman full in the face, and in that way revealing his unguarded left hand to my gaze, "I have opened Mr. Leavenworth's letters as usual for the last two weeks, and I can think of nothing in them bearing in the least upon this tragedy."

The man lied; I knew it instantly. The clenched hand pausing irresolute, then making up its mind to go through with the lie firmly, was enough for me.

"Mr. Harwell, this is undoubtedly true according to your judgment," said the coroner; "but Mr. Leavenworth's correspondence will have to be searched for all that."

"Of course," he replied carelessly; "that is only right."

This remark ended Mr. Harwell's examination for the time. As he sat down I made note of four things.

That Mr. Harwell himself, for some reason not given, was conscious of a suspicion which he was anxious to suppress even from his own mind.

That a woman was in some way connected with it, a rustle as well as a footstep having been heard by him on the stairs.

That a letter had arrived at the house, which if found would be likely to throw some light upon this subject.

That Eleanore Leavenworth's name came with difficulty from his lips; this evidently unimpressible man, manifesting more or less emotion whenever he was called upon to utter it.

IV. A CUTS

"Something is rotten in the State of Denmark."
Hamlet.

THE cook of the establishment being now called, that portly, ruddy-faced individual stepped forward with alacrity, displaying upon her good-humored countenance such an expression of mingled eagerness and anxiety that more than one person present found it difficult to restrain a smile at her appearance. Observing this and taking it as a compliment, being a woman as well as a cook, she immediately dropped a curtsey, and opening her lips was about to speak, when the coroner, rising impatiently in his seat, took the word from her mouth by saying sternly:

"Your name?"

"Katherine Malone, sir."

"Well, Katherine, how long have you been in Mr. Leavenworth's service?"

"Shure, it is a good twelvemonth now, sir, since I came, on Mrs. Wilson's ricommindation, to that very front door, and——"

"Never mind the front door, but tell us why you left this Mrs. Wilson?"

"Shure, and it was she as left me, being as she went sailing to the ould country the same day when on her recommendation I came to this very front door—"

"Well, well; no matter about that. You have been in Mr. Leavenworth's family a year?"

"Yes, sir."

"And liked it? found him a good master?"

"Och, sir, niver have I found a better, worse luck to the villain as killed him. He was that free and ginerous, sir, that many 's the time I have said to Hannah—" She stopped, with a sudden comical gasp of terror, looking at her fellow-servants like one who had incautiously made a slip. The coroner, observing this, inquired hastily:

"Hannah? Who is Hannah?"

The cook, drawing her roly-poly figure up into some sort of shape in her efforts to appear unconcerned, exclaimed boldly: "She? Oh, only the ladies' maid, sir."

"But I don't see any one here answering to that description. You didn't speak of any one by the name of Hannah, as belonging to the house," said he, turning to Thomas.

"No, sir," the latter replied, with a bow and a sidelong look at the red-cheeked girl at his side. "You asked me who were in the house at the time the murder was discovered, and I told you."

"Oh," cried the coroner, satirically; "used to police courts, I see." Then, turning back to the cook, who had all this while been rolling her eyes in a vague fright about the room, inquired, "And where is this Hannah?"

"Shure, sir, she's gone."

"How long since?"

The cook caught her breath hysterically. "Since last night."

"What time last night?"

"Troth, sir, and I don't know. I don't know anything about it."

"Was she dismissed?"

"Not as I knows on; her clothes is here."

"Oh, her clothes are here. At what hour did you miss her?"

"I didn't miss her. She was here last night, and she isn't here this morning, and so I says she 's gone."

"Humph!" cried the coroner, casting a slow glance down the room, while every one present looked as if a door had suddenly opened in a closed wall.

"Where did this girl sleep?"

The cook, who had been fumbling uneasily with her apron, looked up.

"Shure, we all sleeps at the top of the house, sir."

"In one room?"

Slowly. "Yes, sir."

"Did she come up to the room last night?"

"Yes, sir."

"At what hour?"

"Shure, it was ten when we all came up. I heard the clock a-striking."

"Did you observe anything unusual in her appearance?"

"She had a toothache, sir."

"Oh, a toothache; what, then? Tell me all she did."

But at this the cook broke into tears and wails.

"Shure, she didn't do nothing, sir. It wasn't her, sir, as did anything; don't you believe it. Hannah is a good girl, and honest, sir, as ever you see. I am ready to swear on the Book as how she never put her hand to the lock of his door. What should she for? She only went down to Miss Eleanore for some toothache-drops, her face was paining her that awful; and oh, sir——"

"There, there," interrupted the coroner, "I am not accusing Hannah of anything. I only asked you what she did after she reached your room. She went downstairs, you say. How long after you went up?"

"Troth, sir, I couldn't tell; but Molly says——"

"Never mind what Molly says. You didn't see her go down?"

"No, sir."

"Nor see her come back?"

"No, sir."

"Nor see her this morning?"

"No, sir; how could I when she 's gone?"

"But you did see, last night, that she seemed to be suffering with toothache?"

"Yes, sir."

"Very well; now tell me how and when you first became acquainted with the fact of Mr. Leavenworth's death."

But her replies to this question, while over-garrulous, contained but little information; and seeing this, the coroner was on the point of dismissing her, when the little juror, remembering an admission she had made, of having seen Miss Eleanore Leavenworth coming out of the library door a few minutes after Mr. Leavenworth's body had been carried into the next room, asked if her mistress had anything in her hand at the time.

"I don't know, sir. Faith!" she suddenly exclaimed, "I believe she did have a piece of paper. I recollect, now, seeing her put it in her pocket."

The next witness was Molly, the upstairs girl.

Molly O'Flanagan, as she called herself, was a rosy-cheeked, black-haired, pert girl of about eighteen, who under ordinary circumstances would have found herself able to answer, with a due degree of smartness, any question which might have been addressed to her. But fright will sometimes cower the stoutest heart, and Molly, standing before the coroner at this juncture, presented anything but a reckless appearance, her naturally rosy cheeks blanching at the first word addressed to her, and her head falling forward on her breast in a confusion too genuine to be dissembled and too transparent to be misunderstood.

As her testimony related mostly to Hannah, and what she knew of her, and her remarkable disappearance, I shall confine myself to a mere synopsis of it.

As far as she, Molly, knew, Hannah was what she had given herself out to be, an uneducated girl of Irish extraction, who had come from the country to act as lady's-maid and seamstress to the two Misses Leavenworth. She had been in the family for some time; before Molly herself, in fact; and though by nature remarkably reticent, refusing to tell anything about herself or her past life, she had managed to become a great favorite with all in the house. But she was of a melancholy nature and fond of brooding, often getting up nights to sit and think in the dark: "as if she was a lady!" exclaimed Molly.

This habit being a singular one for a girl in her station, an attempt was made to win from the witness further particulars in regard to it. But Molly, with a toss of her head, confined herself to the one statement. She used to get up nights and sit in the window, and that was all she knew about it.

Drawn away from this topic, during the consideration of which, a little of the sharpness of Molly's disposition had asserted itself, she went on to state, in connection with the events of the past night, that Hannah had been ill for two days or more with a swelled face; that it grew so bad after they had gone upstairs, the night before, that she got out of bed, and dressing herself—Molly was closely questioned here, but insisted upon the fact that Hannah had fully dressed herself, even to arranging her collar and ribbon—lighted a candle, and made known her intention of going down to Miss Eleanore for aid.

"Why Miss Eleanore?" a juryman here asked.

"Oh, she is the one who always gives out medicines and such like to the servants."

Urged to proceed, she went on to state that she had already told all she knew about it. Hannah did not come back, nor was she to be found in the house at breakfast time.

"You say she took a candle with her," said the coroner. "Was it in a candlestick?"

"No, sir; loose like."

"Why did she take a candle? Does not Mr. Leavenworth burn gas in his halls?"

"Yes, sir; but we put the gas out as we go up, and Hannah is afraid of the dark."

"If she took a candle, it must be lying somewhere about the house. Now, has anybody seen a stray candle?"

"Not as I knows on, sir."

"Is this it?" exclaimed a voice over my shoulder.

It was Mr. Gryce, and he was holding up into view a half-burned paraffine candle.

"Yes, sir; lor', where did you find it?"

"In the grass of the carriage yard, half-way from the kitchen door to the street," he quietly returned.

Sensation. A clue, then, at last! Something had been found which seemed to connect this mysterious murder with the outside world. Instantly the backdoor assumed the chief position of interest. The candle found lying in the yard seemed to prove, not only that Hannah had left the house shortly after descending from her room, but had left it by the backdoor, which we now remembered was only a few steps from the iron gate opening into the side street. But Thomas, being recalled, repeated his assertion that not only the backdoor, but all the lower windows of the house, had been found by him securely locked and bolted at six o'clock that morning. Inevitable conclusion—some one had locked and bolted them after the girl. Who? Alas, that had now become the very serious and momentous question.

V. EXPERT TESTIMONY

"And often-times, to win us to our harm,
The instruments of darkness tell us truths;
Win us with honest trifles, to betray us
In deepest consequence."

Macbeth.

IN the midst of the universal gloom thus awakened there came a sharp ring at the bell. Instantly all eyes turned toward the parlor door, just as it slowly opened, and the officer who had been sent off so mysteriously by the coroner an hour before entered, in company with a young man, whose sleek appearance, intelligent eye, and general air of trustworthiness, seemed to proclaim him to be, what in fact he was, the confidential clerk of a responsible mercantile house.

Advancing without apparent embarrassment, though each and every eye in the room was fixed upon him with lively curiosity, he made a slight bow to the coroner.

"You have sent for a man from Bohn & Co.," he said.

Strong and immediate excitement. Bohn & Co. was the well-known pistol and ammunition store of —— Broadway.

"Yes, sir," returned the coroner. "We have here a bullet, which we must ask you to examine, You are fully acquainted with all matters connected with your business?"

The young man, merely elevating an expressive eyebrow, took the bullet carelessly in his hand.

"Can you tell us from what make of pistol that was delivered?"

The young man rolled it slowly round between his thumb and forefinger, and then laid it down. "It is a No. 32 ball, usually sold with the small pistol made by Smith & Wesson."

"A small pistol!" exclaimed the butler, jumping up from his seat. "Master used to keep a little pistol in his stand drawer. I have often seen it. We all knew about it."

Great and irrepressible excitement, especially among the servants. "That's so!" I heard a heavy voice exclaim. "I saw it once myself—master was cleaning it." It was the cook who spoke.

"In his stand drawer?" the coroner inquired.

"Yes, sir; at the head of his bed."

An officer was sent to examine the stand drawer. In a few moments he returned, bringing a small pistol which he laid down on the coroner's table, saying, "Here it is."

Immediately, every one sprang to his feet, but the coroner, handing it over to the clerk from Bonn's, inquired if that was the make before mentioned. Without hesitation he replied, "Yes, Smith & Wesson; you can see for yourself," and he proceeded to examine it.

"Where did you find this pistol?" asked the coroner of the officer.

"In the top drawer of a shaving table standing near the head of Mr. Leavenworth's bed. It was lying in a velvet case together with a box of cartridges, one of which I bring as a sample," and he laid it down beside the bullet.

"Was the drawer locked?"

"Yes, sir; but the key was not taken out."

Interest had now reached its climax. A universal cry swept through the room, "Is it loaded?"

The coroner, frowning on the assembly, with a look of great dignity, remarked:

"I was about to ask that question myself, but first I must request order."

An immediate calm followed. Every one was too much interested to interpose any obstacle in the way of gratifying his curiosity.

"Now, sir!" exclaimed the coroner.

The clerk from Bonn's, taking out the cylinder, held it up. "There are seven chambers here, and they are all loaded."

A murmur of disappointment followed this assertion.

"But," he quietly added after a momentary examination of the face of the cylinder, "they have not all been loaded long. A bullet has been recently shot from one of these chambers."

"How do you know?" cried one of the jury.

"How do I know? Sir," said he, turning to the coroner, "will you be kind enough to examine the condition of this pistol?" and he handed it over to that gentleman. "Look first at the barrel; it is clean and bright, and shows no evidence of a bullet having passed out of it very lately; that is because it has been cleaned. But now, observe the face of the cylinder: what do you see there?"

"I see a faint line of smut near one of the chambers."

"Just so; show it to the gentlemen."

It was immediately handed down.

"That faint line of smut, on the edge of one of the chambers, is the telltale, sirs. A bullet passing out always leaves smut behind. The man who fired this, remembering the fact, cleaned the barrel, but forgot the cylinder." And stepping aside he folded his arms.

"Jerusalem!" spoke out a rough, hearty voice, "isn't that wonderful!" This exclamation came from a countryman who had stepped in from the street, and now stood agape in the doorway.

It was a rude but not altogether unwelcome interruption. A smile passed round the room, and both men and women breathed more easily. Order being at last restored, the officer was requested to describe the position of the stand, and its distance from the library table.

"The library table is in one room, and the stand in another. To reach the former from the latter, one would be obliged to cross Mr. Leavenworth's bedroom in a diagonal direction, pass through the passageway separating that one apartment from the other, and——"

"Wait a moment; how does this table stand in regard to the door which leads from the bedroom into the hall?"

"One might enter that door, pass directly round the foot of the bed to the stand, procure the pistol, and cross half-way over to the passageway, without being seen by any one sitting or standing in the library beyond."

"Holy Virgin!" exclaimed the horrified cook, throwing her apron over her head as if to shut out some dreadful vision. "Hannah niver would have the pluck for that; niver, niver!" But Mr. Gryce, laying a heavy hand on the woman, forced her back into her seat, reproving and calming her at the same time, with a dexterity marvellous to behold. "I beg your pardons," she cried deprecatingly to those around; "but it niver was Hannah, niver!"

The clerk from Bohn's here being dismissed, those assembled took the opportunity of making some change in their position, after which, the name of Mr. Harwell was again called. That person rose with manifest reluctance. Evidently the preceding testimony had either upset some theory of his, or indubitably strengthened some unwelcome suspicion.

"Mr. Harwell," the coroner began, "we are told of the existence of a pistol belonging to Mr. Leavenworth, and upon searching, we discover it in his room. Did you know of his possessing such an instrument?"

"I did."

"Was it a fact generally known in the house?"

"So it would seem."

"How was that? Was he in the habit of leaving it around where any one could see it?"

"I cannot say; I can only acquaint you with the manner in which I myself became aware of its existence."

"Very well, do so."

"We were once talking about firearms. I have some taste that way, and have always been anxious to possess a pocket-pistol. Saying something of the kind to him one day, he rose from his seat and, fetching me this, showed it to me."

"How long ago was this?"

"Some few months since."

"He has owned this pistol, then, for some time?"

"Yes, sir."

"Is that the only occasion upon which you have ever seen it?"

"No, sir,"—the secretary blushed—"I have seen it once since."

"When?"

"About three weeks ago."

"Under what circumstances?"

The secretary dropped his head, a certain drawn look making itself suddenly visible on his countenance.

"Will you not excuse me, gentlemen?" he asked, after a moment's hesitation.

"It is impossible," returned the coroner.

His face grew even more pallid and deprecatory. "I am obliged to introduce the name of a lady," he hesitatingly declared.

"We are very sorry," remarked the coroner.

The young man turned fiercely upon him, and I could not help wondering that I had ever thought him commonplace. "Of Miss Eleanore Leavenworth!" he cried.

At that name, so uttered, every one started but Mr. Gryce; he was engaged in holding a close and confidential confab with his finger-tips, and did not appear to notice.

"Surely it is contrary to the rules of decorum and the respect we all feel for the lady herself to introduce her name into this discussion," continued Mr. Harwell. But the coroner still insisting upon an answer, he refolded his arms (a movement indicative of resolution with him), and began in a low, forced tone to say:

"It is only this, gentlemen. One afternoon, about three weeks since, I had occasion to go to the library at an unusual hour. Crossing over to the mantelpiece for the purpose of procuring a penknife which I had carelessly left there in the morning, I heard a noise in the adjoining room. Knowing that Mr. Leavenworth was out, and supposing the ladies to be out also, I took the liberty of ascertaining who the intruder was; when what was my astonishment to come upon Miss Eleanore Leavenworth, standing at the side of her uncle's bed, with his pistol in her hand. Confused at my indiscretion, I attempted to escape without being observed; but in vain, for just as I was crossing the threshold, she turned and, calling me by name, requested me to explain the pistol to her. Gentlemen, in order to do so, I was obliged to take it in my hand; and that, sirs, is the only other occasion upon which I ever saw or handled the pistol of Mr. Leavenworth." Drooping his head, he waited in indescribable agitation for the next question.

"She asked you to explain the pistol to her; what do you mean by that?"

"I mean," he faintly continued, catching his breath in a vain effort to appear calm, "how to load, aim, and fire it."

A flash of awakened feeling shot across the faces of all present. Even the coroner showed sudden signs of emotion, and sat staring at the bowed form and pale countenance of the man before him, with a peculiar look of surprised compassion, which could not fail of producing its effect, not only upon the young man himself, but upon all who saw him.

"Mr. Harwell," he at length inquired, "have you anything to add to the statement you have just made?"

The secretary sadly shook his head.

"Mr. Gryce," I here whispered, clutching that person by the arm and dragging him down to my side; "assure me, I entreat you—" but he would not let me finish.

"The coroner is about to ask for the young ladies," he quickly interposed. "If you desire to fulfil your duty towards them, be ready, that's all."

Fulfil my duty! The simple words recalled me to myself. What had I been thinking of; was I mad? With nothing more terrible in mind than a tender picture of the lovely cousins bowed in anguish over the remains of one who had been as dear as a father to them, I slowly rose, and upon demand being made for Miss Mary and Miss Eleanore Leavenworth, advanced and said that, as a friend of the family—a petty lie, which I hope will not be laid up against me—I begged the privilege of going for the ladies and escorting them down.

Instantly a dozen eyes flashed upon me, and I experienced the embarrassment of one who, by some unexpected word or action, has drawn upon himself the concentrated attention of a whole room.

But the permission sought being almost immediately accorded, I was speedily enabled to withdraw from my rather trying position, finding myself, almost before I knew it, in the hall, my face aflame, my heart beating with excitement, and these words of Mr. Gryce ringing in my ears: "Third floor, rear room, first door at the head of the stairs. You will find the young ladies expecting you."

VI. SIDE-LIGHTS

"Oh! she has beauty might ensnare
A conqueror's soul, and make him leave his crown
At random, to be scuffled for by slaves."

OTWAY.

THIRD floor, rear room, first door at the head of the stairs! What was I about to encounter there?

Mounting the lower flight, and shuddering by the library wall, which to my troubled fancy seemed written all over with horrible suggestions, I took my way slowly upstairs, revolving in my mind many things, among which an admonition uttered long ago by my mother occupied a prominent place.

"My son, remember that a woman with a secret may be a fascinating study, but she can never be a safe, nor even satisfactory, companion."

A wise saw, no doubt, but totally inapplicable to the present situation; yet it continued to haunt me till the sight of the door to which I had been directed put every other thought to flight save that I was about to meet the stricken nieces of a brutally murdered man.

Pausing only long enough on the threshold to compose myself for the interview, I lifted my hand to knock, when a rich, clear voice rose from within, and I heard distinctly uttered these astounding words: "I do not accuse your hand, though I know of none other which would or could have done this deed; but your heart, your head, your will, these I do and must accuse, in my secret mind at least; and it is well that you should know it!"

Struck with horror, I staggered back, my hands to my ears, when a touch fell on my arm, and turning, I saw Mr. Gryce standing close beside me, with his finger on his lip, and the last flickering shadow of a flying emotion fading from his steady, almost compassionate countenance.

"Come, come," he exclaimed; "I see you don't begin to know what kind of a world you are living in. Rouse yourself; remember they are waiting down below."

"But who is it? Who was it that spoke?"

"That we shall soon see." And without waiting to meet, much less answer, my appealing look, he struck his hand against the door, and flung it wide open.

Instantly a flush of lovely color burst upon us. Blue curtains, blue carpets, blue walls. It was like a glimpse of heavenly azure in a spot where only darkness and gloom were to be expected. Fascinated by the sight, I stepped impetuously forward, but instantly paused again, overcome and impressed by the exquisite picture I saw before me.

Seated in an easy chair of embroidered satin, but rousing from her half-recumbent position, like one who was in the act of launching a powerful invective, I beheld a glorious woman. Fair, frail, proud, delicate; looking like a lily in the thick creamy-tinted wrapper that alternately clung to and swayed from her finely moulded figure; with her forehead, crowned with the palest of pale tresses, lifted and flashing with power; one quivering hand clasping the arm of her chair, the other outstretched and pointing toward some distant object in the room,—her whole appearance was so startling, so extraordinary, that I held my breath in surprise, actually for the moment doubting if it were a living woman I beheld, or some famous pythoness conjured up from ancient story, to express in one tremendous gesture the supreme indignation of outraged womanhood.

"Miss Mary Leavenworth," whispered that ever present voice over my shoulder.

Ah! Mary Leavenworth! What a relief came with this name. This beautiful creature, then, was not the Eleanore who could load, aim, and fire a pistol. Turning my head, I followed the guiding of that uplifted hand, now frozen into its place by a new emotion: the emotion of being interrupted in the midst of a direful and pregnant revelation, and saw—but, no, here description fails me! Eleanore Leavenworth must be painted by other hands than mine. I could sit half the day and dilate upon the subtle grace, the pale magnificence, the perfection of form and feature which make Mary Leavenworth the wonder of all who behold her; but Eleanore—I could as soon paint the beatings of my own heart. Beguiling, terrible, grand, pathetic, that face of faces flashed upon my gaze, and instantly the moonlight loveliness of her cousin faded from my memory, and I saw only Eleanore—only Eleanore from that moment on forever.

When my glance first fell upon her, she was standing by the side of a small table, with her face turned toward her cousin, and her two hands resting, the one upon her breast, the other on the table, in an attitude of antagonism. But before the sudden pang which shot through me at the sight of her beauty had subsided, her head had turned, her gaze had encountered mine; all the horror of the situation had burst upon her, and, instead of a haughty woman, drawn up to receive and trample upon the insinuations of another, I beheld, alas! a trembling, panting human creature, conscious that a sword hung above her head, and without a word to say why it should not fall and slay her.

It was a pitiable change; a heartrending revelation! I turned from it as from a confession. But just then, her cousin, who had apparently regained her self-possession at the first betrayal of emotion on the part of the other, stepped forward and, holding out her hand, inquired:

"Is not this Mr. Raymond? How kind of you, sir. And you?" turning to Mr. Gryce; "you have come to tell us we are wanted below, is it not so?"

It was the voice I had heard through the door, but modulated to a sweet, winning, almost caressing tone.

Glancing hastily at Mr. Gryce, I looked to see how he was affected by it. Evidently much, for the bow with which he greeted her words was lower than ordinary, and the smile with which he met her earnest look both deprecatory and reassuring. His glance did not embrace her cousin, though her eyes were fixed upon his face with an inquiry in their depths more agonizing than the utterance of any cry would have been. Knowing Mr. Gryce as I did, I felt that nothing could promise worse, or be more significant, than this transparent disregard of one who seemed to fill the room with her terror. And, struck with pity, I forgot that Mary Leavenworth had spoken, forgot her very presence in fact, and, turning hastily away, took one step toward her cousin, when Mr. Gryce's hand falling on my arm stopped me.

"Miss Leavenworth speaks," said he.

Recalled to myself, I turned my back upon what had so interested me even while it repelled, and forcing myself to make some sort of reply to the fair creature before me, offered my arm and led her toward the door.

Immediately the pale, proud countenance of Mary Leavenworth softened almost to the point of smiling;—and here let me say, there never was a woman who could smile and not smile like Mary Leavenworth. Looking in my face, with a frank and sweet appeal in her eyes, she murmured:

"You are very good. I do feel the need of support; the occasion is so horrible, and my cousin there,"—here a little gleam of alarm nickered into her eyes—"is so very strange to-day."

"Humph!" thought I to myself; "where is the grand indignant pythoness, with the unspeakable wrath and menace in her countenance, whom I saw when I first entered the room?" Could it be that she was trying to beguile us from our conjectures, by making light of her former expressions? Or was it possible she deceived herself so far as to believe us unimpressed by the weighty accusation overheard by us at a moment so critical?

But Eleanore Leavenworth, leaning on the arm of the detective, soon absorbed all my attention. She had regained by this time her self-possession, also, but not so entirely as her cousin. Her step faltered as she endeavored to walk, and the hand which rested on his arm trembled like a leaf. "Would to God I had never entered this house," said I to myself. And yet, before the exclamation was half uttered, I became conscious of a secret rebellion against the thought; an emotion, shall I say, of thankfulness that it had been myself rather than another who had been allowed to break in upon their privacy, overhear that significant remark, and, shall I acknowledge it, follow Mr. Gryce and the trembling, swaying figure of Eleanore Leavenworth downstairs. Not that I felt the least relenting in my soul towards guilt. Crime had never looked so black; revenge, selfishness, hatred, cupidity, never seemed more loathsome; and yet—but why enter into the consideration of my feelings at that time. They cannot be of interest; besides, who can fathom the depths of his own soul, or untangle for others the secret cords of revulsion and attraction which are, and ever have been, a mystery and wonder to himself? Enough that, supporting upon my arm the half-fainting form of one woman, but with my attention, and interest devoted to another, I descended the stairs of the Leavenworth mansion, and re-entered the dreaded presence of those inquisitors of the law who had been so impatiently awaiting us.

As I once more crossed that threshold, and faced the eager countenances of those I had left so short a time before, I felt as if ages had elapsed in the interval; so much can be experienced by the human soul in the short space of a few over-weighted moments.

VII. MARY LEAVENWORTH

"For this relief much thanks."
Hamlet.

HAVE you ever observed the effect of the sunlight bursting suddenly upon the earth from behind a mass of heavily surcharged clouds? If so, you can have some idea of the sensation produced in that room by the entrance of these two beautiful ladies. Possessed of a loveliness which would have been conspicuous in all places and under all circumstances, Mary, at least, if not her less striking, though by no means less interesting cousin, could never have entered any assemblage without drawing to herself the wondering attention of all present. But, heralded as here, by the most fearful of tragedies, what could you expect from a collection of men such as I have already described, but overmastering wonder and incredulous admiration? Nothing, perhaps, and yet at the first murmuring sound of amazement and satisfaction, I felt my soul recoil in disgust.

Making haste to seat my now trembling companion in the most retired spot I could find, I looked around for her cousin. But Eleanore Leavenworth, weak as she had appeared in the interview above, showed at this moment neither hesitation nor embarrassment. Advancing upon the arm of the detective, whose suddenly assumed air of persuasion in the presence of the jury was anything but reassuring, she stood for an instant gazing calmly upon the scene before her. Then bowing to the coroner with a grace and condescension which seemed at once to place him on the footing of a politely endured intruder in this home of elegance, she took the seat which her own servants hastened to procure for her, with an ease and dignity that rather recalled the triumphs of the drawing-room than the self-consciousness of a scene such as that in which we found ourselves. Palpable acting, though this was, it was not without its effect. Instantly the murmurs ceased, the obtrusive glances fell, and something like a forced respect made itself visible upon the countenances of all present. Even I, impressed as I had been by her very different demeanor in the room above, experienced a sensation of relief; and was more than startled when, upon turning to the lady at my side, I beheld her eyes riveted upon her cousin with an inquiry in their depths that was anything but encouraging. Fearful of the effect this look might have upon those about us, I hastily seized her hand which, clenched and unconscious, hung over the edge of her chair, and was about to beseech her to have care, when her name, called in a slow, impressive way by the coroner, roused her from her abstraction. Hurriedly withdrawing her gaze from her cousin, she lifted her face to the jury, and I saw a gleam pass over it which brought back my early fancy of the pythoness. But it passed, and it was with an expression of great modesty she settled herself to respond to the demand of the coroner and answer the first few opening inquiries.

But what can express the anxiety of that moment to me? Gentle as she now appeared, she was capable of great wrath, as I knew. Was she going to reiterate her suspicions here? Did she hate as well as mistrust her cousin? Would she dare assert in this presence, and before the world, what she found it so easy to utter in the privacy of her own room and the hearing of the one person concerned? Did she wish to? Her own countenance gave me no clue to her intentions, and, in my anxiety, I turned once more to look at Eleanore. But she, in a dread and apprehension I could easily understand, had recoiled at the first intimation that her cousin was to speak, and now sat with her face covered from sight, by hands blanched to an almost deathly whiteness.

The testimony of Mary Leavenworth was short. After some few questions, mostly referring to her position in the house and her connection with its deceased master, she was asked to relate what she knew of the murder itself, and of its discovery by her cousin and the servants.

Lifting up a brow that seemed never to have known till now the shadow of care or trouble, and a voice that, whilst low and womanly, rang like a bell through the room, she replied:

"You ask me, gentlemen, a question which I cannot answer of my own personal knowledge. I know nothing of this murder, nor of its discovery, save what has come to me through the lips of others."

My heart gave a bound of relief, and I saw Eleanore Leavenworth's hands drop from her brow like stone, while a flickering gleam as of hope fled over her face, and then died away like sunlight leaving marble.

"For, strange as it may seem to you," Mary earnestly continued, the shadow of a past horror revisiting her countenance, "I did not enter the room where my uncle lay. I did not even think of doing so; my only impulse was to fly from what was so horrible and heartrending. But Eleanore went in, and she can tell you——"

"We will question Miss Eleanore Leavenworth later," interrupted the coroner, but very gently for him. Evidently the grace and elegance of this beautiful woman were making their impression. "What we want to know is what you saw. You say you cannot tell us of anything that passed in the room at the time of the discovery?"

"No, sir."

"Only what occurred in the hall?"

"Nothing occurred in the hall," she innocently remarked.

"Did not the servants pass in from the hall, and your cousin come out there after her revival from her fainting fit?"

Mary Leavenworth's violet eyes opened wonderingly.

"Yes, sir; but that was nothing."

"You remember, however, her coming into the hall?"

"Yes, sir."

"With a paper in her hand?"

"Paper?" and she wheeled suddenly and looked at her cousin. "Did you have a paper, Eleanore?"

The moment was intense. Eleanore Leavenworth, who at the first mention of the word paper had started perceptibly, rose to her feet at this naive appeal, and opening her lips, seemed about to speak, when the coroner, with a strict sense of what was regular, lifted his hand with decision, and said:

"You need not ask your cousin, Miss; but let us hear what you have to say yourself."

Immediately, Eleanore Leavenworth sank back, a pink spot breaking out on either cheek; while a slight murmur testified to the disappointment of those in the room, who were more anxious to have their curiosity gratified than the forms of law adhered to.

Satisfied with having done his duty, and disposed to be easy with so charming a witness, the coroner repeated his question. "Tell us, if you please, if you saw any such thing in her hand?"

"I? Oh, no, no; I saw nothing."

Being now questioned in relation to the events of the previous night, she had no new light to throw upon the subject. She acknowledged her uncle to have been a little reserved at dinner, but no more so than at previous times when annoyed by some business anxiety.

Asked if she had seen her uncle again that evening, she said no, that she had been detained in her room. That the sight of him, sitting in his seat at the head of the table, was the very last remembrance she had of him.

There was something so touching, so forlorn, and yet so unobtrusive, in this simple recollection of hers, that a look of sympathy passed slowly around the room.

I even detected Mr. Gryce softening towards the inkstand. But Eleanore Leavenworth sat unmoved.

"Was your uncle on ill terms with any one?" was now asked. "Had he valuable papers or secret sums of money in his possession?"

To all these inquiries she returned an equal negative.

"Has your uncle met any stranger lately, or received any important letter during the last few weeks, which might seem in any way to throw light upon this mystery?"

There was the slightest perceptible hesitation in her voice, as she replied: "No, not to my knowledge; I don't know of any such." But here, stealing a side glance at Eleanore, she evidently saw something that reassured her, for she hastened to add:

"I believe I may go further than that, and meet your question with a positive no. My uncle was in the habit of confiding in me, and I should have known if anything of importance to him had occurred."

Questioned in regard to Hannah, she gave that person the best of characters; knew of nothing which could have led either to her strange disappearance, or to her connection with crime. Could not say whether she kept any company, or had any visitors; only knew that no one with any such pretensions came to the house. Finally, when asked when she had last seen the pistol which Mr. Leavenworth always kept in his stand drawer, she returned, not since the day he bought it; Eleanore, and not herself, having the charge of her uncle's apartments.

It was the only thing she had said which, even to a mind freighted like mine, would seem to point to any private doubt or secret suspicion; and this, uttered in the careless manner in which it was, would have passed without comment if Eleanore herself had not directed at that moment a very much aroused and inquiring look upon the speaker.

But it was time for the inquisitive juror to make himself heard again. Edging to the brink of the chair, he drew in his breath, with a vague awe of Mary's beauty, almost ludicrous to see, and asked if she had properly considered what she had just said.

"I hope, sir, I consider all I am called upon to say at such a time as this," was her earnest reply.

The little juror drew back, and I looked to see her examination terminate, when suddenly his ponderous colleague of the watch-chain, catching the young lady's eye, inquired:

"Miss Leavenworth, did your uncle ever make a will?"

Instantly every man in the room was in arms, and even she could not prevent the slow blush of injured pride from springing to her cheek. But her answer was given firmly, and without any show of resentment.

"Yes, sir," she returned simply.

"More than one?"

"I never heard of but one."

"Are you acquainted with the contents of that will?"

"I am. He made no secret of his intentions to any one."

The juryman lifted his eye-glass and looked at her. Her grace was little to him, or her beauty or her elegance. "Perhaps, then, you can tell me who is the one most likely to be benefited by his death?"

The brutality of this question was too marked to pass unchallenged. Not a man in that room, myself included, but frowned with sudden disapprobation. But Mary Leavenworth, drawing herself up, looked her interlocutor calmly in the face, and restrained herself to say:

"I know who would be the greatest losers by it. The children he took to his bosom in their helplessness and sorrow; the young girls he enshrined with the halo of his love and protection, when love and protection were what their immaturity most demanded; the women who looked to him for guidance when childhood and youth were passed—these, sir, these are the ones to whom his death is a loss, in comparison to which all others which may hereafter befall them must ever seem trivial and unimportant."

It was a noble reply to the basest of insinuations, and the juryman drew back rebuked; but here another of them, one who had not spoken before, but whose appearance was not only superior to the rest, but also almost imposing in its gravity, leaned from his seat and in a solemn voice said:

"Miss Leavenworth, the human mind cannot help forming impressions. Now have you, with or without reason, felt at any time conscious of a suspicion pointing towards any one person as the murderer of your uncle?"

It was a frightful moment. To me and to one other, I am sure it was not only frightful, but agonizing. Would her courage fail? would her determination to shield her cousin remain firm in the face of duty and at the call of probity? I dared not hope it.

But Mary Leavenworth, rising to her feet, looked judge and jury calmly in the face, and, without raising her voice, giving it an indescribably clear and sharp intonation, replied:

"No; I have neither suspicion nor reason for any. The assassin of my uncle is not only entirely unknown to, but completely unsuspected by, me."

It was like the removal of a stifling pressure. Amid a universal outgoing of the breath, Mary Leavenworth stood aside and Eleanore was called in her place.

VIII. CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE

"O dark, dark, dark!"

AND now that the interest was at its height, that the veil which shrouded this horrible tragedy seemed about to be lifted, if not entirely withdrawn, I felt a desire to fly the scene, to leave the spot, to know no more. Not that I was conscious of any particular fear of this woman betraying herself. The cold steadiness of her now fixed and impassive countenance was sufficient warranty in itself against the possibility of any such catastrophe. But if, indeed, the suspicions of her cousin were the offspring, not only of hatred, but of knowledge; if that face of beauty was in truth only a mask, and Eleanore Leavenworth was what the words of her cousin, and her own after behavior would seem to imply, how could I bear to sit there and see the frightful serpent of deceit and sin evolve itself from the bosom of this white rose! And yet, such is the fascination of uncertainty that, although I saw something of my own feelings reflected in the countenances of many about me, not a man in all that assemblage showed any disposition to depart, I least of all.

The coroner, upon whom the blonde loveliness of Mary had impressed itself to Eleanor's apparent detriment, was the only one in the room who showed himself unaffected at this moment. Turning toward the witness with a look which, while respectful, had a touch of austerity in it, he began:

"You have been an intimate of Mr. Leavenworth's family from childhood, they tell me, Miss Leavenworth?"

"From my tenth year," was her quiet reply.

It was the first time I had heard her voice, and it surprised me; it was so like, and yet so unlike, that of her cousin. Similar in tone, it lacked its expressiveness, if I may so speak; sounding without vibration on the ear, and ceasing without an echo.

"Since that time you have been treated like a daughter, they tell me?"

"Yes, sir, like a daughter, indeed; he was more than a father to both of us."

"You and Miss Mary Leavenworth are cousins, I believe. When did she enter the family?"

"At the same time I did. Our respective parents were victims of the same disaster. If it had not been for our uncle, we should have been thrown, children as we were, upon the world. But he"—here she paused, her firm lips breaking into a half tremble—"but he, in the goodness of his heart, adopted us into his family, and gave us what we had both lost, a father and a home."

"You say he was a father to you as well as to your cousin—that he adopted you. Do you mean by that, that he not only surrounded you with present luxury, but gave you to understand that the same should be secured to you after his death; in short, that he intended to leave any portion of his property to you?"

"No, sir; I was given to understand, from the first, that his property would be bequeathed by will to my cousin."

"Your cousin was no more nearly related to him than yourself, Miss Leavenworth; did he never give you any reason for this evident partiality?"

"None but his pleasure, sir."

Her answers up to this point had been so straightforward and satisfactory that a gradual confidence seemed to be taking the place of the rather uneasy doubts which had from the first circled about this woman's name and person. But at this admission, uttered as it was in a calm, unimpassioned voice, not only the jury, but myself, who had so much truer reason for distrusting her, felt that actual suspicion in her case must be very much shaken before the utter lack of motive which this reply so clearly betokened.

Meanwhile the coroner continued: "If your uncle was as kind to you as you say, you must have become very much attached to him?"

"Yes, sir," her mouth taking a sudden determined curve.

"His death, then, must have been a great shock to you?"

"Very, very great."

"Enough of itself to make you faint away, as they tell me you did, at the first glimpse you had of his body?"

"Enough, quite."

"And yet you seemed to be prepared for it?"

"Prepared?"

"The servants say you were much agitated at finding your uncle did not make his appearance at the breakfast table."

"The servants!" her tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of her mouth; she could hardly speak.

"That when you returned from his room you were very pale."

Was she beginning to realize that there was some doubt, if not actual suspicion, in the mind of the man who could assail her with questions like these? I had not seen her so agitated since that one memorable instant up in her room. But her mistrust, if she felt any, did not long betray itself. Calming herself by a great effort, she replied, with a quiet gesture—

"That is not so strange. My uncle was a very methodical man; the least change in his habits would be likely to awaken our apprehensions."

"You were alarmed, then?"

"To a certain extent I was."

"Miss Leavenworth, who is in the habit of overseeing the regulation of your uncle's private apartments?"

"I am, sir."

"You are doubtless, then, acquainted with a certain stand in his room containing a drawer?"

"Yes, sir."

"How long is it since you had occasion to go to this drawer?"

"Yesterday," visibly trembling at the admission.

"At what time?"

"Near noon, I should judge."

"Was the pistol he was accustomed to keep there in its place at the time?"

"I presume so; I did not observe."

"Did you turn the key upon closing the drawer?"

"I did."

"Take it out?"

"No, sir."

"Miss Leavenworth, that pistol, as you have perhaps observed, lies on the table before you. Will you look at it?" And lifting it up into view, he held it towards her.

If he had meant to startle her by the sudden action, he amply succeeded. At the first sight of the murderous weapon she shrank back, and a horrified, but quickly suppressed shriek, burst from her lips. "Oh, no, no!" she moaned, flinging out her hands before her.

"I must insist upon your looking at it, Miss Leavenworth," pursued the coroner. "When it was found just now, all the chambers were loaded."

Instantly the agonized look left her countenance. "Oh, then—" She did not finish, but put out her hand for the weapon.

But the coroner, looking at her steadily, continued: "It has been lately fired off, for all that. The hand that cleaned the barrel forgot the cartridge-chamber, Miss Leavenworth."

She did not shriek again, but a hopeless, helpless look slowly settled over her face, and she seemed about to sink; but like a flash the reaction came, and lifting her head with a steady, grand action I have never seen equalled, she exclaimed, "Very well, what then?"

The coroner laid the pistol down; men and women glanced at each other; every one seemed to hesitate to proceed. I heard a tremulous sigh at my side, and, turning, beheld Mary Leavenworth staring at her cousin with a startled flush on her cheek, as if she began to recognize that the public, as well as herself, detected something in this woman, calling for explanation.

At last the coroner summoned up courage to continue.

"You ask me, Miss Leavenworth, upon the evidence given, what then? Your question obliges me to say that no burglar, no hired assassin, would have used this pistol for a murderous purpose, and then taken the pains, not only to clean it, but to reload it, and lock it up again in the drawer from which he had taken it."

She did not reply to this; but I saw Mr. Gryce make a note of it with that peculiar emphatic nod of his.

"Nor," he went on, even more gravely, "would it be possible for any one who was not accustomed to pass in and out of Mr. Leavenworth's room at all hours, to enter his door so late at night, procure this pistol from its place of concealment, traverse his apartment, and advance as closely upon him as the facts show to have been necessary, without causing him at least to turn his head to one side; which, in consideration of the doctor's testimony, we cannot believe he did."

It was a frightful suggestion, and we looked to see Eleanore Leavenworth recoil. But that expression of outraged feeling was left for her cousin to exhibit. Starting indignantly from her seat, Mary cast one hurried glance around her, and opened her lips to speak; but Eleanore, slightly turning, motioned her to have patience, and replied in a cold and calculating voice: "You are not sure, sir, that this was done. If my uncle, for some purpose of his own, had fired the pistol off yesterday, let us say—which is surely possible, if not probable—the like results would be observed, and the same conclusions drawn."

"Miss Leavenworth," the coroner went on, "the ball has been extracted from your uncle's head!"

"Ah!"

"It corresponds with those in the cartridges found in his stand drawer, and is of the number used with this pistol."

Her head fell forward on her hands; her eyes sought the floor; her whole attitude expressed disheartenment. Seeing it, the coroner grew still more grave.

"Miss Leavenworth," said he, "I have now some questions to put you concerning last night. Where did you spend the evening?"

"Alone, in my own room."

"You, however, saw your uncle or your cousin during the course of it?"

"No, sir; I saw no one after leaving the dinner table—except Thomas," she added, after a moment's pause.

"And how came you to see him?"

"He came to bring me the card of a gentleman who called."

"May I ask the name of the gentleman?"

"The name on the card was Mr. Le Roy Robbins."

The matter seemed trivial; but the sudden start given by the lady at my side made me remember it.

"Miss Leavenworth, when seated in your room, are you in the habit of leaving your door open?"

A startled look at this, quickly suppressed. "Not in the habit; no, sir."

"Why did you leave it open last night?"

"I was feeling warm."

"No other reason?"

"I can give no other."

"When did you close it?"

"Upon retiring."

"Was that before or after the servants went up?"

"After."

"Did you hear Mr. Harwell when he left the library and ascended to his room?"

"I did, sir."

"How much longer did you leave your door open after that?"

"I—I—a few minutes—a—I cannot say," she added, hurriedly.

"Cannot say? Why? Do you forget?"

"I forget just how long after Mr. Harwell came up I closed it."

"Was it more than ten minutes?"

"Yes."

"More than twenty?"

"Perhaps." How pale her face was, and how she trembled!

"Miss Leavenworth, according to evidence, your uncle came to his death not very long after Mr. Harwell left him. If your door was open, you ought to have heard if any one went to his room, or any pistol shot was fired. Now, did you hear anything?"

"I heard no confusion; no, sir."

"Did you hear anything?"

"Nor any pistol shot."

"Miss Leavenworth, excuse my persistence, but did you hear anything?"

"I heard a door close."

"What door?"

"The library door."

"When?"

"I do not know." She clasped her hands hysterically. "I cannot say. Why do you ask me so many questions?"

I leaped to my feet; she was swaying, almost fainting. But before I could reach her, she had drawn herself up again, and resumed her former demeanor. "Excuse me," said she; "I am not myself this morning. I beg your pardon," and she turned steadily to the coroner. "What was it you asked?"

"I asked," and his voice grew thin and high,—evidently her manner was beginning to tell against her,—"when it was you heard the library door shut?"

"I cannot fix the precise time, but it was after Mr. Harwell came up, and before I closed my own."

"And you heard no pistol shot?"

"No, sir."

The coroner cast a quick look at the jury, who almost to a man glanced aside as he did so.

"Miss Leavenworth, we are told that Hannah, one of the servants, started for your room late last night after some medicine. Did she come there?"

"No, sir."

"When did you first learn of her remarkable disappearance from this house during the night?"

"This morning before breakfast. Molly met me in the hall, and asked how Hannah was. I thought the inquiry a strange one, and naturally questioned her. A moment's talk made the conclusion plain that the girl was gone."

"What did you think when you became assured of this fact?"

"I did not know what to think."

"No suspicion of foul play crossed your mind?"

"No, sir."

"You did not connect the fact with that of your uncle's murder?"

"I did not know of this murder then."

"And afterwards?"

"Oh, some thought of the possibility of her knowing something about it may have crossed my mind; I cannot say."

"Can you tell us anything of this girl's past history?"

"I can tell you no more in regard to it than my cousin has done."

"Do you not know what made her sad at night?"

Her cheek flushed angrily; was it at his tone, or at the question itself? "No, sir! she never confided her secrets to my keeping."

"Then you cannot tell us where she would be likely to go upon leaving this house?"

"Certainly not."

"Miss Leavenworth, we are obliged to put another question to you. We are told it was by your order your uncle's body was removed from where it was found, into the next room."

She bowed her head.

"Didn't you know it to be improper for you or any one else to disturb the body of a person found dead, except in the presence and under the authority of the proper officer?"

"I did not consult my knowledge, sir, in regard to the subject: only my feelings."

"Then I suppose it was your feelings which prompted you to remain standing by the table at which he was murdered, instead of following the body in and seeing it properly deposited? Or perhaps," he went on, with relentless sarcasm, "you were too much interested, just then, in the piece of paper you took away, to think much of the proprieties of the occasion?"

"Paper?" lifting her head with determination. "Who says I took a piece of paper from the table?"

"One witness has sworn to seeing you bend over the table upon which several papers lay strewn; another, to meeting you a few minutes later in the hall just as you were putting a piece of paper into your pocket. The inference follows, Miss Leavenworth."

This was a home thrust, and we looked to see some show of agitation, but her haughty lip never quivered.

"You have drawn the inference, and you must prove the fact."

The answer was stateliness itself, and we were not surprised to see the coroner look a trifle baffled; but, recovering himself, he said:

"Miss Leavenworth, I must ask you again, whether you did or did not take anything from that table?"

She folded her arms. "I decline answering the question," she quietly said.

"Pardon me," he rejoined: "it is necessary that you should."

Her lip took a still more determined curve. "When any suspicious paper is found in my possession, it will be time enough then for me to explain how I came by it."

This defiance seemed to quite stagger the coroner.

"Do you realize to what this refusal is liable to subject you?"

She dropped her head. "I am afraid that I do; yes, sir."

Mr. Gryce lifted his hand, and softly twirled the tassel of the window curtain.

"And you still persist?"

She absolutely disdained to reply.

The coroner did not press it further.

It had now become evident to all, that Eleanore Leavenworth not only stood on her defence, but was perfectly aware of her position, and prepared to maintain it. Even her cousin, who until now had preserved some sort of composure, began to show signs of strong and uncontrollable agitation, as if she found it one thing to utter an accusation herself, and quite another to see it mirrored in the countenances of the men about her.

"Miss Leavenworth," the coroner continued, changing the line of attack, "you have always had free access to your uncle's apartments, have you not?"

"Yes, sir."

"Might even have entered his room late at night, crossed it and stood at his side, without disturbing him sufficiently to cause him to turn his head?"

"Yes," her hands pressing themselves painfully together.

"Miss Leavenworth, the key to the library door is missing."

She made no answer.

"It has been testified to, that previous to the actual discovery of the murder, you visited the door of the library alone. Will you tell us if the key was then in the lock?"

"It was not."

"Are you certain?"

"I am."

"Now, was there anything peculiar about this key, either in size or shape?"

She strove to repress the sudden terror which this question produced, glanced carelessly around at the group of servants stationed at her back, and trembled. "It was a little different from the others," she finally acknowledged.

"In what respect?"

"The handle was broken."

"Ah, gentlemen, the handle was broken!" emphasized the coroner, looking towards the jury.

Mr. Gryce seemed to take this information to himself, for he gave another of his quick nods.

"You would, then, recognize this key, Miss Leavenworth, if you should see it?"

She cast a startled look at him, as if she expected to behold it in his hand; but, seeming to gather courage at not finding it produced, replied quite easily:

"I think I should, sir."

The coroner seemed satisfied, and was about to dismiss the witness when Mr. Gryce quietly advanced and touched him on the arm. "One moment," said that gentleman, and stooping, he whispered a few words in the coroner's ear; then, recovering himself, stood with his right hand in his breast pocket and his eye upon the chandelier.

I scarcely dared to breathe. Had he repeated to the coroner the words he had inadvertently overheard in the hall above? But a glance at the latter's face satisfied me that nothing of such importance had transpired. He looked not only tired, but a trifle annoyed.

"Miss Leavenworth," said he, turning again in her direction; "you have declared that you did not visit your uncle's room last evening. Do you repeat the assertion?"

"I do."

He glanced at Mr. Gryce, who immediately drew from his breast a handkerchief curiously soiled. "It is strange, then, that your handkerchief should have been found this morning in that room."

The girl uttered a cry. Then, while Mary's face hardened into a sort of strong despair, Eleanore tightened her lips and coldly replied, "I do not see as it is so very strange. I was in that room early this morning."

"And you dropped it then?"

A distressed blush crossed her face; she did not reply.

"Soiled in this way?" he went on.

"I know nothing about the soil. What is it? let me see."

"In a moment. What we now wish, is to know how it came to be in your uncle's apartment."

"There are many ways. I might have left it there days ago. I have told you I was in the habit of visiting his room. But first, let me see if it is my handkerchief." And she held out her hand.

"I presume so, as I am told it has your initials embroidered in the corner," he remarked, as Mr. Gryce passed it to her.

But she with horrified voice interrupted him. "These dirty spots! What are they? They look like—"

"—what they are," said the coroner. "If you have ever cleaned a pistol, you must know what they are, Miss Leavenworth."

She let the handkerchief fall convulsively from her hand, and stood staring at it, lying before her on the floor. "I know nothing about it, gentlemen," she said. "It is my handkerchief, but—" for some cause she did not finish her sentence, but again repeated, "Indeed, gentlemen, I know nothing about it!"

This closed her testimony.

Kate, the cook, was now recalled, and asked to tell when she last washed the handkerchief?

"This, sir; this handkerchief? Oh, some time this week, sir," throwing a deprecatory glance at her mistress.

"What day?"

"Well, I wish I could forget, Miss Eleanore, but I can' t. It is the only one like it in the house. I washed it day before yesterday."

"When did you iron it?"

"Yesterday morning," half choking over the words.

"And when did you take it to her room?"

The cook threw her apron over her head. "Yesterday afternoon, with the rest of the clothes, just before dinner. Indade, I could not help it, Miss Eleanore!" she whispered; "it was the truth."

Eleanore Leavenworth frowned. This somewhat contradictory evidence had very sensibly affected her; and when, a moment later, the coroner, having dismissed the witness, turned towards her, and inquired if she had anything further to say in the way of explanation or otherwise, she threw her hands up almost spasmodically, slowly shook her head and, without word or warning, fainted quietly away in her chair.

A commotion, of course, followed, during which I noticed that Mary did not hasten to her cousin, but left it for Molly and Kate to do what they could toward her resuscitation. In a few moments this was in so far accomplished that they were enabled to lead her from the room. As they did so, I observed a tall man rise and follow her out.

A momentary silence ensued, soon broken, however, by an impatient stir as our little juryman rose and proposed that the jury should now adjourn for the day. This seeming to fall in with the coroner's views, he announced that the inquest would stand adjourned till three o'clock the next day, when he trusted all the jurors would be present.

A general rush followed, that in a few minutes emptied the room of all but Miss Leavenworth, Mr. Gryce, and myself.

IX. A DISCOVERY

"His rolling Eies did never rest in place,
But walkte each where for feare of hid mischance,
Holding a lattis still before his Pace,
Through which he still did peep as forward he did pace."

Faerie Queene.

MISS LEAVENWORTH, who appeared to have lingered from a vague terror of everything and everybody in the house not under her immediate observation, shrank from my side the moment she found herself left comparatively alone, and, retiring to a distant corner, gave herself up to grief. Turning my attention, therefore, in the direction of Mr. Gryce, I found that person busily engaged in counting his own fingers with a troubled expression upon his countenance, which may or may not have been the result of that arduous employment. But, at my approach, satisfied perhaps that he possessed no more than the requisite number, he dropped his hands and greeted me with a faint smile which was, considering all things, too suggestive to be pleasant.

"Well," said I, taking my stand before him, "I cannot blame you. You had a right to do as you thought best; but how had you the heart? Was she not sufficiently compromised without your bringing out that wretched handkerchief, which she may or may not have dropped in that room, but whose presence there, soiled though it was with pistol grease, is certainly no proof that she herself was connected with this murder?"

"Mr. Raymond," he returned, "I have been detailed as police officer and detective to look after this case, and I propose to do it."

"Of course," I hastened to reply. "I am the last man to wish you to shirk your duly; but you cannot have the temerity to declare that this young and tender creature can by any possibility be considered as at all likely to be implicated in a crime so monstrous and unnatural. The mere assertion of another woman's suspicions on the subject ought not——"

But here Mr. Gryce interrupted me. "You talk when your attention should be directed to more important matters. That other woman, as you are pleased to designate the fairest ornament of New York society, sits over there in tears; go and comfort her."

Looking at him in amazement, I hesitated to comply; but, seeing he was in earnest, crossed to Mary Leavenworth and sat down by her side. She was weeping, but in a slow, unconscious way, as if grief had been mastered by fear. The fear was too undisguised and the grief too natural for me to doubt the genuineness of either.

"Miss Leavenworth," said I, "any attempt at consolation on the part of a stranger must seem at a time like this the most bitter of mockeries; but do try and consider that circumstantial evidence is not always absolute proof."

Starting with surprise, she turned her eyes upon me with a slow, comprehensive gaze wonderful to see in orbs so tender and womanly.

"No," she repeated; "circumstantial evidence is not absolute proof, but Eleanore does not know this. She is so intense; she cannot see but one thing at a time. She has been running her head into a noose, and oh,—" Pausing, she clutched my arm with a passionate grasp: "Do you think there is any danger? Will they—" She could not go on.

"Miss Leavenworth," I protested, with a warning look toward the detective, "what do you mean?"

Like a flash, her glance followed mine, an instant change taking place in her bearing.

"Your cousin may be intense," I went on, as if nothing had occurred; "but I do not know to what you refer when you say she has been running her head into a noose."

"I mean this," she firmly returned: "that, wittingly or unwittingly, she has so parried and met the questions which have been put to her in this room that any one listening to her would give her the credit of knowing more than she ought to of this horrible affair. She acts"—Mary whispered, but not so low but that every word could be distinctly heard in all quarters of the room—"as if she were anxious to conceal something. But she is not; I am sure she is not. Eleanore and I are not good friends; but all the world can never make me believe she has any more knowledge of this murder than I have. Won't somebody tell her, then—won't you—that her manner is a mistake; that it is calculated to arouse suspicion; that it has already done so? And oh, don't forget to add"—her voice sinking to a decided whisper now—"what you have just repeated to me: that circumstantial evidence is not always absolute proof."

I surveyed her with great astonishment. What an actress this woman was!

"You request me to tell her this," said I. "Wouldn't it be better for you to speak to her yourself?"

"Eleanore and I hold little or no confidential communication," she replied.

I could easily believe this, and yet I was puzzled. Indeed, there was something incomprehensible in her whole manner. Not knowing what else to say, I remarked, "That is unfortunate. She ought to be told that the straightforward course is the best by all means."

Mary Leavenworth only wept. "Oh, why has this awful trouble come to me, who have always been so happy before!"

"Perhaps for the very reason that you have always been so happy."

"It was not enough for dear uncle to die in this horrible manner; but she, my own cousin, had to——"

I touched her arm, and the action seemed to recall her to herself. Stopping short, she bit her lip.

"Miss Leavenworth," I whispered, "you should hope for the best. Besides, I honestly believe you to be disturbing yourself unnecessarily. If nothing fresh transpires, a mere prevarication or so of your cousin's will not suffice to injure her."

I said this to see if she had any reason to doubt the future. I was amply rewarded.

"Anything fresh? How could there be anything fresh, when she is perfectly innocent?"

Suddenly, a thought seemed to strike her. Wheeling round in her seat till her lovely, perfumed wrapper brushed my knee, she asked: "Why didn't they ask me more questions? I could have told them Eleanore never left her room last night."

"You could?" What was I to think of this woman?

"Yes; my room is nearer the head of the stairs than hers; if she had passed my door, I should have heard her, don't you see?"

Ah, that was all.

"That does not follow," I answered sadly. "Can you give no other reason?"

"I would say whatever was necessary," she whispered.

I started back. Yes, this woman would lie now to save her cousin; had lied during the inquest. But then I felt grateful, and now I was simply horrified.

"Miss Leavenworth," said I, "nothing can justify one in violating the dictates of his own conscience, not even the safety of one we do not altogether love."

"No?" she returned; and her lip took a tremulous curve, the lovely bosom heaved, and she softly looked away.

If Eleanore's beauty had made less of an impression on my fancy, or her frightful situation awakened less anxiety in my breast, I should have been a lost man from that moment.

"I did not mean to do anything very wrong," Miss Leavenworth continued. "Do not think too badly of me."

"No, no," said I; and there is not a man living who would not have said the same in my place.

What more might have passed between us on this subject I cannot say, for just then the door opened and a man entered whom I recognized as the one who had followed Eleanore Leavenworth out, a short time before.

"Mr. Gryce," said he, pausing just inside the door; "a word if you please."

The detective nodded, but did not hasten towards him; instead of that, he walked deliberately away to the other end of the room, where he lifted the lid of an inkstand he saw there, muttered some unintelligible words into it, and speedily shut it again. Immediately the uncanny fancy seized me that if I should leap to that inkstand, open it and peer in, I should surprise and capture the bit of confidence he had intrusted to it. But I restrained my foolish impulse, and contented myself with noting the subdued look of respect with which the gaunt subordinate watched the approach of his superior.

"Well?" inquired the latter as he reached him: "what now?"

The man shrugged his shoulders, and drew his principal through the open door. Once in the hall their voices sank to a whisper, and as their backs only were visible, I turned to look at my companion. She was pale but composed.

"Has he come from Eleanore?"

"I do not know; I fear so. Miss Leavenworth," I proceeded, "can it be possible that your cousin has anything in her possession she desires to conceal?"

"Then you think she is trying to conceal something?"

"I do not say so. But there was considerable talk about a paper——"

"They will never find any paper or anything else suspicious in Eleanore's possession," Mary interrupted. "In the first place, there was no paper of importance enough"—I saw Mr. Gryce's form suddenly stiffen—"for any one to attempt its abstraction and concealment."

"Can you be sure of that? May not your cousin be acquainted with something——"

"There was nothing to be acquainted with, Mr. Raymond. We lived the most methodical and domestic of lives. I cannot understand, for my part, why so much should be made out of this. My uncle undoubtedly came to his death by the hand of some intended burglar. That nothing was stolen from the house is no proof that a burglar never entered it. As for the doors and windows being locked, will you take the word of an Irish servant as infallible upon such an important point? I cannot. I believe the assassin to be one of a gang who make their living by breaking into houses, and if you cannot honestly agree with me, do try and consider such an explanation as possible; if not for the sake of the family credit, why then"—and she turned her face with all its fair beauty upon mine, eyes, cheeks, mouth all so exquisite and winsome—"why then, for mine."

Instantly Mr. Gryce turned towards us. "Mr. Raymond, will you be kind enough to step this way?"

Glad to escape from my present position, I hastily obeyed.

"What has happened?" I asked.

"We propose to take you into our confidence," was the easy response. "Mr. Raymond, Mr. Fobbs."

I bowed to the man I saw before me, and stood uneasily waiting. Anxious as I was to know what we really had to fear, I still intuitively shrank from any communication with one whom I looked upon as a spy.

"A matter of some importance," resumed the detective. "It is not necessary for me to remind you that it is in confidence, is it?"

"No."

"I thought not. Mr. Fobbs you may proceed."

Instantly the whole appearance of the man Fobbs changed. Assuming an expression of lofty importance, he laid his large hand outspread upon his heart and commenced.

"Detailed by Mr. Gryce to watch the movements of Miss Eleanore Leavenworth, I left this room upon her departure from it, and followed her and the two servants who conducted her upstairs to her own apartment. Once there—-"

Mr. Gryce interrupted him. "Once there? where?"

"Her own room, sir."

"Where situated?"

"At the head of the stairs."

"That is not her room. Go on."

"Not her room? Then it was the fire she was after!" he cried, clapping himself on the knee.

"The fire?"

"Excuse me; I am ahead of my story. She did not appear to notice me much, though I was right behind her. It was not until she had reached the door of this room—which was not her room!" he interpolated dramatically, "and turned to dismiss her servants, that she seemed conscious of having been followed. Eying me then with an air of great dignity, quickly eclipsed, however, by an expression of patient endurance, she walked in, leaving the door open behind her in a courteous way I cannot sufficiently commend."

I could not help frowning. Honest as the man appeared, this was evidently anything but a sore subject with him. Observing me frown, he softened his manner.

"Not seeing any other way of keeping her under my eye, except by entering the room, I followed her in, and took a seat in a remote corner. She flashed one look at me as I did so, and commenced pacing the floor in a restless kind of way I'm not altogether unused to. At last she stopped abruptly, right in the middle of the room. 'Get me a glass of water!' she gasped; 'I'm faint again—quick! on the stand in the corner.' Now in order to get that glass of water it was necessary for me to pass behind a dressing mirror that reached almost to the ceiling; and I naturally hesitated. But she turned and looked at me, and—Well, gentlemen, I think either of you would have hastened to do what she asked; or at least"—with a doubtful look at Mr. Gryce—"have given your two ears for the privilege, even if you didn't succumb to the temptation."

"Well, well!" exclaimed Mr. Gryce, impatiently.

"I am going on," said he. "I stepped out of sight, then, for a moment; but it seemed long enough for her purpose; for when I emerged, glass in hand, she was kneeling at the grate full five feet from the spot where she had been standing, and was fumbling with the waist of her dress in a way to convince me she had something concealed there which she was anxious to dispose of. I eyed her pretty closely as I handed her the glass of water, but she was gazing into the grate, and didn't appear to notice. Drinking barely a drop, she gave it back, and in another moment was holding out her hands over the fire. 'Oh, I am so cold!' she cried, 'so cold.' And I verily believe she was. At any rate, she shivered most naturally. But there were a few dying embers in the grate, and when I saw her thrust her hand again into the folds of her dress I became distrustful of her intentions and, drawing a step nearer, looked over her shoulder, when I distinctly saw her drop something into the grate that clinked as it fell. Suspecting what it was, I was about to interfere, when she sprang to her feet, seized the scuttle of coal that was upon the hearth, and with one move emptied the whole upon the dying embers. 'I want a fire,' she cried, 'a fire!' 'That is hardly the way to make one,' I returned, carefully taking the coal out with my hands, piece by piece, and putting it back into the scuttle, till—"

"Till what?" I asked, seeing him and Mr. Gryce exchange a hurried look.

"Till I found this!" opening his large hand, and showing me a broken-handled key.

X. MR. GRYCE RECEIVES NEW IMPETUS

"There's nothing ill
Can dwell in such a temple."

Tempest.

THIS astounding discovery made a most unhappy impression upon me. It was true, then. Eleanore the beautiful, the lovesome, was—I did not, could not finish the sentence, even in the silence of my own mind.

"You look surprised," said Mr. Gryce, glancing curiously towards the key. "Now, I ain't. A woman does not thrill, blush, equivocate, and faint for nothing; especially such a woman as Miss Leavenworth."

"A woman who could do such a deed would be the last to thrill, equivocate, and faint," I retorted. "Give me the key; let me see it."

He complacently put it in my hand. "It is the one we want. No getting out of that."

I returned it. "If she declares herself innocent, I will believe her."

He stared with great amazement. "You have strong faith in the women," he laughed. "I hope they will never disappoint you."

I had no reply for this, and a short silence ensued, first broken by Mr. Gryce. "There is but one thing left to do," said he. "Fobbs, you will have to request Miss Leavenworth to come down. Do not alarm her; only see that she comes. To the reception room," he added, as the man drew off.

No sooner were we left alone than I made a move to return to Mary, but he stopped me.

"Come and see it out," he whispered. "She will be down in a moment; see it out; you had best."

Glancing back, I hesitated; but the prospect of beholding Eleanore again drew me, in spite of myself. Telling him to wait, I returned to Mary's side to make my excuses.

"What is the matter—what has occurred?" she breathlessly asked.

"Nothing as yet to disturb you much. Do not be alarmed." But my face betrayed me.

"There is something!" said she.

"Your cousin is coming down."

"Down here?" and she shrank visibly.

"No, to the reception room."

"I do not understand. It is all dreadful; and no one tells me anything."

"I pray God there may be nothing to tell. Judging from your present faith in your cousin, there will not be. Take comfort, then, and be assured I will inform you if anything occurs which you ought to know."

Giving her a look of encouragement, I left her crushed against the crimson pillows of the sofa on which she sat, and rejoined Mr. Gryce. We had scarcely entered the reception room when Eleanore Leavenworth came in.

More languid than she was an hour before, but haughty still, she slowly advanced, and, meeting my eye, gently bent her head.

"I have been summoned here," said she, directing herself exclusively to Mr. Gryce, "by an individual whom I take to be in your employ. If so, may I request you to make your wishes known at once, as I am quite exhausted, and am in great need of rest."

"Miss Leavenworth," returned Mr. Gryce, rubbing his hands together and staring in quite a fatherly manner at the door-knob, "I am very sorry to trouble you, but the fact is I wish to ask you——"

But here she stopped him. "Anything in regard to the key which that man has doubtless told you he saw me drop into the ashes?"

"Yes, Miss."

"Then I must refuse to answer any questions concerning it. I have nothing to say on the subject, unless it is this:"—giving him a look full of suffering, but full of a certain sort of courage, too—"that he was right if he told you I had the key in hiding about my person, and that I attempted to conceal it in the ashes of the grate."

"Still, Miss——"

But she had already withdrawn to the door. "I pray you to excuse me," said she. "No argument you could advance would make any difference in my determination; therefore it would be but a waste of energy on your part to attempt any." And, with a flitting glance in my direction, not without its appeal, she quietly left the room.

For a moment Mr. Gryce stood gazing after her with a look of great interest, then, bowing with almost exaggerated homage, he hastily followed her out.

I had scarcely recovered from the surprise occasioned by this unexpected movement when a quick step was heard in the hall, and Mary, flushed and anxious, appeared at my side.

"What is it?" she inquired. "What has Eleanore been saying?"

"Alas!" I answered, "she has not said anything. That is the trouble, Miss Leavenworth. Your cousin preserves a reticence upon certain points very painful to witness. She ought to understand that if she persists in doing this, that——"

"That what?" There was no mistaking the deep anxiety prompting this question.

"That she cannot avoid the trouble that will ensue."

For a moment she stood gazing at me, with great horror-stricken, incredulous eyes; then sinking back into a chair, flung her hands over her face with the cry:

"Oh, why were we ever born! Why were we allowed to live! Why did we not perish with those who gave us birth!"

In the face of anguish like this, I could not keep still.

"Dear Miss Leavenworth," I essayed, "there is no cause for such despair as this. The future looks dark, but not impenetrable. Your cousin will listen to reason, and in explaining——"

But she, deaf to my words, had again risen to her feet, and stood before me in an attitude almost appalling.

"Some women in my position would go mad! mad! mad!"

I surveyed her with growing wonder. I thought I knew what she meant. She was conscious of having given the cue which had led to this suspicion of her cousin, and that in this way the trouble which hung over their heads was of her own making. I endeavored to soothe her, but my efforts were all unavailing. Absorbed in her own anguish, she paid but little attention to me. Satisfied at last that I could do nothing more for her, I turned to go. The movement seemed to arouse her.

"I am sorry to leave," said I, "without having afforded you any comfort. Believe me; I am very anxious to assist you. Is there no one I can send to your side; no woman friend or relative? It is sad to leave you alone in this house at such a time."

"And do you expect me to remain here? Why, I should die! Here tonight?" and the long shudders shook her very frame.

"It is not at all necessary for you to do so, Miss Leavenworth," broke in a bland voice over our shoulders.

I turned with a start. Mr. Gryce was not only at our back, but had evidently been there for some moments. Seated near the door, one hand in his pocket, the other caressing the arm of his chair, he met our gaze with a sidelong smile that seemed at once to beg pardon for the intrusion, and to assure us it was made with no unworthy motive. "Everything will be properly looked after, Miss; you can leave with perfect safety."

I expected to see her resent this interference; but instead of that, she manifested a certain satisfaction in beholding him there.

Drawing me to one side, she whispered, "You think this Mr. Gryce very clever, do you not?"

"Well," I cautiously replied, "he ought to be to hold the position he does. The authorities evidently repose great confidence in him."

Stepping from my side as suddenly as she had approached it, she crossed the room and stood before Mr. Gryce.

"Sir," said she, gazing at him with a glance of entreaty: "I hear you have great talents; that you can ferret out the real criminal from a score of doubtful characters, and that nothing can escape the penetration of your eye. If this is so, have pity on two orphan girls, suddenly bereft of their guardian and protector, and use your acknowledged skill in finding out who has committed this crime. It would be folly in me to endeavor to hide from you that my cousin in her testimony has given cause for suspicion; but I here declare her to be as innocent of wrong as I am; and I am only endeavoring to turn the eye of justice from the guiltless to the guilty when I entreat you to look elsewhere for the culprit who committed this deed." Pausing, she held her two hands out before him. "It must have been some common burglar or desperado; can you not bring him, then, to justice?"

Her attitude was so touching, her whole appearance so earnest and appealing, that I saw Mr. Gryce's countenance brim with suppressed emotion, though his eye never left the coffee-urn upon which it had fixed itself at her first approach.

"You must find out—you can!" she went on. "Hannah—the girl who is gone—must know all about it. Search for her, ransack the city, do anything; my property is at your disposal. I will offer a large reward for the detection of the burglar who did this deed!"

Mr. Gryce slowly rose. "Miss Leavenworth," he began, and stopped; the man was actually agitated. "Miss Leavenworth, I did not need your very touching appeal to incite me to my utmost duty in this case. Personal and professional pride were in themselves sufficient. But, since you have honored me with this expression of your wishes, I will not conceal from you that I shall feel a certain increased interest in the affair from this hour. What mortal man can do, I will do, and if in one month from this day I do not come to you for my reward, Ebenezer Gryce is not the man I have always taken him to be."

"And Eleanore?"

"We will mention no names," said he, gently waving his hand to and fro.

A few minutes later, I left the house with Miss Leavenworth, she having expressed a wish to have me accompany her to the home of her friend, Mrs. Gilbert, with whom she had decided to take refuge. As we rolled down the street in the carriage Mr. Gryce had been kind enough to provide for us, I noticed my companion cast a look of regret behind her, as if she could not help feeling some compunctions at this desertion of her cousin.

But this expression was soon changed for the alert look of one who dreads to see a certain face start up from some unknown quarter. Glancing up and down the street, peering furtively into doorways as we passed, starting and trembling if a sudden figure appeared on the curbstone, she did not seem to breathe with perfect ease till we had left the avenue behind us and entered upon Thirty-seventh Street. Then, all at once her natural color returned and, leaning gently toward me, she asked if I had a pencil and piece of paper I could give her. I fortunately possessed both. Handing them to her, I watched her with some little curiosity while she wrote two or three lines, wondering she could choose such a time and place for the purpose.

"A little note I wish to send," she explained, glancing at the almost illegible scrawl with an expression of doubt. "Couldn't you stop the carriage a moment while I direct it?"

I did so, and in another instant the leaf which I had torn from my note-book was folded, directed, and sealed with a stamp which she had taken from her own pocketbook.

"That is a crazy-looking epistle," she muttered, as she laid it, direction downwards, in her lap.

"Why not wait, then, till you arrive at your destination, where you can seal it properly, and direct it at your leisure?"

"Because I am in haste. I wish to mail it now. Look, there is a box on the corner; please ask the driver to stop once more."

"Shall I not post it for you?" I asked, holding out my hand.

But she shook her head, and, without waiting for my assistance, opened the door on her own side of the carriage and leaped to the ground. Even then she paused to glance up and down the street, before venturing to drop her hastily written letter into the box. But when it had left her hand, she looked brighter and more hopeful than I had yet seen her. And when, a few moments later, she turned to bid me good-by in front of her friend's house, it was with almost a cheerful air she put out her hand and entreated me to call on her the next day, and inform her how the inquest progressed.

I shall not attempt to disguise from you the fact that I spent all that long evening in going over the testimony given at the inquest, endeavoring to reconcile what I had heard with any other theory than that of Eleanore's guilt. Taking a piece of paper, I jotted down the leading causes of suspicion as follows:

1. Her late disagreement with her uncle, and evident estrangement from him, as testified to by Mr. Harwell.

2. The mysterious disappearance of one of the servants of the house.

3. The forcible accusation made by her cousin,—overheard, however, only by Mr. Gryce and myself.

4. Her equivocation in regard to the handkerchief found stained with pistol smut on the scene of the tragedy.

5. Her refusal to speak in regard to the paper which she was supposed to have taken from Mr. Leavenworth's table immediately upon the removal of the body.

6. The finding of the library key in her possession.

"A dark record," I involuntarily decided, as I looked it over; but even in doing so began jotting down on the other side of the sheet the following explanatory notes:

1. Disagreements and even estrangements between relatives are common. Cases where such disagreements and estrangements have led to crime, rare.

2. The disappearance of Hannah points no more certainly in one direction than another.

3. If Mary's private accusation of her cousin was forcible and convincing, her public declaration that she neither knew nor suspected who might be the author of this crime, was equally so. To be sure, the former possessed the advantage of being uttered spontaneously; but it was likewise true that it was spoken under momentary excitement, without foresight of the consequences, and possibly without due consideration of the facts.

4, 5. An innocent man or woman, under the influence of terror, will often equivocate in regard to matters that seem to criminate them.

But the key! What could I say to that? Nothing. With that key in her possession, and unexplained, Eleanore Leavenworth stood in an attitude of suspicion which even I felt forced to recognize. Brought to this point, I thrust the paper into my pocket, and took up the evening Express. Instantly my eye fell upon these words:

SHOCKING MURDER

MR. LEAVENWORTH, THE WELL-KNOWN MILLIONAIRE, FOUND DEAD IN HIS ROOM

NO CLUE TO THE PERPETRATOR OF THE DEED

THE AWFUL CRIME COMMITTED WITH A PISTOL—EXTRAORDINARY FEATURES OF
THE AFFAIR

Ah! here at least was one comfort; her name was not yet mentioned as that of a suspected party. But what might not the morrow bring? I thought of Mr. Gryce's expressive look as he handed me that key, and shuddered.

"She must be innocent; she cannot be otherwise," I reiterated to myself, and then pausing, asked what warranty I had of this? Only her beautiful face; only, only her beautiful face. Abashed, I dropped the newspaper, and went downstairs just as a telegraph boy arrived with a message from Mr. Veeley. It was signed by the proprietor of the hotel at which Mr. Veeley was then stopping and ran thus:

"WASHINGTON, D. C.

"MR. Everett Raymond—

"Mr. Veeley is lying at my house ill. Have not shown him telegram,
fearing results. Will do so as soon as advisable.

"Thomas Loworthy."

I went in musing. Why this sudden sensation of relief on my part? Could it be that I had unconsciously been guilty of cherishing a latent dread of my senior's return? Why, who else could know so well the secret springs which governed this family? Who else could so effectually put me upon the right track? Was it possible that I, Everett Raymond, hesitated to know the truth in any case? No, that should never be said; and, sitting down again, I drew out the memoranda I had made and, looking them carefully over, wrote against No. 6 the word suspicious in good round characters. There! do one could say, after that, I had allowed myself to be blinded by a bewitching face from seeing what, in a woman with no claims to comeliness, would be considered at once an almost indubitable evidence of guilt.

And yet, after it was all done, I found myself repeating aloud as I gazed at it: "If she declares herself innocent, I will believe her." So completely are we the creatures of our own predilections.

XI. THE SUMMONS

"The pink of courtesy."
Romeo and Juliet.

THE morning papers contained a more detailed account of the murder than those of the evening before; but, to my great relief, in none of them was Eleanore's name mentioned in the connection I most dreaded.

The final paragraph in the Times ran thus: "The detectives are upon the track of the missing girl, Hannah." And in the Herald I read the following notice:

"A Liberal Reward will be given by the relatives of Horatio Leavenworth, Esq., deceased, for any news of the whereabouts of one Hannah Chester, disappeared from the house ———— Fifth Avenue since the evening of March 4. Said girl was of Irish extraction; in age about twenty-five, and may be known by the following characteristics. Form tall and slender; hair dark brown with a tinge of red; complexion fresh; features delicate and well made; hands small, but with the fingers much pricked by the use of the needle; feet large, and of a coarser type than the hands. She had on when last seen a checked gingham dress, brown and white, and was supposed to have wrapped herself in a red and green blanket shawl, very old. Beside the above distinctive marks, she had upon her right hand wrist the scar of a large burn; also a pit or two of smallpox upon the left temple."

This paragraph turned my thoughts in a new direction. Oddly enough, I had expended very little thought upon this girl; and yet how apparent it was that she was the one person upon whose testimony, if given, the whole case in reality hinged, I could not agree with those who considered her as personally implicated in the murder. An accomplice, conscious of what was before her, would have hid in her pockets whatever money she possessed. But the roll of bills found in Hannah's trunk proved her to have left too hurriedly for this precaution. On the other hand, if this girl had come unexpectedly upon the assassin at his work, how could she have been hustled from the house without creating a disturbance loud enough to have been heard by the ladies, one of whom had her door open? An innocent girl's first impulse upon such an occasion would have been to scream; and yet no scream was heard; she simply disappeared. What were we to think then? That the person seen by her was one both known and trusted? I would not consider such a possibility; so laying down the paper, I endeavored to put away all further consideration of the affair till I had acquired more facts upon which to base the theory. But who can control his thoughts when over-excited upon any one theme? All the morning I found myself turning the case over in my mind, arriving ever at one of two conclusions. Hannah Chester must be found, or Eleanore Leavenworth must explain when and by what means the key of the library door came into her possession.

At two o'clock I started from my office to attend the inquest; but, being delayed on the way, missed arriving at the house until after the delivery of the verdict. This was a disappointment to me, especially as by these means I lost the opportunity of seeing Eleanore Leavenworth, she having retired to her room immediately upon the dismissal of the jury. But Mr. Harwell was visible, and from him I heard what the verdict had been.

"Death by means of a pistol shot from the hand of some person unknown."

The result of the inquest was a great relief to me. I had feared worse. Nor could I help seeing that, for all his studied self-command, the pale-faced secretary shared in my satisfaction.

What was less of a relief to me was the fact, soon communicated, that Mr. Gryce and his subordinates had left the premises immediately upon the delivery of the verdict. Mr. Gryce was not the man to forsake an affair like this while anything of importance connected with it remained unexplained. Could it be he meditated any decisive action? Somewhat alarmed, I was about to hurry from the house for the purpose of learning what his intentions were, when a sudden movement in the front lower window of the house on the opposite side of the way arrested my attention, and, looking closer, I detected the face of Mr. Fobbs peering out from behind the curtain. The sight assured me I was not wrong in my estimate of Mr. Gryce; and, struck with pity for the desolate girl left to meet the exigencies of a fate to which this watch upon her movements was but the evident precursor, I stepped back and sent her a note, in which, as Mr. Veeley's representative, I proffered my services in case of any sudden emergency, saying I was always to be found in my rooms between the hours of six and eight. This done, I proceeded to the house in Thirty-seventh Street where I had left Miss Mary Leavenworth the day before.

Ushered into the long and narrow drawing-room which of late years has been so fashionable in our uptown houses, I found myself almost immediately in the presence of Miss Leavenworth.

"Oh," she cried, with an eloquent gesture of welcome, "I had begun to think I was forsaken!" and advancing impulsively, she held out her hand. "What is the news from home?"

"A verdict of murder, Miss Leavenworth."

Her eyes did not lose their question.

"Perpetrated by party or parties unknown."

A look of relief broke softly across her features.

"And they are all gone?" she exclaimed.

"I found no one in the house who did not belong there."

"Oh! then we can breathe easily again."

I glanced hastily up and down the room.

"There is no one here," said she.

And still I hesitated. At length, in an awkward way enough, I turned towards her and said:

"I do not wish either to offend or alarm you, but I must say that I consider it your duty to return to your own home tonight."

"Why?" she stammered. "Is there any particular reason for my doing so? Have you not perceived the impossibility of my remaining in the same house with Eleanore?"

"Miss Leavenworth, I cannot recognize any so-called impossibility of this nature. Eleanore is your cousin; has been brought up to regard you as a sister; it is not worthy of you to desert her at the time of her necessity. You will see this as I do, if you will allow yourself a moment's dispassionate thought."

"Dispassionate thought is hardly possible under the circumstances," she returned, with a smile of bitter irony.

But before I could reply to this, she softened, and asked if I was very anxious to have her return; and when I replied, "More than I can say," she trembled and looked for a moment as if she were half inclined to yield; but suddenly broke into tears, crying it was impossible, and that I was cruel to ask it.

I drew back, baffled and sore. "Pardon me," said I, "I have indeed transgressed the bounds allotted to me. I will not do so again; you have doubtless many friends; let some of them advise you."

She turned upon me all fire. "The friends you speak of are flatterers. You alone have the courage to command me to do what is right."

"Excuse me, I do not command; I only entreat."

She made no reply, but began pacing the room, her eyes fixed, her hands working convulsively. "You little know what you ask," said she. "I feel as though the very atmosphere of that house would destroy me; but—why cannot Eleanore come here?" she impulsively inquired. "I know Mrs. Gilbert will be quite willing, and I could keep my room, and we need not meet."

"You forget that there is another call at home, besides the one I have already mentioned. Tomorrow afternoon your uncle is to be buried."

"O yes; poor, poor uncle!"

"You are the head of the household," I now ventured, "and the proper one to attend to the final offices towards one who has done so much for you."

There was something strange in the look which she gave me. "It is true," she assented. Then, with a grand turn of her body, and a quick air of determination: "I am desirous of being worthy of your good opinion. I will go back to my cousin, Mr. Raymond."

I felt my spirits rise a little; I took her by the hand. "May that cousin have no need of the comfort which I am now sure you will be ready to give her."

Her hand dropped from mine. "I mean to do my duty," was her cold response.

As I descended the stoop, I met a certain thin and fashionably dressed young man, who gave me a very sharp look as he passed. As he wore his clothes a little too conspicuously for the perfect gentleman, and as I had some remembrance of having seen him at the inquest, I set him down for a man in Mr. Gryce's employ, and hasted on towards the avenue; when what was my surprise to find on the corner another person, who, while pretending to be on the look out for a car, cast upon me, as I approached, a furtive glance of intense inquiry. As this latter was, without question, a gentleman, I felt some annoyance, and, walking quietly up to him, asked if he found my countenance familiar, that he scrutinized it so closely.

"I find it a very agreeable one," was his unexpected reply, as he turned from me and walked down the avenue.

Nettled, and in no small degree mortified, at the disadvantage in which his courtesy had placed me, I stood watching him as he disappeared, asking myself who and what he was. For he was not only a gentleman, but a marked one; possessing features of unusual symmetry as well as a form of peculiar elegance. Not so very young—he might well be forty—there were yet evident on his face the impress of youth's strongest emotions, not a curve of his chin nor a glance of his eye betraying in any way the slightest leaning towards ennui, though face and figure were of that type which seems most to invite and cherish it.

"He can have no connection with the police force," thought I; "nor is it by any means certain that he knows me, or is interested in my affairs; but I shall not soon forget him, for all that."

The summons from Eleanore Leavenworth came about eight o'clock in the evening. It was brought by Thomas, and read as follows:

"Come, Oh, come! I—" there breaking off in a tremble, as if the pen had fallen from a nerveless hand.

It did not take me long to find my way to her home.

XII. ELEANORES

"Constant you are—
... And for secrecy
No lady closer."

Henry IV.

"No, 't is slander,
Whose edge is sharper than the sword whose tongue
Outvenoms all the worms of Nile."

Cymbeline.

THE door was opened by Molly. "You will find Miss Eleanore in the drawing-room, sir," she said, ushering me in.

Fearing I knew not what, I hurried to the room thus indicated, feeling as never before the sumptuous-ness of the magnificent hall with its antique flooring, carved woods, and bronze ornamentations:—the mockery of things for the first time forcing itself upon me. Laying my hand on the drawing-room door, I listened. All was silent. Slowly pulling it open, I lifted the heavy satin curtains hanging before me to the floor, and looked within. What a picture met my eyes!

Sitting in the light of a solitary gas jet, whose faint glimmering just served to make visible the glancing satin and stainless marble of the gorgeous apartment, I beheld Eleanore Leavenworth. Pale as the sculptured image of the Psyche that towered above her from the mellow dusk of the bow-window near which she sat, beautiful as it, and almost as immobile, she crouched with rigid hands frozen in forgotten entreaty before her, apparently insensible to sound, movement, or touch; a silent figure of despair in presence of an implacable fate.

Impressed by the scene, I stood with my hand upon the curtain, hesitating if to advance or retreat, when suddenly a sharp tremble shook her impassive frame, the rigid hands unlocked, the stony eyes softened, and, springing to her feet, she uttered a cry of satisfaction, and advanced towards me.

"Miss Leavenworth!" I exclaimed, starting at the sound of my own voice.

She paused, and pressed her hands to her face, as if the world and all she had forgotten had rushed back upon her at this simple utterance of her name.

"What is it?" I asked.

Her hands fell heavily. "Do you not know? They—they are beginning to say that I—" she paused, and clutched her throat. "Read!" she gasped, pointing to a newspaper lying on the floor at her feet.

I stooped and lifted what showed itself at first glance to be the Evening Telegram. It needed but a single look to inform me to what she referred. There, in startling characters, I beheld:

THE LEAVENWORTH MURDER

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS IN THE MYSTERIOUS CASE

A MEMBER OF THE MURDERED MAN'S OWN FAMILY
STRONGLY SUSPECTED OF THE CRIME

THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN IN NEW YORK UNDER A CLOUD

PAST HISTORY OF MISS ELEANORE LEAVENWORTH

I was prepared for it; had schooled myself for this very thing, you might say; and yet I could not help recoiling. Dropping the paper from my hand, I stood before her, longing and yet dreading to look into her face.

"What does it mean?" she panted; "what, what does it mean? Is the world mad?" and her eyes, fixed and glassy, stared into mine as if she found it impossible to grasp the sense of this outrage.

I shook my head. I could not reply.

"To accuse me" she murmured; "me, me!" striking her breast with her clenched hand, "who loved the very ground he trod upon; who would have cast my own body between him and the deadly bullet if I had only known his danger. Oh!" she cried, "it is not a slander they utter, but a dagger which they thrust into my heart!"

Overcome by her misery, but determined not to show my compassion until more thoroughly convinced of her complete innocence, I replied, after a pause:

"This seems to strike you with great surprise, Miss Leavenworth; were you not then able to foresee what must follow your determined reticence upon certain points? Did you know so little of human nature as to imagine that, situated as you are, you could keep silence in regard to any matter connected with this crime, without arousing the antagonism of the crowd, to say nothing of the suspicions of the police?"

"But—but——"

I hurriedly waved my hand. "When you defied the coroner to find any suspicious paper in your possession; when"—I forced myself to speak—"you refused to tell Mr. Gryce how you came in possession of the key—"

She drew hastily back, a heavy pall seeming to fall over her with my words.

"Don't," she whispered, looking in terror about her. "Don't! Sometimes I think the walls have ears, and that the very shadows listen."

"Ah," I returned; "then you hope to keep from the world what is known to the detectives?"

She did not answer.

"Miss Leavenworth," I went on, "I am afraid you do not comprehend your position. Try to look at the case for a moment in the light of an unprejudiced person; try to see for yourself the necessity of explaining——"

"But I cannot explain," she murmured huskily.

"Cannot!"

I do not know whether it was the tone of my voice or the word itself, but that simple expression seemed to affect her like a blow.

"Oh!" she cried, shrinking back: "you do not, cannot doubt me, too? I thought that you—" and stopped. "I did not dream that I—" and stopped again. Suddenly her whole form quivered. "Oh, I see! You have mistrusted me from the first; the appearances against me have been too strong"; and she sank inert, lost in the depths of her shame and humiliation. "Ah, but now I am forsaken!" she murmured.

The appeal went to my heart. Starting forward, I exclaimed: "Miss Leavenworth, I am but a man; I cannot see you so distressed. Say that you are innocent, and I will believe you, without regard to appearances."

Springing erect, she towered upon me. "Can any one look in my face and accuse me of guilt?" Then, as I sadly shook my head, she hurriedly gasped: "You want further proof!" and, quivering with an extraordinary emotion, she sprang to the door.

"Come, then," she cried, "come!" her eyes flashing full of resolve upon me.

Aroused, appalled, moved in spite of myself, I crossed the room to where she stood; but she was already in the hall. Hastening after her, filled with a fear I dared not express, I stood at the foot of the stairs; she was half-way to the top. Following her into the hall' above, I saw her form standing erect and noble at the door of her uncle's bedroom.

"Come!" she again cried, but this time in a calm and reverential tone; and flinging the door open before her, she passed in.

Subduing the wonder which I felt, I slowly followed her. There was no light in the room of death, but the flame of the gas-burner, at the far end of the hall, shone weirdly in, and by its glimmering I beheld her kneeling at the shrouded bed, her head bowed above that of the murdered man, her hand upon his breast.

"You have said that if I declared my innocence you would believe me," she exclaimed, lifting her head as I entered. "See here," and laying her cheek against the pallid brow of her dead benefactor, she kissed the clay-cold lips softly, wildly, agonizedly, then, leaping to her feet, cried, in a subdued but thrilling tone: "Could I do that if I were guilty? Would not the breath freeze on my lips, the blood congeal in my veins, and my heart faint at this contact? Son of a father loved and reverenced, can you believe me to be a woman stained with crime when I can do this?" and kneeling again she cast her arms over and about that inanimate form, looking in my face at the same time with an expression no mortal touch could paint, nor tongue describe.

"In olden times," she went on, "they used to say that a dead body would bleed if its murderer came in contact with it. What then would happen here if I, his daughter, his cherished child, loaded with benefits, enriched with his jewels, warm with his kisses, should be the thing they accuse me of? Would not the body of the outraged dead burst its very shroud and repel me?"

I could not answer; in the presence of some scenes the tongue forgets its functions.

"Oh!" she went on, "if there is a God in heaven who loves justice and hates a crime, let Him hear me now. If I, by thought or action, with or without intention, have been the means of bringing this dear head to this pass; if so much as the shadow of guilt, let alone the substance, lies upon my heart and across these feeble woman's hands, may His wrath speak in righteous retribution to the world, and here, upon the breast of the dead, let this guilty forehead fall, never to rise again!"

An awed silence followed this invocation; then a long, long sigh of utter relief rose tremulously from my breast, and all the feelings hitherto suppressed in my heart burst their bonds, and leaning towards her I took her hand in mine.

"You do not, cannot believe me tainted by crime now?" she whispered, the smile which does not stir the lips, but rather emanates from the countenance, like the flowering of an inner peace, breaking softly out on cheek and brow.

"Crime!" The word broke uncontrollably from my lips; "crime!"

"No," she said calmly, "the man does not live who could accuse me of crime, here."

For reply, I took her hand, which lay in mine, and placed it on the breast of the dead.

Softly, slowly, gratefully, she bowed her head.

"Now let the struggle come!" she whispered. "There is one who will believe in me, however dark appearances may be."

XIII. THE PROBLEM

"But who would force the soul, tilts with a straw
Against a champion cased in adamant."
Wordsworth.

WHEN we re-entered the parlor below, the first sight that met our eyes was Mary, standing wrapped in her long cloak in the centre of the room. She had arrived during our absence, and now awaited us with lifted head and countenance fixed in its proudest expression. Looking in her face, I realized what the embarrassment of this meeting must be to these women, and would have retreated, but something in the attitude of Mary Leavenworth seemed to forbid my doing so. At the same time, determined that the opportunity should not pass without some sort of reconcilement between them, I stepped forward, and, bowing to Mary, said:

"Your cousin has just succeeded in convincing me of her entire innocence, Miss Leavenworth. I am now ready to join Mr. Gryce, heart and soul, in finding out the true culprit."

"I should have thought one look into Eleanore Leavenworth's face would have been enough to satisfy you that she is incapable of crime," was her unexpected answer; and, lifting her head with a proud gesture, Mary Leavenworth fixed her eyes steadfastly on mine.

I felt the blood flash to my brow, but before I could speak, her voice rose again still more coldly than before.

"It is hard for a delicate girl, unused to aught but the most flattering expressions of regard, to be obliged to assure the world of her innocence in respect to the committal of a great crime. Eleanore has my sympathy." And sweeping her cloak from her shoulders with a quick gesture, she turned her gaze for the first time upon her cousin.

Instantly Eleanore advanced, as if to meet it; and I could not but feel that, for some reason, this moment possessed an importance for them which I was scarcely competent to measure. But if I found myself unable to realize its significance, I at least responded to its intensity. And indeed it was an occasion to remember. To behold two such women, either of whom might be considered the model of her time, face to face and drawn up in evident antagonism, was a sight to move the dullest sensibilities. But there was something more in this scene than that. It was the shock of all the most passionate emotions of the human soul; the meeting of waters of whose depth and force I could only guess by the effect. Eleanore was the first to recover. Drawing back with the cold haughtiness which, alas, I had almost forgotten in the display of later and softer emotions, she exclaimed:

"There is something better than sympathy, and that is justice"; and turned, as if to go. "I will confer with you in the reception room, Mr. Raymond."

But Mary, springing forward, caught her back with one powerful hand. "No," she cried, "you shall confer with me! I have something to say to you, Eleanore Leavenworth." And, taking her stand in the centre of the room, she waited.

I glanced at Eleanore, saw this was no place for me, and hastily withdrew. For ten long minutes I paced the floor of the reception room, a prey to a thousand doubts and conjectures. What was the secret of this home? What had given rise to the deadly mistrust continually manifested between these cousins, fitted by nature for the completest companionship and the most cordial friendship? It was not a thing of to-day or yesterday. No sudden flame could awake such concentrated heat of emotion as that of which I had just been the unwilling witness. One must go farther back than this murder to find the root of a mistrust so great that the struggle it caused made itself felt even where I stood, though nothing but the faintest murmur came to my ears through the closed doors.

Presently the drawing-room curtain was raised, and Mary's voice was heard in distinct articulation.

"The same roof can never shelter us both after this. Tomorrow, you or I find another home." And, blushing and panting, she stepped into the hall and advanced to where I stood. But at the first sight of my face, a change came over her; all her pride seemed to dissolve, and, flinging out her hands, as if to ward off scrutiny, she fled from my side, and rushed weeping upstairs.

I was yet laboring under the oppression caused by this painful termination of the strange scene when the parlor curtain was again lifted, and Eleanore entered the room where I was. Pale but calm, showing no evidences of the struggle she had just been through, unless by a little extra weariness about the eyes, she sat down by my side, and, meeting my gaze with one unfathomable in its courage, said after a pause: "Tell me where I stand; let me know the worst at once; I fear that I have not indeed comprehended my own position."

Rejoiced to hear this acknowledgment from her lips, I hastened to comply. I began by placing before her the whole case as it appeared to an unprejudiced person; enlarged upon the causes of suspicion, and pointed out in what regard some things looked dark against her, which perhaps to her own mind were easily explainable and of small account; tried to make her see the importance of her decision, and finally wound up with an appeal. Would she not confide in me?

"But I thought you were satisfied?" she tremblingly remarked.

"And so I am; but I want the world to be so, too."

"Ah; now you ask too much! The finger of suspicion never forgets the way it has once pointed," she sadly answered. "My name is tainted forever."

"And you will submit to this, when a word—"

"I am thinking that any word of mine now would make very little difference," she murmured.

I looked away, the vision of Mr. Fobbs, in hiding behind the curtains of the opposite house, recurring painfully to my mind.

"If the affair looks as bad as you say it does," she pursued, "it is scarcely probable that Mr. Gryce will care much for any interpretation of mine in regard to the matter."

"Mr. Gryce would be glad to know where you procured that key, if only to assist him in turning his inquiries in the right direction."

She did not reply, and my spirits sank in renewed depression.

"It is worth your while to satisfy him," I pursued; "and though it may compromise some one you desire to shield——"

She rose impetuously. "I shall never divulge to any one how I came in possession of that key." And sitting again, she locked her hands in fixed resolve before her.

I rose in my turn and paced the floor, the fang of an unreasoning jealousy striking deep into my heart.

"Mr. Raymond, if the worst should come, and all who love me should plead on bended knees for me to tell, I will never do it."

"Then," said I, determined not to disclose my secret thought, but equally resolved to find out if possible her motive for this silence, "you desire to defeat the cause of justice."

She neither spoke nor moved.

"Miss Leavenworth," I now said, "this determined shielding of another at the expense of your own good name is no doubt generous of you; but your friends and the lovers of truth and justice cannot accept such a sacrifice."

She started haughtily. "Sir!" she said.

"If you will not assist us," I went on calmly, but determinedly, "we must do without your aid. After the scene I have just witnessed above; after the triumphant conviction which you have forced upon me, not only of your innocence, but your horror of the crime and its consequences, I should feel myself less than a man if I did not sacrifice even your own good opinion, in urging your cause, and clearing your character from this foul aspersion."

Again that heavy silence.

"What do you propose to do?" she asked, at last.

Crossing the room, I stood before her. "I propose to relieve you utterly and forever from suspicion, by finding out and revealing to the world the true culprit."

I expected to see her recoil, so positive had I become by this time as to who that culprit was. But instead of that, she merely folded her hands still more tightly and exclaimed:

"I doubt if you will be able to do that, Mr. Raymond."

"Doubt if I will be able to put my finger upon the guilty man, or doubt if I will be able to bring him to justice?"

"I doubt," she said with strong effort, "if any one ever knows who is the guilty person in this case."

"There is one who knows," I said with a desire to test her.

"One?"

"The girl Hannah is acquainted with the mystery of that night's evil doings, Miss Leavenworth. Find Hannah, and we find one who can point out to us the assassin of your uncle."

"That is mere supposition," she said; but I saw the blow had told.

"Your cousin has offered a large reward for the girl, and the whole country is on the lookout. Within a week we shall see her in our midst."

A change took place in her expression and bearing.

"The girl cannot help me," she said.

Baffled by her manner, I drew back. "Is there anything or anybody that can?"

She slowly looked away.

"Miss Leavenworth," I continued with renewed earnestness, "you have no brother to plead with you, you have no mother to guide you; let me then entreat, in default of nearer and dearer friends, that you will rely sufficiently upon me to tell me one thing."

"What is it?" she asked.

"Whether you took the paper imputed to you from the library table?"

She did not instantly respond, but sat looking earnestly before her with an intentness which seemed to argue that she was weighing the question as well as her reply. Finally, turning toward me, she said:

"In answering you, I speak in confidence. Mr. Raymond, I did."

Crushing back the sigh of despair that arose to my lips, I went on.

"I will not inquire what the paper was,"—she waved her hand deprecatingly,—"but this much more you will tell me. Is that paper still in existence?"

She looked me steadily in the face.

"It is not."

I could with difficulty forbear showing my disappointment. "Miss Leavenworth," I now said, "it may seem cruel for me to press you at this time; nothing less than my strong realization of the peril in which you stand would induce me to run the risk of incurring your displeasure by asking what under other circumstances would seem puerile and insulting questions. You have told me one thing which I strongly desired to know; will you also inform me what it was you heard that night while sitting in your room, between the time of Mr. Harwell's going upstairs and the closing of the library door, of which you made mention at the inquest?"

I had pushed my inquiries too far, and I saw it immediately.

"Mr. Raymond," she returned, "influenced by my desire not to appear utterly ungrateful to you, I have been led to reply in confidence to one of your urgent appeals; but I can go no further. Do not ask me to."

Stricken to the heart by her look of reproach, I answered with some sadness that her wishes should be respected. "Not but what I intend to make every effort in my power to discover the true author of this crime. That is a sacred duty which I feel myself called upon to perform; but I will ask you no more questions, nor distress you with further appeals. What is done shall be done without your assistance, and with no other hope than that in the event of my success you will acknowledge my motives to have been pure and my action disinterested."

"I am ready to acknowledge that now," she began, but paused and looked with almost agonized entreaty in my face. "Mr. Raymond, cannot you leave things as they are? Won't you? I don't ask for assistance, nor do I want it; I would rather——"

But I would not listen. "Guilt has no right to profit by the generosity of the guiltless. The hand that struck this blow shall not be accountable for the loss of a noble woman's honor and happiness as well.

"I shall do what I can, Miss Leavenworth."

As I walked down the avenue that night, feeling like an adventurous traveller that in a moment of desperation has set his foot upon a plank stretching in narrow perspective over a chasm of immeasurable depth, this problem evolved itself from the shadows before me: How, with no other clue than the persuasion that Eleanore Leavenworth was engaged in shielding another at the expense of her own good name, I was to combat the prejudices of Mr. Gryce, find out the real assassin of Mr. Leavenworth, and free an innocent woman from the suspicion that had, not without some show of reason, fallen upon her?

BOOK II. HENRY CLAVERING

XIV. MR. GRYCE AT HOME

"Nay, but hear me."
Measure for Measure.

THAT the guilty person for whom Eleanore Leavenworth stood ready to sacrifice herself was one for whom she had formerly cherished affection, I could no longer doubt; love, or the strong sense of duty growing out of love, being alone sufficient to account for such determined action. Obnoxious as it was to all my prejudices, one name alone, that of the commonplace secretary, with his sudden heats and changeful manners, his odd ways and studied self-possession, would recur to my mind whenever I asked myself who this person could be.

Not that, without the light which had been thrown upon the affair by Eleanore's strange behavior, I should have selected this man as one in any way open to suspicion; the peculiarity of his manner at the inquest not being marked enough to counteract the improbability of one in his relations to the deceased finding sufficient motive for a crime so manifestly without favorable results to himself. But if love had entered as a factor into the affair, what might not be expected? James Harwell, simple amanuensis to a retired tea-merchant, was one man; James Harwell, swayed by passion for a woman beautiful as Eleanore Leavenworth, was another; and in placing him upon the list of those parties open to suspicion I felt I was only doing what was warranted by a proper consideration of probabilities.

But, between casual suspicion and actual proof, what a gulf! To believe James Harwell capable of guilt, and to find evidence enough to accuse him of it, were two very different things. I felt myself instinctively shrink from the task, before I had fully made up my mind to attempt it; some relenting thought of his unhappy position, if innocent, forcing itself upon me, and making my very distrust of him seem personally ungenerous if not absolutely unjust. If I had liked the man better, I should not have been so ready to look upon him with doubt.

But Eleanore must be saved at all hazards. Once delivered up to the blight of suspicion, who could tell what the result might be? the arrest of her person perhaps,—a thing which, once accomplished, would cast a shadow over her young life that it would take more than time to dispel. The accusation of an impecunious secretary would be less horrible than this. I determined to make an early call upon Mr. Gryce.

Meanwhile the contrasted pictures of Eleanore standing with her hand upon the breast of the dead, her face upraised and mirroring a glory, I could not recall without emotion; and Mary, fleeing a short half-hour later indignantly from her presence, haunted me and kept me awake long after midnight. It was like a double vision of light and darkness that, while contrasting, neither assimilated nor harmonized. I could not flee from it. Do what I would, the two pictures followed me, filling my soul with alternate hope and distrust, till I knew not whether to place my hand with Eleanore on the breast of the dead, and swear implicit faith in her truth and purity, or to turn my face like Mary, and fly from what I could neither comprehend nor reconcile.

Expectant of difficulty, I started next morning upon my search for Mr. Gryce, with strong determination not to allow myself to become flurried by disappointment nor discouraged by premature failure. My business was to save Eleanore Leavenworth; and to do that, it was necessary for me to preserve, not only my equanimity, but my self-possession. The worst fear I anticipated was that matters would reach a crisis before I could acquire the right, or obtain the opportunity, to interfere. However, the fact of Mr. Leavenworth's funeral being announced for that day gave me some comfort in that direction; my knowledge of Mr. Gryce being sufficient, as I thought, to warrant me in believing he would wait till after that ceremony before proceeding to extreme measures.

I do not know that I had any vary definite ideas of what a detective's home should be; but when I stood before the neat three-story brick house to which I had been directed, I could not but acknowledge there was something in the aspect of its half-open shutters, over closely drawn curtains of spotless purity, highly suggestive of the character of its inmate.

A pale-looking youth, with vivid locks of red hair hanging straight down over either ear, answered my rather nervous ring. To my inquiry as to whether Mr. Gryce was in, he gave a kind of snort which might have meant no, but which I took to mean yes.

"My name is Raymond, and I wish to see him."

He gave me one glance that took in every detail of my person and apparel, and pointed to a door at the head of the stairs. Not waiting for further directions, I hastened up, knocked at the door he had designated, and went in. The broad back of Mr. Gryce, stooping above a desk that might have come over in the Mayflower, confronted me.

"Well!" he exclaimed; "this is an honor." And rising, he opened with a squeak and shut with a bang the door of an enormous stove that occupied the centre of the room. "Rather chilly day, eh?"

"Yes," I returned, eyeing him closely to see if he was in a communicative mood. "But I have had but little time to consider the state of the weather. My anxiety in regard to this murder——"

"To be sure," he interrupted, fixing his eyes upon the poker, though not with any hostile intention, I am sure. "A puzzling piece of business enough. But perhaps it is an open book to you. I see you have something to communicate."

"I have, though I doubt if it is of the nature you expect. Mr. Gryce, since I saw you last, my convictions upon a certain point have been strengthened into an absolute belief. The object of your suspicious is an innocent woman."

If I had expected him to betray any surprise at this, I was destined to be disappointed. "That is a very pleasing belief," he observed. "I honor you for entertaining it, Mr. Raymond."

I suppressed a movement of anger. "So thoroughly is it mine," I went on, in the determination to arouse him in some way, "that I have come here to-day to ask you in the name of justice and common humanity to suspend action in that direction till we can convince ourselves there is no truer scent to go upon."

But there was no more show of curiosity than before. "Indeed!" he cried; "that is a singular request to come from a man like you."

I was not to be discomposed, "Mr. Gryce," I went on, "a woman's name, once tarnished, remains so forever. Eleanore Leavenworth has too many noble traits to be thoughtlessly dealt with in so momentous a crisis. If you will give me your attention, I promise you shall not regret it."

He smiled, and allowed his eyes to roam from the poker to the arm of my chair. "Very well," he remarked; "I hear you; say on."

I drew my notes from my pocketbook, and laid them on the table.

"What! memoranda?" he exclaimed. "Unsafe, very; never put your plans on paper."

Taking no heed of the interruption, I went on.

"Mr. Gryce, I have had fuller opportunities than yourself for studying this woman. I have seen her in a position which no guilty person could occupy, and I am assured, beyond all doubt, that not only her hands, but her heart, are pure from this crime. She may have some knowledge of its secrets; that I do not presume to deny. The key seen in her possession would refute me if I did. But what if she has? You can never wish to see so lovely a being brought to shame for withholding information which she evidently considers it her duty to keep back, when by a little patient finesse we may succeed in our purposes without it."

"But," interposed the detective, "say this is so; how are we to arrive at the knowledge we want without following out the only clue which has yet been given us?"

"You will never reach it by following out any clue given you by Eleanore Leavenworth."

His eyebrows lifted expressively, but he said nothing.

"Miss Eleanore Leavenworth has been used by some one acquainted with her firmness, generosity, and perhaps love. Let us discover who possesses sufficient power over her to control her to this extent, and we find the man we seek."

"Humph!" came from Mr. Gryce's compressed lips, and no more.

Determined that he should speak, I waited.

"You have, then, some one in your mind "; he remarked at last, almost flippantly.

"I mention no names," I returned. "All I want is further time."

"You are, then, intending to make a personal business of this matter?"

"I am."

He gave a long, low whistle. "May I ask," he inquired at length, "whether you expect to work entirely by yourself; or whether, if a suitable coadjutor were provided, you would disdain his assistance and slight his advice?"

"I desire nothing more than to have you for my colleague."

The smile upon his face deepened ironically. "You must feel very sure of yourself!" said he.

"I am very sure of Miss Leavenworth."

The reply seemed to please him. "Let us hear what you propose doing."

I did not immediately answer. The truth was, I had formed no plans.

"It seems to me," he continued, "that you have undertaken a rather difficult task for an amateur. Better leave it to me, Mr. Raymond; better leave it to me."

"I am sure," I returned, "that nothing would please me better——"

"Not," he interrupted, "but that a word from you now and then would be welcome. I am not an egotist. I am open to suggestions: as, for instance, now, if you could conveniently inform me of all you have yourself seen and heard in regard to this matter, I should be most happy to listen."

Relieved to find him so amenable, I asked myself what I really had to tell; not so much that he would consider vital. However, it would not do to hesitate now.

"Mr. Gryce," said I, "I have but few facts to add to those already known to you. Indeed, I am more moved by convictions than facts. That Eleanore Leavenworth never committed this crime, I am assured. That, on the other hand, the real perpetrator is known to her, I am equally certain; and that for some reason she considers it a sacred duty to shield the assassin, even at the risk of her own safety, follows as a matter of course from the facts. Now, with such data, it cannot be a very difficult task for you or me to work out satisfactorily, to our own minds at least, who this person can be. A little more knowledge of the family—"

"You know nothing of its secret history, then?"

"Nothing."

"Do not even know whether either of these girls is engaged to be married?"

"I do not," I returned, wincing at this direct expression of my own thoughts.

He remained a moment silent. "Mr. Raymond," he cried at last, "have you any idea of the disadvantages under which a detective labors? For instance, now, you imagine I can insinuate myself into all sorts of society, perhaps; but you are mistaken. Strange as it may appear, I have never by any possibility of means succeeded with one class of persons at all. I cannot pass myself off for a gentleman. Tailors and barbers are no good; I am always found out."

He looked so dejected I could scarcely forbear smiling, notwithstanding my secret care and anxiety.

"I have even employed a French valet, who understood dancing and whiskers; but it was all of no avail. The first gentleman I approached stared at me,—real gentleman, I mean, none of your American dandies,—and I had no stare to return; I had forgotten that emergency in my confabs with Pierre Catnille Marie Make-face."

Amused, but a little discomposed by this sudden turn in the conversation, I looked at Mr. Gryce inquiringly.

"Now you, I dare say, have no trouble? Was born one, perhaps. Can even ask a lady to dance without blushing, eh?"

"Well,—" I commenced.

"Just so," he replied; "now, I can't. I can enter a house, bow to the mistress of it, let her be as elegant as she will, so long as I have a writ of arrest in my hand, or some such professional matter upon my mind; but when it comes to visiting in kid gloves, raising a glass of champagne in response to a toast—and such like, I am absolutely good for nothing." And he plunged his two hands into his hair, and looked dolefully at the head of the cane I carried in my hand. "But it is much the same with the whole of us. When we are in want of a gentleman to work for us, we have to go outside of our profession."

I began to see what he was driving at; but held my peace, vaguely conscious I was likely to prove a necessity to him, after all.

"Mr. Raymond," he now said, almost abruptly; "do you know a gentleman by the name of Clavering residing at present at the Hoffman House?"

"Not that I am aware of."

"He is very polished in his manners; would you mind making his acquaintance?"

I followed Mr. Gryce's example, and stared at the chimney-piece. "I cannot answer till I understand matters a little better," I returned at length.

"There is not much to understand. Mr. Henry Clavering, a gentleman and a man of the world, resides at the Hoffman House. He is a stranger in town, without being strange; drives, walks, smokes, but never visits; looks at the ladies, but is never seen to bow to one. In short, a person whom it is desirable to know; but whom, being a proud man, with something of the old-world prejudice against Yankee freedom and forwardness, I could no more approach in the way of acquaintance than I could the Emperor of Austria."

"And you wish——"

"He would make a very agreeable companion for a rising young lawyer of good family and undoubted respectability. I have no doubt, if you undertook to cultivate him, you would find him well worth the trouble."

"But——"

"Might even desire to take him into familiar relations; to confide in him, and——"

"Mr. Gryce," I hastily interrupted; "I can never consent to plot for any man's friendship for the sake of betraying him to the police."

"It is essential to your plans to make the acquaintance of Mr. Clavering," he dryly replied.

"Oh!" I returned, a light breaking in upon me; "he has some connection with this case, then?"

Mr. Gryce smoothed his coat-sleeve thoughtfully. "I don't know as it will be necessary for you to betray him. You wouldn't object to being introduced to him?"

"No."

"Nor, if you found him pleasant, to converse with him?"

"No."

"Not even if, in the course of conversation, you should come across something that might serve as a clue in your efforts to save Eleanore Leavenworth?"

The no I uttered this time was less assured; the part of a spy was the very last one I desired to play in the coming drama.

"Well, then," he went on, ignoring the doubtful tone in which my assent had been given, "I advise you to immediately take up your quarters at the Hoffman House."

"I doubt if that would do," I said. "If I am not mistaken, I have already seen this gentleman, and spoken to him."

"Where?"

"Describe him first."

"Well, he is tall, finely formed, of very upright carriage, with a handsome dark face, brown hair streaked with gray, a piercing eye, and a smooth address. A very imposing personage, I assure you."

"I have reason to think I have seen him," I returned; and in a few words told him when and where.

"Humph!" said he at the conclusion; "he is evidently as much interested in you as we are in him.

"How 's that? I think I see," he added, after a moment's thought. "Pity you spoke to him; may have created an unfavorable impression; and everything depends upon your meeting without any distrust."

He rose and paced the floor.

"Well, we must move slowly, that is all. Give him a chance to see you in other and better lights. Drop into the Hoffman House reading-room. Talk with the best men you meet while there; but not too much, or too indiscriminately. Mr. Clavering is fastidious, and will not feel honored by the attentions of one who is hail-fellow-well-met with everybody. Show yourself for what you are, and leave all advances to him; he 'll make them."

"Supposing we are under a mistake, and the man I met on the corner of Thirty-seventh Street was not Mr. Clavering?"

"I should be greatly surprised, that's all."

Not knowing what further objection to make, I remained silent.

"And this head of mine would have to put on its thinking-cap," he pursued jovially.

"Mr. Gryce," I now said, anxious to show that all this talk about an unknown party had not served to put my own plans from my mind, "there is one person of whom we have not spoken."

"No?" he exclaimed softly, wheeling around until his broad back confronted me. "And who may that be?"

"Why, who but Mr.—" I could get no further. What right had I to mention any man's name in this connection, without possessing sufficient evidence against him to make such mention justifiable? "I beg your pardon," said I; "but I think I will hold to my first impulse, and speak no names."

"Harwell?" he ejaculated easily.

The quick blush rising to my face gave an involuntary assent.

"I see no reason why we shouldn't speak of him," he went on; "that is, if there is anything to be gained by it."

"His testimony at the inquest was honest, you think?"

"It has not been disproved."

"He is a peculiar man."

"And so am I."

I felt myself slightly nonplussed; and, conscious of appearing at a disadvantage, lifted my hat from the table and prepared to take my leave; but, suddenly thinking of Hannah, turned and asked if there was any news of her.

He seemed to debate with himself, hesitating so long that I began to doubt if this man intended to confide in me, after all, when suddenly he brought his two hands down before him and exclaimed vehemently:

"The evil one himself is in this business! If the earth had opened and swallowed up this girl, she couldn't have more effectually disappeared."

I experienced a sinking of the heart. Eleanore had said: "Hannah can do nothing for me." Could it be that the girl was indeed gone, and forever?

"I have innumerable agents at work, to say nothing of the general public; and yet not so much as a whisper has come to me in regard to her whereabouts or situation. I am only afraid we shall find her floating in the river some fine morning, without a confession in her pocket."

"Everything hangs upon that girl's testimony," I remarked.

He gave a short grunt. "What does Miss Leavenworth say about it?"

"That the girl cannot help her."

I thought he looked a trifle surprised at this, but he covered it with a nod and an exclamation. "She must be found for all that," said he, "and shall, if I have to send out Q."

"Q?"

"An agent of mine who is a living interrogation point; so we call him Q, which is short for query." Then, as I turned again to go: "When the contents of the will are made known, come to me."

The will! I had forgotten the will.

XV. WAYS OPENING

"It is not and it cannot come to good."
Hamlet.

I ATTENDED the funeral of Mr. Leavenworth, but did not see the ladies before or after the ceremony. I, however, had a few moments' conversation with Mr. Harwell; which, without eliciting anything new, provided me with food for abundant conjecture. For he had asked, almost at first greeting, if I had seen the Telegram of the night before; and when I responded in the affirmative, turned such a look of mingled distress and appeal upon me, I was tempted to ask how such a frightful insinuation against a young lady of reputation and breeding could ever have got into the papers. It was his reply that struck me.

"That the guilty party might be driven by remorse to own himself the true culprit."

A curious remark to come from a person who had no knowledge or suspicion of the criminal and his character; and I would have pushed the conversation further, but the secretary, who was a man of few words, drew off at this, and could be induced to say no more. Evidently it was my business to cultivate Mr. Clavering, or any one else who could throw any light upon the secret history of these girls.

That evening I received notice that Mr. Veeley had arrived home, but was in no condition to consult with me upon so painful a subject as the murder of Mr. Leavenworth. Also a line from Eleanore, giving me her address, but requesting me at the same time not to call unless I had something of importance to communicate, as she was too ill to receive visitors. The little note affected me. Ill, alone, and in a strange home,—'twas pitiful!

The next day, pursuant to the wishes of Mr. Gryce, in I stepped into the Hoffman House, and took a seat in the reading room. I had been there but a few moments when a gentleman entered whom I immediately recognized as the same I had spoken to on the corner of Thirty-seventh Street and Sixth Avenue. He must have remembered me also, for he seemed to be slightly embarrassed at seeing me; but, recovering himself, took up a paper and soon became to all appearance lost in its contents, though I could feel his handsome black eye upon me, studying my features, figure, apparel, and movements with a degree of interest which equally astonished and disconcerted me. I felt that it would be injudicious on my part to return his scrutiny, anxious as I was to meet his eye and learn what emotion had so fired his curiosity in regard to a perfect stranger; so I rose, and, crossing to an old friend of mine who sat at a table opposite, commenced a desultory conversation, in the course of which I took occasion to ask if he knew who the handsome stranger was. Dick Furbish was a society man, and knew everybody.

"His name is Clavering, and he comes from London. I don't know anything more about him, though he is to be seen everywhere except in private houses. He has not been received into society yet; waiting for litters of introduction, perhaps."

"A gentleman?"

"Undoubtedly."

"One you speak to?"

"Oh, yes; I talk to him, but the conversation is very one-sided."

I could not help smiling at the grimace with which Dick accompanied this remark. "Which same goes to prove," he went on, "that he is the real thing."

Laughing outright this time, I left him, and in a few minutes sauntered from the room.

As I mingled again with the crowd on Broadway, I found myself wondering immensely over this slight experience. That this unknown gentleman from London, who went everywhere except into private houses, could be in any way connected with the affair I had so at heart, seemed not only improbable but absurd; and for the first time I felt tempted to doubt the sagacity of Mr. Gryce in recommending him to my attention.

The next day I repeated the experiment, but with no greater success than before. Mr. Clavering came into the room, but, seeing me, did not remain. I began to realize it was no easy matter to make his acquaintance. To atone for my disappointment, I called 011 Mary Leavenworth in the evening. She received me with almost a sister-like familiarity.

"Ah," she cried, after introducing me to an elderly lady at her side,—some connection of the family, I believe, who had come to remain with her for a while,—"you are here to tell me Hannah is found; is it not so?"

I shook my head, sorry to disappoint her. "No," said I; "not yet."

"But Mr. Gryce was here to-day, and he told me he hoped she would be heard from within twenty-four hours."

"Mr. Gryce here!"

"Yes; came to report how matters were progressing,—not that they seemed to have advanced very far."

"You could hardly have expected that yet. You must not be so easily discouraged."

"But I cannot help it; every day, every hour that passes in this uncertainty, is like a mountain weight here"; and she laid one trembling hand upon her bosom. "I would have the whole world at work. I would leave no stone unturned; I——"

"What would you do?"

"Oh, I don't know," she cried, her whole manner suddenly changing; "nothing, perhaps." Then, before I could reply to this: "Have you seen Eleanore to-day?"

I answered in the negative.

She did not seem satisfied, but waited till her friend left the room before saying more. Then, with an earnest look, inquired if I knew whether Eleanore was well.

"I fear she is not," I returned.

"It is a great trial to me, Eleanore being away. Not," she resumed, noting, perhaps, my incredulous look, "that I would have you think I wish to disclaim my share in bringing about the present unhappy state of things. I am willing to acknowledge I was the first to propose a separation. But it is none the easier to bear on that account."

"It is not as hard for you as for her," said I.

"Not as hard? Why? because she is left comparatively poor, while I am rich—is that what you would say? Ah," she went on, without waiting for my answer, "would I could persuade Eleanore to share my riches with me! Willingly would I bestow upon her the half I have received; but I fear she could never be induced to accept so much as a dollar from me."

"Under the circumstances it would be better for her not to."

"Just what I thought; yet it would ease me of a great weight if she would. This fortune, suddenly thrown into my lap, sits like an incubus upon me, Mr. Raymond. When the will was read to-day which makes me possessor of so much wealth, I could not but feel that a heavy, blinding pall had settled upon me, spotted with blood and woven of horrors. Ah, how different from the feelings with which I have been accustomed to anticipate this day! For, Mr. Raymond," she went on, with a hurried gasp, "dreadful as it seems now, I have been reared to look forward to this hour with pride, if not with actual longing. Money has been made so much of in my small world. Not that I wish in this evil time of retribution to lay blame upon any one; least of all upon my uncle; but from the day, twelve years ago, when for the first time he took us in his arms, and looking down upon our childish faces, exclaimed: 'The light-haired one pleases me best; she shall be my heiress,' I have been petted, cajoled, and spoiled; called little princess, and uncle's darling, till it is only strange I retain in this prejudiced breast any of the impulses of generous womanhood; yes, though I was aware from the first that whim alone had raised this distinction between myself and cousin; a distinction which superior beauty, worth, or accomplishments could never have drawn; Eleanore being more than my equal in all these things." Pausing, she choked back the sudden sob that rose in her throat, with an effort at self-control which was at once touching and admirable. Then, while my eyes stole to her face, murmured in a low, appealing voice: "If I have faults, you see there is some slight excuse for them; arrogance, vanity, and selfishness being considered in the gay young heiress as no more than so many assertions of a laudable dignity. Ah! ah," she bitterly exclaimed "money alone has been the ruin of us all!" Then, with a falling of her voice: "And now it has come to me with its heritage of evil, and I—I would give it all for—But this is weakness! I have no right to afflict you with my griefs. Pray forget all I have said, Mr. Raymond, or regard my complaints as the utterances of an unhappy girl loaded down with sorrows and oppressed by the weight of many perplexities and terrors."

"But I do not wish to forget," I replied. "You have spoken some good words, manifested much noble emotion. Your possessions cannot but prove a blessing to you if you enter upon them with such feelings as these."

But, with a quick gesture, she ejaculated: "Impossible! they cannot prove a blessing." Then, as if startled at her own words, bit her lip and hastily added: "Very great wealth is never a blessing.

"And now," said she, with a total change of manner, "I wish to address you on a subject which may strike you as ill-timed, but which, nevertheless, I must mention, if the purpose I have at heart is ever to be accomplished. My uncle, as you know, was engaged at the time of his death in writing a book on Chinese customs and prejudices. It was a work which he was anxious to see published, and naturally I desire to carry out his wishes; but, in order to do so, I find it necessary not only to interest myself in the matter now,—Mr. Harwell's services being required, and it being my wish to dismiss that gentleman as soon as possible—but to find some one competent to supervise its completion. Now I have heard,—I have been told,—that you were the one of all others to do this; and though it is difficult if not improper for me to ask so great a favor of one who but a week ago was a perfect stranger to me, it would afford me the keenest pleasure if you would consent to look over this manuscript and tell me what remains to be done."

The timidity with which these words were uttered proved her to be in earnest, and I could not but wonder at the strange coincidence of this request with my secret wishes; it having been a question with me for some time how I was to gain free access to this house without in any way compromising either its inmates or myself. I did not know then that Mr. Gryce had been the one to recommend me to her favor in this respect. But, whatever satisfaction I may have experienced, I felt myself in duty bound to plead my incompetence for a task so entirely out of the line of my profession, and to suggest the employment of some one better acquainted with such matters than myself. But she would not listen to me.

"Mr. Harwell has notes and memoranda in plenty," she exclaimed, "and can give you all the information necessary. You will have no difficulty; indeed, you will not."

"But cannot Mr. Harwell himself do all that is requisite? He seems to be a clever and diligent young man."

But she shook her head. "He thinks he can; but I know uncle never trusted him with the composition of a single sentence."

"But perhaps he will not be pleased,—Mr. Harwell, I mean—with the intrusion of a stranger into his work."

She opened her eyes with astonishment. "That makes no difference," she cried. "Mr. Harwell is in my pay, and has nothing to say about it. But he will not object. I have already consulted him, and he expresses himself as satisfied with the arrangement."

"Very well," said I; "then I will promise to consider the subject. I can at any rate look over the manuscript and give you my opinion of its condition."

"Oh, thank you," said she, with the prettiest gesture of satisfaction. "How kind you are, and what can I ever do to repay you? But would you like to see Mr. Harwell himself?" and she moved towards the door; but suddenly paused, whispering, with a short shudder of remembrance: "He is in the library; do you mind?"

Crushing down the sick qualm that arose at the mention of that spot, I replied in the negative.

"The papers are all there, and he says he can work better in his old place than anywhere else; but if you wish, I can call him down."

But I would not listen to this, and myself led the way to the foot of the stairs.

"I have sometimes thought I would lock up that room," she hurriedly observed; "but something restrains me. I can no more do so than I can leave this house; a power beyond myself forces me to confront all its horrors. And yet I suffer continually from terror. Sometimes, in the darkness of the night—But I will not distress you. I have already said too much; come," and with a sudden lift of the head she mounted the stairs.

Mr. Harwell was seated, when we entered that fatal room, in the one chair of all others I expected to see unoccupied; and as I beheld his meagre figure bending where such a little while before his eyes had encountered the outstretched form of his murdered employer, I could not but marvel over the unimaginativeness of the man who, in the face of such memories, could not only appropriate that very spot for his own use, but pursue his avocations there with so much calmness and evident precision. But in another moment I discovered that the disposition of the light in the room made that one seat the only desirable one for his purpose; and instantly my wonder changed to admiration at this quiet surrender of personal feeling to the requirements of the occasion.

He looked up mechanically as we came in, but did not rise, his countenance wearing the absorbed expression which bespeaks the preoccupied mind.

"He is utterly oblivious," Mary whispered; "that is a way of his. I doubt if he knows who or what it is that has disturbed him." And, advancing into the room, she passed across his line of vision, as if to call attention to herself, and said: "I have brought Mr. Raymond upstairs to see you, Mr. Harwell. He has been so kind as to accede to my wishes in regard to the completion of the manuscript now before you."

Slowly Mr. Harwell rose, wiped his pen, and put it away; manifesting, however, a reluctance in doing so that proved this interference to be in reality anything but agreeable to him. Observing this, I did not wait for him to speak, but took up the pile of manuscript, arranged in one mass on the table, saying:

"This seems to be very clearly written; if you will excuse me, I will glance over it and thus learn something of its general character."

He bowed, uttered a word or so of acquiescence, then, as Mary left the room, awkwardly reseated himself, and took up his pen.

Instantly the manuscript and all connected with it vanished from my thoughts; and Eleanore, her situation, and the mystery surrounding this family, returned upon me with renewed force. Looking the secretary steadily in the face, I remarked:

"I am very glad of this opportunity of seeing you a moment alone, Mr. Harwell, if only for the purpose of saying——"

"Anything in regard to the murder?"

"Yes," I began.

"Then you must pardon me," he respectfully but firmly replied. "It is a disagreeable subject which I cannot bear to think of, much less discuss."

Disconcerted and, what was more, convinced of the impossibility of obtaining any information from this man, I abandoned the attempt; and, taking up the manuscript once more, endeavored to master in some small degree the nature of its contents. Succeeding beyond my hopes, I opened a short conversation with him in regard to it, and finally, coming to the conclusion I could accomplish what Miss Leavenworth desired, left him and descended again to the reception room.

When, an hour or so later, I withdrew from the house, it was with the feeling that one obstacle had been removed from my path. If I failed in what I had undertaken, it would not be from lack of opportunity of studying the inmates of this dwelling.

XVI. THE WILL OF A MILLIONAIRE

"Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
Which we ascribe to Heaven."
All's Well that Ends Well.

THE next morning's Tribune contained a synopsis of Mr. Leavenworth's will. Its provisions were a surprise to me; for, while the bulk of his immense estate was, according to the general understanding, bequeathed to his niece, Mary, it appeared by a codicil, attached to his will some five years before, that Eleanore was not entirely forgotten, she having been made the recipient of a legacy which, if not large, was at least sufficient to support her in comfort. After listening to the various comments of my associates on the subject, I proceeded to the house of Mr. Gryce, in obedience to his request to call upon him as soon as possible after the publication of the will.

"Good-morning," he remarked as I entered, but whether addressing me or the frowning top of the desk before which he was sitting it would be difficult to say. "Won't you sit?" nodding with a curious back movement of his head towards a chair in his rear.

I drew up the chair to his side. "I am curious to know," I remarked, "what you have to say about this will, and its probable effect upon the matters we have in hand."

"What is your own idea in regard to it?"

"Well, I think upon the whole it will make but little difference in public opinion. Those who thought Eleanore guilty before will feel that they possess now greater cause than ever to doubt her innocence; while those who have hitherto hesitated to suspect her will not consider that the comparatively small amount bequeathed her would constitute an adequate motive for so great a crime."

"You have heard men talk; what seems to be the general opinion among those you converse with?"

"That the motive of the tragedy will be found in the partiality shown in so singular a will, though how, they do not profess to know."

Mr. Gryce suddenly became interested in one of the small drawers before him.

"And all this has not set you thinking?" said he.

"Thinking," returned I. "I don't know what you mean. I am sure I have done nothing but think for the last three days. I——"

"Of course—of course," he cried. "I didn't mean to say anything disagreeable. And so you have seen Mr. Clavering?"

"Just seen him; no more."

"And are you going to assist Mr. Harwell in finishing Mr. Leavenworth's book?"

"How did you learn that?"

He only smiled.

"Yes," said I; "Miss Leavenworth has requested me to do her that little favor."

"She is a queenly creature!" he exclaimed in a burst of enthusiasm. Then, with an instant return to his businesslike tone: "You are going to have opportunities, Mr. Raymond. Now there are two things I want you to find out; first, what is the connection between these ladies and Mr. Clavering——"

"There is a connection, then?"

"Undoubtedly. And secondly, what is the cause of the unfriendly feeling which evidently exists between the cousins."

I drew back and pondered the position offered me. A spy in a fair woman's house! How could I reconcile it with my natural instincts as a gentleman?

"Cannot you find some one better adapted to learn these secrets for you?" I asked at length. "The part of a spy is anything but agreeable to my feelings, I assure you."

Mr. Gryce's brows fell.

"I will assist Mr. Harwell in his efforts to arrange Mr. Leavenworth's manuscript for the press," I said; "I will give Mr. Clavering an opportunity to form my acquaintance; and I will listen, if Miss Leavenworth chooses to make me her confidant in any way. But any hearkening at doors, surprises, unworthy feints or ungentlemanly subterfuges, I herewith disclaim as outside of my province; my task being to find out what I can in an open way, and yours to search into the nooks and corners of this wretched business."

"In other words, you are to play the hound, and I the mole; just so, I know what belongs to a gentleman."

"And now," said I, "what news of Hannah?" He shook both hands high in the air. "None."

I cannot say I was greatly surprised, that evening, when, upon descending from an hour's labor with Mr. Harwell, I encountered Miss Leavenworth standing at the foot of the stairs. There had been something in her bearing, the night before, which prepared me for another interview this evening, though her manner of commencing it was a surprise. "Mr. Raymond," said she, with an air of marked embarrassment, "I want to ask you a question. I believe you to be a good man, and I know you will answer me conscientiously. As a brother would," she added, lifting her eyes for a moment to my face. "I know it will sound strange; but remember, I have no adviser but you, and I must ask some one. Mr. Raymond, do you think a person could do something that was very wrong, and yet grow to be thoroughly good afterwards?"

"Certainly," I replied; "if he were truly sorry for his fault."

"But say it was more than a fault; say it was an actual harm; would not the memory of that one evil hour cast a lasting shadow over one's life?"

"That depends upon the nature of the harm and its effect upon others. If one had irreparably injured a fellow-being, it would be hard for a person of sensitive nature to live a happy life afterwards; though the fact of not living a happy life ought to be no reason why one should not live a good life."

"But to live a good life would it be necessary to reveal the evil you had done? Cannot one go on and do right without confessing to the world a past wrong?"

"Yes, unless by its confession he can in some way make reparation."

My answer seemed to trouble her. Drawing back, she stood for one moment in a thoughtful attitude before me, her beauty shining with almost a statuesque splendor in the glow of the porcelain-shaded lamp at her side. Nor, though she presently roused herself, leading the way into the drawing-room with a gesture that was allurement itself, did she recur to this topic again; but rather seemed to strive, in the conversation that followed, to make me forget what had already passed between us. That she did not succeed, was owing to my intense and unfailing interest in her cousin.

As I descended the stoop, I saw Thomas, the butler, leaning over the area gate. Immediately I was seized with an impulse to interrogate him in regard to a matter which had more or less interested me ever since the inquest; and that was, who was the Mr. Robbins who had called upon Eleanore the night of the murder? But Thomas was decidedly uncommunicative. He remembered such a person called, but could not describe his looks any further than to say that he was not a small man.

I did not press the matter.

XVII. THE BEGINNING OF GREAT SURPRISES

"Vous regardez une etoile pour deux motifs, parce qu'elle est
lumineuse et parce qu'elle est impenetrable. Vous avez aupres
de vous un plus doux rayonnement et un pas grand mystere, la femme."
Les Miserables.

AND now followed days in which I seemed to make little or no progress. Mr. Clavering, disturbed perhaps by my presence, forsook his usual haunts, thus depriving me of all opportunity of making his acquaintance in any natural manner, while the evenings spent at Miss Leavenworth's were productive of little else than constant suspense and uneasiness.

The manuscript required less revision than I supposed. But, in the course of making such few changes as were necessary, I had ample opportunity of studying the character of Mr. Harwell. I found him to be neither more nor less than an excellent amanuensis. Stiff, unbending, and sombre, but true to his duty and reliable in its performance, I learned to respect him, and even to like him; and this, too, though I saw the liking was not reciprocated, whatever the respect may have been. He never spoke of Eleanore Leavenworth or, indeed, mentioned the family or its trouble in any way; till I began to feel that all this reticence had a cause deeper than the nature of the man, and that if he did speak, it would be to some purpose. This suspicion, of course, kept me restlessly eager in his presence. I could not forbear giving him sly glances now and then, to see how he acted when he believed himself unobserved; but he was ever the same, a passive, diligent, unexcitable worker.

This continual beating against a stone wall, for thus I regarded it, became at last almost unendurable. Clavering shy, and the secretary unapproachable—how was I to gain anything? The short interviews I had with Mary did not help matters. Haughty, constrained, feverish, pettish, grateful, appealing, everything at once, and never twice the same, I learned to dread, even while I coveted, an interview. She appeared to be passing through some crisis which occasioned her the keenest suffering. I have seen her, when she thought herself alone, throw up her hands with the gesture which we use to ward off a coming evil or shut out some hideous vision. I have likewise beheld her standing with her proud head abased, her nervous hands drooping, her whole form sinking and inert, as if the pressure of a weight she could neither upbear nor cast aside had robbed her even of the show of resistance. But this was only once. Ordinarily she was at least stately in her trouble. Even when the softest appeal came into her eyes she stood erect, and retained her expression of conscious power. Even the night she met me in the hall, with feverish cheeks and lips trembling with eagerness, only to turn and fly again without giving utterance to what she had to say, she comported herself with a fiery dignity that was well nigh imposing.

That all this meant something, I was sure; and so I kept my patience alive with the hope that some day she would make a revelation. Those quivering lips would not always remain closed; the secret involving Eleanore's honor and happiness would be divulged by this restless being, if by no one else. Nor was the memory of that extraordinary, if not cruel, accusation I had heard her make enough to destroy this hope—for hope it had grown to be—so that I found myself insensibly shortening my time with Mr. Harwell in the library, and extending my tete-a-tete visits with Mary in the reception room, till the imperturbable secretary was forced to complain that he was often left for hours without work.

But, as I say, days passed, and a second Monday evening came round without seeing me any further advanced upon the problem I had set myself to solve than when I first started upon it two weeks before. The subject of the murder had not even been broached; nor was Hannah spoken of, though I observed the papers were not allowed to languish an instant upon the stoop; mistress and servants betraying equal interest in their contents. All this was strange to me. It was as if you saw a group of human beings eating, drinking, and sleeping upon the sides of a volcano hot with a late eruption and trembling with the birth of a new one. I longed to break this silence as we shiver glass: by shouting the name of Eleanore through those gilded rooms and satin-draped vestibules. But this Monday evening I was in a calmer mood. I was determined to expect nothing from my visits to Mary Leavenworth's house; and entered it upon the eve in question with an equanimity such as I had not experienced since the first day I passed under its unhappy portals.

But when, upon nearing the reception room, I saw Mary pacing the floor with the air of one who is restlessly awaiting something or somebody, I took a sudden resolution, and, advancing towards her, said: "Do I see you alone, Miss Leavenworth?"

She paused in her hurried action, blushed and bowed, but, contrary to her usual custom, did not bid me enter.

"Will it be too great an intrusion on my part, if I venture to come in?" I asked.

Her glance flashed uneasily to the clock, and she seemed about to excuse herself, but suddenly yielded, and, drawing up a chair before the fire, motioned me towards it. Though she endeavored to appear calm, I vaguely felt I had chanced upon her in one of her most agitated moods, and that I had only to broach the subject I had in mind to behold her haughtiness disappear before me like melting snow. I also felt that I had but few moments in which to do it. I accordingly plunged immediately into the subject.

"Miss Leavenworth," said I, "in obtruding upon you tonight, I have a purpose other than that of giving myself a pleasure. I have come to make an appeal."

Instantly I saw that in some way I had started wrong. "An appeal to make to me?" she asked, breathing coldness from every feature of her face.

"Yes," I went on, with passionate recklessness. "Balked in every other endeavor to learn the truth, I have come to you, whom I believe to be noble at the core, for that help which seems likely to fail us in every other direction: for the word which, if it does not absolutely save your cousin, will at least put us upon the track of what will."

"I do not understand what you mean," she protested, slightly shrinking.

"Miss Leavenworth," I pursued, "it is needless for me to tell you in what position your cousin stands. You, who remember both the form and drift of the questions put to her at the inquest, comprehend it all without any explanation from me. But what you may not know is this, that unless she is speedily relieved from the suspicion which, justly or not, has attached itself to her name, the consequences which such suspicion entails must fall upon her, and——"

"Good God!" she cried; "you do not mean she will be——"

"Subject to arrest? Yes."

It was a blow. Shame, horror, and anguish were in every line of her white face. "And all because of that key!" she murmured.

"Key? How did you know anything about a key?"

"Why," she cried, flushing painfully; "I cannot say; didn't you tell me?"

"No," I returned.

"The papers, then?"

"The papers have never mentioned it."

She grew more and more agitated. "I thought every one knew. No, I did not, either," she avowed, in a sudden burst of shame and penitence. "I knew it was a secret; but—oh, Mr. Raymond, it was Eleanore herself who told me."

"Eleanore?"

"Yes, that last evening she was here; we were together in the drawing-room."

"What did she tell?"

"That the key to the library had been seen in her possession."

I could scarcely conceal my incredulity. Eleanore, conscious of the suspicion with which her cousin regarded her, inform that cousin of a fact calculated to add weight to that suspicion? I could not believe this.

"But you knew it?" Mary went on. "I have revealed nothing I ought to have kept secret?"

"No," said I; "and, Miss Leavenworth, it is this thing which makes your cousin's position absolutely dangerous. It is a fact that, left unexplained, must ever link her name with infamy; a bit of circumstantial evidence no sophistry can smother, and no denial obliterate. Only her hitherto spotless reputation, and the efforts of one who, notwithstanding appearances, believes in her innocence, keeps her so long from the clutch of the officers of justice. That key, and the silence preserved by her in regard to it, is sinking her slowly into a pit from which the utmost endeavors of her best friends will soon be inadequate to extricate her."

"And you tell me this——"

"That you may have pity on the poor girl, who will not have pity on herself, and by the explanation of a few circumstances, which cannot be mysteries to you, assist in bringing her from under the dreadful shadow that threatens to overwhelm her."

"And would you insinuate, sir," she cried, turning upon me with a look of great anger, "that I know any more than you do of this matter? that I possess any knowledge which I have not already made public concerning the dreadful tragedy which has transformed our home into a desert, our existence into a lasting horror? Has the blight of suspicion fallen upon me, too; and have you come to accuse me in my own house——"

"Miss Leavenworth," I entreated; "calm yourself. I accuse you of nothing. I only desire you to enlighten me as to your cousin's probable motive for this criminating silence. You cannot be ignorant of it. You are her cousin, almost her sister, have been at all events her daily companion for years, and must know for whom or for what she seals her lips, and conceals facts which, if known, would direct suspicion to the real criminal—that is, if you really believe what you have hitherto stated, that your cousin is an innocent woman."

She not making any answer to this, I rose and confronted her. "Miss Leavenworth, do you believe your cousin guiltless of this crime, or not?"

"Guiltless? Eleanore? Oh! my God; if all the world were only as innocent as she!"

"Then," said I, "you must likewise believe that if she refrains from speaking in regard to matters which to ordinary observers ought to be explained, she does it only from motives of kindness towards one less guiltless than herself."

"What? No, no; I do not say that. What made you think of any such explanation?"

"The action itself. With one of Eleanore's character, such conduct as hers admits of no other construction. Either she is mad, or she is shielding another at the expense of herself."

Mary's lip, which had trembled, slowly steadied itself. "And whom have you settled upon, as the person for whom Eleanore thus sacrifices herself?"

"Ah," said I, "there is where I seek assistance from you. With your knowledge of her history——"

But Mary Leavenworth, sinking haughtily back into her chair, stopped me with a quiet gesture. "I beg your pardon," said she; "but you make a mistake. I know little or nothing of Eleanore's personal feelings. The mystery must be solved by some one besides me."

I changed my tactics.

"When Eleanore confessed to you that the missing key had been seen in her possession, did she likewise inform you where she obtained it, and for what reason she was hiding it?"

"No."

"Merely told you the fact, without any explanation?"

"Yes."

"Was not that a strange piece of gratuitous information for her to give one who, but a few hours before, had accused her to the face of committing a deadly crime?"

"What do you mean?"' she asked, her voice suddenly sinking.

"You will not deny that you were once, not only ready to believe her guilty, but that you actually charged her with having perpetrated this crime."

"Explain yourself!" she cried.

"Miss Leavenworth, do you not remember what you said in that room upstairs, when you were alone with your cousin on the morning of the inquest, just before Mr. Gryce and myself entered your presence?"

Her eyes did not fall, but they filled with sudden terror.

"You heard?" she whispered.

"I could not help it. I was just outside the door, and——"

"What did you hear?"

I told her.

"And Mr. Gryce?"

"He was at my side."

It seemed as if her eyes would devour my face. "Yet nothing was said when you came in?"

"No."

"You, however, have never forgotten it?"

"How could we, Miss Leavenworth?"

Her head fell forward in her hands, and for one wild moment she seemed lost in despair. Then she roused, and desperately exclaimed:

"And that is why you come here tonight. With that sentence written upon your heart, you invade my presence, torture me with questions——"

"Pardon me," I broke in; "are my questions such as you, with reasonable regard for the honor of one with whom you are accustomed to associate, should hesitate to answer? Do I derogate from my manhood in asking you how and why you came to make an accusation of so grave a nature, at a time when all the circumstances of the case were freshly before you, only to insist fully as strongly upon your cousin's innocence when you found there was even more cause for your imputation than you had supposed?"

She did not seem to hear me. "Oh, my cruel fate!" she murmured. "Oh, my cruel fate!"

"Miss Leavenworth," said I, rising, and taking my stand before her; "although there is a temporary estrangement between you and your cousin, you cannot wish to seem her enemy. Speak, then; let me at least know the name of him for whom she thus immolates herself. A hint from you——"

But rising, with a strange look, to her feet, she interrupted me with a stern remark: "If you do not know, I cannot inform you; do not ask me, Mr. Raymond." And she glanced at the clock for the second time.

I took another turn.

"Miss Leavenworth, you once asked me if a person who had committed a wrong ought necessarily to confess it; and I replied no, unless by the confession reparation could be made. Do you remember?"

Her lips moved, but no words issued from them.

"I begin to think," I solemnly proceeded, following the lead of her emotion, "that confession is the only way out of this difficulty: that only by the words you can utter Eleanore can be saved from the doom that awaits her. Will you not then show yourself a true woman by responding to my earnest entreaties?"

I seemed to have touched the right chord; for she trembled, and a look of wistfulness filled her eyes. "Oh, if I could!" she murmured.

"And why can you not? You will never be happy till you do. Eleanore persists in silence; but that is no reason why you should emulate her example. You only make her position more doubtful by it."

"I know it; but I cannot help myself. Fate has too strong a hold upon me; I cannot break away."

"That is not true. Any one can escape from bonds imaginary as yours."

"No, no," she protested; "you do not understand."

"I understand this: that the path of rectitude is a straight one, and that he who steps into devious byways is going astray."

A nicker of light, pathetic beyond description, flashed for a moment across her face; her throat rose as with one wild sob; her lips opened; she seemed yielding, when—A sharp ring at the front door-bell!

"Oh," she cried, sharply turning, "tell him I cannot see him; tell him——"

"Miss Leavenworth," said I, taking her by both hands, "never mind the door; never mind anything but this. I have asked you a question which involves the mystery of this whole affair; answer me, then, for your soul's sake; tell me, what the unhappy circumstances were which could induce you—"

But she tore her hands from mine. "The door!" she cried; "it will open, and—"

Stepping into the hall, I met Thomas coming up the basement stairs. "Go back," said I; "I will call you when you are wanted."

With a bow he disappeared.

"You expect me to answer," she exclaimed, when I re-entered, "now, in a moment? I cannot."

"But——"

"Impossible!" fastening her gaze upon the front door.

"Miss Leavenworth!"

She shuddered.

"I fear the time will never come, if you do not speak now."

"Impossible," she reiterated.

Another twang at the bell.

"You hear!" said she.

I went into the hall and called Thomas. "You may open the door now," said I, and moved to return to her side.

But, with a gesture of command, she pointed upstairs. "Leave me!" and her glance passed on to Thomas, who stopped where he was.

"I will see you again before I go," said I, and hastened upstairs.

Thomas opened the door. "Is Miss Leavenworth in?" I heard a rich, tremulous voice inquire.

"Yes, sir," came in the butler's most respectful and measured accents, and, leaning over the banisters I beheld, to my amazement, the form of Mr. Clavering enter the front hall and move towards the reception room.

XVIII. ON THE STAIRS

"You cannot say I did it."
Macbeth.

EXCITED, tremulous, filled with wonder at this unlooked-for event, I paused for a moment to collect my scattered senses, when the sound of a low, monotonous voice breaking upon my ear from the direction of the library, I approached and found Mr. Harwell reading aloud from his late employer's manuscript. It would be difficult for me to describe the effect which this simple discovery made upon me at this time. There, in that room of late death, withdrawn from the turmoil of the world, a hermit in his skeleton-lined cell, this man employed himself in reading and rereading, with passive interest, the words of the dead, while above and below, human beings agonized in doubt and shame. Listening, I heard these words:

"By these means their native rulers will not only lose their jealous terror of our institutions, but acquire an actual curiosity in regard to them."

Opening the door I went in.

"Ah! you are late, sir," was the greeting with which he rose and brought forward a chair.

My reply was probably inaudible, for he added, as he passed to his own seat:

"I am afraid you are not well."

I roused myself.

"I am not ill." And, pulling the papers towards me, I began looking them over. But the words danced before my eyes, and I was obliged to give up all attempt at work for that night.

"I fear I am unable to assist you this evening, Mr. Harwell. The fact is, I find it difficult to give proper attention to this business while the man who by a dastardly assassination has made it necessary goes unpunished."

The secretary in his turn pushed the papers aside, as if moved by a sudden distaste of them, but gave me no answer.

"You told me, when you first came to me with news of this fearful tragedy, that it was a mystery; but it is one which must be solved, Mr. Harwell; it is wearing out the lives of too many whom we love and respect."

The secretary gave me a look. "Miss Eleanore?" he murmured.

"And Miss Mary," I went on; "myself, you, and many others."

"You have manifested much interest in the matter from the beginning,"—he said, methodically dipping his pen into the ink.

I stared at him in amazement.

"And you," said I; "do you take no interest in that which involves not only the safety, but the happiness and honor, of the family in which you have dwelt so long?"

He looked at me with increased coldness. "I have no wish to discuss this subject. I believe I have before prayed you to spare me its introduction." And he arose.

"But I cannot consider your wishes in this regard," I persisted. "If you know any facts, connected with this affair, which have not yet been made public, it is manifestly your duty to state them. The position which Miss Eleanore occupies at this time is one which should arouse the sense of justice in every true breast; and if you——"

"If I knew anything which would serve to release her from her unhappy position, Mr. Raymond, I should have spoken long ago."

I bit my lip, weary of these continual bafflings, and rose also.

"If you have nothing more to say," he went on, "and feel utterly disinclined to work, why, I should be glad to excuse myself, as I have an engagement out."

"Do not let me keep you," I said, bitterly. "I can take care of myself."

He turned upon me with a short stare, as if this display of feeling was well nigh incomprehensible to him; and then, with a quiet, almost compassionate bow left the room. I heard him go upstairs, felt the jar when his room door closed, and sat down to enjoy my solitude. But solitude in that room was unbearable. By the time Mr. Harwell again descended, I felt I could remain no longer, and, stepping into the hall, told him that if he had no objection I would accompany him for a short stroll.

He bowed a stiff assent, and hastened before me down the stairs. By the time I had closed the library door, he was half-way to the foot, and I was just remarking to myself upon the unpliability of his figure and the awkwardness of his carriage, as seen from my present standpoint, when suddenly I saw him stop, clutch the banister at his side, and hang there with a startled, deathly expression upon his half-turned countenance, which fixed me for an instant where I was in breathless astonishment, and then caused me to rush down to his side, catch him by the arm, and cry:

"What is it? what is the matter?"

But, thrusting out his hand, he pushed me upwards. "Go back!" he whispered, in a voice shaking with intensest emotion, "go back." And catching me by the arm, he literally pulled me up the stairs. Arrived at the top, he loosened his grasp, and leaning, quivering from head to foot, over the banisters, glared below.

"Who is that?" he cried. "Who is that man? What is his name?"

Startled in my turn, I bent beside him, and saw Henry Clavering come out of the reception room and cross the hall.

"That is Mr. Clavering," I whispered, with all the self-possession I could muster; "do you know him?"

Mr. Harwell fell back against the opposite wall. "Clavering, Clavering," he murmured with quaking lips; then, suddenly bounding forward, clutched the railing before him, and fixing me with his eyes, from which all the stoic calmness had gone down forever in flame and frenzy, gurgled into my ear: "You want to know who the assassin of Mr. Leavenworth is, do you? Look there, then: that is the man, Clavering!" And with a leap, he bounded from my side, and, swaying like a drunken man, disappeared from my gaze in the hall above.

My first impulse was to follow him. Rushing upstairs, I knocked at the door of his room, but no response came to my summons. I then called his name in the hall, but without avail; he was determined not to show himself. Resolved that he should not thus escape me, I returned to the library, and wrote him a short note, in which I asked for an explanation of his tremendous accusation, saying I would be in my rooms the next evening at six, when I should expect to see him. This done I descended to rejoin Mary.

But the evening was destined to be full of disappointments. She had retired to her room while I was in the library, and I lost the interview from which I expected so much. "The woman is slippery as an eel," I inwardly commented, pacing the hall in my chagrin. "Wrapped in mystery, she expects me to feel for her the respect due to one of frank and open nature."

I was about to leave the house, when I saw Thomas descending the stairs with a letter in his hand.

"Miss Leavenworth's compliments, sir, and she is too fatigued to remain below this evening."

I moved aside to read the note he handed me, feeling a little conscience-stricken as I traced the hurried, trembling handwriting through the following words:

"You ask more than I can give. Matters must be received as they are
without explanation from me. It is the grief of my life to deny you;
but I have no choice. God forgive us all and keep us from despair.

"M."

And below:

"As we cannot meet now without embarrassment, it is better we should
bear our burdens in silence and apart. Mr. Harwell will visit you.
Farewell!"

As I was crossing Thirty-second Street, I heard a quick footstep behind me, and turning, saw Thomas at my side. "Excuse me, sir," said he, "but I have something a little particular to say to you. When you asked me the other night what sort of a person the gentleman was who called on Miss Eleanore the evening of the murder, I didn't answer you as I should. The fact is, the detectives had been talking to me about that very thing, and I felt shy; but, sir, I know you are a friend of the family, and I want to tell you now that that same gentleman, whoever he was,—Mr. Robbins, he called himself then,—was at the house again tonight, sir, and the name he gave me this time to carry to Miss Leavenworth was Clavering. Yes, sir," he went on, seeing me start; "and, as I told Molly, he acts queer for a stranger. When he came the other night, he hesitated a long time before asking for Miss Eleanore, and when I wanted his name, took out a card and wrote on it the one I told you of, sir, with a look on his face a little peculiar for a caller; besides——"

"Well?"

"Mr. Raymond," the butler went on, in a low, excited voice, edging up very closely to me in the darkness. "There is something I have never told any living being but Molly, sir, which may be of use to those as wishes to find out who committed this murder."

"A fact or a suspicion?" I inquired.

"A fact, sir; which I beg your pardon for troubling you with at this time; but Molly will give me no rest unless I speak of it to you or Mr. Gryce; her feelings being so worked up on Hannah's account, whom we all know is innocent, though folks do dare to say as how she must be guilty just because she is not to be found the minute they want her."

"But this fact?" I urged.

"Well, the fact is this. You see—I would tell Mr. Gryce," he resumed, unconscious of my anxiety, "but I have my fears of detectives, sir; they catch you up so quick at times, and seem to think you know so much more than you really do."

"But this fact," I again broke in.

"O yes, sir; the fact is, that that night, the one of the murder you know, I saw Mr. Clavering, Robbins, or whatever his name is, enter the house, but neither I nor any one else saw him go out of it; nor do I know that he did."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, sir, what I mean is this. When I came down from Miss Eleanore and told Mr. Robbins, as he called himself at that time, that my mistress was ill and unable to see him (the word she gave me, sir, to deliver) Mr. Robbins, instead of bowing and leaving the house like a gentleman, stepped into the reception room and sat down. He may have felt sick, he looked pale enough; at any rate, he asked me for a glass of water. Not knowing any reason then for suspicionat-ing any one's actions, I immediately went down to the kitchen for it, leaving him there in the reception room alone. But before I could get it, I heard the front door close. 'What's that?' said Molly, who was helping me, sir. 'I don't know,' said I, 'unless it's the gentleman has got tired of waiting and gone.' 'If he's gone, he won't want the water,' she said. So down I set the pitcher, and upstairs I come; and sure enough he was gone, or so I thought then. But who knows, sir, if he was not in that room or the drawing-room, which was dark that night, all the time I was a-shutting up of the house?"

I made no reply to this; I was more startled than I cared to reveal.

"You see, sir, I wouldn't speak of such a thing about any person that comes to see the young ladies; but we all know some one who was in the house that night murdered my master, and as it was not Hannah——"

"You say that Miss Eleanore refused to see him," I interrupted, in the hope that the simple suggestion would be enough to elicitate further details of his interview with Eleanore.

"Yes, sir. When she first looked at the card, she showed a little hesitation; but in a moment she grew very flushed in the face, and bade me say what I told you. I should never have thought of it again if I had not seen him come blazoning and bold into the house this evening, with a new name on his tongue. Indeed, and I do not like to think any evil of him now; but Molly would have it I should speak to you, sir, and ease my mind,—and that is all, sir."

When I arrived home that night, I entered into my memorandum-book a new list of suspicious circumstances, but this time they were under the caption "C" instead of "E."

XIX. IN MY OFFICE

"Something between an hindrance and a help."
Wordsworth.

THE next day as, with nerves unstrung and an exhausted brain, I entered my office, I was greeted by the announcement:

"A gentleman, sir, in your private room—been waiting some time, very impatient."

Weary, in no mood to hold consultation with clients new or old, I advanced with anything but an eager step towards my room, when, upon opening the door, I saw—Mr. Clavering.

Too much astounded for the moment to speak, I bowed to him silently, whereupon he approached me with the air and dignity of a highly bred gentleman, and presented his card, on which I saw written, in free and handsome characters, his whole name, Henry Ritchie Clavering. After this introduction of himself, he apologized for making so unceremonious a call, saying, in excuse, that he was a stranger in town; that his business was one of great urgency; that he had casually heard honorable mention of me as a lawyer and a gentleman, and so had ventured to seek this interview on behalf of a friend who was so unfortunately situated as to require the opinion and advice of a lawyer upon a question which not only involved an extraordinary state of facts, but was of a nature peculiarly embarrassing to him, owing to his ignorance of American laws, and the legal bearing of these facts upon the same.

Having thus secured my attention, and awakened my curiosity, he asked me if I would permit him to relate his story. Recovering in a measure from my astonishment, and subduing the extreme repulsion, almost horror, I felt for the man, I signified my assent; at which he drew from his pocket a memorandum-book from which he read in substance as follows:

"An Englishman travelling in this country meets, at a fashionable watering-place, an American girl, with whom he falls deeply in love, and whom, after a few days, he desires to marry. Knowing his position to be good, his fortune ample, and his intentions highly honorable, he offers her his hand, and is accepted. But a decided opposition arising in the family to the match, he is compelled to disguise his sentiments, though the engagement remained unbroken. While matters were in this uncertain condition, he received advices from England demanding his instant return, and, alarmed at the prospect of a protracted absence from the object of his affections, he writes to the lady, informing her of the circumstances, and proposing a secret marriage. She consents with stipulations; the first of which is, that he should leave her instantly upon the conclusion of the ceremony, and the second, that he should intrust the public declaration of the marriage to her. It was not precisely what he wished, but anything which served to make her his own was acceptable at such a crisis. He readily enters into the plans proposed. Meeting the lady at a parsonage, some twenty miles from the watering-place at which she was staying, he stands up with her before a Methodist preacher, and the ceremony of marriage is performed. There were two witnesses, a hired man of the minister, called in for the purpose, and a lady friend who came with the bride; but there was no license, and the bride had not completed her twenty-first year. Now, was that marriage legal? If the lady, wedded in good faith upon that day by my friend, chooses to deny that she is his lawful wife, can he hold her to a compact entered into in so informal a manner? In short, Mr. Raymond, is my friend the lawful husband of that girl or not?"

While listening to this story, I found myself yielding to feelings greatly in contrast to those with which I greeted the relator but a moment before. I became so interested in his "friend's" case as to quite forget, for the time being, that I had ever seen or heard of Henry Clavering; and after learning that the marriage ceremony took place in the State of New York, I replied to him, as near as I can remember, in the following words: "In this State, and I believe it to be American law, marriage is a civil contract, requiring neither license, priest, ceremony, nor certificate—and in some cases witnesses are not even necessary to give it validity. Of old, the modes of getting a wife were the same as those of acquiring any other species of property, and they are not materially changed at the present time. It is enough that the man and woman say to each other, 'From this time we are married,' or, 'You are now my wife,' or, 'my husband,' as the case may be. The mutual consent is all that is necessary. In fact, you may contract marriage as you contract to lend a sum of money, or to buy the merest trifle."

"Then your opinion is——"

"That upon your statement, your friend is the lawful husband of the lady in question; presuming, of course, that no legal disabilities of either party existed to prevent such a union. As to the young lady's age, I will merely say that any fourteen-year-old girl can be a party to a marriage contract."

Mr. Clavering bowed, his countenance assuming a look of great satisfaction. "I am very glad to hear this," said he; "my friend's happiness is entirely involved in the establishment, of his marriage."

He appeared so relieved, my curiosity was yet further aroused. I therefore said: "I have given you my opinion as to the legality of this marriage; but it may be quite another thing to prove it, should the same be contested."

He started, cast me an inquiring look, and murmured:

"True."

"Allow me to ask you a few questions. Was the lady married under her own name?"

"She was."

"The gentleman?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did the lady receive a certificate?"

"She did."

"Properly signed by the minister and witnesses?"

He bowed his head in assent.

"Did she keep this?"

"I cannot say; but I presume she did."

"The witnesses were——"

"A hired man of the minister——"

"Who can be found?"

"Who cannot be found."

"Dead or disappeared?"

"The minister is dead, the man has disappeared."

"The minister dead!"

"Three months since."

"And the marriage took place when?"

"Last July."

"The other witness, the lady friend, where is she?"

"She can be found; but her action is not to be depended upon."

"Has the gentleman himself no proofs of this marriage?"

Mr. Clavering shook his head. "He cannot even prove he was in the town where it took place on that particular day."

"The marriage certificate was, however, filed with the clerk of the town?" said I.

"It was not, sir."

"How was that?"

"I cannot say. I only know that my friend has made inquiry, and that no such paper is to be found."

I leaned slowly back and looked at him. "I do not wonder your friend is concerned in regard to his position, if what you hint is true, and the lady seems disposed to deny that any such ceremony ever took place. Still, if he wishes to go to law, the Court may decide in his favor, though I doubt it. His sworn word is all he would have to go upon, and if she contradicts his testimony under oath, why the sympathy of a jury is, as a rule, with the woman."

Mr. Clavering rose, looked at me with some earnestness, and finally asked, in a tone which, though somewhat changed, lacked nothing of its former suavity, if I would be kind enough to give him in writing that portion of my opinion which directly bore upon the legality of the marriage; that such a paper would go far towards satisfying his friend that his case had been properly presented; as he was aware that no respectable lawyer would put his name to a legal opinion without first having carefully arrived at his conclusions by a thorough examination of the law bearing upon the facts submitted.

This request seeming so reasonable, I unhesitatingly complied with it, and handed him the opinion. He took it, and, after reading it carefully over, deliberately copied it into his memorandum-book. This done, he turned towards me, a strong, though hitherto subdued, emotion showing itself in his countenance.

"Now, sir," said he, rising upon me to the full height of his majestic figure, "I have but one more request to make; and that is, that you will receive back this opinion into your own possession, and in the day you think to lead a beautiful woman to the altar, pause and ask yourself: 'Am I sure that the hand I clasp with such impassioned fervor is free? Have I any certainty for knowing that it has not already been given away, like that of the lady whom, in this opinion of mine, I have declared to be a wedded wife according to the laws of my country? '"

"Mr. Clavering!"

But he, with an urbane bow, laid his hand upon the knob of the door. "I thank you for your courtesy, Mr. Raymond, and I bid you good-day. I hope you will have no need of consulting that paper before I see you again." And with another bow, he passed out.

It was the most vital shock I had yet experienced; and for a moment I stood paralyzed. Me! me! Why should he mix me up with the affair unless—but I would not contemplate that possibility. Eleanore married, and to this man? No, no; anything but that! And yet I found myself continually turning the supposition over in my mind until, to escape the torment of my own conjectures, I seized my hat, and rushed into the street in the hope of finding him again and extorting from him an explanation of his mysterious conduct. But by the time I reached the sidewalk, he was nowhere to be seen. A thousand busy men, with their various cares and purposes, had pushed themselves between us, and I was obliged to return to my office with my doubts unsolved.

I think I never experienced a longer day; but it passed, and at five o'clock I had the satisfaction of inquiring for Mr. Clavering at the Hoffman House. Judge of my surprise when I learned that his visit to my office was his last action before taking passage upon the steamer leaving that day for Liverpool; that he was now on the high seas, and all chance of another interview with him was at an end. I could scarcely believe the fact at first; but after a talk with the cabman who had driven him off to my office and thence to the steamer, I became convinced. My first feeling was one of shame. I had been brought face to face with the accused man, had received an intimation from him that he was not expecting to see me again for some time, and had weakly gone on attending to my own affairs and allowed him to escape, like the simple tyro that I was. My next, the necessity of notifying Mr. Gryce of this man's departure. But it was now six o'clock, the hour set apart for my interview with Mr. Harwell. I could not afford to miss that, so merely stopping to despatch a line to Mr. Gryce, in which I promised to visit him that evening, I turned my steps towards home. I found Mr. Harwell there before me.

XX. "TRUEMAN! TRUEMAN! TRUEMAN!"

"Often do the spirits
Of great events stride on before the events,
And in to-day already walks tomorrow."
Coleridge.

INSTANTLY a great dread seized me. What revelations might not this man be going to make! But I subdued the feeling; and, greeting him with what cordiality I could, settled myself to listen to his explanations.

But Trueman Harwell had no explanations to give, or so it seemed; on the contrary, he had come to apologize for the very violent words he had used the evening before; words which, whatever their effect upon me, he now felt bound to declare had been used without sufficient basis in fact to make their utterance of the least importance.

"But you must have thought you had grounds for so tremendous an accusation, or your act was that of a madman."

His brow wrinkled heavily, and his eyes assumed a very gloomy expression. "It does not follow," he returned. "Under the pressure of surprise, I have known men utter convictions no better founded than mine without running the risk of being called mad."

"Surprise? Mr. Clavering's face or form must; then, have been known to you. The mere fact of seeing a strange gentleman in the hall would have been insufficient to cause you astonishment, Mr. Harwell."

He uneasily fingered the back of the chair before which he stood, but made no reply.

"Sit down," I again urged, this time with a touch of command in my voice. "This is a serious matter, and I intend to deal with it as it deserves. You once said that if you knew anything which might serve to exonerate Eleanore Leavenworth from the suspicion under which she stands, you would be ready to impart it."

"Pardon me. I said that if I had ever known anything calculated to release her from her unhappy position, I would have spoken," he coldly corrected.

"Do not quibble. You know, and I know, that you are keeping something back; and I ask you, in her behalf, and in the cause of justice, to tell me what it is."

"You are mistaken," was his dogged reply. "I have reasons, perhaps, for certain conclusions I may have drawn; but my conscience will not allow me in cold blood to give utterance to suspicions which may not only damage the reputation of an honest man, but place me in the unpleasant position of an accuser without substantial foundation for my accusations."

"You occupy that position already," I retorted, with equal coldness. "Nothing can make me forget that in my presence you have denounced Henry Clavering as the murderer of Mr. Leavenworth. You had better explain yourself, Mr. Harwell."

He gave me a short look, but moved around and took the chair. "You have me at a disadvantage," he said, in a lighter tone. "If you choose to profit by your position, and press me to disclose the little I know, I can only regret the necessity under which I lie, and speak."

"Then you are deterred by conscientious scruples alone?"

"Yes, and by the meagreness of the facts at my command."

"I will judge of the facts when I have heard them."

He raised his eyes to mine, and I was astonished to observe a strange eagerness in their depths; evidently his convictions were stronger than his scruples. "Mr. Raymond," he began, "you are a lawyer, and undoubtedly a practical man; but you may know what it is to scent danger before you see it, to feel influences working in the air over and about you, and yet be in ignorance of what it is that affects you so powerfully, till chance reveals that an enemy has been at your side, or a friend passed your window, or the shadow of death crossed your book as you read, or mingled with your breath as you slept?"

I shook my head, fascinated by the intensity of his gaze into some sort of response.

"Then you cannot understand me, or what I have suffered these last three weeks." And he drew back with an icy reserve that seemed to promise but little to my now thoroughly awakened curiosity.

"I beg your pardon," I hastened to say; "but the fact of my never having experienced such sensations does not hinder me from comprehending the emotions of others more affected by spiritual influences than myself."

He drew himself slowly forward. "Then you will not ridicule me if I say that upon the eve of Mr. Leavenworth's murder I experienced in a dream all that afterwards occurred; saw him murdered, saw"—and he clasped his hands before him, in an attitude inexpressibly convincing, while his voice sank to a horrified whisper, "saw the face of his murderer!"

I started, looked at him in amazement, a thrill as at a ghostly presence running through me.

"And was that——" I began.

"My reason for denouncing the man I beheld before me in the hall of Miss Leavenworth's house last night? It was." And, taking out his handkerchief, he wiped his forehead, on which the perspiration was standing in large drops.

"You would then intimate that the face you saw in your dream and the face you saw in the hall last night were the same?"

He gravely nodded his head.

I drew my chair nearer to his. "Tell me your dream," said I.

"It was the night before Mr. Leavenworth's murder. I had gone to bed feeling especially contented with myself and the world at large; for, though my life is anything but a happy one," and he heaved a short sigh, "some pleasant words had been said to me that day, and I was revelling in the happiness they conferred, when suddenly a chill struck my heart, and the darkness which a moment before had appeared to me as the abode of peace thrilled to the sound of a supernatural cry, and I heard my name, 'Trueman, Trueman, Trueman,' repeated three times in a voice I did not recognize, and starting from my pillow beheld at my bedside a woman. Her face was strange to me," he solemnly proceeded, "but I can give you each and every detail of it, as, bending above me, she stared into my eyes with a growing terror that seemed to implore help, though her lips were quiet, and only the memory of that cry echoed in my ears."

"Describe the face," I interposed.

"It was a round, fair, lady's face. Very lovely in contour, but devoid of coloring; not beautiful, but winning from its childlike look of trust. The hair, banded upon the low, broad forehead, was brown; the eyes, which were very far apart, gray; the mouth, which was its most charming feature, delicate of make and very expressive. There was a dimple in the chin, but none in the cheeks. It was a face to be remembered."

"Go on," said I.

"Meeting the gaze of those imploring eyes, I started up. Instantly the face and all vanished, and I became conscious, as we sometimes do in dreams, of a certain movement in the hall below, and the next instant the gliding figure of a man of imposing size entered the library. I remember experiencing a certain thrill at this, half terror, half curiosity, though I seemed to know, as if by intuition, what he was going to do. Strange to say, I now seemed to change my personality, and to be no longer a third party watching these proceedings, but Mr. Leavenworth himself, sitting at his library table and feeling his doom crawling upon him without capacity for speech or power of movement to avert it. Though my back was towards the man, I could feel his stealthy form traverse the passage, enter the room beyond, pass to that stand where the pistol was, try the drawer, find it locked, turn the key, procure the pistol, weigh it in an accustomed hand, and advance again. I could feel each footstep he took as though his feet were in truth upon my heart, and I remember staring at the table before me as if I expected every moment to see it run with my own blood. I can see now how the letters I had been writing danced upon the paper before me, appearing to my eyes to take the phantom shapes of persons and things long ago forgotten; crowding my last moments with regrets and dead shames, wild longings, and unspeakable agonies, through all of which that face, the face of my former dream, mingled, pale, sweet, and searching, while closer and closer behind me crept that noiseless foot till I could feel the glaring of the assassin's eyes across the narrow threshold separating me from death and hear the click of his teeth as he set his lips for the final act. Ah!" and the secretary's livid face showed the touch of awful horror, "what words can describe such an experience as that? In one moment, all the agonies of hell in the heart and brain, the next a blank through which I seemed to see afar, and as if suddenly removed from all this, a crouching figure looking at its work with starting eyes and pallid back-drawn lips; and seeing, recognize no face that I had ever known, but one so handsome, so remarkable, so unique in its formation and character, that it would be as easy for me to mistake the countenance of my father as the look and figure of the man revealed to me in my dream."

"And this face?" said I, in a voice I failed to recognize as my own.

"Was that of him whom we saw leave Mary Leavenworth's presence last night and go down the hall to the front door."

XXI. A PREJUDICE

"True, I talk of dreams,
'Which are the children of an idle brain
Begot of nothing but vain phantasy."
—Romeo and Juliet.

FOR one moment I sat a prey to superstitious horror; then, my natural incredulity asserting itself, I looked up and remarked:

"You say that all this took place the night previous to the actual occurrence?"

He bowed his head. "For a warning," he declared.

"But you did not seem to take it as such?"

"No; I am subject to horrible dreams. I thought but little of it in a superstitious way till I looked next day upon Mr. Leavenworth's dead body."

"I do not wonder you behaved strangely at the inquest."

"Ah, sir," he returned, with a slow, sad smile; "no one knows what I suffered in my endeavors not to tell more than I actually knew, irrespective of my dream, of this murder and the manner of its accomplishment."

"You believe, then, that your dream foreshadowed the manner of the murder as well as the fact?"

"I do."

"It is a pity it did not go a little further, then, and tell us how the assassin escaped from, if not how he entered, a house so securely fastened."

His face flushed. "That would have been convenient," he repeated. "Also, if I had been informed where Hannah was, and why a stranger and a gentleman should have stooped to the committal of such a crime."

Seeing that he was nettled, I dropped my bantering vein. "Why do you say a stranger?" I asked; "are you so well acquainted with all who visit that house as to be able to say who are and who are not strangers to the family?

"I am well acquainted with the faces of their friends, and Henry Clavering is not amongst the number; but——"

"Were you ever with Mr. Leavenworth," I interrupted, "when he has been away from home; in the country, for instance, or upon his travels?"

"No." But the negative came with some constraint.

"Yet I suppose he was in the habit of absenting himself from home?"

"Certainly."

"Can you tell me where he was last July, he and the ladies?"

"Yes, sir; they went to R——. The famous watering-place, you know. Ah," he cried, seeing a change in my face, "do you think he could have met them there?"

I looked at him for a moment, then, rising in my turn, stood level with him, and exclaimed:

"You are keeping something back, Mr. Harwell; you have more knowledge of this man than you have hitherto given me to understand. What is it?"

He seemed astonished at my penetration, but replied: "I know no more of the man than I have already informed you; but"—and a burning flush crossed his face, "if you are determined to pursue this matter—" and he paused, with an inquiring look.

"I am resolved to find out all I can about Henry Clavering," was my decided answer.

"Then," said he, "I can tell you this much. Henry Clavering wrote a letter to Mr. Leavenworth a few days before the murder, which I have some reason to believe produced a marked effect upon the household." And, folding his arms, the secretary stood quietly awaiting my next question.

"How do you know?" I asked.

"I opened it by mistake. I was in the habit of reading Mr. Leavenworth's business letters, and this, being from one unaccustomed to write to him, lacked the mark which usually distinguished those of a private nature."

"And you saw the name of Clavering?"

"I did; Henry Ritchie Clavering."

"Did you read the letter?" I was trembling now.

The secretary did not reply.

"Mr. Harwell," I reiterated, "this is no time for false delicacy. Did you read that letter?"

"I did; but hastily, and with an agitated conscience."

"You can, however, recall its general drift?"

"It was some complaint in regard to the treatment received by him at the hand of one of Mr. Leavenworth's nieces. I remember nothing more."

"Which niece?"

"There were no names mentioned."

"But you inferred——"

"No, sir; that is just what I did not do. I forced myself to forget the whole thing."

"And yet you say it produced an effect upon the family?"

"I can see now that it did. None of them have ever appeared quite the same as before."

"Mr. Harwell," I gravely continued; "when you were questioned as to the receipt of any letter by Mr. Leavenworth, which might seem in any manner to be connected with this tragedy, you denied having seen any such; how was that?"

"Mr. Raymond, you are a gentleman; have a chivalrous regard for the ladies; do you think you could have brought yourself (even if in your secret heart you considered some such result possible, which I am not ready to say I did) to mention, at such a time as that, the receipt of a letter complaining of the treatment received from one of Mr. Leavenworth's nieces, as a suspicious circumstance worthy to be taken into account by a coroner's jury?"

I shook my head. I could not but acknowledge the impossibility.

"What reason had I for thinking that letter was one of importance? I knew of no Henry Ritchie Clavering."

"And yet you seemed to think it was. I remember you hesitated before replying."

"It is true; but not as I should hesitate now, if the question were put to me again."

Silence followed these words, during which I took two or three turns up and down the room.

"This is all very fanciful," I remarked, laughing in the vain endeavor to throw off the superstitious horror his words had awakened.

He bent his head in assent. "I know it," said he. "I am practical myself in broad daylight, and recognize the nimsiness of an accusation based upon a poor, hardworking secretary's dream, as plainly as you do. This is the reason I desired to keep from speaking at all; but, Mr. Raymond," and his long, thin hand fell upon my arm with a nervous intensity which gave me almost the sensation of an electrical shock, "if the murderer of Mr. Leavenworth is ever brought to confess his deed, mark my words, he will prove to be the man of my dream."

I drew a long breath. For a moment his belief was mine; and a mingled sensation of relief and exquisite pain swept over me as I thought of the possibility of Eleanore being exonerated from crime only to be plunged into fresh humiliation and deeper abysses of suffering.

"He stalks the streets in freedom now," the secretary went on, as if to himself; "even dares to enter the house he has so wofully desecrated; but justice is justice and, sooner or later, something will transpire which will prove to you that a premonition so wonderful as that I received had its significance; that the voice calling 'Trueman, Trueman,' was something more than the empty utterances of an excited brain; that it was Justice itself, calling attention to the guilty."

I looked at him in wonder. Did he know that the officers of justice were already upon the track of this same Clavering? I judged not from his look, but felt an inclination to make an effort and see.

"You speak with strange conviction," I said; "but in all probability you are doomed to be disappointed. So far as we know, Mr. Clavering is a respectable man."

He lifted his hat from the table. "I do not propose to denounce him; I do not even propose to speak his name again. I am not a fool, Mr. Raymond. I have spoken thus plainly to you only in explanation of last night's most unfortunate betrayal; and while I trust you will regard what I have told you as confidential, I also hope you will give me credit for behaving, on the whole, as well as could be expected under the circumstances." And he held out his hand.

"Certainly," I replied as I took it. Then, with a sudden impulse to test the accuracy of this story of his, inquired if he had any means of verifying his statement of having had this dream at the time spoken of: that is, before the murder and not afterwards.

"No, sir; I know myself that I had it the night previous to that of Mr. Leavenworth's death; but I cannot prove the fact."

"Did not speak of it next morning to any one?"

"O no, sir; I was scarcely in a position to do so."

"Yet it must have had a great effect upon you, unfitting you for work——"

"Nothing unfits me for work," was his bitter reply.

"I believe you," I returned, remembering his diligence for the last few days. "But you must at least have shown some traces of having passed an uncomfortable night. Have you no recollection of any one speaking to you in regard to your appearance the next morning?"

"Mr. Leavenworth may have done so; no one else would be likely to notice." There was sadness in the tone, and my own voice softened as I said:

"I shall not be at the house tonight, Mr. Harwell; nor do I know when I shall return there. Personal considerations keep me from Miss Leavenworth's presence for a time, and I look to you to carry on the work we have undertaken without my assistance, unless you can bring it here——"

"I can do that."

"I shall expect you, then, tomorrow evening."

"Very well, sir "; and he was going, when a sudden thought seemed to strike him. "Sir," he said, "as we do not wish to return to this subject again, and as I have a natural curiosity in regard to this man, would you object to telling me what you know of him? You believe him to be a respectable man; are you acquainted with him, Mr. Raymond?"

"I know his name, and where he resides."

"And where is that?"

"In London; he is an Englishman."

"Ah!" he murmured, with a strange intonation.

"Why do you say that?"

He bit his lip, looked down, then up, finally fixed his eyes on mine, and returned, with marked emphasis: "I used an exclamation, sir, because I was startled."

"Startled?"

"Yes; you say he is an Englishman. Mr. Leavenworth had the most bitter antagonism to the English. It was one of his marked peculiarities. He would never be introduced to one if he could help it."

It was my turn to look thoughtful.

"You know," continued the secretary, "that Mr. Leavenworth was a man who carried his prejudices to the extreme. He had a hatred for the English race amounting to mania. If he had known the letter I have mentioned was from an Englishman, I doubt if he would have read it. He used to say he would sooner see a daughter of his dead before him than married to an Englishman."

I turned hastily aside to hide the effect which this announcement made upon me.

"You think I am exaggerating," he said. "Ask Mr. Veeley."

"No," I replied. "I have no reason for thinking so."

"He had doubtless some cause for hating the English with which we are unacquainted," pursued the secretary. "He spent some time in Liverpool when young, and had, of course, many opportunities for studying their manners and character." And the secretary made another movement, as if to leave.

But it was my turn to detain him now. "Mr. Harwell, you must excuse me. You have been on familiar terms with Mr. Leavenworth for so long. Do you think that, in the case of one of his nieces, say, desiring to marry a gentleman of that nationality, his prejudice was sufficient to cause him to absolutely forbid the match?"

"I do."

I moved back. I had learned what I wished, and saw no further reason for prolonging the interview.

XXII. PATCHWORK

"Come, give us a taste of your quality."
Hamlet.

STARTING with the assumption that Mr. Clavering in his conversation of the morning had been giving me, with more or less accuracy, a detailed account of his own experience and position regarding Eleanore Leavenworth, I asked myself what particular facts it would be necessary for me to establish in order to prove the truth of this assumption, and found them to be:

I. That Mr. Clavering had not only been in this country at the time designated, but that he had been located for some little time at a watering-place in New York State.

II. That this watering-place should correspond to the one in which Miss Eleanore Leavenworth was staying at the same time.

III. That they had been seen while there to hold more or less communication.

IV. That they had both been absent from town, at Lorne one time, long enough to have gone through the ceremony of marriage at a point twenty miles or so away.

V. That a Methodist clergyman, who has since died, lived at that time within a radius of twenty miles of said watering-place.

I next asked myself how I was to establish these acts. Mr. Clavering's life was as yet too little known o me to offer me any assistance; so, leaving it for the present, I took up the thread of Eleanore's history, and found that at the time given me she had been in R——, a fashionable watering-place in this State. Now, if his was true, and my theory correct, he must have been there also. To prove this fact, became, consequently, my first business. I resolved to go to R—— on the morrow.

But before proceeding in an undertaking of such importance, I considered it expedient to make such inquiries and collect such facts as the few hours I had left to work in rendered possible. I went first to the house of Mr. Gryce.

I found him lying upon a hard sofa, in the bare sitting-room I have before mentioned, suffering from a severe attack of rheumatism. His hands were done up in bandages, and his feet incased in multiplied folds of a dingy red shawl which looked as if it had been through the wars. Greeting me with a short nod that was both a welcome and an apology, he devoted a few words to an explanation of his unwonted position; and then, without further preliminaries, rushed into the subject which was uppermost in both our minds by inquiring, in a slightly sarcastic way, if I was very much surprised to find my bird flown when I returned to the Hoffman House that afternoon.

"I was astonished to find you allowed him to fly at this time," I replied. "From the manner in which you requested me to make his acquaintance, I supposed you considered him an important character in the tragedy which has just been enacted."

"And what makes you think I don't? Oh, the fact that I let him go off so easily? That's no proof. I never fiddle with the brakes till the car starts down-hill. But let that pass for the present; Mr. Clavering, then, did not explain himself before going?"

"That is a question which I find it exceedingly difficult to answer. Hampered by circumstances, I cannot at present speak with the directness which is your due, but what I can say, I will. Know, then, that in my opinion Mr. Clavering did explain himself in an interview with me this morning. But it was done in so blind a way, it will be necessary for me to make a few investigations before I shall feel sufficiently sure of my ground to take you into my confidence. He has given me a possible clue——"

"Wait," said Mr. Gryce; "does he know this? Was it done intentionally and with sinister motive, or unconsciously and in plain good faith?"

"In good faith, I should say."

Mr. Gryce remained silent for a moment. "It is very unfortunate you cannot explain yourself a little more definitely," he said at last. "I am almost afraid to trust you to make investigations, as you call them, on your own hook. You are not used to the business, and will lose time, to say nothing of running upon false scents, and using up your strength on unprofitable details."

"You should have thought of that when you admitted me into partnership."

"And you absolutely insist upon working this mine alone?"

"Mr. Gryce, the matter stands just here. Mr. Clavering, for all I know, is a gentleman of untarnished reputation. I am not even aware for what purpose you set me upon his trail. I only know that in thus following it I have come upon certain facts that seem worthy of further investigation."

"Well, well; you know best. But the days are slipping by. Something must be done, and soon. The public are becoming clamorous."

"I know it, and for that reason I have come to you for such assistance as you can give me at this stage of the proceedings. You are in possession of certain facts relating to this man which it concerns me to know, or your conduct in reference to him has been purposeless. Now, frankly, will you make me master of those facts: in short, tell me all you know of Mr. Clavering, without requiring an immediate return of confidence on my part?"

"That is asking a great deal of a professional detective."

"I know it, and under other circumstances I should hesitate long before preferring such a request; but as things are, I don't see how I am to proceed in the matter without some such concession on your part. At all events——"

"Wait a moment! Is not Mr. Clavering the lover of one of the young ladies?"

Anxious as I was to preserve the secret of my interest in that gentleman, I could not prevent the blush from rising to my face at the suddenness of this question.

"I thought as much," he went on. "Being neither a relative nor acknowledged friend, I took it for granted he must occupy some such position as that in the family."

"I do not see why you should draw such an inference," said I, anxious to determine how much he knew about him. "Mr. Clavering is a stranger in town; has not even been in this country long; has indeed had no time to establish himself upon any such footing as you suggest."

"This is not the only time Mr. Clavering has been in New York. He was here a year ago to my certain knowledge."

"You know that?"

"Yes."

"How much more do you know? Can it be possible I am groping blindly about for facts which are already in your possession? I pray you listen to my entreaties, Mr. Gryce, and acquaint me at once with what I want to know. You will not regret it. I have no selfish motive in this matter. If I succeed, the glory shall be yours; it I fail, the shame of the defeat shall be mine."

"That is fair," he muttered. "And how about the reward?"

"My reward will be to free an innocent woman from the imputation of crime which hangs over her."

This assurance seemed to satisfy him. His voice and appearance changed; for a moment he looked quite confidential. "Well, well," said he; "and what is it you want to know?"

"I should first like to know how your suspicions came to light on him at all. What reason had you for thinking a gentleman of his bearing and position was in any way connected with this affair?"

"That is a question you ought not to be obliged to put," he returned.

"How so?"

"Simply because the opportunity of answering it was in your hands before ever it came into mine."

"What do you mean?"

"Don't you remember the letter mailed in your presence by Miss Mary Leavenworth during your drive from her home to that of her friend in Thirty-seventh Street?"

"On the afternoon of the inquest?"

"Yes."

"Certainly, but——"

"You never thought to look at its superscription before it was dropped into the box."

"I had neither opportunity nor right to do so."

"Was it not written in your presence?"

"It was."

"And you never regarded the affair as worth your attention?"

"However I may have regarded it, I did not see how I could prevent Miss Leavenworth from dropping a letter into a box if she chose to do so."

"That is because you are a gentleman. Well, it has its disadvantages," he muttered broodingly.

"But you," said I; "how came you to know anything about this letter? Ah, I see," remembering that the carriage in which we were riding at the time had been procured for us by him. "The man on the box was in your pay, and informed, as you call it."

Mr. Gryce winked at his muffled toes mysteriously. "That is not the point," he said. "Enough that I heard that a letter, which might reasonably prove to be of some interest to me, had been dropped at such an hour into the box on the corner of a certain street. That, coinciding in the opinion of my informant, I telegraphed to the station connected with that box to take note of the address of a suspicious-looking letter about to pass through their hands on the way to the General Post Office, and following up the telegram in person, found that a curious epistle addressed in lead pencil and sealed with a stamp, had just arrived, the address of which I was allowed to see——"

"And which was?"

"Henry R. Clavering, Hoffman House, New York."

I drew a deep breath. "And so that is how your attention first came to be directed to this man?"

"Yes."

"Strange. But go on—what next?"

"Why, next I followed up the clue by going to the Hoffman House and instituting inquiries. I learned that Mr. Clavering was a regular guest of the hotel. That he had come there, direct from the Liverpool steamer, about three months since, and, registering his name as Henry R. Clavering, Esq., London, had engaged a first-class room which he had kept ever since. That, although nothing definite was known concerning him, he had been seen with various highly respectable people, both of his own nation and ours, by all of whom he was treated with respect. And lastly, that while not liberal, he had given many evidences of being a man of means. So much done, I entered the office, and waited for him to come in, in the hope of having an opportunity to observe his manner when the clerk handed him that strange-looking letter from Mary Leavenworth."

"And did you succeed?"

"No; an awkward gawk of a fellow stepped between us just at the critical moment, and shut off my view. But I heard enough that evening from the clerk and servants, of the agitation he had shown on receiving it, to convince me I was upon a trail worth following. I accordingly put on my men, and for two days Mr. Clavering was subjected to the most rigid watch a man ever walked under. But nothing was gained by it; his interest in the murder, if interest at all, was a secret one; and though he walked the streets, studied the papers, and haunted the vicinity of the house in Fifth Avenue, he not only refrained from actually approaching it, but made no attempt to communicate with any of the family. Meanwhile, you crossed my path, and with your determination incited me to renewed effort. Convinced from Mr. Clavering's bearing, and the gossip I had by this time gathered in regard to him, that no one short of a gentleman and a friend could succeed in getting at the clue of his connection with this family, I handed him over to you, and——"

"Found me rather an unmanageable colleague."

Mr. Gryce smiled very much as if a sour plum had been put in his mouth, but made no reply; and a momentary pause ensued.

"Did you think to inquire," I asked at last, "if any one knew where Mr. Clavering had spent the evening of the murder?"

"Yes; but with no good result. It was agreed he went out during the evening; also that he was in his bed in the morning when the servant came in to make his fire; but further than this no one seemed posted."

"So that, in fact, you gleaned nothing that would in any way connect this man with the murder except his marked and agitated interest in it, and the fact that a niece of the murdered man had written a letter to him?"

"That is all."

"Another question; did you hear in what manner and at what time he procured a newspaper that evening?"

"No; I only learned that he was observed, by more than one, to hasten out of the dining-room with the Post in his hand, and go immediately to his room without touching his dinner."

"Humph! that does not look—-"

"If Mr. Clavering had had a guilty knowledge of the crime, he would either have ordered dinner before opening the paper, or, having ordered it, he would have eaten it."

"Then you do not believe, from what you have learned, that Mr. Clavering is the guilty party?"

Mr. Gryce shifted uneasily, glanced at the papers protruding from my coat pocket and exclaimed: "I am ready to be convinced by you that he is."

That sentence recalled me to the business in hand. Without appearing to notice his look, I recurred to my questions.

"How came you to know that Mr. Clavering was in this city last summer? Did you learn that, too, at the Hoffman House?"

"No; I ascertained that in quite another way. In short, I have had a communication from London in regard to the matter.

"From London?"

"Yes; I've a friend there in my own line of business, who sometimes assists me with a bit of information, when requested."

"But how? You have not had time to write to London, and receive an answer since the murder."

"It is not necessary to write. It is enough for me to telegraph him the name of a person, for him to understand that I want to know everything he can gather in a reasonable length of time about that person."

"And you sent the name of Mr. Clavering to him?"

"Yes, in cipher."

"And have received a reply?"

"This morning."

I looked towards his desk.

"It is not there," he said; "if you will be kind enough to feel in my breast pocket you will find a letter——"

It was in my hand before he finished his sentence. "Excuse my eagerness," I said. "This kind of business is new to me, you know."

He smiled indulgently at a very old and faded picture hanging on the wall before him. "Eagerness is not a fault; only the betrayal of it. But read out what you have there. Let us hear what my friend Brown has to tell us of Mr. Henry Ritdsie Clavering, of Portland Place, London."

I took the paper to the light and read as follows:

"Henry Ritchie Clavering, Gentleman, aged 43. Born in

——, Hertfordshire, England. His father was Chas. Clavering, for
short time in the army. Mother was Helen Ritchie, of Dumfriesshire,
Scotland; she is still living. Home with H. R. C., in Portland Place,
London. H. R. C. is a bachelor, 6 ft. high, squarely built, weight
about 12 stone. Dark complexion, regular features. Eyes dark brown;
nose straight. Called a handsome man; walks erect and rapidly. In
society is considered a good fellow; rather a favorite, especially with
ladies. Is liberal, not extravagant; reported to be worth about
5000 pounds per year, and appearances give color to this statement.
Property consists of a small estate in Hertfordshire, and some funds,
amount not known. Since writing this much, a correspondent sends the
following in regard to his history. In '46 went from uncle's house to
Eton. From Eton went to Oxford, graduating in '56. Scholarship good. In
1855 his uncle died, and his father succeeded to the estates. Father
died in '57 by a fall from his horse or a similar accident. Within a
very short time H. R. C. took his mother to London, to the residence
named, where they have lived to the present time.

"Travelled considerably in 1860; part of the time was with
——, of Munich; also in party of Vandervorts from New York; went
as far east as Cairo. Went to America in 1875 alone, but at end of
three months returned on account of mother's illness. Nothing is known
of his movements while in America.

"From servants learn that he was always a favorite from a boy. More
recently has become somewhat taciturn. Toward last of his stay watched
the post carefully, especially foreign ones. Posted scarcely anything
but newspapers. Has written to Munich. Have seen, from waste-paper
basket, torn envelope directed to Amy Belden, no address. American
correspondents mostly in Boston; two in New York. Names not known, but
supposed to be bankers. Brought home considerable luggage, and fitted
up part of house, as for a lady. This was closed soon afterwards. Left
for America two months since. Has been, I understand, travelling in the
south. Has telegraphed twice to Portland Place. His friends hear from
him but rarely. Letters rec'd recently, posted in New York. One by last
steamer posted in F——, k. Y.

"Business here conducted by ——. In the country, —— of —— has
charge of the property.

"BROWN."

The document fell from my hands.

F——, N. Y., was a small town near R——.

"Your friend is a trump," I declared. "He tells me just what I wanted most to know." And, taking out my book, I made memoranda of the facts which had most forcibly struck me during my perusal of the communication before me. "With the aid of what he tells me, I shall ferret out the mystery of Henry Clavering in a week; see if I do not."

"And how soon," inquired Mr. Gryce, "may I expect to be allowed to take a hand in the game?"

"As soon as I am reasonably assured I am upon the right tack."

"And what will it take to assure you of that?"

"Not much; a certain point settled, and——"

"Hold on; who knows but what I can do that for you?" And, looking towards the desk which stood in the corner, Mr. Gryce asked me if I would be kind enough to open the top drawer and bring him the bits of partly-burned paper I would find there.

Hastily complying, I brought three or four strips of ragged paper, and laid them on the table at his side.

"Another result of Fobbs' researches under the coal on the first day of the inquest," Mr. Gryce abruptly explained. "You thought the key was all he found. Well, it wasn't. A second turning over of the coal brought these to light, and very interesting they are, too."

I immediately bent over the torn and discolored scraps with great anxiety. They were four in number, and appeared at first glance to be the mere remnants of a sheet of common writing-paper, torn lengthwise into strips, and twisted up into lighters; but, upon closer inspection, they showed traces of writing upon one side, and, what was more important still, the presence of one or more drops of spattered blood. This latter discovery was horrible to me, and so overcame me for the moment that I put the scraps down, and, turning towards Mr. Gryce, inquired:

"What do you make of them?"

"That is just the question I was going to put to you."

Swallowing my disgust, I took them up again. "They look like the remnants of some old letter," said I.

"They have that appearance," Mr. Gryce grimly assented.

"A letter which, from the drop of blood observable on the written side, must have been lying face up on Mr. Leavenworth's table at the time of the murder—"

"Just so."

"And from the uniformity in width of each of these pieces, as well as their tendency to curl up when left alone, must first have been torn into even strips, and then severally rolled up, before being tossed into the grate where they were afterwards found."

"That is all good," said Mr. Gryce; "go on."

"The writing, so far as discernible, is that of a cultivated gentleman. It is not that of Mr. Leavenworth; for I have studied his chirography toe much lately not to know it at a glance; but it may be—Hold!" I suddenly exclaimed, "have you any mucilage handy? I think, if I could paste these strips down upon a piece of paper, so that they would remain flat, I should be able to tell you what I think of them much more easily."

"There is mucilage on the desk," signified Mr. Gryce.

Procuring it, I proceeded to consult the scraps once more for evidence to guide me in their arrangement. These were more marked than I expected; the longer and best preserved strip, with its "Mr. Hor" at the top, showing itself at first blush to be the left-hand margin of the letter, while the machine-cut edge of the next in length presented tokens fully as conclusive of its being the right-hand margin of the same. Selecting these, then, I pasted them down on a piece of paper at just the distance they would occupy if the sheet from which they were torn was of the ordinary commercial note size. Immediately it became apparent: first, that it would take two other strips of the same width to fill up the space left between them; and secondly, that the writing did not terminate at the foot of the sheet, but was carried on to another page.

Taking up the third strip, I looked at its edge; it was machine-cut at the top, and showed by the arrangement of its words that it was the margin strip of a second leaf. Pasting that down by itself, I scrutinized the fourth, and finding it also machine-cut at the top but not on the side, endeavored to fit it to the piece already pasted down, but the words would not match. Moving it along to the position it would hold if it were the third strip, I fastened it down; the whole presenting, when completed, the appearance seen on the opposite page.

"Well!" exclaimed Mr. Gryce, "that's business." Then, as I held it up before his eyes: "But don't show it to me. Study it yourself, and tell me what you think of it."

"Well," said I, "this much is certain: that it is a letter directed to Mr. Leavenworth from some House, and dated—let's see; that is an h, isn't it?" And I pointed to the one letter just discernible on the line under the word House.

"I should think so; but don't ask me."

"It must be an h. The year is 1875, and this is not the termination of either January or February. Dated, then, March 1st, 1876, and signed——"

Mr. Gryce rolled his eyes in anticipatory ecstasy towards the ceiling.

"By Henry Clavering," I announced without hesitation.

Mr. Gryce's eyes returned to his swathed finger-ends. "Humph! how do you know that?"

"Wait a moment, and I'll show you"; and, taking out of my pocket the card which Mr. Clavering had handed me as an introduction at our late interview, I laid it underneath the last line of writing on the second page. One glance was sufficient. Henry Ritchie Clavering on the card; H——chie—in the same handwriting on the letter.

"Clavering it is," said he, "without a doubt." But I saw he was not surprised.

"And now," I continued, "for its general tenor and meaning." And, commencing at the beginning, I read aloud the words as they came, with pauses at the breaks, something as follows: "Mr. Hor—Dear—a niece whom yo—one too who see—the love and trus—any other man ca—autiful, so char——s she in face fo——conversation, ery rose has its——rose is no exception———ely as she is, char——tender as she is, s—————pable of tramplin———one who trusted——heart——————. —————————— him to——he owes a——honor——ance.

"If———t believe —— her to——cruel——face,—— what is——ble serv——yours

"H———tchie"

"It reads like a complaint against one of Mr. Leavenworth's nieces," I said, and started at my own words.

"What is it?" cried Mr. Gryce; "what is the matter?"

"Why," said I, "the fact is I have heard this very letter spoken of. It is a complaint against one of Mr. Leavenworth's nieces, and was written by Mr. Clavering." And I told him of Mr. Harwell's communication in regard to the matter.

"Ah! then Mr. Harwell has been talking, has he? I thought he had forsworn gossip."

"Mr. Harwell and I have seen each other almost daily for the last two weeks," I replied. "It would be strange if he had nothing to tell me."

"And he says he has read a letter written to Mr. Leavenworth by Mr. Clavering?"

"Yes; but the particular words of which he has now forgotten."

"These few here may assist him in recalling the rest."

"I would rather not admit him to a knowledge of the existence of this piece of evidence. I don't believe in letting any one into our confidence whom we can conscientiously keep out."

"I see you don't," dryly responded Mr. Gryce.

Not appearing to notice the fling conveyed by these words, I took up the letter once more, and began pointing out such half-formed words in it as I thought we might venture to complete, as the Hor—, yo—, see—utiful——, har——, for——, tramplin——, pable——, serv——.

This done, I next proposed the introduction of such others as seemed necessary to the sense, as Leavenworth after Horatio; Sir after Dear; have with a possible you before a niece; thorn after Us in the phrase rose has its; on after trampling; whom after to; debt after a; you after If; me ask after believe; beautiful after cruel.

Between the columns of words thus furnished I interposed a phrase or two, here and there, the whole reading upon its completion as follows:

"—————— House." March 1st, 1876.

"Mr. Horatio Leavenworth; Dear Sir:

"(You) have a niece whom you one too who seems worthy the love and trust of any other man ca so beautiful, so charming is she in face form and conversation. But every rose has its thorn and (this) rose is no exception lovely as she is, charming (as she is,) tender as she is, she is capable of trampling on one who trusted her heart a him to whom she owes a debt of honor a ance

"If you don't believe me ask her to her cruel beautiful face what is (her) humble servant yours:

"Henry Ritchie Clavering."

"I think that will do," said Mr. Gryce. "Its general tenor is evident, and that is all we want at this time."

"The whole tone of it is anything but complimentary to the lady it mentions," I remarked. "He must have had, or imagined he had, some desperate grievance, to provoke him to the use of such plain language in regard to one he can still characterize as tender, charming, beautiful."

"Grievances are apt to lie back of mysterious crimes."

"I think I know what this one was," I said; "but"—seeing him look up—"must decline to communicate my suspicion to you for the present. My theory stands unshaken, and in some degree confirmed; and that is all I can say."

"Then this letter does not supply the link you wanted?"

"No: it is a valuable bit of evidence; but it is not the link I am in search of just now."

"Yet it must be an important clue, or Eleanore Leavenworth would not have been to such pains, first to take it in the way she did from her uncle's table, and secondly——"

"Wait! what makes you think this is the paper she took, or was believed to have taken, from Mr. Leavenworth's table on that fatal morning?"

"Why, the fact that it was found together with the key, which we know she dropped into the grate, and that there are drops of blood on it."

I shook my head.

"Why do you shake your head?" asked Mr. Gryce.

"Because I am not satisfied with your reason for believing this to be the paper taken by her from Mr. Leavenworth's table."

"And why?"

"Well, first, because Fobbs does not speak of seeing any paper in her hand, when she bent over the fire; leaving us to conclude that these pieces were in the scuttle of coal she threw upon it; which surely you must acknowledge to be a strange place for her to have put a paper she took such pains to gain possession of; and, secondly, for the reason that these scraps were twisted as if they had been used for curl papers, or something of that kind; a fact hard to explain by your hypothesis."

The detective's eye stole in the direction of my necktie, which was as near as he ever came to a face. "You are a bright one," said he; "a very bright one. I quite admire you, Mr. Raymond."

A little surprised, and not altogether pleased with this unexpected compliment, I regarded him doubtfully for a moment and then asked:

"What is your opinion upon the matter?"

"Oh, you know I have no opinion. I gave up everything of that kind when I put the affair into your hands."

"Still——"

"That the letter of which these scraps are the remnant was on Mr. Leavenworth's table at the time of the murder is believed. That upon the body being removed, a paper was taken from the table by Miss Eleanore Leavenworth, is also believed. That, when she found her action had been noticed, and attention called to this paper and the key, she resorted to subterfuge in order to escape the vigilance of the watch that had been set over her, and, partially succeeding in her endeavor, flung the key into the fire from which these same scraps were afterwards recovered, is also known. The conclusion I leave to your judgment."

"Very well, then," said I, rising; "we will let conclusions go for the present. My mind must be satisfied in regard to the truth or falsity of a certain theory of mine, for my judgment to be worth much on this or any other matter connected with the affair."

And, only waiting to get the address of his subordinate P., in case I should need assistance in my investigations, I left Mr. Gryce, and proceeded immediately to the house of Mr. Veeley.

XXIII. THE STORY OF A CHARMING WOMAN

"Fe, fi, fo, fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman."
—Old Song.

"I hold you as a thing enskied and sainted."
—Measure for Measure.

"YOU have never heard, then, the particulars of Mr. Leavenworth's marriage?"

It was my partner who spoke. I had been asking him to explain to me Mr. Leavenworth's well-known antipathy to the English race.

"No."

"If you had, you would not need to come to me for this explanation. But it is not strange you are ignorant of the matter. I doubt if there are half a dozen persons in existence who could tell you where Horatio Leavenworth found the lovely woman who afterwards became his wife, much less give you any details of the circumstances which led to his marriage."

"I am very fortunate, then, in being in the confidence of one who can. What were those circumstances, Mr. Veeley?"

"It will aid you but little to hear. Horatio Leavenworth, when a young man, was very ambitious; so much so, that at one time he aspired to marry a wealthy lady of Providence. But, chancing to go to England, he there met a young woman whose grace and charm had such an effect upon him that he relinquished all thought of the Providence lady, though it was some time before he could face the prospect of marrying the one who had so greatly interested him; as she was not only in humble circumstances, but was encumbered with a child concerning whose parentage the neighbors professed ignorance, and she had nothing to say. But, as is very apt to be the case in an affair like this, love and admiration soon got the better of worldly wisdom. Taking his future in his hands, he offered himself as her husband, when she immediately proved herself worthy of his regard by entering at once into those explanations he was too much of a gentleman to demand. The story she told was pitiful. She proved to be an American by birth, her father having been a well-known merchant of Chicago. While he lived, her home was one of luxury, but just as she was emerging into womanhood he died. It was at his funeral she met the man destined to be her ruin. How he came there she never knew; he was not a friend of her father's. It is enough he was there, and saw her, and that in three weeks—don't shudder, she was such a child—they were married. In twenty-four hours she knew what that word meant for her; it meant blows. Everett, I am telling no fanciful story. In twenty-four hours after that girl was married, her husband, coming drunk into the house, found her in his way, and knocked her down. It was but the beginning. Her father's estate, on being settled up, proving to be less than expected, he carried her off to England, where he did not wait to be drunk in order to maltreat her. She was not free from his cruelty night or day. Before she was sixteen, she had run the whole gamut of human suffering; and that, not at the hands of a coarse, common ruffian, but from an elegant, handsome, luxury-loving gentleman, whose taste in dress was so nice he would sooner fling a garment of hers into the fire than see her go into company clad in a manner he did not consider becoming. She bore it till her child was born, then she fled. Two days after the little one saw the light, she rose from her bed and, taking her baby in her arms, ran out of the house. The few jewels she had put into her pocket supported her till she could set up a little shop. As for her husband, she neither saw him, nor heard from him, from the day she left him till about two weeks before Horatio Leavenworth first met her, when she learned from the papers that he was dead. She was, therefore, free; but though she loved Horatio Leavenworth with all her heart, she would not marry him. She felt herself forever stained and soiled by the one awful year of abuse and contamination. Nor could he persuade her. Not till the death of her child, a month or so after his proposal, did she consent to give him her hand and what remained of her unhappy life. He brought her to New York, surrounded her with luxury and every tender care, but the arrow had gone too deep; two years from the day her child breathed its last, she too died. It was the blow of his life to Horatio Leavenworth; he was never the same man again. Though Mary and Eleanore shortly after entered his home, he never recovered his old light-heartedness. Money became his idol, and the ambition to make and leave a great fortune behind him modified all his views of life. But one proof remained that he never forgot the wife of his youth, and that was, he could not bear to have the word 'Englishman' uttered in his hearing."

Mr. Veeley paused, and I rose to go. "Do you remember how Mrs. Leavenworth looked?" I asked. "Could you describe her to me?"

He seemed a little astonished at my request, but immediately replied: "She was a very pale woman; not strictly beautiful, but of a contour and expression of great charm. Her hair was brown, her eyes gray—"

"And very wide apart?"

He nodded, looking still more astonished. "How came you to know? Have you seen her picture?"

I did not answer that question.

On my way downstairs, I bethought me of a letter which I had in my pocket for Mr. Veeley's son Fred, and, knowing of no surer way of getting it to him that night than by leaving it on the library table, I stepped to the door of that room, which in this house was at the rear of the parlors, and receiving no reply to my knock, opened it and looked in.

The room was unlighted, but a cheerful fire was burning in the grate, and by its glow I espied a lady crouching on the hearth, whom at first glance I took for Mrs. Veeley. But, upon advancing and addressing her by that name, I saw my mistake; for the person before me not only refrained from replying, but, rising at the sound of my voice, revealed a form of such noble proportions that all possibility of its being that of the dainty little wife of my partner fled.

"I see I have made a mistake," said I. "I beg your pardon "; and would have left the room, but something in the general attitude of the lady before me restrained me, and, believing it to be Mary Leavenworth, I inquired:

"Can it be this is Miss Leavenworth?"

The noble figure appeared to droop, the gently lifted head to fall, and for a moment I doubted if I had been correct in my supposition. Then form and head slowly erected themselves, a soft voice spoke, and I heard a low "yes," and hurriedly advancing, confronted—not Mary, with her glancing, feverish gaze, and scarlet, trembling lips—but Eleanore, the woman whose faintest look had moved me from the first, the woman whose husband I believed myself to be even then pursuing to his doom!

The surprise was too great; I could neither sustain nor conceal it. Stumbling slowly back, I murmured something about having believed it to be her cousin; and then, conscious only of the one wish to fly a presence I dared not encounter in my present mood, turned, when her rich, heart-full voice rose once more and I heard:

"You will not leave me without a word, Mr. Raymond, now that chance has thrown us together?" Then, as I came slowly forward: "Were you so very much astonished to find me here?"

"I do not know—I did not expect—" was my incoherent reply. "I had heard you were ill; that you went nowhere; that you had no wish to see your friends."

"I have been ill," she said; "but I am better now, and have come to spend the night with Mrs. Veeley, because I could not endure the stare of the four walls of my room any longer."

This was said without any effort at plaintiveness, but rather as if she thought it necessary to excuse herself for being where she was.

"I am glad you did so," said I. "You ought to be here all the while. That dreary, lonesome boarding-house is no place for you, Miss Leavenworth. It distresses us all to feel that you are exiling yourself at this time."

"I do not wish anybody to be distressed," she returned. "It is best for me to be where I am. Nor am I altogether alone. There is a child there whose innocent eyes see nothing but innocence in mine. She will keep me from despair. Do not let my friends be anxious; I can bear it." Then, in a lower tone: "There is but one thing which really unnerves me; and that is my ignorance of what is going on at home. Sorrow I can bear, but suspense is killing me. Will you not tell me something of Mary and home? I cannot ask Mrs. Veeley; she is kind, but has no real knowledge of Mary or me, nor does she know anything of our estrangement. She thinks me obstinate, and blames me for leaving my cousin in her trouble. But you know I could not help it. You know,—" her voice wavered off into a tremble, and she did not conclude.

"I cannot tell you much," I hastened to reply; "but whatever knowledge is at my command is certainly yours. Is there anything in particular you wish to know?"

"Yes, how Mary is; whether she is well, and—and composed."

"Your cousin's health is good," I returned; "but I fear I cannot say she is composed. She is greatly troubled about you."

"You see her often, then?"

"I am assisting Mr. Harwell in preparing your uncle's book for the press, and necessarily am there much of the time."

"My uncle's book!" The words came in a tone of low horror.

"Yes, Miss Leavenworth. It has been thought best to bring it before the world, and——"

"And Mary has set you at the task?"

"Yes."

It seemed as if she could not escape from the horror which this caused. "How could she? Oh, how could she!"

"She considers herself as fulfilling her uncle's wishes. He was very anxious, as you know, to have the book out by July."

"Do not speak of it!" she broke in, "I cannot bear it." Then, as if she feared she had hurt my feelings by her abruptness, lowered her voice and said: "I do not, however, know of any one I should be better pleased to have charged with the task than yourself. With you it will be a work of respect and reverence; but-a stranger—Oh, I could not have endured a stranger touching it."

She was fast falling into her old horror; but rousing herself, murmured: "I wanted to ask you something; ah, I know"—and she moved so as to face me. "I wish to inquire if everything is as before in the house; the servants the same and—and other things?"

"There is a Mrs. Darrell there; I do not know of any other change."

"Mary does not talk of going away?"

"I think not."

"But she has visitors? Some one besides Mrs. Darrell to help her bear her loneliness?"

I knew what was coming, and strove to preserve my composure.

"Yes," I replied; "a few."

"Would you mind naming them?" How low her tones were, but how distinct!

"Certainly not. Mrs. Veeley, Mrs. Gilbert, Miss Martin, and a—a——"

"Go on," she whispered.

"A gentleman by the name of Clavering."

"You speak that name with evident embarrassment," she said, after a moment of intense anxiety on my part. "May I inquire why?"

Astounded, I raised my eyes to her face. It was very pale, and wore the old look of self-repressed calm I remembered so well. I immediately dropped my gaze.

"Why? because there are some circumstances surrounding him which have struck me as peculiar."

"How so?" she asked.

"He appears under two names. To-day it is Clavering; a short time ago it was——"

"Go on."

"Robbins."

Her dress rustled on the hearth; there was a sound of desolation in it; but her voice when she spoke was expressionless as that of an automaton.

"How many times has this person, of whose name you do not appear to be certain, been to see Mary?"

"Once."

"When was it?"

"Last night."

"Did he stay long?"

"About twenty minutes, I should say."

"And do you think he will come again?"

"No."

"Why?"

"He has left the country."

A short silence followed this, I felt her eyes searching my face, but doubt whether, if I had known she held a loaded pistol, I could have looked up at that moment.

"Mr. Raymond," she at length observed, in a changed tone, "the last time I saw you, you told me you were going to make some endeavor to restore me to my former position before the world. I did not wish you to do so then; nor do I wish you to do so now. Can you not make me comparatively happy, then, by assuring me you have abandoned or will abandon a project so hopeless?"

"It is impossible," I replied with emphasis. "I cannot abandon it. Much as I grieve to be a source of-sorrow to you, it is best you should know that I can never give up the hope of righting you while I live."

She put out her hand in a sort of hopeless appeal inexpressibly touching to behold in the fast waning firelight. But I was relentless.

"I should never be able to face the world or my own conscience if, through any weakness of my own, I should miss the blessed privilege of setting the wrong right, and saving a noble woman from unmerited disgrace." And then, seeing she was not likely to reply to this, drew a step nearer and said: "Is there not some little kindness I can show you, Miss Leavenworth? Is there no message you would like taken, or act it would give you pleasure to see performed?"

She stopped to think. "No," said she; "I have only one request to make, and that you refuse to grant."

"For the most unselfish of reasons," I urged.

She slowly shook her head. "You think so "; then, before I could reply, "I could desire one little favor shown me, however."

"What is that?"

"That if anything should transpire; if Hannah should be found, or—or my presence required in any way,—you will not keep me in ignorance. That you will let me know the worst when it conies, without fail."

"I will."

"And now, good-night. Mrs. Veeley is coming back, and you would scarcely wish to be found here by her."

"No," said I.

And yet I did not go, but stood watching the firelight flicker on her black dress till the thought of Clavering and the duty I had for the morrow struck coldly to my heart, and I turned away towards the door. But at the threshold I paused again, and looked back. Oh, the flickering, dying fire flame! Oh, the crowding, clustering shadows! Oh, that drooping figure in their midst, with its clasped hands and its hidden face! I see it all again; I see it as in a dream; then darkness falls, and in the glare of gas-lighted streets, I am hastening along, solitary and sad, to my lonely home.

XXIV. A REPORT FOLLOWED BY SMOKE

"Oft expectation fails, and most oft there
Where most it promises; and oft it hits
Where Hope is coldest, and Despair most sits."
—All's Well that Ends Well.

WHEN I told Mr. Gryce I only waited for the determination of one fact, to feel justified in throwing the case unreservedly into his hands, I alluded to the proving or disproving of the supposition that Henry Clavering had been a guest at the same watering-place with Eleanore Leavenworth the summer before.

When, therefore, I found myself the next morning with the Visitor Book of the Hotel Union at R—— in my hands, it was only by the strongest effort of will I could restrain my impatience. The suspense, however, was short. Almost immediately I encountered his name, written not half a page below those of Mr. Leavenworth and his nieces, and, whatever may have been my emotion at finding my suspicions thus confirmed, I recognized the fact that I was in the possession of a clue which would yet lead to the solving of the fearful problem which had been imposed upon me.

Hastening to the telegraph office, I sent a message for the man promised me by Mr. Gryce, and receiving for an answer that he could not be with me before three o'clock, started for the house of Mr. Monell, a client of ours, living in R——. I found him at home and, during our interview of two hours, suffered the ordeal of appearing at ease and interested in what he had to say, while my heart was heavy with its first disappointment and my brain on fire with the excitement of the work then on my hands.

I arrived at the depot just as the train came in.

There was but one passenger for R——, a brisk young man, whose whole appearance differed so from the description which had been given me of Q that I at once made up my mind he could not be the man I was looking for, and was turning away disappointed, when he approached, and handed me a card on which was inscribed the single character "?" Even then I could not bring myself to believe that the slyest and most successful agent in Mr. Gryce's employ was before me, till, catching his eye, I saw such a keen, enjoyable twinkle sparkling in its depths that all doubt fled, and, returning his bow with a show of satisfaction, I remarked:

"You are very punctual. I like that."

He gave another short, quick nod. "Glad, sir, to please you. Punctuality is too cheap a virtue not to be practised by a man on the lookout for a rise. But what orders, sir? Down train due in ten minutes; no time to spare."

"Down train? What have we to do with that?"

"I thought you might wish to take it, sir. Mr. Brown"—winking expressively at the name, "always checks his carpet-bag for home when he sees me coming. But that is your affair; I am not particular."

"I wish to do what is wisest under the circumstances."

"Go home, then, as speedily as possible." And he gave a third sharp nod exceedingly businesslike and determined.

"If I leave you, it is with the understanding that you bring your information first to me; that you are in my employ, and in that of no one else for the time being; and that mum is the word till I give you liberty to speak."

"Yes, sir. When I work for Brown & Co. I do not work for Smith & Jones. That you can count on."

"Very well then, here are your instructions."

He looked at the paper I handed him with a certain degree of care, then stepped into the waiting-room and threw it into the stove, saying in a low tone: "So much in case I should meet with some accident: have an apoplectic fit, or anything of that sort."

"But——"

"Oh, don't worry; I sha'n't forget. I've a. memory, sir. No need of anybody using pen and paper with me."

And laughing in the short, quick way one would expect from a person of his appearance and conversation, he added: "You will probably hear from me in a day or so," and bowing, took his brisk, free way down the street just as the train came rushing in from the West.

My instructions to Q were as follows:

1. To find out on what day, and in whose company, the Misses Leavenworth arrived at R—— the year before. What their movements had been while there, and in whose society they were oftenest to be seen. Also the date of their departure, and such facts as could be gathered in regard to their habits, etc.

2. Ditto in respect to a Mr. Henry Clavering, fellow-guest and probable friend of said ladies.

3. Name of individual fulfilling the following requirements: Clergyman, Methodist, deceased since last December or thereabouts, who in July of Seventy-five was located in some town not over twenty miles from R——.

4. Also name and present whereabouts of a man at that time in service of the above.

To say that the interval of time necessary to a proper inquiry into these matters was passed by me in any reasonable frame of mind, would be to give myself credit for an equanimity of temper which I unfortunately do not possess. Never have days seemed so long as the two which interposed between my return from R—— and the receipt of the following letter:

"Sir:

"Individuals mentioned arrived in R—— July 3, 1875. Party consisted of four; the two ladies, their uncle, and the girl named Hannah. Uncle remained three days, and then left for a short tour through Massachusetts. Gone two weeks, during which ladies were seen more or less with the gentleman named between us, but not to an extent sufficient to excite gossip or occasion remark, when said gentleman left R—— abruptly, two days after uncle's return. Date July 19. As to habits of ladies, more or less social. They were always to be seen at picnics, rides, etc., and in the ballroom. M—— liked best. E——considered grave, and, towards the last of her stay, moody. It is remembered now that her manner was always peculiar, and that she was more or less shunned by her cousin.

However, in the opinion of one girl still to be found at the hotel, she was the sweetest lady that ever breathed. No particular reason for this opinion. Uncle, ladies, and servants left R—— for New York, August 7, 1875.

"2. H. C. arrived at the hotel in R——July 6, 1875, in-company with Mr. and Mrs. Vandervort, friends of the above. Left July 19, two weeks from day of arrival. Little to be learned in regard to him. Remembered as the handsome gentleman who was in the party with the L, girls, and that is all.

"3. F——, a small town, some sixteen or seventeen miles from R——, had for its Methodist minister, in July of last year, a man who has since died, Samuel Stebbins by name. Date of decease, Jan. 7 of this year.

"4. Name of man in employ of S. S. at that time is Timothy Cook. He has been absent, but returned to P—— two days ago. Can be seen if required."

"Ah, ha!" I cried aloud at this point, in my sudden surprise and satisfaction; "now we have something to work upon!" And sitting down I penned the following reply:

"T. C. wanted by all means. Also any evidence going to prove that H. C. and B. L. were married at the house of Mr. S. on any day of July or August last."

Next morning came the following telegram:

"T. C. on the road. Remembers a marriage. Will be with you by 2 p.m."

At three o'clock of that same day, I stood before Mr. Gryce. "I am here to make my report," I announced.

The nicker of a smile passed over his face, and he gazed for the first time at his bound-up finger-ends with a softening aspect which must have done them good. "I'm ready," said he.

"Mr. Gryce," I began, "do you remember the conclusion we came to at our first interview in this house?"

"I remember the one you came to."

"Well, well," I acknowledged a little peevishly, "the one I came to, then. It was this: that if we could find to whom Eleanore Leavenworth felt she owed her best duty and love, we should discover the man who murdered her uncle."

"And do you imagine you have done this?"

"I do."

His eyes stole a little nearer my face. "Well! that is good; go on."

"When I undertook this business of clearing Eleanore Leavenworth from suspicion," I resumed, "it was with the premonition that this person would prove to be her lover; but I had no idea he would prove to be her husband."

Mr. Gryce's gaze flashed like lightning to the ceiling.

"What!" he ejaculated with a frown.

"The lover of Eleanore Leavenworth is likewise her husband," I repeated. "Mr. Clavering holds no lesser connection to her than that."

"How have you found that out?" demanded Mr. Gryce, in a harsh tone that argued disappointment or displeasure.

"That I will not take time to state. The question is not how I became acquainted with a certain thing, but is what I assert in regard to it true. If you will cast your eye over this summary of events gleaned by me from the lives of these two persons, I think you will agree with me that it is." And I held up before his eyes the following:

"During the two weeks commencing July 6, of the year 1875, and ending July 19, of the same year, Henry R. Clavering, of London, and Eleanore Leavenworth, of New York, were guests of the same hotel. Fact proved by Visitor Book of the Hotel Union at R——, New York.

"They were not only guests of the same hotel, but are known to have held more or less communication with each other. Fact proved by such servants now employed in R—— as were in the hotel at that time.

"July 19. Mr. Clavering left R—— abruptly, a circumstance that would not be considered remarkable if Mr. Leavenworth, whose violent antipathy to Englishmen as husbands is publicly known, had not just returned from a journey.

"July 30. Mr. Clavering was seen in the parlor of Mr. Stebbins, the Methodist minister at F——, a town about sixteen miles from R——, where he was married to a lady of great beauty. Proved by Timothy Cook, a man in the employ of Mr. Stebbins, who was called in from the garden to witness the ceremony and sign a paper supposed to be a certificate.

"July 31. Mr. Clavering takes steamer for Liverpool. Proved by newspapers of that date.

"September. Eleanore Leavenworth in her uncle's house in New York, conducting herself as usual, but pale of face and preoccupied in manner. Proved by servants then in her service. Mr. Clavering in London; watches the United States mails with eagerness, but receives no letters. Fits up room elegantly, as for a lady. Proved by secret communication from London.

"November. Miss Leavenworth still in uncle's house. No publication of her marriage ever made. Mr. Clavering in London; shows signs of uneasiness; the room prepared for lady closed. Proved as above.

"January 17, 1876. Mr. Clavering, having returned to America, engages room at Hoffman House, New York.

"March 1 or 2. Mr. Leavenworth receives a letter signed by Henry Clavering, in which he complains of having been ill-used by one of that gentleman's nieces. A manifest shade falls over the family at this time.

"March 4. Mr. Clavering under a false name inquires at the door of Mr. Leavenworth's house for Miss Eleanore Leavenworth. Proved by Thomas.'"

"March 4th?" exclaimed Mr. Gryce at this point. "That was the night of the murder.-"

"Yes; the Mr. Le Roy Robbins said to have called that evening was none other than Mr. Clavering."

"March 19. Miss Mary Leavenworth, in a conversation with me, acknowledges that there is a secret in the family, and is just upon the point of revealing its nature, when Mr. Clavering enters the house. Upon his departure she declares her unwillingness ever to mention the subject again."

Mr. Gryce slowly waved the paper aside. "And from these facts you draw the inference that Eleanore Leavenworth is the wife of Mr. Clavering?"

"I do."

"And that, being his wife——"

"It would be natural for her to conceal anything she knew likely to criminate him."

"Always supposing Clavering himself had done anything criminal!"

"Of course."

"Which latter supposition you now propose to justify!"

"Which latter supposition it is left for us to justify."

A peculiar gleam shot over Mr. Gryce's somewhat abstracted countenance. "Then you have no new evidence against Mr. Clavering?"

"I should think the fact just given, of his standing in the relation of unacknowledged husband to the suspected party was something."

"No positive evidence as to his being the assassin of Mr. Leavenworth, I mean?"

I was obliged to admit I had none which he would Consider positive. "But I can show the existence of motive; and I can likewise show it was not only possible, but probable, he was in the house at the time of the murder."

"Ah, you can!" cried Mr. Gryce, rousing a little from his abstraction.

"The motive was the usual one of self-interest. Mr. Leavenworth stood in the way of Eleanore's acknowledging him as a husband, and he must therefore be put out of the way."

"Weak!"

"Motives for murders are sometimes weak."

"The motive for this was not. Too much calculation was shown for the arm to have been nerved by anything short of the most deliberate intention, founded upon the deadliest necessity of passion or avarice."

"Avarice?"

"One should never deliberate upon the causes which have led to the destruction of a rich man without taking into account that most common passion of the human race."

"But——"

"Let us hear what you have to say of Mr. Clavering's presence in the house at the time of the murder."

I related what Thomas the butler had told me in regard to Mr. Clavering's call upon Miss Leavenworth that night, and the lack of proof which existed as to his having left the house when supposed to do so.

"That is worth remembering," said Mr. Gryce at the conclusion. "Valueless as direct evidence, it might prove of great value as corroborative." Then, in a graver tone, he went on to say: "Mr. Raymond, are you aware that in all this you have been strengthening the case against Eleanore Leavenworth instead of weakening it?"

I could only ejaculate, in my sudden wonder and dismay.

"You have shown her to be secret, sly, and unprincipled; capable of wronging those to whom she was most bound, her uncle and her husband."

"You put it very strongly," said I, conscious of a shocking discrepancy between this description of Eleanore's character and all that I had preconceived in regard to it.

"No more so than your own conclusions from this story warrant me in doing." Then, as I sat silent, murmured low, and as if to himself: "If the case was dark against her before, it is doubly so with this supposition established of her being the woman secretly married to Mr. Clavering."

"And yet," I protested, unable to give up my hope without a struggle; "you do not, cannot, believe the noble-looking Eleanore guilty of this horrible crime?"

"No," he slowly said; "you might as well know right here what I think about that. I believe Eleanore Leavenworth to be an innocent woman."

"You do? Then what," I cried, swaying between joy at this admission and doubt as to the meaning of his former expressions, "remains to be done?"

Mr. Gryce quietly responded: "Why, nothing but to prove your supposition a false one."

XXV. TIMOTHY COOK

"Look here upon this picture and on this."
—Hamlet.

I STARED at him in amazement. "I doubt if it will be so very difficult," said he. Then, in a sudden burst, "Where is the man Cook?"

"He is below with Q."

"That was a wise move; let us see the boys; have them up."

Stepping to the door I called them.

"I expected, of course, you would want to question them," said I, coming back.

In another moment the spruce Q and the shock-headed Cook entered the room.

"Ah," said Mr. Gryce, directing his attention at the latter in his own whimsical, non-committal way; "this is the deceased Mr. Stebbins' hired man, is it? Well, you look as though you could tell the truth."

"I usually calculate to do that thing, sir; at all events, I was never called a liar as I can remember."

"Of course not, of course not," returned the affable detective. Then, without any further introduction: "What was the first name of the lady you saw married in your master's house last summer?"

"Bless me if I know! I don't think I heard, sir."

"But you recollect how she looked?"

"As well as if she was my own mother. No disrespect to the lady, sir, if you know her," he made haste to add, glancing hurriedly at me. "What I mean is, she was so handsome, I could never forget the look of her sweet face if I lived a hundred years."

"Can you describe her?"

"I don't know, sirs; she was tall and grand-looking, had the brightest eyes and the whitest hand, and smiled in a way to make even a common man like me wish he had never seen her."

"Would you know her in a crowd?"

"I would know her anywhere."

"Very well; now tell us all you can about that marriage."

"Well, sirs, it was something like this. I had been in Mr. Stebbins' employ about a year, when one morning as I was hoeing in the garden I saw a gentleman walk rapidly up the road to our gate and come in. I noticed him particularly, because he was so fine-looking; unlike anybody in F——, and, indeed, unlike anybody I had ever seen, for that matter; but I shouldn't have thought much about that if there hadn't come along, not five minutes after, a buggy with two ladies in it, which stopped at our gate, too. I saw they wanted to get out, so I went and held their horse for them, and they got down and went into the house."

"Did you see their faces?"

"No, sir; not then. They had veils on."

"Very well, go on."

"I hadn't been to work long, before I heard some one calling my name, and looking up, saw Mr. Stebbins standing in the doorway beckoning. I went to him, and he-said, 'I want you, Tim; wash your hands and come into the parlor.' I had never been asked to do that before, and it struck me all of a heap; but I did what he asked, and was so taken aback at the looks of the lady I saw standing up on the floor with the handsome gentleman, that I stumbled over a stool and made a great racket, and didn't know much where I was or what was going on, till I heard Mr. Stebbins say 'man and wife'; and then it came over me in a hot kind of way that it was a marriage I was seeing."

Timothy Cook stopped to wipe his forehead, as if overcome with the very recollection, and Mr. Gryce took the opportunity to remark:

"You say there were two ladies; now where was the other one at this time?"

"She was there, sir; but I didn't mind much about her, I was so taken up with the handsome one and the way she had of smiling when any one looked at her. I never saw the beat."

I felt a quick thrill go through me.

"Can you remember the color of her hair or eyes?"

"No, sir; I had a feeling as if she wasn't dark, and that is all I know."

"But you remember her face?"

"Yes, sir!"

Mr. Gryce here whispered me to procure two pictures which I would find in a certain drawer in his desk, and set them up in different parts of the room unbeknown to the man.

"You have before said," pursued Mr. Gryce, "that you have no remembrance of her name. Now, how was that? Weren't you called upon to sign the certificate?"

"Yes, sir; but I am most ashamed to say it; I was in a sort of maze, and didn't hear much, and only remember it was a Mr. Clavering she was married to, and that some one called some one else Elner, or something like that. I wish I hadn't been so stupid, sir, if it would have done you any good."

"Tell us about the signing of the certificate," said Mr. Gryce.

"Well, sir, there isn't much to tell. Mr. Stebbins asked me to put my name down in a certain place on a piece of paper he pushed towards me, and I put it down there; that is all."

"Was there no other name there when you wrote yours?"

"No, sir. Afterwards Mr. Stebbins turned towards the other lady, who now came forward, and asked her if she wouldn't please sign it, too; and she said,' yes,' and came very quickly and did so."

"And didn't you see her face then?"

"No, sir; her back was to me when she threw by her veil, and I only saw Mr. Stebbins staring at her as she stooped, with a kind of wonder on his face, which made me think she might have been something worth looking at too; but I didn't see her myself."

"Well, what happened then?"

"I don't know, sir. I went stumbling out of the room, and didn't see anything more."

"Where were you when the ladies went away?"

"In the garden, sir. I had gone back to my work."

"You saw them, then. Was the gentleman with them?"

"No, sir; that was the queer part of it all. They went back as they came, and so did he; and in a few minutes Mr. Stebbins came out where I was, and told me I was to say nothing about what I had seen, for it was a secret."

"Were you the only one in the house who knew anything about it? Weren't there any women around?"

"No, sir; Miss Stebbins had gone to the sewing circle."

I had by this time some faint impression of what Mr. Gryce's suspicions were, and in arranging the pictures had placed one, that of Eleanore, on the mantelpiece, and the other, which was an uncommonly fine photograph of Mary, in plain view on the desk. But Mr. Cook's back was as yet towards that part of the room, and, taking advantage of the moment, I returned and asked him if that was all he had to tell us about this matter.

"Yes, sir."

"Then," said Mr. Gryce, with a glance at Q, "isn't there something you can give Mr. Cook in payment for his story? Look around, will you?"

Q nodded, and moved towards a cupboard in the wall at the side of the mantelpiece; Mr. Cook following him with his eyes, as was natural, when, with a sudden start, he crossed the room and, pausing before the mantelpiece, looked at the picture of Eleanore which I had put there, gave a low grunt of satisfaction or pleasure, looked at it again, and walked away. I felt my heart leap into my throat, and, moved by what impulse of dread or hope I cannot say, turned my back, when suddenly I heard him give vent to a startled exclamation, followed by the words: "Why! here she is; this is her, sirs," and turning around saw him hurrying towards us with Mary's picture in his hands.

I do not know as I was greatly surprised. I was powerfully excited, as well as conscious of a certain whirl of thought, and an unsettling of old conclusions that was very confusing; but surprised? No. Mr. Gryce's manner had too well prepared me.

"This the lady who was married to Mr. Clavering, my good man? I guess you are mistaken," cried the detective, in a very incredulous tone.

"Mistaken? Didn't I say I would know her anywhere? This is the lady, if she is the president's wife herself." And Mr. Cook leaned over it with a devouring look that was not without its element of homage.

"I am very much astonished," Mr. Gryce went on, winking at me in a slow, diabolical way which in another mood would have aroused my fiercest anger. "Now, if you had said the other lady was the one"—pointing to the picture on the mantelpiece," I shouldn't have wondered."

"She? I never saw that lady before; but this one—would you mind telling me her name, sirs?"

"If what you say is true, her name is Mrs. Clavering."

"Clavering? Yes, that was his name."

"And a very lovely lady," said Mr. Gryce. "Morris, haven't you found anything yet?"

Q, for answer, brought forward glasses and a bottle.

But Mr. Cook was in no mood for liquor. I think he was struck with remorse; for, looking from the picture to Q, and from Q to the picture, he said:

"If I have done this lady wrong by my talk, I 'll never forgive myself. You told me I would help her to get her rights; if you have deceived me ——"

"Oh, I haven't deceived you," broke in Q, in his short, sharp way. "Ask that gentleman there if we are not all interested in Mrs. Clavering getting her due."

He had designated me; but I was in no mood to reply. I longed to have the man dismissed, that I might inquire the reason of the great complacency which I now saw overspreading Mr. Gryce's frame, to his very finger-ends.

"Mr. Cook needn't be concerned," remarked Mr. Gryce. "If he will take a glass of warm drink to fortify him for his walk, I think he may go to the lodgings Mr. Morris has provided for him without fear. Give the gent a glass, and let him mix for himself."

But it was full ten minutes before we were delivered of the man and his vain regrets. Mary's image had called up every latent feeling in his heart, and I could but wonder over a loveliness capable of swaying the low as well as the high. But at last he yielded to the seductions of the now wily Q, and departed.

Left alone with Mr. Gryce, I must have allowed some of the confused emotions which filled my breast to become apparent on my countenance; for after a few minutes of ominous silence, he exclaimed very grimly, and yet with a latent touch of that complacency I had before noticed:

"This discovery rather upsets you, doesn't it? Well, it don't me," shutting his mouth like a trap. "I expected it."

"Your conclusions must differ very materially from mine," I returned; "or you would see that this discovery alters the complexion of the whole affair."

"It does not alter the truth."

"What is the truth?"

Mr. Gryce's very legs grew thoughtful; his voice sank to its deepest tone. "Do you very much want to know?"

"Want to know the truth? What else are we after?"

"Then," said he, "to my notion, the complexion of things has altered, but very much for the better. As long as Eleanore was believed to be the wife, her action in this matter was accounted for; but the tragedy itself was not. Why should Eleanore or Eleanore's husband wish the death of a man whose bounty they believed would end with his life? But with Mary, the heiress, proved the wife!—I tell you, Mr. Raymond, it all hangs together now. You must never, in reckoning up an affair of murder like this, forget who it is that most profits by the deceased man's death."

"But Eleanore's silence? her concealment of certain proofs and evidences in her own breast—how will you account for that? I can imagine a woman devoting herself to the shielding of a husband from the consequences of crime; but a cousin's husband, never."

Mr. Gryce put his feet very close together, and softly grunted. "Then you still think Mr. Clavering the assassin of Mr. Leavenworth?"

I could only stare at him in my sudden doubt and dread. "Still think?" I repeated.

"Mr. Clavering the murderer of Mr. Leavenworth?"

"Why, what else is there to think? You don't—you can't—suspect Eleanore of having deliberately undertaken to help her cousin out of a difficulty by taking the life of their mutual benefactor?"

"No," said Mr. Gryce; "no, I do not think Eleanore Leavenworth had any hand in the business."

"Then who—" I began, and stopped, lost in the dark vista that was opening before me.

"Who? Why, who but the one whose past deceit and present necessity demanded his death as a relief? Who but the beautiful, money-loving, man-deceiving goddess——"

I leaped to my feet in my sudden horror and repugnance. "Do not mention the name! You are wrong; but do not speak the name."

"Excuse me," said he; "but it will have to be spoken many times, and we may as well begin here and now—who then but Mary Leavenworth; or, if you like it better, Mrs. Henry Clavering? Are you so much surprised? It has been my thought from the beginning."

XXVI. MR. GRYCE EXPLAINS HIMSELF

"Sits the wind in that corner?"
—Much Ado about Nothing.

I DO not propose to enter into a description of the mingled feelings aroused in me by this announcement. As a drowning man is said to live over in one terrible instant the events of a lifetime, so each word uttered in my hearing by Mary, from her first introduction to me in her own room, on the morning of the inquest, to our final conversation on the night of Mr. Clavering's call, swept in one wild phantasmagoria through my brain, leaving me aghast at the signification which her whole conduct seemed to acquire from the lurid light which now fell upon it.

"I perceive that I have pulled down an avalanche of doubts about your ears," exclaimed my companion from the height of his calm superiority. "You never thought of this possibility, then, yourself?"

"Do not ask me what I have thought. I only know I will never believe your suspicions true. That, however much Mary may have been benefited by her uncle's death, she never had a hand in it; actual hand, I mean."

"And what makes you so sure of this?"

"And what makes you so sure of the contrary? It is for you to prove, not for me to prove her innocence."

"Ah," said Mr. Gryce, in his slow, sarcastic way, "you recollect that principle of law, do you? If I remember rightly, you have not always been so punctilious in regarding it, or wishing to have it regarded, when the question was whether Mr. Clavering was the assassin or not."

"But he is a man. It does not seem so dreadful to accuse a man of a crime. But a woman! and such a woman! I cannot listen to it; it is horrible. Nothing short of absolute confession on her part will ever make me believe Mary Leavenworth, or any other woman, committed this deed. It was too cruel, too deliberate, too——"

"Read the criminal records," broke in Mr. Gryce.

But I was obstinate. "I do not care for the criminal records. All the criminal records in the world would never make me believe Eleanore perpetrated this crime, nor will I be less generous towards her cousin Mary Leavenworth is a faulty woman, but not a guilty one."

"You are more lenient in your judgment of her than her cousin was, it appears."

"I do not understand you," I muttered, feeling a new and yet more fearful light breaking upon me.

"What! have you forgotten, in the hurry of these late events, the sentence of accusation which we overheard uttered between these ladies on the morning of the inquest?"

"No, but——"

"You believed it to have been spoken by Mary to Eleanore?"

"Of course; didn't you?"

Oh, the smile which crossed Mr. Gryce's face! "Scarcely. I left that baby-play for you. I thought one was enough to follow on that tack."

The light, the light that was breaking upon me! "And do you mean to say it was Eleanore who was speaking at that time? That I have been laboring all these weeks under a terrible mistake, and that you could have righted me with a word, and did not?"

"Well, as to that, I had a purpose in letting you follow your own lead for a while. In the first place, I was not sure myself which spoke; though I had but little doubt about the matter. The voices are, as you must have noticed, very much alike, while the attitudes in which we found them upon entering were such as to be explainable equally by the supposition that Mary was in the act of launching a denunciation, or in that of repelling one. So that, while I did not hesitate myself as to the true explanation of the scene before me, I was pleased to find you accept a contrary one; as in this way both theories had a chance of being tested; as was right in a case of so much mystery. You accordingly took up the affair with one idea for your starting-point, and I with another. You saw every fact as it developed through the medium of Mary's belief in Eleanore's guilt, and I through the opposite. And what has been the result? With you, doubt, contradiction, constant unsettlement, and unwarranted resorts to strange sources for reconcilement between appearances and your own convictions; with me, growing assurance, and a belief which each and every development so far has but served to strengthen and make more probable."

Again that wild panorama of events, looks, and words swept before me. Mary's reiterated assertions of her cousin's innocence, Eleanore's attitude of lofty silence in regard to certain matters which might be considered by her as pointing towards the murderer.

"Your theory must be the correct one," I finally admitted; "it was undoubtedly Eleanore who spoke. She believes in Mary's guilt, and I have been blind, indeed, not to have seen it from the first."

"If Eleanore Leavenworth believes in her cousin's criminality, she must have some good reasons for doing so."

I was obliged to admit that too. "She did not conceal in her bosom that telltale key,—found who knows where?—and destroy, or seek to destroy, it and the letter which introduced her cousin to the public as the unprincipled destroyer of a trusting man's peace, for nothing." "No, no."

"And yet you, a stranger, a young man who have never seen Mary Leavenworth in any other light than that in which her coquettish nature sought to display itself, presume to say she is innocent, in the face of the attitude maintained from the first by her cousin!"

"But," said I, in my great unwillingness to accept his conclusions, "Eleanore Leavenworth is but mortal. She may have been mistaken in her inferences. She has never stated what her suspicion was founded upon; nor can we know what basis she has for maintaining the attitude you speak of. Clavering is as likely as Mary to be the assassin, for all we know, and possibly for all she knows."

"You seem to be almost superstitious in your belief in Clavering's guilt."

I recoiled. Was I? Could it be that Mr. Harwell's fanciful conviction in regard to this man had in any way influenced me to the detriment of my better judgment?

"And you may be right," Mr. Gryce went on. "I do not pretend to be set in my notions. Future investigation may succeed in fixing something upon him; though I hardly think it likely. His behavior as the secret husband of a woman possessing motives for the commission of a crime has been too consistent throughout."

"All except his leaving her."

"No exception at all; for he hasn't left her."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that, instead of leaving the country, Mr. Clavering has only made pretence of doing so. That, in place of dragging himself off to Europe at her command, he has only changed his lodgings, and can now be found, not only in a house opposite to hers, but in the window of that house, where he sits day after day watching who goes in and out of her front door."

I remembered his parting injunction to me, in that memorable interview we had in my office, and saw myself compelled to put a new construction upon it.

"But I was assured at the Hoffman House that he had sailed for Europe, and myself saw the man who professes to have driven him to the steamer."

"Just so."

"And Mr. Clavering returned to the city after that?"

"In another carriage, and to another house."

"And you tell me that man is all right?"

"No; I only say there isn't the shadow of evidence against him as the person who shot Mr. Leavenworth."

Rising, I paced the floor, and for a few minutes silence fell between us. But the clock, striking, recalled me to the necessity of the hour, and, turning, I asked Mr. Gryce what he proposed to do now.

"There is but one thing I can do," said he.

"And that is?"

"To go upon such lights as I have, and cause the arrest of Miss Leavenworth."

I had by this time schooled myself to endurance, and was able to hear this without uttering an exclamation. But I could not let it pass without making one effort to combat his determination.

"But," said I, "I do not see what evidence you have, positive enough in its character, to warrant extreme measures. You have yourself intimated that the existence of motive is not enough, even though taken with the fact of the suspected party being in the house at the time of the murder; and what more have you to urge against Miss Leavenworth?"

"Pardon me. I said 'Miss Leavenworth'; I should have said 'Eleanore Leavenworth.'"

"Eleanore? What! when you and all unite in thinking that she alone of all these parties to the crime is utterly guiltless of wrong?"

"And yet who is the only one against whom positive testimony of any kind can be brought."

I could but acknowledge that.

"Mr. Raymond," he remarked very gravely; "the public is becoming clamorous; something must be done to satisfy it, if only for the moment. Eleanore has laid herself open to the suspicion of the police, and must take the consequences of her action. I am sorry; she is a noble creature; I admire her; but justice is justice, and though I think her innocent, I shall be forced to put her under arrest unless——"

"But I cannot be reconciled to it. It is doing an irretrievable injury to one whose only fault is an undue and mistaken devotion to an unworthy cousin. If Mary is the——."

"Unless something occurs between now and tomorrow morning," Mr. Gryce went on, as if I had not spoken.

"Tomorrow morning?"

"Yes."

I tried to realize it; tried to face the fact that all my efforts had been for nothing, and failed.

"Will you not grant me one more day?" I asked in my desperation.

"What to do?"

Alas, I did not know. "To confront Mr. Clavering, and force from him the truth."

"To make a mess of the whole affair!" he growled. "No, sir; the die is cast. Eleanore Leavenworth knows the one point which fixes this crime upon her cousin, and she must tell us that point or suffer the consequences of her refusal."

I made one more effort.

"But why tomorrow? Having exhausted so much time already in our inquiries, why not take a little more; especially as the trail is constantly growing warmer? A little more moleing——"

"A little more folderol!" exclaimed Mr. Gryce, losing his temper. "No, sir; the hour for moleing has passed; something decisive has got to be done now; though, to be sure, if I could find the one missing link I want——"

"Missing link? What is that?"

"The immediate motive of the tragedy; a bit of proof that Mr. Leavenworth threatened his niece with his displeasure, or Mr. Clavering with his revenge, would place me on the vantage-point at once; no arresting of Eleanore then! No, my lady! I would walk right into your own gilded parlors, and when you asked me if I had found the murderer yet, say 'yes,' and show you a bit of paper which would surprise you! But missing links are not so easily found. This has been moled for, and moled for, as you are pleased to call our system of investigation, and totally without result. Nothing but the confession of some one of these several parties to the crime will give us what we want. I will tell you what I will do," he suddenly cried. "Miss Leavenworth has desired me to report to her; she is very anxious for the detection of the murderer, you know, and offers an immense reward. Well, I will gratify this desire of hers. The suspicions I have, together with my reasons for them, will make an interesting disclosure. I should not greatly wonder if they produced an equally interesting confession."

I could only jump to my feet in my horror.

"At all events, I propose to try it. Eleanore is worth that much risk any way."

"It will do no good," said I. "If Mary is guilty, she will never confess it. If not——"

"She will tell us who is."

"Not if it is Clavering, her husband."

"Yes; even if it is Clavering, her husband. She has not the devotion of Eleanore."

That I could but acknowledge. She would hide no keys for the sake of shielding another: no, if Mary were accused, she would speak. The future opening before us looked sombre enough. And yet when, in a short time from that, I found myself alone in a busy street, the thought that Eleanore was free rose above all others, filling and moving me till my walk home in the rain that day has become a marked memory of my life. It was only with nightfall that I began to realize the truly critical position in which Mary stood if Mr. Gryce's theory was correct. But, once seized with this thought, nothing could drive it from my mind. Shrink as I would, it was ever before me, haunting me with the direst forebodings. Nor, though I retired early, could I succeed in getting either sleep or rest. All night I tossed on my pillow, saying over to myself with dreary iteration: "Something must happen, something will happen, to prevent Mr. Gryce doing this dreadful thing." Then I would start up and ask what could happen; and my mind would run over various contingencies, such as,—Mr. Clavering might confess; Hannah might come back; Mary herself wake up to her position and speak the word I had more than once seen trembling on her lips. But further thought showed me how unlikely any of these things were to happen, and it was with a brain utterly exhausted that I fell asleep in the early dawn, to dream I saw Mary standing above Mr. Gryce with a pistol in her hand. I was awakened from this pleasing vision by a heavy knock at the door. Hastily rising, I asked who was there. The answer came in the shape of an envelope thrust under the door. Raising it, I found it to be a note. It was from Mr. Gryce, and ran thus:

"Come at once; Hannah Chester is found."

"Hannah found?"

"So we have reason to think."

"When? where? by whom?"

"Sit down, and I will tell you."

Drawing up a chair in a flurry of hope and fear, I sat down by Mr. Gryce's side.

"She is not in the cupboard," that person dryly assured me, noting without doubt how my eyes went travelling about the room in my anxiety and impatience. "We are not absolutely sure that she is anywhere. But word has come to us that a girl's face believed to be Hannah's has been seen at the upper window of a certain house in—don't start—R——, where a year ago she was in the habit of visiting while at the hotel with the Misses Leavenworth. Now, as it has already been determined that she left New York the night of the murder, by the ——— ——Railroad, though for what point we have been unable to ascertain, we consider the matter worth inquiring into."

"But—"

"If she is there," resumed Mr. Gryce, "she is secreted; kept very close. No one except the informant has ever seen her, nor is there any suspicion among the neighbors of her being in town."

"Hannah secreted at a certain house in R——? Whose house?"

Mr. Gryce honored me with one of his grimmest smiles. "The name of the lady she's with is given in the communication as Belden; Mrs. Amy Belden."

"Amy Belden! the name found written on a torn envelope by Mr. Clavering's servant girl in London?"

"Yes."

I made no attempt to conceal my satisfaction. "Then we are upon the verge of some discovery; Providence has interfered, and Eleanore will be saved! But when did you get this word?"

"Last night, or rather this morning; Q brought it."

"It was a message, then, to Q?"

"Yes, the result of his moleings while in R——, I suppose."

"Whom was it signed by?"

"A respectable tinsmith who lives next door to Mrs. B."

"And is this the first you knew of an Amy Belden living in R——?"

"Yes."

"Widow or wife?"

"Don't know; don't know anything about her but her name."

"But you have already sent Q to make inquiries?"

"No; the affair is a little too serious for him to manage alone. He is not equal to great occasions, and might fail just for the lack of a keen mind to direct him."

"In short——"

"I wish you to go. Since I cannot be there myself, I know of no one else sufficiently up in the affair to conduct it to a successful issue. You see, it is not enough to find and identify the girl. The present condition of things demands that the arrest of so important a witness should be kept secret. Now, for a man to walk into a strange house in a distant village, find a girl who is secreted there, frighten her, cajole her, force her, as the case may be, from her hiding-place to a detective's office in New York, and all without the knowledge of the next-door neighbor, if possible, requires judgment, brains, genius. Then the woman who conceals her I She must have her reasons for doing so; and they must be known. Altogether, the affair is a delicate one. Do you think you can manage it?"

"I should at least like to try."

Mr. Gryce settled himself on the sofa. "To think what pleasure I am losing on your account!" he grumbled, gazing reproachfully at his helpless limbs. "But to business. How soon can you start?"

"Immediately."

"Good! a train leaves the depot at 12.15. Take that. Once in R——, it will be for you to decide upon the means of making Mrs. Belden's acquaintance without arousing her suspicions. Q, who will follow you, will hold himself in readiness to render you any assistance you may require. Only this thing is to be understood: as he will doubtless go in disguise, you are not to recognize him, much less interfere with him and his plans, till he gives you leave to do so, by some preconcerted signal. You are to work in your way, and he in his, till circumstances seem to call for mutual support and countenance. I cannot even say whether you will see him or not; he may find it necessary to Keep um of the way; but you may be sure of one thing, that he will know where you are, and that the display of, well, let us say a red silk handkerchief—have you such a thing?"

"I will get one."

"Will be regarded by him as a sign that you desire his presence or assistance, whether it be shown about your person or at the window of your room."

"And these are all the instructions you can give me?" I said, as he paused.

"Yes, I don't know of anything else. You must depend largely upon your own discretion, and the exigencies of the moment. I cannot tell you now what to do. Your own wit will be the best guide. Only, if possible, let me either hear from you or see you by tomorrow at this time."

And he handed me a cipher in case I should wish to telegraph.

BOOK III. HANNAH

XXVII. AMY BELDEN

"A merrier man
Within the limits of becoming mirth,
I never spent an hour's talk withal."
—Love's Labour's Last.

I HAD a client in R—— by the name of Monell; and it was from him I had planned to learn the best way of approaching Mrs. Belden. When, therefore, I was so fortunate as to meet him, almost on my arrival, driving on the long road behind his famous trotter Alfred, I regarded the encounter as a most auspicious beginning of a very doubtful enterprise.

"Well, and how goes the day?" was his exclamation as, the first greetings passed, we drove rapidly into town.

"Your part in it goes pretty smoothly," I returned; and thinking I could never hope to win his attention to my own affairs till I had satisfied him in regard to his, I told him all I could concerning the law-suit then pending; a subject so prolific of question and answer, that we had driven twice round the town before he remembered he had a letter to post. As it was an important one, admitting of no delay, we hasted at once to the post-office, where he went in, leaving me outside to watch the rather meagre stream of goers and comers who at that time of day make the post-office of a country town their place of rendezvous. Among these, for some reason, I especially noted one middle-aged woman; why, I cannot say; her appearance was anything but remarkable. And yet when she came out, with two letters in her hand, one in a large and one in a small envelope, and meeting my eye hastily drew them under her shawl, I found myself wondering what was in her letters and who she could be, that the casual glance of a stranger should unconsciously move her to an action so suspicious. But Mr. Monell's reappearance at the same moment, diverted my attention, and in the interest of the conversation that followed, I soon forgot both the woman and her letters. For determined that he should have no opportunity to revert to that endless topic, a law case, I exclaimed with the first crack of the whip,--"There, I knew there was something I wanted to ask you. It is this: Are you acquainted with any one is this town by the name of Belden?" "There is a widow Belden in town; I don't know of any other." "Is her first name Amy?" "Yes, Mrs. Amy Belden." "That is the one," said I. "Who is she, what is she, and what is the extent of your acquaintance with her?" "Well," said he, " I cannot conceive why you should be interested in such an antiquated piece of commonplace goodness as she is, but seeing you ask, I have no objection to telling you that she is the very respectable relict of a deceased cabinetmaker of this town; that she lives in a little house down the street there, and that if you have any forlorn old tramp to be lodged over night, or any destitute family of little ones to be looked after, she is the one to go to. As to knowing her, I know her as I do a dozen other members of our church there up over the hill. When I see her I speak to her, and that is all." "A respectable widow, you say. Any family?" "No; lives alone, has a little income, I believe; must have, to put the money on the plate she always does; but spends her time in plain sewing and such deeds of charity, as one with small means but willing heart can find the opportunity of doing in a town like this. But why in the name of wonders do you ask?" "Business," said I, "business. Mrs. Belden--don't mention it by the way--has got mixed up in a case of mine, and I felt it due to my curiosity if not to my purse, to find out something about her. And I am not satisfied yet. The fact is I would give something, Monell, for the opportunity of studying this woman's character. Now couldn't you manage to get me introduced into her house in some way that would make it possible and proper for me to converse with her at my leisure? Business would thank you if you could." "Well, I don't know; I suppose it could be done. She used to take lodgers in the summer when the hotel was full, and might be induced to give a bed to a friend of mine who is very anxious to be near the post-office on account of a business telegram he is expecting, and which when it comes will demand his immediate attention. And Mr. Monell gave me a sly wink of his eye, little imagining how near the mark he had struck.

"You need not say that. Tell her I have a peculiar dislike to sleeping in a public house, and that you know of no one better fitted to accommodate me, for the short time I desire to be in town, than herself."

"And what will be said of my hospitality in allowing you under these circumstances to remain in any other house than my own?"

"I don't know; very hard things, no doubt; but I guess your hospitality can stand it."

"Well, if you persist, we will see what can be done." And driving up to a neat white cottage of homely, but sufficiently attractive appearance, he stopped.

"This is her house," said he, jumping to the ground; "let's go in and see what we can do."

Glancing up at the windows, which were all closed save the two on the veranda overlooking the street, I thought to myself, "If she has anybody in hiding here, whose presence in the house she desires to keep secret, it is folly to hope she will take me in, however well recommended I may come." But, yielding to the example of my friend, I alighted in my turn and followed him up the short, grass-bordered walk to the front door.

"As she has no servant, she will come to the door herself, so be ready," he remarked as he knocked.

I had barely time to observe that the curtains to the window at my left suddenly dropped, when a hasty step made itself heard within, and a quick hand drew open the door; and I saw before me the woman whom I had observed at the post-office, and whose action with the letters had struck me as peculiar. I recognized her at first glance, though she was differently dressed, and had evidently passed through some worry or excitement that had altered the expression of her countenance, and made her manner what it was not at that time, strained and a trifle uncertain. But I saw no reason for thinking she remembered me. On the contrary, the look she directed towards me had nothing but inquiry in it, and when Mr. Monell pushed me forward with the remark, "A friend of mine; in fact my lawyer from New York," she dropped a hurried old-fashioned curtsey whose only expression was a manifest desire to appear sensible of the honor conferred upon her, through the mist of a certain trouble that confused everything about her.

"We have come to ask a favor, Mrs. Belden; but may we not come in? "said my client in a round, hearty voice well calculated to recall a person's thoughts into their proper channel. "I have heard many times of your cosy home, and am glad of this opportunity of seeing it." And with a blind disregard to the look of surprised resistance with which she met his advance, he stepped gallantly into the little room whose cheery red carpet and bright picture-hung walls showed invitingly through the half-open door at our left.

Finding her premises thus invaded by a sort of French coup d'etat, Mrs. Belden made the best of the situation, and pressing me to enter also, devoted herself to hospitality. As for Mr. Monell, he quite blossomed out in his endeavors to make himself agreeable; so much so, that I shortly found myself laughing at his sallies, though my heart was full of anxiety lest, after all, our efforts should fail of the success they certainly merited. Meanwhile, Mrs. Belden softened more and more, joining in the conversation with an ease hardly to be expected from one in her humble circumstances. Indeed, I soon saw she was no common woman. There was a refinement in her speech and manner, which, combined with her motherly presence and gentle air, was very pleasing. The last woman in the world to suspect of any underhanded proceeding, if she had not shown a peculiar hesitation when Mr. Monell broached the subject of my entertainment there.

"I don't know, sir; I would be glad, but," and she turned a very scrutinizing look upon me, "the fact is, I have not taken lodgers of late, and I have got out of the way of the whole thing, and am afraid I cannot make him comfortable. In short, you will have to excuse me."

"But we can't," returned Mr. Monell. "What, entice a fellow into a room like this"—and he cast a hearty admiring glance round the apartment which, for all its simplicity, both its warm coloring and general air of cosiness amply merited, "and then turn a cold shoulder upon him when he humbly entreats the honor of staying a single night in the enjoyment of its attractions? No, no, Mrs. Belden; I know you too well for that. Lazarus himself couldn't come to your door and be turned away; much less a good-hearted, clever-headed young gentleman like my friend here."

"You are very good," she began, an almost weak love of praise showing itself for a moment in her eyes; "but I have no room prepared. I have been house-cleaning, and everything is topsy-turvy Mrs. Wright, now, over the way——"

"My young friend is going to stop here," Mr. Mouell broke in, with frank positiveness. "If I cannot have him at my own house,—and for certain reasons it is not advisable,—I shall at least have the satisfaction of knowing he is in the charge of the best housekeeper in R——."

"Yes," I put in, but without too great a show of interest; "I should be sorry, once introduced here, to be obliged to go elsewhere."

The troubled eye wavered away from us to the door.

"I was never called inhospitable," she commenced; "but everything in such disorder. What time would you like to come?"

"I was in hopes I might remain now," I replied; "I have some letters to write, and ask nothing better than for leave to sit here and write them."

At the word letters I saw her hand go to her pocket in a movement which must have been involuntary, for her countenance did not change, and she made the quick reply:

"Well, you may. If you can put up with such poor accommodations as I can offer, it shall not be said I refused you what Mr. Monell is pleased to call a favor."

And, complete in her reception as she had been in her resistance, she gave us a pleasant smile, and, ignoring my thanks, bustled out with Mr. Monell to the buggy, where she received my bag and what was, doubtless, more to her taste, the compliments he was now more than ever ready to bestow upon her.

"I will see that a room is got ready for you in a very short space of time," she said, upon re-entering. "Meanwhile, make yourself at home here; and if you wish to write, why I think you will find everything for the purpose in these drawers." And wheeling up a table to the easy chair in which I sat, she pointed to the small compartments beneath, with an air of such manifest desire to have me make use of anything and everything she had, that I found myself wondering over my position with a sort of startled embarrassment that was not remote from shame.

"Thank you; I have materials of my own," said I, and hastened to open my bag and bring out the writing-case, which I always carried with me.

"Then I will leave you," said she; and with a quick bend and a short, hurried look out of the window, she hastily quitted the room.

I could hear her steps cross the hall, go up two or three stairs, pause, go up the rest of the flight, pause again, and then pass on. I was left on the first floor alone.

XXVIII. A WEIRD EXPERIENCE

"Flat burglary an ever was committed."
—Much Ado about Nothing.

THE first thing I did was to inspect with greater care the room in which I sat.

It was a pleasant apartment, as I have already said; square, sunny, and well furnished. On the floor was a crimson carpet, on the walls several pictures, at the windows, cheerful curtains of white, tastefully ornamented with ferns and autumn leaves; in one corner an old melodeon, and in the centre of the room a table draped with a bright cloth, on which were various little knick-knacks which, without being rich or expensive, were both pretty and, to a certain extent, ornamental. But it was not these things, which I had seen repeated in many other country homes, that especially attracted my attention, or drew me forward in the slow march which I now undertook around the room. It was the something underlying all these, the evidences which I found, or sought to find, not only in the general aspect of the room, but in each trivial object I encountered, of the character, disposition, and history of the woman with whom I now had to deal. It was for this reason I studied the daguerreotypes on the mantelpiece, the books on the shelf, and the music on the rack; for this and the still further purpose of noting if any indications were to be found of there being in the house any such person as Hannah.

First then, for the little library, which I was pleased to see occupied one corner of the room. Composed of a few well-chosen books, poetical, historical, and narrative, it was of itself sufficient to account for the evidences of latent culture observable in Mrs. Belden's conversation. Taking out a well-worn copy of Byron, I opened it. There were many passages marked, and replacing the book with a mental comment upon her evident impressibility to the softer emotions, I turned towards the melodeon fronting me from the opposite wall. It was closed, but on its neatly-covered top lay one or two hymn-books, a basket of russet apples, and a piece of half-completed knitting work.

I took up the latter, but was forced to lay it down again without a notion for what it was intended. Proceeding, I next stopped before a window opening upon the small yard that ran about the house, and separated it from the one adjoining. The scene without failed to attract me, but the window itself drew my attention, for, written with a diamond point on one of the panes, I perceived a row of letters which, as nearly as I could make out, were meant for some word or words, but which utterly failed in sense or apparent connection. Passing it by as the work of some school-girl, I glanced down at the work-basket standing on a table at my side. It was full of various kinds of work, among which I spied a pair of stockings, which were much too small, as well as in too great a state of disrepair, to belong to Mrs. Belden; and drawing them carefully out, I examined them for any name on them. Do not start when I say I saw the letter H plainly marked upon them. Thrusting them back, I drew a deep breath of relief, gazing, as I did so, out of the window, when those letters again attracted my attention.

What could they mean? Idly I began to read them backward, when—But try for yourself, reader, and judge of my surprise! Elate at the discovery thus made, I sat down to write my letters. I had barely finished them, when Mrs. Belden came in with the announcement that supper was ready. "As for your room," said she, "I have prepared my own room for your use, thinking you would like to remain on the first floor." And, throwing open a door at my side, she displayed a small, but comfortable room, in which I could dimly see a bed, an immense bureau, and a shadowy looking-glass in a dark, old-fashioned frame.

"I live in very primitive fashion," she resumed, leading the way into the dining-room; "but I mean to be comfortable and make others so."

"I should say you amply succeeded," I rejoined, with an appreciative glance at her well-spread board.

She smiled, and I felt I had paved the way to her good graces in a way that would yet redound to my advantage.

Shall I ever forget that supper! its dainties, its pleasant freedom, its mysterious, pervading atmosphere of unreality: and the constant sense which every bountiful dish she pressed upon me brought of the shame of eating this woman's food with such feelings of suspicion in my heart! Shall I ever forget the emotion I experienced when I first perceived she had something on her mind, which she longed, yet hesitated, to give utterance to! Or how she started when a cat jumped from the sloping roof of the kitchen on to the grass-plot at the back of the house; or how my heart throbbed when I heard, or thought I heard, a board creak overhead! We were in a long and narrow room which seemed, curiously enough, to run crosswise of the house, opening on one side into the parlor, and on the other into the small bedroom, which had been allotted to my use.

"You live in this house alone, without fear?" I asked, as Mrs. Belden, contrary to my desire, put another bit of cold chicken on my plate. "Have you no marauders in this town: no tramps, of whom a solitary woman like you might reasonably be afraid?"

"No one will hurt me," said she; "and no one ever came here for food or shelter but got it."

"I should think, then, that living as you do, upon a railroad, you would be constantly overrun with worthless beings whose only trade is to take all they can get without giving a return."

"I cannot turn them away. It is the only luxury I have: to feed the poor."

"But the idle, restless ones, who neither will work, nor let others work——"

"Are still the poor."

Mentally remarking, here is the woman to shield an unfortunate who has somehow become entangled in the meshes of a great crime, I drew back from the table. As I did so, the thought crossed me that, in case there was any such person in the house as Hannah, she would take the opportunity of going upstairs with something for her to eat; and that she might not feel hampered by my presence, I stepped out on the veranda with my cigar.

While smoking it, I looked about for Q. I felt that the least token of his presence in town would be very encouraging at this time. But it seemed I was not to be afforded even that small satisfaction. If Q was anywhere near, he was lying very low.

Once again seated with Mrs. Belden (who I know came downstairs with an empty plate, for going into the kitchen for a drink, I caught her in the act of setting it down on the table), I made up my mind to wait a reasonable length of time for what she had to say; and then, if she did not speak, make an endeavor on my own part to surprise her secret.

But her avowal was nearer and of a different nature from what I expected, and brought its own train of consequences with it.

"You are a lawyer, I believe," she began, taking down her knitting work, with a forced display of industry.

"Yes," I said; "that is my profession."

She remained for a moment silent, creating great havoc in her work I am sure, from the glance of surprise and vexation she afterwards threw it. Then, in a hesitating voice, remarked:

"Perhaps you may be willing, then, to give me some advice. The truth is, I am in a very curious predicament; one from which I don't know how to escape, and yet which demands immediate action. I should like to tell you about it; may I?"

"You may; I shall be only too happy to give you any advice in my power."

She drew in her breath with a sort of vague relief, though her forehead did not lose its frown.

"It can all be said in a few words. I have in my possession a package of papers which were intrusted to me by two ladies, with the understanding that I should neither return nor destroy them without the full cognizance and expressed desire of both parties, given in person or writing. That they were to remain in my hands till then, and that nothing or nobody should extort them from me."

"That is easily understood," said I; for she stopped.

"But, now comes word from one of the ladies, the one, too, most interested in the matter, that, for certain reasons, the immediate destruction of those papers is necessary to her peace and safety."

"And do you want to know what your duty is in this case?"

"Yes," she tremulously replied.

I rose. I could not help it: a flood of conjectures rushing in tumult over me.

"It is to hold on to the papers like grim death till released from your guardianship by the combined wish of both parties."

"Is that your opinion as a lawyer?"

"Yes, and as a man. Once pledged in that way, you have no choice. It would be a betrayal of trust to yield to the solicitations of one party what you have undertaken to return to both. The fact that grief or loss might follow your retention of these papers does not release you from your bond. You have nothing to do with that; besides, you are by no means sure that the representations of the so-called interested party are true. You might be doing a greater wrong, by destroying in this way, what is manifestly considered of value to them both, than by preserving the papers intact, according to compact."

"But the circumstances? Circumstances alter cases; and in short, it seems to me that the wishes of the one most interested ought to be regarded, especially as there is an estrangement between these ladies which may hinder the other's consent from ever being obtained."

"No," said I; "two wrongs never make a right; nor are we at liberty to do an act of justice at the expense of an injustice. The papers must be preserved, Mrs. Belden."

Her head sank very despondingly; evidently it had been her wish to please the interested party. "Law is very hard," she said; "very hard."

"This is not only law, but plain duty," I remarked. "Suppose a case different; suppose the honor and happiness of the other party depended upon the preservation of the papers; where would your duty be then?"

"But——"

"A contract is a contract," said I, "and cannot be tampered with. Having accepted the trust and given your word, you are obliged to fulfil, to the letter, all its conditions. It would be a breach of trust for you to return or destroy the papers without the mutual consent necessary."

An expression of great gloom settled slowly over her features. "I suppose you are right," said she, and became silent.

Watching her, I thought to myself, "If I were Mr. Gryce, or even Q, I would never leave this seat till I had probed this matter to the bottom, learned the names of the parties concerned, and where those precious papers are hidden, which she declares to be of so much importance." But being neither, I could only keep her talking upon the subject until she should let fall some word that might serve as a guide to my further enlightenment; I therefore turned, with the intention of asking her some question, when my attention was attracted by the figure of a woman coming out of the backdoor of the neighboring house, who, for general dilapidation and uncouthness of bearing, was a perfect type of the style of tramp of whom we had been talking at the supper table. Gnawing a crust which she threw away as she reached the street, she trudged down the path, her scanty dress, piteous in its rags and soil, flapping in the keen spring wind, and revealing ragged shoes red with the mud of the highway.

"There is a customer that may interest you," said I.

Mrs. Belden seemed to awake from a trance. Rising slowly, she looked out, and with a rapidly softening gaze surveyed the forlorn creature before her.

"Poor thing!" she muttered; "but I cannot do much for her tonight. A good supper is all I can give her."

And, going to the front door, she bade her step round the house to the kitchen, where, in another moment, I heard the rough creature's voice rise in one long "Bless you!" that could only have been produced by the setting before her of the good things with which Mrs. Belden's larder seemed teeming.

But supper was not all she wanted. After a decent length of time, employed as I should judge in mastication, I heard her voice rise once more in a plea for shelter.

"The barn, ma'am, or the wood-house. Any place where I can lie out of the wind." And she commenced a long tale of want and disease, so piteous to hear that I was not at all surprised when Mrs. Belden told me, upon re-entering, that she had consented, notwithstanding her previous determination, to allow the woman to lie before the kitchen fire for the night.

"She has such an honest eye," said she; "and charity is my only luxury."

The interruption of this incident effectually broke up our conversation. Mrs. Belden went upstairs, and for some time I was left alone to ponder over what I had heard, and determine upon my future course of action. I had just reached the conclusion that she would be fully as liable to be carried away by her feelings to the destruction of the papers in her charge, as to be governed by the rules of equity I had laid down to her, when I heard her stealthily descend the stairs and go out by the front door. Distrustful of her intentions, I took up my hat and hastily followed her. She was on her way down the main street, and my first thought was, that she was bound for some neighbor's house or perhaps for the hotel itself; but the settled swing into which she soon altered her restless pace satisfied me that she had some distant goal in prospect; and before long I found myself passing the hotel with its appurtenances, even the little schoolhouse, that was the last building at this end of the village, and stepping out into the country beyond. What could it mean?

But still her fluttering figure hasted on, the outlines of her form, with its close shawl and neat bonnet, growing fainter and fainter in the now settled darkness of an April night; and still I followed, walking on the turf at the side of the road lest she should hear my footsteps and look round. At last we reached a bridge. Over this I could hear her pass, and then every sound ceased. She had paused, and was evidently listening. It would not do for me to pause too, so gathering myself into as awkward a shape as possible, I sauntered by her down the road, but arrived at a certain point, stopped, and began retracing my steps with a sharp lookout for her advancing figure, till I had arrived once more at the bridge. She was not there.

Convinced now that she had discovered my motive for being in her house and, by leading me from it, had undertaken to supply Hannah with an opportunity for escape, I was about to hasten back to the charge I had so incautiously left, when a strange sound heard at my left arrested me. It came from the banks of the puny stream which ran under the bridge, and was like the creaking of an old door on worn-out hinges.

Leaping the fence, I made my way as best I could down the sloping field in the direction from which the sound came. It was quite dark, and my progress was slow; so much so, that I began to fear I had ventured upon a wild-goose chase, when an unexpected streak of lightning shot across the sky, and by its glare I saw before me what seemed, in the momentary glimpse I had of it, an old barn. From the rush of waters near at hand, I judged it to be somewhere on the edge of the stream, and consequently hesitated to advance, when I heard the sound of heavy breathing near me, followed by a stir as of some one feeling his way over a pile of loose boards; and presently, while I stood there, a faint blue light flashed up from the interior of the barn, and I saw, through the tumbled-down door that faced me, the form of Mrs. Belden standing with a lighted match in her hand, gazing round on the four walls that encompassed her. Hardly daring to breathe, lest I should alarm her, I watched her while she turned and peered at the roof above her, which was so old as to be more than half open to the sky, at the flooring beneath, which was in a state of equal dilapidation, and finally at a small tin box which she drew from under her shawl and laid on the ground at her feet. The sight of that box at once satisfied me as to the nature of her errand. She was going to hide what she dared not destroy; and, relieved upon this point, I was about to take a step forward when the match went out in her hand. While she was engaged in lighting another, I considered that perhaps it would be better for me not to arouse her apprehensions by accosting her at this time, and thus endanger the success of my main scheme; but to wait till she was gone, before I endeavored to secure the box. Accordingly I edged my way up to the side of the barn and waited till she should leave it, knowing that if I attempted to peer in at the door, I ran great risk of being seen, owing to the frequent streaks of lightning which now flashed about us on every side. Minute after minute went by, with its weird alternations of heavy darkness and sudden glare; and still she did not come. At last, just as I was about to start impatiently from my hiding-place, she reappeared, and began to withdraw with faltering steps toward the bridge. When I thought her quite out of hearing, I stole from my retreat and entered the barn. It was of course as dark as Erebus, but thanks to being a smoker I was as well provided with matches as she had been, and having struck one, I held it up; but the light it gave was very feeble, and as I did not know just where to look, it went out before I had obtained more than a cursory glimpse of the spot where I was. I thereupon lit another; but though I confined my attention to one place, namely, the floor at my feet, it too went out before I could conjecture by means of any sign seen there where she had hidden the box. I now for the first time realized the difficulty before me. She had probably made up her mind, before she left home, in just what portion of this old barn she would conceal her treasure; but I had nothing to guide me: I could only waste matches. And I did waste them. A dozen had been lit and extinguished before I was so much as sure the box was not under a pile of debris that lay in one corner, and I had taken the last in my hand before I became aware that one of the broken boards of the floor was pushed a little out of its proper position. One match! and that board was to be raised, the space beneath examined, and the box, if there, lifted safely out. I concluded not to waste my resources, so kneeling down in the darkness, I groped for the board, tried it, and found it to be loose. Wrenching at it with all my strength, I tore it free and cast it aside; then lighting my match looked into the hole thus made. Something, I could not tell what, stone or box, met my eye, but while I reached for it, the match flew out of my hand. Deploring my carelessness, but determined at all hazards to secure what I had seen, I dived down deep into the hole, and in another moment had the object of my curiosity in my hands. It was the box!

Satisfied at this result of my efforts, I turned to depart, my one wish now being to arrive home before Mrs. Belden. Was this possible? She had several minutes the start of me; I would have to pass her on the road, and in so doing might be recognized. Was the end worth the risk? I decided that it was.

Regaining the highway, I started at a brisk pace. For some little distance I kept it up, neither overtaking nor meeting any one. But suddenly, at a turn in the road, I came unexpectedly upon Mrs. Belden, standing in the middle of the path, looking back. Somewhat disconcerted, I hastened swiftly by her, expecting her to make some effort to stop me. But she let me pass without a word. Indeed, I doubt now if she even saw or heard me. Astonished at this treatment, and still more surprised that she made no attempt to follow me, I looked back, when I saw what enchained her to the spot, and made her so unmindful of my presence. The barn behind us was on fire!

Instantly I realized it was the work of my hands; I had dropped a half-extinguished match, and it had fallen upon some inflammable substance.

Aghast at the sight, I paused in my turn, and stood staring. Higher and higher the red flames mounted, brighter and brighter glowed the clouds above, the stream beneath; and in the fascination of watching it all, I forgot Mrs. Belden. But a short, agitated gasp in my vicinity soon recalled her presence to my mind, and drawing nearer, I heard her exclaim like a person speaking in a dream, "Well, I didn't mean to do it"; then lower, and with a certain satisfaction in her tone, "But it's all right, any way; the thing is lost now for good, and Mary will be satisfied without any one being to blame."

I did not linger to hear more; if this was the conclusion she had come to, she would not wait there long, especially as the sound of distant shouts and running feet announced that a crowd of village boys was on its way to the scene of the conflagration.

The first thing I did, upon my arrival at the house, was to assure myself that no evil effects had followed my inconsiderate desertion of it to the mercies of the tramp she had taken in; the next to retire to my room, and take a peep at the box. I found it to be a neat tin coffer, fastened with a lock. Satisfied from its weight that it contained nothing heavier than the papers of which Mrs. Belden had spoken, I hid it under the bed and returned to the sitting-room. I had barely taken a seat and lifted a book when Mrs. Belden came in.

"Well!" cried she, taking off her bonnet and revealing a face much flushed with exercise, but greatly relieved in expression; "this is a night! It lightens, and there is a fire somewhere down street, and altogether it is perfectly dreadful out. I hope you have not been lonesome," she continued, with a keen searching of my face which I bore in the best way I could. "I had an errand to attend to, but didn't expect to stay so long."

I returned some nonchalant reply, and she hastened from the room to fasten up the house.

I waited, but she did not come back; fearful, perhaps, of betraying herself, she had retired to her own apartment, leaving me to take care of myself as best I might. I own that I was rather relieved at this. The fact is, I did not feel equal to any more excitement that night, and was glad to put off further action until the next day. As soon, then, as the storm was over, I myself went to bed, and, after several ineffectual efforts, succeeded in getting asleep.

XXIX. THE MISSING WITNESS

"I fled and cried out death."
—Milton.

"MR RAYMOND!"

The voice was low and searching; it reached me in my dreams, waked me, and caused me to look up. Morning had begun to break, and by its light I saw, standing in the open door leading into the dining-room, the forlorn figure of the tramp who had been admitted into the house the night before. Angry and perplexed, I was about to bid her be gone, when, to my great surprise, she pulled out a red handkerchief from her pocket, and I recognized Q.

"Read that," said he, hastily advancing and putting a slip of paper into my hand. And, without another word or look, left the room, closing the door behind him.

Rising in considerable agitation, I took it to the window, and by the rapidly increasing light, succeeded in making out the rudely scrawled lines as follows:

"She is here; I have seen her; in the room marked with a cross in the accompanying plan. Wait till eight o'clock, then go up. I will contrive some means of getting Mrs. B—— out of the house."

Sketched below this was the following plan of the upper floor:

Hannah, then, was in the small back room over the dining-room, and I had not been deceived in thinking I had heard steps overhead, the evening before. Greatly relieved, and yet at the same time much moved at the near prospect of being brought face to face with one who we had every reason to believe was acquainted with the dreadful secret involved in the Leavenworth murder, I lay down once more, and endeavored to catch another hour's rest. But I soon gave up the effort in despair, and contented myself with listening to the sounds of awakening life which now began to make themselves heard in the house and neighborhood.

As Q had closed the door after him, I could only faintly hear Mrs. Belden when she came downstairs. But the short, surprised exclamation which she uttered upon reaching the kitchen and finding the tramp gone and the backdoor wide open, came plainly enough to my ears, and for a moment I was not sure but that Q had made a mistake in thus leaving so unceremoniously. But he had not studied Mrs. Belden's character in vain. As she came, in the course of her preparations for breakfast, into the room adjoining mine, I could hear her murmur to herself:

"Poor thing! She has lived so long in the fields and at the roadside, she finds it unnatural to be cooped up in the house all night."

The trial of that breakfast! The effort to eat and appear unconcerned, to chat and make no mistake,—may I never be called upon to go through such another! But at last it was over, and I was left free to await in my own room the time for the dreaded though much-to-be-desired interview. Slowly the minutes passed; eight o'clock struck, when, just as the last vibration ceased, there came a loud knock at the backdoor, and a little boy burst into the kitchen, crying at the top of his voice: "Papa's got a fit! Oh, Mrs. Belden! papa's got a fit; do come!"

Rising, as was natural, I hastened towards the kitchen, meeting Mrs. Belden's anxious face in the doorway.

"A poor wood-chopper down the street has fallen in a fit," she said. "Will you please watch over the house while I see what I can do for him? I won't be absent any longer than I can help."

And almost without waiting for my reply, she caught up a shawl, threw it over her head, and followed the urchin, who was in a state of great excitement, out into the street.

Instantly the silence of death seemed to fill the house, and a dread the greatest I had ever experienced settled upon me. To leave the kitchen, go up those stairs, and confront that girl seemed for the moment beyond my power; but, once on the stair, I found myself relieved from the especial dread which had overwhelmed me, and possessed, instead, of a sort of combative curiosity that led me to throw open the door which I saw at the top with a certain fierceness new to my nature, and not altogether suitable, perhaps, to the occasion.

I found myself in a large bedroom, evidently the one occupied by Mrs. Belden the night before. Barely stopping to note certain evidences of her having passed a restless night, I passed on to the door leading into the room marked with a cross in the plan drawn for me by Q. It was a rough affair, made of pine boards rudely painted. Pausing before it, I listened. All was still. Raising the latch, I endeavored to enter. The door was locked. Pausing again, I bent my ear to the keyhole. Not a sound came from within; the grave itself could not have been stiller. Awe-struck and irresolute, I looked about me and questioned what I had best do. Suddenly I remembered that, in the plan Q had given me, I had seen intimation of another door leading into this same room from the one on the opposite side of the hall. Going hastily around to it, I tried it with my hand. But it was as fast as the other. Convinced at last that nothing was left me but force, I spoke for the first time, and, calling the girl by name, commanded her to open the door. Receiving no response, I said aloud with an accent of severity:

"Hannah Chester, you are discovered; if you do not open the door, we shall be obliged to break it down; save us the trouble, then, and open immediately."

Still no reply.

Going back a step, I threw my whole weight against the door. It creaked ominously, but still resisted.

Stopping only long enough to be sure no movement had taken place within, I pressed against it once more, this time with all my strength, when it flew from its hinges, and I fell forward into a room so stifling, chill, and dark that I paused for a moment to collect my scattered senses before venturing to look around me. It was well I did so. In another moment, the pallor and fixity of the pretty Irish face staring upon me from amidst the tumbled clothes of a bed, drawn up against the wall at my side, struck me with so deathlike a chill that, had it not been for that one instant of preparation, I should have been seriously dismayed. As it was, I could not prevent a feeling of sickly apprehension from seizing me as I turned towards the silent figure stretched so near, and observed with what marble-like repose it lay beneath the patchwork quilt drawn across it, asking myself if sleep could be indeed so like death in its appearance. For that it was a sleeping woman I beheld, I did not seriously doubt. There were too many evidences of careless life in the room for any other inference. The clothes, left just as she had stepped from them in a circle on the floor; the liberal plate of food placed in waiting for her on the chair by the door, —food amongst which I recognized, even in this casual glance, the same dish which we had had for breakfast —all and everything in the room spoke of robust life and reckless belief in the morrow.

And yet so white was the brow turned up to the bare beams of the unfinished wall above her, so glassy the look of the half-opened eyes, so motionless the arm lying half under, half over, the edge of the coverlid that it was impossible not to shrink from contact with a creature so sunk in unconsciousness. But contact seemed to be necessary; any cry which I could raise at that moment would be ineffectual enough to pierce those dull ears. Nerving myself, therefore, I stooped and lifted the hand which lay with its telltale scar mockingly uppermost, intending to speak, call, do something, anything, to arouse her. But at the first touch of her hand on mine an unspeakable horror thrilled me. It was not only icy cold, but stiff. Dropping it in my agitation, I started back and again surveyed the face. Great God! when did life ever look like that? What sleep ever wore such pallid hues, such accusing fixedness? Bending once more I listened at the lips. Not a breath, nor a stir. Shocked to the core of my being, I made one final effort. Tearing down the clothes, I laid my hand upon her heart. It was pulseless as stone.

XXX. BURNED PAPER

"I could have better spared a better man."
—Henry IV.

I DO not think I called immediately for help. The awful shock of this discovery, coming as it did at the very moment life and hope were strongest within me; the sudden downfall which it brought of all the plans based upon this woman's expected testimony; and, worst of all, the dread coincidence between this sudden death and the exigency in which the guilty party, whoever it was, was supposed to be at that hour were much too appalling for instant action. I could only stand and stare at the quiet face before me, smiling in its peaceful rest as if death were pleasanter than we think, and marvel over the providence which had brought us renewed fear instead of relief, complication instead of enlightenment, disappointment instead of realization. For eloquent as is death, even on the faces of those unknown and unloved by us, the causes and consequences of this one were much too important to allow the mind to dwell upon the pathos of the scene itself. Hannah, the girl, was lost in Hannah the witness.

But gradually, as I gazed, the look of expectation which I perceived hovering about the wistful mouth and half-open lids attracted me, and I bent above her with a more personal interest, asking myself if she were quite dead, and whether or not immediate medical assistance would be of any avail. But the more closely I looked, the more certain I became that she had been dead for some hours; and the dismay occasioned by this thought, taken with the regrets which I must ever feel, that I had not adopted the bold course the evening before, and, by forcing my way to the hiding-place of this poor creature, interrupted, if not prevented the consummation of her fate, startled me into a realization of my present situation; and, leaving her side, I went into the next room, threw up the window, and fastened to the blind the red handkerchief which I had taken the precaution to bring with me.

Instantly a young man, whom I was fain to believe Q, though he bore not the least resemblance, either in dress or facial expression to any renderings of that youth which I had yet seen, emerged from the tinsmith's house, and approached the one I was in.

Observing him cast a hurried glance in my direction, I crossed the floor, and stood awaiting him at the head of the stairs.

"Well?" he whispered, upon entering the house and meeting my glance from below; "have you seen her?"

"Yes," I returned bitterly, "I have seen her!"

He hurriedly mounted to my side. "And she has confessed?"

"No; I have had no talk with her." Then, as I perceived him growing alarmed at my voice and manner, I drew him into Mrs. Belden's room and hastily inquired: "What did you mean this morning when you informed me you had seen this girl? that she was in a certain room where I might find her?"

"What I said."

"You have, then, been to her room?"

"No; I have only been on the outside of it. Seeing a light, I crawled up on to the ledge of the slanting roof last night while both you and Mrs. Belden were out, and, looking through the window, saw her moving round the room." He must have observed my countenance change, for he stopped. "What is to pay?" he cried.

I could restrain myself no longer. "Come," I said, "and see for yourself!" And, leading him to the little room I had just left, I pointed to the silent form lying within. "You told me I should find Hannah here; but you did not tell me I should find her in this condition."

"Great heaven!" he cried with a start: "not dead?"

"Yes," I said, "dead."

It seemed as if he could not realize it. "But it is impossible!" he returned. "She is in a heavy sleep, has taken a narcotic——"

"It is not sleep," I said, "or if it is, she will never wake. Look!" And, taking the hand once more in mine, I let it fall in its stone weight upon the bed.

The sight seemed to convince him. Calming down, he stood gazing at her with a very strange expression upon his face. Suddenly he moved and began quietly turning over the clothes that were lying on the floor.

"What are you doing?" I asked. "What are you looking for?"

"I am looking for the bit of paper from which I saw her take what I supposed to be a dose of medicine last night. Oh, here it is!" he cried, lifting a morsel of paper that, lying on the floor under the edge of the bed, had hitherto escaped his notice.

"Let me see!" I anxiously exclaimed.

He handed me the paper, on the inner surface of which I could dimly discern the traces of an impalpable white powder.

"This is important," I declared, carefully folding the paper together. "If there is enough of this powder remaining to show that the contents of this paper were poisonous, the manner and means of the girl's death are accounted for, and a case of deliberate suicide made evident."

"I am not so sure of that," he retorted. "If I am any judge of countenances, and I rather flatter myself I am, this girl had no more idea she was taking poison than I had. She looked not only bright but gay; and when she tipped up the paper, a smile of almost silly triumph crossed her face. If Mrs. Belden gave her that dose to take, telling her it was medicine——"

"That is something which yet remains to be learned; also whether the dose, as you call it, was poisonous or not. It may be she died of heart disease."

He simply shrugged his shoulders, and pointed first at the plate of breakfast left on the chair, and secondly at the broken-down door.

"Yes," I said, answering his look, "Mrs. Belden has been in here this morning, and Mrs. Belden locked the door when she went out; but that proves nothing beyond her belief in the girl's hearty condition."

"A belief which that white face on its tumbled pillow did not seem to shake?"

"Perhaps in her haste she may not have looked at the girl, but have set the dishes down without more than a casual glance in her direction?"

"I don't want to suspect anything wrong, but it is such a coincidence!"

This was touching me on a sore point, and I stepped back. "Well," said I, "there is no use in our standing here busying ourselves with conjectures. There is too much to be done. Come!" and I moved hurriedly towards the door.

"What are you going to do?" he asked. "Have you forgotten this is but an episode in the one great mystery we are sent here to unravel? If this girl has come to her death by some foul play, it is our business to find it out."

"That must be left for the coroner. It has now passed out of our hands."

"I know; but we can at least take full note of the room and everything in it before throwing the affair into the hands of strangers. Mr. Gryce will expect that much of us, I am sure."

"I have looked at the room. The whole is photographed on my mind. I am only afraid I can never forget it."

"And the body? Have you noticed its position? the lay of the bed-clothes around it? the lack there is of all signs of struggle or fear? the repose of the countenance? the easy fall of the hands?"

"Yes, yes; don't make me look at it any more."

"Then the clothes hanging on the wall?"—rapidly pointing out each object as he spoke. "Do you see? a calico dress, a shawl,—not the one in which she was believed to have run away, but an old black one, probably belonging to Mrs. Belden. Then this chest,"—opening it,—"containing a few underclothes marked,—let us see, ah, with the name of the lady of the house, but smaller than any she ever wore; made for Hannah, you observe, and marked with her own name to prevent suspicion. And then these other clothes lying on the floor, all new, all marked in the same way. Then this—Halloo! look here!" he suddenly cried.

Going over to where he stood I stooped down, when a wash-bowl half full of burned paper met my eye.

"I saw her bending over something in this corner, and could not think what it was. Can it be she is a suicide after all? She has evidently destroyed something here which she didn't wish any one to see."

"I do not know," I said. "I could almost hope so."

"Not a scrap, not a morsel left to show what it was; how unfortunate!"

"Mrs. Belden must solve this riddle," I cried.

"Mrs. Belden must solve the whole riddle," he replied; "the secret of the Leavenworth murder hangs upon it." Then, with a lingering look towards the mass of burned paper, "Who knows but what that was a confession?"

The conjecture seemed only too probable.

"Whatever it was," said I, "it is now ashes, and we have got to accept the fact and make the best of it."

"Yes," said he with a deep sigh; "that's so; but Mr. Gryce will never forgive me for it, never. He will say I ought to have known it was a suspicious circumstance for her to take a dose of medicine at the very moment detection stood at her back."

"But she did not know that; she did not see you."

"We don't know what she saw, nor what Mrs. Belden saw. Women are a mystery; and though I flatter myself that ordinarily I am a match for the keenest bit of female flesh that ever walked, I must say that in this case I feel myself thoroughly and shamefully worsted."

"Well, well," I said, "the end has not come yet; who knows what a talk with Mrs. Belden will bring out? And, by the way, she will be coming back soon, and I must be ready to meet her. Everything depends upon finding out, if I can, whether she is aware of this tragedy or not. It is just possible she knows nothing about it."

And, hurrying him from the room, I pulled the door to behind me, and led the way downstairs.

"Now," said I, "there is one thing you must attend to at once. A telegram must be sent Mr. Gryce acquainting him with this unlooked-for occurrence."

"All right, sir," and Q started for the door.

"Wait one moment," said I. "I may not have another opportunity to mention it. Mrs. Belden received two letters from the postmaster yesterday; one in a large and one in a small envelope; if you could find out where they were postmarked——"

Q put his hand in his pocket. "I think I will not have to go far to find out where one of them came from. Good George, I have lost it!" And before I knew it, he had returned upstairs.

That moment I heard the gate click.

XXXI. "THEREBY HANGS A TALE."

—Taming of the Shrew.

"IT was all a hoax; nobody was ill; I have been imposed upon, meanly imposed upon!" And Mrs. Belden, flushed and panting, entered the room where I was, and proceeded to take off her bonnet; but whilst doing so paused, and suddenly exclaimed: "What is the matter? How you look at me! Has anything happened?"

"Something very serious has occurred," I replied; "you have been gone but a little while, but in that time a discovery has been made—" I purposely paused here that the suspense might elicit from her some betrayal; but, though she turned pale, she manifested less emotion than I expected, and I went on—"which is likely to produce very important consequences."

To my surprise she burst violently into tears. "I knew it, I knew it!" she murmured. "I always said it would be impossible to keep it secret if I let anybody into the house; she is so restless. But I forget," she suddenly said, with a frightened look; "you haven't told me what the discovery was. Perhaps it isn't what I thought; perhaps——"

I did not hesitate to interrupt her. "Mrs. Belden," I said, "I shall not try to mitigate the blow. A woman who, in the face of the most urgent call from law and justice, can receive into her house and harbor there a witness of such importance as Hannah, cannot stand in need of any great preparation for hearing that her efforts, have been too successful, that she has accomplished her design of suppressing valuable testimony, that law and justice are outraged, and that the innocent woman whom this girl's evidence might have saved stands for ever compromised in the eyes of the world, if not in those of the officers of the law."

Her eyes, which had never left me during this address, flashed wide with dismay.

"What do you mean?" she cried. "I have intended no wrong; I have only tried to save people. I—I—But who are you? What have you got to do with all this? What is it to you what I do or don't do? You said you were a lawyer. Can it be you are come from Mary Leavenworth to see how I am fulfilling her commands, and——"

"Mrs. Belden," I said, "it is of small importance now as to who I am, or for what purpose I am here. But that my words may have the more effect, I will say, that whereas I have not deceived you, either as to my name or position, it is true that I am the friend of the Misses Leavenworth, and that anything which is likely to affect them, is of interest to me. When, therefore, I say that Eleanore Leavenworth is irretrievably injured by this gill's death——"

"Death? What do you mean? Death!"

The burst was too natural, the tone too horror-stricken for me to doubt for another moment as to this woman's ignorance of the true state of affairs.

"Yes," I repeated, "the girl you have been hiding so long and so well is now beyond your control. Only her dead body remains, Mrs. Belden."

I shall never lose from my ears the shriek which she uttered, nor the wild, "I don't believe it! I don't believe it!" with which she dashed from the room and rushed upstairs.

Nor that after-scene when, in the presence of the dead, she stood wringing her hands and protesting, amid sobs of the sincerest grief and terror, that she knew nothing of it; that she had left the girl in the best of spirits the night before; that it was true she had locked her in, but this she always did when any one was in the house; and that if she died of any sudden attack, it must have been quietly, for she had heard no stir all night, though she had listened more than once, being naturally anxious lest the girl should make some disturbance that would arouse me.

"But you were in here this morning?" said I.

"Yes; but I didn't notice. I was in a hurry, and thought she was asleep; so I set the things down where she could get them and came right away, locking the door as usual."

"It is strange she should have died this night of all others. Was she ill yesterday?"

"No, sir; she was even brighter than common; more lively. I never thought of her being sick then or ever. If I had——"

"You never thought of her being sick?" a voice here interrupted. "Why, then, did you take such pains to give her a dose of medicine last night?" And Q entered from the room beyond.

"I didn't!" she protested, evidently under the supposition it was I who had spoken. "Did I, Hannah, did I, poor girl?" stroking the hand that lay in hers with what appeared to be genuine sorrow and regret.

"How came she by it, then? Where she did she get it if you didn't give it to her?"

This time she seemed to be aware that some one besides myself was talking to her, for, hurriedly rising, she looked at the man with a wondering stare, before replying.

"I don't know who you are, sir; but I can tell you this, the girl had no medicine,—took no dose; she wasn't sick last night that I know of."

"Yet I saw her swallow a powder."

"Saw her!—the world is crazy, or I am—saw her swallow a powder! How could you see her do that or anything else? Hasn't she been shut up in this room for twenty-four hours?"

"Yes; but with a window like that in the roof, it isn't so very difficult to see into the room, madam."

"Oh," she cried, shrinking, "I have a spy in the house, have I? But I deserve it; I kept her imprisoned in four close walls, and never came to look at her once all night. I don't complain; but what was it you say you saw her take? medicine? poison?"

"I didn't say poison."

"But you meant it. You think she has poisoned herself, and that I had a hand in it!"

"No," I hastened to remark, "he does not think you had a hand in it. He says he saw the girl herself swallow something which he believes to have been the occasion of her death, and only asks you now where she obtained it."

"How can I tell? I never gave her anything; didn't know she had anything."

Somehow, I believed her, and so felt unwilling to prolong the present interview, especially as each moment delayed the action which I felt it incumbent upon us to take. So, motioning Q to depart upon his errand, I took Mrs. Belden by the hand and endeavored to lead her from the room. But she resisted, sitting down by the side of the bed with the expression, "I will not leave her again; do not ask it; here is my place, and here I will stay," while Q, obdurate for the first time, stood staring severely upon us both, and would not move, though I urged him again to make haste, saying that the morning was slipping away, and that the telegram to Mr. Gryce ought to be sent.

"Till that woman leaves the room, I don't; and unless you promise to take my place in watching her, I don't quit the house."

Astonished, I left her side and crossed to him.

"You carry your suspicions too far," I whispered, "and I think you are too rude. We have seen nothing, I am sure, to warrant us in any such action; besides, she can do no harm here; though, as for watching her, I promise to do that much if it will relieve your mind."

"I don't want her watched here; take her below. I cannot leave while she remains."

"Are you not assuming a trifle the master?"

"Perhaps; I don't know. If I am, it is because I have something in my possession which excuses my conduct."

"What is that? the letter?"

"Yes."

Agitated now in my turn, I held out my hand. "Let me see," I said.

"Not while that woman remains in the room."

Seeing him implacable, I returned to Mrs. Belden.

"I must entreat you to come with me," said I. "This is not a common death; we shall be obliged to have the coroner here and others. You had better leave the room and go below."

"I don't mind the coroner; he is a neighbor of mine; his coming won't prevent my watching over the poor girl until he arrives."

"Mrs. Belden," I said, "your position as the only one conscious of the presence of this girl in your house makes it wiser for you not to invite suspicion by lingering any longer than is necessary in the room where her dead body lies."

"As if my neglect of her now were the best surety of my good intentions towards her in time past!"

"It will not be neglect for you to go below with me at my earnest request. You can do no good here by staying; will, in fact, be doing harm. So listen to me or I shall be obliged to leave you in charge of this man and go myself to inform the authorities."

This last argument seemed to affect her, for with one look of shuddering abhorrence at Q she rose, saying, "You have me in your power," and then, without another word, threw her handkerchief over the girl's face and left the room. In two minutes more I had the letter of which Q had spoken in my hands.

"It is the only one I could find, sir. It was in the pocket of the dress Mrs. Belden had on last night. The other must be lying around somewhere, but I haven't had time to find it. This will do, though, I think. You will not ask for the other."

Scarcely noticing at the time with what deep significance he spoke, I opened the letter. It was the smaller of the two I had seen her draw under her shawl the day before at the post-office, and read as follows:

"DEAR, DEAR FRIEND:

"I am in awful trouble. You who love me must know it. I cannot
explain, I can only make one prayer. Destroy what you have,
to-day, instantly, without question or hesitation. The consent
of any one else has nothing to do with it. You must obey. I am
lost if you refuse. Do then what I ask, and save

"ONE WHO LOVES YOU."

It was addressed to Mrs. Belden; there was no signature or date, only the postmark New York; but I knew the handwriting. It was Mary Leavenworth's.

"A damning letter!" came in the dry tones which Q seemed to think fit to adopt on this occasion. "And a damning bit of evidence against the one who wrote it, and the woman who received it!"

"A terrible piece of evidence, indeed," said I, "if I did not happen to know that this letter refers to the destruction of something radically different from what you suspect. It alludes to some papers in Mrs. Belden's charge; nothing else."

"Are you sure, sir?"

"Quite; but we will talk of this hereafter. It is time you sent your telegram, and went for the coroner."

"Very well, sir." And with this we parted; he to perform his role and I mine.

I found Mrs. Belden walking the floor below, bewailing her situation, and uttering wild sentences as to what the neighbors would say of her; what the minister would think; what Clara, whoever that was, would do, and how she wished she had died before ever she had meddled with the affair.

Succeeding in calming her after a while, I induced her to sit down and listen to what I had to say. "You will only injure yourself by this display of feeling," I remarked, "besides unfitting yourself for what you will presently be called upon to go through." And, laying myself out to comfort the unhappy woman, I first explained the necessities of the case, and next inquired if she had no friend upon whom she could call in this emergency.

To my great surprise she replied no; that while she had kind neighbors and good friends, there was no one upon whom she could call in a case like this, either for assistance or sympathy, and that, unless I would take pity on her, she would have to meet it alone—"As I have met everything," she said, "from Mr. Belden's death to the loss of most of my little savings in a town fire last year."

I was touched by this,—that she who, in spite of her weakness and inconsistencies of character, possessed at least the one virtue of sympathy with her kind, should feel any lack of friends. Unhesitatingly, I offered to do what I could for her, providing she would treat me with the perfect frankness which the case demanded. To my great relief, she expressed not only her willingness, but her strong desire, to tell all she knew. "I have had enough secrecy for my whole life," she said. And indeed I do believe she was so thoroughly frightened, that if a police-officer had come into the house and asked her to reveal secrets compromising the good name of her own son, she would have done so without cavil or question. "I feel as if I wanted to take my stand out on the common, and, in the face of the whole world, declare what I have done for Mary Leavenworth. But first," she whispered, "tell me, for God's sake, how those girls are situated. I have not dared to ask or write. The papers say a good deal about Eleanore, but nothing about Mary; and yet Mary writes of her own peril only, and of the danger she would be in if certain facts were known. What is the truth? I don't want to injure them, only to take care of myself."

"Mrs. Belden," I said, "Eleanore Leavenworth has got into her present difficulty by not telling all that was required of her. Mary Leavenworth—but I cannot speak of her till I know what you have to divulge. Her position, as well as that of her cousin, is too anomalous for either you or me to discuss. What we want to learn from you is, how you became connected with this affair, and what it was that Hannah knew which caused her to leave New York and take refuge here."

But Mrs. Belden, clasping and unclasping her hands, met my gaze with one full of the most apprehensive doubt. "You will never believe me," she cried; "but I don't know what Hannah knew. I am in utter ignorance of what she saw or heard on that fatal night; she never told, and I never asked. She merely said that Miss Leavenworth wished me to secrete her for a short time; and I, because I loved Mary Leavenworth and admired her beyond any one I ever saw, weakly consented, and——"

"Do you mean to say," I interrupted, "that after you knew of the murder, you, at the mere expression of Miss Leavenworth's wishes, continued to keep this girl concealed without asking her any questions or demanding any explanations?"

"Yes, sir; you will never believe me, but it is so. I thought that, since Mary had sent her here, she must have her reasons; and—and—I cannot explain it now; it all looks so differently; but I did do as I have said."

"But that was very strange conduct. You must have had strong reason for obeying Mary Leavenworth so blindly."

"Oh, sir," she gasped, "I thought I understood it all; that Mary, the bright young creature, who had stooped from her lofty position to make use of me and to love me, was in some way linked to the criminal, and that it would be better for me to remain in ignorance, do as I was bid, and trust all would come right. I did not reason about it; I only followed my impulse. I couldn't do otherwise; it isn't my nature. When I am requested to do anything for a person I love, I cannot refuse."

"And you love Mary Leavenworth; a woman whom you yourself seem to consider capable of a great crime?"

"Oh, I didn't say that; I don't know as I thought that. She might be in some way connected with it, without being the actual perpetrator. She could never be that; she is too dainty."

"Mrs. Belden," I said, "what do you know of Mary Leavenworth which makes even that supposition possible?"

The white face of the woman before me flushed. "I scarcely know what to reply," she cried. "It is a long story, and——"

"Never mind the long story," I interrupted. "Let me hear the one vital reason."

"Well," said she, "it is this; that Mary was in an emergency from which nothing but her uncle's death could release her."

"Ah, how's that?"

But here we were interrupted by the sound of steps on the porch, and, looking out, I saw Q entering the house alone. Leaving Mrs. Belden where she was, I stepped into the hall.

"Well," said I, "what is the matter? Haven't you found the coroner? Isn't he at home?"

"No, gone away; off in a buggy to look after a man that was found some ten miles from here, lying in a ditch beside a yoke of oxen." Then, as he saw my look of relief, for I was glad of this temporary delay, said, with an expressive wink: "It would take a fellow a long time to go to him—if he wasn't in a hurry—hours, I think."

"Indeed!" I returned, amused at his manner. "Rough road?"

"Very; no horse I could get could travel it faster than a walk."

"Well," said I, "so much the better for us. Mrs. Belden has a long story to tell, and——"

"Doesn't wish to be interrupted. I understand."

I nodded and he turned towards the door.

"Have you telegraphed Mr. Gryce?" I asked.

"Yes, sir."

"Do you think he will come?"

"Yes, sir; if he has to hobble on two sticks."

"At what time do you look for him?"

"You will look for him as early as three o'clock. I shall be among the mountains, ruefully eying my broken-down team." And leisurely donning his hat he strolled away down the street like one who has the whole day on his hands and does not know what to do with it.

An opportunity being thus given for Mrs. Belden's story, she at once composed herself to the task, with the following result.

XXXII MRS. BELDEN'S NARRATIVE

"Cursed, destructive Avarice,
Thou everlasting foe to Love and Honor."
—Trap's Atram.

"Mischief never thrives
Without the help of Woman."
—The Same.

IT will be a year next July since I first saw Mary Leavenworth. J was living at that time a most monotonous existence. Loving what was beautiful, hating what was sordid, drawn by nature towards all that was romantic and uncommon, but doomed by my straitened position and the loneliness of my widowhood to spend my days in the weary round of plain sewing, I had begun to think that the shadow of a humdrum old age was settling down upon me, when one morning, in the full tide of my dissatisfaction, Mary Leavenworth stepped across the threshold of my door and, with one smile, changed the whole tenor of my life.

This may seem exaggeration to you, especially when I say that her errand was simply one of business, she having heard I was handy with my needle; but if you could have seen her as she appeared that day, marked the look with which she approached me, and the smile with which she left, you would pardon the folly of a romantic old woman, who beheld a fairy queen in this lovely young lady. The fact is, I was dazzled by her beauty and her charms. And when, a few days after, she came again, and crouching down on the stool at my feet, said she was so tired of the gossip and tumult down at the hotel, that it was a relief to run away and hide with some one who would let her act like the child she was, I experienced for the moment, I believe, the truest happiness of my life. Meeting her advances with all the warmth her manner invited, I found her ere long listening eagerly while I told her, almost without my own volition, the story of my past life, in the form of an amusing allegory.

The next day saw her in the same place; and the next; always with the eager, laughing eyes, and the fluttering, uneasy hands, that grasped everything they touched, and broke everything they grasped.

But the fourth day she was not there, nor the fifth, nor the sixth, and I was beginning to feel the old shadow settling back upon me, when one night, just as the dusk of twilight was merging into evening gloom, she came stealing in at the front door, and, creeping up to my side, put her hands over my eyes with such a low, ringing laugh, that I started.

"You don't know what to make of me!" she cried, throwing aside her cloak, and revealing herself in the full splendor of evening attire. "I don't know what to make of myself. Though it seems folly, I felt that I must run away and tell some one that a certain pair of eyes have been looking into mine, and that for the first time in my life I feel myself a woman as well as a queen." And with a glance in which coyness struggled with pride, she gathered up her cloak around her, and laughingly cried:

"Have you had a visit from a flying sprite? Has one little ray of moonlight found its way into your prison for a wee moment, with Mary's laugh and Mary's snowy silk and flashing diamonds? Say!" and she patted my cheek, and smiled so bewilderingly, that even now, with all the dull horror of these after-events crowding upon me, I cannot but feel something like tears spring to my eyes at the thought of it.

"And so the Prince has come for you?" I whispered, alluding to a story I had told her the last time she had visited me; a story in which a girl, who had waited all her life in rags and degradation for the lordly knight who was to raise her from a hovel to a throne, died just as her one lover, an honest peasant-lad whom she had discarded in her pride, arrived at her door with the fortune he had spent all his days in amassing for her sake.

But at this she flushed, and drew back towards the door. "I don't know; I am afraid not. I—I don't think anything about that. Princes are not so easily won," she murmured.

"What! are you going?" I said, "and alone? Let me accompany you."

But she only shook her fairy head, and replied: "No, no; that would be spoiling the romance, indeed. I have come upon you like a sprite, and like a sprite I will go." And, flashing like the moonbeam she was, she glided out into the night, and floated away down the street.

When she next came, I observed a feverish excitement in her manner, which assured me, even plainer than the coy sweetness displayed in our last interview, that her heart had been touched by her lover's attentions. Indeed, she hinted as much before she left, saying in a melancholy tone, when I had ended my story in the usual happy way, with kisses and marriage, "I shall never marry!" finishing the exclamation with a long-drawn sigh, that somehow emboldened me to say, perhaps because I knew she had no mother:

"And why? What reason can there be for such rosy lips saying their possessor will never marry?"

She gave me one quick look, and then dropped her eyes. I feared I had offended her, and was feeling very humble, when she suddenly replied, in an even but low tone, "I said I should never marry, because the one man who pleases me can never be my husband."

All the hidden romance in my nature started at once into life. "Why not? What do you mean? Tell me."

"There is nothing to tell," said she; "only I have been so weak as to"—she would not say, fall in love, she was a proud woman—"admire a man whom my uncle will never allow me to marry."

And she rose as if to go; but I drew her back. "Whom your uncle will not allow you to marry!" I repeated. "Why? because he is poor?"

"No; uncle loves money, but not to such an extent as that. Besides, Mr. Clavering is not poor. He is the owner of a beautiful place in his own country——"

"Own country?" I interrupted. "Is he not an American?"

"No," she returned; "he is an Englishman."

I did not see why she need say that in just the way she did, but, supposing she was aggravated by some secret memory, went on to inquire: "Then what difficulty can there be? Isn't he—" I was going to say steady, but refrained.

"He is an Englishman," she emphasized in the same bitter tone as before. "In saying that, I say it all. Uncle will never let me marry an Englishman."

I looked at her in amazement. Such a puerile reason as this had never entered my mind.

"He has an absolute mania on the subject," resumed she. "I might as well ask him to allow me to drown myself as to marry an Englishman."

A woman of truer judgment than myself would have said: "Then, if that is so, why not discard from your breast all thought of him? Why dance with him, and talk to him, and let your admiration develop into love?" But I was all romance then, and, angry at a prejudice I could neither understand nor appreciate, I said:

"But that is mere tyranny! Why should he hate the English so? And why, if he does, should you feel yourself obliged to gratify him in a whim so unreasonable?"

"Why? Shall I tell you, auntie?" she said, flushing and looking away.

"Yes," I returned; "tell me everything."

"Well, then, if you want to know the worst of me, as you already know the best, I hate to incur my uncle's displeasure, because—because—I have always been brought up to regard myself as his heiress, and I know that if I were to marry contrary to his wishes, he would instantly change his mind, and leave me penniless."

"But," I cried, my romance a little dampened by this admission, "you tell me Mr. Clavering has enough to live upon, so you would not want; and if you love—"

Her violet eyes fairly flashed in her amazement.

"You don't understand," she said; "Mr. Clavering is not poor; but uncle is rich. I shall be a queen—" There she paused, trembling, and falling on my breast. "Oh, it sounds mercenary, I know, but it is the fault of my bringing up. I have been taught to worship money. I would be utterly lost without it. And yet"—her whole face softening with the light of another emotion, "I cannot say to Henry Clavering, 'Go! my prospects are dearer to me than you!' I cannot, oh, I cannot!"

"You love him, then?" said I, determined to get at the truth of the matter if possible.

She rose restlessly. "Isn't that a proof of love? If you knew me, you would say it was." And, turning, she took her stand before a picture that hung on the wall of my sitting-room.

"That looks like me," she said.

It was one of a pair of good photographs I possessed.

"Yes," I remarked, "that is why I prize it."

She did not seem to hear me; she was absorbed in gazing at the exquisite face before her. "That is a winning face," I heard her say. "Sweeter than mine. I wonder if she would ever hesitate between love and money. I do not believe she would," her own countenance growing gloomy and sad as she said so; "she would think only of the happiness she would confer; she is not hard like me. Eleanore herself would love this girl."

I think she had forgotten my presence, for at the mention of her cousin's name she turned quickly round with a half suspicious look, saying lightly:

"My dear old Mamma Hubbard looks horrified. She did not know she had such a very unromantic little wretch for a listener, when she was telling all those wonderful stories of Love slaying dragons, and living in caves, and walking over burning ploughshares as if they were tufts of spring grass?"

"No," I said, taking her with an irresistible impulse of admiring affection into my arms; "but if I had, it would have made no difference. I should still have talked about love, and of all it can do to make this weary workaday world sweet and delightful."

"Would you? Then you do not think me such a wretch?"

What could I say? I thought her the winsomest being in the world, and frankly told her so. Instantly she brightened into her very gayest self. Not that I thought then, much less do I think now, she partially cared for my good opinion; but her nature demanded admiration, and unconsciously blossomed under it, as a flower under the sunshine.

"And you will still let me come and tell you how bad I am,—that is, if I go on being bad, as I doubtless shall to the end of the chapter? You will not turn me off?"

"I will never turn you off."

"Not if I should do a dreadful thing? Not if I should run away with my lover some fine night, and leave uncle to discover how his affectionate partiality had been requited?"

It was lightly said, and lightly meant, for she did not even wait for my reply. But its seed sank deep into our two hearts for all that. And for the next few days I spent my time in planning how I should manage, if it should ever fall to my lot to conduct to a successful issue so enthralling a piece of business as an elopement. You may imagine, then, how delighted I was, when one evening Hannah, this unhappy girl who is now lying dead under my roof, and who was occupying the position of lady's maid to Miss Mary Leavenworth at that time, came to my door with a note from her mistress, running thus:

"Have the loveliest story of the season ready for me tomorrow; and
let the prince be as handsome as—as some one you have heard of,
and the princess as foolish as your little yielding pet,

"MARY."

Which short note could only mean that she was engaged. But the next day did not bring me my Mary, nor the next, nor the next; and beyond hearing that Mr. Leavenworth had returned from his trip I received neither word nor token. Two more days dragged by, when, just as twilight set in, she came. It had been a week since I had seen her, but it might have been a year from the change I observed in her countenance and expression. I could scarcely greet her with any show of pleasure, she was so unlike her former self.

"You are disappointed, are you not?" said she, looking at me. "You expected revelations, whispered hopes, and all manner of sweet confidences; and you see, instead, a cold, bitter woman, who for the first time in your presence feels inclined to be reserved and uncommunicative."

"That is because you have had more to trouble than encourage you in your love," I returned, though not without a certain shrinking, caused more by her manner than words.

She did not reply to this, but rose and paced the floor, coldly at first, but afterwards with a certain degree of excitement that proved to be the prelude to a change in her manner; for, suddenly pausing, she turned to me and said: "Mr. Clavering has left R——, Mrs. Belden."

"Left!"

"Yes, my uncle commanded me to dismiss him, and I obeyed."

The work dropped from my hands, in my heartfelt disappointment. "Ah! then he knows of your engagement to Mr. Clavering?"

"Yes; he had not been in the house five minutes before Eleanore told him."

"Then she knew?"

"Yes," with a half sigh. "She could hardly help it. I was foolish enough to give her the cue in my first moment of joy and weakness. I did not think of the consequences; but I might have known. She is so conscientious."

"I do not call it conscientiousness to tell another's secrets," I returned.

"That is because you are not Eleanore."

Not having a reply for this, I said, "And so your uncle did not regard your engagement with favor?"

"Favor! Did I not tell you he would never allow me to marry an Englishman? He said he would sooner see me buried."

"And you yielded? Made no struggle? Let the hard, cruel man have his way?"

She was walking off to look again at that picture which had attracted her attention the time before, but at this word gave me one little sidelong look that was inexpressibly suggestive.

"I obeyed him when he commanded, if that is what you mean."

"And dismissed Mr. Clavering after having given him your word of honor to be his wife?"

"Why not, when I found I could not keep my word."

"Then you have decided not to marry him?"

She did not reply at once, but lifted her face mechanically to the picture.

"My uncle would tell you that I had decided to be governed wholly by his wishes!" she responded at last with what I felt was self-scornful bitterness.

Greatly disappointed, I burst into tears. "Oh, Mary!" I cried, "Oh, Mary!" and instantly blushed, startled that I had called her by her first name.

But she did not appear to notice.

"Have you any complaint to make?" she asked. "Is it not my manifest duty to be governed by my uncle's wishes? Has he not brought me up from childhood? lavished every luxury upon me? made me all I am, even to the love of riches which he has instilled into my soul with every gift he has thrown into my lap, every word he has dropped into my ear, since I was old enough to know what riches meant? Is it for me now to turn my back upon fostering care so wise, beneficent, and free, just because a man whom I have known some two weeks chances to offer me in exchange what he pleases to call his love?"

"But," I feebly essayed, convinced perhaps by the tone of sarcasm in which this was uttered that she was not far from my way of thinking after all, "if in two weeks you have learned to love this man more than everything else, even the riches which make your uncle's favor a thing of such moment—"

"Well," said she, "what then?"

"Why, then I would say, secure your happiness with the man of your choice, if you have to marry him in secret, trusting to your influence over your uncle to win the forgiveness he never can persistently deny."

You should have seen the arch expression which stole across her face at that. "Would it not be better," she asked, creeping to my arms, and laying her head on my shoulder, "would it not be better for me to make sure of that uncle's favor first, before undertaking the hazardous experiment of running away with a too ardent lover?"

Struck by her manner, I lifted her face and looked at it. It was one amused smile.

"Oh, my darling," said I, "you have not, then dismissed Mr. Clavering?"

"I have sent him away," she whispered demurely.

"But not without hope?"

She burst into a ringing laugh.

"Oh, you dear old Mamma Hubbard; what a matchmaker you are, to be sure! You appear as much interested as if you were the lover yourself."

"But tell me," I urged.

In a moment her serious mood returned. "He will wait for me," said she.

The next day I submitted to her the plan I had formed for her clandestine intercourse with Mr. Clavering. It was for them both to assume names, she taking mine, as one less liable to provoke conjecture than a strange name, and he that of LeRoy Robbins. The plan pleased her, and with the slight modification of a secret sign being used on the envelope, to distinguish her letters from mine, was at once adopted.

And so it was I took the fatal step that has involved me in all this trouble. With the gift of my name to this young girl to use as she would and sign what she would, I seemed to part with what was left me of judgment and discretion. Henceforth, I was only her scheming, planning, devoted slave; now copying the letters which she brought me, and enclosing them to the false name we had agreed upon, and now busying myself in devising ways to forward to her those which I received from him, without risk of discovery. Hannah was the medium we employed, as Mary felt it would not be wise for her to come too often to my house. To this girl's charge, then, I gave such notes as I could not forward in any other way, secure in the reticence of her nature, as well as in her inability to read, that these letters addressed to Mrs. Amy Belden would arrive at their proper destination without mishap. And I believe they always did. At all events, no difficulty that I ever heard of arose out of the use of this girl as a go-between.

But a change was at hand. Mr. Clavering, who had left an invalid mother in England, was suddenly summoned home. He prepared to go, but, flushed with love, distracted by doubts, smitten with the fear that, once withdrawn from the neighborhood of a woman so universally courted as Mary, he would stand small chance of retaining his position in her regard, he wrote to her, telling his fears and asking her to marry him before he went.

"Make me your husband, and I will follow your wishes in all things," he wrote. "The certainty that you are mine will make parting possible; without it, I cannot go; no, not if my mother should die without the comfort of saying good-bye to her only child."

By some chance she was in my house when I brought this letter from the post-office, and I shall never forget how she started when she read it. But, from looking as if she had received an insult, she speedily settled down into a calm consideration of the subject, writing and delivering into my charge for copying a few lines in which she promised to accede to his request, if he would agree to leave the public declaration of the marriage to her discretion, and consent to bid her farewell at the door of the church or wherever the ceremony of marriage should take place, never to come into her presence again till such declaration had been made. Of course this brought in a couple of days the sure response: "Anything, so you will be mine."

And Amy Belden's wits and powers of planning were all summoned into requisition for the second time, to devise how this matter could be arranged without subjecting the parties to the chance of detection. I found the thing very difficult. In the first place, it was essential that the marriage should come off within three days, Mr. Clavering having, upon the receipt of her letter, secured his passage upon a steamer that sailed on the following Saturday; and, next, both he and Miss Leavenworth were too conspicuous in their personal appearance to make it at all possible for them to be secretly married anywhere within gossiping distance of this place. And yet it was desirable that the scene of the ceremony should not be too far away, or the time occupied in effecting the journey to and from the place would necessitate an absence from the hotel on the part of Miss Leavenworth long enough to arouse the suspicions of Eleanore; something which Mary felt it wiser to avoid. Her uncle, I have forgotten to say, was not here—having gone away again shortly after the apparent dismissal of Mr. Clavering. F——, then, was the only town I could think of which combined the two advantages of distance and accessibility. Although upon the railroad, it was an insignificant place, and had, what was better yet, a very obscure man for its clergyman, living, which was best of all, not ten rods from the depot. If they could meet there? Making inquiries, I found that it could be done, and, all alive to the romance of the occasion, proceeded to plan the details.

And now I am coming to what might have caused the overthrow of the whole scheme: I allude to the detection on the part of Eleanore of the correspondence between Mary and Mr. Clavering. It happened thus. Hannah, who, in her frequent visits to my house, had grown very fond of my society, had come in to sit with me for a while one evening. She had not been in the house, however, more than ten minutes, before there came a knock at the front door; and going to it I saw Mary, as I supposed, from the long cloak she wore, standing before me. Thinking she had come with a letter for Mr. Clavering, I grasped her arm and drew her into the hall, saying, "Have you got it? I must post it tonight, or he will not receive it in time."

There I paused, for, the panting creature I had by the arm turning upon me, I saw myself confronted by a stranger.

"You have made a mistake," she cried. "I am Eleanore Leavenworth, and I have come for my girl Hannah. Is she here?"

I could only raise my hand in apprehension, and point to the girl sitting in the corner of the room before her. Miss Leavenworth immediately turned back.

"Hannah, I want you," said she, and would have left the house without another word, but I caught her by the arm.

"Oh, miss—" I began, but she gave me such a look, I dropped her arm.

"I have nothing to say to you!" she cried in a low, thrilling voice. "Do not detain me." And, with a glance to see if Hannah were following her, she went out.

For an hour I sat crouched on the stair just where she had left me. Then I went to bed, but I did not sleep a wink that night. You can imagine, then, my wonder when, with the first glow of the early morning light, Mary, looking more beautiful than ever, came running up the steps and into the room where I was, with the letter for Mr. Clavering trembling in her hand.

"Oh!" I cried in my joy and relief, "didn't she understand me, then?"

The gay look on Mary's face turned to one of reckless scorn. "If you mean Eleanore, yes. She is duly initiated, Mamma Hubbard. Knows that I love Mr. Clavering and write to him. I couldn't keep it secret after the mistake you made last evening; so I did the next best thing, told her the truth."

"Not that you were about to be married?"

"Certainly not. I don't believe in unnecessary communications."

"And you did not find her as angry as you expected?"

"I will not say that; she was angry enough. And yet," continued Mary, with a burst of self-scornful penitence, "I will not call Eleanore's lofty indignation anger. She was grieved, Mamma Hubbard, grieved." And with a laugh which I believe was rather the result of her own relief than of any wish to reflect on her cousin, she threw her head on one side and eyed me with a look which seemed to say, "Do I plague you so very much, you dear old Mamma Hubbard?"

She did plague me, and I could not conceal it. "And will she not tell her uncle?" I gasped.

The naive expression on Mary's face quickly changed. "No," said she.

I felt a heavy hand, hot with fever, lifted from my heart. "And we can still go on?"

She held out the letter for reply.

The plan agreed upon between us for the carrying out of our intentions was this. At the time appointed, Mary was to excuse herself to her cousin upon the plea that she had promised to take me to see a friend in the next town. She was then to enter a buggy previously ordered, and drive here, where I was to join her. We were then to proceed immediately to the minister's house in F——, where we had reason to believe we should find everything prepared for us. But in this plan, simple as it was, one thing was forgotten, and that was the character of Eleanore's love for her cousin. That her suspicions would be aroused we did not doubt; but that she would actually follow Mary up and demand an explanation of her conduct, was what neither she, who knew her so well, nor I, who knew her so little, ever imagined possible. And yet that was just what occurred. But let me explain. Mary, who had followed out the programme to the point of leaving a little note of excuse on Eleanore's dressing-table, had come to my house, and was just taking off her long cloak to show me her dress, when there came a commanding knock at the front door. Hastily pulling her cloak about her I ran to open it, intending, you may be sure, to dismiss my visitor with short ceremony, when I heard a voice behind me say, "Good heavens, it is Eleanore!" and, glancing back, saw Mary looking through the window-blind upon the porch without.

"What shall we do?" I cried, in very natural dismay.

"Do? why, open the door and let her in; I am not afraid of Eleanore."

I immediately did so, and Eleanore Leavenworth, very pale, but with a resolute countenance, walked into the house and into this room, confronting Mary in very nearly the same spot where you are now sitting. "I have come," said she, lifting a face whose expression of mingled sweetness and power I could not but admire, even in that moment of apprehension, "to ask you without any excuse for my request, if you will allow me to accompany you upon your drive this morning?"

Mary, who had drawn herself up to meet some word of accusation or appeal, turned carelessly away to the glass. "I am very sorry," she said, "but the buggy holds only two, and I shall be obliged to refuse."

"I will order a carriage."

"But I do not wish your company, Eleanore. We are off on a pleasure trip, and desire to have our fun by ourselves."

"And you will not allow me to accompany you?"

"I cannot prevent your going in another carriage."

Eleanore's face grew yet more earnest in its expression. "Mary," said she, "we have been brought up together. I am your sister in affection if not in blood, and I cannot see you start upon this adventure with no other companion than this woman. Then tell me, shall I go with you, as a sister, or on the road behind you as the enforced guardian of your honor against your will?"

"My honor?"

"You are going to meet Mr. Clavering."

"Well?"

"Twenty miles from home."

"Well?"

"Now is it discreet or honorable in you to do this?"

Mary's haughty lip took an ominous curve. "The same hand that raised you has raised me," she cried bitterly.

"This is no time to speak of that," returned Eleanore.

Mary's countenance flushed. All the antagonism of her nature was aroused. She looked absolutely Juno-like in her wrath and reckless menace. "Eleanore," she cried, "I am going to F—— to marry Mr. Clavering! Now do you wish to accompany me?"

"I do."

Mary's whole manner changed. Leaping forward, she grasped her cousin's arm and shook it. "For what reason?" she cried. "What do you intend to do?"

"To witness the marriage, if it be a true one; to step between you and shame if any element of falsehood should come in to affect its legality."

Mary's hand fell from her cousin's arm. "I do not understand you," said she. "I thought you never gave countenance to what you considered wrong."

"Nor do I. Any one who knows me will understand that I do not give my approval to this marriage just because I attend its ceremonial in the capacity of an unwilling witness."

"Then why go?"

"Because I value your honor above my own peace. Because I love our common benefactor, and know that he would never pardon me if I let his darling be married, however contrary her union might be to his wishes, without lending the support of my presence to make the transaction at least a respectable one."

"But in so doing you will be involved in a world of deception—which you hate."

"Any more so than now?"

"Mr. Clavering does not return with me, Eleanore."

"No, I supposed not."

"I leave him immediately after the ceremony."

Eleanore bowed her head.

"He goes to Europe." A pause.

"And I return home."

"There to wait for what, Mary?"

Mary's face crimsoned, and she turned slowly away.

"What every other girl does under such circumstances, I suppose. The development of more reasonable feelings in an obdurate parent's heart."

Eleanore sighed, and a short silence ensued, broken by Eleanore's suddenly falling upon her knees, and clasping her cousin's hand. "Oh, Mary," she sobbed, her haughtiness all disappearing in a gush of wild entreaty, "consider what you are doing! Think, before it is too late, of the consequences which must follow such an act as this. Marriage founded upon deception can never lead to happiness. Love—but it is not that. Love would have led you either to have dismissed Mr. Clavering at once, or to have openly accepted the fate which a union with him would bring. Only passion stoops to subterfuge like this. And you," she continued, rising and turning toward me in a sort of forlorn hope very touching to see, "can you see this young motherless girl, driven by caprice, and acknowledging no moral restraint, enter upon the dark and crooked path she is planning for herself, without uttering one word of warning and appeal? Tell me, mother of children dead and buried, what excuse you will have for your own part in this day's work, when she, with her face marred by the sorrows which must follow this deception, comes to you——"

"The same excuse, probably," Mary's voice broke in, chill and strained, "which you will have when uncle inquires how you came to allow such an act of disobedience to be perpetrated in his absence: that she could not help herself, that Mary would gang her ain gait, and every one around must accommodate themselves to it."

It was like a draught of icy air suddenly poured into a room heated up to fever point. Eleanore stiffened immediately, and drawing back, pale and composed, turned upon her cousin with the remark:

"Then nothing can move you?"

The curling of Mary's lips was her only reply.

Mr. Raymond, I do not wish to weary you with my feelings, but the first great distrust I ever felt of my wisdom in pushing this matter so far came with that curl of Mary's lip. More plainly than Eleanore's words it showed me the temper with which she was entering upon this undertaking; and, struck with momentary dismay, I advanced to speak when Mary stopped me.

"There, now, Mamma Hubbard, don't you go and acknowledge that you are frightened, for I won't hear it. I have promised to marry Henry Clavering to-day, and I am going to keep my word—if I don't love him," she added with bitter emphasis. Then, smiling upon me in a way which caused me to forget everything save the fact that she was going to her bridal, she handed me her veil to fasten. As I was doing this, with very trembling fingers, she said, looking straight at Eleanore:

"You have shown yourself more interested in my fate than I had any reason to expect. Will you continue to display this concern all the way to F——, or may I hope for a few moments of peace in which to dream upon the step which, according to you, is about to hurl upon me such dreadful consequences?"

"If I go with you to F——," Eleanore returned, "it is as a witness, no more. My sisterly duty is done."

"Very well, then," Mary said, dimpling with sudden gayety; "I suppose I shall have to accept the situation. Mamma Hubbard, I am so sorry to disappoint you, but the buggy won't hold three. If you are good you shall be the first to congratulate me when I come home tonight." And, almost before I knew it, the two had taken their seats in the buggy that was waiting at the door. "Good-by," cried Mary, waving her hand from the back; "wish me much joy—of my ride."

I tried to do so, but the words wouldn't come. I could only wave my hand in response, and rush sobbing into the house.

Of that day, and its long hours of alternate remorse and anxiety, I cannot trust myself to speak. Let me come at once to the time when, seated alone in my lamp-lighted room, I waited and watched for the token of their return which Mary had promised me. It came in the shape of Mary herself, who, wrapped in her long cloak, and with her beautiful face aglow with blushes, came stealing into the house just as I was beginning to despair.

A strain of wild music from the hotel porch, where they were having a dance, entered with her, producing such a weird effect upon my fancy that I was not at all surprised when, in flinging off her cloak, she displayed garments of bridal white and a head crowned with snowy roses.

"Oh, Mary!" I cried, bursting into tears; "you are then——"

"Mrs. Henry Clavering, at your service. I'm a bride, Auntie."

"Without a bridal," I murmured, taking her passionately into my embrace.

She was not insensible to my emotion. Nestling close to me, she gave herself up for one wild moment to a genuine burst of tears, saying between her sobs all manner of tender things; telling me how she loved me, and how I was the only one in all the world to whom she dared come on this, her wedding night, for comfort or congratulation, and of how frightened she felt now it was all over, as if with her name she had parted with something of inestimable value.

"And does not the thought of having made some one the proudest of men solace you?" I asked, more than dismayed at this failure of mine to make these lovers happy.

"I don't know," she sobbed. "What satisfaction can it be for him to feel himself tied for life to a girl who, sooner than lose a prospective fortune, subjected him to such a parting?"

"Tell me about it," said I.

But she was not in the mood at that moment. The excitement of the day had been too much for her. A thousand fears seemed to beset her mind. Crouching down on the stool at my feet, she sat with her hands folded and a glare on her face that lent an aspect of strange unreality to her brilliant attire. "How shall I keep it secret! The thought haunts me every moment; how can I keep it secret!"

"Why, is there any danger of its being known?" I inquired. "Were you seen or followed?"

"No," she murmured. "It all went off well, but——"

"Where is the danger, then?"

"I cannot say; but some deeds are like ghosts. They will not be laid; they reappear; they gibber; they make themselves known whether we will or not. I did not think of this before. I was mad, reckless, what you will. But ever since the night has come, I have felt it crushing upon me like a pall that smothers life and youth and love out of my heart. While the sunlight remained I could endure it; but now—oh, Auntie, I have done something that will keep me in constant fear. I have allied myself to a living apprehension. I have destroyed my happiness."

I was too aghast to speak.

"For two hours I have played at being gay. Dressed in my bridal white, and crowned with roses, I have greeted my friends as if they were wedding-guests, and made believe to myself that all the compliments bestowed upon me—and they are only too numerous—were just so many congratulations upon my marriage. But it was no use; Eleanore knew it was no use. She has gone to her room to pray, while I—I have come here for the first time, perhaps for the last, to fall at some one's feet and cry,—' God have mercy upon me!'"

I looked at her in uncontrollable emotion. "Oh, Mary, have I only succeeded, then, in making you miserable?"

She did not answer; she was engaged in picking up the crown of roses which had fallen from her hair to the floor.

"If I had not been taught to love money so!" she said at length. "If, like Eleanore, I could look upon the splendor which has been ours from childhood as a mere accessory of life, easy to be dropped at the call of duty or affection! If prestige, adulation, and elegant belongings were not so much to me; or love, friendship, and domestic happiness more! If only I could walk a step without dragging the chain of a thousand luxurious longings after me. Eleanore can. Imperious as she often is in her beautiful womanhood, haughty as she can be when the delicate quick of her personality is touched too rudely, I have known her to sit by the hour in a low, chilly, ill-lighted and ill-smelling garret, cradling a dirty child on her knee, and feeding with her own hand an impatient old woman whom no one else would consent to touch. Oh, oh! they talk about repentance and a change of heart! If some one or something would only change mine! But there is no hope of that! no hope of my ever being anything else than what I am: a selfish, wilful, mercenary girl."

Nor was this mood a mere transitory one. That same night she made a discovery which increased her apprehension almost to terror. This was nothing less than the fact that Eleanore had been keeping a diary of the last few weeks. "Oh," she cried in relating this to me the next day, "what security shall I ever feel as long as this diary of hers remains to confront me every time I go into her room? And she will not consent to destroy it, though I have done my best to show her that it is a betrayal of the trust I reposed in her. She says it is all she has to show in the way of defence, if uncle should ever accuse her of treachery to him and his happiness. She promises to keep it locked up; but what good will that do! A thousand accidents might happen, any of them sufficient to throw it into uncle's hands. I shall never feel safe for a moment while it exists."

I endeavored to calm her by saying that if Eleanore was without malice, such fears were groundless. But she would not be comforted, and seeing her so wrought up, I suggested that Eleanore should be asked to trust it into my keeping till such time as she should feel the necessity of using it. The idea struck Mary favorably. "O yes," she cried; "and I will put my certificate with it, and so get rid of all my care at once." And before the afternoon was over, she had seen Eleanore and made her request.

It was acceded to with this proviso, that I was neither to destroy nor give up all or any of the papers except upon their united demand. A small tin box was accordingly procured, into which were put all the proofs of Mary's marriage then existing, viz.: the certificate, Mr. Clavering's letters, and such leaves from Eleanore's diary as referred to this matter. It was then handed over to me with the stipulation I have already mentioned, and I stowed it away in a certain closet upstairs, where it has lain undisturbed till last night.

Here Mrs. Belden paused, and, blushing painfully, raised her eyes to mine with a look in which anxiety and entreaty were curiously blended.

"I don't know what you will say," she began, "but, led away by my fears, I took that box out of its hiding-place last evening and, notwithstanding your advice, carried it from the house, and it is now——"

"In my possession," I quietly finished.

I don't think I ever saw her look more astounded, not even when I told her of Hannah's death. "Impossible!" she exclaimed. "I left it last night in the old barn that was burned down. I merely meant to hide it for the present, and could think of no better place in my hurry; for the barn is said to be haunted—a man hung himself there once—and no one ever goes there. I—I—you cannot have it!" she cried, "unless——"

"Unless I found and brought it away before the barn was destroyed," I suggested.

Her face flushed deeper. "Then you followed me?"

"Yes," said I. Then, as I felt my own countenance redden, hastened to add: "We have been playing strange and unaccustomed parts, you and I. Some time, when all these dreadful events shall be a mere dream of the past, we will ask each other's pardon. But never mind all this now. The box is safe, and I am anxious to hear the rest of your story."

This seemed to compose her, and after a minute she continued:

Mary seemed more like herself after this. And though, on account of Mr. Leavenworth's return and their subsequent preparations for departure, I saw but little more of her, what I did see was enough to make me fear that, with the locking up of the proofs of her marriage, she was indulging the idea that the marriage itself had become void. But I may have wronged her in this.

The story of those few weeks is almost finished. On the eve of the day before she left, Mary came to my house to bid me good-by. She had a present in her hand the value of which I will not state, as I did not take it, though she coaxed me with all her prettiest wiles. But she said something that night that I have never been able to forget. It was this. I had been speaking of my hope that before two months had elapsed she would find herself in a position to send for Mr. Clavering, and that when that day came I should wish to be advised of it; when she suddenly interrupted me by saying:

"Uncle will never be won upon, as you call it, while he lives. If I was convinced of it before, I am sure of it now. Nothing but his death will ever make it possible for me to send for Mr. Clavering." Then, seeing me look aghast at the long period of separation which this seemed to betoken, blushed a little and whispered: "The prospect looks somewhat dubious, doesn't it? But if Mr. Clavering loves me, he can wait."

"But," said I, "your uncle is only little past the prime of life and appears to be in robust health; it will be years of waiting, Mary."

"I don't know," she muttered, "I think not. Uncle is not as strong as he looks and—" She did not say any more, horrified perhaps at the turn the conversation was taking. But there was an expression on her countenance that set me thinking at the time, and has kept me thinking ever since.

Not that any actual dread of such an occurrence as has since happened came to oppress my solitude during the long months which now intervened. I was as yet too much under the spell of her charm to allow anything calculated to throw a shadow over her image to remain long in my thoughts. But when, some time in the fall, a letter came to me personally from Mr. Clavering, filled with a vivid appeal to tell him something of the woman who, in spite of her vows, doomed him to a suspense so cruel, and when, on the evening of the same day, a friend of mine who had just returned from New York spoke of meeting Mary Leavenworth at some gathering, surrounded by manifest admirers, I began to realize the alarming features of the affair, and, sitting down, I wrote her a letter. Not in the strain in which I had been accustomed to talk to her,—I had not her pleading eyes and trembling, caressing hands ever before me to beguile my judgment from its proper exercise,—but honestly and earnestly, telling her how Mr. Clavering felt, and what a risk she ran in keeping so ardent a lover from his rights. The reply she sent rather startled me.

"I have put Mr. Robbins out of my calculations for the present, and advise you to do the same. As for the gentleman himself, I have told him that when I could receive him I would be careful to notify him. That day has not yet come.

"But do not let him be discouraged," she added in a postscript. "When he does receive his happiness, it will be a satisfying one."

When, I thought. Ah, it is that when which is likely to ruin all! But, intent only upon fulfilling her will, I sat down and wrote a letter to Mr. Clavering, in which I stated what she had said, and begged him to have patience, adding that I would surely let him know if any change took place in Mary or her circumstances. And, having despatched it to his address in London, awaited the development of events.

They were not slow in transpiring. In two weeks I heard of the sudden death of Mr. Stebbins, the minister who had married them; and while yet laboring under the agitation produced by this shock, was further startled by seeing in a New York paper the name of Mr. Clavering among the list of arrivals at the Hoffman House; showing that my letter to him had failed in its intended effect, and that the patience Mary had calculated upon so blindly was verging to its end. I was consequently far from being surprised when, in a couple of weeks or so afterwards, a letter came from him to my address, which, owing to the careless omission of the private mark upon the envelope, I opened, and read enough to learn that, driven to desperation by the constant failures which he had experienced in all his endeavors to gain access to her in public or private, a. failure which he was not backward in ascribing to her indisposition to see him, he had made up his mind to risk everything, even her displeasure; and, by making an appeal to her uncle, end the suspense under which he was laboring, definitely and at once. "I want you," he wrote; "dowered or dowerless, it makes little difference to me. If you will not come of yourself, then I must follow the example of the brave knights, my ancestors; storm the castle that holds you, and carry you off by force of arms."

Neither can I say I was much surprised, knowing Mary as I did, when, in a few days from this, she forwarded to me for copying, this reply: "If Mr. Robbins ever expects to be happy with Amy Belden, let him reconsider the determination of which he speaks. Not only would he by such an action succeed in destroying the happiness of her he professes to love, but run the greater risk of effectually annulling the affection which makes the tie between them endurable."

To this there was neither date nor signature. It was the cry of warning which a spirited, self-contained creature gives when brought to bay. It made even me recoil, though I had known from the first that her pretty wilfulness was but the tossing foam floating above the soundless depths of cold resolve and most deliberate purpose.

What its real effect was upon him and her fate I can only conjecture. All I know is that in two weeks thereafter Mr. Leavenworth was found murdered in his room, and Hannah Chester, coming direct to my door from the scene of violence, begged me to take her in and secrete her from public inquiry, as I loved and desired to serve Mary Leavenworth.

XXXIII. UNEXPECTED TESTIMONY

Pol. What do you read, my lord?
Ham. Words, words, words.
—Hamlet.

MRS. BELDEN paused, lost in the sombre shadow which these words were calculated to evoke, and a short silence fell upon the room. It was broken by my asking for some account of the occurrence she had just mentioned, it being considered a mystery how Hannah could have found entrance into her house without the knowledge of the neighbors.

"Well," said she, "it was a chilly night, and I had gone to bed early (I was sleeping then in the room off this) when, at about a quarter to one—the last train goes through R—— at 12.50—there came a low knock on the window-pane at the head of my bed. Thinking that some of the neighbors were sick, I hurriedly rose on my elbow and asked who was there. The answer came in low, muffled tones, 'Hannah, Miss Leavenworth's girl! Please let me in at the kitchen door.' Startled at hearing the well-known voice, and fearing I knew not what, I caught up a lamp and hurried round to the door. 'Is any one with you?' I asked. 'No,' she replied. 'Then come in.' But no sooner had she done so than my strength failed me, and I had to sit down, for I saw she looked very pale and strange, was without baggage, and altogether had the appearance of some wandering spirit. 'Hannah!' I gasped, 'what is it? what has happened? what brings you here in this condition and at this time of night?' 'Miss Leavenworth has sent me,' she replied, in the low, monotonous tone of one repeating a lesson by rote. 'She told me to come here; said you would keep me. I am not to go out of the house, and no one is to know I am here.' 'But why?' I asked, trembling with a thousand undefined fears; 'what has occurred?' 'I dare not say,' she whispered; 'I am forbid; I am just to stay here, and keep quiet.' 'But,' I began, helping her to take off her shawl,—the dingy blanket advertised for in the papers—'you must tell me. She surely did not forbid you to tell me?' 'Yes she did; every one,' the girl replied, growing white in her persistence, 'and I never break my word; fire couldn't draw it out of me.' She looked so determined, so utterly unlike herself, as I remembered her in the meek, unobtrusive days of our old acquaintance, that I could do nothing but stare at her. 'You will keep me,' she said; 'you will not turn me away?' 'No,' I said, 'I will not turn you away.' 'And tell no one?' she went on. 'And tell no one,' I repeated.

"This seemed to relieve her. Thanking me, she quietly followed me upstairs. I put her into the room in which you found her, because it was the most secret one in the house; and there she has remained ever since, satisfied and contented, as far as I could see, till this very same horrible day."

"And is that all?" I asked. "Did you have no explanation with her afterwards? Did she never give you any information in regard to the transactions which led to her flight?"

"No, sir. She kept a most persistent silence. Neither then nor when, upon the next day, I confronted her with the papers in my hand, and the awful question upon my lips as to whether her flight had been occasioned by the murder which had taken place in Mr. Leavenworth's household, did she do more than acknowledge she had run away on this account. Some one or something had sealed her lips, and, as she said, 'Fire and torture should never make her speak.'"

Another short pause followed this; then, with my mind still hovering about the one point of intensest interest to me, I said:

"This story, then, this account which you have just given me of Mary Leavenworth's secret marriage and the great strait it put her into—a strait from which nothing but her uncle's death could relieve her—together with this acknowledgment of Hannah's that she had left home and taken refuge here on the insistence of Mary Leavenworth, is the groundwork you have for the suspicions you have mentioned?"

"Yes, sir; that and the proof of her interest in the matter which is given by the letter I received from her yesterday, and which you say you have now in your possession."

Oh, that letter!

"I know," Mrs. Belden went on in a broken voice, "that it is wrong, in a serious case like this, to draw hasty conclusions; but, oh, sir, how can I help it, knowing what I do?"

I did not answer; I was revolving in my mind the old question: was it possible, in face of all these later developments, still to believe Mary Leavenworth's own hand guiltless of her uncle's blood?

"It is dreadful to come to such conclusions," proceeded Mrs. Belden, "and nothing but her own words written in her own hand would ever have driven me to them, but——"

"Pardon me," I interrupted; "but you said in the beginning of this interview that you did not believe Mary herself had any direct hand in her uncle's murder. Are you ready to repeat that assertion?"

"Yes, yes, indeed. Whatever I may think of her influence in inducing it, I never could imagine her as having anything to do with its actual performance. Oh, no! oh, no! whatever was done on that dreadful night, Mary Leavenworth never put hand to pistol or ball, or even stood by while they were used; that you may be sure of. Only the man who loved her, longed for her, and felt the impossibility of obtaining her by any other means, could have found nerve for an act so horrible."

"Then you think——"

"Mr. Clavering is the man? I do: and oh, sir, when you consider that he is her husband, is it not dreadful enough?"

"It is, indeed," said I, rising to conceal how much I was affected by this conclusion of hers.

Something in my tone or appearance seemed to startle her. "I hope and trust I have not been indiscreet," she cried, eying me with something like an incipient distrust. "With this dead girl lying in my house, I ought to be very careful, I know, but——"

"You have said nothing," was my earnest assurance as I edged towards the door in my anxiety to escape, if but for a moment, from an atmosphere that was stifling me. "No one can blame you for anything you have either said or done to-day. But"—and here I paused and walked hurriedly back,—"I wish to ask one question more. Have you any reason, beyond that of natural repugnance to believing a young and beautiful woman guilty of a great crime, for saying what you have of Henry Clavering, a gentleman who has hitherto been mentioned by you with respect?"

"No," she whispered, with a touch of her old agitation.

I felt the reason insufficient, and turned away with something of the same sense of suffocation with which I had heard that the missing key had been found in Eleanore Leavenworth's possession. "You must excuse me," I said; "I want to be a moment by myself, in order to ponder over the facts which I have just heard; I will soon return "; and without further ceremony, hurried from the room.

By some indefinable impulse, I went immediately upstairs, and took my stand at the western window of the large room directly over Mrs. Belden. The blinds were closed; the room was shrouded in funereal gloom, but its sombreness and horror were for the moment unfelt; I was engaged in a fearful debate with myself. Was Mary Leavenworth the principal, or merely the accessory, in this crime? Did the determined prejudice of Mr. Gryce, the convictions of Eleanore, the circumstantial evidence even of such facts as had come to our knowledge, preclude the possibility that Mrs. Belden's conclusions were correct? That all the detectives interested in the affair would regard the question as settled, I did not doubt; but need it be? Was it utterly impossible to find evidence yet that Henry Clavering was, after all, the assassin of Mr. Leavenworth?

Filled with the thought, I looked across the room to the closet where lay the body of the girl who, according to all probability, had known the truth of the matter, and a great longing seized me. Oh, why could not the dead be made to speak? Why should she lie there so silent, so pulseless, so inert, when a word from her were enough to decide the awful question? Was there no power to compel those pallid lips to move?

Carried away by the fervor of the moment, I made my way to her side. Ah, God, how still! With what a mockery the closed lips and lids confronted my demanding gaze! A stone could not have been more unresponsive.

With a feeling that was almost like anger, I stood there, when—what was it I saw protruding from beneath her shoulders where they crushed against the bed? An envelope? a letter? Yes.

Dizzy with the sudden surprise, overcome with the wild hopes this discovery awakened, I stooped in great agitation and drew the letter out. It was sealed but not directed. Breaking it hastily open, I took a glance at its contents. Good heavens! it was the work of the girl herself!—its very appearance was enough to make that evident! Feeling as if a miracle had happened, I hastened with it into the other room, and set myself to decipher the awkward scrawl.

This is what I saw, rudely printed in lead pencil on the inside of a sheet of common writing-paper:

"I am a wicked girl. I have knone things all the time which I had ought to have told but I didn't dare to he said he would kill me if I did I mene the tall splendud looking gentulman with the black mustash who I met coming out of Mister Levenworth's room with a key in his hand the night Mr. Levenworth was murdered. He was so scared he gave me money and made me go away and come here and keep every thing secret but I can't do so no longer. I seem to see Miss Blenor all the time crying and asking me if I want her sent to prisun. God knows I 'd rathur die. And this is the truth and my last words and I pray every body's forgivness and hope nobody will blame me and that they wont bother Miss Elenor any more but go and look after the handsome gentulman with the black mushtash."

BOOK IV. THE PROBLEM SOLVED

XXXIV. MR. GRYCE RESUMES CONTROL

"It out-herods Herod."
—Hamlet.

"A thing devised by the enemy."
—Richard III

A HALF-HOUR had passed. The train upon which I had every reason to expect Mr. Gryce had arrived, and I stood in the doorway awaiting with indescribable agitation the slow and labored approach of the motley group of men and women whom I had observed leave the depot at the departure of the cars. Would he be among them? Was the telegram of a nature peremptory enough to make his presence here, sick as he was, an absolute certainty? The written confession of Hannah throbbing against my heart, a heart all elation now, as but a short half-hour before it had been all doubt and struggle, seemed to rustle distrust, and the prospect of a long afternoon spent in impatience was rising before me, when a portion of the advancing crowd turned off into a side street, and I saw the form of Mr. Gryce hobbling, not on two sticks, but very painfully on one, coming slowly down the street.

His face, as he approached, was a study.

"Well, well, well," he exclaimed, as we met at the gate; "this is a pretty how-dye-do, I must say. Hannah dead, eh? and everything turned topsy-turvy! Humph, and what do you think of Mary Leavenworth now?"

It would therefore seem natural, in the conversation which followed his introduction into the house and installment in Mrs. Belden's parlor, that I should begin my narration by showing him Hannah's confession; but it was not so. Whether it was that I felt anxious to have him go through the same alternations of hope and fear it had been my lot to experience since I came to R——; or whether, in the depravity of human nature, there lingered within me sufficient resentment for the persistent disregard he had always paid to my suspicions of Henry Clavering to make it a matter of moment to me to spring this knowledge upon him just at the instant his own convictions seemed to have reached the point of absolute certainty, I cannot say. Enough that it was not till I had given him a full account of every other matter connected with my stay in this house; not till I saw his eye beaming, and his lip quivering with the excitement incident upon the perusal of the letter from Mary, found in Mrs. Belden's pocket; not, indeed, until I became assured from such expressions as "Tremendous! The deepest game of the season! Nothing like it since the Lafarge affair!" that in another moment he would be uttering some theory or belief that once heard would forever stand like a barrier between us, did I allow myself to hand him the letter I had taken from under the dead body of Hannah.

I shall never forget his expression as he received it; "Good heavens!" cried he, "what's this?"

"A dying confession of the girl Hannah. I found it lying in her bed when I went up, a half-hour ago, to take a second look at her."

Opening it, he glanced over it with an incredulous air that speedily, however, turned to one of the utmost astonishment, as he hastily perused it, and then stood turning it over and over in his hand, examining it.

"A remarkable piece of evidence," I observed, not without a certain feeling of triumph; "quite changes the aspect of affairs!"

"Think so?" he sharply retorted; then, whilst I stood staring at him in amazement, his manner was so different from what I expected, looked up and said: "You tell me that you found this in her bed. Whereabouts in her bed?"

"Under the body of the girl herself," I returned. "I saw one corner of it protruding from beneath her shoulders, and drew it out."

He came and stood before me. "Was it folded or open, when you first looked at it?"

"Folded; fastened up in this envelope," showing it to him.

He took it, looked at it for a moment, and went on with his questions.

"This envelope has a very crumpled appearance, as well as the letter itself. Were they so when you found them?"

"Yes, not only so, but doubled up as you see."

"Doubled up? You are sure of that? Folded, sealed, and then doubled up as if her body had rolled across it while alive?"

"Yes."

"No trickery about it? No look as if the thing had been insinuated there since her death?"

"Not at all. I should rather say that to every appearance she held it in her hand when she lay down, but turning over, dropped it and then laid upon it."

Mr. Gryce's eyes, which had been very bright, ominously clouded; evidently he had been disappointed in my answers, paying the letter down, he stood musing, but suddenly lifted it again, scrutinized the edges of the paper on which it was written, and, darting me a quick look, vanished with it into the shade of the window curtain. His manner was so peculiar, I involuntarily rose to follow; but he waved me back, saying:

"Amuse yourself with that box on the table, which you had such an ado over; see if it contains all we have a right to expect to find in it. I want to be by myself for a moment."

Subduing my astonishment, I proceeded to comply with his request, but scarcely had I lifted the lid of the box before me when he came hurrying back, flung the letter down on the table with an air of the greatest excitement, and cried:

"Did I say there had never been anything like it since the Lafarge affair? I tell you there has never been anything like it in any affair. It is the rummest case on record! Mr. Raymond," and his eyes, in his excitement, actually met mine for the first time in my experience of him, "prepare yourself for a disappointment. This pretended confession of Hannah's is a fraud!"

"A fraud?"

"Yes; fraud, forgery, what you will; the girl never wrote it."

Amazed, outraged almost, I bounded from my chair. "How do you know that?" I cried.

Bending forward, he put the letter into my hand. "Look at it," said he; "examine it closely. Now tell me what is the first thing you notice in regard to it?"

"Why, the first thing that strikes me, is that the words are printed, instead of written; something which might be expected from this girl, according to all accounts."

"Well?"

"That they are printed on the inside of a sheet of ordinary paper——"

"Ordinary paper?"

"Yes."

"That is, a sheet of commercial note of the ordinary quality."

"Of course."

"But is it?"

"Why, yes; I should say so."

"Look at the lines."

"What of them? Oh, I see, they run up close to the top of the page; evidently the scissors have been used here."

"In short, it is a large sheet, trimmed down to the size of commercial note?"

"Yes."

"And is that all you see?"

"All but the words."

"Don't you perceive what has been lost by means of this trimming down?"

"No, unless you mean the manufacturer's stamp in the corner." Mr. Gryce's glance took meaning. "But I don't see why the loss of that should be deemed a matter of any importance."

"Don't you? Not when you consider that by it we seem to be deprived of all opportunity of tracing this sheet back to the quire of paper from which it was taken?"

"No."

"Humph! then you are more of an amateur than I thought you. Don't you see that, as Hannah could have had no motive for concealing where the paper came from on which she wrote her dying words, this sheet must have been prepared by some one else?"

"No," said I; "I cannot say that I see all that."

"Can't! Well then, answer me this. Why should Hannah, a girl about to commit suicide, care whether any clue was furnished, in her confession, to the actual desk, drawer, or quire of paper from which the sheet was taken, on which she wrote it?"

"She wouldn't."

"Yet especial pains have been taken to destroy that clue."

"But——"

"Then there is another thing. Read the confession itself, Mr. Raymond, and tell me what you gather from it."

"Why," said I, after complying, "that the girl, worn out with constant apprehension, has made up her mind to do away with herself, and that Henry Clavering——"

"Henry Clavering?"

The interrogation was put with so much meaning, I looked up. "Yes," said I.

"Ah, I didn't know that Mr. Clavering's name was mentioned there; excuse me."

"His name is not mentioned, but a description is given so strikingly in accordance——"

Here Mr. Gryce interrupted me. "Does it not seem a little surprising to you that a girl like Hannah should have stopped to describe a man she knew by name?"

I started; it was unnatural surely.

"You believe Mrs. Belden's story, don't you?"

"Yes."

"Consider her accurate in her relation of what took place here a year ago?"

"I do."

"Must believe, then, that Hannah, the go-between, was acquainted with Mr. Clavering and with his name?"

"Undoubtedly."

"Then why didn't she use it? If her intention was, as she here professes, to save Eleanore Leavenworth from the false imputation which had fallen upon her, she would naturally take the most direct method of doing it. This description of a man whose identity she could have at once put beyond a doubt by the mention of his name is the work, not of a poor, ignorant girl, but of some person who, in attempting to play the role of one, has signally failed. But that is not all. Mrs. Belden, according to you, maintains that Hannah told her, upon entering the house, that Mary Leavenworth sent her here. But in this document, she declares it to have been the work of Black Mustache."

"I know; but could they not have both been parties to the transaction?"

"Yes," said he; "yet it is always a suspicious circumstance, when there is a discrepancy between the written and spoken declaration of a person. But why do we stand here fooling, when a few words from this Mrs. Belden, you talk so much about, will probably settle the whole matter!"

"A few words from Mrs. Belden," I repeated. "I have had thousands from her to-day, and find the matter no nearer settled than in the beginning."

"You have had," said he, "but I have not. Fetch her in, Mr. Raymond."

I rose. "One thing," said I, "before I go. What if Hannah had found the sheet of paper, trimmed just as it is, and used it without any thought of the suspicions it would occasion!"

"Ah!" said he, "that is just what we are going to find out."

Mrs. Belden was in a flutter of impatience when I entered the sitting-room. When did I think the coroner would come? and what did I imagine this detective would do for us? It was dreadful waiting there alone for something, she knew not what.

I calmed her as well as I could, telling her the detective had not yet informed me what he could do, having some questions to ask her first. Would she come in to see him? She rose with alacrity. Anything was better than suspense.

Mr. Gryce, who in the short interim of my absence had altered his mood from the severe to the beneficent, received Mrs. Belden with just that show of respectful courtesy likely to impress a woman as dependent as she upon the good opinion of others.

"Ah! and this is the lady in whose house this very disagreeable event has occurred," he exclaimed, partly rising in his enthusiasm to greet her. "May I request you to sit," he asked; "if a stranger may be allowed to take the liberty of inviting a lady to sit in her own house."

"It does not seem like my own house any longer," said she, but in a sad, rather than an aggressive tone; so much had his genial way imposed upon her. "Little better than a prisoner here, go and come, keep silence or speak, just as I am bidden; and all because an unhappy creature, whom I took in for the most unselfish of motives, has chanced to die in my house!"

"Just so!" exclaimed Mr. Gryce; "it is very unjust. But perhaps we can right matters. I have every reason to believe we can. This sudden death ought to be easily explained. You say you had no poison in the house?"

"No, sir."

"And that the girl never went out?"

"Never, sir."

"And that no one has ever been here to see her?"

"No one, sir."

"So that she could not have procured any such thing if she had wished?"

"No, sir."

"Unless," he added suavely, "she had it with her when she came here?"

"That couldn't have been, sir. She brought no baggage; and as for her pocket, I know everything there was in it, for I looked."

"And what did you find there?"

"Some money in bills, more than you would have expected such a girl to have, some loose pennies, and a common handkerchief."

"Well, then, it is proved the girl didn't die of poison, there being none in the house."

He said this in so convinced a tone she was deceived.

"That is just what I have been telling Mr. Raymond," giving me a triumphant look.

"Must have been heart disease," he went on, "You say she was well yesterday?"

"Yes, sir; or seemed so."

"Though not cheerful?"

"I did not say that; she was, sir, very."

"What, ma'am, this girl?" giving me a look. "I don't understand that. I should think her anxiety about those she had left behind her in the city would have been enough to keep her from being very cheerful."

"So you would," returned Mrs. Belden; "but it wasn't so. On the contrary, she never seemed to worry about them at all."

"What! not about Miss Eleanore, who, according to the papers, stands in so cruel a position before the world? But perhaps she didn't know anything about that—Miss Leavenworth's position, I mean?"

"Yes, she did, for I told her. I was so astonished I could not keep it to myself. You see, I had always considered Eleanore as one above reproach, and it so shocked me to see her name mentioned in the newspaper in such a connection, that I went to Hannah and read the article aloud, and watched her face to see how she took it."

"And how did she?"

"I can't say. She looked as if she didn't understand; asked me why I read such things to her, and told me she didn't want to hear any more; that I had promised not to trouble her about this murder, and that if I continued to do so she wouldn't listen."

"Humph! and what else?"

"Nothing else. She put her hand over her ears and frowned in such a sullen way I left the room."

"That was when?"

"About three weeks ago."

"She has, however, mentioned the subject since?"

"No, sir; not once."

"What! not asked what they were going to do with her mistress?"

"No, sir."

"She has shown, however, that something was preying on her mind—fear, remorse, or anxiety?"

"No, sir; on the contrary, she has oftener appeared like one secretly elated."

"But," exclaimed Mr. Gryce, with another sidelong look at me, "that was very strange and unnatural. I cannot account for it."

"Nor I, sir. I used to try to explain it by thinking her sensibilities had been blunted, or that she was too ignorant to comprehend the seriousness of what had happened; but as I learned to know her better, I gradually changed my mind. There was too much method in her gayety for that. I could not help seeing she had some future before her for which she was preparing herself. As, for instance, she asked me one day if I thought she could learn to play on the piano. And I finally came to the conclusion she had been promised money if she kept the secret intrusted to her, and was so pleased with the prospect that she forgot the dreadful past, and all connected with it. At all events, that was the only explanation I could find for her general industry and desire to improve herself, or for the complacent smiles I detected now and then stealing over her face when she didn't know I was looking."

Not such a smile as crept over the countenance of Mr. Gryce at that moment, I warrant.

"It was all this," continued Mrs. Belden, "which made her death such a shock to me. I couldn't believe that so cheerful and healthy a creature could die like that, all in one night, without anybody knowing anything about it. But——"

"Wait one moment," Mr. Gryce here broke in. "You speak of her endeavors to improve herself. What do you mean by that?"

"Her desire to learn things she didn't know; as, for instance, to write and read writing. She could only clumsily print when she came here."

I thought Mr. Gryce would take a piece out of my arm, he griped it so.

"When she came here! Do you mean to say that since she has been with you she has learned to write?"

"Yes, sir; I used to set her copies and——"

"Where are these copies?" broke in Mr. Gryce, subduing his voice to its most professional tone. "And where are her attempts at writing? I'd like to see some of them. Can't you get them for us?"

"I don't know, sir. I always made it a point to destroy them as soon as they had answered their purpose. I didn't like to have such things lying around. But I will go see."

"Do," said he; "and I will go with you. I want to take a look at things upstairs, any way." And, heedless of his rheumatic feet, he rose and prepared to accompany her.

"This is getting very intense," I whispered, as he passed me.

The smile he gave me in reply would have made the fortune of a Thespian Mephistopheles.

Of the ten minutes of suspense which I endured in their absence, I say nothing. At the end of that time they returned with their hands full of paper boxes, which they flung down on the table.

"The writing-paper of the household," observed Mr. Gryce; "every scrap and half-sheet which could be found. But, before you examine it, look at this." And he held out a sheet of bluish foolscap, on which were written some dozen imitations of that time-worn copy, "BE GOOD AND YOU WILL BE HAPPY"; with an occasional "Beauty soon fades," and "Evil communications corrupt good manners."

"What do you think of that?"

"Very neat and very legible."

"That is Hannah's latest. The only specimens of her writing to be found. Not much like some scrawls we have seen, eh?"

"No."

"Mrs. Belden says this girl has known how to write as good as this for more than a week. Took great pride in it, and was continually talking about how smart she was." Leaning over, he whispered in my ear, "This thing you have in your hand must have been scrawled some time ago, if she did it." Then aloud: "But let us look at the paper she used to write on."

Dashing open the covers of the boxes on the table, he took out the loose sheets lying inside, and scattered them out before me. One glance showed they were all of an utterly different quality from that used in the confession. "This is all the paper in the house," said he.

"Are you sure of that?" I asked, looking at Mrs. Belden, who stood in a sort of maze before us. "Wasn't there one stray sheet lying around somewhere, foolscap or something like that, which she might have got hold of and used without your knowing it?"

"No, sir; I don't think so. I had only these kinds; besides, Hannah had a whole pile of paper like this in her room, and wouldn't have been apt to go hunting round after any stray sheets."

"But you don't know what a girl like that might do. Look at this one," said I, showing her the blank side of the confession. "Couldn't a sheet like this have come from somewhere about the house? Examine it well; the matter is important."

"I have, and I say, no, I never had a sheet of paper like that in my house."

Mr. Gryce advanced and took the confession from my hand. As he did so, he whispered: "What do you think now? Many chances that Hannah got up this precious document?"

I shook my head, convinced at last; but in another moment turned to him and whispered back: "But, if Hannah didn't write it, who did? And how came it to be found where it was?"

"That," said he, "is just what is left for us to learn." And, beginning again, he put question after question concerning the girl's life in the house, receiving answers which only tended to show that she could not have brought the confession with her, much less received it from a secret messenger. Unless we doubted Mrs. Belden's word, the mystery seemed impenetrable, and I was beginning to despair of success, when Mr. Gryce, with an askance look at me, leaned towards Mrs. Belden and said:

"You received a letter from Miss Mary Leavenworth yesterday, I hear."

"Yes, sir."

"This letter?" he continued, showing it to her.

"Yes, sir."

"Now I want to ask you a question. Was the letter, as you see it, the only contents of the envelope in which it came? Wasn't there one for Hannah enclosed with it?"

"No, sir. There was nothing in my letter for her; but she had a letter herself yesterday. It came in the same mail with mine."

"Hannah had a letter!" we both exclaimed; "and in the mail?"

"Yes; but it was not directed to her. It was"—casting me a look full of despair, "directed to me. It was only by a certain mark in the corner of the envelope that I knew——"

"Good heaven!" I interrupted; "where is this letter? Why didn't you speak of it before? What do you mean by allowing us to flounder about here in the dark, when a glimpse at this letter might have set us right at once?"

"I didn't think anything about it till this minute. I didn't know it was of importance. I——"

But I couldn't restrain myself. "Mrs. Belden, where is this letter?" I demanded. "Have you got it?"

"No," said she; "I gave it to the girl yesterday; I haven't seen it since."

"It must be upstairs, then. Let us take another look." and I hastened towards the door.

"You won't find it," said Mr. Gryce at my elbow. "I have looked. There is nothing but a pile of burned paper in the corner. By the way, what could that have been?" he asked of Mrs. Belden.

"I don't know, sir. She hadn't anything to burn unless it was the letter."

"We will see about that," I muttered, hurrying upstairs and bringing down the wash-bowl with its contents. "If the letter was the one I saw in your hand at the post-office, it was in a yellow envelope."

"Yes, sir."

"Yellow envelopes burn differently from white paper. I ought to be able to tell the tinder made by a yellow envelope when I see it. Ah, the letter has been destroyed; here is a piece of the envelope," and I drew out of the heap of charred scraps a small bit less burnt than the rest, and held it up.

"Then there is no use looking here for what the letter contained," said Mr. Gryce, putting the wash-bowl aside. "We will have to ask you, Mrs. Belden."

"But I don't know. It was directed to me, to be sure; but Hannah told me, when she first requested me to teach her how to write, that she expected such a letter, so I didn't open it when it came, but gave it to her just as it was."

"You, however, stayed by to see her read it?"

"No, sir; I was in too much of a flurry. Mr. Raymond had just come and I had no time to think of her. My own letter, too, was troubling me."

"But you surely asked her some questions about it before the day was out?"

"Yes, sir, when I went up with her tea things; but she had nothing to say. Hannah could be as reticent as any one I ever knew, when she pleased. She didn't even admit it was from her mistress."

"Ah! then you thought it was from Miss Leavenworth?"

"Why, yes, sir; what else was I to think, seeing that mark in the corner? Though, to be sure, it might have been put there by Mr. Clavering," she thoughtfully added.

"You say she was cheerful yesterday; was she so after receiving this letter?"

"Yes, sir; as far as I could see. I wasn't with her long; the necessity I felt of doing something with the box in my charge—but perhaps Mr. Raymond has told you?"

Mr. Gryce nodded.

"It was an exhausting evening, and quite put Hannah out of my head, but——"

"Wait!" cried Mr. Gryce, and beckoning me into a corner, he whispered, "Now comes in that experience of Q's. While you are gone from the house, and before Mrs. Belden sees Hannah again, he has a glimpse of the girl bending over something in the corner of her room which may very fairly be the wash-bowl we found there. After which, he sees her swallow, in the most lively way, a dose of something from a bit of paper. Was there anything more?"

"No," said I.

"Very well, then," he cried, going back to Mrs. Belden. "But——"

"But when I went upstairs to bed, I thought of the girl, and going to her door opened it. The light was extinguished, and she seemed asleep, so I closed it again and came out."

"Without speaking?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did you notice how she was lying?"

"Not particularly. I think on her back."

"In something of the same position in which she was found this morning?"

"Yes, sir."

"And that is all you can tell us, either of her letter or her mysterious death?"

"All, sir."

Mr. Gryce straightened himself up.

"Mrs. Belden," said he, "you know Mr. Clavering's handwriting when you see it?"

"I do."

"And Miss Leavenworth's?"

"Yes, sir."

"Now, which of the two was upon the envelope of the letter you gave Hannah?"

"I couldn't say. It was a disguised handwriting and might have been that of either; but I think——"

"Well?"

"That it was more like hers than his, though it wasn't like hers either."

With a smile, Mr. Gryce enclosed the confession in his hand in the envelope in which it had been found. "You remember how large the letter was which you gave her?"

"Oh, it was large, very large; one of the largest sort."

"And thick?"

"O yes; thick enough for two letters."

"Large enough and thick enough to contain this?" laying the confession, folded and enveloped as it was, before her.

"Yes, sir," giving it a look of startled amazement, "large enough and thick enough to contain that."

Mr. Gryce's eyes, bright as diamonds, flashed around the room, and finally settled upon a fly traversing my coat-sleeve. "Do you need to ask now," he whispered, in a low voice, "where, and from whom, this so-called confession comes?"

He allowed himself one moment of silent triumph, then rising, began folding the papers on the table and putting them in his pocket.

"What are you going to do?" I asked, hurriedly approaching.

He took me by the arm and led me across the hall into toe sitting-room. "I am going back to New York, ram going to pursue this matter. I am going to find out from, whom came the poison which killed this girl, and by whose hand this vile forgery of a confession was written."

"But," said I, rather thrown off my balance by all this, "Q and the coroner will be here presently, won't you wait to see them?"

"No; clues such as are given here must be followed while the trail is hot; I can't afford to wait."

"If I am not mistaken, they have already come," I remarked, as a tramping of feet without announced that some one stood at the door.

"That is so," he assented, hastening to let them in.

Judging from common experience, we had every reason to fear that an immediate stop would be put to all proceedings on our part, as soon as the coroner was introduced upon the scene. But happily for us and the interest at stake, Dr. Fink, of R ——, proved to be a very sensible man. He had only to hear a true story of the affair to recognize at once its importance and the necessity of the most cautious action in the matter. Further, by a sort of sympathy with Mr. Gryce, all the more remarkable that he had never seen him before, he expressed himself as willing to enter into our plans, offering not only to allow us the temporary use of such papers as we desired, but even undertaking to conduct the necessary formalities of calling a jury and instituting an inquest in such a way as to give us time for the investigations we proposed to make.

The delay was therefore short. Mr. Gryce was enabled to take the 6:30 train for New York, and I to follow on the 10 p.m.,—the calling of a jury, ordering of an autopsy, and final adjournment of the inquiry till the following Tuesday, having all taken place in the interim.

XXXV. FINE WORK

"No hinge nor loop
To hang a doubt on!"
"But yet the pity of it, Iago!
Oh, Iago, the pity of it, Iago."
—Othello.

One sentence dropped by Mr. Gryce before leaving R—— prepared me for his next move.

"The clue to this murder is supplied by the paper on which the confession is written. Find from whose desk or portfolio this especial sheet was taken, and you find the double murderer," he had said.

Consequently, I was not surprised when, upon visiting his house, early the next morning, I beheld him seated before a table on which lay a lady's writing-desk and a pile of paper, till told the desk was Eleanore's. Then I did show astonishment. "What," said I, "are you not satisfied yet of her innocence?"

"O yes; but one must be thorough. No conclusion is valuable which is not preceded by a full and complete investigation. Why," he cried, casting his eyes complacently towards the fire-tongs, "I have even been rummaging through Mr. Clavering's effects, though the confession bears the proof upon its face that it could not have been written by him. It is not enough to look for evidence where you expect to find it. You must sometimes search for it where you don't. Now," said he, drawing the desk before him, "I don't anticipate finding anything here of a criminating character; but it is among the possibilities that I may; and that is enough for a detective."

"Did you see Miss Leavenworth this morning?" I asked, as he proceeded to fulfil his intention by emptying the contents of the desk upon the table.

"Yes; I was unable to procure what I desired without it. And she behaved very handsomely, gave me the desk with her own hands, and never raised an objection. To be sure, she had little idea what I was looking for; thought, perhaps, I wanted to make sure it did not contain the letter about which so much has been said. But it would have made but little difference if she had known the truth. This desk contains nothing we want."

"Was she well; and had she heard of Hannah's sudden death?" I asked, in my irrepressible anxiety.

"Yes, and feels it, as you might expect her to. But let us see what we have here," said he, pushing aside the desk, and drawing towards him the stack of paper I have already referred to. "I found this pile, just as you see it, in a drawer of the library table at Miss Mary Leavenworth's house in Fifth Avenue. If I am not mistaken, it will supply us with the clue we want."

"But——"

"But this paper is square, while that of the confession is of the size and shape of commercial note? I know; but you remember the sheet used in the confession was trimmed down. Let us compare the quality."

Taking the confession from his pocket and the sheet from the pile before him, he carefully compared them, then held them out for my inspection. A glance showed them to be alike in color.

"Hold them up to the light," said he.

I did so; the appearance presented by both was precisely alike.

"Now let us compare the ruling." And, laying them both down on the table, he placed the edges of the two sheets together. The lines on the one accommodated themselves to the lines on the other; and that question was decided.

His triumph was assured. "I was convinced of it," said he. "From the moment I pulled open that drawer and saw this mass of paper, I knew the end was come."

"But," I objected, in my old spirit of combativeness, "isn't there any room for doubt? This paper is of the commonest kind. Every family on the block might easily have specimens of it in their library."

"That isn't so," he said. "It is letter size, and that has gone out. Mr. Leavenworth used it for his manuscript, or I doubt if it would have been found in his library. But, if you are still incredulous, let us see what can be done," and jumping up, he carried the confession to the window, looked at it this way and that, and, finally discovering what he wanted, came back and, laying it before me, pointed out one of the lines of ruling which was markedly heavier than the rest, and another which was so faint as to be almost undistinguishable. "Defects like these often run through a number of consecutive sheets," said he. "If we could find the identical half-quire from which this was taken, I might show you proof that would dispel every doubt," and taking up the one that lay on top, he rapidly counted the sheets. There were but eight. "It might have been taken from this one," said he; but, upon looking closely at the ruling, he found it to be uniformly distinct. "Humph! that won't do!" came from his lips.

The remainder of the paper, some dozen or so half-quires, looked undisturbed. Mr. Gryce tapped his fingers on the table and a frown crossed his face. "Such a pretty thing, if it could have been done!" he longingly exclaimed. Suddenly he took up the next half-quire. "Count the sheets," said he, thrusting it towards me, and himself lifting another.

I did as I was bid. "Twelve."

He counted his and laid it down. "Go on with the rest," he cried.

I counted the sheets in the next; twelve. He counted those in the one following, and paused. "Eleven!"

"Count again," I suggested.

He counted again, and quietly put them aside. "I made a mistake," said he.

But he was not to be discouraged. Taking another half-quire, he went through with the same operation;—in vain. With a sigh of impatience he flung it down on the table and looked up. "Halloo!" he cried, "what is the matter?"

"There are but eleven sheets in this package," I said, placing it in his hand.

The excitement he immediately evinced was contagious. Oppressed as I was, I could not resist his eagerness. "Oh, beautiful!" he exclaimed. "Oh, beautiful! See! the light on the inside, the heavy one on the outside, and both in positions precisely corresponding to those on this sheet of Hannah's. What do you think now? Is any further proof necessary?"

"The veriest doubter must succumb before this," returned I.

With something like a considerate regard for my emotion, he turned away. "I am obliged to congratulate myself, notwithstanding the gravity of the discovery that has been made," said he. "It is so neat, so very neat, and so conclusive. I declare I am myself astonished at the perfection of the thing. But what a woman that is!" he suddenly cried, in a tone of the greatest admiration. "What an intellect she has! what shrewdness! what skill! I declare it is almost a pity to entrap a woman who has done as well as this—taken a sheet from the very bottom of the pile, trimmed it into another shape, and then, remembering the girl couldn't write, put what she had to say into coarse, awkward printing, Hannah-like. Splendid! or would have been, if any other man than myself had had this thing in charge." And, all animated and glowing with his enthusiasm, he eyed the chandelier above him as if it were the embodiment of his own sagacity.

Sunk in despair, I let him go on.

"Could she have done any better?" he now asked. "Watched, circumscribed as she was, could she have done any better? I hardly think so; the fact of Hannah's having learned to write after she left here was fatal. No, she could not have provided against that contingency."

"Mr. Gryce," I here interposed, unable to endure this any longer; "did you have an interview with Miss Mary Leavenworth this morning?"

"No," said he; "it was not in the line of my present purpose to do so. I doubt, indeed, if she knew I was in her house. A servant maid who has a grievance is a very valuable assistant to a detective. With Molly at my side, I didn't need to pay my respects to the mistress."

"Mr. Gryce," I asked, after another moment of silent self-congratulation on his part, and of desperate self-control on mine, "what do you propose to do now? You have followed your clue to the end and are satisfied. Such knowledge as this is the precursor of action."

"Humph! we will see," he returned, going to his private desk and bringing out the box of papers which we had no opportunity of looking at while in R——. "First let us examine these documents, and see if they do not contain some hint which may be of service to us." And taking out the dozen or so loose sheets which had been torn from Eleanore's Diary, he began turning them over.

While he was doing this, I took occasion to examine the contents of the box. I found them to be precisely what Mrs. Belden had led me to expect,—a certificate of marriage between Mary and Mr. Clavering and a half-dozen or more letters. While glancing over the former, a short exclamation from Mr. Gryce startled me into looking up.

"What is it?" I cried.

He thrust into my hand the leaves of Eleanore's Diary. "Read," said he. "Most of it is a repetition of what you have already heard from Mrs. Belden, though given from a different standpoint; but there is one passage in it which, if I am not mistaken, opens up the way to an explanation of this murder such as we have not had yet. Begin at the beginning; you won't find it dull."

Dull! Eleanore's feelings and thoughts during that anxious time, dull!

Mustering up my self-possession, I spread out the leaves in their order and commenced:

"R——, July 6,-"

"Two days after they got there, you perceive," Mr. Gryce explained.

"—A gentleman was introduced to us to-day upon the piazza whom I cannot forbear mentioning; first, because he is the most perfect specimen of manly beauty I ever beheld, and secondly, because Mary, who is usually so voluble where gentlemen are concerned, had nothing to say when, in the privacy of our own apartment, I questioned her as to the effect his appearance and conversation had made upon her. The fact that he is an Englishman may have something to do with this; Uncle's antipathy to every one of that nation being as well known to her as to me. But somehow I cannot feel satisfied of this. Her experience with Charlie Somerville has made me suspicious. What if the story of last summer were to be repeated here, with an Englishman for the hero! But I will not allow myself to contemplate such a possibility. Uncle will return in a few days, and then all communication with one who, however prepossessing, is of a family and race with whom it is impossible for us to unite ourselves, must of necessity cease. I doubt if I should have thought twice of all this if Mr. Clavering had not betrayed, upon his introduction to Mary, such intense and unrestrained admiration.

"July 8. The old story is to be repeated. Mary not only submits to the attentions of Mr. Clavering, but encourages them. To-day she sat two hours at the piano singing over to him her favorite songs, and tonight—But I will not put down every trivial circumstance that comes under my observation; it is unworthy of me. And yet, how can I shut my eyes when the happiness of so many I love is at stake!

"July 11. If Mr. Clavering is not absolutely in love with Mary, he is on the verge of it. He is a very fine-looking man, and too honorable to be trifled with in this reckless fashion.

"July 13. Mary's beauty blossoms like the rose. She was absolutely wonderful tonight in scarlet and silver. I think her smile the sweetest I ever beheld, and in this I am sure Mr. Clavering passionately agrees with me; he never looked away from her tonight. But it is not so easy to read her heart. To be sure, she appears anything but indifferent to his fine appearance, strong sense, and devoted affection. But did she not deceive us into believing she loved Charlie Somerville? In her case, blush and smile go for little, I fear. Would it not be wiser under the circumstances to say, I hope?

"July 17. Oh, my heart! Mary came into my room this evening, and absolutely startled me by falling at my side and burying her face in my lap. 'Oh, Eleanore, Eleanore!' she murmured, quivering with what seemed to me very happy sobs. But when I strove to lift her head to my breast, she slid from my arms, and drawing herself up into her old attitude of reserved pride, raised her hand as if to impose silence, and haughtily left the room. There is but one interpretation to put upon this. Mr. Clavering has expressed his sentiments, and she is filled with that reckless delight which in its first flush makes one insensible to the existence of barriers which have hitherto been deemed impassable. When will Uncle come?

"July 18. little did I think when I wrote the above that Uncle was already in the house. He arrived unexpectedly on the last train, and came into my room just as I was putting away my diary. Looking a little care-worn, he took me in his arms and then asked for Mary. I dropped my head, and could not help stammering as I replied that she was in her own room. Instantly his love took alarm, and leaving me, he hastened to her apartment, where I afterwards learned he came upon her sitting abstractedly before her dressing-table with Mr. Clavering's family ring on her finger. I do not know what followed. An unhappy scene, I fear, for Mary is ill this morning, and Uncle exceedingly melancholy and stern.

"Afternoon. We are an unhappy family! Uncle not only refuses to consider for a moment the question of Mary's alliance with Mr. Clavering, but even goes so far as to demand his instant and unconditional dismissal. The knowledge of this came to me in the most distressing way. Recognizing the state of affairs, but secretly rebelling against a prejudice which seemed destined to separate two persons otherwise fitted for each other, I sought Uncle's presence this morning after breakfast, and attempted to plead their cause. But he almost instantly stopped me with the remark, 'You are the last one, Eleanore, who should seek to promote this marriage.' Trembling with apprehension, I asked him why. 'For the reason that by so doing you work entirely for your own interest.' More and more troubled, I begged him to explain himself. 'I mean,' said he, 'that if Mary disobeys me by marrying this Englishman, I shall disinherit her, and substitute your name for hers in my will as well as in my affection.'

"For a moment everything swam before my eyes. 'You will never make me so wretched!' I entreated. 'I will make you my heiress, if Mary persists in her present determination,' he declared, and without further word sternly left the room. What could I do but fall on my knees and pray! Of all in this miserable house, I am the most wretched. To supplant her! But I shall not be called upon to do it; Mary will give up Mr. Clavering."

"There!" exclaimed Mr. Gryce. "What do you think of that? Isn't it becoming plain enough what was Mary's motive for this murder? But go on; let us hear what followed."

With sinking heart, I continued. The next entry is dated July 19, and runs thus:

"I was right. After a long struggle with Uncle's invincible will, Mary has consented to dismiss Mr. Clavering. I was in the room when she made known her decision, and I shall never forget our Uncle's look of gratified pride as he clasped her in his arms and called her his own True Heart. He has evidently been very much exercised over this matter, and I cannot but feel greatly relieved that affairs have terminated so satisfactorily. But Mary? What is there in her manner that vaguely disappoints me? I cannot say. I only know that I felt a powerful shrinking overwhelm me when she turned her face to me and asked if I were satisfied now. But I conquered my feelings and held out my hand. She did not take it.

"July 26. How long the days are! The shadow of our late trial is upon me yet; I cannot shake it off. I seem to see Mr. Clavering's despairing face wherever I go. How is it that Mary preserves her cheerfulness? If she does not love him, I should think the respect which she must feel for his disappointment would keep her from levity at least.

"Uncle has gone away again. Nothing I could say sufficed to keep him.

"July 28. It has all come out. Mary has only nominally separated from Mr. Clavering; she still cherishes the idea of one day uniting herself to him in marriage. The fact was revealed to me in a strange way not necessary to mention here; and has since been confirmed by Mary herself. 'I admire the man,' she declares, 'and have no intention of giving him up.' 'Then why not tell Uncle so?' I asked. Her only answer was a bitter smile and a short,—'I leave that for you to do.'

"July 30. Midnight. Worn completely out, but before my blood cools let me write. Mary is a wife. I have just returned from seeing her give her hand to Henry Clavering. Strange that I can write it without quivering when my whole soul is one flush of indignation and revolt. But let me state the facts. Having left my room for a few minutes this morning, I returned to find on my dressing-table a note from Mary in which she informed me that she was going to take Mrs. Belden for a drive and would not be back for some hours. Convinced, as I had every reason to be, that she was on her way to meet Mr. Clavering, I only stopped to put on my hat—"

There the Diary ceased.

"She was probably interrupted by Mary at this point," explained Mr. Gryce. "But we have come upon the one thing we wanted to know. Mr. Leavenworth threatened to supplant Mary with Eleanore if she persisted in marrying contrary to his wishes. She did so marry, and to avoid the consequences of her act she——"

"Say no more," I returned, convinced at last. "It is only too clear."

Mr. Gryce rose.

"But the writer of these words is saved," I went on, trying to grasp the one comfort left me. "No one who reads this Diary will ever dare to insinuate she is capable of committing a crime."

"Assuredly not; the Diary settles that matter effectually."

I tried to be man enough to think of that and nothing else. To rejoice in her deliverance, and let every other consideration go; but in this I did not succeed. "But Mary, her cousin, almost her sister, is lost," I muttered.

Mr. Gryce thrust his hands into his pockets and, for the first time, showed some evidence of secret disturbance. "Yes, I am afraid she is; I really am afraid she is." Then after a pause, during which I felt a certain thrill of vague hope: "Such an entrancing creature too! It is a pity, it positively is a pity! I declare, now that the thing is worked up, I begin to feel almost sorry we have succeeded so well. Strange, but true. If there was the least loophole out of it," he muttered. "But there isn't. The thing is clear as A, B, C." Suddenly he rose, and began pacing the floor very thoughtfully, casting his glances here, there, and everywhere, except at me, though I believe now, as then, my face was all he saw.

"Would it be a very great grief to you, Mr. Raymond, if Miss Mary Leavenworth should be arrested on this charge of murder?" he asked, pausing before a sort of tank in which two or three disconsolate-looking fishes were slowly swimming about.

"Yes," said I, "it would; a very great grief." "Yet it must be done," said he, though with a strange lack of his usual decision. "As an honest official, trusted to bring the murderer of Mr. Leavenworth to the notice of the proper authorities, I have got to do it."

Again that strange thrill of hope at my heart induced by his peculiar manner.

"Then my reputation as a detective! I ought surely to consider that. I am not so rich or so famous that I can afford to forget all that a success like this may bring me. No, lovely as she is, I have got to push it through." But even as he said this, he became still more thoughtful, gazing down into the murky depths of the wretched tank before him with such an intentness I half expected the fascinated fishes to rise from the water and return his gaze. What was in his mind?

After a little while he turned, his indecision utterly gone. "Mr. Raymond, come here again at three. I shall then have my report ready for the Superintendent. I should like to show it to you first, so don't fail me."

There was something so repressed in his expression, I could not prevent myself from venturing one question. "Is your mind made up?" I asked.

"Yes," he returned, but in a peculiar tone, and with a peculiar gesture.

"And you are going to make the arrest you speak of?"

"Come at three!"

XXXVI. GATHERED THREADS

"This is the short and the long of it."
—Merry Wives of Windsor.

PROMPTLY at the hour named, I made my appearance at Mr. Gryce's door. I found him awaiting me on the threshold.

"I have met you," said he gravely, "for the purpose of requesting you not to speak during the coming interview. I am to do the talking; you the listening. Neither are you to be surprised at anything I may do or say. I am in a facetious mood"—he did not look so—"and may take it into my head to address you by another name than your own. If I do, don't mind it. Above all, don't talk: remember that." And without waiting to meet my look of doubtful astonishment, he led me softly upstairs.

The room in which I had been accustomed to meet him was at the top of the first flight, but he took me past that into what appeared to be the garret story, where, after many cautionary signs, he ushered me into a room of singularly strange and unpromising appearance. In the first place, it was darkly gloomy, being lighted simply by a very dim and dirty skylight. Next, it was hideously empty; a pine table and two hard-backed chairs, set face to face at each end of it, being the only articles in the room. Lastly, it was surrounded by several closed doors with blurred and ghostly ventilators over their tops which, being round, looked like the blank eyes of a row of staring mummies. Altogether it was a lugubrious spot, and in the present state of my mind made me feel as if something unearthly and threatening lay crouched in the very atmosphere. Nor, sitting there cold and desolate, could I imagine that the sunshine glowed without, or that life, beauty, and pleasure paraded the streets below.

Mr. Gryce's expression, as he took a seat and beckoned me to do the same, may have had something to do with this strange sensation, it was so mysteriously and sombrely expectant.

"You'll not mind the room," said he, in so muffled a tone I scarcely heard him. "It's an awful lonesome spot, I know; but folks with such matters before them mustn't be too particular as to the places in which they hold their consultations, if they don't want all the world to know as much as they do. Smith," and he gave me an admonitory shake of his finger, while his voice took a more distinct tone, "I have done the business; the reward is mine; the assassin of Mr. Leavenworth is found, and in two hours will be in custody. Do you want to know who it is?" leaning forward with every appearance of eagerness in tone and expression.

I stared at him in great amazement. Had anything new come to light? any great change taken place in his conclusions? All this preparation could not be for the purpose of acquainting me with what I already knew, yet—

He cut short my conjectures with a low, expressive chuckle. "It was a long chase, I tell you," raising his voice still more; "a tight go; a woman in the business too; but all the women in the world can't pull the wool over the eyes of Ebenezer Gryce when he is on a trail; and the assassin of Mr. Leavenworth and"—here his voice became actually shrill in his excitement—"and of Hannah Chester is found.

"Hush!" he went on, though I had neither spoken nor made any move; "you didn't know Hannah Chester was murdered. Well, she wasn't in one sense of the word, but in another she was, and by the same hand that killed the old gentleman. How do I know this? look here! This scrap of paper was found on the floor of her room; it had a few particles of white powder sticking to it; those particles were tested last night and found to be poison. But you say the girl took it herself, that she was a suicide. You are right, she did take it herself, and it was a suicide; but who terrified her into this act of self-destruction? Why, the one who had the most reason to fear her testimony, of course. But the proof, you say. Well, sir, this girl left a confession behind her, throwing the onus of the whole crime on a certain party believed to be innocent; this confession was a forged one, known from three facts; first, that the paper upon which it was written was unobtainable by the girl in the place where she was; secondly, that the words used therein were printed in coarse, awkward characters, whereas Hannah, thanks to the teaching of the woman under whose care she has been since the murder, had learned to write very well; thirdly, that the story told in the confession does not agree with the one related by the girl herself. Now the fact of a forged confession throwing the guilt upon an innocent party having been found in the keeping of this ignorant girl, killed by a dose of poison, taken with the fact here stated, that on the morning of the day on which she killed herself the girl received from some one manifestly acquainted with the customs of the Leavenworth family a letter large enough and thick enough to contain the confession folded, as it was when found, makes it almost certain to my mind that the murderer of Mr. Leavenworth sent this powder and this so-called confession to the girl, meaning her to use them precisely as she did: for the purpose of throwing off suspicion from the right track and of destroying herself at the same time; for, as you know, dead men tell no tales."

He paused and looked at the dingy skylight above us. Why did the air seem to grow heavier and heavier? Why did I shudder in vague apprehension? I knew all this before; why did it strike me, then, as something new?

"But who was this? you ask. Ah, that is the secret; that is the bit of knowledge which is to bring me fame and fortune. But, secret or not, I don't mind telling you"; lowering his voice and rapidly raising it again. "The fact is, I can't keep it to myself; it burns like a new dollar in my pocket. Smith, my boy, the murderer of Mr. Leavenworth—but stay, who does the world say it is? Whom do the papers point at and shake their heads over? A woman! a young, beautiful, bewitching woman! Ha, ha, ha! The papers are right; it is a woman; young, beautiful, and bewitching too. But what one? Ah, that's the question. There is more than one woman in this affair. Since Hannah's death I have heard it openly advanced that she was the guilty party in the crime: bah! Others cry it is the niece who was so unequally dealt with by her uncle in his will: bah! again. But folks are not without some justification for this latter assertion. Eleanore Leavenworth did know more of this matter than appeared. Worse than that, Eleanore Leavenworth stands in a position of positive peril to-day. If you don't think so, let me show you what the detectives have against her.

"First, there is the fact that a handkerchief, with her name on it, was found stained with pistol grease upon the scene of murder; a place which she explicitly denies having entered for twenty-four hours previous to the discovery of the dead body.

"Secondly, the fact that she not only evinced terror when confronted with this bit of circumstantial evidence, but manifested a decided disposition, both at this time and others, to mislead inquiry, shirking a direct answer to some questions and refusing all answer to others.

"Thirdly, that an attempt was made by her to destroy a certain letter evidently relating to this crime.

"Fourthly, that the key to the library door was seen in her possession.

"All this, taken with the fact that the fragments of the letter which this same lady attempted to destroy within an hour after the inquest were afterwards put together, and were found to contain a bitter denunciation of one of Mr. Leavenworth's nieces, by a gentleman we will call X in other words, an unknown quantity—makes out a dark case against you, especially as after investigations revealed the fact that a secret underlay the history of the Leavenworth family. That, unknown to the world at large, and Mr. Leavenworth in particular, a marriage ceremony had been performed a year before in a little town called F—— between a Miss Leavenworth and this same X. That, in other words, the unknown gentleman who, in the letter partly destroyed by Miss Eleanore Leavenworth, complained to Mr. Leavenworth of the treatment received by him from one of his nieces, was in fact the secret husband of that niece. And that, moreover, this same gentle man, under an assumed name, called on the night of the murder at the house of Mr. Leavenworth and asked for Miss Eleanore's.

"Now you see, with all this against her, Eleanore Leavenworth is lost if it cannot be proved, first that the articles testifying against her, viz.: the handkerchief, letter, and key, passed after the murder through other hands, before reaching hers; and secondly, that some one else had even a stronger reason than she for desiring Mr. Leavenworth's death at this time.

"Smith, my boy, both of these hypotheses have been established by me. By dint of moleing into old secrets, and following unpromising clues, I have finally come to the conclusion that not Eleanore Leavenworth, dark as are the appearances against her, but another woman, beautiful as she, and fully as interesting, is the true criminal. In short, that her cousin, the exquisite Mary, is the murderer of Mr. Leavenworth, and by inference of Hannah Chester also."

He brought this out with such force, and with such a look of triumph and appearance of having led up to it, that I was for the moment dumbfounded, and started as if I had not known what he was going to say. The stir I made seemed to awake an echo. Something like a suppressed cry was in the air about me. All the room appeared to breathe horror and dismay. Yet when, in the excitement of this fancy, I half turned round to look, I found nothing but the blank eyes of those dull ventilators staring upon me.

"You are taken aback!" Mr. Gryce went on. "I don't wonder. Every one else is engaged in watching the movements of Eleanore Leavenworth; I only know where to put my hand upon the real culprit. You shake your head!" (Another fiction.) "You don't believe me! Think I am deceived. Ha, ha! Ebenezer Gryce deceived after a month of hard work! You are as bad as Miss Leavenworth herself, who has so little faith in my sagacity that she offered me, of all men, an enormous reward if I would find for her the assassin of her uncle! But that is neither here nor there; you have your doubts, and you are waiting for me to solve them. Well, nothing is easier. Know first that on the morning of the inquest I made one or two discoveries not to be found in the records, viz.: that the handkerchief picked up, as I have said, in Mr. Leavenworth's library, had notwithstanding its stains of pistol grease, a decided perfume lingering about it. Going to the dressing-table of the two ladies, I sought for that perfume, and found it in Mary's room, not Eleanore's. This led me to examine the pockets of the dresses respectively worn by them the evening before. In that of Eleanore I found a handkerchief, presumably the one she had carried at that time. But in Mary's there was none, nor did I see any lying about her room as if tossed down on her retiring. The conclusion I drew from this was, that she, and not Eleanore, had carried the handkerchief into her uncle's room, a conclusion emphasized by the fact privately communicated to me by one of the servants, that Mary was in Eleanore's room when the basket of clean clothes was brought up with this handkerchief lying on top.

"But knowing the liability we are to mistake in such matters as these, I made another search in the library, and came across a very curious thing. Lying on the table was a penknife, and scattered on the floor beneath, in close proximity to the chair, were two or three minute portions of wood freshly chipped off from the leg of the table; all of which looked as if some one of a nervous disposition had been sitting there, whose hand in a moment of self-forgetfulness had caught up the knife and unconsciously whittled the table, A little thing, you say; but when the question is, which of two ladies, one of a calm and self-possessed nature, the other restless in her ways and excitable in her disposition, was in a certain spot at a certain time, it is these little things that become almost deadly in their significance. No one who has been with these two women an hour can hesitate as to whose delicate hand made that cut in Mr. Leavenworth's library table.

"But we are not done. I distinctly overheard Eleanore accuse her cousin of this deed. Now such a woman as Eleanore Leavenworth has proved herself to be never would accuse a relative of crime without the strongest and most substantial reasons. First, she must have been sure her cousin stood in a position of such emergency that nothing but the death of her uncle could release her from it; secondly, that her cousin's character was of such a nature she would not hesitate to relieve herself from a desperate emergency by the most desperate of means; and lastly, been in possession of some circumstantial evidence against her cousin, seriously corroborative of her suspicions. Smith, all this was true of Eleanore Leavenworth. As to the character of her cousin, she has had ample proof of her ambition, love of money, caprice and deceit, it having been Mary Leavenworth, and not Eleanore, as was first supposed, who had contracted the secret marriage already spoken of. Of the critical position in which she stood, let the threat once made by Mr. Leavenworth to substitute her cousin's name for hers in his will in case she had married this x be remembered, as well as the tenacity with which Mary clung to her hopes of future fortune; while for the corroborative testimony of her guilt which Eleanore is supposed to have had, remember that previous to the key having been found in Eleanore's possession, she had spent some time in her cousin's room; and that it was at Mary's fireplace the half-burned fragments of that letter were found,—and you have the outline of a report which in an hour's time from this will lead to the arrest of Mary Leavenworth as the assassin of her uncle and benefactor."

A silence ensued which, like the darkness of Egypt, could be felt; then a great and terrible cry rang through the room, and a man's form, rushing from I knew not where, shot by me and fell at Mr. Gryce's feet shrieking out:

"It is a lie! a lie! Mary Leavenworth is innocent as a babe unborn. I am the murderer of Mr. Leavenworth. I! I! I!"

It was Trueman Harwell.

XXXVII. CULMINATION

"Saint seducing gold."
—Romeo and Juliet.

"When our actions do not,
Our fears do make us traitors."
--Macbeth.

I NEVER saw such a look of mortal triumph on the face of a man as that which crossed the countenance of the detective.

"Well," said he, "this is unexpected, but not wholly unwelcome. I am truly glad to learn that Miss Leavenworth is innocent; but I must hear some few more particulars before I shall be satisfied. Get up, Mr. Harwell, and explain yourself. If you are the murderer of Mr. Leavenworth, how comes it that things look so black against everybody but yourself?"

But in the hot, feverish eyes which sought him from the writhing form at his feet, there was mad anxiety and pain, but little explanation. Seeing him making unavailing efforts to speak, I drew near.

"Lean on me," said I, lifting him to his feet.

His face, relieved forever from its mask of repression, turned towards me with the look of a despairing spirit. "Save! save!" he gasped. "Save her—Mary—they are sending a report—stop it!"

"Yes," broke in another voice. "If there is a man here who believes in God and prizes woman's honor, let him stop the issue of that report." And Henry Clavering, dignified as ever, but in a state of extreme agitation, stepped into our midst through an open door at our right.

But at the sight of his face, the man in our arms quivered, shrieked, and gave one bound that would have overturned Mr. Clavering, herculean of frame as he was, had not Mr. Gryce interposed.

"Wait!" he cried; and holding back the secretary with one hand—where was his rheumatism now!—he put the other in his pocket and drew thence a document which he held up before Mr. Clavering. "It has not gone yet," said he; "be easy. And you," he went on, turning towards Trueman Harwell, "be quiet, or——"

His sentence was cut short by the man springing from his grasp. "Let me go!" he shrieked. "Let me have my revenge on him who, in face of all I have done for Mary Leavenworth, dares to call her his wife! Let me—" But at this point he paused, his quivering frame stiffening into stone, and his clutching hands, outstretched for his rival's throat, falling heavily back. "Hark!" said he, glaring over Mr. Clavering's shoulder: "it is she! I hear her! I feel her! She is on the stairs! she is at the door! she—" a low, shuddering sigh of longing and despair finished the sentence: the door opened, and Mary Leavenworth stood before us!

It was a moment to make young hairs turn gray. To see her face, so pale, so haggard, so wild in its fixed horror, turned towards Henry Clavering, to the utter ignoring of the real actor in this most horrible scene! Trueman Harwell could not stand it.

"Ah, ah!" he cried; "look at her! cold, cold; not one glance for me, though I have just drawn the halter from her neck and fastened it about my own!"

And, breaking from the clasp of the man who in his jealous rage would now have withheld him, he fell on his knees before Mary, clutching her dress with frenzied hands. "You shall look at me," he cried; "you shall listen to me! I will not lose body and soul for nothing. Mary, they said you were in peril! I could not endure that thought, so I uttered the truth,—yes, though I knew what the consequence would be,—and all I want now is for you to say you believe me, when I swear that I only meant to secure to you the fortune you so much desired; that I never dreamed it would come to this; that it was because I loved you, and hoped to win your love in return that I——"

But she did not seem to see him, did not seem to hear him. Her eyes were fixed upon Henry Clavering with an awful inquiry in their depths, and none but he could move her.

"You do not hear me!" shrieked the poor wretch. "Ice that you are, you would not turn your head if I should call to you from the depths of hell!"

But even this cry fell unheeded. Pushing her hands down upon his shoulders as though she would sweep some impediment from her path, she endeavored to advance. "Why is that man here?" she cried, indicating her husband with one quivering hand. "What has he done that he should be brought here to confront me at this awful time?"

'"I told her to come here to meet her uncle's murderer," whispered Mr. Gryce into my ear.

But before I could reply to her, before Mr. Clavering himself could murmur a word, the guilty wretch before her had started to his feet.

"Don't you know? then I will tell you. It is because these gentlemen, chivalrous and honorable as they consider themselves, think that you, the beauty and the Sybarite, committed with your own white hand the deed of blood which has brought you freedom and fortune. Yes, yes, this man"—turning and pointing at me—"friend as he has made himself out to be, kindly and honorable as you have doubtless believed him, but who in every look he has bestowed upon you, every word he has uttered in your hearing during all these four horrible weeks, has been weaving a cord for your neck—thinks you the assassin of your uncle, unknowing that a man stood at your side ready to sweep half the world from your path if that same white hand rose in bidding. That I——"

"You?" Ah! now she could see him: now she could hear him!

"Yes," clutching her robe again as she hastily recoiled; "didn't you know it? When in that dreadful hour of your rejection by your uncle, you cried aloud for some one to help you, didn't you know——"

"Don't!" she shrieked, bursting from him with a look of unspeakable horror. "Don't say that! Oh!" she gasped, "is the mad cry of a stricken woman for aid and sympathy the call for a murderer?" And turning away in horror, she moaned: "Who that ever looks at me now will forget that a man—such a man!—dared to think that, because I was in mortal perplexity, I would accept the murder of my best friend as a relief from it!" Her horror was unbounded. "Oh, what a chastisement for folly!" she murmured. "What a punishment for the love of money which has always been my curse!"

Henry Clavering could no longer restrain himself, leaping to her side, he bent over her. "Was it nothing but folly, Mary? Are you guiltless of any deeper wrong? Is there no link of complicity between you two? Have you nothing on your soul but an inordinate desire to preserve your place in your uncle's will, even at the risk of breaking my heart and wronging your noble cousin? Are you innocent in this matter? Tell me!" placing his hand on her head, he pressed it slowly back and gazed into her eyes; then, without a word, took her to his breast and looked calmly around him.

"She is innocent!" said he.

It was the uplifting of a stifling pall. No one in the room, unless it was the wretched criminal shivering before us, but felt a sudden influx of hope. Even Mary's own countenance caught a glow. "Oh!" she whispered, withdrawing from his arms to look better into his face, "and is this the man I have trifled with, injured, and tortured, till the very name of Mary Leavenworth might well make him shudder? Is this he whom I married in a fit of caprice, only to forsake and deny? Henry, do you declare me innocent in face of all you have seen and heard; in face of that moaning, chattering wretch before us, and my own quaking flesh and evident terror; with the remembrance on your heart and in your mind of the letter I wrote you the morning after the murder, in which I prayed you to keep away from me, as I was in such deadly danger the least hint given to the world that I had a secret to conceal would destroy me? Do you, can you, will you, declare me innocent before God and the world?"

"I do," said he.

A light such as had never visited her face before passed slowly over it. "Then God forgive me the wrong I have done this noble heart, for I can never forgive myself! Wait!" said she, as he opened his lips. "Before I accept any further tokens of your generous confidence, let me show you what I am. You shall know the worst of the woman you have taken to your heart. Mr. Raymond," she cried, turning towards me for the first time, "in those days when, with such an earnest desire for my welfare (you see I do not believe this man's insinuations), you sought to induce me to speak out and tell all I knew concerning this dreadful deed, I did not do it because of my selfish fears. I knew the case looked dark against me. Eleanore had told me so. Eleanore herself—and it was the keenest pang I had to endure—believed me guilty. She had her reasons. She knew first, from the directed envelope she had found lying underneath my uncle's dead body on the library table, that he had been engaged at the moment of death in summoning his lawyer to make that change in his will which would transfer my claims to her; secondly, that notwithstanding my denial of the same, I had been down to his room the night before, for she had heard my door open and my dress rustle as I passed out. But that was not all; the key that every one felt to be a positive proof of guilt wherever found, had been picked up by her from the floor of my room; the letter written by Mr. Clavering to my uncle was found in my fire; and the handkerchief which she had seen me take from the basket of clean clothes, was produced at the inquest stained with pistol grease. I could not account for these things. A web seemed tangled about my feet. I could not stir without encountering some new toil. I knew I was innocent; but if I failed to satisfy my cousin of this, how could I hope to convince the general public, if once called upon to do so. Worse still, if Eleanore, with every apparent motive for desiring long life to our uncle, was held in such suspicion because of a few circumstantial evidences against her, what would I not have to fear if these evidences were turned against me, the heiress! The tone and manner of the juryman at the inquest that asked who would be most benefited by my uncle's will showed but too plainly. When, therefore, Eleanore, true to her heart's generous instincts, closed her lips and refused to speak when speech would have been my ruin, I let her do it, justifying myself with the thought that she had deemed me capable of crime, and so must bear the consequences. Nor, when I saw how dreadful these were likely to prove, did I relent. Fear of the ignominy, suspense, and danger which confession would entail sealed my lips. Only once did I hesitate. That was when, in the last conversation we had, I saw that, notwithstanding appearances, you believed in Eleanore's innocence, and the thought crossed me you might be induced to believe in mine if I threw myself upon your mercy. But just then Mr. Clavering came; and as in a flash I seemed to realize what my future life would be, stained by suspicion, and, instead of yielding to my impulse, went so far in the other direction as to threaten Mr. Clavering with a denial of our marriage if he approached me again till all danger was over.

"Yes, he will tell you that was my welcome to him when, with heart and brain racked by long suspense, he came to my door for one word of assurance that the peril I was in was not of my own making. That was the greeting I gave him after a year of silence every moment of which was torture to him. But he forgives me; I see it in his eyes; I hear it in his accents; and you—oh, if in the long years to come you can forget what I have made Eleanore suffer by my selfish fears; if with the shadow of her wrong before you, you can by the grace of some sweet hope think a little less hardly of me, do. As for this man—torture could not be worse to me than this standing with him in the same room—let him come forward and declare if I by look or word have given him reason to believe I understood his passion, much less returned it."

"Why ask!" he gasped. "Don't you see it was your indifference which drove me mad? To stand before you, to agonize after you, to follow you with thoughts in every move you made; to know my soul was welded to yours with bands of steel no fire could melt, no force destroy, no strain dissever; to sleep under the same roof, sit at the same table, and yet meet not so much as one look to show me you understood! It was that which made my life a hell. I was determined you should understand. If I had to leap into a pit of flame, you should know what I was, and what my passion for you was. And you do. You comprehend it all now. Shrink as you will from my presence, cower as you may to the weak man you call husband, you can never forget the love of Trueman Harwell; never forget that love, love, love, was the force which led me down into your uncle's room that night, and lent me will to pull the trigger which poured all the wealth you hold this day into your lap. Yes," he went on, towering in his preternatural despair till even the noble form of Henry Clavering looked dwarfed beside him, "every dollar that chinks from your purse shall talk of me. Every gew-gaw which flashes on that haughty head, too haughty to bend to me, shall shriek my name into your ears. Fashion, pomp, luxury,—you will have them all; but till gold loses its glitter and ease its attraction you will never forget the hand that gave them to you!"

With a look whose evil triumph I cannot describe, he put his hand into the arm of the waiting detective, and in another moment would have been led from the room; when Mary, crushing down the swell of emotions that was seething in her breast, lifted her head and said:

"No, Trueman Harwell; I cannot give you even that thought for your comfort. Wealth so laden would bring nothing but torture. I cannot accept the torture, so must release the wealth. From this day, Mary Clavering owns nothing but what comes to her from the husband she has so long and so basely wronged." And raising her hands to her ears, she tore out the diamonds which hung there, and flung them at the feet of the unfortunate man.

It was the final wrench of the rack. With a yell such as I never thought to listen to from the lips of a man, he flung up his arms, while all the lurid light of madness glared on his face. "And I have given my soul to hell for a shadow!" he moaned, "for a shadow!"

"Well, that is the best day's work I ever did! Your congratulations, Mr. Raymond, upon the success of the most daring game ever played in a detective's office."

I looked at the triumphant countenance of Mr. Gryce in amazement. "What do you mean?" I cried; "did you plan all this?"

"Did I plan it?" he repeated. "Could I stand here, seeing how things have turned out, if I had not? Mr. Raymond, let us be comfortable. You are a gentleman, but we can well shake hands over this. I have never known such a satisfactory conclusion to a bad piece of business in all my professional career."

We did shake hands, long and fervently, and then I asked him to explain himself.

"Well," said he, "there has always been one thing that plagued me, even in the very moment of my strongest suspicion against this woman, and that was, the pistol-cleaning business. I could not reconcile it with what I knew of womankind. I could not make it seem the act of a woman. Did you ever know a woman who cleaned a pistol? No. They can fire them, and do; but after firing them, they do not clean them. Now it is a principle which every detective recognizes, that if of a hundred leading circumstances connected with a crime, ninety-nine of these are acts pointing to the suspected party with unerring certainty, but the hundredth equally important act one which that person could not have performed, the whole fabric of suspicion is destroyed. Recognizing this principle, then, as I have said, I hesitated when it came to the point of arrest. The chain was complete; the links were fastened; but one link was of a different size and material from the rest; and in this argued a break in the chain. I resolved to give her a final chance. Summoning Mr. Clavering, and Mr. Harwell, two persons whom I had no reason to suspect, but who were the only persons beside herself who could have committed this crime, being the only persons of intellect who were in the house or believed to be, at the time of the murder, I notified them separately that the assassin of Mr. Leavenworth was not only found, but was about to be arrested in my house, and that if they wished to hear the confession which would be sure to follow, they might have the opportunity of doing so by coming here at such an hour. They were both too much interested, though for very different reasons, to refuse; and I succeeded in inducing them to conceal themselves in the two rooms from which you saw them issue, knowing that if either of them had committed this deed, he had done it for the love of Mary Leavenworth, and consequently could not hear her charged with crime, and threatened with arrest, without betraying himself. I did not hope much from the experiment; least of all did I anticipate that Mr. Harwell would prove to be the guilty man—but live and learn, Mr. Raymond, live and learn."

XXXVIII. A FULL CONFESSION

"Between the acting of a dreadful thing,
And the first motion, all the interim is
Like a phantasma or a hideous dream;
The genius and the mortal instruments
Are then in council; and the state of a man,
Like to a little Kingdom, suffers then
The nature of an insurrection."
—Julius Caesar.

I AM not a bad man; I am only an intense one. Ambition, love, jealousy, hatred, revenge—transitory emotions with some, are terrific passions with me. To be sure, they are quiet and concealed ones, coiled serpents that make no stir till aroused; but then, deadly in their spring and relentless in their action. Those who have known me best have not known this. My own mother was ignorant of it. Often and often have I heard her say: "If Trueman only had more sensibility! If Trueman were not so indifferent to everything! In short, if Trueman had more power in him!"

It was the same at school. No one understood me. They thought me meek; called me Dough-face. For three years they called me this, then I turned upon them. Choosing out their ringleader, I felled him to the ground, laid him on his back, and stamped upon him. He was handsome before my foot came down; afterwards—Well, it is enough he never called me Dough-face again. In the store I entered soon after, I met with even less appreciation. Regular at my work and exact in my performance of it, they thought me a good machine and nothing more. What heart, soul, and feeling could a man have who never sported, never smoked, and never laughed? I could reckon up figures correctly, but one scarcely needed heart or soul for that. I could even write day by day and month by month without showing a flaw in my copy; but that only argued I was no more than they intimated, a regular automaton. I let them think so, with the certainty before me that they would one day change their minds as others had done. The fact was, I loved nobody well enough, not even myself, to care for any man's opinion. Life was well-nigh a blank to me; a dead level plain that had to be traversed whether I would or not. And such it might have continued to this day if I had never met Mary Leavenworth. But when, some nine months since, I left my desk in the counting-house for a seat in Mr. Leavenworth's library, a blazing torch fell into my soul whose flame has never gone out, and never will, till the doom before me is accomplished.

She was so beautiful! When, on that first evening, I followed my new employer into the parlor, and saw this woman standing up before me in her half-alluring, half-appalling charm, I knew, as by a lightning flash, what my future would be if I remained in that house. She was in one of her haughty moods, and bestowed upon me little more than a passing glance. But her indifference made slight impression upon me then. It was enough that I was allowed to stand in her presence and look unrebuked upon her loveliness. To be sure, it was like gazing into the flower-wreathed crater of an awakening volcano. Fear and fascination were in each moment I lingered there; but fear and fascination made the moment what it was, and I could not have withdrawn if I would.

And so it was always. Unspeakable pain as well as pleasure was in the emotion with which I regarded her. Yet for all that I did not cease to study her hour by hour and day by day; her smiles, her movement, her way of turning her head or lifting her eyelids. I had a purpose in this. I wished to knit her beauty so firmly into the warp and woof of my being that nothing could ever serve to tear it away. For I saw then as plainly as now that, coquette though she was, she would never stoop to me. No; I might lie down at her feet and let her trample over me; she would not even turn to see what it was she had stepped upon. I might spend days, months, years, learning the alphabet of her wishes; she would not thank me for my pains or even raise the lashes from her cheek to look at me as I passed. I was nothing to her, could not be anything unless—and this thought came slowly—I could in some way become her master.

Meantime I wrote at Mr. Leavenworth's dictation and pleased him. My methodical ways were just to his taste. As for the other member of the family, Miss Eleanore Leavenworth—she treated me just as one of her proud but sympathetic nature might be expected to do. Not familiarly, but kindly; not as a friend, but as a member of the household whom she met every day at table, and who, as she or any one else could see, was none too happy or hopeful.

Six months went by. I had learned two things; first, that Mary Leavenworth loved her position as prospective heiress to a large fortune above every other earthly consideration; and secondly, that she was in the possession of a secret which endangered that position. What this was, I had for some time no means of knowing. But when later I became convinced it was one of love, I grew hopeful, strange as it may seem. For by this time I had learned Mr. Leavenworth's disposition almost as perfectly as that of his niece, and knew that in a matter of this kind he would be uncompromising; and that in the clashing of these two wills something might occur which would give me a hold upon her. The only thing that troubled me was the fact that I did not know the name of the man in whom she was interested. But chance soon favored me here. One day—a month ago now—I sat down to open Mr. Leavenworth's mail as usual. One letter—shall I ever forget it? ran thus:

"HOFFMAN HOUSE,

"March I, 1876."

MR. HORATIO LEAVENWORTH:

"DEAR SIR,—You have a niece whom you love and trust, one, too, who seems worthy of all the love and trust that you or any other man can give her; so beautiful, so charming, so tender is she in face, form, manner, and conversation. But, dear sir, every rose has its thorn, and your rose is no exception to this rule. Lovely as she is, charming as she is, tender as she is, she is not only capable of trampling on the rights of one who trusted her, but of bruising the heart and breaking the spirit of him to whom she owes all duty, honor, and observance.

"If you don't believe this, ask her to her cruel, bewitching face, who and what is her humble servant, and yours.

"Henry Ritchie Clavering."

If a bombshell had exploded at my feet, or the evil one himself appeared at my call, I would not have been more astounded. Not only was the name signed to these remarkable words unknown to me, but the epistle itself was that of one who felt himself to be her master: a position which, as you know, I was myself aspiring to occupy. For a few minutes, then, I stood a prey to feelings of the bitterest wrath and despair; then I grew calm, realizing that with this letter in my possession I was virtually the arbitrator of her destiny. Some men would have sought her there and then and, by threatening to place it in her uncle's hand, won from her a look of entreaty, if no more; but I—well, my plans went deeper than that. I knew she would have to be in extremity before I could hope to win her. She must feel herself slipping over the edge of the precipice before she would clutch at the first thing offering succor. I decided to allow the letter to pass into my employer's hands. But it had been opened! How could I manage to give it to him in this condition without exciting his suspicion? I knew of but one way; to let him see me open it for what he would consider the first time. So, waiting till he came into the room, I approached him with the letter, tearing off the end of the envelope as I came. Opening it, I gave a cursory glance at its contents and tossed it down on the table before him.

"That appears to be of a private character," said I, "though there is no sign to that effect on the envelope."

He took it up while I stood there. At the first word he started, looked at me, seemed satisfied from my expression that I had not read far enough to realize its nature, and, whirling slowly around in his chair, devoured the remainder in silence. I waited a moment, then withdrew to my own desk. One minute, two minutes passed in silence; he was evidently rereading the letter; then he hurriedly rose and left the room. As he passed me I caught a glimpse of his face in the mirror. The expression I saw there did not tend to lessen the hope that was rising in my breast.

By following him almost immediately upstairs I ascertained that he went directly to Mary's room, and when in a few hours later the family collected around the dinner table, I perceived, almost without looking up, that a great and insurmountable barrier had been raised between him and his favorite niece.

Two days passed; days that were for me one long and unrelieved suspense. Had Mr. Leavenworth answered that letter? Would it all end as it had begun, without the appearance of the mysterious Clavering on the scene? I could not tell.

Meanwhile my monotonous work went on, grinding my heart beneath its relentless wheel. I wrote and wrote and wrote, till it seemed as if my life blood went from me with every drop of ink I used. Always alert and listening, I dared not lift my head or turn my eyes at any unusual sound, lest I should seem to be watching. The third night I had a dream; I have already told Mr. Raymond what it was, and hence will not repeat it here. One correction, however, I wish to make in regard to it. In my statement to him I declared that the face of the man whom I saw lift his hand against my employer was that of Mr. Clavering. I lied when I said this. The face seen by me in my dream was my own. It was that fact which made it so horrible to me. In the crouching figure stealing warily downstairs, I saw as in a glass the vision of my own form. Otherwise my account of the matter was true.

This vision had a tremendous effect upon me. Was it a premonition? a forewarning of the way in which I was to win this coveted creature for my own? Was the death of her uncle the bridge by which the impassable gulf between us might be spanned? I began to think it might be; to consider the possibilities which could make this the only path to my elysium; even went so far as to picture her lovely face bending gratefully towards me through the glare of a sudden release from some emergency in which she stood. One thing was sure; if that was the way I must go, I had at least been taught how to tread it; and all through the dizzy, blurred day that followed, I saw, as I sat at my work, repeated visions of that stealthy, purposeful figure stealing down the stairs and entering with uplifted pistol into the unconscious presence of my employer. I even found myself a dozen times that day turning my eyes upon the door through which it was to come, wondering how long it would be before my actual form would pause there. That the moment was at hand I did not imagine. Even when I left him that night after drinking with him the glass of sherry mentioned at the inquest, I had no idea the hour of action was so near. But when, not three minutes after going upstairs, I caught the sound of a lady's dress rustling through the hall, and listening, heard Mary Leavenworth pass my door on her way to the library, I realized that the fatal hour was come; that something was going to be said or done in that room which would make this deed necessary. What? I determined to ascertain. Casting about in my mind for the means of doing so, I remembered that the ventilator running up through the house opened first into the passageway connecting Mr. Leavenworth's bedroom and library, and, secondly, into the closet of the large spare room adjoining mine. Hastily unlocking the door of the communication between the rooms, I took my position in the closet. Instantly the sound of voices reached my ears; all was open below, and standing there, I was as much an auditor of what went on between Mary and her uncle as if I were in the library itself. And what did I hear? Enough to assure me my suspicions were correct; that it was a moment of vital interest to her; that Mr. Leavenworth, in pursuance of a threat evidently made some time since, was in the act of taking steps to change his will, and that she had come to make an appeal to be forgiven her fault and restored to his favor. What that fault was, I did not learn. No mention was made of Mr. Clavering as her husband. I only heard her declare that her action had been the result of impulse, rather than love; that she regretted it, and desired nothing more than to be free from all obligations to one she would fain forget, and be again to her uncle what she was before she ever saw this man. I thought, fool that I was, it was a mere engagement she was alluding to, and took the insanest hope from these words; and when, in a moment later I heard her uncle reply, in his sternest tone, that she had irreparably forfeited her claims to his regard and favor, I did not need her short and bitter cry of shame and disappointment, or that low moan for some one to help her, for me to sound his death-knell in my heart. Creeping back to my own room, I waited till I heard her reascend, then I stole forth. Calm as I had ever been in my life, I went down the stairs just as I had seen myself do in my dream, and knocking lightly at the library door, went in. Mr. Leavenworth was sitting in his usual place writing.

"Excuse me," said I as he looked up, "I have lost my memorandum-book, and think it possible I may have dropped it in the passageway when I went for the wine." He bowed, and I hurried past him into the closet. Once there, I proceeded rapidly into the room beyond, procured the pistol, returned, and almost before I realized what I was doing, had taken up my position behind him, aimed, and fired. The result was what you know. Without a groan his head fell forward on his hands, and Mary Leavenworth was the virtual possessor of the thousands she coveted.

My first thought was to procure the letter he was writing. Approaching the table, I tore it out from under his hands, looked at it, saw that it was, as I expected, a summons to his lawyer, and thrust it into my pocket, together with the letter from Mr. Clavering, which I perceived lying spattered with blood on the table before me. Not till this was done did I think of myself, or remember the echo which that low, sharp report must have made in the house. Dropping the pistol at the side of the murdered man, I stood ready to shriek to any one who entered that Mr. Leavenworth had killed himself. But I was saved from committing such a folly. The report had not been heard, or if so, had evidently failed to create an alarm. No one came, and I was left to contemplate my work undisturbed and decide upon the best course to be taken to avoid detection. A moment's study of the wound made in his head by the bullet convinced me of the impossibility of passing the affair off as a suicide, or even the work of a burglar. To any one versed in such matters it was manifestly a murder, and a most deliberate one. My one hope, then, lay in making it as mysterious as it was deliberate, by destroying all due to the motive and manner of the deed. Picking up the pistol, I carried it into the other room with the intention of cleaning it, but finding nothing there to do it with, came back for the handkerchief I had seen lying on the floor at Mr. Leavenworth's feet. It was Miss Eleanore's, but I did not know it till I had used it to clean the barrel; then the sight of her initials in one corner so shocked me I forgot to clean the cylinder, and only thought of how I could do away with this evidence of her handkerchief having been employed for a purpose so suspicious. Not daring to carry it from the room, I sought for means to destroy it; but finding none, compromised the matter by thrusting it deep down behind the cushion of one of the chairs, in the hope of being able to recover and burn it the next day. This done, I reloaded the pistol, locked it up, and prepared to leave the room. But here the horror which usually follows such deeds struck me like a thunderbolt and made me for the first time uncertain in my action. I locked the door on going out, something I should never have done. Not till I reached the top of the stairs did I realize my folly; and then it was too late, for there before me, candle in hand, and surprise written on every feature of her face, stood Hannah, one of the servants, looking at me.

"Lor, sir, where have you been?" she cried, but strange to say, in a low tone. "You look as if you had seen a ghost." And her eyes turned suspiciously to the key which I held in my hand.

I felt as if some one had clutched me round the throat. Thrusting the key into my pocket, I took a step towards her. "I will tell you what I have seen if you will come downstairs," I whispered; "the ladies will be disturbed if we talk here," and smoothing my brow as best I could, I put out my hand and drew her towards me. What my motive was I hardly knew; the action was probably instinctive; but when I saw the look which came into her face as I touched her, and the alacrity with which she prepared to follow me, I took courage, remembering the one or two previous tokens I had had of this girl's unreasonable susceptibility to my influence; a susceptibility which I now felt could be utilized and made to serve my purpose.

Taking her down to the parlor floor, I drew her into the depths of the great drawing-room, and there told her in the least alarming way possible what had happened to Mr. Leavenworth. She was of course intensely agitated, but she did not scream;—the novelty of her position evidently bewildering her—and, greatly relieved, I went on to say that I did not know who committed the deed, but that folks would declare it was I if they knew I had been seen by her on the stairs with the library key in my hand. "But I won't tell," she whispered, trembling violently in her fright and eagerness. "I will keep it to myself. I will say I didn't see anybody." But I soon convinced her that she could never keep her secret if the police once began to question her, and, following up my argument with a little cajolery, succeeded after a long while in winning her consent to leave the house till the storm should be blown over. But that given, it was some little time before I could make her comprehend that she must depart at once and without going back after her things. Not till I brightened up her wits by a promise to marry her some day if she only obeyed me now, did she begin to look the thing in the face and show any evidence of the real mother wit she evidently possessed. "Mrs. Belden would take me in," said she, "if I could only get to R——. She takes everybody in who asks, her; and she would keep me, too, if I told her Miss Mary sent me. But I can't get there tonight."

I immediately set to work to convince her that she could. The midnight train did not leave the city for a half-hour yet, and the distance to the depot could be easily walked by her in fifteen minutes. But she had no money! I easily supplied that. And she was afraid she couldn't find her way! I entered into minutest directions. She still hesitated, but at length consented to go, and with some further understanding of the method I was to employ in communicating with her, we went downstairs. There we found a hat and shawl of the cook's which I put on her, and in another moment we were in the carriage yard. "Remember, you are to say nothing of what has occurred, no matter what happens," I whispered in parting injunction as she turned to leave me. "Remember, you are to come and marry me some day," she murmured in reply, throwing her arms about my neck. The movement was sudden, and it was probably at this time she dropped the candle she had unconsciously held clenched in her hand till now. I promised her, and she glided out of the gate.

Of the dreadful agitation that followed the disappearance of this girl I can give no better idea than by saying I not only committed the additional error of locking up the house on my re-entrance, but omitted to dispose of the key then in my pocket by flinging it into the street or dropping it in the hall as I went up. The fact is, I was so absorbed by the thought of the danger I stood in from this girl, I forgot everything else. Hannah's pale face, Hannah's look of terror, as she turned from my side and flitted down the street, were continually before me. I could not escape them; the form of the dead man lying below was less vivid. It was as though I were tied in fancy to this woman of the white face fluttering down the midnight streets. That she would fail in something—come back or be brought back—that I should find her standing white and horror-stricken on the front steps when I went down in the morning, was like a nightmare to me. I began to think no other result possible; that she never would or could win her way unchallenged to that little cottage in a distant village; that I had but sent a trailing flag of danger out into the world with this wretched girl;—danger that would come back to me with the first burst of morning light!

But even those thoughts faded after a while before the realization of the peril I was in as long as the key and papers remained in my possession. How to get rid of them! I dared not leave my room again, or open my window. Some one might see me and remember it. Indeed I was afraid to move about in my room. Mr. Leavenworth might hear me. Yes, my morbid terror had reached that point—I was fearful of one whose ears I myself had forever closed, imagined him in his bed beneath and wakeful to the least sound.

But the necessity of doing something with these evidences of guilt finally overcame this morbid anxiety, and drawing the two letters from my pocket—I had not yet undressed—I chose out the most dangerous of the two, that written by Mr. Leavenworth himself, and, chewing it till it was mere pulp, threw it into a corner; but the other had blood on it, and nothing, not even the hope of safety, could induce me to put it to my lips. I was forced to lie with it clenched in my hand, and the flitting image of Hannah before my eyes, till the slow morning broke. I have heard it said that a year in heaven seems like a day; I can easily believe it. I know that an hour in hell seems an eternity!

But with daylight came hope. Whether it was that the sunshine glancing on the wall made me think of Mary and all I was ready to do for her sake, or whether it was the mere return of my natural stoicism in the presence of actual necessity, I cannot say. I only know that I arose calm and master of myself. The problem of the letter and key had solved itself also. Hide them? I would not try to! Instead of that I would put them in plain sight, trusting to that very fact for their being overlooked. Making the letter up into lighters, I carried them into the spare room and placed them in a vase. Then, taking the key in my hand, went downstairs, intending to insert it in the lock of the library door as I went by. But Miss Eleanore descending almost immediately behind me made this impossible. I succeeded, however, in thrusting it, without her knowledge, among the filagree work of the gas-fixture in the second hall, and thus relieved, went down into the breakfast room as self-possessed a man as ever crossed its threshold. Mary was there, looking exceedingly pale and disheartened, and as I met her eye, which for a wonder turned upon me as I entered, I could almost have laughed, thinking of the deliverance that had come to her, and of the time when I should proclaim myself to be the man who had accomplished it.

Of the alarm that speedily followed, and my action at that time and afterwards, I need not speak in detail. I behaved just as I would have done if I had had no hand in the murder. I even forbore to touch the key or go to the spare room, or make any movement which I was not willing all the world should see. For as things stood, there was not a shadow of evidence against me in the house; neither was I, a hardworking, uncomplaining secretary, whose passion for one of his employer's nieces was not even mistrusted by the lady herself, a person to be suspected of the crime which threw him out of a fair situation. So I performed all the duties of my position, summoning the police, and going for Mr. Veeley, just as I would have done if those hours between me leaving Mr. Leavenworth for the first time and going down to breakfast in the morning had been blotted from my consciousness.

And this was the principle upon which I based my action at the inquest. Leaving that half-hour and its occurrences out of the question, I resolved to answer such questions as might be put me as truthfully as I could; the great fault with men situated as I was usually being that they lied too much, thus committing themselves on unessential matters. But alas, in thus planning for my own safety, I forgot one thing, and that was the dangerous position in which I should thus place Mary Leavenworth as the one benefited by the crime. Not till the inference was drawn by a juror, from the amount of wine found in Mr. Leavenworth's glass in the morning, that he had come to his death shortly after my leaving him, did I realize what an opening I had made for suspicion in her direction by admitting that I had heard a rustle on the stair a few minutes after going up. That all present believed it to have been made by Eleanore, did not reassure me. She was so completely disconnected with the crime I could not imagine suspicion holding to her for an instant. But Mary—If a curtain had been let down before me, pictured with the future as it has since developed, I could not have seen more plainly what her position would be, if attention were once directed towards her. So, in the vain endeavor to cover up my blunder, I began to lie. Forced to admit that a shadow of disagreement had been lately visible between Mr. Leavenworth and one of his nieces, I threw the burden of it upon Eleanore, as the one best able to bear it. The consequences were more serious than I anticipated. Direction had been given to suspicion which every additional evidence that now came up seemed by some strange fatality to strengthen. Not only was it proved that Mr. Leavenworth's own pistol had been used in the assassination, and that too by a person then in the house, but I myself was brought to acknowledge that Eleanore had learned from me, only a little while before, how to load, aim, and fire this very pistol—a coincidence mischievous enough to have been of the devil's own making.

Seeing all this, my fear of what the ladies would admit when questioned became very great. Let them in their innocence acknowledge that, upon my ascent, Mary had gone to her uncle's room for the purpose of persuading him not to carry into effect the action he contemplated, and what consequences might not ensue! I was in a torment of apprehension. But events of which I had at that time no knowledge had occurred to influence them. Eleanore, with some show of reason, as it seems, not only suspected her cousin of the crime, but had informed her of the fact, and Mary, overcome with terror at finding there was more or less circumstantial evidence supporting the suspicion, decided to deny whatever told against herself, trusting to Eleanore's generosity not to be contradicted. Nor was her confidence misplaced. Though, by the course she took, Eleanore was forced to deepen the prejudice already rife against herself, she not only forbore to contradict her cousin, but when a true answer would have injured her, actually refused to return any, a lie being something she could not utter, even to save one especially endeared to her.

This conduct of hers had one effect upon me. It aroused my admiration and made me feel that here was a woman worth helping if assistance could be given without danger to myself. Yet I doubt if my sympathy would have led me into doing anything, if I had not perceived, by the stress laid upon certain well-known matters, that actual danger hovered about us all while the letter and key remained in the house. Even before the handkerchief was produced, I had made up my mind to attempt their destruction; but when that was brought up and shown, I became so alarmed I immediately rose and, making my way under some pretence or other to the floors above, snatched the key from the gas-fixture, the lighters from the vase, and hastening with them down the hall to Mary Leavenworth's room, went in under the expectation of finding a fire there in which to destroy them. But, to my heavy disappointment, there were only a few smoldering ashes in the grate, and, thwarted in my design, I stood hesitating what to do, when I heard some one coming upstairs. Alive to the consequences of being found in that room at that time, I cast the lighters into the grate and started for the door. But in the quick move I made, the key flew from my hand and slid under a chair. Aghast at the mischance, I paused, but the sound of approaching steps increasing, I lost all control over myself and fled from the room. And indeed I had no time to lose. I had barely reached my own door when Eleanore Leavenworth, followed by two servants, appeared at the top of the staircase and proceeded towards the room I had just left. The sight reassured me; she would see the key, and take some means of disposing of it; and indeed I always supposed her to have done so, for no further word of key or letter ever came to my ears. This may explain why the questionable position in which Eleanore soon found herself awakened in me no greater anxiety. I thought the suspicions of the police rested upon nothing more tangible than the peculiarity of her manner at the inquest and the discovery of her handkerchief on the scene of the tragedy. I did not know they possessed what might be called absolute proof of her connection with the crime. But if I had, I doubt if my course would have been any different. Mary's peril was the one thing capable of influencing me, and she did not appear to be in peril. On the contrary, every one, by common consent, seemed to ignore all appearance of guilt on her part. If Mr. Gryce, whom I soon learned to fear, had given one sign of suspicion, or Mr. Raymond, whom I speedily recognized as my most persistent though unconscious foe, had betrayed the least distrust of her, I should have taken warning. But they did not, and, lulled into a false security by their manner, I let the days go by without suffering any fears on her account. But not without many anxieties for myself. Hannah's existence precluded all sense of personal security. Knowing the determination of the police to find her, I trod the verge of an awful suspense continually.

Meantime the wretched certainty was forcing itself upon me that I had lost, instead of gained, a hold on Mary Leavenworth. Not only did she evince the utmost horror of the deed which had made her mistress of her uncle's wealth, but, owing, as I believed, to the influence of Mr. Raymond, soon gave evidence that she was losing, to a certain extent, the characteristics of mind and heart which had made me hopeful of winning her by this deed of blood. This revelation drove me almost insane. Under the terrible restraint forced upon me, I walked my weary round in a state of mind bordering on frenzy. Many and many a time have I stopped in my work, wiped my pen and laid it down with the idea that I could not repress myself another moment, but I have always taken it up again and gone on with my task. Mr. Raymond has sometimes shown his wonder at my sitting in my dead employer's chair. Great heaven! it was my only safeguard. By keeping the murder constantly before my mind, I was enabled to restrain myself from any inconsiderate action.

At last there came a time when my agony could be no longer suppressed. Going down the stairs one evening with Mr. Raymond, I saw a strange gentleman standing in the reception room, looking at Mary Leavenworth in a way that would have made my blood boil, even if I had not heard him whisper these words: "But you are my wife, and know it, whatever you may say or do!"

It was the lightning-stroke of my life. After what I had done to make her mine, to hear another claim her as already his own, was stunning, maddening! It forced a demonstration from me. I had either to yell in my fury or deal the man beneath some tremendous blow in my hatred. I did not dare to shriek, so I struck the blow. Demanding his name from Mr. Raymond, and hearing that it was, as I expected, Clavering, I flung caution, reason, common sense, all to the winds, and in a moment of fury denounced him as the murderer of Mr. Leavenworth.

The next instant I would have given worlds to recall my words. What had I done but drawn attention to myself in thus accusing a man against whom nothing could of course be proved! But recall now was impossible. So, after a night of thought, I did the next best thing: gave a superstitious reason for my action, and so restored myself to my former position without eradicating from the mind of Mr. Raymond that vague doubt of the man which my own safety demanded. But I had no intention of going any further, nor should I have done so if I had not observed that for some reason Mr. Raymond was willing to suspect Mr. Clavering. But that once seen, revenge took possession of me, and I asked myself if the burden of this crime could be thrown on this man. Still I do not believe that any active results would have followed this self-questioning if I had not overheard a whispered conversation between two of the servants, in which I learned that Mr. Clavering had been seen to enter the house on the night of the murder, but was not seen to leave it. That determined me. With such a fact for a starting-point, what might I not hope to accomplish? Hannah alone stood in my way. While she remained alive I saw nothing but ruin before me. I made up my mind to destroy her and satisfy my hatred of Mr. Clavering at one blow. But how? By what means could I reach her without deserting my post, or make away with her without exciting fresh suspicion? The problem seemed insolvable; but Trueman Harwell had not played the part of a machine so long without result. Before I had studied the question a day, light broke upon it, and I saw that the only way to accomplish my plans was to inveigle her into destroying herself.

No sooner had this thought matured than I hastened to act upon it. Knowing the tremendous risk I ran, I took every precaution. Locking myself up in my room, I wrote her a letter in printed characters—she having distinctly told me she could not read writing—in which I played upon her ignorance, foolish fondness, and Irish superstition, by telling her I dreamed of her every night and wondered if she did of me; was afraid she didn't, so enclosed her a. little charm, which, if she would use according to directions, would give her the most beautiful visions. These directions were for her first to destroy my letter by burning it, next to take in her hand the packet I was careful to enclose, swallow the powder accompanying it, and go to bed. The powder was a deadly dose of poison and the packet was, as you know, a forged confession falsely criminating Henry Clavering. Enclosing all these in an envelope in the corner of which I had marked a cross, I directed it, according to agreement, to Mrs. Belden, and sent it.

Then followed the greatest period of suspense I had yet endured. Though I had purposely refrained from putting my name to the letter, I felt that the chances of detection were very great. Let her depart in the least particular from the course I had marked out for her, and fatal results must ensue. If she opened the enclosed packet, mistrusted the powder, took Mrs. Belden into her confidence, or even failed to burn my letter, all would be lost. I could not be sure of her or know the result of my scheme except through the newspapers. Do you think I kept watch of the countenances about me? devoured the telegraphic news, or started when the bell rang? And when, a few days since, I read that short paragraph in the paper which assured me that my efforts had at least produced the death of the woman I feared, do you think I experienced any sense of relief?

But of that why speak? In six hours had come the summons from Mr. Gryce, and—let these prison walls, this confession itself, tell the rest. I am no longer capable of speech or action.

XXXIX. THE OUTCOME OF A GREAT CRIME

"Leave her to Heaven
And to those thorns that
In her bosom lodge
To prick and sting her."
—Hamlet

"For she is wise, if I can judge of her;
And fair she is, if that mine eyes be true;
And true she is, as she has proved herself;
And therefore like herself, wise, fair, and true,
Shall she be placed in my constant soul."
—Merchant of Venice.

"OH, ELEANORE!" I cried, as I made my way into her presence, "are you prepared for very good news? News that will brighten these pale cheeks and give the light back to these eyes, and make life hopeful and sweet to you once more? Tell me," I urged, stooping over her where she sat, for she looked ready to faint.

"I don't know," she faltered; "I fear your idea of good news and mine may differ. No news can be good but——"

"What?" I asked, taking her hands in mine with a smile that ought to have reassured her, it was one of such profound happiness. "Tell me; do not be afraid."

But she was. Her dreadful burden had lain upon her so long it had become a part of her being. How could she realize it was founded on a mistake; that she had no cause to fear the past, present, or future?

But when the truth was made known to her; when, With all the fervor and gentle tact of which I was capable, I showed her that her suspicions had been groundless, and that Trueman Harwell, and not Mary, was accountable for the evidences of crime which had led her into attributing to her cousin the guilt of her uncle's death, her first words were a prayer to be taken to the one she had so wronged. "Take me to her! Oh, take me to her! I cannot breathe or think till I have begged pardon of her on my knees. Oh, my unjust accusation! My unjust accusation!"

Seeing the state she was in, I deemed it wise to humor her. So, procuring a carriage, I drove with her to her cousin's home.

"Mary will spurn me; she will not even look at me; and she will be right!" she cried, as we rolled away up the avenue. "An outrage like this can never be forgiven. But God knows I thought myself justified in my suspicions. If you knew—"

"I do know," I interposed. "Mary acknowledges that the circumstantial evidence against her was so overwhelming, she was almost staggered herself, asking if she could be guiltless with such proofs against her. But——"

"Wait, oh, wait; did Mary say that?"

"Yes."

"To-day?"

"Yes."

"Mary must be changed."

I did not answer; I wanted her to see for herself the extent of that change. But when, in a few minutes later, the carriage stopped and I hurried with her into the house which had been the scene of so much misery, I was hardly prepared for the difference in her own countenance which the hall light revealed. Her eyes were bright, her cheeks were brilliant, her brow lifted and free from shadow; so quickly does the ice of despair melt in the sunshine of hope.

Thomas, who had opened the door, was sombrely glad to see his mistress again. "Miss Leavenworth is in the drawing-room," said he.

I nodded, then seeing that Eleanore could scarcely move for agitation, asked her whether she would go in at once, or wait till she was more composed.

"I will go in at once; I cannot wait." And slipping from my grasp, she crossed the hall and laid her hand upon the drawing-room curtain, when it was suddenly lifted from within and Mary stepped out.

"Mary!"

"Eleanore!"

The ring of those voices told everything. I did not need to glance their way to know that Eleanore had fallen at her cousin's feet, and that her cousin had affrightedly lifted her. I did not need to hear: "My sin against you is too great; you cannot forgive me!" followed by the low: "My shame is great enough to lead me to forgive anything!" to know that the lifelong shadow between these two had dissolved like a cloud, and that, for the future, bright days of mutual confidence and sympathy were in store.

Yet when, a half-hour or so later, I heard the door of the reception room, into which I had retired, softly open, and looking up, saw Mary standing on the threshold, with the light of true humility on her face, I own that I was surprised at the softening which had taken place in her haughty beauty. "Blessed is the shame that purifies," I inwardly murmured, and advancing, held out my hand with a respect and sympathy I never thought to feel for her again.

The action seemed to touch her. Blushing deeply, she came and stood by my side. "I thank you," said she. "I have much to be grateful for; how much I never realized till tonight; but I cannot speak of it now. What I wish is for you to come in and help me persuade Eleanore to accept this fortune from my hands. It is hers, you know; was willed to her, or would have been if—"

"Wait," said I, in the trepidation which this appeal to me on such a subject somehow awakened. "Have you weighed this matter well? Is it your determined purpose to transfer your fortune into your cousin's hands?"

Her look was enough without the low, "Ah, how can you ask me?" that followed it.

Mr. Clavering was sitting by the side of Eleanore when we entered the drawing-room. He immediately rose, and drawing me to one side, earnestly said:

"Before the courtesies of the hour pass between us, Mr. Raymond, allow me to tender you my apology. You have in your possession a document which ought never to have been forced upon you. Founded upon a mistake, the act was an insult which I bitterly regret. If, in consideration of my mental misery at that time, you can pardon it, I shall feel forever indebted to you; if not——"

"Mr. Clavering, say no more. The occurrences of that day belong to a past which I, for one, have made up my mind to forget as soon as possible. The future promises too richly for us to dwell on bygone miseries."

And with a look of mutual understanding and friendship we hastened to rejoin the ladies.

Of the conversation that followed, it is only necessary to state the result. Eleanore, remaining firm in her refusal to accept property so stained by guilt, it was finally agreed upon that it should be devoted to the erection and sustainment of some charitable institution of magnitude sufficient to be a recognized benefit to the city and its unfortunate poor. This settled, our thoughts returned to our friends, especially to Mr. Veeley.

"He ought to know," said Mary. "He has grieved like a father over us." And, in her spirit of penitence, she would have undertaken the unhappy task of telling him the truth.

But Eleanore, with her accustomed generosity, would not hear of this. "No, Mary," said she; "you have suffered enough. Mr. Raymond and I will go."

And leaving them there, with the light of growing hope and confidence on their faces, we went out again into the night, and so into a dream from which I have never waked, though the shine of her dear eyes have been now the load-star of my life for many happy, happy months.

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A STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE

By Anna Katharine Green

OTHER BOOKS BY THIS AUTHOR

The House of the Whispering Pines   Miss Hurd. An Enigma
Leavenworth Case                    That Affair Next Door
Strange Disappearance               Lost Man's Lane
Sword of Damocles                   Agatha Webb
Hand and Ring                       One of My Sons
The Mill Mystery                    Defence of the Bride,
Behind Closed Doors                   and Other Poems
Cynthia Wakeham's Money             Risifi's Daughter. A Drama
Marked "Personal"                   The Golden Slipper
To the Minute

CHAPTER I. A NOVEL CASE

"Talking of sudden disappearances the one you mention of Hannah in that Leavenworth case of ours, is not the only remarkable one which has come under my direct notice. Indeed, I know of another that in some respects, at least, surpasses that in points of interest, and if you will promise not to inquire into the real names of the parties concerned, as the affair is a secret, I will relate you my experience regarding it."

The speaker was Q, the rising young detective, universally acknowledged by us of the force as the most astute man for mysterious and unprecedented cases, then in the bureau, always and of course excepting Mr. Gryce; and such a statement from him could not but arouse our deepest curiosity. Drawing up, then, to the stove around which we were sitting in lazy enjoyment of one of those off-hours so dear to a detective's heart, we gave with alacrity the required promise; and settling himself back with the satisfied air of a man who has a good story to tell that does not entirely lack certain points redounding to his own credit, he began:

I was one Sunday morning loitering at the ——- Precinct Station, when the door opened and a respectable-looking middle-aged woman came in, whose agitated air at once attracted my attention. Going up to her, I asked her what she wanted.

"A detective," she replied, glancing cautiously about on the faces of the various men scattered through the room. "I don't wish anything said about it, but a girl disappeared from our house last night, and"—she stopped here, her emotion seeming to choke her—"and I want some one to look her up," she went on at last with the most intense emphasis.

"A girl? what kind of a girl; and what house do you mean when you say our house?"

She looked at me keenly before replying. "You are a young man," said she; "isn't there some one here more responsible than yourself that I can talk to?"

I shrugged my shoulders and beckoned to Mr. Gryce who was just then passing. She at once seemed to put confidence in him. Drawing him aside, she whispered a few low eager words which I could not hear. He listened nonchalantly for a moment but suddenly made a move which I knew indicated strong and surprised interest, though from his face—but you know what Gryce's face is. I was about to walk off, convinced he had got hold of something he would prefer to manage himself, when the Superintendent came in.

"Where is Gryce?" asked he; "tell him I want him."

Mr. Gryce heard him and hastened forward. As he passed me, he whispered, "Take a man and go with this woman; look into matters and send me word if you want me; I will be here for two hours."

I did not need a second permission. Beckoning to Harris, I reapproached the woman. "Where do you come from," said I, "I am to go back with you and investigate the affair it seems."

"Did he say so?" she asked, pointing to Mr. Gryce who now stood with his back to us busily talking with the Superintendent.

I nodded, and she at once moved towards the door. "I come from No.—— Second Avenue: Mr. Blake's house," she whispered, uttering a name so well known, I at once understood Mr. Gryce's movement of sudden interest "A girl—one who sewed for us—disappeared last night in a way to alarm us very much. She was taken from her room—" "Yes," she cried vehemently, seeing my look of sarcastic incredulity, "taken from her room; she never went of her own accord; and she must be found if I spend every dollar of the pittance I have laid up in the bank against my old age."

Her manner was so intense, her tone so marked and her words so vehement, I at once and naturally asked if the girl was a relative of hers that she felt her abduction so keenly.

"No," she replied, "not a relative, but," she went on, looking every way but in my face, "a very dear friend—a—a—protegee, I think they call it, of mine; I—I—She must be found," she again reiterated.

We were by this time in the street.

"Nothing must be said about it," she now whispered, catching me by the arm. "I told him so," nodding back to the building from which we had just issued, "and he promised secrecy. It can be done without folks knowing anything about it, can't it?"

"What?" I asked.

"Finding the girl."

"Well," said I, "we can tell you better about that when we know a few more of the facts. What is the girl's name and what makes you think she didn't go out of the house-door of her own accord?"

"Why, why, everything. She wasn't the person to do it; then the looks of her room, and—They all got out of the window," she cried suddenly, "and went away by the side gate into ——— Street."

"They? Who do you mean by they?"

"Why, whoever they were who carried her off."

I could not suppress the "bah!" that rose to my lips. Mr. Gryce might have been able to, but I am not Gryce.

"You don't believe," said she, "that she was carried off?"

"Well, no," said I, "not in the sense you mean."

She gave another nod back to the police station now a block or so distant. "He did'nt seem to doubt it at all."

I laughed. "Did you tell him you thought she had been taken off in this way?"

"Yes, and he said, 'Very likely.' And well he might, for I heard the men talking in her room, and—"

"You heard men talking in her room—when?"

"O, it must have been as late as half-past twelve. I had been asleep and the noise they made whispering, woke me."

"Wait," I said, "tell me where her room is, hers and yours."

"Hers is the third story back, mine the front one on the same floor."

"Who are you?" I now inquired. "What position do you occupy in Mr. Blake's house?"

"I am the housekeeper."

Mr. Blake was a bachelor.

"And you were wakened last night by hearing whispering which seemed to come from this girl's room."

"Yes, I at first thought it was the folks next door,—we often hear them when they are unusually noisy,—but soon I became assured it came from her room; and more astonished than I could say,—She is a good girl," she broke in, suddenly looking at me with hotly indignant eyes, "a—a—as good a girl as this whole city can show; don't you dare, any of you, to hint at anything else o—"

"Come, come," I said soothingly, a little ashamed of my too communicative face, "I haven't said anything, we will take it for granted she is as good as gold, go on."

The woman wiped her forehead with a hand that trembled like a leaf. "Where was I?" said she. "O, I heard voices and was surprised and got up and went to her door. The noise I made unlocking my own must have startled her, for all was perfectly quiet when I got there. I waited a moment, then I turned the knob and called her: she did not reply and I called again. Then she came to the door, but did not unlock it. 'What is it?' she asked. 'O,' said I, 'I thought I heard talking here and I was frightened,' 'It must have been next door,' said she. I begged pardon and went back to my room. There was no more noise, but when in the morning we broke into her room and found her gone, the window open and signs of distress and struggle around, I knew I had not been mistaken; that there were men with her when I went to her door, and that they had carried her off—"

This time I could not restrain myself.

"Did they drop her out of the window?" I inquired.

"O," said she, "we are building an extension, and there is a ladder running up to the third floor, and it was by means of that they took her."

"Indeed! she seems at least to have been a willing victim," I remarked.

The woman clutched my arm with a grip like iron. "Don't you believe it," gasped she, stopping me in the street where we were. "I tell you if what I say is true, and these burglars or whatever they were, did carry her off, it was an agony to her, an awful, awful thing that will kill her if it has not done so already. You don't know what you are talking about, you never saw her—"

"Was she pretty," I asked, hurrying the woman along, for more than one passer-by had turned their heads to look at us. The question seemed in some way to give her a shock.

"Ah, I don't know," she muttered; "some might not think so, I always did; it depended upon the way you looked at her."

For the first time I felt a thrill of anticipation shoot through my veins. Why, I could not say. Her tone was peculiar, and she spoke in a sort of brooding way as though she were weighing something in her own mind; but then her manner had been peculiar throughout. Whatever it was that aroused my suspicion, I determined henceforth to keep a very sharp eye upon her ladyship. Levelling a straight glance at her face, I asked her how it was that she came to be the one to inform the authorities of the girl's disappearance.

"Doesn't Mr. Blake know anything about it?"

The faintest shadow of a change came into her manner. "Yes," said she, "I told him at breakfast time; but Mr. Blake doesn't take much interest in his servants; he leaves all such matters to me."

"Then he does not know you have come for the police?"

"No, sir, and O, if you would be so good as to keep it from him. It is not necessary he should know. I shall let you in the back way. Mr. Blake is a man who never meddles with anything, and—"

"What did Mr. Blake say this morning when you told him that this girl—By the way, what is her name?"

"Emily."

"That this girl, Emily, had disappeared during the night?"

"Not much of anything, sir. He was sitting at the breakfast table reading his paper, he merely looked up, frowned a little in an absent-minded way, and told me I must manage the servants' affairs without troubling him."

"And you let it drop?"

"Yes sir; Mr. Blake is not a man to speak twice to."

I could easily believe that from what I had seen of him in public, for though by no means a harsh looking man, he had a reserved air which if maintained in private must have made him very difficult of approach.

We were now within a half block or so of the old-fashioned mansion regarded by this scion of New York's aristocracy as one of the most desirable residences in the city; so motioning to the man who had accompanied me to take his stand in a doorway near by and watch for the signal I would give him in case I wanted Mr. Gryce, I turned to the woman, who was now all in a flutter, and asked her how she proposed to get me into the house without the knowledge of Mr. Blake.

"O sir, all you have got to do is to follow me right up the back stairs; he won't notice, or if he does will not ask any questions."

And having by this time reached the basement door, she took out a key from her pocket and inserting it in the lock, at once admitted us into the dwelling.

CHAPTER II. A FEW POINTS

Mrs. Daniels, for that was her name, took me at once up stairs to the third story back room. As we passed through the halls, I could not but notice how rich, though sombre were the old fashioned walls and heavily frescoed ceilings, so different in style and coloring from what we see now-a-days in our secret penetrations into Fifth Avenue mansions. Many as are the wealthy houses I have been called upon to enter in the line of my profession, I had never crossed the threshold of such an one as this before, and impervious as I am to any foolish sentimentalities, I felt a certain degree of awe at the thought of invading with police investigation, this home of ancient Knicker-bocker respectability. But once in the room of the missing girl, every consideration fled save that of professional pride and curiosity. For almost at first blush, I saw that whether Mrs. Daniels was correct or not in her surmises as to the manner of the girl's disappearance, the fact that she had disappeared was likely to prove an affair of some importance. For, let me state the facts in the order in which I noticed them. The first thing that impressed me was, that whatever Mrs. Daniels called her, this was no sewing girl's room into which I now stepped. Plain as was the furniture in comparison with the elaborate richness of the walls and ceiling, there were still scattered through the room, which was large even for a thirty foot house, articles of sufficient elegance to make the supposition that it was the abode of an ordinary seamstress open to suspicion, if no more.

Mrs. Daniels, seeing my look of surprise, hastened to provide some explanation. "It is the room which has always been devoted to sewing," said she; "and when Emily came, I thought it would be easier to put up a bed here than to send her upstairs. She was a very nice girl and disarranged nothing."

I glanced around on the writing-case lying open on a small table in the centre of the room, on the vase half full of partly withered roses, on the mantel-piece, the Shakespeare, and Macaulay's History lying on the stand at my right, thought my own thoughts, but said nothing.

"You found the door locked this morning?" asked I, after a moment's scrutiny of the room in which three facts had become manifest: first, that the girl had not occupied the bed the night before; second, that there had been some sort of struggle or surprise,—one of the curtains being violently torn as if grasped by an agitated hand, to say nothing of a chair lying upset on the floor with one of its legs broken; third, that the departure, strange as it may seem, had been by the window.

"Yes," returned she; "but there is a passageway leading from my room to hers and it was by that means we entered. There was a chair placed against the door on this side but we easily pushed it away."

I stepped to the window and looked out. Ah, it would not be so very difficult for a man to gain the street from that spot in a dark night, for the roof of the newly-erected extension was almost on a level with the window.

"Well," said she anxiously, "couldn't she have been got out that way?"

"More difficult things have been done," said I; and was about to step out upon the roof when I bethought to inquire of Mrs. Daniels if any of the girl's clothing was missing.

She immediately flew to the closets and thence to bureau drawers which she turned hastily over. "No, nothing is missing but a hat and cloak and—" She paused confusedly.

"And what?" I asked.

"Nothing," returned she, hurriedly closing the bureau drawer; "only some little knick-knacks."

"Knick-knacks!" quoth I. "If she stopped for knick-knacks, she couldn't have gone in any very unwilling frame of mind." And somewhat disgusted, I was about to throw up the whole affair and leave the room. But the indecision in Mrs. Daniels' own face deterred me.

"I don't understand it," murmured she, drawing her hand across her eyes. "I don't understand it. But," she went on with even an increase in her old tone of heart-felt conviction, "no matter whether we understand it or not, the case is serious; I tell you so, and she must be found."

I resolved to know the nature of that must, used as few women in her position would use it even under circumstances to all appearance more aggravated than these.

"Why, must?" said I. "If the girl went of her own accord as some things seem to show, why should you, no relative as you acknowledge, take the matter so to heart as to insist she shall be followed and brought back?"

She turned away, uneasily taking up and putting down some little matters on the table before her. "Is it not enough that I promise to pay for all expenses which a search will occasion, without my being forced to declare just why I should be willing to do so? Am I bound to tell you I love the girl? that I believe she has been taken away by foul means, and that to her great suffering and distress? that being fond of her and believing this, I am conscientious enough to put every means I possess at the command of those who will recover her?"

I was not satisfied with this but on that very account felt my enthusiasm revive.

"But Mr. Blake? Surely he is the one to take this interest if anybody."

"I have before said," returned she, paling however as she spoke, "that Mr. Blake takes very little interest in his servants."

I cast another glance about the room. "How long have you been in this house?" asked I.

"I was in the service of Mr. Blake's father and he died a year ago."

"Since when you have remained with Mr. Blake himself?"

"Yes sir."

"And this Emily, when did she come here?"

"Oh it must be eleven months or so ago."

"An Irish girl?"

"O no, American. She is not a common person, sir."

"What do you mean by that? That she was educated, ladylike, pretty, or what?"

"I don't know what to say. She was educated, yes, but not as you would call a lady educated. Yet she knew a great many things the rest of us did'nt. She liked to read, you see, and—O sir, ask the girls about her, I never know what to say when I am questioned."

I scanned the gray-haired woman still more intently than I had yet done. Was she the weak commonplace creature she seemed, or had she really some cause other than appeared for these her numerous breaks and hesitations.

"Where did you get this girl?" I inquired. "Where did she live before coming here?"

"I cannot say, I never asked her to talk about herself. She came to me for work and I liked her and took her without recommendation."

"And she has served you well?"

"Excellently."

"Been out much? Had any visitors?"

She shook her head. "Never went out and never had any visitors."

I own I was nonplussed, "Well," said I, "no more of this at present. I must first find out if she left this house alone or in company with others." And without further parley I stepped out upon the roof of the extension.

As I did so I debated with myself whether the case warranted me or not in sending for Mr. Gryce. As yet there was nothing to show that the girl had come to any harm. A mere elopement with or without a lover to help her, was not such a serious matter that the whole police force need be stirred up on the subject; and if the woman had money, as she said, ready to give the man who should discover the whereabouts of this girl, why need that money be divided up any more than was necessary. Yet Gryce was not one to be dallied with. He had said, send for him if the affair seemed to call for his judgment, and somehow the affair did promise to be a trifle complicated. I was yet undetermined when I reached the edge of the roof.

It was a dizzy descent, but once made, escape from the yard beneath would be easy. A man could take that road without difficulty; but a woman! Baffled at the idea I turned thoughtfully back, when I beheld something on the roof before me that caused me to pause and ask myself if this was going to turn out to be a tragedy after all. It was a drop of congealed blood. Further on towards the window was another, and yes, further still, another and another. I even found one upon the very window ledge itself. Bounding into the room, I searched the carpet for further traces. It was the worst one in the world to find anything upon of the nature of which I was seeking, being a confused pattern of mingled drab and red, and in my difficulty I had to stoop very low.

"What are you looking for?" cried Mrs. Daniels.

I pointed to the drop on the window sill. "Do you see that?" I asked.

She uttered an exclamation and bent nearer. "Blood!" cried she, and stood staring, with rapidly paling cheeks and trembling form. "They have killed her and he will never—"

As she did not finish I looked up.

"Do you think it was her blood?" she whispered in a horrified tone.

"There is every reason to believe so," rejoined I, pointing to a spot where I had at last discovered not only one crimson drop but many, scattered over the scarcely redder roses under my feet.

"Ah, it is worse than I thought," murmured she. "What are you going to do? What can we do?

"I am going to send for another detective," returned I; and stepping to the window I telegraphed at once to the man Harris to go for Mr. Gryce.

"The one we saw at the Station?"

I bowed assent.

Her face lost something of its drawn expression. "O I am glad; he will do something."

Subduing my indignation at this back thrust, I employed my time in taking note of such details as had escaped my previous attention. They were not many. The open writing-desk—in which, however I found no letters or written documents of any kind, only a few sheets of paper, with pen, ink, etc.; the brush and hairpins scattered on the bureau as though the girl had been interrupted while arranging her hair (if she had been interrupted); and the absence of any great pile of work such as one would expect to see in a room set apart for sewing, were all I could discover. Not much to help us, in case this was to prove an affair of importance as I began to suspect.

With Mr. Gryce's arrival, however, things soon assumed a better shape. He came to the basement door, was ushered in by your humble servant, had the whole matter as far as I had investigated it, at his finger-ends in a moment, and was upstairs and in that room before I, who am called the quickest man in the force as you all know, could have time to determine just what difference his presence would make to me in a pecuniary way in event of Mrs. Daniels' promises amounting to anything. He did not remain there long, but when he came down I saw that his interest was in no wise lessened.

"What kind of a looking girl was this?" he asked, hurrying up to Mrs. Daniels who had withdrawn into a recess in the lower hall while all this was going on. "Describe her to me, hair, eyes, complexion, etc.; you know."

"I—I—don't know as I can," she stammered reluctantly, turning very red in the face. "I am a poor one for noticing. I will call one of the girls, I—" She was gone before we realized she had not finished her sentence.

"Humph!" broke from Mr. Gryce's lips as he thoughtfully took down a vase that stood on a bracket near by and looked into it.

I did not venture a word.

When Mrs. Daniels came back she had with her a trim-looking girl of prepossessing appearance.

"This is Fanny," said she; "she knows Emily well, being in the habit of waiting on her at table; she will tell you what you want to hear. I have explained to her," she went on, nodding towards Mr. Gryce with a composure such as she had not before displayed; "that you are looking for your niece who ran away from home some time ago to go into some sort of service."

"Certainly, ma'am," quoth that gentleman, bowing with mock admiration to the gas-fixture. Then carelessly shifting his glance to the cleaning-cloth which Fanny held rather conspicuously in her hand, he repeated the question he had already put to Mrs. Daniels.

The girl, tossing her head just a trifle, at once replied:

"O she was good-looking enough, if that is what you mean, for them as likes a girl with cheeks as white as this cloth was afore I rubbed the spoons with it. As for her eyes, they was blacker than her hair, which was the blackest I ever see. She had no flesh at all, and as for her figure—" Fanny glanced down on her own well developed person, and gave a shrug inexpressibly suggestive.

"Is this description true?" Mr. Gryce asked, seemingly of Mrs. Daniels, though his gaze rested with curious intentness on the girl's head which was covered with a little cap.

"Sufficiently so," returned Mrs. Daniels in a very low tone, however. Then with a sudden display of energy, "Emily's figure is not what you would call plump. I have seen her—" She broke off as if a little startled at herself and motioned Fanny to go.

"Wait a moment," interposed Mr. Gryce in his soft way. "You said the girl's hair and eyes were dark; were they darker than yours?"

"O, yes sir;" replied the girl simpering, as she settled the ribbons on her cap.

"Let me see your hair."

She took off her cap with a smile.

"Ha, very pretty, very pretty. And the other girls? You have other girls I suppose?"

"Two, sir;" returned Mrs. Daniels.

"How about their complexions? Are they lighter too than Emily's?"

"Yes, sir; about like Fanny's."

Mr. Gryce spread his hand over his breast in a way that assured me of his satisfaction, and allowed the girl to go.

"We will now proceed to the yard," said he. But at that moment the door of the front room opened and a gentleman stepped leisurely into the hall, whom at first glance I recognized as the master of the house. He was dressed for the street and had his hat in his hand. At the sight we all stood silent, Mrs. Daniels flushing up to the roots of her gray hair.

Mr. Blake is an elegant-looking man as you perhaps know; proud, reserved, and a trifle sombre. As he turned to come towards us, the light shining through the windows at our right, fell full upon his face, revealing such a self-absorbed and melancholy expression, I involuntarily drew back as if I had unwittingly intruded upon a great man's privacy. Mr. Gryce on the contrary stepped forward.

"Mr. Blake, I believe," said he, bowing in that deferential way he knows so well how to assume.

The gentleman, startled as it evidently seemed from a reverie, looked hastily up. Meeting Mr. Gryce's bland smile, he returned the bow, but haughtily, and as it appeared in an abstracted way.

"Allow me to introduce myself," proceeded my superior. "I am Mr. Gryce from the detective bureau. We were notified this morning that a girl in your employ had disappeared from your house last night in a somewhat strange and unusual way, and I just stepped over with my man here, to see if the matter is of sufficient importance to inquire into. With many apologies for the intrusion, I stand obedient to your orders."

With a frown expressive of annoyance, Mr. Blake glanced around and detecting Mrs. Daniels, said: "Did you consider the affair so serious as that?"

She nodded, seeming to find it difficult to speak.

He remained looking at her with an expression of some doubt. "I can hardly think," said he, "such extreme measures were necessary; the girl will doubtless come back, or if not—" His shoulders gave a slight shrug and he took out his gloves.

"The difficulty seems to be," quoth Mr. Gryce eyeing those gloves with his most intent and concentrated look, "that the girl did not go alone, but was helped away, or forced away, by parties who had previously broken into your house."

"That is a strange circumstance," remarked Mr. Blake, but still without any appearance of interest, "and if you are sure of what you say, demands, perhaps, some inquiry. I would not wish to put anything in the way of justice succoring the injured. But—" again he gave that slight shrug of the shoulders, indicative of doubt, if not indifference.

Mrs. Daniels trembled, and took a step forward. I thought she was going to speak, but instead of that she drew back again in her strange hesitating way.

Mr. Gryce did not seem to notice.

"Perhaps sir," said he, "if you will step upstairs with me to the room occupied by this girl, I may be able to show you certain evidences which will convince you that our errand here is not one of presumption."

"I am ready to concede that without troubling myself with proof," observed the master of the house with the faintest show of asperity. "Yet if there is anything to see of a startling nature, perhaps I had best yield to your wishes. Whereabouts in the house is this girl's room, Mrs. Daniels?"

"It is—I gave her the third story back, Mr. Blake;" replied that woman, nervously eyeing his face. "It was large and light for sewing, and she was so nice—"

He impatiently waved his hand on which he had by this time fitted his glove to a nicety, as if these details were an unnecessary bore to him, and motioned her to show the way. Instantly a new feeling appeared to seize her, that of alarm.

"I hardly think you need trouble Mr. Blake to go upstairs," she murmured, turning towards Mr. Gryce. "I am sure when you tell him the curtains were torn, and the chair upset, the window open and—"

But Mr. Gryce was already on the stairs with Mr. Blake, whom this small opposition seemed to have at once determined.

"O my God!" she murmured to herself, "who could have foreseen this." And ignoring my presence with all the egotism of extreme agitation, she hurried past me to the room above, where I speedily joined her.

CHAPTER III. THE CONTENTS OF A BUREAU DRAWER

Mr. Blake was standing in the centre of the room when I entered, carelessly following with his eyes the motion of Mr. Gryce's finger as that gentleman pointed with unwearying assiduity to the various little details that had struck us. His hat was still in his hand, and he presented a very formidable and imposing appearance, or so Mrs. Daniels appeared to think as she stood watching him from the corner, whither she had withdrawn herself.

"A forcible departure you see," exclaimed Mr. Gryce; "she had not even time to gather up her clothes;" and with a sudden movement he stooped and pulled out one of the bureau drawers before the eyes of his nonchalant listener.

Immediately a smothered exclamation struck our ears, and Mrs. Daniels started forward.

"I pray, gentlemen," she entreated, advancing in such a way as to place herself against the front of the bureau in a manner to preclude the opening of any more drawers, "that you will remember that a modest woman such as this girl was, would hardly like to have her clothing displayed before the eyes of strangers."

Mr. Gryce instantly closed the drawer.

"You are right," said he; "pardon the rough ways of a somewhat hardened officer of the law."

She drew up closer to the bureau, still protecting it with her meagre but energetic form while her eyes rested with almost a savage expression upon the master of the house as if he, and not the detective, had been the aggressor whose advances she feared.

Mr. Blake did not return the look.

"If that is all you can show me, I think I will proceed to my appointment," said he. "The matter does seem to be more serious than I thought, and if you judge it necessary to take any active measures, why, let no consideration of my great and inherent dislike to notoriety of any kind, interfere with what you consider your duty. As for the house, it is at your command, under Mrs. Daniels' direction. Good morning." And returning our bows with one singularly impressive for all its elegant carelessness, he at once withdrew.

Mrs. Daniels took one long deep breath and came from the bureau. Instantly Mr. Gryce stooped and pulled out the drawer she had so visibly protected. A white towel met our eyes, spread neatly out at its full length. Lifting it, we looked beneath. A carefully folded dress of dark blue silk, to all appearance elegantly made, confronted our rather eager eyes. Beside it, a collar of exquisite lace—I know enough of such matters to be a judge—pricked through by a gold breast-pin of a strange and unique pattern. A withered bunch of what appeared to have been a bouquet of red roses, surmounted the whole, giving to the otherwise commonplace collection the appearance of a relic from the tomb.

We both drew back in some amazement, involuntarily glancing up at Mrs. Daniels.

"I have no explanation to give," said that woman, with a calmness strangely in contrast to the agitation she had displayed while Mr. Blake had remained in the room. "That those things rich as they are, really belonged to the girl, I have no doubt. She brought them when she came, and they only confirm what I have before intimated: that she was no ordinary sewing girl, but a woman who had seen better days."

With a low "humph!" and another glance at the dark blue dress and delicate collar, Mr. Gryce carefully replaced the cloth he had taken from them, and softly closed the drawer without either of us having laid a finger upon a single article. Five minutes later he disappeared from the room.

I did not see him again till occasion took me below, when I beheld him softly issue from Mr. Blake's private apartment. Meeting me, he smiled, and I saw that whether he was conscious of betraying it or not, he had come upon some clue or at the least fashioned for himself some theory with which he was more or less satisfied.

"An elegant apartment, that," whispered he, nodding sideways toward the room he had just left, "pity you haven't time to examine it."

"Are you sure that I haven't?" returned I, drawing a step nearer to escape the eyes of Mrs. Daniels who had descended after me.

"Quite sure;" and we hastened down together into the yard.

But my curiosity once aroused in this way would not let me rest. Taking an opportunity when Mr. Gryce was engaged in banter with the girls below, and in this way learning more in a minute of what he wanted to know than some men would gather in an hour by that or any other method, I stole lightly back and entered this room.

I almost started in my surprise. Instead of the luxurious apartment I had prepared myself to behold, a plain, scantily-furnished room opened before me, of a nature between a library and a studio. There was not even a carpet on the polished floor, only a rug, which strange to say was not placed in the centre of the room or even before the fireplace, but on one side, and directly in front of a picture that almost at first blush had attracted my attention as being the only article in the room worth looking at. It was the portrait of a woman, handsome, haughty and alluring; a modern beauty, with eyes of fire burning beneath high piled locks of jetty blackness, that were only relieved from being too intense by the scarlet hood of an opera cloak, that was drawn over them. "A sister," I thought to myself, "it is too modern for his mother," and I took a step nearer to see if I could trace any likeness in the chiselled features of this disdainful brunette, to the more characteristic ones of the careless gentleman who had stood but a few moments before in my presence. As I did so, I was struck with the distance with which the picture stood out from the wall, and thought to myself that the awkwardness of the framing came near marring the beauty of this otherwise lovely work of art. As for the likeness I was in search of, I found it or thought I did, in the expression of the eyes which were of the same color as Mr. Blake's but more full and passionate; and satisfied that I had exhausted all the picture could tell me, I turned to make what other observations I could, when I was startled by confronting the agitated countenance of Mrs. Daniels who had entered behind me.

"This is Mr. Blake's room," said she with dignity; "no one ever intrudes here but myself, not even the servants."

"I beg pardon," said I, glancing around in vain for the something which had awakened that look of satisfaction in Mr. Gryce's eyes. "I was attracted by the beauty of this picture visible through the half open door and stepped in to favor myself with a nearer view. It is very lovely. A sister of Mr. Blake?"

"No, his cousin;" and she closed the door after us with an emphasis that proclaimed she was anything but pleased.

It was my last effort to obtain information on my own account. In a few moments later Mr. Gryce appeared from below, and a conversation ensued with Mrs. Daniels that absorbed my whole attention.

"You are very anxious, my man here tells me, that this girl should be found?" remarked Mr. Gryce; "so much so that you are willing to defray all the expenses of a search?"

She bowed. "As far as I am able sir; I have a few hundreds in the bank, you are welcome to them. I would not keep a dollar back if I had thousands, but I am poor, and can only promise you what I myself possess; though—" and her cheeks grew flushed and hot with an unnatural agitation—"I believe that thousands would not be lacking if they were found necessary. I—I could almost swear you shall have anything in reason which you require; only the girl must be found and soon."

"Have you thought," proceeded Mr. Gryce, utterly ignoring the wildness of these statements, "that the girl may come back herself if let alone?"

"She will come back if she can," quoth Mrs. Daniels.

"Did she seem so well satisfied with her home as to warrant you in saying that?"

"She liked her home, but she loved me," returned the woman steadily. "She loved me so well she would never have gone as she did without being forced. Yes," said she, "though she made no outcry and stopped to put on her bonnet and shawl. She was not a girl to make a fuss. If they had killed her outright, she would never have uttered a cry."

"Why do you say they?"

"Because I am confident I heard more than one man's voice in her room."

"Humph! Would you know those voices if you heard them again?"

"No."

There was a surprise in this last negative which Mr. Gryce evidently noticed.

"I ask," said he, "because I have been told that Mr. Blake lately kept a body servant who has been seen to look at this girl more than once, when she has passed him on the stairs."

Mrs. Daniels' face turned scarlet with rage and she hastily rose from the chair. "I don't believe it," said she; "Henry was a man who knew his place, and—I won't hear such things," she suddenly exclaimed; "Emily was—was a lady, and—"

"Well, well," interposed Mr. Gryce soothingly, "though the cat looks at the king, it is no sign the king looks at the cat. We have to think of everything you know."

"You must never think of anything like that."

Mr. Gryce softly ran his thumb around the brim of the hat he held in his hand. "Mrs. Daniels," observed he, "it would greatly facilitate matters if you would kindly tell us why you take such an interest in this girl. One glimpse at her real history would do more towards setting us on the right track than anything else you could offer."

Her face assumed an unmistakable frown. "Have I not told you," said she, "what is known of it? That she came to me about two years ago for work; that I liked her, and so hired her; that she has been with us ever since and—"

"Then you will not tell us?" exclaimed Mr. Gryce.

Her face fell and a look of hesitation crossed it.

"I doubt if we can do anything unless you do," continued he.

Her countenance settled again into a resolved expression.

"You are mistaken," said she; "if the girl had a secret—as nearly all girls have, brought low as she has evidently been—it had nothing to do with her disappearance, nor would a knowledge of it help you in any way. I am confident of this and so shall hold my peace."

She was not a woman to be frightened or cajoled into making revelations she did not think necessary, and seeing it, Mr. Gryce refrained from urging her further.

"However, you will at least tell me this," said he, "what were the knick-knacks she took away with her from her bureau drawer?"

"No," said she, "for they have nothing to do with her abduction. They were articles of positive value to her, though I assure you of little importance to any one else. All that is shown by their disappearance is the fact that she had a moment's time allowed her in which to collect what she most wanted."

Mr. Gryce arose. "Well," said he, "you have given us a hard sum to work out, but I am not the man to recoil from anything hard. If I can discover the whereabouts of this girl I will certainly do it, but you must help me."

"I, how?"

"By inserting a personal in the Herald. You say she loves you; and would come back if she could. Now whether you believe it or not this is open to doubt; therefore I would advise that you take some such means as that to inform her of the anxiety of her friends and their desire to communicate with her."

"Impossible," she cried vehemently. "I should be afraid—"

"Well?"

"I might put it that Mrs. D——, anxious about Emily, desires information of her whereabouts—"

"Put it any way you like."

"You had better add," said I, speaking for the first time, "that you would be willing to pay for information."

"Yes," said Mr. Gryce, "add that."

Mrs. Daniels frowned, but made no objection, and after getting as minute a description as possible of the clothing worn by the girl the night before, we left the house.

CHAPTER IV. THOMPSON'S STORY

"An affair of some mystery," remarked Mr. Gryce, as we halted at the corner to take a final look at the house and its environs. "Why a girl should choose such a method of descent as that,"—and he pointed to the ladder down which we believed her to have come—"to leave a house of which she had been an inmate for a year, baffles me, I can tell you. If it were not for those marks of blood which betray her track, I would be disinclined to believe any such hare-brained adventure was ever perpetrated by a woman. As it is, what would'nt I give for her photograph. Black hair, black eyes, white face and thin figure! what a description whereby to find a girl in this great city of New York. Ah!" said he with sudden gratification, "here is Mr. Blake again; his appointment must have been a failure. Let us see if his description will be any more definite." And hurrying towards the advancing figure of that gentleman, he put some questions to him.

Instantly Mr. Blake stopped, looked at him blankly for a moment, then replied in a tone sufficiently loud for me to hear:

"I am sorry, sir, if my description could have done you any good, but I have not the remotest idea how the girl looked. I did not know till this morning even, that there was such a person in my house as a sewing-woman. I leave all such domestic concerns entirely with Mrs. Daniels."

Mr. Gryce again bowed low and ventured another question. The answer came as before, distinctly to my ears.

"O, I may have seen her, I can not say about that; I very often run across the servants in the hall; but whether she is tall or short, light or dark, pretty or ugly, I know no more than you do, sir." Then with a dignified nod calculated to abash a man in Mr. Gryce's position, inquired,

"Is that all?"

It did not seem to be, Mr. Gryce put another question.

Mr. Blake give him a surprised stare before replying, then courteously remarked,

"I do not concern myself with servants after they have left me. Henry was an excellent valet, but a trifle domineering, something which I never allow in any one who approaches me. I dismissed him and that was the end of it, I know nothing of what has become of him."

Mr. Gryce bowed and drew back, and Mr. Blake, with the haughty step peculiar to him, passed by him and reentered his house.

"I should not like to get into that man's clutches," said I, as my superior rejoined me; "he has a way of making one appear so small."

Mr. Gryce shot an askance look at his shadow gloomily following him along the pavement. "Yet it may happen that you will have to run the risk of that very experience."

I glanced towards him in amazement.

"If the girl does not turn up of her own accord, or if we do not succeed in getting some trace of her movements, I shall be tempted to place you where you can study into the ways of this gentleman's household. If the affair is a mystery, it has its centre in that house."

I stared at Mr. Gryce good and roundly. "You have come across something which I have missed," observed I, "or you could not speak so positively."

"I have come across nothing that was not in plain sight of any body who had eyes to see it," he returned shortly.

I shook my head slightly mortified.

"You had it all before you," continued he, "and if you were not able to pick up sufficient facts on which to base a conclusion, you mustn't blame me for it."

More nettled than I would be willing to confess, I walked back with him to the station, saying nothing then, but inwardly determined to reestablish my reputation with Mr. Gryce before the affair was over. Accordingly hunting up the man who had patrolled the district the night before, I inquired if he had seen any one go in or out of the side gate of Mr. Blake's house on ——- street, between the hours of eleven and one.

"No," said he, "but I heard Thompson tell a curious story this morning about some one he had seen."

"What was it?"

"He said he was passing that way last night about twelve o'clock when he remarked standing under the lamp on the corner of Second Avenue, a group consisting of two men and a woman, who no sooner beheld him than they separated, the men drawing back into Second Avenue and the woman coming hastily towards him. Not understanding the move, he stood waiting her approach, when instead of advancing to where he was, she paused at the gate of Mr. Blake's house and lifted her hand as if to open it, when with a wild and terrified gesture she started back, covering her face with her hands, and before he knew it, had actually fled in the direction from which she had come. A little startled, Thompson advanced and looked through the gate before him to see if possible what had alarmed her, when to his great surprise, he beheld the pale face of the master of the house, Mr. Blake himself, looking through the bars from the other side of the gate. He in his turn started back and before he could recover himself, Mr. Blake had disappeared. He says he tried the gate after that, but found it locked."

"Thompson tells you this story, does he?"

"Yes."

"Well," said I, "it's a pretty wild kind of a tale, and all I have got to say is, that neither you nor Thompson had better go blabbing it around too much. Mum is the word where such men as Mr. Blake are concerned." And I departed to hunt up Thompson.

But he had nothing to add to his statement, except that the girl appeared to be tall and thin, and was closely wrapped about in a shawl. My next move was to make such inquiries as I could with safety into the private concerns of Mr. Blake and his family, and discovered—well, such facts as these:

That Mr. Blake was a man who if he paid but little attention to domestic affairs was yet rarely seen out of his own house, except upon occasions of great political importance, when he was always to be found on the platform at meetings of his constituents. Though to the ordinary observer a man eminently calculated, from his good looks, fine position, and solid wealth to enjoy society, he not only manifested a distaste for it, but even went so far as to refuse to participate in the social dinners of his most intimate friends; the only table to which he would sit down being that of some public caterer, where he was sure of finding none but his political associates assembled.

To all appearance he wished to avoid the ladies, a theory borne out by the fact that never, even in church, on the street, or at any place of amusement, was he observed with one at his side. This fact in a man, young—he was not far from thirty-five at that time—rich, and marriageable, would, however, have been more noteworthy than it was if he had not been known to belong to a family eminent for their eccentricities. Not a man of all his race but had possessed some marked peculiarity. His father, bibliomaniac though he was, would never treat a man or a woman with decency, who mentioned Shakspeare to him, nor would he acknowledge to his dying day any excellence in that divine poet beyond a happy way of putting words together. Mr. Blake's uncle hated all members of the legal profession, and as for his grandfather—but you have heard what a mania of dislike he had against that simple article of diet, fish; now his friends were obliged to omit it from their bills of fare whenever they expected him to dinner. If then Mr. Blake chose to have any pet antipathy—as for women for instance—he surely had precedent enough in his own family to back him. However, it was whispered in my ear by one gentleman, a former political colleague of his who had been with him in Washington, that he was known at one time to show considerable attention to Miss Evelyn Blake, that cousin of his who has since made such a brilliant thing of it by marrying, and straightway losing by death, a wealthy old scapegrace of a French noble, the Count De Mirac. But that was not a matter to be talked about, Madame the Countess being free at present and in New York, though to all appearance upon anything but pleasant terms with her quondam admirer.

Remembering the picture I had seen in Mr. Blake's private apartment, I asked if this lady was a brunette, and being told she was, and of the most pronounced type, felt for the moment I had stumbled upon something in the shape of a clue; but upon resorting to Mr. Gryce with my information, he shook his head with a short laugh and told me I would have to dive deeper than that if I wanted to fish up the truth lying at the bottom of this well.

CHAPTER V. A NEW YORK BELLE

Meanwhile all our efforts to obtain information in regard to the fate or whereabouts of the missing girl, had so far proved utterly futile. Even the advertisements inserted by Mrs. Daniels had produced no effect; and frustrated in my scheme I began to despair, when the accounts of that same Mrs. Daniels' strange and unaccountable behavior during these days of suspense, which came to me through Fanny, (the pretty housemaid at Mr. Blake's, whose acquaintance I had lately taken to cultivating,) aroused once more my dormant energies and led me to ask myself if the affair was quite as hopeless as it seemed.

"If she was a ghost," was her final expression on the subject, "she could'nt go peramberlating this house more than she does. It seems as if she could'nt keep still a minute. Upstairs and down, upstairs and down, till we're most wild. And so white as she is and so trembling! Why her hands shake so all the time she never dares lift a dish off the table. And then the way she hangs about Mr. Blake's door when he's at home! She never goes in, that's the oddest part of it, but walks up and down before it, wringing her hands and talking to herself just like a mad woman. Why, I have seen her almost put her hand on the knob twice in an afternoon perhaps, then draw back as if she was afraid it would burn her; and if by any chance the door opened and Mr. Blake came out, you ought to have seen how she run. What it all means I don't know, but I have my imaginings, and if she is'nt crazy, why—" etc., etc.

In face of facts like these I felt it would be pure insanity to despair. Let there be but a mystery, though it involved a man of the position of Mr. Blake and I was safe. My only apprehension had been that the whole affair would dissolve itself into an ordinary elopement or some such commonplace matter.

Where, therefore, a few minutes later, Fanny announced that Mr. Blake had ordered a carriage to take him to the Charity Ball that evening, I determined to follow him and learn if possible what change had taken place in himself or his circumstances, to lead him into such an innovation upon his usual habits. Though the hour was late I had but little difficulty in carrying out my plan, arriving at the Academy something less than an hour after the opening dance.

The crowd was great and I circulated the floor three times before I came upon him. When I did, I own I was slightly disappointed; for instead of finding him as I anticipated, the centre of an admiring circle of ladies and gentlemen, I espied him withdrawn into a corner with a bland old politician of the Fifteenth Ward, discussing, as I presently overheard, the merits and demerits of a certain Smith who at that time was making some disturbance in the party.

"If that is all he has come for," thought I, "I had better have stayed at home and made love to the pretty Fanny." And somewhat chagrined, I took up my stand near by, and began scrutinizing the ladies.

Suddenly I felt my heart stand still, the noise of voices ceasing the same instant behind me. A lady was passing on the arm of a foreign-looking gentleman, whom it did not require a second glance to identify with the subject of the portrait in Mr. Blake's house. Older by some few years than when her picture was painted, her beauty had assumed a certain defiant expression that sufficiently betrayed the fact that the years had not been so wholly happy as she had probably anticipated when she jilted handsome Holman Blake for the old French Count. At all events so I interpreted the look of latent scorn that burned in her dark eyes, as she slowly turned her richly bejeweled head towards the corner where that gentleman stood, and meeting his eyes no doubt, bowed with a sudden loss of self-possession that not all the haughty carriage of her noble form, held doubly erect for the next few moments, could quite conceal or make forgotten.

"She still loves him," I inwardly commented and turned to see if the surprise had awakened any expression on his uncommunicative countenance.

Evidently not, for the tough old politician of the Fifteenth Ward was laughing, at one of his own jokes probably, and looking up in the face of Mr. Blake, whose back was turned to me, in a way that entirely precluded all thought of any tragic expression in that quarter. Somewhat disgusted, I withdrew and followed the lady.

I could not get very near. By this time the presence of a live countess in the assembly had become known, and I found her surrounded by a swarm of half-fledged youths. But I cared little for this; all I wanted to know was whether Mr. Blake would approach her or not during the evening. Tediously the moments passed; but a detective on duty, or on fancied duty, succumbs to no weariness. I had a woman before me worth studying and the time could not be thrown away. I learned to know her beauty; the poise of her head, the flush of her cheek, the curl of her lip, the glance—yes, the glance of her eye, though that was more difficult to understand, for she had a way of drooping her lids at times that, while exceedingly effective upon the poor wretch toward whom she might be directing that half-veiled shaft of light, was anything but conducive to my purposes.

At length with a restless shrug of her haughty shoulders she turned away from her crowd of adorers, her breast heaving under its robing of garnet velvet, and her whole face flaring with a light that might mean resolve and might mean simply love. I had no need to turn my head to see who was advancing towards her; her stately attitude as countess, her thrilling glance as woman, betrayed only too readily.

He was the more composed of the two. Bowing over her hand with a few words I could not hear, he drew back a step and began uttering the usual commonplace sentiments of the occasion.

She did not respond. With a splendor of indifference not often seen even in the manner of our grandest ladies, she waited, opening and shutting her richly feathered fan, as one who would say, "I know all this has to be gone through with, therefore I will be patient." But as the moments passed, and his tone remained unchanged, I could detect a slight gleam of impatience flash in the depths of her dark eyes, and a change come into the conventional smile that had hitherto lighted, without illuminating her countenance. Drawing still further back from the crowd that was not to be awed from pressing upon her, she looked around as if seeking a refuge. Her glance fell upon a certain window, with a gleam of satisfaction. Seeing they would straightway withdraw there, I took advantage of the moment and made haste to conceal myself behind a curtain as near that vicinity as possible. In another instant I heard them approaching.

"You seem to be rather overwhelmed with attention tonight," were the first words I caught, uttered in Mr. Blake's calmest and most courteous tones.

"Do you think so?" was the slightly sarcastic reply. "I was just deciding to the contrary when you came up."

There was a pause. Taking out my knife, I ripped open a seam in the curtain hanging before me, and looked through. He was eyeing her intently, a firm look upon his face that made its reserve more marked than common. I saw him gaze at her handsome head piled with its midnight tresses amid which the jewels, doubtless of her dead lord, burned with a fierce and ominous glare, at her smooth olive brow, her partly veiled eyes where the fire passionately blazed, at her scarlet lips trembling with an emotion her rapidly flushing cheeks would not allow her to conceal. I saw his glances fall and embrace her whole elegant form with its casing of ruby velvet and ornamentation of lace and diamonds, and an expectant thrill passed through me almost as if I already beheld the mask of his reserve falling, and the true man flash out in response to the wooing beauty of this full-blown rose, evidently in waiting for him. But it died away and a deeper feeling seized me as I saw his glances return unkindled to her countenance, and heard him say in still more measured accents than before:

"Is it possible then that the Countess De Mirac can desire the adulation of us poor American plebeians? I had not thought it, madame."

Slowly her dark eyes turned towards him; she stood a statue.

"But I forget," he went on, a tinge of bitterness for a moment showing itself in his smile: "perhaps in returning to her own country, Evelyn Blake has so far forgotten the last two years as to find pleasure again in the toys and foibles of her youth. Such things have been, I hear." And he bowed almost to the ground in his half sarcastic homage.

"Evelyn Blake! It is long since I have heard that name," she murmured.

He could not restrain the quick flush from mounting to his brow. "Pardon me," said he, "if it brings you sadness or unwelcome memories. I promise you I will not so transgress again."

A wan smile crossed her lips grown suddenly pallid.

"You mistake," said she; "if my name brings up a past laden with bitter memories and shadowed by regret, it also recalls much that is pleasant and never to be forgotten. I do not object to hearing my girlhood's name uttered—by my nearest relative."

The answer was dignity itself. "Your name is Countess De Mirac, your relatives must be proud to utter it."

A gleam not unlike the lightning's quick flash shot from the eyes she drooped before him.

"Is it Holman Blake I am listening to," said she; "I do not recognize my old friend in the cool and sarcastic man of the world now before me."

"We often fail to recognize the work of our hands, madame, after it has fallen from our grasp."

"What," she cried, "do you mean—would you say that—"

"I would say nothing," interrupted he calmly, stooping for the fan she had dropped. "At an interview which is at once a meeting and a parting, I would give utterance to nothing which would seem like recrimination. I—"

"Wait," suddenly exclaimed she, reaching out her hand for her fan with a gesture lofty as it was resolute. "You have spoken a word which demands explanation; what have I ever done to you that you should speak the word recrimination to me?"

"What? You shook my faith in womankind; you showed me that a woman who had once told a man she loved him, could so far forget that love as to marry one she could never respect, for the sake of titles and jewels. You showed me—"

"Hold," said she again, this time without gesture or any movement, save that of her lips grown pallid as marble, "and what did you show me?"

He started, colored profoundly, and for a moment stood before her unmasked of his stern self-possession. "I beg your pardon," said he, "I take back that word, recrimination."

It was now her turn to lift her head and survey him. With glance less cool than his, but fully as deliberate, she looked at his proud head bending before her; studying his face, line by line, from the stern brow to the closely compressed lips on which melancholy seemed to have set its everlasting seal, and a change passed over her countenance. "Holman," said she, with a sudden rush of tenderness, "if in the times gone by, we both behaved with too much worldly prudence for it now to be any great pleasure for either of us to look back, is that any reason why we should mar our whole future by dwelling too long upon what we are surely still young enough to bury if not forget? I acknowledge that I would have behaved in a more ideal fashion, if, after I had been forsaken by you, I had turned my face from society, and let the canker-worm of despair slowly destroy whatever life and bloom I had left. But I was young, and society had its charms, so did the prospect of wealth and position, however hollow they may have proved; you who are the master of both this day, because twelve months ago you forsook Evelyn Blake, should be the last to reproach me with them. I do not reproach you; I only say let the past be forgotten—"

"Impossible," exclaimed he, his whole face darkening with an expression I could not fathom. "What was done at that time cannot be undone. For you and me there is no future. Yes," he said turning towards her as she made a slight fluttering move of dissent, "no future; we can bury the past, but we can not resurrect it. I doubt if you would wish to if we could; as we cannot, of course you will not desire even to converse upon the subject again. Evelyn I wanted to see you once, but I do not wish to see you again; will you pardon my plain speaking, and release me?"

"I will pardon your plain speaking, but—" Her look said she would not release him.

He seemed to understand it so, and smiled, but very bitterly. In another moment he had bowed and gone, and she had returned to her crowd of adoring sycophants.

CHAPTER VI. A BIT OF CALICO

It was about this time that I took up my residence in a sort of lodging-house that occupied the opposite corner to that of Mr. Blake. My room, as I took pains to have it, overlooked the avenue, and from its windows I could easily watch the goings and comings of the gentleman whose movements were daily becoming of more and more interest to me. For set it down to caprice—and men are often as capricious as women—or account for it as you will, his restlessness at this period was truly remarkable. Not a day that he did not spend his time in walking the streets, and that not in his usual aimless gentlemanly fashion, but eagerly and with an intent gaze that roamed here and there, like a bird seeking its prey. It would often be as late as five o'clock before he came in, and if, as now frequently happened, he did not have company to dinner, he was even known to start out again after seven o'clock and go over the same ground as in the morning, looking with strained gaze, that vainly endeavored to appear unconcerned, into the faces of the women that he passed. I not unfrequently followed him at these times as much for my own amusement as from any hope I had of coming upon anything that should aid me in the work before me. But when he suddenly changed his route of travel from a promenade in the fashionable thoroughfares of Broadway and Fourteenth Street to a walk through Chatham Square and the dark, narrow streets of the East side, I began to scent whom the prey might be that he was seeking, and putting every other consideration aside, regularly set myself to dog his steps, as only I, with my innumerable disguises, knew how to do. For three separate days I kept at his heels wherever he went, each day growing more and more astonished if not to say hopeful, as I found myself treading the narrowest and most disreputable streets of the city; halting at the shops of pawnbrokers; peering into the back-rooms of liquor shops; mixing with the crowds that infest the corner groceries at nightfall, and even slinking with hand on the trigger of the pistol I carried in my pocket, up dark alleys where every door that swung noiselessly to and fro as we passed, shut upon haunts of such villainy as only is known to us of the police, or to those good souls that for the sake of One whose example they follow, lay aside their fears and sensitiveness to carry light into the dim pits of this wretched world. At first I thought Mr. Blake might have some such reason for the peculiar course he took. But his indifference to all crowds where only men were collected, his silence where a word would have been well received, convinced me it was a woman he was seeking and that with an intentness which blinded him to the commonest needs of the hour. I even saw him once in his hurry and abstraction, step across the body of a child who had fallen face downward on the stones, and that with an expression showing he was utterly unconscious of anything but an obstacle in his path. The strangest part of it all was that he seemed to have no fear. To be sure he took pains to leave his watch at home; but with such a figure and carriage as he possessed, the absence of jewelry could never deceive the eye for a moment as to the fact of his being a man of wealth, and those he went among would do anything for money. Perhaps, like me, he carried a pistol. At all events he shunned no spot where either poverty lay hid or deviltry reigned, his proud stern head bending to enter the lowest doors without a tremble of the haughty lips that remained compressed as by an iron force; except when some poor forlorn creature with flaunting head-gear, and tremulous hands, attracted by his bearing would hastily brush against him, when he would turn and look, perhaps speak, though what he said I always failed to catch; after which he would hurry on as if possessed by seven devils. The evenings of those three days were notable also. Two of them he spent in the manner I have described; the third he went to the Windsor House—where the Countess De Mirac had taken rooms—going up to the ladies' entrance and actually ringing the bell, only to start back and walk up and down on the opposite side of the way, with his hands behind his back, and his head bent, evidently deliberating as to whether he should or should not carry out his original intention of entering. The arrival of a carriage with the stately subject of his deliberations, who from her elaborate costume had seemingly been to some kettledrum or private reception, speedily put an end to his doubts. As the door opened to admit her, I saw him cast one look at her heavily draped person, with its snowy opera-cloak drawn tightly over the sweeping folds of her maize colored silk, and shrink back with what sounded like a sigh of anger or distrust, and without waiting for the closing of the door upon her, turn toward home with a step that hesitated no longer.

The fourth day to my infinite chagrin, I was sick and could not go with him. All I could do was to wrap myself in blankets and sit in my window from which I had the satisfaction of viewing him start as I supposed upon his usual course. The rest of the day was employed in a long, dull waiting for his return, only relieved by casual glimpses of Mrs. Daniels' troubled face as she appeared at one window or another of the old-fashioned mansion before me. She seemed, too, to be unusually restless, opening the windows and looking out with forlorn cranings of her neck as if she too were watching for her master. Indeed I have no doubt from what I afterwards learned, that she was in a state of constant suspense during these days. Her frequent appearance at the station house, where she in vain sought for some news of the girl in whose fate she was so absorbed, confirmed this. Only the day before I gave myself up to my unreserved espionage of Mr. Blake, she had had an interview with Mr. Gryce in which she had let fall her apprehensions that the girl was dead, and asked whether if that were the case, the police would be likely to come into a knowledge of the fact. Upon being assured that if she had not been privately made way with, there was every chance in their favor, she had grown a little calmer, but before going away had so far forgotten herself as to intimate that if some result was not reached before another fortnight had elapsed, she should take the matter into her own hands and—She did not say what she would do, but her looks were of a very menacing character. It was no wonder, then, that her countenance bore marks of the keenest anxiety as she trod the halls of that dim old mansion, with its dusky corners rich with bronzes and the glimmering shine of ancient brocades, breathing suggestions of loss and wrong; or bent her wrinkled forehead to gaze from the windows for the coming of one whose footsteps were ever delayed. She happened to be looking out, when after a longer stroll than usual the master of the house returned. As he made his appearance at the corner, I saw her hurriedly withdraw her head and hide herself behind the curtain, from which position she watched him as with tired steps and somewhat dejected mien, he passed up the steps and entered the house. Not till the door closed upon him, did she venture to issue forth and with a hurried movement shut the blinds and disappear. This anxiety on her part redoubled mine, and thankful enough was I when on the next day I found myself well enough to renew my operations. To ferret out this mystery, if mystery it was,—I still found myself forced to admit the possibility of there being none—had now become the one ambition of my life; and all because it was not only an unusually blind one, but of a nature that involved danger to my position as detective, I entered upon it with a zest rare even to me who love my work and all it involves with an undivided passion.

To equip myself, then, in a fresh disguise and to join Mr. Blake shortly after he had left his own corner, was anything but a hardship to me that bright winter morning, though I knew from past experience, a long and wearisome walk was before me with nothing in all probability at the end but reiterated disappointment. But for once the fates had willed it otherwise. Whether Mr. Blake, discouraged at the failure of his own attempts, whatever they were, felt less heart to prosecute them than usual I cannot say, but we had scarcely entered upon the lower end of the Bowery, before he suddenly turned with a look of disgust, and gazing hurriedly about him, hailed a Madison Avenue car that was rapidly approaching. I was at that moment on the other side of the way, but I hurried forward too, and signaled the same car. But just as I was on the point of entering it I perceived Mr. Blake step hastily back and with his eyes upon a girl that was hurrying past him with a basket on her arm, regain the sidewalk with a swiftness that argued his desire to stop her. Of course I let the car pass me, though I did not dare approach him too closely after my late conspicuous attempt to enter it with him. But from my stand on the opposite curb-stone I saw him draw aside the girl, who from her garments might have been the daughter or wife of any one of the shiftless, drinking wretches lounging about on the four corners within my view, and after talking earnestly with her for a few moments, saunter at her side down Broome Street, still talking. Reckless at this sight of the consequences which might follow his detection of the part I was playing, I hasted after them, when I was suddenly disconcerted by observing him hurriedly separate from the girl and turn towards me with intention as it were to regain the corner he had left. Weighing in an instant the probable good to be obtained by following either party, I determined to leave Mr. Blake for one day to himself, and turn my attention to the girl he had addressed, especially as she was tall and thin and bore herself with something like grace.

Barely bestowing a glance upon him, then, as he passed, in a vain attempt to read the sombre expression of his inscrutable face grown five years older in the last five days, I shuffled after the girl now flitting before me down Broome Street. As I did so, I noticed her dress to its minutest details, somewhat surprised to find how ragged and uncouth it was. That Mr. Blake should stop a girl wherever seen, clad in a black alpaca frock, a striped shawl and a Bowery hat trimmed with feathers, I could easily understand; but that this creature with her faded calico dress, dingy cape thrown carelessly over her head, and ragged basket, should arrest his attention, was a riddle to me. I hastened forward with intent to catch a glimpse of her countenance if possible; but she seemed to have acquired wings to her feet since her interview with Mr. Blake. Darting into a crowd of hooting urchins that were rushing from Centre Street after a broken wagon and runaway horse, she sped from my sight with such rapidity, I soon saw that my only hope of overtaking her lay in running. I accordingly quickened my steps when those same hooting youngsters getting in the way of my feet, I tripped up and—well, I own I retired from that field baffled. Not entirely so, however. Just as I was going down, I caught sight of the girl tearing away from a box of garbage on the curb-stone; and when order having been restored, by which lofty statement I mean to say when your humble servant had regained his equilibrium, I awoke to the fact that she had effectually disappeared, I hurried to that box and succeeded in finding hanging to it a bit of rag easily recognized as a piece of the old calico frock of nameless color which I had been following a moment before. Regarding it as the sole spoils of a very unsatisfactory day's work, I put it carefully away in my pocket book, where it lay till—But with all my zeal for compression, I must not anticipate.

When I came home that afternoon I found myself unexpectedly involved in a matter that for the remainder of the day at least, prevented me from further attending to the affair I had in hand. The next morning Mr. Blake did not start out as usual, and at noon I received intimation from Fanny that he was preparing to take a journey. Where, she could not inform me, nor when, though she thought it probable he would take an early train. Mrs. Daniels was feeling dreadfully, she informed me; and the house was like a grave. Greatly excited at this unexpected move on Mr. Blake's part, I went home and packed my valise with something of the spirit of her who once said, under somewhat different circumstances I allow, "Whither thou goest I will go."

The truth was, I had travelled so far and learned so little, that my professional pride was piqued. That expression of Mr. Gryce still rankled, and nothing could soothe my injured spirit now but success. Accordingly when Mr. Blake stepped up to the ticket office of the Hudson River Railroad next morning, to buy a ticket for Putney, a small town in the northern part of Vermont, he found beside him a spruce young drummer, or what certainly appeared such, who by some strange coincidence, wanted a ticket for the same place. The fact did not seem in the least to surprise him, nor did he cast me a look beyond the ordinary glance of one stranger at another. Indeed Mr. Blake had no appearance of being a suspicious man, nor do I think at this time, he had the remotest idea that he was either watched or followed; an ignorance of the truth which I took care to preserve by taking my seat in a different car from him and not showing myself again during the whole ride from New York to Putney.

CHAPTER VII. THE HOUSE AT THE GRANBY CROSS ROADS

Why Mr. Blake should take a journey at all at this time, and why of all places in the world he should choose such an insignificant town as Putney for his destination, was of course the mystery upon which I brooded during the entire distance. But when somewhere near five in the afternoon I stepped from the cars on to the platform at Putney Station only to hear Mr. Blake making inquiries in regard to a certain stage running between that town and a still smaller village further east, I own I was not only surprised but well-nigh nonplussed. Especially as he seemed greatly disappointed to hear that it only ran once a day, and then for an earlier train in the morning.

"You will have to wait till to-morrow I fear," said the ticket agent, "unless the landlord of the hotel down yonder, can harness you up a team. There is a funeral out west to-day and—"

I did not wait to hear more but hurried down to the hotel he had pointed out, and hunting up the landlord inquired if for love or money he could get me any sort of a conveyance for Melville that afternoon. He assured me it would be impossible, the livery stable as well as his own being entirely empty.

"Such a thing don't happen here once in five years," said he to me. "But the old codger who is dead, though a queer dick was a noted personage in these parts, and not a man, woman or child, who could find a horse, mule or donkey, but what availed himself of the privilege. Even the doctor's spavined mare was pressed into service, though she halts on one leg and stops to get her breath half a dozen times in going up one short hill. You will have to wait for the stage, sir."

"But I am in a hurry," said I as I saw Mr. Blake enter. "I have business in Melville tonight, and I would pay anything in reason to get there."

But the landlord only shook his head; and drawing back with the air of an abused man, I took up my stand in the doorway where I could hear the same colloquy entered into with Mr. Blake, with the same unsatisfactory termination. He did not take it quite as calmly as I did, though he was of too reserved a nature to display much emotion over anything. The prospect of a long tedious evening spent in a country hotel seemed almost unendurable to him, but he finally succumbed to the force of circumstances, as indeed he seemed obliged to do, and partaking of such refreshment as the rather poorly managed hotel afforded, retired without ceremony to his room, from which he did not emerge again till next morning. In all this he had somehow managed not to give his name; and by means of some inquiries I succeeded in making that evening, I found his person was unknown in the town.

By a little management I secured the next room to his, by which arrangement I succeeded in passing a sleepless night, Mr. Blake spending most of the wee sma' hours in pacing the floor of his room, with an unremitting regularity that had anything but a soothing effect upon my nerves. Early the next morning we took the stage, he sitting on the back seat, and I in front with the driver. There were other passengers, but I noticed he never spoke to any of them, nor through all the long drive did he once look up from the corner where he had ensconced himself. It was twelve o'clock when we reached the end of the route, a small town of somewhat less than the usual pretensions of mountain villages; so insignificant indeed, that I found it more and more difficult to imagine what the wealthy ex-Congressman could find in such a spot as this, to make amends for a journey of such length and discomfort; when to my increasing wonder I heard him give orders for a horse to be saddled and brought round to the inn door directly after dinner. This was a move I had not expected and it threw me a little aback, for although I had thus far managed to hold myself so aloof from Mr. Blake, even while keeping him under my eye, that no suspicion of my interest in his movements had as yet been awakened, how could I thus for the third time follow his order with one precisely similar, without attracting an attention that would be fatal to my plans. Yet to let him ride off alone now, would be to drop the trail at the very moment the scent became of importance.

The landlord, a bustling, wiry little man all nervousness and questions, unwittingly helped me at this crisis.

"Are you going on to Perry, sir?" inquired he of that gentleman, "I have been expecting a man along these three days bound for Perry."

"I am that man," I broke in, stepping forward with some appearance of asperity, "and I hope you won't keep me waiting. A horse as soon as dinner is over, do you hear? I am two days late now, and won't stand any nonsense."

And to escape the questions sure to follow, I strode into the dining-room with a half-fierce, half-sullen countenance, that effectually precluded all advances. During the meal I saw Mr. Blake's eye roam more than once towards my face; but I did not return his gaze, or notice him in any way; hurrying through my dinner, and mounting the first horse brought around, as if time were my only consideration. But once on the road I took the first opportunity to draw rein and wait, suddenly remembering that I had not heard Mr. Blake give any intimation of the direction he intended taking. A few minutes revealed to me his elegant form well mounted and showing to perfection in his closely buttoned coat, slowly approaching up the road. Taking advantage of a rise in the ground, I lingered till he was almost upon me, when I cantered quickly on, fearing to arouse his apprehensions if I allowed him to pass me on a road so solitary as that which now stretched out before us: a move provocative of much embarassment to me, as I dared not turn my head for the same reason, anxious as I was to keep him in sight.

The roads dividing before me, at length gave me my first opportunity to pause and look back. He was some fifty paces behind. Waiting till he came up, I bowed with the surly courtesy I thought in keeping with the character I had assumed, and asked if he knew which road led towards Perry, saying I had come off in such haste I had forgotten to inquire my way. He returned my bow, pointed towards the left hand road and saying, "I know this does not," calmly took it.

Now here was a dilemma. If in face of this curt response I proceeded to follow him, my hand was revealed at once; yet the circumstances would admit of no other course. I determined to compromise matters by pretending to take the right hand road till he was out of sight, when I would return and follow him swiftly upon the left. Accordingly I reined my horse to the right, and for some fifteen minutes galloped slowly away towards the north; but another fifteen saw me facing the west, and riding with a force and fury of which I had not thought the old mare they had given me capable, till I put her to the test. It was not long before I saw my fine gentleman trotting in front of me up a long but gentle slope that rose in the distance; and slackening my own rein, I withdrew into the forest at the side of the road, till he had passed its summit and disappeared, when I again galloped forward.

And thus we went on for an hour, over the most uneven country I ever traversed, he always one hill ahead; when suddenly, by what instinct I cannot determine, I felt myself approaching the end, and hastening to the top of the ascent up which I was then laboring, looked down into the shallow valley spread out before me.

What a sight met my eyes if I had been intent on anything less practical than the movements of the solitary horseman below! Hills on hills piled about a verdant basin in whose depths nestled a scanty collection of houses, in number so small they could be told upon the fingers of the right hand, but which notwithstanding lent an indescribable aspect of comfort to this remote region of hill and forest.

But the vision of Mr. Blake pausing half way down the slope before me, examining, yes examining a pistol which he held in his hand, soon put an end to all ideas of romance. Somewhat alarmed I reined back; but his action had evidently no connection with me, for he did not once glance behind him, but kept his eye on the road which I now observed took a short turn towards a house of so weird and ominous an appearance that I scarcely marvelled at his precaution.

Situated on a level track of land at the crossing of three roads, its spacious front, rude and unpainted as it was, presented every appearance of an inn, but from its moss-grown chimneys no smoke arose, nor could I detect any sign of life in its shutterless windows and closed doors, across which shivered the dark shadow of the one gaunt and aged pine, that stood like a guard beside its tumbled-down porch.

Mr. Blake seemed to have been struck by the same fact concerning its loneliness, for hurriedly replacing his pistol in his breast pocket, he rode slowly forward. I instantly conceived the plan of striking across the belt of underbrush that separated me from this old dwelling, and by taking my stand opposite its front, intercept a view of Mr. Blake as he approached. Hastily dismounting, therefore, I led my horse into the bushes and tied her to a tree, proceeding to carry out my plan on foot. I was so far successful as to arrive at the further edge of the wood, which was thick enough to conceal my presence without being too dense to obstruct my vision, just as Mr. Blake passed on his way to this solitary dwelling. He was looking very anxious, but determined. Turning my eyes from him, I took another glance at the house, which by this movement I had brought directly before me. It was even more deserted-looking than I had thought; its unpainted front with its double row of blank windows meeting your gaze without a response, while the huge old pine with half its limbs dismantled of foliage, rattled its old bones against its sides and moaned in its aged fashion like the solitary retainer of a dead race.

I own I felt the cold shivers creep down my back as that creaking sound struck my ears, though as the day was chill with an east wind I dare say it was more the effect of my sudden cessation from exercise, than of any superstitious awe I felt. Mr. Blake seemed to labor under no such impressions. Riding up to the front door he knocked without dismounting, on its dismal panels with his riding whip. No response was heard. Knitting his brows impatiently, he tried the latch: the door was locked. Hastily running his eye over the face of the building, he drew rein and proceeded to ride around the house, which he could easily do owing to the absence of every obstruction in the way of fence or shrubbery. Finding no means of entrance he returned again to the front door which he shook with an impatient hand that however produced no impression upon the trusty lock, and recognizing, doubtless, the futility of his endeavors, he drew back, and merely pausing to give one other look at its deserted front, turned his horse's head, and to my great amazement, proceeded with sombre mien and clouded brow to retake the road to Melville.

This old inn or decayed homestead was then the object of his lengthened and tedious journey; this ancient house rotting away among the bleak hills of Vermont, the bourne towards which his steps had been tending for these past two days. I could not understand it. Rapidly emerging from the spot where I had secreted myself, I in my turn made a circuit of the house, if happily I should discover some loophole of entrance which had escaped his attention. But every door and window was securely barred, and I was about to follow his example and leave the spot, when I saw two or three children advancing towards me down the cross roads, gaily swinging their school books. I noticed they hesitated and huddled together as they approached and saw me, but not heeding this, I accosted them with a pleasant word or so, then pointing over my shoulder to the house behind, asked who lived there. Instantly their already pale faces grew paler.

"Why," cried one, a boy, "don't you know? That is where the two wicked men lived who stole the money out of the Rutland bank. They were put in prison, but they got away and—"

Here, the other, a little girl, plucked him by the sleeve with such affright, that he himself took alarm and just giving me one quick stare out of his wide eyes, grasped his companion by the hand and took to his heels. As for myself I stood rooted to the ground in my astonishment. This blank, sleepy old house the home of the notorious Schoenmakers after whom half of the detectives of the country were searching? I could scarcely credit my own ears. True I now remembered they had come from these parts, still—

Turning round I eyed the house once more. How altered it looked to me! What a murderous aspect it wore, and how dismally secret were the tight shut windows and closely fastened doors, on one of which a rude cross scrawled in red chalk met the eye with a mysterious significance. Even the old pine had acquired the villainous air of the uncanny repositor of secrets too dreadful to reveal, as it groaned and murmured to itself in the keen east wind. Dark deeds and foul wrong seemed written all over the fearful place, from the long strings of black moss that clung to the worm-eaten eaves, to the worn stone with its great blotch of something,—could it have been blood?—that served as a threshold to the door. Suddenly with the quickness of lightning the thought flashed across me, what could Mr. Blake, the aristocratic representative of New York's oldest family, have wanted in this nest of infamy? What errand of hope, fear, despair, avarice or revenge, could have brought this superior gentleman with his refined tastes and proudly reticent manners, so many miles from home, to the forsaken den of a brace of hardy villains whose name for two years now, had stood as the type of all that was bold, bad and lawless, and for whom during the last six weeks the prison had yawned, and the gallows hungered. Contemplation brought no reply, and shocked at my own thoughts, I put the question by for steadier brains than mine; and instead of trying further to solve it, cast about how I was to gain entrance into this deserted building; for to enter it I was more than ever determined, now that I had heard to whom it had once belonged.

Examining with a glance the several roads that branched off in every direction from where I stood, I found them all equally deserted. Even the school children had disappeared in some one of the four or five houses scattered in the remote distance.

If I was willing to enter upon any daring exploit, there was no one to observe or interrupt. I resolved to make the attempt with which my mind was full. This was to climb the old tree, and from one of the two or three branches that brushed against the house, gain entrance at an open garret window that stared at me from amid the pine's dark needles. Taking off my coat with a sigh over the immaculate condition of my new cassimere trousers, I bent my energies to the task. A difficult one you will say for a city lad, but thanks to fortune I was not brought up in New York, and know how to climb trees with the best. With little more than a scratch or so, I reached the window of which I have spoken, and after a moment spent in regaining my breath, gave one spring and accomplished my purpose. I alighted upon a heap of broken glass in a large bare room. An ominous chill at once struck to my heart. Though I am anything but a sensitive man as far as physical impressions are concerned, there was something in the hollow echo that arose from the four blank walls about me as my feet alighted on that rough, uncarpeted floor, that struck a vague chill through my blood, and I actually hesitated for the moment whether to pursue the investigations I had promised myself, or beat a hasty retreat. A glance at the huge distorted limbs swaying across the square of the open window decided me. It was easy to enter by means of that unsteady support, but it would be extremely unsafe to venture forth in that way. If I prized life and limb I must seek some other method of egress. I at once put my apprehensions in my pocket and entered upon my self imposed task.

A single glance was sufficient to exhaust the resources of the empty garret in which I found myself. Two or three old chairs piled in one corner, a rusty stove or so, a heap of tattered and decaying clothing, were all that met my gaze. Taking my way, then, at once to the ladder, whose narrow ends projecting above a hole in the garret floor, seemed to proffer the means of reaching the rooms below, I proceeded to descend into what to my excited imagination looked like a gulf of darkness. It proved, however, to be nothing more nor less than an unlighted hall of small dimensions, with a staircase at one end and a door at the other, which, upon opening I found myself in a large, square room whose immense four-post bedstead entirely denuded of its usual accompaniments of bed and bolster at once struck my eye and for a moment held it enchained. There were other articles in the room; a disused bureau, a rocking chair, even a table, but nothing had such a ghostly look as that antique bedstead with its curtains of calico tied back over its naked framework, like rags draped from the bare bones of a skeleton. Passing hurriedly by, I tried a closet door or so, finding little, however, to reward my search; and eager to be done with what was every moment becoming more and more drearisome, I hastened across the floor to the front of the house where I found another hall and a row of rooms that, while not entirely stripped of furniture, were yet sufficiently barren to offer little encouragement to my curiosity. One only, a small but not uncomfortable apartment, showed any signs of having been occupied within a reasonable length of time; and as I paused before its hastily spread bed, thrown together as only a man would do it, and wondering why the room was so dark, looked up and saw that the window was entirely covered by an old shawl and a couple of heavy coats that had been hastily nailed across it, I own I felt my hand go to my breast pocket almost as if I expected to see the wild faces of the dreaded Schoenmakers start up all aglare from one of the dim corners before me. Rushing to the window, I tore down with one sweep of my arm both coat and shawl, and with a start discovered that the window still possessed its draperies in the shape of a pair of discolored and tattered curtains tied with ribbons that must once have been brilliant and cheery of color.

Nor was this the only sign in the room of a bygone presence that had possessed a taste for something beyond the mere necessities of life. On the grim coarsely papered wall hung more than one picture; cut from pictorial newspapers to be sure, but each and every one, if I may be called a judge of such matters, possessing some quality of expression to commend it to a certain order of taste. They were all strong pictures. Vivid faces of men and women in daring positions; a hunter holding back a jaguar from his throat; a soldier protecting his comrade from the stroke; and most striking of all, a woman lissome as she was powerful, starting aghast and horror stricken from—what? I could not tell; a rough hand had stripped the remainder of the picture from the wall.

A bit of candle and a half sheet of a newspaper lay on the floor. I picked up the paper. It was a Rutland Herald and bore the date of two days before. As I read I realized what I had done. If these daring robbers were not at this very moment in the house, they had been there, and that within two or three days. The broken panes of glass in the garret above were now explained. I was not the first one who had climbed that creaking pine tree this fall.

Something like a sensible dread of a very possible danger now seized hold of me. If I had stumbled upon these strangely subtile, yet devilishly bold creatures in their secret lair, the pistol I carried was not going to save me. Shut in like a fox in a hole, I had little to hope for, if they once made their appearance at the stairhead or came upon me from any of the dim halls of the crazy old dwelling, which I now began to find altogether too large for my comfort. Stealing cautiously forth from the room in which I had found so much to disconcert me, I crept towards the front staircase and listened. All was deathly quiet. The old pine tree moaned and twisted without, and from time to time the wind came sweeping down the chimney with an unearthly shrieking sound that was weirdly in keeping with the place. But within and below all was still as the tomb, and though in no ways reassured, I determined to descend and have the suspense over at once. I did so, pistol in hand and ears stretched to their utmost to catch the slightest rustle, but no sound came to disturb me, nor did I meet on this lower floor the sign of any other presence in the house but my own. Passing hastily through what appeared to be a sort of rude parlor, I stepped into the kitchen and tried one of the windows. Finding I could easily lift it from the inside, I drew my breath with ease for the first time since I had alighted among the broken glass above, and turning back, deliberately opened the door of the kitchen stove, and looked in. As I half expected, I found a pile of partly charred rags, showing where the wretches had burned their prison clothing, and proceeding further, picked up from the ashes a ring which whether or not they were conscious of having attempted to destroy in this way I cannot say, but which I thankfully put in my pocket against the day it might be required as proof.

Discerning nothing more in that quarter inviting interest, I asked myself if I had nerve to descend into the cellar. Finally concluding that that was more than could be expected from any man in my position, I gave one look of farewell to the damp and desolate walls about me, then with a breath of relief jumped from the kitchen window again into the light and air of day. As I did so I could swear I heard a door within that old house swing on its hinges and softly close. With a thrill I recognized the fact that it came from the cellar.

*      *      *      *

My thoughts on the road back to Melville were many and conflicting. Chief above them all, however, rose the comfortable conclusion that in the pursuit of one mysterious affair, I had stumbled, as is often the case, upon the clue to another of yet greater importance, and by so doing got a start that might yet redound greatly to my advantage. For the reward offered for the recapture of the Schoenmakers was large, and the possibility of my being the one to put the authorities upon their track, certainly appeared after this day's developements, open at least to a very reasonable hope. At all events I determined not to let the grass grow under my feet till I had informed the Superintendent of what I had seen and heard that day in the old haunt of these two escaped convicts.

Arrived at the public house in Melville, and learning that Mr. Blake had safely returned there an hour before, I drew the landlord to one side and asked what he could tell me about that old house of the two noted robbers Schoenmaker, I had passed on my way back among the hills.

"Wa'al now," replied he, "this is curious. Here I've just been answering the gentleman up stairs a heap of questions concerning that self same old place, and now you come along with another batch of them; just as if that rickety old den was the only spot of interest we had in these parts."

"Perhaps that may be the truth," I laughed. "Just now when the papers are full of these rogues, anything concerning them must be of superior interest of course." And I pressed him again to give me a history of the house and the two thieves who had inhabited it.

"Wa'al," drawled he "'taint much we know about them, yet after all it may be a trifle too much for their necks some day. Time was when nobody thought especial ill of them beyond a suspicion or so of their being somewhat mean about money. That was when they kept an inn there, but when the robbery of the Rutland bank was so clearly traced to them, more than one man about here started up and said as how they had always suspected them Shoenmakers of being villains, and even hinted at something worse than robbery. But nothing beyond that one rascality has yet been proved against them, and for that they were sent to jail for twenty years as you know. Two months ago they escaped, and that is the last known of them. A precious set, too, they are; the father being only so much the greater rogue than the son as he is years older."

"And the inn? When was that closed?"

"Just after their arrest."

"Has'nt it been opened since?"

"Only once when a brace of detectives came up from Troy to investigate, as they called it."

"Who has the key?"

"Ah, that's more than I can tell you."

I dared not ask how my questions differed from those of Mr. Blake, nor indeed touch upon that point in any way. I was chiefly anxious now to return to New York without delay; so paying my bill I thanked the landlord, and without waiting for the stage, remounted my horse and proceeded at once to Putney where I was fortunate enough to catch the evening train. By five o'clock next morning I was in New York where I proceeded to carry out my programme by hastening at once to headquarters and reporting my suspicions regarding the whereabouts of the Schoenmakers. The information was received with interest and I had the satisfaction of seeing two men despatched north that very day with orders to procure the arrest of the two notable villains wherever found.

CHAPTER VIII. A WORD OVERHEARD

That evening I had a talk with Fanny over the area gate. She came out when she saw me approach, with her eyes staring and her whole form in a flutter.

"O," she cried, "such things as I have heard this day!"

"Well," said I, "what? let me hear too." She put her hand on her heart. "I never was so frightened," whispered she, "I thought I should have fainted right away. To hear that elegant lady use such a word as crime,—"

"What elegant lady?" interrupted I. "Don't begin in the middle of your story, that's a good girl; I want to hear it all."

"Well," said she, calming down a little, "Mrs. Daniels had a visitor to-day, a lady. She was dressed—"

"O, now," interrupted I for the second time, "you can leave that out. Tell me what her name was and let the fol-de-rols go."

"Her name?" exclaimed the girl with some sharpness, "how should I know her name; she did'nt come to see me."

"How did she look then? You saw her I suppose?"

"And was'nt that what I was telling you, when you stopped me. She looked like a queen, that she did; as grand a lady as ever I see, in her velvet dress sweeping over the floor, and her diamonds as big as—"

"Was she a dark woman?" I asked.

"Her hair was black and so were her eyes, if that is what you mean."

"And was she very tall and proud looking?"

The girl nodded. "You know her?" whispered she.

"No," said I, "not exactly; but I think I can tell who she is. And so she called to-day on Mrs. Daniels, did she."

"Yes, but I guess she knew master would be home before she got away."

"Come," said I, "tell me all about it; I'm getting impatient."

"And ain't I telling you?" said she. "It was about three o'clock this afternoon, the time I go up stairs to dress, so I just hangs about in the hall a bit, near the parlor door, and I hear her gossiping with Mrs. Daniels almost as if she was an old friend, and Mrs. Daniels answering her mighty stiffly and as if she was'nt glad to see her at all. But the lady didn't seem to mind, but went on talking as sweet as honey, and when they came out, you would have thought she loved the old woman like a sister to see her look into her face and say something about knowing how busy she was, but that it would give her so much pleasure if she would come some day to see her and talk over old times. But Mrs. Daniels was'nt pleased a bit and showed plain enough she did'nt like the lady, fine as she was in her ways. She was going to answer her too, but just then the front door opened and Mr. Blake with his satchel in his hand, came into the house. And how he did start, to be sure, when he saw them, though he tried to say something perlite which she did'nt seem to take to at all, for after muttering something about not expecting to see him, she put her hand on the knob and was going right out. But he stopped her and they went into the parlor together while Mrs. Daniels stood staring after them like one mad, her hand held out with his bag and umbrella in it, stiff as a statter in the Central Park. She did'nt stand so long, though, but came running down the hall, as if she was bewitched. I was dreadful flustered, for though I was hid behind the wall that juts out there by the back stairs, I was afraid she would see me and shame me before Mr. Blake. But she passed right by and never looked up. 'There is something dreadful mysterious in this,' thought I, and I just made up my mind to stay where I was till Mr. Blake and the lady should come out again from the parlor. I did'nt have to wait very long. In a few minutes the door opened and they stepped out, he ahead and she coming after. I thought this was queer, he is always so dreadful perlite in his ways, but I thought it was a deal queerer when I saw him go up the front stairs, she hurrying after, looking I cannot tell you how, but awful troubled and anxious, I should say.

"They went into that room of his he calls his studio and though I knew it might cost me my place if I was found out, I could'nt help following and listening at the keyhole."

"And what did you hear?" I asked, for she paused to take breath.

"Well, the first thing I heard was a cry of pleasure from her, and the words, 'You keep that always before you? You cannot dislike me, then, as much as you pretend.' I don't know what she meant nor what he did, but he stepped across the room and I heard her cry out this time as if she was hurt as well as awful surprised; and he talked and talked, and I could'nt catch a word, he spoke so low; and by and by she sobbed just a little, and I got scared and would have run away but she cried out with a kind of shriek, 'O, don't say any more; to think that crime should come into our family, the proudest in the land. How could you, Holman, how could you.' Yes," the girl went on, flushing in her excitement till she was as red as the cherry ribbons in her cap, "those were the very words she used: 'To think that crime should come into our family! the proudest one in the land!' And she called him by his first name, and asked him how he could do it."

"And what did Mr. Blake say?" returned I, a little taken back myself at this result of my efforts with Fanny.

"O, I did'nt wait to hear. I did'nt wait for anything. If folks was going to talk about such things as that, I thought I had better be anywhere than listening at the keyhole. I went right up stairs I can tell you."

"And whom have you told of what you heard in the half dozen hours that have gone by?"

"Nobody; how could you think so mean of me when I promised, and—"

It is not necessary to go any further into this portion of the interview.

The Countess De Mirac possessed to its fullest extent the present fine lady's taste for bric-a-brac. So much I had learned in my inquiries concerning her. Remembering this, I took the bold resolution of profiting by this weakness of hers to gain admission to her presence, she being the only one sharing Mr. Blake's mysterious secret. Borrowing a valuable antique from a friend of mine at that time in the business, I made my appearance the very next day at her apartments, and sending in an urgent request to see Madame, by the trim negress who answered my summons, waited in some doubt for her reply.

It came all too soon; Madame was ill and could see no one. I was not, however, to be baffled by one rebuff. Handing the basket I held to the girl, I urged her to take it in and show her mistress what it contained, saying it was a rare article which might never again come her way.

The girl complied, though with a doubtful shake of the head which was anything but encouraging. Her incredulity, however, must have been speedily rebuked, for she almost immediately returned without the basket, saying Madame would see me.

My first thoughts upon entering the grand lady's presence, was that the girl had been mistaken, for I found the Countess walking the floor in an abstracted way, drying a letter she had evidently but just completed, by shaking it to and fro with an unsteady hand; the placque I had brought, lying neglected on the table.

But at sight of my respectful form standing with bent head in the doorway, she hurriedly thrust the letter into a book and took up the placque. As she did so I marked her well and almost started at the change I observed in her since that evening at the Academy. It was not only that she was dressed in some sort of loose dishabille that was in eminent contrast to the sweeping silks and satins in which I had hitherto beheld her adorned; or that she was laboring under some physical disability that robbed her dark cheek of the bloom that was its chiefest charm. The change I observed went deeper than that; it was more as if a light had been extinguished in her countenance. It was the same woman I had beheld standing like a glowing column of will and strength before the melancholy form of Mr. Blake, but with the will and strength gone, and with them all the glow.

"She no longer hopes," thought I, and already felt repaid for my trouble.

"This is a very pretty article you have brought me," said she with something of the unrestrained love of art which she undoubtedly possessed, showing itself through all her languor. "Where did it come from, and what recommendations have you, to prove it is an honest sale you offer me?"

"None," returned I, ignoring with a reassuring smile the first question, "except that I should not be afraid if all the police in New York knew I was here with this fine placque for sale."

She gave a shrug of her proud shoulder that bespoke the French Countess and softly ran her finger round the edge of the placque.

"I don't need anything more of this kind," said she languidly; "besides," and she set it down with a fretful air, "I am in no mood to buy this afternoon." Then shortly, "What do you ask for it?"

I named a fabulous price.

She started and cast me a keen glance. "You had better take it to some one else; I have no money to throw away."

With a hesitating hand I lifted the placque towards the basket. "I would very much like to sell it to you," said I. "Perhaps—"

Just then a lady's fluttering voice rose from the room beyond inquiring for the Countess, and hurriedly taking the placque from my hand with an impulsive "O there's Amy," she passed into the adjoining apartment, leaving the door open behind her.

I saw a quick interchange of greetings between her and a fashionably dressed lady, then they withdrew to one side with the ornament I had brought, evidently consulting in regard to its merits. Now was my time. The book in which she had placed the letter she had been writing lay on the table right before me, not two inches from my hand. I had only to throw back the cover and my curiosity would be satisfied. Taking advantage of a moment when their backs were both turned, I pressed open the book with a careful hand, and with one eye on them and one on the sheet before me, managed to read these words:—

MY DEAREST CECILIA.

I have tried in vain to match the sample you sent me at Stewart's,
Arnold's and McCreery's. If you still insist upon making up the
dress in the way you propose, I will see what Madame Dudevant can
do for us, though I cannot but advise you to alter your plans and
make the darker shade of velvet do. I went to the Cary reception
last night and met Lulu Chittenden. She has actually grown old,
but was as lively as ever. She created a great stir in Paris when
she was there; but a husband who comes home two o'clock in the
morning with bleared eyes and empty pockets, is not conducive to
the preservation of a woman's beauty. How she manages to retain
her spirits I cannot imagine. You ask me news of cousin Holman. I
meet him occasionally and he looks well, but has grown into the
most sombre man you ever saw. In regard to certain hopes of which
you have sometimes made mention, let me assure you they are no
longer practicable. He has done what—

Here the conversation ceased in the other room, the Countess made a movement of advance and I closed the book with an inward groan over my ill-luck.

"It is very pretty," said she with a weary air; "but as I remarked before, I am not in the buying mood. If you will take half you mention, I may consider the subject, but—"

"Pardon me, Madame," I interrupted, being in no wise anxious to leave the placque behind me, "I have been considering the matter and I hold to my original price. Mr. Blake of Second Avenue may give it to me if you do not."

"Mr. Blake!" She eyed me suspiciously. "Do you sell to him?"

"I sell to anyone I can," replied I; "and as he has an artist's eye for such things—"

Her brows knitted and she turned away. "I do not want it;" said she, "sell it to whom you please."

I took up the placque and left the room.

CHAPTER IX. A FEW GOLDEN HAIRS

When a few days from that I made my appearance before Mr. Gryce, it was to find him looking somewhat sober. "Those Schoenmakers," said he, "are making a deal of trouble. It seems they escaped the fellows up north and are now somewhere in this city, but where—"

An expressive gesture finished the sentence.

"Is that so?" exclaimed I. "Then we are sure to nab them. Given time and a pair of low, restless German thieves, I will wager anything, our hands will be upon them before the month is over. I only hope, when we do come across them, it will not be to find their betters too much mixed up with their devilish practices." And I related to him what Fanny had told me a few evenings before.

"The coil is tightening," said he. "What the end will be I don't know. Crime, said she? I wish I knew in what blind hole of the earth that girl we are after lies hidden."

As if in answer to this wish the door opened and one of our men came in with a letter in his hand. "Ha!" exclaimed Mr. Gryce, after he had perused it, "look at that."

I took the letter from his hand and read:

The dead body of a girl such as you describe was found in the East
river off Fiftieth Street this morning. From appearance has been
dead some time. Have telegraphed to Police Headquarters for
orders. Should you wish to see the body before it is removed to
the Morgue or otherwise disturbed, please hasten to Pier 48 E. R.
GRAHAM.

"Come," said I, "let's go and see for ourselves. If it should be the one—"

"The dinner party proposed by Mr. Blake for tonight, may have its interruptions," he remarked.

I do not wish to make my story any longer than is necessary, but I must say that when in an hour or so later, I stood with Mr. Gryce before the unconscious form of that poor drowned girl I felt an unusual degree of awe stealing over me: there was so much mystery connected with this affair, and the parties implicated were of such standing and repute.

I almost dreaded to see the covering removed from her face lest I should behold, what? I could not have told if I had tried.

"A trim made body enough," cried the official in charge as Mr. Gryce lifted an end of the cloth that enveloped her and threw it back. "Pity the features are not better preserved."

"No need for us to see the features," exclaimed I, pointing to the locks of golden red hair that hung in tangled masses about her. "The hair is enough; she is not the one." And I turned aside, asking myself if it was relief I felt.

To my surprise Mr. Gryce did not follow.

"Tall, thin, white face, black eyes." I heard him whisper to himself. "It is a pity the features are not better preserved."

"But," said I, taking him by the arm, "Fanny spoke particularly of her hair being black, while this girl's—Good heavens!" I suddenly ejaculated as I looked again at the prostrate form before me. "Yellow hair or black, this is the girl I saw him speaking to that day in Broome Street. I remember her clothes if nothing more." And opening my pocketbook, I took out the morsel of cloth I had plucked that day from the ash barrel, lifted up the discolored rags that hung about the body and compared the two. The pattern, texture and color were the same.

"Well," said Mr. Gryce, pointing to certain contusions, like marks from the blow of some heavy instrument on the head and bared arms of the girl before us; "he will have to answer me one question anyhow, and that is, who this poor creature is who lies here the victim of treachery or despair." And turning to the official he asked if there were any other signs of violence on the body.

The answer came deliberately, "Yes, she has evidently been battered to death."

Mr. Gryce's lips closed with grim decision. "A most brutal murder," said he and lifting up the cloth with a hand that visibly trembled, he softly covered her face.

"Well," said I as we slowly paced back up the pier, "there is one thing certain, she is not the one who disappeared from Mr. Blake's house."

"I am not so sure of that."

"How!" said I. "You believed Fanny lied when she gave that description of the missing girl upon which we have gone till now?"

Mr. Gryce smiled, and turning back, beckoned to the official behind us. "Let me have that description," said he, "which I distributed among the Harbor Police some days ago for the identification of a certain corpse I was on the lookout for."

The man opened his coat and drew out a printed paper which at Mr. Gryce's word he put into my hand. It ran as follows:

Look out for the body of a young girl, tall, well shaped but thin,
of fair complexion and golden hair of a peculiar bright and
beautiful color, and when found, acquaint me at once.
G.

"I don't understand," began I.

But Mr. Gryce tapping me on the arm said in his most deliberate tones, "Next time you examine a room in which anything of a mysterious nature has occurred, look under the bureau and if you find a comb there with several long golden hairs tangled in it, be very sure before you draw any definite conclusions, that your Fannys know what they are talking about when they declare the girl who used that comb had black hair on her head."

CHAPTER X. THE SECRET OF MR. BLAKE'S STUDIO

"Mr. Blake is at dinner, sir, with company, but I will call him if you say so."

"No," returned Mr. Gryce; "show us into some room where we can be comfortable and we will wait till he has finished."

The servant bowed, and stepping forward down the hall, opened the door of a small and cosy room heavily hung with crimson curtains. "I will let him know that you are here," said he, and vanished towards the dining-room.

"I doubt if Mr. Blake will enjoy the latter half of his bill of fare as much as the first," said I, drawing up one of the luxurious armchairs to the side of my principal. "I wonder if he will break away from his guests and come in here?"

"No; if I am not mistaken we shall find Mr. Blake a man of nerve. Not a muscle of his face will show that he is disturbed."

"Well," said I, "I dread it."

Mr. Gryce looked about on the gorgeous walls and the rich old fashioned furniture that surrounded him, and smiled one of his grimmest smiles.

"Well, you may," said he.

The next instant a servant stood in the doorway, bearing to our great astonishment, a tray well set with decanter and glasses.

"Mr. Blake's compliments, gentlemen," said he, setting it down on the table before us. "He hopes you will make yourselves at home and he will see you as soon as possible."

The humph! of Mr. Gryce when the servant had gone would have done your soul good, also the look he cast at the pretty Dresden Shepherdess on the mantel-piece, as I reached out my hand towards the decanter. Somehow it made me draw back.

"I think we had better leave his wine alone," said he.

And for half an hour we sat there, the wine untouched between us, listening alternately to the sound of speech-making and laughter that came from the dining-room, and the solemn ticking of the clock as it counted out the seconds on the mantel-piece. Then the guests came in from the table, filing before us past the open door on their way to the parlors. They were all gentlemen of course—Mr. Blake never invited ladies to his house—and gentlemen of well known repute. The dinner had been given in honor of a certain celebrated statesman, and the character of his guests was in keeping with that of the one thus complimented.

As they went by us gaily indulging in the jokes and light banter with which such men season a social dinner, I saw Mr. Gryce's face grow sober by many a shade; and when in the midst of it all, we heard the voice of Mr. Blake rise in that courteous and measured tone for which it is distinguished, I saw him reach forward and grasp his cane with an uneasiness I had never seen displayed by him before. But when some time later, the guests having departed, the dignified host advanced with some apology to where we were, I never beheld a firmer look on Mr. Gryce's face than that with which he rose and confronted him. Mr. Blake's own had not more character in it.

"You have called at a rather inauspicious time, Mr. Gryce," said the latter, glancing at the card which he held in his hand. "What may your business be? Something to do with politics, I suppose."

I surveyed the man in amazement. Was this great politician stooping to act a part, or had he forgotten our physiognomies as completely as appeared?

"Our business is not politics," replied Mr. Gryce; "but fully as important. May I request the doors be closed?"

I thought Mr. Blake looked surprised, but he immediately stepped to the door and shut it. Then coming back, he looked at Mr. Gryce more closely and a change took place in his manner.

"I think I have seen you before," said he.

Mr. Gryce bowed with just the suspicion of a smile. "I have had the honor of consulting you before in this very house," observed he.

A look of full recognition passed over the dignified countenance of the man before us.

"I remember," said he, shrugging his shoulders in the old way. "You are interested in some servant girl or other who ran away from this house a week or so ago. Have you found her?" This with no apparent concern.

"We think we have," rejoined Mr. Gryce with some solemnity. "The river gives up its prey now and then, Mr. Blake."

Still only that look of natural surprise.

"Indeed! You do not mean to say she has drowned herself? I am sorry for that, a girl who had once lived in my house. What trouble could she have had to drive her to such an act?"

Mr. Gryce advanced a step nearer the gentleman.

"That is what we have come here to learn," said he with a deliberation that yet was not lacking in the respect due to a man so universally esteemed as Mr. Blake. "You who have seen her so lately ought to be able to throw some light upon the subject at least."

"Mr.—" he again glanced at the card, "Mr. Gryce,—excuse me—I believe I told you when you were here before that I had no remembrance of this girl at all. That if such a person was in my house I did not know it, and that all questions put to me on that subject would be so much labor thrown away."

Mr. Gryce bowed. "I remember," said he. "I was not alluding to any connection you may have had with the girl in this house, but to the interview you were seen to have with her on the corner of Broome Street some days ago. You had such an interview, did you not?"

A flush, deep as it was sudden, swept over Mr. Blake's usually unmoved cheek. "You are transgressing sir," said he and stopped. Though a man of intense personal pride, he had but little of that quality called temper, or perhaps if he had, thought it unwise to display it on this occasion. "I saw and spoke to a girl on the corner of that street some days ago," he went on more mildly, "but that she was the one who lived here, I neither knew at the time nor feel willing to believe now without positive proof." Then in a deep ringing tone the stateliness of which it would be impossible to describe, he inquired, "Have the city authorities presumed to put a spy on my movements, that the fact of my speaking to a poor forsaken creature on the corner of the street should be not only noted but remembered?"

"Mr. Blake," observed Mr. Gryce, and I declare I was proud of my superior at that moment, "no man who is a true citizen and a Christian should object to have his steps followed, when by his own thoughtlessness, perhaps, he has incurred a suspicion which demands it."

"And do you mean to say that I have been followed," inquired he, clenching his hand and looking steadily, but with a blanching cheek, first at Mr. Gryce then at me.

"It was indispensable," quoth that functionary gently.

The outraged gentleman riveted his gaze upon me. "In town and out of town?" demanded he.

I let Mr. Gryce reply. "It is known that you have lately sought to visit the Schoenmakers," said he.

Mr. Blake drew a deep breath, cast his eyes about the handsome apartment in which we were, let them rest for a moment upon a portrait that graced one side of the wall, and which was I have since learned a picture of his father, and slowly drew forward a chair. "Let me hear what your suspicions are," said he.

I noticed Mr. Gryce colored at this; he had evidently been met in a different way from what he expected. "Excuse me," said he, "I do not say I have any suspicions; my errand is simply to notify you of the death of the girl you were seen to speak with, and to ask whether or not you can give us any information that can aid us in the matter before the coroner."

"You know I have not. If I have been as closely followed as you say, you must know why I spoke to that girl and others, why I went to the house of the Schoenmakers and—Do you know?" he suddenly inquired.

Mr. Gryce was not the man to answer such a question as that. He eyed the rich signet ring that adorned the hand of the gentleman before him and suavely smiled. "I am ready to listen to any explanations," said he.

Mr. Blake's haughty countenance became almost stern. "You consider you have a right to demand them; let me hear why."

"Well," said Mr. Gryce with a change of tone, "you shall. Unprofessional as it is, I will tell you why I, a member of the police force, dare enter the house of such a man as you are, and put him the questions I have concerning his domestic affairs. Mr. Blake, imagine yourself in a detective's office. A woman comes in, the housekeeper of a respected citizen, and informs us that a girl employed by her as seamstress has disappeared in a very unaccountable way from her master's house the night before; in fact been abducted as she thinks from certain evidences, through the window. Her manner is agitated, her appeal for assistance urgent, though she acknowledges no relationship to the girl or expresses any especial cause for her interest beyond that of common humanity. 'She must be found,' she declares, and hints that any sum necessary will be forthcoming, though from what source after her own pittance is expended she does not state. When asked if her master has no interest in the matter, she changes color and puts us off. He never noticed his servants, left all such concerns to her, etc.; but shows fear when a proposition is made to consult him. Next imagine yourself with the detectives in that gentleman's house. You enter the girl's room; what is the first thing you observe? Why that it is not only one of the best in the house, but that it is conspicuous for its comforts if not for its elegancies. More than that, that there are books of poetry and history lying around, showing that the woman who inhabited it was above her station; a fact which the housekeeper is presently brought to acknowledge. You notice also that the wild surmise of her abduction by means of the window, has some ground in appearance, though the fact that she went with entire unwillingness is not made so apparent. The housekeeper, however, insists in a way that must have had some special knowledge of the girl's character or circumstances to back it, that she never went without compulsion; a statement which the torn curtains and the track of blood over the roof of the extension, would seem to emphasize. A few other facts are made known. First, a pen-knife is picked up from the grass plot in the yard beneath, showing with what instrument the wound was inflicted, whose drippings made those marks of blood alluded to. It was a pearl-handled knife belonging to the writing desk found open on her table, and its frail and dainty character proved indisputably, that it was employed by the girl herself, and that against manifest enemies; no man being likely to snatch up any such puny weapon for the purpose either of offence or defence. That these enemies were two and were both men, was insisted upon by Mrs. Daniels who overheard their voices the night before.

"Mr. Blake, such facts as these arouse curiosity, especially when the master of the house being introduced upon the scene, he fails to manifest common human interest, while his housekeeper betrays in every involuntary gesture and expression she makes use of, her horror if not her fear of his presence, and her relief at his departure. Yes," he exclaimed, unheeding the sudden look here cast him by Mr. Blake, "and curiosity begets inquiry, and inquiry elucidated further facts such as these, that the mysterious master of the house was in his garden at the hour of the girl's departure, was even looking through the bars of his gate when she, having evidently escaped from her captors, came back with every apparent desire to reenter her home, but seeing him, betrayed an unreasonable amount of fear and fled back even into the very arms of the men she had endeavored to avoid. Did you speak sir?" asked Mr. Gryce suddenly stopping, with a sly look at his left boot tip.

Mr. Blake shook his head. "No," said he shortly, "go on." But that last remark of Mr. Gryce had evidently made its impression.

"Inquiry revealed, also, two or three other interesting facts. First, that this gentleman qualified though he was to shine in ladies' society, never obtruded himself there, but employed his leisure time instead, in walking the lower streets of the city, where he was seen more than once conversing with certain poor girls at street corners and in blind alleys. The last one he talked with, believed from her characteristics to be the same one that was abducted from his house—"

"Hold there," said Mr. Blake with some authority in his tone, "there you are mistaken; that is impossible."

"Ah, and why?"

"The girl you allude to had bright golden hair, something which the woman who lived in my house did not possess."

"Indeed. I thought you had never noticed the woman who sewed for you, sir,—did not know how she looked?"

"I should have noticed her if she had had such hair as the girl you speak of."

Mr. Gryce smiled and opened his pocketbook.

"There is a sample of her hair, sir," said he, taking out a thin strand of brilliant hair and showing it to the gentleman before him. "Bright you see, and golden as that of the unfortunate creature you talked with the other night."

Mr. Blake stooped forward and lifted it with a hand that visibly trembled. "Where did you get this?" asked he at last, clenching it to his breast with sudden passion.

"From out of the comb which the girl had been using the night before."

The imperious man flung it hastily from him.

"We waste our time," said he, looking Mr. Gryce intently in the face. "All that you have said does not account for your presence here nor the tone you have used while addressing me. What are you keeping back? I am not a man to be trifled with."

Mr. Gryce rose to his feet. "You are right," said he, and he gave a short glance in my direction. "All that I have said would not perhaps justify me in this intrusion, if—" he looked again towards me. "Do you wish me to continue?" he asked.

Mr. Blake's intent look deepened. "I see no reason why you should not utter the whole," said he. "A good story loses nothing by being told to the end. You wish to say something about my journey to Schoenmaker's house, I suppose."

Mr. Gryce gravely shook his head.

"What, you can let such a mystery as that go without a word?"

"I am not here to discuss mysteries that have no connection with the sewing-girl in whose cause I am interested."

"Then," said Mr. Blake, turning for the first time upon my superior with all the dignified composure for which he was eminent, "it is no longer necessary for us to prolong this interview. I have allowed, nay encouraged you to state in the plainest terms what it was you had or imagined you had against me, knowing that my actions of late, seen by those who did not possess the key to them, must have seemed a little peculiar. But when you say you have no interest in any mystery disconnected with the girl who has lived the last few months in my house, I can with assurance say that it is time we quitted this unprofitable conversation, as nothing which I have lately done, said or thought here or elsewhere has in any way had even the remotest bearing upon that individual; she having been a stranger to me while in my house, and quite forgotten by me, after her unaccountable departure hence."

Mr. Gryce's hand which had been stretched out towards the hitherto untouched decanter before him, suddenly dropped. "You deny then," said he, "all connection between yourself and the woman, lady or sewing-girl, who occupied that room above our heads for eleven months previous to the Sunday morning I first had the honor to make your acquaintance."

"I am not in the habit of repeating my assertions," said Mr. Blake with some severity, "even when they relate to a less disagreeable matter than the one under discussion."

Mr. Gryce bowed, and slowly reached out for his hat; I had never seen him so disturbed. "I am sorry," he began and stopped, fingering his hat-brim nervously. Suddenly he laid his hat back, and drew up his form into as near a semblance of dignity as its portliness would allow.

"Mr. Blake," said he, "I have too much respect for the man I believed you to be when I entered this house tonight, to go with the thing unsaid which is lying at present like a dead weight upon my lips. I dare not leave you to the consequence of my silence; for duty will compel me to speak some day and in some presence where you may not have the opportunity which you can have here, to explain yourself with satisfaction. Mr. Blake I cannot believe you when you say the girl who lived in this house was a stranger to you."

Mr. Blake drew his proud form up in a disdain that was only held in check by the very evident honesty of the man before him. "You are courageous at least," said he. "I regret you are not equally discriminating." And raising Mr. Gryce's hat he placed it in his hand.

"Pardon me," said that gentleman, "I would like to justify myself before I go. Not with words," he proceeded as the other folded his arms with a sarcastic bow. "I am done with words; action accomplishes the rest. Mr. Blake I believe you consider me an honest officer and a reliable man. Will you accompany me to your private room for a moment? There is something there which may convince you I was neither playing the fool nor the bravado when I uttered the phrase I did an instant ago."

I expected to hear the haughty master of the house refuse a request so peculiar. But he only bowed, though in a surprised way that showed his curiosity if no more was aroused. "My room and company are at your disposal," said he, "but you will find nothing there to justify you in your assertions."

"Let me at least make the effort," entreated my superior.

Mr. Blake smiling bitterly immediately led the way to the door. "The man may come," he remarked carelessly as Mr. Gryce waved his hand in my direction. "Your justification if not mine may need witnesses."

Rejoiced at the permission, for my curiosity was by this time raised to fever pitch, I at once followed. Not without anxiety. The assured poise of Mr. Blake's head seemed to argue that the confidence betrayed by my superior might receive a shock; and I felt it would be a serious blow to his pride to fail now. But once within the room above, my doubts speedily fled. There was that in Mr. Gryce's face which anyone acquainted with him could not easily mistake. Whatever might be the mysterious something which the room contained, it was evidently sufficient in his eyes to justify his whole conduct.

"Now sir," said Mr. Blake, turning upon my superior with his sternest expression, "the room and its contents are before you; what have you to say for yourself."

Mr. Gryce equally stern, if not equally composed, cast one of his inscrutable glances round the apartment and without a word stepped before the picture that was as I have said, the only ornamentation of the otherwise bare and unattractive room.

I thought Mr. Blake looked surprised, but his face was not one that lightly expressed emotion.

"A portrait of my cousin the Countess De Mirac," said he with a certain dryness of tone hard to interpret.

Mr. Gryce bowed and for a moment stood looking with a strange lack of interest at the proudly brilliant face of the painting before him, then to our great amazement stepped forward and with a quick gesture turned the picture rapidly to the wall, when—Gracious heavens! what a vision started out before us from the reverse side of that painted canvas! No luxurious brunette countenance now, steeped in pride and languor, but a face—Let me see if I can describe it. But no, it was one of those faces that are indescribable. You draw your breath as you view it; you feel as if you had had an electric shock; but as for knowing ten minutes later whether the eyes that so enthralled you were blue or black, or the locks that clustered halo-like about a forehead almost awful in its expression of weird, unfathomable power, were brown or red, you could not nor would you pretend to say. It was the character of the countenance itself that impressed you. You did not even know if this woman who might have been anything wonderful or grand you ever read of, were beautiful or not. You did not care; it was as if you had been gazing on a tranquil evening sky and a lightning flash had suddenly startled you. Is the lightning beautiful? Who asks! But I know from what presently transpired, that the face was ivory pale in complexion, the eyes deeply dark, and the hair,—strange and uncanny combination,—of a bright and peculiar golden hue.

"You dare!" came forth in strange broken tones from Mr. Blake's lips.

I instantly turned towards him. He was gazing with a look that was half indignant, half menacing at the silent detective who with eyes drooped and finger directed towards the picture, seemed to be waiting for him to finish.

"I do not understand an audacity that allows you to—to—" Was this the haughty gentleman we had known, this hesitating troubled man with bloodless lips and trembling hands?

"I declared my desire to justify myself," said my principal with a respectful bow. "This is my justification. Do you note the color of the woman's hair whose portrait hangs with its face turned to the wall in your room? Is it like or unlike that of the strand you held in your hand a few moments ago; a strand taken as I swear, hair by hair from the comb of the poor creature who occupied the room above. But that is not all," he continued as Mr. Blake fell a trifle aback; "just observe the dress in which this woman is painted; blue silk you see, dark and rich; a wide collar cunningly executed, you can almost trace the pattern; a brooch; then the roses in the hand, do you see? Now come with me upstairs."

Too much startled to speak, Mr. Blake, haughty aristocrat as he was, turned like a little child and followed the detective who with an assured step and unembarassed mien led the way into the deserted room above.

"You accuse me of insulting you, when I express disbelief of your assertion that there was no connection between you and the girl Emily," said Mr. Gryce as he lit the gas and unlocked that famous bureau drawer. "Will you do so any longer in face of these?" And drawing off the towel that lay uppermost, he revealed the neatly folded dress, wide collar, brooch and faded roses that lay beneath. "Mrs. Daniels assures us these articles belonged to the sewing-woman Emily; were brought here by her. Dare you say they are not the ones reproduced in the portrait below?"

Mr. Blake uttering a cry sank on his knees before the drawer. "My God! My God!" was his only reply, "what are these?" Suddenly he rose, his whole form quivering, his eyes burning. "Where is Mrs. Daniels?" he cried, hastily advancing and pulling the bell. "I must see her at once. Send the housekeeper here," he ordered as Fanny smiling demurely made her appearance at the door.

"Mrs. Daniels is out," returned the girl, "went out as soon as ever you got up from dinner, sir."

"Gone out at this hour?"

"Yes sir; she goes out very often nowadays, sir."

Her master frowned. "Send her to me as soon as she returns," he commanded, and dismissed the girl.

"I don't know what to make of this," he now said in a strange tone, approaching again the touching contents of that open bureau drawer with a look in which longing and doubt seemed in some way to be strangely commingled. "I cannot explain the presence of these articles in this room; but if you will come below I will see what I can do to make other matters intelligible to you. Disagreeable as it is for me to take anyone into my confidence, affairs have gone too far for me to hope any longer to preserve secrecy as to my private concerns."

CHAPTER XI. LUTTRA

"Gentlemen," said he as he ushered us once more into his studio, "you have presumed, and not without reason I should say, to infer that the original of this portrait and the woman who has so long occupied the position of sewing-woman in my house, are one and the same. You will no longer retain that opinion when I inform you that this picture, strange as it may appear to you, is the likeness of my wife."

"Wife!" We both were astonished as I take it, but it was my voice which spoke. "We were ignorant you ever had a wife."

"No doubt," continued our host smiling bitterly, "that at least has evaded the knowledge even of the detectives." Then with a return to his naturally courteous manner, "She was never acknowledged by me as my wife, nor have we ever lived together, but if priestly benediction can make a man and woman one, that woman as you see her there is my lawful wife."

Rising, he softly turned the lovely, potent face back to the wall, leaving us once more confronted by the dark and glowing countenance of his cousin.

"I am not called upon," said he, "to go any further with you than this. I have told you what no man till this hour has ever heard from my lips, and it should serve to exonerate me from any unjust suspicions you may have entertained. But to one of my temperament, secret scandal and the gossip it engenders is only less painful than open notoriety. If I leave the subject here, a thousand conjectures will at once seize upon you, and my name if not hers will become, before I know it, the football of gossip if not of worse and deeper suspicion than has yet assailed me. Gentleman I take you to be honest men; husbands, perhaps, and fathers; proud, too, in your way and jealous of your own reputation and that of those with whom you are connected. If I succeed in convincing you that my movements of late have been totally disconnected with the girl whose cause you profess solely to be interested in, may I count upon your silence as regards those actions and the real motive that led to them?"

"You may count upon my discretion as regards all matters that do not come under the scope of police duty," returned Mr. Gryce. "I haven't much time for gossip."

"And your man here?"

"O, he's safe where it profits him to be."

"Very well, then, I shall count upon you."

And with the knitted brows and clinched hands of a proudly reticent man who, perhaps for the first time in his life finds himself forced to reveal his inner nature to the world, he began his story in these words:

"Difficult as it is for me to introduce into a relation like this the name of my father, I shall be obliged to do so in order to make my conduct at a momentous crisis of my life intelligible to you. My father, then, was a man of strong will and a few but determined prejudices. Resolved that I should sustain the reputation of the family for wealth and respectability, he gave me to understand from my earliest years, that as long as I preserved my manhood from reproach, I had only to make my wishes known, to have them immediately gratified; while if I crossed his will either by indulging in dissipation or engaging in pursuits unworthy of my name, I no longer need expect the favor of his countenance or the assistance of his purse.

"When, therefore, at a certain period of my life, I found that the charms of my cousin Evelyn were making rather too strong an impression upon my fancy for a secured peace of mind, I first inquired how such a union would affect my father, and learning that it would be in direct opposition to his views, cast about in my mind what I should do to overcome my passion. Travel suggested itself, and I took a trip to Europe. But the sight of new faces only awakened in me comparisons anything but detrimental to the beauty of her who was at that time my standard of feminine loveliness. Nature and the sports connected with a wild life were my next resort. I went overland to California, roamed the orange groves of Florida, and probed the wildernesses of Canada and our Northern states. It was during these last excursions that an event occurred which has exercised the most material influence upon my fate, though at the time it seemed to me no more than the matter of a day.

"I had just returned from Canada and was resting in tolerable enjoyment of a very beautiful autumn at Lake George, when a letter reached me from a friend then loitering in the vicinity, urging me to join him in a certain small town in Vermont where trout streams abounded and what is not so often the case under the circumstances, fishers were few.

"Being in a somewhat reckless mood I at once wrote a consent, and before another day was over, started for the remote village whence his letter was postmarked. I found it by no means easy of access. Situated in the midst of hills some twenty miles or so distant from any railroad, I discovered that in order to reach it, a long ride in a stage-coach was necessary, followed by a somewhat shorter journey on horseback. Not being acquainted with the route, I timed my connections wrong, so that when evening came I found myself riding over a strange road in the darkest night I had ever known. As if this was not enough, my horse suddenly began to limp and presently became so lame I found it impossible to urge her beyond a slow walk. It was therefore with no ordinary satisfaction that I presently beheld a lighted building in the distance, which as I approached resolved itself into an inn. Stopping in front of the house, which was closed against the chill night air, I called out lustily for someone to take my horse, whereupon the door opened and a man appeared on the threshold with a lantern in his hand. I at once made my wishes known, receiving in turn a somewhat gruff,

"'Well it is a nasty night and it will be nastier before it's over;' an opinion instantly endorsed by a sudden swoop of wind that rushed by at that moment, slamming the door behind him and awakening over my head a lugubrious groaning as from the twisting boughs of some old tree, that was almost threatening in its character.

"'You had better go in,' said he, 'the rain will come next.'

"I at once leaped from my horse and pushing open the door with main strength, entered the house. Another man met me on the threshold who merely pointing over his shoulder to a lighted room in his rear, passed out without a word, to help the somewhat younger man, who had first appeared, in putting up my horse. I at once accepted his silent invitation and stepped into the room before me. Instantly I found myself confronted by the rather startling vision of a young girl of a unique and haunting style of beauty, who rising at my approach now stood with her eyes on my face and her hands resting on the deal table before which she had been sitting, in an attitude expressive of mingled surprise and alarm. To see a woman in that place was not so strange; but such a woman! Even in the first casual glance I gave her, I at once acknowledged to myself her extraordinary power. Not the slightness of her form, the palor of her countenance, or the fairness of the locks of golden red hair that fell in two long braids over her bosom, could for a moment counteract the effect of her dark glance or the vivid almost unearthly force of her expression. It was as if you saw a flame upstarting before you, waving tremulously here and there, but burning and resistless in its white heat. I took off my hat with deference.

"A shudder passed over her, but she made no effort to return my acknowledgement. As we cast our eyes dilating with horror, down some horrible pit upon whose verge we suddenly find ourselves, she allowed her gaze for a moment to dwell upon my face, then with a sudden lifting of her hand, pointed towards the door as if to bid me depart—when it swung open with that shrill rushing of wind that involuntarily awakes a shudder within you, and the two men entered and came stamping up to my side. Instantly her hand sunk, not feebly as with fear, but calmly as if at the bidding of her will, and without waiting for them to speak, she turned away and quietly left the room. As the door closed upon her I noticed that she wore a calico frock and that her face did not own one perfect feature.

"'Go after Luttra and tell her to make up the bed in the northwest room,' said the elder of the two in deep gutteral tones unmistakably German in their accent, to the other who stood shaking the wet off his coat into the leaping flames of a small wood fire that burned on the hearth before us.

"'O, she'll do without my bothering,' was the sullen return. 'I'm wet through.'

"The elder man, a large powerfully framed fellow of some fifty years or so, frowned. It was an evil frown, and the younger one seemed to feel it. He immediately tossed his coat onto a chair and left the room.

"'Boys are so obstropolous now-a-days,' remarked his companion to me with what he evidently intended for a conciliatory nod. 'In my time they were broke in, did what they were told and asked no questions.'

"I smiled to myself at his calling the broad shouldered six-footer who had just left us a boy, but merely remarking, 'He is your son is he not!' seated myself before the blaze which shot up a tongue of white flame at my approach, that irresistibly recalled to my fancy the appearance of the girl who had gone out a moment before.

"'O, yes, he is my son, and that girl you saw here was my daughter; I keep this inn and they help me, but it is a slow way to live, I can tell you. Travel on these roads is slim.'

"'I should think likely,' I returned, remembering the half dozen or so hills up which I had clambered since I took to my horse. 'How far are we from Pentonville?'

"'O, two or three miles,' he replied, but in a hurried kind of a way. 'Not far in the daytime but a regular journey in a night like this?'

"'Yes,' said I, as the house shook under a fresh gust; 'it is fortunate I have a place in which to put up.'

"He glanced down at my baggage which consisted of a small hand bag, an overcoat and a fishing pole, with something like a gleam of disappointment.

"'Going fishing?' he asked.

"'Yes,' I returned.

"'Good trout up those streams and plenty of them,' he went on. 'Going alone?'

"I did not half like his importunity, but considering I had nothing better to do, replied as affably as possible. 'No, I expect to meet a friend in Pentonville who will accompany me."

"His hand went to his beard in a thoughtful attitude and he cast me what, with my increased experience of the world, I should now consider a sinister glance. 'Then you are expected?' said he.

"Not considering this worth reply, I stretched out my feet to the blaze and began to warm them, for I felt chilled through.

"'Been on the road long?' he now asked, glancing at the blue flannel suit I wore.

"'All summer,' I returned,

"I again thought he looked disappointed.

"'From Troy or New York?' he went on with a vague endeavor to appear good naturally off hand.

"'New York.'

"'A big place that,' he continued. 'I was there once, lots of money stored away in them big buildings down in Wall Street, eh?'

"I assented, and he drew a chair up to my side, a proceeding that was interrupted, however, by the reentrance of his son, who without any apology crowded into the other side of the fireplace in a way to sandwich me between them. Not fancying this arrangement which I, however, imputed to ignorance, I drew back and asked if my room was ready. It seemed it was not, and unpleasantly as it promised, I felt forced to reseat myself and join in, if not support, the conversation that followed.

"A half hour passed away, during which the wind increased till it almost amounted to a gale. Spurts of rain dashed against the windows with a sharp crackling sound that suggested hail, while ever and anon a distant roll as of rousing thunder, rumbled away among the hills in a long and reverberating peal, that made me feel glad to be housed even under the roof of these rude and uncongenial creatures. Suddenly the conversation turned upon the time and time-pieces, when in a low even tone I heard murmured behind me,

"'The gentleman's room is ready;' and turning, I saw standing in the doorway the slight figure of the young girl whose appearance had previously so impressed me.

"I immediately arose. 'Then I will proceed to it at once,' said I, taking up my traps and advancing towards her.

"'Do not be alarmed if you hear creaks and cracklings all over the house,' observed the landlord as I departed. 'The windows are loose and the doors ill-fitting. In such a storm as this they make noise enough to keep an army awake. The house is safe enough though and if you don't mind noise—'

"'O I don't mind noise,' rejoined I, feeling at that moment tired enough to fall into a doze on the staircase. 'I shall sleep, never fear,' and without further ado followed the girl upstairs into a large clumsily furnished room whose enormous bed draped with heavy curtains at once attracted my attention.

"'O I cannot sleep under those things,' remarked I, with a gesture towards the dismal draperies which to me were another name for suffocation.

"With a single arm-sweep she threw them back. 'Is there anything more I can do for you?' asked she, glancing hastily about the room.

"I thanked her and said 'no,' at which she at once departed with a look of still determination upon her countenance that I found it hard to explain.

"Left alone in that large, bare and dimly lighted room, with the wind shrieking in the chimney and the powerful limbs of some huge tree beating against the walls without, with a heavy thud inexpressibly mournful, I found to my surprise and something like dismay, that the sleepiness which had hitherto oppressed me, had in some unaccountable way entirely fled. In vain I contemplated the bed, comfortable enough now in its appearance that the stifling curtains were withdrawn; no temptation to invade it came to arouse me from the chair into which I had thrown myself. It was as if I felt myself under the spell of some invisible influence that like the eye of a basilisk, held me enchained. I remember turning my head towards a certain quarter of the wall as if I half expected to encounter there the bewildering glance of a serpent. Yet far from being apprehensive of any danger, I only wondered over the weakness of mind that made such fancies possible.

"An extra loud swirl of the foliage without, accompanied by a quick vibration of the house, aroused me at last. If I was to lose the sense of this furious storm careering over my head, I must court sleep at once. Rising, I drew off my coat, unloosened my vest and was about to throw it off, when I bethought me of a certain wallet it contained. Going to the door in some unconscious impulse of precaution I suppose, I locked myself in, and then drawing out my wallet, took from it a roll of bills which I put into a small side pocket, returning the wallet to its old place.

"Why I did this I can scarcely say. As I have before intimated, I was under no special apprehension. I was at that time anything but a suspicious man, and the manner and appearance of the men below struck me as unpleasantly disagreeable but nothing more. But I not only did what I have related, but allowed the lamp to remain lighted, lying down finally in my clothes; an almost unprecedented act on my part, warranted however as I said to myself, by the fury of the gale which at that time seemed as if it would tumble the roof over our heads.

"How long I lay listening to the creakings and groanings of the rickety old house, I cannot say, nor how long I remained in the doze which finally seized me as I became accustomed to the sounds around and over me. Enough that before the storm had passed its height, I awoke as if at the touch of a hand, and leaping with a bound out of the bed, beheld to my incredible amazement, the alert, nervous form of Luttra standing before me. She had my coat in her hand, and it was her touch that had evidently awakened me.

"'I want you to put this on,' said she in a low thrilling tone totally new in my experience, 'and come with me. The house is unsafe for you to remain in. Hear how it cracks and trembles. Another blast like that and we shall be roofless.'

"She was moving toward the door, which to my amazement stood ajar, but my hesitation stopped her.

"'Won't you come?' she whispered, turning her face towards me with a look of such potent determination, I followed in spite of myself 'I dare not let you stay here, your blood will be upon my head.'

"'You exaggerate,' I replied, shrinking back with a longing look at the comfortable bed I had just left. 'These old houses are always strong. It will take many such a gust as that you hear, to overturn it, I assure you.'

"'I exaggerate!' she returned with a look of scorn impossible to describe. 'Hark!' she said, 'hear that.'

"I did hear, and I must acknowledge that it seemed is if we were about to be swept from our foundations.

"'Yes,' said I, 'but it is a fearful night to be out in.'

"'I shall go with you,' said she.

"'In that case—' I began with an ill-advised attempt at gallantry which she cut short with a gesture.

"'Here is your hat,' remarked she, 'and here is your bag. The fishing-pole must remain, you cannot carry it.'

"'But,—' I expostulated.

"'Hush!' said she with her ear turned towards the depths of the staircase at the top of which we stood. 'My father and brother will think as you do that it is folly to leave the shelter of a roof for the uncertainties of the road on such a night as this, but you must not heed them. I tell you shelter this night is danger, and that the only safety to be found is on the stormy highway.'

"And without waiting for my reply, she passed rapidly down stairs, pushed open a door at the bottom, and stepped at once into the room we had left an hour or so before.

"What was there in that room that for the first time struck an ominous chill as of distinct peril through my veins? Nothing at first sight, everything at the second. The fire which had not been allowed to die out, still burned brightly on the ruddy hearthstone, but it was not that which awakened my apprehension. Nor was it the loud ticking clock on the mantel-piece with its hand pointing silently to the hour of eleven. Nor yet the heavy quiet of the scantily-furnished room with its one lamp burning on the deal table against the side of the wall. It was the sight of those two powerful men drawn up in grim silence, the one against the door leading to the front hall, the other against that opening into the kitchen.

"A glance at Luttra standing silent and undismayed at my side, however, instantly reassured me. With that will exercised in my favor, I could not but win through whatever it was that menaced me. Slinging my bag over my shoulder, I made a move towards the door and the silent figure of my host. But with a quick outreaching of her hand, she drew me back.

"'Stand still!' said she. 'Karl,' she went on, turning her face towards the more sullen but less intent countenance of her brother, 'open the door and let this gentleman pass. He finds the house unsafe in such a gale and desires to leave it. At once!' she continued as her brother settled himself more determinedly against the lock: 'I don't often ask favors.'

"'The man is a fool that wants to go out in a night like this,' quoth the fellow with a dogged move; 'and so are you to encourage it. I think too much of your health to allow it.'

"She did not seem to hear. 'Will you open the door?' she went on, not advancing a step from the fire, before which she had placed herself and me.'

"'No, I won't,' was the brutal reply. 'Its been locked for the night and its not me nor one like me, that will open it.'

"With a sudden whitening of her already pale face, she turned towards her father. He was not even looking at her.

"'Some one must open the house,' said she, glancing back at her brother. 'This gentleman purposes to leave and his whim must be humored. Will you unlock that door or shall I?'

"An angry snarl interrupted her. Her father had bounded from the door where he stood and was striding hastily towards her. In my apprehension I put up my arm for a shield, for he looked ready to murder her, but I let it drop again as l caught her glance which was like white flame undisturbed by the least breeze of personal terror.

"'You will stop there,' said she, pointing to a spot a few feet from where she stood. 'Another step and I let that for which I have heard you declare you would peril your very soul, fall into the heart of the flames.' And drawing from her breast a roll of bills, she stretched them out above the fire before which she was standing.

"'You ——-' broke from the gray-bearded lips of the old man, but he stopped where he was, eyeing those bills as if fascinated.

"'I am not a girl of many words, as you know,' continued she in a lofty tone inexpressibly commanding. 'You may strangle me, you may kill me, it matters little; but this gentleman leaves the house this night, or I destroy the money with a gesture.'

"'You ——-' again broke from those quivering lips, but the old man did not move.

"Not so the younger. With a rush he left his post and in another instant would have had his powerful arms about her slender form, only that I met him half way with a blow that laid him on the floor at her feet. She said nothing, but one of the bills immediately left her hand and fluttered into the fire where it instantly shrivelled into nothing.

"With the yell of a mad beast wounded in his most vulnerable spot, the old man before us stamped with his heel upon the floor.

"'Stop!' cried he; and going rapidly to the front door he opened it. 'There!' shrieked he, 'if you will be fools, go! and may the lightning blast you. But first give me the money.'

"'Come from the door,' said she, reaching out her left hand for the lantern hanging at the side of the fireplace, 'and let Karl light this and keep himself out of the way.'

"It was all done. In less time than I can tell it, the old man had stepped from the door, the younger one had lit the lantern and we were in readiness to depart.

"'Now do you proceed,' said she to me, 'I will follow.'

"'No,' said I, 'we will go together.'

"'But the money?' growled the heavy voice of my host over my shoulder.

"'I will give it to you on my return,' said the girl."

CHAPTER XII. A WOMAN'S LOVE

"Shall I ever forget the blast of driving rain that struck our faces and enveloped us in a cloud of wet, as the door swung on its hinges and let us forth into the night; or the electric thrill that shot through me as that slender girl grasped my hand and drew me away through the blinding darkness. It was not that I was so much affected by her beauty as influenced by her power and energy. The fury of the gale seemed to bend to her will, the wind lend wings to her feet. I began to realize what intellect was. Arrived at the roadside, she paused and looked back. The two burly forms of the men we had left behind us were standing in the door of the inn; in another moment they had plunged forth and towards us. With a low cry the young girl leaped towards a tree where to my unbounded astonishment I beheld my horse standing ready saddled. Dragging the mare from her fastenings, she hung the lantern, burning as it was, on the pommel of the saddle, struck the panting creature a smart blow upon the flank, and drew back with a leap to my side.

"The startled horse snorted, gave a plunge of dismay and started away from us down the road.

"'We will wait,' said Luttra.

"The words were no sooner out of her mouth than her father and brother rushed by.

"'They will follow the light,' whispered she; and seizing me again by the hand, she hurried me away in the direction opposite to that which the horse had taken. 'If you will trust me, I will bring you to shelter,' she murmured, bending her slight form to the gusty wind but relaxing not a whit of her speed.

"'You are too kind,' I murmured in return. 'Why should you expose yourself to such an extent for a stranger?'

"Her hand tightened on mine, but she did not reply, and we hastened on as speedily as the wind and rain would allow. After a short but determined breasting of the storm, during which my breath had nearly failed me, she suddenly stopped.

"'Do you know,' she exclaimed in a low impressive tone, 'that we are on the verge of a steep and dreadful precipice? It runs along here for a quarter of a mile and it is not an uncommon thing for a horse and rider to be dashed over it in a night like this.'

"There was something in her manner that awakened a chill in my veins almost as if she had pointed out some dreadful doom which I had unwittingly escaped.

"'This is, then, a dangerous road,' I murmured.

"'Very,' was her hurried and almost incoherent reply.

"How far we travelled through the mud and tangled grasses of that horrible road I do not know. It seemed a long distance; it was probably not more than three quarters of a mile. At last she paused with a short 'Here we are;' and looking up, I saw that we were in front of a small unlighted cottage.

"No refuge ever appeared more welcome to a pair of sinking wanderers I am sure. Wet to the skin, bedrabbled with mud, exhausted with breasting the gale, we stood for a moment under the porch to regain our breath, then with her characteristic energy she lifted the knocker and struck a smart blow on the door.

"'We will find shelter here,' said she.

"She was not mistaken. In a few moments we were standing once more before a comfortable fire hastily built by the worthy couple whose slumbers we had thus interrupted. As I began to realize the sweetness of conscious safety, all that this young, heroic creature had done for me swept warmly across my mind. Looking up from the fire that was beginning to infuse its heat through my grateful system, I surveyed her as she slowly undid her long braids and shook them dry over the blaze, and almost started to see how young she was. Not more than sixteen I should say, and yet what an invincible will shone from her dark eyes and dignified her slender form; a will gentle as it was strong, elevated as it was unbending. I bowed my head as I watched her, in grateful thankfulness which I presently put into words.

"At once she drew herself erect. 'I did but my duty,' said she quietly. 'I am glad I was prospered in it.' Then slowly. 'If you are grateful, sir, will you promise to say nothing of—of what took place at the inn?'

"Instantly I remembered a suspicion which had crossed my mind while there, and my hand went involuntarily to my vest pocket. The roll of bills was gone.

"She did not falter. 'I would be relieved if you would,' continued she.

"I drew out my empty hand, looked at it, but said nothing.

"'Have you lost anything?' asked she. 'Search in your overcoat pockets.'

"I plunged my hand into the one nearest her and drew it out with satisfaction; the roll of bills was there. 'I give you my promise,' said I.

"'You will find a bill missing,' she murmured; 'for what amount I do not know; the sacrifice of something was inevitable.'

"'I can only wonder over the ingenuity you displayed, as well as express my appreciation for your bravery,' returned I with enthusiasm. 'You are a noble girl.'

"She put out her hand as if compliments hurt her. 'It is the first time they have ever attempted anything like that,' cried she in a quick low tone full of shame and suffering. 'They have shown a disposition to—to take money sometimes, but they never threatened life before. And they did threaten yours. They saw you take out your money, through a hole pierced in the wall of the room you occupied, and the sight made them mad. They were going to kill you and then tumble you and your horse over the precipice below there. But I overheard them talking and when they went out to saddle the horse, I hurried up to your room to wake you. I had to take possession of the bills; you were not safe while you held them. I took them quietly because I hoped to save you without betraying them. But I failed in that. You must remember they are my father and my brother.'

"'I will not betray them,' said I.

"She smiled. It was a wintry gleam but it ineffably softened her face. I became conscious of a movement of pity towards her.

"'You have a hard lot,' remarked I. 'Your life must be a sad one.'

"She flashed upon me one glance of her dark eye. 'I was born for hardship,' said she, 'but—' and a sudden wild shudder seized her, 'but not for crime.'

"The word fell like a drop of blood wrung from her heart.

"'Good heavens!' cried I, 'and must you—'

"'No,' rang from her lips in a clarion-like peal; 'some things cut the very bonds of nature. I am not called upon to cleave to what will drag me into infamy.' Then calmly, as if speaking of the most ordinary matter in the world, 'I shall never go back to that house we have left behind us, sir.'

"'But,' cried I, glancing at her scanty garments, 'where will you go? What will you do? You are young—'

"'And very strong,' she interrupted. 'Do not fear for me.' And her smile was like a burst of sudden sunshine.

"I said no more that night.

"But when in the morning I stumbled upon her sitting in the kitchen reading a book not only above her position but beyond her years, a sudden impulse seized me and I asked her if she would like to be educated. The instantaneous illumining of her whole face was sufficient reply without her low emphatic words,

"'I would be content to study on my knees to know what some women do, whom I have seen.'

"It is not necessary for me to relate with what pleasure I caught at the idea that here was a chance to repay in some slight measure the inestimable favor she had done me; nor by what arguments I finally won her to accept an education at my hands as some sort of recompense for the life she had saved. The advantage which it would give her in her struggle with the world she seemed duly to appreciate, but that so great a favor could be shown her without causing me much trouble and an unwarrantable expense, she could not at once be brought to comprehend, and till she could, she held out with that gentle but inflexible will of hers. The battle, however, was won at last and I left her in that little cottage, with the understanding that as soon as the matter could be arranged, she was to enter a certain boarding-school in Troy with the mistress of which I was acquainted. Meanwhile she was to go out to service at Melville and earn enough money to provide herself with clothes.

"I was a careless fellow in those days but I kept my promise to that girl. I not only entered her into that school for a course of three years, but acting through its mistress who had taken a great fancy to her, supplied her with the necessities her position required. It was so easy; merely the signing of a check from time to time, and it was done. I say this because I really think if it had involved any personal sacrifice on my part, even of an hour of my time, or the labor of a thought, I should not have done it. For with my return to the city my interest in my cousin revived, absorbing me to such an extent that any matter disconnected with her soon lost all charm for me.

"Two years passed; I was the slave of Evelyn Blake, but there was no engagement between us. My father's determined opposition was enough to prevent that. But there was an understanding which I fondly hoped would one day open for me the way of happiness. But I did not know my father. Sick as he was—he was at that time laboring under the disease which in a couple of months later bore him to the tomb—he kept an eye upon my movements and seemed to probe my inmost heart. At last he came to a definite decision and spoke.

"His words opened a world of dismay before me. I was his only child, as he remarked, and it had been and was the desire of his heart to leave me as rich and independent a man as himself. But I seemed disposed to commit one of those acts against which he had the most determined prejudice; marriage between cousins being in his eyes an unsanctified and dangerous proceeding, liable to consequences the most unhappy. If I persisted, he must will his property elsewhere. The Blake estate should never descend with the seal of his approbation to a race of probable imbeciles.

"Nor was this enough. He not only robbed me of the woman I loved, but with a clear insight into the future, I presume, insisted upon my marrying some one else of respectability and worth before he died. 'Anyone whose appearance will do you credit and whose virtue is beyond reproach,' said he. 'I don't ask her to be rich or even the offspring of one of our old families. Let her be good and pure and of no connection to us, and I will bless her and you with my dying breath.'

"The idea had seized upon him with great force, and I soon saw he was not to be shaken out of it. To all my objections he returned but the one word,

"'I don't restrict your choice and I give you a month in which to make it. If at the end of that time you cannot bring your bride to my bedside, I must look around for an heir who will not thwart my dying wishes.'"

"A month! I surveyed the fashionable belles that nightly thronged the parlors of my friends and felt my heart sink within me. Take one of them for my wife, loving another woman? Impossible. Women like these demanded something in return for the honor they conferred upon a man by marrying him. Wealth? they had it. Position? that was theirs also. Consideration? ah, what consideration had I to give? I turned from them with distaste.

"My cousin Evelyn gave me no help. She was a proud woman and loved my money and my expectations as much as she did me.

"'If you must marry another woman to retain your wealth, marry, said she, 'but do not marry one of my associates. I will have no rival in my own empire; your wife must be a plainer and a less aspiring woman than Evelyn Blake. Yet do not discredit your name,—which is mine,' she would always add.

"Meanwhile the days flew by. If my own conscience had allowed me to forget the fact, my father's eagerly inquiring, but sternly unrelenting gaze as I came each evening to his bedside, would have kept it sufficiently in my mind. I began to feel like one in the power of some huge crushing machine whose slowly descending weight he in vain endeavors to escape.

"How or when the thought of Luttra first crossed my mind I cannot say. At first I recoiled at the suggestion and put it away from me in disdain; but it ever recurred and with it so many arguments in her favor that before long I found myself regarding it as a refuge. To be sure she was a waif and a stray, but that seemed to be the kind of wife demanded of me. She was allied to rogues if not villains, I knew; but then had she not cut all connection with them, dropped away from them, planted her feet on new ground which they would never invade? I commenced to cherish the idea. With this friendless, grateful, unassuming protegee of mine for a wife, I would be as little bound as might be. She would ask nothing, and I need give nothing, beyond a home and the common attentions required of a gentleman and a friend. Then she was not disagreeable, nor was her beauty of a type to suggest the charms of her I had lost. None of the graces of the haughty patrician lady whose lightest gesture was a command, would appear in this humble girl, to mock and constrain me. No, I should have a fair wife and an obedient one, but no vulgarized shadow of Evelyn, thank God, or of any of her fashionably dressed friends.

"Advanced thus far towards the end, I went to see Luttra. I had not beheld her since the morning we parted at the door of that little cottage in Vermont, and her presence caused me a shock. This, the humble waif with the appealing grateful eyes I had expected to encounter? this tall and slender creature with an aureola of golden hair about a face that it was an education to behold! I felt a half movement of anger as I surveyed her. I had been cheated; I had planted a grape seed and a palm tree had sprung up in its place. I was so taken aback, my salute lost something of the benevolent condescension I had intended to infuse into it. She seemed to feel my embarassment and a half smile fluttered to her lips. That smile decided me. It was sweet but above all else it was appealing.

"How I won that woman to marry me in ten days time I care not to state. Not by holding up my wealth and position before her. Something restrained me from that. I was resolved, and perhaps it was the only point of light in my conduct at that time, not to buy this young girl. I never spoke of my expectations, I never alluded to my present advantages yet I won her.

"We were married, there, in Troy in the quietest and most unpretending manner. Why the fact has never transpired I cannot say. I certainly took no especial pains to conceal it at the time, though I acknowledge that after our separation I did resort to such measures as I thought necessary, to suppress what had become gall and wormwood to my pride.

"My first move after the ceremony was to bring her immediately to New York and to this house. With perhaps a pardonable bitterness of spirit, I had refrained from any notification of my intentions, and it was as strangers might enter an unprepared dwelling, that we stepped across the threshold of this house and passed immediately to my father's room.

"'I can give you no wedding and no honeymoon,' I had told her. 'My father is dying and demands my care. From the altar to a death-bed may be sad for you, but it is an inevitable condition of your marriage with me.' And she had accepted her fate with a deep unspeakable smile it has taken me long months of loneliness and suffering to understand.

"'Father, I bring you my bride,' were my first words to him as the door closed behind us shutting us in with the dread, invisible Presence that for so long a time had been relentlessly advancing upon our home.

"I shall never forget how he roused himself in his bed, nor with what eager eyes he read her young face and surveyed her slight form swaying towards him in her sudden emotion like a flame in a breeze. Nor while I live shall I lose sight of the spasm of uncontrollable joy with which he lifted his aged arms towards her, nor the look with which she sprang from my side and nestled, yes nestled, on the breast that never to my remembrance had opened itself to me even in the years of my earliest childhood. For my father was a stern man who believed in holding love at arm's length and measured affection by the depth of awe it inspired.

"'My daughter!' broke from his lips, and he never inquired who she was or what; no, not even when after a moment of silence she raised her head and with a sudden low cry of passionate longing looked in his face and murmured,

"'I never had a father.'

"Sirs, it is impossible for me to continue without revealing depths of pride and bitterness in my own nature, from which I now shrink with unspeakable pain. So far from being touched by this scene, I felt myself grow hard under it. If he had been disappointed in my choice, queried at it or even been simply pleased at my obedience, I might have accepted the wife I had won, and been tolerably grateful. But to love her, admire her, glory in her when Evelyn Blake had never succeeded in winning a glance from his eyes that was not a public disapprobation! I could not endure it; my whole being rebelled, and a movement like hate took possession of me.

"Bidding my wife to leave me with my father alone, I scarcely waited for the door to close upon the poor young thing before all that had been seething in my breast for a month, burst from me in the one cry,

"'I have brought you a daughter as you commanded me. Now give me the blessing you promised and let me go; for I cannot live with a woman I do not love.'

"Instantly, and before his lips could move, the door opened and the woman I thus repudiated in the first dawning hour of her young bliss, stood before us. My God! what a face! When I think of it now in the night season—when from dreams that gloomy as they are, are often elysian to the thoughts which beset me in my waking hours, I suddenly arouse to see starting upon me from the surrounding shadows that young fair brow with its halo of golden tresses, blotted, ay blotted by the agony that turned her that instant into stone, I wonder I did not take out the pistol that lay in the table near which I stood, and shoot her lifeless on the spot as some sort of a compensation for the misery I had caused her. I say I wonder now: then I only thought of braving it out.

"Straight as a dart, but with that look on her face, she came towards us. 'Did I hear aright?' were the words that came from her lips. 'Have you married me, a woman beneath your station as I now perceive, because you were commanded to do so? Have you not loved me? given me that which alone makes marriage a sacrament or even a possibility? and must you leave this house made sacred by the recumbent form of your dying father if I remain within it?'

"I saw my father's stiff and pallid lips move silently as though he would answer for me if he could, and summoning up what courage I possessed, I told her that I deeply regretted she had overheard my inconsiderate words. That I had never meant to wound her, whatever bitterness lay in my heart towards one who had thwarted me in my dearest and most cherished hopes. That I humbly begged her pardon and would so far acknowledge her claim upon me as to promise that I would not leave my home at this time, if it distressed her; my desire being not to injure her, only to protect myself.

"O the scorn that mounted to her brow at these weak words. Not scorn of me, thank God, worthy as I was of it that hour, but scorn of my slight opinion of her.

"'Then I heard aright,' she murmured, and waited with a look that would not be gainsaid.

"I could only bow my head, cursing the day I was born.

"'Holman! Holman!' came in agonized entreaty from the bed, 'you will not rob me of my daughter now?'

"Startled, I looked up. Luttra was half way to the door.

"'What are you going to do?' cried I, bounding towards her.

"She stopped me with a look. 'The son must never forsake the father,' said she. 'If either of us must leave the house this day, let it be I.' Then in a softer tone, 'When you asked me to be your wife, I who had worshipped you from the moment you entered my father's house on the memorable night I left it, was so overcome at your condescension that I forgot you did not preface it by the usual passionate, 'I love you,' which more than the marriage ring binds two hearts together. In the glamour and glow of my joy, I did not see that the smile that was in my heart, was missing from your face. I was to be your wife and that was enough, or so I thought then, for I loved you. Ah, and I do now, my husband, love you so that I leave you. Were it for your happiness I would do more than that, I would give you back your freedom, but from what I hear, it seems that you need a wife in name and I will be but fulfilling your desire in holding that place for you. I will never disgrace the position high as it is above my poor deserts. When the day comes—if the day comes—that you need or feel you need the sustainment of my presence or the devotion of my heart, no power on earth save that of death itself, shall keep me from your side. Till that day arrives I remain what you have made me, a bride who lays no claim to the name you this morning bestowed upon her.' And with a gesture that was like a benediction, she turned, and noiselessly, breathlessly as a dream that vanishes, left the room.

"Sirs, I believe I uttered a cry and stumbled towards her. Some one in that room uttered a cry, but it may be that it only rose in my heart and that the one I heard came from my father's lips. For when at the door I turned, startled at the deathly silence, I saw he had fainted on his pillow. I could not leave him so. Calling to Mrs. Daniels, who was never far from my father in those days, I bade her stop the lady—I believe I called her my wife—who was going down the stairs, and then rushed to his side. It took minutes to revive him. When he came to himself it was to ask for the creature who had flashed like a beacon of light upon his darkening path. I rose as if to fetch her but before I could advance I heard a voice say, 'She is not here,' and looking up I saw Mrs. Daniels glide into the room.

"'Mrs. Blake has gone, sir, I could not keep her.'"

CHAPTER XIII. A MAN'S HEART

"That was the last time my eyes ever I rested upon my wife. Whither she went or what refuge she gained, I never knew. My father who had received in this scene a great shock, began to fail so rapidly, he demanded my constant care; and though from time to time as I ministered to him and noted with what a yearning persistency he would eye the door and then turn and meet my gaze with a look I could not understand, I caught myself asking whether I had done a deed destined to hang forever about me like a pall; it was not till after his death that the despairing image of the bright young creature to whom I had given my name, returned with any startling distinctness to my mind, or that I allowed myself to ask whether the heavy gloom which I now felt settling upon me was owing to the sense of shame that overpowered me at the remembrance of the past, or to the possible loss I had sustained in the departure of my young unloved bride.

"The announcement at this time of the engagement between Evelyn Blake and the Count De Mirac may have had something to do with this. Though I had never in the most passionate hours of my love for her, lost sight of that side of her nature which demanded as her right the luxury of great wealth; and though in my tacit abandonment of her and secret marriage with another I had certainly lost the right to complain of her actions whatever they might be, this manifest surrendering of herself to the power of wealth and show at the price of all that women are believed to hold dear, was an undoubted blow to my pride and the confidence I had till now unconsciously reposed in her inherent womanliness and affection. That she had but made on a more conspicuous scale, the same sacrifice as myself to the god of Wealth and Position, was in my eyes at that time, no palliation of her conduct. I was a man none too good or exalted at the best; she, a woman, should have been superior to the temptations that overpowered me. That she was not, seemed to drag all womanhood a little nearer the dust; fashionable womanhood I ought to say, for somehow even at that early day her conduct did not seem to affect the vivid image of Luttra standing upon my threshold, shorn of her joy but burning with a devotion I did not comprehend, and saying,

"'I loved you. Ah, and I do yet, my husband, love you so that I leave you. When the day comes—if the day comes—you need or feel you need the sustainment of my presence or the devotion of my heart, no power on earth save that of death itself, shall keep me from your side.'

"Yes, with the fading away of other faces and other forms, that face and that form now began to usurp the chief place in my thoughts. Not to my relief and pleasure. That could scarcely be, remembering all that had occurred; rather to my increasing distress and passionate resentment. I longed to forget I was held by a tie, that known to the world would cause me the bitterest shame. For by this time the true character of her father and brother had been revealed and I found myself bound to the daughter of a convicted criminal.

"But I could not forget her. The look with which she had left me was branded into my consciousness. Night and day it floated before me, till to escape it I resolved to fasten it upon canvas, if by that means I might succeed in eliminating it from my dreams.

"The painting you have seen this night is the result. Born with an artist's touch and insight that under other circumstances might, perhaps, have raised me into the cold dry atmosphere of fame, the execution of this piece of work, presented but few difficulties to my somewhat accustomed hand. Day by day her beauty grew beneath my brush, startling me often with its spiritual force and significance till my mind grew feverish over its work, and I could scarcely refrain from rising at night to give a touch here or there to the floating golden hair or the piercing, tender eyes turned, ah, ever turned upon the inmost citadel of my heart with that look that slew my father before his time and made me, yes me, old in spirit even in the ardent years of my first manhood.

"At last it was finished and she stood before me life-like and real in the very garments and with almost the very aspect of that never to be forgotten moment. Even the roses which in the secret uneasiness of my conscience I had put in her hand on our departure from Troy, as a sort of visible token that I regarded her as my bride, and which through all her interview with my father she had never dropped, blossomed before me on the canvas. Nothing that could give reality to the likeness, was lacking; the vision of my dreams stood embodied in my sight, and I looked for peace. Alas, that picture now became my dream.

"Inserting it behind that of Evelyn which for two years had held its place above my armchair, I turned its face to the wall when I rose in the morning. But at night it beamed ever upon me, becoming as the months passed, the one thing to hold to and muse over when the world grew a little noisy in my ears and the never ceasing conflict of the ages beat a trifle too loudly on heart and brain.

"Meanwhile no word of her, only of her villainous father and brother; no token that she had escaped evil or was removed from want. If I had loved her I could not have succored her, for I did not know where to find her. Her countenance illumined my wall, but her fair young self lay for all I knew sheltered within the darkness and silence of the tomb.

"At length my morbid broodings worked out their natural result. A dull melancholy settled upon me which nothing could break. Even the news that my cousin who had lost her husband a month after marriage, had returned to America with expectation to remain, scarcely caused a ripple in my apathy. Was I sinking into a hypochrondriac? or was my passion for the beautiful brunette dead? I determined to solve the doubt.

"Seeking her where I knew she would be found, I gazed again upon her beauty. It was absolutely nothing to me. A fair young face with high thoughts in every glance floated like sunshine between us and I left the haughty Countess, with the knowledge burned deep into my brain, that the love I had considered slain was alive and demanding, but that the object of it past recall, was my lost young wife.

"Once assured of this, my apathy vanished like mist before a kindled torch. Henceforth the future held a hope, and life a purpose. I would seek my wife throughout the world and bring her back if I found her in prison between the men whose existence was a curse to my pride. But where should I turn my steps? What golden thread had she left in my hand by which to trace her through the labyrinth of this world? I could think of but one, and that was the love which would restrain her from going away from me too far. The Luttra of old would not leave the city where her husband lived. If she was not changed, I ought to be able to find her somewhere within this great Babylon of ours. Wisdom told me to set the police upon her track, but pride bade me try every other means first. So with the feverish energy of one leading a forlorn hope, I began to pace the streets if haply I might see her face shine upon me from the crowd of passers by; a foolish fancy, unproductive of result! I not only failed to see her, but anyone like her.

"In the midst of the despair occasioned by this failure a thought flashed across me or rather a remembrance. One night not long since, being uncommonly restless, I had risen from my bed, dressed me and gone out into the yard back of my house for a little air. It was an unusual thing for me to do but I seemed to be suffocating where I was, and nothing else would satisfy me. As you already surmise, it was the night on which disappeared the sewing girl of which you have so often spoken, but I knew nothing of that, my thoughts were far from my own home and its concerns. You may judge what a state of mind I was in when I tell you that I even thought at one moment while I paused before the gate leading into —— Street that I saw the face of her with whom my thoughts were ever busy, peering upon me through the bars.

"You tell me that I did see a girl there, and that it was the one who had lived as sewing woman in my house; it may be so, but at the time I considered it a vision of my wife, and the remembrance of it, coming as it did after my repeated failures to encounter her in the street, worked a change in my plans. For regard it as weakness or not, the recollection that the vision I had seen wore the garments of a working-woman rather than a lady, acted upon me like a warning not to search for her any longer among the resorts of the well-dressed, but in the regions of poverty and toil. I therefore took to wanderings such as I have no heart to describe. Nor do I need to, if, as you have informed me, I have been followed.

"The result was almost madness. Though deep in my heart I felt a steadfast trust in the purity of her intentions, the fear of what she might have been driven to by the awful poverty and despair I every day saw seething about me, was like hot steel in brain and heart. Then her father and her brother! To what might they not have forced her, innocent and loving soul though she was! Drinking the dregs of a cup such as I had never considered it possible for me to taste, I got so far as to believe that her eyes would yet flash upon me from beneath some of the tattered shawls I saw sullying the forms of the young girls upon which I hourly stumbled. Yes, and even made a move to see my cousin, if haply I could so win upon her compassion as to gain her consent to shelter the poor creature of my dreams in case the necessity came. But my heart failed me at the sight of her cold face above the splendor she had bought with her charms, and I was saved a humiliation I might never have risen above.

"At last, one day I saw a girl—no, it was not she, but her hair was similar to hers in hue, and the impulse to follow her was irresistible. I did more than that, I spoke to her. I asked her if she could tell me anything of one whose locks were golden red like hers—But I need not tell you what I said nor what she replied with a gentle delicacy that was almost a shock to me as showing from what heights to what depths a woman can fall. Enough that nothing passed between us beyond what I have intimated, and that in all she said she gave me no news of Luttra.

"Next day I started for the rambling old house in Vermont, if haply in the spot where I first saw her, I might come upon some clue to her present whereabouts. But the old inn was deserted, and whatever hope I may have had in that direction, perished with the rest.

"Concerning the contents of that bureau-drawer above, I can say nothing. If, as I scarcely dare to hope, they should prove to have been indeed brought here by the girl who has since disappeared so strangely, who knows but what in those folded garments a clue is given which will lead me at last to the knowledge for which I would now barter all I possess. My wife—But I can mention her name no more till the question that now assails us is set at rest. Mrs. Daniels must—"

But at that moment the door opened and Mrs. Daniels came in.

CHAPTER XIV. MRS. DANIELS

She still wore her bonnet and shawl and her face was like marble.

"You want me?" said she with a hurried look towards Mr. Blake that had as much fear as surprise in it.

"Yes," murmured that gentleman moving towards her with an effort we could very well appreciate. "Mrs. Daniels, who was the girl you harbored in that room above us for so long? Speak; what was her name and where did she come from?"

The housekeeper trembling in every limb, cast us one hurried appeal.

"Speak!" reechoed Mr. Gryce; "the time for secrecy has passed."

"O," cried she, sinking into a chair from sheer inability to stand, "it was your wife, Mr. Blake, the young creature you—"

"Ah!"

All the agony, the hopelessness, the love, the passion of those last few months flashed up in that word. She stopped as if she had been shot, but seeing the hand which he had hurriedly raised, fall slowly before him, went on with a burst,

"O sir, she made me swear on my knees I would never betray her, no matter what happened. When not two weeks after your father died she came to the house and asking for me, told me all her story and all her love; how she could not reconcile it with her idea of a wife's duty to live under any other roof than that of her husband, and lifting off the black wig which she wore, showed me how altered she had made herself by that simple change—in her case more marked by the fact that her eyes were in keeping with black hair, while with her own bright locks they always gave you a shock as of something strange and haunting—I gave up my will as if forced by a magnetic power, and not only opened the house to her but my heart as well; swearing to all she demanded and keeping my oath too, as I would preserve my soul from sin and my life from the knife of the destroyer."

"But, when she went," broke from the pallid lips of the man before her, "when she was taken away from the house, what then?"

"Ah," returned the agitated woman, "what then! Do you not think I suffered? To be held by my oath, an oath I was satisfied she would wish kept even at this crisis, yet knowing all the while she was drifting away into some evil that you, if you knew who she was, would give your life to avert from your honor if not from her innocent head! To see you cold, indifferent, absorbed in other things, while she, who would have perished any day for your happiness, was losing her life perhaps in the clutches of those horrible villains! Do not ask me to tell you what I have suffered since she went; I can never tell you,—innocent, tender, noble-hearted creature that she was."

"Was?" His hand clutched his heart as if it had been seized by a deathly spasm. "Why do you say was?"

"Because I have just come from the Morgue where she lies dead."

"No, no," came in a low shriek from his lips, "that is not she; that is another woman, like her perhaps, but not she."

"Would to God you were right; but the long golden braids! Such hair as hers I never saw on anyone before."

"Mr. Blake is right," I broke in, for I could not endure this scene any longer. "The woman taken out of the East river to-day has been both seen and spoken to by him and that not long since. He should know if it is his wife."

"And isn't it?"

"No, a thousand times no; the girl was a perfect stranger."

The assurance seemed to lift a leaden weight from her heart. "O thank God," she murmured dropping with an irresistible impulse on her knees. Then with a sudden return of her old tremble, "But I was only to reveal her secret in case of her death! What have I done, O what have I done! Her only hope lay in my faithfulness."

Mr. Blake leaning heavily on the table before him, looked in her face.

"Mrs. Daniels," said he, "I love my wife; her hope now lies in me."

She leaped to her feet with a joyous bound. "You love her? O thank God!" she again reiterated but this time in a low murmur to her self. "Thank God!" and weeping with unrestrained joy, she drew back into a corner.

Of course after that, all that remained for us to do was to lay our heads together and consult as to the best method of renewing our search after the unhappy girl, now rendered of double interest to us by the facts with which we had just been made acquainted. That she had been forced away from the roof that sheltered her by the power of her father and brother was of course no longer open to doubt. To discover them, therefore, meant to recover her. Do you wonder, then, that from the moment we left Mr. Blake's house, the capture of that brace of thieves became the leading purpose of our two lives?

CHAPTER XV. A CONFAB

Next morning Mr. Gryce and I met in serious consultation. How, and in what direction should we extend the inquiries necessary to a discovery of these Schoenmakers?

"I advise a thorough overhauling of the German quarter," said my superior. "Schmidt, and Rosenthal will help us and the result ought to be satisfactory."

But I shook my head at this. "I don't believe," said I, "that they will hide among their own people. You must remember they are not alone, but have with them a young woman of a somewhat distinguished appearance, whose presence in a crowded district, like that, would be sure to awaken gossip; something which above all else they must want to avoid."

"That is true; the Germans are a dreadful race for gossip."

"If they dared to ill-dress her or ill-treat her, it would be different. But she is a valuable piece of property to them you see, a choice lot of goods which it is for their interest to preserve in first-class condition till the day comes for its disposal. For I presume you have no doubt that it is for the purpose of extorting money from Mr. Blake that they have carried off his young wife."

"For that reason or one similar. He is a man of resources, they may have hoped he would help them to escape the country."

"If they don't hide in the German quarter they certainly won't in the Italian, French or Irish. What they want is too keep close and rouse no questions. I think they will be found to have gone up the river somewhere, or over to Jersey. Hoboken would'nt be a bad place to send Schmidt to."

"You forget what it is they've got on their minds; besides no conspicuous party such as they could live in a rural district without attracting more attention than in the most crowded tenement house in the city."

"Where do you think, then, they would be liable to go?"

"Well my most matured thought on the subject," returned Mr. Gryce, after a moment's deliberation, "is this,—you say, and I agree, that they have hampered themselves with this woman at this time for the purpose of using her hereafter in a scheme of blackmail upon Mr. Blake. He, then, must be the object about which their thoughts revolve and toward which whatever operations or plans they may be engaged upon must tend. What follows? When a company of men have made up their minds to rob a bank, what is the first thing they do? They hire, if possible, a house next to the especial building they intend to enter, and for months work upon the secret passage through which they hope to reach the safe and its contents; or they make friends with the watchman that guards its treasures, and the janitor who opens and shuts the doors. In short they hang about their prey before they pounce upon it. And so will these Schoenmakers do in the somewhat different robbery which they plan sooner or later to effect. Whatever may keep them close at this moment, Mr. Blake and Mr. Blake's house is the point toward which their eyes are turned, and if we had time—"

"But we have'nt," I broke in impetuously. "It is horrible to think of that grand woman languishing away in the power of such rascals."

"If we had time," Mr. Gryce persisted, "all it would be necessary to do would be to wait, they would come into our hands as easily and naturally as a hawk into the snare of the fowler. But as you say we have not, and therefore, I would recommend a little beating of the bush directly about Mr. Blake's house; for if all my experience is not at fault, those men are already within eye-shot of the prey they intend to run down."

"But," said I, "I have been living myself in that very neighborhood and know by this time the ways of every house in the vicinity. There is not a spot up and down the Avenue for ten blocks where they could hide away for two days much less two weeks. And as for the side streets,—why I could tell you the names of those who live in each house for a considerable distance. Yet if you say so I will go to work—"

"Do, and meanwhile Schmidt and Rosenthal shall rummage the German quarter and even go through Williamsburgh and Hoboken. The end justifies any amount of labor that can be spent upon this matter."

"And you," I asked.

"Will do my part when you have done yours."

CHAPTER XVI. THE MARK OF THE RED CROSS

And what success did I meet? The best in the world. And by what means did I attain it? By that of the simplest, prettiest clue I ever came upon. But let me explain.

When after a wearisome day spent in an ineffectual search through the neighborhood, I went home to my room, which as you remember was a front one in a lodging-house on the opposite corner from Mr. Blake, I was so absorbed in mind and perhaps I may say shaken in nerve, by the strain under which I had been laboring for some time now, that I stumbled up an extra flight of stairs, and without any suspicion of the fact, tried the door of the room directly over mine. It is a wonder to me now that I could have made the mistake, for the halls were totally dissimilar, the one above being much more cut up than the one below, besides being flanked by a greater number of doors. But the intoxication of the mind is not far removed from that of the body, and as I say it was not till I had tried the door and found it locked, that I became aware of the mistake I had made.

With the foolish sense of shame that always overcomes us at the committal of any such trivial error, I stumbled hastily back, when my foot trod upon something that broke under my weight. I never let even small things pass without some notice. Stooping, then, for what I had thus inadvertently crushed, I carried it to where a single gas jet turned down very low, made a partial light in the long hall, and examining it, found it to be a piece of red chalk.

What was there in that simple fact to make me start and hastily recall one or two half-forgotten incidents which, once brought to mind, awoke a train of thought that led to the discovery and capture of those two desperate thieves? I will tell you.

I don't remember now whether in my account of the visit I paid to the Schoenmakers' house in Vermont, I informed you of the red cross I noticed scrawled on the panel of one of the doors. It seemed a trivial thing at the time and made little or no impression upon me, the chances being that I should never have thought of it again, if I had not come upon the article just mentioned at a moment when my mind was full of those very Schoenmakers. But remembered now, together with another half-forgotten fact,—that some days previous I had been told by the woman who kept the house I was in, that the parties over my head (two men and a woman I believe she said) were giving her some trouble, but that they paid well and therefore she did not like to turn them out,—it aroused a vague suspicion in my mind, and led to my walking back to the door I had endeavored to open in my abstraction, and carefully looking at it.

It was plain and white, rather ruder of make than those below, but offering no inducements for prolonged scrutiny. But not so with the one that stood at right angles to it on the left. Full in the centre of that, I beheld distinctly scrawled, probably with the very piece of chalk I then held, a red cross precisely similar in outline to the one I had seen a few days before on the panel of the Schoenmakers' door at Granby.

The discovery sent a thrill over me that almost raised my hair on end. Was, then, this famous trio to be found in the very house in which I had been myself living for a week or more? over my head in fact? I could not withdraw my gaze from the mysterious looking object. I bent near, I listened, I heard what sounded like the suppressed snore of a powerful man, and almost had to lay hold of myself to prevent my hand from pushing open that closed door and my feet from entering. As it was I did finger the knob a little, but an extra loud snore from within reminded me by its suggestion of strength that I was but a small man and that in this case and at this hour, discretion was the better part of valor.

I therefore withdrew, but for the whole night lay awake listening to catch any sounds that might come from above, and going so far as to plan what I would do if it should be proved that I was indeed upon the trail of the men I was so anxious to encounter.

With the breaking of day I was upon my feet. A rude step had gone up the stairs a few minutes before and I was all alert to follow. But I presently considered that my wisest course would be to sound the landlady and learn if possible with what sort of characters I had to deal. Routing her out of the kitchen, where at that early hour she was already engaged in domestic duties, I drew her into a retired corner and put my questions. She was not backward in replying. She had conceived an innocent liking for me in the short time I had been with her—a display of weakness for which I was myself, perhaps, as much to blame as she—and was only too ready to pour out her griefs into my sympathizing ear. For those men were a grief to her, acceptable as was the money they were careful to provide her with. They were not only always in the house, that is one of them, smoking his old pipe and blackening up the walls, but they looked so shabby, and kept the girl so close, and if they did go out, came in at such unheard of hours. It was enough to drive her crazy; yet the money, the money—

"Yes," said I, "I know; and the money ought to make you overlook all the small disagreeablenesses you mention. What is a landlady without patience." And I urged her not to turn them out.

"But the girl," she went on, "so nice, so quiet, so sick-looking! I cannot stand it to see her cooped up in that small room, always watched over by one or both of those burly wretches. The old man says she is his daughter and she does not deny it, but I would as soon think of that little rosy child you see cooing in the window over the way, belonging to the beggar going in at the gate, as of her with her ladylike ways having any connection with him and his rough-acting son. You ought to see her—"

"That is just what I want to do," interrupted I. "Not because you have tempted my fancy by a recital of her charms," I hastened to add, "but because she is, if I don't mistake, a woman for whose discovery and rescue, a large sum of money has been offered."

And without further disguise I acquainted the startled woman before me with the fact that I was not, as she had always considered, the clerk out of employment whose daily business it was to sally forth in quest of a situation, but a member of the city police.

She was duly impressed and easily persuaded to second all my operations as far as her poor wits would allow, giving me free range of her upper story, and above all, promising that secrecy without which all my finely laid plans for capturing the rogues without raising a scandal, would fall headlong to the ground.

Behold me, then, by noon of that same day domiciled in an apartment next to the one whose door bore that scarlet sign which had aroused within me such feverish hopes the night before. Clad in the seedy garments of a broken down French artist whose acquaintance I had once made, with something of his air and general appearance and with a few of his wretched daubs hung about on the whitewashed wall, I commenced with every prospect of success as I thought, that quiet espionage of the hall and its inhabitants which I considered necessary to a proper attainment of the end I had in view.

A racking cough was one of the peculiarities of my friend, and determined to assume the character in toto, I allowed myself to startle the silence now and then with a series of gasps and chokings that whether agreeable or not, certainly were of a character to show that I had no desire to conceal my presence from those I had come among. Indeed it was my desire to acquaint them as fully and as soon as possible with the fact of their having a neighbor: a weak-eyed half-alive innocent to be sure, but yet a neighbor who would keep his door open night and day—for the warmth of the hall of course—and who with the fretful habit of an old man who had once been a gentleman and a beau, went rambling about through the hall speaking to those he met and expecting a civil word in return. When he was not rambling or coughing he made architectural monsters out of cardboard, wherewith to tempt the pennies out of the pockets of unwary children, an employment that kept him chained to a small table in the centre of his room directly opposite the open door.

As I expected I had scarcely given way to three separate fits of coughing, when the door next me opened with a jerk and a rough voice called out,

"Who's that making all that to do about here? If you don't stop that infernal noise in a hurry—"

A soft voice interrupted him and he drew back. "I will go see," said those gentle tones, and Luttra Blake, for I knew it was she before the skirt of her robe had advanced beyond the door, stepped out into the hall.

I was yet bent over my work when she paused before me. The fact is I did not dare look up, the moment was one of such importance to me.

"You have a dreadful cough," said she with that low ring of sympathy in her voice that goes unconsciously to the heart. "Is there no help for it?"

I pushed back my work, drew my hand over my eyes, (I did not need to make it tremble) and glanced up. "No," said I with a shake of my head, "but it is not always so bad. I beg your pardon, miss, if it disturbs you."

She threw back the shawl which she had held drawn tightly over her head, and advanced with an easy gliding step close to my side. "You do not disturb me, but my father is—is, well a trifle cross sometimes, and if he should speak up a little harsh now and then, you must not mind. I am sorry you are so ill."

What is there in some women's look, some women's touch that more than all beauty goes to the heart and subdues it. As she stood there before me in her dark worsted dress and coarse shawl, with her locks simply braided and her whole person undignified by art and ungraced by ornament, she seemed just by the power of her expression and the witchery of her manner, the loveliest woman I had ever beheld.

"You are veree kind, veree good," I murmured, half ashamed of my disguise, though it was assumed for the purpose of rescuing her. "Your sympathy goes to my heart." Then as a deep growl of impatience rose from the room at my side, I motioned her to go and not irritate the man who seemed to have such control over her.

"In a minute," answered she, "first tell me what you are making."

So I told her and in the course of telling, let drop such other facts about my fancied life as I wished to have known to her and through her to her father. She looked sweetly interested and more than once turned upon me that dark eye, of which I had heard so much, full of tears that were as much for me, scamp that I was, as for her own secret trouble. But the growls becoming more and more impatient she speedily turned to go, repeating, however, as she did so,

"Now remember what I say, you are not to be troubled if they do speak cross to you. They make noise enough themselves sometimes, as you will doubtless be assured of tonight."

And the lips which seemed to have grown stiff and cold with her misery, actually softened into something like a smile.

The nod which I gave her in return had the solemnity of a vow in it.

My mind thus assured as to the correctness of my suspicions, and the way thus paved to the carrying out of my plans, I allowed some few days to elapse without further action on my part. My motive was to acquaint myself as fully as possible with the habits and ways of these two desperate men, before making the attempt to capture them upon which so many interests hung. For while I felt it would be highly creditable to my sagacity, as well as valuable to my reputation as a detective, to restore these escaped convicts in any way possible into the hands of justice, my chief ambition after all was to so manage the affair as to save the wife of Mr. Blake, not only from the consequences of their despair, but from the publicity and scandal attendant upon the open arrest of two heavily armed men. Strategy, therefore, rather than force was to be employed, and strategy to be successful must be founded upon the most thorough knowledge of the matter with which one has to deal. Three days, then, did I give to the acquiring of that knowledge, the result of which was the possession of the following facts.

1. That the landlady was right when she told me the girl was never left alone, one of the men, if not the father then the son, always remaining with her.

2. That while thus guarded, she was not so restricted but that she had the liberty of walking in the hall, though never for any length of time.

3. That the cross on the door seemed to possess some secret meaning connected with their presence in the house, it having been erased one evening when the whole three went out on some matter or other, only to be chalked on again when in an hour or so later, father and daughter returned alone.

4. That it was the father and not the son who made such purchases as were needed, while it was the son and not the father who carried on whatever operations they had on hand; nightfall being the favorite hour for the one and midnight for the other; though it not infrequently happened that the latter sauntered out for a short time also in the afternoon, probably for the drink he could not go long without.

5. That they were men of great strength but little alertness; the stray glimpses I had had of them, revealing a breadth of back that was truly formidable, if it had not been joined to a heaviness of motion that proclaimed a certain stolidity of mind that was eminently in our favor.

How best to use these facts in the building up of a matured plan of action, was, then, the problem. By noon of a certain day I believed it to have been solved, and reluctant as I was to leave the spot of my espionage even for the hour or two necessary to a visit to headquarters, I found myself compelled to do so. Packing up in a small basket I had for the purpose, the little articles I had been engaged during the last few days in making, I gave way to a final fit of coughing so hollow and sepulchral in its tone, that it awoke a curse from the next room deep as the growl of a wild beast, and still continuing, finally brought Luttra to the door with that look of compassion on her face that always called up a flush to my cheek whether I wished it or no.

"Ah, Monsieur, I am afraid your cough is very bad to-day. O I see; you have been getting ready to go out—"

"Come back here," broke in a heavy voice from the room she had left. "What do you mean by running off to palaver with that old rascal every time he opens his ——- battery of a cough?"

A smile that went through me like the cut of a knife, flashed for a moment on her face.

"My father is in one of his impatient moods," said she, "you had better go. I hope you will be successful," she murmured, glancing wistfully at my basket.

"What is that?" again came thundering on our ears. "Successful? What are you two up to?" And we heard the rough clatter of advancing steps.

"Go," said she; "you are weak and old; and when you come back, try and not cough." And she gave me a gentle push towards the door.

"When I come back," I began, but was forced to pause, the elder Schoenmaker having by this time reached the open doorway where he stood frowning in upon us in a way that made my heart stand still for her.

"What are you two talking about?" said he; "and what have you got in your basket there?" he continued with a stride forward that shook the floor.

"Only some little toys that he has been making, and is now going out to sell," was her low answer given with a quick deprecatory gesture such as I doubt if she ever used for herself.

"Nothing more?" asked he in German with a red glare in the eye he turned towards her.

"Nothing more," replied she in the same tongue. "You may believe me."

He gave a deep growl and turned away. "If there was," said he, "you know what would happen." And unheeding the wild keen shudder that seized her at the word, making her insensible for the moment to all and everything about her, he laid one heavy hand upon her slight shoulder and led her from the room.

I waited no longer than was necessary to carry my feeble and faltering steps appropriately down the stairs, to reach the floor below and gain the landlady's presence.

"Do you go up," said I, "and sit on those stairs till I come back. If you hear the least cry of pain or sound of struggle from that young girl's room, do you call at once for help. I will have a policeman standing on the corner below."

The good woman nodded and proceeded at once to take up her work-basket. "Lucky there's a window up there, so I can see," I heard her mutter. "I've no time to throw away even on deeds of charity."

Notwithstanding which precaution, I was in constant anxiety during my absence; an absence necessarily prolonged as I had to stop and explain matters to the Superintendent, as well as hunt up Mr. Gryce and get his consent to assist me in the matter of the impending arrest.

I found the latter in his own home and more than enthusiastic upon the subject.

"Well," said he after I had informed him of the discoveries I had made, "the fates seem to prosper you in this. I have not received an inkling of light upon the matter since I parted from you at Mr. Blake's house. By the way I saw that gentleman this morning and I tell you we will find him a grateful man if this affair can be resolved satisfactorily."

"That is good," said I," gratitude is what we want." Then shortly, "Perhaps it is no more than our duty to let him know that his wife is safe and under my eye; though I would by no means advocate his knowing just how near him she is, till the moment comes when he is wanted, or we shall have a lover's impetuosity to deal with as well as all the rest." Then with a hurried remembrance of a possible contingency, went on to say, "But, by the way, in case we should need the cooperation of Mrs. Blake in what we have before us, you had better get a line written in French from Mrs. Daniels, expressive of her belief in Mr. Blake's present affection for his wife. The latter will not otherwise trust us, or understand that we are to be obeyed in whatever we may demand. Let it be unsigned and without names in case of accident; and if the housekeeper don't understand French, tell her to get some one to help her that does, only be sure that the handwriting employed is her own."

Mr. Gryce seemed to perceive the wisdom of this precaution and promised to procure me such a note by a certain hour, after which I related to him the various other details of the capture such as I had planned it, meeting to my secret gratification an unqualified approval that went far towards alleviating that wound to my pride which I had received from him in the beginning of this affair.

"Let all things proceed as you have determined, and we shall accomplish something that it will be a life-long satisfaction to remember," said he; "but you must be prepared for some twist of the screw which you do not anticipate. I never knew anything to go off just as one prognosticates it must, except once," he added thoughtfully, "and then it was with a surprise attached to it that well nigh upset me notwithstanding all my preparations."

"You won a great success that day," remarked I. "I hope the fates will be as propitious to me to-morrow. Failure now would break my heart."

"But you won't fail," exclaimed he. "I myself am resolved to see you through this matter with credit."

And in this assurance I returned to my lodgings where I found the landlady sitting where I had left her, darning her twenty-third sock.

"I have to mend for a dozen men and three boys," said she, "and the boys are the worst by a heap sight. Look at that, will you," holding up a darn with a bit of stocking attached. "That hole was made playing shinny."

I uttered my condolences and asked if any sound or disturbance had reached her ears from above.

"O no, all is right up there; I've scarcely heard a whisper since you've been gone."

I gave her a pat on the chin scarcely consistent with my aged and tottering mien and proceeded to shamble painfully to my room.

CHAPTER XVII. THE CAPTURE

Promptly next morning at the designated hour, came the little note promised me by Mr. Gryce. It was put in my hand with many sly winks by the landlady herself, who developed at this crisis quite an adaptation for, if not absolute love of intrigue and mystery. Glancing over it—it was unsealed—and finding it entirely unintelligible, I took it for granted it was all right and put it by till chance, or if that failed, strategy, should give me an opportunity to communicate with Mrs. Blake. An hour passed; the doors of their rooms remained unclosed. A half hour more dragged its slow minutes away, and no sound had come from their precincts save now and then a mumbled word of parley between the father and son, a short command to the daughter, or a not-to-be-restrained oath of annoyance from one or both of the heavy-limbed brutes as something was said or done to disturb them in their indolent repose. At last my impatience was to be no longer restrained. Rising, I took a bold resolution. If the mountain would not come to Mahomet, Mahomet would go to the mountain. Taking my letter in the hand, I deliberately proceeded to the door marked with the ominous red cross and knocked.

A surprised snarl from within, followed by a sudden shuffling of feet as the two men leaped upright from what I presume had been a recumbent position, warned me to be ready to face defiance if not the fury of despair; and curbing with a determined effort the slight sinking of heart natural to a man of my make on the threshold of a very doubtful adventure, I awaited with as much apparent unconcern as possible, the quick advance of that light foot which seemed to be ready to perform all the biddings of these hardened wretches, much as it shrunk from following in the ways of their infamy.

"Ah miss," said I, as the door opened revealing in the gap her white face clouded with some new and sudden apprehension, "I beg your pardon but I am an old man, and I got a letter to-day and my eyes are so weak with the work I've been doing that I cannot read it. It is from some one I love, and would you be so kind as to read off the words for me and so relieve an old man from his anxiety."

The murmur of suspicion behind her, warned her to throw wide open the door. "Certainly," said she, "if I can," taking the paper in her hand.

"Just let me get a squint at that first," said a sullen voice behind her; and the youngest of the two Schoenmakers stepped forward and tore the paper out of her grasp.

"You are too suspicious," murmured she, looking after him with the first assumption of that air of power and determination which I had heard so eloquently described by the man who loved her. "There is nothing in those lines which concerns us; let me have them back."

"You hold your tongue," was the brutal reply as the rough man opened the folded paper and read or tried to read what was written within. "Blast it! it's French," was his slow exclamation after a moment spent in this way. "See," and he thrust it towards his father who stood frowning heavily a few feet off.

"Of course, it's French," cried the girl. "Would you write a note in English to father there? The man's friends are French like himself, and must write in their own language."

"Here take it and read it out," commanded her father; "and mind you tell us what it means. I'll have nothing going on here that I don't understand."

"Read me the French words first, miss," said I. "It is my letter and I want to know what my friend has to say to me."

Nodding at me with a gentle look, she cast her eyes on the paper and began to read:

"Calmez vous, mon amie, il vous aime et il vous cherche. Dans
quatre heures vous serez heureuse. Allons du courage, et surtout
soyez maitre de vous meme."

"Thanks!" I exclaimed in a calm matter-of-fact way as I perceived the sudden tremor that seized her as she recognized the handwriting and realized that the words were for her. "My friend says he will pay my week's rent and bids me be at home to receive him," said I, turning upon the two ferocious faces peering over her shoulder, with a look of meek unsuspiciousness in my eye, that in a theatre would have brought down the house.

"Is that what those words say, you?" asked the father, pointing over her shoulder to the paper she held.

"I will translate for you word by word what it says," replied she, nerving herself for the crisis till her face was like marble, though I could see she could not prevent the gleam of secret rapture that had visited her, from flashing fitfully across it. "Calmez vous, mon amie. Do not be afraid, my friend. Il vous aime et il vous cherche. He loves you and is hunting for you. Dans quatre heures vous serez heureuse. In four hours you will be happy. Allons du courage, et surtout soyez maitre de vous meme. Then take courage and above all preserve your self-possession. It is the French way of expressing one's self," observed she. "I am glad your friend is disposed to help you," she continued, giving me back the letter with a smile. "I am afraid you needed it."

In a sort of maze I folded up the letter, bowed my very humble thanks to her and shuffled slowly back. The fact is I had no words; I was utterly dumbfounded. Half way through that letter, with whose contents you must remember I was unacquainted, I would have given my whole chance of expected reward to have stopped her. Read out such words as those before these men! Was she crazy? But how naturally at the conclusion did she with a word make its language seem consistent with the meaning I had given it. With a fresh sense of my obligation to her, I hurried to my room, there to count out the minutes of another long hour in anxious expectation of her making that endeavor to communicate with me, which her new hopes and fears must force her to feel almost necessary to her existence. At length, my confidence in her was rewarded. Coming out into the hall, she hurried past my door, her finger on her lip. I immediately rose and stood on the threshold with another paper in my hand, which I had prepared against this opportunity. As she glided back, I put it in her hand, and warning her with a look not to speak, resumed my usual occupation. The words I had written were as follows:

At or as near the time as possible of your brother's going out,
you are to come to this room wrapped in an extra skirt and with
your shawl over your head. Leave the skirt and shawl behind you,
and withdraw at once to the room at the head of the stairs. You
are not to speak, and you are not to vary from the plan thus laid
down. Your brother and father are to be arrested, whether or no;
but if you will do as this commands, they will be arrested without
bloodshed and without shame to one you know.

Her face while she read these lines, was a study, but I dared not soften toward it. Dropping the paper from her hand, she gave me one inquiring look. But I pointed determinedly to the words lying upward on the floor, and would listen to no appeal. My resolve had its effect. Bowing her head with a sorrowful gesture, she laid her hand on her heart, looked up and glided from the room. I took up that paper and tore it into bits.

And now for the first time since I had been in the house, I closed the door of my room. I had a part to perform that rendered the dropping of my disguise indispensable. The old French artist had finished his work, and henceforth must merge into Q. the detective. Shortly before two o'clock my assistants began to arrive. First, Mr. Gryce appeared on the scene and was stowed away in a large room on the other side of mine. Next, two of the most agile, as well as muscular men in the force who, thanks to having taken off their shoes in the lower hall, gained the same refuge without awakening the suspicions of those we were anxious to surprise. Lastly, the landlady who went into the closet to which I had bidden Mrs. Blake retire after leaving in my room the articles I had mentioned.

All was now ready and waiting for the departure of the youngest Schoenmaker. Would he disappoint us and remain at home that day? Had any suspicions been awakened in the stolid breasts of these men, that would serve to make them more watchful than usual against running unnecessary risks? No; at or near the time for the clock to strike two, their door opened and the tread of a lumbering foot was heard in the hall. On it came, passing my room with a rude stamping that gradually grew less distinct as the hardy rough went down the corridor, brushing the wall behind which Mr. Gryce and his men lay concealed with his thick cane, and even stopping to light his pipe in front of the small apartment where cowered our good landlady with her eternal basket of mending in her lap.

At length all was quiet, and throwing open my door, I withdrew into a small closet connected with my room, to wait with indescribable impatience, the appearance of Mrs. Blake. She came in a very few minutes, remained for an instant, and departed, leaving behind her as I had requested, the skirt and shawl in which she had left her father's presence. I at once endued myself in these articles of apparel—taking care to draw the shawl well over my head—and with a pocket handkerchief to my face, (a proceeding made natural enough by the sneeze which at that very moment I took care should assail me) walked boldly back to the room from which she had just come.

The door was of course ajar, and as I swung it open with as near a simulation of her manner as possible, the vision of her powerful father lolling on a bench directly before me, offered anything but an encouraging spectacle to my eyes. But doubling myself almost together with as ladylike an atch-ee as my masculine nostrils would allow, I succeeded in closing the door and reaching a low stool by the window without calling from him anything worse than a fretful "I hope you are not going to bark too."

I did not reply to this of course, but sat with my face turned towards the street in an attitude which I hoped would awaken his attention sufficiently to cause him to get up and come over to my side. For as he sat face to the door it would be impossible to take him by surprise, and that, now that I saw what a huge and muscular creature he was, seemed to me to be the only safe method before us. But, whether from the sullenness of his disposition or the very evident laziness of the moment, he manifested no disposition to move, and hearing or thinking I did, the stealthy advance of Mr. Gryce and his companions down the hall, I allowed myself to give way to a suppressed exclamation, and leaning forward, pressed my forehead against the pane of glass before me as if something of absorbing interest had just taken place in the street beneath.

His fears at once took alarm. Bounding up with a curse, he strode towards me, muttering,

"What's up now? What's that you are looking at?" reaching my side just as Mr. Gryce and his two men softly opened the door and with a quick leap threw their arms about him, closing upon him with a force he could not resist, desperate as he was and mighty in the huge strength of an unusually developed muscular organization.

"You, you girl there, are to blame for this!" came mingled with curses from his lips, as with one huge pant he submitted to his captors. "Only let me get my hand well upon you once—Damn it!" he suddenly exclaimed, dragging the whole three men forward in his effort to get his mouth down to my ear, "go and rub that sign out on the door or I'll—you know what I'll do well enough. Do you hear?"

Rising, still with face averted, I proceeded to do what he asked. But in another moment seeing that he had been effectually bound and gagged, I took out the piece of red chalk I had kept in my pocket, and deliberately chalked it on again, after which operation I came back and took my seat as before on the low stool by the window.

The object now was to secure the second rascal in the same way we had the first; and for this purpose Mr. Gryce ordered the now helpless giant to be dragged into the adjoining small room formerly occupied by Mrs. Blake, where he and his men likewise took up their station leaving me to confront as best I might, the surprise and consternation of the one whose return we now awaited.

I did not shrink. With that brave woman's garments drawn about me, something of her dauntless spirit seemed to invade my soul, and though I expected—But let that come in its place, I am not here to interest you in myself or my selfish thoughts.

A half hour passed; he had never lingered away so long before, or so it seemed, and I was beginning to wonder if we should have to keep up this strain of nerve for hours, when the heavy tread was again heard in the hall, and with a blow of the fist that argued anger or a brutal impatience, he flung open the door and came in, I did not turn my head.

"Where's father?" he growled, stopping where he was a foot or so from the door.

I shook my head with a slight gesture and remained looking out.

He brought his cane down on the floor with a thump. "What do you mean by sitting there staring out of the window like mad and not answering when I ask you a decent question?"

Still I made no reply.

Provoked beyond endurance, yet held in check by that vague sense of danger in the air,—which while not amounting to apprehension is often sufficient to hold back from advance the most daring foot,—he stood glaring at me in what I felt to be a very ferocious attitude, but made no offer to move. Instantly I rose and still looking out of the window, made with my hand what appeared to be a signal to some one on the opposite side of the way. The ruse was effective. With an oath that rings in my ears yet, he lifted his heavy cane and advanced upon me with a bound, only to meet the same fate as his father at the hands of the watchful detectives. Not, however, before that heavy cane came down upon my head in a way to lay me in a heap at his feet and to sow the seeds of that blinding head-ache, which has afflicted me by spells ever since. But this termination of the affair was no more than I had feared from the beginning; and indeed it was as much to protect Mrs. Blake from the wrath of these men, as from any requirements of the situation I had assumed the disguise I then wore. I therefore did not allow this mishap to greatly trouble me, unpleasant as it was at the time, but, as soon as ever I could do so, rose from the floor and throwing off my strange habiliments, proceeded to finish up to my satisfaction, the work already so successfully begun.

CHAPTER XVIII. LOVE AND DUTY

Dismissing the men who had assisted us in the capture of these two hardy villains, we ranged our prisoners before us.

"Now," said Mr. Gryce, "no fuss and no swearing; you are in for it, and you might as well take it quietly as any other way."

"Give me a clutch on that girl, that's all," said her father, "Where is she? Let me see her; every father has a right to see his own daughter,"

"You shall see her," returned my superior, "but not till her husband is here to protect her."

"Her husband? ah, you know about that do you?" growled the heavy voice of the son. "A rich man they say he is and a proud one. Let him come and look at us lying here like dogs and say how he will enjoy having his wife's father and brother grinding away their lives in prison."

"Mr. Blake is coming," quoth Mr. Gryce, who by some preconcerted signal from the window had drawn that gentleman across the street. "He will tell you himself that he considers prison the best place for you. Blast you! but he—"

"But he, what?" inquired I, as the door opened and Mr. Blake with a pale face and agitated mien entered the room.

The wretch did not answer. Rousing from the cowering position in which they had both lain since their capture, the father and son struggled up in some sort of measure to their feet, and with hot, anxious eyes surveyed the countenance of the gentleman before them, as if they felt their fate hung upon the expression of his pallid face. The son was the first to speak.

"How do you do, brother-in-law," were his sullen and insulting words.

Mr. Blake shuddered and cast a look around.

"My wife?" murmured he.

"She is well," was the assurance given by Mr. Gryce, "and in a room not far from this. I will send for her if you say so."

"No, not yet," came in a sort of gasp; "let me look at these wretches first, and understand if I can what my wife has to suffer from her connection with them."

"Your wife," broke in the father, "what's that to do with it; the question is how do you like it and what will you do to get us clear of this thing."

"I will do nothing," returned Mr. Blake. "You amply merit your doom and you shall suffer it to the end for all time."

"It will read well in the papers," exclaimed the son.

"The papers are to know nothing about it," I broke in. "All knowledge of your connection with Mr. or Mrs. Blake is to be buried in this spot before we or you leave it. Not a word of her or him is to cross the lips of either of you from this hour. I have set that down as a condition and it has got to be kept."

"You have, have you," thundered in chorus from father and son. "And who are you to make conditions, and what do you think we are that you expect us to keep them? Can you do anymore than put us back from where we came from?"

For reply I took from my pocket the ring I had fished out of the ashes of their kitchen stove on that memorable visit to their house, and holding it up before their faces, looked them steadily in the eye.

A sudden wild glare followed by a bluish palor that robbed their countenances of their usual semblance of daring ferocity, answered me beyond my fondest hopes.

"I got that out of the stove where you had burned your prison clothing," said I. "It is a cheap affair, but it will send you to the gallows if I choose to use it against you. The pedlar—"

"Hush," exclaimed the father in a low choked tone greatly in contrast to any he had yet used in all our dealings with him. "Throw that ring out of the window and I promise to hold my tongue about any matter you don't want spoke of. I'm not a fool—"

"Nor I," was my quick reply, as I restored the ring to my pocket. "While that remains in my possession together with certain facts concerning your habits in that old house of yours which have lately been made known to me, your life hangs by a thread I can any minute snip in two. Mr. Blake here, has spent some portion of a night in your house and knows how near it lies to a certain precipice, at foot of which—"

"Mein Gott, father, why don't you say something!" leaped in cowed accents from the son's white lips. "If they want us to keep quiet, let them say so and not go talking about things that—"

"Now look here," interposed Mr. Gryce stepping before them with a look that closed their mouths at once. "I will just tell you what we propose to do. You are to go back to prison and serve your time out, there is no help for that, but as long as you behave yourselves and continue absolutely silent regarding your relationship to the wife of this gentleman, you shall have paid into a certain bank that he will name, a monthly sum that upon your dismissal from jail shall be paid you with whatever interest it may have accumulated. You are ready to promise that, are you not?" he inquired turning to Mr. Blake.

That gentleman bowed and named the sum, which was liberal enough, and the bank.

"But," continued the detective, ignoring the sudden flash of eye that passed between the father and son, "let me or any of us hear of a word having been uttered by you, which in the remotest way shall suggest that you have in the world such a connection as Mrs. Blake, and the money not only stops going into the bank, but old scores shall be raked up against you with a zeal which if it does not stop your mouth in one way, will in another, and that with a suddenness you will not altogether relish."

The men with a dogged air from which the bravado had however fled, turned and looked from one to the other of us in a fearful, inquiring way that duly confessed to the force of the impression made by these words upon their slow but not unimaginative minds.

"Do you three promise to keep our secret if we keep yours?" muttered the father with an uneasy glance at my pocket.

"We certainly do," was our solemn return.

"Very well; call in the girl and let me just look at her, then, before we go. We won't say nothing," continued he, seeing Mr. Blake shrink, "only she is my daughter and if I cannot bid her good-bye—"

"Let him see his child," cried Mr. Blake turning with a shudder to the window. "I—I wish it," added he.

Straightway with hasty foot I left the room. Going to the little closet where I had ordered his wife to remain concealed, I knocked and entered. She was crouched in an attitude of prayer on the floor, her face buried in her hands, and her whole person breathing that agony of suspense that is a torture to the sensitive soul.

"Mrs. Blake," said I, dismissing the landlady who stood in helpless distress beside her, "the arrest has been satisfactorily made and your father calls for you to say good-bye before going away with us. Will you come?"

"But my—my—Mr. Blake?" exclaimed she leaping to her feet. "I am sure I heard his footstep in the hall?"

"He is with your father and brother. It was at his command I came for you."

A gleam hard to interpret flashed for an instant over her face. With her eye on the door she towered in her womanly dignity, while thoughts innumerable seemed to rush in wild succession through her mind.

"Will you not come?" I urged.

"I—," she paused. "I will go see my father," she murmured, "but—"

Suddenly she trembled and drew back; a step was in the hall, on the threshold, at her side; Mr. Blake had come to reclaim his bride.

"Mr. Blake!"

The word came from her in a low tone shaken with the concentrated anguish of many a month of longing and despair, but there was no invitation in its sound, and he who had held out his arms, stopped and surveying her with a certain deprecatory glance in his proud eye, said,

"You are right; I have first my acknowledgments to make and your forgiveness to ask before I can hope—"

"No, no," she broke in, "your coming here is enough, I request no more. If you felt unkindly toward me—"

"Unkindly?" A world of love thrilled in that word. "Luttra, I am your husband and rejoice that I am so; it is to lay the devotion of my heart and life at your feet that I seek your presence this hour. The year has taught me—ah, what has not the year taught me of the worth of her I so recklessly threw from me on my wedding day. Luttra,"—he held out his hand—"will you crown all your other acts of devotion with a pardon that will restore me to my manhood and that place in your esteem which I covet above every other earthly good?"

Her face which had been raised to his with that earnest look we knew so well, softened with an ineffable smile, but still she did not lay her hand in his.

"And you say this to me in the very hour of my father's and brother's arrest! With the remembrance in your mind of their bound and abject forms lying before you guarded by police; knowing too, that they deserve their ignominy and the long imprisonment that awaits them?"

"No, I say it on the day of the discovery and the restoration of that wife for whom I have long searched, and to whom when found I have no word to give but welcome, welcome, welcome."

With the same deep smile she bowed her head, "Now let come what will, I can never again be unhappy," were the words I caught, uttered in the lowest of undertones. But in another moment her head had regained its steady poise and a great change had passed over her manner.

"Mr. Blake," said she, "you are good; how good, I alone can know and duly appreciate who have lived in your house this last year and seen with eyes that missed nothing, just what your surroundings are and have been from the earliest years of your proud life. But goodness must not lead you into the committal of an act you must and will repent to your dying day; or if it does, I who have learned my duty in the school of adversity, must show the courage of two and forbid what every secret instinct of my soul declares to be only provocative of shame and sorrow. You would take me to your heart as your wife; do you realize what that means?"

"I think I do," was his earnest reply. "Relief from heart-ache, Luttra."

Her smooth brow wrinkled with a sudden spasm of pain but her firm lips did not quiver.

"It means," said she, drawing nearer but not with that approach which indicates yielding, "it means, shame to the proudest family that lives in the land. It means silence as regards a past blotted by suggestions of crime; and apprehension concerning a future across which the shadow of prison walls must for so many years lie. It means, the hushing of certain words upon beloved lips; the turning of cherished eyes from visions where fathers and daughters ay, brothers and sisters are seen joined together in tender companionship or loving embrace. It means,—God help me to speak out—a home without the sanctity of memories; a husband without the honors he has been accustomed to enjoy; a wife with a fear gnawing like a serpent into her breast; and children, yes, perhaps children from whose innocent lips the sacred word of grandfather can never fall without wakening a blush on the cheeks of their parents, which all their lovesome prattle will be helpless to chase away."

"Luttra, your father and your brother have given their consent to go their dark way alone and trouble you no more. The shadow you speak of may lie on your heart, dear wife, for these men are of your own blood, but it need never invade the hearthstone beside which I ask you to sit. The world will never know, whether you come with me or not, that Luttra Blake was ever Luttra Schoenmaker. Will you not then give me the happiness of striving to make such amends for the past, that you too, will forget you ever bore any other name than the one you now honor so truly?"

"O do not," she began but paused with a sudden control of her emotion that lifted her into an atmosphere almost holy in its significance. "Mr. Blake," said she, "I am a woman and therefore weak to the voice of love pleading in my ear. But in one thing I am strong, and that is in my sense of what is due to the man I have sworn to honor. Eleven months ago I left you because your pleasure and my own dignity demanded it; to-day I put by all the joy and exaltation you offer, because your position as a gentleman, and your happiness as a man equally requires it."

"My happiness as a man!" he broke in. "Ah, Luttra if you love me as I do you—"

"I might perhaps yield," she allowed with a faint smile. "But I love you as a girl brought up amid surroundings from which her whole being recoiled, must love the one who first brought light into her darkness and opened up to her longing feet the way to a life of culture, purity and honor. I were the basest of women could I consent to repay such a boundless favor—"

"But Luttra," he again broke in, "you married me knowing what your father and brother were capable of committing."

"Yes, yes; I was blinded by passion, a girl's passion, Mr. Blake, born of glamour and gratitude; not the self-forgetting devotion of a woman who has tasted the bitterness of life and so learned its lesson of sacrifice. I may not have thought, certainly I did not realize, what I was doing. Besides, my father and brother were not convicted criminals at that time, however weak they had proved themselves under temptation. And then I believed I had left them behind me on the road of life; that we were sundered, irrevocably cut loose from all possible connection. But such ties are not to be snapped so easily. They found me, you see, and they will find me again—"

"Never!" exclaimed her husband. "They are as dead to you as if the grave had swallowed them. I have taken care of that."

"But the shame! you have not taken care of that. That exists and must, and while it does I remain where I can meet it alone. I love you; God's sun is not dearer to my eyes; but I will never cross your threshold as your wife till the opprobrium can be cut loose from my skirts, and the shadow uplifted from my brow. A queen with high thoughts in her eyes and brave hopes in her heart were not too good to enter that door with you. Shall a girl who has lived three weeks in an atmosphere of such crime and despair, that these rooms have often seemed to me the gateway to hell, carry there, even in secrecy, the effects of that atmosphere? I will cherish your goodness in my heart but do not ask me to bury that heart in any more exalted spot, than some humble country home, where my life may be spent in good deeds and my love in prayers for the man I hold dear, and because I hold dear, leave to his own high path among the straight and unshadowed courses of the world."

And with a gesture that inexorably shut him off while it expressed the most touching appeal, she glided by him and took her way to the room where her father and brother awaited her presence.

CHAPTER XIX. EXPLANATIONS

"I cannot endure this," came in one burst of feeling from the lips of Mr. Blake. "She don't know, she don't realize—Sir," cried he, suddenly becoming conscious of my presence in the room, "will you be good enough to see that this note," he hastily scribbled one, "is carried across the way to my house and given to Mrs. Daniels."

I bowed assent, routed up one of the men in the next room and despatched it at once.

"Perhaps she will listen to the voice of one of her own sex if not to me," said he; and began pacing the floor of the narrow room in which we were, with a wildness of impatience that showed to what depths had sunk the hope of gaining this lovely woman for his own.

Feeling myself no longer necessary in that spot, I followed where my wishes led and entered the room where Luttra was bidding good-bye to her father.

"I shall never forget," I heard her say as I crossed the floor to where Mr. Gryce stood looking out of the window, "that your blood runs in my veins together with that of my gentle-hearted, never-to-be-forgotten mother. Whatever my fate may be or wherever I may hide the head you have bowed to the dust, be sure I shall always lift up my hands in prayer for your repentance and return to an honest life. God grant that my prayers may be heard and that I may yet receive at your hands, a father's kindly blessing."

The only answer to this was a heavily muttered growl that gave but little promise of any such peaceful termination to a deeply vicious life. Hearing it, Mr. Gryce hastened to procure his men and remove the hardened wretches from the spot. All through the preparations for their departure, she stood and watched their sullen faces with a wild yearning in her eye that could scarcely be denied, but when the door finally closed upon them, and she was left standing there with no one in the room but myself she steadied herself up as one who is conscious that all the storms of heaven are about to break upon her; and turning slowly to the door waited with arms crossed and a still determination upon her brow, the coming of the feet of him whose resolve she felt must have, as yet been only strengthened by her resistance.

She had not long to wait. Almost with the closing of the street door upon the detectives and their prisoners, Mr. Blake followed by Mrs. Daniels and another lady whose thick veil and long cloak but illy concealed the patrician features and stately form of the Countess De Mirac, entered the room.

The surprise had its effect; Luttra was evidently for the moment thrown off her guard.

"Mrs. Daniels!" she breathed, holding out her hands with a longing gesture.

"My dear mistress!" returned that good woman, taking those hands in hers but in a respectful way that proved the constraint imposed upon her by Mr. Blake's presence. "Do I see you again and safe?"

"You must have thought I cared little for the anxiety you would be sure to feel," said that fair young mistress, gazing with earnestness into the glad but tearful eyes of the housekeeper. "But indeed, I have been in no position to communicate with you, nor could I do so without risking that to protect which I so outraged my feelings as to leave the house at all. I mean the life and welfare of its master, Mrs. Daniels."

"Ha, what is that?" quoth Mr. Blake. "It was to save me, you consented to follow them?"

"Yes; what else would have led me to such an action? They might have killed me, I would not have cared, but when they began to utter threats against you—"

"Mrs. Blake," exclaimed Mrs. Daniels, catching hold of her mistress's uplifted hand, and pointing to a scar that slightly disfigured her white arm a little above the wrist, "Mrs. Blake, what's that?"

A pink flush, the first I had seen on her usually pale countenance, rose for an instant to her cheeks, and she seemed to hesitate.

"It was not there when I last saw you, Mrs. Blake."

"No," was the slow reply, "I found myself forced that night to inflict upon myself a little wound. It is nothing, let it go."

"No, Luttra I cannot let it go," said her husband, advancing towards her with something like gentle command. "I must hear not only about this but all the other occurrences of that night. How came they to find you in the refuge you had attained?"

"I think," said she in a low tone the underlying suffering of which it would be hard to describe, "that it was not to seek me they first invaded your house. They had heard you were a rich man, and the sight of that ladder running up the side of the new extension was too much for them. Indeed I know that it was for purposes of robbery they came, for they had hired this room opposite you some days previous to making the attempt. You see they were almost destitute of money and though they had some buried in the cellar of the old house in Vermont, they dared not leave the city to procure it. My brother was obliged to do so later, however. It was a surprise to them seeing me in your house. They had reached the roof of the extension and were just lifting up the corner of the shade I had dropped across the open window—I always open my window a few minutes before preparing to retire—when I rose from the chair in which I had been brooding, and turned up the gas. I was combing my hair at the time and so of course they recognized me. Instantly they gave a secret signal I, alas, remembered only too well, and crouching back, bade me put out the light that they might enter with safety. I was at first too much startled to realize the consequences of my action, and with some vague idea that they had discovered my retreat and come for purposes of advice or assistance, I did what they bid. Immediately they threw back the shade and came in, their huge figures looming frightfully in the faint light made by a distant gas lamp in the street below. 'What do you want?' were my first words uttered in a voice I scarcely recognized for my own; 'why do you steal on me like this in the night and through an open window fifty feet from the ground? Aren't you afraid you will be discovered and sent back to the prison from which you have escaped?' Their reply sent a chill through my blood and awoke me to a realization of what I had done in thus allowing two escaped convicts to enter a house not my own. 'We want money and we're not afraid of anything now you are here.' And without heeding my exclamation of horror, they coolly told me that they would wait where they were till the household was asleep, when they would expect me to show them the way to the silver closet or what was better, the safe or wherever it was Mr. Blake kept his money. I saw they took me for a servant, as indeed I was, and for some minutes I managed to preserve that position in their eyes. But when in a sudden burst of rage at my refusal to help them, they pushed me aside and hurried to the door with the manifest intention of going below, I forgot prudence in my fears and uttered some wild appeal to them not to do injury to any one in the house for it was my husband's. Of course that disclosure had its natural effect.

"They stopped, but only to beset me with questions till the whole truth came out. I could not have committed a worse folly than thus taking them into my confidence. Instantly the advantages to be gained by using my secret connection with so wealthy a man for the purpose of cowering me and blackmailing him, seemed to strike both their minds at once, slow as they usually are to receive impressions. The silver-closet and money-safe sank to a comparatively insignificant position in their eyes, and to get me out of the house, and with my happiness at stake, treat with the honorable man who notwithstanding his non-approval of me as a woman, still regarded me as his lawfully wedded wife, became in their eyes a thing of such wonderful promise they were willing to run any and every risk to test its value. But here to their great astonishment I rebelled; astonishment because they could not realize my desiring anything above money and the position to which they declared I was by law entitled. In vain I pleaded my love; in vain I threatened exposure of their plans if not whereabouts. The mine of gold which they fondly believed they had stumbled upon unawares, promised too richly to be easily abandoned. 'You must go with us,' said they, 'if not peaceably then by force,' and they actually advanced upon me, upsetting a chair and tearing down one of the curtains to which I clung. It was then I committed that little act concerning which you questioned me. I wanted to show them I was not to be moved by threats of that character; that I did not even fear the shedding of my blood; and that they would only be wasting their time in trying to sway me by hints of personal violence. And they were a little impressed, sufficiently so at least to turn their threats in another direction, awakening fears at last which I could not conceal, much as I felt it would be policy to do so. Gathering up a few articles I most prized, my wedding ring, Mr. Blake, and a photograph of yourself that Mrs. Daniels had been kind enough to give me, I put on my bonnet and cloak and said I would go with them, since they persisted in requiring it. The fact is I no longer possessed motive or strength to resist. Even your unexpected appearance at the door, Mrs. Daniels, offered no prospect of hope. Arouse the house? what would that do? only reveal my cherished secret and perhaps jeopardize the life of my husband. Besides, they were my own near kin, remember, and so had some little claim upon my consideration, at least to the point of my not personally betraying them unless they menaced immediate and actual harm. The escape by the window which would have been a difficult task for most women to perform, was easy enough for me. I was brought up to wild ways you know, and the descent of a ladder forty feet long was a comparatively trivial thing for me to accomplish. It was the tearing away from a life of silent peace, the reentrance of my soul into an atmosphere of sin and deadly plotting, that was the hard thing, the difficult dreadful thing which hung weights to my feet, and made me well nigh mad. And it was this which at the sight of a policeman in the street led me to make an effort to escape. But it was not successful. Though I was fortunate enough to free myself from the grasp of my father and brother, I reached the gate on ——- street only to encounter the eyes of him whose displeasure I most feared, looking sternly upon me from the other side. The shock was too much for me in my then weak and unnerved condition. Without considering anything but the fact that he never had known and never must, that I had been in the same house with him for so long, I rushed back to the corner and into the arms of the men who awaited me. How you came to be there, Mr. Blake, or why you did not open the gate and follow, I cannot say."

"The gate was locked," returned that gentleman. "You remember it closes with a spring, and can only be opened by means of a key which I did not have."

"My father had it," she murmured; "he spent a whole week in the endeavor to get hold of it, and finally succeeded on the evening of the very day he used it. It was left in the lock I believe."

"So much for servants," I whispered to myself.

"The next morning," continued she, "they put the case very plainly before me. I was at liberty to return at once to my home if I would promise to work in their interest by making certain demands upon you as your wife. All they wanted, said they, was a snug little sum and a lift out of the country. If I would secure them these, they would trouble me no more. But I could not concede to anything of that nature, of course, and the consequence was these long weeks of imprisonment and suspense; weeks that I do not now begrudge, seeing they have brought me the assurance of your esteem and the knowledge, that wherever I go, your thoughts will follow me with compassion if not with love."

And having told her story and thus answered his demands, she assumed once more the position of lofty reserve that seemed to shut him back from advance like a wall of invincible crystal.

CHAPTER XX. THE BOND THAT UNITES

But he was not to be discouraged. "And after all this, after all you have suffered for my sake and your own, do you think you have a right to deny me the one desire of my heart? How can you reconcile it with your ideas of devotion, Luttra?"

"My ideas of devotion look beyond the present, Mr. Blake. It is to save you from years of wearing anxiety that I consent to the infliction upon you of a passing pang."

He took a bold step forward. "Luttra, you do not know a man's heart. To lose you now would not merely inflict a passing pang, but sow the seeds of a grief that would go with me to the grave."

"Do you then"—she began, but paused blushing. Mrs. Daniels took the opportunity to approach her on the other side.

"My dear mistress," said she, "you are wrong to hold out in this matter." And her manner betrayed something of the peculiar agitation that had belonged to it in the former times of her secret embarassment. "I, who have honored the family which I have so long served, above every other in the land, tell you that you can do it no greater good than to join it now, or inflict upon it any greater harm than to wilfully withdraw yourself from the position in which God has placed you."

"And I," said another voice, that of the Countess de Mirac, who up to this time had held herself in the background, but who now came forward and took her place with the rest, "I, who have borne the name of Blake, and who am still the proudest of them all at heart, I, the Countess de Mirac, cousin to your husband there, repeat what this good woman has said, and in holding out my hand to you, ask you to make my cousin happy and his family contented by assuming that position in his household which the law as well as his love accords you."

The girl looked at the daintily gloved hand held out to her, colored faintly, and put her own within it.

"I thank you for your goodness," said she, surveying with half-sad, half-admiring glances, the somewhat pale face of the beautiful brunette.

"And you will yield to our united requests?" She cast her eye down at the spot where her father and brother had cowered in their shackles, and shook her head. "I dare not," said she.

Immediately Mrs. Daniels, whose emotion had been increasing every moment since she last spoke, plunged her hand into her bosom and drew out a folded paper.

"Mrs. Blake," said she, "if you could be convinced that what I have told you was true, and that you would be irretrievably injuring your husband and his interests, by persisting in that desertion of him which your purpose, would you not consent to reconsider your determination, settled as it appears to be?"

"If I could be made to see that, most certainly," returned she in a low voice whose broken accents betrayed at what cost she remained true to her resolve. "But I cannot."

"Perhaps the sight of this paper will help you," said she. And turning to Mr. Blake she exclaimed, "Your pardon for what I am called upon to do. A duty has been laid upon me which I cannot avoid, hard as it is for an old servant to perform. This paper—but it is no more than just that you, sir, should see and read it first." And with a hand that quivered with fear or some equally strong emotion, she put it in his clasp.

The exclamation that rewarded the act made us all start forward. "My father's handwriting!" were his words.

"Executed under my eye," observed Mrs. Daniels.

His glance ran rapidly down the sheet and rested upon the final signature.

"Why has this been kept from me?" demanded he, turning upon Mrs. Daniels with sternness.

"Your father so willed it," was her reply. "'For a year' was his command, 'you shall keep this my last will and testament which I give into your care with my dying hands, a secret from the world. At the expiration of that time mark if my son's wife sits at the head of her husband's table; if she does and is happy, suppress this by deliberately giving it to the flames, but if from any reason other than death, she is not seen there, carry it at once to my son, and bid him as he honors my memory, to see that my wishes as there expressed are at once carried out.'"

The paper in Mr. Blake's hand fluttered.

"You are aware what those wishes are?" said he.

"I steadied his hand while he wrote," was her sad and earnest reply.

Mr. Blake turned with a look of inexpressible deference to his wife.

"Madame," said he "when I urged you with such warmth to join your fate to mine and honor my house by presiding over it, I thought I was inviting you to share the advantages of wealth as well as the love of a lonely man's heart. This paper undeceives me. Luttra, the daughter-in-law of Abner Blake, not Holman, his son, is the one who by the inheritance of his millions has the right to command in this presence."

With a cry she took from him the will whose purport was thus briefly made known. "O, how could he, how could he?" exclaimed she, running her eye down the sheet, and then crushing it spasmodically to her breast. "Did he not realize that he could do me no greater wrong?" Then in one yielding up of her whole womanhood to the mighty burst of passion that had been flooding the defenses of her heart for so long, she exclaimed in a voice the mingled rapture and determination of which rings in my ears even now, "And is it a thing like this with its suggestions of mercenary interest that shall bridge the gulf that separates you and me? Shall the giving or the gaining of a fortune make necessary the unital of lives over which holier influences have beamed and loftier hopes shone? No, no; by the smile with which your dying father took me to his breast, love alone, with the hope and confidence it gives, shall be the bond to draw us together and make of the two separate planes on which we stand, a common ground where we can meet and be happy."

And with one supreme gesture she tore into pieces the will which she held, and sank all aglow with woman's divinest joy into the arms held out to receive her.

I was present at the wedding-reception given them by the Countess De Mirac in her elegant apartments at the Windsor. I never saw a happier bride, nor a husband in whose eyes burned a deeper contentment. To all questions as to who this extraordinary woman could be, where she was found, and in what place and at what time she was married, the Countess had apt replies whose art of hushing curiosity without absolutely satisfying it, was one of the tokens she yet preserved, of her short sway as grand lady, in the gayest and most hollow city of the world.

As I prepared to leave a scene perhaps the most gratifying in many respects that I had ever witnessed, I felt a slight touch on my arm. It came from Mrs. Blake who with her husband had crossed the room to bid me farewell.

"Will you allow me to thank you," said she, "for the risk you ran for me one day and of which I have just heard. It was an act that merits the gratitude of years, and as such shall be always remembered by me. If the old French artist with the racking cough ever desires a favor at my hands, let him feel free to ask it. The interest I experienced in him in the days of my trouble, will suffer no abatement in these of my joy and prosperity." And with a look that was more than words, she gave me a flower from the bouquet she held in her hand, and smilingly withdrew.

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THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES

A STORY OF NEW YORK LIFE.

BY ANNA KATHARINE GREEN

AUTHOR OF "THE LEAVENWORTH CASE," "A STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE," ETC.

NEW YORK

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

27 & 29 West 23D Street

1881

COPYRIGHT, 1881, BY G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS.

TO

MY FATHER

I DEDICATE THIS BOOK

AS EXPRESSING SOME OF THE PRINCIPLES OF

JUSTICE AND MERCY WHICH,

BY PRECEPT AND EXAMPLE, HE HAS

INSTILLED INTO MY

BREAST

FROM EARLY CHILDHOOD.

NEW YORK, April, 1881.

"When all else fails love saves"

Damocles, one of the courtiers of Dionysius, was perpetually extolling with rapture that tyrant's treasures, grandeur, the number of his troops, the extent of his dominions, the magnificence of his palaces, and the universal abundance of all good things and enjoyments in his possession; always repeating, that never man was happier than Dionysius. "Since you are of that opinion," said the tyrant to him one day, "will you taste and make proof of my felicity in person?" The offer was accepted with joy; Damocles was placed upon a golden couch, covered with carpets richly embroidered. The side-boards were loaded with vessels of gold and silver. The most beautiful slaves in the most splendid habits stood around, ready to serve him at the slightest signal. The most exquisite essences and perfumes had not been spared. The table was spread with proportionate magnificence. Damocles was all joy, and looked upon himself as the happiest man in the world; when unfortunately casting up his eyes, he beheld over his head the point of a sword, which hung from the roof only by a single horse-hair.

ROLLIN.

THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES.

BOOK I: TWO MEN

I. A WANDERER

"There's no such word."—BULWER.

A wind was blowing through the city. Not a gentle and balmy zephyr, stirring the locks on gentle ladies' foreheads and rustling the curtains in elegant boudoirs, but a chill and bitter gale that rushed with a swoop through narrow alleys and forsaken courtyards, biting the cheeks of the few solitary wanderers that still lingered abroad in the darkened streets.

In front of a cathedral that reared its lofty steeple in the midst of the squalid houses and worse than squalid saloons of one of the dreariest portions of the East Side, stood the form of a woman. She had paused in her rush down the narrow street to listen to the music, perhaps, or to catch a glimpse of the light that now and then burst from the widely swinging doors as they opened and shut upon some tardy worshipper.

She was tall and fearful looking; her face, when the light struck it, was seared and desperate; gloom and desolation were written on all the lines of her rigid but wasted form, and when she shuddered under the gale, it was with that force and abandon to which passion lends its aid, and in which the soul proclaims its doom.

Suddenly the doors before her swung wide and the preacher's voice was heard: "Love God and you will love your fellow-men. Love your fellow-men and you best show your love to God."

She heard, started, and the charm was broken. "Love!" she echoed with a horrible laugh; "there is no love in heaven or on earth!"

And she swept by, and the winds followed and the darkness swallowed her up like a gulf.

II. A DISCUSSION

"Young men think old men fools, and old men know young men to be so."—RAY'S PROVERBS.

"And you are actually in earnest?"

"I am."

The first speaker, a fine-looking gentleman of some forty years of age, drummed with his fingers on the table before him and eyed the face of the young man who had repeated this assent so emphatically, with a certain close scrutiny indicative of surprise.

"It is an unlooked-for move for you to make," he remarked at length. "Your success as a pianist has been so decided, I confess I do not understand why you should desire to abandon a profession that in five years' time has procured you both competence and a very enviable reputation—for the doubtful prospects of Wall Street, too!" he added with a deep and thoughtful frown that gave still further impressiveness to his strongly marked features.

The young man with a sweep of his eye over the luxurious apartment in which they sat, shrugged his shoulders with that fine and nonchalant grace which was one of his chief characteristics.

"With such a pilot as yourself, I ought to be able to steer clear of the shoals," said he, a frank smile illumining a face that was rather interesting than handsome.

The elder gentleman did not return the smile. Instead of that he remained gazing at the ample coal-fire that burned in the grate before him with a look that to the young musician was simply inexplicable. "You see the ship in haven," he murmured at last; "but do not consider what storms it has weathered or what perils escaped. It is a voyage I would encourage no son of mine to undertake."

"Yet you are not the man to shrink from danger or to hesitate in a course you had marked out for yourself, because of the struggle it involved or the difficulties it presented!" the young man exclaimed almost involuntarily as his glance lingered with a certain sort of fascination on the powerful brow and steady if somewhat melancholy eye of his companion.

"No; but danger and difficulty should not be sought, only subdued when encountered. If you were driven into this path, I should say, 'God pity you!' and hold you out my hand to steady you along its precipices and above its sudden quicksands. But you are not driven to it. Your profession offers you the means of an ample livelihood while your good heart and fair talents insure you ultimate and honorable success, both in the social and artistic world. For a man of twenty-five such prospects are not common and he must be difficult to please not to be satisfied with them."

"Yes," said the other rising with a fitful movement but instantly sitting again; "I have nothing to complain of as the world goes, only—Sir," he exclaimed with a sudden determination that lent a force to his features they had hitherto lacked, "you speak of being driven into a certain course; what do you mean by that?"

"I mean," returned the other; "forced by circumstances to enter a line of business to which many others, if not all others are preferable."

"You speak strongly, speculation evidently has none of your sympathy, notwithstanding the favorable results which have accrued to you from it. But excuse me, by circumstances you mean poverty, I suppose, and the lack of every other opening to wealth and position. You would not consider the desire to make a large fortune in a short space of time a circumstance of a sufficiently determining nature to reconcile you to my entering Wall Street speculation?"

The elder gentleman rose, not as the other had done with a restless impulse quickly subsiding at the first excuse, but forcibly and with a feverish impatience that to appearance was somewhat out of proportion to the occasion. "A large fortune in a short space of time!" he reiterated, pausing where he had risen with an eagle glance at his companion and a ringing tone in his voice that bespoke a deep but hitherto suppressed agitation. "It is the alluring inscription above the pitfall into which many a noble youth has fallen; the battle-cry to a struggle that has led many a strong man the way of ruin; the guide-post to a life whose feverish days and sleepless nights offer but poor compensation for the sudden splendors and as sudden reverses attached to it. I had rather you had accounted for this sudden freak of yours by the strongest aspiration after power than by this cry of the merely mercenary man who in his desire to enjoy wealth, prefers to win it by a stroke of luck rather than conquer it by a life of endeavor." He stopped. "I am aware that this tirade against the ladder by which I myself have risen so rapidly, must strike you as in ill-taste. But Bertram, I am interested in your welfare and am willing to incur some slight charge of inconsistency in order to insure it," and here he turned upon his companion with that expression of extreme gentleness which lent such a peculiar charm to his countenance and explained perhaps the almost unlimited power he held over the hearts and minds of those who came within the circle of his influence.

"You are very good, sir," murmured his young friend, who to explain matters at once was in reality the nephew of this Wall Street magnate, though from the fact of his having taken another name on entering the musical profession, was not generally known as such. "No one, not even my father himself, could have been more considerate and kind; but I do not think you understand me, or rather I should say I do not think I have made myself perfectly intelligible to you. It is not for the sake of wealth itself or the eclat attending its possession that I desire an immediate fortune, but that by means of it I may attain another object dearer than wealth, and more precious than my career."

The elder gentleman turned quickly, evidently much surprised, and cast a sudden inquiring glance at his nephew, who blushed with a modest ingenuousness pleasing to see in one so well accustomed to the critical gaze of his fellow-men.

"Yes," said he, as if in answer to that look, "I am in love."

A deep silence for a moment pervaded the apartment, a sombre silence almost startling to young Mandeville, who had expected some audible expression to follow this announcement if only the good-natured "Pooh! pooh!" of the matured man of the world in the presence of ardent youthful enthusiasm. What could it mean? Looking up he encountered his uncle's eye fixed upon him with the last expression he could have anticipated seeing there, namely that of actual and unmistakable alarm.

"You are displeased," Mandeville exclaimed. "You have thought me proof against such a passion, or perhaps you do not believe in the passion itself!" Then with a sudden remembrance of the notable if somewhat indolent loveliness of his uncle's wife, blushed again at his unusual want of tact, while his eye with an involuntary impulse sought the large panel at their right where, in the full bloom of her first youth, the lady of the house smiled upon all beholders.

"I do not believe in that passion influencing a man's career," his uncle replied with no apparent attention to the other's embarrassment. "A woman needs be possessed of uncommon excellences to justify a man in leaving a path where success is certain, for one where it is not only doubtful but if attained must bring many a regret and heart-ache in its train. Beauty is not sufficient," he went on with sterner and sterner significance, "though it were of an angelic order. There must be worth." And here his mind's eye if not that of his bodily sense, certainly followed the glance of his companion.

"I believe there is worth," the young man replied; "certainly, it is not her beauty that charms me. I do not even know if she is beautiful," he continued.

"And you believe you love!" the elder exclaimed after another short pause.

There was so much of bitterness in the tone in which this was uttered, that Mandeville forgot its incredulity. "I think I must," returned he with a certain masculine naïveté not out of keeping with his general style of face and manner, "else I should not be here. Three weeks ago I was satisfied with my profession, if not enthusiastic over it; to-day I ask nothing but to be allowed to enter upon some business that in three years' time at least will place me where I can be the fit mate of any woman in this land, that is not worth her millions."

"The woman for whom you have conceived this violent attachment is, then, above you in social position?"

"Yes, sir, or so considered, which amounts to the same thing, as far as I am concerned."

"Bertram, I have lived longer than you and have seen much of both social and domestic life, and I tell you no woman is worth such a sacrifice on the part of a man as you propose. No woman of to-day, I should say; our mothers were different. The very fact that this young lady of whom you speak, obliges you to change your whole course of life in order to obtain her, ought to be sufficient to prove to you—" He stopped suddenly, arrested by the young man's lifted hand. "She does not oblige you, then?"

"Not on her own account, sir. This lily," lifting a vase of blossoms at his elbow, "could not be more innocent of the necessities that govern the social circle it adorns, than the pure, single-minded girl to whom I have dedicated what is best and noblest in my manhood. It is her father—"

"Ah, her father!"

"Yes, sir," the young man pursued, more and more astonished at the other's tone. "He is a man who has a right to expect both wealth and position in a son-in-law. But I see I shall have to tell you my story, sir. It is an uncommon one and I never meant that it should pass my lips, but if by its relation I can win your sympathy for a pure and noble passion, I shall consider the sacred seal of secrecy broken in a good cause. But," said he, seeing his uncle cast a short and uneasy glance at the door, "perhaps I am interrupting you. You expect some one!"

"No," said his uncle, "my wife is at church; I am ready to listen."

The young man gave a hurried sigh, cast one look at his companion's immovable face, as if to assure himself that the narrative was necessary, then leaned back and in a steady business-like tone that softened, however, as he proceeded, began to relate as follows:

III.A MYSTERIOUS SUMMONS

"Without unspotted, innocent within,

She feared no danger, for she knew no sin."—DRYDEN.

It was after a matinée performance at —— Hall some two weeks ago that I stopped to light a cigar in the small corridor leading to the back entrance. I was in a dissatisfied frame of mind. Something in the music I had been playing or the manner in which it had been received had touched unwonted chords in my own nature. I felt alone. I remember asking myself as I stood there, what it all amounted to? Who of all the applauding crowd would watch at my bedside through a long and harassing sickness, or lend their sympathy as they now yielded their praise, if instead of carrying off the honors of the day I had failed to do justice to my reputation. I was just smiling over the only exception I could make to this sweeping assertion, that of the pale-eyed youth you have sometimes observed dogging my steps, when Briggs came up to me.

"There is a woman here, sir, who insists on seeing you; she has been waiting through half the last piece. Shall I tell her you are coming out?"

"A woman!" exclaimed I, somewhat surprised, for my visitors are not apt to be of the gentler sex.

"Yes sir, an old one. She seems very anxious to speak to you. I could not get rid of her no how."

I hurried forward to the muffled figure which he pointed out cowering against the wall by the door. "Well, my good woman, what do you want?" I asked, bending towards her in the hopes of catching a glimpse of the face she held partly concealed from me.

"Are you Mr. Mandeville?" she inquired in a tone shaken as much by agitation as age.

I bowed.

"The one who plays upon the piano?"

"The very same," I declared.

"You are not deceiving me," she went on, looking up with a marked anxiety plainly visible through her veil. "I haven't seen you play and couldn't contradict you, but—"

"Here!" said I calling to Briggs with a kindly look at the old woman, "help me on with my coat, will you?"

The "Certainly, Mr. Mandeville," with which he complied seemed to reassure her, and as soon as the coat was on and he was gone, she grasped me by the arm and drew my ear down to her mouth.

"If you are Mr. Mandeville, I have a message for you. This letter," slipping one into my hand, "is from a young lady, sir. She bade me give it to you myself. She is young and pretty," she pursued as she saw me make a movement of distaste, "and a lady. We depend upon your honor, sir."

I acknowledge that my first impulse was to fling her back the note and leave the building; I was in no mood for trifling, my next to burst into a laugh and politely hand her to the door, my last and best, to open the poor little note and see for myself whether the writer was a lady or not. Proceeding to the door, for it was already twilight in the dim passage way, I tore open the envelope which was dainty enough and took out a sheet of closely written paper. A certain qualm of conscience assailed me as I saw the delicate chirography it disclosed and I was tempted to thrust it back and return it unread to the old woman now trembling in the corner. But curiosity overcame my scruples, and hastily unfolding the sheet I read these lines:

"I do not know if what I do is right; I am sure aunty would not say it was; but aunty never thinks anything is right but going to church and reading the papers to papa. I am just a little girl who has heard you play, and who would think the world was too beautiful, if she could hear you say to her just once, some of the kind things you must speak every day to the persons who know you. I do not expect very much—you must have a great many friends, and you would not care for me—but the least little look, if it were all my own, would make me so happy and so proud I should not envy anybody in the world, unless it was some of those dear friends who see you always.

"I do not come and hear you play often, for aunty thinks music frivolous, but I am always hearing you no matter where I am, and it makes me feel as if I were far away from everybody, in a beautiful land all sunshine and flowers. But nurse says I must not write so much or you will not read it, so I will stop here. But if you would come it would make some one happier than even your beautiful music could do."

That was all; there was neither name nor date. A child's epistle, written with a woman's circumspection. With mingled sensations of doubt and curiosity I turned back to the old woman who stood awaiting me with eager anxiety.

"Was this written by a child or woman?" I asked, meeting her eye with as much sternness as I could assume.

"Don't ask me—don't ask me anything. I have promised to bring you if I could, but I cannot answer any questions."

I stepped back with an incredulous laugh. Here was evidently an adventure. "You will at least tell me where the young miss lives," said I, "before I undertake to fulfil her request."

She shook her head. "I have a carriage at the door, sir," said she. "All you have got to do is to get into it with me and we shall soon be at the house."

I looked from her face to the letter in my hand, and knew not what to think. The spirit of simplicity and ingenuousness that marked the latter was scarcely in keeping with this air of mystery. The woman observing my hesitation moved towards the door.

"Will you come, sir?" she inquired. "You will not regret it. Just a moment's talk with a pretty young girl—surely—"

"Hush," said I, hearing a hasty step behind me. And sure enough just then my intimate friend Selby came along and grasping me by the arm began dragging me towards the door. "You are my property," said he. "I've promised, on my word of honor as a gentleman and a musician, to bring you to the Handel Club this afternoon. I was afraid you had escaped me, but—" Here he caught sight of the small black figure halting in the door-way, and paused.

"Who's this?" said he.

I hesitated. For one instant the scale of my whole future destiny hung trembling in the balance, then the demon of curiosity got the better of my judgment, and with the rather unworthy consideration that I might as well enjoy my youth while I could, I released myself from my friend's detaining hand and replied, "Some one with whom I have very particular business. I cannot go to the Handel Club to-day," and darting out without further delay, I rejoined the old woman on the sidewalk.

Without a word she drew me towards a carriage I now observed standing by the curbstone a few feet to the left. As I got in I remember pausing a moment to glance at the man on the box, but it was too dark for me to perceive anything but the fact that he was dressed in livery. More and more astonished I leaned back in my seat and endeavored to open conversation with my mysterious companion. But it did not work. Without being actually rude, she parried my questions in such a way that by the end of five minutes I found myself as far from any knowledge of the real situation of the case as when I started. I therefore desisted from any further attempts and turned to look out, when I made a discovery that for the first time awoke some vague feelings of alarm within my breast. This was, that the window was not covered by a curtain as I supposed, but by closed blinds which when I tried to raise them resisted all my efforts to do so.

"It is very close here," I muttered, in some sort of excuse for this display of uneasiness. "Cannot you give us a little air?" But my companion remained silent, and I felt ashamed to press the matter though I took advantage of the darkness to remove to a safer place a roll of money which I had about me.

Yet I was far from being really anxious, and did not once meditate backing out of an adventure that was at once so piquant and romantic. For by this time I became conscious from the sounds about me that we had left the side street for one of the avenues and were then proceeding rapidly up town. Listening, I heard the roll of omnibuses and the jingle of car-bells, which informed me that we were in Broadway, no other avenue in the city being traversed by both these methods of conveyance. But after awhile the jingle ceased and presently the livelier sounds of constant commotion inseparable from a business thoroughfare, and we entered what I took to be Madison Avenue at Twenty-third Street.

Instantly I made up mind to notice every turn of the carriage, that I might fix to some degree the locality towards which we were tending. But it turned but once and that after a distance of steady travelling that quite overthrew any calculation I was able to make at that time of the probable number of streets we had passed since entering the avenue. Having turned, it went but about half a block to the left when it stopped. "I shall see where I am when I get out," thought I; but in this I was mistaken.

First we had stopped in the middle of a block of houses built, as far as I could judge, all after one model. Next the fact of the front door being open, though I saw no one in the hall, somewhat disconcerted me, and I hurried across the sidewalk and up the stoop in a species of maze hardly to be expected from one of my naturally careless disposition. The next moment the door closed behind me and I found myself in a well-lighted hall whose quiet richness betokened it as belonging to a private dwelling of no mean pretensions to elegance.

This was the first surprise I received.

"Follow me," said the old woman, hurrying me down the hall and into a small room at the end. "The young lady will be here in a moment," and without lifting her veil or affording me the least glimpse of her features, she retired, leaving me to face the situation before me as best I might.

It was anything but a pleasant one as it appeared to me at that moment, and for an instant I seriously thought of retracing my steps and leaving a domicile into which I had been introduced in such a mysterious manner. Then the quiet aspect of the room, which though sparsely furnished with a piano and chairs was still of an order rarely seen out of gentlemen's houses, struck my imagination and reawakened my curiosity, and nerving myself to meet whatever interview might be accorded me, I waited. It was only five minutes by the small clock ticking on the mantel-piece, but it seemed an hour before I heard a timid step at the door, and saw it swing slowly open, disclosing—well, I did not stop to inquire whether it was a child or a woman. I merely saw the shrinking modest form, the eager blushing face, and bowed almost to the ground in a sudden reverence for the sublime innocence revealed to me. Yes, it did not take a second look to read that tender countenance to its last guileless page. Had she been a woman of twenty-five I could not have mistaken her expression of pure delight and timid interest, but she was only sixteen, as I afterwards learned, and younger in experience than in age.

Closing the door behind her, she stood for a moment without speaking, then with a deepening of the blush which was only a child's embarrassment in the presence of a stranger, looked up and murmured my name with a word or so of grateful acknowledgment that would have called forth a smile on my lips if I had not been startled by the sudden change that passed over her features when she met my eyes. Was it that I showed my surprise too plainly, or did my admiration manifest itself in my gaze? an admiration great as it was humble, and which was already of a nature such as I had never before given to girl or woman. Whatever it was, she no sooner met my look than she paused, trembled, and started back with a confused murmur, through which I plainly heard her whisper in a low distressed tone, "Oh, what have I done!"

"Called a good friend to your side," said I in the frank, brotherly way I thought most likely to reassure her. "Do not be alarmed, I am only too happy to meet one who evidently enjoys music so well."

But the hidden chord of womanhood had been struck in the child's soul, and she could not recover herself. For an instant I thought she would turn and flee, and struck as I was with remorse at my reckless invasion of this uncontaminated temple, I could not but admire the spirited picture she presented as, with form half turned and face bent back, she stood hesitating on the point of flight.

I did not try to stop her. "She shall follow her own impulse," said I to myself, but I felt a vague relief that was deeper than I imagined, when she suddenly relinquished her strained attitude, and advancing a step or so began to murmur:

"I did not know—I did not realize I was doing what was so very wrong. Young ladies do not ask gentlemen to come and see them, no matter how much they desire to make their acquaintance. I see it now; I did not before. Will you—can you forgive me?"

I smiled; I could not help it. I could have taken her to my heart and soothed her as I would a child, but the pallor of womanhood, which had replaced the blush of the child, awed me and made my own words come hesitatingly.

"Forgive you? You must forgive me! It was as wrong for me," I went on with a wild idea of not mincing matters with this pure soul, "to obey your innocent request, as it was for you to make it. I am a man of the world and know its convenances; you are very young."

"I am sixteen," she murmured.

The abrupt little confession, implying as it did her determination not to accept any palliation of her conduct which it did not deserve, touched me strangely. "But very young for that," I exclaimed.

"So aunty says, but no one can ever say it any more," she answered. Then with a sudden gush, "We shall never see each other again, and you must forget the motherless girl who has met you in a way for which she must blush through life. It is no excuse," she pursued hurriedly, "that nurse thought it was all right. She always approves of everything I do or want to do, especially if it is anything aunt would be likely to forbid. I have been spoiled by nurse."

"Was nurse the woman who came for me?" I asked.

She nodded her head with a quick little motion inexpressibly charming. "Yes, that was nurse. She said she would do it all, I need only write the note. She meant to give me a pleasure, but she did wrong."

"Yes," thought I, "how wrong you little know or realize." But I only said, "You must be guided by some one with more knowledge of the world after this. Not," I made haste to add, struck by the misery in her child eyes, "that any harm has been done. You could not have appealed to the friendship of any one who would hold you in greater respect than I. Whether we meet again or not, my memory of you shall be sweet and sacred, I promise you that."

But she threw out her hand with a quick gesture. "No, do not remember me. My only happiness will lie in the thought you have forgotten." And the last remnants of the child soul vanished in that hurried utterance. "You must go now," she continued more calmly. "The carriage that brought you is at the door; I must ask you to take it back to your home."

"But," I exclaimed with a wild and unbearable sense of sudden loss as she laid her hand on the knob of the door, "are we to part like this? Will you not at least trust me with your name before I go?"

Her hand dropped from the knob as if it had been hot steel, and she turned towards me with a slow yearning motion that whatever it betokened set my heart beating violently. "You do not know it, then?" she inquired.

"I know nothing but what this little note contains," I replied, drawing her letter from my pocket.

"Oh, that letter! I must have it," she murmured; then, as I stepped towards her, drew back and pointing to the table said, "Lay it there, please."

I did so, whereupon something like a smile crossed her lips and I thought she was going to reward me with her name, but she only said, "I thank you; now you know nothing;" and almost before I realized it she had opened the door and stepped into the hall.

As I made haste to follow her, the sound of a low, "He is a gentleman, he will ask no questions," struck my ear, and looking up, I saw her just leaving the side of the old nurse who stood evidently awaiting me half down the hall. Bowing with formal ceremony, I passed her by and proceeded to the front door. As I did so I caught one glimpse of her face. It had escaped from all restraint and the expression of the eyes was overpowering. I subdued a wild impulse to leap back to her side, and stepped at once over the threshold. The nurse joined me, and together we went down the stoop to the street.

"May I inquire where you wish to be taken?" she asked.

I told her, and she gave the order to the coachman, together with a few words I did not hear; then stepping back she waited for me to get in. There was no help for it. I gave one quick look behind me, saw the front door close, realized how impossible it would ever be for me to recognize the house again, and placed my foot on the carriage step. Suddenly a bright idea struck me, and hastily dropping my cane I stepped back to pick it up. As I did so I pulled out a bit of crayon I chanced to have in my pocket, and as I stooped, chalked a small cross on the curbstone directly in front of the house, after which I recovered my cane, uttered some murmured word of apology, jumped into the carriage and was about to shut the door, when the old nurse stepped in after me and quietly closed it herself. By the pang that shot through my breast as the carriage wheels left the house, I knew that for the first time in my life, I loved.

IV. SEARCHINGS

"Patience, and shuffle the cards."—CERVANTES.

If I had expected anything from the presence in the carriage of the woman who had arranged this interview, I was doomed to disappointment. Reticent before, she was absolutely silent now, sitting at my side like a grim statue or a frozen image of watchfulness, ready to awake and stop me if I offered to open the door or make any other move indicative of a determination to know where I was, or in what direction I was going. That her young mistress in the momentary conversation they had held before our departure had succeeded in giving her some idea of the shame with which she had felt herself overwhelmed and her present natural desire for secrecy, I do not doubt, but I think now, as I thought then, that the unusual precautions taken both at that time and before, to keep me in ignorance of the young lady's identity, were due to the elderly woman's own consciousness of the peril she had invoked in yielding to the wishes of her young and thoughtless mistress; a theory which, if true, argues more for the mind than the conscience of this mysterious woman. However, it is with facts we have to deal, and you will be more interested in learning what I did, than what I thought during that short ride in perfect darkness.

The mark which I had left on the curbstone behind me sufficiently showed the nature of my resolve, and when we made the first turn at the end of the block I leaned back in my seat and laying my finger on my wrist, began to count the pulsations of my blood. It was the only device that suggested itself, by which I might afterward gather some approximate notion of the distance we travelled in a straight course down town. I had just arrived at the number seven hundred and sixty-two, and was inwardly congratulating myself upon this new method of reckoning distance, when the wheels gave a lurch and we passed over a car track. Instantly all my fine calculations fell to the ground. We were not in Madison Avenue, as I supposed; could not be, since no track crosses that avenue below Fifty-ninth Street, and we were proceeding on as we could not have done had we gained the terminus of the avenue at Twenty-third Street. Could it be that the carriage had not been turned around while I was in the house, and that we had come back by way of Fifth Avenue? I could not remember—in fact, the more I tried to think which way the horses' heads were directed when we went into the house, the more I was confused. But presently I considered that wherever we were, we certainly had not passed over the narrow strip of smooth pavement in front of the Worth monument, and therefore could not have reached Twenty-third Street by way of Fifth Avenue. We must be up town, and that track we crossed must have been at Fifty-ninth Street. And soon, as if to assure me of this, we took a turn, quickly followed at a block's length by another, after which I had no difficulty in recognizing the smooth pavement of the entrance to the Park or the roll down Fifth Avenue afterwards. "They have thought to confuse me by an extra mile or so of travel," thought I, with some complacency, "but the streets of New York are too simply laid out to lend themselves to any such easy mode of mystification." Yet I have thought since then how, with a smarter man on the box, the affair might have been conducted so as to have baffled the oldest citizen in any attempt at calculation.

When we stopped in front of the Albemarle I quietly thanked the woman who had conducted me, and stepped to the ground. Instantly the door shut behind me, the carriage drove off, and I was left standing there like a man suddenly awakened from a dream.

Entering my hotel, I ordered supper, thinking that the very practical occupation of eating would serve to divert my mind into its ordinary channels. But the dream, if dream it was, had made too vivid an impression to be shaken off so easily. It followed me to the hall in the evening and mingled with every chord I struck.

I could scarcely sleep that night for thinking of the sweet child's face that had blossomed into a woman's before my eyes, and what a woman! With the first hint of daylight I rose, and as soon as it was in any degree suitable to be out, hired a cab and proceeded to the corner of Fifty-ninth Street and Madison Avenue, where, according to my calculations of the evening before, we had crossed the car track which had first interrupted me in that very original method of computing distance of which I have already spoken, a method by the way, which you must acknowledge is an improvement on the boy's plan of finding his way back from the woods by means of the bread-crumbs he had scattered behind him, forgetting that the birds would eat up his crumbs and leave him without a clew. Bidding the driver proceed at the ordinary jog trot down the avenue, I laid my finger on my wrist, and counted each throb of my pulse till I had reached the magical number seven hundred and sixty-two. Then putting my head out of the window, I bade him stop. We were in the middle of a block, but that did not disconcert me. I had not expected to gain more than an approximate idea of the spot where we had first turned into the avenue, it being impossible to regulate the horses' pace so as to tally with that taken by the span of the night before, even if the pulsations in my wrist were to be absolutely relied upon. Noting the streets between which we had paused, I bade the driver to turn down one and come back by the other, occupying myself in the meanwhile, in searching the curbstone for the small mark I had left in front of her door the night before. But though we drove slowly and I searched carefully, not a trace did I perceive of that tell-tale sign, and forsaking those two streets, I ordered my obedient Jehu to try the two outlying ones below and above. He did so, and I again consulted the curbstone, but with no better success. No mark or remnants of a mark was to be found anywhere. Nor, though we travelled through three or four other streets in the same way, did we come upon any clew liable to assist me in my search. Clean discouraged and somewhat out of temper with myself for my pusillanimity of the evening before in not having braved the anger of my companion by opening the carriage door at the first corner and leaping out, I commanded to be taken back to the hotel, where for a whole miserable day I racked my brain with devices for acquiring the knowledge I so much desired. The result was futile, as you may imagine; nor will I stop to recount the various expedients to which I afterwards resorted in my vain attempt to solve the mystery of this young girl's identity.

Enough that they all failed, even the very promising one of searching the various photographic establishments of the city, for the valuable clew which her picture would give me. And so a week passed.

"It is time this mad infatuation was at an end," said I to myself one morning as I sat down to write a letter. "There is no hope of my ever seeing her again, and I am but frittering away the best emotions of my life in thus indulging in a dream that is not the prelude to a reality." But in spite of the wise determination thus made, I soon found my thoughts recurring to their old channel, and seized with sudden impatience at my evident weakness, took up the letter I had been writing and was about to read it, when to my great amazement I perceived that instead of inditing the usual words of a business communication, I had been engaged in scribbling a certain number up and down the page and even across the bottom where my signature should have been.

"Am I a fool?" I exclaimed, and was about to tear the sheet in two, when glancing again at the number, which was a simple thirty-six, I asked myself where I had got those especial figures. Instantly there arose before my mind's eye the vision of a brown-stone front with its vestibule and door. It was, then, the number of a house; but what house? a chateau en Espagne or a bona fide New York dwelling, which for some reason had unconsciously impressed itself upon my memory? I could not answer. There on the page was the number thirty-six, and equally plain in my mind was the look of the brown-stone front to which that number belonged—and that was all.

But it was enough to awaken within me the spirit of inquiry. The few houses thus numbered in that quarter of the city where I had lately been, were not so hard to find but that a morning given to the business ought to satisfy me whether the vision in my mind had its basis in reality. Taking a cab, I rode up town and into that region of streets I had traversed so carefully a week before. For I was assured that if the impression had been made by an actual dwelling it had been done at that time. Following the same course I then took, I consulted the appearance of the various houses to which that number was assigned. The first was built of brick; that was not it. The next one had pillars to the vestibule; and that was not it. The third, to use an Irish bull, was no house at all, but a stable, while the fourth was an elegant structure of much more pretension than the plain and simple front I had in my mind or memory. I was about to utter a curse upon my folly and go home, when I remembered there was yet a street or two taken in my zig-zag course of the week before, which I had not yet tested. "Might as well be thorough," I muttered, and bade my driver proceed down —— Street.

What was there in its aspect that dimly excited me at the first glance? A dim remembrance, a certain ghostly assurance that we had reached the right spot? As we neared the number I sought, I could not suppress an exclamation of surprise. For there before me to its last detail, stood the house which involuntarily presented itself to my mind, when my eye first fell upon that mysterious number scribbled at the foot of the page I was writing.

It was, then, no chimera of an overwrought brain, this vision of a house-front which had been haunting me, but a distinct remembrance of an actual dwelling seen by me in my former journey through this street. But why this house-front above all others; what was there in it to make such an impression? Looking at it I could not determine, but after we had passed, something, I cannot tell what, brought back another remembrance, trivial in itself, but yet a link in the chain that was destined sooner or later to lead me out of the maze into which I had stumbled. It was merely this; that as I rode along the streets on that memorable morning, searching for that mark on the curbstone from which I hoped so much, I had come upon a spot where the pavement had been freshly washed. With that unconscious action of the brain with which we are familiar, I looked at the sidewalk a moment, running even then with the water that had been cast upon it, and then gave a quick glance at the house. That glance, account for it as you will, took in the picture before it as the camera catches the impression of a likeness, and though in another instant I had forgotten the whole occurrence, it needed but a certain train of thought or perhaps a certain state of emotion to revive it again.

A noble cause for such an act of unconscious cerebration you will say, a freshly washed pavement: Le jeu ne faut pas la chandelle. And so I thought too, or would have thought if I had not been so interested in the pursuit in which I was engaged, and if the idea had not suggested itself that water and a broom might obliterate chalk-marks from curbstones, and that the imps that preside over our mental forces would not indulge in such a trick at my expense unless the play was worth the candle. At all events, from the moment I made this discovery, I fixed my faith on that house as the one which held the object of my search, and though I contented myself with merely noting the number of the street as we left it, I none the less determined to pursue my investigations, till I had learned beyond the possibility of a doubt whether my conjectures were not true.

A perseverance worthy of a better cause you will say, but you are no longer twenty-five and under the influence of your first passion. I own I was astonished at myself and frequently paused in the pursuit I had undertaken, to ask if I were the same person who but a fortnight before laughed at the story of a man who had gone mad over the body of an unknown woman he had saved from a wreck only to find her dead in his arms.

The first thing I did was to ascertain the name of the gentleman occupying the house I have specified. It was that of one of our wealthiest and most respectable bankers, a name as well known in the city—as your own for instance. This was somewhat disconcerting, but with a dogged resolution somewhat foreign to my natural disposition, I persevered in my investigations, and learning in the next breath that the gentleman alluded to was a widower with an only child, a young daughter of about sixteen or so, recovered my assurance, though not my equanimity. Seeking out my friend Farrar, who as you know is a walking gazette of New York society, I broached the subject of Mr.—excuse me if I do not mention his name; allow me to say, Preston's domestic affairs, and learned that Miss Preston, "A naive little piece for so great an heiress," I remember Farrar called her, had left town within a day or two for a visit to some friends in Baltimore. "I happen to know," said he with that careless sweep of his hand at which you have so often laughed, "because my friend Miss Forsyth met her at the depot. She was intending to be gone—two weeks, I think she said. Do you know her?"

That last question sprung upon me unawares, and I am afraid I blushed. "No," I returned, "I have not that honor but an acquaintance of mine has—well—has met her and—"

"I see, I see," broke in Farrar with his most disagreeable smile. Then with a short laugh, meant to act as a warning, I suppose, added as he walked off, "I hope your friend is in fair circumstances and not connected with the fine arts. Music is Mr. Preston's detestation, while Miss Preston though too young to be much sought after yet, will in two years' time have the pick of the city at her command."

"So!" thought I to myself; "my little innocent charmer is an embryo aristocrat, eh? Well then, I was a greater fool than I imagined." And I walked out of the hotel where I had met Farrar, with the very sensible conclusion to drop a subject that promised nothing but disappointment.

But the fates were against me, or the good angels perhaps, and at the next comer I met an old acquaintance, the very opposite of Farrar in character, who with a long love story of his own fired, my imagination to such an extent that in spite of myself I turned down —— Street, and was proceeding to pass her house, when suddenly the thought struck me, "How do I know that this unapproachable daughter of one of our most prominent citizens is one and the same person with my dainty little charmer? Widowers with young daughters are not so rare in this great city that I need consider the question as decided, because by a half superstitious freak of my own I have settled upon this house as the one I was in the other night. My inamorata may be the offspring of a musician for all I know." And inflamed at the thought of this possibility—I remembered the piano, you see—I gave to the winds all my fine resolutions and only asked how I could determine for once and all, whether I had ever crossed the threshold of the house before me. Some men would have run up the stoop, rung the bell and asked to see Mr. Preston on some pretended business he could easily conjure up to suit the occasion, but my face is too well known for me to risk any such attempt, besides I was too anxious to win the confidence of the young girl to shock her awakened sense of propriety by seeming to seek her where she did not wish to be found. And yet I must enter that house and see for myself if it was the one that held her on that memorable evening.

Pondering the question, I looked back at the door so obstinately closed against my curiosity, when to my satisfaction and delight it suddenly opened and a man stepped out, whom I instantly recognized as a business agent for one of the largest piano-forte manufactories in the city. "The heavens smile upon my enterprise," thought I, and waited for the man to come up with me. He was not only a friend of mine but largely indebted to me in various ways, so that I knew I had only to urge a request for it to be immediately granted, and that, too, without any questions or gossip.

You will not be interested in anything but the result, which was somewhat out of the usual course, and may therefore shock you. But you must remember that I am telling you of matters which young men usually keep to themselves, and that whatever I did, was accomplished in a spirit of respect only a shade less constraining in its power than the love that was at once my impelling force, and my constant embarrassment.

To come, then, to the point, a piano was to be set up in that house on that very day, Mr. Preston having yielded to the solicitations of his daughter for a new instrument. My friend was to be engaged in the transfer, and at my solicitation for leave to assist in the operation, gave his consent in perfect confidence as to my possessing good and sufficient reasons for such a remarkable request, and appointed the hour at which I was to meet him at the ware-rooms.

Behold me, then, at half-past two that afternoon, assisting with my own hands in carrying a piano up the stoop of that house which, four hours before, I had regarded as unapproachable. Dressed in a workman's blouse and with my hair well roughened under a rude cap that effectually disguised me, I advanced with but little fear of detection. And yet no sooner had I entered the house and seen at a glance that the aspect of the hall coincided with my rather vague remembrance of that through which I had been ushered a week before, than I was struck by a sudden sense of my situation, and experiencing that uncomfortable consciousness of self-betrayal, which a blush always gives a man, stumbled forward under my heavy burden, feeling as if a thousand eyes were fixed upon me and my cherished secret, instead of the two sharp but totally unsuspicious orbs of the elderly matron that surveyed us from the top of the banisters. "Be careful there, you'll knock a hole through that glass door!" though a natural cry under the circumstances, struck on my ears with the force and mysterious power of a secret warning, and when after a moment of blind advance I suddenly lifted my eyes and found myself in the little room, which like a silhouette on a white ground, stood out in my memory in distinct detail as the spot where I had first heard my own heart beat, I own that I felt my hands slipping from my burden, and in another moment had disgraced my character of a workman if I had not caught the sudden ring of a well known voice in the hall, as nurse answered from above some question propounded by the elderly lady with the piercing eyes. As it was, I recovered myself and went through my duties as promptly and deftly as if my heart did not throb with memories that each passing hour and event only served to hallow to my imagination.

At length the piano was duly set up and we turned to leave. Will you think I am too trivial in my details if I tell you that I lingered behind the rest and for an instant let my hand with all its possibilities for calling out a soul from that dead instrument, lie a moment on the keys over which her dainty fingers were so soon to traverse?

V. THE RUBICON

"I'll stake my life upon her faith."—OTHELLO.

Once convinced of the identity of my sweet young friend with the Miss Preston at whose feet a two year hence, the wealth and aristocracy of New York would be kneeling, I drew back from further effort as having received a damper to my presumptuous hopes that would soon effectually stifle them. Everything I heard about the family—and it seemed as if suddenly each chance acquaintance that I met had something to say about Mr. Preston either as a banker or a man, only served to confirm me in this view. "He is a money worshipper," said one. "The bluest of blue Presbyterians," declared another. "The enemy of presumption and anything that looks like an overweening confidence in one's own worth or capabilities," remarked a third. "A man who would beggar himself to save the honor of a corporation with which he was concerned," observed a fourth "but who would not invite to his table the most influential man connected with it if that man was unable to trace his family back to the old Dutch settlers to which Mr. Preston's own ancestors belonged."

This latter statement I have no doubt was exaggerated for I myself have seen him at dinners where half the gentlemen who lifted the wine glass were self-made in every sense of the term. But it showed the bent of his mind and it was a bent that left me entirely out of the sweep of his acquaintanceship much less that of his exquisite daughter, the pride of his soul if not the jewel of his heart.

But when will a man who has seen or who flatters himself that he has seen in the eyes of the woman he admires, the least spark of that fire which is consuming his own soul, pause at an obstacle which after all has its basis simply in circumstances of position or will. By the time the two weeks of her expected absence had expired, I had settled it in my own mind that I would see her again and if I found the passing caprice of a child was likely to blossom into the steady regard of a woman, risk all in the attempt to win by honorable endeavor and persistence this bud of loveliness for my future wife.

How I finally succeeded by means of my friend Farrar in being one evening invited to the same house as Miss Preston it is not necessary to state. You will believe me it was done with the utmost regard for her feelings and in a way that deceived Farrar himself, who if he is the most prying is certainly the most volatile of men. In a crowded parlor, then, in the midst of the flash of diamonds and the flutter of fans Miss Preston and I again met. When I first saw her she was engaged in conversation with some young companion, and I had the pleasure of watching for a few minutes, unobserved, the play of her ingenuous countenance, as she talked with her friend, or sat silently watching the brilliant array before her. I found her like and yet unlike the vision of my dreams. More blithesome in her appearance, as was not strange considering her party attire and the lustre of the chandelier under which she sat, there was still that indescribable something in her expression which more than the flash of her eye or the curve of her lip, though both were lovely to me, made her face the one woman's face in the world for me; a charm which circumstances might alter, or suffering impair, but of which nothing save death could ever completely divest her and not death either, for it was the seal of her individuality, and that she would take with her into the skies.

"If I might but advance and sit down by her side without a word of explanation or the interference of conventionalities how happy I should be," thought I. But I knew that would not do, so I contented myself with my secret watch over her movements, longing for and yet dreading the advance of my hostess, with its inevitable introduction. Suddenly the piano was touched in a distant room and not till I saw the quick change in her face, a change hard to explain, did I recognize the selection as one I was in the habit of playing. She had not forgotten at least, and thrilled by the thought and the remembrance of that surge of color which had swept like a flood over her cheek, I turned away, feeling as if I were looking on what it was for no man's eyes to see, least of all mine.

My hostess' voice arrested me and next moment I was bowing to the ground before Miss Preston.

I am not a boy; nor have I been without my experiences: life with its vicissitudes has taught me many a lesson, subjected me to many a trial, yet in all my career have I never known a harder moment than when I raised my eyes to meet hers after that lowly obeisance. That she would be indignant I knew, that she might even misinterpret my motives and probably withdraw without giving me an opportunity to speak, I felt to be only too probable, but that she would betray an agitation so painful I had not anticipated, and for an instant I felt that I had hazarded my life's happiness on a cast that was going against me. But the necessity of saving her from remark speedily restored me to myself, and following the line of conduct I had previously laid out, I addressed her with the reserve of a stranger, and neither by word, look or manner conveyed to her a suggestion that we had ever met or spoken to each other before. She seemed to appreciate my consideration and though she was as yet too much unused to the ways of the world to completely hide her perturbation, she gradually regained a semblance of self-possession, and ere long was enabled to return short answers to my remarks, though her eyes remained studiously turned aside and never so much as ventured to raise themselves to the passing throng much less to my face, half turned away also.

Presently however a change passed over her. Pressing her two little hands together, she drew back a step or two, speaking my name with a certain tone of command. Struck with apprehension, I knew not why, I followed her. Instantly like one repeating a lesson she spoke.

"It is very good in you to talk to me as though we were the strangers that people believe us. I appreciate it and thank you very much. But it is not being just true; that is I feel as if I were not being just true, and as we can never be friends, would it not be better for us not to meet in this way any more?"

"And why," I gently asked, with a sense of struggling for my life, "can we never be friends?"

Her answer was a deep blush; not that timid conscious appeal of the blood that is beating too warmly for reply, but the quick flush of indignant generosity forced to do despite to its own instincts.

"That is a question I would rather not answer," she murmured at length. "Only it is so; or I should not speak in this way."

"But," I ventured, resolved to know on just what foundations my happiness was tottering, "you will at least tell me if this harsh decree is owing to any offence I myself may have inadvertently given. The honor of your acquaintance," I went on, determined she should know just what a hope she was slaying, "is much too earnestly desired, for me to wilfully hazard its loss by saying or doing aught that could be in any way displeasing to you."

"You have done nothing but what was generous," said she with increasing womanliness of manner, "unless it was taking advantage of my being here, to learn my name and gain an introduction to me after I had desired you to forget my very existence."

I recoiled at that, the chord of my self-respect was touched. "It was not here I learned your name, Miss Preston. It has been known to me for two weeks. At the risk of losing by your displeasure what is already hazarded by your prudence, I am bound to acknowledge that from the hour I left your father's house that night, I have spared no effort compatible with my deep respect for your feelings, to ascertain who the young lady was that had done me such an honor, and won from me such a deep regard. I had not intended to tell you this," I added, "but your truth has awakened mine, and whatever the result may be, you must see me as I am."

"You are very kind," she replied governing with growing skill the trembling of her voice. "The acquaintance of a girl of sixteen is not worth so much trouble on the part of a man like yourself." And blushing with the vague apprehension of her sex in the presence of a devotion she rather feels than understands, she waved her trembling little hand and paused irresolute, seemingly anxious to terminate the interview but as yet too inexperienced to know how to manage a dismissal requiring so much tact and judgment.

I saw, comprehended her position and hesitated. She was so young, uncle, her prospects in life were so bright; if I left her then, in a couple of weeks she would forget me. What was I that I should throw the shadow of manhood's deepest emotion across the paradise of her young untrammelled being. But the old Adam of selfishness has his say in my soul as well as in that of my fellow-men, and forgetting myself enough to glance at her half averted face, I could not remember myself sufficiently afterwards to forego without a struggle, all hope of some day beholding that soft cheek turn in confidence at my approach.

"Miss Preston," said I, "the promise of the bud atones for its folded leaves." Then with a fervor I did not seek to disguise, "You say we cannot be friends; would your decision be the same if this were our first meeting?"

Again that flush of outraged feeling. "I don't know—yes I think—I fear it would."

I strove to help her. "There is too great a difference between Bertram Mandeville the pianist, and the daughter of Thaddeus Preston."

She turned and looked me gently in the eye, she did not need to speak. Regret, shame, longing flashed in her steady glance.

"Do not answer," said I, "I understand; I am glad it is circumstances that stand in the way, and not any misconception on your part as to my motives and deep consideration for yourself. Circumstances can be changed." And satisfied with having thus dropped into the fruitful soil of that tender breast, the seed of a future hope, I bowed with all the deference at my command and softly withdrew.

But not to rest. With all the earnestness with which a man sets himself to decide upon the momentous question of life or death, I gave myself up to a night of reflection, and seated in my solitary bachelor apartment, debated with myself as to the resolution at which I had dimly hinted in my parting words to Miss Preston.

That I am a musician by nature, my success with the the public seems to indicate. That by following out the line upon which I had entered I would attain a certain eminence in my art, I do not doubt. But uncle, there are two kinds of artists in this world; those that work because the spirit is in them and they cannot be silent if they would, and those that speak from a conscientious desire to make apparent to others the beauty that has awakened their own admiration. The first could not give up his art for any cause, without the sacrifice of his soul's life; the latter—well the latter could and still be a man with his whole inner being intact. Or to speak plainer, the first has no choice, while the latter has, if he has a will to exert it. Now you will say, and the world at large, that I belong to the former class. I have risen in ten years from a choir boy in Trinity Church to a position in the world of music that insures me a full audience wherever and whenever I have a mind to exert my skill as a pianist. Not a man of my years has a more promising outlook in my profession, if you will pardon the seeming egotism of the remark, and yet by the ease with which I felt I could give it up at the first touch of a master passion, I know that I am not a prophet in my art but merely an interpreter, one who can speak well but who has never felt the descent of the burning tongue and hence not a sinner against my own soul if I turn aside from the way I am walking. The question was, then, should I make a choice? Love, as you say, seems at first blush too insecure a joy, if not often too trivial a one, to unsettle a man in his career and change the bent of his whole after life; especially a love born of surprise and fed by the romance of distance and mystery. Had I met her in ordinary intercourse, surrounded by her friends and without the charm cast over her by unwonted circumstances, and then had felt as I did now that of all women I had seen, she alone would ever move the deep springs of my being, it would be different. But with this atmosphere of romance surrounding and hallowing her girl's form till it seemed almost as ethereal and unearthly as that of an angel's, was I safe in risking fame or fortune in an attempt to acquire what in the possession might prove as bare and common-place as a sweep of mountain heather stripped of its sunshine. Curbing every erratic beat of my heart, I summoned up her image as it bloomed in my fancy, and surveying it with cruel eyes, asked what was real and what the fruit of my own imagination. The gentle eye, the trembling lip, the girlish form eloquent with the promise of coming womanhood,—were these so rare, that beside them no other woman should seem to glance or smile or move? And her words! what had she said, that any simple-minded, modest yet loving girl might not have uttered under the circumstances. Surely my belief in her being the one, the best and the dearest was a delusion, and to no delusion was I willing to sacrifice my art. But straight upon that conclusion came sweeping down a flood of counter-reasons. If not the wonder she seemed, she was at least a wonder to me. If I had seen her under romantic circumstances, and unconsciously been influenced by them, the influence had remained and nothing would ever rob her form of the halo thus acquired. Whether I ever won her to my fireside or not, she must always remain the fairy figure of my dreams, and being so, the gentle eye and tender lip acquired a value that made them what they seemed, the exponent of love and happiness. And lastly if love well or illy founded was an uncertain joy, and the passion for a woman a poor substitute for the natural incentive of talent or ambition, this love had within it the beginning of something deeper than joy, and in the passion thus cheaply characterized, dwelt a force and living fire that notwithstanding all I have hitherto achieved, has ever been lacking from my dreams of endeavor.

As you will see, the most natural question of all did not disturb me in these cogitations: And that was, whether in making the sacrifice I proposed, I should meet with the reward I had promised myself. The fancies of a young girl of sixteen are not usually of a stable enough character to warrant a man in building upon them his whole future happiness, especially a young girl situated like Miss Preston in the midst of friends who would soon be admirers, and adulators who would soon be her humble slaves. But the doubt which a serious contemplation of this risk must have presented, was of so unnerving a character, I dared not admit it. If I made the sacrifice, I must meet with my reward. I would listen to no other conclusion. Besides, something in the young girl herself, I cannot tell what, assured me then as it assures me now, that whatever virtues or graces she might lack, that of fidelity to a noble idea was not among them; that once convinced of the purity and value of the flame that had been lit in her innocent breast, nothing short of the unworthiness of the object that had awakened it, would ever serve to eliminate or extinguish it. That I was not worthy but would make it the business of my life to become so, was certain; that she would mark my endeavors and bestow upon me the sympathy they deserved, I was equally sure. No one would ever make such a sacrifice to her love as I was willing to do, and consequently in no one would I find a rival.

The morning light surprised me in the midst of the struggle, nor did I decide the question that day. Mr. Preston might not be as determined in his prejudices against musicians as my friends or even his daughter had imagined. I resolved to see him. Taking advantage of his connection with the —— Club, I procured an introducer in the shape of a highly respected person of his own class, and went one evening to the Club-rooms with the full intention of making his acquaintance if possible. He was already there and in conversation with some business associates. Procuring a seat as near him as possible, I anxiously surveyed his countenance. It was not a reassuring one, and studied in this way, had the effect of dampening any hopes I may have cherished in the outset. He soften to the sounds of sweet strains or the voice of youthful passion! As soon as the granite rock to the surge of the useless billow. His very necktie spoke volumes. It was an old fashioned stock, full of the traditions of other days, while his coat, shabbier than any I would presume to wear, betrayed in every well-worn seam the pride of the aristocrat and millionaire who in his native city and before the eyes of his fellow magnates does not need to carry the evidences of his respectability upon his back.

"It would be worse than folly for me to approach him on such a subject," I mentally ejaculated. "If he did not stare the musician out of countenance he would the newly risen man." And I came very near giving up the whole thing.

But the genius that watches over the affairs of true love was with me notwithstanding the unpropitious state of my surroundings. In a few minutes I received my expected introduction to Mr. Preston, and I found that underneath the repelling austerity of his expression, was a kindly spark for youth, and a decided sympathy for all instances of manly endeavor if only it was in a direction he approved; further that my own personality was agreeable to him and that he was disposed to regard me with favor until by some chance and very natural allusion to my profession by the friend standing between us, he learned that I was a musician, when a decided change came over his countenance and he exclaimed in that blunt, decisive way of his that admits of no reply:

"A jingler on the piano, eh? Pretty poor use for a man to put his brains to, I say, or even his fingers. Sorry to hear we cannot be friends." And without waiting for a reply, took my introducer by the arm and drew him a step or so to one side. "Why didn't you say at once he was Mandeville the musician," I overheard him ask in somewhat querulous tones. "Don't you know I consider the whole race of them an abomination. I would have more respect for my bank clerk than I would for the greatest man of them all, were it Rubenstein himself." Then in a lower tone but distinctly and almost as if he meant me to hear, "My daughter has a leaning towards this same fol-de-rol and has lately requested my permission to make the acquaintance of some musical characters, but I soon convinced her that manhood under the disguise of a harlequin's jacket could have no interest for her; that when a human being, man or woman has sunk to be a mere rattler of sweet sounds, he has reached a stage of infantile development that has little in common with the nervous energy and business force of her Dutch ancestry. And my daughter stoops to make no acquaintances she cannot bid sit at her father's table."

"Your daughter is a child yet, I thought," was ventured by his companion.

"Miss Preston is sixteen, just the age at which my mother gave her hand to my respected father sixty-seven years ago." And with this drop of burning lead let fall into my already agitated bosom they passed on.

He would have more respect for his bank clerk! Would his bank clerk or what was better, a young man with means at his command, working in a business capacity more in consonance with the tastes he had evinced, have a chance of winning his daughter? I began to think he might. "The way grows clearer!" I exclaimed.

But it was not till after another interview with him ten minutes later in the lobby that I finally made up my mind. He was standing quite alone in an obscure corner, fumbling in an awkward way with his muffler that had caught on the button of his coat. Seeing it, I hastened forward to his assistance and was rewarded by a kind enough nod to embolden me to say,

"I have been introduced to you as a musician; would my acquaintance be more acceptable to you if I told you that the pursuit of art bids fair in my case to yield to the exigencies of business? That I purpose leaving the concert-room for the banker's office and that henceforth my only ambition promises to be that of Wall Street?"

"It most certainly would," exclaimed he, holding out his hand with an unmistakable gesture of satisfaction. "You have too good a countenance to waste before a piano-top strumming to the smirks of women and the plaudits of weak-headed men. Let us see you at the desk, my lad. We are in want of trustworthy young men to take the place of us older ones." Then politely, "Do you expect to make the change soon?"

"I do," said I.

And the Rubicon was passed.

VI. A HAND CLASP

"Fer.—Here's my hand.

Mir.—And mine with my heart in it."—TEMPEST.

Once arrived at a settled conclusion, I put every thought of wavering out of my mind. Deciding that with such a friend in business circles as yourself, I needed no other introducer to my new life, I set apart this evening for a confab with you on the subject. Meanwhile it is pretty generally known that I make no more engagements to appear through the country.

I have but one more incident to relate. Last Sunday in walking down Fifth Avenue I met her. I did not do this inadvertently. I knew her custom of attending Bible class and for once put myself in her way. I did not give her time to remonstrate.

"Do not express your displeasure," said I, "this shall never be repeated. I merely wish to say that I have concluded to leave a profession so little appreciated by those whose esteem I most desire to possess; that I am about entering a banker's office where it shall be my ambition to rise if possible, to wealth and consequence. If I succeed—you shall then know what my incentive has been. But till I succeed or at least give such tokens of success as shall insure respect, silence must be my portion and patience my sole support. Only of one thing rest assured, that until I inform you with my own lips that the hope which now illumines me is gone, it will continue to burn on in my breast, shedding light upon a way that can never seem dark while that glow rests upon it." And bowing with the ceremonious politeness our positions demanded, I held out my hand. "One clasp to encourage me," I entreated.

It seemed as if she did not comprehend. "You are going to give up music, and for—for—"

"You?" said I. "Yes, don't forbid me," I implored; "it is too late."

Like a lovely image of blushing girlhood turned by a lightning flash into marble, she paused, pallid and breathless where she was, gazing upon me with eyes that burned deeper and deeper as the full comprehension of all that this implied gradually forced itself upon her mind.

"You make a chaos of my little world," she murmured at length.

"No," said I, "your world is untouched. If it should never be my good fortune to enter it, you are not to grieve. You are free, Miss Preston, free as this sunshiny air we breathe; I alone am bound, and that because I must be whether I will or no."

Then I saw the woman I had worshipped in this young fair girl shine fully and fairly upon me. Drawing herself up, she looked me in the face and calmly laid her hand in mine. "I am young," said she, "and do not know what may be right to say to one so generous and so kind. But this much I can promise, that whether or not I am ever able to duly reward you for what you undertake, I will at least make it the study of my life never to prove unworthy of so much trust and devotion."

And with the last lingering look natural to a parting for years, we separated then and there, and the crowd came between us, and the Sunday bells rang on, and what was so vividly real to us at the moment, became in remembrance more like the mist and shadow of a dream.

VII. MRS. SYLVESTER

Love is more pleasant than marriage, for the same reason that romances are more amusing than history.—CHAMFORT.

"He draweth out the thread of his verbosity, finer than the staple of his argument."—LOVES LABOR LOST.

Young Mandeville having finished his story, looked at his uncle. He found him sitting in an attitude of extreme absorption, his right arm stretched before him on the table, his face bent thoughtfully downwards and clouded with that deep melancholy that seemed its most natural expression, "He has not heard me," was the young man's first mortifying reflection. But catching his uncle's eye which at that moment raised itself, he perceived he was mistaken and that he had rather been listened to only too well.

"You must forgive me if I have seemed to rhapsodize," the young man stammered. "You were so quiet I half forgot I had a listener and went on much as I would if I had been thinking aloud."

His uncle smiled and throwing off the weight of his reflections whatever they might be, arose and began pacing the floor. "I see you are past surgery," quoth he, "any wisdom of mine would be only thrown away."

Young Mandeville was hurt. He had expected some token of approval on his uncle's part, or at least some betrayal of sympathy. His looks expressed his disappointment.

"You expected to convert me by this story," continued the elder, pausing with a certain regret before his nephew; "nothing could convert me but—"

"What?" inquired Mandeville after waiting in vain for the other to finish.

"Something which we will never find in the whirl of New York fashionable life. A woman with faith to reward and soul to understand such unqualified trust as yours."

"But I believe Miss Preston is such a girl and will be such a woman. Her looks, her last words prove it."

"Nothing proves it but time and as for your belief, I have believed too." Then as if fearing he had said too much, assumed his most business-like tone and observed, "But we will drop all that; you have resolved to quit music and enter Wall Street, your object money and the social consideration which money secures. Now, why Wall Street?"

"Because I can think of no other means for attaining what I desire, in the space of time I would consent to keep a young lady of Miss Preston's position waiting."

"Humph! and you have money, I suppose, which you propose to risk on the hazard?"

"Some! enough to start with; a small amount to you, but sufficient if I am fortunate."

"And if you are not?"

The young man opened his arms with an expressive gesture, "I am done for, that is all."

"Bertram," his uncle exclaimed with a change of tone, "has it ever struck you that Mr. Preston might have as strong a prejudice against speculation as against the musical profession?"

"No, that is, pardon me but I have sometimes thought that even in the event of success I should have to struggle against his inherited instincts of caste and his natural dislike of all things new, even wealth, but I never thought of the possibility of my arousing his distrust by speculating in stocks and engaging in enterprises so nearly in accord with his own business operations."

"Yet if I guess aright you would run greater risk of losing the support of his countenance by following the hazardous course you propose, than if you continued in the line of art that now engages you."

"Do you know—"

"I know nothing, but I fear the chances, Bertram."

"Then I am already defeated and must give up my hopes of happiness."

A smile thin and indefinable crossed the other's face. "No," said he, "not necessarily." And sitting down by his nephew's side, he asked if he had any objections to enter a bank. "In a good capacity," he exclaimed.

"No indeed; it would be an opportunity surpassing my hopes. Do you know of an opening?"

"Well," said he, "under the circumstances I will let you into the secret of my own affairs. I have always had one ambition, and that was to be at the head of a bank. I have not said much about it, but for the last five years I have been working to this end, and to-day you see me the possessor of at least three-fourths of the stock of the Madison Bank. It has been deteriorating for some time, consequently I was enabled to buy it low, but now that I have got it I intend to build up the concern. I am able to throw business of an important nature in its way, and I dare prophesy that before the year is out you will see it re-established upon a solid and influential footing."

"I have no doubt of it, sir; you have the knack of success, any thing that you touch is sure to go straight."

"Unhappily yes, as far as business operations go. But no matter about that;—" as if the other had introduced some topic incongruous to the one they were considering—"the point is this. In two weeks time I shall be elected President of the Bank; if you will accept the position of assistant cashier,—the best I can offer in consideration of your total ignorance of all details of the business,—it is open to you—"

"Uncle! how generous! I—"

"Hush! your duties will be nominal, the present cashier is fully competent; but the leisure thus afforded will offer you abundant opportunity to make yourself acquainted with all matters connected with the banking system as well as with such capitalists as it would be well for you to know. So that when the occasion comes, I can raise you to the cashier's place or make such other disposal of your talents as will best insure your rapid advance."

The young man's eyes sparkled; with a sudden impetuous movement he jumped to his feet and grasped his uncle's hand. "I can never thank you enough; you have made me your debtor for life. Now let any one ask me who is my father, and I will say—"

"He was Edward Sylvester's brother. But come, come, this extreme gratitude is unnecessary. You have always been a favorite with me, Bertram, and now that I have no child, you seem doubly near; it is my pleasure to do what I can for you. But—" and here he surveyed him with a wistful look, "I wish you were entering into this new line from love of the business rather than love of a woman. I fear for you my boy. It is an awful thing to stake one's future upon a single chance and that chance a woman's faith. If she should fail you after you had compassed your fortune, should die—well you could bear that perhaps; but if she turned false, and married some one else, or even married you and then—"

"What?" came in silvery accents from the door, and a woman richly clad, her trailing velvets filling the air at once with an oppressive perfume, entered the room and paused before them in an attitude meant to be arch, but which from the massiveness of her figure and the scornful carriage of her head, succeeded in being simply imperious.

Mr. Sylvester rose abruptly as if unpleasantly surprised. "Ona!" he exclaimed, hastening, however, to cover his embarassment by a courteous acknowledgement of her presence and a careless remark concerning the shortness of the services that had allowed her to return from church so early. "I did not hear you come in," he observed.

"No, I judge not," she returned with a side glance at Mandeville. "But the services were not short, on the contrary I thought I should never hear the last amen. Mr. Turner's voice is very agreeable," she went on, in a rambling manner all her own, "it never interferes with your thoughts; not that I am considered as having any," she interjected with another glance at their silent guest, "a woman in society with a reputation for taste in all matters connected with fashionable living, has no thoughts of course; business men with only one idea in their heads, that of making money, have more no doubt. Do you know, Edward," she went on with sudden inconsequence, which was another trait of this amiable lady's conversation, "that I have quite come to a conclusion in regard to the girl Philip Longtree is going to marry; she may be pretty, but she does not know how to dress. I wish you could have seen her to-night; she had on mauve with old gold trimmings. Now with one of her complexion—But I forget you haven't seen her. Bertram, I think I shall give a German next month, will you come? Oh, Edward!" as if the thought had suddenly struck her, "Princess Louise is the sixth child of Queen Victoria; I asked Mr. Turner to-night. By the way, I wonder if it will be pleasant enough to take the horses out to-morrow? Bird has been obliging enough to get sick just in the height of the season, Mr. Mandeville. There are a thousand things I have got to do and I hate hired horses." And with a petulant sigh she laid her prayer-book on the table and with a glance in the mirror near by, began pulling off her gloves in the slow and graceful fashion eminently in keeping with her every movement.

It was as if an atmosphere of worldliness had settled down upon this room sanctified a moment before by the utterances of a pure and noble love. Mr. Sylvester looked uneasy, while Bertram searched in vain for something to say.

"I seem to have brought a blight," she suddenly murmured in an easy tone somewhat at variance with the glance of half veiled suspicion which she darted from under her heavy lids, at first one and then the other of the two gentlemen before her. "No, I will not sit," she added as her husband offered her a chair. "I am tired almost to death and would retire immediately, but I interrupted you I believe in the utterance of some wise saying about matrimony. It is an interesting subject and I have a notion to hear what one so well qualified to speak in regard to it—" and here she made a slow, half lazy courtesy to her husband with a look that might mean anything from coquetry to defiance—"has to say to a young man like Mr. Mandeville."

Edward Sylvester who was regarded as an autocrat among men, and who certainly was an acknowledged leader in any company he chose to enter, bowed his head before this anomalous glance with a gesture of something like submission.

"One is not called upon to repeat every inadvertent phrase he may utter," said he. "Bertram was consulting me upon certain topics and—"

"You answered him in your own brilliant style," she concluded. "What did you say?" she asked in another moment in a low unmoved tone which the final act of smoothing out her gloves on the table with hands delicate as white rose leaves but firm as marble, did not either hasten or retard.

"Oh if you insist," he returned lightly, "and are willing to bear the reflection my unfortunate remark seems to cast upon the sex, I was merely observing to my nephew, that the man who centered all his hopes upon a woman's faith, was liable to disappointment. Even if he succeeded in marrying her there were still possibilities of his repenting any great sacrifice made in her behalf."

"Indeed!" and for once the delicate cheek flushed deeper than its rouge. "And why do you say this?" she inquired, dropping her coquettish manner and flashing upon them both, the haughty and implacable woman Bertram had always believed her to be, notwithstanding her vagaries and fashion.

"Because I have seen much of life outside my own house," her husband replied with undiminished courtesy; "and feel bound to warn any young man of his probable fate, who thinks to find nothing but roses and felicity beyond the gates of fashionable marriage."

"Ah then, it was on general principles you were speaking," she remarked with a soft laugh that undulated through an atmosphere suddenly grown too heavy for easy breathing. "I did not know; wives are so little apt to be appreciated in this world, Mr. Mandeville, I was afraid he might be giving you some homely advice founded upon personal experience." And she moved towards their guest with that strange smile of hers which some called dangerous but which he had always regarded as oppressive.

She saw him drop his eyes, and smiled again, but in a different way. This woman, whom no one accused of anything worse than levity, hailed every tribute to her power, as a miser greets the glint of gold. With a turn of her large but elegant figure that in its slow swaying reminded you of some heavy tropical flower, hanging inert, intoxicated with its own fragrance, she dismissed at once the topic that had engaged them, and launched into one of her choicest streams of inconsequent talk. But Mandeville was in no mood to listen to trivialities, and being of a somewhat impatient nature, presently rose and excusing himself, took a hurried leave. Not so hurried however that he did not have time to murmur to his uncle as they walked towards the door:

"You would make comparison between the girl I worship and other women in fashionable life. Do not I pray; she is no more like them than a star that shines is like a rose that blooms. My fate will not be like that of most men that we know, but better and higher."

And his uncle standing there in the grand hall-way, with the fresh splendors of unlimited wealth gleaming upon him from every side, looked after the young man with a sigh and repeated, "Better and higher? God in his merciful goodness grant it."

VIII. SHADOWS OF THE PAST

"Memory, the warder of the brain."—MACBETH.

It was long past midnight. The fire in the grate burned dimly, shedding its lingering glow on the face of the master of the house as with bowed head and folded hands he sat alone and brooding before its dying embers.

It was a lonesome sight. The very magnificence of the spacious apartment with its lofty walls and glittering works of art, seemed to give an air of remoteness to that solitary form, bending beneath the weight of its reflections. From the exquisitely decorated ceiling to the turkish rugs scattered over the polished floor, all was elegant and luxurious, and what had splendors like these to do with thoughts that bent the brows and overshadowed the lips of man? The very lights burned deprecatingly, illuminating beauties upon which no eye gazed and for which no heart beat. The master himself seemed to feel this, for he presently rose and put them out, after which he seated himself as before, only if possible with more abandon, as if with the extinguishing of the light some eye had been shut whose gaze he had hitherto feared. And in truth my lady's image shone fainter from its heavy panel, and the smile which had met with unrelenting sweetness the glare of the surrounding splendor, softened in the mellow glimmer of the fire-light to an etherial halo that left you at rest.

One, two, THREE, the small clock sounded from the mantel and yet no stir took place in the sombre figure keeping watch beneath. What were the thoughts which could thus detain from his comfortable bed a man already tired with manifold cares? It would be hard to tell. The waters that gush at the touch of the diviner's rod are tumultuous in their flow and rush hither and thither with little heed to the restraining force of rule and reason. But of the pictures that rose before his eyes in those dying embers, there were two which stood out in startling distinctness. Let us see if we can convey the impression of them to other eyes and hearts.

First, the form of his mother. Ah grey-bearded men weighted with the cares of life and absorbed in the monotonous round of duties that to you are the be all and end all of existence, to whom morning means a jostling ride to the bank, the store or the office, and with whom night is but the name for a worse unrest because of its unfulfilled promises of slumber, what soul amongst you all is so callous to the holy memories of childhood, as not to thrill with something of the old time feeling of love and longing as the memory of that tender face with its watchful eye and ready smiles, comes back to you from the midst of weary years! Your mother!

But Edward Sylvester with that black line across his life cutting past from present, what makes him think of his mother to-night; and the cottage door upon the hillside where she used to stand with eager eyes looking up and down the road as he came trudging home from school, swinging his satchel and shouting at every squirrel that started across the road or peeped from the branches of the grand old maples overhead! And the garret-chamber under the roof, the scene of many a romp with Elsie and Sonsie and Jack, neighbors' children to whom the man of to-day would be an awe and a mystery! And the little room where he slept with Tom his own blue-eyed brother so soon to die of a wasting disease, but full of warm blood then and all alive with boyish pranks. He could almost hear the wild clear laugh with which the mischievous fellow started upon its travels, the rooster whose legs he had tied a short space apart with one of Sonsie's faded ribbons, a laugh that became unrestrained when the poor creature in attempting to run down hill, rolled over and over, cutting such a figure before his late admirers, the hens, that even Elsie smiled in the midst of her gentle entreaties. And Jocko the crow, whom taming had made one of the boys! poor Jocko! is it nearly thirty years since you used to stalk in majesty through the village streets, with your neat raven coat closely buttoned across your breast and your genteel caw, caw, and condescending nod for old acquaintances? The day seems but as yesterday when you marred the stolen picnic up in the woods by flying off with a flock of your fellow black-coats, nor is it easy to realize that the circle of tow-headed fellows who hailed with shouts your ignominious return after a day or so's experience of the vaunted pleasures of freedom, are now sharp featured men without a smile for youth or a thought beyond the hard cold dollar buried deep in their pockets.

And the church up over the hills! and the long Sunday walk at mother's side with the sunshine glowing on the dusty road and beating on the river flowing far beyond! The same road, the same river of Monday and Tuesday but how different it looked to the boy; almost like another scene, as if Sunday clothes were on the world as well as upon his restless little limbs. How he longed for it to be Monday though he did not say so; and what a different day Saturday would have been if only there was no long, sleepy Sunday to follow it.

But the mother! She did not dread that day. Her eyes used to brighten when the bell began to ring from the old church steeple. Her eyes! how they mingled with every picture! They seemed to fill the night. What a sparkle they had, yet how they used to soften at his few hurried caresses. He was always too busy for kisses; there were the snares in the north woods to be looked after; the nest in the apple-tree to be inquired into; the skates to be ground before the river froze over; the nuts to be gathered and stored in that same old garret chamber under the eaves. But now how vividly her least look comes back to the tired man, from the glance of wistful sympathy with which she met his childish disappointments to the flash of joy that hailed his equally childish delights.

And another scene there is in the embers to-night; a remembrance of later days when the mother with her love and yearning was laid low in the grave, and manhood had learned its first lessons of passion and ambition from the glance of younger eyes and the smile of riper lips. Not the picture of a woman, however; that was already present beside him, shining from its panel with an insistence that not even the putting out of the lights could quite quench or subdue, but of a child young, pure and beautiful, sitting by the river in the glow of a June sunshine, gazing at the hills of his boyhood's home with a look on her face such as he had never before seen on that of child or woman. A simple picture with a simple villager's daughter for its centre, but as he mused upon it to-night, the success and triumph of the last ten years faded from his sight like the ashes that fell at his feet, and he found himself questioning in vain as to what better thing he had met in all the walks of his busy life than that young child's innocence and faith as they shone upon him that day from her soft uplifted eyes.

He had been sitting the whole warm noontide at the side of her whose half gracious, half scornful, wholly indolent acceptance of his homage, he called love, and enervated by an atmosphere he was as yet too inexperienced to recognize as of the world, worldly, had strolled forth to cool his fevered brow in the fresh autumn breeze that blew up from the river. He was a gay-hearted youth in those days, heedless of everything but the passing moment; nature meant little to him; and when in the course of his ramble he came upon the form of a child sitting on the edge of the river, he remembers wondering what she saw in a sweep of empty water to interest her so deeply. Indeed he was about to inquire when she turned and he caught a glimpse of her eyes and knew at once without asking. Yet in those days he was anything but quick to recognize the presence of feeling. A face was beautiful or plain to him, not eloquent or expressive. But this child's countenance was exceptional. It made you forget the cotton frock she wore, it made you forget yourself. As he gazed on it, he felt the stir of something in his breast he had never known before, and half dreaded to hear her speak lest the charm should fail or the influence be lost. Yet how could he pass on and not speak. Laying his hand on her head, he asked her what she was thinking of as she sat there all alone looking off on the river; and the wee thing drew in her breath and surveyed him with all her soul in her great black eyes before she replied, "I do not know, I never know." Then looking back she dreamily added, "It makes me want to go away, miles away,"—and she held out her tiny arms towards the river with a longing gesture; "and it makes me want to cry."

And he understood or thought he did and for the first time in his life looked upon the river that had met his gaze from childhood, with eyes that saw its exceeding beauty. Ah it was an exquisite scene, a rare scene, mountain melting into mountain and meadow vanishing into meadow, till the flow of silver waters was lost in a horizon of azure mist. No wonder that a child without snares to set or nuts to gather, should pause a moment to gaze upon it, as even he in the days gone by would sometimes stop on Sabbath eves to snatch a kiss from his mother's lips.

"It is like a fairy land, is it not?" quoth the child looking up into his face with a wistful glance. "Do you know what it is that makes me feel so?"

He smiled and sat down by her side. Somehow he felt as if a talk with this innocent one would restore him more than a walk on the hills. "It is the spirit of beauty, my child, you are moved by the loveliness of the scene; is it a new one to you?"

"No, oh no, but I always feel the same. As if something here was hungry, don't you know?" and she laid her little hand on her breast.

He did not know, but he smiled upon her notwithstanding, and made her talk and talk till the gush of the sweet child spirit with its hidden longings and but half understood aspirations, bathed his whole being in a reviving shower, and he felt as if he had wandered into a new world where the languors of the tropics were unknown, and passion, if there was such, had the wings of an eagle instead of the siren's voice and fascination.

Her name was Paula, she said, and before leaving he found that she was a relative of the woman he loved. This was a slight shock to him. The lily and the cactus abloom on one stalk! How could that be? and for a moment he felt as if the splendors of the glorious woman paled before the lustre of the innocent child. But the feeling, if it was strong enough to be called such, soon passed. As the days swept by bringing evenings with light and music and whispered words beneath the vine-leaves, the remembrance of the pure, sweet hour beside the river, gradually faded till only a vague memory of that gentle uplifted face sweet with its childish dimples, remained to hallow now and then a passing reverie or a fevered dream.

But to-night its every lineament filled his soul, vying with the memories of his mother in its vividness and power. O why had he not learned the lesson it taught. Why had he turned his back upon the high things of life to yield himself to a current that swept him on and on until the power of resistance left him and—O dwell not here wild thoughts! Pause not on the threshold of the one dark memory that blasts the soul and sears the heart in the secret hours of night. Let the dead past bury its dead and if one must think, let it be of the hope, which the remembrance of that short glimpse into a pure if infantile soul has given to his long darkened spirit.

One, two, three, FOUR; and the fire is dead and the night has grown chill, but he heeds it not. He has asked himself if his life's book is quite closed to the higher joys of existence? whether money getting and money holding is to absorb him body and soul forever; and with the question a great yearning seizes him to look upon that sweet child again, if haply in the gleam of her pure spirit, something of the noble and the pure that lay beneath the crust of life might be again revealed to his longing sight.

"She must be a great girl now," murmured he to himself, "as old as if not older than she whom Bertram adores so passionately, but she will always be a child to me, a sweet pure child whose innocence is my teacher and whose ignorance is my better wisdom. If anything will save me—"

But here the shadow settled again; when it lifted, the morning ray lay cool and ghostly over the hearthstone.

IX. PAULA

"The stars of midnight shall be dear

To her; and she shall lean her ear

In many a secret place

Where rivulets dance their wayward round,

And beauty born of murmuring sound

Shall pass into her face."—WORDSWORTH.

A wintry scene. Snow-piled hills stretching beyond a frozen river. On the bank a solitary figure tall, dark and commanding, standing with eyes bent sadly on a long narrow mound at his feet. It is Edward Sylvester and the mound is the grave of his mother.

It is ten years since he stood upon that spot. In all that time no memories of his childhood's home, no recollection of that lonely grave among the pines, had been sufficient to allure him from the city and its busy round of daily cares. Indeed he had always shrunk at the very name of the place and never of his own will alluded to it, but the reveries of a night had awakened a longing that was not to be appeased, and in the face of his wife's cold look of astonishment and a secret dread in his own heart, had left his comfortable fireside, for the scenes of his early life and marriage, and was now standing, in the bleak December air, gazing down upon the stone that marked his mother's grave.

But tender as were the chords that reverberated at this sight, it was not to revisit this tomb he had returned to Grotewell. No, that other vision, the vision of young sweet appreciative life has drawn him more strongly than the memory of the dead. It was to search out and gaze again upon the innocent girl, whose eloquent eyes and lofty spirit had so deeply moved him in the past, that he had braved the chill of the Connecticut hills and incurred the displeasure of his wife.

Yet when he turned away from that simple headstone and set his face towards the village streets it was with a sinking of the heart that first revealed to him the severity of the ordeal to which he had thus wantonly subjected himself. Not that the wintry trees and snow covered roofs appealed to him as strongly as the same trees and homes would have done in their summer aspect. The land was bright with verdure when that shadow fell whose gloom resting upon all the landscape, made a walk down this quiet road even at this remote day, a matter of such pain to him. But scenes that have caught the reflection of a life's joy or a heart's sorrow, lose not their power of appeal, with the leaves they shake from their trees, and nothing that had met the eyes of this man from the hour he left this spot, no, not the glance of his wife as his child fell back dead in his arms, had shot such a pang to his soul as the sight of that long street with its array of quiet homes, stretching out before him into the dim grey distance.

But for all that he was determined to traverse it, ay to the very end, though his steps must pass the house whose ghostly portals were fraught with memories dismal as death to him. On then he proceeded, walking with his usual steady pace that only faltered or broke, as he met the shy eyes of some hurrying village maiden, speeding upon some errand down the snowy street, or encountered some old friend of his youth who despite his altered mien and commanding carriage, recognized in him the slim young bank cashier who had left them now ten long years ago to make a name and fortune in the great city.

It was noon by the time he gained the heart of the village, and school was out and the children came rushing by with just the same shout and scamper with which he used to hail that hour of joyous release. How it carried him back to the days when those four red walls towered upon him with awful significance, as with books on his back and a half eaten apple in his pocket he crept up the walk, conscious that the bell had rung its last shrill note a good half hour before. He felt half tempted to stop and make his way through the crowd of shouting boys and dancing girls to that same old door again, and see for himself if the huge LATE which in a fit of childish revenge he had cut on its awkward panels, was still there to meet the eyes of tardy boys and loitering girls. But the wondering looks of the children unused to behold a figure so stately in their simple streets deterred him and he passed thoughtfully on. So engrossed was he by the reminiscences of Tom and Elsie which the school house had awakened, that he passed the ominous mansion which had been his dread, and the bank where he had worked, and the arbor by the side of the road where he had sat out the first hours of his fatal courtship, almost without realizing their presence, and was at the end of the street and in full view of the humble cottage which the little Paula had pointed out as her home on that day of their first acquaintance.

"Good heaven! and I do not even know if she is alive," he suddenly ejaculated, stopping where he was and eying the lowly walls before him with a quick realization of the possibilities of a great disappointment. "Ten years have strown many a grave on the hillside and Ona would not mention it if she lost every relative she had in this town. What a fool I have been," thought he.

But with the stern resolution which had carried him through many a difficulty, he prepared to advance, when he was again arrested by seeing the door of the house he was contemplating, suddenly open and a girlish figure issue forth. Could it be Paula? With eager, almost feverish interest he watched her approach. She was a slight young thing and came towards him with a rapid movement almost jaunty in its freedom. If it were Paula, he would know her by her eyes, but for some reason he hoped it was not she, not the child of his dreams.

At a yard or two in front of him she paused astonished. This grave, tall figure with the melancholy brow, deep eyes and firmly compressed lips was an unaccustomed sight in this primitive town. Scarcely realizing what she did she gave a little courtesy and was proceeding on when he stopped her with a hurried gesture.

"Is Mrs. Fairchild still living?" he asked, indicating the house she had just left.

"Mrs. Fairchild? O no," she returned, surveying him out of the corner of a very roguish pair of brown eyes, with a certain sly wonder at the suspense in his voice. "She has been dead as long as I can remember. Old Miss Abby and her sister live there now."

"And who are they?" he hurriedly asked; he could not bring himself to mention Paula's name.

"Why, Miss Abby and Miss Belinda," she returned with a puzzled air. "Miss Abby sews and Miss Belinda teaches the school. I don't know anything more about them, sir."

The courteous gentleman bowed. "And they live there quite alone?"

"O no sir, Paula lives with them."

"Ah, she does;" and the young girl looking at him could not detect the slightest change in his haughty countenance. "Paula is Mrs. Fairchild's daughter."

"Yes, sir."

"Thank you," said he, and allowed the pretty brown-eyed miss to pass on, which she did with lingering footsteps and many a backward glance of the eye.

Halting at the door of that small cottage, Edward Sylvester reasoned with himself.

"She may be just such another fresh-looking, round-faced, mischievous-eyed school-girl. Spiritual children do not always make earnest-souled women. Let me beware what hopes I build on a foundation so unsubstantial." Yet when in a moment later the door opened and a weazen-faced dapper, little woman appeared, all smiles and welcome, he owned to a sensation of dismay that sufficiently convinced him what a hold this hope of meeting with something exceptionally sweet and high, had taken upon his hitherto careless and worldly spirit.

"Mr. Sylvester I am sure! I thought Ona would remember us after a while. Come in sir, do, my sister will be home in a few moments." And with a deprecatory flutter comical enough in a woman at least seventy odd years old, she led her distinguished guest into a large unused room where in spite of his remonstrances she at once proceeded to build a fire.

"It is a pleasure sir," she said to every utterance of regret on his part at the trouble he was causing. And though her vocabulary was thus made to appear somewhat small, her sincerity was undoubted. "We have counted the days, Belinda and I, since we sent the last letter. It may seem foolish to you, sir; but Paula is growing so fast and Belinda says is so uncommon smart for her age that we did think that it was time Ona knew just what a straight we were in. Do you want to see Paula?"

"Very much," he returned, shocked and embarrassed at the position in which he found himself put by the reticence of his wife on the subject of her relations. "They think I have come in reply to a letter," he mused, "and I did not even know my wife had received one."

"You will be surprised," she exclaimed with a complacent nod as the fire blazed up brightly; "every one is surprised who sees her for the first time. Is my niece well?" And thus it was he learned the relation between his wife of ten years and these simple inhabitants of the little cottage in Grotewell.

He replied as in duty bound, and presently by the use of a few dexterous questions succeeded in eliciting from this simple-minded old lady, the few facts necessary to a proper understanding of the situation. Miss Abby and Miss Belinda were two maiden ladies, sisters of Mrs. Fairchild and Ona's mother, who on the death of the former took up their abode in the little cottage for the purpose of bringing up the orphan Paula. They had succeeded in this by dint of the utmost industry, but Paula was not a common child, and Belinda, who was evidently the autocrat of the house, had decided that she ought to have other advantages. She had therefore written to Mrs. Sylvester concerning the child, in the hopes that that lady would take enough interest in her pretty little cousin to send her to boarding-school; but they had received no reply till now, all of which was perfectly right of course, Mrs. Sylvester being undoubtedly occupied and Mr. Sylvester himself being better than any letter.

"And does Paula herself know what efforts you have been making in her behalf," asked Mr. Sylvester upon the receipt of this information.

The little lady shook her head with vivacity. "Belinda advised me to say nothing," she remarked. "The child is contented with her home and we did not like to raise her expectations. You will never regret anything you may do for her," she went on in a hurried way with a peep now and then towards the door as if while enjoying a momentary freedom of speech, she feared an intrusion that would cut that pleasure short. "Paula is a grateful child and never has given us a moment of concern from the time she began to put pieces of patchwork together. But there is Belinda," she suddenly exclaimed, rising with the little dip and jerk of her left shoulder that was habitual to her whenever she was amused or excited. "Belinda," she cried, going to the door and speaking with great impressiveness, "Mr. Sylvester is in the parlor." And almost instantly a tall middle aged lady entered, whose plain but powerful countenance and dignified demeanor, stamped her at once as belonging to a very different type of woman from her sister.

"I am very glad to see you sir," she exclaimed in a slow determined voice as dissimilar as possible from the piping tones of Miss Abby. "Is not Mrs. Sylvester with you?"

"No," returned he, "I have come alone; my wife is not fond of travelling in winter."

The slightest gleam shot from her bright keen eye. "Is she not well?"

"Yes quite well, but not over strong," he rejoined quietly.

She gave him another quick look, settled some matter with herself and taking off her bonnet, sat down by the fire. At once her sister ceased in her hovering about the room and sitting also, became to all appearance her silent shadow.

"Paula has gone up stairs to take off her bonnet," the younger woman said in a straightforward manner just short of being brusque. "She is a very remarkable girl, Mr. Sylvester, a genius I suppose some would call her, a child of nature I prefer to say. Whatever there is to be learned in this town she has learned. And in a place where nature speaks and good books abound that is not inconsiderable. I have taken pride in her talents I acknowledge, and have endeavored to do what I could to cultivate them to the best advantage. There is no girl in my school who can write so original a composition, nor is there one with a truer heart or more tractable disposition."

"You have then been her teacher as well as her friend, she owes you a double debt of gratitude."

A look hard to understand flashed over her homely face. "I have never thought of debt or gratitude in connection with Paula. The only effort which I have ever made in her behalf which cost me anything, is this one which threatens me with her loss." Then as if fearing she had said too much, set her firm lips still firmer and ignoring the subject of the child, astonished him by certain questions on the leading issues of the day that at once betrayed a truly virile mind.

"She is a study," thought he to himself, but meeting her on the ground she had taken, replied at once and to her evident satisfaction in the direct and simple manner that appeals the most forcibly to a strong if somewhat unpolished understanding, while the meek little Miss Abby glanced from one to the other with a humble awe more indicative of her appreciation for their superiority than of her comprehension of the subject.

But what with Miss Belinda's secret anxiety and Mr. Sylvester's unconscious listening for a step upon the stair, the conversation, brisk as it had opened, gradually languished, and ere long with a sort of clairvoyant understanding of her sister's wishes, Miss Abby arose and with her customary jerk left the room for Paula.

"The child is not timid but has an unaccountable aversion to entering the presence of strangers alone," Miss Belinda explained; but Mr. Sylvester did not hear her, for at that moment the door re-opened and Miss Abby stepped in with the young girl thus heralded.

Edward Sylvester never forgot that moment, and indeed few men could have beheld the picture of extraordinary loveliness thus revealed, without a shock of surprise equal to the delight it inspired. She was not pretty; the very word was a misnomer, she was simply one of nature's most exquisite and undeniable beauties. From the crown of her ebon locks to the sole of her dainty foot, she was perfect as the most delicate coloring and the utmost harmony of contour could make her. And not in the conventional type either. There was an individuality in her style that was as fresh as it was uncommon. She was at once unique and faultless, something that can be said of few women however beautiful or alluring.

Mr. Sylvester had not expected this, as indeed how could he, and for a moment he could only gaze with a certain swelling of the heart at the blooming loveliness that in one instant had transformed the odd little parlor into a bower fit for the habitation of princes. But soon his natural self-possession returned, and rising with his most courteous bow, he greeted the blushing girl with words of simple welcome.

Instantly her eyes which had been hitherto kept bent upon the floor flashed upward to his face and a smile full of the wonder of an unlooked for, almost unhoped for delight, swept radiantly over her lips, and he saw with deep and sudden satisfaction that the hour which had made such an impression upon him, had not been forgotten by her; that his voice had recalled what his face failed to do, and that he was recognized.

"It is Mr. Sylvester, your cousin Ona's husband," Miss Belinda interposed in a matter-of-fact way, evidently attributing the emotion of the child to her astonishment at the imposing appearance of their guest.

"And it was you who married Ona!" she involuntarily murmured, blushing the next moment at this simple utterance of her thoughts.

"Yes, dear child," Mr. Sylvester hastened to say. "And so you remember me?" he presently added, smiling down upon her with a sense of new life that for the moment made every care and anxiety shrink into the background.

"Yes," she simply returned, taking the chair beside him with the unconscious grace of perfect self-forgetfulness. "It was the first time I had found any one to listen to my childish enthusiasms; it is natural such kindness should make its impression."

"Little Paula and I met long ago," quoth Mr. Sylvester turning to the somewhat astonished Miss Belinda. "It was before my marriage and she was then—"

"Just ten years old," finished Paula, seeing him cast her an inquiring glance.

"Very young for such a thoughtful little miss," he exclaimed. "And have those childish enthusiasms quite departed?" he continued, smiling upon her with gentle encouragement. "Do you no longer find a fairy-land in the view up the river?"

She flushed, casting a timid glance at her aunt, but meeting his eyes again seemed to forget everything and everybody in the inspiration which his presence afforded.

"I fear I must acknowledge that it is more a fairy-land to me than ever," she softly replied. "Knowledge does not always bring disillusion, and though I have learned one by one the names of the towns scattered along those misty banks, and though I know they are no less prosaic in their character than our own humdrum village, yet I cannot rid myself of the notion that those verdant slopes with their archway of clouds, hide the portals of Paradise, and that I have only to follow the birds in their flight up the river to find myself on the verge of a mystery, the banks at my feet can never disclose."

"May the gates of God's Paradise never recede as those would do, my child, if like the birds you attempted to pierce them."

"Paula is a dreamer," quoth Miss Belinda in a matter-of-fact tone, "but she is a good girl notwithstanding and can solve a geometrical problem with the best."

"And sew on the machine and make a very good pie," timidly put in Miss Abby.

"That is well," laughed Mr. Sylvester, observing that the poor child's head had fallen forward in maidenly shame at her aunts' elogiums as well as at the length of the speech into which she had been betrayed. "It shows that her eyes can see what is at hand as well as what is beyond our reach." Then with a touch of his usual formal manner intended to restore her to herself, "Do you like study, Paula?"

In an instant her eyes flashed. "I more than like it; it feeds me. Knowledge has its vistas too," she added with an arch look, the first he had seen on her hitherto serious countenance. "I can never outgrow my recognition of the portals it discloses or the fairy-land it opens up to every inquiring eye."

"Even geometry," he ventured, more anxious to probe this fresh young mind than he had ever been to sound the opinions of the most notable men of the day.

"Even geometry," she smiled. "To be sure its portals are somewhat methodical in shape, allowing no scope to the fancy, but from its triangles and circles have been born the grandeurs of architecture, and upright on the threshold of its exact laws and undeviating calculations, I see an angel with a golden rod in his hand, measuring the heavens."

"Even a stone speaks to a poet," said Mr. Sylvester with a glance at Miss Belinda.

"But Paula is no poet," returned that lady with strict and impartial honesty. "She has never put a line on paper to my knowledge. Have you child?"

"No aunt, I would as soon imprison a falling sunbeam or try to catch the breeze that lifts my hair or kisses my cheek."

"You see," continued Mr. Sylvester still looking at Miss Belinda.

She answered with a doubtful shake of the head and an earnest glance at the girl as if she perceived something in that bright young soul, that even she had never observed before.

"Have you ever been away from home?" he now asked.

"Never, I know as little of the great world as a callow nestling. No, I should not say that, for the young bird has no Aunt Belinda to tell of the great cathedrals and the wonderful music she has heard and the glorious pictures she has seen in her visits to the city. It is almost as good as travelling one's self to hear Aunt Belinda talk."

It was now the turn of the mature plain woman to blush, which she did under Mr. Sylvester's searching eye.

"You have then been in the habit of visiting New York?"

"I have been there twice," she returned evasively.

"Since my marriage?"

"Yes sir;" with a firm closing of her lips.

"I did not know you were there or I should have insisted upon your remaining at my house."

"Thank you," said she with a quick triumphant glance at her demure little shadow, who looked back in amaze and was about to speak when Miss Belinda proceeded. "My visits usually have been on business; I should not think of troubling Mrs. Sylvester." And then he knew that his wife had been aware of those visits if he had not.

But he refrained from testifying to his discovery. "You speak of music," said he, turning gently back to Paula. "Have you a taste for it? Would it make you happy to hear such music as your aunt tells about?"

"O yes, I can conceive nothing grander than to sit in a church whose every line is beauty and listen while the great organ utters its song of triumph or echoes in the wonderful way it does, the emotions you have tried to express and could not. I would give a whole week of my life on the hills, dear as it is, for one such hour, I think."

Mr. Sylvester smiled. "It is a rare kind of coin to offer for such a simple pleasure, but it may meet with its acceptance, nevertheless;" and in his look and in his voice there was an appearance of affectionate interest that completed the subjugation of the watchful Miss Belinda, who now became doubly assured that whatever neglect had been shown her by her niece was not due to that niece's husband.

Mr. Sylvester recognized the effect he had produced and hastened to complete it, feeling that the good opinion of Miss Belinda would be valuable to any man. "I have been a boy on these hills," said he, "and know what it is to long for what is beyond while enjoying what is present. You shall hear the organ my child." And stopped, wondering to himself over the new sweet interest he seemed to take in the prospect of pleasures which he had supposed himself to have long ago exhausted.

"Hear the organ, I? why that means—O what does it mean?" she inquired, turning with a look of beaming hope towards her aunt.

"You must ask Mr. Sylvester," that uncompromising lady replied, with a straightforward look at the fire.

And he with a smile told the blushing girl that according to his reading, mortals went blindfold into fairy-land; and she understood what he meant and was silent, whereupon he turned the conversation upon more common-place subjects.

For how could he tell her then of the intention that had awakened in his breast at the first glimpse of her grand young beauty. To make her his child, to bequeath to her the place of the babe that had perished in his arms three long years before—That meant to give Ona a care if not a rival in his affections, and Ona shrank from care, and was not a subject for rivalry. And the if which this implied weighed heavily on his heart as moment after moment flew by, and he felt again the reviving power of an unsullied mind and an aspiring nature.

X. THE BARRED DOOR

"A school boy's tale; the wonder of an hour."—BYRON.

"Did you know that your niece was gifted with rare beauty as well as talents?" asked Mr. Sylvester of Miss Belinda as a couple of hours or so later, they sat alone by the parlor fire, preparatory to his departure.

"No, that is," she hastily corrected herself, "I knew she was very pretty of course, prettier by far than any of her mates, but I did not suppose she was what you call a beauty, or at least would be so considered by a person accustomed to New York society."

"I do not know of a woman in New York who can boast of any such claims to transcendent loveliness. Such faces are rare outside of art, Miss Belinda; was Mrs. Fairchild a handsome woman?"

"She was my sister and if I may say so, my favorite sister, but she was no more agreeable to the eye than some others of her family," grimly returned the heavy browed spinster with a compression of her lips. "What beauty Paula has inherited came from her father. Her chief charm in my eyes, however, springs from her pure nature and the unselfish impulses of her heart."

"And in mine," rejoined he quietly. Then with a sudden change of tone as he realized the necessity of saying something definite to this woman in regard to his intentions toward the child, he remarked, "Her great and unusual talents and manifest disposition to learn, demand as you say, superior advantages to any she can have in a small country town like this, fruitful as it has already been to her under your wise and fostering care and such shall she have; but just when and how I cannot say till I have seen my wife and learned what her wishes are likely to be in regard to the subject."

"You are very kind, sir," returned Miss Belinda. "I have no doubt as to the good-will of your intentions, and the child shall be prepared at once for a change."

"And will the child," he exclaimed with a smile as Paula re-entered the room, "be so kind as to give me her company in the walk I must now take to the cars?"

"Of course," replied her aunt before the young girl could speak, "we owe you that much attention I am sure."

And so it was that when he came to retrace his way through the village with its heavy memories, he had a guardian spirit at his side that robbed them of their power to sadden and oppress.

"What shall I say for you to the grim, city streets when I get back?" inquired he as they hastened on over the snow covered road.

"Say to them from me? O you may give them my greeting," she responded half shyly, half confidingly. Evidently for her he was one of those rare persons whose presence is perfect freedom and with whom she could not only think her best but speak it also. "I should like to make their acquaintance, but indeed they would have to do well to vie in attraction with these white roads girded by their silver-limbed trees. The very rush of life must seem oppressive. So many hopes, so many fears, so many interests jostling you at every step! Yet the thought is exhilarating too; don't you find it so?"

It was the first question she had asked him and he knew not how to reply. Her eyes were so confiding, he could not bear to shake her faith in his imagined superiority. Yet what thoughts had he ever cherished in walking the busy streets, save those connected with his own selfish hopes and fears, plans and operations? "I have no doubt," said he after a moment's pause, "that I have felt this exhilaration of which you speak. Certainly the hurrying masses in Broadway awaken a far different sensation in a man, than this solitary stretch of country road."

"Yet the road has its companionships," she murmured. "In the city one thinks most of men, but in the country, of God. Its very solitude compels you."

"Compels you," he involuntarily answered. And shuddered as he said it, remembering days when he trod these very roads with anything but reverence in his heart for the Creator of the landscape before him. "Not every one has the inner vision, my child, to see the love and wisdom back of the works, or rather most men have a vision so short it does not reach so far. Yet I think I can understand what you mean and might even experience your emotions if my eyes had leisure to explore this space and my thoughts to rise out of their usual depressing atmosphere of care and anxiety. You did not think I was a busy man, he continued," observing her gaze of wonder. "You thought riches brought ease; if you ever come to think, 'most of men' you will learn that the wealthy man is the greatest worker, for his rest comes not night or day."

She shook her head with a sudden doubt. "It is a problem," she said, "which my knowledge of geometry does not help me to solve."

"No," assented he; "and one in which even your fanciful soul would fail to find any poetry. But stop, Paula; isn't this the place where I found you that day, and you showed me the view up the river?"

"Yes, and it was on that stone I sat; it has a milk-white cushion now; and there is where you stood, looking so tall and grand to my childish eyes! The gates are of pearl now," she said, pointing to the snow-covered slopes in the west. "I wish the sky had been clear to-night and you could have seen the effect of a rosy sunset falling over those domes of ice and snow."

"It would leave me less to expect when I come again," he responded almost gayly. "The next time we will have the sunset, Paula."

She smiled and they hastened on, presently finding themselves in the village streets. Suddenly she paused. "Small towns have their mysteries as well as great cities," said she; "we are not without ours, look."

He turned, followed with a glance the direction of her pointing finger and started in his sudden surprise. She had indicated to him the house whose ghostly and frowning front bore written across its grim gray boards, such an inscription of painful remembrance. "It is a solitary looking place, isn't it?" she went on, innocent of the pain she was inflicting. "No one lives there or ever will, I imagine. Do you see that board nailed across the front door?"

He forced himself to look. He did more, he fixed his eyes upon the desolate structure before him until the aspect of its huge unpainted walls with their long rows of sealed-up windows and high smokeless chimneys was impressed indelibly upon his mind. The large front door with its weird and solemn barrier was the last thing upon which his eye rested.

"Yes," said he, and involuntarily asked what it meant.

"We do not know exactly," she responded. "It was nailed across there by the men who followed Colonel Japha to the grave. Colonel Japha was the owner of the house," she proceeded, too interested to observe the shadow which the utterance of that name had invoked upon his brow. "He was a peculiar man I judge, and had suffered great wrongs they say; at all events his life was very solitary and sad, and on his deathbed he made his neighbors promise him that they would carry out his body through that door and then seal it up against any further ingress or egress forever. His wishes were respected, and from that day to this no one has ever entered that door."

"But the house!" stammered Mr. Sylvester in anything but his usual tone, "surely it has not been deserted all these years!"

"Ah," said she, "now we come to the greatest mystery of all." And laying her hand timidly on his arm, she drew his attention to the form of a decrepit old lady just then advancing towards them down the street "Do you see that aged figure?" she asked. "Every evening at this hour, winter and summer, stormy weather or clear, she is seen to leave her home up the street and come down to this forsaken dwelling, open the worm-eaten gate before you, cross the otherwise untrodden garden and enter the house by a side door which she opens with a huge key she carries in her pocket. For just one hour by the clock she remains there, and then she is seen to issue in the falling dusk, with a countenance whose heavy dejection is in striking contrast to the expression of hope with which she invariably enters. Why she makes this pilgrimage and for what purpose she secludes herself for a stated time each day in this otherwise deserted mansion, no man knows nor is it possible to determine, for though she is a worthy woman and approachable enough on all other topics, on this she is absolutely mute."

Mr. Sylvester started and surveyed the woman as she passed with an anxious gaze. "I know her," he muttered; "she was a connection of—of the family, who inhabited this house." He could not speak the name.

"Yes, so they say, and the owner of this house, though she does not live here. Did you notice how she looked at me? She often does that, just as if she wanted to speak. But she always goes by and opens the gate as you see her now and takes out the big key and—"

"Come away," cried Mr. Sylvester with sudden impulse, seizing Paula by the hand and hurrying her down the street. "She is a walking goblin; you must have nothing to do with such uncanny folk." And endeavoring to turn off this irresistible display of feeling by a show of pleasantry he laughed aloud, but in a strained and unnatural way that made her eyes lift in unconscious amazement.

"You are infected by the atmosphere of unreality that pervades the spot," said she, "I do not wonder." And with the gentle perversity that sometimes affects the most thoughtful amongst us, she went on talking upon the unwelcome subject. "I know of some folks who invariably cross to the other side of the street at night, rather than go through the shadows of the two gaunt poplars which guard that house. Yet there has been no murder committed there or any great crime that I know of, unless the disobedience of a daughter who ran away with a man her father detested, could be denominated by so fearful a word."

The set gaze with which Mr. Sylvester surveyed the landscape before him quavered a trifle and then grew hard and cold. "And so," said he in a tone meant more for himself than her, "even your innocent ears have been assailed by the gossip about Miss Japha."

"Gossip! I have never thought of it as gossip," returned she, struck for the first time by the change in his appearance. "It all happened so long ago it seems more like some quaint and ancient tale than a story of one of our neighbors. Besides, the fact that a wilful girl ran away from the house of her father, with the man of her choice, is not such a dreadful one is it, though she never returned to its walls with her husband, and her father was so overwhelmed by the shock, he was never seen to smile again."

"No," said he, giving her a hurried glance of relief, "I only wondered at the tenacity of old stories to engage the popular ear. I had supposed even the remembrance of Jacqueline Japha would have been lost in the long silence that has followed that one disobedient act."

"And so it might, were it not for that closely shut house with the sinister bar across its chief entrance, inviting curiosity while it effectually precludes all investigation. With that token ever before our eyes of a dead man's implacable animosity, who can wonder that we sometimes ponder over the fate of her who was its object."

"And no intimations of that fate have been ever received in Grotewell. For all that is known to the contrary, Jacqueline Japha may have preceded her father to the tomb."

Paula bowed her head, amazed at the gloomy tone in which this emphatic assertion was made by one whose supposed ignorance she had been endeavoring to enlighten. "You knew her history before, then," observed she, "I beg your pardon."

"And it is granted," said he with a sudden throwing off of the shadow that had enveloped him. "You must not mind my sudden lapses into gloom. I was never a cheerful man, that is, not since I—since my early youth I should say. And the shadows which are short at your time of life grow long and chilly at mine. One thing can illumine them though, and that is a child's happy smile. You are a child to me; do not deny me a smile, then, before I go."

"Not one nor a dozen," cried she, giving him her hands in good-bye for they had arrived at the depot by this time and the sound of the approaching train was heard in the distance.

"God bless you!" said he, clasping those hands with a father's heartfelt tenderness. "God bless my little Paula and make her pillow soft till we meet again!" Then as the train came sweeping up the track, put on his brightest look and added, "If the fairy-godmother chances to visit you during my departure, don't hesitate to obey her commands, if you want to hear the famous organ peal."

"No, no," she cried. And with a final look and smile he stepped upon the train and in another moment was whirled away from that place of many memories and a solitary hope.

XI. MISS STUYVESANT

"She smiled; but he could see arise

Her soul from far adown her eyes."—MRS. BROWNING.

"She is a beauty; it is only right I should forewarn you of that."

"Dark or light?"

"Dark; that is her hair and eyes are almost oriental in their blackness, but her skin is fair, almost as dazzling as yours, Ona."

Mrs. Sylvester threw a careless glance in the long mirror before which she was slowly completing her toilet, and languidly smiled. But whether at this covert compliment to her greatest charm or at some passing fancy of her own, it would be difficult to decide. "The dark hair and eyes come from her father," remarked she in an abstracted way while she tried the effect of a bunch of snow-white roses at her waist with a backward toss of her proud blonde head. "His mother was a Greek. 'Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon,'" she exclaimed in a voice as nearly gay as her indolent nature would allow. For this lady of fashion was in one of her happiest moods. Her dress, a new one, fitted her to perfection and the vision mirrored in the glass before her was not lacking, so far as she could see in one charm that could captivate. "Do you think she could fasten a ribbon, or arrange a bow?" she further inquired. "I should like to have some one about me with a knack for helping a body in an emergency, if possible. Sarah is absolutely the destruction of any bit of ribbon she undertakes to handle. Look at that knot of black velvet over there for instance, wouldn't you think a raw Irish girl just from the other side would have known better than to tie it with half the wrong side showing?"

With the habit long ago acquired of glancing wherever her ivory finger chanced to point, the grave man of the world slowly turned his head full of the weightiest cares and oppressed by the burden of innumerable responsibilities, and surveyed the cluster of velvet bows thus indicated, with a mechanical knitting of the brows.

"I pay Sarah twenty-five dollars a month and that is the result," his wife proceeded. "Now if Paula—"

"Paula is not to come here as a waiting maid," her husband quickly interposed, a suspicion of color just showing itself for a moment on his cheek.

"If Paula," his wife went on, unheeding the interruption save by casting him a hurried glance over the shoulder of her own reflection in the glass, "had the taste in such matters of some other members of our family and could manage to lend me a helping hand now and then, why I could almost imagine I had my younger sister back with me again, who with her skill in making one look fit for the eyes of the world, was such a blessing to us in our old home."

"I have no doubt Paula could be taught to be equally efficient," her husband responded, carefully restraining any further show of impatience. "She is bright, I am certain, and ribbon-tying is not such a very difficult art, is it?"

"I don't know about that; by the way Sarah succeeds I should say it was about on a par with the science of algebra or—what is that horrid study they used to threaten to inflict me with at the academy whenever I complained of a headache? Oh I remember—conic sections."

"Well, well," laughed her husband, "she ought soon to to be an expert in it then; Paula is a famous little mathematician."

A silence followed this response; Mrs. Sylvester was fitting in her ear-rings. "I suppose," said she when the operation was completed, "that the snow will prevent half the people from coming to-night." It was a reception evening at the Sylvester mansion. "But so long as Mrs. Fitzgerald does not disappoint me, I do not care. What do you think of the setting of these diamonds?" she inquired, leaning forward to look at herself more closely, and slowly shaking her head till the rich gems sparkled like fire.

"It is good," came in short, quick tones from the lips of her husband.

"Well, I don't know, there might be a shade more of enamel on the edge of that ring. I shall speak to the jeweller about it to-morrow. But what were we talking about?" she dreamily asked, still turning her head from side to side before the mirror.

"We were talking about adopting your cousin in the place of our child who is dead," replied her husband with some severity, pausing in the middle of the floor which he was pacing, to honor her with a steady glance.

"O yes! Dear me! what an awkward clasp that man has given to these rings after all. You will have to fasten them for me." Then as he stepped forward with studied courtesy, yawned just a trifle and remarked, "No one could ever take the place of one's own child of course. If Geraldine had lived she would have been a blonde, her eyes were blue as sapphires."

He looked in his wife's face and his hands dropped. He thought of the day when those eyes, blue as sapphires indeed, flashed burning with death's own fever, from the little crib in the nursery, while with this same cool and self-satisfied countenance, the wife and mother before him had swept down the broad stairs to her carriage, murmuring apologetically as she gathered up her train, "O you needn't trouble yourself to look after her, she will do very well with Sarah."

She may have thought of it too, for the least little bit of real crimson found its way through the rouge on her cheek as she encountered the stern look of his eye, but she only turned a trifle more towards the glass, saying, "I forgot you do not admire the rôle of waiting maid. I will try and manage them myself, seeing that you have banished Sarah."

He exerted his self-control and again for the thousandth time buried that ghastly memory out of sight, actually forcing himself to smile as he gently took her hand from her ear and began deftly to fasten the rebellious ornaments.

"You mistake," said he, "love can ask any favor without hesitation. I do not object to waiting upon my own wife."

She gave him a little look which he obligingly took as a guerdon for this speech, and languidly held out her bracelets. As he stood clasping them on her arms, she quietly eyed him over from head to foot. "I don't know of a man who has your figure," said she with a certain tone of pride in her voice; "it is well you married a wife who does not look altogether inferior beside you." Then as he bowed with mock appreciation of the intended compliment, added with her usual inconsequence, "I dare say it would give me something to interest myself in. I don't suppose she has a decent thing to wear, and the fact of her being a dark beauty would lend quite a new impulse to my inventive faculty. Mrs. Walker has a daughter with black eyes, but dear me, what a guy she does make of her!"

With a sigh Mr. Sylvester turned to the window where he stood looking out at the heavy flakes of snow falling with slow and fluctuating movement between him and the row of brown stone houses in front. Paula considered as a milliner's block upon which to try the effect of clothes!

"Even Mrs. Fitzgerald with all her taste don't know how to dress her child," proceeded his wife, with a hurried, "Be still, Cherry!" to the importunate bird in the cage. "Now I should take as much pride in dressing any one under my charge as I would myself, provided the subject was likely to do credit to my efforts." And finding the bird incorrigible in his shrill singing, she moved over to the cage, where she stood balancing her white finger for the bird to peck at, with a pretty caressing motion of her lip, the little Geraldine of the wistful blue eyes, had never seen.

"You are welcome to do what you please in such matters," was her husband's reply. He was thinking again of that same little Geraldine; a fall of snow like the present always made him think of her and her innocent query as to whether God threw down such big flakes to amuse little children. "I give you carte blanche," said he with sudden emphasis.

Mrs. Sylvester paused in her attentions to the bird to give him a sharp little look which might have aroused his surprise if he had been fortunate enough to see it. But his back was towards her, and there was nothing in the languidly careless tone with which she responded, to cause him to turn his head. "I see that you would really like to have me entertain the child; but—"

She paused, pursing up her lips to meet the chattering bird's caress, while her husband in his impatience drummed with his fingers on the pane.

—"I must see her before I decide upon the length of her visit," continued she, as weary with the sport she drew back to give herself a final look in the glass. "Will you please to hand me that shawl, Edward."

He turned with alacrity. In his relief he could have kissed the snowy neck held so erectly before him, as he drew around it the shawl he had hastily lifted from the chair at his side. But that would not have suited this calm and languid beauty who disliked any too overt tribute to her charms and saved her caresses for her bird. Besides it would look like gratitude, and gratitude would be misplaced towards a wife who had just indicated her acceptance of his offer to receive a relative of her own into his house.

"She might as well come at once," was her final remark, as satisfied at last with the lay of every ribbon she swept in finished elegance from the room. "Mrs. Kittredge's reception comes off a week from Thursday, and I should like to see how a dark beauty with a fair skin would look in that new shade of heliotrope."

And so the battle was over and the victory won; for Mrs. Sylvester for all her seeming indifference was never known to change a decision she had once made. As he realized the fact, as he meditated that ere long this very room which had been the scene of so much frivolity and the witness to so many secret heart-burnings, would reëcho to the tread of the pure and innocent child, whose mind had flights unknown to the slaves of fashion, and in whose heart lay impulses of goodness that would satisfy the long smothered cravings of his awakened nature, he experienced a feeling of relenting towards the wife who had not chosen to thwart him in this the strongest wish of his childless manhood, and crossing to her dressing table, he dropped among its treasures a costly ring which he had been induced to purchase that day from an old friend who had fallen into want. "She will wear it," murmured he to himself, "for its hue will make her hand look still whiter, and when I see it sparkle I will remember this hour and be patient." Had he known that she had yielded to this wish out of a certain vague feeling of compunction for the disappointments she had frequently occasioned him and would occasion him again, he might have added a tender thought to the rich and costly gift with which he had just endowed her.

"I expect a young cousin of mine to spend the winter with me and pursue her studies," were the first words that greeted his ears as an hour or so later he entered the parlor where his wife was entertaining what few guests had been anxious enough for a sight of Mrs. Sylvester's newly furnished drawing-room, to brave the now rapidly falling snow. "I hope that you and she will be friends."

Curious to see what sort of a companion his wife was thus somewhat prematurely providing for Paula, he hastily advanced towards the little group from which her voice had proceeded, and found himself face to face with a brown-haired girl whose appealing glance and somewhat infantile mouth were in striking contrast to the dignity with which she carried her small head and managed her whole somewhat petite person.

"Miss Stuyvesant! my husband!" came in musical tones from his wife, and somewhat surprised to hear a name that but a moment before had been the uppermost in his mind, he bowed with courtesy and then asked if he was so happy as to speak to a daughter of Thaddeus Stuyvesant.

"If it will give you especial pleasure I will say yes," responded the little miss with a smile that irradiated her whole face. "Do you know my father?"

"There are but few bankers in the city who have not that pleasure," replied he with an answering look of regard. "I am especially happy to meet his daughter in my house to-night."

There was something in his manner of saying this and in the short inquiring glance which at every opportunity he cast upon her bright young face with its nameless charm of mingled appeal and reserve, that astonished his wife.

"Miss Stuyvesant was in the carriage with Mrs. Fitzgerald," said that lady with a certain dignity she knew well how to assume. "I am afraid if it had not been for that circumstance we should not have enjoyed the pleasure of her presence." And with the rare tact of which she was certainly a mistress, as far as all social matters were concerned, she left the aspiring magnate of Wall Street to converse with the daughter of the man whom all New York bankers were expected to know, and hastened to join a group of ladies discussing ceramics before a huge placque of rarest cloissone.

Mr. Sylvester followed her with his eyes; he had never seen her look more vivacious; had the hope of seeing a young face at their board touched some secret chord in her nature as well as his? Was she more of a woman than he imagined, and would she be, though in the most superficial of ways, a mother to Paula? Flushed with the thought, he turned back to the little lady at his side. She was gazing in an intent and thoughtful way at an engraving of Dubufe's "Prodigal Son" that adorned the wall above her head. There was something in her face that made him ask:

"Is that a favorite picture of yours?"

She smiled and nodded her small and delicate head.

"Yes sir, it is indeed, but I was not looking at the picture so much as at the face of that dark-haired girl that sits in the centre, with that far-away expression in her eyes. Do you see what I mean? She is like none of the rest. Her form is before us, but her heart and her interest are in some distant clime or forsaken home to which the music murmured at her side recalls her. She has a soul above her surroundings, that girl; and her face is indescribably pathetic to me. In the recesses of her being she carries a memory or a regret that separates her from the world and makes certain moments of her life almost holy."

"You look deep," said Mr. Sylvester, gazing down upon the little lady's face with strongly awakened interest. "You see more perhaps than the painter intended."

"No, no; possibly more than the engraving expresses, but not more than the artist intended. I saw the original once, when as you remember it was on exhibition here. I was a wee thing, but I never forgot that girl's face. It spoke more than all the rest to me; perhaps because I so much honor reserve in one who holds in his breast a great pain or a great hope."

The eye that was resting upon her, softened indescribably. "You believe in great hopes," said he.

The little figure seemed to grow tall; and her face looked almost beautiful. "What would life be without them?" she answered.

"True," returned Mr. Sylvester; and entering into the conversation with unusual spirit, was astonished to find how young she was and yet how thoroughly bright and self-possessed.

"Lovely girls are cropping up around me in all directions," thought he; "I shall have to correct my judgment concerning our young ladies of fashion if I encounter many more as sensible and earnest-hearted as this." And for some reason his brow grew so light and his tone so cheerful that the ladies were attracted from all parts of the room to hear what the demure Miss Stuyvesant could have to say to the grave master of the house, to call forth such smiles of enjoyment upon his usually melancholy countenance.

Take it all together, the occasion though small was one of the pleasantest of the season, and so Mrs. Sylvester announced when the last carriage had driven away, and she and her husband stood in the brilliantly lighted library, surveying a new cabinet of rare and antique workmanship which had been that day installed in the place of honor beneath my lady's picture.

"I thought you seemed to enjoy it, Ona," her husband remarked.

"O, it was an occasion of triumph to me," she murmured. "It is the first time a Stuyvesant has crossed our threshold, mon cher."

"Ha," he exclaimed, turning upon her a brisk displeased look. He was proud and considered no man his superior in a social sense. "Do you acknowledge yourself a parvenue that you rejoice at the entrance of any one special person into your doors?"

"I thought," she replied somewhat mortified, "that you betrayed unusual pleasure yourself at her introduction."

"That may be; I was glad to see her here, for her father is one of the most influential directors in the bank of which I shortly expect to be made president."

The nature of this disclosure was calculated to be especially gratifying to her, and effectually blotted out any remembrance of the break by which it had been introduced. After a few hasty inquiries, followed by a scene of quite honest mutual congratulation, the gratified wife left her husband to put out the lights himself or call Samuel as he might choose, and glided up stairs to delight the curious Sarah with the broken soliloquies and inconsequent self-communings which formed another of her peculiar habits.

As for her husband, he stood a few minutes where she left him, abstractedly eying the gorgeous vista that spread out before him down to the further mirror of the elaborate drawing-room, thinking perhaps with a certain degree of pride, of the swiftness with which he had risen to opulence and the certainty with which he had conquered position in the business as well as in the social world when he could speak of such a connection with Thaddeus Stuyvesant as a project already matured. Then with a hasty movement and a quick sigh which nothing in his prospects actual or apparent would seem to warrant, he proceeded to put out the lights, my lady's picture shining with less and less importunity as the flickering jets disappeared, till all was dark save for the faint glimmer that came in from the hall, a glimmer just sufficient to show the outlines of the various articles of furniture scattered about—and could it be the tall figure of the master himself standing in the centre of the room with his palms pressed against his forehead in an attitude of sorrow or despair? Yes, or whose that wild murmur, "Is it never given to man to forget!" Yet no, or who is this that calm and dignified, steps at this moment from the threshold? It must have been a dream, a phantasy. This is the master of the house who with sedate and regular step goes up flight after flight of the spiral staircase, and neither pauses or looks back till he reaches the top of the house where he takes out a key from his pocket, and opening a certain door, goes in and locks it behind him. It is his secret study or retreat, a room which no one is allowed to enter, the mystery of the house to the servants and something more than that to its inquisitive mistress. What he does there no man knows, but to-night if any one had been curious enough to listen, they would have heard nothing more ominous than the monotonous scratch of a pen. He was writing to Miss Belinda and the burden of his letter was that on a certain day he named, he was coming to take away Paula.

XII. MISS BELINDA MAKES CONDITIONS

"For of the soul the body form doth take,

For soul is form, and doth the body make."—SPENSER.

Miss Belinda was somewhat taken aback at the proposal of Mr. Sylvester to receive Paula into his own house. She had not anticipated any such result to her efforts; the utmost she had expected was a couple of years or so of instruction in some state Academy. Nor did she know whether she was altogether pleased at the turn affairs were taking. From all she had heard, her niece Ona was, to say the least, a frivolous woman, and Paula had a mind too noble to be subjected to the deteriorating influence of a shallow and puerile companionship. Then the child had great beauty; Mr. Sylvester who ought to be a judge in such matters had declared it so, and what might not the adulation of the thoughtless and the envy of the jealous, do towards belittling a nature as yet uncontaminated.

"We ought to think twice," she said to Miss Abby with some bitterness, who on the contrary never having thought once was full of the most childish hopes concerning a result which she considered with a certain secret complacency she would not have acknowledged for the world, had been very much furthered by her own wise recommendations to Mr. Sylvester in the beginning of his visit. Yet notwithstanding her doubts Miss Belinda allowed such preparations to be made as she considered necessary, and even lent her hand which was deft enough in its way, to the task of enlarging the child's small wardrobe. As for Paula, the thought of visiting the great city with the dear friend whose image had stood in her mind from early childhood as the impersonation of all that was noble, generous and protecting, was more than joyful; it was an inspiration. Not that she did not cling to the affectionate if somewhat quaint couple who had befriended her childhood and sacrificed their comfort to her culture and happiness. But the chord that lies deeper than gratitude had been struck, and fond as were her memories of the dear old home, the charm of that deep "My child," with its hint of fatherly affection, was more than her heart could stand; and no spot, no not the realms of fairy-land itself, looked so attractive to her fancy as that far fireside in an unknown home where she might sit with cousin Ona and alternately with her exert her wit to beguile the smile to his melancholy lips.

When therefore upon the stated day, Mr. Sylvester made his second appearance at the little cottage in Grotewell, it was to find Paula radiant, Miss Abby tearfully exultant and Miss Belinda—O anomaly of human nature—silent and severe. Attributing this however to her very natural regret at parting with Paula, he entered into all the arrangements for their departure on the following morning without a suspicion of the real state of her mind, nor was he undeceived until the day was nearly over and they sat down to have a few minutes of social conversation before the early tea.

They had been speaking on some local topic involving a question of right and wrong, and Mr. Sylvester's ears were yet thrilling to the deep ringing tones with which Paula uttered the words, "I do not see how any man can hesitate an instant when the voice of his conscience says no. I should think the very sunlight would daunt him at the first step of his foot across the forbidden line," when Miss Belinda suddenly spoke up and sending Paula out of the room on some trivial pretext, addressed Mr. Sylvester without reserve.

"I have something to say to you, sir, before you take from my home the child of my care and affection."

Could he have guessed what that something was that he should turn with such a flush of sudden anxiety to meet her determined gaze.

"The rules of our life here have been simple," continued she in a tone of voice which those who knew her well recognized as belonging to her uncompromising moods. "To do our duty, love God and serve our neighbor. Paula has been brought up to reverence those rules in simplicity and honor; what will your gay city life with its hollow devices for pleasure and its loose hold on the firm principles of life, do for this innocent soul, Mr. Sylvester?"

"The city," he said firmly but with a troubled undertone in his voice that was not unnoted by the watchful woman, "is a vast caldron of mingled good and evil. She will hear of more wrong doing, and be within the reach of more self-denying virtue, than if she had remained in this village alone with the nature that she so much loves. The tree of knowledge bears two kinds of fruit, Miss Belinda; would you therefore hinder the child from approaching its branches?"

"No, sir; I am not so weak as to keep a child in swaddling-clothes after the period of infancy is past, neither am I so reckless as to set her adrift on an unknown sea without a pilot to guide her. Your wife—" she paused and fixed an intent look upon the flames leaping before her. "Ona is my niece," she resumed in a lower tone of voice, "and I feel entitled to speak with freedom concerning her. Is she such a guide as I would choose for a young girl just entering a new sphere in life? From all I have heard, I should judge she was somewhat over-devoted to this world and its fashions."

Mr. Sylvester flushed painfully, but seeing that any softening of the truth would be wholly ineffectual with this woman, replied in a candid tone, "Ona is the same now as she was in the days of her girlhood. If she loves the world too well she is not without her excuse; from her birth it has strewn nothing but roses in her path."

"Humph!" came from the lips of the energetic spinster. Then with a second stern glance at the fire, continued, "Another question, Mr. Sylvester. Does your wife consent to receive my niece into her house, for the indefinite length of time which you mention, from interest in the girl herself or indeed from any motive I should judge worthy of Paula? It is a leading question I know, but this is no time for niceties of speech."

"Miss Belinda," replied he, and his voice was firm though his fingers slightly trembled where they rested upon the arms of his chair, "I will try and forget for a moment that Ona is my wife, and frankly confide to you that any such motive on her part, as would meet with your entire approval, must not be expected from a woman who has never fully recognized the solemn responsibilities of life. That she will be kind to Paula I have no doubt, that she may even learn to take an interest in her for her own sake, is also very possible, but that she will ever take your place towards her as guide or instructor, I neither anticipate nor would feel myself justified in leading you to."

The look which Miss Belinda cast him was anything but reassuring. "And yet," said she, "you will take away my darling and give her up to an influence that can not be for good, or your glance would not be so troubled or your lip so uncertain. You would set her young feet in a path where the very flowers are so thick they conceal its tendency and obscure its dangers. Mr. Sylvester you are a man who has seen life with naked eyes, and must recognize its responsibilities; dare you take this Paula, whom you have seen, out of the atmosphere of truth and purity in which she has been raised, and give her over to the enervating influences of folly and fashion? Will you assume the risk and brave the consequences?"

As though an electric shock had touched the nerve of his nature, Mr. Sylvester hastily rose and moved in a restless manner to the window. It was his favorite refuge in any time of sudden perplexity or doubt, and this was surely an occasion for both.

"Miss Belinda," he began and then paused, looking out on the hills of his boyhood, every one of which spoke to him at that moment with a force that almost sickened his heart and benumbed the faculties of his mind; "I recognize the love which leads you to speak in this way, and I bow before it, but—" here his tongue faltered again, that ready tongue whose quick and persuasive eloquence on public occasions had won for him the name of Silver-speech among his friends and admirers—"but there are others who love your Paula also, love her with a yearning that only the childless can feel or the disappointed appreciate. I had hoped—" here he left the window and approached her side, "to do more for Paula than to give her the temporal benefit of a luxurious home and such instruction as her extraordinary talents demand. If Ona upon seeing and knowing the child had found she could love her, I had intended to ask you to yield her to us unreservedly and forever, in short to make her my child in place of the daughter I have lost. But now—" with a quick gesture he began pacing the floor and left the sentence unfinished.

Miss Belinda's eyes which were of a light grey, wholly without beauty but with strange flashes of expression in them, left the fire and fell upon his face, and a tear of real feeling gathered beneath her lids.

"I had no idea," said he, "that you cherished any such intention as that. If I had I might have worded my apprehensions differently. The yearning feeling of which you speak, I can easily understand, also the strength of the determination it must take on the part of a man like yourself, to give up a hope of this nature. Yet—" Seeing him pause in his hurried pacing and open his lips as if to speak, she deferentially stopped.

"Miss Belinda," said he, in the firm and steadfast way more in keeping with his features than his agitated manner of a moment before, "I cannot give it up. The injury it would do me is greater than the harm, which one of Paula's lofty nature would be apt to acquire in any atmosphere into which she might chance to be introduced. She is not a child, Miss Belinda, though we allude to her as such. The texture of those principles which you have instilled into her breast, is of no such weak material as to give way to the first petty breeze that blows. Paula's house will stand, while mine—"

He paused and gave way to a momentary struggle, but that over, he set his lips firmly together and the last vestige of irresolution vanished. Sitting down by her side, he turned his face upon her, and for the first time she realized the power which with one exception he had always exerted over the minds of others. "Miss Belinda," said he, "I am going to give you an evidence of my trust; I am going to leave with you the responsibility of Paula's future. She shall go with me, and learn, if she can, to love me and mine, but she shall also be under obligations to open her heart to you on all matters that concern her life and happiness in my house, and the day you see any falling off in her pure and upright spirit, you shall demand her return, and though it tears the heart from my breast, I will yield her up without question or parley as I am a gentleman and a Christian. Does that content you?"

"It certainly ought to, sir. No one could ask more, I am sure," returned the other in a voice somewhat unsteady for her.

"It is opening my house to the gaze of a stranger," said he, "for I desire you to command Paula to withhold nothing that seriously affects her; but my confidence in you is unbounded and I am sure that whatever you may learn in this way, will be held as sacred by you as though it were buried in a tomb."

"It certainly will, sir."

"As for the dearer hope which I have mentioned, time and the condition of things must decide for us. Meanwhile I shall strive to win a father's place in her heart, if only to build myself a refuge for the days that are to come. You see I speak frankly, Miss Belinda; will you give me some token that you are not altogether dissatisfied with the result of this conversation?"

With the straightforward if somewhat blunt action that characterized all her movements, she stretched out her hand, which he took with something more than his usual high-bred courtesy. "With you at the wheel," said she, "I think I may trust my darling, even to the whirl and follies of such a society as I know Ona loves. A man who can so command himself, ought to be a safe guide to pioneer others."

And the considerate gentleman bowed; but the frank smile that hailed her genial clasp had somehow vanished, and from the sudden cloud that at that moment swept over the roseate heavens, fell a shadow that left its impress on his lip long after the cloud itself had departed.

An hour or so had passed. The fire was burning brightly on the hearthstone, illumining with a steady glow the array of stuffed birds, worsted samplers and old-fashioned portraits with which the walls were adorned, but reserving its richest glow and fullest irradiation for the bended head of Paula, who seated on a little stool in the corner of the hearth, was watching the rise and fall of the flickering flames.

She had packed her little trunk, had said good-bye to all her neighboring friends and was now sitting on the old hearthstone, musing upon the new life that was about to open before her. It was a happy musing, as the smile that vaguely dimpled her cheeks and brightened her eyes beneath their long lashes, amply testified. As Mr. Sylvester watched her from the opposite side of the hearth where he was sitting alone with his thoughts, he felt his heart sink with apprehension at the fervor of anticipation with which she evidently looked forward to the life in the new home. "The young wings think to gain freedom," thought he, "when they are only destined to the confinement of a gilded cage."

He was so silent and looked so sad, Paula with a certain sort of sensitiveness to any change in the emotional atmosphere surrounding her, which was one of her chief characteristics, hastily looked up and meeting his eye fixed on her with that foreboding glance, softly arose and came and sat down by his side. "You look tired," murmured she; "the long ride after a day of business care has been too much for you."

It was the first word of sympathy with his often over-wearied mind and body, that had greeted his ears for years. It made his eyes moisten.

"I have been a little overworked," said he, "for the last two months, but I shall soon be myself again. What were you thinking of, Paula?"

"What was I thinking of?" repeated she, drawing her chair nearer to his in her loving confidence. "I was thinking what wonders of beauty and art lay in that great kernel which you call the city. I shall see lovely faces and noble forms. I shall wander through halls of music, the echo of whose songs may have come to me in the sob of the river or the sigh of the pines, but whose notes in all their beauty and power have never been heard by me even in my dreams. I shall look on great men and touch the garments of thoughtful women. I shall see life in its fullness as I have felt nature in its mightiness, and my heart will be satisfied at last."

Mr. Sylvester drew a deep breath and his eyes burned strangely in the glow of the fire-light. "You expect high things," said he; "did you ever consider that the life in a great city, with its ceaseless rush and constant rivalries, must be often strangely petty in despite of its artistic and social advantages?"

"All life has its petty side," said she, with a sweet arch look. "The eagle that cleaves the thunder-cloud, must sometimes stop to plume its wings. I should be sorry to lose the small things out of existence. Even we in the face of that great sunset appealing to us from the west, have to pile up the firewood on the hearth and set the table for supper."

"But fashion, Paula," he pursued, concealing his wonder at the maturity of mind evinced by this simple child of nature, "that inexorable power that rules the very souls of women who once step within the magic circle of her realm! have you never thought of her and the demands that she makes on the time and attention even of the worshippers of the good and the true?"

"Yes, sometimes," she returned with a repetition of her arch little smile, "when I put on a certain bonnet I have, which Aunt Abby modeled over from one of my grandmother's. Fashion is a sort of obstinate step-dame I imagine, whom it is less trouble to obey than to oppose. I don't believe I shall quarrel with Fashion if she will only promise to keep her hands off my soul."

"But if—" with a pause, "she asks your all, what then?"

"I shall consider that I am in a country of democratic principles," she laughed, "and beg to be excused from acceding to the tyrannical demands of any autocrat male or female."

"You have been listening to Miss Belinda," said he; "she is also opposed to all and any tyrannical measures." Then with a grave look from which all levity had fled, he leaned toward the young girl and gently asked, "Do you know that you are a very beautiful girl, Paula?"

She flushed, looked at him in some surprise and slowly drooped her head. "I have been told I looked like my father," said she, "and I know that means something very kind."

"My child," said he, with gentle insistence, "God has given you a great and wonderful gift, a treasure-casket of whose worth you scarcely realize the value. I tell you this myself, first because I prize your beauty as something quite sacred and pure, and secondly because you are going where you will hear words of adulation, whose folly and bluntness will often offend your ears, unless you carry in your soul some talisman to counteract their effect."

"I understand," said she, "I know what you mean. I will remember that the most engaging beauty is nothing without a pure mind and a good heart."

"And you will remember too," continued he, "that I blessed your innocent head to-night, not because it is circled by the roses of a youthful and fresh loveliness, but because of the pure mind and good heart I see shining in your eyes." And with a fond but solemn aspect he reached out his hand and laid it on her ebon locks.

She bowed her head upon her breast. "I will never forget," said she, and the fire-light fell with a softening glow on the tears that trembled from her eyelashes.

XIII. THE END OF MY LADY'S PICTURE

"Heaven from all creatures tides the book of Fate."—POPE.

Mrs. Sylvester was spending an evening at home. This was something so unusual for this august lady of fashion to indulge in, that she found it difficult not to fall asleep in the huge crimson-backed chair in which she had chosen to ensconce herself. Not that she had desisted from making every effort known to mortal woman to keep herself awake and if possible amused till the expected travellers should arrive. She had played with her bird till the spoiled pet had himself protested, ducking his head under his wing and proceeding without ceremony to make up his little feather bed, as cunning Geraldine used to call the round, fluffy ball into which he rolled himself at night. More than that, she had looked over her ornaments and taken out such articles as she thought could be spared for Paula, to say nothing of playing a bar or so from the last operatic sensation, and laboriously cutting open the leaves of the new magazine. But it was all of no use, and the heavy white lids were slowly falling, when the bell rang and Mr. Bertram Mandeville was announced, or rather Bertram Sylvester as he now chose to be called.

It was a godsend to her as she politely informed him upon his entrance; and though in his secret heart he felt anything but God sent—he was not of a make to appreciate his uncle's wife at her very evident value—he consented to remain and assist her in disposing of the evening till Mr. Sylvester should return.

"He is going to bring a pretty girl with him," remarked she, in a tone of some interest, "a cousin of mine from Grotewell. I should like to have you see her."

"Thank you," replied he, his mind roaming off at the suggestion, into the region of a certain plain little music-room where the clock on the mantel ticked to the beating of his own heart. And for ten minutes Mrs. Sylvester had the pleasure of filling the room with a stream of easy talk, in which Grotewell, dark beauties, the coming Seventh Regiment reception, the last bit of gossip from London, and the exact situation of the Madison Bank formed the principal topics.

To the one last mentioned, it having taken the form of a question, he was forced to reply; but the simple locality having been learned, she rambled easily on, this time indulging him with a criticism upon the personal appearance of certain business gentlemen who visited the house, ending with the somewhat startling declaration:

"If Edward were not the fine appearing gentleman that he undoubtedly is, I should feel utterly out of place in these handsome parlors. Anything but to see an elegant and modern home, decorated with the costliest works of art, and filled with bijouterie of the most exquisite delicacy, presided over by a plain and common-place woman or a bald-headed and inferior-looking man. The contrast is too vivid; works of the highest art do not need such a startling comparison to bring out their beauty. Now if Edward stood in the throne-room of a palace, he would somehow make it seem to others as a handsome set off to his own face and figure."

This was all very wife-like if somewhat unnecessary, and Bertram could have listened to it with pleasure, if she had not cast the frequent and side-long glances at the mirror, which sufficiently betrayed the fact that she included herself in this complacent conclusion; as indeed she may have considered herself justified in doing, husband and wife being undoubtedly of one flesh. As it was, he maintained an immovable countenance, though he admired his uncle as much as she did, and the conversation gradually languished till the white somnolent lids of the lady again began to show certain premonitory signs of drooping, when suddenly they were both aroused by the well known click of a latch-key in the door, and in another moment Mr. Sylvester's voice was heard in the hall, saying, in tones whose cheery accents made his wife's eyes open in surprise—

"Welcome home, my dear."

"They have come," murmured Mrs. Sylvester rising with a look of undeniable expectation. Had Paula not been a beauty she would have remained seated.

"Yes, we have come," was heard in hearty tones from the door-way, and Mr. Sylvester with a proud look which Bertram long remembered, ushered into their presence a young girl whose simple cloak and bonnet in no wise prevented Mrs. Sylvester from recognizing the somewhat uncommon beauty she had been led to expect.

"Paula, this is your cousin Ona, and—Ah, Bertram, glad to see you—this is my only nephew, Mr. Sylvester."

The young girl, lost in the sudden glamour of numerous lights, shining upon splendors such as she may have dreamed of over the pages of Irving's Alhambra, but certainly had never before seen, blushed with very natural embarrassment, but yet managed to bestow a pretty enough greeting upon the elegant woman and handsome youth, while Ona after the first moment of almost involuntary hesitation, took in hers the two trembling hands of her youthful cousin and actually kissed her cheek.

"I am not given to caresses as you know," she afterwards explained in a somewhat apologetic tone to her husband; "and anything like an appeal for one on the part of a child or an inferior, I detest; but her simple way of holding out her hand disarmed me, and then such a face demands a certain amount of homage, does it not?" And her husband in his surprise, was forced to acknowledge to himself, that as closely as he had studied his wife's nature for ten years, there were certain crooks and turns in it which even he had never penetrated.

"You look dazzled," that lady exclaimed, gazing not unkindly into the young girl's face; "the sudden glare of so much gas-light has bewildered you."

"I do not think it is that," returned Paula with a frank and admiring look at the gorgeous room and the circle of pleasant faces about her. "Sudden lights I can bear, but I have come from a little cottage on the hillside and the magnificence of nature does not prepare you for the first sudden view of the splendors of art."

Mrs. Sylvester smiled and cast a side glance of amusement at Bertram. "You admire our new hangings I see," remarked she with an indulgence of the other's näiveté that greatly relieved her husband.

But in that instant a change had come across Paula; the simple country maid had assimilated herself with the surroundings, and with a sudden grace and dignity that were unstudied as they were charming, dropped her eyes from her cousin's portrait—that for some reason seemed to shine with more than its usual insistence—and calmly replied, "I admire all beautiful color; it is my birthright as a Walton, to do so, I suppose."

Mrs. Sylvester was a Walton also and therefore smiled; but her husband, who had marked with inward distrust, the sudden transformation in Paula, now stepped forward with a word or two of remark concerning his appetite, a prosaic allusion that led to the rapid disappearance of the ladies upstairs and a short but hurried conversation between the two gentlemen.

"I have brought you a sealed envelope from the office," said Bertram, who, in accordance with his uncle's advice, had already initiated himself into business by assuming the position of clerk in the office of the wealthy speculator.

"Ah," returned his uncle hastily opening it. "As I expected, a meeting has been held this day by the board of Directors of the Madison Bank, a vote was cast, my proxy did his duty and I am duly elected President. Bertram, we know what that means," smiled he, holding out his hand with an affectionate warmth greatly in advance of the emotion displayed by him on a former occasion.

"I hope so indeed," young Bertram responded. "An increase of fortune and honor for you, though you seem to have both in the fullest measure already, and a start in the new life for me to whom fortune and honor mean happiness."

A smile younger and more full of hope than any he had seen on his uncle's face for years, responded to this burst. "Bertram," said he, "since our conversation of a couple of weeks ago something has occurred which somewhat alters the opinions I then expressed. If you have patience equal to your energy, and a self-control that will not put to shame your unbounded trust in women, I think I can say God-speed to your serious undertaking, with something like a good heart. Women are not all frivolous and foolish-minded; there are some jewels of simple goodness and faith yet left in the world."

"Thank God for your conversion," returned his nephew smiling, "and if this lovely girl whom you have just introduced to me, is the cause of it, then thank God for her also."

His uncle bowed with a gravity almost solemn, but the ladies returning at this moment, he refrained from further reply. After supper, to which unusual meal Mr. Sylvester insisted upon his nephew remaining, the two gentlemen again drew apart.

"If you have decided upon buying the shares I have mentioned," said the former, "you had better get your money in a position to handle at once. I shall wish to present you to Mr. Stuyvesant to-morrow, and I should like to be able to mention you as a future stockholder in the bank."

"Mr. Stuyvesant!" exclaimed Bertram, ignoring the rest of the sentence.

"Yes," returned his uncle with a smile, "Thaddeus Stuyvesant is the next largest stockholder to myself in the Madison Bank, and his patronage is not an undesirable one."

"Indeed—I was not aware—excuse me, I should be happy," stammered the young man. "As for the money, it is all in Governments and is at your command whenever you please."

"That is good, I'll notify you when I'm ready for the transfer. And now come," said he, with a change from his deep business tone to the lighter one of ordinary social converse, "forget for a half hour that you have discarded the name of Mandeville, and give us an aria or a sonata from Mendelssohn before those hands have quite lost their cunning."

"But the ladies," inquired the youth glancing towards the drawing-room where Mrs. Sylvester was giving Paula her first lesson in ceramics.

"Ah, it is to see how the charm will act upon my shy country lassie, that I request such a favor."

"Has she never heard Mendelssohn?"

"Not with your interpretation."

Without further hesitation the young musician proceeded to the piano, which occupied a position opposite to my lady's picture in this anomalous room denominated by courtesy the library. In another instant, a chord delicate and ringing, disturbed the silence of the long vista, and one of Mendelssohn's most exquisite songs trembled in all its delicious harmony through these apartments of sensuous luxury.

Mr. Sylvester had seated himself where he could see the distant figure of Paula, and leaning back in his chair, watched for the first startled response on her part. He was not disappointed. At the first note, he beheld her spirited head turn in a certain wondering surprise, followed presently by her whole quivering form, till he could perceive her face, upon which were the dawnings of a great delight, flush and pale by turns, until the climax of the melody being reached, she came slowly down the room, stretching out her hands like a child, and breathing heavily as if her ecstacy of joy in its impotence to adequately express itself, had caught an expression from pain.

"O Mr. Sylvester!" was all she said as she reached that gentleman's side; but Bertram Mandeville recognized the accents of an unfathomable appreciation in that simple exclamation, and struck into a grand old battle-song that had always made his own heart beat with something of the fire of ancient chivalry under its breastplate of modern broadcloth.

"It is the voice of the thunder clouds when they marshal for battle!" exclaimed she at the conclusion. "I can hear the cry of a righteous struggle all through the sublime harmony."

"You are right; it is a war-song ancient as the time of battle-axes and spears," quoth Bertram from his seat at the piano.

"I thought I detected the flashing of steel," returned she. "O what a world lies in those simple bits of ivory!"

"Say rather in the fingers that sweep them," uttered Mr. Sylvester. "You will not hear such music often."

"I am glad of that," she cried simply, then in a quick conscious tone explained, "I mean that the hearing of such music makes an era in our life, a starting-point for thoughts that reach away into eternity; we could not bear such experiences often, it would confuse the spirit if not deaden its enjoyment. Or so it seems to me," she added naively, glancing at her cousin who now came sweeping in from the further room, where she had been trying the effect of a change in the arrangement of two little pet monstrosities of Japanese ware.

"What seems to you?" that lady inquired. "O, Mr. Mandeville's playing? I beg pardon, Sylvester is the name by which you now wish to be addressed I suppose. Fine, isn't it?" she rambled on all in the same tone while she cautiously hid an unfortunate gape of her rosy mouth behind the folds of her airy handkerchief. "Mr. Turner says the hiatus you have made in the musical world by leaving the concert room for the desk, can never be repaired," she went on, supposedly to her nephew though she did not look his way, being at that instant engaged in sinking into her favorite chair.

"I am glad," Bertram politely returned with a frank smile, "to have enjoyed the approval of so cultivated a critic as Mr. Turner. I own it occasions me a pang now and then," he remarked to his uncle over his shoulder, "to think I shall never again call up those looks of self-forgetful delight, which I have sometimes detected on the faces of certain ones in my audience."

And he relapsed without pause into a solemn anthem, the very reverse of the stirring tones which he had previously accorded them.

"Now we are in a temple!" whispered Paula, subduing the sudden interest and curiosity which this young man's last words had awakened. And the awe which crept over her countenance was the fittest interpretation to those noble sounds, which the one weary-hearted man in that room could have found.

"I have something to tell you, Ona," remarked Mr. Sylvester shortly after this, as the music being over, they all sat down for a final chat about the fireside. "I have received notice that the directors of the Madison Bank have this day elected me their president. I thought you might like to know it to-night."

"It is a very gratifying piece of news certainly. President of the Madison Bank sounds very well, does it not, Paula?"

The young girl with her soul yet ringing with the grand and solemn harmonies of Mendelssohn and Chopin, turned at this with her brightest smile. "It certainly does and a little awe-inspiring too;" she added with her arch glance.

"Your congratulations are also requested for our new assistant cashier. Arise, Bertram, and greet the ladies."

With a blush his young nephew arose to his feet.

"What! are you going into the banking business?" queried Mrs. Sylvester. "Mr. Turner will be more shocked than ever: he chooses to say that bankers, merchants and such are the solid rock of his church, while the lighter fry such as artists, musicians, and let us hope he includes us ladies, are its minarets, and steeples. Now to make a foundation out of a steeple will quite overturn his methodical mind I fear."

Mr. Sylvester looked genially at his wife; she was not accustomed to attempt the facetious; but Paula seemed to have the power of bringing out unexpected lights and shadows from all with whom she came in contact.

"A clergyman who rears his church on the basis of wealth must expect some overturning now and then," laughed he.

"If by means of it he turns a fresh side to the sun, it will do him no harm," chimed in Paula.

Seldom had there been so much simple gaiety round that fireside; the very atmosphere grew lighter, and the brilliance of my lady's picture became less oppressive.

"We ought to have a happy winter of it," spoke up Mr. Sylvester with a glance around him. "Life never looked more cheerful for us all, I think; what do you say, Bertram my boy."

"It certainly looks promising for me."

"And for me," murmured Paula.

The complacent way with which Mrs. Sylvester smoothed out the feathers of her fan with her jewelled right hand,—she always carried a fan winter and summer, some said for the purpose of displaying those same jewelled fingers—was sufficient answer for her.

At that moment there was a hush, when suddenly the small clock on the mantel-piece struck eleven, and instantly as if awaiting the signal, there came a rush and a heavy crash which drew every one to their feet, and the brilliant portrait of my lady fell from the wall, and toppling over the cabinet beneath, slid with the various articles of bronze and china thereon, almost to the very chair in which its handsome prototype had been sitting.

It was a startling interruption and for an instant no one spoke, then Paula with a look towards her cousin breathed to herself rather than said, "Pray God it be not an omen!" And the pale countenances of the two gentlemen standing face to face on either side of that fallen picture, showed that the shadow of the same superstition had insensibly crossed their own minds.

Mrs. Sylvester was the only one who remained unmoved. "Lift if up," cried she, "and let us see if it has sustained any injury."

Instantly Bertram and her husband sprang forward, and in a moment its glowing surface was turned upward. Who could read the meaning of the look that crossed her husband's face as he perceived that the sharp spear of the bronze horseman, which had been overturned in the fall, had penetrated the rosy countenance of the portrait and destroyed that importunate smile forever.

"I suppose it is a judgment upon me for putting all the money you had allowed me for charitable purposes, into that exquisite bit of bronze," observed Mrs. Sylvester, stooping above the overturned horseman with an expression of regret she had not chosen to bestow on her own ruined picture. "Ah he is less of a champion than I imagined; he has lost his spear in the struggle."

Paula glanced at her cousin in surprise. Was this pleasantry only a veil assumed by this courtly lady to hide her very natural regret over the more serious accident? Even her husband turned toward her with a certain puzzled inquiry in his troubled countenance. But her expression of unconcern was too natural; evidently the destruction of the picture had awakened but small regret in her volatile mind.

"She is less vain than I thought," was the inward comment of Paula.

Ah simple child of the woods and streams, it is the extent of her vanity not the lack of it, that has produced this effect. She has begun to realize that ten years have elapsed since this picture was painted, and that people are beginning to say as they examine it, "Mrs. Sylvester has not yet lost her complexion, I see."

A break necessarily followed this disturbance, and before long Bertram took his leave, not without a cordial pressure from his uncle's hand and a look of kindly interest from the stranger lassie, upon whose sympathetic and imaginative mind the hints let fall as to his former profession, had produced a deep impression. With his departure Mrs. Sylvester's weariness returned, and ere long she led the way to her apartments up stairs. As Paula was hastening to follow Mr. Sylvester stopped her.

"You will not allow this unfortunate occurrence," he said, with a slight gesture towards the picture now standing with its face against the wall, "to mar your first sleep under my roof, will you Paula, my child?"

"No, not if you say that you think Cousin Ona will not be likely to connect it with my appearance here."

"I do not think she will; she is not superstitious and besides does not seem to greatly regret the misfortune."

"Then I will forget it all and only remember the music."

"It was all you anticipated?"

"It was more."

"Sometime I will tell you about the player and the sweet young girl he loves."

"Does he—" she paused, blushing; love was a subject upon which she had never yet spoken to any one.

"Yes he does," Mr. Sylvester returned smiling.

"I thought there was a meaning in the music I did not quite understand. Good night, uncle,"—he had requested her to address him thus though he was in truth her cousin, "and many, many thanks."

But he stopped her again. "You think you will be happy in these rooms," said he; "you love splendor."

She was not yet sufficiently acquainted with his voice to detect the regret underlying its kindly tone, and answered without suspicion. "I did not know it before, but I fear that I do. It dazzled at first, but now it seems as if I had reached a home towards which I had always been journeying. I shall dream away hours of joy before each little ornament that adorns your parlors. The very tiles that surround the fireplace will demand a week of attention at least."

She ended with a smile, but unlike formerly he did not seem to catch the infection. "I had rather you had cared less," said he, but instantly regretted the seeming reproach, for her eyes filled with tears and the tones of her voice trembled as she replied,

"Do you think the beauty I have seen has made me forget the kindness that has brought me here? I love fine and noble objects, glory of color and harmony of shape, but more than all these do I love a generous soul without a blot on its purity, or a flaw in its integrity."

She had meant to utter something that would show her appreciation of his goodness and the universal esteem in which he was held, but was quite unprepared for the start that he gave and the unmistakable deepening of the shadow on his sombre face. But before she could express her regret at the offence, whatever it was, he had recovered himself, and it was with a fatherly tenderness that he laid his hand upon hers while he said, "Such a soul may yours ever continue, my child," and then stood watching her as she glided up the stairs, her charming face showing every now and then as she leaned on her winding way to the top, to bestow upon him the tender little smile she had already learned was his solace and delight.

It was the beginning of happier days for him.

BOOK II. LIFE AND DEATH

XIV. MISS BELINDA HAS A QUESTION TO DECIDE

"I pray you in your letters,

Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,

Nor set down aught in malice."—OTHELLO.

Miss Belinda sitting before her bedroom fire on a certain windy night in January, presented a picture of the most profound thought. A year had elapsed since, with heavy heart and moistened eye, she had bidden good-bye to the child of her care, and beheld her drift away with her new friend into a strange and untried life. And now a letter had come from that friend, in which with the truest appreciation for the feelings of herself and sister, he requested their final permission to adopt Paula as his own child and the future occupant of his house and heart.

Yes, after a year of increased comfort, Mrs. Sylvester, who would never have consented to receive as her own any child demanding care or attention, had decided it was quite a different matter to give place and position to a lovely girl already grown, whose beauty was sufficiently pronounced to do credit to the family while at the same time it was of a character to heighten by contrast her own very manifest attractions. So the letter, destined to create such a disturbance in the stern and powerful mind of Miss Belinda, had been written and dispatched.

And indeed it was matter for the gravest reflection. To accede to this important request was to yield up all control over the dear young girl whose affection had constituted the brightness of this somewhat disappointed life, while to refuse an offer made with such evident love and anxiety, was to bring a pang of regret to a heart she hesitated to wound. The question of advantage which might have swayed others in their decision, did not in the least affect Miss Belinda. Now that Paula had seen the world and gained an insight into certain studies beyond the reach of her own attainments, any wishes in which she might have indulged on that score were satisfied, and mere wealth with its concomitant of luxuriant living, she regarded with distrust, and rather in the light of a stumbling-block to the great and grand end of all existence.

Suddenly with that energy which characterized all her movements, she rose from her seat, and first casting a look of somewhat cautious inquiry at the recumbent figure of her sister, asleep in the heavy old fashioned bed that occupied one corner of the room, she proceeded to a bureau drawer and took out a small box which she unlocked on the table. It was full of letters; those same honest epistles, which, as empowered by Mr. Sylvester, she had requested Paula to send her from week to week. Some of them were a year old, but she read them all carefully through, while the clock ticked on the shelf and the wind soughed in the chimney. Certain passages she marked, and when she had finished the pile, she took up the letters again and re-read those passages. They were necessarily desultory in their character, but they all had, in her mind at least, a bearing upon the question on hand, and as such, I give them to my readers.

"O aunty, I have made a friend, a sweet girl friend who I have reason to hope will henceforth be to me as my other eye and hand. Her name is Stuyvesant—a name by the way that always calls up a certain complacent smile on Cousin Ona's countenance—and she is the daughter of one of the directors of Mr. Sylvester's bank. I met her in a rather curious way. For some reason Ona had expressed a wish for me to ride horseback. She is rather too large for the exercise herself, but thought it looked well, she said, to see a lady and groom ride from the front of the house; moreover it would keep me in color by establishing my health. So Mr. Sylvester who denies her nothing, promised us horses and the groom, and as a preparation for acquitting myself with credit, has sent me to one of the finest riding academies in the city. It was here I met Miss Stuyvesant. She is a small interesting-looking girl whose chief beauty lies in her expression which is certainly very charming. I was conscious of a calm and satisfied feeling the moment I saw her. Her eyes which are raised with a certain appeal to your face, are blue, while her lips that break into smiles only at rare moments, are rosy and delicately curved. In her riding-habit she looks like a child, but when dressed for the street she surprises you with the reserved and womanly air with which she carries her proud head. Altogether she is a sweet study to me, alluring me with her glance yet awing me by her dainty ladyhood, a ladyhood too unconscious to be affected and yet so completely a part of her whole delicate being, that you could as soon dissociate the bloom from the rose, as the air of highborn reserve, from this sweet scion of one of New York's oldest families.

"I was mounting my horse when our eyes first met, and I never shall forget her look of delighted surprise. Did she recognize in me the friend I now hope to become? Later we were introduced by Mr. Sylvester who had been so kind as to accompany me that day. The way in which he said to her, 'This is Paula,' proved that I was no new topic of conversation between them, and indeed she afterwards explained to me that she had been forewarned of my arrival during an afternoon call at his house. There was in this first interview none of the unnecessary gush which you have so often reprobated as childish; indeed Miss Stuyvesant is not a person with whom one would presume to be familiar, nor was it till we had met several times that any acknowledgement was made of the mutual interest with which we found ourselves inspired. Cousin Ona to whom I had naturally spoken of the little lady, wished me to cultivate her acquaintance more assiduously, but I knew that if I had excited in her the same interest she had awakened in me, this would not be necessary; our friendship would grow of itself and blossom without any hot-house forcing. And so it did. One day she came to the riding-school with her eyes like stars and her cheeks like the oleanders in your sitting-room. Her brightness was so contagious, I stepped up to her. But she greeted me with almost formal reserve, and mounting her horse, proceeded to engage in her usual exercise. I was not hurt; I recognized the presence of some thought or feeling which made a barrier around her sensitive nature, and duly respected it. Mounting my own horse, I rode around the ring which is the somewhat limited field of my present equestrian efforts, and waited. For I knew from the looks which she cast me every now and then, that the flower of our friendship was outgrowing its sheath and would soon burst into the bud of perfect understanding. At the end of the lesson we approached each other. I do not know how it was done, but we walked home together, or rather I accompanied her to the stoop of her house, and before we parted we had exchanged those words which give emphasis to a sentiment long cherished but now for the first time avowed. Miss Stuyvesant and I are friends, and I feel as though a new stream of enjoyment had opened in my breast.

"The fact that I still call her by this formal title instead of her very pretty name of Cicely, proves the nature of the respect she inspires even in the breasts of her girlish associates."

"Why is it that I frequently hesitate as I go up the stairs and look about me with a vague feeling of apprehension? The bronze figure of Luxury that adorns the landing, wears no semblance of terror to the wildest imagination, and yet I often find myself seized by an inexplicable shudder as I hurry past it; and once I actually looked behind me with the same sensation as if some one had plucked me by the sleeve.

"It is a folly; for recording which, I make my excuses."

"Cousin Ona has decided that I must never wear colors. 'Soft grays, my dear, dead blacks and opaque whites are all that you need to bring out the fine contrast of your hair and complexion; the least hint of blue or pink would destroy it.' So she says and so I must believe, for who else has made such a study of the all important subject of dress. Behold me, then, arrayed for my first reception in a colorless robe of rich silk to which Ona after long consideration allowed me to add some ornaments of plain gold with which Mr. Sylvester has kindly presented me. But I think more of the people I am going to meet than of anything else, though I enjoy the home-feeling which a pretty dress gives me, as well as a violet does its bright blue coat."

"I have heard a great preacher! What shall I say? At first it seems as if nothing could express my joy and satisfaction. The sapling that is shaken to its root by the winds of heaven, keeps silence I imagine. But O Aunty, if my smallness makes me quake, it also makes me feel. What gates of thought have been opened to me! What shining tracks of inquiry pointed out! I feel as if I had been shown a path where angels walked. Can it be that such words have been uttered every week of my life and I in ignorance of them? It is like the revelation of the ocean to unaccustomed eyes. Henceforth small things must seem like pebble stones above which stretch innumerable heavenly vistas. It is not so much that new things have been revealed to me as that old things have been made strangely eloquent. The voice of a daisy on the hill side, the breath of thunder in the mountain gorges, the blossoming of a child's smile under its mother's eye, the fact that golden portals are opened in every life for the coming and going of the messengers of God, all have been made real to me, real as the voice of the Saviour to his disciples as they walked in the fields or started back awe-stricken from the stupendous vision of the cross. It is a solemn thing to see one's humble thoughts caught by the imagination of a great mind and carried on and up into regions you never realized existed.

"I was so burdened with joy that I could not forbear asking Mr. Sylvester if he did not feel as if the whole face of the world had changed since we entered those holy doors. He did not respond with the glad 'Yes' for which I hoped, and though his smile was very kind, I could not help wondering what it was that sometimes fell between us like a veil."

"O Aunty, how my heart does yearn towards Mr. Sylvester at times! As I see him sitting with clouded brow in the midst of so much that ought to charm and enliven him, I ask myself if the advantages of wealth compensate for all this care and anxiety. But I notice he is much more cheerful now than when I first came. Ona says he is in danger of losing the air of melancholy reserve which made him look so distinguished, but I think we can spare a little of such doubtful distinguishment for the sake of the smiles with which he now and then indulges us."

"I feel as if a hand had gripped my throat. Cousin Ona spoke to Mr. Sylvester this morning in a way that made my very heart stand still. And yet it was only a simple, 'Follow your own judgment, Mr. Sylvester.' But how she said it! Do these languid women carry venom in their tongues? I had always thought she was of too easy a disposition to feel anger or display it; but the spring of a serpent is all the deadlier for his long silent basking in the sun. O pardon me for making such a frightful allusion. But if you had seen her and heard Mr. Sylvester's sigh as he turned and left the room!"

"Mr. Bertram Sylvester has awakened my deepest interest. His uncle has told me his story, which alone of all the things I have heard in this house, I do not feel at liberty to repeat, and it has aroused in me strange thoughts and very peculiar emotions. He is devoted to some one we do not know, and the idea surrounds him in my eyes with a sort of halo that you would perhaps call fanciful, but which I am nevertheless bound to reverence. He does not know that I am acquainted with his story. I wish he did and would let me speak the words that rise to my lips whenever I see him or hear him play."

"There are moments when I long to flee back to Grotewell. It is when Cousin Ona comes in from shopping with a dozen packages to be opened and commented upon, or when Mrs. Fitzgerald has been here or some other of her ultra-fashionable acquaintances. The atmosphere of the house for hours after either of the above occurrences is too heavy for breathing. I have to go away and clear my brain by a brisk walk or a look into Knœdler's or Schaus'."

"The panel where Cousin Ona's picture used to hang, has been filled by one of Meissonier's most interesting studies; and though I never thought Mr. Sylvester particularly fond of the French style of art, he seems very well satisfied with the result. I cannot understand how Cousin Ona can regard the misfortune to her portrait so calmly. I think it would break my heart to see a husband look with complacency on any picture, no matter how exquisite, that took the place of my own, especially if like her's, it was painted in my bridal days. I sometimes wonder if those days are as sacred to the memory of husband and wife as I have always imagined them to be."

"Why does Cousin Ona never speak of Grotewell, and why, if by chance I mention the name, does she drop her eyes and a shadow cross the countenance of Mr. Sylvester?"

"There is a word Mr. Sylvester uses in the most curious way; it is fuss. He calls everything a fuss that while insignificant in size or character has power either to irritate or please. A fly is a fuss; so is a dimple in a girl's cheek or a figure that goes wrong in accounts. I have even heard him call a child, 'That dear little fuss.' Bertram unconsciously imitates his uncle in this peculiar mannerism and is often heard alluding to this or that as a fuss of fusses. Indeed they say this use of the word is a peculiarity of the Sylvester family."

"I think from the way Mr. Sylvester spoke yesterday, that he must have experienced some dreadful trouble in his life. We were walking in the wards of a hospital—that is, Miss Stuyvesant, Mr. Sylvester and myself—when some one near us gave utterance to the trite expression, 'O it will heal, but the scar will always remain.' 'That is a common saying,' remarked Mr. Sylvester, 'but how true a one no one realizes but he who carries the scar.'"

"It may be imagination or simply the effect of increased appreciation on my part, but it does seem as if Miss Stuyvesant grew lovelier and more companionable each time that I meet her. She makes me think of a temple in which a holy lamp is burning. Her very silences are eloquent, and yet she is never distraite but always cheerful and frequently the brightest of the company. But it is a brightness without glitter, a gentle lustre that delights you but never astonishes. I meet many sweet girls in the so-called heartless circles of society, but none like her. She is my white lily on which a moonbeam rests."

"This house contains a mystery, as Ona is pleased to designate the room at the top of the house to which Mr. Sylvester withdraws when he desires to be alone. And indeed it is a sort of Bluebeard's chamber, in that he keeps it rigidly under lock and key, allowing no one to enter it, not even his wife. The servants declare that no one but himself has ever crossed its threshold, but I can scarcely believe that. Ona has not, but there must surely be some trusty person to whom he allots the care of its furniture. Am I only proving myself to be a true member of my sex when I allow that I cannot hinder my own curiosity from hovering about a spot so religiously guarded? Yet what should we see if its doors were thrown open? A study surrounded with books it displeases him to see misplaced, or a luxurious apartment fitted with every appointment necessary to rest and comfort him when he comes home tired from business."

"I never saw Mr. Sylvester angry till to-day. By some inadvertence he went down town without locking the door of his private room, and though he returned immediately upon missing the key from his pocket, he was barely in time to prevent Cousin Ona from invading the spot he has always kept so sacred from intrusion. I was not present and of course did not hear what was said, but I caught a glimpse of his face as he left the house, and found it quite sufficient to assure me of his dissatisfaction. As for Ona, she declares he pulled her back as if she had been daring the plague. 'I do not expect to find five beautiful wives hanging up there by their necks,' concluded she with a forced laugh, 'but I shall yet see the interior of that room, if only to establish my prerogative as the mistress of this house.'

"I do not now feel as if I wished to see it."

"There is one thing that strikes me as peculiar in Miss Stuyvesant, and that is, that as much pleasure as she seems to take in my society when we meet, she never comes to see me in Mr. Sylvester's house. For a long time I wondered over this but said nothing, but one day upon receiving a second invitation to visit her, I mentioned the fact as delicately as I could, and was quite distressed to observe how seriously she took the rebuke, if rebuke it could be called. 'I cannot explain myself,' she murmured in some embarrassment; 'but Mr. Sylvester's house is closed against me. You must not ask me to seek you there or expect me to do myself the pleasure of attending Mrs. Sylvester's receptions. I cannot. Is that enough for me to say to my dearest friend?' I hardly knew what to reply, but finally ventured to inquire if she was restrained by any fact that would make it undignified in me to seek her society and enjoy the pleasures she is continually offering me. And she answered with such a cheerful negative I was quite reassured. And so the matter is settled. Our friendship is to be emancipated from the bonds of etiquette and I am to enjoy her company whenever I can. To-morrow we are going to take our first ride in the park. The horses have been bought, and much to Cousin Ona's satisfaction, the groom has been hired."

"I was told something the other day, of a nature so unpleasant that I should not think of repeating it, if you had not expressly commanded me to confide to you everything that for any reason produced an effect upon me in my new home. My informant was Sarah, the somewhat gossiping woman whom Ona has about her as seamstress and maid. She said—and she had spoken before I could prevent her—that the way Mrs. Sylvester took on about her mourning at the time of little Geraldine's death was enough to wear out the patience of Job. She even went so far as to tell the dressmaker that if she could not have her dress made to suit her she would not put on mourning at all! Aunty, can you wonder that Mr. Sylvester looks so bitterly sombre whenever mention is made of his child? He loved it, and its own mother could worry over the fit of a dress while his bereaved heart was breaking! I confess I can never feel the same indulgence towards what I considered the idiosyncrasies of a fashionable beauty again. Her smooth white skin makes me tremble; it has never flushed with delight over the innocent smiles of her firstborn."

"Mr. Sylvester is very polite to Cousin Ona and seems to yield to her wishes in everything. But if I were she I think my heart would break over that very politeness. But then she is one who demands formality even from the persons of her household. I have never seen him stoop for a kiss or beheld her even so much as lay her hand on his shoulder. But I have observed him wait on her at moments when he was pale from weariness and she flushed with long twilight reclinings before her sleepy boudoir fire."

"There are times when I would not exchange my present opportunities for any others which might be afforded me. General —— dined here to-day, and what a vision of a great struggle was raised up before me by his few simple words in regard to Gettysburg. I did not know which to admire most, the military bearing and vivid conversation of the great soldier, or the ease and dignity with which Mr. Sylvester met his remarks and answered each glowing sentence. General —— spoke a few words to me. How gentle these lion-like men can be when they stoop their tall heads to address little children or young women!"

"What a noble-hearted man Mr. Sylvester is! Mr. Turner in speaking of him the other night, declared there is no one in his congregation who in a quiet way does so much for the poor. 'He is especially interested in young men,' said he, 'and will leave his own affairs at any time to aid or advise them.' I knew Mr. Sylvester was kind, but Mr. Turner's enthusiasm was uncommon. He evidently admires Mr. Sylvester as much as every one else loves him. And he is not alone in this. Almost every day I hear some remark made of a nature complimentary to my benefactor's character or ability. Even Mr. Stuyvesant who so seldom appears to notice us girls, once interrupted a conversation between Cicely and myself to inquire if Mr. Sylvester was quite well. 'I thought he looked pale to-day,' remarked he, in his dry but not unkindly way, and then added, 'He must not get sick; he is too valuable to us.' This was a great deal for Mr. Stuyvesant to say, and it caused a visible gratification to Mr. Sylvester when I related it to him in the evening. 'I had rather satisfy that man than any other I know,' declared he. 'He is of the stern old-fashioned sort, and it is an honor to any one to merit his approval. I did not tell him that I had also heard Mr. Stuyvesant observe in a conversation with some business friend of his, that Edward Sylvester was the only speculator he knew in whom he felt implicit confidence. Somehow it always gives me an uncomfortable feeling to hear Mr. Sylvester alluded to as a speculator. Besides since he has entered the Bank, he has I am told, entirely restricted himself to what are called legitimate operations."

"Mr. Sylvester came home with a dreadful look on his face to-day. We were standing in the hall at the time the door opened, and he went by us without a nod, almost as if he did not see us. Even Ona was startled and stood gazing after him with an anxiety such as I had never observed in her before, while I was conscious of that sick feeling I have sometimes experienced when he came upon me suddenly from his small room above, or paused in the midst of the gayest talk, to ask me some question that was wholly irrelevant and most frequently sad.

"'He has met with some heavy loss,' murmured his wife, glancing down the handsome parlors with a look such as a mother might bestow upon the face of a sick child. But I was sure she had not sounded his trouble, and in my impetuosity was about to fly to his side when we saw him pause before the image of Luxury that stands on the stair, look at it for a moment with a strange intentness, then suddenly and with a gesture of irrepressible passion, lift his arm as if he would fell it from its place. The action was so startling, Ona clutched my sleeve in terror, but he passed on and in another moment we heard him shut the door of his room.

"Would he be down to dinner? that was the next question. Ona thought not; I did not dare to think. Nevertheless it was a great relief to me when I saw him enter the dining-room with that set immovable look he sometimes wears when Ona begins one of her long and rambling streams of fashionable gossip. 'It is nothing,' flashed from his wife's eyes to mine, and she lapsed at once into her most graceful self, but she nevertheless hastened her meal and I was quite prepared to observe her follow him, as with the polite excuse of weariness, he left the table before desert. I could not hear what she asked him, but his answer came distinctly to my ears from the midst of the library to which they had withdrawn. 'It is nothing in which you have an interest, Ona. Thank heaven you do not always know the price with which the splendors you so love are bought.' And she did not cry out, 'O never pay such a price for any joy of mine! Sooner than cost you so dear I would live on crusts and dwell in a garret.' No, she kept silence, and when in a few minutes later I joined her in the library, it was to find on her usually placid lips, a thin cool smile that struck like ice to my heart, and made it impossible for me to speak.

"But the hardest trial of the day was to hear Mr. Sylvester come in at eleven o'clock—he went out again immediately after dinner—and go up stairs without giving me my usual good-night. It was such a grief to me I could not keep still, but hurried to the foot of the stairs in the hopes he would yet remember me and come back. But instead of that, he no sooner saw me than he threw out his hand almost as if he would push me back, and hastened on up the whole winding flight till he reached the refuge of that mysterious room of his at the top of the house.

"I could not go back to Ona after that—she had been to make a call somewhere with a young gentleman friend of hers;—yes on this very night had been to make a call—but I took advantage of the late hour to retire to my own room where for a long time I lay awake listening for his descending step and seeing, as in a vision, the startling picture of his lifted arm raised against the unconscious piece of bronze on the stair. Henceforth that statue will possess for me a still more dreadful significance."

"It is the twenty-fifth of February. Why should I feel as if I must be sure of the exact date before I slept?"

The next extract followed close on this and was the last which Miss Belinda read.

"Mr. Sylvester seems to have recovered from his late anxiety. He does not shrink from me any more with that half bitter, half sad expression that has so long troubled and bewildered me, but draws me to his side and sits listening to my talk until I feel as if I were really of some comfort to this great and able man. Ona does not notice the change; she is all absorbed in preparing for the visit to Washington, which Mr. Sylvester has promised her."

Miss Belinda calmly folded up the letters and locked them again in the little mahogany box, after which she covered up the embers and quietly went to bed. But next morning a letter was despatched to Mr. Sylvester which ran thus:

"DEAR MR. SYLVESTER:

"For the present at least you may keep Paula with you. But I am not ready to say that I think it would be for her best good to be received and acknowledged as your daughter—yet. Hoping you will appreciate the motives that actuate this decision,

"I remain, respectfully yours,

"BELINDA ANN WALTON."

XV. AN ADVENTURE-OR SOMETHING MORE

"Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,

But to be young was very heaven."—WORDSWORTH.

Oph.—What means this, my lord?

Ham.—Marry, this is the miching mallecho; it means mischief."—HAMLET.

A ride in the Central Park is an every-day matter to most people. It signifies an indolent bowling over a smooth road all alive with the glitter of passing equipages, waving ribbons and fluttering plumes, and brightened now and then by the sight of a well known face amid the general rush of old and young, plain and handsome, sad and gay countenances that flash by you in one long and brilliant procession.

But to Paula and her friend Miss Stuyvesant starting out in the early freshness of a fair April morning, it meant new life, reawakening joy, the sparkle of young leaves just loosed from the bonds of winter, the sweetness and promise of spring airs, and all the budding glory of a new year with its summer of countless roses and its autumn of incalculable glories. Not the twitter of a bird was lost to them, not the smile of an opening flower, not the welcome of a waving branch. Youth, joy, and innocence lived in their hearts and showed them nothing in the mirror of nature that was not equally young, joyous and innocent. Then they were alone, or sufficiently so. The stray wanderers whom they met sitting under the flowering trees, were equally with themselves lovers of nature or they would not be seated in converse with it at this early hour; while the laugh of little children startled from their play by the prance of their high-stepping horses, was only another expression of the sweet but unexpressed delight that breathed in all the radiant atmosphere.

"We are two birds who have escaped thralldom and are taking our first flight into our natural ether," cried Miss Stuyvesant gaily.

"We are two pioneers lit by the spirit of adventure, who have left the cosy hearth of wintry-fires to explore the domains of the frost king, and lo, we have come upon a Paradise of bloom and color!" responded the ringing voice of Paula.

"I feel as if I could mount that little white cloud we see over there," continued Cicely with a quick lively wave of her whip. "I wonder how Dandy would enjoy an empyrean journey?"

"From the haughty bend of his neck I should say he was quite satisfied with his present condition. But perhaps his chief pride is due to the mistress he carries."

"Are you attempting to vie with Mr. Williams, Paula?"

Mr. Williams was the meek-eyed, fair complexioned gentleman, whose predilection for compliment was just then a subject of talk in fashionable circles.

"Only so far as my admiration goes of the most charming lady I see this morning. But who is this?"

Miss Stuyvesant looked up. "Ah, that is some one with whom there is very little danger of your falling in love."

Paula blushed. The gentleman approaching them upon horseback was conspicuous for long side whiskers of a decidedly auburn tinge.

"His name is—" But she had not time to finish, for the gentleman with a glance of astonished delight at Paula, bowed to the speaker with a liveliness and grace that demanded some recognition.

Instantly he drew rein. "Do I behold Miss Stuyvesant among the nymphs!" cried he, in those ringing pleasant tones that at once predispose you towards their possessor.

"If you allude to my friend Miss Fairchild, you certainly do, Mr. Ensign," the wicked little lady rejoined with a waiving of her usual ceremony that astonished Paula.

Mr. Ensign bestowed upon them his most courtly bow, but the flush that mounted to his brow—making his face one red, as certain of his friends were malicious enough to observe on similar occasions—indicated that he had been taken a little more at his word than perhaps suited even one of his easy and proverbially careless temperament. "Miss Fairchild will understand that I am not a Harvey Williams—at least before an introduction," said he with something like seriousness.

But at this allusion to the gentleman whose name had been upon their lips but a moment before, both ladies laughed outright.

"I have just been accused of attempting the rôle of that gentleman myself," exclaimed Paula. "If the fresh morning air will persist in painting such roses on ladies' cheeks," continued she, with a loving look at her pretty companion "what can one be expected to do?"

"Admire," quoth the red bannered cavalier with a glance, however, at the beautiful speaker instead of the demure little Cicely at her side.

Miss Stuyvesant perceived this look and a curious smile disturbed the corners of her rosy lips. "What a fortunate man to be able to do the right thing at the right time," laughed she, gaily touching up her horse that was beginning to show symptoms of restlessness.

"If Miss Stuyvesant will put that in the future tense and then assure us she has been among the prophets, I should be singularly obliged," said he with a touch of his hat and a smiling look at Paula that was at once manly and gentle, careless and yet respectful.

"Ah, life is too bright for prophesies this morning. The moment is enough."

"Is it Miss Fairchild?" queried Mr. Ensign looking back over his shoulder.

She turned just a bit of her cheek towards him. "What Miss Stuyvesant declares to be true, that am I bound to believe," said she, and with the least little ripple of a laugh, rode on.

"It is a pity you have such a dislike for whiskers," Cicely presently remarked with an air of great gravity.

Paula gave a start and cast a glance of reproach at her companion. "I did not notice his whiskers after the first word or two," said she, fixing her eyes on a turn of the road before them. "Such cheerfulness is infectious. I was merry before, but now I feel as if I had been bathed in sunshine."

Cicely's eyes flashed wide with surprise and her face grew serious in earnest. "Mr. Ensign is a delightful companion," observed she; "a room is always brighter for his entrance; and with all that, he is the only young man I know, who having come into a large fortune, feels any of the responsibilities of his position. The sunshine is the result of a good heart and pure living, and that is what makes it infectious, I suppose."

"Let us canter," said Paula. And so the glad young things swept on, life breaking in bubbles around them and rippling away into unfathomable wells of feeling in one of their pure hearts at least. Suddenly a hand seemed to swoop from heaven and dash them both back in dismay. They had reached one of those places where the foot path crosses the equestrian and they had run over and thrown down a little child.

"O heaven!" cried Paula leaping from her horse, "I had rather been killed myself." The groom rode up and she bent anxiously over the child.

It was a boy of some seven or eight years, whose misfortune—he was lame, as the little crutch fallen at his side sufficiently denoted—made appear much younger. He had been struck on his arm and was moaning with pain, but did not seem to be otherwise hurt. "Are you alone?" cried Paula, lifting his head on her arm and glancing hurriedly about.

The little fellow raised his heavy lids and for a moment stared into her face with eyes so deeply blue and beautiful they almost startled her, then with an effort pointed down the path, saying,

"Dad's over there in the long tunnel talking to some one. Tell him I got hurt. I want Dad."

She gently lifted him to his feet and led him out of the road into the apparently deserted path where she made him sit down. "I am going to find his father," said Paula to Cicely, "I will be back in a moment."

"But wait; you shall not go alone," authoritatively exclaimed that little damsel, leaping in her turn to the ground. "Where does he say his father is?"

"In the tunnel, by which I suppose he means that long passage under the bridge over there."

Holding up the skirts of their riding-habits in their trembling right hands, they hurried forward. Suddenly they both paused. A woman had crossed their path; a woman whom to look at but once was to remember with ghastly shrinking for a lifetime. She was wrapped in a long and ragged cloak, and her eyes, startling in their blackness, were fixed upon the pain-drawn countenance of the poor little hurt boy behind them, with a gleam whose feverish hatred and deep malignant enjoyment of his very evident sufferings, was like a revelation from the lowest pit to the two innocent-minded girls hastening forward on their errand of mercy.

"Is he much hurt?" gasped the woman in an ineffectual effort to conceal the evil nature of her interest. "Do you think he will die?" with a shrill lingering emphasis on the last word as if she longed to roll it like a sweet morsel under her tongue.

"Who are you?" asked Cicely, shrinking to one side with dilated eyes fixed on the woman's hardened countenance and the white, too white hand with which she had pointed as she spoke of the child.

"Are you his mother?" queried Paula, paling at the thought but keeping her ground with an air of unconscious authority.

"His mother!" shrieked the woman, hugging herself in her long cloak and laughing with fiendish sarcasm: "I look like his mother, don't I? His eyes—did you notice his eyes? they are just like mine, aren't they? and his body, poor weazen little thing, looks as if it had drawn sustenance from mine, don't it? His mother! O heaven!"

Nothing like the suppressed force of this invocation seething as it was with the worst passions of a depraved human nature, had ever startled those ears before. Clasping Cicely by the hand, she called out to the groom behind them, "Guard that child as you would your life!" and then flashing upon the wretched creature before her with all the force of her aroused nature, she exclaimed, "If you are not his mother, move aside and let us pass, we are in search of assistance."

For an instant the woman stood awe-struck before this vision of maidenly beauty and indignation, then she laughed and cried out with shrill emphasis:

"When next you look like that, go to your mirror, and when you see the image it reflects, say to yourself, 'So once looked the woman who defied me in the Park!'"

With a quick shudder and a feeling as if the noisome cloak of this degraded being had somehow been dropped upon her own fair and spotless shoulders, Paula clasped the hand of Cicely more tightly in her own, and rushed with her down the steps that led into the underground passage towards which they had been directed.

There were but two persons in it when they entered. A short thickset man and another man of a slighter and more gentlemanly build. They were engaged in talking, and the latter was bringing down his right hand upon the palm of his left with a gesture almost foreign in its expressive energy.

"I tell you," declared he, with a voice that while low, reverberated through the hollow vault above him with strange intensity, "I tell you I've got my grip on a certain rich man in this city, and if you will only wait, you shall see strange things. I don't know his name and I don't know his face, but I do know what he has done, and a thousand dollars down couldn't buy the knowledge of me."

"But if you don't know his name and don't know his face, how in the name of all that's mischievous are you going to know your man?"

"Leave that to me! If I once meet him and hear him talk, one more rich man goes down and one more poor devil goes up, or I've not the wit that starvation usually teaches."

The nature of these sentences together with the various manifestations of interest with which they were received, had for a moment deterred the two girls in their hurried advance, but now they put away every thought save that of the poor little creature awaiting his Dad, and lifting up her voice, Paula said,

"Are either of you the father of a little lame lad—"

Instantly and before she could conclude, the taller of the two, who had also been the chief speaker in the above conversation, turned, and she saw his hand begrimed though it was with dirt and dark with many a disgraceful trick, go to his heart in a gesture too natural to be anything but involuntary.

"Is he hurt?" gasped he, but in how different a tone from that of the woman who had used the same words a few minutes before. Then seeing that the persons who addressed him were ladies and one of them at least a very beautiful one, took off his hat with an easy action, that together with what they had heard, proved him to be one of that most dangerous class among us, a gentleman who has gone thoroughly and irretrievably to the bad.

"I am afraid he is, sir," said Paula. "He was attempting to cross the road, and a horse advancing hurriedly, struck him." She had not courage to say her horse in face of the white and trembling dismay that seized him at these words.

"Where is he?" cried he. "Where's my poor boy?" And he bounded up the steps, his hat still in his hand, his long unkempt locks flying, and his whole form expressive of the utmost alarm.

"Down by the carriage road," called out Paula, finding it impossible for them to keep up with such haste.

"But is he much injured?" cried a smooth voice at their side.

They turned; it was the short thickset man who had been the other's companion in the conversation above recorded.

"We trust not," answered Cicely; "his arm received the blow, and he suffers very much, but we hope it is not serious;" and they hurried on.

They found the father seated on the grass holding the little fellow in his arms. The look on his once handsome but now thoroughly corrupt and dissipated face, made their hearts melt within them. However wicked he might be—and that sly treacherous eye, that false impudent lip, that settling of the whole face into the mould which Vice applies to all her votaries, left no doubt of his complete depravity—he dearly loved his child, and love, no matter how it is expressed, or in what garb it appears, is a sacred and beautiful thing, and ennobles for the time being any creature who displays it.

"'Twas a hard knock up, Dad," came from the white lips of the child as he felt his father's trembling hand feel up and down his arm, "but I guess the 'little fellar' can stand it." "Little feller" was evidently the name by which his father was accustomed to address him.

"There are no bones broken," said the father. "To be lame and maimed too would be—"

He did not finish, for a delicately gloved hand was here laid on his sleeve, and a gentle voice whispered, "Money cannot pay for an injury like that, but please accept this;" and Paula thrust a purse into his hand.

He clutched it eagerly, but at her next request that he should tell her where he lived that they might inquire after the boy, he shook his head with a return of his old emphasis.

"The haunts of bats and jackals are not for ladies." Then as he caught sight of her pitiful face bending in farewell over the little urchin, some remembrance perhaps of the days when he had a right to stoop to the ear of beautiful women and walk unrebuked at their side, returned to him from the past, and respectfully lowering his voice, he asked her name.

She gave it and he seemed to lay it away in his mind; then as the ladies turned to remount their horses, rose and began carrying the little fellow off. As he vanished in the turn of the path that led towards the main entrance, they perceived a tall dark figure arise from a seat in the distance and stand looking after him, with a leer on its face and a malicious hugging of itself in a long black cloak, that proclaimed her to be the same ominous being who had before so grievously startled them.

XVI. THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES

"And my imaginations are as foul

As Vulcan's smithy."—HAMLET.

"Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once;

And He that might the vantage best have took

Found out the remedy."—MEASURE FOR MEASURE.

Mrs. Sylvester reclining on the palest of blue couches, in the slanting sunlight of an April afternoon, is a study for a painter. Not that such inspiring loveliness breathed from her person, conspicuous as it was for its rich and indolent grace, but because in every attitude of her large and well formed limbs, in every raise of the thick white lids from eyes whose natural brightness was obscured by the mist of aimless fancies, she presented such an embodiment of luxurious ease, one might almost imagine they were gazing upon the favorite Sultana of some eastern court, or, to be for once poetical as the subject demands, a full blown Egyptian lotos floating in hushed enjoyment on the placid waters of its native stream. Indeed for all the blonde character of her beauty, there was certainly something oriental about the physique of this favored child of fortune. Had the tint of her skin been richened to a magnolia bloom instead of reminding you of that description accorded to the complexion of one of Napoleon's sisters, that it looked like white satin seen through pink glass, she would have passed in any Eastern market, for a rare specimen of Circassian beauty.

But Mr. Sylvester coming home fatigued and harassed, cared little for Circassian beauties or Oriental odalisques. It was a welcome that he desired, and such refreshment as a quick eye and ready hand can bestow when guided by a tender and loving heart; or so thought the watchful Paula as she glided from her room at the sound of his step in the hall, and met him coming weary and disheartened from the side of Ona's couch. The sight of her revived him at once.

"Well, little one, what have you been doing to-day?"

Instantly a shade fell over her countenance. "I hardly know how to tell you. It has been a day of great experiences to me. I am literally shaken with them. I have been wanting to talk to Ona about what I have seen and heard, but thought I had best wait till you came home, for I could not repeat the story twice."

"What! you look pale. Nothing has happened to frighten you I hope," exclaimed he, leading her back to Ona's side, who stirred a little, and presently deigned to take an upright position.

"I do not know if it is fear or horror," cried Paula, shuddering; "I have seen a fearful woman—But first I ought to tell you that I took a ride with Miss Stuyvesant in the Park this morning—"

"Yes, and persisted in going for that lady on horseback instead of sending the groom after her, and all starting from the front of our house," murmured Mrs. Sylvester with lazy chagrin.

Paula smiled, but otherwise took no notice of this standing topic of disagreement.

"It was a beautiful day," she proceeded, "and we enjoyed it very much, but we were so unfortunate as to run over a little boy, at that place where the equestrian road crosses the foot path; a lame child, Mr. Sylvester, who could not get out of our way; poor too, with a ragged jacket on which seemed to make it all the worse."

Ona gave a shrug with her white shoulders, that seemed to question this. "Did you injure him very much?" queried she, with a show of interest; not sufficient however to impair her curiosity as to the cut of one of her nails.

"I cannot say; his little arm was struck, and when I went to pick him up, he lay back in my lap and moaned till I thought my heart would break. But that was not the worst that happened. As we went hurrying up the walk to find the child's father, we were met by a woman wrapped in a black cloak whose long and greasy folds seemed like the symbol of her own untold depravity. Her glance as she encountered the child writhing in pain at my feet, made my heart stand still. It was more than malignant, it was actually fiendish. 'Is he hurt?' she asked, and it seemed as if she gloated over the question; she evidently longed to hear that he was, longed to be told that he would die; and when I inquired if she was his mother, she broke into a string of laughter, that seemed to darken the daylight. 'His mother! O yes, we look alike, don't we!' she exclaimed, pointing with a mocking gesture frightful to see, first at his eyes which were very blue and beautiful, and then at her own which were dark as evil thoughts could make them. I never saw anything so dreadful. Malignancy! and towards a little lame child! what could be more horrible!"

Mr. Sylvester and his wife exchanged looks, then the former asked, "Did she follow you, Paula?"

"No; after telling me that I—But I cannot repeat what she said," exclaimed the young girl with a quick shudder. "Since I came home," she musingly continued, "I have looked and looked at my face in the glass, but I cannot believe that what she declared is true. There is no similarity between us, could never have been any: I will not have it that she ever saw in all the days of her life such a picture as that in her glass." And with a sudden gesture Paula started up and pointed to herself as she stood reflected in one of the tall mirrors with which Ona's boudoir abounded.

"And did she dare to make any comparison between you and her own degraded self?" exclaimed Mr. Sylvester, with a glance at the exquisite vision of pure girlhood thus doubly presented to his notice.

"Yes, what I am, she was once, or so she said. And it may be true. I have never suffered sorrow or experienced wrong, and cannot measure their power to carve the human face with such lines as I beheld on that woman's countenance to-day. But do not let us talk of her any more. She left us at last, and we found the child's father. Mr. Sylvester," she suddenly asked, "are there to be found in this city, men occupying honorable positions and as such highly esteemed, who like Damocles of old, may be said to sit under the constant terror of a falling sword in the shape of some possible disclosure, that if made, would ruin their position before the world forever?"

Mr. Sylvester started as if he had been shot. "Paula!" cried he, and instantly was silent again. He did not look at his wife, but if he had, he would have perceived that even her fair skin was capable of blanching to a yet more startling whiteness, and that her sleepy eyes could flash open with something like expression in their lazy depths.

"I mean," dreamily continued Paula, absorbed in her own remembrance, "that if what we overheard said by the father of that child to-day is true, some one of our prominent men, whose life is not all it appears, is standing on the verge of possible exposure and shame; that a hound is on his track in the form of a starving man; and that sooner or later he will have to pay the price of an unprincipled creature's silence, or fall into public discredit like some others of whom we have lately read." Then as silence filled the room, she added, "It makes me tremble to think that a man of means and seeming honor should be placed in such a position, but worse still that we may know such a one and be ignorant of his misery and his shame."

"It is getting time for me to dress," murmured Ona, sinking back on her pillow and speaking in her most languid tone of voice. "Could you not hasten your story a little Paula?"

But Mr. Sylvester with a hurried glance at the closing eyes of his wife, requested on the contrary that she would explain herself more definitely. "Ona will pardon the delay," said he, with a set, strained politeness that called up the least little quiver of suppressed sarcasm about the rosy infantile lips that he evidently did not consider it worth his while to notice.

"But that is all," said Paula. However she repeated as nearly as she could just what the boy's father had said. At the conclusion Mr. Sylvester rose.

"What kind of a looking man was he?" said that gentleman as he crossed to the window.

"Well, as nearly as I can describe, he was tall, dark and seedy, with a shock of black hair and a pair of black whiskers that floated on the wind as he walked. He was evidently of the order of decayed gentleman, and his manner of talking, especially in the profuse use he made of his arms and hands, was decidedly foreign. Yet his speech was pure and without accent."

Mr. Sylvester's face as he asked the next question was comparatively cheerful. "Was the other man with whom he was talking, as dark and foreign as himself?"

"O no, he was round and jovial, a little too insinuating perhaps, in his way of speaking to ladies, but otherwise a a well enough appearing man."

Mr. Sylvester bowed and looked at his watch. (Why do gentlemen always consult their watches even in the face of the clock?) "Ona, you are right," said he, "it is time you were dressing for dinner." And concluding with a word or two of sympathy as to the peculiar nature of Paula's adventures as he called them, he hastened from the room and proceeded to his little refuge above.

"He has not asked me what became of the child," thought Paula, with a certain pang of surprise. "I expected him to say, 'Shall we not try and see the little fellow, Paula?' if only to allow me to explain that the child's father would not tell me where they lived. But the later affair has evidently put the child out of his head. And indeed it is only natural that a business man should be more interested in such a fact as I have related, than in the sprained arm of a wretched creature's 'little feller.'" And she turned to assist Ona, who had arisen from her couch and was now absorbed in the intricacies of an uncommonly elaborate toilet.

"Those men did not mention any names?" suddenly queried that lady, looking with an expression of careful anxiety, at the twist of her back hair, in the small hand-mirror she held over her shoulder.

"No," said Paula, dropping a red rose into the blonde locks she was so carefully arranging. "He expressly said he did not know the name of the person to whom he alluded. It was a strange conversation for me to overhear, was it not?" she remarked, happy to have interested her cousin in anything out of the domains of fashion.

"I don't know—certainly—of course—" returned Mrs. Sylvester with some incoherence. "Do you think red looks as well with this black as the lavender would do?" she rambled on in her lightest tone, pulling out a box of feathers.

Paula gave her a little wistful glance of disappointment and decided in favor of the lavender.

"I am bound to look well to-night if I never do so again," said Ona. They were all going to a public reception at which a foreign lord was expected to be present. "How fortunate I am to have a perfect little hairdresser in my own family, without being obliged to send for some gossipy, fussy old Madame with her stories of how such and such a one looked when dressed for the Grand Duke's ball, or how Mrs. So and So always gave her more than her price because she rolled up puffs so exquisitely." And stopping to aid the deft girl in substituting the lavender feather for the red rose in her hair—she forgot to ask any more questions.

"Ona," remarked her husband, coming into the room on his way down to dinner—Mrs. Sylvester never dined when she was going to any grand entertainment; it made her look flushed she said—"I am not in the habit of troubling you about your family matters, but have you heard from your father of late?"

Mrs. Sylvester turned from her jewel-casket and calmly surveyed his face. It was fixed and formal, the face he turned to his servants and sometimes—to his wife. "No," said she, with a light little gesture as though she were speaking of the most trivial matter. "In one respect at least, papa is like an angel, his visits are few and far between."

Mr. Sylvester's eye-brows drew heavily together. For a man with a smile of strange sweetness, he could sometimes look very forbidding. "When was he here last?" he inquired in a tone more commanding than he knew.

She did not appear to resent it. "Let me see," mused she. "When was it I lost my diamond ear-ring? O I remember, it was on the eve of New Year's day a year ago; I recollect because I had to wear pearls with my garnet brocade," she pettishly sighed. "And papa came the next week, after you had given me the money for a new pair. I have reason to remember that, for not a dollar did he leave me."

"Ona!" exclaimed her husband, shrinking back in uncontrollable surprise, while his eyes flashed inquiringly to her ears in which two noble diamonds were brilliantly shining.

"O," she cried, just raising one snowy hand to those sparkling ornaments, while a faint blush, the existence of which he had sometimes doubted, swept over her careless face. "I was enabled to procure them in time; but for a whole two months I had to go without diamonds." She did not say that she had bartered her wedding jewels to make up the sum she needed, but he may have understood that without being told.

"And that is the last time you have seen him?" He held her eyes with his, she could not look away.

"The very last, sir; strange to say."

His glance shifted from her face and he turned with a bow towards the door.

"May I ask," she slowly inquired as he moved across the floor, "what is the reason of this sudden interest in poor papa?"

"Certainly," said he, pausing and looking back, not without some emotion of pity in his glance. "I am sometimes struck with a sense of the duty I owe you, in helping you to bear the burden of certain secret responsibilities which I fear may sometimes prove too heavy for you."

She gave a little rippling laugh that only sounded hollow to the image listening in the glass. "You choose strange times in which to be struck," said she, holding up two dresses for his inspection, with a lift of her brows evidently meant as an inquiry as to which he thought the most becoming.

"Conscience is the chooser, not I," declared he, for once allowing himself to ignore the weighty question of dress thus propounded.

His wife gave a little toss of her head and he left the room.

"I should like Edward very much," murmured she in a burst of confidence to her own reflection in the glass, "if only he would not bother himself so much about that same disagreeable conscience."

"You look unhappy," said Mr. Sylvester to Paula as they came from the dining-room. "Have the adventures of the day made such an impression upon you that you will not be able to enjoy the evening's festivities?"

She lifted her face and the quick smile came.

"I do not like to see your brow so clouded," continued he, smoothing his own to meet her searching eye. "Smiles should sit on the lips of youth, or else why are they so rosy."

"Would you have me smile in face of my first glimpse of wickedness," asked she, but in a gentle tone that robbed her words of half their reproach. "You must remember that I have had but little experience with the world. I have lived all my life in a town of wholesome virtues, and while here I have been kept from contact with anything low or base. I have never known vice, and now all in a moment I feel as if I have been bathed in it."

He took her by the hand and drew her gently towards him. "Does your whole being recoil so from evil, my Paula? What will you do in this wicked world? What will you say to the sinner when you meet him—as you must?"

"I don't know; it's a problem I have never been brought to consider. I feel as if launched on a dismal sea for which I have neither chart nor compass. Life was so joyous to me this morning—" a flush swept over her cheek but he did not notice it—"I held, or seemed to hold, a cup of white wine in my hand, but suddenly as I looked at it, it turned black and—"

Ah, the outreach, the dismal breaking away of thought into the unfathomable, that lies in the pause of an and!

"And do you refuse to drink a cup across which has fallen a shadow," murmured Mr. Sylvester, his eyes fixed on her face, "the inevitable shadow of that great mass of human frailty and woe which has been accumulating from the foundation of the world?"

"No, no, I cannot, and retain my humanity. If there is such evil in the world, its pressure must drive it across the path of innocence."

"And you accept the cup?"

"I must; but oh, my vanished beliefs! This morning the wine of my life was pure and white, now it is black and befouled. What will make it clean again?"

With a sigh Mr. Sylvester dropped her hand and turned towards the mantle-piece. It was April as I have said, and there was no fire in the grate, but he posed his foot on the fender and looked sadly down at the empty hearthstone.

"Paula," said he after a space of pregnant silence, "it had to come. The veil of the temple must be rent in every life. Evil is too near us all for us to tread long upon the flowers without starting up the adders that hide beneath them. You had to have your first look into the cells of darkness, and perhaps it is best you had it here and now. The deeps are for men's eyes as well as the starry heavens."

"Yes, yes."

"There are some persons," he went on slowly, "you know them, who tread the ways of life with their eyelids closed to everything but the strip of velvet lawn on which they choose to walk. Earth's sighs and deep-drawn groans are nothing to them. The world may swing on in its way to perdition; so long as their pathway feels soft, they neither heed nor care. But you do not desire to be one of these, Paula! With your great soul and your strong heart, you would not ask to sit in a flowery maze, while the rest of the world went sliding on and down into wells of destruction, you might have made pools of healing by the touch of your womanly sympathy."

"No, no."

"I cannot tell you, I dare not tell you," he went on in a strange pleading voice that tore at the very roots of her heart, and rung in her memory forever, "what evil underlies the whole strata of life! At home and abroad, on our hearthstones and within our offices, the mocking devil sits. You can scarcely walk a block, my little one, without encountering a man or brushing against the dress of a woman across whose soul the black shadow lies heavier than any words of his or hers could tell. What the man you saw to-day, said of one unhappy being in this city, is true, God help us all, of many. Dark spots are easier acquired than blotted out, my Paula. In business as in society, one needs to carry the white shield of a noble purpose or a self-forgetting love, to escape the dripping of the deadly upas tree that branches above all humanity. I have walked its ways, my darling, and I know of what I speak. Your white robe is spotless but—"

"O there is where the pain comes in," she cried; "there, just there, is where the dagger strikes. She says she was once like me. O, could any temptation, any suffering, any wrong or misfortune that might befall me, ever bring me to where she is! If it could—"

"Paula!" This time his voice came authoritatively. "You are making too much of a frenzied woman's impulsive exclamation. To her darkened and despairing eyes any young woman of a similar style of beauty would have called forth the same remark. It was a sign that she was not entirely given up to evil, that she could remember her youth. Instead of feeling contaminated by her words, you ought to feel, that unconsciously to yourself, your fresh young countenance with its innocent eyes did an angel's work to-day. They made her recall what she was in the days of her own innocence; and who can tell what may follow such a recollection."

"O Mr. Sylvester," said she, "you fill me with shame. If I could think that—"

"You can, nothing appeals to the heart of crime like the glance of perfect innocence. If evil walks the world, God's ministers walk it also, and none can tell in what glance of the eye or what touch of the hand, that ministry will speak."

It was her turn now to take his hand in hers. "O how good, how thoughtful you are; you have comforted me and you have taught me. I thank you very much."

With a look she did not perceive, he drew his hand away. "I am glad I have helped you, Paula; there is but one thing more to say, and this I would emphasize with every saddened look you have ever met in all your life. Great sins make great sufferers. Side by side came the two dreadful powers of vice and retribution into the world, and side by side will they keep till they sink at last into the awful deeps of the bottomless pit. When you turn your back on a man who has committed a crime, one more door shuts in his darkened spirit."

The tears were falling from Paula's eyes now. He looked at them with strange wistfulness and involuntarily his hand rose to her head, smoothing her locks with fatherly touches. "Do not think," said he, "that I would lessen by a hair's breadth your hatred of evil. I can more easily bear to see the shadow upon your cup of joy than upon the banner of truth you carry. These eyes must lose none of their inner light in glancing compassionately on your fellow-men. Only remember that divinity itself has stooped to rescue, and let the thought make your contact with weary, wicked-hearted humanity a little less trying and a little more hopeful to you. And now, my dear, that is enough of serious talk for to-day. We are bound for a reception, you know, and it is time we were dressing. Do you want me to tell you a secret?" asked he in a light mysterious tone, as he saw her eyes still filling.

She glanced up with sudden interest.

"I know it is treason," resumed he, "I am fully aware of the grave nature of my offence; but Paula I hate all public receptions, and shall only be able to enjoy myself to-night just so much as I see that you are doing so. Life has its dark portals and its bright ones. This is one that you must enter with your most brilliant smiles."

"And they shall not be lacking," said she. "When a treasure-box of thought is given us, we do not open it and scatter its contents abroad, but lay it away where the heart keeps its secrets, to be opened in the hush of night when we are alone with our own souls and God."

He smiled and she moved towards the door. "None the less do we carry with us wherever we go, the remembrance of our hidden treasure," she smilingly added, looking back upon him from the stair.

And again as upon the first night of her entrance into the house, did he stand below and watch her as she softly went up, her lovely face flashing one moment against the dark background of the luxurious bronze, towering from the platform behind, then glowing with faint and fainter lustre, as the distance widened between them and she vanished in the regions above.

She did not see the toss of his arm with which he threw off the burden that rested upon his soul.

XVII. GRAVE AND GAY

"No scandal about Queen Elizabeth I hope."—SHERIDAN.

"Stands Scotland where it did?"—MACBETH.

"Who is that talking with Miss Stuyvesant?" asked Mr. Sylvester, approaching his wife during one of the lulls that will fall at times upon vast assemblies.

Mrs. Sylvester followed the direction of his glance and immediately responded, "O that is Mr. Ensign, one of the best partis of the season. He evidently knows where to pay his court."

"I inquired because he has just requested me to honor him with a formal introduction to Paula."

"Indeed! then oblige him by all means; it would be a great match for her. To say nothing of his wealth, he is haut ton, and his red whiskers will not look badly beside Paula's dark hair."

Mr. Sylvester frowned, then sighed, but in a few minutes Paula observed him approaching with Mr. Ensign. At once her hitherto pale cheek flushed, but the young gentleman did not seem to object to that, and after the formal introduction which he had sought was over, he exclaimed in his own bright ringing tones,

"The fates have surely forgotten their usual rôle of unpropitiousness. I did not dare hope to meet you here to-night, Miss Fairchild. Was the ride all that your fancy painted?"

"O," said she, speaking very low and glancing around, "do not allude to it here. We had an adventure shortly after you parted from us."

"An adventure! and no cavalier at your side! If I could but have known! Was it so serious?" he inquired in a moment, seeing her look grave.

"Ask Miss Stuyvesant;" said she. "I cannot talk about it any more to-night. Besides the music carries off one's thoughts. It is like a joyous breeze that whirls away the thistle-down whether it will or no."

He gave her a short quick look grave enough in its way, but responded with his usual graceful humor, "The thistle-down is too vicious a sprite to be beguiled away so easily. If I were to give my opinion on the subject, I should say there was method in its madness. If you have been brought up in the country, as I suspect from your remark, you must know that the white floating ball is not as harmless as it would lead you to imagine. It is a meddlesome nobody, that's what it is, and like some country gossips I know, launches forth from a pure love of mischief to establish his prickers in his neighbor's field."

"His! I thought it must be feminine at least to fulfill the conditions you mention. A male gossip, O fie! I shall never have patience with a thistle-ball after this."

"Well," laughed he, "I did start with the intention of making it feminine, but I caught a glimpse of your eyes and lost my courage. I did what I could," added he with a mirthful glance.

"So do the thistles," cried she. Then while both voices joined in a merry laugh, she continued, "But where have we strayed? For a moment it seemed as if we were on the hills at Grotewell; I could almost see the blue sky."

"And I," said he, with his eyes on her face.

"I am sure the brooks bubbled."

"I distinctly heard a bird singing."

"It was a whippowill."

"But my name is Clarence?"

And here both being young and without a care in the world, they laughed again. And the crowded perfumed room seemed to freshen as with a whiff of mountain air.

"You love the country, Miss Fairchild?"

"Yes;" and her smile was the reflection of the summer-lands that arose before her at the word. "With the right side of my heart do I love the spot where nature speaks and man is dumb."

"And with the left?"

"I love the place where great men congregate to face their destiny and control it."

"The latter is the deeper love," said he.

She nodded her head and then said, "I need both to make me happy. Sometimes as I walk these city streets, I feel as if my very longing to escape to the heart of the hills, would carry me there. I remember when I was a child, I was one day running through a meadow, when suddenly a whole flock of birds flew up from the grass and surrounded my head. I was not sure but what I should be caught up and carried away by the force of their flight; and when they rose to mid heaven, something in my breast seemed to follow them. So it is often with me here, only that it is the rush of my thoughts that threatens such a Hegira. Yet if I were to be transported to my native hills, I know I should long to be back again."

"The mountain lassie has wandered into the courts of the king. The perfume of palaces is not easily forgotten."

Her eye turned towards Mr. Sylvester standing near them upright and firm, talking to a group of attentive gentlemen every one of whom boasted a name of more than local celebrity. "Without a royal heart to govern, there would be no palace;" said she, and blushed under a sudden sense of the possible interpretation he might give to her words, till the rose in her hand looked pallid.

But he had followed her glance and understood her better than she thought. "And Mr. Sylvester has such a heart, so a hundred good fellows have told me. You are fortunate to see the city from the loop-hole of such a home as his."

"It is more than a loop-hole," said she.

"Of that I shall never be satisfied till I see it?"

And being content with the look he received, he took her on his arm and led her into the midst of the dancers.

Meanwhile in a certain corner not far off, two gentlemen were talking.

"Sylvester shows off well to-night."

"He always does. With such a figure as that, a man needs but to enter a room to make himself felt. But then he's a good talker too. Ever heard him speak?"

"No."

"Fine voice, true snap, right ring. Great favorite at elections. The fact is, Sylvester is a remarkable man."

"Hum, ha, so I should judge."

"And so fortunate! He has never been known to run foul in a great operation. Put your money in his hand and whew!—your fortune is as good as made."

The other, a rich man, connected heavily with the mining business in Colorado, smiled with that bland overflow of the whole countenance which is sometimes seen in large men of great self-importance.

"It's a pity he's gone out of Wall Street," continued his companion. "The younger fry feel now something like a flock of sheep that has lost its bell-wether."

"They straggle—eh?" returned his portly friend with an increase of his smile that was not altogether pleasant. "So Sylvester has left Wall Street?"

"He closed his last enterprise two weeks before accepting the Presidency of the Madison Bank. Stuyvesant is down on speculation, and well—It looks better you know; the Madison Bank is an old institution, and Sylvester is ambitious. There'll be no reckless handling of funds there."

"No!" What was there in that no that made the other look up? "I'm not acquainted with Sylvester myself. Has he much family?"

"A wife—there she is, that handsome woman talking with Ditman,—and a daughter, niece or somebody who just now is setting all our young scapegraces by the ears. You can see her if you just crane your neck a little."

"Humph, ha, very pretty, very pretty. How much do you suppose Mrs. Sylvester is worth as she stands, diamonds you know, and all that?"

"Well I should say some where near ten thousand; that sprig in her hair cost a clean five."

"So, so. They live in a handsome house I suppose?"

"A regular palace, corner of Fifth Avenue and ——"

"All his?"

"Nobody's else I reckon."

"Sports horses and carriage I suppose?"

"Of course."

"Yacht, opera box?"

"No reason why he shouldn't."

"What is his salary?"

"A nominal sum, five or ten thousand perhaps."

"Owns good share of the bank's stock I presume?"

"Enough to control it."

"Below par though?"

"A trifle, going up, however."

"And don't speculate?"

The way this man drawled his words was excessively disagreeable.

"Not that any one knows of. He's made his fortune and now asks only to enjoy it."

The man from the West strutted back and looked at his companion knowingly. "What do you think of my judgment, Stadler?"

"None better this side of the Pacific."

"Pretty good at spying out cracks, eh?"

"I wouldn't like to undertake the puttying up that would deceive you."

"Humph! Well then, mark this. In two months from to-day you will see Mr. Sylvester rent his house and go south for his health, or the pretty one over there will marry one of the scapegraces you mention, who will lend the man who don't engage in any further ventures, more than one or two hundred thousand dollars."

"Ha, you know something."

"I own mines in Colorado and I have my points."

"And Mr. Sylvester?"

"Will find them too sharp for him."

And having made his joke, he yielded to the other's apparent restlessness, and they sauntered off.

They did not observe a pale, demure, little lady that sat near them abstractedly nodding her dainty head to the remarks of a pale-whiskered youth at her side, nor notice the emotion with which she suddenly rose at their departure and dismissed her chattering companion on some impromptu errand. It was only one of the ordinary group of dancers, a pretty, plainly dressed girl, but her name was Stuyvesant.

Rising with a decision that gave a very attractive color to her cheeks, she hastily looked around. A trio of young gentlemen started towards her but she gave them no encouragement; her eye had detected Mr. Sylvester's tall figure a few feet off and it was to him she desired to speak. But at her first movement in his direction, her glance encountered another face, and like a stream that melts into a rushing torrent, her purpose seemed to vanish, leaving her quivering with a new emotion of so vivid a character she involuntarily looked about her for a refuge.

But in another instant her eyes had again sought the countenance that had so moved her, and finding it bent upon her own, faltered a little and unconsciously allowed the lilies she was carrying to drop from her hand. Before she realized her loss, the face before her had vanished, and with it something of her hesitation and alarm.

With a hasty action she drew near Mr. Sylvester. "Will you lend me your arm for a minute?" she asked, with her usual appealing look rendered doubly forcible by the experience of a moment before.

"Miss Stuyvesant! I am happy to see you."

Never had his face looked more cheerful she thought, never had his smile struck her more pleasantly.

"A little talk with a little girl will not hinder you too much, will it?" she queried, glancing at the group of gentlemen that had shrunk back at her approach.

"Do you call that hindrance which relieves one from listening to quotations of bank stock at an evening reception?"

She shook her head with a confused movement, and led him up before a stand of flowering exotics.

"I want to tell you something," she said eagerly but with a marked timidity also, the tall form beside her looked so imposing for all its encouraging bend. "I beg your pardon if I am doing wrong, but papa regards you with such esteem and—Mr. Sylvester do you know a man by the name of Stadler?"

Astonished at such a question from lips so young and dainty, he turned and surveyed her for a moment with quick surprise. Something in her aspect struck him. He answered at once and without circumlocution. "Yes, if you refer to that spry keen-faced man, just entering the supper-room."

"Do you know his companion?" she proceeded; "the portly, highly pompous-looking gentleman with the gold eye-glasses? Look quickly."

"No." There was an uneasiness in his tone however that struck her painfully.

"He is a stranger in town; has not the honor of your acquaintance he says, but from the questions he asked, I judge he has a great interest in your affairs. He spoke of being connected with mines in Colorado. I was sitting behind a curtain and overheard what was said."

Mr. Sylvester turned pale and regarded her attentively. "Might I be so bold," he inquired after a moment, "as to ask you what that was?"

"Yes, sir, certainly, but it is even harder for me to repeat than it was for me to hear. He inquired about your domestic concerns, your home and your income," she murmured blushing; "and then said, in what I thought was a somewhat exulting tone, that in two months or so we should see you go South for your health or—Is not that enough for me to tell you, Mr. Sylvester?"

He gave her a short stare, opened his lips as if to speak, then turned abruptly aside and began picking mechanically at the blossoms before him.

"I, of course, do not know what men mean when they talk of possessing points. But the leer and side glance which accompanies such talk, have a universal language we all understand, and I felt that I must warn you of that man's malice if only because papa regards you so highly."

He shrank as if touched on a sore place, but bowed and answered the wistful appeal of her glance with a shadow of his usual smile, then he turned, and looking towards the door through which the two men had disappeared, made a movement as if he would follow. But remembering himself, escorted her to a seat, saying as he did so:

"You are very kind, Miss Stuyvesant; please say nothing of this to Paula."

She bowed and a flitting smile crossed her upturned countenance. "I am not much of a gossip, Mr. Sylvester, or I should have been tempted to have carried my information to my father instead of to you."

He understood the implied promise in this remark and gave the hand on his arm a quick pressure, before relinquishing her to the care of the pale-complexioned youth who by this time had returned to her side.

In another moment Paula came up on the arm of a black-whiskered gentleman all shirt front and eye-glasses. "O Cicely," she cried, (she called Miss Stuyvesant, Cicely now) "is it not a delightful evening?"

"Are you enjoying yourself so much?" inquired that somewhat agitated little lady, with a glance at the countenance of her friend's attendant.

"I fear it would scarcely seem consistent in me now to say no," returned the radiant girl, with a laughing glance towards the same gentleman.

But when they were alone, the gentleman having departed on some of the innumerable errands with which ladies seem to delight in afflicting their attendant cavaliers at balls or receptions, she atoned for that glance by remarking,

"I do not find the average partner that falls to one's lot in such receptions all that fancy paints." And then finding she had repeated a phrase of Mr. Ensign's, blushed, though no one stood near her but Cicely.

"Fancy's brush would need to be dipped in but two colors to present to our eye the mass of them," was Cicely's laughing reply. "A streak of black for the coat, and a daub of white for the shirt front. Voila tout."

"With perhaps a dash of red in some cases," murmured a voice over their shoulders.

They turned with hurried blushes. "Ah, Mr. Ensign," quoth Cicely in unabashed gaiety, "we reserve red for the exceptions. We did not intend to include our acknowledged friends in our somewhat sweeping assertion."

"Ah, I see, the black streak and the white daub are a symbol of, 'Er—Miss Stuyvesant—very warm this evening! Have an ice, do. I always have an ice after dancing; so refreshing, you know.'"

The manner in which he imitated the usual languid drawl of certain of the young scapegraces heretofore mentioned, was irresistible. Paula forgot her confusion in her mirth.

"You are blessed with a capacity for playing both rôles, I perceive," cried Cicely with unusual abandon. "Well, it is convenient, there is nothing like scope."

"Unless it is hope," whispered Mr. Ensign so low that only Paula could hear.

"But I warn you," continued Cicely, with a sweet soft laugh that seemed to carry her heart far out into the passing throng, "that we have no fondness for the model beau of the period. A dish of milk makes a very good supper but it looks decidedly pale on the dinner table."

"Yes," said Paula, eying the various young men that filed up and down before them, some pale, some dark, some handsome, some plain, but all smiling and dapper, if not debonair, "some men could be endured if only they were not men."

Mr. Ensign gave her a quick look, and while he laughed at the paradox, straightened himself like one who could be a man if the occasion called. She saw the action and blushed.

But their conversation was soon interrupted. Mr. Sylvester was seen returning from the supper-room, looking decidedly anxious, and while Paula was ignorant of what had transpired to annoy him, her ready spirit caught the alarm, and she was about to rush up to him and address him, when one of the waiters approached, and murmuring a few words she did not hear, handed him a card upon which she descried nothing but a simple circle. Instantly a change crossed his already agitated countenance, and advancing to the ladies with a word or two that while seemingly cheerful, struck Paula as somewhat forced, excused himself with the information that a business friend had been so inconsiderate as to importune him for an interview in the hall. And with just a nod towards Mr. Ensign, who had drawn back at his advance, left them and disappeared in the crowd about the door.

"I do not like these interruptions from business friends in a time of pleasure," cried Paula, looking after him with anxious eyes. "Did you notice how agitated he seemed, Cicely? And half an hour ago he was the picture of calm enjoyment."

"Business is beyond our comprehension, Paula," returned her friend evasively. "It is something like a neuralgic twinge, it takes a man when he least expects it. Have you told Mr. Ensign of our adventure?"

"No, but I informed Mr. Sylvester, and he said such good, true words to me, Cicely. I can never forget them."

"And I told papa; but he only frowned and made some observation about the degeneracy of the times, and the number of scamps thrown to the top by the modern methods of acquiring instantaneous fortunes."

"Your papa is sometimes hard, is he not, Cicely?"

With a flush Miss Stuyvesant allowed her eye to rest for a moment on the crowd shifting before her. "He was dug from a quarry of granite, Paula. He is both hard and substantial; capable of being hewn but not of being moulded. Of such stuff are formed monuments of enduring beauty and solidity. You must do papa justice."

"I do, but I sometimes have a feeling as if the granite column would fall and crush me, Cicely."

"You, Paula?"

Before she could again reply, Mr. Sylvester returned. His face was still pale, but it had acquired an expression of rigidity even more alarming to Paula than its previous aspect of forced merriment. Lifting her by the hand, he drew her apart.

"I shall have to leave you somewhat abruptly," said he. "An important matter demands my instant attention. Bertram is somewhere here, and will see that you and Ona arrive home in safety. You won't allow your enjoyment to be clouded by my hasty departure, will you?"

"Not if it will make you anxious. But I would rather go home with you now. I am sure Cousin Ona would be willing."

"But I am not going home at present," said he; and she ventured upon no further remonstrance.

But her enjoyment was clouded; the sight of suffering or anxiety on that face was more than she could bear; and ere long she said good-night to Cicely, and accepting the arm of Mr. Ensign, who was never very far from her side, proceeded to search for her cousin.

She found her standing in the midst of an admiring throng to whom her diamonds, if not her smiles, were an object of undoubted interest. She was in the full tide of one of her longest and most widely rambling speeches, and to Paula, with that stir of anxiety at her breast, was an image of self-satisfied complacency from which she was fain to drop her eyes.

"Mrs. Sylvester shares the honors with her husband," remarked Mr. Ensign as they drew near.

"But not the trials, or the pain, or the care?" was Paula's inward comment.

Mrs. Sylvester was not easily wooed away from a circle in which she found herself creating such an impression, but at length she yielded to Paula's importunities, and consented to accept young Mr. Sylvester's attendance to their home. The next thing was to find Bertram. Mr. Ensign engaged to do this. Leaving Paula with her cousin, who may or may not have been pleased at this sudden addition to her circle, he sought for the young man who as Mr. Mandeville was not unknown to any of the fashionable men and women of the day. It was no easy task, nor did he find him readily, but at last he came upon him leaning out of a window and gazing at a white lily which he held in his hand. Without preamble, Mr. Ensign made known his errand, and Bertram at once prepared to accompany him back to the ladies.

"By Jove! I didn't know the fellow was so handsome!" thought the former, and frowned he hardly knew why. Bertram was not handsome, but then Clarence Ensign was plain, which Bertram certainly was not.

It was to Mr. Ensign's face however that Paula's eyes turned as the two came up, and he with the ready vivacity of his natural temperament observed it, and took courage.

"I shall soon wish to measure that loop-hole of which I have spoken," said he.

And the soft look in her large dark eye as she responded, "It is always open to friends," filled up the measure of his cup of happiness; a cup which unlike hers, had not been darkened that day by the falling of earth's most dismal shadows.

XVIII. IN THE NIGHT WATCHES

"Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn?"—HEN. IV.

"What doth gravity out of his bed at midnight?"—HEN. IV.

"It has been the most delightful evening I have ever passed," said Mrs. Sylvester, as she threw aside her rich white mantle in her ample boudoir. "Sarah, two loops on that dolman to-morrow; do you hear? I thought my arms would freeze. Such an elegant gentleman as the Count de Frassac is! He absolutely went wild over you, Paula, but not understanding a word of English—O there, if that horrid little wretch didn't drop his spoon on my dress after all! He swore it never touched a thread of it, but just look at that spot, right in the middle of a pleating too. Paula, your opinion in regard to the lavendar was correct. I heard Mrs. Forsyth Jones whisper behind my back that lavendar always made blondes look fade. Of course I needed no further evidence to convince me that I had entirely succeeded in eclipsing her pale-faced daughter. Her daughter!" and the lazy gurgle echoed softly through the room, "As if every white-haired girl in the city considered herself entitled to be called a blonde!" She stopped to listen, examining herself in the glass near by. "I thought I heard Edward. It was very provoking in him to leave us in the cavalier manner in which he did. I was just going to introduce him to the count, not that he would have esteemed it much of an honor, Edward I mean, but when one has a good-looking husband—Sarah, that curtain over there hangs crooked, pull it straight this instant. Did you try the oysters, Paula? They were perfection, I shall have to dismiss Lorenzo without ceremony and procure me a cook that can make an oyster fricassee. By the way did you notice—" and so on and on for five minutes additional. Presently she burst forth with—"I do believe I know what it is to be thoroughly satisfied at last. The consideration which one receives as the wife of the president of the Madison bank is certainly very gratifying. If I had known I would feel such a change in the social atmosphere, I would have advocated Edward's dropping speculation long ago. Beauty and wealth may help one up the social ladder, but only a settled position such as he has now obtained, can carry you safely over the top. I feel at last as if we had reached the pinnacle of my ambition and had seen the ladder by which we mounted thrown down behind us. If I get my costume from Worth in time, I shall give a German next month."

Paula from her stand at the door—for some minutes she had been endeavoring to escape to her room—surveyed her cousin in wonder. She had never seen her look as she did at that moment. Any one who speaks from the heart, acquires a certain eloquence, and Ona for once was speaking from her heart. The unwonted emotion made her cheeks burn, and even her diamonds, ten thousand dollars worth as we have heard declared, were less brilliant than her eyes. Paula left her station on the door-sill and glided rapidly back to her side. "O Ona," said she, "if you would only look like that when—" she paused, what right had she to venture upon giving lessons to her benefactor.

"When what?" inquired the other, subsiding at once into her naturally languid manner. Then with a total forgetfulness of the momentary curiosity that had prompted the question, held out her head to the attendant Sarah, with a command to be relieved of her ornaments. Paula sighed and hastened to her room. She could not bring herself to mention her anxiety in regard to the still absent master of the house, to this lazily-smiling thoroughly satisfied woman.

But none the less did she herself sit up in the moonlight, listening with bended head for the sound of his step on the walk beneath. She could not sleep while he was absent; and yet the thoughts that disturbed her and kept her from her virgin pillow could not have been entirely for him, or why those wandering smiles that ever and anon passed flitting over her cheek, awakening the dimples that slumbered there, until she looked more like a dreamy picture of delight than a wakeful vision of apprehension. Not entirely for him—yet when somewhere towards three o'clock, she heard the long delayed step upon the stoop, she started up with eager eyes and a nervous gesture that sufficiently betrayed how intense was her interest in her benefactor's welfare and happiness. "If he goes to Ona's room it is all right," thought she; "but if he keeps on upstairs, I shall know that something is wrong and that he needs a comforter."

He did not stop at Ona's room; and struck with alarm, Paula opened wide her door and was about to step out to meet him, when she caught a sight of his face, and started back. Here was no anxiety, that she could palliate! The very fact that he did not observe her slight form standing before him in the brilliant moonlight, proved that a woman's look or touch was not what he was in search of; and shrinking sensitively to one side, she sat down on the edge of her dainty bed, dropping her cheek into her hand with a weary troubled gesture from which all the delight had fled and only the apprehension remained. Suddenly she started alertly up; he was coming down again, this time with a gliding muffled tread. Sliding past her door, he descended to the floor below. She could hear the one weak stair in the heavy staircase creak, and—What! he has passed Ona's room, passed the bronze figure of Luxury on the platform beneath, is on his way to the front door, has opened it, shut it softly behind him and gone out again into the blank midnight streets. What did it mean? For a moment she thought she would run down and awaken Ona, but an involuntary remembrance of how those lazy eyes would open, stare peevishly and then shut again, stopped her on the threshold of her door; and sitting down again upon the side of her bed, she waited, this time with opened eyes eagerly staring before her, and quivering form that started at each and every sound that disturbed the silence of the great echoing house. At six o'clock she again rose; he had just re-entered and this time he stopped at Ona's room.

XIX. A DAY AT THE BANK

"There's a divinity that shapes our ends,

Rough-hew them how we will."—HAMLET.

There are days when the whole world seems to smile upon one without stint or reservation. Bertram Sylvester wending his way to the bank on the morning following the reception, was a cheerful sight to behold. Youth, health, hope spake in every lineament of his face and brightened every glance of his wide-awake eye. His new life was pleasant to him. Bach, Beethoven and Chopin were scarcely regretted now by the ambitious assistant cashier of the Madison Bank, with a friend in each of its directors and a something more than that in the popular president himself. Besides he had developed a talent for the business and was in the confidence of the cashier, a somewhat sickly man who more than once had found himself compelled to rely upon the rapidly maturing judgment of his young associate, in matters oftentimes of the utmost importance. The manner in which Bertram found himself able to respond to these various calls, convinced him that he had been correct in his opinion of his own nature, when he informed his uncle that music was his pleasure rather than his necessity.

Entering the building by way of Pearl Street, he was about to open the door leading into the bank proper, when he heard a little piping voice at his side, and turning, confronted the janitor's baby daughter. She was a sweet and interesting child, and with his usual good nature Bertram at once stopped to give her a kiss.

"I likes you," prattled she as he put her down again after lifting her up high over his head, "but I likes de oder one best."

"I hope the other one duly appreciates your preference," laughed he, and was again on the point of entering the bank when he felt or thought he felt a hand laid on his arm. It was the janitor himself this time, a worthy man, greatly trusted in the bank, but possessed of such an extraordinary peculiarity in the way of a pair of protruding eyes, that his appearance was always attended by a shock.

"Well, Hopgood, what is it?" cried Bertram, in his cheery tone.

The janitor drew back and mercifully shifted his gaze from the young man's face. "Nothing sir; did I stop you? Beg pardon," he continued, half stammering, "I'm dreadful awkward sometimes." And with a nod he sidled off towards his little one whom he confusedly took up in his arms.

Now Bertram was sure the man had touched him and that, too, with a very eager hand, but being late that morning and consequently in somewhat of a hurry, he did not stop to pursue the matter. Hastening into the Bank, he assisted the teller in opening the safe, that being his especial duty, and was taking out such papers as he himself required, when he was surprised to catch another sight of those same extraordinary organs of which I have just spoken, peering upon him from the door by which he had previously entered. They vanished as soon as he encountered them, but more than once during the morning he perceived them looking upon him from various quarters of the bank, till he felt himself growing seriously annoyed, and sending for the man, asked him what he meant by this unusual surveillance. The janitor seemed troubled, flushed painfully and fixed his eyes in manifest anxiety on the cashier who, engaged in some search of his own, was just handling over the tin boxes that lined the vault before them. Not till he had seen him shove them back into their place and leave the spot, did he venture upon his reply. "I'm sure, sir, I'm very sorry if I have annoyed you, but do you think Mr. Sylvester will be down at the usual hour?"

"I know of no reason why he should not," returned Bertram.

"I have something to say to him when he comes in," stammered the man, evidently taken aback by Bertram's look of surprise. "Will you be kind enough to ring the bell the first moment he seems to be at leisure? I don't know as it is a matter of any importance but—" He stopped, evidently putting a curb upon himself. "Can I rely on you, sir?"

"Yes, certainly, I will tell my uncle when he comes in that you want to speak to him. He will doubtless send for you at once."

The man looked embarrassed. "Excuse me, sir, but that's just what I'd rather you wouldn't do. Mr. Sylvester is always very busy and he might think I wished to annoy him about some matters of my own, sir, as indeed I have not been above doing at odd times. If you would ring when he comes in, that is all I ask."

Bertram thought this a strange request, but seeing the man so anxious, gave the required promise, and the janitor hurried off. "Curious!" muttered Bertram. "Can anything be wrong?" And he glanced about him with some curiosity as he went to his desk. But every one was at his post as usual and the countenances of all were equally undisturbed.

It was a busy morning and in the rush of various matters Bertram forgot the entire occurrence. But it was presently recalled to him by hearing some one remark, "Mr. Sylvester is late to-day," and looking up from some papers he was considering, he found it was a full hour after the time at which his uncle was in the habit of appearing. Just then he caught still another sight of the protruding eyes of Hopgood staring in upon him from the half-opened door at the end of the bank.

"The fellow's getting impatient," thought he, and experienced a vague feeling of uneasiness.

Another half hour passed. "What can have detained Mr. Sylvester?" cried Mr. Wheelock the cashier, hastily approaching Bertram.

"There is to be an important meeting of the Directors to-day, and some of the gentlemen are already coming in. Mr. Sylvester is not accustomed to keep us waiting."

"I don't know, I am sure," returned Bertram, remembering with an accession of uneasiness, the abruptness with which his uncle had left the entertainment the evening before.

"Shall I telegraph to the house?"

"No, that is not necessary. Besides Folger says he passed him on Broadway this morning."

"Going down street with a valise in his hand," that gentlemen quietly put in. Folger was the teller. "He was looking very pale and didn't see me when I nodded."

"What time was that?" asked Bertram.

"About twelve; when I went out to lunch."

A quick gasp sounded at their side, followed by a hurried cough. Turning, Bertram encountered for the fifth time the eyes of Hopgood. He had entered unperceived by the small door that separated the inner inclosure from the outer, and was now standing very close to them, eying with side-long looks the safe at their back, the faces of the gentleman speaking, yes, and even the countenances of the clerks, as they bent busily over their books.

"Did you ring, sir?" asked he, catching Bertram's look of displeasure.

"No."

The man seemed to feel the rebuke implied in this short response, and ambled softly away. But in another moment he was stopped by Bertram.

"What is the matter with you to-day, Hopgood? Can you have anything of real importance on your mind; anything connected with my uncle?"

The janitor started, and looked almost frightened. "Be careful what you say," whispered he; then with a keen look at Mr. Wheelock just then on the point of entering the directors' room, he was turning to escape by the little door just mentioned, when it opened and Mr. Stuyvesant came in. With a look almost of terror the janitor recoiled, throwing himself as it were between the latter and the door of the safe; but recovering himself, surveyed the keen quiet visage of the veteran banker with a rolling of his great eyes absolutely painful to behold. Mr. Stuyvesant, who was somewhat absorbed in thought, did not appear to notice the agitation he had caused, and with just a hurried nod followed Mr. Wheelock into the Directors' room. Instantly the janitor drew himself up with an air of relief, and shortly glancing at the clock which lacked a few minutes yet of the time fixed for the meeting, slided hastily away from Bertram's detaining hand, and disappeared in the crowd without. In another moment Bertram saw him standing at the outer door, looking anxiously up and down the street.

"Something is wrong," murmured Bertram. "What?" And for a moment he felt half tempted to return Mr. Stuyvesant's friendly bow with a few words expressive of his uneasiness, but the emphasis with which Hopgood had murmured the words, "Be careful what you say," unconsciously deterred him, and concealing his nervousness as best he might, he entered the Directors' office.

It was now time for the meeting to open, and the gentlemen were all seated around the low green baize table that occupied the centre of the room. Impatience was written on all their countenances. Mr. Stuyvesant especially was looking at the heavy gold watch in his hand, with a frown on his deeply wrinkled brow that did not add to its expression of benevolence. The empty seat at the head of the table stared upon Bertram uncompromisingly.

"My wife gives a reception to-day," ventured one gentleman to his neighbor.

"And I have an engagement at five that won't bear postponement."

"Sylvester has always been on hand before."

"We can't proceed without him," was the reply.

Mr. Wheelock looked thoughtful.

With a nod of his head towards such gentlemen as met his eye, Bertram hastened to a little cupboard devoted to the use of himself and uncle. Opening it, he looked within, took down a coat he saw hanging before him, and unconsciously uttered an exclamation. It was a dress-coat such as had been worn by Mr. Sylvester the evening before.

"What does this mean! My uncle has been here!" were the words that sprang to his lips; but he subdued his impulse to speak, and hastily hanging up the coat, relocked the door. Proceeding at once to the outer room, he asked two or three of the clerks if they were sure Mr. Sylvester had not been in during the day. But they all returned an unequivocal "no," and that too with a certain stare of surprise that at once convinced him he was betraying his agitation too plainly.

"I will telegraph whether Wheelock considers it necessary or not," thought he, and was moving to summon a messenger boy when he caught sight of Hopgood slowly making his way in from the street. He was very pale and walked with his eyes fixed on the ground, ominously shaking his great head in a way that bespoke an inner struggle of no ordinary nature. Bertram at once sauntered out to meet him.

"Hopgood," said he, "your evident anxiety is infectious. What has happened to make my uncle's detention a matter of such apparent import? If you do not wish to confide in me, his nephew almost his son, speak to Mr. Wheelock or to one of the directors, but don't keep anything to yourself which concerns his welfare or—What are you looking at?"

The man was gazing as if fascinated at the keys in Bertram's hand.

"Nothing sir, nothing. You must not detain me; I have nothing to say. I will wait ten minutes," he muttered to himself, glancing again at the clock. Suddenly he saw the various directors come filing out of the inner room, and darted for the second time from Bertram's detaining hand.

"I hope nothing has happened to Mr. Sylvester," exclaimed one gentleman to another as they filed by.

"If he were given to a loose ends' sort of business it would be another thing."

"He looked exceedingly well at the reception last night," exclaimed another; "but in these days—"

Suddenly there was a hush. A telegraph boy had just entered the door and was asking for Mr. Bertram Sylvester.

"Here I am," said Bertram, hastily taking the envelope presented him. Slightly turning his back, he opened it. Instantly his face grew white as chalk.

"Gentlemen," said he, "you will have to excuse my uncle to-day; a great misfortune has occurred to him." Then with a slow and horror-stricken movement, he looked about him and exclaimed, "Mrs. Sylvester is dead."

A confused murmur at once arose, followed by a hurried rush; but of all the faces that flocked out of the bank, none wore such a look of blank and helpless astonishment as that of Hopgood the janitor, as with bulging eyes and nervously working hands, he slowly wended his way to the foot of the stairs and there sat down gazing into vacancy.

XX. THE DREGS IN THE CUP

"O eloquent, just and mightie death! whom none could advise, thou hast persuaded; what none hath dared, thou hast done; and whom all the world hath flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world and despised: thou hast drawn together all the farre stretched greatnesses; all the pride, crueltie and ambition of man and covered it all over with these two narrow words, Hic jacet."—SIR WALTER RALEIGH.

Bertram's hurried ring at his uncle's door was answered by Samuel the butler.

"What is this I hear?" cried the young man, entering with considerable agitation, "Mrs. Sylvester dead?"

"Yes sir," returned the old and trusty servant, with something like a sob in his voice. "She went out riding this morning behind a pair of borrowed horses—and being unused to Michael's way of driving, they ran away and she was thrown from the carriage and instantly killed."

"And Miss Fairchild?"

"She didn't go with her. Mrs. Sylvester was alone."

"Horrible, horrible! Where is my uncle, can I see him?"

"I don't know, sir," the man returned with a strange look of anxiety. "Mr. Sylvester is feeling very bad, sir. He has shut himself up in his room and none of his servants dare disturb him, sir."

"I should, however, like him to know I am here. In what room shall I find him?"

"In the little one, sir, at the top of the house. It has a curious lock on the door; you will know it by that."

"Very well. Please be in the hall when I come down; I may want to give you some orders."

The old servant bowed and Bertram hastened with hushed steps to ascend the stairs. At the first platform he paused. What is there in a house of death, of sudden death especially, that draws a veil of spectral unreality over each familiar object! Behind that door now inexorably closed before him, lay without doubt the shrouded form of her who but a few short hours before, had dazzled the eyes of men and made envious the hearts of women with her imposing beauty! No such quiet then reigned over the spot filled by her presence. As the vision of a dream returns, he saw her again in all her splendor. Never a brow in all the great hall shone more brightly beneath its sparkling diamonds; never a lip in the whole vast throng curled with more self-complacent pride, or melted into a more alluring smile, than that of her who now lay here, a marble image beneath the eye of day. It was as if a flowery field had split beneath the dancing foot of some laughing siren. One moment your gaze is upon the swaying voluptuous form, the half-shut beguiling eye, the white outreaching arms upon whose satin surface a thousand loves seem perching; the next you stare horror-stricken upon the closing jaws of an awful pit, with the flash of something bright in your eyes, and the sense of a hideous noiseless rush in which earth and heaven appear to join, sink and be swallowed! Bertram felt his heart grow sick. Moving on, he passed the bronze image of Luxury lying half asleep on its bed of crumpled roses. Hideous mockery! What has luxury to do with death? She who was luxury itself has vanished from these halls. Shall the mute bronze go on smiling over its wine cup while she who was its prototype is carried by without a smile on the lips once so vermeil with pride and tropical languors!

Arrived at the top of the house, Bertram knocked at the door with the strange lock, and uttering his own name, asked if there was anything he could do here or elsewhere to show his sympathy and desire to be of use in this great and sudden bereavement. There was no immediate reply and he began to fear he would be obliged to retire without seeing his uncle, when the door was slowly opened and Mr. Sylvester came out. Instantly Bertram understood the anxiety of the servant. Not only did Mr. Sylvester's countenance exhibit the usual traces of grief and horror incident to a sudden and awful calamity, but there were visible upon it the tokens of another and still more unfathomable emotion, a wild and paralyzed look that altered the very contour of his features, and made his face almost like that of a stranger.

"Uncle, what is it?" sprang involuntarily to his lips. But Mr. Sylvester betraying by a sudden backward movement an instinctive desire to escape scrutiny, he bethought himself, and with hasty utterance offered some words of consolation that sounded strangely hollow and superficial in that dim and silent corridor. "Is there nothing I can do for you?" he finally asked.

"Everything is being done," exclaimed his uncle in a strained and altered voice; "Robert is here." And a silence fell over the hall, that Bertram dared not break.

"I have help for everything but—" He did not say what, it seemed as if something rose up in his throat that choked him.

"Bertram," said he at last in a more natural tone, "come with me."

He led him into an adjoining room and shut the door. It was a room from which the sunshine had not been excluded and it seemed as if they could both breathe more easily.

"Sit down," said his uncle, pointing to a chair. The young man did so, but Mr. Sylvester remained standing. Then without preamble, "Have you seen her?"

There was no grief in the question, only a quiet respect. Death clothes the most volatile with a garment of awe. Bertram slowly shook his head. "No," said he, "I came at once up stairs."

"There is no mark on her white body, save the least little discolored dent here," continued his uncle, pointing calmly to his temple. "She had one moment of fear while the horses ran, and then—" He gave a quick shudder and advancing towards Bertram, laid his hand on his nephew's shoulder in such a way as to prevent him from turning his head. "Bertram," said he, "I have no son. If I were to call upon you to perform a son's work for me; to obey and ask no questions, would you comply?"

"Can you ask?" sprang from the young man's lips; "you know that you have only to command for me to be proud to obey. Anything you can require will find me ready."

The hand on his shoulder weighed heavier. "It seems a strange time to talk about business, Bertram, but necessity knows no law. There is a matter in which you can afford me great assistance if you will undertake to do immediately what I ask."

"Can you doubt—"

"Hush, it is this. On this paper you will find a name; below it a number of addresses. They are all of places down town and some of them not very reputable I fear. What I desire is for you to seek out the man whose name you here see, going to these very places after him, beginning with the first, and continuing down the list until you find him. When you come upon him, he will ask you for a card. Give him one on which you will scrawl before his eyes, a circle, so. It is a token which he should instantly understand. If he does, address him with freedom and tell him that your employer—you need make use of no names—re-demands the papers made over to him this morning. If he manifests surprise or is seen to hesitate, tell him your orders are imperative. If he declares ruin will follow, inform him that you are not to be frightened by words; that your employer is as fully aware of the position of affairs as he. Whatever he says, bring the papers."

Bertram nodded his head and endeavored to rise, but his uncle's hand rested upon him too heavily.

"He is a small man; you need have no dread of him physically. The sooner you find him and acquit yourself of your task, the better I shall be pleased." And then the hand lifted.

On his way down stairs Bertram encountered Paula. She was standing in the hall and accosted him with a very trembling tone in her voice. All her questions were in regard to Mr. Sylvester.

"Have you seen him?" she asked. "Does he speak—say anything? No one has heard him utter a word since he came in from down town and saw her lying there."

"Yes, certainly; he spoke to me; he has been giving me some commissions to perform. I am on my way now to attend to them."

She drew a deep breath. "O!" she cried, "would that he had a son, a daughter, a child, some one!"

This exclamation following what had taken place above struck Bertram forcibly. "He has a son in me, Paula. Love as well as duty binds me to him. All that a child could do will I perform with pleasure. You can trust me for that."

She threw him a glance of searching inquiry. "His need is greater than it seems," whispered she. "He was deeply troubled before this terrible accident occurred. I am afraid the arrow is poisoned that has made this dreadful wound. I cannot explain myself," she went on hurriedly, "but if you indeed regard him as a father, be ready with any comfort, any help, that affection can bestow, or his necessities require. Let me feel that he has near him some stay that will not yield to pressure."

There was so much passion in this appeal that Bertram involuntarily bowed his head. "He has two friends," said he, "and here is my hand that I will never forsake him."

"I do not need to offer mine," she returned, "He is great and good enough to do without my assistance." But nevertheless she gave her hand to Bertram and with a glow of her lip and eye that made her beauty, supreme at all times, something almost supernatural in its character.

"I dared not tell him," she whispered to herself as the front door closed with the dull slow thud proper to a house of mourning. "I dare not tell any one, but—"

What lay beyond that but?

When Mr. Sylvester came in at six o'clock in the morning, Paula had risen from the bed on which she had been sitting, but not to make preparation for rest, for she could not rest. The vague shadow of some surrounding evil or threatened catastrophe was upon her, and though she forced herself to change her dress for a warmer and more suitable one, she did not otherwise break her vigil, though the necessity for it seemed to be at an end. It was a midwinter morning and the sun had not yet risen, so being chilly as well as restless, she began to pace the floor, stopping now and then to glance out of the window, in the hopes of detecting some signs of awakening day in the blank and solemn east. Suddenly as she was thus consulting the horizon, a light flashed up from below, and looking down upon the face of the extension that ran along at right angles to her window, she perceived that the shades were up in Mrs. Sylvester's boudoir. They had doubtless been left so the evening before, and Mr. Sylvester upon turning up the gas had failed to observe the fact. Instantly she felt her heart stand still, for the house being wide and the extension narrow, all that went on in that boudoir, or at least in that portion of it which Mr. Sylvester at present occupied, was easily observable from the window at which she stood; and that something was going on of a serious and important nature, was sufficiently evident from the expression of Mr. Sylvester's countenance. He was standing with his face bent towards some one seated out of sight, his wife undoubtedly, though what could have called her from her dreams—and was busily engaged in talking. The subject whatever it was, absorbed him completely. If Paula had allowed herself the thought, she would have described him as pleading and that with no ordinary vehemence. But suddenly while she gazed half fascinated and but little realizing what she was doing, he started back and a fierce change swept over his face, a certain incredulity, that presently gave way to a glance of horror and repugnance, which the quick action of his out-thrown palm sufficiently emphasized. He was pushing something from him, but what? A suggestion or a remembrance? It was impossible to determine.

The countenance of Mrs. Sylvester who that moment appeared in sight sailing across the floor in her azure wrapper, offered but little assistance in the way of explanation. Immovable under most circumstances, it was simply at this juncture a trifle more calm and cold than usual, presenting to Paula's mind the thought of a white and icy barrier, against which the most glowing of arrows must fall chilled and powerless.

"O for a woman's soul to inform that breast if but for a moment!" cried Paula, lost in the passion of this scene, while so little understanding its import. When as if in mockery to this invocation, the haughty form upon which she was gazing started rigidly erect, while the lip acquired a scorn and the eye a menace that betrayed the serpent ever in hiding under this white rose.

Paula could look no longer. This last revelation had awakened her to the fact that she was gazing upon a scene sacred to the husband and wife engaged in it. With a sense of shame she rushed to the bed and threw herself upon it, but the vision of what she had beheld would not leave her so easily. Like letters of fire upon a black ground, the panorama of looks and gestures to which she had just been witness, floated before her mind's eye, awakening a train of thought so intense that she did not know which was worse, to be there in the awful dawn dreaming over this episode of the night, or to rise and face again the reality. The fascination which all forbidden sights insensibly exert over the minds of the best of us, finally prevailed, and she slowly crept to the window to catch a parting glimpse of Mr. Sylvester's tall form hurrying blindly from the boudoir followed by his wife's cold glance. The next minute the exposed condition of the room seemed to catch that lady's attention, and with an anxious look into the dull gray morn, Mrs. Sylvester drew down the shades, and the episode was over.

Or so Paula thought; but when she was returning up stairs after her solitary breakfast—Mrs. Sylvester was too tired and Mr. Sylvester too much engaged to eat, as the attentive Samuel informed her—the door of Ona's room swung ajar, and she distinctly heard her give utterance to the following exclamation:

"What! give up this elegant home, my horses and carriage, the friends I have had such difficulty in obtaining, and the position which I was born to adorn? I had rather die!" And Paula feeling as if she had received the key to the enigma of the last night's unaccountable manifestations, was about to rush away to her own apartment, when the door swayed open again and she heard his voice respond with hard and bitter emphasis,

"And it might be better that you should. But since you will probably live, let it be according to your mind. I have not the courage—"

There the door swung to.

An hour from that Mr. Sylvester left the house with a small valise in his hand, and Mrs. Sylvester dressed in her showiest costume, entered her carriage for an early shopping excursion.

And so when Paula whispered to herself, "I did not dare to tell him; I did not dare to tell any one, but—" she thought of those terrible words, "Die? It might be better, perhaps, that you should!" and then remembered the ghastly look of immeasurable horror with which a few hours later, he staggered away from that awful burden, whose rigid lines would never again melt into mocking curves, and to whom the morning's wide soaring hopes, high reaching ambitions and boundless luxuries were now no more than the shadows of a vanished world; life, love, longing, with all their demands, having dwindled to a noisome rest between four close planks, with darkness for its present portion and beyond—what?

XXI. DEPARTURE

"Forever and forever, farewell Cassius.

If we do meet again, why we shall smile;

If not, why then, this parting was well made."—JULIUS CÆSAR.

Samuel had received his orders to admit Mr. Bertram Sylvester to his uncle's room, at whatever hour of the day or night he chose to make his appearance. But evening wore away and finally the night, before his well-known face was seen at the door. Proceeding at once to the apartment occupied by Mr. Sylvester, he anxiously knocked. The door was opened immediately.

"Ah, Bertram, I have been expecting you all night." And from the haggard appearance of both men, it was evident that neither of them had slept.

"I have sat down but twice since I left you, and then only in conveyances. I have been obliged to go to Brooklyn, to—"

"But you have found him?"

"Yes, I found him."

His uncle glanced inquiringly at his hands; they were empty.

"I shall have to sit down," said Bertram; his brow was very gloomy, his words came hesitatingly. "I had rather have knocked my head against the wall, than have disappointed you," he murmured after a moment's pause. "But when I did find him, it was too late."

"Too late!" The tone in which this simple phrase was uttered was indescribable. Bertram slowly nodded his head.

"He had already disposed of all the papers, and favorably," he said.

"But—"

"And not only that," pursued Bertram. "He had issued orders by telegraph, that it was impossible to countermand. It was at the Forty Second Street depôt I found him at last. He was just on the point of starting for the west."

"And has he gone?"

"Yes sir."

Mr. Sylvester walked slowly to the window. It was raining drearily without, but he did not notice the falling drops or raise his eyes to the leaden skies.

"Did you meet any one?" he asked at length. "Any one that you know, I mean, or who knows you?"

"No one but Mr. Stuyvesant."

"Mr. Stuyvesant!"

"Yes sir," returned Bertram, dropping his eyes before his uncle's astonished glance. "I was coming out of a house in Broad Street when he passed by and saw me, or at least I believed he saw me. There is no mistaking him, sir, for any one else; besides it is a custom of his I am told, to saunter through the down town streets after the warehouses are all closed for the night. He enjoys the quiet I suppose, finds food for reflection in the sleeping aspect of our great city." There was gloom in Bertram's tone; his uncle looked at him curiously.

"What house was it from which you were coming when he passed you?"

"A building where Tueller and Co. do business, shady operators in paper, as you know."

"And you believed he recognized you?"

"I cannot be sure, sir. It was dark, but I thought I saw him look at me and give a slight start."

Ah, how desolate sounds the drip, drip of a ceaseless rain, when conversation languishes and the ear has time to listen!

"I will explain to Mr. Stuyvesant when I see him, that you were in search of a man with whom I had pressing business," observed Mr. Sylvester at last.

"No," murmured Bertram with effort, "it might emphasize the occurrence in his mind; let the matter drop where it is."

There was another silence, during which the drip of the rain on the window-ledge struck on the young man's ears like the premonitory thud of falling earth upon a coffin-lid. At length his uncle turned and advanced rapidly towards him.

"Bertram," said he, "you have done me a favor for which I thank you. What you have learned in the course of its accomplishment I cannot tell. Enough perhaps to make you understand why I warned you from the dangerous path of speculation, and set your feet in a way that if adhered to with steadfast purpose, ought to lead you at last to a safe and honorable prosperity. Now—No, Bertram," he bitterly interrupted himself as the other opened his lips, "I am in need of no especial commiseration, my affairs seem bound to prosper whether I will or not—now I have one more commission to give you. Miss Fairchild—" his voice quavered and he leaned heavily on the chair near which he was standing. "Have you seen her, Bertram? Is the poor child quite prostrated? Has this frightful occurrence made her ill, or does she bear up with fortitude under the shock of this sudden calamity?"

"She is not ill, but her suffering is undoubted. If you could see her and say a few words to relieve her anxiety in regard to yourself, I think it would greatly comfort her. Her main thought seems to be for you, sir."

Mr. Sylvester frowned, raised his hand with a repelling gesture, and hastily opened his lips. Bertram thought he was about to utter some passionate phrase. But instead of that he merely remarked, "I am sorry I cannot see her, but it is quite impossible. You must stand between me and this poor child, Bertram. Tell her I send her my love; tell her that I am quite well; anything to solace her and make these dark days less dreary. If she wants a friend with her, let a messenger be sent for whomever she desires. I place no restrictions upon anything you choose to do for her comfort or happiness, but let me be spared the sight of any other face than yours until this is all over. After the funeral—it nay sound ungracious, but I am far from feeling so—I shall wish to be left alone for awhile. If she can be made to understand this—"

"I think her instincts, sir, have already led her to divine your wishes. If I am not mistaken, she is even now making preparations to return to her relatives."

Mr. Sylvester gave a start. "What, so soon!" he murmured, and the sadness of his tone smote Bertram to the heart. But in another moment he recovered himself and shortly exclaimed, "Well! well! that is as it should be. You will watch over her Bertram, and see that she is kindly cared for. It would be a grief to me to have her go away with any more than the necessary regret at losing one who was always kind to her."

"I will look after her as after a sister," returned Bertram. "She shall miss no attention which I can supply."

With a look Mr. Sylvester expressed his thanks. Then while Bertram again attempted to speak, he gave him a cordial pressure of the hand, and withdrew once more to his favorite spot.

And the rain beat, beat, and it sounded more and more like the droppings of earth upon a nailed down coffin-lid.

The funeral was a large one. The largest some said that had ever been seen in that quarter of the city. If Mrs. Sylvester's position had not been what it was, the sudden and awful nature of her death, would have been sufficient to draw together a large crowd. Among those who thus endeavored to show their respect was Miss Stuyvesant.

"I could not join you here in your pleasures," she whispered to Paula in the short interview they had upstairs, preparatory to the services, "but I cannot keep away in the dark hours!" And from her look and the clasp of her hand, Paula gained fresh courage to endure the slow pressure of anxiety and grief with which she was secretly burdened.

Moreover she had the pleasure of introducing her beloved friend to Mr. Bertram Sylvester, a pleasure which she had long promised herself whenever the opportunity should arrive, as Miss Stuyvesant was somewhat of an enthusiast as regards music. She did not notice particularly then, but she remembered afterwards, with what a blushing cheek and beautiful glance the dainty young girl received his bow, and responded to his few respectful words of pleasure at meeting the daughter of a man whom he had learned to regard with so much respect.

Mr. Sylvester was in a room by himself. The few glimpses obtained of him by his friends, convinced them all, that this trouble touched him more deeply than those who knew his wife intimately could have supposed. Yet he was calm, and already wore that fixed look of rigidity which was henceforth to distinguish the expression of his fine and noble features.

In the ride to Greenwood he spoke little. Paula who sat in the carriage with him did not receive a word, though now and then his eye wandered towards her with an expression that drove the blood to her heart, and made the whole day one awful memory of incomprehensible agony and dim but terrible forebodings. The ways of the human soul, in its crises of grief or remorse were so new to her. She had passed her life beside rippling streams and in peaceful meadows, and now all at once, with shadow on shadow, the dark pictures of life settled down before her, and she could not walk without stumbling upon jagged rocks, deep yawning chasms and caves of impenetrable gloom.

The sight of the grave appalled her. To lay in such a bed as that, the fair and delicate head that had often found the downy pillows of its azure couch too hard for its languid pressure. To hide in such a dismal, deep, dark gap, a form so white and but a little while before, so imposing in its splendor and so commanding in its requirements. The thought of heaven brought no comfort. The beauty they had known lay here; soulless, inert, rigid and responseless, but here. It was gifted with no wings with which to rise. It owned no attachment to higher spheres. Death had scattered the leaves of this white rose, but from all the boundless mirror of the outspread heavens, no recovered semblance of its perfected beauty, looked forth to solace Paula or assuage the misery of her glance into this gloomy pit. Ah, Ona, the social ladder reaches high, but it does not scale the regions where your poor soul could find comfort now.

Bertram saw the white look on Paula's face and silently offered his arm. But there are moments when no mortal help can aid us; instants when the soul stands as solitary in the universe, as the ship-wrecked mariner on a narrow strip of rock in a boundless sea. Life may touch, but eternity enfolds us; we are single before God and as such must stand or fall.

Upon their return to the house, Mr. Sylvester withdrew with a few intimate friends to his room, and Paula, lonely beyond expression, went to her own empty apartment to finish packing her trunks and answer such notes as had arrived during her absence. For attention from outsiders was only too obtrusive. Many whom she had never met save in the most formal intercourse, flooded her now with expressions of condolence, which if they had not been all upon one pattern and that the most conventional, might have afforded her some relief. Two or three of the notes were precious to her and these she stowed safely away, one contained a deliberate offer of marriage from a wealthy old stock-broker; this she as deliberately burned after she had written a proper refusal. "He thinks I have no home," she murmured.

And had she? As she paced through the silent halls and elaborately furnished rooms on her way to her solitary dinner, she asked herself if any place would ever seem like home after this. Not that she was infatuated by its elegance. The lofty walls might dwindle, the gorgeous furniture grow dim, the works of beauty disappear, the whole towering structure contract to the dimensions of a simple cottage or what was worse, a seedy down-town house, if only the something would remain, the something that made return to Grotewell seem like the bending back of a towering stalk to the ground from which it had taken its root. "If?" she cried—and stopped there, her heart swelling she knew not why. Then again, "I thought I had found a father!" Then after a longer pause, a wild uncontrollable; "Bless! bless! bless!" which seemed to re-echo in the room long after her lingering step had left it.

"Will he let me go without a word?"

It was early morning and the time had come for Paula's departure. She was standing on the threshold of her room, her hands clasped, her eyes roving up and down the empty halls. "Will he let me go without a word?"

"O Miss Paula, what do you think?" cried Sarah, creeping slowly towards her from the spectral recesses of a dim corner. "Jane says Mr. Sylvester was up all last night too. She heard him go down stairs about midnight and he went through all the rooms like a gliding spectre and into her room too!" she fearfully whispered; "and what he did there no one knows, but when he came out he locked the door, and this morning the cook heard him give orders to Samuel to have the trunks that were ready in Mrs. Sylvester's room taken away. O Miss, do you think he can be going to give all those beautiful things to you?"

Paula recoiled in horror. "Sarah!" said she, and could say no more. The vision of that tall form gliding through the desolate house at midnight, bending over the soulless finery of his dead wife, perhaps stowing it away in boxes, came with too powerful a suggestion to her mind.

"Shure, I thought you would be pleased," murmured the girl and disappeared again into one of the dim recesses.

"Will he let me go without a word?"

"Miss Paula, Mr. Bertram Sylvester is waiting at the door in a carriage," came in low respectful tones to her ears, and Samuel's face full of regret appeared at the top of the stairs.

"I am coming," murmured the sad-hearted girl, and with a sob which she could not control, she took her last look of the pretty pink chamber in which she had dreamed so many dreams of youthful delight, and perhaps of youthful sorrow also, and slowly descended the stairs. Suddenly as she was passing a door on the second floor, she heard a low deep cry.

"Paula!"

She stopped and her hand went to her heart, the reaction was so sudden. "Yes," she murmured, standing still with great heart-beats of joy, or was it pain?

The door slowly opened. "Did you think I could let you go without a blessing, my Paula, my little one!" came in those deep heart-tones which always made her tears start. And Mr. Sylvester stepped out of the shadows beyond and stood in the shadows at her side.

"I did not know," she murmured. "I am so young, so feeble, such a mote in this great atmosphere of anguish. I longed to see you, to say good-bye, to thank you, but—" tears stopped her words; this was a parting that rent her leader heart.

Mr. Sylvester watched her and his deep chest rose spasmodically. "Paula," said he, and there was a depth in his tone even she had never heard before, "are these tears for me?"

With a strong effort she controlled herself, looked up and faintly smiled. "I am an orphan," she gently murmured; "you have been kind and tender to me beyond words; I have let myself love you as a father."

A spasm crossed his features, the hand he had lifted to lay upon her head fell at his side, he surveyed her with eyes whose despairing fondness told her that her love had been more than met by this desolate childless man. But he did not reply as seemed natural, "Be to me then as a child. I can offer you no mother to guide or watch over you, but one parent is better than none. Henceforth you shall be known as my daughter." Instead of that he shook his head mournfully, yearningly but irrevocably, and said, "To be your father would have been a dear position to occupy. I have sometimes hoped that I might be so blessed as to call it mine, but that is all past now. Your father I can never be. But I can bless you," he murmured brokenly, "not as I did that day in your aunt's little cottage, but silently and from afar as God always meant you should be blessed by me. Good-bye, Paula."

Then all the deeps in her great nature broke up. She did not weep, but she looked at him with her large dark eyes and the cry in them smote his heart. With a struggle that blanched his face, he kept his arms at his side, but his lips worked in agony, and he slowly murmured, "If after a time your heart loves me like this, and you are willing to bear shadow as well as sunshine with me, come back with your aunt and sit at my hearthstone, not as my child but as a dear and honored guest. I will try and be worthy—" He paused, "Will you come, Paula?"

"Yes, yes."

"Not soon, not now," he murmured, "God will show you when."

And with nothing but a look, without having touched her or so much as brushed her garments with his, he retired again into his room.

XXII. HOPGOOD

"Give it an understanding but no tongue."—HAMLET.

Hopgood was a man who could keep a secret, but who made so much ado in the process that he reminded one of the placard found posted up somewhere out west which reads, "A treasure of gold concealed here; don't dig!" Or so his wife used to say, and she ought to know, for she had lived with him five years, three of which he had spent in the detective service.

"If he would only trust the wife of his bosom with whatever he's got on his mind, instead of ambling around the building with his eyes rolling about like peas in a caldron of boiling water, one might manage to take some comfort in life, and not hurt anybody either. For two days now, ever since the wife of Mr. Sylvester died and Mr. Sylvester has been away from the bank, he's acted just like a lunatic. Not that that has anything to do with his gettin up of nights and roamin down five pair of stairs to see if the watchman is up to his duty, or with his askin a dozen times a day if I remembers how Mr. Sylvester found him and me, well nigh starvin in Broad Street, and gave him the good word which got him into this place? O no! O no, of course not! But something has, and while he persists in shutting out from his breast the woman he swore to love, honor, and cherish, that woman is not bound to bear the trials of life with patience. Every time he jumps out of his chair at the sound of Mr. Sylvester's name, and some one is always mentionin' it, I plumps me down on mine with an expression of my views regarding a kitchen stove that does all its drawin' when the oven's empty."

So spake Mrs. Hopgood to her special crony and constant visitor, Mrs. Kirkshaw of Water Street, pursing up a mouth that might have been good-natured if she had ever given it an opportunity. But Mrs. Kirkshaw who passed for a gossip with her neighbors, was a philosopher in the retirement of the domestic circle and did not believe in the blow for blow system.

"La!" quoth she, with a smoothing out of her apron suggestive of her employment as laundress, "show a dog that you want his bone and you'll never get it. Husbands is like that very stove you've been a slanderin of. Rattle on coal when the fire's low and you put it out entirely; but be a bit patient and drop it on piece by piece, coaxing-like, and you'll have a hot stove afore you know it."

Which suggestion struck Mrs. Hopgood like a revelation, and for a day and night she resorted to the coaxing system; the result of which was to send Mr. Hopgood out of the room to sit on the stairs in mortal terror, lest his good nature should get the better of his discretion. His little daughter, Constantia Maria—so named and so called from two grandmothers, equally exacting in their claims and equally impecunious as regards their resources—was his sole solace in this long vigil. Her pretty innocent prattle scarcely disturbed his meditation, while it soothed his nerves, and with no one by but this unsuspecting child, he could roll his great eyes to his heart's content without fear of her descrying anything in them, but the love with which her own little heart abounded.

On the morning after the funeral, however, Constantia Maria was restored to his wife's arms on the plea that she did not seem quite well, and Hopgood went out and sat alone. In a few minutes, however, he returned, and ambling restlessly up and down the room, stopped before his persistently smiling wife and said somewhat tremulously:

"If Mr. Sylvester takes a notion to come up and see Constantia Maria to-day, I hope you'll take the opportunity to finish your ironing or whatever else it is you may have to do. I've noticed he seems a little shy with the child when you are around."

"Shy with the child when I am around! well I do declare!" exclaimed she, forgetting her late rôle in her somewhat natural indignation. "And what have I ever done to frighten Mr. Sylvester? Nothing but putting on of a clean apron, when he comes in and a dustin' of the best chair for his use. It's a trick of yours to get a chance of speakin' to him alone, and I'll not put up with it. As if it wasn't bad enough to have a kettle with the nozzle dangling, without living with a man who has a secret he won't share with his own wife and the mother of his innocent babe."

With a start the worthy man stared at her till he grew red in the face, probably with the effort of keeping his eyes steady for so long a time. "Who told you I had a secret?" said he.

"Who told me?" and then she laughed, though in a somewhat hysterical way, and sat down in the middle of the floor and shook and shook again. "Hear the man!" she cried. And she told him the story of the placard out west and then asked him, "if he thought she didn't remember how he used to act when he was a chasin' up of a thief in the days when he was on the police force."

"But," he cried, quite as pale now as he had been florid the moment before, "I'm not in the police force now and you are acting quite silly and I've no patience with you." And he was making for the door, presumably to sit upon the stairs, when with a late repentance she seized him by the arm and said:

"La now," an expression she had caught from Mrs. Kirkshaw, "I didn't mean nothin' by my talk. Come back, John; Constantia Maria is not well, and if Mr. Sylvester comes up to see her, I'll just slip out and leave you alone."

And upon that he told her she was a good wife and that if he had any secret from her it was only because he was a poor man. "Honesty and prudence are all the treasures I possess to keep us three from starving. Shall I part with either of them just to satisfy your curiosity?" and being a good woman at heart, she said "no," though she secretly concluded that prudence in his case involved trust in one's wife first, and disbelief in the rest of the world afterward; and took her future resolutions accordingly.

"Well, Hopgood, you look anxious; do you want to speak to me?"

The janitor eyed the changed and melancholy face of his patron, with an expression in which real sympathy for his trouble, struggled with the respectful awe which Mr. Sylvester's presence was calculated to inspire.

"If you please," said he, speaking very low, for more or less of the bank employees were moving busily to and fro, "Constantia Maria is not well and she has been asking all day for the dear man, as she insists upon calling you, sir, with many apologies for the freedom."

Mr. Sylvester smiled with a faint far-away look in his dark eye that made Hopgood stare uneasily out of the window. "Sick! why then I must go up and see her," he returned in a matter-of-fact way that proved his visits in that direction were of no uncommon occurrence. "A moment more and I shall be at liberty."

Hopgood bowed and renewed his stare out of the window, with an intensity happily spared from serious consequences to the passers-by, by the merciful celerity with which Mr. Sylvester procured his overcoat, put such papers in his pocket as he required, and joined him.

"Constantia Maria, here is Mr. Sylvester come to see you."

It was a pleasure to observe how the little thing brightened in her mother's arms, where but a moment before she had lain quite pale and still, and slipping to the ground rushed up to meet the embrace of this stern and melancholy-faced man. "I am so glad you have come," she cried over and over again; and her little arms went round his neck, and her soft cheek nestled against his, with a content that made the mother's eyes sparkle with pleasure, as obedient to her promise, she quietly left the room.

And Mr. Sylvester? If any one had seen the abandon with which he yielded to her caresses and returned them, he would have understood why this child should have loved him with such extraordinary affection. He kissed her forehead, he kissed her cheek, and seemed never weary of smoothing down her bright and silky curls. She reminded him of Geraldine. She had the same blue eyes and caressing ways. From the day he had come upon his old friend Hopgood in a condition of necessity almost of want, this blue-eyed baby had held its small sceptre over his lonely heart, and unbeknown to the rest of the world, had solaced many a spare five minutes with her innocent prattle. The Hopgoods understood the cause of his predilection and were silent. It was the one thing Mrs. Hopgood never alluded to in her gossips with Mrs. Kirkshaw. But to-day the attentions of Mr. Sylvester to the little one seemed to make the janitor restless. He walked up and down the narrow room uneasily surveying the pair out of the corner of his great glassy eyes, till even Mr. Sylvester noticed his unusual manner and put the child down, observing with a sigh, "You think she is not well enough for any excitement?"

"No sir, it is not that," returned the other uneasily, with a hasty look around him. "The fact is, I have something to say to you, sir, about—a discovery—I made the other day." His words came very slowly, and he looked down with great embarrassment.

Mr. Sylvester frowned slightly, and drew himself up to the full height of his very imposing figure. "A discovery," repeated he, "when?"

"The day you paid that early visit to the bank, sir, the day Mrs. Sylvester died."

The frown on Mr. Sylvester's brow grew deeper. "The day—" he began, and stopped.

"Excuse me, sir," exclaimed Hopgood with a burst. "I ought not to have mentioned it, but you asked me when, and I—"

"What was this discovery?" inquired his superior, imperatively.

"Nothing much," murmured the other now all in a cold sweat. "But I felt as if I ought to tell you. You have been my benefactor, sir, I can never forget what you have done for me and mine. If I saw death or bereavement between me and any favor I could do for you, sir, I would not hesitate to risk them. I am no talker, sir, but I am true and I am grateful." He stopped, choked, and his eyes rolled frightfully. Mr. Sylvester looked at him, grew a trifle pale, and put the little child away that was nestling up against his knee.

"You have not told me what you have discovered," said he.

"Well, sir, only this." And he took from his pocket a small roll of paper which he unfolded and held out in his hand. It contained a gold tooth-pick somewhat bent and distorted.

A flush dark and ominous crept over Mr. Sylvester's cheek. He glanced sternly at the trembling janitor, and uttered a short, "Well?"

"I found it on the floor of the bank just after you went out the other morning," the other pursued well-nigh inaudibly. "It was lying near the safe. As it was not there when you went in, I took it for granted it was yours. Am I right, sir?"

The anxious tone in which this last question was uttered, the studied way in which the janitor kept his eyes upon the floor could not have been unnoticed by Mr. Sylvester, but he simply said,

"I have lost mine, that may very possibly be it."

The janitor held it towards him; his eyes did not leave the floor. "The responsibility of my position here is sometimes felt by me to be very heavy," muttered the man in a low, unmodulated tone. It was his duty in those days previous to the Manhattan Bank robbery, to open the vault in the morning, procure the books that were needed, and lay them about on the various desks in readiness for the clerks upon their arrival. He had also the charge of the boxes of the various customers of the bank who chose to entrust their valuables to its safe keeping; which boxes were kept, together with the books, in that portion of the vault to which he had access. "I should regret my comfortable situation here, but if it was necessary, I would go without a murmur, trusting that God would take care of my poor little lamb."

"Hopgood, what do you mean?" asked Mr. Sylvester somewhat sternly. "Who talks about dismissing you?"

"No one," responded the other, turning aside to attend to some trivial matter. "But if ever you think a younger or a fresher man would be preferable in my place, do not hesitate to make the change your own necessities or that of the Bank may seem to require."

Mr. Sylvester's eye which was fixed upon the janitor's face, slowly darkened.

"There is something underlying all this," said he, "what is it?"

At once and as if he had taken his resolution, the janitor turned. "I beg your pardon," said he, "I ought to have told you in the first place. When I opened the vaults as usual on the morning of which I speak, I found the boxes displaced; that was nothing if you had been to them, sir; but what did alarm me and make me feel as if I had held my position too long was to find that one of them was unlocked."

Mr. Sylvester fell back a step.

"It was Mr. Stuyvesant's box, sir, and I remember distinctly seeing him lock it the previous afternoon before putting it back on the shelf."

The arms which Mr. Sylvester had crossed upon his breast tightened spasmodically. "And it has been in that condition ever since?" asked he.

The janitor shook his head. "No," said he, taking his little girl up in his arms, possibly to hide his countenance. "As you did not come down again on that day, I took the liberty of locking it with a key of my own when I went to put away the books and shut the vault for the night." And he quietly buried his face in his baby's floating curls, who feeling his cheek against her own put up her hand and stroked it lovingly, crying in her caressing infantile tones,

"Poor papa! poor tired papa."

Mr. Sylvester's stern brow contracted painfully. The look with which his eye sought the sky without, would have made Paula's young heart ache. Taking the child from her father's clasp, he laid her on the bed. When he again confronted the janitor his face was like a mask.

"Hopgood," said he, "you are an honest man and a faithful one; I appreciate your worth and have had confidence in your judgment. Whom have you told of this occurrence beside myself?"

"No one, sir."

"Another question; if Mr. Stuyvesant had required his box that day and had found it in the condition you describe, what would you have replied to his inquiries?"

The janitor colored to the roots of his hair in an agony of shame Mr. Sylvester may or may not have appreciated, but replied with the straightforward earnestness of a man driven to bay, "I should have been obliged to tell him the truth sir; that whereas I had no personal knowledge of any one but myself, having been to the vaults since the evening before, I was called upon early that morning to open the outside door to you, sir, and that you came into the bank," (he did not say looking very pale, agitated and unnatural, but he could not help remembering it) "and finding no one on duty but myself,—the watchman having gone up stairs to take his usual cup of coffee before going home for the day—you sent me out of the room on an errand, which delayed me some little time, and that when I came back I found you gone, and every thing as I had left it except that small pick lying on the floor."

The last words were nearly inaudible but they must have been heard by Mr. Sylvester, for immediately upon their utterance, the hand which unconsciously had kept its hold upon the tooth-pick, opened and with an uncontrollable gesture flung the miserable tell-tale into the stove near by.

"Hopgood," said the stately gentleman, coming nearer and holding him with his eyes till the poor man turned pale and cold as a stone, "has Mr. Stuyvesant had occasion to open his box since you locked it?"

"Yes sir, he called for it yesterday afternoon."

"And who gave it to him?"

"I sir."

"Did he appear to miss anything from it?"

"No, sir."

"Do you believe, Hopgood, that there was anything missing from it?"

The janitor shrank like a man subjected to the torture. He fixed his glance on Mr. Sylvester's face and his own gradually lightened.

"No sir!" said he at last, with a gasp that made the little one lift her curly head from her pillow and shake it with a slow and wistful motion strange to see in a child of only two years.

The proud man bowed, not with the severity however that might have been expected; indeed his manner was strangely shadowed, and though his lip betrayed no uneasiness and his eye neither faltered or fell, there was a vague expression of awe upon his countenance, which it would take more than the simple understanding of the worthy but not over subtle man before him, to detect much less to comprehend.

"You may be sure that Mr. Stuyvesant will never complain of any one having tampered with his effects while you are the guardian of the vaults," exclaimed Mr. Sylvester in clear ringing tones. "As for his box being open, it is right that I should explain that it was the result of a mistake. I had occasion to go to a box of my own in a hurry that morning, and misled by the darkness and my own nervousness perhaps, took up his instead of my own. Not till I had opened it—with the tooth-pick, Hopgood, for I had been to a reception and did not have my keys with me—did I notice my mistake. I had intended to explain the matter to Mr. Stuyvesant, but you know what happened that day, and since then I have thought nothing of it."

The janitor's face cleared to its natural expression. "You are very kind, sir, to explain yourself to me," said he; "it was not necessary." But his lightened face spoke volumes. "I have been on the police force and I know how to hold my tongue when it is my duty, but it is very hard work when the duty is on the other side. Have you any commands for me?"

Mr. Sylvester shook his head, and his eye roamed over the humble furniture and scanty comforts of this poor man's domicile. Hopgood thought he might be going to offer him some gift or guerdon, and in a low distressed tone spoke up:

"I shall not try to ask your pardon, sir, for anything I have said. Honesty that is afraid to show itself, is no honesty for me. I could not meet your eye, knowing that I was aware of any circumstance of which you supposed me ignorant. What I know, you must know, as long as I remain in the position you were once kind enough to procure for me. And now that is all I believe, sir."

Mr. Sylvester dropped his eyes from the bare walls over which they had been restlessly wandering, and fixed them for a passing moment on the countenance of the man before him. Then with a grave action he lifted his hat from his head, and bowed with the deference he might have shown to one of his proudest colleagues, and without another look or word, quietly left the room.

Hopgood in his surprise stared after him somewhat awe-struck. But when the door had quite closed, he caught up his child almost passionately in his arms, and crushing her against his breast, asked, while his eye roamed round the humble room that in its warmth and comfort was a palace to him, "Will he take the first opportunity to have me dismissed, or will his heart forgive the expression of my momentary doubts, for the sake of this poor wee one that he so tenderly fancies?"

The question did not answer itself, and indeed it was one to which time alone could reply.

BOOK III. THE JAPHA MYSTERY

XXIII. THE POEM

"I've shot my arrow o'er the house

And hurt my brother."—HAMLET.

When Miss Belinda first saw Paula, she did not, like her sister, remark upon the elegance of her appearance, the growth of her beauty, or the evidences of increased refinement in the expression of her countenance and the carriage of her form, but with her usual penetration noted simply, the sadness in her eye and the tremulous motion of her lip.

"You had then become fond of your cousin?" queried she with characteristic bluntness.

Paula not understanding the motive of this remark, questioned her with a look.

"Young faces do not grow pale or bright eyes become troubled without a cause. Grief for your cousin might explain it, but if you have suffered from no grief—"

"My cousin was very kind to me," hurriedly interrupted Paula. "Her death was very sudden and very heart-rending."

"So it was;" returned Miss Belinda, "and I expected to see you look worn and sad but not restless and feverish. You have a living grief, Paula, what is it?"

The young girl started and looked down. For the first time in her life she wished to avoid that penetrating glance. "If I have, I cannot talk of it," she murmured. "I have experienced so much this past week; my coming away was so unexpected, that I hardly understand my own feelings, or realize just what it is that troubles me most. All that I know is, that I am very tired and so sad, it seems as if the sun would never shine again."

"There is then something you have not written me?" inquired the inexorable Miss Belinda.

"The experiences of this last week could never be written,—or told," returned Paula with a droop of her head. "Upon some things our better wisdom places a stone which only the angels can roll away. The future lies all open before us; do not let us disturb the past."

And Miss Belinda was forced to be content lest she should seem to be over anxious.

Not so the various neighbors and friends to whom the lengthened sojourn of one of their number in an atmosphere of such wealth and splendor, possessed something of the charm of a forbidden romance. For months Paula was obliged to endure questions, that it required all her self-control to answer with calmness and propriety. But at length the most insatiable gossip amongst them was satisfied; Paula's figure was no longer a novelty in their streets; curiosity languished and the young girl was allowed to rest.

And now could those who loved her, discern that with the lapse of time and the daily breathings of her native air, the sad white look had faded from her face, leaving it a marvel of freshness and positive, if somewhat spiritualized, beauty. The print of deeper thoughts and holier yearnings was there, but no sign of blighted hopes or uncomprehended passions. A passing wind had blown the froth from off the cup, but had not disturbed the sparkle of the wine. She had looked in the face of grief, but had not as yet been clasped in her relentless arms. Only two things could vitally disturb her; a letter from Cicely, or a sudden meeting in the village streets with that elderly lady who haunted the Japha mansion. The former because it recalled a life around which her fancies still played with dangerous persistency, and the latter because it aroused vain and inexplicable conjectures as to that person's strange and lingering look in her direction. Otherwise she was happy; finding in this simple village-life a meaning and a purpose which her short but passionate outlook on a broader field, had taught her, perhaps, both to detect and comprehend. She no longer walked solitary with nature. The woods, the mountains with all their varying panoply of exuberant verdure, had acquired a human significance. At her side went the memories of beloved faces, the thoughts of trusted friends. From the clouds looked forth a living eye, and in the sound of rustling leaf and singing streamlet, spake the voices of human longing and human joy.

Her aunts had explained their position to Paula and she had responded by expressing her determination to be a teacher. But they would not hear of that at present, and while she waited their pleasure in the matter, she did what she could to assist them in their simple home-life and daily duties, lending her beauty to tasks that would have made the eyes of some of her quondam admirers open with surprise, if only they could have followed the action of her hands, after having once caught a glimpse of the face that brightened above them. And so the summer months went by and September came.

There was to be an entertainment in the village and Paula was to assist. The idea had come from her aunt and was not to be rejected. In one of the strange incomprehensible moods which sometimes came upon her at this time, she had written a poem, and nothing would do but that she mast read it before the assembled company of neighbors and friends, that were to be gathered at the Squire's house on this gala evening. She did not wish to do it. The sacred sense of possession passes when we uncover our treasure to another's eyes, giving way to a lower feeling not to be courted by one of Paula's sensitive nature. Besides she would rather have poured this first outburst of secret enthusiasm into other ears than these; but she had given her word and the ordeal must be submitted to. There are many who remember how she looked on that night. She had arrayed herself for the occasion, in the prettiest of her dresses, and mindful of Ona's injunction, did not mar the effect of its soft and uniform gray with any hint of extraneous color. The result was that they saw only her beauty; and what beauty! A very old man, an early settler in the village, who had tottered out to enjoy a last glimpse of life before turning his aged face to the wall, said it made the thought of heaven a little more real. "I can go home and think how the angels look," said he in his simple, half-childish way. And no one contradicted him, for there was a still light on her face that was less of earth than heaven, though why it should rest there to-night she least of all could have told, for her poem had to do with earth and its deepest passions and its wildest unrest. It was a clarion blast, not a dreaming rhapsody, that lay coiled up in the paper she held in her hand.

My readers must pardon me if I give them Paula's poem, for without it they would not understand its effect and consequent result. It was called, "The Defence of the Bride," and was of the old ballad order. As she rose to read, many of the younger ones in the audience began cautiously to move to one side, but at the first words, young as well as old paused and listened where they stood, for her voice was round and full, and the memory of clashing spears and whirling battle-axes that informed the war-song which she had heard Bertram play, was with her, to give color to her tones and fire to her glance.

THE DEFENCE OF THE BRIDE.

He was coming from the altar when the tocsin rang alarm,

With his fair young wife beside him, lovely in her bridal charm;

But he was not one to palter with a duty, or to slight

The trumpet-call of honor for his vantage or delight.

Turning from the bride beside him to his stern and martial train,

From their midst he summoned to him the brothers of Germain;

At the word they stepped before him, nine strong warriors brave and true,

From the youngest to the eldest, Enguerrand to mighty Hugh.

"Sons of Germain, to your keeping do I yield my bride to-day.

Guard her well as you do love me; guard her well and holily.

Dearer than mine own soul to me, you will hold her as your life,

'Gainst the guile of seeming friendship and the force of open strife."

"We will guard her," cried they firmly; and with just another glance

On the yearning and despairing in his young wife's countenance,

Gallant Beaufort strode before them down the aisle and through the door,

And a shadow came and lingered where the sunlight stood before.

Eight long months the young wife waited, watching from her bridal room

For the coming of her husband up the valley forest's gloom.

Eight long months the sons of Germain paced the ramparts and the wall,

With their hands upon their halberds ready for the battle-call.

Then there came a sound of trumpets pealing up the vale below,

And a dozen floating banners lit the forest with their glow,

And the bride arose like morning when it feels the sunlight nigh,

And her smile was like a rainbow flashing from a misty sky.

But the eldest son of Germain lifting voice from off the wall,

Cried aloud, "It is a stranger's and not Sir Beaufort's call;

Have you ne'er a slighted lover or a kinsman with a heart

Base enough to seek his vengeance at the sharp end of the dart?"

"There is Sassard of the Mountains," answered she without guile,

"While I wedded at the chancel, he stood mocking in the aisle;

And my maidens say he swore there that for all my plighted vow,

They would see me in his castle yet upon Morency's brow."

"It is Sassard and no other then," her noble guardian cried;

"There is craft in yonder summons," and he rung his sword beside.

"To the walls, ye sons of Germain! and as each would hold his life

From the bitter shame of falsehood, let us hold our master's wife."

"Can you hold her, can you shield her from the breezes that await?"

Cried the stinging voice of Sassard from his stand beside the gate.

"If you have the power to shield her from the sunlight and the wind,

You may shield her from stern Sassard when his falchion is untwined."

"We can hold her, we can shield her," leaped like fire from off the wall,

And young Enguerrand the valiant, sprang out before them all.

"And if breezes bring dishonor, we will guard her from their breath,

Though we yield her to the keeping of the sacred arms of Death."

And with force that never faltered, did they guard her all that day,

Though the strength of triple armies seemed to battle in the fray,

The old castle's rugged ramparts holding firm against the foe,

As a goodly dyke resisteth the whelming billow's flow.

But next morning as the sunlight rose in splendor over all,

Hugh the mighty, sank heart-wounded in his station on the wall,

At the noon the valiant Raoul of the merry eye and heart,

Gave his beauty and his jestings to the foeman's jealous dart.

Gallant Maurice next sank faltering with a death wound 'neath his hair,

But still fighting on till Sassard pressed across him up the stair.

Generous Clement followed after, crying as his spirit passed,

"Sons of Germain to the rescue, and be loyal to the last!"

Gentle Jaspar, lordly Clarence, Sessamine the doughty brand,

Even Henri who had yielded ne'er before to mortal hand;

One by one they fall and perish, while the vaunting foemen pour

Through the breach and up the courtway to the very turret's door.

Enguerrand and Stephen only now were left of all that nine,

To protect the single stairway from the traitor's fell design;

But with might as 'twere of thirty, did they wield the axe and brand,

Striving in their desperation the fierce onslaught to withstand.

But what man of power so godlike he can stay the billow's wrack,

Or with single-handed weapon hold an hundred foemen back!

As the sun turned sadly westward, with a wild despairing cry,

Stephen bowed his noble forehead and sank down on earth to die.

"Ah ha!" then cried cruel Sassard with his foot upon the stair,

"Have I come to thee, my boaster?" and he whirled his sword in air.

"Thou who pratest of thy power to protect her to the death,

What think'st thou now of Sassard and the wind's aspiring breath?"

"What I think let this same show you," answered fiery Enguerrand,

And he poised his lofty battle-ax with sure and steady hand;

"Now as Heaven loveth justice, may this deathly weapon fall

On the murderer of my brothers and th' undoer of us all."

With one mighty whirl he sent it; flashing from his hand it came,

Like the lightning from the heavens in a whirl of awful flame,

And betwixt the brows of Sassard and his two false eyeballs passed,

And the murderer sank before it, like a tree before the blast.

"Now ye minions of a traitor if you look for vengeance, come!"

And his voice was like a trumpet when it clangs a victor home.

But a cry from far below him rose like thunder upward, "Nay!

Let them turn and meet the husband if they hunger for the fray."

O the yell that sprang to heaven as that voice swept up the stair,

And the slaughter dire that followed in another moment there!

From the least unto the greatest, from the henchman to the lord,

Not a man on all that stairway lived to sheath again his sword.

At the top that flame-bound forehead, at the base that blade of fire—

'Twas the meeting of two tempests in their potency and ire.

Ere the moon could falter inward with its pity and its woe,

Beaufort saw the path before him unencumbered of the foe.

Saw his pathway unencumbered and strode up and o'er the floor,

Even to the very threshold of his lovely lady's door,

And already in his fancy did he see the golden beam

Of her locks upon his shoulder and her sweet eyes' happy gleam:

When behold a form upstarting from the shadows at his side.

That with naked sword uplifted barred the passage to his bride;

It was Enguerrand the dauntless, but with staring eyes and hair

Blowing wild about a forehead pale as snow in moonlit glare.

"Ah my master, we have held her, we have guarded her," he said,

"Not a shadow of dishonor has so much as touched her head.

Twenty wretches lie below there with the brothers of Germain,

Twenty foemen of her honor that I, Enguerrand, have slain.

"But one other foe remaineth, one remaineth yet," he cried,

"Which it fits this hand to punish ere you cross unto your bride.

It is I, Enguerrand!" shrieked he; "and as I have slain the rest,

So I smite this foeman also!"—and his sword plunged through his breast.

O the horror of that moment! "Art thou mad my Enguerrand?"

Cried his master, striving wildly to withdraw the fatal brand.

But the stern youth smiling sadly, started back from his embrace,

While a flash like summer lightning, flickered direful on his face.

"Yes, a traitor worse than Sassard;" and he pointed down the stair,

"For my heart has dared to love her whom my hand defended there.

While the others fought for honor, I by passion was made strong,

Set your heel upon my bosom for my soul has done you wrong.

"But," and here he swayed and faltered till his knee sank on the floor,

Yet in falling turned his forehead ever toward that silent door;

"But your warrior hand my master, may take mine without a stain,

For my hand has e'er been loyal, and your enemy is slain."

A short silence followed the last word, then a burst of applause testified to the appreciation of her audience, and Paula crept away to hide her blushing cheeks in the comparative darkness of a little vine-covered balcony that jutted out from the ante-room. What were her thoughts as she leaned there! In the subsidence of any great emotion—and Paula had felt every word she uttered—there is more or less of shock and tumult. She did not think, she only felt. Suddenly a hand was laid on her arm and a low voice whispered in her ear,

"Did you write that poem yourself?"

Turning, she encountered the shadowy form of a woman leaning close at her side and appearing in the dim light that shone on her from the lamps beyond, an eager image of expectancy.

"Yes," returned Paula, "why do you ask?"

The woman, whoever she was, did not answer. "And you believe in such devotion as that!" she murmured. "You can understand a man, aye, or a woman either, risking happiness and fame, life and death, for the sake of a trust! Such things are not folly to you! You could see a heart spill itself drop by drop through a longer vigil than the eight months watching on the ramparts, and not sneer at a fidelity that could not falter because it had given its word? Speak; you write of faithfulness with a pen of fire, is your heart faithful too?"

There was something in these words, spoken as they were in a tone of suppressed passion, that startled and aroused Paula. Leaning forward, she endeavored to see the face of the woman who thus forcibly addressed her, but the light was too dim. The outline of a brow covered by some close headgear was all she could detect.

"You speak earnestly," said Paula, "but that is what I like. Fidelity to a cause, or fidelity to a trust, demands the sympathy and admiration of all honest and generous hearts. If I am ever called upon to maintain either, I hope that my enthusiasm will not have all been expended in words."

"You please me," murmured the woman, "you please me; will you come and see me and let me tell you a story to mate the poem you have given us to-night?"

The trembling eagerness of her tone it would be impossible to describe. Paula was thrilled by it. "If you will tell me who you are," said Paula, "I certainly will try and come. I should be glad to hear anything you have to relate to me."

"I thought every one knew who I was," returned the woman; and drawing Paula back into the ante-room, she turned her face upon her. "Any one will tell you where Margery Hamlin lives," said she. "Do not disappoint me, and do not keep me waiting long." And with a nod and a deep strange smile that made her aged face almost youthful, she entered the crowd and disappeared from Paula's sight.

It was the woman whose nightly visits to the deserted home of the Japhas had once been the talk and was still the unsolved mystery of the town.

XXIV. THE JAPHA MANSION

"Ah what a warning for a thoughtless man,

Could field or grove, could any spot on earth

Show to his eye an image of the pangs

Which it has witnessed; render back an echo

Of the sad steps by which it hath been trod.—WORDSWORTH.

Unexplained actions if long continued, lose after awhile their interest if not their mystery. The aged lady who now for many years had been seen at every night-fall to leave her home, traverse the village streets, enter the Japha mansion, remain there an hour and then re-issue with tremulous steps and bowed head, had become so common a sight to the village eye, that even the children forgot to ask what her errand was, or why she held her head so hopefully when she entered, or looked so despondent when she came forth.

But to Paula, for reasons already mentioned, this secret and persistent vigil in a forsaken and mysterious dwelling, was fraught with a significance which had never lost its power either to excite her curiosity or to arouse her imagination. Many a time had she gone home from some late encounter with the aged lady, to brood by the hour upon the expression of that restless eye which in its wanderings never failed to turn upon her own youthful face and linger there in the manner I have already noted. She thought of it by night, she thought of it by day. She felt herself drawn to that woman's suffering heart as by invisible cords. To understand the feelings of this desolate being, she had even studied the face of that old house, until she knew it under its every aspect. Often in shutting her eyes at night, she would perceive as in a mirror a vision of its long gray front, barred door and sealed windows shining in the moon, save where the deep impenetrable shadows of its two guardian poplars lay black and dismal upon its ghostly surface. Again she would behold it as it reared itself dark and dripping in a blinding storm, its walls plastered with leaves from the immovable poplars, and its neglected garden lying sodden and forlorn under the flail of the ceaseless storm. Then its early morning face would strike her fancy. The slow looming of its chimney-tops against a brightening sky; the gradual coming out of its forsaken windows and solemn looking doors from the mystery of darkness into the no less mystery of day; the hint of roselight on its barren boards; the gleam of sunshine on its untrodden threshold; a sunshine as pure and sweet as if a bride stood there in her beauty, waiting for admission into the deserted halls beyond. All and everything that could tend to invest the house and its constant visitor with an atmosphere of awe and interest, had occurred to this young girl in her daily reveries and nightly dreams. It was therefore with a thrill deep as her expectation and vivid as her sympathy, that she recognized in her eager interlocutor and proposed confident, the woman about whose life and actions rested for her such a veil of impenetrable mystery. The thought moved her, excited her, and made the rest of the evening pass like a dream. She was anxious for the next day to come, that she might seek this Mrs. Hamlin in her home, and hear from her lips the tale of devotion that should mate her own simple but enthusiastic poem.

When the next day did come, it rained, rained bitterly, persistent and with a steady drive from the north east, that made her going out impossible. The day following she was indisposed, and upon the succeeding afternoon, she was engaged in duties that precluded all thought of visiting. The next day was Sunday, and Monday had its own demands which she could not slight. It was therefore well nigh a week from the night of the entertainment, before the opportunity offered for which she was so anxious. Her curiosity and expectation had thus time to grow, and it was with a determination to allow nothing to stand in her way, that she set out from home in a flood of mild September sunshine, to visit Mrs. Hamlin. But alas, for resolutions made in a country village prior to the opening of a church fair! She had scarcely gone a dozen steps before she was accosted by one of the managers, a woman who neither observes your haste, nor pays any attention to your possible preoccupation. Do what she could, she found it impossible to escape from this persistent individual until she had satisfied her upon matters which it took a full half hour to discuss, and when at last she succeeded in doing so, it was only to fall into the hands of an aged deacon of the church, whose protecting friendship it were a sin to wound, while his garrulous tongue made it no ordinary trial of patience to stand and listen. In short the best part of the afternoon was gone before she found herself at the door of Mrs. Hamlin's house. But she was not to be deterred by further hesitation from the pursuit of her object. Rapping smartly on the door, she listened. No stir came from within. Again she rapped and again she listened. No response came to assure her that her summons had been heard. Surprised at this, for she had been told Mrs. Hamlin was always at home during the afternoon, she glanced up at the church clock in plain view from the doorstep, and blushed to observe that it was six o'clock, the hour at which this mysterious woman always left her house, to accomplish her vigil at the Japha mansion.

"What have I done?" thought Paula, and felt a strange thrill as she realized that even at that moment, the woman with the eager but restless eyes, was shut within the precincts of that deserted dwelling, engaged in prayer, perhaps wet with tears, who knows? The secret of what she did in that long and quiet twilight hour had never been revealed. Leaving the little brown house behind, Paula found herself insensibly taking the road to the Japha mansion. If she could not enter it and share the watch of the devoted woman who had promised her her confidence, she could at least observe if the windows were open or the blinds raised. To be sure she ought to be at home, but Miss Belinda was indulgent and did not question her comings and goings too closely. An irresistible force drew her down the street, and she did not hesitate to follow the lead of her impulse. No one accosted her now, it was the tea hour in most of these houses and the streets were comparatively deserted. The only house whose chimneys lacked the rising smoke, was the one towards which her footsteps were tending. She could descry it from afar. Its gaunt walls from which the paint had long ago faded, stared uncompromisingly upon her in the autumn sunshine. There was no welcome in its close shutters with their broken slats from which hung tangled strips of old rags—the remnants of some boy's kite. The stiff and solemn poplars rose grim and forbidding at the gate once swung wide to the fashion and gallantry of proud ladies and stalwart gentlemen, but now pushed aside solely by the hand of a tremulous old woman, or the irreverent palm of some daring school-boy. From the tangled garden looked forth neither flower nor blossoming shrub. Beauty and grace could not thrive in this wilderness of decay. A dandelion would have felt itself out of place beneath the eye of that ghostly door, with the sinister plank nailed across it, like the separating line between light and darkness, right and wrong, life and death. What loneliness! what a monument of buried passions outliving death itself!

Paula paused as she reached the gate; but remembering that Mrs. Hamlin was accustomed to enter the house by a side door, hurried around the corner and carefully surveyed the windows from that quarter. One of the shutters was open, allowing the flame of the setting sun to gild the panes like gold. She did not know then nor has she been able to explain since, what it was that came over her at the sight, but almost before she realized it, she had returned to the gate, opened it, threaded the overgrown garden, reached the door which she had so frequently beheld the aged woman enter and knocked.

Instantly she was seized with a consciousness of what she had done, and frightened at her temerity, meditated an immediate escape. Drawing the folds of her mantle about her form and face, she prepared to fly, when she remembered the look of entreaty with which this woman had said on that night of their conversation, "Do not disappoint me! Do not keep me long in suspense!" and moved by a fresh impulse, turned and inflicted another resounding knock on the door.

The result was unlooked-for and surprising. To the sound from within of a quick passionate cry, there came a hurried movement, followed by a deep silence, then another hasty stir succeeded by a longer silence, then a rush which seemed to bring all things with it, and the door opened and Mrs. Hamlin appeared before her with a countenance so pallid with expectancy, that Paula instinctively felt that in some unconscious way, she had loosened the bonds of an uncontrollable emotion, and was drawing back, when the woman with a quick look in her shrouded face, exultantly caught her hand in hers, and drawing her over the threshold, gasped out in a delirium of incomprehensible joy:

"I knew you would come! I knew that God would not let you forget! Fifteen years have I waited, Jacqueline! fifteen long, tedious, suffering years! But they all seem like nothing now! You have come, you have come, and all that I ask, is that God will not let me die till I realize my joy!"

The emotion with which she uttered these strange words was so overpowering, and her body seemed so weak to stand the strain, that Paula instinctively put forth her hand to sustain her. The action loosened her cloak. Instantly the eyes that had been fixed upon her with such delirious rapture grew blank with dismay, a frightful shudder ran through the woman's aged frame; she tore at the cloak that still enveloped the young girl's shoulders, and pulling it off, took one view of the fresh and beautiful countenance before her, and without uttering a word, fell back in a deep and deadly swoon upon the floor.

"O what have I done?" cried Paula, flinging herself down beside that pale and rigid figure; but instantly remembering herself she leaped to her feet and looked about for some means to resuscitate the sufferer. There was a goblet of water on a table near by. Seizing it, she bathed the face and hands of the woman before her, moaning aloud in her grief and dismay, "Have I killed her! O what is this mystery that brings such a doom of anguish to this poor heart?"

But from those pallid lips came no response, and feeling greatly alarmed, Paula was about to rush from the house for assistance, when she felt a tremulous pull upon her skirt, and turning, saw that the glassy eyes had opened at last and were now gazing upon her with mute but eloquent appeal.

She instantly returned. "O I am so sorry," she murmured, sinking again upon her knees beside the suffering woman. "I did not know, could not realize that my presence here would affect you so deeply. Forgive me and tell me what I can do to make you forget my presumption."

The woman shook her head, her lips moved and she struggled vainly to rise. Paula immediately lent her the aid of her strong young hand and in a few minutes, Mrs. Hamlin was on her feet. "O God!" were her first words as she sank into the chair which Paula hastily drew forward, "that I should taste the joy and she be still unsaved!"

Seeing her so absorbed, Paula ventured to glance around her. She found herself in a large square room sparsely but comfortably furnished in a style that bespake it as the former sitting-room of the dead and buried Japhas. From the walls above hung a few ancient pictures. A large hair-cloth sofa of a heavy antique shape, confronted the eye from one side of the room, an equally ancient book-case from the other. The carpet was faded and so were the curtains, but they had once been of an attractive hue and pattern. Conspicuous in the midst stood a large table with a well-trimmed lamp upon it, and close against it an easy chair with an upright back. This last as well as everything else in the room, was in a condition of neatness that would have surprised Paula if she had not been acquainted with the love and devotion of this woman, who in her daily visits to this house, probably took every pains to keep things freshened and in order.

Satisfied with her survey, she again directed her attention to Mrs. Hamlin, and started to find that person's eyes fixed upon her own with an expression of deep, demanding interest.

"You are looking at the shadows of things that were," exclaimed the old lady in thrilling tones. "It is a fearful thought to be shut up with the ghost of a vanished past, is it not? That chair by your side has not been sat in since Colonel Japha rose from it twelve years ago to totter to the bed where he breathed his last. It is waiting, everything is waiting. I thought the end had come to-night, that the vigil was over, the watch finished, but God in his wisdom says, 'No,' and I must wait a little longer. Alas in a little while longer the end will be here indeed!"

The despondency with which she uttered these last words showed where her thoughts were tending, and to comfort her, Paula drew up a chair and sat down by her side. "You were going to tell me the story of a great love and a great devotion. Cannot you do so now?"

The woman started, glanced hastily around, and let her eyes travel to Paula's face where they rested with something of their old look of secret longing and doubt.

"You are the one who wrote the poem," she murmured; "I remember." Then with a sudden feverish impulse, leaned forward, and stroking back the waving locks from Paula's brow, exclaimed hurriedly, "You look like her, you have the same dark hair and wonderful eyes, more beautiful perhaps, but like her, O so like her! That is why I made such a mistake." She shuddered, with a quick low sob, but instantly subdued her emotion and taking Paula's hand in hers continued, "You are young, my daughter; youth does not enjoy carrying burdens; can I, a stranger ask you to assist me with mine?"

"You may," returned Paula. "If it will give you any relief I will help you bear it willingly."

"You will! Has heaven then sent me the aid my failing spirits demand? Can I count on you, child? But I will ask for no promise till you have heard my story. To no one have I ever imparted the secret of my life, but from the first moment I saw your fair young face, I felt that through you would come my help, if help ever came to make my final moments easier and my last days less bitter." And rising up, she led Paula to a door which she solemnly opened. "I am glad that you are here," said she. "I could never have asked you to come, but since you have braved the dead and crossed this threshold, you must see and know the whole. You will understand my story better."

Taking her through a dark passage, she threw wide another door, and the parlors of the vanished Japhas opened before them. It was a ghostly vision. A weird twilight scene of clustered shadows brooding above articles of musty grandeur. In spite of the self-command learned by her late experiences, Paula recoiled, saying,

"It is too sad, too lonesome!" But the woman without heeding her, hurried her on over the worm-eaten carpet and between the time-worn chairs and heavy-browed cabinets, to the hall beyond.

"I have not been here, myself, for a year," said Mrs. Hamlin, glancing fearfully up and down the dusky corridor. "It is not often I can brave the memories of this spot." And she pointed with one hand towards the darkened door at its end, whose spacious if not stately panels gave no hint to the eye of the dread bar that crossed it like a line of doom upon the outside, and then turning, let her eye fall with still heavier significance upon the broad and imposing staircase that rose from the centre of the hall to the duskier and more dismal regions above.

"A brave, old fashioned flight of steps is it not! But the scene of a curse, my child." And unheeding Paula's shudder, she drew her up the stairs.

"See," continued her panting guide as they reached a square platform near the top, from which some half dozen or more steps branched up on either side. "They do not build like this nowadays. But Colonel Japha believed in nothing new, and thought more of his grand old hall and staircase, than he did of all the rest of his house. He little dreamed of what a scene it would be the witness. But come, it is getting late and you must see her room."

It was near the top of the staircase and was fully as musty, faded and dismal as the rest. Yet there was an air of expectancy about it, too, that touched Paula deeply. From between the dingy hangings of the bed, looked forth a pair of downy pillows, edged with yellowed lace, and beneath them a neatly spread counterpane carefully turned back over comfortable-looking blankets, as one sees in a bed that only awaits its occupant; while on the ancient hearth, a pile of logs stood heaped and ready for the kindling match.

"It is all waiting you see," said the old lady in a trembling voice, "like everything else, just waiting."

There was an embroidery frame in one corner of the room, from which looked a piece of faded and half completed work. The needle was hanging from it by a thread, and a skein of green worsted hung over the top, Paula glanced at it inquiringly.

"It is just as she left it! He never entered the room after she went and I would never let it be touched. It is just the same with the piano below. The last piece she played is still standing open on the rack. I loved her so, and I thought then that a few months would bring her back! See, here is her bible. She never used to read it, but she prized it because it was her mother's. I have placed it on the pillow where she will see it when she comes to lay her poor tired head down to rest." And with a reverent hand the aged matron drew the curtains back from the open bed, and disclosed the little bible lying thick with dust in the centre of the nearest pillow.

"O who was this you loved so well? And why did she leave you?" cried Paula with the tears in her eyes, at sight of this humble token.

The aged lady seized her hand and hurried her back into the room below. "I will tell you where I have waited and watched so long. Only be patient till I light the lamp. It is getting late and any chance wanderer going by and seeing all dark, might think I had forgotten my promise and was not here."

XXV. JACQUELINE

"The cold in clime are cold in blood,

And love as scarce deserves the name,

But mine is like the lava flood

That burns in Etna's breast of flame."—BYRON.

"There are some men that have the appearance of being devoid of family affection, who in reality cherish it in the deepest and most passionate degree. Such a man was Colonel Japha. You have doubtless heard from your cradle what the neighbors thought of this stately, old fashioned gentleman. He was too handsome in his youth, too proudly reticent in his manhood, too self-contained and unrelenting in his age, not to be the talk of any town that numbered him among its inhabitants. But only from myself, a relative of the family and his housekeeper for years, can you learn with what undeviating faith and love he clung to the few upon whom he allowed his heart to fasten in affection. When he married Miss Carey, the world said, 'He has chosen a beauty, because fine manners and a pretty face look well behind the Japha coffee-urn!' But we, that is, this same young wife and myself, knew that in marrying her he had taken unto himself his other half, the one sweet woman for whom his proud heart could beat and before whom his stately head could bow. When she died, the world exclaimed, 'He will soon fill her place!' But I who watched the last look that passed between them in the valley of the shadow of that death, knew that the years would come and the years would go without seeing Colonel Japha marry again.

"The little babe whom she left to his care, took all the love which he had left. From the moment it began to speak, he centered in its tiny life all the hope and all the pride of his solitary heart. And the Japha pride was nearly as great as the Japha heart. She was a pretty child; not a beauty like her mother or like you, my dear, who however so nearly resemble her. But for all that, pretty enough to satisfy the eyes of her secretly doting father, and her openly doting nurse and cousin. I say secretly doting father. I do not mean by that that he regarded her with an affection which he never displayed, but that it was his way to lavish his caresses at home and in the privacy of her little nursery. He never made a parade of anything but his pride. If he loved her, it was enough for her to know it. In the street and the houses of their friends, he was the strict, somewhat severe father, to whom her childish eyes lifted at first with awe, but afterwards with a quiet defiance, that when I first saw it, made my heart stand still with unreasoning alarm.

"She was so reserved a child and yet so deeply passionate. From the beginning I felt that I did not understand her. I loved her; I have never loved any mortal as I did her—and do; but I could not follow her impulses or judge of her feelings by her looks.

"When she grew older it was still worse. She never contradicted her father, or appeared in any open way to disobey his commands, or thwart him in his plans. Yet she always did what she pleased, and that so quietly, he frequently did not observe that matters had taken any other direction, than that which he had himself ordained. 'It is her mother's tact,' he used to say. Alas it was something more than that; it was her father's will united to the unscrupulousness of some forgotten ancestor.

"But with the glamour of her eighteen years upon me, I did not recognize this then, any more than he. I saw her through the magic glasses of my own absorbing love, and tremble as I frequently would in the still scorn of her unfathomable passion, I never dreamed she could do anything that would seriously offend her father's affection or mortify his pride. The truth is, that Jacqueline did not love us. Say what you will of the claims of kindred, and the right of every father to his childrens' regard, Jacqueline Japha accepted the devotion that was lavished upon her, but she gave none in return. She could not, perhaps. Her father was too cold in public and too warm in his home-bursts of affection. I was plain and a widow; no mate for her in age, condition or estate. She could neither look up to me nor lean upon me. I had been her nurse in childhood and though a relative, was still a dependent; what was there in all that to love! If her mother had lived—But we will not dwell on possibilities. Jacqueline had no mother and no friend that was dear enough to her, to teach her unwilling soul the great lesson of self-control and sacrifice.

"You will say that is strange. That situated as she was, she ought to have found friends both dear and congenial; but that would be to declare that Jacqueline was like others of her age and class, whereas she was single and alone; a dark-browed girl, who allured the gaze of both men and women, but who cared but little for any one till—But wait, child. I shall have to speak of matters that will cause your cheeks to blush. Lay your head down on my knee, for I cannot bear the sight of blushes upon a cheek more innocent than hers."

With a gentle movement she urged Paula to sit upon a little stool at her feet, pressed the young girl's head down upon her lap, and burying the lovely brow beneath her aged hands, went hurriedly on.

"You are young, dear, and may not know what it is to love a man. Jacqueline was young also, but from the moment she returned home to us from a visit she had been making in Boston, I perceived that something had entered her life that was destined to make a great change in her; and when a few weeks later, young Robert Holt from Boston, came to pay his respects to her in her father's house, I knew, or thought I did, what that something was. We were sitting in this room I remember, when the servant-girl came in, and announced that Mr. Holt was in the parlor. Jacqueline was lying on the sofa, and her father was in his usual chair by the table. At the name, Holt, the girl rose as if it had suddenly thundered, or the lightning had flashed. I see her now. She was dressed in white—though it was early fall she still clung to her summer dresses—her dark hair was piled high, and caught here and there with old-fashioned gold pins, a splendid red rose burned on her bosom, and another flashed crimson as blood from her folded hands.

"'Holt?' repeated the Colonel without turning his head, 'I know no such man.'

"'He said he wished to see Miss Jacqueline,' simpered the servant.

"'Oh,' returned the Colonel indifferently. He never showed surprise before the servants—and went on with his book, still without turning his head.

"I thought if he had turned it, he would scarcely sit there reading so quietly; for Jacqueline who had not stirred from her alert and upright position, was looking at him in a way no father, least of all a father who loved his child as he did her, could have beheld without agitation. It was the glance of a tigress waiting for the sight of an inconsiderate move, in order to spring. It was wild unconstrainable joy, eying a possible check and madly defying it. I shuddered as I looked at her eye, and sickened as I perceived a huge drop of blood ooze from her white fingers, where they unconsciously clutched a thorn, and drop dark and disfiguring upon her virgin garments. At the indifferent exclamation of her father, her features relaxed, and she turned haughtily towards the girl, with a veiling of her secret delight that already bespoke the woman of the world.

"'Tell Mr. Holt that I will see him presently,' said she, and was about to follow the girl from the room when I caught her by the sleeve.

"'You will have to change your dress,' said I, and I pointed to the ominous blot disfiguring its otherwise spotless white.

"She started and gave me a quick glance.

"'I have a skin like a spider's web," cried she. 'I should never meddle with roses.' But I noticed she did not toss the blossom away.

"'Who is this Mr. Holt?' now asked the Colonel suddenly turning, the servant having left the room.

"'He is a gentleman I met in Boston,' came from his daughter's lips, in her usual light and easy tones. 'He is probably passing through our town on his way to Providence, where I was told he did business. His call is no more than a formality, I presume.' And with an indifferent little smile and nod, she vanished from the room, that a moment before had been filled with the threat of her silent passion. The Colonel gave a short sigh but returned undisturbed to his book.

"In the course of a few minutes Jacqueline came back. She had changed her dress for one as summerlike as the other, but still finer and more elaborate. She looked elegant, imperious, but the joy had died out from her eyes, and in its place was another expression incomprehensible to me, but fully as alarming as any that had gone before. 'Mr. Holt finds himself obliged to remain in town over night, and would like to pay his respects to you,' said she to her father.

"The Colonel immediately rose, looking very grand as he turned and surveyed his daughter with his clear penetrating eye.'

"'You have a lover, have you not?' he asked, laying his hand on her bare and beautifully polished shoulder.

"An odd little smile crossed her lip. She looked at her hands on which never a ring shone, and coquettishly tossed her head. 'Let the gentleman speak for himself,' said she, 'I give no man his title until he has earned it.'

"Her father laughed. A lover was not such a dreadful thing in his eyes provided he were worthy. And Jacqueline would not choose unworthily of course—a Japha and his daughter! 'Well then,' said he, 'let us see if he can make good his title; Holt is not a bad name and Boston is not a poor place to hail from.' And without more ado, they hurried from the room. But the light had all died out from her face! What did it mean?

"At tea time I met the gentleman. He had evidently made his title good. I was not only favorably impressed with him but actually struck. Of all the high-bred, clear-eyed, polished and kindly gentlemen who had sat about the board since I first came into the family in Mrs. Japha's lifetime, here was surely the finest, the handsomest and the best; and surprised in more ways than one, I was giving full play to my relief and exhilaration, when I caught sight of Jacqueline's eye, and felt again the cold shudders of secret doubt and apprehension. Smile upon him as she would, coquet with him as she did, the flame and the glory that drew her like an inspiration to her feet when his name was announced, had fled, and left not a shadow behind. Had he failed in his expressions of devotion? Was he hard or cold or severe, under all that pleasant and charming manner? Had the hot soul of our motherless child rushed upon ice, and in the shock of the dreadful chill, fallen inert? No, his looks bespake no coldness; they dwelt upon Jacqueline's lovely but inscrutable face, with honest fervor and boundless regard. He evidently loved her most passionately, but she—if it had not been for that first moment of unconscious betrayal, I should have decided that she cared for him no more than she did for the few others who had adored her, in the short space of her incomprehensible life.

"The mystery was not cleared up when she came to me that night with a short, 'How do you like my lover, Margery?' I was forty years her senior, but she always called me Margery.

"'I think he is the finest, most agreeable man I ever met,' said I. 'Is he your lover, Jacqueline? Are you going to marry him?'

"She turned about from the vase which she was denuding of its flowers, and gave me one of her sphinx-like looks. 'You must ask papa,' said she. 'He holds the destinies of the Japhas in his hand, does he not?'

"'Does he?' I involuntarily whispered to myself; following the steady poise of her head and the assured movements of her graceful form, with a glance of doubt, but loving her all the same, O loving her all and ever the same!

"'Your father is not the man to cross you when the object of your affections is as worthy as this gentleman. He loved your mother too fondly.'

"'He did?' She had turned quick as a flash and was looking me straight in the eyes.

"'I never saw such union!' I exclaimed, vaguely remembering that her mother's name had always seemed to have power to move her. 'There was no parade of it before the world; but here at their own fireside, it was heart to heart and soul to soul. It was not love it was assimilation.'

"The young girl rose upon me like a flame; her very eyes seemed to dart fire; her lips looked like living coals; she was almost appalling in her terrible beauty and superhuman passion. 'Not love!' she exclaimed, her every word falling like a burning spark, 'not love but assimilation! Yet do you suppose if I told my father that my soul had found its mate; my heart its other half; that this, this nature,' here she struck her breast as she would a stone, 'had at last found its master; that the wayward spirit of which you have sometimes been afraid, was become a part of another's life, another's soul, another's hope, do you suppose he would listen? Hush!' she cried, seeing me about to speak. 'You talk of love, what do you know of it, what does he know of it, who saw his young wife die, yet himself consented to live? Is love a sitting by the fire with hand locked in hand while the winter winds rage and the droning kettle sings? Love is a going through the fire, a braving of the winter winds, a scattering of the soul in sparks that the night and the tempest lick up without putting out the germ of the eternal flame. Love!' she half laughed; 'O, it takes a soul that has never squandered its treasure upon every passing beggar, to know how to love! Do you see that star?' It was night as I have said and we were standing near an open window. 'It has lost its moorings and is falling; when it descries the ocean it will plunge into it; so with some natures, they soar high and keep their orbit well, till an invisible hand turns them from their course and they fall, to be swallowed up, aye swallowed up, lost and buried in the great sea that has awaited them so long.'

"'And you love—like this—' I murmured, quailing before the power of her passion.

"'Would it not be strange if I did not,' she asked in an altered voice. 'You say he is everything noble, handsome and attractive.'

"Yes, yes,' I murmured, 'but—'

"She did not wait to hear what lay behind that but. Picking up her flowers, she hastily crossed the room. 'Did my young mother shriek from joy, when my father's horses ran away with them along that deadly precipice at the side of the Southmore road? To lie for a few maddening moments on the breast of the man you love, earth reeling beneath you, heaven swimming above you, and then with a cry of bliss to fall heart to heart, down the hideous gap of some awful gulf, and be dashed into eternity with the cry still on your lips, that is what I call love and that is what I—'

"She paused, turned upon me the whole splendor of her face, seemed to realize to what an extent her impetuosity had lifted the veil with which she usually shrouded her bitterly suppressed nature, and calming herself with a sudden quick movement, gave me a short mocking courtesy and left the room.

"Do you wonder that for half the night I sat up brooding and alive to the faintest sounds!

"Next day Mr. Holt called again, and a couple of weeks after—long enough to enable Colonel Japha to make whatever inquiries he chose as to his claims as a gentleman of means and position—sent a formal entreaty for Jacqueline's hand. I had never seen Colonel Japha more moved. His admiration for the young man was hearty and sincere. From a worldly point of view, as well as from all higher standpoints, the match was one of which he could be proud; and yet to speak the word that would separate from him the only creature that he loved, was hard as the cutting off an arm or the plucking out of an eye. 'Do you think she loves him?' asked he of me with a rare condescension of which he was not often guilty. 'You are a woman and ought to understand her better than I. Do you think she loves him?'

"After the words I had heard her speak, what could I reply but, 'Yes, sir; she is of a reserved nature and controls her feelings in his presence, but she loves him for all that, with the intensest fervor and passion.'

"He repeated again, 'You are a woman and you ought to know.' And then called his daughter to him.

"I cannot tell what passed between them, but the upshot of it was, that the Colonel despatched an answer to the effect that the father's consent would not be lacking, provided the daughter's could be obtained. I learned this from Jacqueline herself who brought me the letter to post.

"'You see then, that your father understands,' said I.

"Her rich red lip curled mockingly, but she did not reply.

"Naturally Mr. Holt answered to this communication in person. Jacqueline received him with a fitful coquetry that evidently puzzled him, for all the distinguishing charm which it added to a beauty apt to be too reserved and statue-like. She however took his ring which blazed on her finger like a drop of ice on congealed snow. 'I am engaged,' she murmured as she passed by my door, 'and to a Holt!' The words rang long in my ears; why?

"She desired no congratulations; she permitted nothing to be said about her engagement, among the neighbors. She had even taken off her ring which I found lying loose in one of her bureau drawers. And no one dared to remonstrate, not even her father, punctillious as he was in all matters of social etiquette. The fact is, Jacqueline was not the same girl she had been before she gave her promise to Mr. Holt. From the moment he bade her good-bye, with the remark that he was going away to get a golden cage for his bride, she began to reveal a change. The cold reserve gave way to feverish expectancy. She trod these rooms as if there were burning steels in the floors, she looked from the windows as if they were prison bars; night and day she gazed from them yet she never went out. The letters she received from him were barely read and tossed aside; it was his coming for which she hungered. Her father noticed her restless and eager gaze, and frequently sighed. I felt her strange removed manner and secretly wept. 'If he does not amply return this passion,' thought I, 'my darling will find her life a hell!'

"But he did return it; of that I felt sure. It was my only comfort.

"Suddenly one day the restlessness vanished. Her beauty burst like a flame from smoke; she trod like a spirit that hears invisible airs. I watched her with amazement till she said 'Mr. Holt comes to-night,' then I thought all was explained and went smiling about my work. She came down in the afternoon clad as I had never seen her before. She wore one of her Boston dresses and she looked superb in it. From the crown of her head to the sole of her foot, she dazzled like a moving picture; but she lacked one adornment; there was no ring on her finger. 'Jacqueline!' cried I, 'you have forgotten something.' And I pointed towards her hand.

"She glanced at it, blushed a trifle as I thought, and pulled it out of her pocket. 'I have it,' said she, 'but it is too large,' and she thrust it carelessly back.

"At three o'clock the train came in. Then I saw her eye flash and her lip burn. In a few minutes later two gentlemen appeared at the gate.

"'Mr. Holt and his brother!' were the words I heard whispered through the house. But I did not need that announcement to understand Jacqueline at last."

XXVI. A MAN'S JUSTICE AND A WOMAN'S MERCY

"Fair is foul and foul is fair."—MACBETH.

"Have you ever seen a man whose instantaneous effect upon you was electrical; in whose expression, carriage, or manner, there was concealed a charm that attracted and interested you, apart from his actual worth and beauty? Such a one was Mr. Roger Holt, the gentleman I now discerned entering the gate with Jacqueline's lover. It was not that he was handsome. He could not for one moment bear any comparison with his brother in substantial attraction, and yet when they were both in the room, you looked at him in preference to the other, and was vexed with yourself for doing so. He seemed to be the younger as he was certainly the smaller; yet he took the lead, even in coming up the walk. Why had he not taken it in the deeper and more important matter? Was it because he did not love her?

"I was not present when Jacqueline greeted her guests and presented Mr. Roger Holt to her father. But later in the day I spent a half hour with them and saw enough to be able to satisfy myself as to the falsity of my last supposition. Never had I seen on a human countenance the evidences of a wilder passion than that which informed his features, as he sat in the further window of the parlor, presumably engaged in admiring the autumn landscape, but really occupied in casting short side-long glances at Jacqueline, who sat listening with a superb nonchalence, but with a restless gleam in her wandering eye, to the genial talk between her acknowledged lover and the Colonel. I half feared he would rise from his seat, and flinging himself before her, demand then and there an explanation of her engagement.

"But beyond the impatience of those short burning glances, he controlled himself well, and it was Jacqueline who moved at last.

"I saw the purpose growing in her eyes long before she stirred. The face which had been a mystery to me from her cradle, was in the presence of this man, like an open page which all might read. Its letters were flame, but that did not make them any less clear. I felt her swaying towards him, before an eyelash trembled or a quiver shook her tall form.

He may have understood her purpose also, for his eye wandered towards the open piano. She rose like a queen.

"'Mr. Roger Holt is a singer,' said she in passing her father, 'I am going to ask him to give us one of the old ballads you profess to like so much.'

"The conversation at once ceased. The Colonel who made no secret of his fondness for music, turned at once towards the stranger, with an expression of great courtesy. Instantly that gentleman rose, and meeting the request of his hostess with a profound bow, proceeded at once to the piano. 'He will not leave it till he has spoken to her,' thought I. Nor did he, for that very moment as they stood turning her music over, I perceived his lips move in a hurried question, to which she as briefly responded, whereupon he caught up a sheet of music from the pile, and flinging back his head with a victorious smile, began to sing.

"Had I known what lay behind his words, I would have braved everything rather than have allowed him to utter a note in that room which had once rung with the carols of Jacqueline's mother. But what could I guess of the possible evil underlying the natural ebullition of unrestrained passion that from some cause of pride or pique, had met with a strange inexplicable check. So I sat still, shuddering perhaps, but quiet in my corner; while the haunting tones of his strange and thrilling voice, rose and fell in the most uncanny of Scottish love songs. Nor did I do more than wonder with all my agitated soul, when at the conclusion Jacqueline came back, and pausing beside the man to whom she had given her troth, looked down in his beaming face and smiled with that overflow of delight, which she dared not bestow upon his brother.

"Another little incident of that hour remains engraven upon my memory. She had been showing to the gentlemen a rare plant that stood in the front parlor window, and was dilating upon its marvels, when Mr. Robert Holt, her accepted lover, took in his clasp the small white hand wandering so invitingly among the leaves of the huge palm, and glancing at the finger which should have worn his ring, looked inquiringly into her face.

"'O,' said she, interrupting her little speech to draw away her hand, 'you miss your diamond? I have it, sir. It lies very safe in my pocket; it is a beautiful gem, but your ring does not fit me.'

"The way she said those words and the air with which she tossed back her head, must have made one heart in that room beat joyously, but it did not reassure me or subdue my secret apprehension.

"'Not fit!' her lover responded; and begged her to allow him to try it on and see, but she shook her head with wilful coquetry, and turning to the piano, commenced singing a gay little song that was like silver bells, shaken by a sudden and mighty tempest.

"Even the Colonel felt the change in his daughter, though he never guessed the cause, and came and went during the evening that followed, with certain odd sighs that made my heart ache with strange forebodings. Only her lover was unconscious, or if he felt the new and wayward force and fire in her manner, attributed it to his own presence and unspeakable devotion. Mr. Roger Holt, on the contrary, thoroughly understood it. Though he was strangely calm, as calm now as he had previously been alert and fiery, he never lost a gleam of her eye in his direction, or a turn of her form towards the chair where he sat. But the smile with which he contemplated her was not pleasant to me. It was informed with self-consciousness, and a certain hard triumph, that made it almost sinister. 'She has given her hand to the true man,' I mused, 'wherever her heart may be. But had she given it?' I began to doubt as I began to muse. With that uncontrollable will of hers, she was capable of anything; did she intend to break with Robert, now that she had seen Roger? I detected no signs of it beyond the evident delight they took in each other's presence. They were guilty of no further conversation of a secret or intimate character, and when with the striking of the clock at ten, Mr. Robert Holt rose to leave, his brother followed without any demur, even preceding him in his departure and limiting his farewell to a short brotherly pressure of Jacqueline's fair hand.

"But much may be conveyed in a pressure, or so I began to think as I heard the low laugh that rippled from Jacqueline's lips as she turned to go up to her room; and if I had been her mother—

"But that is not what you want to hear. Enough that I did not follow her, that I did not even acquaint Colonel Japha with my fears, that indeed I did nothing but lie awake, praying and asking what I ought to do. There had been so little said; there had been so little done. A word, a sentence between them, the interchange of a couple of songs, and—What else that I could communicate to another?

"A week, two weeks passed, and her look of wilful happiness did not fly. She was flooded with notes from her accepted lover, whose handwriting I had learned by this time to distinguish, but not one, so far as I could learn, from any other source; yet her feet tripped lightly through the house, and her form had a rich grace in its every movement, that bespoke a mind settled in some deep joy or quiet determination. I felt the impenetrability of a secretly cherished hope, whenever I looked at her. If I had not known to the contrary, I should have said that her prospective marriage had become to her a dream of unfathomable delight. Whence then came this rapture? Through what communication was born this secret hope? I could not guess, I could only watch and wait.

"Meanwhile some random guesses at the truth had been made by the neighbors. Jacqueline had a lover. That lover was a gentleman; but the Colonel was critical; he had refused his consent and the young people had parted. Such was the talk, begotten perhaps by the persistency with which Jacqueline remained in the house, and the almost severe look with which Colonel Japha trod the streets of his native village, which he soon felt would lose all their charm in the departure of his only child. I scarcely ventured out more than Jacqueline; for I have but little control over my feelings and did not know what I would do, if any one should closely press me with questions.

"The unexpected discovery that our pretty young servant girl was in the habit of stealing into Jacqueline's room late at night, was the first thing that startled me into asking whether or not my supposition was true, that Jacqueline received no messages from Mr. Robert Holt. And scarcely had I become certain that a clandestine correspondence was being carried on between them through the medium of this girl, then the climax came, and knowledge on my part and secrecy on hers availed no longer.

"It was a day in October. The stoves had been put up in the house, and seeing Jacqueline roaming about the halls, in a renewed fit of that strange restlessness which had affected her the day before Mr. Roger Holt's visit, I went into her room to light a fire, and make everything look cheerful before dusk. I found the atmosphere warm, and going to the stove, discovered that a fire had been already kindled there, but had gone out for want of fuel. I at once commenced to rake away the ashes, in order to make preparations for a new one, when I came upon several scraps of half burned paper.

"Jacqueline had been burning letters. Do you blame me for picking out those scraps and hastening with them to another room, when I tell you they were written in a marked and characteristic hand that bore little or no resemblance to that of her accepted lover, and that the words which flashed first upon my eye were those ominous ones of my wife!

"They were three in number, and while more or less discolored and irregular, were still legible. Think child with what a thrill of horror and sharp motherly anguish, I read such words as 'Love you! I would press you in my arms if you were plague-stricken! The least turn of your head makes my blood cringe, as if a flame had touched me. I would follow you on my knees, if you led me round the world. Let me see Robert take your hand again and I will—'

"'Forget you! Do we forget the dagger that has struck us? I am another man since—'

"'I will have you if Robert goes mad and your father kills me. That I am burdened with a wife, is nothing. What is a wife that I do not—' 'You shall be my true wife, my—'

"'To-night then, be ready; I will wait for you at the gate. A little resolution on your part, and then—'

"I could read no further. The living, burning truth had forced itself upon me, that Jacqueline, our darling, our pride, the soul of our life, stood tottering upon the brink of a gulf horrible as the mouth of hell. For I never doubted for an instant what her answer would be to this entreaty. In all her past life, God pity us, there had been no tokens of that immovable hold on virtue, that would save her in such an extremity as this. Nevertheless, to make all sure, I flew back to her room, and tearing open bureau drawers and closet doors, discovered that her prettiest things had been sent away. She was going, then, and on that very night! and her father did not even know she was untrue to her betrothed lover. The horror of the situation was too much for me; I faltered as I left her room, her dainty, maidenly room, and actually crouched against the wall like a guilty thing, as I heard the sound of her voice singing some maddening strain in the parlors below. What should I do? Appeal to her, or warn her father of the frightful peril in which his honor and happiness stood? Alas, any appeal to her would be useless. In the glare of this awful revelation I had come to a full comprehension of her nature. But her father was a man; he could command as well as entreat, could even force obedience if all other methods failed. To him, then, must I go; but I had rather have gone to the rack. He was so proud a man! Had owned to such undeviating trust in his daughter's honor, as a Japha and his child! The blow would kill him; or daze him so, he might better have been killed. My knees shook under me, as I traversed the hall to his little study over the parlor, and when I came to the door, I rather fell against it than knocked, so great was my own anguish, and so deep my terror of his. He was a ready man and he came to the door at once, but upon seeing me, drew back as if his eye had fallen upon a phantom.

"'Hush!' said I, scarcely knowing what I uttered; and going in, I closed the door and latched it firmly behind me. 'I have come,' said I in a voice that made him start, 'to ask you to save your daughter. She is in deadly peril; she—' a strain of her song came in at that moment from the staircase. She was ascending to her room. He looked at me in a doubt of my sanity.

"'Not physical peril,' I stammered, 'but moral. She loves madly, unreasonably, and with a headlong passion that laughs at every obstacle, a man whom neither you nor heaven can look upon with aught but execration. She—'

"'Mrs. Hamlin!'—How well I remember his cool, calm voice, so deliberate in his impressive moments, so deliberate now, when perhaps she was donning hat and shawl for her elopement—'You are laboring under a great mistake. Instead of execrating Mr. Holt, I admire him most profoundly. Since the time has come for me to give up my daughter, I know of no one to whom I would rather surrender her.'

"'But Mr. Holt is not the man,' I cried, half wild in my fear and desperation. 'Do you remember the gentleman who came with him on his last visit? He called him his brother, and he is I believe, but—'

"The way he turned his grand white forehead towards me at that, made every fibre in my being quiver. 'Jacqueline does not love him!' exclaimed he. How sharp his voice, how changed his eye! I shrank back, trembling as I bowed my head, thinking of the word yet to be said.

"'But he won't compare—' he went on with a severe intonation. 'Besides her honor is engaged. You are dealing in fancies, Mrs. Hamlin.'

"I tore out of my breast the scraps of paper which had enlightened me so horribly, and held them towards him; then bethought myself, and drew back. 'I have proof,' said I; 'but first I must tell you that Jacqueline is not as good a girl as you have thought her. She is not her mother's child in the qualities of love and honor. She is destined to bring a great woe upon your head. In her passion for this man, she has forgotten your trust in her, the incorruptibility of your name, the honor of your house. Be strong, sir, for God is about to smite you in your tenderest spot.

"Ah, with what pride he towered upon me! this white-haired, stately gentleman before whom I had hitherto held my breath in admiring awe; towered upon me though his face was ghostly pale and his hand trembled like an aspen as he held it out!

"'Give me the papers you hold there,' cried he. 'Either you are gone mad, or else—Who wrote these lines?' he demanded, glancing down upon the hard, firm scrawl that blackened the bits of paper I had given him.

"'Mr. Roger Holt,' I returned unhesitatingly. 'I found those bits in Jacqueline's stove. Her clothes have been sent away, sir,' I continued as I saw his face grow fixed above the scraps he consulted. 'Twilight is coming on and—Mr. Roger Holt is a married man!'

"'What!'

"I never saw such a look flash from a human face as that which darted from his at that terrible moment. I thought he would have fallen, but he only dropped the papers out of his hand. 'Heaven forgive us!' murmured I, calmed by a sight of his misery, into some semblance of of self-control, 'but we have never understood Jacqueline. She is not to be led, sir, by principles or duty. She loves this man, and love with her is a stormy wind, capable of sweeping her into any abyss of contumely or suffering. If you would save her, kill her love; the death of her lover would only transform her into a demon.'

"He looked at me as if I had told him the world had come to an end. 'My Jacqueline!' he murmured in a low, incredulous voice of the tenderest yearning. 'My Jacqueline!'

"'Oh!' I shrieked, torn by my anguish for him and the terror of her escaping while we were yet talking, 'God knows I had rather have died than contaminate her by such words as I have uttered. She is dear to me as my soul; dearer to me than my life. I have a mother's feeling for her, sir. If to fling myself headlong from that window, would delay her feet from going down the stairs to meet her guilty lover, I would gladly do it. It is her danger makes me speak. O sir, realize that danger and hasten before she has taken the irrevocable step.'

"He started like a man pricked by a sudden dart. 'She is going—you believe she is going to meet him?'

"'I do,' said I.

"He gave me a terrible look and started for the door. I hurriedly picked up the scraps that had fallen to the floor, and rushed around by an inner passage-way to my own little room, hiding my head and waiting as for the crash of a falling avalanche. Suddenly a cry rose in the hall.

"There are some sounds that lift you unconsciously to your feet. Dashing out of my room, I detected the face of the servant-girl whom I have before mentioned, looking out of her door some distance down the corridor. Hastening towards her, I uttered some words about her being a busy-body, and thrusting her inside her room, locked the door upon her. Then I hastened with what speed I might to the front of the house, and coming out upon the grand staircase, met a sight that shook me to the very soul. You have been up the stairs; you know how they branch off to left and right from the platform near the top. The left branch led in those days to Colonel Japha's room, the right to the apartments occupied by Jacqueline and myself. Coming upon them, then, as I did from my side of the house, I found myself in full view of the opposite approach, and there on the topmost step I beheld Colonel Japha, standing in an attitude of awful denunciation, while half way down the staircase, I beheld the figure of Jacqueline, hindered in her gliding course towards the front door by the terrible, 'Stop!' whose echo had reached me in my room and caused me to rush quaking and horrified to this spot. I leaned back sick and horror-stricken against the wall. There was no mercy in his voice: he had awakened to a full realization of the situation and the pride of the Japhas had made him steel.

"'You are my child!' he was saying. 'I have loved you and do still; but proceed one step farther towards the man that awaits you at the gate, and the door that opens upon you, shuts never to open again!'

"'Colonel!' I exclaimed, starting forward; but he heard me no more than he would a fly buzzing or a bird singing.

"'I desire it to shut; I have no wish to come back!' issued from the set white lips of the girl beneath us. 'There is no such charm for me in this humdrum house, that I should wish to exchange life with the man I adore, for its droning, spiritless existence!' And she lifted her foot to proceed.

"'Jacqueline!' I shrieked, leaning forward in my turn, and holding her by my anguish, as I never believed she could be held by anything, 'Think, child, think what you do! It is not life you are going to but death. A man who can take a young girl from her father's house, from her lover's arms, from her mother's grave, from the shrine of all that is pure and holy, to dash her into a pit of all that is corrupt, loathsome and deadly, is not one with whom you can live. You say you adore him: can one adore falsehood, selfishness and depravity? Does hypocrisy win love? Can the embraces of a serpent bring peace? Jacqueline, Jacqueline, you are yet pure; come back to our love and our hearts, before we die here in our shame at the head of the stairs, where your mother was carried out to her grave!'

"She trembled. I saw the hand that clutched the banister loosen its grip; she cast one quick look behind her, and her eyes flashed upon her father's face; it was set like a flint.

"'If you come back,' cried he, leaning towards her, but not advancing a step from where he stood, 'you must come back of your own free will. I will hold no creature prisoner in my house. I must trust you implicitly, or not at all. Speak then, which shall it be?' And he raised his hand above his head, with a supreme and awful gesture, 'a father's blessing or a father's curse?'

"'A father's curse, then! since you command me to choose,' rang out from her lips in a burst of uncontrollable passion. 'I want no blessing that separates me from him!' And she pointed towards the door with a look that, defiant as it was, spoke of a terrible love before which all our warnings and entreaties were but as empty air.

"'Curses then upon your head, slayer of a family's honor, a father's love, and a mother's memory! Curses upon you, at home and abroad! in the joy of your first passion and in the agony of your last despair! May you live to look upon that door as the gateway to heaven, and find it shut! May your children, if you are cursed with them, turn in your face, as you are turning now in mine! May the lightning of heaven be your candle, and the blackness of death your daily food and your nightly drink!' And with a look in which all the terrors he invoked, seemed to crash downward from his reeling brain upon her shrinking terror-crouched head, he gave one mighty gasp and fell back stricken to the floor.

"'God!' burst from her lips, and she rushed downwards to the door like a creature hunted to its quarry. I saw her white face gleam marble-like in the fading light that came in from the chinks about the door. I saw her trembling hand fumbling with the knob, and rousing from my stupor, called down to her with all the force of a breaking heart,

"'Jacqueline, beware!'

"She turned once more. There was something in my voice she could not withstand. 'I do not hope to keep you,' cried I, 'but before you go, hear this. In the days to come, when the face that now beams upon you with such longing, shall have learned to turn from you in weariness, if not distaste, when hunger, cold, contumely and disease shall have blasted that fair brow and seared those soft cheeks, know, that although a father can curse, a woman who loves like a mother can forgive. The father cries, 'Once go out of that door and it shuts upon you never to open!' 'Once come to that door, say I,' pointing in the direction of the house's other entrance, 'and if I live and if I move, it shall open to you, were you as defiled and wretched and forsaken as Magdalen. Remember! Each day at this hour will I watch for you, kneeling upon its threshold. In sickness or in health, in joy or in sorrow, in cold or in heat. The hour of six is sacred. Some one of them shall see you falling weeping on my breast!'

"She gave me a quick stare out of her wide black eyes, then a mocking smile curled her lips, and murmuring a short, 'You rave!' opened the door, and rushed out into the falling dusk. With a resounding clang like the noise of a stone rolled upon an open grave, the great door swung to, and I was left alone in that desolated house with my stricken master.

XXVII. THE LONE WATCHER

"Hark! to the hurried question of Despair,

Where is my child?—and Echo answers—Where?"—BYRON.

"Colonel Japha recovered from his shock, but was never the same man again. All that was genial, affectionate and confiding in his nature, had been turned as by a lightning's stroke, to all that was hard, bitter and suspicious. He would not allow the name of Jacqueline to be spoken in his presence; he would listen to no allusion made to those days when she was the care and perplexity, but also the light and pleasure of the house. Men are not like women, my child; when they turn, it is at an angle, the whole direction of their nature changes.

"Perhaps the news that presently came to us from Boston may have had something to do with this. It was surely dreadful enough; Jacqueline's perfidy had slain her lover. Mr. Robert Holt, the cultured, noble, high-souled gentleman, had been found lying dead on the floor of his room, a few days after the events I have just related, with a lady's diamond ring in his hand and the remnants of a hastily burned letter in the grate before him. He had burst a blood-vessel, and had expired instantly.

"This sudden and tragic ending of a man of energy and will, was also the reason, perhaps, why Grotewell never arrived at the truth of Jacqueline's history. Boston was a long way from here in those days, and the story of her lover's death was not generally known, while the fact of her elopement was. Consequently she was supposed to have fled with the man who had been seen to visit her most frequently; a report which neither the Colonel nor myself had the courage to deny.

"My child, you have a brow like snow, and a cheek like roses; you know little of life's sorrows and little of life's sins. To you the skies are blue, the woods vernal, the air balmy; the sad looks upon men's and women's faces, tell but shallow tales of the ceaseless grinding of grief in their pent up souls. But you are gentle, and you have an imagination that goes beyond your experience; perhaps if you pause and think, you can understand what a tale could be told of the weeks and months and years that now followed, without hint or whisper of the fate of her who had gone out from amongst us with the brand of her father's curse upon her brow. At first we hoped, yes, he hoped,—I could see it in his eyes when there came a sudden ring at the bell,—that some sign of her penitence, or some proof of her existence, would come to relieve the torture of our fears, if not the shame of our memories. But the door that closed upon her on that fatal eve, had shut without an echo. While we vainly waited, time had ample leisure to carve the furrows of age as well as of suffering on the Colonel's once smooth brow, and to change my daily vigil into a custom of despair, rather than of hope. Time had also leisure to rob us of much of our worldly goods and to make our continued living in this grand old house, an act that involved constant care and the closest economy. That we were enabled to preserve appearances to the day that beheld the Colonel laid low by the final stroke of his dread disease, was only due to the secret charity of a certain gentleman, who, declaring he was indebted to us, secretly supplied me with means of support.

"But of all this you care little.

"You had rather hear about the evening watch with its hopeful assurance, 'Yet another day and she will be here,' to be followed so soon by the despairing acknowledgement, 'Yet another day and she has not come!' or of those dark hours when the Colonel lay blank and white upon his pillow, with his eyes fixed on the door which would never open to the beating of a daughter's heart, while the gray shadow of an awful resolution deepened upon his immovable face. What that resolution was I could not know, but I feared it, when I saw what a sternness it gave to his eye, what a fixedness to his set and implacable lip; and when in the waning light of a certain December afternoon, the circle of neighbors about his bed gave way to the stiff and forbidding form of Mr. Phelps, I felt a thrill of mortal apprehension and only waited to hear the short, 'It shall be done,' of the lawyer to some slowly whispered command of the colonel, to rise from my far off corner and stand ready to accost Mr. Phelps as he came from the bedside of the dying man.

"'What is it?' I asked, rushing up to him as he issued forth into the hall, and seizing him by the arm, with a woman's unreasoning impetuosity. 'I have nursed his daughter on my knee; tell me, then, what it is he has ordered you to do in this final moment?'

"Mr. Phelps for all his ungainly bearing, is not a hard-hearted man, as you know, and he doubtless saw the depth of the misery that made me forget myself. Giving me a look that was not without its touch of sarcasm, he replied, 'The colonel has made me promise, to see that a plank is nailed across the front door of this house, after his body has been carried out to burial.'

"A board across the front door! His anger then was implacable. The withering curse that had rung in my ears for ten years, was to outlive his death! With a horrified groan, I pressed my hands over my eyes and rushed back. My first glimpse of the Colonel's face showed me that the end was at hand, but that fact only made more imperative my consuming desire to see that curse removed, even though it were done with his final breath. Drawing near his bedside, I leaned down, and waiting till his eye wandered to my face, asked him if there was nothing he wished amended before his strength failed. He understood me. We had not sat for so long, face to face across the chasm of a hideous memory, without knowing something of the workings of each other's mind. Glancing up at his wife's portrait which ever faced him as he lay upon his pillow, his mouth grew severe and he essayed to shake his head. I at once pointed to the portrait.

"'What will you say to her when she meets you on the borders of heaven?' I demanded with the courage of despair.' She will ask, 'Where is my child?' And what will you reply?'

"The fingers that lay upon the coverlid moved spasmodically; he eyed me with a steady deepening stare, awful to meet, fearful to remember. I went on steadily; 'She has gone out of this house with your curse; tell me that if she comes back, she may be greeted with your forgiveness.' Still that awful stare which changed not. 'I have watched and waited for her every day since her departure,' I whispered, 'and shall watch and wait for her, every day until I die. Shall a stranger's love be greater than a father's?' This time his lips twitched and the grey shadow shifted, but it did not rise. 'I had sworn to do it,' I went on. 'When you lay there at the top of the stairs, smitten down by your first shock, I told her, come sickness, come health, I should keep a daily vigil at that door of the house which your severity had not closed upon her; and I have kept my word till now and shall keep it to the end. What will you do for this miserable child of whose being you are the author?'

"With indescribable anxiety I paused and watched him, for his lips were moving. 'Do for her?' he repeated.

"How awful is the voice of the dying! I shivered as I listened, but drew near and nearer, that I might lose no word that came from his stony lips.

"'She will not come,' gasped he, with an effort that raised him up in bed, and deepened that horrible stare, 'but—'

"Who shall say what he might have uttered if Death's hand had delayed a single instant, but the inexorable shadow fell, and he never finished the sentence.

"My child, these are frightful things for you to hear. God knows I would not assail your pure ears with a tale like this, if it were not for the help and sympathy I hope to gain from you. Sin is a hideous thing; the gulf it opens is wide and deep; well may it be said to swallow those who trust themselves above its flower-hung brink. But we who are human, owe something to humanity. Love stops not because of the gulf; love follows the sinner with wilder and more heart-breaking longing, the deeper and deeper he sinks into the illimitable darkness. Ten years have passed since we laid the Colonel away in the burying-place of all the Japhas, and dutiful to his last request, nailed up the front door of his speedily to be forsaken mansion. In all that time my watch has remained unbroken in this house, which by will he had left to me, but which I secretly hold in trust for her. The hour of six has found me at my post, sometimes elate with hope, sometimes depressed with repeated disappointments, but whether hopeful or sad, always trustful that the great God who Himself so loved all sinners, that He gave the life of His Son to rescue them, would ultimately grant me the desire of my heart. But the decrepitude of age is coming upon me, and each morning I leave my bed, with growing fear lest my infirmities will increase until they finally overcome my resolution. Child, if this should happen, if lying in my bed I should some day hear that she had come back, and failing to find the lamp burning and the welcome ready, had gone away again—But the thought is madness. I cannot bear it. A sinner, lost, degraded, suffering, starving, perhaps, is wandering this way. She is hardened and old in guilt; she has drunk the cup of life's passions and found them corrupting poison; all that was lovely and pure and good has withdrawn from her; she stands alone, shut off by her sin, like a wild thing in a circle of flame. What shall touch this soul? The preacher's voice has no charm for her; good men's advice is but empty air. God's love must be mirrored in human love, to strike an eye so unused to looking up. Where shall she find such love? It is all that can rescue her; love as great as her sin, as boundless as her degradation, as persistent as her suffering. Child—"

"I know what you are going to say," suddenly exclaimed Paula, rising up and confronting Mrs. Hamlin with a steady high look of determination. "In the day of your weakness or illness you want some one to unlock the door and light the lamp. You have found her!"

XXVIII. SUNSHINE ON THE HILLS

"If I speak to thee in Friendship's name,

Thou think'st I speak too coldly;

If I mention Love's devoted flame,

Thou say'st I speak too boldly."—MOORE.

The story told by Mrs. Hamlin had a great effect upon Paula, not only on account of its own interest and the promise it had elicited from her, but because of the remembrances it revived of Mr. Sylvester and her life in New York. Any vision of evil or suffering, any experience that roused the affections or awakened the sensibilities, could not fail to recall to her mind the forcible figure of Mr. Sylvester as he stood that day by his own hearthstone, talking of the temptations that assail humanity; and any reminiscence of him must necessarily bring with it much that charmed and aroused. For a week, then, she felt the effect of a great unsettlement. Her village home appeared a prison; she longed to run, soar—anything to escape; the horizon was full of beckoning hands. A brooding melancholy settled upon her reveries; the prospect of a life spent in the narrow circle to which she had endeavored to re-accustom herself, became unendurable.

Thus it is with us. We slide in a groove and seem happy, when suddenly a book we read, a story we hear, an experience we encounter, shakes us out of our content, and makes continuance in the old course a violation of the most demanding instincts of our nature.

In the full tide of this unrest, Paula went out for a solitary walk on the hills. Nature can soothe if she cannot satisfy. Then the day itself was one to make the soul glad and the heart rejoice. As the young girl trod the meadows, she wondered that she could be sad. Earth and air were so full of splendor. Nature seemed to be in league with the angels of light. September stood upon the earth like a goddess of might and glory. Every tint of green that variegated the mountain-side, wooed the eye with suggestions of unfathomable beauty. A bough of scarlet flame lit here and there amid the verdure, served to illuminate the woods as for the passage of a king; and not Solomon in all his glory ever wore an aspect more sumptuous than the flowers that flecked the meadow and fringed the hardy roadside with imperial purple. A wind was blowing, a keen but kindly breeze, laden with sweetness and alert to awaken Æolian airs from the boughs of whistling beech and alder. Even the low field grasses seemed to partake in the general cheer, and nodded to each other with a witching and irresistible abandon. Had a poet been at her side, or any one capable of divining the hidden things of nature, what a commentary to all their united thoughts she would have found in the delicious tremble of the laughing leaves, in the restless music of the runaway brooks, in the lowly crickets with their single song, in the cloud-haunting birds with their trailing melodies, and in all the roll and rumble of earth's commingled noises. Alluring as was the book of nature, she could not read it alone. She felt the lack of a loving hand to turn the page. "Is it that I am lonely!" she murmured.

The thought deepened her trouble. Coming down from the hillside, she entered a skirting of woods that ran along by the river. Here she had always found peace and some of her richest treasures of thought. Through this opaline archway she had walked with her fancies, like Saint Catherine with her lily. It was sacred to all that was sweet and deep and pure within her. "Lonely!" she whispered; "I will not be lonely. To some God gives years of happy companionship; to others but a day. Shall one complain because it has fallen to his portion to have the lesser share? I will remember my one day and be glad."

"My one day!" She caught herself at the utterance and literally started at the suggestion it offered. There was but one person whom she had seen but for a day. Could she have been thinking of him?

With a flush deep as the autumn leaves she carried, she was hurrying on, when suddenly in the opening before her, a shadow fell, and a mellow voice exclaimed in her ear,

"Do I meet Miss Fairchild in her native woods?"

It was Clarence Ensign.

The surprise was very great and it took her a moment to steady herself. She had felt so assured that she should never see him or any other of her New York friends again. Had not Cicely written that he had gone West, soon after her own departure from New York. With a deepening of his voice Mr. Ensign repeated the question.

At once the day seemed to acquire all it had hitherto lacked. Looking up, she met his eye fixed admiringly upon her, and all that was merry, lightsome and gay within her, leaped at once to the surface. Ignoring his question with smiling abandon, she exclaimed,

"What shall be done to the man who delights in surprises and startles timid maidens without a cause?"

"He shall be held in captivity by the hand of his denouncer, until he has sued for pardon and obtained her generous forgiveness," returned he, holding out his palm.

She barely touched it with her own. "I see that your repentance is sincere, so your pardon shall be speedy," laughed she.

"Your discrimination is at fault, I never felt more impenitent in my life. I am a hardened wretch, Miss Fairchild, a hardened wretch! But you do not ask me from what corner of the earth I have come. You take me too much for granted; like the chirrup of a squirrel, let me say, or the whistle of a bullfinch. But perhaps you think I inhabit these woods?"

"No; but a day like this is so full of miracles, why should we be astonished at one more! I suppose you came on the train, but should not be surprised to hear you started, like Pluto, from the earth. Anything seems possible in such a sunshine."

"You are right, and I have sprung from the earth. I have been buried five mortal months in a law-suit out west, or else I should have been here before. I hope my delay has made me none the less welcome."

He was holding back a branch as he spoke, and his eyes were on a level with hers. She felt caught as in a net, and struggled vainly to keep down her color. "No," said she, "welcome is a guest's due, whether he come early or late. I should be sorry to be lacking in the duties of a hostess, though my drawing-room is somewhat more spacious than cosy," she continued, looking around on the fields into which they had emerged, "and my facilities for bespeaking you welcome greater than my power to make you comfortable."

"Comfort is a satisfaction of the mind, rather than of the body. I am not uncomfortable, Miss Fairchild." Then as he stooped to relieve her of half her burden of trailing leaves and flowers, he exclaimed in a matter-of-fact tone, "Your aunt is a notable woman, Miss Fairchild, I admire her greatly."

"What!" said she, "you have been to the cottage? You have seen Aunt Belinda?"

"Of course," laughed he, "or how should I be here? You have been sent for, Miss Fairchild, and I am the humble bearer of your aunt's commands. But I forget, the practical has nothing to do with such a day. I am supposed to have sprung from the ground, and to know by instinct, just in what nook you were hiding from the sunlight. Very well. I acknowledge that instinct is sometimes capable of going a great way."

But this time her ready answer was lacking. She was wondering what her aunt would think of this sudden appearance of a stranger whose name she had never so much as mentioned.

"It is a pleasant rest to stand and look at a view like that, after a summer of musty labor," said he, gazing up the river with a truly appreciative eye. "I do not wonder you carry the charm of the wild woods in your laugh and glance, if you have been brought up in the sight of such a view as that."

"It has been my meat and drink from childhood," said she, and wondered why she wanted to say no more upon her favorite theme.

"Yet you tell me you love the city?"

"Too much to ever again be happy here."

It was a slip for which her cheek burned and her lids fell, the moment after. She had been thinking of Mr. Sylvester, and unconsciously spake as she might have done, if he had been at her side, instead of this genial-hearted young man. With a woman's instinctive desire to retrieve herself, she hurriedly continued, "Life is so full and large and deep in a great town, if you are only happy enough to meet those who are its blood and brain and sinew. One misses the rush of the great wheel of time in a spot like this. The world moves, but we do not feel it; it is like the quiet sweep of the stars over our heads. But in the city, days, weeks and months make themselves felt. The universe jars under the feet of hurrying masses. The story of the world is being written on pavement, corridor, and dome, so that he who runs may read. One realizes he is alive; the unit is part of the multiple. To those who are tired, God gives the rest of the everlasting hills, but to those who are eager, he holds out the city with its innumerable opportunities and incentives. And I am eager," she said. "The flower blooms on the mountain, and its perfume is sweet, but the chariot sings as it rushes, and the noise of its wheels is music in my ears."

She paused, turned her face to the breeze, and seemed to forget she was not alone. Clarence Ensign eyed her with astonishment; he had never heard her speak like this; the earnest side of her great nature had never been turned towards him before, and he felt himself shrink into insignificance in its presence. What was he that he should pluck a star from the heavens, to buckle on his breast! Wealth and position were a match for beauty great as hers, and a kind heart current coin all the world over, for a gentle disposition and a loving nature; but for this—He turned away and in his abstraction switched his foot with his cane.

"Then it was in New York that I met Cicely," exclaimed Paula.

He shook off his broodings, turned with a manful gesture, and met her sweet unfathomable eye, so brilliant with enthusiasm a moment ago, but at this instant so softly deep and tender.

"And the friendship of Miss Stuyvesant is a precious thing to you?" said he.

"Few things are more so," was her reply.

He bit his lip and his brow grew lighter. After all, great souls frequently cling to those of lesser calibre, provided they are true and unflawed. He would not be discouraged. But his tone when he spoke had acquired a reverence that did not lessen its music. "You are, then, one of the few women who believe in friendship?"

"As I believe in heaven."

Looking at her, he took off his hat. Her eye stole to his serious countenance. "Miss Stuyvesant is to be envied," said he.

"Are friends so rare?"

"Such friends are," said he.

She gave him a bright little look. "Had you been with Miss Stuyvesant, and she had expressed herself as I have done, you would have said, 'Miss Fairchild is to be envied,' and you would have been nearer the truth than now. Cicely's friendship is to mine what an unbroken mirror is to a little racing brook. It reflects but one image, while mine—" She could not go on. How could she explain to this stranger that Cicely's heart was undivided in its regard, while hers owned allegiance to more than her bosom friend.

"If I were with Miss Stuyvesant now," he declared, too absorbed in his own ideas to notice the break in hers, "I should still say in face of this friendship, 'Miss Stuyvesant is to be envied.' I have no mind for more than one thought to-day," exclaimed he, with a look that made her tremble.

There are some men who never know in what field to stay the current of their impetuosity: Clarence Ensign did. He said no more than this of all that was seething in his mind and heart. He felt that he must prove himself a man, before he exercised a man's privilege. Besides, his temperament was mercurial, and never remained long under the bondage of a severe thought, or an impressive tone of mind. He worshipped the lofty, but it was with tabor and cymbal and high-sounding lute. A climb over the stile at the foot of the hill was enough to restore him to himself. It was therefore with merry eyes and laughing lips that they approached the house and entered Miss Belinda's presence.

There are some persons whose prerogative it is to carry sunshine with them wherever they go. Clarence Ensign was one of these. Without an effort, without any display of incongruous hilarity, he always succeeded by the mere joyousness of his own nature, in calling forth all that was bright and enjoyable in others. When therefore they stepped into the quaint old-fashioned parlor, all prepared to receive them, Paula was not surprised to perceive it brighten, and her aunts' faces grow cheerful and smiling. Who could meet Clarence Ensign's laughing eye and not smile? What did astonish her, however, was the sight of an elegant basket of hot-house lowers perched on a table in the centre of the room. It made her pause, and cast looks of inquiry at the demure countenance of Miss Abby, and the quietly satisfied expression of her more thoughtful aunt.

"A remembrance from the city!" said Mr. Ensign gracefully. "I thought it might help to recall some happy hours to you."

With a swelling of the heart which she could not understand, she leaned over the ample cluster of roses and heliotrope. She felt as though she could embrace them; they were more than flowers, they were the visible emblem of all she had missed, and for which she had longed these many months.

"I seem to receive the whole in the part," said she.

He may or may not have understood her, but he saw she was gratified, and that was sufficient. The afternoon flew by on wings of light. Miss Belinda, who was not accustomed to holidays, but who thoroughly appreciated them when they came, entered into the conversation with zest; while Miss Abby's unconscious expressions of pleasure were too naïve not to add to, rather than detract from the general enjoyment. The twilight, with its good-bye, came all too soon.

"I have a request to make before I go," said Mr. Ensign. He was standing alone with Paula in the embrasure of the window, a few moments before his departure. "When we see a flower nodding on a ledge above our heads, we long for it; I have heard you talk of friendship, and a great desire has seized me. Miss Fairchild will you be my friend?"

She gave him a startled glance that, however, soon settled into a mellow radiant look of sympathy and pleasure.

"That is asking for something which if I hesitate to accord, it is because the word, 'friend,' carries with it so much," said she, with a sweet seriousness that disarmed her words of any latent sting they might otherwise have contained.

"I know it," he replied, "and I am very bold to ask it upon so slight an acquaintance; but life is short and real treasure is so scarce. You will not deny me, Miss Fairchild?" Then seeing her look down, hastily continued, "I have acquaintances by the score—friends who style themselves thus, by the dozen, but no friend. I want one; I want you for that one. Will you be it? I shall be jealous though, I warn you," he went on, with a cropping out of his mirthful nature; "I shall not be pleased to observe the circle widened indefinitely. I shall want my own place and no one else in my place."

"No one else can fill the place once given to a friend. Each one has his own niche."

"And I am to have mine?" His look was firm, his eye steadfast.

"Yes," she breathed.

With a proud stooping of his head, he took her hand and kissed it. The action became him; he was tall and well made, and gallantry induced by feeling, sat well upon him. In spite of herself, she thought of old-time stories of the Norse chivalry; he stood so radiant and bent so low.

"I shall prize my friend at her queenly value," said he; and without more ado, uttered his farewell and took his departure.

"Paula!"

The young girl started from a reverie which had held her for a long time enchained at that fast darkening window, and hastily looking up, perceived her Aunt Belinda standing before her, with her eye fixed upon her face, with a kind but searching glance.

"Yes, aunt."

"You have not told me who this Mr. Ensign is. In all the letters you wrote me you did not mention his name, I think."

"No, aunt. The fact is, I did not meet him until a few days before I left, and then only for an evening, you might say."

"Indeed! that one evening seems to have made its impression. Tell me something about him, Paula."

"His own countenance speaks for him better than I can, aunt. He is good and he is kind; an honest young man, who need fear the eye of no one. He is wealthy, I am informed, and the son of highly respected parents. He was first presented to me by Miss Stuyvesant, whose friend he is, afterwards by Mr. Sylvester. His coming here was a surprise to me."

Miss Belinda's firm mouth, which had expanded at this dutiful response, twitched with a certain amused expression over this last announcement. Eying her niece with unrelenting inquiry, she pursued, "You have not been happy for the last few weeks, Paula. Our life seems narrow to you; you long to fly away to larger fields and more expansive skies."

With a guilty droop of her head, Paula stole her hand into that of her aunt's.

"I do not wonder," continued Miss Belinda, still watching the flushing cheek and slightly troubled mouth of the lovely girl before her. "I once breathed other air myself, and know well what charms lie beyond these mountains. In giving you up for awhile, I gave you up forever, I fear."

"No, no," whispered the young girl, "I am always yours wherever I go. Not that I am going away," she hastily murmured.

Her aunt smiled and gently stroked her niece's hand. "When the time comes, I shall bid you God speed, Paula. I am no ogress to tie my dove's wings to her nest. Love and the home it provides are the natural lot of women. None feel it more than those who have missed both."

"Aunt!" Paula was shocked and perplexed. A breaking wave full of doubts and possibilities, seemed to dash over her at this suggestion.

"Young men of judgment and principle do not come so many miles to see a youthful maiden, without a purpose," continued her aunt inexorably. "You know that, do you not, Paula?"

"Yes; but the purpose may differ in different cases," returned the young girl hurriedly. "I would not like to believe that Mr. Ensign came here with the one you give him credit for—not yet. You trouble me, aunt," pursued she, glancing tremulously about. "It is like opening a great door flooded with sunshine, upon eyes scarcely strong enough to bear the glimmer sifting through its cracks. I feel humiliated and—" She did not finish, perhaps her thought itself was incomplete.

"If a light comes sifting through the cracks, I am satisfied," said her aunt in a lighter tone than common. And she kissed her niece, and went smiling out of the room, murmuring to herself,

"I have been over-fearful; everything is coming right."

There are moments when life's great mystery overpowers us; when the riddle of the soul flaunts itself before us unexplained, and we can do no more than stand and take the rush of the tide that comes sweeping down upon us. Paula was not the girl she was before she went to New York. Love was no longer a dreamy possibility, a hazy blending of the unknown and the fancied; its tale had been too often breathed in her ear, its reality made too often apparent to her eye. But love to which she could listen, was as new and fresh and strange, as a world into which her foot had never ventured. That her aunt should point to a certain masculine form, no matter how attractive or interesting, and say, "Love and home are the lot of women," made her blood rush back on her heart, like a stream from which a dam has been ruthlessly wrenched away. It was too wild, too sudden; a friend's name was so much easier to speak, or to contemplate. She did not know what to do with her own heart, made to speak thus before its time; its beatings choked her; everything choked her; this was a worse imprisonment than the other. Looking round, her eye fell upon the flowers. Ah, was not their language expressive enough, without this new suggestion? They seemed to lose something in this very gain. She liked them less she thought, and yet her feet drew near, and near, and nearer, to where they stood, exhaling their very souls out in delicious perfume. "I am too young!" came from Paula's lips. "I will not think of it!" quickly followed. Yet the smile with which she bent over the fragrant blossoms, had an ethereal beauty in it, which was not all unmixed with the

"Light that never was on land or sea,

The consecration and the poet's dream."

"He has asked to be my friend," murmured she, as she slowly turned away. "It is enough; it must be enough." But the blossom she had stolen from the midst of the fragrant collection, seemed to whisper a merry nay, as it nodded against her hand, and afterwards gushed out its sweet life on her pure young breast.

XXIX. MIST IN THE VALLEY

"The true beginning of our end."—MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.

Mr. Ensign was not slow in developing his ideas of friendship. Though he did not venture upon repeating his visit too soon, scarcely a week passed without bringing to Paula a letter or some other testimonial of his increasing devotion. The blindest eye could not fail to remark whither he was tending. Even Paula was forced to acknowledge to herself that she was on the verge of a flowery incline, that sooner or later would bring her up breathless against the dread alternative of a decided yes or no. Friendship is a wide portal, and sometimes admits love; had it served her traitorously in this?

Her aunt who watched her with secret but lynx-eyed scrutiny, saw no reason to alter the first judgment of that mysterious, "It is all coming right," with which she viewed the first symptoms of Paula's girlish appreciation of her lover. If eyes and lips could speak, Paula was happy. The mournful shadows which of late had flitted with more or less persistency over her face, had vanished in a living smile, which if not deep, was cloudlessly radiant; and her voice when not used in speech, was rippling away in song, as glad as a finch's on the mountain side.

Miss Belinda was therefore very much astonished when one day Paula burst into her presence, and flinging herself down on her knees, threw her arms about her waist, crying,

"Take me away, dear aunt, I cannot, dare not stay here another day."

"Paula, what do you mean?" exclaimed Miss Belinda, holding her back and endeavoring to look into her face. But the young girl gently resisted.

"I have just had a letter from Cicely," she returned in a low and muffled voice. "She has seen Mr. Sylvester, and says he looks both wan and ill. He told her, too, that he was lonely, and I know what that means; he wants his child. The time has come for me to go back. He said it would, and that I would know when it came. Take me, aunt, take me to Mr. Sylvester."

Miss Belinda, to whom self-control was one of the cardinal virtues, leaned back in her chair and contemplated the eager, tear-stained face that was now raised to hers, with silent scrutiny. "Paula," said she at last, "is that your only reason for desiring to return to New York?"

A flush, delicate as it was fleeting, swept over the dew of Paula's cheek. She rose to her feet and met her aunt's eye, with a look of gentle dignity. "No," said she, "I wish to test myself. Birds that are prisoned will caress any hand that offers them freedom. I wish to see if the lure holds good when my wings are in mid-heaven."

There was a dreamy cadence to her voice as she uttered that last phrase, that startled her aunt. "Paula," exclaimed she, "Paula, don't you know your own heart?"

"Who does?" returned Paula; then in a sudden rush of emotion threw herself once more at her aunt's side, saying, "It is in order to know it, that I ask you to take me away."

And Miss Belinda, as she smoothed back her darling's locks, was obliged to acknowledge to herself, that time has a way of opening, in the stream of life, unforeseen channels to whose current we perforce must yield, or else hopelessly strand upon the shoals.

BOOK IV. FROM A TO Z

XXX. MISS BELINDA PRESENTS MR. SYLVESTER WITH A CHRISTMAS GIFT

"For, O; for, O the hobby horse is forgot."—HAMLET.

It was a clear winter evening. Mr. Sylvester sat in his library, musing before a bright coal fire, whose superabundant heat and blaze seemed to make the loneliness of the great empty room more apparent. He had just said to himself that it was Christmas eve, and that he, of all men in the world, had the least reason to realize it, when the door-bell rang. He was expecting Bertram, whose advancement to the position of cashier in place of Mr. Wheelock, now thoroughly broken down in health, had that day been fully determined upon in a late meeting of the Board of Directors. He therefore did not disturb himself. It was consequently a startling surprise, when a deep, pleasant voice uttered from the threshold of the door, "I have brought you a Christmas present;" and looking up, he saw Miss Belinda standing before him, with Paula at her side.

"My child!" was his involuntary exclamation, and before the young girl knew it, she was folded against his breast with a passionate fervor that more than words, convinced her of the depth of the sacrifice which had held them separate for so long. "My darling! my little Paula!"

She felt her heart stand still. Gently disengaging herself, she looked in his face. She found it thin and wan, but lit by such a pleasure she could not keep back her smile. "You are glad, then, of your little Christmas present?" said she.

He smiled and shook his head; he had no words with which to express a joy like this.

Miss Belinda meanwhile stood with a set expression on her face, that, to one who did not know her, would immediately have proclaimed her to be an ogress of the very worst type. Not a glance did she give to the unusual splendor about her, not a wavering of her eye betokened that she was in any way conscious that she had just stepped from the threshold of a very humble cottage, into a home little short of a palace in size and the splendor of its appointments. All her attention was concentrated on the two faces before her.

"The ride on the cars has made Paula feverish," cried she, in sharp clear tones that rang with unexpected brusqueness through the curtained alcoves of that lordly apartment.

They both started at this sudden introduction of the prosaic into the hush of their happy meeting, but remembering themselves, drew Miss Belinda forward to the fire and made her welcome in this house of many memories.

It was a strange moment to Paula when she first turned to go up those stairs, down which she had come in such grief eight months or more ago. She found herself lingering on its well-remembered steps, and the first sight of the rich bronze image at the top, struck her with a sense of the old-time pleasure, that was not unlinked with the old-time dread. But the aspect of her little room calmed her. It was just as she had left it; not an article had been changed. "It is as if I had gone out one door and come in another," she whispered. All the months that had intervened seemed to float away. She felt this even more when upon again descending, she found Bertram in the library. His frank and interesting face had always been pleasant to her, but in the joy of her return it shone upon her with almost the attraction of a brother's. "I am at home again," she kept whispering to herself, "I am at home."

Miss Belinda was engrossed in conversation with Bertram, so that Paula was left free to take her old place by Mr. Sylvester's side, where she sat with such an aspect of contentment, that her beauty was half forgotten in her happiness.

"You remembered me, then, sometimes in the little cottage in Grotewell?" asked he, after a silent contemplation of her countenance. "I was not forgotten when you left the city streets?"

She answered with a bright little shake of her head, but she was inwardly wondering as she looked at his strong and picturesque face, with its nobly carved features and melancholy smile, if he had been absent from her thoughts for so much as a moment, in all these dreary months of separation.

"I did not believe you would forget," he gently pursued, "but I scarcely dared hope you would lighten my fireside with your face again. It is such a dismal one, and youth is so linked to brightness."

The flush that crossed her cheek, startled him into sudden silence. She recovered herself and slowly shook her head. "It is not a dismal one to me. I always feel brighter and better when I sit beside it. I have missed your counsel," she said; "brightness is nothing without depth."

His eyes which had been fixed on her face, turned slowly away. He seemed to hold an instant's communion with himself; suddenly he said, "And depth is worse than nothing, without it mirrors the skies. It is not from shadowed pools, such bright young lips should drink, but from the waves of an inexhaustible sea, smote upon by all the winds and sunshine of heaven."

In another moment, however, he was all cheerfulness. "You have brought me a Christmas present," cried he, "and we must make it a Christmas holiday indeed. Here is the beginning:" and with one of his old grave smiles, he handed Bertram a little note which had been awaiting him on the library table. "But Paula and Miss Belinda must have their pleasure too. Paula, are you too tired for a ride down town? I will show you New York on a Christmas eve," continued he to Miss Walton, seeing that Paula's attention was absorbed by the expression of sudden and moving surprise which had visited Bertram's face, upon the perusal of his note. "It is a stirring sight. Nothing more cheering can be found the wide world over, for those who have a home and children to make happy."

"I certainly should enjoy a glimpse of holiday cheer," assented Miss Belinda. And Paula recalled to herself by the sound of her aunt's voice, gayly re-echoed her assertion.

So Samuel was despatched for a carriage, and in a few minutes they were all riding down Fifth Avenue, en route for Tiffany's, Macy's, and any other store that might offer special attractions. It was a happy company. As they rolled along, Paula felt her heart grow lighter and lighter, Mr. Sylvester was almost gay, while even Aunt Belinda condescended to be merry. Bertram alone was silent, but as Paula caught short glimpses of his face, while speeding past some illuminated corner, she felt that it was that silence which is "the perfectest herald of joy."

"I shall make you get out and mix with the crowd," said Mr. Sylvester. "I want you to feel the throb of the great heart of the city on such a night as this. It is as if all men were brothers—or fathers, I should say. People that ordinarily pass each other without a sign, nod and smile with pleasing recognition of the evening's cheer. Grave and reverend seigniors, are not ashamed to be seen carrying packages by the dozen. Indeed, he who is most laden is considered the best fellow, and he who is so unfortunate as to show nothing but empty arms, feels shy if not ashamed; a condition of mind into which I shall soon fall myself, if we do not presently reach our destination."

Paula never forgot that night. As from the midst of our common-place memories, some one hour stands out distinct and strange, like a sweet foreigner in a crowd of village faces, so to Paula, this ride through the lighted streets, with the ensuing rush from store to store, piloted by Bertram and Miss Belinda, and protected by Mr. Sylvester, was her one weird glimpse into the Arabian Nights' country. Why, she could not have told; why, she did not stop to think. She had been to all these places before, but never with such a heart as this—never, never with such an overflowing heart as this.

"I have washed away my reproach," cried Mr. Sylvester, coming out to the carriage with his arms full of bundles. "Aunt Belinda is to blame for this; she set the example, you see." And with a merry laugh, he tossed one thing after another into Paula's lap, reserving only one small package for himself. "I scarcely know what I have bought," said he. "I shall be as much surprised as any one, when you come to undo the bundles. 'A pretty thing,' was all I waited to hear from the shop girls."

"There is a small printing press for one thing," cried Paula merrily. "I saw the man at Holton's eye you with a certain sort of shrewd humor, and hastily do it up. You paid for it; probably thinking it one of the 'pretty things.' We shall have to make it over to Bertram, as being the only one amongst us who by any stretch of imagination can be said to be near enough the age of boyhood to enjoy it."

"I do not know about that," cried Bertram, with a ringing infectious laugh, "my imagination has been luring me into believing that I am not the only boy in this crowd."

And so they went on, toying with their new-found joy as with a plaything, and hard would it have been to tell in which of those voices rang the deeper contentment.

The opening of the packages on the library-table afforded another season of merriment. Such treasures as came to light! A roll of black silk, which could only have been meant for Miss Belinda. A casket of fretted silver, just large enough to hold Paula's gloves; a scarf-ring, to which no one but Bertram could lay claim; a bundle of confections, a pair of diamond-studded bracelets, a scarf of delicate lace, articles for the desk, and knick-knacks for the toilet table, and last, but not least, in weight at least, the honest little printing-press.

"Oh, I never dreamed of this," said Paula, "when we chose Christmas eve for our journey."

"Nor would you have done right to stay away if you had," returned Mr. Sylvester gayly.

But when the sport was all over, and Paula stood alone with Mr. Sylvester in the library, awaiting his last good-night, the deeper influences of this holy time made themselves felt, and it was with an air of gentle seriousness, he told her that it had been a happy Christmas eve to him.

"And to me," returned Paula. "Bertram too, seemed very happy. Would it be too inquisitive in me to ask what good news the little note contained, to work such wonders?"

A smile such as was seldom seen on Mr. Sylvester's face of late, flashed brightly over it. "It was only a card of invitation to dinner," said he, "but it came from Mr. Stuyvesant, and that to Bertram means a great deal."

The surprise in Paula's eyes made him smile again. "Will it be a great shock to you, if I tell you that the name of the woman for whom Bertram made the sacrifice of his art, was Cicely Stuyvesant?"

"Cicely? my Cicely?" Her astonishment was great, but it was also happy. "Oh, I never dreamed—ah, now I see," she went on naively. "That is the reason she refrained from coming to this house; she was afraid of meeting him. But to think I should never have guessed it, and she my dearest friend! Oh, I am very happy; I admire Bertram so much, and it is such a beautiful secret. And Mr. Stuyvesant has invited him to his house! I do not wonder you felt like making the evening a gala one. Mr. Stuyvesant would not do that if he were not learning to appreciate Bertram."

"No; there is method in all that Mr. Stuyvesant does. More than that, if I am not mistaken, he has known this beautiful secret, as you call it, from the first, and would be the last to receive Bertram as a guest to his table, if he did not mean him the best and truest encouragement."

"I believe you are right," said Paula. "I remember now that one day when I was spending the afternoon with Cicely, he came into the room where I was, and finding me for the moment alone, sat down, and in his quaint old-fashioned manner asked me in the most abrupt way what I thought of Bertram Sylvester. I was surprised, but told him I considered him one of the noblest young men I knew, adding that if a fine mind, a kind heart, and a pure life were open to regard, Bertram had the right to claim the esteem of all his friends and associates. The old gentleman looked at me somewhat curiously, but nodded his head as if pleased, and merely remarking, 'It is not necessary to mention we had this conversation, my dear,' got up and proceeded slowly from the room. I thought it was simply a not unnatural curiosity concerning a young man with whom he had more or less business connection; but now I perceive it had a deeper significance."

"He could scarcely have found a more zealous little advocate for Bertram if he had hunted the city over. Bertram may be more obliged to you than he knows. He has been very patient, but the day of his happiness is approaching."

"And Cicely's! I feel as if I could scarcely wait to see her with this new hope in her eyes. She has kept me without the door of her suspense, but she must let me across the threshold of her happiness."

The look with which Mr. Sylvester eyed the fair girl's radiant face deepened. "Paula," said be, "can you leave these new thoughts for a moment to hear a request I have to make?"

She at once turned to him with her most self-forgetful smile.

"I have been making myself a little present," pursued he, slowly taking out of his pocket the single package he had reserved from the rest. "Open it, dear."

With fingers that unconsciously trembled, she hastily undid the package. A little box rolled out. Taking off its cover, she took out a plain gold locket of the style usually worn by gentlemen on their watch-chains. "Fasten it on for me," said he.

Wondering at his tone which was almost solemn, she quietly did his bidding. But when she essayed to lift her head upon the completion of her task, he gently laid his hand upon her brow and so stood for a moment without a word.

"What is it?" she asked, with a sudden indrawing of her breath. "What moves you so, Mr. Sylvester?"

"I have just taken a vow," said he.

She started back agitated and trembling.

"I had reason to," he murmured, "pray at nights when you go to bed, that I may be able to keep it."

"What?" sprang to her lips; but she restrained herself and only allowed her glance to speak.

"Will you do it, Paula?"

"Yes, oh yes!" Her whole heart seemed to rush out in the phrase. She drew back as at the opening of a door in an unexpected spot. Her eye had something of fear in it and something of secret desperation too. He watched her with a gaze that strangely faltered.

"A woman's prayers are a man's best safeguard," murmured he. "He must be a wretch who does not feel himself surrounded by a sacred halo, while he knows that pure lips are breathing his name in love and trust before the throne of the Most High."

"I will pray for you as for myself," she whispered, and endeavored to meet his eyes. But her head drooped and she did not speak as she would have done a few months before; and when a few instants later they parted in their old fashion at the foot of the stairs, she did not turn to give him the accustomed smile and nod with which she used to mount the stairs, spiral by spiral, and disappear in her little room above. Yet he did not grieve at the change, but stood looking up the way she had gone, like a man before whom some vision of unexpected promise had opened.

XXXI. A QUESTION

"Think on thy sins."—OTHELLO.

The next morning when Mr. Sylvester came down to breakfast, he found on the library-table an exquisite casket, similar to the one he had given Paula the night before, but larger, and filled with flowers of the most delicious odor.

"For Miss Fairchild," explained Samuel, who was at that moment passing through the room.

With a pang of jealous surprise, that, however, failed to betray itself in his steadily composed countenance, Mr. Sylvester advanced to the side of the table, and lifted up the card that hung attached to the beautiful present. The name he read there seemed to startle him; he moved away, and took up his paper with a dark flush on his brow, that had not disappeared when Miss Belinda entered the room.

"Humph!" was her immediate exclamation, as her eye rested upon the conspicuous offering in the centre of the apartment. But instantly remembering herself, advanced with a cheerful good-morning, which however did not prevent her eyes from wandering with no small satisfaction towards this fresh evidence of Mr. Ensign's assiduous regard.

"Paula is remembered by others than ourselves," remarked Mr. Sylvester, probably observing her glance.

"Yes; she has a very attentive suitor in Mr. Ensign," returned Miss Belinda shortly. "A pleasant appearing young man," she ejaculated next moment; "worthy in many respects of success, I should say."

"Has he—do you mean to say that he has visited you in Grotewell?" asked Mr. Sylvester, his eye upon the paper in his hand.

"Certainly; a few more interviews will settle it."

The paper rustled in Mr. Sylvester's grasp, but his voice was composed if not formal, as he observed, "She regards his attentions then with favor?"

"She wears his flowers in her bosom, and brightens like a flower herself when he is seen to approach. If allowed to go her way unhindered, I have but little doubt as to how it will end. Mr. Ensign is not handsome, but I am told that he has every other qualification likely to make a gentle creature like Paula happy."

"He is a good fellow," exclaimed Mr. Sylvester under his breath.

"And goodness is the first essential in the character of the man who is to marry Paula," inexorably observed Miss Belinda. "An open, cheerful disposition, a clear conscience and a past with no dark pages in its history, must mark him who is to link unto his fate our pure and sensitive Paula. Is it not so, Mr. Sylvester?"

The advertisements in that morning's Tribune must have been unusually interesting, judging from the difficulty which Mr. Sylvester experienced in withdrawing his eyes from them. "The man whom Paula marries," said he at last, "can neither be too good, too kind, or too pure. Nor shall any other than a good, kind, and pure man possess her," he added in a tone that while low, effectually hushed even the slow-to-be-intimidated Miss Belinda. In another moment Paula entered.

Oh, the morning freshness of some faces! Like the singing of birds in a prison, is the sound and sight of a lovely maiden coming into the grim, gray atmosphere of a winter breakfast room. Paula was exceptionally gifted with this auroral cheer which starts the day so brightly. At sight of her face Mr. Sylvester dropped his paper, and even Miss Belinda straightened herself more energetically. "Merry Christmas," cried her sweet young voice, and immediately the whole day seemed to grow glad with promise and gaysome with ringing sleigh-bells. "It's snowing, did you know it? A world of life is in the air; the flakes dance as they come down, like dervishes in a frenzy. It was all we lacked to make the day complete; now we have everything."

"Yes," said Miss Belinda, with a significant glance at the table, "everything."

Paula followed her glance, saw the silver box with its wealth of blossoms, and faltered back with a quick look at Mr. Sylvester's grave and watchful countenance.

"Mr. Ensign seems to be possessed of clairvoyance," observed Miss Belinda easily. "How he could know that you were to be in town to-day, I cannot imagine."

"I wrote him in my last letter that in all probability I should spend the holidays with Mr. Sylvester," explained Paula simply, but with a slow and deepening flush, that left the roses she contemplated nothing of which to boast. "I did so, because he proposed to visit Grotewell on Christmas."

There was a short silence in the room, then Mr. Sylvester rose, and remarking with polite composure, "It is a very pretty remembrance," led the way into the dining-room. Paula with a slow drooping of her head quickly followed, while Miss Belinda brought up the rear, with the look of a successful diplomat.

A meal in the Sylvester mansion was always a formal affair, but this was more than formal. A vague oppression seemed to fill the air; an oppression which Miss Belinda's stirring conversation found it impossible to dissipate. In compliance to Mr. Sylvester's request, she sat at the head of the table, and was the only one who seemed able to eat anything. For one thing she had never seen Ona in that post of honor, but Paula and Mr. Sylvester could not forget the graceful form that once occupied that seat. The first meal above a grave, no matter how long it has been dug, must ever seem weighted with more or less unreality.

Besides, with Paula there was a vague unsettled feeling, as if some delicate inner balance had been too rudely shaken. She longed to fly away and think, and she was obliged to sit still and talk.

The end of the meal was a relief to all parties. Miss Belinda went up stairs, thoughtfully shaking her firm head; Mr. Sylvester sat down again to his paper, and Paula advanced towards the dainty gift that awaited her inspection on the library table. But half way to it she paused. A strange shyness had seized her. With Mr. Sylvester sitting there, she dared not approach this delicate testimonial of another's affection. She did not know as she wished to. Her eyes stole in hesitation to the floor. Suddenly Mr. Sylvester spoke:

"Why do you not look at your pretty present, Paula?"

She started, gave him a quick glance, and advanced hurriedly towards the table; but scarcely had she reached it when she paused, turned and hastened over to his side. He was still reading, or appearing to read, but she saw his hand tremble where it grasped the sheet, though his face with its clear cut profile, shone calm and cold against the dark background of the wall beyond.

"I do not care to look at it now," said she, with a hurried interlacing of her restless fingers.

He turned towards her and a quick thrill passed over his countenance. "Sit down, Paula," said he, "I want to talk to you."

She obeyed as might an automaton. Was it the tone of his voice that chilled her, or the studied aspect of his fixed and solemn countenance? He did not speak at once, but when he did, there was no faltering in his voice, that was lower than common, but deep, like still waters that have run into dark channels far from the light of day.

"Paula, I want to ask you a question. What would you think of a man that, with deliberate selfishness, went into the king's garden, and plucking up by the roots the most beautiful flower he could find there, carried it into a dungeon to pant out its exquisite life amid chill and darkness?"

"I should think," replied she, after the first startled moment of silence, "that the man did well, if by its one breath of sweetness, the flower could comfort the heart of him who sat in the dungeon."

The glance with which Mr. Sylvester regarded her, suddenly faltered; he turned with quickness towards the fire. "A moment's joy is, then, excuse for a murder," exclaimed he. "God and the angels would not agree with you, Paula."

There was a quivering in his tone, made all the more apparent by its studied self-possession of a moment before. She trembled where she sat, and opened her lips to speak, but closed them again, awed by his steady and abstracted gaze, now fixed before him in gloomy reverie. A moment passed. The clock ticking away on the mantel-piece seemed to echo the inevitable "Forever! never!" of Longfellow's old song. Neither of them moved. At length, in a low and trembling voice, Paula spoke:

"Is it murder, when the flower loves the dark of the dungeon more than it does the light of day?"

With a subdued but passionate cry he rose hastily to his feet. "Yes," said he, and drew back as if he could not bear the sight of her face or the glance of her eye. "Sunshine is the breath of flowers; sweet wooing gales, their natural atmosphere. He who meddles with a treasure so choice does it at his peril." Then as she hurriedly rose in turn, softened his whole tone, and assuming his usual air of kindly fatherhood, asked her in the most natural way in the world, what he could do to make her happy that day.

"Nothing," replied she, with a droop of her head; "I think I will go and see Cicely."

A short sigh escaped him. "The carriage shall be ready for you," said he. "I hope your friend's happiness will overflow into your own gentle bosom, and make the day a very pleasant one. God bless your young sweet heart, my Paula!"

Her breast heaved, her large, dark, mellow eyes flashed with one quick glance towards his face, then she drew back, and in another moment left his side and quietly glided from the room. His very life seemed to go with her, yet he did not stir; but he sighed deeply when, upon turning towards the library-table, he found that she had carried away with her the silent testimonial of another and more fortunate man's love and devotion.

XXXII. FULL TIDE

"A skirmish of wit between them."—MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

Man thinks he is strong, and lays his foundations, raises his walls, and dreams of his completed turrets, without reckoning the force of the gales or the insidious inundating of the waters that may bring low the mounting structure before its time. When with a firm hand, Mr. Sylvester thrust back from his heart the one delight which of all the world could afford, seemed to him at that moment the dearest and the best, he thought the struggle was over and the victory won. It had not even commenced. He was made startlingly alive to this fact at the very next interview he had with Paula. She had just come from Miss Stuyvesant, and the reflection of her friend's scarcely comprehended joy was on her countenance, together with a look he could not comprehend, but which stirred and haunted him, until he felt forced to ask if she had seen any other of her old friends, in the short visit she had paid.

"Yes," said she, with a distressed blush. "Mr. Ensign was unexpectedly there."

It is comparatively easy to restrain your own hand from snatching at a treasure you greatly covet, but it is much more difficult to behold another and a lesser one grasp and carry it away before your eyes. He succeeded in hiding the shadow that oppressed him, but he was constrained to recognize the sharpness of the conflict that was about to be waged in the recesses of his own breast. A conflict, because he knew that a lift of his finger, or a glance of his eye would decide the matter then, while in a week, perhaps, the glamour of a young sunshiny love, would have worked its inevitable result, and the happiness that had so unexpectedly startled upon him in his monotonous and sombre path, would have wandered forever out of his reach. How did he meet its unexpected rush. Sternly at first, but with greater and greater wavering as the days went by, each one revealing fresh beauties of character and deeper springs of feeling in the enchanting girl thus brought in all her varied charm before his eyes. Why should he not be happy? If there were dark pages in his life, had they not long ago been closed and sealed, and was not the future bright with promise? A man of his years was not through with life. He felt at times as he gazed upon her face with its indescribable power of awakening far-reaching thoughts and feelings in callous breasts long unused to the holy influence of either, that he had just begun to live; that the golden country, with its enticing vistas, lay all before him, and that the youth, which he had missed, had somehow returned to his prime, fresh with more than its usual enthusiasm and bright with more than its wonted hopes and projects. With this glorious woman at his side, life would be new indeed, and if new why not pure and sweet and noble? What was there to hinder him from making the existence of this sweet soul a walking amongst gentle duties, satisfied dreams and holy aspirations? A past remorse? Why the gates could be closed on that! A strain of innate weakness for the world's good opinion and applause? Ah! with love in his life such a weakness must disappear; besides had he not taken a vow on her dear head, that ought to hedge him about as with angel's wings in the hour of temptation? Men with his experience do not invoke the protection of innocence to guard a degraded soul. Why, then, all this hesitation? A great boon was being offered to him after years of loneliness and immeasurable longing; was it not the will of heaven, that he should meet and enjoy this unexpected grace? He dared to stop and ask, and once daring to ask, the insidious waters found their way beneath the foundations of his resolution, and the lofty structure he had reared in such self-confidence, began to tremble where it stood, though as yet it betrayed no visible sign of weakness.

Meanwhile, society with its innumerable demands, had drawn the beautiful young girl within its controlling grasp. She must go here, she must go there; she must lend her talents to this, her beauty to that. Before she had decided whether she ought to remain in the city a week, two had flown by, and in all this time Mr. Ensign had been ever at her side, brightening in her own despite, hours which might else have been sad, and surrounding her difficult path with proofs of his silent and wary devotion. A golden net seemed to be closing around her, and, though as yet, she had given no token of a special recognition of her position, Miss Belinda betrayed by the uniform complacence of her demeanor, that she for one regarded the matter as effectually settled.

The success which Bertram had met in his first visit at Mr. Stuyvesant's, was not the least agitating factor in this fortnight's secret history. He was too much a part of the home life at Mr. Sylvester's, not to make the lightest thrill of his frank and sensitive nature felt by all who invaded its precincts. And he was in a state of repressed expectancy at this time, that unconsciously created an atmosphere about him of vague but restless excitement. The hearts of all who encountered his look of concentrated delight, must unconsciously beat with his. A strain sweeter than his old-time music was in his voice. When he played upon the piano, which was but seldom, it was as if he breathed out his soul before the holy images. When he walked, he seemed to tread on air. His every glance was a question as to whether this great joy, for which he had so long and patiently waited, was to be his? Love, living and apotheosized, appeared to blaze before them, and no one can look on love without feeling somewhere in his soul the stir of those deep waters, whose pulsing throb even in the darkness of midnight, proves that we are the children of God.

Cicely was uncommunicative, but her face, when Paula beheld it, was like the glowing countenance of some sculptured saint, from which the veil is slowly being withdrawn.

Suddenly there came an evening when the force of the spell that held all these various hearts enchained gave way. It was the night of a private entertainment of great elegance, to be held at the house of a friend of Miss Stuyvesant. Bertram had received formal permission from the father of Cicely, to act as his daughter's escort, and the fact had transformed him from a hopeful dreamer, into a man determined to speak and know his fate at once. Paula was engaged to take part in the entertainment, and the sight of her daintily-decked figure leaving the house with Mr. Ensign, was the last drop in the slowly gathering tide that was secretly swelling in Mr. Sylvester's breast; and it was with a sudden outrush of his whole determined nature that he stepped upstairs, dressed himself in evening attire, and deliberately followed them to the place where they were going. "The wealth of the Indies is slipping from my grasp," was his passionate exclamation, as he rode through the lighted streets. "I cannot see it go; if she can care more for me than for this sleek, merry-hearted young fellow, she shall. I know that my love is to his, what the mighty ocean is to a placid lake, and with such love one ought to be panoplied as with resisting steel."

A stream of light and music met him, as he went up the stoop of the house that held his treasure. It seemed to intoxicate him. Glow, melody and perfume, were so many expressions of Paula. His friends, of whom there were many present, received him with tokens of respect, not unmingled with surprise. It was the first time he had been seen in public since his wife's death, and they could not but remark upon the cheerfulness of his bearing, and the almost exalted expression of his proud and restless eye. Had Paula accompanied him, they might have understood his emotion, but with the beautiful girl under the care of one of the most eligible gentlemen in town, what could have happened to Mr. Sylvester to make his once melancholy countenance blazon like a star amid this joyous and merrily-laughing throng. He did not enlighten them, but moved from group to group, searching for Paula. Suddenly the thought flashed upon him, "Is it only an hour or so since I smiled upon her in my own hall, and shook my head when she asked me with a quick, pleading look, to come with them to this very spot?" It seemed days, since that time. The rush of these new thoughts, the final making up of this slowly-maturing purpose, the sudden allowing of his heart to regard her as a woman to be won, had carried the past away as by the sweep of a mountain torrent. He could not believe he had ever known a moment of hesitancy, ever looked at her as a father, ever bid her go on her way and leave the prisoner to his fate. He must always have felt like this; such momentum could not have been gathered in an hour; she must know that he loved her wildly, deeply, sacredly, wholly, with the fibre of his mind, his body and his soul; that to call her his in life and in death, was the one demanding passion of his existence, making the past a dream, and the future—ah, he dared not question that! He must behold her face before he could even speculate upon the realities lying behind fate's down-drawn curtain.

Meanwhile fair faces and lovely forms flitted before him, carrying his glance along in their train, but only because youth was a symbol of Paula. If these fresh young girls could smile and look back upon him, with that lingering glance which his presence ever invoked, why not she who was not only sweet, tender, and lovely, but gifted with a nature that responded to the deep things of life, and the stern passions of potent humanity. Could a merry laugh lure her while he stood by? Was the sunshine the natural atmosphere of this flower, that had bloomed under his eye so sweetly and shed out its innocent fragrance, at the approach of his solemn-pacing foot? He began to mirror before his mind's eye the startled look of happy wonder with which she would greet his impassioned glance, when released from whatever duties might be now pressing upon her; she wandered into these rooms, to find him awaiting her, when suddenly there was a stir in the throng, a pleased and excited rush, and the large curtain which he had vaguely noticed hanging at one end of the room, uplifted and—was it Paula? this coy, brilliant, saucy-eyed Florentine maiden, stepping out from a bower of greenery, with finger on her lip, and a backward glance of saucy defiance that seemed to people the verdant walks behind her with gallant cavaliers, eager to follow upon her footsteps? Yes; he could not be mistaken; there was but one face like that in the world. It was Paula, but Paula with youth's merriest glamour upon her, a glamour that had caught its radiant light from other thoughts than those in which he had been engaged. He bowed his head, and a shudder went through him like that which precedes the falling knife of the executioner. Even the applause that greeted the revelation of so much loveliness and alluring charm, passed over him like a dream. He was battling with his first recognition of the possibility of his being too late. Suddenly her voice was heard.

She was speaking aloud to herself, this Florentine maiden who had outstripped her lover in the garden, but the tone was the same he had heard beside his own hearthstone, and the archness that accompanied it had frequently met and encouraged some cheerful expression of his own. These are the words she uttered. Listen with him to the naïve, half tender, half pettish voice, and mark with his eyes the alternate lights and shadows that flit across her cheek as she broodingly murmurs:

He is certainly a most notable gallant. His "Good day, lady!" and his "Good even to you!" are flavored with the cream of perfectest courtesy. But gallantry while it sits well upon a man, does not make him one, any more than a feather makes the cap it adorns. For a Tuscan he hath also a certain comeliness, but then I have ever sworn, in good faith too, that I would not marry a Tuscan, were he the best made man in Italy. Then there is his glance, which proclaims to all men's understandings that he loves me, which same seems overbold; but then his smile!

Well, for a smile it certainly does credit to his wit, but one cannot live upon smiles; though if one could, one might consent to make a trial of his—and starve belike for her pains. (She drops her cheek into her hand and stands musing.)

Mr. Sylvester drew a deep breath and let his eyes fall, when suddenly a hum ran through the audience about him, and looking quickly up, he beheld Mr. Ensign dressed in full cavalier costume, standing behind the musing maiden with a half merry, half tender gleam upon his face, that made the thickly beating heart of his rival shrink as if clutched in an iron vise. What followed, he heard as we do the words of a sentence read to us from the judge's seat. The cavalier spoke first and a thousand dancing colors seemed to flash in the merry banter that followed.

Martino.—She muses, and on no other than myself, as I am ready to swear by that coy and tremulous glance. I will move her to avow it. (Advances.) Fair lady, greeting! A kiss for your sweet thoughts.

Nita. (With a start).—A kiss, Signior Martino? You must acknowledge that were but a sorry exchange for thoughts like mine, so if it please you, I will keep my thoughts and you your kiss; and lest it should seem ungracious in me to give nothing upon your asking, I will bestow upon you my most choice good day, and so leave you to your meditations. (Curtseys and is about to depart.)

Martino.—You have the true generosity, lady; you give away what it costs you the dearest to part from. Nay, rumple not your lip; it is the truth for all your pretty poutings! Convince me it is not.

Nita.—Your pardon, but that would take words, and words would take time, and time given to one of your persuasion would refute all my arguments on the face of them. (Still retreating.)

Martino.—Well, lady, since it is your pleasure to be consistent, rather than happy, adieu. Had you stayed but as long as the bee pauses on an oleander blossom, you would have heard—

Nita.—Buzzing, signior?

Martino.—Yes, if by that word you would denominate vows of constancy and devotion. For I do greatly love you, and would tell you so.

Nita.—And for that you expect me to linger! as though vows were new to my ears, and words of love as strange to my understanding as tropical birds to the eyes of a Norseman.

Martino.—If you do love me, you will linger.

Nita.—Yet if I do, (Slowly advancing) be assured it is from some other motive than love.

Martino.—So it be not from hate I am contented.

Nita.—To be contented with little, proves you a man of much virtue.

Martino.—When I have you, I am contented with much.

Nita.—That when is a wise insertion, signior; it saves you from shame and me from anger.—Hark! some one calls.

Martino.—None other but the wind; it is a kindly breeze, and grieves to hear how harsh a pretty maiden can be to the lover who adores her.

Nita.—Please your worship, I do not own a lover.

Martino.—Then mend your poverty, and accept one.

Nita.—I am no beggar to accept of alms.

Martino.—In this case, he who offers is the beggar.

Nita.—I am too young to wear a jewel of so much pretension.

Martino.—Time is a cure for youth, and marriage a happy speeder of time.

Nita.—But youth needs no cure, and if marriage speedeth time, I'll live a maid and die one. The days run swift enough without goading, Signior Martino.

Martino.—But lady—

Nita..—Nay, your tongue will outstrip time, if you put not a curb upon it. In faith, signior, I would not seem rude, but if in your courtesy you would consent to woo some other maiden to-day, why I would strive and bear it.

Martino.—When I stoop to woo any other lady than thee, the moon shall hide its face from the earth, and shine upon it no more.

Nita.—Your thoughts are daring in their flight to-day.

Martino.—They are in search of your love.

Nita.—Alack, your wings will fail.

Martino.—Ay, when they reach their goal.

Nita.—Dost think to reach it?

Martino.—Shall I not, lady?

Nita.—'Tis hard to believe it possible, yet who can tell? You are not so handsome, signior, that one would die for you.

Martino.—No, lady; but what goes to make other men's faces fair, goes to make my heart great. The virtue of my manhood rests in the fact that I love you.

Nita.—Faith! so in some others. 'Tis the common fault of the gallants, I find. If that is all—

Martino.—But I will always love you, even unto death.

Nita.—I doubt it not, so death come soon enough.

Martino. (Taps his poiniard with his hand.)—Would you have it come now, and so prove me true to my word?

Nita. (Demurely).—I am no judge, to utter the doom that your presumption merits.

Martino.—Your looks speak doom, and your sweet lips hide a sword keener than that of justice.

Nita.—Have you tried them, signior, that you speak so knowingly concerning them? (Retreating.) Your words, methinks, are somewhat like your kisses, all breath and no substance.

Martino.—Lady! sweet one! (Follows her.)

Nita.—Nay, I am gone. (Exit.)

Martino.—I were of the fools' fold, did I fail to follow at a beck so gentle. (Exit.)

That was not all, but it was all that Mr. Sylvester heard. Hastily retreating, he went out into the corridor and ere long found himself in the conservatory. He felt shaken; felt that he could not face all this unmoved. He knew he had been gazing at a play; that because this Florentine maiden looked at her lover with coyness, gentleness, tenderness perhaps, it did not follow that she, his Paula, loved the real man behind this dashing cavalier. But the possibility was there, and in his present frame of mind could not be encountered without pain. He dared not stay where men's eyes could follow him, or women's delicate glances note the heaving of his chest. He had in the last three hours given himself over so completely to hope. He realized it now though he would not have believed it before. With man's usual egotism he had felt that it was only necessary for him to come to a decision, to behold all else fall out according to his mind. He had forgotten for the nonce the power of a youthful lover, eager to serve, ready to wait, careful to press his way at every advantage. He could have cursed himself for the folly of his delay, as he strode up and down among the flowering shrubs in the solitude which the attractions of the play created. "Fool! fool!" he muttered between his teeth, "to halt on the threshold of Paradise till the door closed in my face, when a step would have carried me where—" He grew dizzy as he contemplated. The goal looks never so fair as when just within reach of a rival's hand.

A vigorous clapping, followed by a low gush of music, woke him at last to the realization that the little drama had terminated. With a hasty movement he was about to return to the parlors, when he heard the low murmur of voices, and on looking up, saw a youthful couple advancing into the conservatory, whom at first glance he recognized for Bertram and Miss Stuyvesant. They were absorbed in each other, and believing themselves alone, came on without fear, presenting such a picture of love and deep, unspeakable joy, that Mr. Sylvester paused and gazed upon them as upon the sudden embodiment of a cherished vision of his own imaginings. Bertram was speaking ordinary words no doubt, words suited to the occasion and the time, but his voice was attuned to the beatings of his long repressed heart, while the bend of his proud young head and the glance of his yearning eye were more eloquent than speech, of the leaning of his whole nature in love and protection towards the dainty, flushing creature at his side. It was a sight to make old hearts young and a less happy lover sick with envy. In spite of his gratification at his nephew's success, Mr. Sylvester's brow contracted, and it was with difficulty he could subdue himself into the appearance of calm benevolence necessary to pass them with propriety. Had it been Paula and Mr. Ensign!

He did not know how it was that he managed to find her at last. But just as he was beginning to realize that wisdom demanded his departure from this scene, he suddenly came upon her sitting with her face turned toward the crowd and waiting—for whom? He had never seen her look so beautiful, possibly because he had never before allowed himself to gaze upon her with a lover's eyes. She had exchanged her piquant Roman costume for the pearl gray satin in which Ona had delighted to array her, and its rich substance and delicate neutral tint harmonized well with the amber brocade of the curtain against which she sat.

Power, passion and purity breathed in her look, and lent enchantment to her form. She was poetry's unique jewel, and at this moment, thought rather than merriment sat upon her lips, and haunted her somewhat tremulous smiles. He approached her as a priest to his shrine, but once at her side, once in view of her first startled blush, stooped passionately, and forgetting everything but the suspense at his heart, asked with a look and tone such as he had never before bestowed upon her, if the play which he had seen that evening had been real, or only the baseless fabric of a dream.

She understood him and drew back with a look almost of awe, shaking her head and replying in a startled way, "I do not know, I dare not say, I scarcely have taken time to think."

"Then take it," he murmured in a voice that shook her body and soul, "for I must know, if he does not." And without venturing another word, or supplying by look or gesture any explanation of his unexpected appearance, or as equally unexpected departure, he bowed before her as if she had been a queen instead of the child he had been wont in other days to regard her, and speedily left her side.

But he had not taken two steps before he paused. Mr. Ensign was approaching.

"Mr. Sylvester! you are worse than the old woman of the tale, who declaring she would not, that nothing could ever induce her to—did."

"You utter a deeper truth than you realize," returned that gentleman, with a grave emphasis meant rather for her ears than his. "It is the curse of mortals to overrate their strength in the face of great temptations. I am no exception to the rule." And with a second bow that included this apparently triumphant lover within its dignified sweep, he calmly proceeded upon his way, and in a few moments had left the house.

Mr. Ensign, who for all his careless disposition, was quick to recognize depths in others, stared after his commanding figure until he had disappeared, then turned and looked at Paula. Why did his heart sink, and the lights and joy and promise of the evening seem to turn dark and shrivel to nothing before his eyes!

XXXIII. TWO LETTERS

"I have no other but a woman's reason,

I think him so, because I think him so."—TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.

A woman who has submitted to the undivided attentions of a gentleman for any length of time, feels herself more or less bound to him, whether any special words of devotion have passed between them or not, particularly if from sensitiveness of nature, she has manifested any pleasure in his society. Paula therefore felt as if her wings had been caught in a snare, when Mr. Ensign upon leaving her that evening, put a small note in her hand, saying that he would do himself the pleasure of calling for his reply the next day. She did not need to open it. She knew intuitively the manly honest words with which he would be likely to offer his heart and life for her acceptance; yet she did open it almost as soon as she reached her room, sitting down in her outside wraps for the purpose. She was not disappointed. Every line was earnest, ardent, and respectful. A true love and a happy cheerful home awaited her if—the stupendous meaning latent in an if!

With folded hands lying across the white page, with glance fixed on the fire always kept burning brightly in the grate, she sat querying her own soul and the awful future. He was such a charming companion; life had flashed and glimmered with a thousand lights and colors since she knew him; his very laugh made her want to sing. With him she would move in sunshiny paths, open to the regard of all the world, giving and receiving good. Life would need no veils and love no check. A placid stream would bear her on through fields of smiling verdure. Dread hopes, strange fears, uneasy doubts and vague unrests, would not disturb the heart that rested its faith upon his frank and manly bosom. A breeze blew through his life that would sweep all such evils from the path of her who walked in trust and love by his side. In trust and love; ah! that was it. She trusted him, but did she love him? At one time she had been convinced that she did, else these past few weeks would have owned a different history. He came upon her so brightly amid her gloom; filled her days with such genial thoughts, and drew the surface of her soul so unconsciously after him. It was like a zephyr sweeping over the sea; every billow that leaps to follow seems to own the power of that passing wind. But could she think so now, since she had found that the mere voice and look of another man had power to awaken depths such as she could not name and scarcely as yet had been able to recognize? that though the billows might flow under the genial smile of her young lover, the tide rose only at the call of a deeper voice and a more imposing presence?

She was a thinking spirit and recoiled from yielding too readily to any passing impulse. Love was a sacrament in her eyes; something entirely too precious to be accepted in counterfeit. She must know the secret of her inclinations, must weigh the influence that swayed her, for once given over to earth's sublimest passion, she felt that it would have power to sweep her on to an eternity of bliss or suffering.

She therefore forced herself to probe deep into the past, and pitilessly asked her conscience, what her emotions had been in reference to Mr. Sylvester before she positively knew that love for her as a woman had taken the place of his former fatherly regard. Her blushing cheek seemed to answer for her. Right or wrong, her life had never been complete away from his presence. She was lonesome and unsatisfied. When Mr. Ensign came she thought her previous unrest was explained, but the letter from Cicely describing Mr. Sylvester as sick and sorrowful, had withdrawn the veil from the delusion, and though it had settled again with Mr. Sylvester's studied refusal to accept her devotion, was by this evening's betrayal utterly wrenched away and trampled into oblivion. By every wild throb of her heart at the sound of his voice in her ear, by every outreaching of her soul to enter into his every mood, by the deep sensation of rest she felt in his presence, and the uneasy longing that absorbed her in his absence, she knew that she loved Mr. Sylvester as she never could his younger, blither, and perhaps nobler rival. Each word spoken by him lay treasured in her heart of hearts. When she thought of manly beauty, his face and figure started upon her from the surrounding shadows, making all romance possible and poetry the truest expression of the human soul. While she lived, he must ever seem the man of men to charm the eye, affect the heart, and move the soul. Yet she hesitated. Why?

There is nothing so hard to acknowledge to ourselves as the presence of a blemish in the character of those we love and long to revere. It was like giving herself to the rack to drag from its hiding-place and confront in all its hideous deformity, the doubt which, unconfessed perhaps, had of late mingled with her great reverence and admiring affection for this not easily to be comprehended man. But in this momentous hour she had power to do it. Conscience and self-respect demanded that the image before which she was ready to bow with such abandon, should be worthy her worship. She was not one who could carry offerings to a clouded shrine. She must see the glory shining from between the cherubim. "I must worship with my spirit as well as with my body, and how can I do that if there is a spot on his manhood, or a false note in his heart. If I did but know the secret of his past; why the prisoner sits in the dungeon! He is gentle, he is kindly, he loves goodness and strives to lead me in the paths of purity and wisdom, and yet something that is not good or pure clings to him, which he has never been able to shake loose. I perceive it in his melancholy glance; I catch its accents in his uneven tones; it rises upon me from his most thoughtful words, and makes his taking of a vow fearfully and warningly significant. Yet how much he is honored by his fellow-men, and with what reliance they look up to him for guidance and support. If I only knew the secrets of his heart!" thought she.

It was a trembling scale that hung balancing in that young girl's hand that night. On one side, frankness, cheerfulness, manly worth, honest devotion, and a home with every adjunct of peace and prosperity; on the other, love, gratitude, longing, admiration, and a dark shadow enveloping all, called doubt. The scale would not adjust itself. It tore her heart to turn from Mr. Sylvester, it troubled her conscience to dismiss the thought of Mr. Ensign. The question was yet undecided when she rose and began putting away her ornaments for the night.

What was there on her dressing-table that made her pause with such a start, and cast that look of half beseeching inquiry at her own image in the glass? Only another envelope with her name written upon it. But the way in which she took it in her hand, and the half guilty air with which she stole back with it to the fire, would have satisfied any looker-on I imagine, that conscience or no conscience, debate or no debate, the writer of these lines had gained a hold upon her heart, which no other could dispute.

It was a compactly written note and ran thus:

"A man is not always responsible for what he does in moments of great suspense or agitation. But if, upon reflection, he finds that he has spoken harshly or acted unwisely, it is his duty to remedy his fault; and therefore it is that I write you this little note. Paula, I love you; not as I once did, with a fatherly longing and a protective delight, but passionately, yearningly, and entirely, with the whole force of my somewhat disappointed life; as a man loves for whom the world has dissolved leaving but one creature in it, and that a woman. I showed you this too plainly to-night. I have no right to startle or intimidate your sweet soul into any relation that might hereafter curb or dissatisfy you; if you can love me freely, with no back-lookings to any younger lover left behind, know that naught you could bestow, can ever equal the world of love and feeling which I long to lavish upon you from my heart of hearts. But if another has already won upon your affections too much for you to give an undivided response to my appeal, then by all the purity and innocence of your nature, forget I have ever marred the past or disturbed the present by any word warmer than that of a father.

"I shall not meet you at breakfast and possibly not at dinner to-morrow, but when evening comes I shall look for my soul's dearer and better half, or my childless manhood's nearest and most cherished friend, as God pleaseth and your own heart and conscience shall decree.

"EDWARD SYLVESTER."

Miss Belinda was very much surprised to be awakened early the next morning, by a pair of loving arms clasped yearningly about her neck.

Looking up, she descried Paula kneeling beside her bed in the faint morning light, her cheeks burning, and her eyelids drooping; and guessing perhaps how it was, started up from her recumbent position with an energy strongly suggestive of the charger, that smells the battle afar off.

"What has happened?" she asked. "You look as if you had not slept a wink."

For reply Paula pulled aside the curtain at the head of her bed, and slipped into her hand Mr. Ensign's letter. Miss Belinda read it conscientiously through, with many grunts of approval, and having finished it, laid it down with a significant nod, after which she turned and surveyed Paula with keen but cautious scrutiny. "And you don't know what answer to give," she asked.

"I should," said Paula, "if—Oh aunt, you know what stands in my way! I have seen it in your eyes for some time. There is some one else—"

"But he has not spoken?" vigorously ejaculated her aunt.

Without answering, Paula put into her hand, with a slow reluctance she had not manifested before, a second little note, and then hid her head amid the bedclothes, waiting with quickly beating heart for what her aunt might say.

She did not seem in haste to speak, but when she did, her words came with a quick sigh that echoed very drearily in the young girl's anxious ears. "You have been placed by this in a somewhat painful position. I sympathize with you, my child. It is very hard to give denial to a benefactor."

Paula's head drew nearer to her aunt's breast, her arms crept round her neck. "But must I?" she breathed.

Miss Belinda knitted her brows with great force, and stared severely at the wall opposite. "I am sorry there is any question about it," she replied.

Paula started up and looked at her with sudden determination. "Aunt," said she, "what is your objection to Mr. Sylvester?"

Miss Belinda shook her head, and pushing the girl gently away, hurriedly arose and began dressing with great rapidity. Not until she was entirely prepared for breakfast did she draw Paula to her, and prepare to answer her question.

"My objection to him is, that I do not thoroughly understand him. I am afraid of the skeleton in the closet, Paula. I never feel at ease when I am with him, much as I admire his conversation and appreciate the undoubtedly noble instincts of his heart. His brow is not open enough to satisfy an eye which has accustomed itself to the study of human nature."

"He has had many sorrows!" Paula faintly exclaimed, stricken by this echo of her own doubts.

"Yes," returned her aunt, "and sorrow bows the head and darkens the eye, but it does not make the glance wavering or its expression mysterious."

"Some sorrows might," urged Paula tremulously, arguing as much with her own doubts as with those of her aunt. "His have been of no ordinary nature. I have never told you, aunt, but there were circumstances attending Cousin Ona's death that made it especially harrowing. He had a stormy interview with her the very morning she was killed; words passed between them, and he left her with a look that was almost desperate. When he next saw her, she lay lifeless and inert before him. I sometimes think that the shadow that fell upon him at that hour will never pass away."

"Do you know what was the subject of their disagreement?" asked Miss Belinda anxiously.

"No, but I have reason to believe it had something to do with business affairs, as nothing else could ever arouse Cousin Ona into being at all disagreeable."

"I don't like that phrase, business affairs; like charity, it covers entirely too much. Have you never had any doubts yourself about Mr. Sylvester?"

"Ah, you touch me to the quick, aunt. I may have had my doubts, but when I look back on the past, I cannot see as they have any very substantial foundation. Supposing, aunt, that he has been merely unfortunate, and I should live to find that I had discarded one whose heart was darkened by nothing but sorrow? I should never forgive myself, nor could life yield me any recompense that would make amends for a sacrifice so unnecessary."

"You love him, then, very dearly, Paula?"

A sudden light fell on the young girl's face. "Hearts cannot tell their love," said she, "but since I received this letter from him, it has seemed as if my life hung balancing on the question, as to whether he is worthy of a woman's homage. If he is not, I would give my life to have him so. The world is only dear to me now as it holds him."

Miss Belinda picked up Mr. Ensign's letter with trembling fingers. "I thought you were safe when the younger man came to woo," said she. "Girls, as a rule, prefer what is bright to what is sombre, and Mr. Ensign is truly a very agreeable as well as worthy young man."

"Yes, aunt, and he came very near stealing my heart as he undoubtedly did my fancy, but a stronger hand snatched it away, and now I do not know what to do or how to act, so as to awaken in the future no remorse or vain regrets."

Miss Belinda opened the letters again and consulted their contents in a matter-of-fact way. "Mr. Ensign proposes to come this afternoon for his answer, while Mr. Sylvester defers seeing you till evening. What if I seek Mr. Sylvester this morning and have a little conversation with him, which shall determine, for once and all, the question which so troubles us? Would you not find it easier to meet Mr. Ensign when he comes?"

"You talk to Mr. Sylvester, and upon such a topic! Oh, I could not bear that. Pardon me, aunt, but I think I am more jealous of his feelings than of my own. If his secret can be learned in a half-hour's talk, it must be listened to by no one but myself. And I believe it can," she murmured reverently; "he is so tender of me he would never let me go blindfold into any path, concerning which I had once expressed anxiety. If I ask him whether there is any good reason before God or man why I should not give him my entire faith and homage, he will answer honestly, though it be the destruction of his hopes to do so?"

"Have you such trust as that in his uprightness as a lover, and the guardian of your happiness?"

"Have not you, aunt?"

And Miss Belinda remembering his words on the occasion of his first proposal to adopt Paula, was forced to acknowledge that she had.

So without further preliminaries, it was agreed upon that Paula should refrain from making a final decision until she had eased her heart by an interview with Mr. Sylvester.

"Meantime, you can request Mr. Ensign to wait another day for his answer," said Miss Belinda.

But Paula with a look of astonishment shook her head. "Is it you who would counsel me to such a piece of coquetry as that?" said she. "No, dear aunt, my heart is not with Mr. Ensign, as you know, and it is impossible for me to encourage him. If Mr. Sylvester should prove unworthy of my affection, I must bear, as best I may, the loss which must accrue; but till he does, let me not dishonor my womanhood by allowing hope to enter, even for a passing moment, the breast of his rival."

Miss Belinda blushed, and drew her niece fondly towards her. "You are right," said she, "and my great desire for your happiness has led me into error. Honesty is the noblest adjunct of all true love, and must never be sacrificed to considerations of selfish expediency. The refusal which you contemplate bestowing upon Mr. Ensign, must be forwarded to him at once."

And with a final embrace, in which Miss Belinda allowed herself to let fall some few natural tears of disappointment, she dismissed the young girl to her task.

XXXIV. PAULA MAKES HER CHOICE

"Good fortune then,

To make me bless't or cursed'st among men."—MERCHANT OF VENICE.

It was evening in the Sylvester mansion. Mr. Sylvester who, according to his understanding with Paula, had been absent from his home all day, had just come in and now stood in his library waiting for the coming footfall that should decide whether the future held for him any promise of joy.

He had never looked more worthy of a woman's regard than he did that night. A matter that had been troubling him for some time had just been satisfactorily disposed of, and not a shadow, so far as he knew, lay upon his business outlook. This naturally brightened his cheek and lent a light to his eye. Then, hope is no mean beautifier, and this he possessed notwithstanding the disparity of years between himself and Paula. It was not, however, of sufficiently assured a nature to prevent him from starting at every sound from above, and flushing with quite a disagreeable sense of betrayal when the door opened and Bertram entered the room, instead of the gentle and exquisite being he had expected.

"Uncle, I am so full of happiness, I had to stop and bestow a portion of it upon you. Do you think any one could mistake the nature of Miss Stuyvesant's feelings, who saw her last night?"

"Hardly," was the smiling reply. "At all events I have not felt like wasting much but pleasant sympathy upon you. Your pathway to happiness looks secure, my boy."

His nephew gave him a wistful glance, but hid his thought whatever it was. "I am going to see her to-night," remarked he. "I am afraid my love is something like a torrent that has once burst its barrier; it cannot rest until it has worked its channel and won its rightful repose."

"That is something the way with all love," returned his uncle. "It may be dallied with while asleep, but once aroused, better meet a lion in his fury or a tempest in its rush. Are you going to test your hope, to-night?"

The young man flushed. "I cannot say." But in another moment gayly added, "I only know that I am prepared for any emergency."

"Well, my boy, I wish you God-speed. If ever a man has won a right to happiness, you are that man; and you shall enjoy it too, if any word or action of mine can serve to advance it."

"Thank you!" replied Bertram, and with a bright look around the apartment, prepared to take his leave. "When I come back," he remarked, with a touch of that manly naïveté to which I have before alluded, "I hope I shall not find you alone."

Ignoring this wish which was re-echoed somewhat too deeply within his own breast for light expression, Mr. Sylvester accompanied his nephew to the front door.

"Let us see what kind of a night it is," observed he, stepping out upon the stoop. "It is going to rain."

"So it is," returned Bertram, with a quick glance overhead; "but I shall not let such a little fuss as that deter me from fulfilling my engagement." And bestowing a hasty nod upon his uncle, he bounded down the step.

Instantly a man who was loitering along the walk in front of the house, stopped, as if struck by these simple words, turned, gave Bertram a quick look, and then with a sly glance back at the open door where Mr. Sylvester still stood gazing at the lowering heavens, set himself cautiously to follow him.

Mr. Sylvester, who was too much pre-occupied to observe this suspicious action, remained for a moment contemplating the sky; then with an aimless glance down the avenue, during which his eye undoubtedly fell upon Bertram and the creeping shadow of a man behind him, closed the door and returned to the library.

The sight of another's joy has the tendency to either unduly depress the spirits or greatly to elate them. When Paula came into the room a few minutes later, it was to find Mr. Sylvester awaiting her with an expression that was almost radiant. It made her duty seem doubly hard, and she came forward with the slow step of one who goes to meet or carry doom. He saw, and instantly the light died out of his face, leaving it one blank of despair. But controlling himself, he took her cold hand in his, and looking down upon her with a tender but veiled regard, asked in those low and tremulous tones that exerted such an influence upon her:

"Do I see before me my affectionate and much to be cherished child, or that still dearer object of love and worship, which it shall be the delight of my life to render truly and deeply happy?"

"You see," returned she, after a moment of silent emotion, "a girl without father or brother to advise her; who loves, or believes she does, a great and noble man, but who is smitten with fear also, she cannot tell why, and trembles to take a step to which no loving and devoted friend has set the seal of his approval."

The clasp with which Mr. Sylvester held her hand in his, tightened for an instant with irrepressible emotion, then slowly unloosed. Drawing back, he surveyed her with eyes that slowly filled with a bitter comprehension of her meaning.

"You are the only man," continued she, with a glance of humble entreaty, "that has ever stood to me for a moment in the light of a relation. You have been a father to me in days gone by, and to you it therefore seems most natural for me to appeal when a question comes up that either puzzles or distresses me. Mr. Sylvester, you have offered me your love and the refuge of your home; if you say that in your judgment the counsel of all true friends would be for me to accept this love, then my hand is yours and with it my heart; a heart that only hesitates because it would fain be sure it has the smile of heaven upon its every prompting."

"Paula!"

The voice was so strange she looked up to see if it really was Mr. Sylvester who spoke. He had sunk back into a chair and had covered his face with his hands. With a cry she moved towards him, but he motioned her back.

"Condemned to be my own executioner!" he muttered. "Placed on the rack and bid to turn the wheel that shall wrench my own sinews! My God, 'tis hard!"

She did not hear the words, but she saw the action. Slowly the blood left her cheek, and her hand fell upon her swelling breast with a despairing gesture that would have smitten Miss Belinda to the heart, could she have seen it. "I have asked too much," she whispered.

With a start Mr. Sylvester rose. "Paula," said he, in a stern and different tone, "is this fear of which you speak, the offspring of your own instincts, or has it been engendered in your breast by the words of another?"

"My Aunt Belinda is in my confidence, if it is she to whom you allude," rejoined she, meeting his glance fully and bravely. "But from no lips but yours could any words proceed capable of affecting my estimate of you as the one best qualified to make me happy."

"Then it is my words alone that have awakened this doubt, this apprehension?"

"I have not spoken of doubt," said she, but her eyelids fell.

"No, thank God!" he passionately exclaimed. "And yet you feel it," he went on more composedly. "I have studied your face too long and closely not to understand it."

She put out her hands in appeal, but for once it passed unheeded.

"Paula," said he, "you must tell me just what that doubt is; I must know what is passing in your mind. You say you love me—" he paused, and a tremble shook him from head to foot, but he went inexorably on—"it is more than I had a right to expect, and God knows I am grateful for the precious and inestimable boon, far as it is above my deserts; but while loving me, you hesitate to give me your hand. Why? What is the name of the doubt that disturbs that pure breast and affects your choice? Tell me, I must know."

"You ask me to dissect my own heart!" she cried, quivering under the torture of his glance; "how can I? What do I know of its secret springs or the terrors that disturb its even beatings? I cannot name my fear; it has no name, or if it has—Oh, sir!" she cried in a burst of passionate longing, "your life has been one of sorrow and disappointment; grief has touched you close, and you might well be the melancholy and sombre man that all behold. I do not shrink from grief; say that the only shadow that lies across your dungeon-door is that cast by the great and heart-rending sorrows of your life, and without question and without fear I enter that dungeon with you—"

The hand he raised stopped her. "Paula," cried he, "do you believe in repentance?"

The words struck her like a blow. Falling slowly back, she looked at him for an instant, then her head sank on her breast.

"I know what your hatred of sin is," continued he. "I have seen your whole form tremble at the thought of evil. Is your belief in the redeeming power of God as great as your recoil from the wrong that makes that redemption necessary?"

Quickly her head raised, a light fell on her brow, and her lips moved in a vain effort to utter what her eyes unconsciously expressed.

"Paula, I would be unworthy the name of a man, if with the consciousness of possessing a dark and evil nature, I strove by use of any hypocrisy or specious pretense at goodness, to lure to my side one so exceptionally pure, beautiful and high-minded. The ravening wolf and the innocent lamb would be nothing to it. Neither would I for an instant be esteemed worthy of your regard, if in this hour of my wooing there remained in my life the shadow of any latent wrong that might hereafter rise up and overwhelm you. Whatever of wrong has ever been committed by me—and it is my punishment that I must acknowledge before your pure eyes that my soul is not spotless—was done in the past, and is known only to my own heart and the God who I reverently trust has long ago pardoned me. The shadow is that of remorse, not of fear, and the evil, one against my own soul, rather than against the life or fortunes of other men. Paula, such sins can be forgiven if one has a mind to comprehend the temptations that beset men in their early struggles. I have never forgiven myself, but—" He paused, looked at her for an instant, his hand clenched over his heart, his whole noble form shaken by struggle, then said—"forgiveness implies no promise, Paula; you shall never link yourself to a man who has been obliged to bow his head in shame before you, but by the mercy that informs that dear glance and trembling lip, do you think you can ever grow to forgive me?"

"Oh," she cried, with a burst of sobs, violent as her grief and shame, "God be merciful to me, as I am merciful to those who repent of their sins and do good and not evil all the remaining days of their life."

"I thought you would forgive me," murmured he, looking down upon her, as the miser eyes the gold that has slipped from his paralyzed hand. "Him whom the hard-hearted sinner and the hypocrite despise, God's dearest lambs regard with mercy. I learned to revere God before I knew you, Paula, but I learned to love Him in the light of your gentleness and your trust. Rise up now and let me wipe away your tears—my daughter."

She sprang up as if stung. "No, no," she cried, "not that; I cannot bear that yet. I must think, I must know what all this means," and she laid her hand upon her heart. "God surely does not give so much love for one's undoing; if I were not destined to comfort a life so saddened, He would have bequeathed me more pity and less—" The lifted head fell, the word she would have uttered, stirred her bosom, but not her lips.

It was a trial to his strength, but his firm man's heart did not waver. "You do comfort me," said he; "from early morning to late night your presence is my healing and my help, and will always be so, whatever may befal. A daughter can do much, my Paula."

She took a step back towards the door, her eyes, dark with unfathomable impulses, flashing on him through the tears that hung thickly on her lashes.

"Is it for your own sake or for mine, that you make use of that word?" said she.

He summoned up his courage, met that searching glance with all its wild, bewildering beauty, and responded, "Can you ask, Paula?"

With a lift of her head that gave an almost queenly stateliness to her form, she advanced a step, and drawing a crumpled paper from her pocket, said, "When I went to my room last night, it was to read two letters, one from yourself, and one from Mr. Ensign. This is his, and a manly and noble letter it is too; but hearts have right to hearts, and I was obliged to refuse his petition." And with a reverent but inexorable hand, she dropped the letter on the burning coals of the grate at their side, and softly turned to leave the room.

"Paula!" With a bound the stern and hitherto forcibly repressed man, leaped to her side. "My darling! my life!" and with a wild, uncontrollable impulse, he caught her for one breathless moment to his heart; then as suddenly released her, and laying his hand in reverence on her brow, said softly, "Now go and pray, little one; and when you are quite calm, an hour hence or a week hence whichever it may be, come and tell me my fate as God and the angels reveal it to you." And he smiled, and she saw his smile, and went out of the room softly, as one who treadeth upon holy ground.

Mr. Sylvester was considered by his friends and admirers as a proud man. If a vote had been cast among those who knew him best, as from what especial passion common to humanity he would soonest recoil, it would have been unanimously pronounced shame, and his own hand would have emphasized the judgment of his fellows. But shame which is open to the gaze of the whole world, differs from that which is sacred to the eyes of one human being, and that the one who lies nearest the heart.

As Paula's retreating footsteps died away on the stairs, and he awoke to the full consciousness that his secret was shared by her whose love was his life, and whose good opinion had been his incentive and his pride, his first sensation was one of unmitigated anguish, but his next, strange to say, that of a restful relief. He had cast aside the cloak he had hugged so closely to his breast these many years, and displayed to her shrinking gaze the fox that was gnawing at his vitals; and Spartan though he was, the dew that had filled her loving eyes was balm to him. And not only that; he had won claim to the title of true man. Her regard, if regard it remained, was no longer an airy fabric built upon a plausible seeming, but a firm structure with knowledge for its foundation. "I shall not live to whisper, 'If she knew my whole life, would she love me so well?'"

His first marriage had been so wholly uncongenial and devoid of sympathy, that his greatest longing in connection with a fresh contract, was to enjoy the full happiness of perfect union and mutual trust; and though he could never have summoned up courage to take her into his confidence, unsolicited, now that it had been done he would not have it undone, no, not if by the doing he had lost her confidence and affection.

But something told him he had not lost it. That out of the darkness and the shock of this very discovery, a new and deeper love would spring, which having its birth in human frailty and human repentance, would gain in the actual what it lost in the ideal, bringing to his weary, suffering and yearning man's nature, the honest help of a strong and loving sympathy, growing trust, and sweetest because wisest encouragement.

It was therefore, with a growing sense of deep unfathomable comfort, and a reverent thankfulness for the mercies of God, that he sat by the fire idly watching the rise and fall of the golden flames above the fluttering ashes of his rival's letter, and dreaming with a hallowing sense of his unworthiness, upon the possible bliss of coming days. Happiness in its truest and most serene sense was so new to him, it affected him like the presence of something strangely commanding. He was awe-struck before it, and unconsciously bowed his head at its contemplation. Only his eyes betrayed the peace that comes with all great joy, his eyes and perhaps the faint, almost unearthly smile that flitted across his mouth, disturbing its firm line and making his face for all its inevitable expression of melancholy, one that his mother would have loved to look upon. "Paula!" came now and then in a reverent, yearning accent from between his lips, and once a low, "Thank God!" which showed that he was praying.

Suddenly he rose; a more human mood had set in, and he felt the necessity of assuring himself that it was really he upon whom the dreary past had closed, and a future of such possible brightness opened. He walked about the room, surveying the rich articles within it, as the possible belongings of the beautiful woman he adored; he stood and pictured her as coming into the door as his wife, and before he realized what he was doing, had planned certain changes he would make in his home to adapt it to the wants of her young and growing mind, when with a strange suddenness, the door upon which he was gazing flew back, and Bertram Sylvester entered just as he had come from the street. He looked so haggard, so wild, so little the picture of himself as he ventured forth a couple of hours before, that Mr. Sylvester started, and forgetting his happiness in his alarm, asked in a tone of dismay:

"What has happened? Has Miss Stuyvesant—"

Bertram's hand went up as if his uncle had touched him upon a festering wound. "Don't!" gasped he, and advancing to the table, sat down and buried his face for a moment in his arms, then rose, and summoning up a certain manly dignity that became him well, met Mr. Sylvester's eye with forced calmness, and inquired:

"Did you know there was a thief in our bank, Uncle Edward?"

XXXV. THE FALLING OF THE SWORD

"Foul deeds will rise,

Though all the world o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes."—HAMLET.

Mr. Sylvester towered on his nephew with an expression such as few men had ever seen even on his powerful and commanding face.

"What do you mean?" asked he, and his voice rang like a clarion through the room.

Bertram trembled and for a moment stood aghast, the ready flush bathing his brow with burning crimson. "I mean," stammered he, with difficulty recovering himself, "that when Mr. Stuyvesant came to open his private box in the bank to-day, that he not only found its lock had been tampered with, but that money and valuables to the amount of some twelve hundred dollars were missing from among its contents."

"What?"

The expression which had made Mr. Sylvester's brow so terrible had vanished, but his wonder remained.

"It is impossible," he declared. "Our vaults are too well watched for any such thing to occur. He has made some mistake; a robbery of that nature could not take place without detection."

"It would seem not, and yet the fact remains. Mr. Stuyvesant himself informed me of it, to-night. He is not a careless man, nor reckless in his statements. Some one has robbed the bank and it remains with us to find out who."

Mr. Sylvester, who had been standing all this while, sat down like a man dazed, the wild lost look on Bertram's face daunting him with a fearful premonition. "There are but four men who have access to the vault where the boxes are kept," said he: then quickly, "Why did Mr. Stuyvesant wait till to-night to speak to you? Why did he not notify us at once of a loss so important for us to know?"

The flush on Bertram's brow slowly subsided, giving way to a steady pallor. "He waited to be sure," said he. "He had a memorandum at home which he desired to consult; he was not ready to make any rash statement: he is a thinking man and more considerate than many of his friends are apt to imagine. If the lock had not been found open he would have thought with you that he had made some mistake; if he had not missed from the box some of its contents, he would have considered the condition of the lock the result of some oversight on his own part or of some mistake on the part of another, but the two facts together were damning and could force upon him but one conclusion. Uncle," said he, with a straightforward look into Mr. Sylvester's countenance, "Mr. Stuyvesant knows as well as we do who are the men who have access to the vaults. As you say, the opening of a box during business hours and the abstracting from it of papers or valuables by any one who has not such access, would be impossible. Only Hopgood, you and myself, and possibly Folger, could find either time or opportunity for such a piece of work; while after business hours, the same four, minus Folger who contents himself with knowing the combination of the inner safe, could open the vaults even in case of an emergency. Now of the four named, two are above suspicion. I might almost say three, for Hopgood is not a man it is easy to mistrust. One alone, then, of all the men whom Mr. Stuyvesant is in the habit of meeting at the Bank, is open to a doubt. A young man, uncle, whose rising has been rapid, whose hopes have been lofty, whose life may or may not be known to himself as pure, but which in the eyes of a matured man of the world might easily be questioned, just because its hopes are so lofty and its means for attaining them so limited."

"Bertram!" sprang from Mr. Sylvester's white lips.

But the young man raised his hand with almost a commanding gesture. "Hush," said he, "no sympathy or surprise. Facts like these have to be met with silent endurance, as we walk up to the mouth of the cannon we cannot evade, or bare our breast to the thrust of the bayonet gleaming before our eyes.—I would not have you think," he somewhat hurriedly pursued, "that Mr. Stuyvesant insinuated anything of the kind, but his daughter was not present in the parlor, and—" A sigh, almost a gasp finished the sentence.

"Bertram!" again exclaimed his uncle, this time with some authority in his voice. "The shock of this discovery has unnerved you. You act like a man capable of being suspected. That is simply preposterous. One half hour's conversation with Mr. Stuyvesant on my part will convince him, if he needs convincing, which I do not believe, that whoever is unworthy of trust in our bank, you are not the man."

Bertram raised his head with a gleam of hope, but instantly dropped it again with a despairing gesture that made his uncle frown.

"I did not know that you were inclined to be so pusillanimous," cried Mr. Sylvester; "and in presence of a foe so unsubstantial as this you have conjured up almost out of nothing. If the bank has been robbed, it cannot be difficult to find the thief. I will order in detectives to-morrow. We will hold a board of inquiry, and the culprit shall be unmasked; that is, if he is one of the employees of the bank, which it is very hard to believe."

"Very, and which, if true, would make it unadvisable in us to give the alarm that any public measures taken could not fail to do."

"The inquiry shall be private, and the detectives, men who can be trusted to keep their business secret."

"How can any inquiry be private? Uncle, we are treading on delicate ground, and have a task before us requiring great tact and discretion. If the safe had only been assaulted, or there were any evidences of burglary to be seen! But we surely should have heard of it from some one of the men, if anything unusual had been observed. Hopgood would have spoken at least."

"Yes, Hopgood would have spoken."

The tone in which this was uttered made Bertram look up. "You agree with me, then, that Hopgood is absolutely to be relied upon?"

"Absolutely." A faint flush on Mr. Sylvester's face lent force to this statement.

"He could not be beguiled or forced by another man to reveal the combination, or to relax his watch over the vaults entrusted to his keeping?"

"No."

"He is alone with the vaults where the boxes are kept for an hour or two in the early morning!"

"Yes, and has been for three years. Hopgood is honesty itself."

"And so are Folger and Jessup and Watson," exclaimed Bertram emphatically.

"Yes," his uncle admitted, with equal emphasis.

"It is a mystery," Bertram declared; "and one I fear that will undo me."

"Nonsense!" broke forth somewhat impatiently from Mr. Sylvester's lips; "there is no reason at this time for any such conclusion. If there is a thief in the bank he can be found; if the robbery was committed by an outsider, he may still be discovered. If he is not, if the mystery rests forever unexplained, you have your character, Bertram, a character as spotless as that of any of your fellows, whom we regard as above suspicion. A man is not going to be condemned by such a judge of human nature as Mr. Stuyvesant, just because a mysterious crime has been committed, to which the circumstances of his position alone render it possible for him to be party. You might as well say that Jessup and Folger and Watson—yes, or myself, would in that case lose his confidence. They are in the bank, and are constantly in the habit of going to the vaults."

"None of those gentlemen want to marry his daughter," murmured Bertram. "It is not the director I fear, but the father. I have so little to bring her. Only my character and my devotion."

"Well, well, pluck up courage, my boy. I have hopes yet that the whole matter can be referred to some mistake easily explainable when once it is discovered. Mistakes, even amongst the honest and the judicious, are not so uncommon as one is apt to imagine. I, myself, have known of one which if providence had not interfered, might have led to doubts seemingly as inconsistent as yours. To-morrow we will consider the question at length. To-night—Well, Bertram, what is it?"

The young man started and dropped his eyes, which during the last words of his uncle had been fixed upon his face with strange and penetrating inquiry. "Nothing," said he, "that is, nothing more;" and rose as if to leave.

But Mr. Sylvester put out his hand and stopped him. "There is something," said he. "I have seen it in your face ever since you entered this room. What is it?"

The young man drew a deep breath and leaned back in his chair. Mr. Sylvester watched him with growing pallor. "You are right," murmured his nephew at last; "there is something more, and it is only justice that you should hear it. I have had two adventures to-night; one quite apart from my conversation with Mr. Stuyvesant. Heaven that watches above us, has seen fit to accumulate difficulties in my path, and this last, perhaps, is the least explainable and the hardest to encounter."

"What do you allude to?" cried his uncle, imperatively; "I have had an evening of too much agitation to endure suspense with equanimity. Explain yourself."

"It will not take long," said the other; "a few words will reveal to you the position in which I stand. Let me relate it in the form of a narrative. You know what a dark portion of the block that is in which Mr. Stuyvesant's house is situated. A man might hide in any of the areas along there, without being observed by you unless he made some sound to attract your attention. I was, therefore, more alarmed than surprised when, shortly after leaving Mr. Stuyvesant's dwelling, I felt a hand laid on my shoulder, and turning, beheld a dark figure at my side, of an appearance calculated to arouse any man's apprehension. He was tall, unkempt, with profuse beard, and eyes that glared even in the darkness of his surroundings, with a feverish intensity. 'You are Mr. Sylvester,' said he, with a look of a wild animal ready to pounce upon his prey. 'Yes,' said I, involuntarily stepping back, 'I am Mr. Sylvester.' 'I want to speak to you,' exclaimed he, with a rush of words as though a stream had broken loose; 'now, at once, on business that concerns you. Will you listen?'

"I thought of the only business that seemed to concern me then, and starting still farther back, surveyed him with surprise. 'I don't know you,' said I; 'what business can you have with me?' 'Will you step into some place where it is warm and find out?' he asked, shivering in his thin cloak, but not abating a jot of his eagerness. 'Go on before me,' said I, 'and we will see.' He complied at once, and in this way we reached Beale's Coffee-Room, where we went in. 'Now,' said I, 'out with what you have to say and be quick about it. I have no time to listen to nonsense and no heart to attend to it.' His eye brightened; he did not cast a glance at the smoking victuals about him, though I knew he was hungry as a dog. 'It is no nonsense,' said he, 'that I have to communicate to you.' And then I saw he had once been a gentleman. 'For two years and a half have I been searching for you,' he went on, 'in order that I might recall to your mind a little incident. You remember the afternoon of February, the twenty-fifth, two years ago?'

"'No,' said I, in great surprise, for his whole countenance was flushed with expectancy. 'What was there about that day that I should remember it?' He smiled and bent his face nearer to mine. 'Don't you recollect a little conversation you had in a small eating-house in Dey Street, with a gentleman of a high-sounding voice to whom you were obliged continually to say 'hush!'" I stared at the man, as you may believe, with some notion of his being a wandering lunatic. 'I have never taken a meal in any eating-house in Dey Street,' I declared, motioning to a waiter to approach us. The man observing it, turned swiftly upon me. 'Do you think I care for any such petty fuss as that?' asked he, indicating the rather slightly built man I had called to my rescue, while he covertly studied my face to observe the effect of his words.

"I started. I could not help it; this use of an expression almost peculiar to myself, assured me that the man knew me better than I supposed. Involuntarily I waved the waiter back and turned upon the man with an inquiring look.

"'I thought you might consider it worth your while to listen,' said he, smiling with the air of one who has or thinks he has a grip upon you. Then suddenly, 'You are a rich man, are you not? a proud man and an honored one. You hold a position of trust and are considered worthy of it; how would you like men to know that you once committed a mean and dirty trick; that those white hands that have the handling of such large funds at present, have in days gone by been known to dip into such funds a little too deeply; that, in short, you, Bertram Sylvester, cashier of the Madison Bank, and looking forward to no one knows what future honors and emoluments, have been in a position better suited to a felon's cell than the trusted agent of a great and wealthy corporation?'

"I did not collar him; I was too dumb-stricken for any such display of indignation. I simply stared, feeling somewhat alarmed as I remembered my late interview with Mr. Stuyvesant, and considered the possibility of a plot being formed against me. He smiled again at the effect he had produced, and drew me into a corner of the room where we sat down. 'I am going to tell you a story,' said he, 'just to show you what a good memory I have. One day, a year and more ago, I sauntered into an eating-house on Dey Street. I have not always been what you see me now, though to tell you the truth, I was but little better off at the time of which I speak, except that I did have a dime or so in my pocket, and could buy a meal of victuals—if I wished.' And his eyes roamed for the first time to the tables stretching out before him down the room. 'The proprietor was an acquaintance of mine, and finding I was sleepy as well as hungry, let me go into a certain dark pantry, where I curled up amid all sorts of old rubbish and went to sleep. I was awakened by the sound of voices talking very earnestly. The closet in which I was hidden was a temporary affair built up of loose boards, and the talk of a couple of men seated against it was easy enough to be heard. Do you want to know what that conversation was?'

"My curiosity was roused by this time and I said yes. If this was a plot to extort money from me, it was undeniably better for me to know upon just what foundations it rested. I thought the man looked surprised, but with an aplomb difficult to believe assumed, he went on to say, 'The voices gave me my only means of judging of the age, character, or position of the men conversing, but I have a quick ear, and my memory is never at fault. From the slow, broken, nervously anxious tone of one of the men, I made up my mind that he was elderly, hard up, and not over scrupulous; the other voice was that of a gentleman, musical and yet pronounced, and not easily forgotten, as you see, sir. The first words I heard aroused me and convinced me it was worth while to listen. They were uttered by the gentleman. 'You come to me with such a dirty piece of business! What right have you to suppose I would hearken to you for an instant!' 'The right,' returned the other, 'of knowing you have not been above doing dirty work in your life time.' The partition creaked at that, as though one of the two had started forward, but I didn't hear any reply made to this strange accusation. 'Do you think,' the same voice went on, 'that I do not know where the five thousand dollars came from which you gave me for that first speculation? I knew it when I took it, and if I hadn't been sure the operation would turn out fortunately, you would never have been the man you are to-day. It came out of funds entrusted to you, and was not the gift of a relative as you would have made me believe.' 'Good heaven!' exclaimed the other, after a silence that was very expressive just then and there, 'and you let me—' 'Oh we won't go into that,' interrupted the less cultivated voice. 'All you wanted was a start, to make you the successful man you have since become. I never worried much about morals, and I don't worry about them now, only when you say you won't do a thing likely to make my fortune, just because it is not entirely free from reproach, I say, remember what I know about you, and don't talk virtue to me.'

"'I am rightly punished,' came from the other, in a tone that proved him to be a man more ready to do a wrong thing than to face the accusation of it. 'If I ever did what you suppose, the repentance that has embittered all my success, and the position in which you have this day placed me, is surely an ample atonement.' 'Will you do what I request?' inquired the other, giving little heed to this expression of misery, of which I on the contrary took special heed. 'No,' was the energetic reply; 'because I am not spotless it is no sign that I will wade into filth. I will give you money as I have done scores of times before, but I will lend my hand to no scheme which is likely to throw discredit on me or mine. Were you not connected to me in the way in which you are—' 'You would pursue the scheme,' interrupted the other; 'it is because you know that I cannot talk, that you dare repudiate it. Well I will go to one—' 'You shall not,' came in short quick tones, just such tones as you used to me, sir, when we first entered this room. 'You shall leave the country before you do anything more, or say anything more, to compromise me or yourself. I may have done wrong in my day, but that is no reason why I should suffer for it at your hands, tempter of youth, and deceiver of your own flesh and blood! You shall never bring back those days to me again; they are buried, and have been stamped out of sight by many an honest dealing since, and many as I trust before God, good and sterling action. I have long since begun a new life; a life of honor, and pure, if successful, dealing. Not only my own happiness, but that of one who should be considered by you, depends upon my maintaining that life to the end, unshadowed by unholy remembrances, and unharrassed by any such proffers as you have presumed to make to me here to-day. If you want a few thousand dollars to leave the country, say so, but never again presume to offend my ears, or those of any one else we may know, with any such words as you have made use of to-day.' And the spiritless creature subsided, sir, and said no more to that rich, honored, and successful man who was so sensitive to even the imputation of guilt.

"But I am not spiritless and just where he dropped the affair, I took it up. 'Here is a chance for me to turn an honest penny,' thought I, and with a deliberation little to be expected of me, perhaps, set myself to spot that man and make the most out of the matter I could. Unfortunately I lost the opportunity of seeing his face. I was too anxious to catch every word they uttered, to quit my place of concealment till their conversation was concluded, and then I was too late to be sure which of the many men leaving the building before me was the one I was after. The waiters were too busy to talk, and the proprietor himself had taken no notice. Happily as I have before said, I never forget voices; moreover one of the two speakers had made use of a phrase peculiar enough to serve as a clue to his identity. It was in answer to some parting threat of the older man, and will remind you of an expression uttered by yourself an hour or so ago. 'Do you suppose I will let such a little fuss as that deter me?' It was the cue to his speech, by which I intended to hunt out my man from amongst the rich, the trusted and the influential persons of this city, and when found, to hold him.'

"'And you think you have done this?' said I, too conscious of the possible net about my feet to be simply angry. 'I know it,' said he; 'every word you have uttered since we have been here has made me more and more certain of the fact. I could swear to your voice, and as to your use of that tell-tale word, it was not till I thought to inquire of a certain wide-awake fellow down town, who amongst our business men were in the habit of using that expression, and was told Mr. Sylvester of the Madison Bank, that I was enabled to track you. I know I have got my hand on my man at last and—' He looked down at his thread-bare coat and around at the tables with their smoking dishes, and left me to draw my own conclusion.

"Uncle, there are crises in life which no former experience teaches you how to meet. I had arrived at such a one. Perhaps you can understand me when I say I was well nigh appalled. Denial of what was imputed to me might be wisdom and might not. I felt the coil of a deadly serpent about me, and knew not whether it was best to struggle or to simply submit. The man noted the effect he had made and complacently folded his arms. He was of a nervous organization and possessed an eye like a hungry wolf, but he could wait. 'This is a pretty story,' said I at last, and I reject it altogether. 'I am an honest man and have always been so; you will have to give up your hopes of making anything out of me.' 'Then you are willing,' said he, 'that I should repeat this story to one of the directors of your bank, whom I know?'

"I looked at him; he returned my gaze with a cold nonchalence more suggestive of a deep laid purpose, than even his previous glance of feverish determination. I immediately let my eye run over his scanty clothing and loose flowing hair and beard. 'Yes,' said I, with as much sarcasm as I knew how to assume, 'if you dare risk the consequences, I think I may.' He at once drew himself up. 'You think,' said he, 'that you have a common-place adventurer to deal with; that my appearance is going to testify in your favor; that you have but to deny any accusation which such a hungry-looking, tattered wretch as I, may make, and that I shall be ignominiously kicked out of the presence into which I have forced myself; that in short I have been building my castle in the air. Mr. Sylvester, I am a poor devil but I am no fool. When I left Dey Street on the twenty-fifth of February two years ago, it was with a sealed paper in my pocket, in which was inscribed all that I had heard on that day. This I took to a lawyer's office, and not being, as I have before said, quite as impecunious in those days as at present, succeeded in getting the lawyer, whom I took care should be a most respectable man, to draw up a paper to the effect that I had entrusted him with this statement—of whose contents he however knew nothing—on such a day and hour, to which paper a gentleman then present, consented at my respectful solicitation to affix his name as witness, which gentleman, strange to say, has since proved to be a director of the bank of which you are the present cashier, and consequently the very man of all others best adapted to open the paper whose seal you profess to be so willing to see broken.'

"'His name!' It was all that I could say. 'Stuyvesant,' cried the man, fixing me with his eye in which I in vain sought for some signs of secret doubt or unconscious wavering. I rose; the position in which I found myself was too overwhelming for instant decision. I needed time for reflection, possibly advice—from you. A resolution to brave the devil must be founded on something more solid than impulse, to hold its own unmoved. I only stopped to utter one final word and ask one leading question. 'You are a smart man,' said I, 'and you are also a villain. Your smartness would give you food and drink, if you exercised it in a manner worthy of a man, but your villainy if persisted in, will eventually rob you of both, and bring you to the prison's cell or the hangman's gallows. As for myself, I persist in saying that I am now and always have been an honest man, whatever you may have overheard or find yourself capable of swearing to. Yet a lie is an inconvenient thing to have uttered against you at any time, and I may want to see you again; if I do, where shall I find you?' He thrust his hand into his pocket and drew out a small slip of folded paper, which he passed to me with a bow that Chesterfield would have admired. 'You will find it written within,' said he 'I shall look for you any time to-morrow, up to seven o'clock. At that hour the lawyer of whom I have spoken, sends the statement which he has in his possession to Mr. Stuyvesant.' I nodded my assent, and he moved slowly towards the door. As he did so, his eyes fell upon a roll of bread lying on a counter. I at once stepped forward and bought it. Vile as he was, and deadly as was the snare he contemplated drawing about me, I could not see that wolfish look of hunger, and not offer him something to ease it. He took the loaf from my hands and bit greedily into it but suddenly paused, and shook his head with a look like self-reproach, and thrusting the loaf under his arm, turned towards the door with the quick action of one escaping. Instantly, and before he was out of sight or hearing, I drew the attention of the proprietor to him. 'Do you see that man?' I asked. 'He has been attempting a system of blackmail upon me.' And satisfied with thus having provided a witness able of identifying the man, in case of an emergency, I left the building.

"And now you know it all," concluded he; and the silence that followed the utterance of those simple words, was a silence that could be felt.

"Bertram?"

The young man started from his fixed position, and his eyes slowly traversed toward his uncle.

"Have you that slip of paper which the man gave you before departing?"

"Yes," said he.

"Let me have it, if you please."

The young man with an agitated look, plunged his hand into his pocket, drew out the small note and laid it on the table between them. Mr. Sylvester let it lie, and again there was a silence.

"If this had happened at any other time," Bertram pursued, "one could afford to let the man have his say; but now, just as this other mystery has come up—"

"I don't believe in submitting to blackmail," came from his uncle in short, quick tones.

Bertram gave a start. "You then advise me to leave him alone?" asked he, with unmistakable emotion.

His uncle dropped the hand which till now he had held before his face, and hastily confronted his nephew. "You will have enough to do to attend to the other matter without bestowing any time or attention upon this. The man that robbed Mr. Stuyvesant's box, can be found and must. It is the one indispensable business to which I now delegate you. No amount of money and no amount of diligence is to be spared. I rely on you to carry the affair to a successful termination. Will you undertake the task?"

"Can you ask?" murmured the young man, with a shocked look at his uncle's changed expression.

"As to this other matter, we will let it rest for to-night. To-morrow's revelations may be more favorable than we expect. At all events let us try and get a little rest now; I am sure we are both in a condition to need it."

Bertram rose. "I am at your command," said he, and moved to go. Suddenly he turned, and the two men stood face to face. "I have no wish," pursued he, "to be relieved of my burden at the expense of any one else. If it is to be borne by any one, let it be carried by him who is young and stalwart enough to sustain it." And his hand went out involuntarily towards his uncle.

Mr. Sylvester took that hand and eyed his nephew long and earnestly. Bertram thought he was going to speak, and nerved himself to meet with fortitude whatever might be said. But the lips which Mr. Sylvester had opened, closed firmly, and contenting himself with a mere wring of his nephew's hand, he allowed him to go. The slip of paper remained upon the table unopened.

That night as Paula lay slumbering on her pillow, a sound passed through the house. It was like a quick irrepressible cry of desolation, and the poor child hearing it, started, thinking her name had been called. But when she listened, all was still, and believing she had dreamed, she turned her face upon her pillow, and softly murmuring the name that was dearest to her in all the world, fell again into a peaceful sleep.

But he whose voice had uttered that cry in the dreary emptiness of the great parlors below, slept not.

XXXVI. MORNING

"Two maidens by one fountain's joyous brink,

And one was sad and one had cause for sadness."

Cicely Stuyvesant waiting for her father at the foot of the stairs, on the morning after these occurrences, was a pretty and a touching spectacle. She had not slept very well the night before, and her brow showed signs of trouble and so did her trembling lips. She held in her hand a letter which she twirled about with very unsteady fingers. The morning was bright, but she did not seem to observe it; the air was fresh, but it did not seem to invigorate her. A rose-leaf of care lay on the tremulous waters of her soul, and her sensitive nature thrilled under it.

"Why does he not come?" she whispered, looking again at the letter's inscription.

It was in Mr. Sylvester's handwriting, and ought not to have occasioned her any uneasiness, but her father had intimated a wish the night before, that she should not come down into the parlor if Bertram called, and—Her thoughts paused there, but she was anxious about the letter and wished her father would hasten.

Let us look at the little lady. She had been so bright and lovesome yesterday at this time. Never a maiden in all this great city of ours had shown a sweeter or more etherial smile. At once radiant and reserved, she flashed on the eye and trembled from the grasp like some dainty tropical creature as yet unused to our stranger clime. Her father had surveyed her with satisfaction, and her lover—oh, that we were all young again to experience that leap of the heart with which youth meets and recognizes the sweet perfections of the woman it adores! But a mist had obscured the radiance of her aspect, and she looks very sad as she stands in her father's hall this morning, leaning her cheek against the banister, and thinking of the night when three years ago, she lingered in that very spot, and watched the form of the young musician go by her and disappear in the darkness of the night, as she then thought forever. Joy had come to her by such slow steps and after such long waiting. Hope had burst upon her so brilliantly, and with such a speedy promise of culmination. She thrilled as she thought how short a time ago it was, since she leaned upon Bertram's arm and dropped her eyes before his gaze.

The appearance of her father at length aroused her. Flushing slightly, she held the letter towards him.

"A letter for you, papa. I thought you might like to read it before you went out."

Mr. Stuyvesant, who for an hour or more had been frowning over his morning paper with a steady pertinacity that left more than the usual amount of wrinkles upon his brow, started at the wistful tone of this announcement from his daughter's lips, and taking the letter from her hand, stepped into the parlor to peruse it. It was, as the handwriting declared, from Mr. Sylvester, and ran thus:

"DEAR MR. STUYVESANT:

"I have heard of your loss and am astounded. Though the Bank is not liable for any accident to trusts of this nature, both Bertram and myself are determined to make every effort possible, to detect and punish the man who either through our negligence, or by means of the opportunities afforded him under our present system of management, has been able to commit this robbery upon your effects. We therefore request that you will meet us at the bank this morning at as early an hour as practicable, there to assist us in making such inquiries and instituting such measures, as may be considered necessary to the immediate attainment of the object desired.

"Respectfully yours,

"EDWARD SYLVESTER."

"Is it anything serious?" asked his daughter, coming into the parlor and looking up into his face with a strange wistfulness he could not fail to remark.

Mr. Stuyvesant gave her a quick glance, shook his head with some nervousness and hastily pocketed the epistle. "Business," mumbled he, "business." And ignoring the sigh that escaped her lips, began to make his preparations for going at once down town.

He was always an awkward man at such matters, and it was her habit to afford him what assistance she could. This she now did, lending her hand to help him on with his overcoat, rising on tip-toe to tie his muffler, and bending her bright head to see that his galoshes were properly fastened; her charming face with its far-away look, shining strangely sweet in the dim hall, in contrast with his severe and antiquated countenance.

He watched her carefully but with seeming indifference till all was done and he stood ready to depart, then in an awkward enough way—he was not accustomed to bestow endearments—drew her to him and kissed her on the forehead; after which he turned about and departed without a word to season or explain this unwonted manifestation of tenderness.

A kiss was an unusual occurrence in that confiding but undemonstrative household, and the little maiden trembled. "Something is wrong," she murmured half to herself, half to the dim vista of the lonely parlor, where but a night or so ago had stood the beloved form of him, who, bury the thought as she would, had become, if indeed he had not always been, the beginning and the ending of all her maidenly dreams: "what? what?" And her young heart swelled painfully as she realized like many a woman before her, that whatever might be her doubts, fears, anguish or suspense, nothing remained for her but silence and a tedious waiting for others to recognize her misery and speak.

Meanwhile how was it with her dearest friend and confident, Paula? The morning, as I have already declared, was bright and exceptionally beautiful. Sunshine filled the air and freshness invigorated the breeze. Cicely was blind to it all, but as Paula looked from her window preparatory to going below, a close observer might have perceived that the serenity of the cloudless sky was reflected in her beaming eyes, that peace brooded above her soul and ruled her tender spirit. She had held a long conversation with Miss Belinda, she had prayed, she had slept and she had risen with a confirmed love in her heart for the man who was at once the admiration of her eyes and the well-spring of her deepest thoughts and wildest longings. "I will show him so plainly what the angels have told me," whispered she, "that he will have no need to ask." And she wound her long locks into the coil that she knew he best liked and fixed a rose at her throat, and so with a smile on her lip went softly down stairs. O the timid eager step of maidenhood when drawing toward the shrine of all it adores! Could those halls and lofty corridors have whispered their secret, what a story they would have told of beating heart and tremulous glance, eager longings, and maidenly shrinkings, as the lovely form, swaying with a thousand hopes and fears, glided from landing to landing, carrying with it love and joy and peace. And trust! As she neared the bronze image that had always awakened such vague feelings of repugnance on her part, and found its terrors gone and its smile assuring, she realized that her breast held nothing but faith in him, who may have sinned in his youth, but who had repented in his manhood, and now stood clear and noble in her eyes. The assurance was too sweet, the flood of feeling too overwhelming. With a quick glance around her, she stopped and flung her arms about the hitherto repellant bronze, pressing her young breast against the cold metal with a fervor that ought to have hallowed its sensuous mould forever. Then she hurried down.

Her first glance into the dining-room brought her a disappointment. Mr. Sylvester had already breakfasted and gone; only Aunt Belinda sat at the table. With a slightly troubled brow, Paula advanced to her own place at the board.

"Mr. Sylvester has urgent business on hand to-day," quoth her aunt. "I met him going out just as I came down."

Her look lingered on Paula as she said this, and if it had not been for the servants, she would doubtless have given utterance to some further expression on the matter, for she had been greatly struck by Mr. Sylvester's appearance and the sad, firm, almost lofty expression of his eye, as it met hers in their hurried conversation.

"He is a very busy man," returned Paula simply, and was silent, struck by some secret dread she could not have explained. Suddenly she rose; she had found an envelope beneath her plate, addressed to herself. It was bulky and evidently contained a key. Hastening behind the curtains of the window, she opened it. The key was to that secret study of his at the top of the house, which no one but himself had ever been seen to enter, and the words that enwrapped it were these:

"If I send you no word to the contrary, and if I do not come back by seven o'clock this evening, go to the room of which this is the key, open my desk, and read what I have prepared for your eyes.

"E. S."

XXXVII. THE OPINION OF A CERTAIN NOTED DETECTIVE

"But still there clung

One hope, like a keen sword on starting threads uphung."—REVOLT OF ISLAM.

"Facts are stubborn things."—ELLIOTT.

Meanwhile Mr. Stuyvesant hasted on his way down town and ere long made his appearance at the bank. He found Mr. Sylvester and Bertram seated in the directors' room, with a portly smooth-faced man whose appearance was at once strange and vaguely familiar.

"A detective, sir," explained Mr. Sylvester rising with forced composure; "a man upon whose judgment I have been told we may rely. Mr. Gryce, Mr. Stuyvesant."

The latter gentleman nodded, cast a glance around the room, during which his eye rested for a moment on Bertram's somewhat pale countenance, and nervously took a seat.

"A mysterious piece of business, this," came from the detective's lips in an easy tone, calculated to relieve the tension of embarrassment into which the entrance of Mr. Stuyvesant seemed to have thrown all parties. "What were the numbers of the bonds found missing, if you please?"

Mr. Stuyvesant told him.

"You are positively assured these bonds were all in the box when you last locked it?"

"I am."

"When was that, sir? On what day and at what hour of the day, if you please?"

"Tuesday, at about three o'clock, I should say."

"The box was locked by you? There is no doubt about that fact?"

"None in the least."

"Where were you standing at the time?"

"In front of the vault door. I had taken out the box myself as I am in the habit of doing, and had stepped there to put it back."

"Was any one near you then?"

"Yes. The cashier was at his desk and the teller had occasion to go to the safe while I stood there. I do not remember seeing any one else in my immediate vicinity."

"Do you remember ever going to the vaults and not finding some one near you at the time or at least in full view of your movements?"

"No."

"I have informed Mr. Gryce," interposed Mr. Sylvester, with a ring in his deep voice that made Mr. Stuyvesant start, "that our chief desire at present is to have his judgment upon the all important question, as to whether this theft was committed by a stranger, or one in the employ and consequently in the confidence of the bank."

Mr. Stuyvesant bowed, every wrinkle in his face manifesting itself with startling distinctness as he slowly moved his eyes and fixed them on the inscrutable countenance of the detective.

"You agree then with these gentlemen," continued the latter, who had a way of seeming more interested in everything and everybody present than the person he was addressing, "that it would be difficult if not impossible for any one unconnected with the bank, to approach the vaults during business hours and abstract anything from them without detection?"

"And do these gentleman both assert that?" queried Mr. Stuyvesant, with a sharp look from uncle to nephew.

"I believe they do," replied the detective, as both the gentlemen bowed, Bertram with an uncontrollable quiver of his lip, and Mr. Sylvester with a deepening of the lines about his mouth, which may or may not have been noticed by this man who appeared to observe nothing.

"I should be loth to conclude that the robbery was committed by any one but a stranger," remarked Mr. Stuyvesant; "but if these gentlemen concur in the statement you have just made, I am bound to acknowledge that I do not myself see how the theft could have been perpetrated by an outsider. Had the box itself been missing, it would be different. I remember my old friend Mr. A—, the president of the police department, telling me of a case where a box containing securities to the amount of two hundred thousand dollars, was abstracted in full daylight from the vaults of one of our largest banks; an act requiring such daring, the directors for a long time refused to believe it possible, until a detective one day showed them another box of theirs which he had succeeded in abstracting in the same way.[1] But the vaults in that instance were in a less conspicuous portion of the bank than ours, besides to approach an open vault, snatch a box from it and escape, is a much simpler matter than to remain long enough to open a box and choose from its contents such papers as appeared most marketable. If a regular thief could do such a thing, it does not seem probable that he would. Nevertheless the most acute judgment is often at fault in these matters, and I do not pretend to have formed an opinion."

The detective who had listened to these words with marked attention, bowed his concurrence and asked if the bonds mentioned by Mr. Stuyvesant were all that had been found missing from the bank. If any of the other boxes had been opened, or if the contents of the safe itself had ever been tampered with.

"The contents of the safe are all correct," came in deep tones from Mr. Sylvester. "Mr. Folger, my nephew and myself went through them this morning. As for the boxes I cannot say, many of them belong to persons travelling; some of them have been left here by trustees of estates, consequently often lie for weeks in the vaults untouched. If however any of them have been opened, we ought to be able to see it. Would you like an examination made of their condition?"

The detective nodded.

Mr. Sylvester at once turned to Mr. Stuyvesant. "May I ask you to mention what officer of the bank you would like to have go to the vaults?"

That gentleman started, looked uneasily about, but meeting Bertram's eye, nervously dropped his own and muttered the name of Folger.

Mr. Sylvester suppressed a sigh, sent for the paying-teller, and informed him of their wishes. He at once proceeded to the vaults. While he was gone, Mr. Gryce took the opportunity to make the following remark.

"Gentlemen," said he, "let us understand ourselves. What you want of me, is to tell you whether this robbery has been committed by a stranger or by some one in your employ. Now to decide this question it is necessary for me to ask first, whether you have ever had reason to doubt the honesty of any person connected with the bank?"

"No," came from Mr. Sylvester with sharp and shrill distinctness. "Since I have had the honor of conducting the affairs of this institution, I have made it my business to observe and note the bearing and character of each and every man employed under me, and I believe them all to be honest."

The glance of the detective while it did not perceptibly move from the large screen drawn across the room at the back of Mr. Sylvester, seemed to request the opinions of the other two gentlemen on this point.

Bertram observing it, subdued the rapid beatings of his heart and spoke with like distinctness. "I have been in the bank the same length of time as my uncle," said he, "and most heartily endorse his good opinion of the various persons in our employ."

"And Mr. Stuyvesant?" the immovable glance seemed to say.

"Men are honest in my opinion till they are proved otherwise," came in short stern accents from the director's lips.

The detective drew back in his chair as if he considered that point decided, and yet Bertram's eye which had clouded at Mr. Stuyvesant's too abrupt assertion, did not clear again as might have been expected.

"There is one more question I desire to settle," continued the detective, "and that is, whether this robbery could have been perpetrated after business hours, by some one in collusion with the person who is here left in charge?"

"No;" again came from Mr. Sylvester, with impartial justice. "The watchman—who by the way has been in the bank for twelve years—could not help a man to find entrance to the vaults. His simple duty is to watch over the bank and give alarm in case of fire or burglary. It would necessitate a knowledge of the combination by which the vault doors are opened, to do what you suggest, and that is possessed by but three persons in the bank."

"And those are?"

"The cashier, the janitor, and myself."

He endeavored to speak calmly and without any betrayal of the effort it caused him to utter those simple words, but a detective's ear is nice and it is doubtful if he perfectly succeeded.

Mr. Gryce however limited himself to a muttered, humph! and a long and thoughtful look at a spot on the green baize of the table before which he sat.

"The janitor lives in the building, I suppose?"

"Yes, and is, as I am sure Mr. Stuyvesant will second me in asserting, honesty to the back-bone."

"Janitors always are," observed the detective; then shortly, "How long has he been with you?"

"Three years."

Another "humph!" and an increased interest in the ink spot.

"That is not long, considering the responsibility of his position."

"He was on the police force before he came to us," remarked Mr. Sylvester.

Mr. Gryce looked as if that was not much of a recommendation.

"As for the short time he has been with us," resumed the other, "he came into the bank the same winter as my nephew and myself, and has found the time sufficient to earn the respect of all who know him."

The detective bowed, seemingly awed by the dignity with which the last statement had been uttered; but any one who knew him well, would have perceived that the film of uncertainty which had hitherto dimmed the brightness of his regard was gone, as if in the other's impressive manner, if not in the suggestion his words had unconsciously offered, the detective had received an answer to some question which had been puzzling him, or laid his hand upon some clue which had till now eluded his grasp. The inquiries which he made haste to pursue, betrayed, however, but little of the tendency of his thoughts.

"The janitor, you say, knows the combination by which the vault doors are opened?"

"The vault doors," emphasized Mr. Sylvester. "The safe is another matter; that stands inside the vault and is locked by a triple combination which as a whole is not known to any one man in this building, not even to myself."

"But the boxes are not kept in the safe?"

"No, they are piled up with the books in the vaults at the side of the safe, as you can see for yourself, if you choose to join Mr. Folger."

"Not necessary. The janitor, then, is the only man besides yourselves, who under any circumstances or for any reason, could get at those boxes after business hours?"

"He is."

"One question more. Who is the man to attend to those boxes? I mean to ask, which of the men in your employ is expected to procure a box out of the vaults when it is called for, and put it back in its place when its owner is through with it?"

"Hopgood usually does that business, the janitor of whom we have just been speaking. When he is upstairs or out of the way, any one else whom it may be convenient to call."

"The janitor, then, has free access to the boxes at all times, night and day?"

"In one sense, yes, in another, no. Should he unlock the vaults at night, the watchman would report upon his proceedings."

"But there must be time between the closing and opening of the bank, when the janitor is alone with the vaults?"

"There is a space of two hours after seven in the morning, when he is likely to be the sole one in charge. The watchman goes home, and Hopgood employs himself in sweeping out the bank and preparing it for the business of the day."

"Are the watchman and the janitor on good terms with one another?"

"Very, I believe."

The detective looked thoughtful. "I should like to see this Hopgood," said he.

But just then the door opened and Mr. Folger came in, looking somewhat pale and disturbed. "We are in a difficulty," cried he, stepping up to the table where they sat. "I have found two of the boxes unlocked; that belonging to Hicks, Saltzer and Co., and another with the name of Harrington upon it. The former has been wrenched apart, the latter opened with some sort of instrument. Would you like to see them, sir?" This to Mr. Sylvester.

With a start that gentleman rose, and as suddenly reseated himself. "Yes," returned he, carefully avoiding his nephew's eye; "bring them in."

"Hicks, Saltzer and Co., is a foreign house," remarked Mr. Stuyvesant to the detective, "and do not send for their box once a fortnight, as I have heard Mr. Sylvester declare. Mr. Harrington is on an exploring expedition and is at present in South America." Then in lower tones, whose sternness was not unmixed with gloom, "The thief seems to have known what boxes to go to."

Bertram flushed and made some passing rejoinder; Mr. Sylvester and the detective alone remained silent.

The boxes being brought in, Mr. Gryce opened them without ceremony. Several papers met his eye in both, but as no one but the owners could know their rightful contents, it was of course impossible for him to determine whether anything had been stolen from them or not.

"Send for the New York agent of Hicks, Saltzer and Co.," came from Mr. Sylvester, in short, business-like command.

Bertram at once rose. "I will see to it," said he. His agitation was too great for suppression, the expression of Mr. Stuyvesant's eye, that in its restlessness wandered in every direction but his own, troubled him beyond endurance. With a hasty move he left the room. The cold eye of the detective followed him.

"Looks bad," came in laconic tones from the paying teller.

"I had hoped the affair begun and ended with my individual loss," muttered Mr. Stuyvesant under his breath.

The stately president and the inscrutable detective still maintained their silence.

Suddenly the latter moved. Turning towards Mr. Sylvester, he requested him to step with him to the window. "I want to have a look at your several employees," whispered he, as they thus withdrew. "I want to see them without being seen by them. If you can manage to have them come in here one by one upon some pretext or other, I can so arrange that screen under the mantel-piece, that it shall not only hide me, but give me a very good view of their faces in the mirror overhead."

"There will be no difficulty about summoning the men," said Mr. Sylvester.

"And you consent to the scheme?"

"Certainly, if you think anything is to be gained by it."

"I am sure that nothing will be lost. And sir, let the cashier be present if you please; and sir," squeezing his watch chain with a complacent air, as the other dropped his eyes, "talk to them about anything that you please, only let it be of a nature that will necessitate a sentence or more in reply. I judge a man as much by his voice as his expression."

Mr. Sylvester bowed, and without losing his self-command, though the short allusion to Bertram had greatly startled him, turned back to the table where Mr. Folger was still standing in conversation with the director.

"I will not detain you longer," said he to the paying teller. "Your discretion will prevent you from speaking of this matter, I trust." Then as the other bowed, added carelessly, "I have something to say to Jessup; will you see that he steps here for a moment?"

Mr. Folger again nodded and left the room. Instantly Mr. Gryce bustled forward, and pulling the screen into the position he thought best calculated to answer his requirements, slid rapidly behind it. Mr. Stuyvesant looked up in surprise.

"I am going to interview the clerks for Mr. Gryce's benefit," exclaimed Mr. Sylvester. "Will you in the meantime look over the morning paper?"

"Thank you," returned the other, edging nervously to one side, "my note-book will do just as well," and sitting down at the remote end of the table, he took out a book from his pocket, above which he bent with very well simulated preoccupation. Mr. Sylvester called in Bertram and then seated himself with a hopeless and unexpectant look, which he for the moment forgot would be reflected in the mirror before him, and so carried to the eye of the watchful detective. In another instant Jessup entered.

What was said in the short interview that followed, is unimportant. Mr. Jessup, the third teller, was one of those clear eyed, straightforward appearing men whose countenance is its own guarantee. It was not necessary to detain him or make him speak. The next man to come in was Watson, and after he had gone, two or three of the clerks, and later the receiving teller and one of the runners. All stopped long enough to insure Mr. Gryce a good view of their faces, and from each and all did Mr. Sylvester succeed in eliciting more or less conversation in response to the questions he chose to put.

With the disappearance of the last mentioned individual, Mr. Gryce peeped from behind the screen. "A set of as honest-looking men as I wish to see!" uttered he with a frank cordiality that was scarcely reflected in the anxious countenances about him. "No sly-boots among them; how about the janitor, Hopgood?"

"He shall be summoned at once, if you desire it," said Mr. Sylvester, "I have only delayed calling him that I might have leisure to interrogate him with reference to his duties, and this very theft. That is if you judge it advisable in me to tamper with the subject unassisted?"

"Your nephew can help you if necessary," replied the imperturbable detective. "I should like to hear what the man, Hopgood, has to say for himself," and he glided back into his old position.

But Mr. Sylvester had scarcely reached out his hand to ring the bell by which he usually summoned the janitor, when the agent of Hicks, Saltzer & Co. came in. It was an interruption that demanded instant attention. Saluting the gentleman with his usual proud reserve, he drew his attention to the box lying upon the table.

"This is yours, I believe, sir," said he. "It was found in our vaults this morning in the condition in which you now behold it, and we are anxious to know if its contents are all correct."

"They have been handled," returned the agent, after a careful survey of the various papers that filled the box, "but nothing appears to be missing."

Three persons at least in that room breathed more easily.

"But the truth is," the gentleman continued, with a half smile towards the silent President of the bank, "there was nothing in this box that would have been of much use to any other parties than ourselves. If there had been a bond or so here, I doubt if we should have come off so fortunately, eh? The lock has evidently been wrenched open, and that is certainly a pretty sure sign that something is not right hereabouts."

"Something is decidedly wrong," came from Mr. Sylvester sternly; "but through whose fault we do not as yet know." And with a few words expressive of his relief at finding the other had sustained no material loss, he allowed the agent to depart.

He had no sooner left the room than Mr. Stuyvesant rose. "Are you going to question Hopgood now?" queried he, nervously pocketing his note-book.

"Yes sir, if you have no objections."

The director fidgeted with his chair and finally moved towards the door.

"I think you will get along better with him alone," said he. "He is a man who very easily gets embarrassed, and has a way of acting as if he were afraid of me. I will just step outside while you talk to him."

But Mr. Sylvester with a sudden dark flush on his brow, hastily stopped him. "I beg you will not," said he, with a quick realization of what Hopgood might be led to say in the forthcoming interview, if he were not restrained by the presence of the director. "Hopgood is not so afraid of you that he will not answer every question that is put to him with straightforward frankness." And he pushed up a chair, with a smile that Mr. Stuyvesant evidently found himself unable to resist. The screen trembled slightly, but none of them noticed it; Mr. Sylvester at once rang for Hopgood.

He came in panting with his hurried descent from the fifth story, his face flushed and his eyes rolling, but without any of the secret perturbation Bertram had observed in them on a former occasion. "He cannot help us," was the thought that darkened the young man's brow as his eyes left the janitor, and faltering towards his uncle, fell upon the table before him.

Everything was reflected in the mirror.

"Well, Hopgood, I have a few questions to put to you this morning," said Mr. Sylvester in a restrained, but not unkindly tone.

The worthy man bowed, bestowed a salutatory roll of his eyes on Mr. Stuyvesant, and stood deferentially waiting.

"No, he cannot help us," was again Bertram's thought, and again his eyes faltered to his uncle's face, and again fell anxiously before him.

"It has not been my habit to trouble you with inquiries about your management of matters under your charge," continued Mr. Sylvester, stopping till the janitor's wandering eyes settled upon his own. "Your conduct has always been exemplary, and your attention to duty satisfactory; but I would like to ask you to-day if you have observed anything amiss with the vaults of late? anything wrong about the boxes kept there? anything in short, that excited your suspicion or caused you to ask yourself if everything was as it should be?"

The janitor's ruddy face grew pale, and his eye fell with startled inquiry on Mr. Harrington's box that still occupied the centre of the table. "No, sir," he emphatically replied, "has anything—"

But Mr. Sylvester did not wait to be questioned. "You have attended to your duties as promptly and conscientiously as usual; you have allowed no one to go to the vaults day or night, who had no business there? You have not relaxed your accustomed vigilance, or left the bank alone at any time during the hours it is under your charge?"

"No sir, not for a minute, sir; that is—" He stopped and his eye wandered towards Mr. Stuyvesant. "Never for a minute, sir," he went on, "without I knew some one was in the bank, who was capable of looking after it."

"The watchman has been at his post every night up to the usual hour?"

"Yes sir."

"There has been no carelessness in closing the vault doors after the departure of the clerks?"

"No sir."

"And no trouble," he continued, with a shade more of dignity, possibly because Hopgood's tell-tale face was beginning to show signs of anxious confusion, "and no trouble in opening them at the proper time each morning?"

"No sir."

"One question more—"

But here Bertram was called out, and in the momentary stir occasioned by his departure, Hopgood allowed himself to glance at the box before him more intently than he had hitherto presumed to do. He saw it was unlocked, and his hands began to tremble. Mr. Sylvester's voice recalled him to himself.

"You are a faithful man," said that gentleman, continuing his speech of a minute before, "and as such we are ready to acknowledge you; but the most conscientious amongst us are sometimes led into indiscretions. Now have you ever through carelessness or by means of any inadvertence, revealed to any one in or out of the bank, the particular combination by which the lock of the vault-door is at present opened?"

"No sir, indeed no; I am much too anxious, and feel my own responsibility entirely too much, not to preserve so important a secret with the utmost care and jealousy."

Mr. Sylvester's voice, careful as he was to modulate it, showed a secret discouragement. "The vaults then as far as you know, are safe when once they are closed for the night?"

"Yes sir." The janitor's face expressed a slight degree of wonder, but his voice was emphatic.

Mr. Sylvester's eye travelled in the direction of the screen. "Very well," said he; and paused to reflect.

In the interim the door opened for a second time. "A gentleman to see Mr. Stuyvesant," said a voice.

With an air of relief the director hastily rose, and before Mr. Sylvester had realized his position, left the room and closed the door behind him. A knell seemed to ring its note in Mr. Sylvester's breast. The janitor, released as he supposed from all constraint, stepped hastily forward.

"That box has been found unlocked," he cried with a wave of his hand towards the table; "some one has been to the vaults, and I—Oh, sir," he hurriedly exclaimed, disregarding in his agitation the stern and forbidding look which Mr. Sylvester in his secret despair had made haste to assume, "you did not want me to say anything about the time you came down so early in the morning, and I went out and left you alone in the bank, and you went to the vaults and opened Mr. Stuyvesant's box by mistake, with a tooth-pick as you remember?"

The mirror that looked down upon that pair, showed one very white face at that moment, but the screen that had trembled a moment before, stood strangely still in the silence.

"No," came at length from Mr. Sylvester, with a composure that astonished himself. "I was not questioning you about matters of a year agone. But you might have told that incident if you pleased; it was very easily explainable."

"Yes sir, I know, and I beg pardon for alluding to it, but I was so taken aback, sir, by your questions; I wanted to tell the exact truth, and I did not want to say anything that would hurt you with Mr. Stuyvesant; that is if I could help it. I hope I did right, sir," he blundered on, conscious he was uttering words he might better have kept to himself, but too embarrassed to know how to emerge from the difficulty into which his mingled zeal and anxiety had betrayed him. "I was never a good hand at answering questions, and if any thing really serious has happened, I shall wish you had taken me at my word and dismissed me immediately after that affair. Constantia Maria would have been a little worse off perhaps, but I should not be on hand to answer questions, and—"

"Hopgood!"

The man started, eyed Mr. Sylvester's white but powerfully controlled countenance, seemed struck with something he saw there, and was silent.

"You make too much now, as you made too much then of a matter that having its sole ground in a mistake, is, as I say, easily explainable. This affair which has come up now, is not so clear. Three of the boxes have been opened, and from one certain valuables have been taken. Can you give me any information that will assist us in our search after the culprit?"

"No sir." The tone was quite humble, Hopgood drew back unconsciously towards the door.

"As for the mistake of a year ago to which you have seen proper to allude, I shall myself take pains to inform Mr. Stuyvesant of it, since it has made such an impression upon you that it trammels your honesty and makes you consider it at all necessary to be anxious about it at this time."

And Hopgood unused to sarcasm from those lips, drew himself together, and with one more agitated look at the box on the table, sidled awkwardly from the room. Mr. Sylvester at once advanced to the screen which he hastily pushed aside. "Well, sir," said he, meeting the detective's wavering eye and forcing him to return his look, "you have now seen the various employees of the bank and heard most of them converse. Is there anything more you would like to inquire into before giving us the opinion I requested?"

"No sir," said the detective, coming forward, but very slowly and somewhat hesitatingly for him. "I think I am ready to say—"

Here the door opened, and Mr. Stuyvesant returned. The detective drew a breath of relief and repeated his words with a business-like assurance. "I think I am ready to say, that from the nature of the theft and the mysterious manner in which it has been perpetrated, suspicion undoubtedly points to some one connected with the bank. That is all that you require of me to-day?" he added, with a bow of some formality in the direction of Mr. Sylvester.

"Yes," was the short reply. But in an instant a change passed over the stately form of the speaker. Advancing to Mr. Gryce, he confronted him with a countenance almost majestic in its severity, and somewhat severely remarked, "This is a serious charge to bring against men whose countenances you yourself have denominated as honest. Are we to believe you have fully considered the question, and realize the importance of what you say?"

"Mr. Sylvester," replied the detective, with great self-possession and some dignity, "a man who is brought every day of his life into positions where the least turning of a hair will sink a man or save him, learns to weigh his words, before he speaks even in such informal inquiries as these."

Mr. Sylvester bowed and turned towards Mr. Stuyvesant. "Is there any further action you would like to have taken in regard to this matter to-day?" he asked, without a tremble in his voice.

With a glance at the half open box of the absent Mr. Harrington, the agitated director slowly shook his head. "We must have time to think," said he.

Mr. Gryce at once took up his hat. "If the charge implied in my opinion strikes you, gentlemen, as serious, you must at least acknowledge that your own judgment does not greatly differ from mine, or why such unnecessary agitation in regard to a loss so petty, by a gentleman worth as we are told his millions." And with this passing shot, to which neither of his auditors responded, he made his final obeisance and calmly left the room.

Mr. Sylvester and Mr. Stuyvesant slowly confronted one another.

"The man speaks the truth," said the former. "You at least suspect some one in the bank, Mr. Stuyvesant?"

"I have no wish to," hastily returned the other, "but facts—"

"Would facts of this nature have any weight with you against the unspotted character of a man never known by you to meditate, much less commit a dishonest action?"

"No; yet facts are facts, and if it is proved that some one in our employ has perpetrated a theft, the mind will unconsciously ask who, and remain uneasy till it is satisfied."

"And if it never is?"

"It will always ask who, I suppose."

Mr. Sylvester drew back. "The matter shall be pushed," said he; "you shall be satisfied. Surveillance over each man employed in this institution ought sooner or later to elicit the truth. The police shall take it in charge."

Mr. Stuyvesant looked uneasy. "I suppose it is only justice," murmured he, "but it is a scandal I would have been glad to avoid."

"And I, but circumstances admit of no other course. The innocent must not suffer for the guilty, even so far as an unfounded suspicion would lead."

"No, no, of course not." And the director bustled about after his overcoat and hat.

Mr. Sylvester watched him with growing sadness. "Mr. Stuyvesant," said he, as the latter stood before him ready for the street, "we have always been on terms of friendship, and nothing but the most pleasant relations have ever existed between us. Will you pardon me if I ask you to give me your hand in good-day?"

The director paused, looked a trifle astonished, but held out his hand not only with cordiality but very evident affection.

"Good day," cried he, "good-day."

Mr. Sylvester pressed that hand, and then with a dignified bow, allowed the director to depart. It was his last effort at composure. When the door closed, his head sank on his hands, and life with all its hopes and honors, love and happiness, seemed to die within him.

He was interrupted at length by Bertram. "Well, uncle?" asked the young man with unrestrained emotion.

"The theft has been committed by some one in this bank; so the detective gives out, and so we are called upon to believe. Who the man is who has caused us all this misery, neither he, nor you, nor I, nor any one, is likely to very soon determine. Meantime—"

"Well?" cried Bertram anxiously, after a moment of suspense.

"Meantime, courage!" his uncle resumed with forced cheerfulness.

But as he was leaving the bank he came up to Bertram, and laying his hand on his shoulder, quietly said:

"I want you to go immediately to my house upon leaving here. I may not be back till midnight, and Miss Fairchild may need the comfort of your presence. Will you do it, Bertram?"

"Uncle! I—"

"Hush! you will comfort me best by doing what I ask. May I rely upon you?"

"Always."

"That is enough."

And with just a final look, the two gentlemen parted, and the shadow which had rested all day upon the bank, deepened over Bertram's head like a pall.

It was not lifted by the sight of Hopgood stealing a few minutes later towards the door by which his uncle had departed, his face pale, and his eyes fixed in a stare, that bespoke some deep and moving determination.

XXXVIII. BLUE-BEARD'S CHAMBER

"Present fears

Are less than horrible imaginings."—MACBETH.

Clarence Ensign was not surprised at the refusal he received from Paula. He had realized from the first that the love of this beautiful woman would be difficult to obtain, even if no rival with more powerful inducements than his own, should chance to cross his path. She was one who could be won to give friendship, consideration, and sympathy without stint; but from the very fact that she could so easily be induced to grant these, he foresaw the improbability, or at least the difficulty of enticing her to yield more. A woman whose hand warms towards the other sex in ready friendship, is the last to succumb to the entreaties of love. The circle of her sympathies is so large, the man must do well, who of all his sex, pierces to the sacred centre. The appearance of Mr. Sylvester on the scene, settled his fate, or so he believed; but he was too much in earnest to yield his hopes without another effort; so upon the afternoon of this eventful day, he called upon Paula.

The first glimpse he obtained of her countenance, convinced him that he was indeed too late. Not for him that anxious pallor, giving way to a rosy tinge at the least sound in the streets without. Not for him that wandering glance, burning with questions to which nothing seemed able to grant reply. The very smile with which she greeted him, was a blow; it was so forgetful of the motive that had brought him there.

"Miss Fairchild," he stammered, with a generous impulse to save her unnecessary pain, "you have rejected my offer and settled my doom; but let me believe that I have not lost your regard, or that hold upon your friendship which it has hitherto been my pleasure to enjoy."

She woke at once to a realization of his position. "Oh Mr. Ensign," she murmured, "can you doubt my regard or the truth of my friendship? It is for me to doubt; I have caused you such pain, and as you may think, so ruthlessly and with such lack of consideration. I have been peculiarly placed," she blushingly proceeded. "A woman does not always know her own heart, or if she does, sometimes hesitates to yield to its secret impulses. I have led you astray these last few weeks, but I first went astray myself. The real path in which I ought to tread, was only last night revealed to me. I can say no more, Mr. Ensign."

"Nor is it necessary," replied he. "You have chosen the better path, and the better man. May life abound in joys for you, Miss Fairchild."

She drew herself up and her hand went involuntarily to her heart. "It is not joy I seek," said she, "but—"

"What?" He looked at her face lit with that heavenly gleam that visited it in rare moments of deepest emotion, and wondered.

"Joy is in seeing the one you love happy," cried she; "earth holds none that is sweeter or higher."

"Then may that be yours," he murmured, manfully subduing the jealous pang natural under the circumstances. And taking the hand she held out to him, he kissed it with greater reverence and truer affection than when, in the first joyous hours of their intercourse, he carried it so gallantly to his lips.

And she—oh, difference of time and feeling—did not remember as of yore, the noble days of chivalry, though he was in this moment, so much more than ever the true knight and the reproachless cavalier.

For Paula's heart was heavy. Fears too unsubstantial to be met and vanquished, had haunted her steps all day. The short note which Mr. Sylvester had written her, lay like lead upon her bosom. She longed for the hours to fly, yet dreaded to hear the clock tick out the moments that possibly were destined to bring her untold suffering and disappointment. A revelation awaiting her in Mr. Sylvester's desk up stairs? That meant separation and farewell; for words of promise and devotion can be spoken, and the heart that hopes, does not limit time to hours.

With Bertram's entrance, her fears took absolute shape. Mr. Sylvester was not coming home to dinner. Thenceforward till seven o'clock, she sat with her hand on her heart, waiting. At the stroke of the clock, she rose, and procuring a candle from her room, went slowly up stairs. "Watch for me," she had said to Aunt Belinda, "for I fear I shall need your care when I come down."

What is there about a mystery however trivial, that thrills the heart with vague expectancy at the least lift of the concealing curtain! As Paula paused before the door, which never to her knowledge had opened to the passage of any other form than that of Mr. Sylvester, she was conscious of an agitation wholly distinct from that which had hitherto afflicted her. All the past curiosity of Ona concerning this room, together with her devices for satisfying that curiosity, recurred to Paula with startling distinctness. It was as if the white hand of that dead wife had thrust itself forth from the shadows to pull her back. The candle trembled in her grasp, and she unconsciously recoiled. But the next moment the thought of Mr. Sylvester struck warmth and determination through her being, and hastily thrusting the key into the lock, she pushed open the door and stepped across the threshold.

Her first movement was that of surprise. In all her dreams of the possible appearance of this room, she had never imagined it to be like this. Plain, rude and homely, its high walls unornamented, its floor uncovered, its furniture limited to a plain desk and two or three rather uncomfortable-looking chairs, it struck upon her fancy with the same sense of incongruity, as might the sight of a low-eaved cottage in the midst of stately palaces and lordly pleasure-grounds. Setting down her candle, she folded her hands to still their tremblings, and slowly looked around her. This was the spot, then, to which he was accustomed to flee when oppressed by any care or harassed by any difficulty; this cold, bare, uninviting apartment with its forbidding aspect unsoftened by the tokens of a woman's care or presence! To this room, humbler than any in her aunt's home in Grotewell, he had brought all his griefs, from the day his baby lay dead in the rooms below, to that awful hour which saw the wife and mother brought into his doors and laid a cold and pulseless form in the midst of his gorgeous parlors! Here he had met his own higher impulses face to face, and wrestled with them through the watches of the night! In this wilderness of seeming poverty, he had dreamed, perhaps, his first fond dream of her as a woman, and signed perhaps his final renunciation of her as the future companion of his life! What did it mean? Why a spot of so much desolation in the midst of so much that was lordly and luxurious? Her fears might give her a possible interpretation, but she would not listen to fears. Only his words should instruct her. Going to the desk, she opened it. A sealed envelope addressed to herself, immediately met her eyes. Taking it out with a slow and reverent touch, she began to read the long and closely written letter which it contained.

And the little candle burned on, shedding its rays over her bended head and upon the dismal walls about her, with a persistency that seemed to bring out, as in letters of fire, the hidden history of long ago, with its vanished days and its forgotten midnights.

XXXIX. FROM A TO Z

"A naked human heart."—YOUNG.

"My Beloved Child:

"So may I call you in this the final hour of our separation, but never again, dear one, never again. When I said to you, just twenty-four hours ago, that my sin was buried and my future was clear, I spake as men speak who forget the justice of God and dream only of his mercy. An hour's time convinced me that an evil deed once perpetrated by a man, is never buried so that its ghost will not rise. Do as we will, repent as we may, the shadowy phantom of a stained and unrighteous youth is never laid; nor is a man justified in believing it so, till death has closed his eyes, and fame written its epitaph upon his tomb.

"Paula, I am at this hour wandering in search of the being who holds the secret of my life and who will to-morrow blazon it before all the world. It is with no hope I seek him. God has not brought me to this pass, to release me at last, from shame and disgrace. Suffering and the loss of all my sad heart cherished, wait at my gates. Only one boon remains, and that is, your sympathy and the consolation of your regard. These, though bestowed as friends bestow them, are very precious to me; I cannot see them go, and that they may not, I tell you the full story of my life.

"My youth was happy—my early youth, I mean. Bertram's father was a dear brother to me, and my mother a watchful guardian and a tender friend. At fifteen, I entered a bank, the small bank in Grotewell, which you ought to remember. From the lowest position in it, I gradually worked my way up till I occupied the cashier's place; and was just congratulating myself upon my prospects, when Ona Delafield returned from boarding-school, a young lady.

"Paula, there is a fascination, which some men who have known nothing deeper and higher, call love. I, who in those days had cherished but few thoughts beyond the ordinary reach of a narrow and somewhat selfish business mind, imagined that the well-spring of all romance had bubbled up within me, when my eyes first fell upon this regal blonde, with her sleepy, inscrutable eyes and bewildering smile. Ulysses within sound of the siren's voice, was nothing to it. He had been warned of his danger and had only his own curiosity to combat, while I was not even aware of my peril, and floated within reach of this woman's power, without making an effort to escape. She was so subtle in her influence, Paula; so careless in the very exercise of her sovereignty. She never seemed to command; yet men and women obeyed her. Peculiarities which mar the matron, are often graces in a young, unmarried girl, whose thoughts are a mystery, and whose emotions an untried field. I believed I had found the queen of all beauty and when in an unguarded hour she betrayed her first appreciation of my devotion, I seemed to burst into a Paradise of delights, where every step I took, only the more intoxicated and bewildered me. My first realization of the sensuous and earthly character of my happiness came with the glimpse of your child-face on that never-to-be-forgotten day when we met beside the river. Like a star seen above the glare of a conflagration, the pure spirit that informed your glance, flashed on my burning soul, and for a moment I knew that in you budded the kind of woman-nature which it befitted a man to seek; that in the hands of such a one as you would make, should he trust his honor and bequeath his happiness. But when did a lover ever break the bonds that imprisoned his fancy, at the inspiration of a passing voice. I went back to Ona and forgot the child by the river.

"Paula, I have no time to utter regrets. This is a hard plain tale which I have to relate; but if you love me still—if, as I have sometimes imagined, you have always loved me—think what my life had been if I had heeded the warning which God vouchsafed me on that day, and contrast it with what it is, and what it must be.

"I went back to Ona, then, and the hold which she had upon me from the first, took form and shape. As well as she could love any one, she loved me, and though she had offers from one or two more advantageous sources, she finally decided that she would risk the future and accept me, if her father consented to the alliance. You who are the niece of the man of whom I must now speak, may or may not know what that meant. I doubt if you do; he left Grotewell while you were a child, and any gossip concerning him must ever fall short of the real truth. Enough, then, that it meant, if Jacob Delafield could see in my future any promises of success sufficient to warrant him in accepting me as his son-in-law, no woman living ought to hesitate to trust me with her hand. He was the Squire of the town, and as such entitled to respect, but he was also something more, as you will presently discover. His answer to my plea was:

"'Well, how much money have you to show?'

"Now I had none. My salary as cashier of a small country bank was not large, and my brother's prolonged sickness and subsequent death, together with my own somewhat luxurious habits, had utterly exhausted it. I told him so, but added that I had, somewhere up among the hills, an old maiden aunt who had promised me five thousand dollars at her death; and that as she was very ill at that time—hopelessly so, her neighbors thought—in a few weeks I should doubtless be able to satisfy him with the sight of a sum sufficient to start us in housekeeping, if no more.

"He nodded at this, but gave me no distinct reply. 'Let us wait,' said he.

"But youth is not inclined to wait. I considered my cause as good as won, and began to make all my preparations accordingly. With a feverish impatience which is no sign of true love, I watched the days go by, and waited for, if I did not anticipate, the death which I fondly imagined would make all clear. At last it came, and I went again into Mr. Delafield's presence.

"'My aunt has just died,' I announced, and stood waiting for the short, concise,

"'Go ahead, then, my boy!' which I certainly expected.

"Instead of that, he gave me a queer inexplicable smile, and merely said, 'I want to see the greenbacks, my lad. No color so good as green, not even the black upon white of 'I promise to pay.'

"I went back to my desk in the bank, chagrined. Ona had told me a few days before that she was tired of waiting, that the young doctor from the next town was very assiduous in his attentions, and as there was no question as to his ability to support a wife, why—she did not finish her sentence, but the toss of her head and her careless tone at parting, were enough to inflame the jealousy of a less easily aroused nature than mine. I felt that I was in hourly danger of losing her, and all because I could not satisfy her father with a sight of the few thousands which were so soon to be mine.

"The reading of my aunt's will, which confirmed my hopes, did not greatly improve matters. 'I want to see the money,' the old gentleman repeated; and I was forced to wait the action of the law and the settlement of the estate. It took longer than even he foresaw. Weeks went by and my poor little five thousand seemed as far from my control as on the day the will was read. There was some trouble, I was not told what, that made it seem improbable that I should reap the benefit of my legacy for some time. Meanwhile Ona accepted the attentions of the young doctor, and my chances of winning her, dwindled rapidly day by day. I became morbidly eager and insanely jealous. Instead of pursuing my advantage—for I undoubtedly possessed one in her own secret inclination towards me—I stood off, and let my rival work his way into her affections unhindered. I was too sore to interrupt his play, as I called it, and too afraid of myself to actually confront him in her presence. But the sight of them riding together one day, was more than I could endure even in my spirit of unresistance. 'He shall not have her,' I cried, and cast about in my mind how to bring my own matters into such shape as to satisfy her father and so win her own consent to my suit. My first thought was to borrow the money, but that was impracticable in a town where each man's affairs are known to his neighbor. My next was to hurry up the settlement of the estate by appeal to my lawyer. The result of the latter course was a letter of many promises, in the midst of which a great temptation assailed me.

"Colonel Japha, of whose history you have heard more or less true accounts, was at that time living in the old mansion you took such pains to point out to me in that walk we took together in Grotewell. He had suffered a great anguish in the flight and degradation of his only daughter, and though the real facts connected with her departure were not known in the village, he was so overcome with shame, and so shattered in health, he lived in the utmost seclusion, opening his doors to but few visitors, among whom I, for some unexplained reason, was one. He used to say he liked me and saw in me the makings of a considerable man; and I, because he was Colonel Japha and a strong spirit, returned his appreciation, and spent many of my bitter and unhappy hours in his presence. It was upon one of these occasions the temptation came to which I have just alluded.

"I had been talking about his health and the advisability of his taking a journey, when he suddenly rose and said, 'Come with me to my study.'

"I of course went. The first thing I saw upon entering was a trunk locked and strapped. 'I am going to Europe to-morrow,' said he, 'to be gone six months.'

"I was astonished, for in that town no one presumed to do anything of importance without consulting his neighbors; but I merely bowed my congratulations, and waited for him to speak, for I saw he had something on his mind that he wished to say. At last it came out. He had a daughter, he said, a daughter who had disgraced him and whom he had forbidden his house. She was not worthy of his consideration, yet he could not help but remember her, and while he never desired to see her enter his doors, it was not his wish that she should suffer want. He had a little money which he had laid by and which he wished to put into my hands for her use, provided anything should happen to him during his absence. 'She is a wanderer now,' he cried, 'but she may one day come back, and then if I am dead and gone, you may give it to her.' I was not to enter it in the bank under his name, but regard it as a personal trust to be used only under such circumstances as he mentioned.

"The joy with which I listened to this proposal amounted almost to ecstacy when he went to his desk and brought out five one thousand dollar bills and laid them in my hand. 'It is not much,' said he, 'but it will save her from worse degradation if she chooses to avail herself of it.'

"Not much; oh no, not much, but just the sum that would raise me out of the pit of despondency into which I had fallen, and give me my bride, a chance in the world, and last, but not least, revenge on the rival I had now learned to hate. I was obliged to give the colonel a paper acknowledging the trust, but that was no hindrance. I did not mean to use the money, only to show it; and long before the colonel could return, my own five thousand would be in my hands—and so, and so, and so, as the devil reasons and young infatuated ears listen.

"Colonel Japha thought I was an honest man, nor did I consider myself otherwise at that time. It was a chance for clever action; a bit of opportune luck that it would be madness to discard. On the day the vessel sailed which carried Colonel Japha out of the country, I went to Mr. Delafield and showed him the five crisp bank notes that represented as it were by proxy, the fortune I so speedily expected to inherit. 'You have wanted to see five thousand dollars in my hand,' said I; 'there they are.'

"His look of amazement was peculiar and ought to have given me warning; but I was blinded by my infatuation and thought it no more than the natural surprise incident to the occasion. 'I have been made to wait a long time for your consent to my suit,' said I; 'may I hope that you will now give me leave to press my claims upon your daughter?'

"He did not answer at once, but smiled, eying meanwhile the notes in my hand with a fascinated gaze which instinctively warned me to return them to my pocket. But I no sooner made a move indicative of that resolve, than he thrust out his cold slim hand and prevented me. 'Let me see them,' cried he.

"There was no reason for me to refuse so simple a request to one in Mr. Delafield's position, and though I had rather he had not asked for the notes, I handed them over. He at once seemed to grow taller. 'So this is your start off in life,' exclaimed he.

"I bowed, and he let his eyes roam for a moment to my face. 'Many a man would be glad of worse,' smiled he; then suavely, 'you shall have my daughter, sir.'

"I must have turned white in my relief, for he threw his head back and laughed in a low unmusical way that at any other time would have affected me unpleasantly. But my only thought then, was to get the money back and rush with my new hopes into the room from which came the low ceaseless hum of his daughter's voice. But at the first movement of my hand towards him, he assumed a mysterious air, and closing his fingers over the notes, said:

"'These are yours, to do what you wish with, I suppose?'

"I may have blushed, but if I did, he took no notice. 'What I wish to do with them,' returned I, 'is to shut them up in the bank for the present, at least till Ona is my wife.'

"'Oh no, no, no, you do not,' came in easy, almost wheedling tones from the man before me. 'You want to put them where they will double themselves in two months.' And before I could realize to what he was tempting me, he had me down before his desk, showing me letters, documents, etc., of a certain scheme into which if a man should put a dollar to-day, it would 'come out three and no mistake, before the year was out. It is a chance in a thousand,' said he; 'if I had half a million I would invest it in this enterprise to-day. If you will listen to me and put your money in there, you will be a rich man before ten years have passed over your head.'

"I was dazzled. I knew enough of such matters to see that it was neither a hoax nor a chimera. He did have a good thing, and if the five thousand dollars had been my own—But I soon came to consider the question without that conditional. He was so specious in his manner of putting the affair before me, so masterful in the way he held on to the money, he gave me no time to think. 'Say the word,' cried he, 'and in two months I bring you back ten thousand for your five. Only two months,' he repeated, and then slowly, 'Ona was born for luxury.'

"Paula, you cannot realize what that temptation was. To amass wealth had never been my ambition before, but now everything seemed to urge it upon me. Dreams of unimagined luxury came to my mind as these words were uttered. A vision of Ona clad in garments worthy of her beauty floated before my eyes; the humble home I had hitherto pictured for myself, broadened and towered away into a palace; I beheld myself honored and accepted as the nabob of the town. I caught a glimpse of a new paradise, and hesitated to shut down the gate upon it. 'I will think of it,' said I, and went into the other room to speak to Ona.

"Ah, if some angel had met me on the threshold! If my mother's spirit or the thought of your dear face could have risen before me then and stopped me! Dizzy, intoxicated with love and ambition, I crossed the room to where she sat reeling off a skein of blue silk with hands that were whiter than alabaster. Kneeling down by her side, I caught those fair hands in mine.

"'Ona,' I cried, 'will you marry me? Your father has given his consent, and we shall be very happy.'

"She bestowed upon me a little pout, and half mockingly, half earnestly inquired, 'What kind of a house are you going to put me in? I cannot live in a cottage.'

"'I will put you in a palace,' I whispered, 'if you will only say that you will be mine.'

"'A palace! Oh, I don't expect palaces; a house like the Japhas' would do. Not but what I should feel at home in a palace,' she added, lifting her lordly head and looking beautiful enough to grace a sceptre. Then, archly for her, 'And papa has given his consent?'

"'Yes,' I ardently cried.

"'Then Dr. Burton might as well go,' she answered. 'I will trust my father's judgment, and take the palace—when it comes.'

"After that, it was impossible to disappoint her.

"Paula, in stating all this, I have purposely confined myself to relating bare facts. You must see us as we were. The glamour which an unreasoning passion casts over even a dishonest act, if performed for the sake of winning a beautiful woman, is no excuse in my own soul for the evil to which I succumbed that day, nor shall it seem so to you. Bare, hard, stern, the fact confronts me from the past, that at the first call of temptation I fell; and with this blot on my character, you will have to consider me—unhappy being that I am!

"I did not realize then, however, all that I had done. The operation entered into by Mr. Delafield prospered, and in two months I had, as he predicted, ten thousand dollars instead of five, in my possession. Besides, I had just married Ona, and for awhile life was a dream of delight and luxury. But there came a day when I awoke to an insight of the peril I had escaped by a mere chance of the die. The money which I had expected from my aunt's will, turned out to be amongst certain funds that had been risked in speculation by some agent during her sickness, and irrecoverably lost. The expression of her good-will was all that ever came to me of the legacy upon which I had so confidently relied.

"I was sitting with my young wife in the pretty parlor of our new home, when the letter came from my lawyer announcing this fact, and I never can make you understand what effect it had upon me. The very walls seemed to shrivel up into the dimensions of a prison's cell; the face that only an hour before had possessed every conceivable charm for me, shone on my changed vision with the allurement, but also with the unreality of a will-o'-the-wisp. All that might have happened if the luck, instead of being in my favor, had turned against me, crushed like a thunderbolt upon my head, and I rose up and left the presence of my young wife, with the knowledge at my heart that I was no more nor less than a thief in the eyes of God, if not in that of my fellow-men; a base thief, who if he did not meet his fit punishment, was only saved from it by fortuitous circumstances and the ignorance of those he had been so near despoiling.

"The bitterness of that hour never passed away. The streets in which I had been raised, the house which had been the scene of my temptation, Mr. Delafield's face, and my own home, all became unendurable to me. I felt as if each man I met must know what I had done; and secret as the transaction had been, it was long before I could enter the bank without a tremor of apprehension lest I should hear from some quarter, that my services there would no longer be required. The only comfort I received was in the thought that Ona did not know at what a cost her hand had been obtained. I was still under the glamour of her languid smiles and countless graces, and was fain to believe that notwithstanding a certain unresponsiveness and coldness in her nature, her love would yet prove a compensation for the remorse that I secretly suffered.

"My distaste for Grotewell culminated. It was too small for me. The money I had acquired through the use of my neighbor's funds burned in my pocket. I determined to move to New York, and with the few thousands I possessed, venture upon other speculations. But this time in all honesty. Yes, I swore it before God and my own soul, that never again would I run a risk similar to that from which I had just escaped. I would profit by the money I had acquired, oh yes, but henceforth all my operations should be legitimate and honorable. My wife, who was fast developing a taste for ease and splendor, seconded my plans with something like fervor, while Mr. Delafield actually went so far as to urge my departure. 'You are bound to make a rich man,' said he 'and must go where great fortunes are to be secured.' He never asked me what became of the five thousand dollars I returned to Colonel Japha upon his arrival from Europe.

"So I came to New York.

"Paula, the man who loses at the outset of a doubtful game, is fortunate. I did not lose, I won. As if in that first dishonest deed of mine I had summoned to my side the aid of evil influences, each and every operation into which I entered prospered. It seemed as if I could not make a mistake; money flowed towards me from all quarters; power followed, and I found myself one of the most successful and one of the most unhappy men in New York. There are some things of which a man cannot write even to the one dear heart he most cherishes and adores. You have lived in my home, and will acquit me from saying much about her who, with all her faults and her omissions, was ever kind to you. But some things I must repeat in order to make intelligible to you the change which gradually took place within me as the years advanced. Beauty, while it wins the lover, can never of itself hold the heart of a husband who possesses aspirations beyond that which passion supplies. Reckless, worldly and narrow-minded as I had been before the commission of that deed which embittered my life, I had become by the very shock that followed the realization of my wrong-doing, a hungry-hearted, eager-minded and melancholy-spirited man, asking but one boon in recompense for my secret remorse, and that was domestic happiness and the sympathetic affection of wife and children. Woman, according to my belief, was born to be chiefly and above all, the consoler. What a man missed in the outside world, he was to find treasured at home. What a man lacked in his own nature, he was to discover in the delicate and sublimated one of his wife. Beautiful dream, which my life was not destined to see realized!

"The birth of my only child was my first great consolation. With the opening of her blue eyes upon my face, a well-spring deep as my unfathomable longing, bubbled up within my breast. Alas, that very consolation brought a hideous grief; the mother did not love her child; and another strand of the regard with which I still endeavored to surround the wife of my youth, parted and floated away out of sight. To take my little one in my arms, to feel her delicate cheek press yearningly to mine, to behold her sweet infantile soul develop itself before my eyes, and yet to realize that that soul would never know the guidance or sympathy of a mother, was to me at once rapture and anguish. I sometimes forgot to follow up a fortunate speculation, in my indulgence of these feelings. I was passionately the father as I might have been passionately the husband and the friend. Geraldine died; how and with what attendant circumstances of pain and regret, I will not, dare not state. The blow struck to the core of my being. I stood shaken before God. The past, with its one grim remembrance—a remembrance that in the tide of business successes and the engrossing affection which had of late absorbed me, had been well-nigh swamped from sight—rose before me like an accusing spirit. I had sinned, and I had been punished; I had sown, and I had reaped.

"More than that, I was sinning still. My very enjoyment of the position I had so doubtfully acquired, was unworthy of me. My very wealth was a disgrace. Had it not all been built upon another man's means? Could the very house I lived in be said to be my own, while a Japha existed in want? In the eyes of the world, perhaps, yes; in my own eyes, no. I became morbid on the subject. I asked myself what I could do to escape the sense of obligation that overwhelmed me. The few sums with which I had been secretly enabled to provide Colonel Japha during the final days of his ruined and impoverished life, were not sufficient. I desired to wipe out the past by some large and munificent return. Had the colonel been living, I should have gone to him, told him my tale and offered him the half of my fortune; but his death cut off all hopes of my righting myself in that way. Only his daughter remained, the poor, lost, reprobated being, whom he was willing to curse, but whom he could not bear to believe suffering. I determined that the debt due to my own peace of mind should be paid to her. But how? Where was I to find this wanderer? How was I to let her know that a comfortable living awaited her if she would only return to her friends and home? Consulting with a business associate, he advised me to advertise. I did so, but without success. I next resorted to the detectives, but all without avail. Jacqueline Japha was not to be found.

"But I did not relinquish my resolve. Deliberately investing a hundred thousand dollars in Government bonds, I put them aside for her. They were to be no longer mine. I gave them to her and to her heirs as completely and irrevocably, I believed, as if I had laid them in her hand and seen her depart with them. I even inserted them as a legacy to her in my will. It was a clear and definite arrangement between me and my own soul; and after I had made it and given orders to my lawyer in Grotewell to acquaint me if he ever received the least news of Jacqueline Japha, I slept in peace.

"Of the years that followed I have small need to speak. They were the years that preceded your coming, my Paula, and their story is best told by what I was when we met again, and you made me know the sweet things of life by entering into my home. Woman as a thoughtful, tender, elevated being had been so long unknown to me! The beauty of the feminine soul with its faith fixed upon high ideals, was one before which I had ever been ready to bow. All that I had missed in my youth, all that had failed me in my maturing manhood, seemed to flow back upon me like a river. I bathed in the sunshine of your pure spirit and imagined that the evil days were over and peace come at last.

"A rude and bitter shock awoke me. Ona's father, who had followed us to New York, and of whose somewhat checkered career during the past few years, I have purposely forborne to speak, had not been above appealing to us for assistance at such times as his frequently unfortunate investments left him in a state of necessity. These appeals were usually made to Ona, and in a quiet way; but one day he met me on the street—it was during the second winter you spent in my home—and dragging me into a restaurant down town, began a long tale, to the effect that he wanted a few thousands from me to put into a certain investment, which if somewhat shady in its character, was very promising as to its results; and gave as a reason why he applied to me for the money, that he knew I had not been above doing a wrongful act once, in order to compass my ends, and therefore would not be liable to hesitate now.

"It was the thunderbolt of my life. My sin was not then buried. It had been known to this man from the start. With an insight for which I had never given him credit, he had read my countenance in the days of my early temptation, and guessed, if he did not know, where the five thousand dollars came from with which I began my career as speculator. Worse than that, he had led me on to the act by which he now sought to hold me. Having been the secret agent in losing my aunt's money, he knew at the time that I was cherishing empty hopes as regarded a legacy from her, yet he let me dally with my expectations, and ensnare myself with his daughter's fascinations, till driven mad by disappointment and longing, I was ready to resort to any means to gain my purpose. It was a frightful revelation to come to me in days when, if I were not a thoroughly honest man, I had at least acquired a deep and ineradicable dread of dishonor. Answering him I know not how, but in a way that while it repudiated his proposition, unfortunately acknowledged the truth of the suppositions upon which it was founded, I left him and went home, a crushed and disheartened man. Life which had been so long in acquiring cheerful hues, was sunk again in darkness; and for days I could not bear the sight of your innocent face, or the sound of your pure voice, or the tokens of your tender and unsuspecting presence in my home. But soon the very natural thought came to comfort me, that the sin I so deplored was as much dead now, as it was before I learned the fact of this man's knowledge of it. That having repented and put it away, I was as free to accept your gentle offices and the regard of all true men, as ever I had been; and beguiled by this plausible consideration, I turned again to my one visible source of consolation, and in the diversion it offered, let the remembrance of this last bitter experience pass slowly from my mind. The fact that Mr. Delafield left town shortly after his interview with me, and smitten by shame perhaps, forbore to acquaint us with his whereabouts or afflict us with his letters, may have aided me in this strange forgetfulness.

"But other and sharper trials were in store; trials that were to test me as a man, and as it proved, find me lacking just where I thought I was strongest. Paula, that saying of the Bible, 'Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall,' might have been written over the door of my house on that day, ten months ago, when we two stood by the hearthstone and talked of the temptations that beset humanity, and the charity we should show to such as succumb to them. Before the day had waned, my own hour had come; and not all the experience of my life, not all the resolves, hopes, fears of my later years, not even the remembrance of your sweet trust and your natural recoil from evil, were sufficient to save me. The blow came so suddenly! the call for action was so peremptory! One moment I stood before the world, rich, powerful, honored, and beloved; the next, I saw myself threatened with a loss that undermined my whole position, and with it the very consideration that made me what I was. But I must explain.

"When I entered the Madison Bank as President, I gave up in deference to the wishes of Mr. Stuyvesant all open speculation in Wall Street. But a wife and home such as I then had, are not to be supported on any petty income; and when shortly after your entrance into my home, the opportunity presented itself of investing in a particularly promising silver mine out West, I could not resist the temptation; regarding the affair as legitimate, and the hazard, if such it were, one that I was amply able to bear. But like most enterprises of the kind, one dollar drew another after it, and I soon found that to make available what I had already invested, I was obliged to add to it more and more of my available funds, until—to make myself as intelligible to you as I can—it had absorbed not only all that had remained to me after my somewhat liberal purchase of the Madison Bank stock, but all I could raise on a pledge of the stock itself. But there was nothing in this to alarm me. I had a man at the mine devoted to my interests; and as the present yield was excellent, and the future of more promise still, I went on my way with no special anxiety. But who can trust a silver mine? At the very point where we expected the greatest result, the vein suddenly gave out, and nothing prevented the stock from falling utterly flat on the market, but the discretion of my agent, who kept the fact a secret, while he quietly went about getting another portion of the mine into working order. He was fast succeeding in this, and affairs were looking daily more promising, when suddenly an intimation received by me in a bit of conversation casually overheard at that reception we attended together, convinced me that the secret was transpiring, and that if great care were not taken, we should be swamped before we could get things into working trim again. Filled with this anxiety, I was about to leave the building, in order to telegraph to my agent, when to my great surprise the card of that very person was brought in to me, together with a request for an immediate interview. You remember it, Paula, and how I went out to see him; but what you did not know then, and what I find some difficulty in relating now, is that his message to me was one of total ruin unless I could manage to give into his hand, for immediate use, the sum of a hundred thousand dollars.

"The facts making this demand necessary were not what you may have been led to expect. They had little or nothing to do with the new operations, which were progressing successfully and with every promise of an immediate return, but arose entirely out of a law-suit then in the hands of a Colorado judge for decision, and which, though it involved well-nigh the whole interest of the mine, had never till this hour given me the least uneasiness, my lawyers having always assured me of my ultimate success. But it seems that notwithstanding all this, the decision was to be rendered in favor of the other party. My agent, who was a man to be trusted in these matters, averred that five days before, he had learned from most authentic sources what the decision was likely to be. That the judge's opinion had been seen—he did not tell me how, he dared not, nor did I presume to question, but I have since learned that not only had the copyist employed by the judge turned traitor, but that my own agent had been anything but scrupulous in the use he had made of a willing and corruptible instrument—and that if I wanted to save myself and the others connected with me from total and irremediable loss, I must compromise with the other parties at once, who not being advised of the true state of affairs, and having but little faith in their own case, had long ago expressed their willingness to accept the sum of a hundred thousand dollars as a final settlement of the controversy. My agent, if none too nice in his ideas of right and wrong, was, as I have intimated, not the man to make a mistake; and when to my question as to how long a time he would give me to look around among my friends and raise the required sum, he replied, 'Ten hours and no more,' I realized my position, and the urgent necessity for immediate action.

"The remainder of the night is a dream to me. There was but one source from which I could hope in the present condition of my affairs, to procure a hundred thousand dollars; and that was from the box where I had stowed away the bonds destined for the use of the Japha heirs. To borrow was impossible, even if I had been in possession of proper securities to give. I was considered as having relinquished speculation and dared not risk the friendship of Mr. Stuyvesant by a public betrayal of my necessity. The Japha bonds or my own fortune must go, and it only remained with me to determine which.

"Paula, nothing but the ingrained principle of a lifetime, the habit of doing the honest thing without thought or hesitation, saves a man at an hour like that. Strong as I believed myself to be in the determination never again to flaw my manhood by the least action unworthy of my position as the guardian of trusts, earnest as I was in my recoil from evil, and sincere as I may have been in my admiration of and desire for the good, I no sooner saw myself tottering between ruin and a compromise with conscience, than I hesitated—hesitated with you under my roof, and with the words we had been speaking still ringing in my ears. Ona's influence, for all the trials of our married life, was still too strong upon me. To think of her as deprived of the splendor which was her life, daunted my very soul. I dared not contemplate a future in which she must stand denuded of everything which made existence dear to her; yet how could I do the evil thing I contemplated, even to save her and preserve my own position! For—and you must understand this—I regarded any appropriation of these funds I had delegated to the use of the Japhas, as a fresh and veritable abuse of trust. They were not mine. I had given them away. Unknown to any one but my own soul and God, I had deeded them to a special purpose, and to risk them as I now proposed doing, was an act that carried me back to the days of my former delinquency, and made the repentance of the last few years the merest mockery. What if I might recover them hereafter and restore them to their place; the chances in favor of their utter loss were also possible, and honesty deals not with chances. I suffered so, I had a momentary temptation towards suicide; but suddenly, in the midst of the struggle, came the thought that perhaps in my estimate of Ona I had committed a gross injustice, that while she loved splendor seemingly more than any woman I had ever known, she might be as far from wishing me to retain her in it at the price of my own self-respect, as the most honest-hearted wife in the world; and struck by the hope, I left my agent at a hotel and hurried home through the early morning to her side. She Was asleep, of course, but I wakened her. It was dark and she had a right to be fretful, but when I whispered in her ear, 'Get up and listen to me, for our fortune is at stake,' she at once rose and having risen, was her clearest, coldest, most implacable self. Paula, I told her my story, my whole story as I have told it to you here. I dropped no thread, I smoothed over no offence. Torturing as it was to my pride, I laid bare my soul before her, and then in a burst of appeal such as I hope never to be obliged to make use of again, asked her as she was a woman and a wife, to save me in this hour of my temptation.

"Paula, she refused. More than that, she expressed the bitterest scorn of my mawkish conscientiousness, as she called it. That I should consider myself as owing anything to the detestable wretch who was the only representative of the Japhas, was bad enough, but that I should go on treasuring the money that would save us, was disgraceful if not worse, and betrayed a weakness of mind for which she had never given me credit.

"'But Ona,' I cried, 'if it is a weakness of mind, it is also an equivalent to my consciousness of right living. Would you have me sacrifice that?'

"'I would have you sacrifice anything necessary to preserve us in our position,' said she; and I stood aghast before an unscrupulousness greater than any I had hitherto been called upon to face.

"'Ona,' repeated I, for her look was cold, 'do you realize what I have been telling you? Most wives would shudder when informed that their husbands had perpetrated a dishonest act in order to win them.'

"A thin strange smile heralded her reply. 'Most wives would,' returned she, 'but most wives are ignorant. Did you suppose I did not know what it cost you to marry me? Papa took care I should miss no knowledge that might be useful to me.'

"'And you married me knowing what I had done!' exclaimed I, with incredulous dismay.

"'I married you, knowing you were too clever, or believing you to be too clever, to run such a risk again.'

"I can say no more concerning that hour. With a horror for this woman such as I had never before experienced for living creature, I rushed out of her presence, loathing the air she breathed, yet resolved to do her bidding. Can you understand a man hating a woman, yet obeying her; despising her, yet yielding? I cannot, now, but that day there seemed no alternative. Either I must kill myself or follow her wishes. I chose to do the latter, forgetting that God can kill, and that, too, whom and when He pleases.

"Going down to the bank, I procured the bonds from my box in the safe. I felt like a thief, and the manner in which it was done was unwittingly suggestive of crime, but with that and the position in which I have since found myself placed by this very action, I need not cumber my present narrative. Handing the bonds to my agent with orders to sell them to the best advantage, I took a short walk to quiet my nerves and realize what I had done, and then went home.

"Paula, had God in his righteous anger seen fit to strike me down that day, it would have been no more than my due and aroused in me, perhaps, no more than a natural repentence. But when I saw her for whose sake I had ostensibly committed this fresh abuse of trust, lying cold and dead before me, the sword of the Almighty pierced me to the soul, and I fell prostrate beneath a remorse to which any regret I had hitherto experienced, was as the playing of a child with shadows. Had I by the losing of my right arm been able to recall my action, I would have done it; indeed I made an effort to recover myself; had my agent followed up with an order to return me the bonds I had given him, but it was too late, the compromise had already been effected by telegraph and the money was out of our hands. The deed was done and I had made myself unworthy of your presence and your smile at the very hour when both would have been inestimable to me. You remember those days; remember our farewell. Let me believe you do not blame me now for what must have seemed harsh and unnecessary to you then.

"There is but little more to write, but in that little is compressed the passion, longing, hope and despair of a lifetime. When I told you as I did a few hours ago that my sin was dead and its consequences at an end, I repeat that I fully and truly believed it. The hundred thousand dollars I had sent West, had been used to advantage, and only day before yesterday I was enabled to sell out my share in the mine, for a large sum that leaves me free and unembarrassed, to make the fortune of more than one Japha, should God ever see fit to send them across my pathway. More than that, Mr. Delafield, of whose discretion I had sometimes had my fears, was dead, having perished of a fever some months before in San Francisco; and of all men living, there were none as I believed, who knew anything to the discredit of my name. I was clear, or so I thought, in fortune and in fame; and being so, dreamed of taking to my empty and yearning arms, the loveliest and the purest of mortal women. But God watched over you and prevented an act whose consequences might have been so cruel. In an hour, Paula, in an hour, I had learned that the foul thing was not dead, that a witness had picked up the words I had allowed to fall in my interview with my father-in-law in the restaurant two years before; an unscrupulous witness who had been on my track ever since, and who now in his eagerness for a victim, had by mistake laid his clutch upon our Bertram. Yes, owing to the similarity of our voices and the fact that we both make use of a certain tell-tale word, this patient and upright nephew of mine stands at this moment under the charge of having acknowledged in the hearing of this person, to the committal of an act of dishonesty in the past. A foolish charge you will say, and one easily refuted. Alas, a fresh act of dishonesty lately perpetrated in the bank, complicates matters. A theft has been committed on some of Mr. Stuyvesant's effects, and that, too, under circumstances that involuntarily arouse suspicion against some one of the bank officials; and Bertram, if not sustained in his reputation, must suffer from the doubts which naturally have arisen in Mr. Stuyvesant's breast. The story which this man could tell, must of course shake the faith of any one in the reputation of him against whom it is directed, and the man intends to repeat his story, and that, too, in the very ears of him upon whose favor Bertram depends for his life's happiness and the winning of the woman he adores. I adore you, Paula, but I cannot clasp you to my heart across another sin. If the detectives whom we shall call in to-morrow, cannot exonerate those connected with the bank from the theft lately committed there—and the fact that you have been allowed to read this letter, prove they have not—I must do what I can to relieve Bertram from his painful position, by taking upon myself the onus of that past transgression which of right belongs to my account; and this once done, let the result be for good or ill, any bond between you and me is cut loose forever. I have not learned to love at this late hour, to wrong the precious thing I cherish. Death as it is to me to say good-bye to the one last gleam of heavenly light that has shot across my darkened way, it must be done, dear heart, if only to hold myself worthy of the tender and generous love you have designed to bestow upon me. Bertram, who is all generosity, may guess but does not know, what I am about to do. Go down to him, dear; tell him that at this very moment, perhaps, I am clearing his name before the wretch who has so ruthlessly fastened his fang upon him; that his love and Cicely's shall prosper, as he has been loyal, and she trusting, all these years of effort and probation; that I give him my blessing, and that if we do not meet again, I delegate to him the trust of which I so poorly acquitted myself. But before you go, stop a moment and in this room, which has always symbolized to my eyes the poverty which was my rightful due, kneel and pray for my soul; for if God grants me the wish of my heart, he will strike me with sudden death after I have taken upon myself the disgrace of my past offences. Life without love can be borne, but life without honor never. To come and go amongst my fellow-men with a shadow on the fame they have always believed spotless! Do not ask me to attempt it! Pray for my soul, but pray too, that I may perish in some quick and sudden way before ever your dear eyes rest upon my face again.

"And now, as though this were to be the end, let me take my last farewell of you. I have loved you, Paula, loved you with my heart, my mind and my soul. You have been my angel of inspiration and the source of all my comfort. I kneel before you in gratitude, and I stand above you in blessing. May every pang I suffer this hour, redound to you in some sweet happiness hereafter. I do not quarrel with my fate, I only ask God to spare you from its shadow. And He will. Love will flow back upon your young life, and in regions where our eye now fails to pierce, you will taste every joy which your generous heart once thought to bestow on

"EDWARD SYLVESTER."

XL. HALF-PAST SEVEN

"I would it were midnight, Hal, and all well."—HENRY IV.

The library was dim; Bertram, who had felt the oppressive influence of the great empty room, had turned down the lights, and was now engaged in pacing the floor, with restless and uneven steps, asking himself a hundred questions, and wishing with all the power of his soul, that Mr. Sylvester would return, and by his appearance cut short a suspense that was fast becoming unendurable.

He had just returned from his third visit to the front door, when the curtain between him and the hall was gently raised, and Paula glided in and stood before him. She was dressed for the street, and her face where the light touched it, shone like marble upon which has fallen the glare of a lifted torch.

"Paula!" burst from the young man's lips in surprise.

"Hush!" said she, her voice quavering with an emotion that put to defiance all conventionalities, "I want you to take me to the place where Mr. Sylvester is gone. He is in danger; I know it, I feel it. I dare not leave him any longer alone. I might be able to save him if—if he meditates anything that—" she did not try to say what, but drew nearer to Bertram and repeated her request. "You will take me, won't you?"

He eyed her with amazement, and a shudder seized his own strong frame. "No," cried he, "I cannot take you; you do not know what you ask; but I will go myself if you apprehend anything serious. I remember where it is. I studied the address too closely, to readily forget it."

"You shall not go without me," returned Paula with steady decision. "If the danger is what I fear, no one else can save him. I must go," she added, with passionate importunity as she saw him still looking doubtful. "Darkness and peril are nothing to me in comparison with his safety. He holds my life in his hand," she softly whispered, "and what will not one do for his life!" Then quickly, "If you go without me I shall follow with Aunt Belinda. Nothing shall keep me in the house to-night."

He felt the uselessness of further objection, yet he ventured to say, "The place where he has gone is one of the worst in the city; a spot which men hesitate to enter after dark. You don't know what you ask in begging me to take you there."

"I do, I realize everything."

With a sudden awe of the great love which he thus beheld embodied before him, Bertram bowed his head and moved towards the door. "I may consider it wise to obtain the guidance of a policeman through the quarter into which we are about to venture. Will you object to that?"

"No," was her quick reply, "I object to nothing but delay."

And with a last look about the room, as if some sensation of farewell were stirring in her breast, she laid her hand on Bertram's arm, and together they hurried away into the night.

BOOK V. WOMAN'S LOVE

XLI. THE WORK OF AN HOUR

Base is the slave that pays."—HENRY V.

"Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned,

Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned."—CONGREVE.

Mr. Sylvester upon leaving the bank, had taken his usual route up town. But after an aimless walk of a few blocks, he suddenly paused, and with a quiet look about him, drew from his pocket the small slip of paper which Bertram had laid on his table the night before, and hurriedly consulted its contents. Instantly an irrepressible exclamation escaped him, and he turned his face to the heavens with the look of one who recognizes the just providence of God. The name which he had just read, was that of the old lover of Jacqueline Japha, Roger Holt, and the address given, was 63 Baxter Street.

Twilight comes with different aspects to the broad avenues of the rich, and the narrow alleys of the poor. In the reeking slums of Baxter Street, poetry would have had to search long for the purple glamour that makes day's dying hour fair in open fields and perfumed chambers. Even the last dazzling gleam of the sun could awaken no sparkle from the bleared windows of the hideous tenement houses that reared their blank and disfigured walls toward the west. The chill of the night blast and the quick dread that follows in the steps of coming darkness, were all that could enter these regions, unless it was the stealthy shades of vice and disease.

Mr. Sylvester standing before the darkest and most threatening of the many dark and threatening houses that cumbered the street, was a sight to draw more than one head from the neighboring windows. Had it been earlier, he would have found himself surrounded by a dozen ragged and importunate children; had it been later, he would have run the risk of being garroted by some skulking assassin; as it was, he stood there unmolested, eying the structure that held within its gloomy recesses the once handsome and captivating lover of Jacqueline Japha. He was not the only man who would have hesitated before entering there. Low and insignificant as the building appeared—and its two stories certainly looked dwarfish enough in comparison with the two lofty tenement houses that pressed it upon either side—there was something in its quiet, almost uninhabited aspect that awakened a vague apprehension of lurking danger. A face at a window would have been a relief; even the sight of a customer in the noisome groggery that occupied the ground floor. From the dwellings about, came the hum of voices and now and then the sound of a shrill laugh or a smothered cry, but from this house came nothing, unless it was the slow ooze of a stream of half-melted snow that found its way from under the broken-down door-way to the gutter beyond.

Stepping bravely forward, Mr. Sylvester entered the open door. A flight of bare and rickety steps met his eye. Ascending them, he found himself in a hall which must have been poorly lighted at any time, but which at this late hour was almost dark. It was not very encouraging, but pressing on, he stopped at a door and was about to knock, when his eyes becoming accustomed to the darkness, he detected standing at the foot of the stairs leading to the story above, the tall and silent figure of a woman. It was no common apparition. Like a sentinel at his post, or a spy on the outskirts of the enemy's camp, she stood drawn up against the wall, her whole wasted form quivering with eagerness or some other secret passion; darkness on her brow and uncertainty on her lip. She was listening, or waiting, or both, and that with an entire absorption that prevented her from heeding the approach of a stranger's step. Struck by so sinister a presence in a place so dark and desolate, Mr. Sylvester unconsciously drew back. As he did so, the woman thrilled and looked up, but not at him. A lame child's hesitating and uneven step was heard crossing the floor above, and it was towards it she turned, and for it she composed her whole form into a strange but evil calmness.

"Ah, he let you come then!" Mr. Sylvester heard her exclaim in a low smothered tone, whose attempted lightness did not hide the malevolent nature of her interest.

"Yes," came back in the clear and confiding tones of childhood. "I told him you loved me and gave me candy-balls, and he let me come."

A laugh quick and soon smothered, disturbed the surrounding gloom. "You told him I loved you! Well, that is good; I do love you; love you as I do my own eyes that I could crush, crush, for ever having lingered on the face of my betrayer!"

The last phrase was muttered, and did not seem to convey any impression to the child. "Hold out your arms and catch me," cried he; "I am going to jump."

She appeared to comply; for he gave a little ringing laugh that was startlingly clear and fresh.

"He asked me what your name was," babbled he, as he nestled in her arms. "He is always asking what your name is; Dad forgets, Dad does; or else it's because he's never seen you."

"And what did you tell him?" she asked, ignoring the last remark with an echo of her sarcastic laugh.

"Mrs. Smith, of course."

She threw back her head and her whole form acquired an aspect that made Mr. Sylvester shudder. "That's good," she cried, "Mrs. Smith by all means." Then with a sudden lowering of her face to his—"Mrs. Smith is good to you, isn't she; lets you sit by her fire when she has any, and gives you peanuts to eat and sometimes spares you a penny!"

"Yes, yes," the boy cried.

"Come then," she said, "let's go home."

She put him down on the floor, and gave him his little crutch. Her manner was not unkind, and yet Mr. Sylvester trembled as he saw the child about to follow her.

"Didn't you ever have any little boys?" the child suddenly asked.

The woman shrank as if a burning steel had been plunged against her breast. Looking down on the frightened child, she hissed out from between her teeth, "Did he tell you to ask me that? Did he dare—" She stopped and pressed her arms against her swelling heart as if she would smother its very beats. "Oh no, of course he didn't tell you; what does he know or care about Mrs. Smith!" Then with a quick gasp and a wild look into the space before her, "My child dead, and her child alive and beloved! What wonder that I hate earth and defy heaven!"

She caught the boy by the hand and drew him quickly away. "You will be good to me," he cried, frightened by her manner yet evidently fascinated too, perhaps on account of the faint sparks of kindness that alternated with gusts of passion he did not understand. "You won't hurt me; you'll let me sit by the fire and get warm?"

"Yes, yes."

"And eat a bit of bread with butter on it?"

"Yes, yes."

"Then I'll go."

She drew him down the hall. "Why do you like to have me come to your house?" he prattled away.

She turned on him with a look which unfortunately Mr. Sylvester could not see. "Because your eyes are so blue and your skin is so white; they make me remember her!"

"And who is her?"

She laughed and seemed to hug herself in her rage and bitterness. "Your mother!" she cried, and in speaking it, she came upon Mr. Sylvester.

He at once put out his hand.

"I don't know who you are," said he, "but I do not think you had better take the child out to-night. From what you say, his father is evidently upstairs; if you will give the boy to me, I will take him back and leave him where he belongs."

"You will?" The slow intensity of her tone was indescribable. "Know that I don't bear interference from strangers." And catching up the child, she rushed by him like a flash. "You are probably one of those missionaries who go stealing about unasked into respectable persons' rooms," she called back. "If by any chance you wander into his, tell him his child is in good hands, do you hear, in good hands!" And with a final burst of her hideous laugh, she dashed down the stairs and was gone.

Mr. Sylvester stood shocked and undecided. His fatherly heart urged him to search at once for the parent of this lame boy, and warn him of the possible results of entrusting his child to a woman with so little command over herself. But upon taking out his watch and finding it later by a good half-hour than he expected, he was so struck with the necessity of completing his errand, that he forgot everything else in his anxiety to confront Holt. Knocking at the first door he came to, he waited. A quick snarl and a surprised, "Come in!" announced that he had scared up some sort of a living being, but whether man or woman he found it impossible to tell, even after the door opened and the creature, whoever it was, rose upon him from a pile of rags scattered in one corner.

"I want Mr. Holt; can you tell me where to find him?"

"Upstairs," was the only reply he received, as the creature settled down again upon its heap of tattered clothing.

Fain to be content with this, he went up another flight and opened another door. He was more successful this time; one glance of his eye assured him that the man he was in search of, sat before him. He had never seen Mr. Holt; but the regular if vitiated features of the person upon whom he now intruded, his lank but not ungraceful form, and free if not airy manners, were not so common among the denizens of this unwholesome quarter, that there could be any doubt as to his being the accomplished but degenerate individual whose once attractive air had stolen the heart of Colonel Japha's daughter.

He was sitting in front of a small pine table, and when Mr. Sylvester's eyes first fell upon him, was engaged in watching with a somewhat sinister smile, the final twirl of a solitary nickle which he had set spinning on the board before him. But at the sound of a step at the door, a lightning change passed over his countenance, and rising with a quick anticipatory "Ah!" he turned with hasty action to meet the intruder. A second exclamation and a still more hasty recoil were the result. This was not the face or the form of him whom he had expected.

"Mr. Holt, I believe?" inquired Mr. Sylvester, advancing with his most dignified mien.

The other bowed, but in a doubtful way that for a moment robbed him of his usual air of impudent self-assertion.

"Then I have business with you," continued Mr. Sylvester, laying the man's own card down on the table before him. "My name is Sylvester," he proceeded, with a calmness that surprised himself; "and I am the uncle of the young man upon—whom you are at present presuming to levy blackmail."

The assurance which for a moment had deserted the countenance of the other, returned with a flash. "His uncle!" reëchoed he, with a low anomalous bow; "then it is from you I may expect the not unreasonable sum which I demand as the price of my attentions to your nephew's interest. Very good, I am not particular from what quarter it comes, so that it does come and that before the clock has struck the hour which I have set as the limit of my forbearance."

"Which is seven o'clock, I believe?"

"Which is seven o'clock."

Mr. Sylvester folded his arms and sternly eyed the man before him. "You still adhere to your intention, then, of forwarding to Mr. Stuyvesant at that hour, the sealed communication now in the hands of your lawyer?"

The smile with which the other responded was like the glint of a partly sheathed dagger. "My lawyer has already received his instructions. Nothing but an immediate countermand on my part, will prevent the communication of which you speak, from going to Mr. Stuyvesant at seven o'clock."

The sigh which rose in Mr. Sylvester's breast did not disturb the severe immobility of his lip. "Have you ever considered the possibility," said he, "of the man whom you overheard talking in the restaurant in Dey Street two years ago, not being Mr. Bertram Sylvester of the Madison Bank?"

"No," returned the other, with a short, sharp, and wholly undisturbed laugh, "I do not think I ever have."

"Will you give me credit, then, for speaking with reason, when I declare to you that the man you overheard talking in the manner you profess to describe in your communication, was not Mr. Bertram Sylvester?"

A shrug of the shoulders, highly foreign and suggestive, was the other's answer. "It was Mr. Sylvester or it was the devil," proclaimed he—"with all deference to your reason, my good sir; or why are you here?" he keenly added.

Mr. Sylvester did not reply. With a sarcastic twitch of his lips the man took up the nickle with which he had been amusing himself when the former came in, and set it spinning again upon the table. "It is half-past six," remarked he. "It will take me a good half hour to go to my lawyer."

Mr. Sylvester made a final effort. "If you could be convinced," said he, "that you have got your grasp upon the wrong man, would you still persist in the course upon which you seem determined?"

With a dexterous sleight-of-hand movement, the man picked up the whirling nickle and laid it flat on the table before him. "A fellow whose whole fortune is represented by a coin like that"—tapping the piece significantly—"is not as easily convinced as a man of your means, perhaps. But if I should be brought to own that I had made a mistake in my man, I should still feel myself justified in proceeding against him, since my very accusation of him seems to be enough to arouse such interest on the part of his friends."

"Wretch!" leaped to Mr. Sylvester's lips, but he did not speak it. "His friends," declared he, "have most certainly a great interest in his reputation and his happiness; but they never will pay any thing upon coercion to preserve the one or to insure the other."

"They won't!" And for the first time Roger Holt slightly quavered.

"A man's honor and happiness are much, and he will struggle long before he will consent to part from them. But a citizen of a great town like this, owes something to his fellows, and submitting to blackmail is but a poor precedent to set. You will have to proceed as you will, Mr. Holt; neither my nephew nor myself, have any money to give you."

The glare in the man's eyes was like that of an aroused tiger. "Do you mean to say," cried he, "that you will not give from your abundance, a paltry thousand dollars to save one of your blood from a suspicion that will never leave him, never leave him to the end of his miserable days?"

"I mean to say that not one cent will pass from me to you in payment of a silence, which as a gentleman, you ought to feel it incumbent upon you to preserve unasked, if only to prove to your fellow-men that you have not entirely lost all the instincts of the caste to which you once belonged. Not that I look for anything so disinterested from you," he went on. "A man who could enter the home of a respectable gentleman, and under cover of a brotherly regard, lure into degradation and despair, the woman who was at once its ornament and pride, cannot be expected to practice the virtues of ordinary manhood, much less those of a gentleman and a Christian. He is a wretch, who, whatever his breeding or antecedents, is open to nothing but execration and contempt."

With an oath and a quick backward spring, Roger Holt cried out, "Who are you, and by what right do you come here to reproach me with a matter dead and buried, by heaven, a dozen years ago?"

"The right of one who, though a stranger, knows well what you are and what you have done. Colonel Japha himself is dead, but the avenger of his honor yet lives! Roger Holt, where is Jacqueline Japha?"

The force with which this was uttered, seemed to confound the man. For a moment he stood silent, his eye upon his guest, then a subtle change took place in his expression; he smiled with a slow devilish meaning, and tossing his head with an airy gesture, lightly remarked:

"You must ask some more constant lover than I. A woman who was charming ten years ago—Bah! what would I be likely to know about her now!"

"Everything, when that woman is Jacqueline Japha," cried Mr. Sylvester, advancing upon him with a look that would have shaken most men, but which only made the eye of this one burn more eagerly. "Though you might easily wish to give her the slip, she is not one to forget you. If she is alive, you know where she is; speak then, and let the worth of one good action make what amends it can for a long list of evil ones."

"You really want to see the woman, then; enough to pay for it, I mean?"

"The reward which has been offered for news of the fate or whereabouts of Jacqueline Japha, still stands good," was Mr. Sylvester's reply.

The excited stare with which the man received this announcement, slowly subsided into his former subtle look.

"Well, well," said he, "we will see." The truth was, that he knew no more than the other where this woman was to be found. "If I happen to come across her in any of my wanderings, I shall know where to apply for means to make her welcome. But that is not what at present concerns us. Your nephew is losing ground with every passing minute. In a half-hour more his future will be decided, unless you bid me order my lawyer to delay the forwarding of that communication to Mr. Stuyvesant. In that case—"

"I believe I have already made it plain to you that I have no intentions of interfering with your action in this matter," quoth Mr. Sylvester, turning slowly toward the door. "If you are determined to send your statement, it must go, only—" And here he turned upon the bitterly disappointed man with an aspect whose nobility the other was but little calculated to appreciate—"only when you do so, be particular to state that the person whose story you thus forward to a director of the Madison Bank, is not Bertram Sylvester, the cashier, but Edward Sylvester, his uncle, and the bank's president."

And the stately head bowed and the tall form was about to withdraw, when Holt with an excited tremble that affected even his words, advanced and seized Mr. Sylvester by the arm.

"His uncle!" cried he, "why that is what you—Great heaven!" he exclaimed, falling back with an expression not unmixed with awe, "you are the man and you have denounced yourself!" Then quickly, "Speak again; let me hear your voice."

And Mr. Sylvester with a sad smile, repeated in a slow and meaning tone, "It is but one little fuss more!" then as the other cringed, added a dignified, "Good evening, Mr. Holt," and passed swiftly across the room towards the door.

What was it that stopped him half-way, and made him look back with such a startled glance at the man he had left behind him? A smell of smoke in the air, the faint yet unmistakable odor of burning wood, as though the house were on fire, or—

Ha! the man himself has discerned it, is on his feet, is at the window, has seen what? His cry of mingled terror and dismay does not reveal. Mr. Sylvester hastens to his side.

The sight which met his eyes, did not for the moment seem sufficient to account for the degree of emotion expressed by the other. To be sure, the lofty tenement-house which towered above them from the other side of the narrow yard upon which the window looked, was oozing with smoke, but there were no flames visible, and as yet no special manifestations of alarm on the part of its occupants. But in an instant, even while they stood there, arose the sudden and awful cry of "Fire!" and at the same moment they beheld the roof and casements before them, swarm with pallid faces, as men, women and children rushed to the first outlet that offered escape, only to shrink back in renewed terror from the deadly gulf that yawned beneath them.

It was horrible, all the more that the fire seem to be somewhere in the basement story, possibly at the foot of the stairs, for none of the poor shrieking wretches before them seemed to make any effort to escape downwards, but rather surged up towards the top of the building, waving their arms as they fled, and filling the dusk with cries that drowned the sound of the coming engines.

The scene appeared to madden Holt. "My boy! my boy! my boy!" rose from his lips in an agonized shriek; then as Mr. Sylvester gave a sudden start, cried out with indiscribable anguish, "He is there, my boy, my own little chap! A woman in that house has bewitched him, and when he is not with me, he is always at her side. O God, curses on my head for ever letting him out of my sight! Do you see him, sir? Look for him, I beseech you; he is lame and small; his head would barely reach to the top of the window-sill."

"And that was your boy!" cried Mr. Sylvester. And struck by an appeal which in spite of his abhorrence of the man at his side, woke every instinct of fatherhood within him, he searched with his glance the long row of windows before them. But before his eye had travelled half way across the building, he felt the man at his side quiver with sudden agony, and following the direction of his glance, saw a wan, little countenance looking down upon them from a window almost opposite to where they stood.

"It is my boy!" shrieked the man, and in his madness would have leaped from the casement, if Mr. Sylvester had not prevented him.

"You will not help him so," cried the latter. "See, he is only a few feet above a bridge that appears to communicate with the roof of the next house. If he could be let down—"

But the man had already precipitated himself towards the door of the room in which they were. "Tell him not to jump," he called back. "I am going next door and will reach him in a moment. Tell him to hold on till I come."

Mr. Sylvester at once raised his voice. "Don't jump, little boy Holt. If there is no one there to drop you down, wait for your father. He is going on the bridge and will catch you."

The little fellow seemed to hear, for he immediately held out his arms, but if he spoke, his voice was drowned in the frightful hubbub. Meanwhile the smoke thickened around him, and a dull ominous glare broke out from the midst of the building, against which his weazen little face looked pallid as death.

"His father will be too late," groaned Mr. Sylvester, feeling himself somehow to blame for the child's horrible situation; then observing that the other occupants of the building had all disappeared towards the front, realized that whatever fire-escapes may have been provided, were doubtless in that direction, and raising his voice once more, called out across the yard, "Don't wait any longer, little fellow; follow the rest to the front; you will be burned if you stay there."

But the child did not move, only held out his arms in a way to unman the strongest heart; and presently while Mr. Sylvester was asking himself what could be done, he heard his shrill piping tones rising above the hiss of the flames, and listening, caught the words:

"I cannot get away. She is holding me, Dad. Help your little feller; help me, I'm so afraid of being burnt." And looking closer, Mr. Sylvester discerned the outlines of a woman's head and shoulders above the small white face.

A distinct and positive fear at once seized him. Leaning out, the better to display his own face and figure, he called to that unknown woman to quit her hold and let the child go; but a discordant laugh, rising above the roar of the approaching flames, was his only reply. Sickened with apprehension, he drew back and himself made for the stairs in the wild idea of finding the father. But just then the mad figure of Holt appeared at the door, with frenzy in all his looks.

"I cannot push through the crowd," cried he, "I have fought and struggled and shrieked, but it is all of no use. My boy is burning alive and I cannot reach him." A lurid flame shot at that moment from the building before them, as if in emphasis to his words.

"He is prisoned there by a woman," cried Mr. Sylvester, pointing to the figure whose distorted outlines was every moment becoming more and more visible in the increasing glare. "See, she has him tight in her arms and is pressing him against the window-sill."

The man with a terrible recoil, looked in the direction of his child, saw the little white face with its wild expression of conscious terror, saw the face of her who towered implacably behind it, and shrieked appalled.

"Jacqueline!" he cried, and put his hands up before his face as if his eyes had fallen upon an avenging spirit.

"Is that Jacqueline Japha?" asked Mr. Sylvester, dragging down the other's hands and pointing relentlessly towards the ominous figure in the window before him.

"Yes, or her ghost," cried the other, shuddering under a horror that left him little control of his reason.

"Then your boy is lost," murmured Mr. Sylvester, with a vivid remembrance of the words he had overheard. "She will never save her rival's child, never."

The man looked at him with dazed eyes. "She shall save him," he cried, and stretching far out of the window by which he stood, he pointed to the bridge and called out, "Drop him, Jacqueline, don't let him burn. He can still reach the next house if he runs. Save my darling, save him."

But the woman as if waiting for his voice, only threw back her head, and while a bursting flame flashed up behind her, shrieked mockingly back:

"Oh I have frightened you up at last, have I? You can see me now, can you? You can call on Jacqueline now? The brat can make you speak, can he? Well, well, call away, I love to hear your voice. It is music to me even in the face of death."

"My boy! my boy," was all he could gasp; "save the child, Jacqueline, only save the child!"

But the harsh scornful laugh she returned, spoke little of saving. "He is so dear," she hissed. "I love the offspring of my rival so much! the child that has taken the place of my own darling, dead before ever I had seen its innocent eyes. Oh yes, yes, I will save it, save it as my own was saved. When I saw the puny infant in your arms the day you passed me with her, I swore to be its friend, don't you remember! And I am so much of a one that I stick by him to the death, don't you see?" And raising him up in her arms till his whole stunted body was visible, she turned away her brow and seemed to laugh in the face of the flames.

The father writhed below in his agony. "Forgive," he cried, "forgive the past and give me back my child. It's all I have to love; it's all I've ever loved. Be merciful, Jacqueline, be merciful!"

Her face flashed back upon him, still and white. "And what mercy have you ever shown to me! Fool, idiot, don't you see I have lived for this hour! To make you feel for once; to make you suffer for once as I have suffered. You love the boy! Roger Holt, I once loved you."

And heedless of the rolling volume of smoke that now began to pour towards her, heedless even of the long tongues of hungry flame that were stretched out as if feeling for her from the distance behind, she stood immovable, gazing down upon the casement where he knelt, with an indescribable and awful smile upon her lips.

The sight was unbearable. With an instinct of despair both men drew back, when suddenly they saw the woman start, unloose her clasp and drop the child out of her arms upon the bridge. A hissing stream of water had fallen upon the flames, and the shock had taken her by surprise. In a moment the father was himself again.

"Get up, little feller, get up," he cried, "or if you cannot walk, crawl along the bridge to the next house. I see a fireman there; he will lift you in."

But at that moment the flames, till now held under some control, burst from an adjoining window, and caught at the woodwork of the bridge. The father yelled in dismay.

"Hurry, little feller, hurry!" he cried. "Get over towards the next house before it is too late."

But a paralysis seemed to have seized the child; he arose, then stopped, and looking wildly about, shook his head. "I cannot," he cried, "I cannot." And the woman laughed, and with a hug of her empty arms, seemed to throw her taunts into the space before her.

"Are you a demon?" burst from Mr. Sylvester's lips in uncontrollable horror. "Don't you see you can save him if you will? Jump down, then, and carry him across, or your father's curse will follow you to the world beyond."

"Yes, climb down," cried the fireman, "you are lighter than I. Don't waste a minute, a second."

"It is your own child, Jacqueline, your own child!" came from Holt's white lips in final desperation. "I have deceived you; your baby did not die; I wanted to get rid of you and I wanted to save him, so I lied to you. The baby did not die; he lived, and that is he you see lying helpless on the bridge beneath you."

Not the clutch of an advancing flame could have made her shrink more fearfully. "It is false," she cried; "you are lying now; you want me to save her child, and dare to say it is mine."

"As God lives!" he swore, lifting his hand and turning his face to the sky.

Her whole attitude seemed to cry, "No, no," to his assertion but slowly as she stood there, the conviction of its truth seemed to strike her, and her hair rose on her forehead and she swayed to and fro, as if the earth were rolling under her feet. Suddenly she gave a yell, and bounded from the window. Catching the child in her arms, she attempted to regain the refuge beyond, but the flames had not dallied at their work while she hesitated. The bridge was on fire and her retreat was cut off. She did not attempt to escape. Stopping in the centre of the rocking mass, she looked down as only a mother in her last agony can do, on the child she held folded in her arms; then as the flames caught at her floating garments, stooped her head and printed one wild and passionate kiss upon his brow. Another instant and they saw her head rise to the accusing heavens, then all was rush and horror, and the swaying structure fell before their eyes, sweeping its living freight into the courtyard beneath their feet.

XLII. PAULA RELATES A STORY SHE HAS HEARD

"None are so desolate but something dear,

Dearer than self, possesses or possessed."—BYRON.

In the centre of a long low room not far from the scene of the late disaster, a solitary lamp was burning. It had been lit in haste and cast but a feeble flame, but its light was sufficient to illuminate the sad and silent group that gathered under its rays.

On a bench by the wall, crouched the bowed and stricken form of Roger Holt, his face buried in his hands, his whole attitude expressive of the utmost grief; at his side stood Mr. Sylvester, his tall figure looming sombrely in the dim light; and on the floor at their feet, lay the dead form of the little lame boy.

But it was not upon their faces, sad and striking as they were, that the eyes of the few men and women scattered in the open door-way, rested most intently. It was upon her, the bruised, bleeding, half-dead mother, who kneeling above the little corpse, gazed down upon it with the immobility of despair, moaning in utter heedlessness of her own condition, "My baby, my baby, my own, own baby!"

The fixedness with which she eyed the child, though the blood was streaming from her forehead and bathing with a still deeper red her burned and blistered arms, made Mr. Sylvester's sympathetic heart beat. Turning to the silent figure of Holt, he touched him on the arm and said with a gesture in her direction:

"You have not deceived the woman? That is really her own child that lies there?"

The man beside him, started, looked up with slowly comprehending eyes, and mechanically bowed his head. "Yes," assented he, and relapsed into his former heavy silence.

Mr. Sylvester touched him again. "If it is hers, how came she not to know it? How could you manage to deceive such a woman as that?"

Holt started again and muttered, "She was sick and insensible. She never saw the baby; I sent it away, and when she came to herself, told her it was dead. We had become tired of each other long before, and only needed the breaking of this bond to separate us. When she saw me again, it was with another woman at my side and an infant in my arms. The child was weakly and looked younger than he was. She thought it her rival's and I did not undeceive her." And the heavy head again fell forward, and nothing disturbed the sombre silence of the room but the low unvarying moan of the wretched mother, "My baby, my baby, my own, own baby!"

Mr. Sylvester moved over to her side. "Jacqueline," said he, "the child is dead and you yourself are very much hurt. Won't you let these good women lay you on a bed, and do what they can to bind up your poor blistered arms?"

But she heard him no more than the wind's blowing. "My baby," she moaned, "my own, own baby!"

He drew back with a troubled air. Grief like this he could understand but knew not how to alleviate. He was just on the point of beckoning forward one of the many women clustered in the door-way, when there came a sound from without that made him start, and in another moment a young man had stepped hastily into the room, followed by a girl, who no sooner saw Mr. Sylvester, than she bounded forward with a sudden cry of joy and relief.

"Bertram! Paula! What does this mean? What are you doing here?"

A burst of sobs from the agitated girl was her sole reply.

"Such a night! such a place!" he exclaimed, throwing his arm about Paula with a look that made her tremble through her tears. "Were you so anxious about me, little one?" he whispered. "Would not your fears let you rest?"

"No, no; and we have had such a dreadful time since we got here. The house where we expected to find you, is on fire, and we thought of nothing else but that you had perished within it. But finally some one told us to come here, and—" She paused horror-stricken; her eyes had just fallen upon the little dead child and the moaning mother.

"That is Jacqueline Japha," whispered Mr. Sylvester. "We have found her, only to close her eyes, I fear."

"Jacqueline Japha!" Paula's hands unclosed from his arm.

"She was in the large tenement house that burned first; that is her child whose loss she is mourning."

"Jacqueline Japha!" again fell with an indescribable tone from Paula's lips. "And who is that?" she asked, turning and indicating the silent figure by the wall.

"That is Roger Holt, the man who should have been her husband."

"Oh, I remember him," she cried; "and her, I remember her, and the little child too. But," she suddenly exclaimed, "she told me then that she was not his mother."

"And she did not know that she was; the man had deceived her."

With a quick thrill Paula bounded forward. "Jacqueline Japha," she cried, falling with outstretched hands beside the poor creature; "thank God you are found at last!"

But the woman was as insensible to this cry as she had been to all others. "My baby," she wailed, "my baby, my own, own baby!"

Paula recoiled in dismay, and for a moment stood looking down with fear and doubt upon the fearful being before her. But in another instant a heavenly instinct seized her, and ignoring the mother, she stooped over the child and tenderly kissed it. The woman at once woke from her stupor. "My baby!" she cried, snatching the child up in her arms with a gleam of wild jealousy; "nobody shall touch it but me. I killed it and it is all mine now!" But in a moment she had dropped the child back into its place, and was going on with the same set refrain that had stirred her lips from the first.

Paula was not to be discouraged. Laying her hand on the child's brow, she gently smoothed back his hair, and when she saw the old gleam returning to the woman's countenance, said quietly, "Are you going to carry it to Grotewell to be buried? Margery Hamlin is waiting for you, you know?"

The start which shook the woman's haggard frame, encouraged her to proceed.

"Yes; you know she has been keeping watch, and waiting for you so long! She is quite worn out and disheartened; fifteen years is a long time to hope against hope, Jacqueline."

The stare of the wretched creature deepened into a fierce and maddened glare. "You don't know what you are talking about," cried she, and bent herself again over the child.

Paula went on as if she had not spoken. "Any one that is loved as much as you are, Jacqueline, ought not to give way to despair; even if your child is dead, there is still some one left whom you can make supremely happy."

"Him?" the woman's look seemed to say, as she turned and pointed with frightful sarcasm to the man at their back.

Paula shrank and hastily shook her head. "No, no, not him, but—Let me tell you a story," she whispered eagerly. "In a certain country-town not far from here, there is a great empty house. It is dark, and cold, and musty. No one ever goes there but one old lady, who every night at six, crosses its tangled garden, unlocks its great side door, enters within its deserted precincts, and for an hour remains there, praying for one whose return she has never ceased to hope and provide for. She is kneeling there to-night, at this very hour, Jacqueline, and the love she thus manifests is greater than that of man to woman or woman to man. It is like that of heaven or the Christ."

The woman before her rose to her feet. She did not speak, but she looked like a creature before whose eyes a sudden torch had been waved.

"Fifteen years has she done this," Paula solemnly continues. "She promised, you know; and she never has forgotten her promise."

With a cry the woman put out her hands. "Stop!" she cried, "stop! I don't believe it. No one loves like that; else there is a God and I—" She paused, quivered, gave one wild look about her, and then with a quick cry, something between a moan and a prayer, succumbed to the pain of her injuries, and sank down insensible by the side of her dead child.

With a reverent look Paula bent over her and kissed her seared and bleeding forehead. "For Mrs. Hamlin's sake," she whispered, and quietly smoothed down the tattered clothing about the poor creature's wasted frame.

Mr. Sylvester turned quietly upon the man who had been the cause of all this misery. "I charge myself with the care of that woman," said he, "and with the burial of your child. It shall be placed in decent ground with all proper religious ceremonial."

"What, you will do this!" cried Holt, a flush of real feeling for a moment disturbing the chalk-white pallor of his cheek. "Oh sir, this is Christian charity; and I beg your pardon for all that I may have meditated against you. It was done for the child," he went on wildly; "to get him the bread and butter he often lacked. I didn't care so much for myself. I hated to see him hungry and cold and ailing; I might have worked, but I detest work, and—But no matter about all that; enough that I am done with endeavoring to extort money from you. Whatever may have happened in the past, you are free from my persecutions in the future. Henceforth you and yours can rest in peace."

"That is well," cried a voice over his shoulder, and Bertram with an air of relief stepped hastily forward. "You must be very tired," remarked he, turning to his uncle. "If you will take charge of Paula, I will do what I can to see that this injured woman and the dead child are properly cared for. I am so relieved, sir, at this result," he whispered, with a furtive wring of his uncle's hand, "that I must express my joy in some way."

Mr. Sylvester smiled, but in a manner that reflected but little of the other's satisfaction. "Thank you," said he, "I am tired and will gladly delegate my duties to you. I trust you to do the most you can for both the living and the dead. That woman for all her seeming poverty is the possessor of a large fortune;" he whispered; "let her be treated as such." And with a final word to Holt who had sunk back against the wall in his old attitude of silent despair, Mr. Sylvester took Paula upon his arm, and quietly led her out of this humble but not unkind refuge.

XLIII. DETERMINATION

"But alas! to make me

A fixed figure for the time of scorn

To point his slow unmoving finger at!"—OTHELLO.

"Let me but bear your love, I'll bear your cares."—HENRY V.

"Paula!"

They had reached home and were standing in the library.

"Yes," said she, lowering her head before his gaze with a sweet and conscious blush.

"Did you read the letter I left for you in my desk up stairs?"

She put her hand to her bosom and drew forth the closely written sheet. "Every word," she responded, and smilingly returned it to its place.

He started and his chest heaved passionately. "You have read it," he cried, "and yet could follow me into that den of unknown dangers at an hour like this, and with no other guide than Bertram?"

"Yes," she answered.

He drew a deep breath and his brow lost its deepest shadow. "You do not despise me then," he exclaimed "My sin has not utterly blotted me out of your regard?"

The glance with which she replied seemed to fill the whole room with its radiance. "I am only beginning to realize the worth of the man who has hitherto been a mystery to me," she declared. Then as he shook his head, added with a serious air, "The question with all true hearts must ever be, not what a man has been, but what he is. He who for the sake of shielding the innocent from shame and sorrow, would have taken upon himself the onus of a past disgrace, is not unworthy a woman's devotion."

Mr. Sylvester smiled mournfully, and stroked her hand which he had taken in his. "Poor little one," he murmured. "I know not whether to feel proud or sorry for your trust and tender devotion. It would have been a great and unspeakable grief to me to have lost your regard, but it might have been better if I had; it might have been much better for you if I had!"

"What, why do you say that?" she asked, with a startled gleam in her eye. "Do you think I am so eager for ease and enjoyment, that it will be a burden for me to bear the pain of those I love? A past pain, too," she added, "that will grow less and less as the days go by and happiness increases."

He put her back with a quick hand. "Do not make it any harder for me than necessary," he entreated, "Do you not see that however gentle may be your judgment of my deserts, we can never marry, Paula?"

The eyes which were fixed on his, deepened passionately. "No," she whispered, "no; not if your remorse for the past is all that separates us. The man who has conquered himself, has won the right to conquer the heart of a woman. I can say no more—" She timidly held out her hand.

He grasped it with a man's impetuosity and pressed it to his heart, but he did not retain it. "Blessings upon you, dear and noble heart!" he cried. "God will hear my prayers and make you happy—but not with me. Paula," he passionately continued, taking her in his arms and holding her to his breast, "it cannot be. I love you—I will not, dare not say, how much—but love is no excuse for wronging you. My remorse is not all that separates us; possible disgrace lies before me; public exposure at all events; I would indeed be lacking in honor were I to subject you to these."

"But," she stammered, drawing back to look into his face, "I thought that was all over; that the man had promised silence; that you were henceforth to be relieved from his persecutions? I am sure he said so."

"He did, but he forgot that my fate no longer rested upon his forbearance. The letter which records my admission of sin was in his lawyer's hands, Paula, and has already been despatched to Mr. Stuyvesant. Say what we will, rebel against it as we will, Cicely's father knows by this time that the name of Sylvester is not spotless."

The cry which she uttered in her sudden pain and loss made him stoop over her with despairing fondness. "Hush! my darling, hush!" cried he. "The trial is so heavy, I need all my strength to meet it. It breaks my heart to see you grieve. I cannot bear it. I deserve my fate, but you—Oh you—what have you done that you should be overwhelmed in my fall!" Putting her gently away from his breast, he drew himself up and with forced calmness said, "I have yet to inform Mr. Stuyvesant upon which of the Sylvesters' should rest the shadow of his distrust. To-night he believes in Bertram's lack of principle, but to-morrow—"

Her trembling lips echoed the word.

"He shall know that the man who confessed to having done a wrong deed in the past, is myself, Paula."

The head which had fallen on her breast, rose as at the call of a clarion. "And is it at the noblest moment of your life that you would shut me away from your side? No, no. Heaven does not send us a great and mighty love for trivial purposes. The simple country maid whom you have sometimes declared was as the bringer of good news to you, shall not fail you now." Then slowly and with solemn assurance, "If you go to Mr. Stuyvesant's to-morrow, and you will, for that is your duty, you shall not go alone; Paula Fairchild accompanies you."

XLIV. IN MR. STUYVESTANT'S PARLORS

"Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud

Turn forth her silver lining on the night?"—COMUS.

"Unworthy?"

"Yes."

Cicely stared at her father with wide-open and incredulous eyes. "I cannot believe it," she murmured; "no, I cannot believe it."

Her father drew up a chair to her side. "My daughter," said he, with unusual tenderness, "I have hesitated to tell you this, fearing to wound you; but my discretion will allow me to keep silence no longer. Bertram Sylvester is not an honest man, and the sooner you make up your mind to forget him, the better."

"Not honest?" You would scarcely have recognized Cicely's voice. Her father's hand trembled as he drew her back to his side.

"It is a hard revelation for me to make to you, after testifying my approval of the young man. I sympathize with you, my child, but none the less I expect you to meet this disappointment bravely. A theft has been committed in our bank—"

"You do not accuse him of theft! Oh father, father!"

"No," he stammered. "I do not accuse him, but facts look very strongly against some one in our trust, and—"

"But that is not sufficient," she cried, rising in spite of his detaining hand till she stood erect before him. "You surely would not allow any mere circumstantial evidence to stand against a character as unblemished as his, even if he were not the man whom your daughter—"

He would not let her continue. "I admit that I should be careful how I breathed suspicion against a man whose record was unimpeached," he assented, "but Bertram Sylvester does not enjoy that position. Indeed, I have just received a communication which goes to show, that he once actually acknowledged to having perpetrated an act of questionable integrity. Now a man as young as he, who—"

"But I cannot believe it," she moaned. "It is impossible, clearly impossible. How could he look me in the face with such a sin on his conscience! He could not, simply could not. Why, father, his brow is as open as the day, his glance clear and unwavering as the sunlight. It is some dreadful mistake. It is not Bertram of whom you are speaking!"

Her father sighed. "Of whom else should it be? Come my child, do you want to read the communication which I received last night? Do you want to be convinced?"

"No, no;" she cried; but quickly contradicted herself with a hurried, "Yes, yes, let me be made acquainted with what there is against him, if only that I may prove to you it is all a mistake."

"There is no mistake," he muttered, handing her a folded paper. "This statement was written two years ago; I witnessed it myself, though I little knew against whose honor it was directed. Read it, Cicely, and then remember that I have lost bonds out of my box at the bank, that could only have been taken by some one connected with the institution."

She took the paper in her hand, and eagerly read it through. Suddenly she started and looked up. "And you say that this was Bertram, this gentleman who allowed another man to accuse him of a past dishonesty?"

"So the person declares who forwarded me this statement; and though he is a poor wretch and evidently not above making mischief, I do not know as we have any special reason to doubt his word."

Cicely's eyes fell and she stood before her father with an air of indecision. "I do not think it was Bertram," she faltered, but said no more.

"I would to God for your sake, it was not!" he exclaimed. "But this communication together with the loss we have sustained at the bank, has shaken my faith, Cicely. Young men are so easily led astray nowadays; especially when playing for high stakes. A man who could leave his profession for the sake of winning a great heiress—"

"Father!"

"I know he has made you think it was for love; but when the woman whom a young man fancies, is rich, love and ambition run too closely together to be easily disentangled. And now, my dear, I have said my say and leave you to act according to the dictates of your judgment, sure that it will be in a direction worthy of your name and breeding." And stooping for a hasty kiss, he gave her a last fond look and quietly left the room.

And Cicely? For a moment she stood as if frozen in her place, then a great tremble seized her, and sinking down upon a sofa, she buried her face from sight, in a chaos of feeling that left her scarcely mistress of herself. But suddenly she started up, her face flushed, her eyes gleaming, her whole delicate form quivering with an emotion more akin to hope than despair.

"I cannot doubt him," she whispered; "it were as easy to doubt my own soul. He is worthy if I am worthy, true if I am true; and I will not try to unlove him!"

But soon the reaction came again, and she was about to give full sway to her grief and shame, when the parlor door opened—she herself was sitting in the extension room—and she saw Mr. Sylvester and Paula come in. She at once rose to her feet; but she did not advance. A thousand hopes and fears held her enchained where she was; besides there was something in the aspect of her friends, which made her feel as though a welcome even from her, would at that moment be an intrusion.

"They have come to see father," she thought "and—"

Ah what, Cicely?

Paula, who was too absorbed in her own feelings to glance into the extension room beyond, approached Mr. Sylvester and laid her hand upon his arm. "Whatever comes," said she, "truth, honor and love remain."

And he bowed his head and seemed to kiss her hand, and Cicely observing the action, grew pale and dropped her eyes, realizing as by a lightning's flash, both the nature of the feeling that prompted this unusual manifestation on his part, and the possible sorrows that lay before her dearest friend, if not before herself, should the secret suspicions she cherished in regard to Mr. Sylvester prove true. When she had summoned up courage to glance again in their direction, Mr. Stuyvesant had entered the parlor and was nervously welcoming his guests.

Mr. Sylvester waited for no preamble. "I have come," said he, in his most even and determined tones, "to speak to you in regard to a communication from a man by the name of Holt, which I was told was to be sent to you last evening. Did you receive such a one?"

Mr. Stuyvesant flushed, grew still more nervous in his manner and uttered a short, "I did," in a tone severer than he perhaps intended.

"It will not be too much for me, then, to conclude, that in your present estimation my nephew stands committed to a past dishonesty?"

"It has been one of my chief sources of regret—one of them I say," repeated Mr. Stuyvesant, "that any loss of esteem on the part of your nephew, must necessarily reflect upon the peace if not the honor of a man I hold in such high regard as yourself. I assure you I feel it quite as a brother might, quite as a brother."

Mr. Sylvester at once rose. "Mr. Stuyvesant," declared he, "my nephew is as honest a man as walks this city's streets. If you will accord me a few minutes private conversation, I think I can convince you so."

"I should be very glad," replied Mr. Stuyvesant, glancing towards the extension-room where he had left his daughter. "I have always liked the young man." Then with a quick look in the other's face, "You are not well, Mr. Sylvester?"

"Thank you, I am not ill; let us say what we have to, at once, if you please." And with just a glance at Paula, he followed the now somewhat agitated director from the room.

Cicely who had started forward at their departure, glanced down the long parlor before her, and hastily faltered back; Paula was praying. But in a few moments her feelings overcame her timidity, and hurrying into her friend's presence, she threw her arms about her neck and pressed her cheek to hers. "Let us pray together," she whispered.

Paula drew back and looked her friend in the face. "You know what all this means?" she asked.

"I guess," was the low reply.

Paula checked a sob and clasped Cicely to her bosom. "He loves me," she faltered, "and he is doing at this moment what he believes will separate us. He is a noble man, Cicely, noble as Bertram, though he once did—" She paused. "It is for him to say what, not I," she softly concluded.

"Then Bertram is noble," Cicely timidly put in.

"Have you ever doubted it?"

"No."

And hiding their blushes on each other's shoulders, the two girls sat breathlessly waiting, while the clock ticked away in the music-room and the moments came and went that determined their fate. Suddenly they both rose. Mr. Stuyvesant and Mr. Sylvester were descending the stairs. Mr. Sylvester came in first. Walking straight up to Paula, he took her in his arms and kissed her on the forehead.

"My betrothed wife!" he whispered.

With a start of incredulous joy, Paula looked up. His glance was clear but strangely solemn and peaceful.

"He has heard all I had to say," added he; "he is a just man, but he is also a merciful one. Like you he declares that not what a man was, but what he is, determines the judgment of true men concerning him." And taking her on his arm, he stood waiting for Mr. Stuyvesant who now came in.

"Where is my daughter?" were that gentleman's words, as he closed the door behind him.

"Here, papa."

He held out his hand, and she sprang towards him. "Cicely," said he, not without some tokens of emotion in his voice, "it is only right that I should inform you that we were all laboring under a mistake, in charging Mr. Bertram Sylvester with the words that were uttered in the Dey Street coffee-house two years ago. Mr. Sylvester has amply convinced me that his nephew neither was, nor could have been present there at that time. It must have been some other man, of similar personality."

"Oh thank you, thank you!" Cicely's look seemed to say to Mr. Sylvester. "And he is quite freed from reproach?" she asked, with a smiling glance into her father's face.

A hesitancy in Mr. Stuyvesant's manner, struck with a chill upon more than one heart in that room.

"Yes," he admitted at last; "the mere fact that a mysterious robbery has been committed upon certain effects in the bank of which he is cashier, is not sufficient to awaken distrust as to his integrity, but—"

At that moment the door-bell rung.

"Your father would say," cried Mr. Sylvester, taking advantage of the momentary break, to come to the relief of his host, "that my nephew is too much of a gentleman to desire to press any claim he may imagine himself as possessing over you, while even the possibility of a shadow rests upon his name."

"The man who stole the bonds will be found," said Cicely.

And as if in echo to her words the parlor door opened, and a messenger from the bank stepped briskly up to Mr. Stuyvesant.

"A note from Mr. Folger," said he, with a quick glance at Mr. Sylvester.

Mr. Stuyvesant took the paper handed him, read it hastily through, and looked up with an air of some bewilderment.

"I can hardly believe it possible," cried he, "but Hopgood has absconded."

"Hopgood absconded?"

"Yes; is not that the talk at the bank?" inquired Mr. Stuyvesant, turning to the messenger.

"Yes sir. He has not been seen since yesterday afternoon when he left before the bank was closed for the night. His wife says she thinks he meant to run away, for before going, he came into the room where she was, kissed her and then kissed the child; besides it seems that he took with him some of his clothes."

"Humph! and I had as much confidence in that man—"

"As I have now," came from Mr. Sylvester as the door closed upon the messenger. "If Hopgood has run away, it was from some generous but mistaken idea of sacrificing himself to the safety of another whom he may possibly believe guilty."

"No," rejoined Mr. Stuyvesant, "for here is a note from him that refutes that supposition. It is addressed to me and runs thus:

"DEAR SIR.—I beg your pardon and that of Mr. Sylvester for leaving my duties in this abrupt manner. But I have betrayed my trust and am no longer worthy of confidence. I am a wretched man and find it impossible to face those who have believed in my honesty and discretion. If I can bring the money back, you shall see me again, but if not, be kind to my wife and little one, for the sake of the three years when I served the bank faithfully.

"JOHN HOPGOOD."

"I don't understand it," cried Mr. Sylvester, "that looks—"

"As if he knew where the money was."

"I begin to hope," breathed Cicely.

Her father turned and surveyed her. "This puts a new aspect on matters," said he.

She glanced up beaming. "Oh, will you, do you say, that you think the shadow of this crime has at last found the spot upon which it can rightfully rest?"

"It would not be common sense in me to deny that it has most certainly shifted its position."

With a radiant look at Cicely, Paula crossed to Mr. Stuyvesant's side, and laying her hand on his sleeve, whispered a word or two in his ear. He immediately glanced out of the window at the carriage standing before the door, then looked back at her and nodded with something like a smile. In another moment he stood at the front door.

"Be prepared," cried Paula to Cicely.

It was well she spoke, for when in an instant later Mr. Stuyvesant re-entered the parlor with Bertram at his side, the rapidly changing cheek of the gentle girl showed that the surprise, even though thus tempered, was almost too much for her self-possession.

Mr. Stuyvesant did not wait for the inevitable embarrassment of the moment to betray itself in words. "Mr. Sylvester," said he, to the young cashier, "we have just received a piece of news from the bank, that throws unexpected light upon the robbery we were discussing yesterday. Hopgood has absconded, and acknowledges here in writing that he had something to do with the theft!"

"Hopgood, the janitor!" The exclamation was directed not to Mr. Stuyvesant but to Mr. Sylvester, towards whom Bertram turned with looks of amazement.

"Yes, it is the greatest surprise I ever received," returned that gentleman.

"And Mr. Sylvester," continued Mr. Stuyvesant, with nervous rapidity and a generous attempt to speak lightly, "there is a little lady here who is so shaken by the news, that nothing short of a word of reassurance on your part will comfort her."

Bertram's eye followed that of Mr. Stuyvesant, and fell upon the blushing cheek of Cicely. With a flushing of his own brow, he stepped hastily forward.

"Miss Stuyvesant!" he cried, and looking down in her face, forgot everything else in his infinite joy and satisfaction.

"Yes," announced the father with abrupt decision, "she is yours; you have fairly earned her."

Bertram bowed his head with irrepressible emotion, and for a moment the silence of perfect peace if not of awe, reigned over the apartment; but suddenly a low, determined "No!" was heard, and Bertram turning towards Mr. Stuyvesant, exclaimed, "You are very good, and the joy of this moment atones for many an hour of grief and impatience; but I have not earned her yet. The fact that Hopgood admits to having had something to do with the robbery, does not sufficiently exonerate the officers of the bank from all connection with the affair, to make it safe or honorable in me to unqualifiedly accept the inestimable boon of your daughter's regard. Till the real culprit is in custody and the mystery entirely cleared away, my impatience must continue to curb itself. I love your daughter too dearly to bring her anything but the purest of reputations. Am I not right, Miss Stuyvesant?"

She cast a glance at her father, and bowed her head. "You are right," she repeated.

And Mr. Stuyvesant, with a visible lightening of his whole aspect, took the young man by the hand, and with as much geniality as his nature would allow, informed him that he was at last convinced that his daughter had made no mistake when she expressed her trust in Bertram Sylvester.

And in other eyes than Cicely's, shone the light of satisfied love and unswerving faith.

XLV. "THE HOUR OF SIX IS SACRED"

"Mightier far

Than strength of nerve or sinew, or the sway

Of magic potent over sun and star,

Is love, though oft to agony distrest,

And though its favorite seat be feeble woman's breast."—WORDSWORTH.

It was at the close of a winter afternoon. Paula who had returned to Grotewell for the few weeks preceding her marriage, sat musing in the window of her aunt's quaint little parlor. Her eyes were on the fields before her all rosy with the departing rays of the sun, but her thoughts were far away. They were with him she best loved—with Cicely, waiting in patience for the solution of the mystery of the stolen bonds; with Bertram, eagerly, but as yet vainly, engaged in searching for the vanished janitor; and last but not least, with that poor, wretched specimen of humanity moaning away her life in a New York hospital;—for the sight of the Japha house, in a walk that day, had reawakened her most vivid remembrances of Jacqueline. All that had ever been done and suffered by this forsaken creature, lay on her heart like a weight; and the question which had disturbed her since her return to Grotewell, viz., whether or not she ought to acquaint Mrs. Hamlin with the fact that she had seen and spoken to the object of her love and prayers, pressed upon her mind with an insistence that required an answer. There was so much to be said for and against it. Mrs. Hamlin was not well, and though still able to continue her vigil, showed signs of weakening, day by day. It might be a comfort to her to know that another's eyes had rested on the haggard form for whose approach she daily watched; that another's kiss had touched the scarred and pallid forehead she longed to fold against her breast; that the woman she loved and of whose fate she had no intimation, was living and well cared for, though her shelter was that of a hospital, and her prospects those of the grave.

On the other hand, the awful nature of the circumstances which had brought her to her present condition, were such as to make any generous heart pause before shocking the love and trust of such a woman as Mrs. Hamlin, by a relation of the criminal act by which Jacqueline had slain her child and endangered her own existence. Better let the poor old lady go on hoping against hope till she sinks into her grave, than destroy life and hope at once by a revelation of her darling's reckless depravity.

And yet if the poor creature in the hospital might be moved to repentance by some word from Mrs. Hamlin, would it not be a kindness to the latter to allow her, though even at the risk of her life, to accomplish the end for which she indeed professed to live?

The mind of Paula was as yet undecided, when a child from the village passed the window, and seeing her sitting there, handed her a small package with the simple message that Mrs. Hamlin was very ill. It contained, as she anticipated, the great key to the Japha mansion, and understanding without further words, what was demanded of her, Paula prepared to keep the promise she had long ago made to this devoted woman. For though she knew the uselessness of the vigil proposed to her, she none the less determined to complete it. Easier to sit an hour in that dark old house, than to explain herself to Mrs. Hamlin. Besides, the time was good for prayer, and God knows the wretched object of all this care and anxiety, stood in need of all the petitions that might be raised for her.

Telling her aunts that she had a call to make in the village, she glided hurriedly away, and ere she realized all to which she was committed, found herself standing in the now darkened streets, before the grim door of that dread and mysterious mansion. Never had it looked more forbidding; never had the two gruesome poplars cast a deeper shadow, or rustled with a more woful sound in the chill evening air. The very windows seemed to repel her with their darkened panes, behind which she could easily imagine the spirits of the dead, moving and peering. A chill not unlike that of terror, assailed her limbs, and it was with a really heroic action that she finally opened the gate and glided up the path made by the daily steps of her aged friend. To thrust the big key into the lock required another effort, but that once accomplished, she stilled every tumultuous beating of her heart, by crying under her breath, "She has done this for one whom she has not seen for fifteen years; shall I then hesitate, who know the real necessity of her for whom this hour is made sacred?"

The slow swinging open of the door was like an ushering into the abode of ghosts, but she struck a light at once, and soon had the satisfaction of beholding the dismal room with its weird shadows, resolve into its old and well remembered aspect. The ancient cabinet and stiff hair-cloth sofa, Colonel Japha's chair by the table, together with all the other objects that had attracted her attention in her former visit, confronted her again with the same appearance of standing ready and waiting, which had previously so thrilled her. Only she was alone this time, and terror mingled with her awe. She scarcely dared to glance at the doors that led to other portions of the house. In her present mood it would seem so natural for them to swing open, and let upon her horrified gaze the stately phantom of the proud old colonel or the gentler shade of Jacqueline's mother. The moan of the wind in the chimney was dreadful to her, and the faint rumbling sounds of mice scampering in the walls, made her start as though a voice had spoken.

But presently the noise of a sleigh careering by the house recalled her to herself, and remembering it was but early night-fall, she sat down in a chair by the door, and prepared to keep her vigil with suitable patience and equanimity. Suddenly she recollected the clock on the mantel-piece and how she had seen Mrs. Hamlin wind it, and rising up, she followed her example, sighing unconsciously to find how many of the sixty minutes had yet to tick themselves away, "Can I endure it!" she thought, and shuddered as she pictured to herself the dim old staircase behind those doors, and the empty rooms above, and the little Bible lying thicker than ever with dust, on the yellowed pillows of Jacqueline's bed.

Suddenly she stood still; the noise she had just heard, was not made by the pattering of mice along the rafters, or even the creaking of the withered vines that clung against the walls! It was a human sound, a clicking as of the gate without, a crunching as of feet dragging slowly over the snow. Was Mrs. Hamlin coming after all, or—she could not formulate her fear; a real and palpable danger from the outside world had never crossed her fancy till now. What if some stranger should enter, some tramp, some—a step on the porch without made her hair rise on her forehead; she clasped her hands and stood trembling, when a sudden moan startled her ears, followed by the sound of a heavy fall on the threshold, and throwing aside all hesitation, she flung herself forward, and tearing open the door, saw—oh, angels that rejoice in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, let your voices go up in praise this night, for Jacqueline Japha has returned to the home of her fathers!

She had fainted, and lay quite still on the threshold, but Paula, who was all energy now, soon had her in the centre of the sitting-room, and was applying to her such restoratives as had been provided against this very emergency. She was holding the poor weary head on her knee, when the wan eyes opened, and looking up, grew wild with a disappointment which Paula was quick to appreciate.

"You are looking for Margery," said she. "Margery will come by-and-by; she is not well to-night and I am taking her place, but when she hears you have returned, it will take more than sickness to keep her to her bed. I am Paula, and I love you, too, and welcome you—oh, welcome you so gladly."

The yearning look which had crept into the woman's bleared and faded eyes, deepened and softened strangely.

"You are the one who told me about Margery," said she, "and bade me bring my baby here to be buried. I remember, though I seemed to pay no heed then. Night and day through all my pain, I have remembered, and as soon as I could walk, stole away from the hospital. It has killed me, but I shall at least die in my father's house."

Paula stooped and kissed her. "I am going to get your bed ready," said she. And without any hesitation now, she opened the door that led into those dim inner regions that but a few minutes before had inspired her with such dread.

She went straight to Jacqueline's room. "It must all be according to Mrs. Hamlin's wishes," she cried, and lit the fire on the hearth, and pulled back the curtains yet farther from the bed, and gave the benefit of her womanly touch to the various objects about her, till cheerfulness seemed to reign in a spot once so peopled with hideous memories. Going back to Jacqueline, she helped her to rise, and throwing her arm about her waist, led her into the hall. But here memory, ghastly accusing memory, stepped in, and catching the wretched woman in its grasp, shook her, body and soul, till her shrieks reverberated through that desolate house. But Paula with gentle persistence urged her on, and smiling upon her like an angel of peace and mercy, led her up step after step of that dreadful staircase, till at last she saw her safely in the room of her early girlhood.

The sight of it seemed at first to horrify but afterwards to soothe the forlorn being thus brought face to face with her own past. She moved over to the fire and held out her two cramped hands to the blaze, as if she saw an altar of mercy in its welcoming glow. From these she passed tottering and weak to the embroidery-frame, which she looked at for a moment with something almost like a smile; but she hurried by the mirror, and scarcely glanced at a portrait of herself which hung on the wall over her head. To sink on the bed seemed to be her object, and thither Paula accompanied her. But when she came to where it stood, and saw the clothes turned down and the pillows heaped at the head, and the little Bible lying open for her in the midst, she gave a great and mighty sob, and flinging herself down upon her knees, wept with a breaking up of her whole nature, in which her sins, red though they were as crimson, seemed to feel the touch of the Divine love, and vanish away in the oblivion He prepares for all His penitent ones.

When everything was prepared and Jacqueline was laid quiet in bed, Paula stole out and down the stairs and wended her way to Mrs. Hamlin's cottage. She found her sitting up, but far from well, and very feeble. At the first sight of Paula's face, she started erect and seem to forget her weakness in a moment.

"What is it?" she asked; "you look as though you had been gazing on the faces of angels. Has—has my hope come true at last? Has Jacqueline returned? Oh, has my poor, lost, erring child come back?"

Paula drew near and gently steadied Mrs. Hamlin's swaying form. "Yes," she smiled; and with the calmness of one who has entered the gates of peace, whispered in low and reverent tones: "She lies in the bed that you spread for her, with the Bible held close to her breast."

There are moments when the world about us seems to pause; when the hopes, fears and experiences of all humanity appear to sway away and leave us standing alone in the presence of our own great hope or scarcely comprehended fear. Such a moment was that which saw Paula re-enter Jacqueline's presence with Mrs. Hamlin at her side.

Leaving the latter near the door, she went towards the bed. Why did she recoil and glance back at Mrs. Hamlin with that startled and apprehensive look? The face of Jacqueline was changed—changed as only one presence could change it, though the eyes were clearer than when she left her a few minutes before, and the lips were not without the shadow of a smile.

"She is dying," whispered Paula, coming back to Mrs. Hamlin; "dying, and you have waited so long!"

But the look that met hers from that aged face, was not one of grief; and startled, she knew not why, Paula drew aside, while Mrs. Hamlin crossed the room and quietly knelt down by her darling's side.

"Margery!"

"Jacqueline!"

The two cries rang through the room, then all was quiet again.

"You have come back!" were the next words Paula heard. "How could I ever have doubted that you would!"

"I have been driven back by awful suffering," was the answer; and another silence fell. Suddenly Jacqueline's voice was heard. "Love slew me, and now love has saved me!" exclaimed she. And there came no answer to that cry, and Paula felt the shadow of a great awe settle down upon her, and moving nearer to where the aged woman knelt by her darling's bedside, she looked in her bended face and then in the one upturned on the pillow, and knew that of all the hearts that but an instant before had beat with earth's deepest emotion in that quiet room, one alone throbbed on to thank God and take courage.

And the fire which had been kindled to welcome the prodigal back, burned on; and from the hollow depths of the great room below, came the sound of a clock as it struck the hour, seven!

XLVI. THE MAN CUMMINS

Oh day and night, but this is wondrous strange."—HENRY V.

"Shut up in measureless content."—OTHELLO.

The lights were yet shining in Mr. Stuyvesant's parlors, though the guests were gone, who but a short time before had assembled there to witness the marriage of Cicely's dear friend, Paula.

At one end of the room stood Mr. Sylvester and Bertram, the former gazing with the eyes of a bridegroom, at the delicate white-clad figure of Paula, just leaving the apartment with Cicely.

"I have but one cause for regret," said Mr. Sylvester as the door closed. "I could have wished that you and Cicely had participated in our joy and received the minister's benediction at the same moment as ourselves."

"Yes," said Bertram with a short sigh. "But it will come in time. It cannot be but that our efforts must finally succeed. I have just had a new idea; that of putting the watchman on the hunt for Hopgood. They are old friends, and he ought to know all the other's haunts and possible hiding-places."

"If Fanning could have helped us, he would have told us long ago. He knows that Hopgood is missing and that we are ready to pay well for any information concerning him."

"But they are old cronies, and possibly Fanning is keeping quiet out of consideration for his friend."

"No; I have had a talk with Fanning, and there was no mistaking his look of surprise when told the other had run away under suspicion of being connected with a robbery on the bank's effects. He knows no more of Hopgood than we do, or his wife does, or the police even. It is a strange mystery, and one to which I fear we shall never obtain the key. But don't let me discourage you; after a suitable time Mr. Stuyvesant will—"

He paused, for that gentleman was approaching him.

"There is a man outside who insists upon seeing me; says he knows there has just been a wedding here, but that the matter he has to communicate is very important, and won't bear putting off. The name on his card is Cummins; I am afraid I shall have to admit him, that is, if you have no objection?"

Mr. Sylvester and Bertram at once drew back with ready acquiescence. They had scarcely taken their stand at the other end of the apartment, when the man came in. He was of robust build, round, precise and business-like. He had taken off his hat, but still wore his overcoat; his face in spite of a profusion of red whiskers and a decided pair of goggles, was earnest and straightforward. He walked at once up to Mr. Stuyvesant.

"Your pardon," said he, in a quick tone. "But I hear you have been somewhat exercised of late over the disappearance of certain bonds from one of the boxes in the Madison Bank. I am a detective, and in the course of my duty have come upon a few facts that may help to explain matters."

Mr. Sylvester and Bertram at once started forward; this was a topic that demanded their attention as well as that of the master of the house.

The man cast them a quick look from behind his goggles, and seeming to recognize them, included them in his next question.

"What do you think of the watchman, Fanning?"

"Think? we don't think," uttered Mr. Stuyvesant sharply. "He has been in the employ of the bank for twelve years, and we know him to be honest."

"Yet he is the man who stole your bonds."

"Impossible!"

"The very man."

Mr. Sylvester stepped up to him. "Who are you, and how do you know this?"

"I have said my name is Cummins, and I know this, because I have wormed myself into the man's confidence and have got the bonds, together with his confession, here in my pocket." And he drew out the long lost bonds, which he handed to their owner, with a bit of paper on which was inscribed in the handwriting of the watchman, an acknowledgment to the effect that he, alone and unassisted, had perpetrated the robbery which had raised such scandal in the bank and led to the disappearance of Hopgood.

"And the man himself?" cried Bertram, when they had all read this. "Where is he?"

"Oh, I allowed him to escape."

Mr. Sylvester frowned.

"There is something about this I don't understand," said he. "How came you to take such an interest in this matter; and why did you let the man escape after acknowledging his crime?"

With a quick, not undignified action, Cummins stepped back. "Gentlemen," said he, "it is allowable in a detective in the course of his duty, to resort to means for eliciting the truth, that in any other cause and for any other purpose, would be denominated as unmanly, if not mean and contemptible. When I heard of this robbery, as I did the day after its perpetration, my mind flew immediately to the watchman as the possible culprit. I did not know that he had done the deed, and I did not see how he could have possessed the means of doing it, but I had been acquainted with him for some time, and certain expressions which I had overheard him use—expressions that had passed over me lightly at the time, now recurred to my mind with startling distinctness. 'If a man knew the combination of the vault door, how easily he could make himself rich from the contents of those boxes!' was one, I remember; and another, 'I have worked in the bank for twelve years and have not so much money laid up against a rainy day, as would furnish Mr. Sylvester in cigars for a month.' The fact that he had no opportunity to learn the combination, was the only stumbling-block in the way of my conclusions. But that obstacle was soon removed. In a talk with the janitor's wife—a good woman, sirs, but a trifle conceited—I learned that he had once had the very opportunity of which I speak, provided he was smart enough to recognize the fact. The way it came about was this. Hopgood, who always meant to do about the right thing, as I know, was one morning very sick, so sick that when the time came for him to go down and open the vaults for the day, he couldn't stir from his bed, or at least thought he couldn't. Twice had the watchman rung for him, and twice had he tried to get up, only to fall back again on his pillow. At last the call became imperative; the clerks would soon be in, and the books were not even in readiness for them. Calling his wife to him, he asked if she thought she could open the vault door provided she knew the combination. She returned a quite eager, 'yes,' being a naturally vain woman and moreover a little sore over the fact that her husband never entrusted her with any of his secrets. 'Then,' said he, 'listen to those three numbers that I give you; and turn the knob accordingly,' explaining the matter in a way best calculated to enlighten her as to what she had to do. She professed herself as understanding perfectly and went off in quite a nutter of satisfaction to accomplish her task. But though he did not know it at the time, it seems that her heart failed her when she got into the hall, and struck with fear lest she should forget the numbers before she got to the foot of the stairs, she came back, and carefully wrote them down on a piece of paper, armed with which she started for the second time to fulfil her task. The watchman was in the bank when she entered, and to his expressions of surprise, she answered that her husband was ill and that she was going to open the vaults. He offered to help her, but she stared at him with astonishment, and waiting till he had walked to the other end of the bank, proceeded to the vault door, and after carefully consulting the paper in her hand, was about to turn the knob as directed, when Hopgood himself came into the room. He was too anxious, he said, to keep in bed, and though he trembled at every step, came forward and accomplished the task himself. He did not see the paper in his wife's hand, nor notice her when she tore it up and threw the pieces in the waste-basket near-by, but the watchman may have observed her, and as it afterwards proved, did; and thus became acquainted with the combination that unlocked the outer vault doors."

"Humph!" broke in Mr. Sylvester, "if this is true, why didn't Hopgood inform me of the matter when I questioned him so closely?"

"Because he had forgotten the circumstance. He was in a fever at the time, and having eventually unlocked the vault himself, lost sight of the fact that he had previously sent his wife to do it. He went back to his bed after the clerks came in, and did not get up again till night. He may have thought the whole occurrence part of the delirium which more than once assailed him that day."

"I remember his being sick," said Bertram; "it was two or three days before the robbery."

"The very day before," corrected the man; "but let me tell my story in my own way. Having learned from Mrs. Hopgood of this opportunity which had been given to Fanning, I made up my mind to sift the matter. Being as I have said a friend of his, I didn't, want to peach on him unless he was guilty. To blast an honest man's reputation, is, I think, one of the meanest tricks of which a fellow can be guilty: but the truth I had to know, and in order to learn it, a deep and delicate game was necessary. Gentlemen, when the police have strong suspicions against a person whose reputation is above reproach and whose conduct affords no opportunity for impeachment, they set a springe for him. One of their number disguises himself, and making the acquaintance of this person, insinuates himself by slow degrees—often at the cost of months of effort—into his friendship and if possible into his confidence. 'Tis a detestable piece of business, but it is all that will serve in some cases, and has at least the merit of being as dangerous as it is detestable. This plan, I undertook with Fanning. Changing my appearance to suit the necessities of the case, I took board in the small house in Brooklyn where he puts up, and being well acquainted with his tastes, knew how to adapt myself to his liking. He was a busy man, and being obliged by his duties to turn night into day, had not much time to bestow upon me or any one else; but heedful of this, I managed to make the most of the spare moments that saw us together, and ere long we were very good comrades, and further on, very good friends. The day when I first ventured to suggest that honesty was all very well as long as it paid, was a memorable one to me. In that cast of the die I was either to win or lose the game I had undertaken. I won. After a feint or two, to see if I were in earnest, he fell into the net, and though he did not commit himself then, it was not long before he came to me, and deliberately requested my assistance in disposing of some bonds which he was smart enough to acquire, but not daring enough to attempt to sell. Of course the whole story came out, and I was sympathetic enough till I got the bonds into my hands, then—But I leave you to imagine what followed. Enough that I wrung this confession from him, and that in consideration of the doubtful game I had played upon him, let him go where he is by this time beyond the chance of pursuit."

"But your duty to your superior; your oath as a member of the force?"

"My superior is here!" said the man pointing to Mr. Sylvester; "an unconscious one I own, but still my superior; and as for my being a member of the force, that was true five years ago, but not to-day." And brushing off his whiskers with one hand and taking off his goggles with the other, Hopgood, the janitor, stood before them!

It was a radiant figure that met Cicely, when she came down stairs with Paula, and a joyous group that soon surrounded the now blushing and embarrassed janitor, with questions and remarks concerning this great and unexpected development of affairs. But the fervor with which Mr. Stuyvesant clasped Bertram's hand, and the look with which Cicely turned from her young lover to bestow a final kiss upon the departing bride, was worth all the pains and self-denial of the last few weeks—or so the janitor thought, who with a quicker comprehension than usual, had divined the situation and rejoiced in the result. But the most curious thing of all was to observe how, with the taking off of his goggles, Hopgood had relapsed into his old shrinking, easily embarrassed self. The man who but a few minutes before had related in their hearing a clear and succinct narrative, now shrank if a question was put him, and stammered in quite his ancient fashion, when he answered Mr. Sylvester's shake of the hand, by a hurried:

"I am going to see my wife now, sir. She's a good woman, if a little flighty, and will be the last one in the future to beg me to put more confidence in her. Will you tell me where she is, sir?"

Mr. Sylvester informed him; then added, "But look here, Hopgood, answer me one thing before you go. Why is it that with such talents as you possess, you didn't stay in the police force? You are a regular genius in your way, and ought not to drone away your existence as a janitor."

"Ah, sir," replied the other, shaking his head, "a man who is only capable of assuming one disguise, isn't good for much as a professional detective. Goggles and red whiskers will deceive one rogue, but not fifty. My eyes were my bane, sir, and ultimately cost me my place. While I could cover them up I was all right. It not only made a man of me, leaving me free to talk and freer to think, but disguised me so, my best friends couldn't recognize me; but after awhile my goggles were too well known for me to be considered of much further use to the department, and I was obliged to send in my resignation. It is too bad, but I have no versatility, sir. I'm either the clumsy, stammering creature you have always known, or else I am the man Cummins you saw here a few minutes ago."

"In either case an honest fellow," answered Mr. Sylvester, and allowed the janitor to depart.

One more scene, and this in the house which Paula is henceforth to make a home for herself and its once melancholy owner. They have come back from their wedding-journey, and are standing in their old fashion, he at the foot, and she half way up the stairs. Suddenly she turns and descends to his side.

"No, I will not wait," said she. "Here, on this spot we both love so well, and in this the first hour of our return, I will unburden my mind of what I have to say. Edward, is there nothing of all the past that still rests upon you like a shadow? Not one little regret you could wish taken away?"

"No," said he, enfolding her in his arms with a solemn smile. "The great gift which I hold is the fruit of that past, perhaps; I cannot wish it changed."

"But the sense of obligation never fulfilled, would you not be happier if that were removed?"

"Perhaps," he said, "but it cannot be now. I shall have to live without being perfectly happy."

She lifted her face and her smile shone like a star. "Oh God is good," she cried, "you shall not lack being perfectly happy;" and taking a little paper out of her pocket she put it in his hand. "We found that hidden in Jacqueline Japha's breast, when we went to lay her out for burial."

It was only a line; but it made Mr. Sylvester's brow flush and his voice tremble.

"Whatever I own, and I have been told that I am far from penniless, I desire to have given to the dear and disinterested girl that first told me of Margery Hamlin's vigil."

"Paula, Paula, Paula, thou art indeed my good gift! May God make me worthy of your love and of this His last and most unexpected mercy!"

And the look which crossed her face, was that sweet and unearthly radiance which speaks of perfect peace.

[1] A fact.

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BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

The Leavenworth Case. A LAWYER'S STORY. 16mo, cloth, $1.00; paper, 50 cents; 4to, paper

20

A Strange Disappearance. 16mo, cloth, $1.00; paper

50

The Sword of Damocles. 16mo, cloth, $1.00; paper

50

X. Y. Z. A DETECTIVE STORY. 16mo, paper

25

The Defence of the Bride, and other Poems. Square 8vo., flexible cloth

1 00

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, PUBLISHERS,
NEW YORK AND LONDON.

[i]

"'Look out,' cried the detective, 'or you will get yourself into trouble,' and he tightened his grip on the old creature's arm."—(Page 43.)                                     (Frontispiece.)

HAND AND RING

BY

ANNA KATHARINE GREEN

AUTHOR OF "THE LEAVENWORTH CASE", "THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES", "THE
DEFENSE OF THE BRIDE" ETC., ETC.

"For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak with most miraculous organ."

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK: 27 & 29 WEST 23D STREET
LONDON: 25 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN
1883

[ii]

COPYRIGHT BY
ANNA KATHARINE GREEN
1883

Press of
G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York

[iii]

[1]

HAND AND RING.

BOOK I. THE GENTLEMAN FROM TOLEDO.

I. A STARTLING COINCIDENCE

By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.

—MACBETH.

THE town clock of Sibley had just struck twelve. Court had adjourned, and Judge Evans, with one or two of the leading lawyers of the county, stood in the door-way of the court-house discussing in a friendly way the eccentricities of criminals as developed in the case then before the court. Mr. Lord had just ventured the assertion that crime as a fine art was happily confined to France; to which District Attorney Ferris had replied:

"And why? Because atheism has not yet acquired such a hold upon our upper classes that gentlemen think it possible to meddle with such matters. It is only when a student, a doctor, a lawyer, determines to put aside from his path the secret stumbling-block[2] to his desires or his ambition that the true intellectual crime is developed. That brute whom you see slouching along over the way is the type of the average criminal of the day."

And he indicated with a nod a sturdy, ill-favored man, who, with pack on his back, was just emerging from a grassy lane that opened out from the street directly opposite the court-house.

"Such men are often seen in the dock," remarked Mr. Orcutt, of more than local reputation as a criminal lawyer. "And often escape the penalty of their crimes," he added, watching, with a curious glance, the lowering brow and furtive look of the man who, upon perceiving the attention he had attracted, increased his pace till he almost broke into a run.

"Looks as if he had been up to mischief," observed Judge Evans.

"Rather as if he had heard the sentence which was passed upon the last tramp who paid his respects to this town," corrected Mr. Lord.

"Revenons à nos moutons," resumed the District Attorney. "Crime, as an investment, does not pay in this country. The regular burglar leads a dog's life of it; and when you come to the murderer, how few escape suspicion if they do the gallows. I do not know of a case where a murder for money has been really successful in this region."

"Then you must have some pretty cute detective work[3] going on here," remarked a young man who had not before spoken.

"No, no—nothing to brag of. But the brutes are so clumsy—that is the word, clumsy. They don't know how to cover up their tracks."

"The smart ones don't make tracks," interposed a rough voice near them, and a large, red-haired, slightly humpbacked man, who, from the looks of those about, was evidently a stranger in the place, shuffled forward from the pillar against which he had been leaning, and took up the thread of conversation.

"I tell you," he continued, in a gruff tone somewhat out of keeping with the studied abstraction of his keen, gray eye, "that half the criminals are caught because they do make tracks and then resort to such extraordinary means to cover them up. The true secret of success in this line lies in striking your blow with a weapon picked up on the spot, and in choosing for the scene of your tragedy a thoroughfare where, in the natural course of events, other men will come and go and unconsciously tread out your traces, provided you have made any. This dissipates suspicion, or starts it in so many directions that justice is at once confused, if not ultimately baffled. Look at that house yonder," the stranger pursued, pointing to a plain dwelling on the opposite corner. "While we have been standing here, several persons of one kind or another, and among them a pretty rough-looking tramp, have gone into the side gate and so around to the kitchen[4] door and back. I don't know who lives there, but say it is a solitary old woman above keeping help, and that an hour from now some one, not finding her in the house, searches through the garden and comes upon her lying dead behind the wood-pile, struck down by her own axe. On whom are you going to lay your hand in suspicion? On the stranger, of course—the rough-looking tramp that everybody thinks is ready for bloodshed at the least provocation. But suspicion is not conviction, and I would dare wager that no court, in face of a persistent denial on his part that he even saw the old woman when he went to her door, would bring in a verdict of murder against him, even though silver from her private drawer were found concealed upon his person. The chance that he spoke the truth, and that she was not in the house when he entered, and that his crime had been merely one of burglary or theft, would be enough to save him from the hangman."

"That is true," assented Mr. Lord, "unless all the other persons who had been seen to go into the yard were not only reputable men, but were willing to testify to having seen the woman alive up to the time he invaded her premises."

But the humpbacked stranger had already lounged away.

"What do you think about this, Mr. Byrd?" inquired the District Attorney, turning to the young man before alluded to. "You are an expert in these matters, or[5] ought to be. What would you give for the tramp's chances if the detectives took him in hand?"

"I, sir?" was the response. "I am so comparatively young and inexperienced in such affairs, that I scarcely dare presume to express an opinion. But I have heard it said by Mr. Gryce, who you know stands foremost among the detectives of New York, that the only case of murder in which he utterly failed to get any clue to work upon, was that of a Jew who was knocked down in his own shop in broad daylight. But this will not appear so strange when you learn the full particulars. The store was situated between two alley-ways in Harlem. It had an entrance back and an entrance front. Both were in constant use. The man was found behind his counter, having evidently been hit on the head by a slung-shot while reaching for a box of hosiery. But though a succession of people were constantly passing by both doors, there was for that very reason no one to tell which of all the men who were observed to enter the shop, came out again with blood upon his conscience. Nor were the circumstances of the Jew's life such as to assist justice. The most careful investigation failed to disclose the existence of any enemy, nor was he found to possess in this country, at least, any relative who could have hoped to be benefited by the few dollars he had saved from a late bankruptcy. The only conclusion to be drawn is that the man was secretly in the way of some one and was as secretly put out of it, but for what purpose or by whose hand, time has never disclosed."[6]

"There is one, however, who knows both," affirmed Judge Evans, impressively.

"The man himself?"

"God!"

The solemnity with which this was uttered caused a silence, during which Mr. Orcutt looked at his watch.

"I must go to dinner," he announced, withdrawing, with a slight nod, across the street.

The rest stood for a few minutes abstractedly contemplating his retreating figure, as with an energetic pace all his own he passed down the little street that opened opposite to where they stood, and entered the unpretending cottage of a widow lady, with whom he was in the habit of taking his mid-day meal whenever he had a case before the court.

A lull was over the whole village, and the few remaining persons on the court-house steps were about to separate, when Mr. Lord uttered an exclamation and pointed to the cottage into which they had just seen Mr. Orcutt disappear. Immediately all eyes looked that way and saw the lawyer standing on the stoop, having evidently issued with the utmost precipitation from the house.

"He is making signs," cried Mr. Lord to Mr. Ferris; and scarcely knowing what they feared, both gentlemen crossed the way and hurried down the street toward their friend, who, with unusual tokens of disturbance in his manner, ran forward to meet them.

"A murder!" he excitedly exclaimed, as soon as he[7] came within speaking distance. "A strange and startling coincidence. Mrs. Clemmens has been struck on the head, and is lying covered with blood at the foot of her dining-room table."

Mr. Lord and the District Attorney stared at each other in a maze of surprise and horror easily to be comprehended, and then they rushed forward.

"Wait a moment," the latter suddenly cried, stopping short and looking back. "Where is the fellow who talked so learnedly about murder and the best way of making a success of it. He must be found at once. I don't believe in coincidences." And he beckoned to the person they had called Byrd, who with very pardonable curiosity was hurrying their way. "Go find Hunt, the constable," he cried; "tell him to stop and retain the humpback. A woman here has been found murdered, and that fellow must have known something about it."

The young man stared, flushed with sudden intelligence, and darted off. Mr. Ferris turned, found Mr. Orcutt still at his side, and drew him forward to rejoin Mr. Lord, who by this time was at the door of the cottage.

They all went in together, Mr. Ferris, who was of an adventurous disposition, leading the way. The room into which they first stepped was empty. It was evidently the widow's sitting-room, and was in perfect order, with the exception of Mr. Orcutt's hat, which lay on the centre-table where he had laid it on entering. Neat, without[8] being prim, the entire aspect of the place was one of comfort, ease, and modest luxury. For, though the Widow Clemmens lived alone and without help, she was by no means an indigent person, as a single glance at her house would show. The door leading into the farther room was open, and toward this they hastened, led by the glitter of the fine old china service which loaded the dining-table.

"She is there," said Mr. Orcutt, pointing to the other side of the room.

They immediately passed behind the table, and there, sure enough, lay the prostrate figure of the widow, her head bleeding, her arms extended, one hand grasping her watch, which she had loosened from her belt, the other stretched toward a stick of firewood, that, from the mark of blood upon its side, had evidently been used to fell her to the floor. She was motionless as stone, and was, to all appearance, dead.

"Sickening, sickening!—horrible!" exclaimed Mr. Lord, recoiling upon the District Attorney with a gesture, as if he would put the frightful object out of his sight. "What motive could any one have for killing such an inoffensive woman? The deviltry of man is beyond belief!"

"And after what we have heard, inexplicable," asserted Mr. Ferris. "To be told of a supposable case of murder one minute, and then to see it exemplified in this dreadful way the next, is an experience of no common order.[9] I own I am overcome by it." And he flung open a door that communicated with the lane and let the outside air sweep in.

"That door was unlocked," remarked Mr. Lord, glancing at Mr. Orcutt, who stood with severe, set face, looking down at the outstretched form which, for several years now, had so often sat opposite to him at his noonday meal.

With a start the latter looked up. "What did you say? The door unlocked? There is nothing strange in that. She never locked her doors, though she was so very deaf I often advised her to." And he allowed his eyes to run over the wide stretch of low, uncultivated ground before him, that, in the opinion of many persons, was such a decided blot upon the town. "There is no one in sight," he reluctantly admitted.

"No," responded the other. "The ground is unfavorable for escape. It is marshy and covered with snake grass. A man could make his way, however, between the hillocks into those woods yonder, if he were driven by fear or understood the path well. What is the matter, Orcutt?"

"Nothing," affirmed the latter,—"nothing, I thought I heard a groan."

"You heard me make an exclamation," spoke up Mr. Ferris, who by this time had sufficiently overcome his emotion to lift the head of the prostrate woman and look in her face. "This woman is not dead."[10]

"What!" they both cried, bounding forward.

"See, she breathes," continued the former, pointing to her slowly laboring chest. "The villain, whoever he was, did not do his work well; she may be able to tell us something yet."

"I do not think so," murmured Mr. Orcutt. "Such a blow as that must have destroyed her faculties, if not her life. It was of cruel force."

"However that may be, she ought to be taken care of now," cried Mr. Ferris. "I wish Dr. Tredwell was here."

"I will go for him," signified the other.

But it was not necessary. Scarcely had the lawyer turned to execute this mission, when a sudden murmur was heard at the door, and a dozen or so citizens burst into the house, among them the very person named. Being coroner as well as physician, he at once assumed authority. The widow was carried into her room, which was on the same floor, and a brother practitioner sent for, who took his place at her head and waited for any sign of returning consciousness. The crowd, remanded to the yard, spent their time alternately in furtive questionings of each other's countenances, and in eager look-out for the expected return of the strange young man who had been sent after the incomprehensible humpback of whom all had heard. The coroner, closeted with the District Attorney in the dining-room, busied himself in noting certain evident facts.[11]

"I am, perhaps, forestalling my duties in interfering before the woman is dead," intimated the former. "But it is only a matter of a few hours, and any facts we can glean in the interim must be of value to a proper conduct of the inquiry I shall be called upon to hold. I shall therefore make the same note of the position of affairs as I would do if she were dead; and to begin with, I wish you to observe that she was hit while setting the clock." And he pointed to the open door of the huge old-fashioned timepiece which occupied that corner of the room in which she had been found. "She had not even finished her task," he next remarked, "for the clock is still ten minutes slow, while her watch is just right, as you will see by comparing it with your own. She was attacked from behind, and to all appearances unexpectedly. Had she turned, her forehead would have been struck, while, as all can see, it is the back of her head that has suffered, and that from a right-hand blow. Her deafness was undoubtedly the cause of her immobility under the approach of such an assailant. She did not hear his step, and, being so busily engaged, saw nothing of the cruel hand uplifted to destroy her. I doubt if she even knew what happened. The mystery is that any one could have sufficiently desired her death to engage in such a cold-blooded butchery. If plunder were wanted, why was not her watch taken from her? And see, here is a pile of small change lying beside her plate on the table,—a thing a tramp would make for at once."[12]

"It was not a thief that struck her."

"Well, well, we don't know. I have my own theory," admitted the coroner; "but, of course, it will not do for me to mention it here. The stick was taken from that pile laid ready on the hearth," he went on. "Odd, significantly odd, that in all its essential details this affair should tally so completely with the supposable case of crime given a moment before by the deformed wretch you tell me about."

"Not if that man was a madman and the assailant," suggested the District Attorney.

"True, but I do not think he was mad—not from what you have told me. But let us see what the commotion is. Some one has evidently arrived."

It was Mr. Byrd, who had entered by the front door, and deaf to the low murmur of the impatient crowd without, stood waiting in silent patience for an opportunity to report to the District Attorney the results of his efforts.

Mr. Ferris at once welcomed him.

"What have you done? Did you find the constable or succeed in laying hands on that scamp of a humpback?"

Mr. Byrd, who, to explain at once, was a young and intelligent detective, who had been brought from New York for purposes connected with the case then before the court, glanced carefully in the direction of the coroner and quietly replied:[13]

"The humpbacked scamp, as you call him, has disappeared. Whether he will be found or not I cannot say. Hunt is on his track, and will report to you in an hour. The tramp whom you saw slinking out of this street while we stood on the court-house steps is doubtless the man whom you most want, and him we have captured."

"You have?" repeated Mr. Ferris, eying, with good-natured irony, the young man's gentlemanly but rather indifferent face. "And what makes you think it is the tramp who is the guilty one in this case? Because that ingenious stranger saw fit to make him such a prominent figure in his suppositions?"

"No, sir," replied the detective, flushing with a momentary embarrassment he however speedily overcame; "I do not found my opinions upon any man's remarks. I only—— Excuse me," said he, with a quiet air of self-control that was not without its effect upon the sensible man he was addressing. "If you will tell me how, where, and under what circumstances this poor murdered woman was found, perhaps I shall be better able to explain my reasons for believing in the tramp as the guilty party; though the belief, even of a detective, goes for but little in matters of this kind, as you and these other gentlemen very well know."

"Step here, then," signified Mr. Ferris, who, accompanied by the coroner, had already passed around the table. "Do you see that clock? She was winding it[14] when she was struck, and fell almost at its foot. The weapon which did the execution lies over there; it is a stick of firewood, as you see, and was caught up from that pile on the hearth. Now recall what that humpback said about choosing a thoroughfare for a murder (and this house is a thoroughfare), and the peculiar stress which he laid upon the choice of a weapon, and tell me why you think he is innocent of this immediate and most remarkable exemplification of his revolting theory?"

"Let me first ask," ventured the other, with a remaining tinge of embarrassment coloring his cheek, "if you have reason to think this woman had been lying long where she was found, or was she struck soon before the discovery?"

"Soon. The dinner was still smoking in the kitchen, where it had been dished up ready for serving."

"Then," declared the detective with sudden confidence, "a single word will satisfy you that the humpback was not the man who delivered this stroke. To lay that woman low at the foot of this clock would require the presence of the assailant in the room. Now, the humpback was not here this morning, but in the court-room. I know this, for I saw him there."

"You did? You are sure of that?" cried, in a breath, both his hearers, somewhat taken aback by this revelation.

"Yes. He sat down by the door. I noticed him particularly."

"Humph! that is odd," quoth Mr. Ferris, with the[15] testiness of an irritable man who sees himself contradicted in a publicly expressed theory.

"Very odd," repeated the coroner; "so odd, I am inclined to think he did not sit there every moment of the time. It is but a step from the court-house here; he might well have taken the trip and returned while you wiped your eye-glasses or was otherwise engaged."

Mr. Byrd did not see fit to answer this.

"The tramp is an ugly-looking customer," he remarked, in what was almost a careless tone of voice.

Mr. Ferris covered with his hand the pile of loose change that was yet lying on the table, and shortly observed:

"A tramp to commit such a crime must be actuated either by rage or cupidity; that you will acknowledge. Now the fellow who struck this woman could not have been excited by any sudden anger, for the whole position of her body when found proves that she had not even turned to face the intruder, much less engaged in an altercation with him. Yet how could it have been money he was after, when a tempting bit like this remained undisturbed upon the table?"

And Mr. Ferris, with a sudden gesture, disclosed to view the pile of silver coin he had been concealing.

The young detective shook his head but lost none of his seeming indifference. "That is one of the little anomalies of criminal experience that we were talking about this morning," he remarked. "Perhaps the fellow[16] was frightened and lost his head, or perhaps he really heard some one at the door, and was obliged to escape without reaping any of the fruits of his crime."

"Perhaps and perhaps," retorted Mr. Ferris, who was a quick man, and who, once settled in a belief, was not to be easily shaken out of it.

"However that may be," continued Mr. Byrd, without seeming to notice the irritating interruption, "I still think that the tramp, rather than the humpback, will be the man to occupy your future attention."

And with a deprecatory bow to both gentlemen, he drew back and quietly left the room.

Mr. Ferris at once recovered from his momentary loss of temper.

"I suppose the young man is right," he acknowledged; "but, if so, what an encouragement we have received this morning to a belief in clairvoyance." And with less irony and more conviction, he added: "The humpback must have known something about the murder."

And the coroner bowed; common-sense undoubtedly agreeing with this assumption.

[17]

II. AN APPEAL TO HEAVEN

Her step was royal—queen-like.—LONGFELLOW.

IT was now half-past one. An hour and a half had elapsed since the widow had been laid upon her bed, and to all appearance no change had taken place in her condition. Within the room where she lay were collected the doctor and one or two neighbors of the female sex, who watched every breath she drew, and stood ready to notice the slightest change in the stony face that, dim with the shadow of death, stared upon them from the unruffled pillows. In the sitting-room Lawyer Orcutt conversed in a subdued voice with Mr. Ferris, in regard to such incidents of the widow's life as had come under his notice in the years of their daily companionship, while the crowd about the gate vented their interest in loud exclamations of wrath against the tramp who had been found, and the unknown humpback who had not. Our story leads us into the crowd in front.

"I don't think she'll ever come to," said one, who from his dusty coat might have been a miller. "Blows like that haven't much let-up about them."

"Doctor says she will die before morning," put in a pert young miss, anxious to have her voice heard.[18]

"Then it will be murder and no mistake, and that brute of a tramp will hang as high as Haman."

"Don't condemn a man before you've had a chance to hear what he has to say for himself," cried another in a strictly judicial tone. "How do you know as he came to this house at all?"

"Miss Perkins says he did, and Mrs. Phillips too; they saw him go into the gate."

"And what else did they see? I warrant he wasn't the only beggar that was roaming round this morning."

"No; there was a tin peddler in the street, for I saw him my own self, and Mrs. Clemmens standing in the door flourishing her broom at him. She was mighty short with such folks. Wouldn't wonder if some of the unholy wretches killed her out of spite. They're a wicked lot, the whole of them."

"Widow Clemmens had a quick temper, but she had a mighty good heart notwithstanding. See how kind she was to them Hubbells."

"And how hard she was to that Pratt girl."

"Well, I know, but——" And so on and so on, in a hum and a buzz about the head of Mr. Byrd, who, engaged in thought seemingly far removed from the subject in hand, stood leaning against the fence, careless and insouciant. Suddenly there was a lull, then a short cry, then a woman's voice rose clear, ringing, and commanding, and Mr. Byrd caught the following words:

"What is this I hear? Mrs. Clemmens dead? Struck[19] down by some wandering tramp? Murdered and in her own house?"

In an instant, every eye, including Mr. Byrd's, was fixed upon the speaker. The crowd parted, and the young girl, who had spoken from the street, came into the gate. She was a remarkable-looking person. Tall, large, and majestic in every proportion of an unusually noble figure, she was of a make and possessed a bearing to attract attention had she borne a less striking and beautiful countenance. As it was, the glance lingered but a moment on the grand curves and lithe loveliness of that matchless figure, and passed at once to the face. Once there, it did not soon wander; for though its beauty was incontestable, the something that lay behind that beauty was more incontestable still, and held you, in spite of yourself, long after you had become acquainted with the broad white brow, the clear, deep, changing gray eye, the straight but characteristic nose, and the ruddy, nervous lip. You felt that, young and beautiful as she was, and charming as she might be, she was also one of nature's unsolvable mysteries—a woman whom you might study, obey, adore, but whom you could never hope to understand; a Sphinx without an Œdipus. She was dressed in dark green, and held her gloves in her hand. Her appearance was that of one who had been profoundly startled.

"Why don't some one answer me?" she asked, after an instant's pause, seemingly unconscious that, alike to[20] those who knew her and to those who did not, her air and manner were such as to naturally impose silence. "Must I go into the house in order to find out if this good woman is dead or not?"

"Shure she isn't dead yet," spoke up a brawny butcher-boy, bolder than the rest. "But she's sore hurt, miss, and the doctors say as how there is no hope."

A change impossible to understand passed over the girl's face. Had she been less vigorous of body, she would have staggered. As it was, she stood still, rigidly still, and seemed to summon up her faculties, till the very clinch of her fingers spoke of the strong control she was putting upon herself.

"It is dreadful, dreadful!" she murmured, this time in a whisper, and as if to some rising protest in her own soul. "No good can come of it, none." Then, as if awakening to the scene about her, shook her head and cried to those nearest: "It was a tramp who did it, I suppose; at least, I am told so."

"A tramp has been took up, miss, on suspicion, as they call it."

"If a tramp has been taken up on suspicion, then he was the one who assailed her, of course." And pushing on through the crowd that fell back still more awe-struck than before, she went into the house.

The murmur that followed her was subdued but universal. It made no impression on Mr. Byrd. He had leaned forward to watch the girl's retreating form, but,[21] finding his view intercepted by the wrinkled profile of an old crone who had leaned forward too, had drawn impatiently back. Something in that crone's aged face made him address her.

"You know the lady?" he inquired.

"Yes," was the cautious reply, given, however, with a leer he found not altogether pleasant.

"She is a relative of the injured woman, or a friend, perhaps?"

The old woman's face looked frightful.

"No," she muttered grimly; "they are strangers."

At this unexpected response Mr. Byrd made a perceptible start forward. The old woman's hand fell at once on his arm.

"Stay!" she hoarsely whispered. "By strangers I mean they don't visit each other. The town is too small for any of us to be strangers."

Mr. Byrd nodded and escaped her clutch.

"This is worth seeing through," he murmured, with the first gleam of interest he had shown in the affair. And, hurrying forward, he succeeded in following the lady into the house.

The sight he met there did not tend to allay his newborn interest. There she stood in the centre of the sitting-room, tall, resolute, and commanding, her eyes fixed on the door of the room that contained the still breathing sufferer, Mr. Orcutt's eyes fixed upon her. It seemed as if she had asked one question and been answered; there had not been time for more.[22]

"I do not know what to say in apology for my intrusion," she remarked. "But the death, or almost the death, of a person of whom we have all heard, seems to me so terrible that——"

But here Mr. Orcutt interrupted gently, almost tenderly, but with a fatherly authority which Mr. Byrd expected to see her respect.

"Imogene," he observed, "this is no place for you; the horror of the event has made you forget yourself; go home and trust me to tell you on my return all that it is advisable for you to know."

But she did not even meet his glance with her steady eyes. "Thank you," she protested; "but I cannot go till I have seen the place where this woman fell and the weapon with which she was struck. I want to see it all. Mr. Ferris, will you show me?" And without giving any reason for this extraordinary request, she stood waiting with that air of conscious authority which is sometimes given by great beauty when united to a distinguished personal presence.

The District Attorney, taken aback, moved toward the dining-room door. "I will consult with the coroner," said he.

But she waited for no man's leave. Following close behind him, she entered upon the scene of the tragedy.

"Where was the poor woman hit?" she inquired.

They told her; they showed her all she desired and asked her no questions. She awed them, all but Mr. Orcutt—him she both astonished and alarmed.[23]

"And a tramp did all this?" she finally exclaimed, in the odd, musing tone she had used once before, while her eye fell thoughtfully to the floor. Suddenly she started, or so Mr. Byrd fondly imagined, and moved a pace, setting her foot carefully down upon a certain spot in the carpet beneath her.

"She has spied something," he thought, and watched to see if she would stoop.

But no, she held herself still more erectly than before, and seemed, by her rather desultory inquiries, to be striving to engage the attention of the others from herself.

"There is some one surely tapping at this door," she intimated, pointing to the one that opened into the lane.

Dr. Tredwell moved to see.

"Is there not?" she repeated, glancing at Mr. Ferris.

He, too, turned to see.

But there was still an eye regarding her from behind the sitting-room door, and, perceiving it, she impatiently ceased her efforts. She was not mistaken about the tapping. A man was at the door whom both gentlemen seemed to know.

"I come from the tavern where they are holding this tramp in custody," announced the new-comer in a voice too low to penetrate into the room. "He is frightened almost out of his wits. Seems to think he was taken up for theft, and makes no bones of saying that he did take a spoon or two from a house where he was let in for a bite. He gave up the spoons and expects to go to jail,[24] but seems to have no idea that any worse suspicion is hanging over him. Those that stand around think he is innocent of the murder."

"Humph! well, we will see," ejaculated Mr. Ferris; and, turning back, he met, with a certain sort of complacence, the eyes of the young lady who had been somewhat impatiently awaiting his reappearance. "It seems there are doubts, after all, about the tramp being the assailant."

The start she gave was sudden and involuntary. She took a step forward and then paused as if hesitating. Instantly, Mr. Byrd, who had not forgotten the small object she had been covering with her foot, sauntered leisurely forward, and, spying a ring on the floor where she had been standing, unconcernedly picked it up.

She did not seem to notice him. Looking at Mr. Ferris with eyes whose startled, if not alarmed, expression she did not succeed in hiding from the detective, she inquired, in a stifled voice:

"What do you mean? What has this man been telling you? You say it was not the tramp. Who, then, was it?"

"That is a question we cannot answer," rejoined Mr. Ferris, astonished at her heat, while Lawyer Orcutt, moving forward, attempted once more to recall her to herself.

"Imogene," he pleaded,—"Imogene, calm yourself. This is not a matter of so much importance to you that you need agitate yourself so violently in regard to it.[25] Come home, I beseech you, and leave the affairs of justice to the attention of those whose duty it is to look after them."

But beyond acknowledging his well-meant interference by a deprecatory glance, she stood immovable, looking from Dr. Tredwell to Mr. Ferris, and back again to Dr. Tredwell, as if she sought in their faces some confirmation of a hideous doubt or fear that had arisen in her own mind. Suddenly she felt a touch on her arm.

"Excuse me, madam, but is this yours?" inquired a smooth and careless voice over her shoulder.

As though awakening from a dream she turned; they all turned. Mr. Byrd was holding out in his open palm a ring blazing with a diamond of no mean lustre or value.

The sight of such a jewel, presented at such a moment, completed the astonishment of her friends. Pressing forward, they stared at the costly ornament and then at her, Mr. Orcutt's face especially assuming a startled expression of mingled surprise and apprehension, that soon attracted the attention of the others, and led to an interchange of looks that denoted a mutual but not unpleasant understanding.

"I found it at your feet," explained the detective, still carelessly, but with just that delicate shade of respect in his voice necessary to express a gentleman's sense of presumption in thus addressing a strange and beautiful young lady.[26]

The tone, if not the explanation, seemed to calm her, as powerful natures are calmed in the stress of a sudden crisis.

"Thank you," she returned, not without signs of great sweetness in her look and manner. "Yes, it is mine," she added slowly, reaching out her hand and taking the ring. "I must have dropped it without knowing it." And meeting the eye of Mr. Orcutt fixed upon her with that startled look of inquiry already alluded to, she flushed, but placed the jewel nonchalantly on her finger.

This cool appropriation of something he had no reason to believe hers, startled the youthful detective immeasurably. He had not expected such a dénouement to the little drama he had prepared with such quiet assurance, and, though with the quick self-control that distinguished him he forbore to show his surprise, he none the less felt baffled and ill at ease, all the more that the two gentlemen present, who appeared to be the most disinterested in their regard for this young lady, seemed to accept this act on her part as genuine, and therefore not to be questioned.

"It is a clue that is lost," thought he. "I have made a mess of my first unassisted efforts at real detective work." And, inwardly disgusted with himself, he drew back into the other room and took up his stand at a remote window.

The slight stir he made in crossing the room seemed to break a spell and restore the minds of all present to their[27] proper balance. Mr. Orcutt threw off the shadow that had momentarily disturbed his quiet and assured mien, and advancing once more, held out his arm with even more kindness than before, saying impressively:

"Now you will surely consent to accompany me home. You cannot mean to remain here any longer, can you, Imogene?"

But before she could reply, before her hand could lay itself on his arm, a sudden hush like that of awe passed solemnly through the room, and the physician, who had been set to watch over the dying gasps of the poor sufferer within, appeared on the threshold of the bedroom door, holding up his hand with a look that at once commanded attention and awoke the most painful expectancy in the hearts of all who beheld him:

"She stirs; she moves her lips," he announced, and again paused, listening.

Immediately there was a sound from the dimness behind him, a low sound, inarticulate at first, but presently growing loud enough and plain enough to be heard in the utmost recesses of the furthermost room on that floor.

"Hand! ring!" was the burden of the short ejaculation they heard. "Ring! hand!" till a sudden gasp cut short the fearful iteration, and all was silent again.

"Great heavens!" came in an awe-struck whisper from Mr. Ferris, as he pressed hastily toward the place from which these words had issued.

But the physician at once stopped and silenced him.[28]

"She may speak again," he suggested. "Wait."

But, though they listened breathlessly, and with ever-growing suspense, no further break occurred in the deep silence, and soon the doctor announced:

"She has sunk back into her old state; she may rouse again, and she may not."

As though released from some painful tension, the coroner, the District Attorney, and the detective all looked up. They found Miss Dare standing by the open window, with her face turned to the landscape, and Mr. Orcutt gazing at her with an expression of perplexity that had almost the appearance of dismay. This look passed instantly from the lawyer's countenance as he met the eyes of his friends, but Mr. Byrd, who was still smarting under a sense of his late defeat, could not but wonder what that gentleman had seen in Miss Dare, during the period of their late preoccupation, to call up such an expression to his usually keen and composed face.

The clinch of her white hand on the window-sill told nothing; but when in a few moments later she turned toward them again, Mr. Byrd saw, or thought he saw, the last lingering remains of a great horror fading out of her eyes, and was not surprised when she walked up to Mr. Orcutt and said, somewhat hoarsely: "I wish to go home now. This place is a terrible one to be in."

Mr. Orcutt, who was only too glad to comply with her request, again offered her his arm. But anxious as they evidently were to quit the house, they were not allowed[29] to do so without experiencing another shock. Just as they were passing the door of the room where the wounded woman lay, the physician in attendance again appeared before them with that silently uplifted hand.

"Hush!" said he; "she stirs again. I think she is going to speak."

And once more that terrible suspense held each and every one enthralled: once more that faint, inarticulate murmur eddied through the house, growing gradually into speech that this time took a form that curdled the blood of the listeners, and made Mr. Orcutt and the young woman at his side drop apart from each other as though a dividing sword had passed between them.

"May the vengeance of Heaven light upon the head of him who has brought me to this pass," were the words that now rose ringing and clear from that bed of death. "May the fate that has come upon me be visited upon him, measure for measure, blow for blow, death for death."

Strange and awe-inspiring words, that drew a pall over that house and made the dullest person there gasp for breath. In the silence that followed—a silence that could be felt—the white faces of lawyer and physician, coroner and detective, turned and confronted each other. But the young lady who lingered in their midst looked at no one, turned to no one. Shuddering and white, she stood gazing before her as if she already beheld that retributive hand descending upon the head of the guilty; then,[30] as she awoke to the silence of those around her, gave a quick start and flashed forward to the door and so out into the street before Mr. Orcutt could rouse himself sufficiently from the stupor of the moment to follow her.

[31]

III. THE UNFINISHED LETTER

Faith, thou hast some crotchets in thy head now.

—MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.

"WOULD there be any indiscretion in my asking who that young lady is?" inquired Mr. Byrd of Mr. Ferris, as, after ascertaining that the stricken sufferer still breathed, they stood together in a distant corner of the dining-room.

"No," returned the other, in a low tone, with a glance in the direction of the lawyer, who was just re-entering the house, after an unsuccessful effort to rejoin the person of whom they were speaking. "She is a Miss Dare, a young lady much admired in this town, and believed by many to be on the verge of matrimony with——" He nodded toward Mr. Orcutt, and discreetly forbore to finish the sentence.

"Ah!" exclaimed the youthful detective, "I understand." And he cast a look of suddenly awakened interest at the man who, up to this time, he had merely regarded as a more than usually acute criminal lawyer.

He saw a small, fair, alert man, of some forty years of age, of a good carriage, easy manner, and refined cast of countenance, overshadowed now by a secret anxiety[32] he vainly tried to conceal. He was not as handsome as Coroner Tredwell, nor as well built as Mr. Ferris, yet he was, without doubt, the most striking-looking man in the room, and, to the masculine eyes of the detective, seemed at first glance to be a person to win the admiration, if not the affection, of women.

"She appears to take a great interest in this affair," he ventured again, looking back at Mr. Ferris.

"Yes, that is woman's way," replied the other, lightly, without any hint of secret feeling or curiosity. "Besides, she is an inscrutable girl, always surprising you by her emotions—or by her lack of them," he added, dismissing the topic with a wave of his hand.

"Which is also woman's way," remarked Mr. Byrd, retiring into his shell, from which he had momentarily thrust his head.

"Does it not strike you that there are rather more persons present than are necessary for the purposes of justice?" asked the lawyer, now coming forward with a look of rather pointed significance at the youthful stranger.

Mr. Ferris at once spoke up. "Mr. Orcutt," said he, "let me introduce to you Mr. Byrd, of New York. He is a member of the police force, and has been rendering me assistance in the case just adjourned."

"A detective!" repeated the other, eying the young man with a critical eye. "It is a pity, sir," he finally observed, "that your present duties will not allow you[33] to render service to justice in this case of mysterious assault." And with a bow of more kindness than Mr. Byrd had reason to look for, he went slowly back to his former place near the door that hid the suffering woman from sight.

However kindly expressed, Mr. Byrd felt that he had received his dismissal, and was about to withdraw, when the coroner, who had been absent from their midst for the last few minutes, approached them from the foot of the stairs, and tapped the detective on the arm.

"I want you," said he.

Mr. Byrd bowed, and with a glance toward the District Attorney, who returned him a nod of approval, went quickly out with the coroner.

"I hear you are a detective," observed the latter, taking him up stairs into a room which he carefully locked behind them. "A detective on the spot in a case like this is valuable; are you willing to assume the duties of your profession and act for justice in this matter?"

"Dr. Tredwell," returned the young man, instantly conscious of a vague, inward shrinking from meddling further in the affair, "I am not at present master of my proceedings. To say nothing of the obedience I owe my superiors at home, I am just now engaged in assisting Mr. Ferris in the somewhat pressing matter now before the court, and do not know whether it would meet with his approval to have me mix up matters in this way."

"Mr. Ferris is a reasonable man," said the coroner. "If his consent is all that is necessary——"[34]

"But it is not, sir. I must have orders from New York."

"Oh, as to that, I will telegraph at once."

But still the young man hesitated, lounging in his easy way against the table by which he had taken his stand.

"Dr. Tredwell," he suggested, "you must have men in this town amply able to manage such a matter as this. A woman struck in broad daylight and a man already taken up on suspicion! 'Tis simple, surely; intricate measures are not wanted here."

"So you still think it is the tramp that struck her?" quoth the coroner, a trifle baffled by the other's careless manner.

"I still think it was not the man who sat in court all the morning and held me fascinated by his eye."

"Ah, he held you fascinated, did he?" repeated the other, a trifle suspiciously.

"Well, that is," Mr. Byrd allowed, with the least perceptible loss of his easy bearing, "he made me look at him more than once. A wandering eye always attracts me, and his wandered constantly."

"Humph! and you are sure he was in the court every minute of the morning?"

"There must be other witnesses who can testify to that," answered the detective, with the perceptible irritation of one weary of a subject which he feels he has already amply discussed.[35]

"Well," declared the other, dropping his eyes from the young man's countenance to a sheet of paper he was holding in his hand, "whatever rôle this humpback has played in the tragedy now occupying us, whether he be a wizard, a secret accomplice, a fool who cannot keep his own secret, or a traitor who cannot preserve that of his tools, this affair, as you call it, is not likely to prove the simple matter you seem to consider it. The victim, if not her townsfolk, knew she possessed an enemy, and this half-finished letter which I have found on her table, raises the question whether a common tramp, with no motive but that of theft or brutal revenge, was the one to meditate the fatal blow, even if he were the one to deal it."

A perceptible light flickered into the eyes of Mr. Byrd, and he glanced with a new but unmistakable interest at the letter, though he failed to put out his hand for it, even though the coroner held it toward him.

"Thank you," said he; "but if I do not take the case, it would be better for me not to meddle any further with it."

"But you are going to take it," insisted the other, with temper, his anxiety to secure this man's services increasing with the opposition he so unaccountably received. "The officers at the detective bureau in New York are not going to send another man up here when there is already one on the spot. And a man from New York I am determined to have. A crime like this shall not go[36] unpunished in this town, whatever it may do in a great city like yours. We don't have so many murder cases that we need to stint ourselves in the luxury of professional assistance."

"But," protested the young man, still determined to hold back, whatever arguments might be employed or inducements offered him, "how do you know I am the man for your work? We have many sorts and kinds of detectives in our bureau. Some for one kind of business, some for another; the following up of a criminal is not mine."

"What, then, is yours?" asked the coroner, not yielding a jot of his determination.

The detective was silent.

"Read the letter," persisted Dr. Tredwell, shrewdly conscious that if once the young man's professional instinct was aroused, all the puerile objections which influenced him would immediately vanish.

There was no resisting that air of command. Taking the letter in his hand, the young man read:

"DEAR EMILY:—I don't know why I sit down to write to you to-day. I have plenty to do, and morning is no time for indulging in sentimentalities; but I feel strangely lonely and strangely anxious. Nothing goes just to my mind, and somehow the many causes for secret fear which I have always had, assume an undue prominence in my mind. It is always so when I am not quite well. In vain I reason with myself, saying that respectable people do not lightly enter into crime. But there are so many to whom my death would be more than welcome, that I constantly see myself in the act of being——"

[37]

"Struck, shot, murdered," suggested Dr. Tredwell, perceiving the young man's eye lingering over the broken sentence.

"The words are not there," remonstrated Mr. Byrd; but the tone of his voice showed that his professional complacency had been disturbed at last.

The other did not answer, but waited with the wisdom of the trapper who sees the quarry nosing round the toils.

"There is evidently some family mystery," the young man continued, glancing again at the letter. "But," he remarked, "Mr. Orcutt is a good friend of hers, and can probably tell us what it all means."

"Very likely," the other admitted, "if we choose to ask him."

Quick as lightning the young man's glance flashed to the coroner's face.

"You would rather not put the question to him?" he inquired.

"No. As he is the lawyer who, in all probability, will be employed by the criminal in this case, I am sure he would rather not be mixed up in any preliminary investigation of the affair."

The young man's eye did not waver. He appeared to take a secret resolve.

"Has it not struck you," he insinuated, "that Mr. Orcutt might have other reasons for not wishing to give any expression of opinion in regard to it?"[38]

The surprise in the coroner's eye was his best answer.

"No," he rejoined.

Mr. Byrd at once resumed all his old nonchalance.

"The young lady who was here appeared to show such agitated interest in this horrible crime, I thought that, in kindness to her, he might wish to keep out of the affair as much as possible."

"Miss Dare? Bless your heart, she would not restrict him in any way. Her interest in the matter is purely one of curiosity. It has been carried, perhaps, to a somewhat unusual length for a woman of her position and breeding. But that is all, I assure you. Miss Dare's eccentricities are well known in this town."

"Then the diamond ring was really hers?" Mr. Byrd was about to inquire, but stopped; something in his memory of this beautiful woman made it impossible for him to disturb the confidence of the coroner in her behalf, at least while his own doubts were so vague and shadowy.

The coroner, however, observed the young detective's hesitation, and smiled.

"Are you thinking of Miss Dare as having any thing to do with this shocking affair?" he asked.

Mr. Byrd shook his head, but could not hide the flush that stole up over his forehead.

The coroner actually laughed, a low, soft, decorous laugh, but none the less one of decided amusement. "Your line is not in the direction of spotting criminals, I must allow," said he. "Why, Miss Dare is not only as[39] irreproachable a young lady as we have in this town, but she is a perfect stranger to this woman and all her concerns. I doubt if she even knew her name till to-day."

A laugh is often more potent than argument. The face of the detective lighted up, and he looked very manly and very handsome as he returned the letter to the coroner, saying, with a sweep of his hand as if he tossed an unworthy doubt away forever:

"Well, I do not wish to appear obstinate. If this woman dies, and the inquest fails to reveal who her assailant is, I will apply to New York for leave to work up the case; that is, if you continue to desire my assistance. Meanwhile——"

"You will keep your eyes open," intimated the coroner, taking back the letter and putting it carefully away in his breast-pocket. "And now, mum!"

Mr. Byrd bowed, and they went together down the stairs.

It was by this time made certain that the dying woman was destined to linger on for some hours. She was completely unconscious, and her breath barely lifted the clothes that lay over the slowly laboring breast; but such vitality as there was held its own with scarcely perceptible change, and the doctor thought it might be midnight before the solemn struggle would end. "In the meantime, expect nothing," he exclaimed; "she has said her last word. What remains will be a mere sinking into the eternal sleep."[40]

This being so, Mr. Orcutt and Mr. Ferris decided to leave. Mr. Byrd saw them safely out, and proceeded to take one or two private observations of his own. They consisted mostly in noting the precise position of the various doors in reference to the hearth where the stick was picked up, and the clock where the victim was attacked. Or, so the coroner gathered from the direction which Mr. Byrd's eye took in its travels over the scene of action, and the diagram which he hastily drew on the back of an envelope. The table was noticed, too, and an inventory of its articles taken, after which he opened the side-door and looked carefully out into the lane.

To observe him now with his quick eye flashing from spot to spot, his head lifted, and a visible air of determination infused through his whole bearing, you would scarcely recognize the easy, gracefully indolent youth who, but a little while before, lounged against the tables and chairs, and met the most penetrating eye with the sleepy gaze of a totally uninterested man. Dr. Tredwell, alert to the change, tapped the letter in his pocket complacently. "I have roused up a weasel," he mentally decided, and congratulated himself accordingly.

It was two o'clock when Mr. Byrd went forth to join Mr. Ferris in the court-room. As he stepped from the door, he encountered, to all appearance, just the same crowd that had encumbered its entrance a half hour before. Even the old crone had not moved from her former position, and seeing him, fairly pounced upon[41] him with question after question, all of which he parried with a nonchalant dexterity that drew shout after shout from those who stood by, and, finally, as he thought, won him the victory, for, with an angry shake of the head, she ceased her importunities, and presently let him pass. He hastened to improve the chance to gain for himself the refuge of the streets; and, having done this, stood for an instant parleying with a trembling young girl, whose real distress and anxiety seemed to merit some attention. Fatal delay. In that instant the old woman had got in front of him, and when he arrived at the head of the street he found her there.

"Now," said she, with full-blown triumph in her venomous eyes, "perhaps you will tell me something! You think I am a mumbling old woman who don't know what she is bothering herself about. But I tell you I've not kept my eyes and ears open for seventy-five years in this wicked world without knowing a bit of the devil's own work when I see it." Here her face grew quite hideous, and her eyes gleamed with an aspect of gloating over the evil she alluded to, that quite sickened the young man, accustomed though he was to the worst phases of moral depravity. Leaning forward, she peered inquiringly in his face. "What has she to do with it?" she suddenly asked, emphasizing the pronoun with an expressive leer.

"She?" he repeated, starting back.

"Yes, she; the pretty young lady, the pert and haughty[42] Miss Dare, that had but to speak to make the whole crowd stand back. What had she to do with it, I say? Something, or she wouldn't be here!"

"I don't know what you are talking about," he replied, conscious of a strange and unaccountable dismay at thus hearing his own passing doubt put into words by this vile and repellent being. "Miss Dare is a stranger. She has nothing to do either with this affair or the poor woman who has suffered by it. Her interest is purely one of sympathy."

"Hi! and you call yourself a smart one, I dare say." And the old creature ironically chuckled. "Well, well, well, what fools men are! They see a pretty face, and blind themselves to what is written on it as plain as black writing on a white wall. They call it sympathy, and never stop to ask why she, of all the soft-hearted gals in the town, should be the only one to burst into that house like an avenging spirit! But it's all right," she went on, in a bitterly satirical tone. "A crime like this can't be covered up, however much you may try; and sooner or later we will all know whether this young lady has had any thing to do with Mrs. Clemmens' murder or not."

"Stop!" cried Mr. Byrd, struck in spite of himself by the look of meaning with which she said these last words. "Do you know any thing against Miss Dare which other folks do not? If you do, speak, and let me hear at once what it is. But—" he felt very angry, though he could not for the moment tell why—"if you are only talking to[43] gratify your spite, and have nothing to tell me except the fact that Miss Dare appeared shocked and anxious when she came from the widow's house just now, look out what use you make of her name, or you will get yourself into trouble. Mr. Orcutt and Mr. Ferris are not men to let you go babbling round town about a young lady of estimable character." And he tightened the grip he had taken upon her arm and looked at her threateningly.

The effect was instantaneous. Slipping from his grasp, she gazed at him with a sinister expression and edged slowly away.

"I know any thing?" she repeated. "What should I know? I only say the young lady's face tells a very strange story. If you are too dull or too obstinate to read it, it's nothing to me." And with another leer and a quick look up and down the street, as if she half feared to encounter one or both of the two lawyers whose names he had mentioned, she marched quickly away, wagging her head and looking back as she went, as much as to say: "You have hushed me up for this time, young man, but don't congratulate yourself too much. I have still a tongue in my head, and the day may come when I can use it without any fear of being stopped by you."

Mr. Byrd, who was not very well pleased with himself or the way he had managed this interview, watched her till she was out of sight, and then turned thoughtfully toward the court-house. The fact was, he felt both agitated and confused. In the first place, he was disconcerted[44] at discovering the extent of the impression that had evidently been made upon him by the beauty of Miss Dare, since nothing short of a deep, unconscious admiration for her personal attributes, and a strong and secret dread of having his lately acquired confidence in her again disturbed, could have led him to treat the insinuations of this babbling old wretch in such a cavalier manner. Any other detective would have seized with avidity upon the opportunity of hearing what she had to say on such a subject, and would not only have cajoled her into confidence, but encouraged her to talk until she had given utterance to all that was on her mind. But in the stress of a feeling to which he was not anxious to give a name, he had forgotten that he was a detective, and remembered only that he was a man; and the consequence was that he had frightened the old creature, and cut short words that it was possibly his business to hear. In the second place, he felt himself in a quandary as regarded Miss Dare. If, as was more than possible, she was really the innocent woman the coroner considered her, and the insinuations, if not threats, to which he had been listening were simply the result of a wicked old woman's privately nurtured hatred, how could he reconcile it to his duty as a man, or even as a detective, to let the day pass without warning her, or the eminent lawyer who honored her with his regard, of the danger in which she stood from this creature's venomous tongue.[45]

As he sat in court that afternoon, with his eye upon Mr. Orcutt, beneath whose ordinary aspect of quiet, sarcastic attention he thought he could detect the secret workings of a deep, personal perplexity, if not of actual alarm, he asked himself what he would wish done if he were that man, and a scandal of a debasing character threatened the peace of one allied to him by the most endearing ties. "Would I wish to be informed of it?" he queried. "I most certainly should," was his inward reply.

And so it was that, after the adjournment of court, he approached Mr. Orcutt, and leading him respectfully aside, said, with visible reluctance:

"I beg your pardon, sir, but a fact has come to my knowledge to-day with which I think you ought to be made acquainted. It is in reference to the young lady who was with us at Mrs. Clemmens' house this morning. Did you know, sir, that she had an enemy in this town?"

Mr. Orcutt, whose thoughts had been very much with that young lady since she left him so unceremoniously a few hours before, started and looked at Mr. Byrd with surprise which was not without its element of distrust.

"An enemy?" he repeated. "An enemy? What do you mean?"

"What I say, Mr. Orcutt. As I came out of Mrs. Clemmens' house this afternoon, an old hag whose name I do not know, but whom you will probably have no difficulty[46] in recognizing, seized me by the arm and made me the recipient of insinuations and threats against Miss Dare, which, however foolish and unfounded, betrayed an animosity and a desire to injure her that is worthy your attention."

"You are very kind," returned Mr. Orcutt, with increased astonishment and a visible constraint, "but I do not understand you. What insinuations or threats could this woman have to make against a young lady of Miss Dare's position and character?"

"It is difficult for me to tell you," acknowledged Mr. Byrd; "but the vicious old creature presumed to say that Miss Dare must have had a special and secret interest in this murder, or she would not have gone as she did to that house. Of course," pursued the detective, discreetly dropping his eyes from the lawyer's face, "I did what I could to show her the folly of her suspicions, and tried to make her see the trouble she would bring upon herself if she persisted in expressing them; but I fear I only succeeded in quieting her for the moment, and that she will soon be attacking others with this foolish story."

Mr. Orcutt who, whatever his own doubts or apprehensions, could not fail to be totally unprepared for a communication of this kind, gave utterance to a fierce and bitter exclamation, and fixed upon the detective his keen and piercing eye.

"Tell me just what she said," he demanded.

"I will try to do so," returned Mr. Byrd. And calling[47] to his aid a very excellent memory, he gave a verbatim account of the conversation that had passed between him and the old woman. Mr. Orcutt listened, as he always did, without interruption or outward demonstration; but when the recital was over and Mr. Byrd ventured to look at him once more, he noticed that he was very pale and greatly changed in expression. Being himself in a position to understand somewhat of the other's emotion, he regained by an effort the air of polite nonchalance that became him so well, and quickly suggested: "Miss Dare will, of course, be able to explain herself."

The lawyer flashed upon him a quick glance.

"I hope you have no doubts on the subject," he said; then, as the detective's eye fell a trifle before his, paused and looked at him with the self-possession gained in fifteen years of practice in the criminal courts, and said: "I am Miss Dare's best friend. I know her well, and can truly say that not only is her character above reproach, but that I am acquainted with no circumstances that could in any way connect her with this crime. Nevertheless, the incidents of the day have been such as to make it desirable for her to explain herself, and this, as you say, she will probably have no difficulty in doing. If you will, therefore, wait till to-morrow before taking any one else into your confidence, I promise you to see Miss Dare myself, and, from her own lips, learn the cause of her peculiar interest in this affair. Meanwhile, let me request you to put a curb upon your imagination, and[48] not allow it to soar too high into the regions of idle speculation."

And he held out his hand to the detective with a smile whose vain attempt at unconcern affected Mr. Byrd more than a violent outbreak would have done. It betrayed so unmistakably that his own secret doubts were not without an echo in the breast of this eminent lawyer.

[49]

IV. IMOGENE

You are a riddle, solve you who can.—KNOWLES.

MR. ORCUTT was a man who for many years had turned a deaf ear and a cold eye to the various attractions and beguilements of woman. Either from natural coldness of disposition, or for some other latent cause, traceable, perhaps, to some fact in his past history, and not to be inquired into by gossiping neighbors and so-called friends, he had resisted, even to the point of disdain, both the blandishments of acknowledged belles, and the more timid but no less pleasing charms of the shy country misses that he met upon his travels.

But one day all this was changed. Imogene Dare entered his home, awakening a light in the dim old place that melted his heart and made a man out of what was usually considered a well-ordered machine.

She had been a foundling. Yes, this beautiful, disdainful, almost commanding woman, had in the beginning been that most unfortunate of beings—a child without a name. But though this fact may have influenced the course of her early days, it gradually disappeared from notice as she grew up and developed, till in Sibley, at least, it became wellnigh a fact forgotten. Her beauty,[50] as well as the imposing traits of her character, was the cause. There are some persons so gifted with natural force that, once brought in contact with them, you forget their antecedents, and, indeed, every thing but themselves. Either their beauty overawes you or they, by conversation or bearing, so completely satisfy you of their right to your respect, that indifference takes the place of curiosity, and you yield your regard as if you have already yielded your admiration, without question and without stint.

The early years of her life were passed in the house of a poor widow, to whom the appearance of this child on her door-step one fine day had been nothing more nor less than a veritable godsend. First, because she was herself alone in the world, and needed the mingled companionship and care which a little one invariably gives; and, secondly, because Imogene, from the very first, had been a noticeable child, who early attracted the attention of the neighbors, and led to many a substantial evidence of favor from them, as well as from the strangers who passed their gate or frequented their church. Insensibly to herself, and without help of circumstances or rearing, the girl was a magnet toward which all good things insensibly tended; and the widow saw this, and, while reaping the reward, stinted neither her affection nor her gratitude.

When Imogene was eleven, this protector of her infancy died. But another home instantly offered. A wealthy[51] couple of much kindness, if little culture, adopted her as their child, and gave her every benefit in life save education. This never having possessed themselves, they openly undervalued. But she was not to be kept down by the force of any circumstances, whether favorable or otherwise. All the graces of manner and refinements of thought which properly belong to the station she had now attained, but which, in the long struggle after wealth, had escaped the honest couple that befriended her, became by degrees her own, tempering without destroying her individuality, any more than the new life of restraint that now governed her physical powers, was able to weaken or subdue that rare and splendid physique which had been her fairest birthright.

In the lap of luxury, therefore, and in full possession of means to come and go and conform herself to the genteel world and its fashions, she passed the next four years; but scarcely had she attained the age of fifteen, when bankruptcy, followed by death, again robbed her of her home and set her once more adrift upon the world.

This time she looked to no one for assistance. Refusing all offers, many of them those of honorable marriage, she sought for work, and after a short delay found it in the household of Mr. Orcutt. The aged sister who governed his home and attended to all its domestic details, hired her as a sort of assistant, rightly judging that the able young body and the alert hand would bring into the household economy just that life and interest[52] which her own failing strength had now for some time refused to supply.

That the girl was a beauty and something more, who could not from the nature of things be kept in that subordinate position, she either failed to see, or, seeing, was pleased to disregard. She never sought to impose restraint upon the girl any more than she did upon her brother, when in the course of events she saw that his eye was at last attracted and his imagination fired by the noble specimen of girlhood that made its daily appearance at his own board.

That she had introduced a dangerous element into that quiet home, that ere long would devastate its sacred precincts, and endanger, if not destroy, its safety and honor, she had no reason to suspect. What was there in youth, beauty, and womanly power that one should shrink from their embodiment and tremble as if an evil instead of a good had entered that hitherto undisturbed household? Nothing, if they had been all. But alas for her, and alas for him—they were not all! Mixed with the youth, beauty, and power was a something else not to be so readily understood—a something, too, which, without offering explanation to the fascinated mind that studied her, made the beauty unique, the youth a charm, and the power a controlling force. She was not to be sounded. Going and coming, smiling and frowning, in movement or at rest, she was always a mystery; the depths of her being remaining still in hiding, however calmly she spoke or[53] however graciously she turned upon you the light of her deep gray eyes.

Mr. Orcutt loved her. From the first vision he had of her face and form dominating according to their nature at his board and fireside, he had given up his will into her unconscious keeping. She was so precisely what all other women he had known were not. At first so distant, so self-contained, so unapproachable in her pride; then as her passion grew for books, so teachable, so industrious, so willing to listen to his explanations and arguments; and lastly——

But that did not come at once. A long struggle took place between those hours when he used to encourage her to come into his study and sit at his side, and read from his books, and the more dangerous time still, when he followed her into the drawing-room and sat at her side, and sought to read, not from books, but from her eyes, the story of his own future fate.

For, powerful as was his passion and deeply as his heart had been touched, he did not yield to the thought of marriage which such a passion involves, without a conflict. He would make her his child, the heiress of his wealth, and the support of his old age; this was his first resolve. But it did not last; the first sight he had of her on her return from a visit to Buffalo, which he had insisted upon her making during the time of his greatest mental conflict, had assured him that this could never be; that he must be husband and she wife, or else their[54] relations must entirely cease. Perhaps the look with which she met him had something to do with this. It was such a blushing, humble—yes, for her, really humble and beautiful—look. He could not withstand it. Though no one could have detected it in his manner, he really succumbed in that hour. Doubt and hesitation flew to the winds, and to make her his own became the sole aim and object of his life.

He did not, however, betray his purpose at once. Neighbors and friends might and did suspect the state of his feelings, but to her he was silent. That vague something which marked her off from the rest of her sex, seemed to have deepened in her temporary sojourn from his side, and whatever it meant of good or of ill, it taught him at least to be wary. At last, was it with premeditation or was it in some moment of uncontrollable impulse, he spoke; not with definite pleading, or even with any very clear intimation that he desired some day to make her his wife, but in a way that sufficed to tear the veil from their previous intercourse and let her catch a glimpse, if no more, of his heart, and its devouring passion.

He was absolutely startled at the result. She avowed that she had never thought of his possessing such a regard for her; and for two days shut herself up in her room and refused to see either him or his sister. Then she came down, blooming like a rose, but more distant, more quiet, and more inscrutable than ever. Pride, if[55] pride she felt, was subdued under a general aspect of womanly dignity that for a time held all further avowals in check, and made all intercourse between them at once potent in its attraction and painful in its restraint.

"She is waiting for a distinct offer of marriage," he decided.

And thus matters stood, notwithstanding the general opinion of their friends, when the terrible event recorded in the foregoing chapters of this story brought her in a new light before his eyes, and raised a question, shocking as it was unexpected, as to whether this young girl, immured as he had believed her to be in his own home, had by some unknown and inexplicable means run upon the secret involving, if not explaining, the mystery of this dreadful and daring crime.

Such an idea was certainly a preposterous one to entertain. He neither could nor would believe she knew more of this matter than any other disinterested person in town, and yet there had certainly been something in her bearing upon the scene of tragedy, that suggested a personal interest in the affair; nor could he deny that he himself had been struck by the incongruity of her behavior long before it attracted the attention of others.

But then he had opportunities for judging of her conduct which others did not have. He not only had every reason to believe that the ring to which she had so publicly laid claim was not her own, but he had observed how, at the moment the dying woman had made that tell-tale exclamation[56] of "Ring and Hand!" Miss Dare had looked down at the jewel she had thus appropriated, with a quick horror and alarm that seemed to denote she had some knowledge of its owner, or some suspicion, at least, as to whose hand had worn it before she placed it upon her own.

It was not, therefore, a matter of wonder that he was visibly affected at finding her conduct had attracted the attention of others, and one of those a detective, or that the walk home after his interview with Mr. Byrd should have been fraught with a dread to which he scarcely dared to give a name.

The sight of Miss Dare coming down the path as he reached his own gate did not tend to greatly allay his apprehensions, particularly as he observed she was dressed in travelling costume, and carried a small satchel on her arm.

"Imogene," he cried, as she reached him, "what is the meaning of this? Where are you going?"

Her face, which wore a wholly unnatural and strained expression, turned slowly toward his.

"I am going to Buffalo," she said.

"To Buffalo?"

"Yes."

This was alarming, surely. She was going to leave the town—leave it suddenly, without excuse or explanation!

Looking at her with eyes which, for all their intense inquiry, conveyed but little of the serious emotions that were agitating his mind, he asked, hurriedly:[57]

"What takes you to Buffalo—to-day—so suddenly?"

Her answer was set and mechanical.

"I have had news. One of my—my friends is not well. I must go. Do not detain me."

And she moved quickly toward the gate.

But his tremulous hand was upon it, and he made no offer to open a passage for her.

"Pardon me," said he, "but I cannot let you go till I have had some conversation with you. Come with me to the house, Imogene. I will not detain you long."

But with a sad and abstracted gesture she slowly shook her head.

"It is too late," she murmured. "I shall miss the train if I stop now."

"Then you must miss it," he cried, bitterly, forgetting every thing else in the torture of his uncertainty. "What I have to say cannot wait. Come!"

This tone of command from one who had hitherto adapted himself to her every whim, seemed to strike her. Paling quickly, she for the first time looked at him with something like a comprehension of his feelings, and quietly replied:

"Forgive me. I had forgotten for the moment the extent of your claims upon me. I will wait till to-morrow before going." And she led the way back to the house.

When they were alone together in the library, he turned toward her with a look whose severity was the fruit of his condition of mind rather than of any natural harshness or imperiousness.[58]

"Taking her hand in his, he looked at her long and searchingly. 'Imogene,' he exclaimed, 'there is something weighing on your heart.'"—(Page 58.)

"Now, Imogene," said he, "tell me why you desire to leave my house."

Her face, which had assumed a mask of cold impassiveness, confronted him like that of a statue, but her voice, when she spoke, was sufficiently gentle.

"Mr. Orcutt," was her answer, "I have told you. I have a call elsewhere which must be attended to. I do not leave your house; I merely go to Buffalo for a few days."

But he could not believe this short statement of her intentions. In the light of these new fears of his, this talk of Buffalo, and a call there, looked to him like the merest subterfuge. Yet her gentle tone was not without its effect, and his voice visibly softened as he said:

"You are intending, then, to return?"

Her reply was prefaced by a glance of amazement.

"Of course," she responded at last. "Is not this my home?"

Something in the way she said this carried a ray of hope to his heart. Taking her hand in his, he looked at her long and searchingly.

"Imogene!" he exclaimed, "there is something serious weighing upon your heart. What is it? Will you not make me the confidant of your troubles? Tell me what has made such a change in you since—since noon, and its dreadful event."

But her expression did not soften, and her manner became even more reserved than before.

[59]

"I have not any thing to tell," said she.

"Not any thing?" he repeated.

"Not any thing."

Dropping her hand, he communed a moment with himself. That a secret of possible consequence lay between them he could not doubt. That it had reference to and involved the crime of the morning, he was equally sure. But how was he to make her acknowledge it? How was he to reach her mind and determine its secrets without alarming her dignity or wounding her heart?

To press her with questions seemed impossible. Even if he could have found words with which to formulate his fears, her firm, set face, and steady, unrelenting eye, assured him only too plainly that the attempt would be met by failure, if it did not bring upon him her scorn and contempt. No; some other method must be found; some way that would completely and at once ease his mind of a terrible weight, and yet involve no risk to the love that had now become the greatest necessity of his existence. But what way? With all his acumen and knowledge of the world, he could think of but one. He would ask her hand in marriage—aye, at this very moment—and from the tenor of her reply judge of the nature of her thoughts. For, looking in her face, he felt forced to acknowledge that whatever doubts he had ever cherished in reference to the character of this remarkable girl, upon one point he was perfectly clear, and this was, that she was at basis honorable in her instincts,[60] and would never do herself or another a real injustice. If a distinct wrong or even a secret of an unhappy or debasing nature lay between them, he knew that nothing, not even the bitterest necessity or the most headlong passion, would ever drive her into committing the dishonor of marrying him.

No; if with his declaration in her ears, and with his eyes fixed upon hers, she should give any token of her willingness to accept his addresses, he felt he might know, beyond doubt or cavil, that whatever womanish excitability may have moved her in her demonstrations that day, they certainly arose from no private knowledge or suspicion detrimental to his future peace or to hers.

Bracing himself, therefore, to meet any result that might follow his attempt, he drew her gently toward him and determinedly addressed her.

"Imogene, I told you at the gate that I had something to say to you. So I have; and though it may not be wholly unexpected to you, yet I doubt if it would have left my lips to-night if the events of the day had not urged me to offer you my sympathy and protection."

He paused, almost sickened; at that last phrase she had grown so terribly white and breathless. But something in her manner, notwithstanding, seemed to encourage him to proceed, and smothering his doubts, trampling, as it were, upon his rising apprehensions, he calmed down his tone and went quietly on:

"Imogene, I love you."[61]

She did not shrink.

"Imogene, I want you for my wife. Will you listen to my prayer, and make my home forever happy with your presence?"

Ah, now she showed feeling; now she started and drew back, putting out her hands as if the idea he had advanced was insupportable to her. But it was only for a moment. Before he could say to himself that it was all over, that his worst fears had been true, and that nothing but the sense of some impassable gulf between them could have made her recoil from him like this, she had dropped her hands and turned toward him with a look whose deep inquiry and evident struggle after an understanding of his claims, spoke of a mind clouded by trouble, but not alienated from himself by fear.

She did not speak, however,—not for some few minutes, and when she did, her words came in short and hurried gasps.

"You are kind," was what she said. "To be your—wife"—she had difficulty in uttering the word, but it came at last—"would be an honor and a protection. I appreciate both. But I am in no mood to-night to listen to words of love from any man. Perhaps six months hence——"

But he already had her in his arms. The joy and relief he felt were so great he could not control himself. "Imogene," he murmured, "my Imogene!" And scarcely heeded her when, in a burst of subdued agony,[62] she asked to be released, saying that she was ill and tired, and must be allowed to withdraw to her room.

But a second appeal woke him from his dream. If his worst fears were without foundation; if her mind was pure of aught that unfitted her to be his wife, there was yet much that was mysterious in her conduct, and, consequently, much which he longed to have explained.

"Imogene," he said, "I must ask you to remain a moment longer. Hard as it is for me to distress you, there is a question which I feel it necessary to put to you before you go. It is in reference to the fearful crime which took place to-day. Why did you take such an interest in it, and why has it had such an effect upon you that you look like a changed woman to-night?"

Disengaging herself from his arms, she looked at him with the set composure of one driven to bay, and asked:

"Is there any thing strange in my being interested in a murder perpetrated on a person whose name I have frequently heard mentioned in this house?"

"No," he murmured, "no; but what led you to her home? It was not a spot for a young lady to be in, and any other woman would have shrunk from so immediate a contact with crime."

Imogene's hand was on the door, but she turned back.

"I am not like other women," she declared. "When I hear of any thing strange or mysterious, I want to understand it. I did not stop to ask what people would think of my conduct."[63]

"But your grief and terror, Imogene? They are real, and not to be disguised. Look in the glass over there, and you will yourself see what an effect all this has had upon you. If Mrs. Clemmens is a stranger to you; if you know no more of her than you have always led me to suppose, why should you have been so unnaturally impressed by to-day's tragedy?"

It was a searching question, and her eye fell slightly, but her steady demeanor did not fail her.

"Still," said she, "because I am not like other women. I cannot forget such horrors in a moment." And she advanced again to the door, upon which she laid her hand.

Unconsciously his eye followed the movement, and rested somewhat inquiringly upon that hand. It was gloved, but to all appearance was without the ring which he had seen her put on at the widow's house.

She seemed to comprehend his look. Meeting his eye with unshaken firmness, she resumed, in a low and constrained voice:

"You are wondering about the ring that formed a portion of the scene we are discussing. Mr. Orcutt, I told the gentleman who handed it to me to-day that it was mine. That should be enough for the man who professes sufficient confidence in me to wish to make me his wife. But since your looks confess a curiosity in regard to this diamond, I will say that I was as much astonished as anybody to see it picked up from the floor at[64] my feet. The last time I had seen it was when I dropped it, somewhat recklessly, into a pocket. How or when it fell out, I cannot say. As for the ring itself," she haughtily added, "young ladies frequently possess articles of whose existence their friends are unconscious."

Here was an attempt at an explanation which, though meagre and far from satisfactory, had at least a basis in possibility. But Mr. Orcutt, as I have before said, was certain that the ring was lying on the floor of the room where it was picked up, before Imogene had made her appearance there, and was therefore struck with dismay at this conclusive evidence of her falsehood.

Yet, as he said to himself, she might have some association with the ring, might even have an owner's claim upon it, incredible as this appeared, without being in the possession of such knowledge as definitely connected it with this crime. And led by this hope he laid his hand on hers as it was softly turning the knob of the door, and said, with emotion:

"Imogene, one moment. This is a subject which I am as anxious to drop as you are. In your condition it is almost cruelty to urge it upon you, but of one thing I must be assured before you leave my presence, and that is, that whatever secrets you may hide in your soul, or whatever motive may have governed your treatment of me and my suit to-night, they do not spring from any real or supposed interest in this crime, which ought from its nature to separate you and me. I ask," he quickly added,[65] as he saw her give a start of injured pride or irrepressible dismay, "not because I have any doubts on the subject myself, but because some of the persons who have unfortunately been witness to your strange and excited conduct to-day, have presumed to hint that nothing short of a secret knowledge of the crime or criminal could explain your action upon the scene of tragedy."

And with a look which, if she had observed it, might have roused her to a sense of the critical position in which she stood, he paused and held his breath for her reply.

It did not come.

"Imogene?"

"I hear."

Cold and hard the words sounded—his hand went like lightning to his heart.

"Are you going to answer?" he asked, at last.

"Yes."

"What is that answer to be, Yes or No?"

She turned upon him her large gray eyes. There was misery in their depths, but there was a haughtiness, also, which only truth could impart.

"My answer is No!" said she.

And, without another word, she glided from the room.

Next morning, Mr. Byrd found three notes awaiting his perusal. The first was a notification from the coroner to the effect that the Widow Clemmens had quietly breathed her last at midnight. The second, a hurried line from Mr. Ferris, advising him to make use of the day[66] in concluding a certain matter of theirs in the next town; and the third, a letter from Mr. Orcutt, couched in the following terms:

MR. BYRD: Dear Sir—I have seen the person named between us, and I here state, upon my honor, that she is in possession of no facts which it concerns the authorities to know.

TREMONT B. ORCUTT.

[67]

V. HORACE BYRD

But now, I am cabin'd, cribbed, confin'd, bound in
To saucy doubts and fears.—MACBETH.

HORACE BYRD was by birth and education a gentleman. He was the son of a man of small means but great expectations, and had been reared to look forward to the day when he should be the possessor of a large income. But his father dying, both means and expectations vanished into thin air, and at the age of twenty, young Horace found himself thrown upon the world without income, without business, and, what was still worse, without those habits of industry that serve a man in such an emergency better than friends and often better than money itself.

He had also an invalid mother to look after, and two young sisters whom he loved with warm and devoted affection; and though by the kindness and forethought of certain relatives he was for a time spared all anxiety on their account, he soon found that some exertion on his part would be necessary to their continued subsistence, and accordingly set about the task of finding suitable employment, with much spirit and no little hope.

But a long series of disappointments taught him that[68] young men cannot leap at a bound into a fine salary or even a promising situation; and baffled in every wish, worn out with continued failures, he sank from one state of hope to another, till he was ready to embrace any prospect that would insure ease and comfort to the helpless beings he so much loved.

It was while he was in this condition that Mr. Gryce—a somewhat famous police detective of New York—came upon him, and observing, as he thought, some signs of natural aptitude for fine work, as he called it, in this elegant but decidedly hard-pushed young gentleman, seized upon him with an avidity that can only be explained by this detective's long-cherished desire to ally to himself a man of real refinement and breeding; having, as he privately admitted more than once to certain chosen friends, a strong need of such a person to assist him in certain cases where great houses were to be entered and fine gentlemen if not fair ladies subjected to interviews of a delicate and searching nature.

To join the police force and be a detective was the last contingency that had occurred to Horace Byrd. But men in decidedly straitened circumstances cannot pick and choose too nicely; and after a week of uncertainty and fresh disappointment, he went manfully to his mother and told her of the offer that had been made him. Meeting with less discouragement than he had expected from the broken-down and unhappy woman, he gave himself up to the guiding hand of Mr. Gryce, and before he realized it,[69] was enrolled among the secret members of the New York force.

He was not recognized publicly as a detective. His name was not even known to any but the highest officials. He was employed for special purposes, and it was not considered desirable that he should be seen at police head-quarters. But being a man of much ability and of a solid, reliable nature, he made his way notwithstanding, and by the time he had been in the service a year, was looked upon as a good-fellow and a truly valuable acquisition to the bureau. Indeed, he possessed more than the usual qualifications for his calling, strange as the fact appeared not only to himself but to the few friends acquainted with his secret. In the first place, he possessed much acuteness without betraying it. Of an easy bearing and a polished address, he was a man to please all and alarm none, yet he always knew what he was about and what you were about, too, unless indeed you possessed a power of dissimulation much beyond ordinary, when the chances were that his gentlemanly instincts would get in his way, making it impossible for him to believe in a guilt that was too hardy to betray itself, and too insensible to shame to blush before the touch of the inquisitor.

In the second place, he liked the business. Yes, notwithstanding the theories of that social code to which he once paid deference, notwithstanding the frankness and candor of his own disposition, he found in this pursuit a[70] nice adjustment of cause to effect and effect to cause that at once pleased and satisfied his naturally mathematical mind.

He did not acknowledge the fact, not even to himself. On the contrary, he was always threatening that in another month he should look up some new means of livelihood, but the coming month would invariably bring a fresh case before his notice, and then it would be: "Well, after this matter is probed to the bottom," or, "When that criminal is made to confess his guilt," till even his little sisters caught the infection, and would whisper over their dolls:

"Brother Horace is going to be a great man when all the bad and naughty people in the world are put in prison."

As a rule, Mr. Byrd was not sent out of town. But, on the occasion of Mr. Ferris desiring a man of singular discretion to assist him in certain inquiries connected with the case then on trial in Sibley, there happened to be a deficiency of capable men in the bureau, and the superintendent was obliged to respond to the call by sending Mr. Byrd. He did not do it, however, without making the proviso that all public recognition of this officer, in his real capacity, was to be avoided. And so far the wishes of his superiors had been respected. No one outside of the few persons mentioned in the first chapter of this story suspected that the easy, affable, and somewhat distinguished-looking young gentleman who honored the village hotel with his patronage was a secret emissary of the New York police.[71]

Mr. Byrd was, of all men, then, the very one to feel the utmost attraction toward, and at the same time the greatest shrinking from, the pursuit of such investigations as were likely to ensue upon the discovery of the mysterious case of murder which had so unexpectedly been presented to his notice. As a professional, he could not fail to experience that quick start of the blood which always follows the recognition of a "big affair," while as a gentleman, he felt himself recoil from probing into a matter that was blackened by a possibility against which every instinct in his nature rebelled.

It was, therefore, with oddly mingled sensations that he read Mr. Orcutt's letter, and found himself compelled to admit that the coroner had possessed a truer insight than himself into the true cause of Miss Dare's eccentric conduct upon the scene of the tragedy. His main feeling, however, was one of relief. It was such a comfort to think he could proceed in the case without the dread of stumbling upon a clue that, in some secret and unforeseen way, should connect this imposing woman with a revolting crime. Or so he fondly considered. But he had not spent five minutes at the railroad station, where, in pursuance to the commands of Mr. Ferris, he went to take the train for Monteith, before he saw reason to again change his mind. For, there among the passengers awaiting the New York express, he saw Miss Dare, with a travelling-bag upon her arm and a look on her face that, to say the least, was of most uncommon character in a scene of so[72] much bustle and hurry. She was going away, then—going to leave Sibley and its mystery behind her! He was not pleased with the discovery. This sudden departure looked too much like escape, and gave him, notwithstanding the assurance he had received from Mr. Orcutt, an uneasy sense of having tampered with his duty as an officer of justice, in thus providing this mysterious young woman with a warning that could lead to a result like this.

Yet, as he stood at the depot surveying Miss Dare, in the few minutes they both had to wait, he asked himself over and over again how any thought of her possessing a personal interest in the crime which had just taken place could retain a harbor in his mind. She looked so noble in her quiet aspect of solemn determination, so superior in her young, fresh beauty—a determination that, from the lofty look it imparted, must have its birth in generous emotion, even if her beauty was but the result of a rarely modelled frame and a health of surpassing perfection. He resolved he would think of her no more in that or any other connection; that he would follow the example of her best friend, and give his doubts to the wind.

And yet such a burr is suspicion, that he no sooner saw a young man approaching her with the evident intention of speaking, than he felt an irresistible desire to hear what she would have to say, and, led by this impulse, allowed himself to saunter nearer and nearer the pair, till he stood almost at their backs.[73]

The first words he heard were:

"How long do you expect to remain in Buffalo, Miss Dare?"

To which she replied:

"I have no idea whether I shall stay a week or a month."

Then the whistle of the advancing train was heard, and the two pressed hurriedly forward.

The business which had taken Mr. Byrd to Monteith kept him in that small town all day. But though he thus missed the opportunity of attending the opening of the inquest at Sibley, he did not experience the vivid disappointment which might have been expected, his interest in that matter having in some unaccountable way subsided from the moment he saw Imogene Dare take the cars for Buffalo.

It was five o'clock when he again returned to Sibley, the hour at which the western train was also due. In fact, it came steaming in while he stood there, and, as was natural, perhaps, he paused a moment to watch the passengers alight. There were not many, and he was about to turn toward home, when he saw a lady step upon the platform whose appearance was so familiar that he stopped, disbelieving the evidence of his own senses. Miss Dare returned? Miss Dare, who but a few hours before had left this very depot for the purpose, as she said, of making a visit of more or less length in the distant city of Buffalo? It could not be. And yet there[74] was no mistaking her, disguised though she was by the heavy veil that covered her features. She had come back, and the interest which Mr. Byrd had lost in Sibley and its possible mystery, revived with a suddenness that called up a self-conscious blush to his hardy cheek.

But why had she so changed her plans? What could have occurred during the few hours that had elapsed since her departure, to turn her about on her path and drive her homeward before her journey was half completed? He could not imagine. True, it was not his present business to do so; and yet, however much he endeavored to think of other things, he found this question occupying his whole mind long after his return to the village hotel. She was such a mystery, this woman, it might easily be that she had never intended to go to Buffalo; that she had only spoken of that place as the point of her destination under the stress of her companion's importunities, and that the real place for which she was bound had been some spot very much nearer home. The fact, that her baggage had consisted only of a small bag that she carried on her arm, would lend probability to this idea, yet, such was the generous character of the young detective, he hesitated to give credit to this suspicion, and indeed took every pains to disabuse himself of it by inquiring of the ticket-agent, whether it was true, as he had heard, that Miss Dare had left town on that day for a visit to her friends in Buffalo.

He received for his reply that she had bought a ticket[75] for that place, though she evidently had not used it, a fact which seemed at least to prove she was honest in the expression of her intentions that morning, whatever alteration may have taken place in her plans during the course of her journey.

Mr. Byrd did not enjoy his supper that night, and was heartily glad when, in a few moments after its completion, Mr. Ferris came in for a chat and a cigar.

They had many things to discuss. First, their own case now drawing to a successful close; next, the murder of the day before; and lastly, the few facts which had been elicited in regard to that murder, in the inquiry which had that day been begun before the coroner.

Of the latter Mr. Ferris spoke with much interest. He had attended the inquest himself, and, though he had not much to communicate—the time having been mainly taken up in selecting and swearing in a jury—a few witnesses had been examined and certain conclusions reached, which certainly added greatly to the impression already made upon the public mind, that an affair of great importance had arisen; an affair, too, promising more in the way of mystery than the simple nature of its earlier manifestations gave them reason to suppose.

In the first place, the widow had evidently been assaulted with a deliberate purpose and a serious intent to slay.

Secondly, no immediate testimony was forthcoming calculated to point with unerring certainty to the guilty party.[76]

To be sure, the tramp and the hunchback still offered possibilities of suspicion; but even they were slight, the former having been seen to leave the widow's house without entering, and the latter having been proved beyond a question to have come into town on the morning train and to have gone at once to court where he remained till the time they all saw him disappear down the street.

That the last-mentioned individual may have had some guilty knowledge of the crime was possible enough. The fact of his having wiped himself out so completely as to elude all search, was suspicious in itself, but if he was connected with the assault it must have been simply as an accomplice employed to distract public attention from the real criminal; and in a case like this, the interest naturally centres with the actual perpetrator; and the question was now and must be: Who was the man who, in broad daylight, dared to enter a house situated like this in a thickly populated street, and kill with a blow an inoffensive woman?

"I cannot imagine," declared Mr. Ferris, as his communication reached this point. "It looks as if she had an enemy, but what enemy could such a person as she possess—a woman who always did her own work, attended to her own affairs, and made it an especial rule of her life never to meddle with those of anybody else?"

"Was she such a woman?" inquired Mr. Byrd, to whom as yet no knowledge had come of the widow's life, habits, or character.[77]

"Yes. In all the years I have been in this town I have never heard of her visiting any one or encouraging any one to visit her. Had it not been for Mr. Orcutt, she would have lived the life of a recluse. As it was, she was the most methodical person in her ways that I ever knew. At just such an hour she rose; at just such an hour put on her kettle, cooked her meal, washed her dishes, and sat herself down to her sewing or whatever work it was she had to do. The dinner was the only meal that waited, and that, Mr. Orcutt says, was always ready and done to a turn at whatever moment he chose to present himself."

"Had she no intimates, no relatives?" asked Mr. Byrd, remembering that fragment of a letter he had read—a letter which certainly contradicted this assertion in regard to her even and quiet life.

"None that I am aware of," was the response. "Wait, I believe I have been told she has a nephew somewhere—a sister's son, for whom she had some regard and to whom she intended to leave her money."

"She had money, then?"

"Some five thousand, maybe. Reports differ about such matters."

"And this nephew, where does he live?"

"I cannot tell you. I don't know as any one can. My remembrances in regard to him are of the vaguest character."

"Five thousand dollars is regarded as no mean sum in a town like this," quoth Mr. Byrd, carelessly.[78]

"I know it. She is called quite rich by many. How she got her money no one knows; for when she first came here she was so poor she had to eat and sleep all in one room. Mr. Orcutt paid her something for his daily dinner, of course, but that could not have enabled her to put ten dollars in the bank as she has done every week for the last ten years. And to all appearances she has done nothing else for her living. You see, we have paid attention to her affairs, if she has paid none to ours."

Mr. Byrd again remembered that scrap of a letter which had been shown him by the coroner, and thought to himself that their knowledge was in all probability less than they supposed.

"Who was that horrid crone I saw shouldering herself through the crowd that collected around the gate yesterday?" was his remark, however. "Do you remember a wizen, toothless old wretch, whose eye has more of the Evil One in it than that of many a young thief you see locked up in the county jails?"

"No; that is, I wonder if you mean Sally Perkins. She is old enough and ugly enough to answer your description; and, now I think of it, she has a way of leering at you as you go by that is slightly suggestive of a somewhat bitter knowledge of the world. What makes you ask about her?"

"Because she attracted my attention, I suppose. You must remember that I don't know any of these people, and that an especially vicious-looking person like her would be apt to awaken my curiosity."[79]

"I see, I see; but, in this case, I doubt if it leads to much. Old Sally is a hard one, no doubt. But I don't believe she ever contemplated a murder, much less accomplished it. It would take too much courage, to say nothing of strength. It was a man's hand struck that blow, Mr. Byrd."

"Yes," was the quick reply—a reply given somewhat too quickly, perhaps, for it made Mr. Ferris look up inquiringly at the young man.

"You take considerable interest in the affair," he remarked, shortly. "Well, I do not wonder. Even my old blood has been somewhat fired by its peculiar features. I foresee that your detective instinct will soon lead you to risk a run at the game."

"Ah, then, you see no objection to my trying for the scent, if the coroner persists in demanding it?" inquired Mr. Byrd, as he followed the other to the door.

"On the contrary," was the polite response.

And Mr. Byrd found himself satisfied on that score.

Mr. Ferris had no sooner left the room than the coroner came in.

"Well," cried he, with no unnecessary delay, "I want you."

Mr. Byrd rose.

"Have you telegraphed to New York?" he asked.

"Yes, and expect an answer every minute. There will be no difficulty about that. The superintendent is my friend, and will not be likely to cross me in my expressed wish."[80]

"But——" essayed the detective.

"We have no time for buts," broke in the coroner. "The inquest begins in earnest to-morrow, and the one witness we most want has not yet been found. I mean the man or the woman who can swear to seeing some one approach or enter the murdered woman's house between the time the milkman left it at half-past eleven and the hour she was found by Mr. Orcutt, lying upon the floor of her dining-room in a dying condition. That such a witness exists I have no doubt. A street in which there are six houses, every one of which has to be passed by the person entering Widow Clemmens' gate, must produce one individual, at least, who can swear to what I want. To be sure, all whom I have questioned so far say that they were either eating dinner at the time or were in the kitchen serving it up; but, for all that, there were plenty who saw the tramp, and two women, at least, who are ready to take their oath that they not only saw him, but watched him long enough to observe him go around to the Widow Clemmens' kitchen door and turn about again and come away as if for some reason he had changed his mind about entering. Now, if there were two witnesses to see all that, there must have been one somewhere to notice that other person, known or unknown, who went through the street but a few minutes before the tramp. At all events, I believe such a witness can be found, and I mean to have him if I call up every man, woman, and child who was in the lane at the time. But[81] a little foreknowledge helps a coroner wonderfully, and if you will aid me by making judicious inquiries round about, time will be gained, and, perhaps, a clue obtained that will lead to a direct knowledge of the perpetrator of this crime."

"But," inquired the detective, willing, at least, to discuss the subject with the coroner, "is it absolutely necessary that the murderer should have advanced from the street? Is there no way he could have reached the house from the back, and so have eluded the gaze of the neighbors round about?"

"No; that is, there is no regular path there, only a stretch of swampy ground, any thing but pleasant to travel through. Of course a man with a deliberate purpose before him might pursue that route and subject himself to all its inconveniences; but I would scarcely expect it of one who—who chose such an hour for his assault," the coroner explained, with a slight stammer of embarrassment that did not escape the detective's notice. "Nor shall I feel ready to entertain the idea till it has been proved that no person, with the exception of those already named, was seen any time during that fatal half-hour to advance by the usual way to the widow's house."

"Have you questioned the tramp, or in any way received from him an intimation of the reason why he did not go into the house after he came to it?"

"He said he heard voices quarrelling."

"Ah!"[82]

"Of course he was not upon his oath, but as the statement was volunteered, we have some right to credit it, perhaps."

"Did he say"—it was Mr. Byrd now who lost a trifle of his fluency—"what sort of voices he heard?"

"No; he is an ignorant wretch, and is moreover thoroughly frightened. I don't believe he would know a cultivated from an uncultivated voice, a gentleman's from a quarryman's. At all events, we cannot trust to his discrimination."

Mr. Byrd started. This was the last construction he had expected to be put upon his question. Flushing a trifle, he looked the coroner earnestly in the face. But that gentleman was too absorbed in the train of thought raised by his own remark to notice the look, and Mr. Byrd, not feeling any too well assured of his own position, forbore to utter the words that hovered on his tongue.

"I have another commission for you," resumed the coroner, after a moment. "Here is a name which I wish you would look at——"

But at this instant a smart tap was heard at the door, and a boy entered with the expected telegram from New York. Dr. Tredwell took it, and, after glancing at its contents with an annoyed look, folded up the paper he was about to hand to Mr. Byrd and put it slowly back into his pocket. He then referred again to the telegram.

"It is not what I expected," he said, shortly, after a[83] moment of perplexed thought. "It seems that the superintendent is not disposed to accommodate me." And he tossed over the telegram.

Mr. Byrd took it and read:

"Expect a suitable man by the midnight express. He will bring a letter."

A flush mounted to the detective's brow.

"You see, sir," he observed, "I was right when I told you I was not the man."

"I don't know," returned the other, rising. "I have not changed my opinion. The man they send may be very keen and very well-up in his business, but I doubt if he will manage this case any better than you would have done," and he moved quietly toward the door.

"Thank you for your too favorable opinion of my skill," said Mr. Byrd, as he bowed the other out. "I am sure the superintendent is right. I am not much accustomed to work for myself, and was none too eager to take the case in the first place, as you will do me the justice to remember. I can but feel relieved at this shifting of the responsibility upon shoulders more fitted to bear it."

Yet, when the coroner was gone, and he sat down alone by himself to review the matter, he found he was in reality more disappointed than he cared to confess. Why, he scarcely knew. There was no lessening of the shrinking he had always felt from the possible developments which an earnest inquiry into the causes of this crime might educe. Yet, to be severed in this way from all[84] professional interest in the pursuit cut him so deeply that, in despite of his usual good-sense and correct judgment, he was never nearer sending in his resignation than he was in that short half-hour which followed the departure of Dr. Tredwell. To distract his thoughts, he at last went down to the bar-room.

[85]

VI. THE SKILL OF AN ARTIST

A hit, a very palpable hit.—HAMLET.

HE found it occupied by some half-dozen men, one of whom immediately attracted his attention, by his high-bred air and total absorption in the paper he was reading. He was evidently a stranger, and, though not without some faint marks of a tendency to gentlemanly dissipation, was, to say the least, more than ordinarily good-looking, possessing a large, manly figure, and a fair, regular-featured face, above which shone a thick crop of short curly hair of a peculiarly bright blond color. He was sitting at a small table, drawn somewhat apart from the rest, and was, as I have said, engrossed with a newspaper, to the utter exclusion of any apparent interest in the talk that was going on at the other end of the room. And yet this talk was of the most animated description, and was seemingly of a nature to attract the attention of the most indifferent. At all events Mr. Byrd considered it so; and, after one comprehensive glance at the elegant stranger, that took in not only the personal characteristics I have noted, but also the frown of deep thought or anxious care that furrowed a naturally smooth forehead, he passed quietly up the[86] room and took his stand among the group of loungers there assembled.

Mr. Byrd was not unknown to the habitués of that place, and no cessation took place in the conversation. They were discussing an occurrence slight enough in itself, but made interesting and dramatic by the unconscious enthusiasm of the chief speaker, a young fellow of indifferent personal appearance, but with a fervid flow of words and a knack at presenting a subject that reminded you of the actor's power, and made you as anxious to watch his gesticulations as to hear the words that accompanied them.

"I tell you," he was saying, "that it was just a leaf out of a play. I never saw its equal off the stage. She was so handsome, so impressive in her trouble or anxiety, or whatever it was that agitated her, and he so dark, and so determined in his trouble or anxiety, or whatever it was that agitated him. They came in at different doors, she at one side of the depot and he at another, and they met just where I could see them both, directly in the centre of the room. 'You!' was her involuntary cry, and she threw up her hands before her face just as if she had seen a ghost or a demon. An equal exclamation burst from him, but he did not cover his eyes, only stood and looked at her as if he were turned to stone. In another moment she dropped her hands. 'Were you coming to see me?' came from her lips in a whisper so fraught with secret horror and anguish that it curdled my blood to hear it.[87] 'Were you coming to see me?' was his response, uttered in an equally suppressed voice and with an equal intensity of expression. And then, without either giving an answer to the other's question, they both shrank back, and, turning, fled with distracted looks, each by the way they had come, the two doors closing with a simultaneous bang that echoed through that miserable depot like a knell. There were not many folks in the room just at that minute, but I tell you those that were looked at each other as they had not done before and would not be likely to do again. Some unhappy tragedy underlies such a meeting and parting, gentlemen, and I for one would rather not inquire what."

"But the girl—the man—didn't you see them again before you left?" asked an eager voice from the group.

"The young lady," remarked the other, "was on the train that brought me here. The gentleman went the other way."

"Oh!" "Ah!" and "Where did she get off?" rose in a somewhat deafening clamor around him.

"I did not observe. She seemed greatly distressed, if not thoroughly overcome, and observing her pull down her veil, I thought she did not relish my inquiring looks, and as I could not sit within view of her and not watch her, I discreetly betook myself into the smoking-car, where I stayed till we arrived at this place."

"Hum!" "Ha!" "Curious!" rose in chorus once more, and then, the general sympathies of the crowd[88] being exhausted, two or three or more of the group sauntered up to the bar, and the rest sidled restlessly out of the room, leaving the enthusiastic speaker alone with Mr. Byrd.

"A strange scene!" exclaimed the latter, infusing just enough of seeming interest into his usually nonchalant tone to excite the vanity of the person he addressed, and make him more than ever ready to talk. "I wish I had been in your place," continued Mr. Byrd, almost enthusiastically. "I am sure I could have made a picture of that scene that would have been very telling in the gazette I draw for."

"Do you make pictures for papers?" the young fellow inquired, his respect visibly rising.

"Sometimes," the imperturbable detective replied, and in so doing told no more than the truth. He had a rare talent for off-hand sketching, and not infrequently made use of it to increase the funds of the family.

"Well, that is something I would like to do," acknowledged the youth, surveying the other over with curious eyes. "But I hav'n't a cent's worth of talent for it. I can see a scene in my mind now—this one for instance—just as plain as I can see you; all the details of it, you know, the way they stood, the clothes they wore, the looks on their faces, and all that, but when I try to put it on paper, why, I just can't, that's all."

"Your forte lies another way," remarked Mr. Byrd. "You can present a scene so vividly that a person who[89] had not seen it for himself, might easily put it on paper just from your description. See now!" And he caught up a sheet of paper from the desk and carried it to a side table. "Just tell me what depot this was in."

The young fellow, greatly interested at once, leaned over the detective's shoulder and eagerly replied: "The depot at Syracuse."

Mr. Byrd nodded and made a few strokes with his pencil on the paper before him.

"How was the lady dressed?" he next asked.

"In blue; dark blue cloth, fitting like a glove. Fine figure, you know, very tall and unusually large, but perfect, I assure you, perfect. Yes, that is very like it," he went on watching the quick, assured strokes of the other with growing wonder and an unbounded admiration. "You have caught the exact poise of the head, as I live, and—yes, a large hat with two feathers, sir, two feathers drooping over the side, so; a bag on the arm; two flounces on the skirt; a—oh! the face? Well, handsome, sir, very handsome; straight nose, large eyes, determined mouth, strong, violently agitated expression. Well, I will give up! A photograph couldn't have done her better justice. You are a genius, sir, a genius!"

Mr. Byrd received this tribute to his skill with some confusion and a deep blush, which he vainly sought to hide by bending lower over his work.

"The man, now," he suggested, with the least perceptible change in his voice, that, however, escaped the attention[90] of his companion. "What was he like; young or old?"

"Well, young—about twenty-five I should say; medium height, but very firmly and squarely built, with a strong face, large mustache, brilliant eyes, and a look—I cannot describe it, but you have caught that of the lady so well, you will, doubtless, succeed in getting his also."

But Mr. Byrd's pencil moved with less certainty now, and it was some time before he could catch even the peculiarly sturdy aspect of the figure which made this unknown gentleman, as the young fellow declared, look like a modern Hercules, though he was far from being either large or tall. The face, too, presented difficulties he was far from experiencing in the case of the lady, and the young fellow at his side was obliged to make several suggestions such as:—"A little more hair on the forehead, if you please—there was quite a lock showing beneath his hat;" or, "A trifle less sharpness to the chin,—so;" or, "Stay, you have it too square now; tone it down a hair's breadth, and you will get it," before he received even the somewhat hesitating acknowledgment from the other of: "There, that is something like him!"

But he had not expected to succeed very well in this part of the picture, and was sufficiently pleased to have gained a very correct notion of the style of clothing the gentleman wore, which, it is needless to state, was most faithfully reproduced in the sketch, even if the exact expression of the strong and masculine face was not.[91]

"A really remarkable bit of work," admitted the young fellow when the whole was completed. "And as true to the scene, too, as half the illustrations given in the weekly papers. Would you mind letting me have it as a souvenir?" he eagerly inquired. "I would like to show it to a chap who was with me at the time. The likeness to the lady is wonderful."

But Mr. Byrd, with his most careless air, had already thrust the picture into his pocket, from which he refused to withdraw it, saying, with an easy laugh, that it might come in play with him some time, and that he could not afford to part with it. At which remark the young fellow looked disappointed and vaguely rattled some coins he had in his pocket; but, meeting with no encouragement from the other, forbore to press his request, and turned it into an invitation to join him in a social glass at the bar.

To this slight token of appreciation Mr. Byrd did not choose to turn a deaf ear. So the drinks being ordered, he proceeded to clink glasses with the youthful stranger, taking the opportunity, at the same time, of glancing over to the large, well-built man whose quiet absorption in the paper he was reading had so attracted his attention when he first came in.

To his surprise he found that person just as engrossed in the news as ever, not a feature or an eyelash appearing to have moved since the time he looked at him last.

Mr. Byrd was so astonished at this that when he left the room a few minutes later he took occasion in passing the gentleman, to glance at the paper he was studying so[92] industriously, and, to his surprise, found it to be nothing more nor less than the advertising sheet of the New York Herald.

"A fellow of my own craft," was his instantaneous conclusion. But a moment's consideration assured him that this could not be, as no detective worthy the name would place so little value upon the understanding of those about him as to sit for a half-hour with his eyes upon a sheet of paper totally devoid of news, no matter what his purpose might be, or how great was his interest in the conversation to which he was secretly listening. No; this gentleman was doubtless what he seemed to be, a mere stranger, with something of a serious and engrossing nature upon his mind, or else he was an amateur, who for some reason was acting the part of a detective without either the skill or experience of one.

Whichever theory might be true, this gentleman was a person who at this time and in this place was well worth watching: that is, if a man had any reason for interesting himself in the pursuit of possible clues to the mystery of Mrs. Clemmens' murder. But Mr. Byrd felt that he no longer possessed a professional right to such interest; so, leaving behind him this fine-looking gentleman, together with all the inevitable conjectures which the latter's peculiar manner had irresistibly awakened, he proceeded to regain his room and enter upon that contemplation of the picture he had just made, which was naturally demanded by his regard for one of the persons there depicted.[93]

It was a vigorous sketch, and the slow blush crept up and dyed Mr. Byrd's forehead as he gazed at it and realized the perfection of the likeness he had drawn of Miss Dare. Yes, that was her form, her face, her expression, her very self. She it was and no other who had been the heroine of the strange scene enacted that day in the Syracuse depot; a scene to which, by means of this impromptu sketch, he had now become as nearly a witness as any one could hope for who had not been actually upon the spot. Strange! And he had been so anxious to know what had altered the mind of this lady and sent her back to Sibley before her journey was half completed—had pondered so long and vainly upon the whys and wherefores of an action whose motive he had never expected to understand, but which he now saw suggested in a scene that seriously whetted, if it did not thoroughly satisfy, his curiosity.

The moment he had chosen to portray was that in which the eyes of the two met and their first instinctive recoil took place. Turning his attention from the face of the lady and bestowing it upon that of the man, he perceived there the horror and shrinking which he had imprinted so successfully upon hers. That the expression was true, though the countenance was not, he had no doubt. The man, whatever his name, nature, calling, or history, recoiled from a meeting with Imogene Dare as passionately as she did from one with him. Both had started from home with a simultaneous intention of seeking the other, and yet, at the first recognition of this[94] fact, both had started and drawn back as if death rather than life had confronted them in each other's faces. What did it mean? What secret of a deep and deadly nature could lie between these two, that a scene of such evident import could take place between them? He dared not think; he could do nothing but gaze upon the figure of the man he had portrayed, and wonder if he would be able to identify the original in case he ever met him. The face was more or less a failure, of course, but the form, the cut of the clothes, the manner of carriage, and the general aspect of strong and puissant manhood which distinguished the whole figure, could not be so far from correct but that, with a hint from surrounding circumstances, he would know the man himself when he saw him. At all events, he meant to imprint the possible portrait upon his mind in case——in case what? Pausing he asked himself this question with stern determination, and could find no answer.

"I will burn the sketch at once, and think of it and her no more," he muttered, half-rising.

But he did not do it. Some remembrance crossed his mind of what the young fellow downstairs had said about retaining it as a souvenir, and he ended in folding it up and putting it away somewhat carefully in his memorandum-book, with a vow that he would leave Sibley and its troublous mystery at the first moment of release that he could possibly obtain. The pang which this decision cost him convinced him that it was indeed high time he did so.

[95]

VII. MISS FIRMAN

I confess with all humility that at times the line of demarcation between truth and fiction is rendered so indefinite and indistinct, that I cannot always determine, with unerring certainty, whether an event really happened to me, or whether I only dreamed it.—LONGFELLOW.

MR. BYRD, upon waking next morning, found himself disturbed by a great perplexity. Were the words then ringing in his ears, real words, which he had overheard spoken outside of his door some time during the past night, or were they merely the empty utterances of a more than usually vivid dream?

He could not tell. He could remember the very tone of voice in which he fancied them to have been spoken—a tone which he had no difficulty in recognizing as that of the landlord of the hotel; could even recall the faint sounds of bustle which accompanied them, as though the person using them had been showing another person through the hall; but beyond that, all was indistinct and dream-like.

The words were these:

"Glad to see you back, sir. This murder following so close upon your visit must have been a great surprise. A sad occurrence, that, sir, and a very mysterious one. Hope you have some information to give."

"If it is a remembrance and such words were uttered[96] outside of my door last night," argued the young detective to himself, "the guest who called them forth can be no other than the tall and florid gentleman whom I encountered in the bar-room. But is it a remembrance, or only a chimera of my own overwrought brain struggling with a subject it will not let drop? As Shakespeare says, 'That is the question!'"

Fortunately, it was not one which it behooved him to decide. So, for the twentieth time, he put the subject by and resolved to think of it no more.

But perplexities of this kind are not so easily dismissed, and more than once during his hurried and solitary breakfast, did he ask himself whether, in case the words were real, he had not found in the landlord of this very hotel the one witness for which the coroner was so diligently seeking.

A surprise awaited him after breakfast, in the sudden appearance at his room door of the very gentleman last alluded to.

"Ha, Byrd," said he, with cheerful vivacity: "here is a line from the superintendent which may prove interesting to you."

And with a complacent smile, Dr. Tredwell handed over a letter which had been brought to him by the detective who had that morning arrived from New York.

With a dim sense of foreboding which he would have found difficult to explain, Mr. Byrd opened the note and read the following words:[97]

DEAR SIR,—I send with this a man fully competent to conduct a case of any ordinary difficulty. I acknowledge it is for our interest that you employ him to the exclusion of the person mentioned in your letter. But if you or that person think that he can render you any real assistance by his interference, he is at liberty to act in his capacity of detective in as far as he can do so without divulging too widely the secret of his connection with the force. —— ——.

"The superintendent need not be concerned," said Mr. Byrd, returning the note with a constrained bow. "I shall not interfere in this matter."

"You will miss a good thing, then," remarked the coroner, shortly, looking keenly at the young man.

"I cannot help it," observed the other, with a quick sigh of impatience or regret. "I should have to see my duty very clearly and possess the very strongest reasons for interfering before I presumed to offer either advice or assistance after a letter of this kind."

"And who knows but what such reasons may yet present themselves?" ventured the coroner. Then seeing the young man shake his head, made haste to add in the business-like tone of one preparing to take his leave, "At all events the matter stands open for the present; and if during the course of to-day's inquiry you see fit to change your mind, it will be easy enough for you to notify me." And without waiting for any further remonstrance, he gave a quick nod and passed hastily out.

The state of mind in which he left Mr. Byrd was any thing but enviable. Not that the young man's former determination to let this matter alone had been in any[98] wise shaken by the unexpected concession on the part of the superintendent, but that the final hint concerning the inquest had aroused his old interest to quite a formidable degree, and, what was worse, had reawakened certain feelings which since last night it had been his most earnest endeavor to subdue. He felt like a man pursued by an implacable fate, and dimly wondered whether he would be allowed to escape before it was too late to save himself from lasting uneasiness, if not lifelong regret.

A final stroke of business for Mr. Ferris kept him at the court-house most of the morning; but his duty in that direction being at an end, he no longer found any excuse for neglecting the task imposed upon him by the coroner. He accordingly proceeded to the cottage where the inquest was being held, and finding each and every available room there packed to its uttermost by interested spectators, took up his stand on the outside of a curtained window, where with but a slight craning of his neck he could catch a very satisfactory view of the different witnesses as they appeared before the jury. The day was warm and he was by no means uncomfortable, though he could have wished that the advantages of his position had occasioned less envy in the breasts of the impatient crowd that was slowly gathering at his back; or, rather, that their sense of these advantages might have been expressed in some more pleasing way than by the various pushes he received from the more or less adventurous spirits who endeavored to raise themselves over his shoulder or insinuate themselves under his arms.[99]

The room into which he looked was the sitting-room, and it was, so far as he could judge in the first casual glance he threw into it, occupied entirely by strangers. This was a relief. Since it had become his duty to attend this inquiry, he wished to do so with a free mind, unhindered by the watchfulness of those who knew his interest in the affair, or by the presence of persons around whom his own imagination had involuntarily woven a network of suspicion that made his observation of them at once significant and painful.

The proceedings were at a standstill when he first came upon the scene.

A witness had just stepped aside, who, from the impatient shrugs of many persons present, had evidently added little if any thing to the testimony already given. Taking advantage of the moment, Mr. Byrd leaned forward and addressed a burly man who sat directly under him.

"What have they been doing all the morning?" he asked. "Any thing important?"

"No," was the surly reply. "A score of folks have had their say, but not one of them has told any thing worth listening to. Nobody has seen any thing, nobody knows any thing. The murderer might have risen up through the floor to deal his blow, and having given it, sunk back again with the same supernatural claptrap, for all these stupid people seem to know about him."

The man had a loud voice, and as he made no attempt to modulate it, his words were heard on all sides. Naturally[100] many heads were turned toward him, and more than one person looked at him with an amused smile. Indeed, of all the various individuals in his immediate vicinity, only one forbore to take any notice of his remark. This was a heavy, lymphatic, and somewhat abstracted-looking fellow of nondescript appearance, who stood stiff and straight as an exclamation point against the jamb of the door-way that led into the front hall.

"But have no facts been obtained, no conclusions reached, that would serve to awaken suspicion or put justice on the right track?" pursued Mr. Byrd, lowering his voice in intimation for the other to do the same.

But that other was of an obstinate tendency, and his reply rose full and loud.

"No, unless it can be considered proved that it is only folly to try and find out who commits a crime in these days. Nothing else has come to light, as far as I can see, and that much we all knew before."

A remark of this kind was not calculated to allay the slight inclination to mirth which his former observation had raised; but the coroner rapping with his gavel on the table at this moment, every other consideration was lost in the natural curiosity which every one felt as to who the next witness would be.

But the coroner had something to say before he called for further testimony.

"Gentlemen," he remarked, in a clear and commanding tone that at once secured attention and awakened interest,[101] "we have spent the morning in examining the persons who live in this street, with a view to ascertaining, if possible, who was in conversation with Mrs. Clemmens at the time the tramp went up to her door."

Was it a coincidence, or was there something in the words themselves that called forth the stir that at this moment took place among the people assembled directly before Mr. Byrd? It was of the slightest character, and was merely momentary in its duration; nevertheless, it attracted his attention, especially as it seemed to have its origin in a portion of the room shut off from his observation by the corner of the wall already alluded to.

The coroner proceeded without pause.

"The result, as you know, has not been satisfactory. No one seems to be able to tell us who it was that visited Mrs. Clemmens on that day. I now propose to open another examination of a totally different character, which I hope may be more conclusive in its results. Miss Firman, are you prepared to give your testimony?"

Immediately a tall, gaunt, but pleasant-faced woman arose from the dim recesses of the parlor. She was dressed with decency, if not taste, and took her stand before the jury with a lady-like yet perfectly assured air that promised well for the correctness and discretion of her answers. The coroner at once addressed her.

"Your full name, madam?"

"Emily Letitia Firman, sir."

"Emily!" ejaculated Mr. Byrd, to himself, with a[102] throb of sudden interest. "That is the name of the murdered woman's correspondent."

"Your birthplace," pursued the coroner, "and the place of your present residence?"

"I was born in Danbury, Connecticut," was the reply, "and I am living in Utica, where I support my aged mother by dress-making."

"How are you related to Mrs. Clemmens, the lady who was found murdered here two days ago?"

"I am her second cousin; her grandmother and my mother were sisters."

"Upon what terms have you always lived, and what can you tell us of her other relatives and connections?"

"We have always been friends, and I can tell you all that is generally known of the two or three remaining persons of her blood and kindred. They are, first, my mother and myself, who, as I have before said, live in Utica, where I am connected with the dress-making establishment of Madame Trebelle; and, secondly, a nephew of hers, the son of a favorite brother, whom she has always supported, and to whom she has frequently avowed her intention of leaving her accumulated savings."

"The name of this gentleman and his place of residence?"

"His name is Mansell—Craik Mansell—and he lives in Buffalo, where he has a situation of some trust in the large paper manufactory of Harrison, Goodman, & Chamberlin."[103]

Buffalo! Mr. Byrd gave an involuntary start, and became, if possible, doubly attentive.

The coroner's questions went on.

"Do you know this young man?"

"Yes, sir. He has been several times to our house in the course of the last five years."

"What can you tell us of his nature and disposition, as well as of his regard for the woman who proposed to benefit him so materially by her will?"

"Well, sir," returned Miss Firman, "it is hard to read the nature and feelings of any man who has much character, and Craik Mansell has a good deal of character. But I have always thought him a very honest and capable young man, who might do us credit some day, if he were allowed to have his own way and not be interfered with too much. As for his feelings toward his aunt, they were doubtless those of gratitude, though I have never heard him express himself in any very affectionate terms toward her, owing, no doubt, to a natural reticence of disposition which has been observable in him from childhood."

"You have, however, no reason to believe he cherished any feelings of animosity toward his benefactress?" continued the coroner, somewhat carelessly, "or possessed any inordinate desire after the money she was expecting to leave him at her death?"

"No, sir. Both having minds of their own, they frequently disagreed, especially on business matters; but there was never any bitterness between them, as far as I[104] know, and I never heard him say any thing about his expectations one way or the other. He is a man of much natural force, of strong, if not violent, traits of character; but he has too keen a sense of his own dignity to intimate the existence of desires so discreditable to him."

There was something in this reply and the impartial aspect of the lady delivering it that was worthy of notice, perhaps. And such it would have undoubtedly received from Mr. Byrd, at least, if the words she had used in characterizing this person had not struck him so deeply that he forgot to note any thing further.

"A man of great natural force—of strong, if not violent traits of character," he kept repeating to himself. "The description, as I live, of the person whose picture I attempted to draw last night."

And, ignoring every thing else, he waited with almost sickening expectation for the question that would link this nephew of Mrs. Clemmens either to the tragedy itself, or to that person still in the background, of whose secret connection with a man of this type, he had obtained so curious and accidental a knowledge.

But it did not come. With a quiet abandonment of the by no means exhausted topic, which convinced Mr. Byrd that the coroner had plans and suspicions to which the foregoing questions had given no clue, Dr. Tredwell leaned slowly forward, and, after surveying the witness with a glance of cautious inquiry, asked in a way to concentrate the attention of all present:[105]

"You say that you knew the Widow Clemmens well; that you have always been on friendly terms with her, and are acquainted with her affairs. Does that mean you have been made a confidante of her troubles, her responsibilities, and her cares?"

"Yes, sir; that is, in as far as she ever made a confidant of any one. Mrs. Clemmens was not of a complaining disposition, neither was she by nature very communicative. Only at rare times did she make mention of herself or her troubles: but when she did, it was invariably to me, sir—or so she used to say; and she was not a woman to deceive you in such matters."

"Very well, then, you are in a position to tell us something of her history, and why it is she kept herself so close after she came to this town?"

But Miss Firman uttered a vigorous disclaimer to this. "No, sir," said she, "I am not. Mrs. Clemmens' history was simple enough, but her reasons for living as she did have never been explained. She was not naturally a quiet woman, and, when a girl, was remarkable for her spirits and fondness for company."

"Has she had any great sorrow since you knew her—any serious loss or disappointment that may have soured her disposition, and turned her, as it were, against the world?"

"Perhaps; she felt the death of her husband very much—indeed, has never been quite the same since she lost him."[106]

"And when was that, if you please?"

"Full fifteen years ago, sir; just before she came to this town."

"Did you know Mr. Clemmens?"

"No, sir; none of us knew him. They were married in some small village out West, where he died—well, I think she wrote—a month if not less after their marriage. She was inconsolable for a time, and, though she consented to come East, refused to take up her abode with any of her relatives, and so settled in this place, where she has remained ever since."

The manner of the coroner suddenly changed to one of great impressiveness.

"Miss Firman," he now asked, "did it ever strike you that the hermit life she led was due to any fear or apprehension which she may have secretly entertained?"

"Sir?"

The question was peculiar and no one wondered at the start which the good woman gave. But what mainly struck Mr. Byrd, and gave to the moment a seeming importance, was the fact that she was not alone in her surprise or even her expression of it; that the indefinable stir he had before observed had again taken place in the crowd before him, and that this time there was no doubt about its having been occasioned by the movements of a person whose elbow he could just perceive projecting beyond the door-way that led into the hall.

But there was no time for speculation as to whom this[107] person might be. The coroner's questions were every moment growing more rapid, and Miss Firman's answers more interesting.

"I asked," here the coroner was heard to say, "whether, in your intercourse with Mrs. Clemmens, you have ever had reason to suppose she was the victim of any secret or personal apprehension that might have caused her to seclude herself as she did? Or let me put it in another way. Can you tell me whether you know of any other person besides this nephew of hers who is likely to be benefited by Mrs. Clemmens' death?"

"Oh, sir," was the hasty and somewhat excited reply, "you mean young Mr. Hildreth!"

The way in which this was said, together with the slight flush of satisfaction or surprise which rose to the coroner's brow, naturally awoke the slumbering excitement of the crowd and made a small sensation. A low murmur ran through the rooms, amid which Mr. Byrd thought he heard a suppressed but bitter exclamation. He could not be sure of it, however, and had just made up his mind that his ears had deceived him, when his attention was attracted by a shifting in the position of the sturdy, thick-set man who had been leaning against the opposite wall, but who now crossed and took his stand beside the jamb, on the other side of which sat the unknown individual toward whom so many inquiring glances had hitherto been directed.

The quietness with which this change was made, and[108] the slight, almost imperceptible, alteration in the manner of the person making it, brought a sudden enlightenment to Mr. Byrd, and he at once made up his mind that this dull, abstracted-looking nonentity leaning with such apparent unconcern against the wall, was the new detective who had been sent up that morning from New York. His curiosity in regard to the identity of the individual round the corner was not lessened by this.

Meantime the coroner had answered the hasty exclamation of the witness, by disclaiming the existence of any special meaning of his own, and had furthermore pressed the question as to who this Mr. Hildreth was.

She immediately answered: "A gentleman of Toledo, sir; a young man who could only come into his property by the death of Mrs. Clemmens."

"How? You have not spoken of any such person as connected with her."

"No," was her steady response; "nor was he so connected by any tie of family or friendship. Indeed, I do not know as they were ever acquainted, or, as for that matter, ever saw each other's faces. The fact to which I allude was simply the result of a will, sir, made by Mr. Hildreth's grandfather."

"A will? Explain yourself. I do not understand."

"Well, sir, I do not know much about the law, and may make a dozen mistakes in telling you what you wish to know; but what I understand about the matter is this: Mr. Hildreth, the grandfather of the gentleman of whom[109] I have just spoken, having a large property, which he wanted to leave in bulk to his grandchildren,—their father being a very dissipated and reckless man,—made his will in such a way as to prevent its distribution among his heirs till after the death of two persons whom he mentioned by name. Of these two persons one was the son of his head clerk, a young boy, who sickened and died shortly after Mr. Hildreth himself, and the other my cousin, the poor murdered woman, who was then a little girl visiting the family. I do not know how she came to be chosen by him for this purpose, unless it was that she was particularly round and ruddy as a child, and looked as if she might live for many years."

"And the Hildreths? What of them during these years?"

"Well, I cannot exactly say, as I never had any acquaintance with them myself. But I know that the father, whose dissipated habits were the cause of this peculiar will tying up the property, died some little time ago; also one or two of his children, but beyond that I know little, except that the remaining heirs are a young gentleman and one or two young girls, all of the worldliest and most fashionable description."

The coroner, who had followed all this with the greatest interest, now asked if she knew the first name of the young gentleman.

"Yes," said she, "I do. It is Gouverneur."

The coroner gave a satisfied nod, and remarked[110] casually, "It is not a common name," and then, leaning forward, selected a paper from among several that lay on the table before him. "Miss Firman," he inquired, retaining this paper in his hand, "do you know when it was that Mrs. Clemmens first became acquainted with the fact of her name having been made use of in the elder Mr. Hildreth's will?"

"Oh, years ago; when she first came of age, I believe."

"Was it an occasion of regret to her? Did she ever express herself as sorry for the position in which she stood toward this family?"

"Yes, sir; she did."

The coroner's face assumed a yet greater gravity, and his manner became more and more impressive.

"Can you go a step farther and say that she ever acknowledged herself to have cherished apprehensions of her personal safety, during these years of weary waiting on the part of the naturally impatient heirs?"

A distressed look crossed the amiable spinster's face, and she looked around at the jury with an expression almost deprecatory in its nature.

"I scarcely know what answer to give," she hesitatingly declared. "It is a good deal to say that she was apprehensive; but I cannot help remembering that she once told me her peace of mind had left her since she knew there were persons in the world to whom her death would be a matter of rejoicing. 'It makes me feel as if I were[111] keeping people out of their rights,' she remarked at the same time. 'And, though it is not my fault, I should not be surprised if some day I had to suffer for it.'"

"Was there ever any communication made to Mrs. Clemmens by persons cognizant of the relation in which she stood to these Hildreths?—or any facts or gossip detailed to her concerning them, that would seem to give color to her fears and supply her with any actual grounds for her apprehensions?"

"No; only such tales as came to her of their expensive ways of living and somewhat headlong rush into all fashionable freaks and follies."

"And Gouverneur Hildreth? Any special gossip in regard to him?"

"No!"

There are some noes that are equivalent to affirmations. This was one of them. Naturally the coroner pressed the question.

"I must request you to think again," he persisted. Then, with a change of voice: "Are you sure you have never heard any thing specially derogatory to this young man, or that Mrs. Clemmens had not?"

"I have friends in Toledo who speak of him as the fastest man about town, if that could be called derogatory. As for Mrs. Clemmens, she may have heard as much, and she may have heard more, I cannot say. I know she always frowned when his father's name was mentioned."[112]

"Miss Firman," proceeded the coroner, "in the long years in which you have been more or less separated from Mrs. Clemmens, you have, doubtless, kept up a continued if not frequent correspondence with her?"

"Yes, sir."

"Do you think, from the commencement and general tone of this letter, which I found lying half finished on her desk, that it was written and intended for yourself?"

Taking the letter from his outstretched hand, she fumbled nervously for her glasses, put them on, and then glanced hurriedly at the sheet, saying as she did so:

"There can be no doubt of it. She had no other friend whom she would have been likely to address as 'Dear Emily.'"

"Gentlemen of the Jury, you have a right to hear the words written by the deceased but a few hours, if not a few minutes, previous to the brutal assault that has led to the present inquiry. Miss Firman, as the letter was intended for yourself, will you be kind enough to read it aloud, after which you will hand it over to the jury."

With a gloomy shake of her head, and a certain trembling in her voice, that was due, perhaps, as much to the sadness of her task as to any foreboding of the real nature of the words she had to read, she proceeded to comply:

"DEAR EMILY:—I don't know why I sit down to write to you to-day. I have plenty to do, and morning is no time for indulging[113] in sentimentalities. But I feel strangely lonely and strangely anxious. Nothing goes just to my mind, and somehow the many causes for secret fear which I have always had, assume an undue prominence in my mind. It is always so when I am not quite well. In vain I reason with myself, saying that respectable people do not lightly enter into crime. But there are so many to whom my death would be more than welcome, that I constantly see myself in the act of being——

"Good heavens!" ejaculated the spinster, dropping the paper from her hand and looking dismally around upon the assembled faces of the now deeply interested spectators.

Seeing her dismay, a man who stood at the right of the coroner, and who seemed to be an officer of the law, quietly advanced, and picking up the paper she had let fall, handed it to the jury. The coroner meanwhile recalled her attention to herself.

"Miss Firman," said he, "allow me to put to you one final question which, though it might not be called a strictly legal one, is surely justified by the gravity of the situation. If Mrs. Clemmens had finished this letter, and you in due course had received it, what conclusion would you have drawn from the words you have just read?"

"I could have drawn but one, sir. I should have considered that the solitary life led by my cousin was telling upon her mind."

"But these terrors of which she speaks? To what and whom would you have attributed them?"

"I don't like to say it, and I don't know as I am[114] justified in saying it, but it would have been impossible for me, under the circumstances, to have thought of any other source for them than the one we have already mentioned."

"And that is?" inexorably pursued the coroner.

"Mr. Gouverneur Hildreth."

[115]

VIII. THE THICK-SET MAN

Springs to catch woodcocks.—HAMLET.

IN the pause that followed, Miss Firman stepped aside, and Mr. Byrd, finding his attention released, stole a glance toward the hall-way and its nearly concealed occupant. He found the elbow in agitated movement, and, as he looked at it, saw it disappear and a hand project into view, groping for the handkerchief which was, doubtless, hidden in the hat which he now perceived standing on the floor in the corner of the door-way. He looked at that hand well. It was large, white, and elegantly formed, and wore a seal ring of conspicuous size upon the little finger. He had scarcely noticed this ring, and wondered if others had seen it too, when the hand plunged into the hat, and drawing out the kerchief, vanished with it behind the jamb that had already hidden so much from his view.

"A fine gentleman's hand, and a fine gentleman's ring," was Mr. Byrd's mental comment; and he was about to glance aside, when, to his great astonishment, he saw the hand appear once more with the handkerchief in it, but without the ring which a moment since had made it such a conspicuous mark for his eyes.[116]

"Our fine gentleman is becoming frightened," he thought, watching the hand until it dropped the handkerchief back into the hat. "One does not take off a ring in a company like this without a good reason." And he threw a quick glance at the man he considered his rival in the detective business.

But that worthy was busily engaged in stroking his chin in a feeling way, strongly suggestive of a Fledgerby-like interest in his absent whisker; and well versed as was Mr. Byrd in the ways of his fellow-detectives, he found it impossible to tell whether the significant action he had just remarked had escaped the attention of this man or not. Confused if not confounded, he turned back to the coroner, in a maze of new sensations, among which a growing hope that his own former suspicions had been of a wholly presumptuous character, rose predominant.

He found that functionary preparing to make a remark.

"Gentlemen," said he; "you have listened to the testimony of Mrs. Clemmens' most confidential friend, and heard such explanations as she had to give, of the special fears which Mrs. Clemmens acknowledges herself to have entertained in regard to her personal safety. Now, while duly impressing upon you the necessity of not laying too much stress upon the secret apprehensions of a woman living a life of loneliness and seclusion, I still consider it my duty to lay before you another bit of the widow's writing, in which——"[117]

Here he was interrupted by the appearance at his side of a man with a telegram in his hand. In the pause which followed his reading of the same, Mr. Byrd, with that sudden impulse of interference which comes upon us all at certain junctures, tore out a leaf from his memorandum-book, and wrote upon it some half dozen or so words indicative of the advisability of examining the proprietor of the Eastern Hotel as to the name and quality of the several guests entertained by him on the day of the murder; and having signed this communication with his initial letters H. B., looked about for a messenger to carry it to the coroner. He found one in the person of a small boy, who was pressing with all his might against his back, and having despatched him with the note, regained his old position at the window, and proceeded to watch, with a growing interest in the drama before him, the result of his interference upon the coroner.

He had not long to wait. The boy had no sooner shown himself at the door with the note, than Dr. Tredwell laid down the telegram he was perusing and took this new communication. With a slight smile Mr. Byrd was not slow in attributing to its true source, he read the note through, then turned to the officer at his side and gave him some command that sent him from the room. He then took up the slip he was on the point of presenting to the jury at the time he was first interrupted, and continuing his remarks in reference to it, said quietly:[118]

"Gentlemen, this paper which I here pass over to you, was found by me in the recess of Mrs. Clemmens' desk at the time I examined it for the address of Miss Firman. It was in an envelope that had never been sealed, and was, if I may use the expression, tucked away under a pile of old receipts. The writing is similar to that used in the letter you have just read, and the signature attached to it is 'Mary Ann Clemmens.' Will Mr. Black of the jury read aloud the words he will there find written?"

Mr. Black, in whose hand the paper then rested, looked up with a flush, and slowly, if not painfully, complied:

"I desire"—such was the language of the writing before him—"that in case of any sudden or violent death on my part, the authorities should inquire into the possible culpability of a gentleman living in Toledo, Ohio, known by the name of Gouverneur Hildreth. He is a man of no principle, and my distinct conviction is, that if such a death should occur to me, it will be entirely due to his efforts to gain possession of property which cannot be at his full disposal until my death.

"MARY ANN CLEMMENS, Sibley, N. Y."

"A serious charge!" quoth a juryman, breaking the universal silence occasioned by this communication from the dead.

"I should think so," echoed the burly man in front of Mr. Byrd.

But Mr. Byrd himself and the quiet man who leaned so stiffly and abstractedly against the wall, said nothing. Perhaps they found themselves sufficiently engaged in watching[119] that half-seen elbow, which since the reading of this last slip of paper had ceased all movement and remained as stationary as though it had been paralyzed.

"A charge which, as yet, is nothing but a charge," observed the coroner. "But evidence is not wanting," he went on, "that Mr. Hildreth is not at home at this present time, but is somewhere in this region, as will be seen by the following telegram from the superintendent of the Toledo police." And he held up to view, not the telegram he had just received, but another which he had taken from among the papers on the table before him:

"Party mentioned not in Toledo. Left for the East on midnight train of Wednesday the 27th inst. When last heard from was in Albany. He has been living fast, and is well known to be in pecuniary difficulties, necessitating a large and immediate amount of money. Further particulars by letter.

"That, gentlemen, I received last night. To-day," he continued, taking up the telegram that had just come in, "the following arrives:

"Fresh advices. Man you are in search of talked of suicide at his club the other night. Seemed in a desperate way, and said that if something did not soon happen he should be a lost man. Horse-flesh and unfortunate speculations have ruined him. They say it will take all he will ultimately receive to pay his debts.

"And below:

"Suspected that he has been in your town."

A crisis was approaching round the corner. This, to the skilled eyes of Mr. Byrd, was no longer doubtful. Even if he had not observed the wondering glances cast[120] in that direction by persons who could see the owner of that now immovable elbow, he would have been assured that all was not right, by the alert expression which had now taken the place of the stolid and indifferent look which had hitherto characterized the face of the man he believed to be a detective.

A panther about to spring could not have looked more threatening, and the wonder was, that there were no more to observe this exciting by-play. Yet the panther did not spring, and the inquiry went on.

"The witness I now propose to call," announced the coroner, after a somewhat trying delay, "is the proprietor of the Eastern Hotel. Ah, here he is. Mr. Symonds, have you brought your register for the past week?"

"Yes, sir," answered the new-comer, with a good deal of flurry in his manner and an embarrassed look about him, which convinced Mr. Byrd that the words in regard to whose origin he had been so doubtful that morning, had been real words and no dream.

"Very well, then, submit it, if you please, to the jury, and tell us in the meantime whether you have entertained at your house this week any guest who professed to come from Toledo?"

"I don't know. I don't remember any such," began the witness, in a stammering sort of way. "We have always a great many men from the West stopping at our house, but I don't recollect any special one who registered himself as coming from Toledo."[121]

"You, however, always expect your guests to put their names in your book?"

"Yes, sir."

There was something in the troubled look of the man which aroused the suspicion of the coroner, and he was about to address him with another question when one of the jury, who was looking over the register, spoke up and asked:

"Who is this Clement Smith who writes himself down here as coming from Toledo?"

"Smith?—Smith?" repeated Symonds, going up to the juryman and looking over his shoulder at the book. "Oh, yes, the gentleman who came yesterday. He——"

But at this moment a slight disturbance occurring in the other room, the witness paused and looked about him with that same embarrassed look before noted. "He is at the hotel now," he added, with an attempt at ease, transparent as it was futile.

The disturbance to which I have alluded was of a peculiar kind. It was occasioned by the thick-set man making the spring which, for some minutes, he had evidently been meditating. It was not a tragic leap, however, but a decidedly comic one, and had for its end and aim the recovery of a handkerchief which he had taken from his pocket at the moment when the witness uttered the name of Smith, and, by a useless flourish in opening it, flirted from his hand to the floor. At least, so the amused throng interpreted the sudden dive which he made, and[122] the heedless haste that caused him to trip over the gentleman's hat that stood on the floor, causing it to fall and another handkerchief to tumble out. But Mr. Byrd, who had a detective's insight into the whole matter, saw something more than appeared in the profuse apologies which the thick-set man made, and the hurried manner in which he gathered up the handkerchiefs and stood looking at them before returning one to his pocket and the other to its place in the gentleman's hat. Nor was Mr. Byrd at all astonished to observe that the stand which his fellow-detective took, upon resettling himself, was much nearer the unseen gentleman than before, or that in replacing the hat, he had taken pains to put it so far to one side that the gentleman would be obliged to rise and come around the corner in order to obtain it. The drift of the questions propounded to the witness at this moment opened his eyes too clearly for him to fail any longer to understand the situation.

"Now at the hotel?" the coroner was repeating. "And came yesterday? Why, then, did you look so embarrassed when I mentioned his name?"

"Oh—well—ah," stammered the man, "because he was there once before, though his name is not registered but once in the book."

"He was? And on what day?"

"On Tuesday," asserted the man, with the sudden decision of one who sees it is useless to attempt to keep silence.[123]

"The day of the murder?"

"Yes, sir."

"And why is his name not on the book at that time if he came to your house and put up?"

"Because he did not put up; he merely called in, as it were, and did not take a meal or hire a room."

"How did you know, then, that he was there? Did you see him or talk to him?"

"Yes, sir."

"And what did you say?"

"He asked me for directions to a certain house, and I gave them."

"Whose house?"

"The Widow Clemmens', sir."

Ah, light at last! The long-sought-for witness had been found! Coroner and jury brightened visibly, while the assembled crowd gave vent to a deep murmur, that must have sounded like a knell of doom—in one pair of ears, at least.

"He asked you for directions to the house of Widow Clemmens. At what time was this?"

"At about half-past eleven in the morning."

The very hour!

"And did he leave then?"

"Yes, sir; after taking a glass of brandy."

"And did you not see him again?"

"Not till yesterday, sir."

"Ah, and at what time did you see him yesterday?"[124]

"At bedtime, sir. He came with other arrivals on the five o'clock train; but I was away all the afternoon and did not see him till I went into the bar-room in the evening."

"Well, and what passed between you then?"

"Not much, sir. I asked if he was going to stay with us, and when he said 'Yes,' I inquired if he had registered his name. He replied 'No.' At which I pointed to the book, and he wrote his name down and then went up-stairs with me to his room."

"And is that all? Did you say nothing beyond what you have mentioned? ask him no questions or make no allusions to the murder?"

"Well, sir, I did make some attempt that way, for I was curious to know what took him to the Widow Clemmens' house, but he snubbed me so quickly, I concluded to hold my tongue and not trouble myself any further about the matter."

"And do you mean to say you haven't told any one that an unknown man had been at your house on the morning of the murder inquiring after the widow?"

"Yes, sir. I am a poor man, and believe in keeping out of all sort of messes. Policy demands that much of me, gentlemen."

The look he received from the coroner may have convinced him that policy can be carried too far.

"And now," said Dr. Tredwell, "what sort of a man is this Clement Smith?"[125]

"He is a gentleman, sir, and not at all the sort of person with whom you would be likely to connect any unpleasant suspicion."

The coroner surveyed the hotel-keeper somewhat sternly.

"We are not talking about suspicions!" he cried; then, in a different tone, repeated: "This gentleman, you say, is still at your house?"

"Yes, sir, or was at breakfast-time. I have not seen him since."

"We will have to call Mr. Smith as a witness," declared the coroner, turning to the officer at his side. "Go and see if you cannot bring him as soon as you did Mr. Symonds."

But here a voice spoke up full and loud from the other room.

"It is not necessary, sir. A witness you will consider more desirable than he is in the building." And the thick-set man showed himself for an instant to the coroner, then walking back, deliberately laid his hand on the elbow which for so long a time had been the centre of Mr. Byrd's wondering conjectures.

In an instant the fine, gentlemanly figure of the stranger, whom he had seen the night before in the bar-room, appeared with a bound from beyond the jamb, and pausing excitedly before the man, now fully discovered to all around as a detective, asked him, in shaking tones of suppressed terror or rage, what it was he meant.[126]

"I will tell you," was the ready assurance, "if you will step out here in view of the coroner and jury."

With a glance that for some reason disturbed Mr. Byrd in his newly acquired complacency, the gentleman stalked hurriedly forward and took his stand in the door-way leading into the room occupied by the persons mentioned.

"Now," he cried, "what have you to say?"

But the detective, who had advanced behind him, still refrained from replying, though he gave a quick look at the coroner, which led that functionary to glance at the hotel-keeper and instantly ask:

"You know this gentleman?"

"It is Mr. Clement Smith."

A flush so violent and profuse, that even Mr. Byrd could see it from his stand outside the window, inundated for an instant the face and neck of the gentleman, but was followed by no words, though the detective at his side waited for an instant before saying:

"I think you are mistaken; I should call him now Mr. Gouverneur Hildreth!"

With a start and a face grown as suddenly white as it had but an instant before been red, the gentleman turned and surveyed the detective from head to foot, saying, in a tone of mock politeness:

"And why, if you please? I have never been introduced to you that I remember."

"No," rejoined the detective, taking from his pocket the handkerchief which he had previously put there, and[127] presenting it to the other with a bow, "but I have read the monogram upon your handkerchief and it happens to be——"

"Enough!" interrupted the other, in a stern if not disdainful voice. "I see I have been the victim of espionage." And stepping into the other room, he walked haughtily up to the coroner and exclaimed: "I am Gouverneur Hildreth, and I come from Toledo. Now, what is it you have to say to me?"

[128]

IX. CLOSE CALCULATIONS

Truth alone,
Truth tangible and palpable; such truth
As may be weighed and measured; truth deduced
By logical conclusion—close, severe—
From premises incontrovertible.—MOULTRIE.

THE excitement induced by the foregoing announcement had, in a degree, subsided. The coroner, who appeared to be as much startled as any one at the result of the day's proceedings, had manifested his desire of putting certain questions to the young man, and had begun by such inquiries into his antecedents, and his connection with Mrs. Clemmens, as elicited the most complete corroboration of all Miss Firman's statements.

An investigation into his motives for coming East at this time next followed, in the course of which he acknowledged that he undertook the journey solely for the purpose of seeing Mrs. Clemmens. And when asked why he wished to see her at this time, admitted, with some manifestation of shame, that he desired to see for himself whether she was really in as strong and healthy a condition as he had always been told; his pecuniary embarrassments being such that he could not prevent his mind from dwelling upon possibilities which, under any other circumstances, he would have been ashamed to consider.[129]

"And did you see Mrs. Clemmens?" the coroner inquired.

"Yes, sir; I did."

"When?"

"On Tuesday, sir; about noon."

The answer was given almost with bravado, and the silence among the various auditors became intense.

"You admit, then, that you were in the widow's house the morning she was murdered, and that you had an interview with her a few minutes before the fatal blow was struck?"

"I do."

There was doggedness in the tone, and doggedness in the look that accompanied it. The coroner moved a little forward in his chair and uttered his next question with deep gravity.

"Did you approach the widow's house by the road and enter into it by means of the front door overlooking the lane?"

"I did."

"And did you meet no one in the lane, or see no one at the windows of any of the houses as you came by?"

"No, sir."

"How long did you stay in this house, and what was the result of the interview which you had with Mrs. Clemmens?"

"I stayed, perhaps, ten minutes, and I learned nothing from Mrs. Clemmens, save that she was well and hearty,[130] and likely to live out her threescore years and ten for all hint that her conversation or appearance gave me."

He spoke almost with a tone of resentment; his eyes glowed darkly, and a thrill of horror sped through the room as if they felt that the murderer himself stood before them.

"You will tell me what was said in this interview, if you please, and whether the widow knew who you were; and, if so, whether any words of anger passed between you?"

The face of the young man burned, and he looked at the coroner and then at the jurymen, as if he would like to challenge the whole crew, but the color that showed in his face was the flush of shame, or, so thought Mr. Byrd, and in his reply, when he gave it, there was a bitterness of self-scorn that reminded the detective more of the mortification of a gentleman caught in an act of meanness than the secret alarm of a man who had been beguiled into committing a dastardly crime.

"Mrs. Clemmens was evidently a woman of some spirit," said he, forcing out his words with sullen desperation. "She may have used sharp language; I believe indeed she did; but she did not know who I was, for—for I pretended to be a seller of patent medicine, warranted to cure all ills, and she told me she had no ills, and—and—Do you want a man to disgrace himself in your presence?" he suddenly flashed out, cringing under the gaze of the many curious and unsympathetic eyes fixed upon him.[131]

But the coroner, with a sudden assumption of severity, pardonable, perhaps, in a man with a case of such importance on his hands, recommended the witness to be calm and not to allow any small feelings of personal mortification to interfere with a testimony of so much evident value. And without waiting for the witness to recover himself, asked again:

"What did the widow say, and with what words did you leave?"

"The widow said she abominated drugs, and never took them. I replied that she made a great mistake, if she had any ailments. Upon which she retorted that she had no ailment, and politely showed me the door. I do not remember that any thing else passed between us."

His tone, which had been shrill and high, dropped at the final sentence, and by the nervous workings of his lips, Mr. Byrd perceived that he dreaded the next question. The persons grouped around him evidently dreaded it too.

But it was less searching than they expected, and proved that the coroner preferred to approach his point by circuitous rather than direct means.

"In what room was the conversation held, and by what door did you come in and go out?"

"I came in by the front door, and we stood in that room"—pointing to the sitting-room from which he had just issued.[132]

"Stood! Did you not sit down?"

"No."

"Stood all the time, and in that room to which you have just pointed?"

"Yes."

The coroner drew a deep breath, and looked at the witness long and searchingly. Mr. Hildreth's way of uttering this word had been any thing but pleasant, and consequently any thing but satisfactory. A low murmur began to eddy through the rooms.

"Gentlemen, silence!" commanded the coroner, venting in this injunction some of the uncomfortable emotion with which he was evidently surcharged; for his next words were spoken in a comparatively quiet voice, though the fixed severity of his eye could have given the witness but little encouragement.

"You say," he declared, "that in coming through the lane you encountered no one. Was this equally true of your return?"

"Yes, sir; I believe so. I don't remember. I was not looking up," was the slightly confused reply.

"You passed, however, through the lane, and entered the main street by the usual path?"

"Yes."

"And where did you go then?"

"To the depot."

"Ah!"

"I wished to leave the town. I had done with it."[133]

"And did you do so, Mr. Hildreth?"

"I did."

"Where did you go?"

"To Albany, where I had left my traps."

"You took the noon train, then?"

"Yes, sir."

"Which leaves precisely five minutes after twelve?"

"I suppose so."

"Took it without stopping anywhere on the way?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did you buy a ticket at the office?"

"No, sir."

"Why?"

"I did not have time."

"Ah, the train was at the station, then?"

Mr. Hildreth did not reply; he had evidently been driven almost to the end of his patience, or possibly of his courage, by this quick fire of small questions.

The coroner saw this and pressed his advantage.

"Was the train at the station or not when you arrived there, Mr. Hildreth?"

"I do not see why it can interest you to know," the witness retorted, with a flash of somewhat natural anger; "but since you insist, I will tell you that it was just going out, and that I had to run to reach it, and only got a foothold upon the platform of the rear car at the risk of my life."

He looked as if he wished it had been at the cost of his[134] life, and compressed his lips and moved restlessly from side to side as if the battery of eyes levelled upon his face were so many points of red-hot steel burning into his brain.

But the coroner, intent upon his duty, released not one jot of the steady hold he had taken upon his victim.

"Mr. Hildreth," said he, "your position as the only person who acknowledges himself to have been in this house during the half-hour that preceded the assault, makes every thing you can tell us in reference to your visit of the highest importance. Was the widow alone, do you think, or did you see any thing—pause now and consider well—any thing that would lead you to suppose there was any one beside her and yourself in the house?"

It was the suggestion of a just man, and Mr. Byrd looked to see the witness grasp with all the energy of despair at the prospect of release it held out. But Mr. Hildreth either felt his cause beyond the reach of any such assistance, or his understanding was so dulled by misery he could not see the advantage of acknowledging the presence of a third party in the cottage. Giving a dreary shake of the head, he slowly answered:

"There may have been somebody else in the house, I don't know; but if so, I didn't hear him or see him. I thought we were alone."

The frankness with which he made the admission was in his favor, but the quick and overpowering flush that rose to his face the moment he had given utterance to it,[135] betrayed so unmistakable a consciousness of what the admission implied that the effect was immediately reversed. Seeing that he had lost rather than gained in the opinions of the merciless inquisitors about him, he went back to his old bravado, and haughtily lifted his head.

"One question more," resumed the coroner. "You have said that Mrs. Clemmens was a spirited woman. Now, what made you think so? Any expression of annoyance on her part at the interruption in her work which your errand had caused her, or merely the expression of her face and the general way she had of speaking?"

"The latter, I think, though she did use a harsh word or two when she showed me the door."

"And raised her voice?"

"Yes, yes."

"Mr. Hildreth," intimated the coroner, rising, "will you be kind enough to step with me into the adjoining room?"

With a look of wonder not unmixed with alarm, the young man prepared to comply.

"I should like the attention of the jury," Dr. Tredwell signified as he passed through the door.

There was no need to give them this hint. Not a man of them but was already on his feet in eager curiosity as to what their presiding officer was about to do.

"I wish you to tell me now," the coroner demanded of[136] Mr. Hildreth, as they paused in the centre of the sitting-room, "where it was you stood during your interview with Mrs. Clemmens, and, if possible, take the very position now which you held at that time."

"There are too many persons here," the witness objected, visibly rebelling at a request of which he could not guess the full significance.

"The people present will step back," declared the coroner; "you will have no trouble in taking your stand on the spot you occupied the other day."

"Here, then!" exclaimed the young man, taking a position near the centre of the room.

"And the widow?"

"Stood there."

"Facing you?"

"Yes."

"I see," intimated the coroner, pointing toward the windows. "Her back was to the yard while you stood with your face toward it." Then with a quick motion, summoning the witness back into the other room, asked, amid the breathless attention of the crowd, whom this bit of by-play had wrought up to expectation: "Did you observe any one go around to the back door while you stood there, and go away again without attempting to knock?"

Mr. Hildreth knitted his brow and seemed to think.

"Answer," persisted the coroner; "it is not a question that requires thought."[137]

"Well, then, I did not," cried the witness, looking the other directly in the eye, with the first gleam of real manly feeling which he had yet displayed.

"You did not see a tramp come into the yard, walk around to the kitchen door, wait a moment as if hesitating whether he would rap, and then turn and come back again without doing so?"

"No, sir."

The coroner drew a piece of paper before him and began figuring on it. Earnestly, almost wildly, the young man watched him, drawing a deep breath and turning quite pale as the other paused and looked up.

"Yet," affirmed the coroner, as if no delay had occurred since he received his last answer, "such a person did approach the house while you were in it, and if you had stood where you say, you must have seen him."

It was a vital thrust, a relentless presentation of fact, and as such shook the witness out of his lately acquired composure. Glancing hastily about, he sought the assistance of some one both capable and willing to advise him in this crisis, but seeing no one, he made a vigorous effort and called together his own faculties.

"Sir," he protested, a tremor of undisguised anxiety finding way into his voice, "I do not see how you make that all out. What proof have you that this tramp of which you speak came to the house while I was in it? Could he not have come before? Or, what was better, could he not have come after?"[138]

The ringing tone with which the last question was put startled everybody. No such sounds had issued from his lips before. Had he caught a glimpse of hope, or was he driven to an extremity in his defence that forced him to assert himself? The eyes of Miss Firman and of a few other women began to soften, and even the face of Mr. Byrd betrayed that a change was on the verge of taking place in his feelings.

But the coroner's look and tone dashed cold water on this young and tender growth of sympathy. Passing over to the witness the paper on which he had been scribbling, he explained with dry significance:

"It is only a matter of subtraction and addition, Mr. Hildreth. You have said that upon quitting this house you went directly to the depot, where you arrived barely in time to jump on the train as it was leaving the station. Now, to walk from this place to the depot at any pace you would be likely to use, would occupy—well, let us say seven minutes. At two minutes before twelve, then, you were still in this house. Well!" he ejaculated, interrupting himself as the other opened his lips, "have you any thing to say?"

"No," was the dejected and hesitating reply.

The coroner at once resumed:

"But at five minutes before twelve, Mr. Hildreth, the tramp walked into the widow's yard. Now, allowing only two minutes for your interview with that lady, the conclusion remains that you were in the house when he came[139] up to it. Yet you declare that, although you stood in full view of the yard, you did not see him."

"You figure closer than an astronomer calculating an eclipse," burst from the young man's lips in a flash of that resolution which had for the last few minutes animated him. "How do you know your witnesses have been so exact to a second when they say this and that of the goings and comings you are pleased to put into an arithmetical problem. A minute or two one way or the other would make a sad discrepancy in your calculations, Mr. Coroner."

"I know it," assented Dr. Tredwell, quietly ignoring the other's heat; "but if the jury will remember, there were four witnesses, at least, who testified to the striking of the town clock just as the tramp finally issued from the lane, and one witness, of well-known accuracy in matters of detail, who declared on oath that she had just dropped her eyes from that same clock when she observed the tramp go into the widow's gate, and that it was five minutes to twelve exactly. But, lest I do seem too nice in my calculations," the coroner inexorably pursued, "I will take the trouble of putting it another way. At what time did you leave the hotel, Mr. Hildreth?"

"I don't know," was the testy response.

"Well, I can tell you," the coroner assured him. "It was about twenty minutes to twelve, or possibly earlier, but no later. My reason for saying this," he went on, drawing once more before him the fatal sheet of paper,[140] "is that Mrs. Dayton's children next door were out playing in front of this house for some few minutes previous to the time the tramp came into the lane. As you did not see them you must have arrived here before they began their game, and that, at the least calculation, would make the time as early as a quarter to twelve."

"Well," the fierce looks of the other seemed to say, "and what if it was?"

"Mr. Hildreth," continued the coroner, "if you were in this house at a quarter to twelve and did not leave it till two minutes before, and the interview was as you say a mere interchange of a dozen words or so, that could not possibly have occupied more than three minutes; where were you during all the rest of the time that must have elapsed after you finished your interview and the moment you left the house?"

It was a knock-down question. This aristocratic-looking young gentleman who had hitherto held himself erect before them, notwithstanding the humiliating nature of the inquiries which had been propounded to him, cringed visibly and bowed his head as if a stroke of vital force had descended upon it. Bringing his fist down on the table near which he stood, he seemed to utter a muttered curse, while the veins swelled on his forehead so powerfully that more than one person present dropped their eyes from a spectacle which bore so distinctly the stamp of guilt.

"You have not answered," intimated the coroner, after a moment of silent waiting.[141]

"No!" was the loud reply, uttered with a force that startled all present, and made the more timid gaze with some apprehension at his suddenly antagonistic attitude. "It is not pleasant for a gentleman"—he emphasized the word bitterly—"for a gentleman to acknowledge himself caught at a time like this in a decided equivocation. But you have cornered me fairly and squarely, and I am bound to tell the truth. Gentlemen, I did not leave the widow's house as immediately as I said. I stayed for fully five minutes or so alone in the small hall that leads to the front door. In all probability I was there when the tramp passed by on his way to the kitchen-door, and there when he came back again." And Mr. Hildreth fixed his eyes on the coroner as if he dared him to push him further.

But Dr. Tredwell had been in his present seat before. Merely confronting the other with that cold official gaze which seems to act like a wall of ice between a witness and the coroner, he said the two words: "What doing?"

The effect was satisfactory. Paling suddenly, Mr. Hildreth dropped his eyes and replied humbly, though with equal laconism, "I was thinking." But scarcely had the words left his lips, than a fresh flame of feeling started up within him, and looking from juryman to juryman he passionately exclaimed: "You consider that acknowledgment suspicious. You wonder why a man should give a few minutes to thought after the conclusion of an interview that terminated all hope. I wonder at it now myself. I wonder I did not go straight out of the house[142] and rush headlong into any danger that promised an immediate extinction of my life."

No language could have more forcibly betrayed the real desperation of his mind at the critical moment when the widow's life hung in the balance. He saw this, perhaps, when it was too late, for the sweat started on his brow, and he drew himself up like a man nerving himself to meet a blow he no longer hoped to avert. One further remark, however, left his lips.

"Whatever I did or of whatever I was thinking, one thing I here declare to be true, and that is, that I did not see the widow again after she left my side and went back to her kitchen in the rear of the house. The hand that struck her may have been lifted while I stood in the hall, but if so, I did not know it, nor can I tell you now who it was that killed her."

It was the first attempt at direct disavowal which he had made, and it had its effect. The coroner softened a trifle of his austerity, and the jurymen glanced at each other relieved. But the weight of suspicion against this young man was too heavy, and his manner had been too unfortunate, for this effect to last long. Gladly as many would have been to credit this denial, if only for the name he bore and a certain fine aspect of gentlemanhood that surrounded him in spite of his present humiliation, it was no longer possible to do so without question, and he seemed to feel this and do his best to accept the situation with patience.[143]

An inquiry which was put to him at this time by a juryman showed the existent state of feeling against him.

"May I ask," that individual dryly interrogated, "why you came back to Sibley, after having left it?"

The response came clear and full. Evidently the gravity of his position had at last awakened the latent resources of Mr. Hildreth's mind.

"I heard of the death of this woman, and my surprise caused me to return."

"How did you hear of it?"

"Through the newspapers."

"And you were surprised?"

"I was astounded; I felt as if I had received a blow myself, and could not rest till I had come back where I could learn the full particulars."

"So, then, it was curiosity that brought you to the inquest to-day?"

"It was."

The juryman looked at him astonished; so did all the rest. His manner was so changed, his answers so prompt and ringing.

"And what was it," broke in the coroner, "that led you to register yourself at the hotel under a false name?"

"I scarcely know," was the answer, given with less fire and some show of embarrassment. "Perhaps I thought that, under the circumstances, it would be better for me not to use my own."[144]

"In other words, you were afraid?" exclaimed the coroner, with the full impressiveness of his somewhat weighty voice and manner.

It was a word to make the weakest of men start. Mr. Hildreth, who was conspicuous in his own neighborhood for personal if not for moral courage, flushed till it looked as if the veins would burst on his forehead, but he made no other reply than a proud and angry look and a short:

"I was not aware of fear; though, to be sure, I had no premonition of the treatment I should be called upon to suffer here to-day."

The flash told, the coroner sat as if doubtful, and looked from man to man of the jury as if he would question their feelings on this vital subject. Meantime the full shame of his position settled heavier and heavier upon Mr. Hildreth; his head fell slowly forward, and he seemed to be asking himself how he was to meet the possibly impending ignominy of a direct accusation. Suddenly he drew himself erect, and a gleam shot from his eyes that, for the first time, revealed him as a man of latent pluck and courage.

"Gentlemen," he began, looking first at the coroner and then at the jury, "you have not said you consider me guilty of this crime, but you evidently harbor the suspicion. I do not wonder; my own words have given me away, and any man would find it difficult to believe in my innocence after what has been testified to in[145] this place. Do not hesitate, then. The shock of finding myself suspected of a horrible murder is passed. I am willing to be arrested. Indeed, after what has here taken place, I not only am willing but even anxious. I want to be tried, if only to prove to the world my complete and entire innocence."

The effect of this speech, uttered at a moment so critical, may be easily imagined. All the impressible people present at once signified their belief in his honesty, and gave him looks of sympathy, if not approval; while the cooler and possibly the more judicious of his auditors calmly weighed these assertions against the evidence that had been advanced, and finding the result unsatisfactory, shook their heads as if unconvinced, and awaited further developments.

They did not come. The inquiry had reached its climax, and little, if any thing, more was left to be said. Mr. Hildreth was examined more fully, and some few of the witnesses who had been heard in the early part of the day were recalled, but no new facts came to light, and no fresh inquiries were started.

Mr. Byrd, who from the attitude of the coroner could not fail to see Mr. Hildreth was looked upon with a suspicion that would ultimately end in arrest, decided that his interest in the inquest was at an end, and being greatly fatigued, gave up his position at the window and quietly stole away.

[146]

X. THE FINAL TEST

Men are born with two eyes, but with one tongue, in order that they should see twice as much as they say.—COLTON.

THE fact was, he wanted to think. Detective though he was and accustomed to the bravado with which every sort of criminal will turn to meet their fate when fully driven to bay, there had been something in the final manner of this desperate but evidently cultured gentleman, which had impressed him against his own will, and made him question whether the suspected man was not rather the victim of a series of extraordinary circumstances, than the selfish and brutal criminal which the evidence given seemed to suggest.

Not that Mr. Byrd ever allowed his generous heart to blind him to the plain language of facts. His secret and not to be smothered doubts in another direction were proof enough of this; and had it not been for those very doubts, the probabilities are that he would have agreed with the cooler-headed portion of the crowd, which listened unmoved to that last indignant burst of desperate manhood.

But with those doubts still holding possession of his mind, he could not feel so sure of Mr. Hildreth's guilt;[147] and the struggle that was likely to ensue between his personal feelings on the one side and his sense of duty on the other did not promise to be so light as to make it possible for him to remain within eye and earshot of an unsympathetic crowd.

"If only the superintendent had not left it to my judgment to interfere," thought he, pacing the streets with ever-increasing uneasiness, "the responsibility would have been shifted from my shoulders, and I would have left the young man to his fate in peace. But now I would be criminally at fault if I were to let him drift hopelessly to his doom, when by a lift of my finger I might possibly turn the attention of justice toward the real culprit."

Yet the making up of his mind to interfere was a torture to Horace Byrd. If he was not conscious of any love for Imogene Dare, he was sufficiently under the dominion of her extraordinary fascinations to feel that any movement on his part toward the unravelling of the mystery that enveloped her, would be like subjecting his own self to the rack of public inquiry and suspicion.

Nor, though he walked the streets for hours, each moment growing more and more settled in his conviction of Mr. Hildreth's innocence, could he bring himself to the point of embracing the duty presented to him, till he had subjected Miss Dare to a new test, and won for himself absolute certainty as to the fact of her possessing a clue to the crime, which had not been discovered in the coroner's inquiry.[148]

"The possibility of innocence on her part is even greater than on that of Mr. Hildreth," he considered, "and nothing, not even the peril of those dearest to me, could justify me in shifting the weight of suspicion from a guiltless man to an equally guiltless woman."

It was, therefore, for the purpose of solving this doubt, that he finally sought Mr. Ferris, and after learning that Mr. Hildreth was under surveillance, and would in all probability be subjected to arrest on the morrow, asked for some errand that would take him to Mr. Orcutt's house.

"I have a great admiration for that gentleman and would like to make his acquaintance," he remarked carelessly, hiding his true purpose under his usual nonchalant tones. "But I do not want to seem to be pushing myself forward; so if you could give me some papers to carry to him, or some message requiring an introduction to his presence, I should feel very much obliged."

Mr. Ferris, who had no suspicions of his own to assist him in understanding the motives that led to this request, easily provided the detective with the errand he sought. Mr. Byrd at once started for the lawyer's house.

It was fully two miles away, but once arrived there, he was thankful that the walk had been so long, as the fatigue, following upon the activity of the afternoon, had succeeded in quieting his pulses and calming down the fierce excitement which had held him under its control ever since he had taken the determination to satisfy his doubts by an interview with Miss Dare.[149]

Ringing the bell of the rambling old mansion that spread out its wide extensions through the vines and bushes of an old-fashioned and most luxuriant garden, he waited the issue with beating heart. A respectable-looking negro servant came to the door.

"Is Mr. Orcutt in?" he asked; "or, if not, Miss Dare? I have a message from Mr. Ferris and would be glad to see one of them."

This, in order to ascertain at a word if the lady was at home.

"Miss Dare is not in," was the civil response, "and Mr. Orcutt is very busily engaged; but if you will step into the parlor I will tell him you are here."

"No," returned the disappointed detective, handing her the note he held in his hand. "If your master is busy I will not disturb him." And, turning away, he went slowly down the steps.

"If I only knew where she was gone!" he muttered, bitterly.

But he did not consider himself in a position to ask.

Inwardly chafing over his ill-luck, Mr. Byrd proceeded with reluctant pace to regain the street, when, hearing the gate suddenly click, he looked up, and saw advancing toward him a young gentleman of a peculiarly spruce and elegant appearance.

"Ha! another visitor for Miss Dare," was the detective's natural inference. And with a sudden movement he withdrew from the path, and paused as if to light his[150] cigar in the shadow of the thick bushes that grew against the house.

In an instant the young stranger was on the stoop. Another, and he had rung the bell, which was answered almost as soon as his hand dropped from the knob.

"Is Miss Dare in?" was the inquiry, uttered in loud and cheery tones.

"No, sir. She is spending a few days with Miss Tremaine," was the clear and satisfactory reply. "Shall I tell her you have been here?"

"No. I will call myself at Miss Tremaine's," rejoined the gentleman. And, with a gay swing of his cane and a cheerful look overhead where the stars were already becoming visible, he sauntered easily off, followed by the envious thoughts of Mr. Byrd.

"Miss Tremaine," repeated the latter, musingly. "Who knows Miss Tremaine?"

While he was asking himself this question, the voice of the young man rose melodiously in a scrap of old song, and instantly Mr. Byrd recognized in the seeming stranger the well-known tenor singer of the church he had himself attended the Sunday before—a gentleman, too, to whom he had been introduced by Mr. Ferris, and with whom he had exchanged something more than the passing civilities of the moment.

To increase his pace, overtake the young man, recall himself to his attention, and join him in his quick walk down the street, was the work of a moment. The natural[151] sequence followed. Mr. Byrd made himself so agreeable that by the time they arrived at Miss Tremaine's the other felt loath to part with him, and it resulted in his being urged to join this chance acquaintance in his call.

Nothing could have pleased Mr. Byrd better. So, waiving for once his instinctive objection to any sort of personal intrusion, he signified his acquiescence to the proposal, and at once accompanied his new friend into the house of the unknown Miss Tremaine. He found it lit up as for guests. All the rooms on the ground floor were open, and in one of them he could discern a dashing and coquettish young miss holding court over a cluster of eager swains.

"Ah, I forgot," exclaimed Mr. Byrd's companion, whose name, by-the-way, was Duryea. "It is Miss Tremaine's reception night. She is the daughter of one of the professors of the High School," he went on, whispering his somewhat late explanations into the ear of Mr. Byrd. "Every Thursday evening she throws her house open for callers, and the youth of the academy are only too eager to avail themselves of the opportunity of coming here. Well, it is all the better for us. Miss Dare despises boys, and in all likelihood we shall have her entirely to ourselves."

A quick pang contracted the breast of Mr. Byrd. If this easy, almost rakish, fellow at his side but knew the hideous errand which brought him to this house, what a scene would have ensued![152]

But he had no time for reflection, or even for that irresistible shrinking from his own designs which he now began to experience. Before he realized that he was fully committed to this venture, he found himself in the parlor bowing before the naïve and laughing-eyed Miss Tremaine, who rose to receive him with all the airy graciousness of a finished coquette.

Miss Dare was not visible, and Mr. Byrd was just wondering if he would be called upon to enter into a sustained conversation with his pretty hostess, when a deep, rich voice was heard in the adjoining room, and, looking up, he saw the stately figure he so longed and yet dreaded to encounter, advancing toward them through the open door. She was very pale, and, to Mr. Byrd's eyes, looked thoroughly worn out, if not ill. Yet, she bore herself with a steadiness that was evidently the result of her will; and manifested neither reluctance nor impatience when the eager Mr. Duryea pressed forward with his compliments, though from the fixedness of her gaze and the immobility of her lip, Mr. Byrd too truly discovered that her thoughts were far away from the scene of mirth and pleasure in which she found herself.

"You see I have presumed to follow you, Miss Dare," was the greeting with which Mr. Duryea hailed her approach. And he immediately became so engrossed with his gallantries he forgot to introduce his companion.

Mr. Byrd was rather relieved at this. He was not yet[153] ready to submit her to the test he considered necessary to a proper understanding of the situation; and he had not the heart to approach her with any mere civility on his tongue, while matters of such vital importance to her happiness, if not to her honor, trembled in the balance.

He preferred to talk to Miss Tremaine, and this he continued to do till the young fellows at his side, one by one, edged away, leaving no one in that portion of the room but himself and Miss Tremaine, Mr. Duryea and Miss Dare.

The latter two stood together some few feet behind him, and were discussing in a somewhat languid way, the merits of a musicale which they had lately attended. They were approaching, however, and he felt that if he did not speak at once he might not have another opportunity for doing so during the whole evening. Turning, therefore, to Miss Tremaine, with more seriousness than her gay and totally inconsequent conversation had hitherto allowed, he asked, in what he meant to be a simply colloquial and courteous manner, if she had heard the news.

"News," she repeated, "no; is there any news?"

"Yes, I call it news. But, perhaps, you are not interested in the murder that has lately taken place in this town?"

"Oh, yes, I am," she exclaimed, all eagerness at once, while he felt rather than perceived that the couple at his back stood suddenly still, as if his words had worked their[154] spell over one heart there at least. "Papa knew Mrs. Clemmens very well," the little lady proceeded with a bewitchingly earnest look. "Have they found the murderer, do you think? Any thing less than that would be no news to me."

"There is every reason to suppose——" he began, and stopped, something in the deadly silence behind him making it impossible for him to proceed. Happily he was not obliged to. An interruption occurred in the shape of a new-comer, and he was left with the fatal word on his lips to await the approach of that severely measured step behind him, which by this time he knew was bringing the inscrutable Miss Dare to his side.

"Miss Dare, allow me to present to you Mr. Byrd. Mr. Byrd, Miss Dare."

The young detective bowed. With rigid attention to the forms of etiquette, he uttered the first few acknowledgments necessary to the occasion, and then glanced up.

She was looking him full in the face.

"We have met before," he was about to observe, but not detecting the least sign of recognition in her gaze, restrained the words and hastily dropped his eyes.

"Mr. Duryea informs me you are a stranger in the town," she remarked, moving slowly to one side in a way to rid herself of that gentleman's too immediate presence. "Have you a liking for the place, or do you meditate any lengthy stay?"[155]

"No. That is," he rejoined, somewhat shaken in his theories by the self-possession of her tone and the ease and quietness with which she evidently prepared to enter into a sustained conversation, "I may go away to-morrow, and I may linger on for an indefinite length of time. It all depends upon certain matters that will be determined for me to-night. Sibley is a very pretty place," he observed, startled at his own temerity in venturing the last remark.

"Yes."

The word came as if forced, and she looked at Mr. Duryea.

"Do you wish any thing, Miss Dare?" that gentleman suddenly asked. "You do not look well."

"I am not well," she acknowledged. "No, thank you," she cried, as he pushed a chair toward her. "It is too warm here. If you do not object, we will go into the other room." And with a courteous glance that included both gentlemen in its invitation, she led the way into the adjoining apartment. Could it have been with the purpose of ridding herself of the assiduities of Mr. Duryea? The room contained half a dozen or more musical people, and no sooner did they perceive their favorite tenor approach than they seized upon him and, without listening to his excuses, carried him off to the piano, leaving Miss Dare alone with Mr. Byrd.

She seemed instantly to forget her indisposition. Drawing herself up till every queenly attribute she possessed[156] flashed brilliantly before his eyes, she asked, with sudden determination, if she had been right in understanding him to say that there was news in regard to the murder of Mrs. Clemmens?

Subduing, by a strong inward effort, every token of the emotion which her own introduction of this topic naturally evoked, he replied in his easiest tones:

"Yes; there was an inquest held to-day, and the authorities evidently think they have discovered the person who killed her." And obliging himself to meet half-way the fate that awaited him, he bestowed upon the lady before him a casual glance that hid beneath its easy politeness the greatest anxiety of his life.

The test worked well. From the pallor of sickness, grief, or apprehension, her complexion whitened to the deadlier hue of mortal terror.

"Impossible!" her lips seemed to breathe; and Mr. Byrd could almost fancy he saw the hair rise on her forehead.

Cursing in his heart the bitter necessity that had forced him into this duty, he was about to address her in a way calculated to break the spell occasioned by his last words, when the rich and tuneful voice of the melodious singer rose suddenly on the air, and they heard the words:

"Come rest in this bosom, my own stricken deer,
Though the herd have fled from thee, thy home is still here;
Here still is the smile that no cloud can o'ercast,
And a heart and a hand all thy own to the last."

[157]

Instantly Mr. Byrd perceived that he should not be obliged to speak. Though the music, or possibly the words, struck her like a blow, it likewise served to recall her to herself. Dropping her gaze, which had remained fixed upon his own, she turned her face aside, saying with forced composure:

"This near contact with crime is dreadful." Then slowly, and with a quietness that showed how great was her power of self-control when she was not under the influence of surprise, she inquired: "And who do they think this person is? What name do they presume to associate with the murderer of this woman?"

With something of the feeling of a surgeon who nerves himself to bury the steel in his patient's quivering flesh, he gave his response unhesitatingly.

"A gentleman's, I believe. A young man connected with her, in some strange way, by financial interests. A Mr. Hildreth, of Toledo—Gouverneur Hildreth, I think they call him."

It was not the name she expected. He saw this by the relaxation that took place in all her features, by the look of almost painful relief that flashed for a moment into the eyes she turned like lightning upon him.

"Gouverneur Hildreth!" she repeated. And he knew from the tone that it was not only a different name from what she anticipated, but that it was also a strange one to her. "I never heard of such a person," she went on after a minute, during which the relentless mellow voice[158] of the unconscious singer filled the room with the passionate appeal:

"Oh, what was love made for, if 't is not the same,
Through joy and through sorrow, through glory and shame!"

"That is not strange," explained Mr. Byrd, drawing nearer, as if to escape that pursuing sweetness of incongruous song. "He is not known in this town. He only came here the morning the unfortunate woman was murdered. Whether he really killed her or not," he proceeded, with forced quietness, "no one can tell, of course. But the facts are very much against him, and the poor fellow is under arrest."

"What?"

The word was involuntary. So was the tone of horrified surprise in which it was uttered. But the music, now swelling to a crescendo, drowned both word and tone, or so she seemed to fondly imagine; for, making another effort at self-control, she confined herself to a quiet repetition of his words, "'Under arrest'?" and then waited with only a suitable display of emotion for whatever further enlightenment he chose to give her.

He mercifully spoke to the point.

"Yes, under arrest. You see he was in the house at or near the time the deadly blow was struck. He was in the front hall, he says, and nowhere near the woman or her unknown assailant, but there is no evidence against any one else, and the facts so far proved, show he had an interest in her death, and so he has to pay the[159] penalty of circumstances. And he may be guilty, who knows," the young detective pursued, seeing she was struck with horror and dismay, "dreadful as it is to imagine that a gentleman of culture and breeding could be brought to commit such a deed."

But she seemed to have ears for but one phrase of all this.

"He was in the front hall," she repeated. "How did he get there? What called him there?"

"He had been visiting the widow, and was on his way out. He paused to collect his thoughts, he said. It seems unaccountable, Miss Dare; but the whole thing is strange and very mysterious."

She was deaf to his explanations.

"Do you suppose he heard the widow scream?" she asked, tremblingly, "or——"

A sinking of the ringing tones whose powerful vibration had made this conversation possible, caused her to pause. When the notes grew loud enough again for her to proceed, she seemed to have forgotten the question she was about to propound, and simply inquired:

"Had he any thing to say about what he overheard—or saw?"

"No. If he spoke the truth and stood in the hall as he said, the sounds, if sounds there were, stopped short of the sitting-room door, for he has nothing to say about them."

A change passed over Miss Dare. She dropped her[160] eyes, and an instant's pause followed this last acknowledgment.

"Will you tell me," she inquired, at last, speaking very slowly, in an attempt to infuse into her voice no more than a natural tone of interest, "how it was he came to say he stood in that place during the assault?"

"He did not say he stood in that place during the assault," was again the forced rejoinder of Mr. Byrd. "It was by means of a nice calculation of time and events, that it was found he must have been in the house at or near the fatal moment."

Another pause; another bar of that lovely music.

"And he is a gentleman, you say?" was her hurried remark at last.

"Yes, and a very handsome one."

"And they have put him in prison?"

"Yes, or will on the morrow."

She turned and leaned against a window-frame near by, looking with eyes that saw nothing into the still vast night.

"I suppose he has friends," she faintly suggested.

"Two sisters, if no one nearer and dearer."

"Thou hast called me thy angel in moments of bliss,
And thy angel I 'll be, 'mid the horrors of this—
Through the furnace, unshrinking, thy steps to pursue,
And shield thee, and save thee—or perish there too,"

rang the mellow song.

"I am not well," she suddenly cried, leaving the window and turning quickly toward Mr. Byrd. "I am much[161] obliged to you," said she, lowering her voice to a whisper, for the last note of the song was dying away in a quivering pianissimo. "I have been deeply interested in this tragedy, and am thankful for any information in regard to it. I must now bid you good-evening."

And with a stately bow into which she infused the mingled courtesy and haughtiness of her nature, she walked steadily away through the crowd that vainly sought to stay her, and disappeared, almost without a pause, behind the door that opened into the hall.

Mr. Byrd remained for a full half-hour after that, but he never could tell what he did, or with whom he conversed, or how or when he issued from the house and made his way back to his room in the hotel. He only knew that at midnight he was still walking the floor, and had not yet made up his mind to take the step which his own sense of duty now inexorably demanded.

[162]

XI. DECISION

Who dares
To say that he alone has found the truth.

—LONGFELLOW.

THE next morning Mr. Ferris was startled by the appearance in his office of Mr. Byrd, looking wretchedly anxious and ill.

"I have come," said the detective, "to ask you what you think of Mr. Hildreth's prospects. Have you made up your mind to have him arrested for this crime?"

"Yes," was the reply. "The evidence against him is purely circumstantial, but it is very strong; and if no fresh developments occur, I think there can be no doubt about my duty. Each and every fact that comes to light only strengthens the case against him. When he came to be examined last night, a ring was found on his person, which he acknowledged to having worn on the day of the murder."

"He took it off during the inquest," murmured Mr. Byrd; "I saw him."

"It is said by Hickory—the somewhat questionable cognomen of your fellow-detective from New York—that the young man manifested the most intense uneasiness during the whole inquiry. That in fact his attention[163] was first drawn to him by the many tokens which he gave of suppressed agitation and alarm. Indeed, Mr. Hickory at one time thought he should be obliged to speak to this stranger in order to prevent a scene. Once Mr. Hildreth got up as if to go, and, indeed, if he had been less hemmed in by the crowd, there is every reason to believe he would have attempted an escape."

"Is this Hickory a man of good judgment?" inquired Mr. Byrd, anxiously.

"Why, yes, I should say so. He seems to understand his business. The way he procured us the testimony of Mr. Hildreth was certainly satisfactory."

"I wish that, without his knowing it, I could hear him give his opinion of this matter," intimated the other.

"Well, you can," rejoined Mr. Ferris, after a quick and comprehensive survey of Mr. Byrd's countenance. "I am expecting him here any moment, and if you see fit to sit down behind that screen, you can, without the least difficulty to yourself or him, hear all he has to impart."

"I will, then," the detective declared, a gloomy frown suddenly corrugating his brow; and he stepped across to the screen which had been indicated to him, and quietly withdrew from view.

He had scarcely done this, when a short, quick step was heard at the door, and a wide-awake voice called out, cheerily:

"Are you alone, sir?"

"Ah!" ejaculated Mr. Ferris, "come in, come in. I[164] have been awaiting you for some minutes," he declared, ignoring the look which the man threw hastily around the room. "Any news this morning?"

"No," returned the other, in a tone of complete self-satisfaction. "We've caged the bird and mustn't expect much more in the way of news. I'm on my way to Albany now, to pick up such facts about him as may be lying around there loose, and shall be ready to start for Toledo any day next week that you may think proper."

"You are, then, convinced that Mr. Hildreth is undeniably the guilty party in this case?" exclaimed the District Attorney, taking a whiff at his cigar.

"Convinced? That is a strong word, sir. A detective is never convinced," protested the man. "He leaves that for the judge and jury. But if you ask me if there is any doubt about the direction in which all the circumstantial evidence in this case points, I must retort by asking you for a clue, or the tag-end of a clue, guiding me elsewhere. I know," he went on, with the volubility of a man whose work is done, and who feels he has the right to a momentary indulgence in conversation, "that it is not an agreeable thing to subject a gentleman like Mr. Hildreth to the shame of a public arrest. But facts are not partial, sir; and the gentleman has no more rights in law than the coarsest fellow that we take up for butchering his mother. But you know all this without my telling you, and I only mention it to excuse any obstinacy I may have manifested on the subject. He is mightily cut up[165] about it," he again proceeded, as he found Mr. Ferris forebore to reply. "I am told he didn't sleep a wink all night, but spent his time alternately in pacing the floor like a caged lion, and in a wild sort of stupor that had something of the hint of madness in it. 'If my grandfather had only known!' was the burden of his song; and when any one approached him he either told them to keep their eyes off him, or else buried his face in his hands with an entreaty for them not to disturb the last hours of a dying man. He evidently has no hope of escaping the indignity of arrest, and as soon as it was light enough for him to see, he asked for paper and pencil. They were brought him, and a man stood over him while he wrote. It proved to be a letter to his sisters enjoining them to believe in his innocence, and wound up with what was very much like an attempt at a will. Altogether, it looks as if he meditated suicide, and we have been careful to take from him every possible means for his effecting his release in this way, as well as set a strict though secret watch upon him."

A slight noise took place behind the screen, which at any other time Mr. Hickory would have been the first to notice and inquire into. As it was, it had only the effect of unconsciously severing his train of thought and starting him alertly to his feet.

"Well," said he, facing the District Attorney with cheerful vivacity, "any orders?"

"No," responded Mr. Ferris. "A run down to Albany[166] seems to be the best thing for you at present. On your return we will consult again."

"Very well, sir. I shall not be absent more than two days, and, in the meantime, you will let me know if any thing important occurs?" And, handing over his new address, Hickory speedily took his leave.

"Well, Byrd, what do you think of him?"

For reply, Mr. Byrd stepped forth and took his stand before the District Attorney.

"Has Coroner Tredwell informed you," said he, "that the superintendent has left it to my discretion to interfere in this matter if I thought that by so doing I could further the ends of justice?"

"Yes," was the language of the quick, short nod he received.

"Very well," continued the other, "you will pardon me, then, if I ask you to convey to Mr. Hildreth the following message: That if he is guiltless of this crime he need have no fear of the results of the arrest to which he may be subjected; that a man has interested himself in this matter who pledges his word not to rest till he has discovered the guilty party and freed the innocent from suspicion."

"What!" cried Mr. Ferris, astonished at the severe but determined bearing of the young man who, up to this time, he had only seen under his lighter and more indifferent aspect. "You don't agree with this fellow, then, in his conclusions regarding Mr. Hildreth?"[167]

"No, sir. Hickory, as I judge, is an egotist. He discovered Mr. Hildreth and brought him to the notice of the jury, therefore Mr. Hildreth is guilty."

"And you?"

"I am open to doubt about it. Not that I would acknowledge it to any one but you, sir."

"Why?"

"Because if I work in this case at all, or make any efforts to follow up the clue which I believe myself to have received, it must be done secretly, and without raising the suspicion of any one in this town. I am not in a position, as you know, to work openly, even if it were advisable to do so, which it certainly is not. What I do must be accomplished under cover, and I ask you to help me in my self-imposed and by no means agreeable task, by trusting me to pursue my inquiries alone, until such time as I assure myself beyond a doubt that my own convictions are just, and that the man who murdered Mrs. Clemmens is some one entirely separated from Mr. Hildreth and any interests that he represents."

"You are, then, going to take up this case?"

The answer given was short, but it meant the deliberate shivering of the fairest dream of love that had ever visited Mr. Byrd's imagination.

"I am."

[168]

BOOK II. THE WEAVING OF A WEB.

XII. THE SPIDER

"Thus far we run before the wind."

IN the interview which Mr. Byrd had held with Miss Dare he had been conscious of omitting one test which many another man in his place would have made. This was the utterance of the name of him whom he really believed to be the murderer of Mrs. Clemmens. Had he spoken this name, had he allowed himself to breathe the words "Craik Mansell" into the ears of this agitated woman, or even gone so far as to allude in the most careless way to the widow's nephew, he felt sure his daring would have been rewarded by some expression on her part that would have given him a substantial basis for his theories to rest upon.

But he had too much natural chivalry for this. His feelings as a man got in the way of his instinct as a detective. Nevertheless, he felt positive that his suspicions in regard to this nephew of Mrs. Clemmens were correct, and set about the task of fitting facts to his theory, with all that settled and dogged determination which follows the pursuit of a stern duty unwillingly embraced.[169]

Two points required instant settling.

First, the truth or falsehood of his supposition as to the identification of the person confronted by Miss Dare in the Syracuse depot with the young man described by Miss Firman as the nephew of Widow Clemmens.

Secondly, the existence or non-existence of proof going to show the presence of this person at or near the house of Mrs. Clemmens, during the time of the assault.

But before proceeding to satisfy himself in regard to these essentials, he went again to the widow's house and there spent an hour in a careful study of its inner and outer arrangements, with a view to the formation of a complete theory as to the manner and method of the murder. He found that in default of believing Mr. Hildreth the assailant, one supposition was positively necessary, and this was that the murderer was in the house when this gentleman came to it. A glance at the diagram on next page will explain why.

The house, as you will see, has but three entrances: the front door, at which Mr. Hildreth unconsciously stood guard; the kitchen door, also unconsciously guarded during the critical moment by the coming and going of the tramp through the yard; and the dining-room door, which, though to all appearance free from the surveillance of any eye, was so situated in reference to the clock at which the widow stood when attacked, that it was manifestly impossible for any one to enter it and cross the room to the hearth without attracting the attention of her eye if not of her ear.[170]

To be sure, there was the bare possibility of his having come in by the kitchen-door, after the departure of the tramp, but such a contingency was scarcely worth considering. The almost certain conclusion was that he had[171] been in the house for some time, and was either in the dining-room when Mrs. Clemmens returned to it from her interview with Mr. Hildreth, or else came down to it from the floor above by means of the staircase that so strangely descended into that very room.

Another point looked equally clear. The escape of the murderer—still in default of considering Mr. Hildreth as such—must have been by means of one of the back doors, and must have been in the direction of the woods. To be sure there was a stretch of uneven and marshy ground to be travelled over before the shelter of the trees could be reached; but a person driven by fear could, at a pinch, travel it in five minutes or less; and a momentary calculation on the part of Mr. Byrd sufficed to show him that more time than this had elapsed from the probable instant of assault to the moment when Mr. Ferris opened the side door and looked out upon the swamp.

The dearth of dwellings on the left-hand side of the street, and, consequently, the comparative immunity from observation which was given to that portion of the house which overlooked the swamp, made him conclude that this outlet from the dining-room had been the one made use of in the murderer's flight. A glance down the yard to the broken fence that separated the widow's land from the boggy fields beyond, only tended to increase the probabilities of this supposition, and, alert to gain for himself that full knowledge of the situation necessary to a successful conduct of this mysterious affair, he hastily[172] left the house and started across the swamp, with the idea of penetrating the woods and discovering for himself what opportunity they afforded for concealment or escape.

He had more difficulty in doing this than he expected. The ground about the hillocks was half-sunk in water, and the least slip to one side invariably precipitated him among the brambles that encumbered this spot. Still, he compassed his task in little more than five minutes, arriving at the firm ground, and its sturdy growth of beeches and maples, well covered with mud, but so far thoroughly satisfied with the result of his efforts.

The next thing to be done was to search the woods, not for the purpose of picking up clues—it was too late for that—but to determine what sort of a refuge they afforded, and whether, in the event of a man's desiring to penetrate them quickly, many impediments would arise in the shape of tangled underground or loose-lying stones.

He found them remarkably clear; so much so, indeed, that he travelled for some distance into their midst before he realized that he had passed beyond their borders. More than this, he came ere long upon something like a path, and, following it, emerged into a sort of glade, where, backed up against a high rock, stood a small and seemingly deserted hut. It was the first object he had met with that in any way suggested the possible presence of man, and advancing to it with cautious steps, he looked[173] into its open door-way. Nothing met his eyes but an empty interior, and without pausing to bestow upon the building a further thought, he hurried on through a path he saw opening beyond it, till he came to the end of the wood.

Stepping forth, he paused in astonishment. Instead of having penetrated the woods in a direct line, he found that he had merely described a half circle through them, and now stood on a highway leading directly back into the town.

Likewise, he was in full sight of the terminus of a line of horse-cars that connected this remote region of Sibley with its business portion, and though distant a good mile from the railway depot, was, to all intents and purposes, as near that means of escape as he would have been in the street in front of Widow Clemmens' house.

Full of thoughts and inly wondering over the fatality that had confined the attention of the authorities to the approaches afforded by the lane, to the utter exclusion of this more circuitous, but certainly more elusive, road of escape, he entered upon the highway, and proceeded to gain the horse-car he saw standing at the head of the road, a few rods away. As he did so, he for the first time realized just where he was. The elegant villa of Professor Darling rising before him on the ridge that ran along on the right-hand side of the road, made it at once evident that he was on the borders of that choice and aristocratic quarter known as the West Side. It was a new region to[174] him, and, pausing for a moment, he cast his eyes over the scene which lay stretched out before him. He had frequently heard it said that the view commanded by the houses on the ridge was the finest in the town, and he was not disappointed in it. As he looked across the verdant basin of marshy ground around which the road curved like a horseshoe, he could see the city spread out like a map before him. So unobstructed, indeed, was the view he had of its various streets and buildings, that he thought he could even detect, amid the taller and more conspicuous dwellings, the humble walls and newly-shingled roof of the widow's cottage.

But he could not be sure of this; his eyesight was any thing but trustworthy for long distances, and hurrying forward to the car, he took his seat just as it was about to start.

It carried him straight into town, and came to a standstill not ten feet from the railroad depot. As he left it and betook himself back to his hotel, he gave to his thoughts a distinct though inward expression.

"If," he mused, "my suppositions in regard to this matter are true, and another man than Mr. Hildreth struck the fatal blow, then I have just travelled over the self-same route he took in his flight."

But were his suppositions true? It remained for him to determine.

[175]

XIII. THE FLY

Like—but oh! how different.—WORDSWORTH.

THE paper mill of Harrison, Goodman & Chamberlain was situated in one of the main thoroughfares of Buffalo. It was a large but otherwise unpretentious building, and gave employment to a vast number of operatives, mostly female.

Some of these latter might have been surprised, and possibly a little fluttered, one evening, at seeing a well-dressed young gentleman standing at the gate as they came forth, gazing with languid interest from one face to another, as if he were on the look-out for some one of their number.

But they would have been yet more astonished could they have seen him still lingering after the last one had passed, watching with unabated patience the opening and shutting of the small side door devoted to the use of the firm, and such employés as had seats in the office. It was Mr. Byrd, and his purpose there at this time of day was to see and review the whole rank and file of the young men employed in the place, in the hope of being able to identify the nephew of Mrs. Clemmens by his supposed resemblance to the person whose character of face and form had been so minutely described to him.[176]

For Mr. Byrd was a just man and a thoughtful one, and knowing this identification to be the key-stone of his lately formed theory, desired it to be complete and of no doubtful character. He accordingly held fast to his position, watching and waiting, seemingly in vain, for the dark, powerful face and the sturdily-built frame of the gentleman whose likeness he had attempted to draw in conjunction with that of Miss Dare. But, though he saw many men of all sorts and kinds issue from one door or another of this vast building, not one of them struck him with that sudden and unmistakable sense of familiarity which he had a right to expect, and he was just beginning to doubt if the whole framework of his elaborately-formed theory was not destined to fall into ruins, when the small door, already alluded to, opened once more, and a couple of gentlemen came out.

The appearance of one of them gave Mr. Byrd a start. He was young, powerfully built, wore a large mustache, and had a complexion of unusual swarthiness. There was character, too, in his face, though not so much as Mr. Byrd had expected to see in the nephew of Mrs. Clemmens. Still, people differ about degrees of expression, and to his informant this face might have appeared strong. He was dressed in a business suit, and was without an overcoat—two facts that made it difficult for Mr. Byrd to get any assistance from the cut and color of his clothes.

But there was enough in the general style and bearing[177] of this person to make Mr. Byrd anxious to know his name. He, therefore, took it upon himself to follow him—a proceeding which brought him to the corner just in time to see the two gentlemen separate, and the especial one in whom he was interested, step into a car.

He succeeded in getting a seat in the same car, and for some blocks had the pleasure of watching the back of the supposed Mansell, as he stood on the front platform with the driver. Then others got in, and the detective's view was obstructed, and presently—he never could tell how it was—he lost track of the person he was shadowing, and when the chance came for another sight of the driver and platform, the young man was gone.

Annoyed beyond expression, Mr. Byrd went to a hotel, and next day sent to the mill and procured the address of Mr. Mansell. Going to the place named, he found it to be a very respectable boarding-house, and, chancing upon a time when more or less of the rooms were empty, succeeded in procuring for himself an apartment there.

So here he was a fixture in the house supposed by him to hold the murderer of Mrs. Clemmens. When the time for dinner came, and with it an opportunity for settling the vexed question of Mr. Mansell's identity not only with the man in the Syracuse depot, but with the person who had eluded his pursuit the day before, something of the excitement of the hunter in view of his game seized upon this hitherto imperturbable detective, and it was with difficulty he could sustain his usual rôle of fashionable indifference.[178]

He arrived at the table before any of the other boarders, and presently a goodly array of amiable matrons, old and young gentlemen, and pretty girls came filing into the room, and finally—yes, finally—the gentleman whom he had followed from the mill the day before, and whom he now had no hesitation in fixing upon as Mr. Mansell.

But the satisfaction occasioned by the settlement of this perplexing question was dampened somewhat by a sudden and uneasy sense of being himself at a disadvantage. Why he should feel thus he did not know. Perhaps the almost imperceptible change which took place in that gentleman's face as their eyes first met, may have caused the unlooked-for sensation; though why Mr. Mansell should change at the sight of one who must have been a perfect stranger to him, was more than Mr. Byrd could understand. It was enough that the latter felt he had made a mistake in not having donned a disguise before entering this house, and that, oppressed by the idea, he withdrew his attention from the man he had come to watch, and fixed it upon more immediate and personal matters.

The meal was half over. Mr. Byrd who, as a stranger of more than ordinary good looks and prepossessing manners, had been placed by the obliging landlady between her own daughter and a lady of doubtful attractions, was endeavoring to improve his advantages and make himself as agreeable as possible to both of his neighbors, when he heard a lady near him say aloud, "You are late,[179] Mr. Mansell," and, looking up in his amazement, saw entering the door—— Well, in the presence of the real owner of this name, he wondered he ever could have fixed upon the other man as the original of the person that had been described to him. The strong face, the sombre expression, the herculean frame, were unique, and in the comparison which they inevitably called forth, made all other men in the room look dwarfed if not actually commonplace.

Greatly surprised at this new turn of affairs, and satisfied that he at last had before him the man who had confronted Miss Dare in the Syracuse depot, he turned his attention back to the ladies. He, however, took care to keep one ear open on the side of the new-comer, in the hope of gleaning from his style and manner of conversation some notion of his disposition and nature.

But Craik Mansell was at no time a talkative man, and at this especial period of his career was less inclined than ever to enter into the trivial debates or good-natured repartee that was the staple of conversation at Mrs. Hart's table.

So Mr. Byrd's wishes in this regard were foiled. He succeeded, however, in assuring himself by a square look, into the other's face, that to whatever temptation this man may have succumbed, or of whatever crime he may have been guilty, he was by nature neither cold, cruel, nor treacherous, and that the deadly blow, if dealt by him, was the offspring of some sudden impulse or violent[180] ebullition of temper, and was being repented of with every breath he drew.

But this discovery, though it modified Mr. Byrd's own sense of personal revolt against the man, could not influence him in the discharge of his duty, which was to save another of less interesting and perhaps less valuable traits of character from the consequences of a crime he had never committed. It was, therefore, no more than just, that, upon withdrawing from the table, he should endeavor to put himself in the way of settling that second question, upon whose answer in the affirmative depended the rightful establishment of his secret suspicions.

That was, whether this young man was at or near the house of his aunt at the time when she was assaulted.

Mrs. Hart's parlors were always thrown open to her boarders in the evening.

There, at any time from seven to ten, you might meet a merry crowd of young people intent upon enjoying themselves, and usually highly successful in their endeavors to do so. Into this throng Mr. Byrd accordingly insinuated himself, and being of the sort to win instant social recognition, soon found he had but to make his choice in order to win for himself that tête-à-tête conversation from which he hoped so much. He consequently surveyed the company with a critical eye, and soon made up his mind as to which lady was the most affable in her manners and the least likely to meet his advances with haughty reserve, and having won an introduction to her,[181] sat down at her side with the stern determination of making her talk about Mr. Mansell.

"You have a very charming company here," he remarked; "the house seems to be filled with a most cheerful class of people."

"Yes," was the not-unlooked-for reply. "We are all merry enough if we except Mr. Mansell. But, of course, there is excuse for him. No one expects him to join in our sports."

"Mr. Mansell? the gentleman who came in late to supper?" repeated Mr. Byrd, with no suggestion of the secret satisfaction he felt at the immediate success of his scheme.

"Yes, he is in great trouble, you know; is the nephew of the woman who was killed a few days ago at Sibley, don't you remember? The widow lady who was struck on the head by a man of the name of Hildreth, and who died after uttering something about a ring, supposed by many to be an attempt on her part to describe the murderer?"

"Yes," was the slow, almost languid, response; "and a dreadful thing, too; quite horrifying in its nature. And so this Mr. Mansell is her nephew?" he suggestively repeated. "Odd! I suppose he has told you all about the affair?"

"He? Mercy! I don't suppose you could get him to say anything about it to save your life. He isn't of the talking sort. Besides, I don't believe he knows any more about it than you or I. He hasn't been to Sibley."[182]

"Didn't he go to the funeral?"

"No; he said he was too ill; and indeed he was shut up one whole day with a terrible sore throat. He is the heir, too, of all her savings, they say; but he won't go to Sibley. Some folks think it is queer, but I——"

Here her eyes wandered and her almost serious look vanished in a somewhat coquettish smile. Following her gaze with his own, Mr. Byrd perceived a gentleman approaching. It was the one he had first taken for Mr. Mansell.

"Beg pardon," was the somewhat abrupt salutation with which this person advanced. "But they are proposing a game in the next room, and Miss Clayton's assistance is considered absolutely indispensable."

"Mr. Brown, first allow me to make you acquainted with Mr. Byrd," said the light-hearted damsel, with a gracious inclination. "As you are both strangers, it is well for you to know each other, especially as I expect you to join in our games."

"Thank you," protested Mr. Brown, "but I don't play games." Then seeing the deep bow of acquiescence which Mr. Byrd was making, added, with what appeared to be a touch of jealousy, "Except under strong provocation," and holding out his arm, offered to escort the young lady into the next room.

With an apologetic glance at Mr. Byrd, she accepted the attention proffered her, and speedily vanished into the midst of the laughing group that awaited her.[183]

Mr. Byrd found himself alone.

"Check number one," thought he; and he bestowed any thing but an amiable benediction upon the man who had interrupted him in the midst of so promising a conversation.

His next move was in the direction of the landlady's daughter, who, being somewhat shy, favored a retired nook behind the piano. They had been neighbors at table, and he could at once address her without fear of seeming obtrusive.

"I do not see here the dark young gentleman whom you call Mr. Mansell?" he remarked, inquiringly.

"Oh, no; he is in trouble. A near relative of his was murdered in cold blood the other day, and under the most aggravating circumstances. Haven't you heard about it? She was a Mrs. Clemmens, and lived in Sibley. It was in all the papers."

"Ah, yes; I remember about it very well. And so he is her nephew," he went on, recklessly repeating himself in his determination to elicit all he could from these young and thoughtless misses. "A peculiar-looking young man; has the air of thoroughly understanding himself."

"Yes, he is very smart, they say."

"Does he never talk?"

"Oh, yes; that is, he used to; but, since his aunt's death, we don't expect it. He is very much interested in machinery, and has invented something——"[184]

"Oh, Clara, you are not going to sit here," interposed the reproachful voice of a saucy-eyed maiden, who at this moment peeped around the corner of the piano. "We want all the recruits we can get," she cried, with a sudden blush, as she encountered the glance of Mr. Byrd. "Do come, and bring the gentleman too." And she slipped away to join that very Mr. Brown who, by his importunities, had been the occasion of the former interruption from which Mr. Byrd had suffered.

"That man and I will quarrel yet," was the mental exclamation with which the detective rose. "Shall we join your friends?" asked he, assuming an unconcern he was far from feeling.

"Yes, if you please," was the somewhat timid, though evidently pleased, reply.

And Mr. Byrd noted down in his own mind check number two.

The game was a protracted one. Twice did he think to escape from the merry crowd he had entered, and twice did he fail to do so. The indefatigable Brown would not let him slip, and it was only by a positive exertion of his will that he finally succeeded in withdrawing himself.

"I wish to have a word with your mother," he explained, in reply to the look of protest with which Miss Hart honored his departure. "I hear she retires early; so you will excuse me if I leave somewhat abruptly."

And to Mrs. Hart's apartment he at once proceeded,[185] and, by dint of his easy assurance, soon succeeded in leading her, as he had already done the rest, into a discussion of the one topic for which he had an interest. He had not time, however, to glean much from her, for, just as she was making the admission that Mr. Mansell had not been home at the time of the murder, a knock was heard at the door, and, with an affable bow and a short, quick stare of surprise at Mr. Byrd, the ubiquitous Mr. Brown stepped in and took a seat on the sofa, with every appearance of intending to make a call.

At this third check, Mr. Byrd was more than annoyed. Rising, however, with the most amiable courtesy, he bowed his acknowledgments to the landlady, and, without heeding her pressing invitation to remain and make the acquaintance of Mr. Brown, left the room and betook himself back to the parlors.

He was just one minute too late. The last of the boarders had gone up-stairs, and only an empty room met his eyes.

He at once ascended to his own apartment. It was on the fourth floor. There were many other rooms on this floor, and for a moment he could not remember which was his own door. At last, however, he felt sure it was the third one from the stairs, and, going to it, gave a short knock in case of mistake, and, hearing no reply, opened it and went in.

The first glance assured him that his recollection had played him false, and that he was in the wrong room.[186] The second, that he was in that of Mr. Mansell. The sight of the small model of a delicate and intricate machine that stood in full view on a table before him would have been sufficient assurance of this fact, even if the inventor himself had been absent. But he was there. Seated at a table, with his back to the door, and his head bowed forward on his arms, he presented such a picture of misery or despair, that Mr. Byrd felt his sympathies touched in spite of himself, and hastily stumbling backward, was about to confusedly withdraw, when a doubt struck him as to the condition of the deathly, still, and somewhat pallid figure before him, and, stepping hurriedly forward, he spoke the young man's name, and, failing to elicit a response, laid his hand on his shoulder, with an apology for disturbing him, and an inquiry as to how he felt.

The touch acted where the voice had failed. Leaping from his partly recumbent position, Craik Mansell faced the intruder with indignant inquiry written in every line of his white and determined face.

"To what do I owe this intrusion?" he cried, his nostrils expanding and contracting with an anger that proved the violence of his nature when aroused.

"First, to my carelessness," responded Mr. Byrd; "and, secondly——" But there he paused, for the first time in his life, perhaps, absolutely robbed of speech. His eye had fallen upon a picture that the other held clutched in his vigorous right hand. It was a photograph[187] of Imogene Dare, and it was made conspicuous by two heavy black lines which had been relentlessy drawn across the face in the form of a cross. "Secondly," he went on, after a moment, resolutely tearing his gaze away from this startling and suggestive object, "to my fears. I thought you looked ill, and could not forbear making an effort to reassure myself that all was right."

"Thank you," ejaculated the other, in a heavy weariful tone. "I am perfectly well." And with a short bow he partially turned his back, with a distinct intimation that he desired to be left alone.

Mr. Byrd could not resist this appeal. Glad as he would have been for even a moment's conversation with this man, he was, perhaps unfortunately, too much of a gentleman to press himself forward against the expressed wishes even of a suspected criminal. He accordingly withdrew to the door, and was about to open it and go out, when it was flung violently forward, and the ever-obtrusive Brown stepped in.

This second intrusion was more than unhappy Mr. Mansell could stand. Striding passionately forward, he met the unblushing Brown at full tilt, and angrily pointing to the door, asked if it was not the custom of gentlemen to knock before entering the room of strangers.

"I beg pardon," said the other, backing across the threshold, with a profuse display of confusion. "I had no idea of its being a stranger's room. I thought it was my own. I—I was sure that my door was the third from[188] the stairs. Excuse me, excuse me." And he bustled noisily out.

This precise reproduction of his own train of thought and action confounded Mr. Byrd.

Turning with a deprecatory glance to the perplexed and angry occupant of the room, he said something about not knowing the person who had just left them; and then, conscious that a further contemplation of the stern and suffering countenance before him would unnerve him for the duty he had to perform, hurriedly withdrew.

[189]

XIV. A LAST ATTEMPT

When Fortune means to men most good,
She looks upon them with a threatening eye.—KING JOHN.

THE sleep of Horace Byrd that night was any thing but refreshing. In the first place, he was troubled about this fellow Brown, whose last impertinence showed he was a man to be watched, and, if possible, understood. Secondly, he was haunted by a vision of the unhappy youth he had just left; seeing, again and again, both in his dreams and in the rush of heated fancies which followed his awaking, that picture of utter despair which the opening of his neighbor's door had revealed. He could not think of that poor mortal as sleeping. Whether it was the result of his own sympathetic admiration for Miss Dare, or of some subtle clairvoyance bestowed upon him by the darkness and stillness of the hour, he felt assured that the quiet watch he had interrupted by his careless importunity, had been again established, and that if he could tear down the partition separating their two rooms, he should see that bowed form and buried face crouched despairingly above the disfigured picture. The depths of human misery and the maddening passions that underlie all crime had been[190] revealed to him for the first time, perhaps, in all their terrible suggestiveness, and he asked himself over and over as he tossed on his uneasy pillow, if he possessed the needful determination to carry on the scheme he had undertaken, in face of the unreasoning sympathies which the fathomless misery of this young man had aroused. Under the softening influences of the night, he answered, No; but when the sunlight came and the full flush of life with its restless duties and common necessities awoke within him, he decided, Yes.

Mr. Mansell was not at the breakfast-table when Mr. Byrd came down. His duties at the mill were peremptory, and he had already taken his coffee and gone. But Mr. Brown was there, and at sight of him Mr. Byrd's caution took alarm, and he bestowed upon this intrusive busybody a close and searching scrutiny. It, however, elicited nothing in the way of his own enlightenment beyond the fact that this fellow, total stranger though he seemed, was for some inexplicable reason an enemy to himself or his plans.

Not that Mr. Brown manifested this by any offensive token of dislike or even of mistrust. On the contrary, he was excessively polite, and let slip no opportunity of dragging Mr. Byrd into the conversation. Yet, for all that, a secret influence was already at work against the detective, and he could not attribute it to any other source than the jealous efforts of this man. Miss Hart was actually curt to him, and in the attitude of the[191] various persons about the board he detected a certain reserve which had been entirely absent from their manner the evening before.

But while placing, as he thought, due weight upon this fellow's animosity, he had no idea to what it would lead, till he went up-stairs. Mrs. Hart, who had hitherto treated him with the utmost cordiality, now called him into the parlor, and told him frankly that she would be obliged to him if he would let her have his room. To be sure, she qualified the seeming harshness of her request by an intimation that a permanent occupant had applied for it, and offered to pay his board at the hotel till he could find a room to suit him in another house; but the fact remained that she was really in a flutter to rid herself of him, and no subterfuge could hide it, and Mr. Byrd, to whose plans the full confidence of those around him was essential, found himself obliged to acquiesce in her desires, and announce at once his willingness to depart.

Instantly she was all smiles, and overwhelmed him with overtures of assistance; but he courteously declined her help, and, flying from her apologies with what speed he could, went immediately to his room. Here he sat down to deliberate.

The facts he had gleaned, despite the interference of his unknown enemy, were three:

First, that Craik Mansell had found excuses for not attending the inquest, or even the funeral, of his murdered aunt.[192]

Secondly, that he had a strong passion for invention, and had even now the model of a machine on hand.

And third, that he was not at home, wherever else he may have been, on the morning of the murder in Sibley.

"A poor and meagre collection of insignificant facts," thought Mr. Byrd. "Too poor and meagre to avail much in stemming the tide threatening to overwhelm Gouverneur Hildreth."

But what opportunity remained for making them weightier? He was turned from the house that held the few persons from whom he could hope to glean more complete and satisfactory information, and he did not know where else to seek it unless he went to the mill. And this was an alternative from which he shrank, as it would, in the first place, necessitate a revelation of his real character; and, secondly, make known the fact that Mr. Mansell was under the surveillance of the police, if not in the actual attitude of a suspected man.

A quick and hearty, "Shure, you are very good, sir!" uttered in the hall without roused him from his meditations and turned his thoughts in a new direction. What if he could learn something from the servants? He had not thought of them. This girl, now, whose work constantly carried her into the various rooms on this floor, would, of course, know whether Mr. Mansell had been away on the day of the murder, even if she could not tell the precise time of his return. At all[193] events, it was worth while to test her with a question or two before he left, even if he had to resort to the means of spurring her memory with money. His failure in other directions did not necessitate a failure here.

He accordingly called her in, and showing her a bright silver dollar, asked her if she thought it good enough pay for a short answer to a simple question.

To his great surprise she blushed and drew back, shaking her head and muttering that her mistress didn't like to have the girls talk to the young men about the house, and finally going off with a determined toss of her frowsy head, that struck Mr. Byrd aghast, and made him believe more than ever that his evil star hung in the ascendant, and that the sooner he quit the house the better.

In ten minutes he was in the street.

But one thing now remained for him to do. He must make the acquaintance of one of the mill-owners, or possibly of an overseer or accountant, and from him learn where Mr. Mansell had been at the time of his aunt's murder. To this duty he devoted the day; but here also he was met by unexpected difficulties. Though he took pains to disguise himself before proceeding to the mill, all the endeavors which he made to obtain an interview there with any responsible person were utterly fruitless. Whether his ill-luck at the house had followed him to this place he could not tell, but, for some reason or other, there was not one of the gentlemen for whom he inquired but had some excuse for not seeing him; and,[194] worn out at last with repeated disappointments, if not oppressed by the doubtful looks he received from the various subordinates who carried his messages, he left the building, and proceeded to make use of the only means now left him of compassing his end.

This was to visit Mr. Goodman, the one member of the firm who was not at his post that day, and see if from him he could gather the single fact he was in search of.

"Perhaps the atmosphere of distrust with which I am surrounded in this quarter has not reached this gentleman's house," thought he. And having learned from the directory where that house was, he proceeded immediately to it.

His reception was by no means cordial. Mr. Goodman had been ill the night before, and was in no mood to see strangers.

"Mansell?" he coolly repeated, in acknowledgment of the other's inquiry as to whether he had a person of that name in his employ. "Yes, our book-keeper's name is Mansell. May I ask"—and here Mr. Byrd felt himself subjected to a thorough, if not severe, scrutiny—"why you come to me with inquiries concerning him?"

"Because," the determined detective responded, adopting at once the bold course, "you can put me in possession of a fact which it eminently befits the cause of justice to know. I am an emissary, sir, from the District Attorney at Sibley, and the point I want settled is, where Mr. Mansell was on the morning of the twenty-sixth of September?"[195]

This was business, and the look that involuntarily leaped into Mr. Goodman's eye proved that he considered it so. He did not otherwise betray this feeling, however, but turned quite calmly toward a chair, into which he slowly settled himself before replying:

"And why do you not ask the gentleman himself where he was? He probably would be quite ready to tell you."

The inflection he gave to these words warned Mr. Byrd to be careful. The truth was, Mr. Goodman was Mr. Mansell's best friend, and as such had his own reasons for not being especially communicative in his regard, to this stranger. The detective vaguely felt this, and immediately changed his manner.

"I have no doubt of that, sir," he ingenuously answered. "But Mr. Mansell has had so much to distress him lately, that I was desirous of saving him from the unpleasantness which such a question would necessarily cause. It is only a small matter, sir. A person—it is not essential to state whom—has presumed to raise the question among the authorities in Sibley as to whether Mr. Mansell, as heir of poor Mrs. Clemmens' small property, might not have had some hand in her dreadful death. There was no proof to sustain the assumption, and Mr. Mansell was not even known to have been in the town on or after the day of her murder; but justice, having listened to the aspersion, felt bound to satisfy itself of its falsity; and I was sent here to learn where Mr. Mansell was upon that fatal day. I find he was not in Buffalo.[196] But this does not mean he was in Sibley, and I am sure that, if you will, you can supply me with facts that will lead to a complete and satisfactory alibi for him."

But the hard caution of the other was not to be moved.

"I am sorry," said he, "but I can give you no information in regard to Mr. Mansell's travels. You will have to ask the gentleman himself."

"You did not send him out on business of your own, then?"

"No."

"But you knew he was going?"

"Yes."

"And can tell when he came back?"

"He was in his place on Wednesday."

The cold, dry nature of these replies convinced Mr. Byrd that something more than the sullen obstinacy of an uncommunicative man lay behind this determined reticence. Looking at Mr. Goodman inquiringly, he calmly remarked:

"You are a friend of Mr. Mansell?"

The answer came quick and coldly:

"He is a constant visitor at my house."

Mr. Byrd made a respectful bow.

"You can, then, have no doubts of his ability to prove an alibi?"

"I have no doubts concerning Mr. Mansell," was the stern and uncompromising reply.

Mr. Byrd at once felt he had received his dismissal. But before making up his mind to go, he resolved upon[197] one further effort. Calling to his aid his full power of acting, he slowly shook his head with a thoughtful air, and presently murmured half aloud and half, as it were, to himself:

"I thought, possibly, he might have gone to Washington." Then, with a casual glance at Mr. Goodman, added: "He is an inventor, I believe?"

"Yes," was again the laconic response.

"Has he not a machine at present which he desires to bring to the notice of some capitalist?"

"I believe he has," was the forced and none too amiable answer.

Mr. Byrd at once leaned confidingly forward.

"Don't you think," he asked, "that he may have gone to New York to consult with some one about this pet hobby of his? It would certainly be a natural thing for him to do, and if I only knew it was so, I could go back to Sibley with an easy conscience."

His disinterested air, and the tone of kindly concern which he had adopted, seemed at last to produce its effect on his companion. Relaxing a trifle of his austerity, Mr. Goodman went so far as to admit that Mr. Mansell had told him that business connected with his patent had called him out of town; but beyond this he would allow nothing; and Mr. Byrd, baffled in his attempts to elicit from this man any distinct acknowledgment of Mr. Mansell's whereabouts at the critical time of Mrs. Clemmens' death, made a final bow and turned toward the door.

It was only at this moment he discovered that Mr.[198] Goodman and himself had not been alone in the room; that curled up in one of the window-seats was a little girl of some ten or twelve years of age, who at the first tokens of his taking his departure slipped shyly down to the floor and ran before him out into the hall. He found her by the front door when he arrived there. She was standing with her hand on the knob, and presented such a picture of childish eagerness, tempered by childish timidity, that he involuntarily paused before her with a smile. She needed no further encouragement.

"Oh, sir, I know about Mr. Mansell!" she cried. "He wasn't in that place you talk about, for he wrote a letter to papa just the day before he came back, and the postmark on the envelope was Monteith. I remember, because it was the name of the man who made our big map." And, looking up with that eager zeal which marks the liking of very little folks for some one favorite person among their grown acquaintances, she added, earnestly: "I do hope you won't let them say any thing bad about Mr. Mansell, he is so good."

And without waiting for a reply, she ran off, her curls dancing, her eyes sparkling, all her little innocent form alive with the joy of having done a kindness, as she thought, for her favorite, Mr. Mansell.

Mr. Byrd, on the contrary, felt a strange pang that the information he had sought for so long and vainly should come at last from the lips of an innocent child.

Monteith, as you remember, was the next station to Sibley.

[199]

XV. THE END OF A TORTUOUS PATH

Thus bad begins and worse remains behind.—HAMLET.

THE arrest of Mr. Hildreth had naturally quieted public suspicion by fixing attention upon a definite point, so that when Mr. Byrd returned to Sibley he found that he could pursue whatever inquiries he chose without awakening the least mistrust that he was on the look-out for the murderer of Mrs. Clemmens.

The first use he made of his time was to find out if Mr. Mansell, or any man answering to his description, had been seen to take the train from the Sibley station on the afternoon or evening of the fatal Tuesday. The result was unequivocal. No such person had been seen there, and no such person was believed to have been at the station at any time during that day. This was his first disappointment.

He next made the acquaintance of the conductors on that line of street-cars by means of which he believed Mr. Mansell to have made his escape. But with no better result. Not one of them remembered having taken up, of late, any passenger from the terminus, of the appearance described by Mr. Byrd.

And this was his second disappointment.[200]

His next duty was obviously to change his plan of action and make the town of Monteith the centre of his inquiries. But he hesitated to do this till he had made one other visit to the woods in whose recesses he still believed the murderer to have plunged immediately upon dealing the fatal blow.

He went by the way of the street railroad, not wishing to be again seen crossing the bog, and arrived at the hut in the centre of the glade without meeting any one or experiencing the least adventure.

This time he went in, but nothing was to be seen save bare logs, a rough hearth where a fire had once been built, and the rudest sort of bench and table; and hurrying forth again, he looked doubtfully up and down the glade in pursuit of some hint to guide him in his future researches.

Suddenly he received one. The thick wall of foliage which at first glance revealed but the two outlets already traversed by him, showed upon close inspection a third path, opening well behind the hut, and leading, as he soon discovered, in an entirely opposite direction from that which had taken him to West Side. Merely stopping to cast one glance at the sun, which was still well overhead, he set out on this new path. It was longer and much more intricate than the other. It led through hollows and up steeps, and finally out into an open blackberry patch, where it seemed to terminate. But a close study of the surrounding bushes, soon disclosed[201] signs of a narrow and thread-like passage curving about a rocky steep. Entering this he presently found himself drawn again into the woods, which he continued to traverse till he came to a road cut through the heart of the forest, for the use of the lumbermen. Here he paused. Should he turn to the right or left? He decided to turn to the right. Keeping in the road, which was rough with stones where it was not marked with the hoofs of both horses and cattle, he walked for some distance. Then he emerged into open space again, and discovered that he was on the hillside overlooking Monteith, and that by a mile or two's further walk over the highway that was dimly to be descried at the foot of the hill, he would reach the small station devoted to the uses of the quarrymen that worked in this place.

There was no longer any further doubt that this route, and not the other, had been the one taken by Mr. Mansell on that fatal afternoon. But he was determined not to trust any further to mere surmises; so hastening down the hill, he made his way in the direction of the highway, meaning to take the walk alluded to, and learn for himself what passengers had taken the train at this point on the Tuesday afternoon so often mentioned.

But a barrier rose in his way. A stream which he had barely noticed in the quick glance he threw over the landscape from the brow of the hill, separated with quite a formidable width of water the hillside from the road, and it was not till he wandered back for some distance along[202] its banks, that he found a bridge. The time thus lost was considerable, but he did not think of it; and when, after a long and weary tramp, he stepped upon the platform of the small station, he was so eager to learn if he had correctly followed the scent, that he forgot to remark that the road he had taken was any thing but an easy or feasible one for a hasty escape.

The accommodation-trains, which alone stop at this point, had both passed, and he found the station-master at leisure. A single glance into his honest and intelligent face convinced the detective that he had a reliable man to deal with. He at once commenced his questions.

"Do many persons besides the quarrymen take the train at this place?" asked he.

"Not many," was the short but sufficiently good-natured rejoinder. "I guess I could easily count them on the fingers of one hand," he laughed.

"You would be apt to notice, then, if a strange gentleman got on board here at any time, would you not?"

"Guess so; not often troubled that way, but sometimes—sometimes."

"Can you tell me whether a young man of very dark complexion, heavy mustache, and a determined, if not excited, expression, took the cars here for Monteith, say, any day last week?"

"I don't know," mused the man. "Dark complexion, you say, large mustache; let me see."

"No dandy," Mr. Byrd carefully explained, "but a[203] strong man, who believes in work. He was possibly in a state of somewhat nervous hurry," he went on, suggestively, "and if he wore an overcoat at all, it was a gray one."

The face of the man lighted up.

"I seem to remember," said he. "Did he have a very bright blue eye and a high color?"

Mr. Byrd nodded.

"And did he carry a peculiarly shaped bag, of which he was very careful?"

"I don't know," said Mr. Byrd, but remembering the model, added with quick assurance, "I have no doubt he did"; which seemed to satisfy the other, for he at once cried:

"I recollect such a person very well. I noticed him before he got to the station; as soon in fact as he came in sight. He was walking down the highway, and seemed to be thinking about something. He's of the kind to attract attention. What about him, sir?"

"Nothing. He was in trouble of some kind, and he went from home without saying where he was going; and his friends are anxious about him, that is all. Do you think you could swear to his face if you saw it?"

"I think I could. He was the only stranger that got on to the cars that afternoon."

"Do you remember, then, the day?"

"Well, no, now, I don't."

"But can't you, if you try? Wasn't there something done by you that day which will assist your memory?"[204]

Again that slow "Let me see" showed that the man was pondering. Suddenly he slapped his thigh and exclaimed:

"You might be a lawyer's clerk now, mightn't you; or, perhaps, a lawyer himself? I do remember that a large load of stone was sent off that day, and a minute's look at my book—— It was Tuesday," he presently affirmed.

Mr. Byrd drew a deep breath. There is sadness mixed with the satisfaction of such a triumph.

"I am much obliged to you," he said, in acknowledgment of the other's trouble. "The friends of this gentleman will now have little difficulty in tracing him. There is but one thing further I should like to make sure of."

And taking from his memorandum-book the picture he kept concealed there, he showed him the face of Mr. Mansell, now altered to a perfect likeness, and asked him if he recognized it.

The decided Yes which he received made further questions unnecessary.

[205]

XVI. STORM

Oh, my offence is rank, it smells to heav'n:
It hath the primal eldest curse upon 't!—HAMLET.

A DAY had passed. Mr. Byrd, who no longer had any reason to doubt that he was upon the trail of the real assailant of the Widow Clemmens, had resolved upon a third visit to the woods, this time with the definite object of picking up any clew, however trifling, in support of the fact that Craik Mansell had passed through the glade behind his aunt's house.

The sky, when he left the hotel, was one vast field of blue; but by the time he reached the terminus of the car-route, and stepped out upon the road leading to the woods, dark clouds had overcast the sun, and a cool wind replaced the quiet zephyrs which had all day fanned the brilliant autumn foliage.

He did not realize the condition of the atmosphere, however, and proceeded on his way, thinking more of the person he had just perceived issuing from the door-way of Professor Darling's lofty mansion, than of the low mutterings of distant thunder that now and then disturbed the silence of the woods, or of the ominous, brazen tint which was slowly settling over the huge bank of cloud[206] that filled the northern sky. For that person was Miss Dare, and her presence here, or anywhere near him, at this time, must of necessity, awaken a most painful train of thought.

But, though unmindful of the storm, he was dimly conscious of the darkness that was settling about him. Quicker and quicker grew his pace, and at last he almost broke into a run as the heavy pall of a large black cloud swept up over the zenith, and wiped from the heavens the last remnant of blue sky. One drop fell, then another, then a slow, heavy patter, that bent double the leaves they fell upon, as if a shower of lead had descended upon the heavily writhing forest. The wind had risen, too, and the vast aisles of that clear and beautiful wood thundered with the swaying of boughs, and the crash here and there of an old and falling limb. But the lightning delayed.

The blindest or most abstracted man could be ignorant no longer of what all this turmoil meant. Stopping in the path along which he had been speeding, Mr. Byrd glanced before him and behind, in a momentary calculation of distances, and deciding he could not regain the terminus before the storm burst, pushed on toward the hut.

He reached it just as the first flash of lightning darted down through the heavy darkness, and was about to fling himself against the door, when something—was it the touch of an invisible hand, or the crash of awful[207] thunder which at this instant plowed up the silence of the forest and woke a pandemonium of echoes about his head?—stopped him.

He never knew. He only realized that he shuddered and drew back, with a feeling of great disinclination to enter the low building before him, alone; and that presently taking advantage of another loud crash of falling boughs, he crept around the corner of the hut, and satisfied his doubts by looking into the small, square window opening to the west.

He found there was ample reason for all the hesitation he had felt. A man was sitting there, who, at the first glimpse, appeared to him to be none other than Craik Mansell. But reason soon assured him this could not be, though the shape, the attitude—that old attitude of despair which he remembered so well—was so startlingly like that of the man whose name was uppermost in his thoughts, that he recoiled in spite of himself.

A second flash swept blinding through the wood. Mr. Byrd advanced his head and took another glance at the stranger. It was Mr. Mansell. No other man would sit so quiet and unmoved during the rush and clatter of a terrible storm.

Look! not a hair of his head has stirred, not a movement has taken place in the hands clasped so convulsively beneath his brow. He is an image, a stone, and would not hear though the roof fell in.

Mr. Byrd himself forgot the storm, and only queried[208] what his duty was in this strange and surprising emergency.

But before he could come to any definite conclusion, he was subjected to a new sensation. A stir that was not the result of the wind or the rain had taken place in the forest before him. A something—he could not tell what—was advancing upon him from the path he had himself travelled so short a time before, and its step, if step it were, shook him with a vague apprehension that made him dread to lift his eyes. But he conquered the unmanly instinct, and merely taking the precaution to step somewhat further back from view, looked in the direction of his fears, and saw a tall, firmly-built woman, whose grandly poised head, held high, in defiance of the gale, the lightning, and the rain, proclaimed her to be none other than Imogene Dare.

It was a juxtaposition of mental, moral, and physical forces that almost took Mr. Byrd's breath away. He had no doubt whom she had come to see, or to what sort of a tryst he was about to be made an unwilling witness. But he could not have moved if the blast then surging through the trees had uprooted the huge pine behind which he had involuntarily drawn at the first impression he had received of her approach. He must watch that white face of hers slowly evolve itself from the surrounding darkness, and he must be present when the dreadful bolt swept down from heaven, if only to see her eyes in the flare of its ghostly flame.[209]

It came while she was crossing the glade. Fierce, blinding, more vivid and searching than at any time before, it flashed down through the cringing boughs, and, like a mantle of fire, enveloped her form, throwing out its every outline, and making of the strong and beautiful face an electric vision which Mr. Byrd was never able to forget.

A sudden swoop of wind followed, flinging her almost to the ground, but Mr. Byrd knew from that moment that neither wind nor lightning, not even the fear of death, would stop this woman if once she was determined upon any course.

Dreading the next few moments inexpressibly, yet forcing himself, as a detective, to remain at his post, though every instinct of his nature rebelled, Mr. Byrd drew himself up against the side of the low hut and listened. Her voice, rising between the mutterings of thunder and the roar of the ceaseless gale, was plainly to be heard.

"Craik Mansell," said she, in a strained tone, that was not without its severity, "you sent for me, and I am here."

Ah, this was her mode of greeting, was it? Mr. Byrd felt his breath come easier, and listened for the reply with intensest interest.

But it did not come. The low rumbling of the thunder went on, and the wind howled through the gruesome forest, but the man she had addressed did not speak.[210]

"Craik!" Her voice still came from the door-way, where she had seemingly taken her stand. "Do you not hear me?"

A stifled groan was the sole reply.

She appeared to take one step forward, but no more.

"I can understand," said she, and Mr. Byrd had no difficulty in hearing her words, though the turmoil overhead was almost deafening, "why the restlessness of despair should drive you into seeking this interview. I have longed to see you too, if only to tell you that I wish heaven's thunderbolts had fallen upon us both on that day when we sat and talked of our future prospects and——"

A lurid flash cut short her words. Strange and awesome sounds awoke in the air above, and the next moment a great branch fell crashing down upon the roof of the hut, beating in one corner, and sliding thence heavily to the ground, where it lay with all its quivering leaves uppermost, not two feet from the door-way where this woman stood.

A shriek like that of a lost spirit went up from her lips.

"I thought the vengeance of heaven had fallen!" she gasped. And for a moment not a sound was heard within or without the hut, save that low flutter of the disturbed leaves. "It is not to be," she then whispered, with a return of her old calmness, that was worse than any shriek. "Murder is not to be avenged thus." Then,[211] shortly: "A dark and hideous line of blood is drawn between you and me, Craik Mansell. I cannot pass it, and you must not, forever and forever and forever. But that does not hinder me from wishing to help you, and so I ask, in all sincerity, What is it you want me to do for you to-day?"

A response came this time.

"Show me how to escape the consequences of my act," were his words, uttered in a low and muffled voice.

She did not answer at once.

"Are you threatened?" she inquired at last, in a tone that proved she had drawn one step nearer to the bowed form and hidden face of the person she addressed.

"My conscience threatens me," was the almost stifled reply.

Again that heavy silence, all the more impressive that the moments before had been so prolific of heaven's most terrible noises.

"You suffer because another man is forced to endure suspicion for a crime he never committed," she whisperingly exclaimed.

Only a groan answered her; and the moments grew heavier and heavier, more and more oppressive, though the hitherto accompanying outcries of the forest had ceased, and a faint lightening of the heavy darkness was taking place overhead. Mr. Byrd felt the pressure of the situation so powerfully, he drew near to the window he had hitherto avoided, and looked in. She was standing a[212] foot behind the crouched figure of the man, between whom and herself she had avowed a line of blood to be drawn. As he looked she spoke.

"Craik," said she, and the deathless yearning of love spoke in her voice at last, "there is but one thing to do. Expiate your guilt by acknowledging it. Save the innocent from unmerited suspicion, and trust to the mercy of God. It is the only advice I can give you. I know no other road to peace. If I did——" She stopped, choked by the terror of her own thoughts. "Craik," she murmured, at last, "on the day I hear of your having made this confession, I vow to take an oath of celibacy for life. It is the only recompense I can offer for the misery and sin into which our mutual mad ambitions have plunged you."

And subduing with a look of inexpressible anguish an evident longing to lay her hand in final caress upon that bended head, she gave him one parting look, and then, with a quick shudder, hurried away, and buried herself amid the darkness of the wet and shivering woods.

[213]

XVII. A SURPRISE

Season your admiration for awhile.—HAMLET.

WHEN all was still again, Mr. Byrd advanced from his place of concealment, and softly entered the hut. Its solitary occupant sat as before, with his head bent down upon his clasped hands. But at the first sound of Mr. Byrd's approach he rose and turned. The shock of the discovery which followed sent the detective reeling back against the door. The person who faced him with such quiet assurance was not Craik Mansell.

[214]

XVIII. A BRACE OF DETECTIVES

Hath this fellow no feeling of his business?—HAMLET.

No action, whether foul or fair,
Is ever done, but it leaves somewhere
A record. —LONGFELLOW.

"SO there are two of us! I thought as much when I first set eyes upon your face in Buffalo!"

This exclamation, uttered in a dry and musing tone, woke Mr. Byrd from the stupor into which this astonishing discovery had thrown him. Advancing upon the stranger, who in size, shape, and coloring was almost the fac-simile of the person he had so successfully represented, Mr. Byrd looked him scrutinizingly over.

The man bore the ordeal with equanimity; he even smiled.

"You don't recognize me, I see."

Mr. Byrd at once recoiled.

"Ah!" cried he, "you are that Jack-in-the-box, Brown!"

"Alias Frank Hickory, at your service."

This name, so unexpected, called up a flush of mingled surprise and indignation to Mr. Byrd's cheek.

"I thought——" he began[215].

"Don't think," interrupted the other, who, when excited, affected laconicism, "know." Then, with affability, proceeded, "You are the gentleman——" he paid that much deference to Mr. Byrd's air and manner, "who I was told might lend me a helping hand in this Clemmens affair. I didn't recognize you before, sir. Wouldn't have stood in your way if I had. Though, to be sure, I did want to see this matter through myself. I thought I had the right. And I've done it, too, as you must acknowledge, if you have been present in this terrible place very long."

This self-satisfied, if not boastful, allusion to a scene in which this strange being had played so unworthy, if not unjustifiable, a part, sent a thrill of revulsion through Mr. Byrd. Drawing hastily back with an instinct of dislike he could not conceal, he cast a glance through the thicket of trees that spread beyond the open door, and pointedly asked:

"Was there no way of satisfying yourself of the guilt of Craik Mansell, except by enacting a farce that may lead to the lifelong remorse of the woman out of whose love you have made a trap?"

A slow flush, the first, possibly, that had visited the hardy cheek of this thick-skinned detective for years, crept over the face of Frank Hickory.

"I don't mean she shall ever know," he sullenly protested, kicking at the block upon which he had been sitting. "But it was a mean trick," he frankly enough[216] admitted the next moment. "If I hadn't been the tough old hickory knot that I am, I couldn't have done it, I suppose. The storm, too, made it seem a bit trifling. But—— Well, well!" he suddenly interjected, in a more cheerful tone, "'tis too late now for tears and repentance. The thing is done, and can't be undone. And, at all events, I reckon we are both satisfied now as to who killed Widow Clemmens!"

Mr. Byrd could not resist a slight sarcasm. "I thought you were satisfied in that regard before?" said he. "At least, I understood that at a certain time you were very positive it was Mr. Hildreth."

"So I was," the fellow good-naturedly allowed; "so I was. The byways of a crime like this are dreadful dark and uncertain. It isn't strange that a fellow gets lost sometimes. But I got a jog on my elbow that sent me into the right path," said he, "as, perhaps, you did too, sir, eh?"

Not replying to this latter insinuation, Mr. Byrd quietly repeated:

"You got a jog on your elbow? When, may I ask?"

"Three days ago, just!" was the emphatic reply.

"And from whom?"

Instead of replying, the man leaned back against the wall of the hut and looked at his interlocutor in silence.

"Are we going to join hands over this business?" he cried, at last, "or are you thinking of pushing your way on alone after you have got from me all that I know?"[217]

The question took Mr. Byrd by surprise.

He had not thought of the future. He was as yet too much disturbed by his memories of the past. To hide his discomfiture, he began to pace the floor, an operation which his thoroughly wet condition certainly made advisable.

"I have no wish to rob you of any glory you may hope to reap from the success of the plot you have carried on here to-day," he presently declared, with some bitterness; "but if this Craik Mansell is guilty, I suppose it is my duty to help you in the collection of all suitable and proper evidence against him."

"Then," said the other, who had been watching him with rather an anxious eye, "let us to work." And, sitting down on the table, he motioned to Mr. Byrd to take a seat upon the block at his side.

But the latter kept up his walk.

Hickory surveyed him for a moment in silence, then he said:

"You must have something against this young man, or you wouldn't be here. What is it? What first set you thinking about Craik Mansell?"

Now, this was a question Mr. Byrd could not and would not answer. After what had just passed in the hut, he felt it impossible to mention to this man the name of Imogene Dare in connection with that of the nephew of Mrs. Clemmens. He therefore waived the other's interrogation and remarked:[218]

"My knowledge was rather the fruit of surmise than fact. I did not believe in the guilt of Gouverneur Hildreth, and so was forced to look about me for some one whom I could conscientiously suspect. I fixed upon this unhappy man in Buffalo; how truly, your own suspicions, unfortunately, reveal."

"And I had to have my wits started by a horrid old woman," murmured the evidently abashed Hickory.

"Horrid old woman!" repeated Mr. Byrd. "Not Sally Perkins?"

"Yes. A sweet one, isn't she?"

Mr. Byrd shuddered.

"Tell me about it," said he, coming and sitting down in the seat the other had previously indicated to him.

"I will, sir; I will: but first let's look at the weather. Some folks would think it just as well for you to change that toggery of yours. What do you say to going home first, and talking afterward?"

"I suppose it would be wise," admitted Mr. Byrd, looking down at his garments, whose decidedly damp condition he had scarcely noticed in his excitement. "And yet I hate to leave this spot till I learn how you came to choose it as the scene of the tragi-comedy you have enacted here to-day, and what position it is likely to occupy in the testimony which you have collected against this young man."

"Wait, then," said the bustling fellow, "till I build you the least bit of a fire to warm you. It won't take but a[219] minute," he averred, piling together some old sticks that cumbered the hearth, and straightway setting a match to them. "See! isn't that pleasant? And now, just cast your eye at this!" he continued, drawing a comfortable-looking flask out of his pocket and handing it over to the other with a dry laugh. "Isn't this pleasant?" And he threw himself down on the floor and stretched out his hands to the blaze, with a gusto which the dreary hour he had undoubtedly passed made perfectly natural, if not excusable.

"I thank you," said Mr. Byrd; "I didn't know I was so chilled," and he, too, enjoyed the warmth. "And, now," he pursued, after a moment, "go on; let us have the thing out at once."

But the other was in no hurry. "Very good, sir," he cried; "but, first, if you don't mind, suppose you tell me what brought you to this hut to-day?"

"I was on the look-out for clues. In my study of the situation, I decided that the murderer of Mrs. Clemmens escaped, not from the front, but from the back, of the house. Taking the path I imagined him to have trod, I came upon this hut. It naturally attracted my attention, and to-day I came back to examine it more closely in the hope of picking up some signs of his having been here, or at least of having passed through the glade on his way to the deeper woods."

"And what, if you had succeeded in this, sir? What, if some token of his presence had rewarded your search?"[220]

"I should have completed a chain of proof of which only this one link is lacking. I could have shown how Craik Mansell fled from this place on last Tuesday afternoon, making his way through the woods to the highway, and thence to the Quarry Station at Monteith, where he took the train which carried him back to Buffalo."

"You could!—show me how?"

Mr. Byrd explained himself more definitely.

Hickory at once rose.

"I guess we can give you the link," he dryly remarked. "At all events, suppose you just step here and tell me what conclusion you draw from the appearance of this pile of brush."

Mr. Byrd advanced and looked at a small heap of hemlock that lay in a compact mass in one corner.

"I have not disturbed it," pursued the other. "It is just as it was when I found it."

"Looks like a pillow," declared Mr. Byrd. "Has been used for such, I am sure; for see, the dust in this portion of the floor lies lighter than elsewhere. You can almost detect the outline of a man's recumbent form," he went on, slowly, leaning down to examine the floor more closely. "As for the boughs, they have been cut from the tree with a knife, and——" Lifting up a sprig, he looked at it, then passed it over to Hickory, with a meaning glance that directed attention to one or two short hairs of a dark brown color, that were caught in the rough bark. "He did not even throw his pocket-handkerchief[221] over the heap before lying down," he observed.

Mr. Hickory smiled. "You're up in your business, I see." And drawing his new colleague to the table, he asked him what he saw there.

At first sight Mr. Byrd exclaimed: "Nothing," but in another moment he picked up an infinitesimal chip from between the rough logs that formed the top of this somewhat rustic piece of furniture, and turning it over in his hand, pronounced it to be a piece of wood from a lead-pencil.

"Here are several of them," remarked Mr. Hickory, "and what is more, it is easy to tell just the color of the pencil from which they were cut. It was blue."

"That is so," assented Mr. Byrd.

"Quarrymen, charcoal-burners, and the like are not much in the habit of sharpening pencils," suggested Hickory.

"Is the pencil now to be found in the pocket of Mr. Mansell a blue one?"

"It is."

"Have you any thing more to show me?" asked Mr. Byrd.

"Only this," responded the other, taking out of his pocket the torn-off corner of a newspaper. "I found this blowing about under the bushes out there," said he. "Look at it and tell me from what paper it was torn."

"I don't know," said Mr. Byrd; "none that I am acquainted with."[222]

"You don't read the Buffalo Courier?"

"Oh, is this——"

"A corner from the Buffalo Courier? I don't know, but I mean to find out. If it is, and the date proves to be correct, we won't have much trouble about the little link, will we?"

Mr. Byrd shook his head and they again crouched down over the fire.

"And, now, what did you learn in Buffalo?" inquired the persistent Hickory.

"Not much," acknowledged Mr. Byrd. "The man Brown was entirely too ubiquitous to give me my full chance. Neither at the house nor at the mill was I able to glean any thing beyond an admission from the landlady that Mr. Mansell was not at home at the time of his aunt's murder. I couldn't even learn where he was on that day, or where he had ostensibly gone? If it had not been for the little girl of Mr. Goodman——"

"Ah, I had not time to go to that house," interjected the other, suggestively.

"I should have come home as wise as I went," continued Mr. Byrd. "She told me that on the day before Mr. Mansell returned, he wrote to her father from Monteith, and that settled my mind in regard to him. It was pure luck, however."

The other laughed long and loud.

"I didn't know I did it up so well," he cried. "I told the landlady you were a detective, or acted like one,[223] and she was very ready to take the alarm, having, as I judge, a motherly liking for her young boarder. Then I took Messrs. Chamberlin and Harrison into my confidence, and having got from them all the information they could give me, told them there was evidently another man on the track of this Mansell, and warned them to keep silence till they heard from the prosecuting attorney in Sibley. But I didn't know who you were, or, at least, I wasn't sure; or, as I said before, I shouldn't have presumed."

The short, dry laugh with which he ended this explanation had not ceased, when Mr. Byrd observed:

"You have not told me what you gathered in Buffalo."

"Much," quoth Hickory, reverting to his favorite laconic mode of speech. "First, that Mansell went from home on Monday, the day before the murder, for the purpose, as he said, of seeing a man in New York about his wonderful invention. Secondly, that he never went to New York, but came back the next evening, bringing his model with him, and looking terribly used up and worried. Thirdly, that to get this invention before the public had been his pet aim and effort for a whole year. That he believed in it as you do in your Bible, and would have given his heart's blood, if it would have done any good, to start the thing, and prove himself right in his estimate of its value. That the money to do this was all that was lacking, no one believing in him sufficiently to advance him the five thousand dollars considered[224] necessary to build the machine and get it in working order. That, in short, he was a fanatic on the subject, and often said he would be willing to die within the year if he could first prove to the unbelieving capitalists whom he had vainly importuned for assistance, the worth of the discovery he believed himself to have made. Fourthly—but what is it you wish to say, sir?"

"Five thousand dollars is just the amount Widow Clemmens is supposed to leave him," remarked Mr. Byrd.

"Precisely," was the short reply.

"And fourthly?" suggested the former.

"Fourthly, he was in the mill on Wednesday morning, where he went about his work as usual, until some one who knew his relation to Mrs. Clemmens looked up from the paper he was reading, and, in pure thoughtlessness, cried, 'So they have killed your aunt for you, have they?' A barbarous jest, that caused everybody near him to start in indignation, but which made him recoil as if one of these thunderbolts we have been listening to this afternoon had fallen at his feet. And he didn't get over it," Hickory went on. "He had to beg permission to go home. He said the terrible news had made him ill, and indeed he looked sick enough, and continued to look sick enough for days. He had letters from Sibley, and an invitation to attend the inquest and be present at the funeral services, but he refused to go. He was threatened with diphtheria, he declared, and remained away from the mill until the day before yesterday. Some one, I don't[225] remember who, says he went out of town the very Wednesday he first heard the news; but if so, he could not have been gone long, for he was at home Wednesday night, sick in bed, and threatened, as I have said, with the diphtheria. Fifthly——"

"Well, fifthly?"

"I am afraid of your criticisms," laughed the rough detective. "Fifthly is the result of my poking about among Mr. Mansell's traps."

"Ah!" frowned the other, with a vivid remembrance of that picture of Miss Dare, with its beauty blotted out by the ominous black lines.

"You are too squeamish for a detective," the other declared. "Guess you're kept for the fancy business, eh?"

The look Mr. Byrd gave him was eloquent. "Go on," said he; "let us hear what lies behind your fifthly."

"Love," returned the man. "Locked in the drawer of this young gentleman's table, I found some half-dozen letters tied with a black ribbon. I knew they were written by a lady, but squeamishness is not a fault of mine, and so I just allowed myself to glance over them. They were from Miss Dare, of course, and they revealed the fact that love, as well as ambition, had been a motive power in determining this Mansell to make a success out of his invention."

Leaning back, the now self-satisfied detective looked at Mr. Byrd.[226]

"The name of Miss Dare," he went on, "brings me to the point from which we started. I haven't yet told you what old Sally Perkins had to say to me."

"No," rejoined Mr. Byrd.

"Well," continued the other, poking with his foot the dying embers of the fire, till it started up into a fresh blaze, "the case against this young fellow wouldn't be worth very much without that old crone's testimony, I reckon; but with it I guess we can get along."

"Let us hear," said Mr. Byrd.

"The old woman is a wretch," Hickory suddenly broke out. "She seems to gloat over the fact that a young and beautiful woman is in trouble. She actually trembled with eagerness as she told her story. If I hadn't been rather anxious myself to hear what she had to say, I could have thrown her out of the window. As it was, I let her go on; duty before pleasure, you see—duty before pleasure."

"But her story," persisted Mr. Byrd, letting some of his secret irritation betray itself.

"Well, her story was this: Monday afternoon, the day before the murder, you know, she was up in these very woods hunting for witch-hazel. She had got her arms full and was going home across the bog when she suddenly heard voices. Being of a curious disposition, like myself, I suppose, she stopped, and seeing just before her a young gentleman and lady sitting on an old stump, crouched down in the shadow of a tree, with the harmless[227] intent, no doubt, of amusing herself with their conversation. It was more interesting than she expected, and she really became quite tragic as she related her story to me. I cannot do justice to it myself, and I sha'n't try. It is enough that the man whom she did not know, and the woman whom she immediately recognized as Miss Dare, were both in a state of great indignation. That he spoke of selfishness and obstinacy on the part of his aunt, and that she, in the place of rebuking him, replied in a way to increase his bitterness, and lead him finally to exclaim: 'I cannot bear it! To think that with just the advance of the very sum she proposes to give me some day, I could make her fortune and my own, and win you all in one breath! It is enough to drive a man mad to see all that he craves in this world so near his grasp, and yet have nothing, not even hope, to comfort him.' And at that, it seems, they both rose, and she, who had not answered any thing to this, struck the tree before which they stood, with her bare fist, and murmured a word or so which the old woman couldn't catch, but which was evidently something to the effect that she wished she knew Mrs. Clemmens; for Mansell—of course it was he—said, in almost the same breath, 'And if you did know her, what then?' A question which elicited no reply at first, but which finally led her to say: 'Oh! I think that, possibly, I might be able to persuade her.' All this," the detective went on, "old Sally related with the greatest force; but in regard to what followed,[228] she was not so clear. Probably they interrupted their conversation with some lovers' by-play, for they stood very near together, and he seemed to be earnestly pleading with her. 'Do take it,' old Sally heard him say. 'I shall feel as if life held some outlook for me, if you only will gratify me in this respect.' But she answered: 'No; it is of no use. I am as ambitious as you are, and fate is evidently against us,' and put his hand back when he endeavored to take hers, but finally yielded so far as to give it to him for a moment, though she immediately snatched it away again, crying: 'I cannot; you must wait till to-morrow.' And when he asked: 'Why to-morrow?' she answered: 'A night has been known to change the whole current of a person's affairs.' To which he replied: 'True,' and looked thoughtful, very thoughtful, as he met her eyes and saw her raise that white hand of hers and strike the tree again with a passionate force that made her fingers bleed. And she was right," concluded the speaker. "The night, or if not the night, the next twenty-four hours, did make a change, as even old Sally Perkins observed. Widow Clemmens was struck down and Craik Mansell became the possessor of the five thousand dollars he so much wanted in order to win for himself a fortune and a bride."

Mr. Byrd, who had been sitting with his face turned aside during this long recital, slowly rose to his feet. "Hickory," said he, and his tone had an edge of suppressed[229] feeling in it that made the other start, "don't let me ever hear you say, in my presence, that you think this young and beautiful woman was the one to suggest murder to this man, for I won't hear it. And now," he continued, more calmly, "tell me why this babbling old wretch did not enliven the inquest with her wonderful tale. It would have been a fine offset to the testimony of Miss Firman."

"She said she wasn't fond of coroners and had no wish to draw the attention of twelve of her own townsfolk upon herself. She didn't mean to commit herself with me," pursued Hickory, rising also. "She was going to give me a hint of the real state of affairs; or, rather, set me working in the right direction, as this little note which she tucked under the door of my room at the hotel will show. But I was too quick for her, and had her by the arm before she could shuffle down the stairs. It was partly to prove her story was true and not a romance made up for the occasion, that I lured this woman here this afternoon."

"You are not as bad a fellow as I thought," Mr. Byrd admitted, after a momentary contemplation of the other's face. "If I might only know how you managed to effect this interview."

"Nothing easier. I found in looking over the scraps of paper which Mansell had thrown into the waste-paper basket in Buffalo, the draft of a note which he had written to Miss Dare, under an impulse which he afterward[230] probably regretted. It was a summons to their usual place of tryst at or near this hut, and though unsigned, was of a character, as I thought, to effect its purpose. I just sent it to her, that's all."

The nonchalance with which this was said completed Mr. Byrd's astonishment.

"You are a worthy disciple of Gryce," he asserted, leading the way to the door.

"Think so?" exclaimed the man, evidently flattered at what he considered a great compliment. "Then shake hands," he cried, with a frank appeal Mr. Byrd found it hard to resist. "Ah, you don't want to," he somewhat ruefully declared. "Will it change your feelings any if I promise to ignore what happened here to-day—my trick with Miss Dare and what she revealed and all that? If it will, I swear I won't even think of it any more if I can help it. At all events, I won't tattle about it even to the superintendent. It shall be a secret between you and me, and she won't know but what it was her lover she talked to, after all."

"You are willing to do all this?" inquired Mr. Byrd.

"Willing and ready," cried the man. "I believe in duty to one's superiors, but duty doesn't always demand of one to tell every thing he knows. Besides, it won't be necessary, I imagine. There is enough against this poor fellow without that."

"I fear so," ejaculated Mr. Byrd.

"Then it is a bargain?" said Hickory.[231]

"Yes."

And Mr. Byrd held out his hand.

The rain had now ceased and they prepared to return home. Before leaving the glade, however, Mr. Byrd ran his eye over the other's person and apparel, and in some wonder inquired:

"How do you fellows ever manage to get up such complete disguises? I declare you look enough like Mr. Mansell in the back to make me doubt even now who I am talking to."

"Oh," laughed the other, "it is easy enough. It's my specialty, you see, and one in which I am thought to excel. But, to tell the truth, I hadn't much to contend with in this case. In build I am famously like this man, as you must have noticed when you saw us together in Buffalo. Indeed, it was our similarity in this respect that first put the idea of personifying him into my head. My complexion had been darkened already, and, as for such accessories as hair, voice, manner, dress, etc., a five-minutes' study of my model was sufficient to prime me up in all that—enough, at least, to satisfy the conditions of an interview which did not require me to show my face."

"But you did not know when you came here that you would not have to show your face," persisted Mr. Byrd, anxious to understand how this man dared risk his reputation on an undertaking of this kind.

"No, and I did not know that the biggest thunderstorm of the season was going to spring up and lend me its darkness[232] to complete the illusion I had attempted. I only trusted my good fortune—and my wits," he added, with a droll demureness. "Both had served me before, and both were likely to serve me again. And, say she had detected me in my little game, what then? Women like her don't babble."

There was no reply to make to this, and Mr. Byrd's thoughts being thus carried back to Imogene Dare and the unhappy revelations she had been led to make, he walked on in a dreary silence his companion had sufficient discretion not to break.

[233]

XIX. MR. FERRIS

Which of you have done this?—MACBETH.
What have we here?—TEMPEST.

MR. FERRIS sat in his office in a somewhat gloomy frame of mind. There had been bad news from the jail that morning. Mr. Hildreth had attempted suicide the night before, and was now lying in a critical condition at the hospital.

Mr. Ferris himself had never doubted this man's guilt. From Hildreth's first appearance at the inquest, the District Attorney had fixed upon him as the murderer of Mrs. Clemmens, and up to this time he had seen no good and substantial reason for altering his opinion.

Even the doubts expressed by Mr. Byrd had moved him but little. Mr. Byrd was an enthusiast, and, naturally enough, shrank from believing a gentleman capable of such a crime. But the other detective's judgment was unswayed, and he considered Hildreth guilty. It was not astonishing, then, that the opinion of Mr. Ferris should coincide with that of the older and more experienced man.

But the depth of despair or remorse which had led Mr. Hildreth to this desperate attempt upon his own life had[234] struck the District Attorney with dismay. Though not over-sensitive by nature, he could not help feeling sympathy for the misery that had prompted such a deed, and while secretly regarding this unsuccessful attempt at suicide as an additional proof of guilt, he could not forbear satisfying himself by a review of the evidence elicited at the inquest, that the action of the authorities in arresting this man had been both warrantable and necessary.

The result was satisfactory in all but one point. When he came to the widow's written accusation against one by the name of Gouverneur Hildreth, he was impressed by a fact that had hitherto escaped his notice. This was the yellowness of the paper upon which the words were written. If they had been transcribed a dozen years before, they would not have looked older, nor would the ink have presented a more faded appearance. Now, as the suspected man was under twenty-five years of age, and must, therefore, have been a mere child when the paper was drawn up, the probability was that the Gouverneur intended was the prisoner's father, their names being identical.

But this discovery, while it robbed the affair of its most dramatic feature, could not affect in any serious way the extreme significance of the remaining real and compromising facts which told so heavily against this unfortunate man. Indeed, the well-known baseness of the father made it easier to distrust the son, and Mr. Ferris had[235] just come to the conclusion that his duty compelled him to draw up an indictment of the would-be suicide, when the door opened, and Mr. Byrd and Mr. Hickory came in.

To see these two men in conjunction was a surprise to the District Attorney. He, however, had no time to express himself on the subject, for Mr. Byrd, stepping forward, immediately remarked:

"Mr. Hickory and I have been in consultation, sir; and we have a few facts to give you that we think will alter your opinion as to the person who murdered Mrs. Clemmens."

"Is this so?" cried Mr. Ferris, looking at Hickory with a glance indicative of doubt.

"Yes, sir," exclaimed that not easily abashed individual, with an emphasis decided enough to show the state of his feelings on the subject. "After I last saw you a woman came in my way and put into my hands so fresh and promising a clue, that I dropped the old scent at once and made instanter for the new game. But I soon found I was not the only sportsman on this trail. Before I had taken a dozen steps I ran upon this gentleman, and, finding him true grit, struck up a partnership with him that has led to our bringing down the quarry together."

"Humph!" quoth the District Attorney. "Some very remarkable discoveries must have come to light to influence the judgment of two such men as yourselves."

"You are right," rejoined Mr. Byrd. "In fact, I should not be surprised if this case proved to be one of[236] the most remarkable on record. It is not often that equally convincing evidence of guilt is found against two men having no apparent connection."

"And have you collected such evidence?"

"We have."

"And who is the person you consider equally open to suspicion with Mr. Hildreth?"

"Craik Mansell, Mrs. Clemmens' nephew."

The surprise of the District-Attorney was, as Mr. Hickory in later days remarked, nuts to him. The solemn nature of the business he was engaged upon never disturbed this hardy detective's sense of the ludicrous, and he indulged in one of his deepest chuckles as he met the eye of Mr. Ferris.

"One never knows what they are going to run upon in a chase of this kind, do they, sir?" he remarked, with the greatest cheerfulness. "Mr. Mansell is no more of a gentleman than Mr. Hildreth; yet, because he is the second one of his caste who has attracted our attention, you are naturally very much surprised. But wait till you hear what we have to tell you. I am confident you will be satisfied with our reasons for suspecting this new party." And he glanced at Mr. Byrd, who, seeing no cause for delay, proceeded to unfold before the District Attorney the evidence they had collected against Mr. Mansell.

It was strong, telling, and seemingly conclusive, as we already know; and awoke in the mind of Mr. Ferris the[237] greatest perplexity of his life. It was not simply that the facts urged against Mr. Mansell were of the same circumstantial character and of almost the same significance as those already urged against Mr. Hildreth, but that the association of Miss Dare's name with this new theory of suspicion presented difficulties, if it did not involve consequences, calculated to make any friend of Mr. Orcutt quail. And Mr. Ferris was such a friend, and knew very well the violent nature of the shock which this eminent lawyer would experience at discovering the relations held by this trusted woman toward a man suspected of crime.

Then Miss Dare herself! Was this beautiful and cherished woman, hitherto believed by all who knew her to be set high above the reach of reproach, to be dragged down from her pedestal and submitted to the curiosity of the rabble, if not to its insinuations and reproach? It seemed hard; even to this stern, dry searcher among dead men's bones, it seemed both hard and bitter. And yet, because he was an honest man, he had no thought of paltering with his duty. He could only take time to make sure what that duty was. He accordingly refrained from expressing any opinion in regard to Mr. Mansell's culpability to the two detectives, and finally dismissed them without any special orders.

But a day or two after this he sent for them again, and said:

"Since I have seen you I have considered, with due carefulness, the various facts presented me in support of[238] your belief that Craik Mansell is the man who assailed the Widow Clemmens, and have weighed them against the equally significant facts pointing toward Mr. Hildreth as the guilty party, and find but one link lacking in the former chain of evidence which is not lacking in the latter; and that is this: Mrs. Clemmens, in the one or two lucid moments which returned to her after the assault, gave utterance to an exclamation which many think was meant to serve as a guide in determining the person of her murderer. She said, 'Ring,' as Mr. Byrd here will doubtless remember, and then 'Hand,' as if she wished to fix upon the minds of those about her that the hand uplifted against her wore a ring. At all events, such a conclusion is plausible enough, and led to my making an experiment yesterday, which has, for ever, set the matter at rest in my own mind. I took my stand at the huge clock in her house, just in the attitude she was supposed to occupy when struck, and, while in this position, ordered my clerk to advance upon me from behind with his hands clasped about a stick of wood, which he was to bring down within an inch of my head. This was done, and while his arm was in the act of descending, I looked to see if by a quick glance from the corner of my eye I could detect the broad seal ring I had previously pushed upon his little finger. I discovered that I could; that indeed it was all of the man which I could distinctly see without turning my head completely around. The ring, then, is an important feature in this case, a link without[239] which any chain of evidence forged for the express purpose of connecting a man with this murder must necessarily remain incomplete and consequently useless. But amongst the suspicious circumstances brought to bear against Mr. Mansell, I discern no token of a connection between him and any such article, while we all know that Mr. Hildreth not only wore a ring on the day of the murder, but considered the circumstance so much in his own disfavor, that he slipped it off his finger when he began to see the shadow of suspicion falling upon him."

"You have, then, forgotten the diamond I picked up from the floor of Mrs. Clemmens' dining-room on the morning of the murder?" suggested Mr. Byrd with great reluctance.

"No," answered the District Attorney, shortly. "But Miss Dare distinctly avowed that ring to be hers, and you have brought me no evidence as yet to prove her statement false. If you can supply such proof, or if you can show that Mr. Mansell had that ring on his hand when he entered Mrs. Clemmens' house on the fatal morning—another fact, which, by-the-way, rests as yet upon inference only—I shall consider the case against him as strong as that against Mr. Hildreth; otherwise, not."

Mr. Byrd, with the vivid remembrance before him of Miss Dare's looks and actions in the scene he had witnessed between her and the supposed Mansell in the hut, smiled with secret bitterness over this attempt of[240] the District Attorney to shut his eyes to the evident guiltiness of this man.

Mr. Ferris saw this smile and instantly became irritated.

"I do not doubt any more than yourself," he resumed, in a changed voice, "that this young man allowed his mind to dwell upon the possible advantages which might accrue to himself if his aunt should die. He may even have gone so far as to meditate the commission of a crime to insure these advantages. But whether the crime which did indeed take place the next day in his aunt's house was the result of his meditations, or whether he found his own purpose forestalled by an attack made by another person possessing no less interest than himself in seeing this woman dead, is not determined by the evidence you bring."

"Then you do not favor his arrest?" inquired Mr. Byrd.

"No. The vigorous measures which were taken in Mr. Hildreth's case, and the unfortunate event to which they have led, are terrible enough to satisfy the public craving after excitement for a week at least. I am not fond of driving men to madness myself, and unless I can be made to see that my duty demands a complete transferal of my suspicions from Hildreth to Mansell, I can advise nothing more than a close but secret surveillance of the latter's movements until the action of the Grand Jury determines whether the evidence against Mr. Hildreth is sufficient to hold him for trial."[241]

Mr. Byrd, who had such solid, if private and uncommunicable, reasons for believing in the guilt of Craik Mansell, was somewhat taken aback at this unlooked-for decision of Mr. Ferris, and, remembering the temptation which a man like Hickory must feel to make his cause good at all hazards, cast a sharp look toward that blunt-spoken detective, in some doubt as to whether he could be relied upon to keep his promise in the face of this manifest disappointment.

But Hickory had given his word, and Hickory remained firm; and Mr. Byrd, somewhat relieved in his own mind, was about to utter his acquiescence in the District Attorney's views, when a momentary interruption occurred, which gave him an opportunity to exchange a few words aside with his colleague.

"Hickory," he whispered, "what do you think of this objection which Mr. Ferris makes?"

"I?" was the hurried reply. "Oh, I think there is something in it."

"Something in it?"

"Yes. Mr. Mansell is the last man to wear a ring, I must acknowledge. Indeed, I took some pains while in Buffalo to find out if he ever indulged in any such vanity, and was told decidedly No. As to the diamond you mentioned, that is certainly entirely too rich a jewel for a man like him to possess. I—I am a afraid the absence of this link in our chain of evidence is fatal. I shouldn't wonder if the old scent was the best, after all."[242]

"But Miss Dare—her feelings and her convictions, as manifested by the words she made use of in the hut?" objected Mr. Byrd.

"Oh! she thinks he is guilty, of course!"

She thinks! Mr. Byrd stared at his companion for a minute in silence. She thinks! Then there was a possibility, it seems, that it was only her thought, and that Mr. Mansell was not really the culpable man he had been brought to consider him.

But here an exclamation, uttered by Mr. Ferris, called their attention back to that gentleman. He was reading a letter which had evidently been just brought in, and his expression was one of amazement, mixed with doubt. As they looked toward him they met his eye, that had a troubled and somewhat abashed expression, which convinced them that the communication he held in his hand was in some way connected with the matter under consideration.

Surprised themselves, they unconsciously started forward, when, in a dry and not altogether pleased tone, the District Attorney observed:

"This affair seems to be full of coincidences. You talk of a missing link, and it is immediately thrust under your nose. Read that!"

And he pushed toward them the following epistle, roughly scrawled on a sheet of common writing-paper:

If Mr. Ferris is anxious for justice, and can believe that suspicion does not always attach itself to the guilty, let him, or some one[243] whose business it is, inquire of Miss Imogene Dare, of this town, how she came to claim as her own the ring that was picked up on the floor of Mrs. Clemmens' house.

"Well!" cried Mr. Byrd, glancing at Hickory, "what are we to think of this?"

"Looks like the work of old Sally Perkins," observed the other, pointing out the lack of date and signature.

"So it does," acquiesced Mr. Byrd, in a relieved tone. "The miserable old wretch is growing impatient."

But Mr. Ferris, with a gloomy frown, shortly said:

"The language is not that of an ignorant old creature like Sally Perkins, whatever the writing may be. Besides, how could she have known about the ring? The persons who were present at the time it was picked up are not of the gossiping order."

"Who, then, do you think wrote this?" inquired Mr. Byrd.

"That is what I wish you to find out," declared the District Attorney.

Mr. Hickory at once took it in his hand.

"Wait," said he, "I have an idea." And he carried the letter to one side, where he stood examining it for several minutes. When he came back he looked tolerably excited and somewhat pleased. "I believe I can tell you who wrote it," said he.

"Who?" inquired the District Attorney.

For reply the detective placed his finger upon a name that was written in the letter.[244]

"Imogene Dare?" exclaimed Mr. Ferris, astonished.

"She herself," proclaimed the self-satisfied detective.

"What makes you think that?" the District Attorney slowly asked.

"Because I have seen her writing, and studied her signature, and, ably as she has disguised her hand in the rest of the letter, it betrays itself in her name. See here." And Hickory took from his pocket-book a small slip of paper containing her autograph, and submitted it to the test of comparison.

The similarity between the two signatures was evident, and both Mr. Byrd and Mr. Ferris were obliged to allow the detective might be right, though the admission opened up suggestions of the most formidable character.

"It is a turn for which I am not prepared," declared the District Attorney.

"It is a turn for which we are not prepared," repeated Mr. Byrd, with a controlling look at Hickory.

"Let us, then, defer further consideration of the matter till I have had an opportunity to see Miss Dare," suggested Mr. Ferris.

And the two detectives were very glad to acquiesce in this, for they were as much astonished as he at this action of Miss Dare, though, with their better knowledge of her feelings, they found it comparatively easy to understand how her remorse and the great anxiety she doubtless felt for Mr. Hildreth had sufficed to drive her to such an extreme and desperate measure.

[245]

XX. A CRISIS

Queen.

Alas, how is it with you?
That you do bend your eye on vacancy,
And with the incorporeal air do hold discourse?
* * * * *
Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,
Starts up and stands on end.
* * * * *
Whereon do you look?

Hamlet.

On him! On him! Look you how pale he glares!
His form and cause conjoined, preaching to stones,
Would make them capable. Do not look upon me;
Lest, with this piteous action, you convert
My stern effects! then what I have to do
Will want true color; tears, perchance, for blood.—HAMLET.

THAT my readers may understand even better than Byrd and Hickory how it was that Imogene came to write this letter, I must ask them to consider certain incidents that had occurred in a quarter far removed from the eye of the detectives.

Mr. Orcutt's mind had never been at rest concerning the peculiar attitude assumed by Imogene Dare at the time of Mrs. Clemmens' murder. Time and thought had not made it any more possible for him to believe now than then that she knew any thing of the matter beyond what appeared to the general eye: but he could not forget the ring. It haunted him. Fifty times a day he asked himself what she had meant by claiming as her own[246] a jewel which had been picked up from the floor of a strange house at a time so dreadful, and which, in despite of her explanations to him, he found it impossible to believe was hers or ever could have been hers? He was even tempted to ask her; but he never did. The words would not come. Though they faltered again and again upon his lips, he could not give utterance to them; no, though with every passing day he felt that the bond uniting her to him was growing weaker and weaker, and that if something did not soon intervene to establish confidence between them, he would presently lose all hope of the treasure for the possession of which he was now ready to barter away half the remaining years of his life.

Her increasing reticence, and the almost stony look of misery that now confronted him without let or hindrance from her wide gray eyes, were not calculated to reassure him or make his future prospects look any brighter. Her pain, if pain it were, or remorse, if remorse it could be, was not of a kind to feel the influence of time; and, struck with dismay, alarmed in spite of himself, if not for her reason at least for his own, he watched her from day to day, feeling that now he would give his life not merely to possess her, but to understand her and the secret that was gnawing at her heart.

At last there came a day when he could no longer restrain himself. She had been seated in his presence, and had been handed a letter which for the moment seemed to thoroughly overwhelm her. We know what[247] that letter was. It was the note which had been sent as a decoy by the detective Hickory, but which she had no reason to doubt was a real communication from Craik Mansell, despite the strange handwriting on the envelope. It prayed her for an interview. It set the time and mentioned the place of meeting, and created for the instant such a turmoil in her usually steady brain that she could not hide it from the searching eyes that watched her.

"What is it, Imogene?" inquired Mr. Orcutt, drawing near her with a gesture of such uncontrollable anxiety, it looked as if he were about to snatch the letter from her hand.

For reply she rose, walked to the grate, in which a low wood fire was burning, and plunged the paper in among the coals. When it was all consumed she turned and faced Mr. Orcutt.

"You must excuse me," she murmured; "but the letter was one which I absolutely desired no one to see."

But he did not seem to hear her apology. He stood with his gaze fixed on the fire, and his hand clenched against his heart, as if something in the fate of that wretched sheet of paper reminded him of the love and hope that were shrivelling up before his eyes.

She saw his look and drooped her head with a sudden low moan of mingled shame and suffering.

"Am I killing you?" she faintly cried. "Are my strange, wild ways driving you to despair? I had not thought of that. I am so selfish, I had not thought of that!"[248]

This evidence of feeling, the first she had ever shown him, moved Mr. Orcutt deeply. Advancing toward her, with sudden passion, he took her by the hand.

"Killing me?" he repeated. "Yes, you are killing me. Don't you see how fast I am growing old? Don't you see how the dust lies thick upon the books that used to be my solace and delight? I do not understand you, Imogene. I love you and I do not understand your grief, or what it is that is affecting you in this terrible way. Tell me. Let me know the nature of the forces with which I have to contend, and I can bear all the rest."

This appeal, forced as it was from lips unused to prayer, seemed to strike her, absorbed though she was in her own suffering. Looking at him with real concern, she tried to speak, but the words faltered on her tongue. They came at last, however, and he heard her say:

"I wish I could weep, if only to show you I am not utterly devoid of womanly sympathy for an anguish I cannot cure. But the fountain of my tears is dried at its source. I do not think I can ever weep again. I am condemned to tread a path of misery and despair, and must traverse it to the end without weakness and without help. Do not ask me why, for I can never tell you. And do not detain me now, or try to make me talk, for I must go where I can be alone and silent."

She was slipping away, but he caught her by the wrist and drew her back. His pain and perplexity had reached their climax.[249]

"You must speak," he cried. "I have paltered long enough with this matter. You must tell me what it is that is destroying your happiness and mine."

But her eyes, turning toward him, seemed to echo that must in a look of disdain eloquent enough to scorn all help from words, and in the indomitable determination of her whole aspect he saw that he might slay her, but that he could never make her speak.

Loosing her with a gesture of despair, he turned away. When he glanced back again she was gone.

The result of this interview was naturally an increased doubt and anxiety on his part. He could not attend to his duties with any degree of precision, he was so haunted by uneasy surmises as to what might have been the contents of the letter which he had thus seen her destroy before his eyes. As for her words, they were like her conduct, an insolvable mystery, for which he had no key.

His failure to find her at home when he returned that night added to his alarm, especially as he remembered the vivid thunderstorm that had deluged the town in the afternoon. Nor, though she came in very soon and offered both excuses and explanations for her absence, did he experience any appreciable relief, or feel at all satisfied that he was not threatened with some secret and terrible catastrophe. Indeed, the air of vivid and feverish excitement which pervaded every look of hers from this time, making each morning and evening distinctive in his memory as a season of fresh fear and renewed suspense,[250] was enough of itself to arouse this sense of an unknown, but surely approaching, danger. He saw she was on the look out for some event, he knew not what, and studied the papers as sedulously as she, in the hope of coming upon some revelation that should lay bare the secret of this new condition of hers. At last he thought he had found it. Coming home one day from the court, he called her into his presence, and, without pause or preamble, exclaimed, with almost cruel abruptness:

"An event of possible interest to you has just taken place. The murderer of Mrs. Clemmens has just cut his throat."

He saw before he had finished the first clause that he had struck at the very citadel of her terrors and her woe. At the end of the second sentence he knew, beyond all doubt now, what it was she had been fearing, if not expecting. Yet she said not a word, and by no movement betrayed that the steel had gone through and through her heart.

A demon—the maddening demon of jealousy—gripped him for the first time with relentless force.

"Ah, you have been looking for it?" he cried in a choked voice. "You know this man, then—knew him, perhaps, before the murder of Mrs. Clemmens; knew him, and—and, perhaps, loved him?"

She did not reply.

He struck his forehead with his hand, as if the moment was perfectly intolerable to him.[251]

"Answer," he cried. "Did you know Gouverneur Hildreth or not?"

"Gouverneur Hildreth?" Oh, the sharp surprise, the wailing anguish of her tone! Mr. Orcutt stood amazed. "It is not he who has made this attempt upon his life!—not he!" she shrieked like one appalled.

Perhaps because all other expression or emotion failed him, Mr. Orcutt broke forth into a loud and harrowing laugh. "And who else should it be?" he cried. "What other man stands accused of having murdered Widow Clemmens? You are mad, Imogene; you don't know what you say or what you do."

"Yes, I am mad," she repeated—"mad!" and leaned her forehead forward on the back of a high chair beside which she had been standing, and hid her face and struggled with herself for a moment, while the clock went on ticking, and the wretched surveyer of her sorrow stood looking at her bended head like a man who does not know whether it is he or she who is in the most danger of losing his reason.

At last a word struggled forth from between her clasped hands.

"When did it happen?" she gasped, without lifting her head. "Tell me all about it. I think I can understand."

The noted lawyer smiled a bitter smile, and spoke for the first time, without pity and without mercy.

"He has been trying for some days to effect his death.[252] His arrest and the little prospect there is of his escaping trial seem to have maddened his gentlemanly brain. Fire-arms were not procurable, neither was poison nor a rope, but a pewter plate is enough in the hands of a desperate man. He broke one in two last night, and——"

He paused, sick and horror-stricken. Her face had risen upon him from the back of the chair, and was staring upon him like that of a Medusa. Before that gaze the flesh crept on his bones and the breath of life refused to pass his lips. Gazing at her with rising horror, he saw her stony lips slowly part.

"Don't go on," she whispered. "I can see it all without the help of words." Then, in a tone that seemed to come from some far-off world of nightmare, she painfully gasped, "Is he dead?"

"He paused, sick and horror-stricken. Her face had risen upon him from the back of the chair, and was staring at him like that of a Medusa."—(Page 252.)

Mr. Orcutt was a man who, up to the last year, had never known what it was to experience a real and controlling emotion. Life with him had meant success in public affairs, and a certain social pre-eminence that made his presence in any place the signal of admiring looks and respectful attentions. But let no man think that, because his doom delays, it will never come. Passions such as he had deprecated in others, and desires such as he had believed impossible to himself, had seized upon him with ungovernable power, and in this moment especially he felt himself yielding to their sway with no more power of resistance than a puppet experiences in the grasp of a whirlwind. Meeting that terrible eye of hers,[253] burning with an anxiety for a man he despised, and hearing that agonized question from lips whose touch he had never known, he experienced a sudden wild and almost demoniac temptation to hurl back the implacable "Yes" that he felt certain would strike her like a dead woman to the ground. But the horrid impulse passed, and, with a quick remembrance of the claims of honor upon one bearing his name and owning his history, he controlled himself with a giant resolution, and merely dropping his eyes from an anguish he dared no longer confront, answered, quietly:

"No; he has hurt himself severely and has disfigured his good looks for life, but he will not die; or so the physicians think."

A long, deep, shuddering sigh swept through the room.

"Thank God!" came from her lips, and then all was quiet again.

He looked up in haste; he could not bear the silence.

"Imogene——" he began, but instantly paused in surprise at the change which had taken place in her expression. "What do you intend to do?" was his quick demand. "You look as I have never seen you look before."

"Do not ask me!" she returned. "I have no words for what I am going to do. What you must do is to see that Gouverneur Hildreth is released from prison. He is not guilty, mind you; he never committed this crime of which he is suspected, and in the shame of which suspicion[254] he has this day attempted his life. If he is kept in the restraint which is so humiliating to him, and if he dies there, it will be murder—do you hear? murder! And he will die there if he is not released; I know his feelings only too well."

"But, Imogene——"

"Hush! don't argue. 'Tis a matter of life and death, I tell you. He must be released! I know," she went on, hurriedly, "what it is you want to say. You think you cannot do this; that the evidence is all against him; that he went to prison of his own free will and cannot hope for release till his guilt or innocence has been properly inquired into. But I know you can effect his enlargement if you will. You are a lawyer, and understand all the crooks and turns by which a man can sometimes be made to evade the grasp of justice. Use your knowledge. Avail yourself of your influence with the authorities, and I——" she paused and gave him a long, long look.

He was at her side in an instant.

"You would—what?" he cried, taking her hand in his and pressing it impulsively.

"I would grant you whatever you ask," she murmured, in a weariful tone.

"Would you be my wife?" he passionately inquired.

"Yes," was the choked reply; "if I did not die first."

He caught her to his breast in rapture. He knelt at her side and threw his arms about her waist.

"You shall not die," he cried. "You shall live and be happy. Only marry me to-day."[255]

"Not till Gouverneur Hildreth be released," she interposed, gently.

He started as if touched by a galvanic battery, and slowly rose up and coldly looked at her.

"Do you love him so madly you would sell yourself for his sake?" he sternly demanded.

With a quick gesture she threw back her head as though the indignant "No" that sprang to her lips would flash out whether she would or not. But she restrained herself in time.

"I cannot answer," she returned.

But he was master now—master of this dominating spirit that had held him in check for so long a time, and he was not to be put off.

"You must answer," he sternly commanded. "I have the right to know the extent of your feeling for this man, and I will. Do you love him, Imogene Dare? Tell me, or I here swear that I will do nothing for him, either now or at a time when he may need my assistance more than you know."

This threat, uttered as he uttered it, could have but one effect. Turning aside, so that he should not see the shuddering revolt in her eyes, she mechanically whispered:

"And what if I did? Would it be so very strange? Youth admires youth, Mr. Orcutt, and Mr. Hildreth is very handsome and very unfortunate. Do not oblige me to say more."

Mr. Orcutt, across whose face a dozen different emotions[256] had flitted during the utterance of these few words, drew back till half the distance of the room lay between them.

"Nor do I wish to hear any more," he rejoined, slowly. "You have said enough, quite enough. I understand now all the past—all your terrors and all your secret doubts and unaccountable behavior. The man you loved was in danger, and you did not know how to manage his release. Well, well, I am sorry for you, Imogene. I wish I could help you. I love you passionately, and would make you my wife in face of your affection for this man if I could do for you what you request. But it is impossible. Never during the whole course of my career has a blot rested upon my integrity as a lawyer. I am known as an honest man, and honest will I remain known to the last. Besides, I could do nothing to effect his enlargement if I tried. Nothing but the plainest proof that he is innocent, or that another man is guilty, would avail now to release him from the suspicion which his own admissions have aroused."

"Then there is no hope?" was her slow and despairing reply.

"None at present, Imogene," was his stern, almost as despairing, answer.

As Mr. Orcutt sat over his lonely hearth that evening, a servant brought to him the following letter:

DEAR FRIEND,—It is not fit that I should remain any longer under your roof. I have a duty before me which separates me forever[257] from the friendship and protection of honorable men and women. No home but such as I can provide for myself by the work of my own hands shall henceforth shelter the disgraced head of Imogene Dare. Her fate, whatever it may prove to be, she bears alone, and you, who have been so kind, shall never suffer from any association with one whose name must henceforth become the sport of the crowd, if not the execration of the virtuous. If your generous heart rebels at this, choke it relentlessly down. I shall be already gone when you read these lines, and nothing you could do or say would make me come back. Good-by, and may Heaven grant you forgetfulness of one whose only return to your benefactions has been to make you suffer almost as much as she suffers herself.

As Mr. Orcutt read these last lines, District Attorney Ferris was unsealing the anonymous missive which has already been laid before my readers.

[258]

XXI. HEART'S MARTYRDOM

Oh that a man might know
The end of this day's business, ere it come;
But it sufficeth that the day will end,
And then the end is known!—JULIUS CÆSAR.

MR. FERRIS' first impulse upon dismissing the detectives had been to carry the note he had received to Mr. Orcutt. But a night's careful consideration of the subject convinced him that the wisest course would be to follow the suggestions conveyed in the letter, and seek a direct interview with Imogene Dare.

It was not an agreeable task for him to undertake. Miss Dare was a young lady whom he had always held in the highest esteem. He had hoped to see her the wife of his friend, and would have given much from his own private stock of hope and happiness to have kept her name free from the contumely which any association with this dreadful crime must necessarily bring upon it. But his position as prosecuting attorney of the county would not allow him to consult his feelings any further in a case of such serious import. The condition of Mr. Hildreth was, to say the least, such as demanded the most impartial action on the part of the public officials, and if through any explanation of Miss Dare the one missing[259] link in the chain of evidence against another could be supplied, it was certainly his duty to do all he could to insure it.

Accordingly at a favorable hour the next day, he made his appearance at Mr. Orcutt's house, and learning that Miss Dare had gone to Professor Darling's house for a few days, followed her to her new home and requested an interview.

She at once responded to his call. Little did he think as she came into the parlor where he sat, and with even more than her usual calm self-possession glided down the length of that elegant apartment to his side, that she had just come from a small room on the top floor, where, in the position of a hired seamstress, she had been engaged in cutting out the wedding garments of one of the daughters of the house.

Her greeting was that of a person attempting to feign a surprise she did not feel.

"Ah," said she, "Mr. Ferris! This is an unexpected pleasure."

But Mr. Ferris had no heart for courtesies.

"Miss Dare," he began, without any of the preliminaries which might be expected of him, "I have come upon a disagreeable errand. I have a favor to ask. You are in the possession of a piece of information which it is highly necessary for me to share."

"I?"

The surprise betrayed in this single word was no more[260] than was to be expected from a lady thus addressed, neither did the face she turned so steadily toward him alter under his searching gaze.

"If I can tell you any thing that you wish to know," she quietly declared, "I am certainly ready to do so, sir."

Deceived by the steadiness of her tone and the straightforward look of her eyes, he proceeded, with a sudden releasement from his embarrassment, to say:

"I shall have to recall to your mind a most painful incident. You remember, on the morning when we met at Mrs. Clemmens' house, claiming as your own a diamond ring which was picked up from the floor at your feet?"

"I do."

"Miss Dare, was this ring really yours, or were you misled by its appearance into merely thinking it your property? My excuse for asking this is that the ring, if not yours, is likely to become an important factor in the case to which the murder of this unfortunate woman has led."

"Sir——" The pause which followed the utterance of this one word was but momentary, but in it what faint and final hope may have gone down into the depths of everlasting darkness God only knows. "Sir, since you ask me the question, I will say that in one sense of the term it was mine, and in another it was not. The ring was mine, because it had been offered to me as a gift the day before. The ring was not mine, because I had refused to take it when it was offered."[261]

At these words, spoken with such quietness they seemed like the mechanical utterances of a woman in a trance, Mr. Ferris started to his feet. He could no longer doubt that evidence of an important nature lay before him.

"And may I ask," he inquired, without any idea of the martyrdom he caused, "what was the name of the person who offered you this ring, and from whom you refused to take it?"

"The name?" She quavered for a moment, and her eyes flashed up toward heaven with a look of wild appeal, as if the requirement of this moment was more than even she had strength to meet. Then a certain terrible calm settled upon her, blotting the last hint of feeling from her face, and, rising up in her turn, she met Mr. Ferris' inquiring eye, and slowly and distinctly replied:

"It was Craik Mansell, sir. He is a nephew of Mrs. Clemmens."

It was the name Mr. Ferris had come there to hear, yet it gave him a slight shock when it fell from her lips—perhaps because his mind was still running upon her supposed relations with Mr. Orcutt. But he did not show his feelings, however, and calmly asked:

"And was Mr. Mansell in this town the day before the assault upon his aunt?"

"He was."

"And you had a conversation with him?"

"I had."

"May I ask where?"[262]

For the first time she flushed; womanly shame had not yet vanished entirely from her stricken breast; but she responded as steadily as before:

"In the woods, sir, back of Mrs. Clemmens' house. There were reasons"—she paused—"there were good reasons, which I do not feel obliged to state, why a meeting in such a place was not discreditable to us."

Mr. Ferris, who had received from other sources a full version of the interview to which she thus alluded, experienced a sudden revulsion of feeling against one he could not but consider as a detected coquette; and, drawing quickly back, made a gesture such as was not often witnessed in those elegant apartments.

"You mean," said he, with a sharp edge to his tone that passed over her dreary soul unheeded, "that you were lovers?"

"I mean," said she, like the automaton she surely was at that moment, "that he had paid me honorable addresses, and that I had no reason to doubt his motives or my own in seeking such a meeting."

"Miss Dare,"—all the District Attorney spoke in the manner of Mr. Ferris now,—"if you refused Mr. Mansell his ring, you must have returned it to him?"

She looked at him with an anguish that bespoke her full appreciation of all this question implied, but unequivocally bowed her head.

"It was in his possession, then," he continued, "when you left him on that day and returned to your home?"[263]

"Yes," her lips seemed to say, though no distinct utterance came from them.

"And you did not see it again till you found it on the floor of Mrs. Clemmens' dining-room the morning of the murder?"

"No."

"Miss Dare," said he, with greater mildness, after a short pause, "you have answered my somewhat painful inquiries with a straightforwardness I cannot sufficiently commend. If you will now add to my gratitude by telling me whether you have informed any one else of the important facts you have just given me, I will distress you by no further questions."

"Sir," said she, and her attitude showed that she could endure but little more, "I have taken no one else into my confidence. Such knowledge as I had to impart was not matter for idle gossip."

And Mr. Ferris, being thus assured that his own surmises and that of Hickory were correct, bowed with the respect her pale face and rigid attitude seemed to demand, and considerately left the house.

[264]

XXII. CRAIK MANSELL

Bring me unto my trial when you will.—HENRY VI.

"HE is here."

Mr. Ferris threw aside his cigar, and looked up at Mr. Byrd, who was standing before him.

"You had no difficulty, then?"

"No, sir. He acted like a man in hourly expectation of some such summons. At the very first intimation of your desire to see him in Sibley, he rose from his desk, with what I thought was a meaning look at Mr. Goodman, and after a few preparations for departure, signified he was ready to take the next train."

"And did he ask no questions?"

"Only one. He wished to know if I were a detective. And when I responded 'Yes,' observed with an inquiring look: 'I am wanted as a witness, I suppose.' A suggestion to which I was careful to make no reply."

Mr. Ferris pushed aside his writing and glanced toward the door. "Show him in, Mr. Byrd," said he.

A moment after Mr. Mansell entered the room.

The District Attorney had never seen this man, and was struck at once by the force and manliness of his appearance. Half-rising from his seat to greet the visitor, he said:[265]

"I have to beg your pardon, Mr. Mansell. Feeling it quite necessary to see you, I took the liberty of requesting you to take this journey, my own time being fully occupied at present."

Mr. Mansell bowed—a slow, self-possessed bow,—and advancing to the table before which the District Attorney sat, laid his hand firmly upon it and said:

"No apologies are needed." Then shortly, "What is it you want of me?"

The words were almost the same as those which had been used by Mr. Hildreth under similar circumstances, but how different was their effect! The one was the utterance of a weak man driven to bay, the other of a strong one. Mr. Ferris, who was by no means of an impressible organization, flashed a look of somewhat uneasy doubt at Mr. Byrd, and hesitated slightly before proceeding.

"We have sent for you in this friendly way," he remarked, at last, "in order to give you that opportunity for explaining certain matters connected with your aunt's sudden death which your well-known character and good position seem to warrant. We think you can do this. At all events I have accorded myself the privilege of so supposing; and any words you may have to say will meet with all due consideration. As Mrs. Clemmens' nephew, you, of course, desire to see her murderer brought to justice."

The slightly rising inflection given to the last few[266] words made them to all intents and purposes a question, and Mr. Byrd, who stood near by, waited anxiously for the decided Yes which seemed the only possible reply under the circumstances, but it did not come.

Surprised, and possibly anxious, the District Attorney repeated himself.

"As her nephew," said he, "and the inheritor of the few savings she has left behind her, you can have but one wish on this subject, Mr. Mansell?"

But this attempt succeeded no better than the first. Beyond a slight compression of the lips, Mr. Mansell gave no manifestation of having heard this remark, and both Mr. Ferris and the detective found themselves forced to wonder at the rigid honesty of a man who, whatever death-giving blow he may have dealt, would not allow himself to escape the prejudice of his accusers by assenting to a supposition he and they knew to be false.

Mr. Ferris did not press the question.

"Mr. Mansell," he remarked instead, "a person by the name of Gouverneur Hildreth is, as you must know, under arrest at this time, charged with the crime of having given the blow that led to your aunt's death. The evidence against him is strong, and the public generally have no doubt that his arrest will lead to trial, if not to conviction. But, unfortunately for us, however fortunately for him, another person has lately been found, against whom an equal show of evidence can be raised, and it is for the purpose of satisfying ourselves that[267] it is but a show, we have requested your presence here to-day."

A spasm, vivid as it was instantaneous, distorted for a moment the powerful features of Craik Mansell at the words, "another person," but it was gone before the sentence was completed; and when Mr. Ferris ceased, he looked up with the steady calmness which made his bearing so remarkable.

"I am waiting to hear the name of this freshly suspected person," he observed.

"Cannot you imagine?" asked the District Attorney, coldly, secretly disconcerted under a gaze that held his own with such steady persistence.

The eyeballs of the other flashed like coals of fire.

"I think it is my right to hear it spoken," he returned.

This display of feeling restored Mr. Ferris to himself.

"In a moment, sir," said he. "Meanwhile, have you any objections to answering a few questions I would like to put to you?"

"I will hear them," was the steady reply.

"You know," said the District Attorney, "you are at perfect liberty to answer or not, as you see fit. I have no desire to entrap you into any acknowledgments you may hereafter regret."

"Speak," was the sole response he received.

"Well, sir," said Mr. Ferris, "are you willing to tell me where you were when you first heard of the assault which had been made upon your aunt?"

"I was in my place at the mill."[268]

"And—pardon me if I go too far—were you also there the morning she was murdered?"

"No, sir."

"Mr. Mansell, if you could tell us where you were at that time, it would be of great benefit to us, and possibly to yourself."

"To myself?"

Having shown his surprise, or, possibly, his alarm, by the repetition of the other's words, Craik Mansell paused and looked slowly around the room until he encountered Mr. Byrd's eye. There was a steady compassion in the look he met there that seemed to strike him with great force, for he at once replied that he was away from home, and stopped—his glance still fixed upon Mr. Byrd, as if, by the very power of his gaze, he would force the secrets of that detective's soul to the surface.

"Mr. Mansell," pursued the District Attorney, "a distinct avowal on your part of the place where you were at that time, would be best for us both, I am sure."

"Do you not already know?" inquired the other, his eye still upon Horace Byrd.

"We have reason to think you were in this town," averred Mr. Ferris, with an emphasis calculated to recall the attention of his visitor to himself.

"And may I ask," Craik Mansell quietly said, "what reason you can have for such a supposition? No one could have seen me here, for, till to-day I have not entered the streets of this place since my visit to my aunt three months ago."[269]

"It was not necessary to enter the streets of this town to effect a visit to Mrs. Clemmens' house, Mr. Mansell."

"No?"

There was the faintest hint of emotion in the intonation he gave to that one word, but it vanished before he spoke his next sentence.

"And how," asked he, "can a person pass from Sibley Station to the door of my aunt's house without going through the streets?"

Instead of replying, Mr. Ferris inquired:

"Did you get out at Sibley Station, Mr. Mansell?"

But the other, with unmoved self-possession, returned:

"I have not said so."

"Mr. Mansell," the District Attorney now observed, "we have no motive in deceiving or even in misleading you. You were in this town on the morning of your aunt's murder, and you were even in her house. Evidence which you cannot dispute proves this, and the question that now arises, and of whose importance we leave you to judge, is whether you were there prior to the visit of Mr. Hildreth, or after. Any proof you may have to show that it was before will receive its due consideration."

A change, decided as it was involuntary, took place in the hitherto undisturbed countenance of Craik Mansell. Leaning forward, he surveyed Mr. Ferris with great earnestness.

"I asked that man," said he, pointing with a steady forefinger at the somewhat abashed detective, "if I were[270] not wanted here simply as a witness, and he did not say No. Now, sir," he continued, turning back with a slight gesture of disdain to the District Attorney, "was the man right in allowing me to believe such a fact, or was he not? I would like an answer to my question before I proceed further, if you please."

"You shall have it, Mr. Mansell. If this man did not answer you, it was probably because he did not feel justified in so doing. He knew I had summoned you here in the hope of receiving such explanations of your late conduct as should satisfy me you had nothing to do with your aunt's murder. The claims upon my consideration, which are held by certain persons allied to you in this matter"—Mr. Ferris' look was eloquent of his real meaning here—"are my sole justification for this somewhat unusual method of dealing with a suspected man."

A smile, bitter, oh, how bitter in its irony! traversed the firm-set lips of Craik Mansell for a moment, then he bowed with a show of deference to the District Attorney, and settling into the attitude of a man willing to plead his own cause, responded:

"It would be more just, perhaps, if I first heard the reasons you have for suspecting me, before I attempt to advance arguments to prove the injustice of your suspicions."

"Well," said Mr. Ferris, "you shall have them. If frankness on my part can do aught to avert the terrible[271] scandal which your arrest and its consequent developments would cause, I am willing to sacrifice thus much to my friendship for Mr. Orcutt. But if I do this, I shall expect an equal frankness in return. The matter is too serious for subterfuge."

The other merely waved his hand.

"The reasons," proceeded Mr. Ferris, "for considering you a party as much open to suspicion as Mr. Hildreth, are several. First, we have evidence to prove your great desire for a sum of money equal to your aunt's savings, in order to introduce an invention which you have just patented.

"Secondly, we can show that you left your home in Buffalo the day before the assault, came to Monteith, the next town to this, alighted at the remote station assigned to the use of the quarrymen, crossed the hills and threaded the woods till you came to a small hut back of your aunt's house, where you put up for the night.

"Thirdly, evidence is not lacking to prove that while there you visited your aunt's once, if not twice; the last time on the very morning she was killed, entering the house in a surreptitious way by the back door, and leaving it in the same suspicious manner.

"And fourthly, we can prove that you escaped from this place as you had come, secretly, and through a difficult and roundabout path over the hills.

"Mr. Mansell, these facts, taken with your reticence concerning a visit so manifestly of importance to the[272] authorities to know, must strike even you as offering grounds for a suspicion as grave as that attaching to Mr. Hildreth."

With a restraint marked as it was impressive, Mr. Mansell looked at the District Attorney for a moment, and then said:

"You speak of proof. Now, what proof have you to give that I put up, as you call it, for a night, or even for an hour, in the hut which stands in the woods back of my aunt's house?"

"This," was Mr. Ferris' reply. "It is known you were in the woods the afternoon previous to the assault upon your aunt, because you were seen there in company with a young lady with whom you were holding a tryst. Did you speak, sir?"

"No!" was the violent, almost disdainful, rejoinder.

"You did not sleep at your aunt's, for her rooms contained not an evidence of having been opened for a guest, while the hut revealed more than one trace of having been used as a dormitory. I could even tell you where you cut the twigs of hemlock that served you for a pillow, and point to the place where you sat when you scribbled over the margin of the Buffalo Courier with a blue pencil, such as that I now see projecting from your vest pocket."

"It is not necessary," replied the young man, heavily frowning. Then with another short glance at Mr. Ferris, he again demanded:[273]

"What is your reason for stating I visited my aunt's house on the morning she was murdered? Did any one see me do it? or does the house, like the hut, exhibit traces of my presence there at that particular time?"

There was irony in his tone, and a disdain almost amounting to scorn in his wide-flashing blue eyes; but Mr. Ferris, glancing at the hand clutched about the railing of the desk, remarked quietly:

"You do not wear the diamond ring you carried away with you from the tryst I mentioned? Can it be that the one which was picked up after the assault, on the floor of Mrs. Clemmens' dining-room, could have fallen from your finger, Mr. Mansell?"

A start, the first this powerfully repressed man had given, showed that his armor of resistance had been pierced at last.

"How do you know," he quickly asked, "that I carried away a diamond ring from the tryst you speak of?"

"Circumstances," returned the District Attorney, "prove it beyond a doubt. Miss Dare——"

"Miss Dare!"

Oh, the indescribable tone of this exclamation! Mr. Byrd shuddered as he heard it, and looked at Mr. Mansell with a new feeling, for which he had no name.

"Miss Dare," repeated the District Attorney, without, apparently, regarding the interruption, "acknowledges she returned you the ring which you endeavored at that interview to bestow upon her."[274]

"Ah!" The word came after a moment's pause. "I see the case has been well worked up, and it only remains for me to give you such explanations as I choose to make. Sir," declared he, stepping forward, and bringing his clenched hand down upon the desk at which Mr. Ferris was sitting, "I did not kill my aunt. I admit that I paid her a visit. I admit that I stayed in the woods back of her house, and even slept in the hut, as you have said; but that was on the day previous to her murder, and not after it. I went to see her for the purpose of again urging the claims of my invention upon her. I went secretly, and by the roundabout way you describe, because I had another purpose in visiting Sibley, which made it expedient for me to conceal my presence in the town. I failed in my efforts to enlist the sympathies of my aunt in regard to my plans, and I failed also in compassing that other desire of my heart of which the ring you mention was a token. Both failures unnerved me, and I lay in that hut all night. I even lay there most of the next morning; but I did not see my aunt again, and I did not lift my hand against her life."

There was indescribable quiet in the tone, but there was indescribable power also, and the look he levelled upon the District Attorney was unwaveringly solemn and hard.

"You deny, then, that you entered the widow's house on the morning of the murder?"

"I do."[275]

"It is, then, a question of veracity between you and Miss Dare?"

Silence.

"She asserts she gave you back the ring you offered her. If this is so, and that ring was in your possession after you left her on Monday evening, how came it to be in the widow's dining-room the next morning, if you did not carry it there?"

"I can only repeat my words," rejoined Mr. Mansell.

The District Attorney replied impatiently. For various reasons he did not wish to believe this man guilty.

"You do not seem very anxious to assist me in my endeavors to reach the truth," he observed. "Cannot you tell me what you did with the ring after you left Miss Dare? Whether you put it on your finger, or thrust it into your pocket, or tossed it into the marsh? If you did not carry it to the house, some one else must have done so, and you ought to be able to help us in determining who."

But Mr. Mansell shortly responded:

"I have nothing to say about the ring. From the moment Miss Dare returned it to me, as you say, it was, so far as I am concerned, a thing forgotten. I do not know as I should ever have thought of it again, if you had not mentioned it to me to-day. How it vanished from my possession only to reappear upon the scene of murder, some more clever conjurer than myself must explain."[276]

"And this is all you have to say, Mr. Mansell?"

"This is all I have to say."

"Byrd," suggested the District Attorney, after a long pause, during which the subject of his suspicions had stood before him as rigid and inscrutable as a statue in bronze, "Mr. Mansell would probably like to go to the hotel, unless, indeed, he desires to return immediately to Buffalo."

Craik Mansell at once started forward.

"Do you intend to allow me to return to Buffalo?" he asked.

"Yes," was the District Attorney's reply.

"You are a good man," broke involuntarily from the other's lips, and he impulsively reached out his hand, but as quickly drew it back with a flush of pride that greatly became him.

"I do not say," quoth Mr. Ferris, "that I exempt you from surveillance. As prosecuting attorney of this district, my duty is to seek out and discover the man who murdered Mrs. Clemmens, and your explanations have not been as full or as satisfactory as I could wish."

"Your men will always find me at my desk in the mill," said Mr. Mansell, coldly. And, with another short bow, he left the attorney's side and went quickly out.

"That man is innocent," declared Mr. Ferris, as Horace Byrd leaned above him in expectation of instructions to keep watch over the departing visitor.[277]

"The way in which he held out his hand to me spoke volumes."

The detective cast a sad glance at Craik Mansell's retreating figure.

"You could not convince Hickory of that fact," said he.

[278]

XXIII. MR. ORCUTT

What is it she does now?—MACBETH.

My resolution's plac'd, and I have nothing
Of woman in me. Now, from head to foot
I am marble—constant.—ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.

THESE words rang in the ears of Mr. Ferris. For he felt himself disturbed by them. Hickory did not believe Mr. Mansell innocent.

At last he sent for that detective.

"Hickory," he asked, "why do you think Mansell, rather than Hildreth, committed this crime?"

Now this query, on the part of the District Attorney, put Hickory into a quandary. He wished to keep his promise to Horace Byrd, and yet he greatly desired to answer his employer's question truthfully. Without any special sympathies of his own, he yet had an undeniable leaning toward justice, and justice certainly demanded the indictment of Mansell. He ended by compromising matters.

"Mr. Ferris," said he, "when you went to see Miss Dare the other day, what did you think of her state of mind?"

"That it was a very unhappy one."[279]

"Didn't you think more than that, sir? Didn't you think she believed Mr. Mansell guilty of this crime?"

"Yes," admitted the other, with reluctance.

"If Miss Dare is attached to Mr. Mansell, she must feel certain of his guilt to offer testimony against him. Her belief should go for something, sir; for much, it strikes me, when you consider what a woman she is."

This conversation increased Mr. Ferris' uneasiness. Much as he wished to spare the feelings of Miss Dare, and, through her, those of his friend, Mr. Orcutt, the conviction of Mansell's criminality was slowly gaining ground in his mind. He remembered the peculiar manner of the latter during the interview they had held together; his quiet acceptance of the position of a suspected man, and his marked reticence in regard to the ring. Though the delicate nature of the interests involved might be sufficient to explain his behavior in the latter regard, his whole conduct could not be said to be that of a disinterested man, even if it were not necessarily that of a guilty one. In whatever way Mr. Ferris looked at it, he could come to but one conclusion, and that was, that justice to Hildreth called for such official attention to the evidence which had been collected against Mansell as should secure the indictment of that man against whom could be brought the more convincing proof of guilt.

Not that Mr. Ferris meant, or in anywise considered it good policy, to have Mansell arrested at this time. As[280] the friend of Mr. Orcutt, it was manifestly advisable for him to present whatever evidence he possessed against Mansell directly to the Grand Jury. For in this way he would not only save the lawyer from the pain and humiliation of seeing the woman he so much loved called up as a witness against the man who had successfully rivalled him in her affections, but would run the chance, at least, of eventually preserving from open knowledge, the various details, if not the actual facts, which had led to this person being suspected of crime. For the Grand Jury is a body whose business it is to make secret inquisition into criminal offences. Its members are bound by oath to the privacy of their deliberations. If, therefore, they should find the proofs presented to them by the District Attorney insufficient to authorize an indictment against Mansell, nothing of their proceedings would transpire. While, on the contrary, if they decided that the evidence was such as to oblige them to indict Mansell instead of Hildreth, neither Mr. Orcutt nor Miss Dare could hold the District Attorney accountable for the exposures that must follow.

The course, therefore, of Mr. Ferris was determined upon. All the evidence in his possession against both parties, together with the verdict of the coroner's jury, should go at once before the Grand Jury; Mansell, in the meantime, being so watched that a bench-warrant issuing upon the indictment would have him safely in custody at any moment.[281]

But this plan for saving Mr. Orcutt's feelings did not succeed as fully as Mr. Ferris hoped. By some means or other the rumor got abroad that another man than Hildreth had fallen under the suspicion of the authorities, and one day Mr. Ferris found himself stopped on the street by the very person he had for a week been endeavoring to avoid.

"Mr. Orcutt!" he cried, "how do you do? I did not recognize you at first."

"No?" was the sharp rejoinder. "I'm not myself nowadays. I have a bad cold." With which impatient explanation he seized Mr. Ferris by the arm and said: "But what is this I hear? You have your eye on another party suspected of being Mrs. Clemmens' murderer?"

The District Attorney bowed uneasily. He had hoped to escape the discussion of this subject with Mr. Orcutt.

The lawyer observed the embarrassment his question had caused, and instantly turned pale, notwithstanding the hardihood which a long career at the bar had given him.

"Ferris," he pursued, in a voice he strove hard to keep steady, "we have always been good friends, in spite of the many tilts we have had together before the court. Will you be kind enough to inform me if your suspicions are founded upon evidence collected by yourself, or at the instigation of parties professing to know more about this murder than they have hitherto revealed?"

Mr. Ferris could not fail to understand the true nature[282] of this question, and out of pure friendship answered quietly:

"I have allowed myself to look with suspicion upon this Mansell—for it is Mrs. Clemmens' nephew who is at present occupying our attention,—because the facts which have come to light in his regard are as criminating in their nature as those which have transpired in reference to Mr. Hildreth. The examination into this matter, which my duty requires, has been any thing but pleasant to me, Mr. Orcutt. The evidence of such witnesses as will have to be summoned before the Grand Jury, is of a character to bring open humiliation, if not secret grief, upon persons for whom I entertain the highest esteem."

The pointed way in which this was said convinced Mr. Orcutt that his worst fears had been realized. Turning partly away, but not losing his hold upon the other's arm, he observed with what quietness he could:

"You say that so strangely, I feel forced to put another question to you. If what I have to ask strikes you with any surprise, remember that my own astonishment and perplexity at being constrained to interrogate you in this way, are greater than any sensation you can yourself experience. What I desire to know is this. Among the witnesses you have collected against this last suspected party, there are some women, are there not?"[283]

The District Attorney gravely bowed.

"Ferris, is Miss Dare amongst them?"

"Orcutt, she is."

With a look that expressed his secret mistrust the lawyer gave way to a sudden burst of feeling.

"Ferris," he wrathfully acknowledged, "I may be a fool, but I don't see what she can have to say on this subject. It is impossible she should know any thing about the murder; and, as for this Mansell——" He made a violent gesture with his hand, as if the very idea of her having any acquaintance with the nephew of Mrs. Clemmens were simply preposterous.

The District Attorney, who saw from this how utterly ignorant the other was concerning Miss Dare's relations to the person named, felt his embarrassment increase.

"Mr. Orcutt," he replied, "strange as it may appear to you, Miss Dare has testimony to give of value to the prosecution, or she would not be reckoned among its witnesses. What that testimony is, I must leave to her discretion to make known to you, as she doubtless will, if you question her with sufficient consideration. I never forestall matters myself, nor would you wish me to tell you what would more becomingly come from her own lips. But, Mr. Orcutt, this I can say: that if it had been given me to choose between the two alternatives of resigning my office and of pursuing an inquiry which obliges me to submit to the unpleasantness of a judicial investigation a person held in so much regard by yourself,[284] I would have given up my office with pleasure, so keenly do I feel the embarrassment of my position and the unhappiness of yours. But any mere resignation on my part would have availed nothing to save Miss Dare from appearing before the Grand Jury. The evidence she has to give in this matter makes the case against Mansell as strong as that against Hildreth, and it would be the duty of any public prosecutor to recognize the fact and act accordingly."

Mr. Orcutt, who had by the greatest effort succeeded in calming himself through this harangue, flashed sarcastically at this last remark, and surveyed Mr. Ferris with a peculiar look.

"Are you sure," he inquired in a slow, ironical tone, "that she has not succeeded in making it stronger?"

The look, the tone, were unexpected, and greatly startled Mr. Ferris. Drawing nearer to his friend, he returned his gaze with marked earnestness.

"What do you mean?" he asked, with secret anxiety.

But the wary lawyer had already repented this unwise betrayal of his own doubts. Meeting his companion's eye with a calmness that amazed himself, he remarked, instead of answering:

"It was through Miss Dare, then, that your attention was first drawn to Mrs. Clemmens' nephew?"

"No," disclaimed Mr. Ferris, hastily. "The detectives already had their eyes upon him. But a hint from her went far toward determining me upon pursuing the[285] matter," he allowed, seeing that his friend was determined upon hearing the truth.

"So then," observed the other, with a stern dryness that recalled his manner at the bar, "she opened a communication with you herself?"

"Yes."

It was enough. Mr. Orcutt dropped the arm of Mr. Ferris, and, with his usual hasty bow, turned shortly away. The revelation which he believed himself to have received in this otherwise far from satisfactory interview, was one that he could not afford to share—that is, not yet; not while any hope remained that circumstances would so arrange themselves as to make it unnecessary for him to do so. If Imogene Dare, out of her insane desire to free Gouverneur Hildreth from the suspicion that oppressed him, had resorted to perjury and invented evidence tending to show the guilt of another party—and remembering her admissions at their last interview and the language she had used in her letter of farewell, no other conclusion offered itself,—what alternative was left him but to wait till he had seen her before he proceeded to an interference that would separate her from himself by a gulf still greater than that which already existed between them? To be sure, the jealousy which consumed him, the passionate rage that seized his whole being when he thought of all she dared do for the man she loved, or that he thought she loved, counselled him to nip this attempt of hers in the bud, and by means of a word to Mr.[286] Ferris throw such a doubt upon her veracity as a witness against this new party as should greatly influence the action of the former in the critical business he had in hand. But Mr. Orcutt, while a prey to unwonted passions, had not yet lost control of his reason, and reason told him that impulse was an unsafe guide for him to follow at this time. Thought alone—deep and concentrated thought—would help him out of this crisis with honor and safety. But thought would not come at call. In all his quick walk home but one mad sentence formulated itself in his brain, and that was: "She loves him so, she is willing to perjure herself for his sake!" Nor, though he entered his door with his usual bustling air and went through all the customary observances of the hour with an appearance of no greater abstraction and gloom than had characterized him ever since the departure of Miss Dare, no other idea obtruded itself upon his mind than this: "She loves him so, she is willing to perjure herself for his sake!"

Even the sight of his books, his papers, and all that various paraphernalia of work and study which gives character to a lawyer's library, was insufficient to restore his mind to its usual condition of calm thought and accurate judgment. Not till the clock struck eight and he found himself almost without his own volition at Professor Darling's house, did he realize all the difficulties of his position and the almost intolerable nature of the undertaking which had been forced upon him by the exigencies of the situation.[287]

Miss Dare, who had refused to see him at first, came into his presence with an expression that showed him with what reluctance she had finally responded to his peremptory message. But in the few heavy moments he had been obliged to wait, he had schooled himself to expect coldness if not absolute rebuff. He therefore took no heed of the haughty air of inquiry which she turned upon him, but came at once to the point, saying almost before she had closed the door:

"What is this you have been doing, Imogene?"

A flush, such as glints across the face of a marble statue, visited for a moment the still whiteness of her set features, then she replied:

"Mr. Orcutt, when I left your house I told you I had a wretched and unhappy duty to perform, that, when once accomplished, would separate us forever. I have done it, and the separation has come; why attempt to bridge it?"

There was a sad weariness in her tone, a sad weariness in her face, but he seemed to recognize neither. The demon jealousy—that hindrance to all unselfish feeling—had gripped him again, and the words that came to his lips were at once bitter and masterful.

"Imogene," he cried, with as much wrath in his tone as he had ever betrayed in her presence, "you do not answer my question. I ask you what you have been doing, and you reply, your duty. Now, what do you mean by duty? Tell me at once and distinctly, for I[288] will no longer be put off by any roundabout phrases concerning a matter of such vital importance."

"Tell you?" This repetition of his words had a world of secret anguish in it which he could not help but notice. She did not succumb to it, however, but continued in another moment: "You said to me, in the last conversation we held together, that Gouverneur Hildreth could not be released from his terrible position without a distinct proof of innocence or the advancement of such evidence against another as should turn suspicion aside from him into a new and more justifiable quarter. I could not, any more than he, give a distinct proof of his innocence; but I could furnish the authorities with testimony calculated to arouse suspicion in a fresh direction, and I did it. For Gouverneur Hildreth had to be saved at any price—at any price."

The despairing emphasis she laid upon the last phrase went like hot steel to Mr. Orcutt's heart, and made his eyes blaze with almost uncontrollable passion.

"Je ne vois pas la necessité," said he, in that low, restrained tone of bitter sarcasm which made his invective so dreaded by opposing counsel. "If Gouverneur Hildreth finds himself in an unfortunate position, he has only his own follies and inordinate desire for this woman's death to thank for it. Because you love him and compassionate him beyond all measure, that is no reason why you should perjure yourself, and throw the burden of his shame upon a man as innocent as Mr. Mansell."[289]

But this tone, though it had made many a witness quail before it, neither awed nor intimidated her.

"You—you do not understand," came from her white lips. "It is Mr. Hildreth who is perfectly innocent, and not——" But here she paused. "You will excuse me from saying more," she said. "You, as a lawyer, ought to know that I should not be compelled to speak on a subject like this except under oath."

"Imogene!" A change had passed over Mr. Orcutt. "Imogene, do you mean to affirm that you really have charges to make against Craik Mansell; that this evidence you propose to give is real, and not manufactured for the purpose of leading suspicion aside from Hildreth?"

It was an insinuation against her veracity he never could have made, or she have listened to, a few weeks before; but the shield of her pride was broken between them, and neither he nor she seemed to give any thought to the reproach conveyed in these words.

"What I have to say is the truth," she murmured. "I have not manufactured any thing."

With an astonishment he took no pains to conceal, Mr. Orcutt anxiously surveyed her. He could not believe this was so, yet how could he convict her of falsehood in face of that suffering expression of resolve which she wore. His methods as a lawyer came to his relief.

"Imogene," he slowly responded, "if, as you say, you are in possession of positive evidence against this Mansell, how comes it that you jeopardized the interests of the[290] man you loved by so long withholding your testimony?"

But instead of the flush of confusion which he expected, she flashed upon him with a sudden revelation of feeling that made him involuntarily start.

"Shall I tell you?" she replied. "You will have to know some time, and why not now? I kept back the truth," she replied, advancing a step, but without raising her eyes to his, "because it is not the aspersed Hildreth that I love, but——"

Why did she pause? What was it she found so hard to speak? Mr. Orcutt's expression became terrible.

"But the other," she murmured at last.

"The other!"

It was now her turn to start and look at him in surprise, if not in some fear.

"What other?" he cried, seizing her by the hand. "Name him. I will have no further misunderstanding between us."

"Is it necessary?" she asked, with bitterness. "Will Heaven spare me nothing?" Then, as she saw no relenting in the fixed gaze that held her own, whispered, in a hollow tone: "You have just spoken the name yourself—Craik Mansell."

"Ah!"

Incredulity, anger, perplexity, all the emotions that were seething in this man's troubled soul, spoke in that simple exclamation. Then silence settled upon the room,[291] during which she gained control over herself, and he the semblance of it if no more. She was the first to speak.

"I know," said she, "that this avowal on my part seems almost incredible to you; but it is no more so than that which you so readily received from me the other day in reference to Gouverneur Hildreth. A woman who spends a month away from home makes acquaintances which she does not always mention when she comes back. I saw Mr. Mansell in Buffalo, and——" turning, she confronted the lawyer with her large gray eyes, in which a fire burned such as he had never seen there before—"and grew to esteem him," she went on. "For the first time in my life I found myself in the presence of a man whose nature commanded mine. His ambition, his determination, his unconventional and forcible character woke aspirations within me such as I had never known myself capable of before. Life, which had stretched out before me with a somewhat monotonous outlook, changed to a panorama of varied and wonderful experiences, as I listened to his voice and met the glance of his eye; and soon, before he knew it, and certainly before I realized it, words of love passed between us, and the agony of that struggle began which has ended—— Ah, let me not think how, or I shall go mad!"

Mr. Orcutt, who had watched her with a lover's fascination during all this attempted explanation, shivered for a moment at this last bitter cry of love and despair, but spoke up when he did speak, with a coldness that verged on severity.[292]

"So you loved another man when you came back to my home and listened to the words of passion which came from my lips, and the hopes of future bliss and happiness that welled up from my heart?"

"Yes," she whispered, "and, as you will remember, I tried to suppress those hopes and turn a deaf ear to those words, though I had but little prospect of marrying a man whose fortunes depended upon the success of an invention he could persuade no one to believe in."

"Yet you brought yourself to listen to those hopes on the afternoon of the murder," he suggested, ironically.

"Can you blame me for that?" she cried, "remembering how you pleaded, and what a revulsion of feeling I was laboring under?"

A smile bitter as the fate which loomed before him, and scornful as the feelings that secretly agitated his breast, parted Mr. Orcutt's pale lips for an instant, and he seemed about to give utterance to some passionate rejoinder, but he subdued himself with a determined effort, and quietly waiting till his voice was under full control, remarked with lawyer-like brevity at last:

"You have not told me what evidence you have to give against young Mansell?"

Her answer came with equal brevity if not equal quietness.

"No; I have told Mr. Ferris; is not that enough?"

But he did not consider it so. "Ferris is a District Attorney," said he, "and has demanded your confidence[293] for the purposes of justice, while I am your friend. The action you have taken is peculiar, and you may need advice. But how can I give it or how can you receive it unless there is a complete understanding between us?"

Struck in spite of herself, moved perhaps by a hope she had not allowed herself to contemplate before, she looked at him long and earnestly.

"And do you really wish to help me?" she inquired. "Are you so generous as to forgive the pain, and possibly the humiliation, I have inflicted upon you, and lend me your assistance in case my testimony works its due effect, and he be brought to trial instead of Mr. Hildreth?"

It was a searching and a pregnant question, for which Mr. Orcutt was possibly not fully prepared, but his newly gained control did not give way.

"I must insist upon hearing the facts before I say any thing of my intentions," he averred. "Whatever they may be, they cannot be more startling in their character than those which have been urged against Hildreth."

"But they are," she whispered. Then with a quick look around her, she put her mouth close to Mr. Orcutt's ear and breathed:

"Mr. Hildreth is not the only man who, unseen by the neighbors, visited Mrs. Clemmens' house on the morning of the murder. Craik Mansell was there also."

"Craik Mansell! How do you know that? Ah," he pursued, with the scornful intonation of a jealous man, "I forgot that you are lovers."[294]

The sneer, natural as it was, perhaps, seemed to go to her heart and wake its fiercest indignation.

"Hush," cried she, towering upon him with an ominous flash of her proud eye. "Do not turn the knife in that wound or you will seal my lips forever." And she moved hastily away from his side. But in another instant she determinedly returned, saying: "This is no time for indulging in one's sensibilities. I affirm that Craik Mansell visited his aunt on that day, because the ring which was picked up on the floor of her dining-room—you remember the ring, Mr. Orcutt?"

Remember it! Did he not? All his many perplexities in its regard crowded upon him as he made a hurried bow of acquiescence.

"It belonged to him," she continued. "He had bought it for me, or, rather, had had the diamond reset for me—it had been his mother's. Only the day before, he had tried to put it on my finger in a meeting we had in the woods back of his aunt's house. But I refused to allow him. The prospect ahead was too dismal and unrelenting for us to betroth ourselves, whatever our hopes or wishes might be."

"You—you had a meeting with this man in the woods the day before his aunt was assaulted," echoed Mr. Orcutt, turning upon her with an amazement that swallowed up his wrath.

"Yes."

"And he afterward visited her house?"[295]

"Yes."

"And dropped that ring there?"

"Yes."

Starting slowly, as if the thoughts roused by this short statement of facts were such as demanded instant consideration, Mr. Orcutt walked to the other side of the room, where he paced up and down in silence for some minutes. When he returned it was the lawyer instead of the lover who stood before her.

"Then, it was the simple fact of finding this gentleman's ring on the floor of Mrs. Clemmens' dining-room that makes you consider him the murderer of his aunt?" he asked, with a tinge of something like irony in his tone.

"No," she breathed rather than answered. "That was a proof, of course, that he had been there, but I should never have thought of it as an evidence of guilt if the woman herself had not uttered, in our hearing that tell-tale exclamation of 'Ring and Hand,' and if, in the talk I held with Mr. Mansell the day before, he had not betrayed—— Why do you stop me?" she whispered.

"I did not stop you," he hastily assured her. "I am too anxious to hear what you have to say. Go on, Imogene. What did this Mansell betray? I—I ask as a father might," he added, with some dignity and no little effort.

But her fears had taken alarm, or her caution been aroused, and she merely said:[296]

"The five thousand dollars which his aunt leaves him is just the amount he desired to start him in life."

"Did he wish such an amount?" Mr. Orcutt asked.

"Very much."

"And acknowledged it in the conversation he had with you?"

"Yes."

"Imogene," declared the lawyer, "if you do not want to insure Mr. Mansell's indictment, I would suggest to you not to lay too great stress upon any talk you may have held with him."

But she cried with unmoved sternness, and a relentless crushing down of all emotion that was at once amazing and painful to see:

"The innocent is to be saved from the gallows, no matter what the fate of the guilty may be."

And a short but agitated silence followed which Mr. Orcutt broke at last by saying:

"Are these all the facts you have to give me?"

She started, cast him a quick look, bowed her head, and replied:

"Yes."

There was something in the tone of this assertion that made him repeat his question.

"Are these all the facts you have to give me?"

Her answer came ringing and emphatic now.

"Yes," she avowed—"all."

With a look of relief, slowly smoothing out the deep[297] furrows of his brow, Mr. Orcutt, for the second time, walked thoughtfully away in evident consultation with his own thoughts. This time he was gone so long, the suspense became almost intolerable to Imogene. Feeling that she could endure it no longer, she followed him at last, and laid her hand upon his arm.

"Speak," she impetuously cried. "Tell me what you think; what I have to expect."

But he shook his head.

"Wait," he returned; "wait till the Grand Jury has brought in a bill of indictment. It will, doubtless, be against one of these two men; but I must know which, before I can say or do any thing."

"And do you think there can be any doubt about which of these two it will be?" she inquired, with sudden emotion.

"There is always doubt," he rejoined, "about any thing or every thing a body of men may do. This is a very remarkable case, Imogene," he resumed, with increased sombreness; "the most remarkable one, perhaps, that has ever come under my observation. What the Grand Jury will think of it; upon which party, Mansell or Hildreth, the weight of their suspicion will fall, neither I nor Ferris, nor any other man, can prophesy with any assurance. The evidence against both is, in so far as we know, entirely circumstantial. That you believe Mr. Mansell to be the guilty party——"

"Believe!" she murmured; "I know it."

"That you believe him to be the guilty party," the wary[298] lawyer pursued, as if he had not heard her "does not imply that they will believe it too. Hildreth comes of a bad stock, and his late attempt at suicide tells wonderfully against him; yet, the facts you have to give in Mansell's disfavor are strong also, and Heaven only knows what the upshot will be. However, a few weeks will determine all that, and then——" Pausing, he looked at her, and, as he did so, the austerity and self-command of the lawyer vanished out of sight, and the passionate gleam of a fierce and overmastering love shone again in his eyes. "And then," he cried, "then we will see what Tremont Orcutt can do to bring order out of this chaos."

There was so much resolve in his look, such a hint of promise in his tone, that she flushed with something almost akin to hope.

"Oh, generous——" she began.

But he stopped her before she could say more.

"Wait," he repeated; "wait till we see what action will be taken by the Grand Jury." And taking her hand, he looked earnestly, if not passionately, in her face. "Imogene," he commenced, "if I should succeed——" But there he himself stopped short with a quick recalling of his own words, perhaps. "No," he cried, "I will say no more till we see which of these two men is to be brought to trial." And, pressing her hand to his lips, he gave her one last look in which was concentrated all the secret passions which had been called forth by this hour, and hastily left the room.

[299]

XXIV. A TRUE BILL

Come to me, friend or foe,
And tell me who is victor, York or Warwick.—HENRY VI.

THE town of Sibley was in a state of excitement. About the court-house especially the crowd was great and the interest manifested intense. The Grand Jury was in session, and the case of the Widow Clemmens was before it.

As all the proceedings of this body are private, the suspense of those interested in the issue was naturally very great. The name of the man lastly suspected of the crime had transpired, and both Hildreth and Mansell had their partisans, though the mystery surrounding the latter made his friends less forward in asserting his innocence than those of the more thoroughly understood Hildreth. Indeed, the ignorance felt on all sides as to the express reasons for associating the name of Mrs. Clemmens' nephew with his aunt's murder added much to the significance of the hour. Conjectures were plenty and the wonder great, but the causes why this man, or any other, should lie under a suspicion equal to that raised against Hildreth at the inquest was a mystery that none could solve.[300]

But what is the curiosity of the rabble to us? Our interest is in a little room far removed from this scene of excitement, where the young daughter of Professor Darling kneels by the side of Imogene Dare, striving by caress and entreaty to win a word from her lips or a glance from her heavy eyes.

"Imogene," she pleaded,—"Imogene, what is this terrible grief? Why did you have to go to the court-house this morning with papa, and why have you been almost dead with terror and misery ever since you got back? Tell me, or I shall perish of mere fright. For weeks now, ever since you were so good as to help me with my wedding-clothes, I have seen that something dreadful was weighing upon your mind, but this which you are suffering now is awful; this I cannot bear. Cannot you speak dear? Words will do you good."

"Words!"

Oh, the despair, the bitterness of that single exclamation! Miss Darling drew back in dismay. As if released, Imogene rose to her feet and surveyed the sweet and ingenuous countenance uplifted to her own, with a look of faint recognition of the womanly sympathy it conveyed.

"Helen," she resumed, "you are happy. Don't stay here with me, but go where there are cheerfulness and hope."

"But I cannot while you suffer so. I love you, Imogene. Would you drive me away from your side when you are so unhappy? You don't care for me as I do for you or you could not do it."[301]

"Helen!" The deep tone made the sympathetic little bride-elect quiver. "Helen, some griefs are best borne alone. Only a few hours now and I shall know the worst. Leave me."

But the gentle little creature was not to be driven away. She only clung the closer and pleaded the more earnestly:

"Tell me, tell me!"

The reiteration of this request was too much for the pallid woman before her. Laying her two hands on the shoulders of this child, she drew back and looked her earnestly in the face.

"Helen," she cried, "what do you know of earthly anguish? A petted child, the favorite of happy fortune, you have been kept from evil as from a blight. None of the annoyances of life have been allowed to enter your path, much less its griefs and sins. Terror with you is but a name, remorse an unknown sensation. Even your love has no depths in it such as suffering gives. Yet, since you do love, and love well, perhaps you can understand something of what a human soul can endure who sees its only hope and only love tottering above a gulf too horrible for words to describe—a gulf, too, which her own hand—— But no, I cannot tell you. I overrated my strength. I——"

She sank back, but the next moment started again to her feet: a servant had opened the door.

"What is it!" she exclaimed; "speak, tell me."

"Only a gentleman to see you, miss."[302]

"Only a——" But she stopped in that vain repetition of the girl's simple words, and looked at her as if she would force from her lips the name she had not the courage to demand; but, failing to obtain it, turned away to the glass, where she quietly smoothed her hair and adjusted the lace at her throat, and then catching sight of the tear-stained face of Helen, stooped and gave her a kiss, after which she moved mechanically to the door and went down those broad flights, one after one, till she came to the parlor, when she went in and encountered—Mr. Orcutt.

A glance at his face told her all she wanted to know.

"Ah!" she gasped, "it is then——"

"Mansell!"

It was five minutes later. Imogene leaned against the window where she had withdrawn herself at the utterance of that one word. Mr. Orcutt stood a couple of paces behind her.

"Imogene," said he, "there is a question I would like to have you answer."

The feverish agitation expressed in his tone made her look around.

"Put it," she mechanically replied.

But he did not find it easy to do this, while her eyes rested upon him in such despair. He felt, however, that the doubt in his mind must be satisfied at all hazards; so choking down an emotion that was almost as boundless as her own, he ventured to ask:[303]

"Is it among the possibilities that you could ever again contemplate giving yourself in marriage to Craik Mansell, no matter what the issue of the coming trial may be?"

A shudder quick and powerful as that which follows the withdrawal of a dart from an agonizing wound shook her whole frame for a moment, but she answered, steadily:

"No; how can you ask, Mr. Orcutt?"

A gleam of relief shot across his somewhat haggard features.

"Then," said he, "it will be no treason in me to assure you that never has my love been greater for you than to-day. That to save you from the pain which you are suffering, I would sacrifice every thing, even my pride. If, therefore, there is any kindness I can show you, any deed I can perform for your sake, I am ready to attempt it, Imogene.

"Would you—" she hesitated, but gathered courage as she met his eye—"would you be willing to go to him with a message from me?"

His glance fell and his lips took a line that startled Imogene, but his answer, though given with bitterness was encouraging.

"Yes," he returned; "even that."

"Then," she cried, "tell him that to save the innocent, I had to betray the guilty, but in doing this I did not spare myself; that whatever his doom may be, I shall share it, even though it be that of death."[304]

"Imogene!"

"Will you tell him?" she asked.

But he would not have been a man, much less a lover, if he could answer that question now. Seizing her by the arm, he looked her wildly in the face.

"Do you mean to kill yourself?" he demanded.

"I feel I shall not live," she gasped, while her hand went involuntarily to her heart.

He gazed at her in horror.

"And if he is cleared?" he hoarsely ejaculated.

"I—I shall try to endure my fate."

He gave her another long, long look.

"So this is the alternative you give me?" he bitterly exclaimed. "I must either save this man or see you perish. Well," he declared, after a few minutes' further contemplation of her face, "I will save this man—that is, if he will allow me to do so."

A flash of joy such as he had not perceived on her countenance for weeks transformed its marble-like severity into something of its pristine beauty.

"And you will take him my message also?" she cried.

But to this he shook his head.

"If I am to approach him as a lawyer willing to undertake his cause, don't you see I can give him no such message as that?"

"Ah, yes, yes. But you can tell him Imogene Dare has risked her own life and happiness to save the innocent."[305]

"I will tell him whatever I can to show your pity and your misery."

And she had to content herself with this. In the light of the new hope that was thus unexpectedly held out to her, it did not seem so difficult. Giving Mr. Orcutt her hand, she endeavored to thank him, but the reaction from her long suspense was too much, and, for the first time in her brave young life, Imogene lost consciousness and fainted quite away.

[306]

XXV. AMONG TELESCOPES AND CHARTS

Tarry a little—there is something else.—MERCHANT OF VENICE.

GOUVERNEUR HILDRETH was discharged and Craik Mansell committed to prison to await his trial.

Horace Byrd, who no longer had any motive for remaining in Sibley, had completed all his preparations to return to New York. His valise was packed, his adieus made, and nothing was left for him to do but to step around to the station, when he bethought him of a certain question he had not put to Hickory.

Seeking him out, he propounded it.

"Hickory," said he, "have you ever discovered in the course of your inquiries where Miss Dare was on the morning of the murder?"

The stalwart detective, who was in a very contented frame of mind, answered up with great cheeriness:

"Haven't I, though! It was one of the very first things I made sure of. She was at Professor Darling's house on Summer Avenue."

"At Professor Darling's house?" Mr. Byrd felt a sensation of dismay. Professor Darling's house was, as you remember, in almost direct communication with[307] Mrs. Clemmens' cottage by means of a path through the woods. As Mr. Byrd recalled his first experience in threading those woods, and remembered with what suddenness he had emerged from them only to find himself in full view of the West Side and Professor Darling's spacious villa, he stared uneasily at his colleague and said:

"It is train time, Hickory, but I cannot help that. Before I leave this town I must know just what she was doing on that morning, and whom she was with. Can you find out?"

"Can I find out?"

The hardy detective was out of the door before the last word of this scornful repetition had left his lips.

He was gone an hour. When he returned he looked very much excited.

"Well!" he ejaculated, breathlessly, "I have had an experience."

Mr. Byrd gave him a look, saw something he did not like in his face, and moved uneasily in his chair.

"You have?" he retorted. "What is it? Speak."

"Do you know," the other resumed, "that the hardest thing I ever had to do was to keep my head down in the hut the other day, and deny myself a look at the woman who could bear herself so bravely in the midst of a scene so terrible. Well," he went on, "I have to-day been rewarded for my self-control. I have seen Miss Dare."

Horace Byrd could scarcely restrain his impatience.[308]

"Where?" he demanded. "How? Tell a fellow, can't you?"

"I am going to," protested Hickory. "Cannot you wait a minute? I had to wait forty. Well," he continued more pleasantly as he saw the other frown, "I went to Professor Darling's. There is a girl there I have talked to before, and I had no difficulty in seeing her or getting a five minutes' chat with her at the back-gate. Odd how such girls will talk! She told me in three minutes all I wanted to know. Not that it was so much, only——"

"Do get on," interrupted Mr. Byrd. "When did Miss Dare come to the house on the morning Mrs. Clemmens was murdered, and what did she do while there?"

"She came early; by ten o'clock or so, I believe, and she sat, if she did sit, in an observatory they have at the top of the house: a place where she often used to go, I am told, to study astronomy with Professor Darling's oldest daughter."

"And was Miss Darling with her that morning? Did they study together all the time she was in the house?"

"No; that is, the girl said no one went up to the observatory with Miss Dare; that Miss Darling did not happen to be at home that day, and Miss Dare had to study alone. Hearing this," pursued Hickory, answering the look of impatience in the other's face, "I had a curiosity to interview the observatory, and being—well, not a clumsy fellow at softsoaping a girl—I at last succeeded[309] in prevailing upon her to take me up. Byrd, will you believe me when I tell you that we did it without going into the house?"

"What?"

"I mean," corrected the other, "without entering the main part of the building. The professor's house has a tower, you know, at the upper angle toward the woods, and it is in the top of that tower he keeps his telescopes and all that kind of thing. The tower has a special staircase of its own. It is a spiral one, and opens on a door below that connects directly with the garden. We went up these stairs."

"You dared to?"

"Yes; the girl assured me every one was out of the house but the servants, and I believed her. We went up the stairs, entered the observatory——"

"It is not kept locked, then?"

"It was not locked to-day—saw the room, which is a curious one—glanced out over the view, which is well worth seeing, and then——"

"Well, what?"

"I believe I stood still and asked the girl a question or two more. I inquired," he went on, deprecating the other's impatience by a wave of his nervous hand, "when Miss Dare came down from this place on the morning you remember. She answered that she couldn't quite tell; that she wouldn't have remembered any thing about it at all, only that Miss Tremaine came to the house that[310] morning, and wanting to see Miss Dare, ordered her to go up to the observatory and tell that lady to come down, and that she went, but to her surprise did not find Miss Dare there, though she was sure she had not gone home, or, at least, hadn't taken any of the cars that start from the front of the house, for she had looked at them every one as they went by the basement window where she was at work."

"The girl said this?"

"Yes, standing in the door of this small room, and looking me straight in the eye."

"And did you ask her nothing more? Say nothing about the time, Hickory, or—or inquire where she supposed Miss Dare to have gone?"

"Yes, I asked her all this. I am not without curiosity any more than you are, Mr. Byrd."

"And she replied?"

"Oh, as to the time, that it was somewhere before noon. Her reason for being sure of this was that Miss Tremaine declined to wait till another effort had been made to find Miss Dare, saying she had an engagement at twelve which she did not wish to break."

"And the girl's notions about where Miss Dare had gone?"

"Such as you expect, Byrd. She said she did not know any thing about it, but that Miss Dare often went strolling in the garden, or even in the woods when she came to Professor Darling's house, and that she supposed[311] she had gone off on some such walk at this time, for, at one o'clock or thereabouts, she saw her pass in the horse-car on her way back to the town."

"Hickory, I wish you had not told me this just as I am going back to the city."

"Wish I had not told it, or wish I had not gone to Professor Darling's house as you requested?"

"Wish you had not told it. I dare not wish the other. But you spoke of seeing Miss Dare; how was that? Where did you run across her?"

"Do you want to hear?"

"Of course, of course."

"But I thought——"

"Oh, never mind, old boy; tell me the whole now, as long as you have told me any. Was she in the house?"

"I will tell you. I had asked the girl all these questions, as I have said, and was about to leave the observatory and go below when I thought I would cast another glance around the curious old place, and in doing so caught a glimpse of a huge portfolio of charts, as I supposed, standing upright in a rack that stretched across the further portion of the room. Somehow my heart misgave me when I saw this rack, and, scarcely conscious what it was I feared, I crossed the floor and looked behind the portfolio. Byrd, there was a woman crouched there—a woman whose pallid cheeks and burning eyes lifted to meet my own, told me only too[312] plainly that it was Miss Dare. I have had many experiences," Hickory allowed, after a moment, "and some of them any thing but pleasant to myself, but I don't think I ever felt just as I did at that instant. I believe I attempted a bow—I don't remember; or, at least, tried to murmur some excuse, but the look that came into her face paralyzed me, and I stopped before I had gotten very far, and waited to hear what she would say. But she did not say much; she merely rose, and, turning toward me, exclaimed: 'No apologies; you are a detective, I suppose?' And when I nodded, or made some other token that she had guessed correctly, she merely remarked, flashing upon me, however, in a way I do not yet understand: 'Well, you have got what you desired, and now can go.' And I went, Byrd, went; and I felt puzzled, I don't know why, and a little bit sore about the heart, too, as if—— Well, I can't even tell what I mean by that if. The only thing I am sure of is, that Mansell's cause hasn't been helped by this day's job, and that if this lady is asked on the witness stand where she was during the hour every one believed her to be safely shut up with the telescopes and charts, we shall hear——"

"What?"

"Well, that she was shut up with them, most likely. Women like her are not to be easily disconcerted even on the witness stand."

[313]

XXVI. "HE SHALL HEAR ME!"

There's some ill planet reigns;
I must be patient till the heavens look
With an aspect more favorable.—WINTER'S TALE.

THE time is midnight, the day the same as that which saw this irruption of Hickory into Professor Darling's observatory; the scene that of Miss Dare's own room in the northeast tower. She is standing before a table with a letter in her hand and a look upon her face that, if seen, would have added much to the puzzlement of the detectives.

The letter was from Mr. Orcutt and ran thus:

I have seen Mr. Mansell, and have engaged myself to undertake his defence. When I tell you that out of the hundreds of cases I have tried in my still short life, I have lost but a small percentage, you will understand what this means.

In pursuance to your wishes, I mentioned your name to the prisoner with an intimation that I had a message from you to deliver. But he stopped me before I could utter a word. "I receive no communication from Miss Dare!" he declared, and, anxious as I really was to do your bidding, I was compelled to refrain; for his tone was one of hatred and his look that of ineffable scorn.

This was all, but it was enough. Imogene had read these words over three times, and now was ready to[314] plunge the letter into the flame of a candle to destroy it. As it burned, her grief and indignation took words:

"He is alienated, completely alienated," she gasped; "and I do not wonder. But," and here the full majesty of her nature broke forth in one grand gesture, "he shall hear me yet! As there is a God above, he shall hear me yet, even if it has to be in the open court and in the presence of judge and jury!"

[315]

BOOK III.THE SCALES OF JUSTICE.

XXVII. THE GREAT TRIAL

Othello.—What dost thou think?
Iago.— Think, my lord?
Othello.—By heav'n, he echoes me.
As if there was some monster in his thought
Too hideous to be shown.—OTHELLO.

SIBLEY was in a stir. Sibley was the central point of interest for the whole country. The great trial was in progress and the curiosity of the populace knew no bounds.

In a room of the hotel sat our two detectives. They had just come from the court-house. Both seemed inclined to talk, though both showed an indisposition to open the conversation. A hesitation lay between them; a certain thin vail of embarrassment that either one would have found it hard to explain, and yet which sufficed to make their intercourse a trifle uncertain in its character, though Hickory's look had lost none of its rude good-humor, and Byrd's manner was the same mixture of easy nonchalance and quiet self-possession it had always been.

It was Hickory who spoke at last.[316]

"Well, Byrd?" was his suggestive exclamation.

"Well, Hickory?" was the quiet reply.

"What do you think of the case so far?"

"I think"—the words came somewhat slowly—"I think that it looks bad. Bad for the prisoner, I mean," he explained the next moment with a quick flush.

"Your sympathies are evidently with Mansell," Hickory quietly remarked.

"Yes," was the slow reply. "Not that I think him innocent, or would turn a hair's breadth from the truth to serve him."

"He is a manly fellow," Hickory bluntly admitted, after a moment's puff at the pipe he was smoking. "Do you remember the peculiar straightforwardness of his look when he uttered his plea of 'Not guilty,' and the tone he used too, so quiet, yet so emphatic? You could have heard a pin drop."

"Yes," returned Mr. Byrd, with a quick contraction of his usually smooth brow.

"Have you noticed," the other broke forth, after another puff, "a certain curious air of disdain that he wears?"

"Yes," was again the short reply.

"I wonder what it means?" queried Hickory carelessly, knocking the ashes out of his pipe.

Mr. Byrd flashed a quick askance look at his colleague from under his half-fallen lids, but made no answer.[317]

"It is not pride alone," resumed the rough-and-ready detective, half-musingly; "though he's as proud as the best of 'em. Neither is it any sort of make-believe, or I wouldn't be caught by it. 'Tis—'tis—what?" And Hickory rubbed his nose with his thoughtful forefinger, and looked inquiringly at Mr. Byrd.

"How should I know?" remarked the other, tossing his stump of a cigar into the fire. "Mr. Mansell is too deep a problem for me."

"And Miss Dare too?"

"And Miss Dare."

Silence followed this admission, which Hickory broke at last by observing:

"The day that sees her on the witness stand will be interesting, eh?"

"It is not far off," declared Mr. Byrd.

"No?"

"I think she will be called as a witness to-morrow."

"Have you noticed," began Hickory again, after another short interval of quiet contemplation, "that it is only when Miss Dare is present that Mansell wears the look of scorn I have just mentioned."

"Hickory," said Mr. Byrd, wheeling directly about in his chair and for the first time surveying his colleague squarely, "I have noticed this. That ever since the day she made her first appearance in the court-room, she has sat with her eyes fixed earnestly upon the prisoner, and that he has never answered her look by so much as a[318] glance in her direction. This has but one explanation as I take it. He never forgets that it is through her he has been brought to trial for his life."

Mr. Byrd uttered this very distinctly, and with a decided emphasis. But the impervious Hickory only settled himself farther back in his chair, and stretching his feet out toward the fire, remarked dryly:

"Perhaps I am not much of a judge of human nature, but I should have said now that this Mansell was not a man to treat her contemptuously for that. Rage he might show or hatred, but this quiet ignoring of her presence seems a little too dignified for a criminal facing a person he has every reason to believe is convinced of his guilt."

"Ordinary rules don't apply to this man. Neither you nor I can sound his nature. If he displays contempt, it is because he is of the sort to feel it for the woman who has betrayed him."

"You make him out mean-spirited, then, as well as wicked?"

"I make him out human. More than that," Mr. Byrd resumed, after a moment's thought, "I make him out consistent. A man who lets his passions sway him to the extent of committing a murder for the purpose of satisfying his love or his ambition, is not of the unselfish cast that would appreciate such a sacrifice as Miss Dare has made. This under the supposition that our reasons for believing him guilty are well founded. If our suppositions are[319] false, and the crime was not committed by him, his contempt needs no explanation."

"Just so!"

The peculiar tone in which this was uttered caused Mr. Byrd to flash another quick look at his colleague. Hickory did not seem to observe it.

"What makes you think Miss Dare will be called to the witness stand to-morrow?" he asked.

"Well I will tell you," returned Byrd, with the sudden vivacity of one glad to turn the current of conversation into a fresh channel. "If you have followed the method of the prosecution as I have done, you will have noticed that it has advanced to its point by definite stages. First, witnesses were produced to prove the existence of motive on the part of the accused. Mr. Goodman was called to the witness stand, and, after him, other business men of Buffalo, all of whom united in unqualified assertions of the prisoner's frequently-expressed desire for a sum of money sufficient to put his invention into practical use. Next, the amount considered necessary for this purpose was ascertained and found to be just covered by the legacy bequeathed him by his aunt; after which, ample evidence was produced to show that he knew the extent of her small fortune, and the fact that she had by her will made him her heir. Motive for the crime being thus established, they now proceeded to prove that he was not without actual opportunity for perpetrating it. He was shown to have been in Sibley at the[320] time of the murder. The station-master at Monteith was confronted with the prisoner, also old Sally Perkins. Then you and I came before the court with our testimony, and whatever doubt may have remained as to his having been in a position to effect his aunt's death, and afterward escape unnoticed by means of the path leading over the hills to Monteith Quarry station, was swept away. What remains? To connect him with the murder itself, by some, strong link of circumstantial evidence, such as the ring provides. And who is it that can give testimony regarding the ring?—Miss Dare."

"Hem! Well, she will do it," was the dry remark of Hickory.

"She will be obliged to do it," was the emphatic response of Byrd.

And again their glances crossed in a furtive way both seemed ready to ignore.

"What do you think of Orcutt?" Hickory next inquired.

"He is very quiet."

"Too quiet, eh?"

"Perhaps. Folks that know him well declare they never before saw him conduct a case in so temperate a manner. He has scarcely made an effort at cross-examination, and, in fact, has thus far won nothing for the defence except that astonishing tribute to the prisoner's character given by Mr. Goodman."

"Mr. Goodman is Mansell's friend."[321]

"I know it; but his short, decisive statements told upon the jury. Such a man as he made Mansell out to be is just the sort to create an impression on a body of men like them."

"Orcutt understands a jury."

"Orcutt understands his case. He knows he can make nothing by attempting to shake the evidence which has been presented by the prosecution; the facts are too clear, and the witnesses which have been called to testify are of too reliable a character. Whatever defence he contemplates, it will not rest upon a denial of any of the facts brought to light through our efforts, or the evidence of such persons as Messrs. Goodman and Harrison."

"No."

"The question is, then, in what will it lie? Some strong point, I warrant you, or he would not hold himself and his plans so completely in reserve. But what strong point? I acknowledge the uncertainty troubles me."

"I don't wonder," rejoined Hickory. "So it does me."

And a constraint again fell between them that lasted till Hickory put his pipe in his pocket and signified his intention of returning to his own apartments.

[322]

XXVIII. THE CHIEF WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION

Oh, while you live tell truth and shame the devil!

—HENRY IV.

MR. BYRD'S countenance after the departure of his companion was any thing but cheerful. The fact is, he was secretly uneasy. He dreaded the morrow. He dreaded the testimony of Miss Dare. He had not yet escaped so fully from under the dominion of her fascinations as to regard with equanimity this unhappy woman forcing herself to give testimony compromising to the man she loved.

Yet when the morrow came he was among the first to secure a seat in the court-room. Though the scene was likely to be harrowing to his feelings, he had no wish to lose it, and, indeed, chose such a position as would give him the best opportunity for observing the prisoner and surveying the witnesses.

He was not the only one on the look-out for the testimony of Miss Dare. The increased number of the spectators and the general air of expectation visible in more than one of the chief actors in this terrible drama gave suspicious proof of the fact; even if the deadly pallor of the lady herself had not revealed her own feelings in regard to the subject.[323]

The entrance of the prisoner was more marked, too, than usual. His air and manner were emphasized, so to speak, and his face, when he turned it toward the jury, wore an iron look of resolution that would have made him conspicuous had he occupied a less prominent position than that of the dock.

Miss Dare, who had flashed her eyes toward him at the moment of his first appearance, dropped them again, contrary to her usual custom. Was it because she knew the moment was at hand when their glances would be obliged to meet?

Mr. Orcutt, whom no movement on the part of Miss Dare ever escaped, leaned over and spoke to the prisoner.

"Mr. Mansell," said he, "are you prepared to submit with composure to the ordeal of confronting Miss Dare?"

"Yes," was the stern reply.

"I would then advise you to look at her now," proceeded his counsel. "She is not turned this way, and you can observe her without encountering her glance. A quick look at this moment may save you from betraying any undue emotion when you see her upon the stand."

The accused smiled with a bitterness Mr. Orcutt thought perfectly natural, and slowly prepared to obey. As he raised his eyes and allowed them to traverse the room until they settled upon the countenance of the woman he loved, this other man who, out of a still more absorbing passion for Imogene, was at that very moment doing all that lay in his power for the saving of this his[324] openly acknowledged rival, watched him with the closest and most breathless attention. It was another instance of that peculiar fascination which a successful rival has for an unsuccessful one. It was as if this great lawyer's thoughts reverted to his love, and he asked himself: "What is there in this Mansell that she should prefer him to me?"

And Orcutt himself, though happily unaware of the fact, was at that same instant under a scrutiny as narrow as that he bestowed upon his client. Mr. Ferris, who knew his secret, felt a keen interest in watching how he would conduct himself at this juncture. Not an expression of the lawyer's keen and puzzling eye but was seen by the District Attorney and noted, even if it was not understood.

Of the three, Mr. Ferris was the first to turn away, and his thoughts if they could have been put into words might have run something like this: "That man"—meaning Orcutt—"is doing the noblest work one human being can perform for another, and yet there is something in his face I do not comprehend. Can it be he hopes to win Miss Dare by his effort to save his rival?"

As for the thoughts of the person thus unconsciously subjected to the criticism of his dearest friend, let our knowledge of the springs that govern his action serve to interpret both the depth and bitterness of his curiosity; while the sentiments of Mansell—— But who can read what lurks behind the iron of that sternly composed[325] countenance? Not Imogene, not Orcutt, not Ferris. His secret, if he owns one, he keeps well, and his lids scarcely quiver as he drops them over the eyes that but a moment before reflected the grand beauty of the unfortunate woman for whom he so lately protested the most fervent love.

The next moment the court was opened and Miss Dare's name was called by the District Attorney.

With a last look at the unresponsive prisoner, Imogene rose, took her place on the witness stand and faced the jury.

It was a memorable moment. If the curious and impressible crowd of spectators about her had been ignorant of her true relations to the accused, the deadly stillness and immobility of her bearing would have convinced them that emotion of the deepest nature lay behind the still, white mask she had thought fit to assume. That she was beautiful and confronted them from that common stand as from a throne, did not serve to lessen the impression she made.

The officer held the Bible toward her. With a look that Mr. Byrd was fain to consider one of natural shrinking only, she laid her white hand upon it; but at the intimation from the officer, "The right hand, if you please, miss," she started and made the exchange he suggested, while at the same moment there rang upon her ear the voice of the clerk as he administered the awful adjuration that she should, as she believed and hoped in Eternal[326] mercy, tell the truth as between this man and the law and keep not one tittle back. The book was then lifted to her lips by the officer, and withdrawn.

"Take your seat, Miss Dare," said the District Attorney. And the examination began.

"Your name, if you please?"

"Imogene Dare."

"Are you married or single?"

"I am single."

"Where were you born?"

Now this was a painful question to one of her history. Indeed, she showed it to be so by the flush which rose to her cheek and by the decided trembling of her proud lip. But she did not seek to evade it.

"Sir," she said, "I cannot answer you. I never heard any of the particulars of my birth. I was a foundling."

The mingled gentleness and dignity with which she made this acknowledgment won for her the instantaneous sympathy of all present. Mr. Orcutt saw this, and the flash of indignation that had involuntarily passed between him and the prisoner subsided as quickly as it arose.

Mr. Ferris went on.

"Where do you live?"

"In this town?"

"With whom do you live?"

"I am boarding at present with a woman of the name of Kennedy. I support myself by my needle," she hurriedly[327] added, as though anxious to forestall his next question.

Seeing the prisoner start at this, Imogene lifted her head still higher. Evidently this former lover of hers knew little of her movements since they parted so many weeks ago.

"And how long is it since you supported yourself in this way?" asked the District Attorney.

"For a few weeks only. Formerly," she said, making a slight inclination in the direction of the prisoner's counsel, "I lived in the household of Mr. Orcutt, where I occupied the position of assistant to the lady who looks after his domestic affairs." And her eye met the lawyer's with a look of pride that made him inwardly cringe, though not even the jealous glance of the prisoner could detect that an eyelash quivered or a flicker disturbed the studied serenity of his gaze.

The District Attorney opened his lips as if to pursue this topic, but, meeting his opponent's eye, concluded to waive further preliminaries and proceed at once to the more serious part of the examination.

"Miss Dare," said he, "will you look at the prisoner and tell us if you have any acquaintance with him?"

Slowly she prepared to reply; slowly she turned her head and let her glance traverse that vast crowd till it settled upon her former lover. The look which passed like lightning across her face as she encountered his gaze fixed for the first time steadily upon her own, no one in that assemblage ever forgot.[328]

"Yes," she returned, quietly, but in a tone that made Mansell quiver and look away, despite his iron self-command; "I know him."

"Will you be kind enough to say how long you have known him and where it was you first made his acquaintance?"

"I met him first in Buffalo some four months since," was the steady reply. "He was calling at a friend's house where I was staying."

"Did you at that time know of his relation to your townswoman, Mrs. Clemmens?"

"No, sir. It was not till I had seen him several times that I learned he had any connections in Sibley."

"Miss Dare, you will excuse me, but it is highly desirable for the court to know if the prisoner ever paid his addresses to you?"

The deep, almost agonizing blush that colored her white cheek answered as truly as the slow "Yes," that struggled painfully to her lips.

"And—excuse me again, Miss Dare—did he propose marriage to you?"

"He did."

"Did you accept him?"

"I did not."

"Did you refuse him?"

"I refused to engage myself to him."

"Miss Dare, will you tell us when you left Buffalo?"

"On the nineteenth day of August last."[329]

"Did the prisoner accompany you?"

"He did not."

"Upon what sort of terms did you part?"

"Good terms, sir."

"Do you mean friendly terms, or such as are held by a man and a woman between whom an attachment exists which, under favorable circumstances, may culminate in marriage?"

"The latter, sir, I think."

"Did you receive any letters from the prisoner after your return to Sibley?"

"Yes, sir."

"And did you answer them?"

"I did."

"Miss Dare, may I now ask what reasons you gave the prisoner for declining his offer—that is, if my friend does not object to the question?" added the District Attorney, turning with courtesy toward Mr. Orcutt.

The latter, who had started to his feet, bowed composedly and prepared to resume his seat.

"I desire to put nothing in the way of your eliciting the whole truth concerning this matter," was his quiet, if somewhat constrained, response.

Mr. Ferris at once turned back to Miss Dare.

"You will, then, answer," he said.

Imogene lifted her head and complied.

"I told him," she declared, with thrilling distinctness, "that he was in no condition to marry. I am by nature[330] an ambitious woman, and, not having suffered at that time, thought more of my position before the world than of what constitutes the worth and dignity of a man."

No one who heard these words could doubt they were addressed to the prisoner. Haughtily as she held herself, there was a deprecatory humility in her tone that neither judge nor jury could have elicited from her. Naturally many eyes turned in the direction of the prisoner. They saw two white faces before them, that of the accused and that of his counsel, who sat near him. But the pallor of the one was of scorn, and that of the other—— Well, no one who knew the relations of Mr. Orcutt to the witness could wonder that the renowned lawyer shrank from hearing the woman he loved confess her partiality for another man.

Mr. Ferris, who understood the situation as well as any one, but who had passed the point where sympathy could interfere with his action, showed a disposition to press his advantage.

"Miss Dare," he inquired, "in declining the proposals of the prisoner, did you state to him in so many words these objections you have here mentioned?"

"I did."

"And what answer did he give you?"

"He replied that he was also ambitious, and hoped and intended to make a success in life."

"And did he tell you how he hoped and intended to make a success?"[331]

"He did."

"Miss Dare, were these letters written by you?"

She looked at the packet he held toward her, started as she saw the broad black ribbon that encircled it, and bowed her head.

"I have no doubt these are my letters," she rejoined, a little tremulously for her. And unbinding the packet, she examined its contents. "Yes," she answered, "they are. These letters were all written by me."

And she handed them back with such haste that the ribbon which bound them remained in her fingers, where consciously or unconsciously she held it clutched all through the remaining time of her examination.

"Now," said the District Attorney, "I propose to read two of these letters. Does my friend wish to look at them before I offer them in evidence?" holding them out to Mr. Orcutt.

Every eye in the court-room was fixed upon the latter's face, as the letters addressed to his rival by the woman he wished to make his wife, were tendered in this public manner to his inspection. Even the iron face of Mansell relaxed into an expression of commiseration as he turned and surveyed the man who, in despite of the anomalous position they held toward each other, was thus engaged in battling for his life before the eyes of the whole world. At that instant there was not a spectator who did not feel that Tremont Orcutt was the hero of the moment.

He slowly turned to the prisoner:[332]

"Have you any objection to these letters being read?"

"No," returned the other, in a low tone.

Mr. Orcutt turned firmly to the District Attorney:

"You may read them if you think proper," said he.

Mr. Ferris bowed; the letters were marked as exhibits by the stenographic reporter who was taking the minutes of testimony, and handed back to Ferris, who proceeded to read the following in a clear voice to the jury:

"SIBLEY, N. Y., September 7, 1882.

"DEAR FRIEND,—You show signs of impatience, and ask for a word to help you through this period of uncertainty and unrest. What can I say more than I have said? That I believe in you and in your invention, and proudly wait for the hour when you will come to claim me with the fruit of your labors in your hand. I am impatient myself, but I have more trust than you. Some one will see the value of your work before long, or else your aunt will interest herself in your success, and lend you that practical assistance which you need to start you in the way of fortune and fame. I cannot think you are going to fail. I will not allow myself to look forward to any thing less than success for you and happiness for myself. For the one involves the other, as you must know by this time, or else believe me to be the most heartless of coquettes.

"Wishing to see you, but of the opinion that further meetings between us would be unwise till our future looks more settled, I remain, hopefully yours,

"IMOGENE DARE."

"The other letter I propose to read," continued Mr. Ferris, "is dated September 23d, three days before the widow's death.[333]

"DEAR CRAIK,—Since you insist upon seeing me, and say that you have reasons of your own for not visiting me openly, I will consent to meet you at the trysting spot you mention, though all such underhand dealings are as foreign to my nature as I believe them to be to yours.

"Trusting that fortune will so favor us as to make it unnecessary for us to meet in this way more than once, I wait in anxiety for your coming.

"IMOGENE DARE."

These letters, unfolding relations that, up to this time, had been barely surmised by the persons congregated before her, created a great impression. To those especially who knew her and believed her to be engaged to Mr. Orcutt the surprise was wellnigh thrilling. The witness seemed to feel this, and bestowed a short, quick glance upon the lawyer, that may have partially recompensed him for the unpleasantness of the general curiosity.

The Prosecuting Attorney went on without pause:

"Miss Dare," said he, "did you meet the prisoner as you promised?"

"I did."

"Will you tell me when and where?"

"On the afternoon of Monday, September 27th, in the glade back of Mrs. Clemmens' house."

"Miss Dare, we fully realize the pain it must cost you to refer to these matters, but I must request you to tell us what passed between you at this interview?"

"If you will ask me questions, sir, I will answer them with the truth the subject demands."

The sorrowful dignity with which this was said, called forth a bow from the Prosecuting Attorney.[334]

"Very well," he rejoined, "did the prisoner have any thing to say about his prospects?"

"He did."

"How did he speak of them?"

"Despondingly."

"And what reason did he give for this?"

"He said he had failed to interest any capitalist in his invention."

"Any other reason?"

"Yes."

"What was that?"

"That he had just come from his aunt whom he had tried to persuade to advance him a sum of money to carry out his wishes, but that she had refused."

"He told you that?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did he also tell you what path he had taken to his aunt's house?"

"No, sir."

"Was there any thing said by him to show he did not take the secret path through the woods and across the bog to her back door?"

"No, sir."

"Or that he did not return in the same way?"

"No, sir."

"Miss Dare, did the prisoner express to you at this time irritation as well as regret at the result of his efforts to elicit money from his aunt?"

"Yes," was the evidently forced reply.[335]

"Can you remember any words that he used which would tend to show the condition of his mind?"

"I have no memory for words," she began, but flushed as she met the eye of the Judge, and perhaps remembered her oath. "I do recollect, however, one expression he used. He said: 'My life is worth nothing to me without success. If only to win you, I must put this matter through; and I will do it yet.'"

She repeated this quietly, giving it no emphasis and scarcely any inflection, as if she hoped by her mechanical way of uttering it to rob it of any special meaning. But she did not succeed, as was shown by the compassionate tone in which Mr. Ferris next addressed her.

"Miss Dare, did you express any anger yourself at the refusal of Mrs. Clemmens to assist the prisoner by lending him such moneys as he required?"

"Yes, sir; I fear I did. It seemed unreasonable to me then, and I was very anxious he should have that opportunity to make fame and fortune which I thought his genius merited."

"Miss Dare," inquired the District Attorney, calling to his aid such words as he had heard from old Sally in reference to this interview, "did you make use of any such expression as this: 'I wish I knew Mrs. Clemmens'?"

"I believe I did."

"And did this mean you had no acquaintance with the murdered woman at that time?" pursued Mr. Ferris,[336] half-turning to the prisoner's counsel, as if he anticipated the objection which that gentleman might very properly make to a question concerning the intention of a witness.

And Mr. Orcutt, yielding to professional instinct, did indeed make a slight movement as if to rise, but became instantly motionless. Nothing could be more painful to him than to wrangle before the crowded court-room over these dealings between the woman he loved and the man he was now defending.

Mr. Ferris turned back to the witness and awaited her answer. It came without hesitation.

"It meant that, sir."

"And what did the prisoner say when you gave utterance to this wish?"

"He asked me why I desired to know her."

"And what did you reply?"

"That if I knew her I might be able to persuade her to listen to his request."

"And what answer had he for this?"

"None but a quick shake of his head."

"Miss Dare; up to the time of this interview had you ever received any gift from the prisoner—jewelry, for instance—say, a ring!"

"No, sir."

"Did he offer you such a gift then?"

"He did."

"What was it?"[337]

"A gold ring set with a diamond."

"Did you receive it?"

"No, sir. I felt that in taking a ring from him I would be giving an irrevocable promise, and I was not ready to do that."

"Did you allow him to put it on your finger?"

"I did."

"And it remained there?" suggested Mr. Ferris, with a smile.

"A minute, may be."

"Which of you, then, took it off?"

"I did."

"And what did you say when you took it off?"

"I do not remember my words."

Again recalling old Sally's account of this interview, Mr. Ferris asked:

"Were they these: 'I cannot. Wait till to-morrow'?"

"Yes, I believe they were."

"And when he inquired: 'Why to-morrow?' did you reply: 'A night has been known to change the whole current of one's affairs'?"

"I did."

"Miss Dare, what did you mean by those words?"

"I object!" cried Mr. Orcutt, rising. Unseen by any save himself, the prisoner had made him an eloquent gesture, slight, but peremptory.

"I think it is one I have a right to ask," urged the District Attorney.[338]

But Mr. Orcutt, who manifestly had the best of the argument, maintained his objection, and the Court instantly ruled in his favor.

Mr. Ferris prepared to modify his question. But before he could speak the voice of Miss Dare was heard.

"Gentlemen," said she, "there was no need of all this talk. I intended to seek an interview with Mrs. Clemmens and try what the effect would be of confiding to her my interest in her nephew."

The dignified simplicity with which she spoke, and the air of quiet candor that for that one moment surrounded her, gave to this voluntary explanation an unexpected force that carried it quite home to the hearts of the jury. Even Mr. Orcutt could not preserve the frown with which he had confronted her at the first movement of her lips, but turned toward the prisoner with a look almost congratulatory in its character. But Mr. Byrd, who for reasons of his own kept his eyes upon that prisoner, observed that it met with no other return than that shadow of a bitter smile which now and then visited his otherwise unmoved countenance.

Mr. Ferris, who, in his friendship for the witness, was secretly rejoiced in an explanation which separated her from the crime of her lover, bowed in acknowledgment of the answer she had been pleased to give him in face of the ruling of the Court, and calmly proceeded:

"And what reply did the prisoner make you when you uttered this remark in reference to the change that a single day sometimes makes in one's affairs?"[339]

"Something in the way of assent."

"Cannot you give us his words?"

"No, sir."

"Well, then, can you tell us whether or not he looked thoughtful when you said this?"

"He may have done so, sir."

"Did it strike you at the time that he reflected on what you said?"

"I cannot say how it struck me at the time."

"Did he look at you a few minutes before speaking, or in any way conduct himself as if he had been set thinking?"

"He did not speak for a few minutes."

"And looked at you?"

"Yes, sir."

The District Attorney paused a moment as if to let the results of his examination sink into the minds of the jury; then he went on:

"Miss Dare, you say you returned the ring to the prisoner?"

"Yes, sir."

"You say positively the ring passed from you to him; that you saw it in his hand after it had left yours?"

"No, sir. The ring passed from me to him, but I did not see it in his hand, because I did not return it to him that way. I dropped it into his pocket."

At this acknowledgment, which made both the prisoner and his counsel look up, Mr. Byrd felt himself nudged by Hickory.[340]

"Did you hear that?" he whispered.

"Yes," returned the other.

"And do you believe it?"

"Miss Dare is on oath," was the reply.

"Pooh!" was Hickory's whispered exclamation.

The District Attorney alone showed no surprise.

"You dropped it into his pocket?" he resumed. "How came you to do that?"

"I was weary of the strife which had followed my refusal to accept this token. He would not take it from me himself, so I restored it to him in the way I have said."

"Miss Dare, will you tell us what pocket this was?"

"The outside pocket on the left side of his coat," she returned, with a cold and careful exactness that caused the prisoner to drop his eyes from her face, with that faint but scornful twitch of the muscles about his mouth, which gave to his countenance now and then the proud look of disdain which both the detectives had noted.

"Miss Dare," continued the Prosecuting Attorney, "did you see this ring again during the interview?"

"No, sir."

"Did you detect the prisoner making any move to take it out of his pocket, or have you any reason to believe that it was taken out of the pocket on the left-hand side of his coat while you were with him?"

"No, sir."

"So that, as far as you know, it was still in his pocket when you parted?"[341]

"Yes, sir."

"Miss Dare, have you ever seen that ring since?"

"I have."

"When and where?"

"I saw it on the morning of the murder. It was lying on the floor of Mrs. Clemmens' dining-room. I had gone to the house, in my surprise at hearing of the murderous assault which had been made upon her, and, while surveying the spot where she was struck, perceived this ring lying on the floor before me."

"What made you think it was this ring which you had returned to the prisoner the day before?"

"Because of its setting, and the character of the gem, I suppose."

"Could you see all this where it was lying on the floor?"

"It was brought nearer to my eyes, sir. A gentleman who was standing near, picked it up and offered it to me, supposing it was mine. As he held it out in his open palm I saw it plainly."

"Miss Dare, will you tell us what you did when you first saw this ring lying on the floor?"

"I covered it with my foot."

"Was that before you recognized it?"

"I cannot say. I placed my foot upon it instinctively."

"How long did you keep it there?"

"Some few minutes."[342]

"What caused you to move at last?"

"I was surprised."

"What surprised you?"

"A man came to the door."

"What man."

"I don't know. A stranger to me. Some one who had been sent on an errand connected with this affair."

"What did he say or do to surprise you?"

"Nothing. It was what you said yourself after the man had gone."

"And what did I say, Miss Dare?"

She cast him a look of the faintest appeal, but answered quietly:

"Something about its not being the tramp who had committed this crime."

"That surprised you?"

"That made me start."

"Miss Dare, were you present in the house when the dying woman spoke the one or two exclamations which have been testified to in this trial?"

"Yes, sir."

"What was the burden of the first speech you heard?"

"The words Hand, sir, and Ring. She repeated the two half a dozen times."

"Miss Dare, what did you say to the gentleman who showed you the ring and asked if it were yours?"

"I told him it was mine, and took it and placed it on my finger."

"But the ring was not yours?"[343]

"My acceptance of it made it mine. In all but that regard it had been mine ever since Mr. Mansell offered it to me the day before."

Mr. Ferris surveyed the witness for a moment before saying:

"Then you considered it damaging to your lover to have this ring found in that apartment?"

Mr. Orcutt instantly rose to object.

"I won't press the question," said the District Attorney, with a wave of his hand and a slight look at the jury.

"You ought never to have asked it?" exclaimed Mr. Orcutt, with the first appearance of heat he had shown.

"You are right," Mr. Ferris coolly responded. "The jury could see the point without any assistance from you or me."

"And the jury," returned Mr. Orcutt, with equal coolness, "is scarcely obliged to you for the suggestion."

"Well, we won't quarrel about it," declared Mr. Ferris.

"We won't quarrel about any thing," retorted Mr. Orcutt. "We will try the case in a legal manner."

"Have you got through?" inquired Mr. Ferris, nettled.

Mr. Orcutt took his seat with the simple reply:

"Go on with the case."

The District Attorney, after a momentary pause to regain the thread of his examination and recover his equanimity, turned to the witness.

"Miss Dare," he asked, "how long did you keep that ring on your finger after you left the house?"[344]

"A little while—five or ten minutes, perhaps."

"Where were you when you took it off?"

Her voice sank just a trifle:

"On the bridge at Warren Street."

"What did you do with it then?"

Her eyes which had been upon the Attorney's face, fell slowly.

"I dropped it into the water," she said.

And the character of her thoughts and suspicions at that time stood revealed.

The Prosecuting Attorney allowed himself a few more questions.

"When you parted with the prisoner in the woods, was it with any arrangement for meeting again before he returned to Buffalo?"

"No, sir."

"Give us the final words of your conversation, if you please."

"We were just parting, and I had turned to go, when he said: 'Is it good-by, then, Imogene?' and I answered, 'That to-morrow must decide.' 'Shall I stay, then?' he inquired; to which I replied, 'Yes.'"

'Twas a short, seemingly literal, repetition of possibly innocent words, but the whisper into which her voice sank at the final "Yes" endowed it with a thrilling effect for which even she was not prepared. For she shuddered as she realized the deathly quiet that followed its utterance, and cast a quick look at Mr. Orcutt that was full of question, if not doubt.[345]

"I was calculating upon the interview I intended to have with Mrs. Clemmens," she explained, turning toward the Judge with indescribable dignity.

"We understand that," remarked the Prosecuting Attorney, kindly, and then inquired:

"Was this the last you saw of the prisoner until to-day?"

"No, sir."

"When did you see him again?"

"On the following Wednesday."

"Where?"

"In the depôt at Syracuse."

"How came you to be in Syracuse the day after the murder?"

"I had started to go to Buffalo."

"What purpose had you in going to Buffalo?"

"I wished to see Mr. Mansell."

"Did he know you were coming?"

"No, sir."

"Had no communication passed between you from the time you parted in the woods till you came upon each other in the depôt you have just mentioned?"

"No, sir."

"Had he no reason to expect to meet you there?"

"No, sir."

"With what words did you accost each other?"

"I don't know. I have no remembrance of saying any thing. I was utterly dumbfounded at seeing him in[346] this place, and cannot say into what exclamation I may have been betrayed."

"And he? Don't you remember what he said?"

"No, sir. I only know he started back with a look of great surprise. Afterward he asked if I were on my way to see him."

"And what did you answer?"

"I don't think I made any answer. I was wondering if he was on his way to see me."

"Did you put the question to him?"

"Perhaps. I cannot tell. It is all like a dream to me."

If she had said horrible dream, every one there would have believed her.

"You can tell us, however, if you held any conversation?"

"We did not."

"And you can tell us how the interview terminated?"

"Yes, sir. I turned away and took the train back home, which I saw standing on the track without."

"And he?"

"Turned away also. Where he went I cannot say."

"Miss Dare"—the District Attorney's voice was very earnest—"can you tell us which of you made the first movement to go?"

"What does he mean by that?" whispered Hickory to Byrd.

"I think——" she commenced and paused. Her[347] eyes in wandering over the throng of spectators before her, had settled on these two detectives, and noting the breathless way in which they looked at her, she seemed to realize that more might lie in this question than at first appeared.

"I do not know," she answered at last. "It was a simultaneous movement, I think."

"Are you sure?" persisted Mr. Ferris. "You are on oath, Miss Dare? Is there no way in which you can make certain whether he or you took the initiatory step in this sudden parting after an event that so materially changed your mutual prospects?"

"No, sir. I can only say that in recalling the sensations of that hour, I am certain my own movement was not the result of any I saw him take. The instinct to leave the place had its birth in my own breast."

"I told you so," commented Hickory, in the ear of Byrd. "She is not going to give herself away, whatever happens."

"But can you positively say he did not make the first motion to leave?"

"No, sir."

Mr. Ferris bowed, turned toward the opposing counsel and said:

"The witness is yours."

Mr. Ferris sat down perfectly satisfied. He had dexterously brought out Imogene's suspicions of the prisoner's guilt, and knew that the jury must be influenced in[348] their convictions by those of the woman who, of all the world, ought to have believed, if she could, in the innocence of her lover. He did not even fear the cross-examination which he expected to follow. No amount of skill on the part of Orcutt could extract other than the truth, and the truth was that Imogene believed the prisoner to be the murderer of his aunt. He, therefore, surveyed the court-room with a smile, and awaited the somewhat slow proceedings of his opponent with equanimity.

But, to the surprise of every one, Mr. Orcutt, after a short consultation with the prisoner, rose and said he had no questions to put to the witness.

And Miss Dare was allowed to withdraw from the stand, to the great satisfaction of Mr. Ferris, who found himself by this move in a still better position than he had anticipated.

"Byrd," whispered Hickory, as Miss Dare returned somewhat tremulously to her former seat among the witnesses—"Byrd, you could knock me over with a feather. I thought the defence would have no difficulty in riddling this woman's testimony, and they have not even made the effort. Can it be that Orcutt has such an attachment for her that he is going to let his rival hang?"

"No. Orcutt isn't the man to deliberately lose a case for any woman. He looks at Miss Dare's testimony from a different standpoint than you do. He believes what she says to be true, and you do not."[349]

"Then, all I've got to say, 'So much the worse for Mansell!'" was the whispered response. "He was a fool to trust his case to that man."

The judge, the jury, and all the by-standers in court, it must be confessed, shared the opinion of Hickory—Mr. Orcutt was standing on slippery ground.

[350]

XXIX. THE OPENING OF THE DEFENCE

Excellent! I smell a device.—TWELFTH NIGHT.

LATE that afternoon the prosecution rested. It had made out a case of great strength and seeming impregnability. Favorably as every one was disposed to regard the prisoner, the evidence against him was such that, to quote a man who was pretty free with his opinions in the lobby of the court-room: "Orcutt will have to wake up if he is going to clear his man in face of facts like these."

The moment, therefore, when this famous lawyer and distinguished advocate rose to open the defence, was one of great interest to more than the immediate actors in the scene. It was felt that hitherto he had rather idled with his case, and curiosity was awake to his future course. Indeed, in the minds of many the counsel for the prisoner was on trial as well as his client.

He rose with more of self-possession, quiet and reserved strength, than could be hoped for, and his look toward the Court and then to the jury tended to gain for him the confidence which up to this moment he seemed to be losing. Never a handsome man or even an imposing one, he had the advantage of always rising to the occasion,[351] and whether pleading with a jury or arguing with opposing counsel, flashed with that unmistakable glitter of keen and ready intellect which, once observed in a man, marks him off from his less gifted fellows and makes him the cynosure of all eyes, however insignificant his height, features, or ordinary expression.

To-day he was even cooler, more brilliant, and more confident in his bearing than usual. Feelings, if feelings he possessed—and we who have seen him at his hearth can have no doubt on this subject,—had been set aside when he rose to his feet and turned his face upon the expectant crowd before him. To save his client seemed the one predominating impulse of his soul, and, as he drew himself up to speak, Mr. Byrd, who was watching him with the utmost eagerness and anticipation, felt that, despite appearances, despite evidence, despite probability itself, this man was going to win his case.

"May it please your Honor and Gentlemen of the Jury," he began, and those who looked at him could not but notice how the prisoner at his side lifted his head at this address, till it seemed as if the words issued from his lips instead of from those of his counsel, "I stand before you to-day not to argue with my learned opponent in reference to the evidence which he has brought out with so much ingenuity. I have a simpler duty than that to perform. I have to show you how, in spite of this evidence, in face of all this accumulated testimony showing the prisoner to have been in possession of both motive and opportunities[352] for committing this crime, he is guiltless of it; that a physical impossibility stands in the way of his being the assailant of the Widow Clemmens, and that to whomever or whatsoever her death may be due, it neither was nor could have been the result of any blow struck by the prisoner's hand. In other words, we dispute, not the facts which have led the Prosecuting Attorney of this district, and perhaps others also, to infer guilt on the part of the prisoner,"—here Mr. Orcutt cast a significant glance at the bench where the witnesses sat,—"but the inference itself. Something besides proof of motive and opportunity must be urged against this man in order to convict him of guilt. Nor is it sufficient to show he was on the scene of murder some time during the fatal morning when Mrs. Clemmens was attacked; you must prove he was there at the time the deadly blow was struck; for it is not with him as with so many against whom circumstantial evidence of guilt is brought. This man, gentlemen, has an answer for those who accuse him of crime—an answer, too, before which all the circumstantial evidence in the world cannot stand. Do you want to know what it is? Give me but a moment's attention and you shall hear."

Expectation, which had been rising through this exordium, now stood at fever-point. Byrd and Hickory held their breaths, and even Miss Dare showed feeling through the icy restraint which had hitherto governed her secret anguish and suspense. Mr. Orcutt went on:[353]

"First, however, as I have already said, the prisoner desires it to be understood that he has no intention of disputing the various facts which have been presented before you at this trial. He does not deny that he was in great need of money at the time of his aunt's death; that he came to Sibley to entreat her to advance to him certain sums he deemed necessary to the furtherance of his plans; that he came secretly and in the roundabout way you describe. Neither does he refuse to allow that his errand was also one of love, that he sought and obtained a private interview with the woman he wished to make his wife, in the place and at the time testified to; that the scraps of conversation which have been sworn to as having passed between them at this interview are true in as far as they go, and that he did place upon the finger of Miss Dare a diamond ring. Also, he admits that she took this ring off immediately upon receiving it, saying she could not accept it, at least not then, and that she entreated him to take it back, which he declined to do, though he cannot say she did not restore it in the manner she declares, for he remembers nothing of the ring after the moment he put her hand aside as she was offering it back to him. The prisoner also allows that he slept in the hut and remained in that especial region of the woods until near noon the next day; but, your Honor and Gentlemen of the Jury, what the prisoner does not allow and will not admit is that he struck the blow which eventually robbed Mrs. Clemmens of her life, and the proof which I[354] propose to bring forward in support of this assertion is this:

"Mrs. Clemmens received the blow which led to her death at some time previously to three minutes past twelve o'clock on Tuesday, September 26th. This the prosecution has already proved. Now, what I propose to show is, that Mrs. Clemmens, however or whenever assailed, was still living and unhurt up to ten minutes before twelve on that same day. A witness, whom you must believe, saw her at that time and conversed with her, proving that the blow by which she came to her death must have occurred after that hour, that is, after ten minutes before noon. But, your Honor and Gentlemen of the Jury, the prosecution has already shown that the prisoner stepped on to the train at Monteith Quarry Station at twenty minutes past one of that same day, and has produced witnesses whose testimony positively proves that the road he took there from Mrs. Clemmens' house was the same he had traversed in his secret approach to it the day before—viz., the path through the woods; the only path, I may here state, that connects those two points with any thing like directness.

"But, Sirs, what the prosecution has not shown you, and what it now devolves upon me to show, is that this path which the prisoner is allowed to have taken is one which no man could traverse without encountering great difficulties and many hindrances to speed. It is not only a narrow path filled with various encumbrances in[355] the way of brambles and rolling stones, but it is so flanked by an impenetrable undergrowth in some places, and by low, swampy ground in others, that no deviation from its course is possible, while to keep within it and follow its many turns and windings till it finally emerges upon the highway that leads to the Quarry Station would require many more minutes than those which elapsed between the time of the murder and the hour the prisoner made his appearance at the Quarry Station. In other words, I propose to introduce before you as witnesses two gentlemen from New York, both of whom are experts in all feats of pedestrianism, and who, having been over the road themselves, are in position to testify that the time necessary for a man to pass by means of this path from Mrs. Clemmens' house to the Quarry Station is, by a definite number of minutes, greater than that allowed to the prisoner by the evidence laid before you. If, therefore, you accept the testimony of the prosecution as true, and believe that the prisoner took the train for Buffalo, which he has been said to do, it follows, as a physical impossibility, for him to have been at Mrs. Clemmens' cottage, or anywhere else except on the road to the station, at the moment when the fatal blow was dealt.

"Your Honor, this is our answer to the terrible charge which has been made against the prisoner; it is simple, but it is effective, and upon it, as upon a rock, we found our defence."

And with a bow, Mr. Orcutt sat down, and, it being late in the day, the court adjourned.

[356]

XXX. BYRD USES HIS PENCIL AGAIN

Ay, sir, you shall find me reasonable; if it be so, I shall do that that is reason.—MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.

"BYRD, you look dazed."

"I am."

Hickory paused till they were well clear of the crowd that was pouring from the court-room; then he said:

"Well, what do you think of this as a defence?"

"I am beginning to think it is good," was the slow, almost hesitating, reply.

"Beginning to think?"

"Yes. At first it seemed puerile. I had such a steadfast belief in Mansell's guilt, I could not give much credit to any argument tending to shake me loose from my convictions. But the longer I think of it the more vividly I remember the difficulties of the road he had to take in his flight. I have travelled it myself, you remember, and I don't see how he could have got over the ground in ninety minutes."

Hickory's face assumed a somewhat quizzical expression.

"Byrd," said he, "whom were you looking at during the time Mr. Orcutt was making his speech?"[357]

"At the speaker, of course."

"Bah!"

"Whom were you looking at?"

"At the person who would be likely to give me some return for my pains."

"The prisoner?"

"No."

"Whom, then?"

"Miss Dare."

Byrd shifted uneasily to the other side of his companion.

"And what did you discover from her, Hickory?" he asked.

"Two things. First, that she knew no more than the rest of us what the defence was going to be. Secondly, that she regarded it as a piece of great cleverness on the part of Orcutt, but that she didn't believe in it anymore—well, any more than I do."

"Hickory!"

"Yes, sir! Miss Dare is a smart woman, and a resolute one, and could have baffled the penetration of all concerned if she had only remembered to try. But she forgot that others might be more interested in making out what was going on in her mind at this critical moment than in watching the speaker or noting the effect of his words upon the court. In fact, she was too eager herself to hear what he had to say to remember her rôle, I fancy."

"But, I don't see——" began Byrd.[358]

"Wait," interrupted the other. "You believe Miss Dare loves Craik Mansell?"

"Most certainly," was the gloomy response.

"Very well, then. If she had known what the defence was going to be she would have been acutely alive to the effect it was going to have upon the jury. That would have been her first thought and her only thought all the time Mr. Orcutt was speaking, and she would have sat with her eyes fixed upon the men upon whose acceptance or non-acceptance of the truth of this argument her lover's life ultimately depended. But no; her gaze, like yours, remained fixed upon Mr. Orcutt, and she scarcely breathed or stirred till he had fully revealed what his argument was going to be. Then——"

"Well, then?"

"Instead of flashing with the joy of relief which any devoted woman would experience who sees in this argument a proof of her lover's innocence, she merely dropped her eyes and resumed her old mask of impassiveness."

"From all of which you gather——"

"That her feelings were not those of relief, but doubt. In other words, that the knowledge she possesses is of a character which laughs to scorn any such subterfuge of defence as Orcutt advances."

"Hickory," ventured Byrd, after a long silence, "it is time we understood each other. What is your secret thought in relation to Miss Dare?"

"My secret thought? Well," drawled the other, looking[359] away, "I think she knows more about this crime than she has yet chosen to reveal."

"More than she evinced to-day in her testimony?"

"Yes."

"I should like to know why you think so. What special reasons have you for drawing any such conclusions?"

"Well, one reason is, that she was no more shaken by the plausible argument advanced by Mr. Orcutt. If her knowledge of the crime was limited to what she acknowledged in her testimony, and her conclusions as to Mansell's guilt were really founded upon such facts as she gave us in court to-day, why didn't she grasp at the possibility of her lover's innocence which was held out to her by his counsel? No facts that she had testified to, not even the fact of his ring having been found on the scene of murder, could stand before the proof that he left the region of Mrs. Clemmens' house before the moment of assault; yet, while evincing interest in the argument, and some confidence in it, too, as one that would be likely to satisfy the jury, she gave no tokens of being surprised by it into a reconsideration of her own conclusions, as must have happened if she told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, when she was on the stand to-day."

"I see," remarked Byrd, "that you are presuming to understand Miss Dare after all."

Hickory smiled.[360]

"You call this woman a mystery," proceeded Byrd; "hint at great possibilities of acting on her part, and yet in a moment, as it were, profess yourself the reader of her inmost thoughts, and the interpreter of looks and expressions she has manifestly assumed to hide those thoughts."

Hickory's smile broadened into a laugh.

"Just so," he cried. "One's imbecility has to stop somewhere." Then, as he saw Byrd look grave, added: "I haven't a single fact at my command that isn't shared by you. My conclusions are different, that is all."

Horace Byrd did not answer. Perhaps if Hickory could have sounded his thoughts he would have discovered that their conclusions were not so far apart as he imagined.

"Hickory," Byrd at last demanded, "what do you propose to do with your conclusions?"

"I propose to wait and see if Mr. Orcutt proves his case. If he don't, I have nothing more to say; but if he does, I think I shall call the attention of Mr. Ferris to one question he has omitted to ask Miss Dare."

"And what is that?"

"Where she was on the morning of Mrs. Clemmens' murder. You remember you took some interest in that question yourself a while ago."

"But——"

"Not that I think any thing will come of it, only my conscience will be set at rest."[361]

"Hickory,"—Byrd's face had quite altered now—"where do you think Miss Dare was at that time?"

"Where do I think she was?" repeated Hickory.

"Well, I will tell you. I think she was not in Professor Darling's observatory."

"Do you think she was in the glade back of Widow Clemmens' house?"

"Now you ask me conundrums."

"Hickory!" Byrd spoke almost violently, "Mr. Orcutt shall not prove his case."

"No?"

"I will make the run over the ground supposed to have been taken by Mansell in his flight, and show in my own proper person that it can be done in the time specified."

Hickory's eye, which had taken a rapid survey of his companion's form during the utterance of the above, darkened, then he slowly shook his head.

"You couldn't," he rejoined laconically. "Too little staying power; you'd give out before you got clear of the woods. Better delegate the job to me."

"To you?"

"Yes. I'm of the make to stand long runs; besides I am no novice at athletic sports of any kind. More than one race has owed its interest to the efforts of your humble servant. 'Tis my pet amusement, you see, as off-hand drawing is yours, and is likely to be of as much use to me, eh?"[362]

"Hickory, you are chaffing me."

"Think so? Do you see that five-barred gate over there? Well, now keep your eye on the top rail and see if I clear it without a graze or not."

"Stop!" exclaimed Mr. Byrd, "don't make a fool of yourself in the public street. I'll believe you if you say you understand such things."

"Well, I do, and what is more, I'm an adept at them. If I can't make that run in the time requisite to show that Mansell could have committed the murder, and yet arrive at the station the moment he did, I don't know of a chap who can."

"Hickory, do you mean to say you will make this run?"

"Yes."

"With a conscientious effort to prove that Orcutt's scheme of defence is false?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"To-morrow."

"While we are in court?"

"Yes."

Byrd turned square around, gave Hickory a look and offered his hand.

"You are a good fellow," he declared, "May luck go with you."

Hickory suddenly became unusually thoughtful.

"A little while ago," he reflected, "this fellow's sympathies[363] were all with Mansell; now he would risk my limbs and neck to have the man proved guilty. He does not wish Miss Dare to be questioned again, I see."

"Hickory," resumed Byrd, a few minutes later, "Orcutt has not rested the defence upon this one point without being very sure of its being unassailable."

"I know that."

"He has had more than one expert make that run during the weeks that have elapsed since the murder. It has been tested to the uttermost."

"I know that."

"If you succeed then in doing what none of these others have, it must be by dint of a better understanding of the route you have to take and the difficulties you will have to overcome. Now, do you understand the route?"

"I think so."

"You will have to start from the widow's door, you know?"

"Certain."

"Cross the bog, enter the woods, skirt the hut—but I won't go into details. The best way to prove you know exactly what you have to do is to see if you can describe the route yourself. Come into my room, old fellow, and let us see if you can give me a sufficiently exact account of the ground you will have to pass over, for me to draw up a chart by it. An hour spent with paper and pencil to-night may save you from an uncertainty to-morrow that would lose you a good ten minutes."[364]

(Page 364)

"Good! that's an idea; let's try it," rejoined Hickory.

And being by this time at the hotel, they went in. In another moment they were shut up in Mr. Byrd's room, with a large sheet of foolscap before them.

"Now," cried Horace, taking up a pencil, "begin with your description, and I will follow with my drawing."

"Very well," replied Hickory, setting himself forward in a way to watch his colleague's pencil. "I leave the widow's house by the dining-room door—a square for the house, Byrd, well down in the left-hand corner of the paper, and a dotted line for the path I take,—run down the yard to the fence, leap it, cross the bog, and make straight for the woods."

"Very good," commented Byrd, sketching rapidly as the other spoke.

"Having taken care to enter where the trees are thinnest, I find a path along which I rush in a bee-line till I come to the glade—an ellipse for the glade, Byrd, with a dot in it for the hut. Merely stopping to dash into the hut and out again——"

"Wait!" put in Byrd, pausing with his pencil in mid-air; "what did you want to go into the hut for?"

"To get the bag which I propose to leave there to-night."

"Bag?"

"Yes; Mansell carried a bag, didn't he? Don't you remember what the station-master said about the curious[365] portmanteau the fellow had in his hand when he came to the station?"

"Yes, but——"

"Byrd, if I run that fellow to his death it must be fairly. A man with an awkward bag in his hand cannot run like a man without one. So I handicap myself in the same way he did, do you see?"

"Yes."

"Very well, then; I rush into the hut, pick up the bag, carry it out, and dash immediately into the woods at the opening behind the hut.—What are you doing?"

"Just putting in a few landmarks," explained Byrd, who had run his pencil off in an opposite direction. "See, that is the path to West Side which I followed in my first expedition through the woods—the path, too, which Miss Dare took when she came to the hut at the time of the fearful thunderstorm. And wait, let me put in Professor Darling's house, too, and the ridge from which you can see Mrs. Clemmens' cottage. It will help us to understand——"

"What?" cried Hickory, with quick suspiciousness, as the other paused.

But Byrd, impatiently shaking his head, answered:

"The whole situation, of course." Then, pointing hastily back to the hut, exclaimed: "So you have entered the woods again at this place? Very well; what then?"

"Well, then," resumed Hickory, "I make my way along the path I find there—run it at right angles to the[366] one leading up to the glade—till I come to a stony ledge covered with blackberry bushes. (A very cleverly drawn blackberry patch that, Byrd.) Here I fear I shall have to pause."

"Why?"

"Because, deuce take me if I can remember where the path runs after that."

"But I can. A big hemlock-tree stands just at the point where the woods open again. Make for that and you will be all right."

"Good enough; but it's mighty rough travelling over that ledge, and I shall have to go at a foot's pace. The stones are slippery as glass, and a fall would scarcely be conducive to the final success of my scheme."

"I will make the path serpentine."

"That will be highly expressive."

"And now, what next?"

"The Foresters' Road, Byrd, upon which I ought to come about this time. Run it due east and west—not that I have surveyed the ground, but it looks more natural so—and let the dotted line traverse it toward the right, for that is the direction in which I shall go."

"It's done," said Byrd.

"Well, description fails me now. All I know is, I come out on a hillside running straight down to the river-bank and that the highway is visible beyond, leading directly to the station; but the way to get to it——"[367]

"I will show you," interposed Byrd, mapping out the station and the intervening river with a few quick strokes of his dexterous pencil. "You see this point where you issue from the woods? Very good; it is, as you say, on a hillside overlooking the river. Well, it seems unfortunate, but there is no way of crossing that river at this point. The falls above and below make it no place for boats, and you will have to go back along its banks for some little distance before you come to a bridge. But there is no use in hesitating or looking about for a shorter path. The woods just here are encumbered with a mass of tangled undergrowth which make them simply impassable except as you keep in the road, while the river curves so frequently and with so much abruptness—see, I will endeavor to give you some notion of it here—that you would only waste time in attempting to make any short cuts. But, once over the bridge——"

"I have only to foot it," burst in Hickory, taking up the sketch which the other had now completed, and glancing at it with a dubious eye. "Do you know, Byrd," he remarked in another moment, "that it strikes me Mansell did not take this roundabout road to the station?"

"Why?"

"Because it is so roundabout, and he is such a clearheaded fellow. Couldn't he have got there by some shorter cut?"

"No. Don't you remember how Orcutt cross-examined[368] the station-master about the appearance which Mansell presented when he came upon the platform, and how that person was forced to acknowledge that, although the prisoner looked heated and exhausted, his clothes were neither muddied nor torn? Now, I did not think of it at the time, but this was done by Orcutt to prove that Mansell did take the road I have jotted down here, since any other would have carried him through swamps knee-deep with mud, or amongst stones and briers which would have put him in a state of disorder totally unfitting him for travel."

"That is so," acquiesced Hickory, after a moment's thought. "Mansell must be kept in the path. Well, well, we will see to-morrow if wit and a swift foot can make any thing out of this problem."

"Wit? Hickory, it will be wit and not a swift foot. Or luck, maybe I should call it, or rather providence. If a wagon should be going along the highway, now——"

"Let me alone for availing myself of it," laughed Hickory. "Wagon! I would jump on the back of a mule sooner than lose the chance of gaining a minute on these experts whose testimony we are to hear to-morrow. Don't lose confidence in old Hickory yet. He's the boy for this job if he isn't for any other."

And so the matter was settled.

[369]

XXXI. THE CHIEF WITNESS FOR THE DEFENCE

Your If is the only peace-maker; much virtue in If.—AS YOU LIKE IT.

THE crowd that congregated at the court-house the next morning was even greater than at any previous time. The opening speech of Mr. Orcutt had been telegraphed all over the country, and many who had not been specially interested in the case before felt an anxiety to hear how he would substantiate the defence he had so boldly and confidently put forth.

To the general eye, however, the appearance of the court-room was much the same as on the previous day. Only to the close observer was it evident that the countenances of the several actors in this exciting drama wore a different expression. Mr. Byrd, who by dint of the most energetic effort had succeeded in procuring his old seat, was one of these, and as he noted the significant change, wished that Hickory had been at his side to note it with him.

The first person he observed was, naturally, the Judge.

Judge Evans, who has been but barely introduced to the reader, was a man of great moral force and discretion. He had occupied his present position for many years, and[370] possessed not only the confidence but the affections of those who came within the sphere of his jurisdiction. The reason for this undoubtedly lay in his sympathetic nature. While never accused of weakness, he so unmistakably retained the feeling heart under the official ermine that it was by no means an uncommon thing for him to show more emotion in uttering a sentence than the man he condemned did in listening to it.

His expression, then, upon this momentous morning was of great significance to Mr. Byrd. In its hopefulness and cheer was written the extent of the effect made upon the unprejudiced mind by the promised defence.

As for Mr. Orcutt himself, no advocate could display a more confident air or prepare to introduce his witnesses with more dignity or quiet assurance. His self-possession was so marked, indeed, that Mr. Byrd, who felt a sympathetic interest in what he knew to be seething in this man's breast, was greatly surprised, and surveyed, with a feeling almost akin to awe, the lawyer who could so sink all personal considerations in the cause he was trying.

Miss Dare, on the contrary, was in a state of nervous agitation. Though no movement betrayed this, the very force of the restraint she put upon herself showed the extent of her inner excitement.

The prisoner alone remained unchanged. Nothing could shake his steady soul from its composure, not the possibility of death or the prospect of release. He was absolutely imposing in his quiet presence, and Mr. Byrd[371] could not but admire the power of the man even while recoiling from his supposed guilt.

The opening of the defence carried the minds of many back to the inquest. The nice question of time was gone into, and the moment when Mrs. Clemmens was found lying bleeding and insensible at the foot of her dining-room clock, fixed at three or four minutes past noon. The next point to be ascertained was when she received the deadly blow.

And here the great surprise of the defence occurred. Mr. Orcutt rose, and in clear, firm tones said:

"Gouverneur Hildreth, take the stand."

Instantly, and before the witness could comply, Mr. Ferris was on his feet.

"Who? what?" he cried.

"Gouverneur Hildreth," repeated Mr. Orcutt.

"Did you know this gentleman has already been in custody upon suspicion of having committed the crime for which the prisoner is now being tried?"

"I do," returned Mr. Orcutt, with imperturbable sang froid.

"And is it your intention to save your client from the gallows by putting the halter around the neck of the man you now propose to call as a witness?"

"No," retorted Mr. Orcutt; "I do not propose to put the halter about any man's neck. That is the proud privilege of my learned and respected opponent."

With an impatient frown Mr. Ferris sat down, while[372] Mr. Hildreth, who had taken advantage of this short passage of arms between the lawyers to retain his place in the remote corner where he was more or less shielded from the curiosity of the crowd, rose, and, with a slow and painful movement that at once attracted attention to his carefully bandaged throat and the general air of debility which surrounded him, came hesitatingly forward and took his stand in face of the judge and jury.

Necessarily a low murmur greeted him from the throng of interested spectators who saw in this appearance before them of the man who, by no more than a hair's-breadth, had escaped occupying the position of the prisoner, another of those dramatic incidents with which this trial seemed fairly to bristle.

It was hushed by one look from the Judge, but not before it had awakened in Mr. Hildreth's weak and sensitive nature those old emotions of shame and rage whose token was a flush so deep and profuse it unconsciously repelled the gaze of all who beheld it. Immediately Mr. Byrd, who sat with bated breath, as it were, so intense was his excitement over the unexpected turn of affairs, recognized the full meaning of the situation, and awarded to Mr. Orcutt all the admiration which his skill in bringing it about undoubtedly deserved. Indeed, as the detective's quick glance flashed first at the witness, cringing in his old unfortunate way before the gaze of the crowd, and then at the prisoner sitting unmoved and quietly disdainful in his dignity and pride,[373] he felt that, whether Mr. Orcutt succeeded in getting all he wished from his witness, the mere conjunction of these two men before the jury, with the opportunity for comparison between them which it inevitably offered, was the master-stroke of this eminent lawyer's legal career.

Mr. Ferris seemed to feel the significance of the moment also, for his eyes fell and his brow contracted with a sudden doubt that convinced Mr. Byrd that, mentally, he was on the point of giving up his case.

The witness was at once sworn.

"Orcutt believes Hildreth to be the murderer, or, at least, is willing that others should be impressed with this belief," was the comment of Byrd to himself at this juncture.

He had surprised a look which had passed between the lawyer and Miss Dare—a look of such piercing sarcasm and scornful inquiry that it might well arrest the detective's attention and lead him to question the intentions of the man who could allow such an expression of his feelings to escape him.

But whether the detective was correct in his inferences, or whether Mr. Orcutt's glance at Imogene meant no more than the natural emotion of a man who suddenly sees revealed to the woman he loves the face of him for whose welfare she has expressed the greatest concern and for whose sake, while unknown, she has consented to make the heaviest of sacrifices, the wary lawyer was careful[374] to show neither scorn nor prejudice when he turned toward the witness and began his interrogations.

On the contrary, his manner was highly respectful, if not considerate, and his questions while put with such art as to keep the jury constantly alert to the anomalous position which the witness undoubtedly held, were of a nature mainly to call forth the one fact for which his testimony was presumably desired. This was, his presence in the widow's house on the morning of the murder, and the fact that he saw her and conversed with her and could swear to her being alive and unhurt up to a few minutes before noon. To be sure, the precise minute of his leaving her in this condition Mr. Orcutt failed to gather from the witness, but, like the coroner at the inquest, he succeeded in eliciting enough to show that the visit had been completed prior to the appearance of the tramp at the widow's kitchen-door, as it had been begun after the disappearance of the Danton children from the front of the widow's house.

This fact being established and impressed upon the jury, Mr. Orcutt with admirable judgment cut short his own examination of the witness, and passed him over to the District Attorney, with a grim smile, suggestive of his late taunt, that to this gentleman belonged the special privilege of weaving halters for the necks of unhappy criminals.

Mr. Ferris who understood his adversary's tactics only too well, but who in his anxiety for the truth could not[375] afford to let such an opportunity for reaching it slip by, opened his cross-examination with great vigor.

The result could not but be favorable to the defence and damaging to the prosecution. The position which Mr. Hildreth must occupy if the prisoner was acquitted, was patent to all understandings, making each and every admission on his part tending to exculpate the latter, of a manifest force and significance.

Mr. Ferris, however, was careful not to exceed his duty or press his inquiries beyond due bounds. The man they were trying was not Gouverneur Hildreth but Craik Mansell, and to press the witness too close, was to urge him into admissions seemingly so damaging to himself as, in the present state of affairs, to incur the risk of distracting attention entirely from the prisoner.

Mr. Hildreth's examination being at an end, Mr. Orcutt proceeded with his case, by furnishing proof calculated to fix the moment at which Mr. Hildreth had made his call. This was done in much the same way as it was at the inquest. Mrs. Clemmens' next-door neighbor, Mrs. Danton, was summoned to the stand, and after her her two children, the testimony of the three, taken with Mr. Hildreth's own acknowledgments, making it very evident to all who listened that he could not have gone into Mrs. Clemmens' house before a quarter to twelve.

The natural inference followed. Allowing the least possible time for his interview with Mrs. Clemmens, the[376] moment at which the witness swore to having seen her alive and unhurt must have been as late as ten minutes before noon.

Taking pains to impress this time upon the jury, Mr. Orcutt next proceeded to fix the moment at which the prisoner arrived at Monteith Quarry Station. As the fact of his having arrived in time to take the afternoon train to Buffalo had been already proved by the prosecution, it was manifestly necessary only to determine at what hour the train was due, and whether it had come in on time.

The hour was ascertained, by direct consultation with the road's time-table, to be just twenty minutes past one, and the station-master having been called to the stand, gave it as his best knowledge and belief that the train had been on time.

This, however, not being deemed explicit enough for the purposes of the defence, there was submitted to the jury a telegram bearing the date of that same day, and distinctly stating that the train was on time. This was testified to by the conductor of the train as having been sent by him to the superintendent of the road who was awaiting the cars at Monteith; and was received as evidence and considered as conclusively fixing the hour at which the prisoner arrived at the Quarry Station as twenty minutes past one.

This settled, witnesses were called to testify as to the nature of the path by which he must have travelled from[377] the widow's house to the station. A chart similar to that Mr. Byrd had drawn, but more explicit and nice in its details, was submitted to the jury by an actual surveyor of the ground; after which, and the establishment of other minor details not necessary to enumerate here, a man of well-known proficiency in running and other athletic sports, was summoned to the stand.

Mr. Byrd, who up to this moment had shared in the interest every where displayed in the defence, now felt his attention wandering. The fact is, he had heard the whistle of the train on which Hickory had promised to return to Sibley, and interesting as was the testimony given by the witness, he could not prevent his eyes from continually turning toward the door by which he expected Hickory to enter.

Strange to say, Mr. Orcutt seemed to take a like interest in that same door, and was more than once detected by Byrd flashing a hurried glance in its direction, as if he, too, were on the look-out for some one.

Meantime the expert in running was saying:

"It took me one hundred and twenty minutes to go over the ground the first time, and one hundred and fifteen minutes the next. I gained five minutes the second time, you see," he explained, "by knowing my ground better and by saving my strength where it was of no avail to attempt great speed. The last time I made the effort, however, I lost three minutes on my former time. The wood road which I had to take for some distance was[378] deep with mud, and my feet sank with every step. The shortest time, then, which I was able to make in three attempts, was one hundred and fifteen minutes."

Now, as the time between the striking of the fatal blow and the hour at which the prisoner arrived at the Quarry Station was only ninety minutes, a general murmur of satisfaction followed this announcement. It was only momentary, however, for Mr. Ferris, rising to cross-examine the witness, curiosity prevailed over all lesser emotions, and an immediate silence followed without the intervention of the Court.

"Did you make these three runs from Mrs. Clemmens' house to Monteith Quarry Station entirely on foot?"

"I did, sir."

"Was that necessary?"

"Yes, sir; as far as the highway, at least. The path through the woods is not wide enough for a horse, unless it be for that short distance where the Foresters' Road intervenes."

"And you ran there?"

"Yes, sir, twice at full speed; the third time I had the experience I have told you of."

"And how long do you think it took you to go over that especial portion of ground?"

"Five minutes, maybe."

"And, supposing you had had a horse?"

"Well, sir, if I had had a horse, and if he had been waiting there, all ready for me to jump on his back, and[379] if he had been a good runner and used to the road, I think I could have gone over it in two minutes, if I had not first broken my neck on some of the jagged stones that roughen the road."

"In other words, you could have saved three minutes if you had been furnished with a horse at that particular spot?"

"Yes, if."

Mr. Orcutt, whose eye had been fixed upon the door at this particular juncture, now looked back at the witness and hurriedly rose to his feet.

"Has my esteemed friend any testimony on hand to prove that the prisoner had a horse at this place? if he has not, I object to these questions."

"What testimony I have to produce will come in at its proper time," retorted Mr. Ferris. "Meanwhile, I think I have a right to put this or any other kind of similar question to the witness."

The Judge acquiescing with a nod, Mr. Orcutt sat down.

Mr. Ferris went on.

"Did you meet any one on the road during any of these three runs which you made?"

"No, sir. That is, I met no one in the woods. There were one or two persons on the highway the last time I ran over it."

"Were they riding or walking?"

"Walking."[380]

Here Mr. Orcutt interposed.

"Did you say that in passing over the highway you ran?"

"Yes, sir."

"Why did you do this? Had you not been told that the prisoner was seen to be walking when he came down the road to the station?"

"Yes, sir. But I was in for time, you see."

"And you did not make it even with that advantage?"

"No, sir."

The second expert had the same story to tell, with a few variations. He had made one of his runs in five minutes less than the other had done, but it was by a great exertion that left him completely exhausted when he arrived at the station. It was during his cross-examination that Hickory at last came in.

Horace Byrd, who had been growing very impatient during the last few minutes, happened to be looking at the door when it opened to admit this late comer. So was Mr. Orcutt. But Byrd did not notice this, or Hickory either. If they had, perhaps Hickory would have been more careful to hide his feelings. As it was, he no sooner met his colleague's eye than he gave a quick, despondent shake of the head in intimation that he had failed.

Mr. Byrd, who had anticipated a different result, was greatly disappointed. His countenance fell and[381] he cast a glance of compassion at Miss Dare, now flushing with a secret but slowly growing hope. The defence, then, was good, and she ran the risk of being interrogated again. It was a prospect from which Mr. Byrd recoiled.

As soon as Hickory got the chance, he made his way to the side of Byrd.

"No go," was his low but expressive salutation. "One hundred and five minutes is the shortest time in which I can get over the ground, and that by a deuced hard scramble of it too."

"But that's five minutes' gain on the experts," Byrd whispered.

"Is it? Hope I could gain something on them, but what's five minutes' gain in an affair like this? Fifteen is what's wanted."

"I know it."

"And fifteen I cannot make, nor ten either, unless a pair of wings should be given me to carry me over the river."

"Sure?"

"Sure!"

Here there was some commotion in their vicinity, owing to the withdrawal of the last witness from the stand. Hickory took advantage of the bustle to lean over and whisper in Byrd's ear:

"Do you know I think I have been watched to-day. There was a fellow concealed in Mrs. Clemmens' house,[382] who saw me leave it, and who, I have no doubt, took express note of the time I started. And there was another chap hanging round the station at the quarries, whom I am almost sure had no business there unless it was to see at what moment I arrived. He came back to Sibley when I did, but he telegraphed first, and it is my opinion that Orcutt——"

Here he was greatly startled by hearing his name spoken in a loud and commanding tone of voice. Stopping short, he glanced up, encountered the eye of Mr. Orcutt fixed upon him from the other side of the court-room, and realized he was being summoned to the witness stand.

"The deuce!" he murmured, with a look at Byrd to which none but an artist could do justice.

[383]

XXXII. HICKORY

Hickory, dickory, dock!
The mouse ran up the clock!
The clock struck one,
And down he run!
Hickory, dickory, dock!
—MOTHER GOOSE MELODIES.

HICKORY'S face was no new one to the court. He had occupied a considerable portion of one day in giving testimony for the prosecution, and his rough manner and hardy face, twinkling, however, at times with an irrepressible humor that redeemed it and him from all charge of ugliness, were well known not only to the jury but to all the habitués of the trial. Yet, when he stepped upon the stand at the summons of Mr. Orcutt, every eye turned toward him with curiosity, so great was the surprise with which his name had been hailed, and so vivid the interest aroused in what a detective devoted to the cause of the prosecution might have to say in the way of supporting the defence.

The first question uttered by Mr. Orcutt served to put them upon the right track.

"Will you tell the court where you have been to-day, Mr. Hickory?"[384]

"Well," replied the witness in a slow and ruminating tone of voice, as he cast a look at Mr. Ferris, half apologetic and half reassuring, "I have been in a good many places——"

"You know what I mean," interrupted Mr. Orcutt. "Tell the court where you were between the hours of eleven and a quarter to one," he added, with a quick glance at the paper he held in his hand.

"Oh, then," cried Hickory, suddenly relaxing into his drollest self. "Well, then, I was all along the route from Sibley to Monteith Quarry Station. I don't think I was stationary at any one minute of the time, sir."

"In other words——" suggested Mr. Orcutt, severely.

"I was trying to show myself smarter than my betters;" bowing with a great show of respect to the two experts who sat near. "Or, in other words still, I was trying to make the distance between Mrs. Clemmens' house and the station I have mentioned, in time sufficient to upset the defence, sir."

And the look he cast at Mr. Ferris was wholly apologetic now.

"Ah, I understand, and at whose suggestion did you undertake to do this, Mr. Hickory?"

"At the suggestion of a friend of mine, who is also somewhat of a detective."

"And when was this suggestion given?"

"After your speech, sir, yesterday afternoon."

"And where?"[385]

"At the hotel, sir, where I and my friend put up."

"Did not the counsel for the prosecution order you to make this attempt?"

"No, sir."

"Did he not know you were going to make it?"

"No, sir."

"Who did know it?"

"My friend."

"No one else?"

"Well, sir, judging from my present position, I should say there seems to have been some one else," the witness slyly retorted.

The calmness with which Mr. Orcutt carried on this examination suffered a momentary disturbance.

"You know what I mean," he returned. "Did you tell any one but your friend that you were going to undertake this run?"

"No, sir."

"Mr. Hickory," the lawyer now pursued, "will you tell us why you considered yourself qualified to succeed in an attempt where you had already been told regular experts had failed?"

"Well, sir, I don't know unless you find the solution in the slightly presumptive character of my disposition."

"Had you ever run before or engaged in athletic sports of any kind?"

"Oh, yes, I have run before."

"And engaged in athletic sports?"[386]

"Yes, sir."

"Mr. Hickory, have you ever run in a race with men of well-known reputation for speed?"

"Well, yes, I have."

"Did you ever win in running such a race?"

"Once."

"No more?"

"Well, then, twice."

The dejection with which this last assent came forth roused the mirth of some light-hearted, feather-headed people, but the officers of the court soon put a stop to that.

"Mr. Hickory, will you tell us whether on account of having twice beaten in a race requiring the qualifications of a professional runner, you considered yourself qualified to judge of the feasibility of any other man's making the distance from Mrs. Clemmens' house to Monteith Quarry Station in ninety minutes by your own ability or non-ability to do so?"

"Yes, sir, I did; but a man's judgment of his own qualifications don't go very far, I've been told."

"I did not ask you for any remarks, Mr. Hickory. This is a serious matter and demands serious treatment. I asked if in undertaking to make this run in ninety minutes you did not presume to judge of the feasibility of the prisoner having made it in that time, and you answered, 'Yes.' It was enough."

The witness bowed with an air of great innocence.[387]

"Now," resumed the lawyer, "you say you made a run from Mrs. Clemmens' house to Monteith Quarry Station to-day. Before telling us in what time you did it, will you be kind enough to say what route you took?"

"The one, sir, which has been pointed out by the prosecution as that which the prisoner undoubtedly took—the path through the woods and over the bridge to the highway. I knew no other."

"Did you know this?"

"Yes, sir."

"How came you to know it?"

"I had been over it before."

"The whole distance?"

"Yes, sir."

"Mr. Hickory, were you well enough acquainted with the route not to be obliged to stop at any point during your journey to see if you were in the right path or taking the most direct road to your destination?"

"Yes, sir."

"And when you got to the river?"

"I turned straight to the right and made for the bridge."

"Did you not pause long enough to see if you could not cross the stream in some way?"

"No, sir. I don't know how to swim in my clothes and keep them dry, and as for my wings, I had unfortunately left them at home."

Mr. Orcutt frowned.[388]

"These attempts at humor," said he, "are very mal à propos, Mr. Hickory." Then, with a return to his usual tone: "Did you cross the bridge at a run?"

"Yes, sir."

"And did you keep up your pace when you got to the highroad?"

"No, I did not."

"You did not?"

"No, sir."

"And why, may I ask?"

"I was tired."

"Tired?"

"Yes, sir."

There was a droll demureness in the way Hickory said this which made Mr. Orcutt pause. But in another minute he went on.

"And what pace do you take when you are tired?"

"A horse's pace when I can get it," was the laughing reply. "A team was going by, sir, and I just jumped up with the driver."

"Ah, you rode, then, part of the way? Was it a fast team, Mr. Hickory?"

"Well, it wasn't one of Bonner's."

"Did they go faster than a man could run?"

"Yes, sir, I am obliged to say they did."

"And how long did you ride behind them?"

"Till I got in sight of the station."

"Why did you not go farther?"[389]

"Because I had been told the prisoner was seen to walk up to the station, and I meant to be fair to him when I knew how."

"Oh, you did; and do you think it was fair to him to steal a ride on the highway?"

"Yes, sir."

"And why?"

"Because no one has ever told me he didn't ride down the highway, at least till he came within sight of the station."

"Mr. Hickory," inquired the lawyer, severely, "are you in possession of any knowledge proving that he did?"

"No, sir."

Mr. Byrd, who had been watching the prisoner breathlessly through all this, saw or thought he saw the faintest shadow of an odd, disdainful smile cross his sternly composed features at this moment. But he could not be sure. There was enough in the possibility, however, to make the detective thoughtful; but Mr. Orcutt proceeding rapidly with his examination, left him no time to formulate his sensations into words.

"So that by taking this wagon you are certain you lost no time?"

"Yes, sir."

"Rather gained some?"

"Yes, sir."

"Mr. Hickory, will you now state whether you put[390] forth your full speed to-day in going from Mrs. Clemmens' house to the Quarry Station?"

"I did not."

"What?"

"I did not put forth any thing like my full speed, sir," the witness repeated, with a twinkle in the direction of Byrd that fell just short of being a decided wink.

"And why, may I ask? What restrained you from running as fast as you could? Sympathy for the defence?"

The ironical suggestion conveyed in this last question gave Hickory an excuse for indulging in his peculiar humor.

"No, sir; sympathy for the prosecution. I feared the loss of one of its most humble but valuable assistants. In other words, I was afraid I should break my neck."

"And why should you have any special fears of breaking your neck?"

"The path is so uneven, sir. No man could run for much of the way without endangering his life or at least his limbs."

"Did you run when you could?"

"Yes, sir."

"And in those places where you could not run, did you proceed as fast as you knew how?"

"Yes, sir."

"Very well; now I think it is time you told the jury just how many minutes it took you to go from Mrs. Clemmens' door to the Monteith Quarry Station."[391]

"Well, sir, according to my watch, it took one hundred and five minutes."

Mr. Orcutt glanced impressively at the jury.

"One hundred and five minutes," he repeated. He then turned to the witness with his concluding questions.

"Mr. Hickory, were you present in the court-room just now when the two experts whom I have employed to make the run gave their testimony?"

"No, sir."

"Do you know in what time they made it?"

"I believe I do. I was told by the person whom I informed of my failure that I had gained five minutes upon them."

"And what did you reply?"

"That I hoped I could make something on them; but that five minutes wasn't much when a clean fifteen was wanted," returned Hickory, with another droll look at the experts and an askance appeal at Byrd, which being translated might read: "How in the deuce could this man have known what I was whispering to you on the other side of the court-room? Is he a wizard, this Orcutt?"

He forgot that a successful lawyer is always more or less of a wizard.

[392]

XXXIII. A LATE DISCOVERY

Oh, torture me no more, I will confess.—KING LEAR.

WITH the cross-examination of Hickory, the defence rested, and the day being far advanced, the court adjourned.

During the bustle occasioned by the departure of the prisoner, Mr. Byrd took occasion to glance at the faces of those most immediately concerned in the trial.

His first look naturally fell upon Mr. Orcutt. Ah! all was going well with the great lawyer. Hope, if not triumph, beamed in his eye and breathed in every movement of his alert and nervous form. He was looking across the court-room at Imogene Dare, and his features wore a faint smile that indelibly impressed itself upon Mr. Byrd's memory. Perhaps because there was something really peculiar and remarkable in its expression, and perhaps because of the contrast it offered to his own feelings of secret doubt and dread.

His next look naturally followed that of Mr. Orcutt and rested upon Imogene Dare. Ah! she was under the spell of awakening hope also. It was visible in her lightened brow, her calmer and less studied aspect, her eager and eloquently speaking gaze yet lingering[393] on the door through which the prisoner had departed. As Mr. Byrd marked this look of hers and noted all it revealed, he felt his emotions rise till they almost confounded him. But strong as they were, they deepened still further when, in another moment, he beheld her suddenly drop her eyes from the door and turn them slowly, reluctantly but gratefully, upon Mr. Orcutt. All the story of her life was in that change of look; all the story of her future, too, perhaps, if—— Mr. Byrd dared not trust himself to follow the contingency that lurked behind that if, and, to divert his mind, turned his attention to Mr. Ferris.

But he found small comfort there. For the District Attorney was not alone. Hickory stood at his side, and Hickory was whispering in his ear, and Mr. Byrd, who knew what was weighing on his colleague's mind, found no difficulty in interpreting the mingled expression of perplexity and surprise that crossed the dark, aquiline features of the District Attorney as he listened with slightly bended head to what the detective had to say. That look and the deep, anxious frown which crossed his brow as he glanced up and encountered Imogene's eye, remained in Mr. Byrd's mind long after the court-room was empty and he had returned to his hotel. It mingled with the smile of strange satisfaction which he had detected on Mr. Orcutt's face, and awakened such a turmoil of contradictory images in his mind that he was glad when Hickory at last came in to break the spell.[394]

Their meeting was singular, and revealed, as by a flash, the difference between the two men. Byrd contented himself with giving Hickory a look and saying nothing, while Hickory bestowed upon Byrd a hearty "Well, old fellow!" and broke out into a loud and by no means unenjoyable laugh.

"You didn't expect to see me mounting the rostrum in favor of the defence, did you?" he asked, after he had indulged himself as long as he saw fit in the display of this somewhat unseasonable mirth. "Well, it was a surprise. But I've done it for Orcutt now!"

"You have?"

"Yes, I have."

"But the prosecution has closed its case?"

"Bah! what of that?" was the careless reply. "The District Attorney can get it reopened. No Court would refuse that."

Horace surveyed his colleague for a moment in silence.

"So Mr. Ferris was struck with the point you gave him?" he ventured, at last.

"Well, sufficiently so to be uneasy," was Hickory's somewhat dry response.

The look with which Byrd answered him was eloquent. "And that makes you cheerful?" he inquired, with ill-concealed sarcasm.

"Well, it has a slight tendency that way," drawled the other, seemingly careless of the other's expression, if, indeed,[395] he had noted it. "You see," he went on, with a meaning wink and a smile of utter unconcern, "all my energies just now are concentrated on getting myself even with that somewhat too wide-awake lawyer." And his smile broadened till it merged into a laugh that was rasping enough to Byrd's more delicate and generous sensibilities.

"Sufficiently so to be uneasy!" Yes, that was it. From the minute Mr. Ferris listened to the suggestion that Miss Dare had not told all she knew about the murder, and that a question relative to where she had been at the time it was perpetrated would, in all probability, bring strange revelations to light, he had been awakened to a most uncomfortable sense of his position and the duty that was possibly required of him. To be sure, the time for presenting testimony to the court was passed, unless it was in the way of rebuttal; but how did he know but what Miss Dare had a fact at her command which would help the prosecution in overturning the strange, unexpected, yet simple theory of the defence? At all events, he felt he ought to know whether, in giving her testimony she had exhausted her knowledge on this subject, or whether, in her sympathy for the accused, she had kept back certain evidence which if presented might bring the crime more directly home to the prisoner. Accordingly, somewhere toward eight o'clock in the evening, he sought her out with the bold resolution of forcing her to satisfy him on this point.[396]

He did not find his task so easy, however, when he came into direct contact with her stately and far from encouraging presence, and met the look of surprise not unmixed with alarm with which she greeted him. She looked very weary, too, and yet unnaturally excited, as if she had not slept for many nights, if indeed she had rested at all since the trial began. It struck him as cruel to further disturb this woman, and yet the longer he surveyed her, the more he studied her pale, haughty, inscrutable face, he became the more assured that he would never feel satisfied with himself if he did not give her an immediate opportunity to disperse at once and forever these freshly awakened doubts.

His attitude or possibly his expression must have betrayed something of his anxiety if not of his resolve, for her countenance fell as she watched him, and her voice sounded quite unnatural as she strove to ask to what she was indebted for this unexpected visit.

He did not keep her in suspense.

"Miss Dare," said he, not without kindness, for he was very sorry for this woman, despite the inevitable prejudice which her relations to the accused had awakened, "I would have given much not to have been obliged to disturb you to-night, but my duty would not allow it. There is a question which I have hitherto omitted to ask——"

He paused, shocked; she was swaying from side to side before his eyes, and seemed indeed about to fall.[397] But at the outreaching of his hand she recovered herself and stood erect, the noblest spectacle of a woman triumphing over the weakness of her body by the mere force of her indomitable will, that he had ever beheld.

"Sit down," he gently urged, pushing toward her a chair. "You have had a hard and dreary week of it; you are in need of rest."

She did not refuse to avail herself of the chair, though, as he could not help but notice, she did not thereby relax one iota of the restraint she put upon herself.

"I do not understand," she murmured; "what question?"

"Miss Dare, in all you have told the court, in all that you have told me, about this fatal and unhappy affair, you have never informed us how it was you first came to hear of it. You were——"

"I heard it on the street corner," she interrupted, with what seemed to him an almost feverish haste.

"First?"

"Yes, first."

"Miss Dare, had you been in the street long? Were you in it at the time the murder happened, do you think?"

"I in the street?"

"Yes," he repeated, conscious from the sudden strange alteration in her look that he had touched upon a point which, to her, was vital with some undefined interest,[398] possibly that to which the surmises of Hickory had supplied a clue. "Were you in the street, or anywhere out-of-doors at the time the murder occurred? It strikes me that it would be well for me to know."

"Sir," she cried, rising in her sudden indignation, "I thought the time for questions had passed. What means this sudden inquiry into a matter we have all considered exhausted, certainly as far as I am concerned."

"Shall I show you?" he cried, taking her by the hand and leading her toward the mirror near by, under one of those impulses which sometimes effect so much. "Look in there at your own face and you will see why I press this question upon you."

Astonished, if not awed, she followed with her eyes the direction of his pointing finger, and anxiously surveyed her own image in the glass. Then, with a quick movement, her hands went up before her face—which till that moment had kept its counsel so well—and, tottering back against a table, she stood for a moment communing with herself, and possibly summoning up her courage for the conflict she evidently saw before her.

"What is it you wish to know?" she faintly inquired, after a long period of suspense and doubt.

"Where were you when the clock struck twelve on the day Mrs. Clemmens was murdered?"

Instantly dropping her hands, she turned toward him with a sudden lift of her majestic figure that was as imposing as it was unexpected.[399]

"I was at Professor Darling's house," she declared, with great steadiness.

Mr. Ferris had not expected this reply, and looked at her for an instant almost as if he felt inclined to repeat his inquiry.

"Do you doubt my word?" she queried. "Is it possible you question my truth at a time like this?"

"No, Miss Dare," he gravely assured her. "After the great sacrifice you have publicly made in the interests of justice, it would be worse than presumptuous in me to doubt your sincerity now."

She drew a deep breath, and straightened herself still more proudly.

"Then am I to understand you are satisfied with the answer you have received?"

"Yes, if you will also add that you were in the observatory at Professor Darling's house," he responded quickly, convinced there was some mystery here, and seeing but one way to reach it.

"Very well, then, I was," she averred, without hesitation.

"You were!" he echoed, advancing upon her with a slight flush on his middle-aged cheek, that evinced how difficult it was for him to pursue this conversation in face of the haughty and repellant bearing she had assumed. "You will, perhaps, tell me, then, why you did not see and respond to the girl who came into that room at this very time, with a message from a lady who waited below to see you?"[400]

"Ah!" she cried, succumbing with a suppressed moan to the inexorable destiny that pursued her in this man, "you have woven a net for me!"

And she sank again into a chair, where she sat like one stunned, looking at him with a hollow gaze which filled his heart with compassion, but which had no power to shake his purpose as a District Attorney.

"Yes," he acknowledged, after a moment, "I have woven a net for you, but only because I am anxious for the truth, and desirous of furthering the ends of justice. I am confident you know more about this crime than you have ever revealed, Miss Dare; that you are acquainted with some fact that makes you certain Mr. Mansell committed this murder, notwithstanding the defence advanced in his favor. What is this fact? It is my office to inquire. True," he admitted, seeing her draw back with denial written on every line of her white face, "you have a right to refuse to answer me here, but you will have no right to refuse to answer me to-morrow when I put the same question to you in the presence of judge and jury."

"And"—her voice was so husky he could but with difficulty distinguish her words—"do you intend to recall me to the stand to-morrow?"

"I am obliged to, Miss Dare."

"But I thought the time for examination was over; that the witnesses had all testified, and that nothing remained now but for the lawyers to sum up."

"When in a case like this the prisoner offers a defence[401] not anticipated by the prosecution, the latter, of course, has the right to meet such defence with proof in rebuttal."

"Proof in rebuttal? What is that?"

"Evidence to rebut or prove false the matters advanced in support of the defence."

"Ah!"

"I must do it in this case—if I can, of course."

She did not reply.

"And even if the testimony I desire to put in is not rebuttal in its character, no unbiassed judge would deny to counsel the privilege of reopening his case when any new or important fact has come to light."

As if overwhelmed by a prospect she had not anticipated, she hurriedly arose and pointed down the room to a curtained recess.

"Give me five minutes," she cried; "five minutes by myself where no one can look at me, and where I can think undisturbed upon what I had better do."

"Very well," he acquiesced; "you shall have them."

She at once crossed to the small retreat.

"Five minutes," she reiterated huskily, as she lifted the curtains aside; "when the clock strikes nine I will come out."

"You will?" he repeated, doubtfully.

"I will."

The curtains fell behind her, and for five long minutes Mr. Ferris paced the room alone. He was far from[402] easy. All was so quiet behind that curtain,—so preternaturally quiet. But he would not disturb her; no, he had promised, and she should be left to fight her battle alone. When nine o'clock struck, however, he started, and owned to himself some secret dread. Would she come forth or would he have to seek her in her place of seclusion? It seemed he would have to seek her, for the curtains did not stir, and by no sound from within was any token given that she had heard the summons. Yet he hesitated, and as he did so, a thought struck him. Could it be there was any outlet from the refuge she had sought? Had she taken advantage of his consideration to escape him? Moved by the fear, he hastily crossed the room. But before he could lay his hand upon the curtains, they parted, and disclosed the form of Imogene.

"The curtains parted and disclosed the form of Imogene. 'I am coming,' she murmured, and stepped forth."—(Page 402.)

"I am coming," she murmured, and stepped forth more like a faintly-breathing image than a living woman.

His first glance at her face convinced him she had taken her resolution. His second, that in taking it she had drifted into a state of feeling different from any he had observed in her before, and of a sort that to him was wholly inexplicable. Her words when she spoke only deepened this impression.

"Mr. Ferris," said she, coming very near to him in evident dread of being overheard, "I have decided to tell you all. I hoped never to be obliged to do this. I[403] thought enough had been revealed to answer your purpose. I—I believed Heaven would spare me this last trial, let me keep this last secret. It was of so strange a nature, so totally out of the reach of any man's surmise. But the finger of God is on me. It has followed this crime from the beginning, and there is no escape. By some strange means, some instinct of penetration, perhaps, you have discovered that I know something concerning this murder of which I have never told you, and that the hour I spent at Professor Darling's is accountable for this knowledge. Sir, I cannot struggle with Providence. I will tell you all I have hitherto hidden from the world if you will promise to let me know if my words will prove fatal, and if he—he who is on trial for his life—will be lost if I give to the court my last evidence against him?"

"But, Miss Dare," remonstrated the District Attorney, "no man can tell——" He did not finish his sentence. Something in the feverish gaze she fixed upon him stopped him. He felt that he could not palter with a woman in the grasp of an agony like this. So, starting again, he observed: "Let me hear what you have to say, and afterward we will consider what the effect of it may be; though a question of expediency should not come into your consideration, Miss Dare, in telling such truths as the law demands."

"No?" she broke out, giving way for one instant to a low and terrible laugh which curdled Mr. Ferris' blood[404] and made him wish his duty had led him into the midst of any other scene than this.

But before he could remonstrate with her, this harrowing expression of misery had ceased, and she was saying in quiet and suppressed tones:

"The reason I did not see and respond to the girl who came into the observatory on the morning of Mrs. Clemmens' murder is, that I was so absorbed in the discoveries I was making behind the high rack which shuts off one end of the room, that any appeal to me at that time must have passed unnoticed. I had come to Professor Darling's house, according to my usual custom on Tuesday mornings, to study astronomy with his daughter Helen. I had come reluctantly, for my mind was full of the secret intention I had formed of visiting Mrs. Clemmens in the afternoon, and I had no heart for study. But finding Miss Darling out, I felt a drawing toward the seclusion I knew I should find in the observatory, and mounting to it, I sat down by myself to think. The rest and quiet of the place were soothing to me, and I sat still a long time, but suddenly becoming impressed with the idea that it was growing late, I went to the window to consult the town-clock. But though its face could be plainly seen from the observatory, its hands could not, and I was about to withdraw from the window when I remembered the telescope, which Miss Darling and I had, in a moment of caprice a few days before, so arranged as to command a view of the town. Going to it, I peered through it at the[405] clock." Stopping, she surveyed the District Attorney with breathless suspense. "It was just five minutes to twelve," she impressively whispered.

Mr. Ferris felt a shock.

"A critical moment!" he exclaimed. Then, with a certain intuition of what she was going to say next, inquired: "And what then, Miss Dare?"

"I was struck by a desire to see if I could detect Mrs. Clemmens' house from where I was, and shifting the telescope slightly, I looked through it again, and——"

"What did you see, Miss Dare?"

"I saw her dining-room door standing ajar and a man leaping headlong over the fence toward the bog."

The District Attorney started, looked at her with growing interest, and inquired:

"Did you recognize this man, Miss Dare?"

She nodded in great agitation.

"Who was he?"

"Craik Mansell."

"Miss Dare," ventured Mr. Ferris, after a moment, "you say this was five minutes to twelve?"

"Yes, sir," was the faint reply.

"Five minutes later than the time designated by the defence as a period manifestly too late for the prisoner to have left Mrs. Clemmens' house and arrived at the Quarry Station at twenty minutes past one?"

"Yes," she repeated, below her breath.[406]

The District Attorney surveyed her earnestly, perceiving she had not only spoken the truth, but realized all which that truth implied, and drew back a few steps muttering ironically to himself:

"Ah, Orcutt! Orcutt!"

Breathlessly she watched him, breathlessly she followed him step by step like some white and haunting spirit.

"You believe, then, this fact will cost him his life?" came from her lips at last.

"Don't ask me that, Miss Dare. You and I have no concern with the consequences of this evidence."

"No concern?" she repeated, wildly. "You and I no concern? Ah!" she went on, with heart-piercing sarcasm, "I forgot that the sentiments of the heart have no place in judicial investigation. A criminal is but lawful prey, and it is every good citizen's duty to push him to his doom. No matter if one is bound to that criminal by the dearest ties which can unite two hearts; no matter if the trust he has bestowed upon you has been absolute and unquestioning, the law does not busy itself with that. The law says if you have a word at your command which can destroy this man, give utterance to it; and the law must be obeyed."

"But, Miss Dare——" the District Attorney hastily intervened, startled by the feverish gleam of her hitherto calm eye.

But she was not to be stopped, now that her misery had at last found words.[407]

"You do not understand my position, perhaps," she continued. "You do not see that it has been my hand, and mine only, which, from the first, has slowly, remorselessly pushed this man back from the point of safety, till now, now, I am called upon to drag from his hand the one poor bending twig to which he clings, and upon which he relies to support him above the terrible gulf that yawns at his feet. You do not see——"

"Pardon me," interposed Mr. Ferris again, anxious, if possible, to restore her to herself. "I see enough to pity you profoundly. But you must allow me to remark that your hand is not the only one which has been instrumental in hurrying this young man to his doom. The detectives——"

"Sir," she interrupted in her turn, "can you, dare you say, that without my testimony he would have stood at any time in a really critical position?—or that he would stand in jeopardy of his life even now, if it were not for this fact I have to tell?"

Mr. Ferris was silent.

"Oh, I knew it, I knew it!" she cried. "There will be no doubt concerning whose testimony it was that convicted him, if he is sentenced by the court for this crime. Ah, ah, what an enviable position is mine! What an honorable deed I am called upon to perform! To tell the truth at the expense of the life most dear to you. It is a Roman virtue! I shall be held up as a model to my sex. All the world must shower plaudits upon the woman who,[408] sooner than rob justice of its due, delivered her own lover over to the hangman."

Pausing in her passionate burst, she turned her hot, dry eyes in a sort of desperation upon his face.

"Do you know," she gurgled in his ear, "some women would kill themselves before they would do this deed."

Struck to his heart in spite of himself, Mr. Ferris looked at her in alarm—saw her standing there with her arms hanging down at her sides, but with her two hands clinched till they looked as if carved from marble—and drew near to her with the simple hurried question of:

"But you?"

"I?" she laughed again—a low, gurgling laugh, that yet had a tone in it that went to the other's heart and awoke strange sensations there. "Oh, I shall live to respond to your questions. Do not fear that I shall not be in the court-room to-morrow."

There was something in her look and manner that was new. It awed him, while it woke all his latent concern.

"Miss Dare," he began, "you can believe how painful all this has been to me, and how I would have spared you this misery if I could. But the responsibilities resting upon me are such——"

He did not go on; why should he? She was not listening. To be sure, she stood before him, seemingly attentive, but the eyes with which she met his were fixed upon other objects than any which could have been apparent[409] to her in his face; and her form, which she had hitherto held upright, was shaking with long, uncontrollable shudders, which, to his excited imagination, threatened to lay her at his feet.

He at once started toward the door for help. But she was alive to his movements if not to his words. Stopping him with a gesture, she cried:

"No—no! do not call for any one; I wish to be alone; I have my duty to face, you know; my testimony to prepare." And rousing herself she cast a peculiar look about the room, like one suddenly introduced into a strange place, and then moving slowly toward the window, threw back the curtain and gazed without. "Night!" she murmured, "night!" and after a moment added, in a deep, unearthly voice that thrilled irresistibly upon Mr. Ferris' ear: "And a heaven full of stars!"

Her face, as she turned it upward, wore so strange a look, Mr. Ferris involuntarily left his position and crossed to her side. She was still murmuring to herself in seeming unconsciousness of his presence. "Stars!" she was repeating; "and above them God!" And the long shudders shook her frame again, and she dropped her head and seemed about to fall into her old abstraction when her eye encountered that of the District Attorney, and she hurriedly aroused herself.

"Pardon me," she exclaimed, with an ill-concealed irony, particularly impressive after her tone of the moment before, "have you any thing further to exact of me?"[410]

"No," he made haste to reply; "only before I go I would entreat you to be calm——"

"And say the word I have to say to-morrow without a balk and without an unnecessary display of feeling," she coldly interpolated. "Thanks, Mr. Ferris, I understand you. But you need fear nothing from me. There will be no scene—at least on my part—when I rise before the court to give my testimony to-morrow. Since my hand must strike the fatal blow, it shall strike—firmly!" and her clenched fist fell heavily on her own breast, as if the blow she meditated must first strike there.

The District Attorney, more moved than he had deemed it possible for him to be, made her a low bow and withdrew slowly to the door.

"I leave you, then, till to-morrow," he said.

"Till to-morrow."

Long after he had passed out, the deep meaning which informed those two words haunted his memory and disturbed his heart. Till to-morrow! Alas, poor girl! and after to-morrow, what then?

[411]

XXXIV. WHAT WAS HID BEHIND IMOGENE'S VEIL

Mark now, how a plain tale shall put you down.—HENRY IV.

THE few minutes that elapsed before the formal opening of court the next morning were marked by great cheerfulness. The crisp frosty air had put everybody in a good-humor. Even the prisoner looked less sombre than before, and for the first time since the beginning of his trial, deigned to turn his eyes toward the bench where Imogene sat, with a look that, while it was not exactly kind, had certainly less disdain in it than before he saw his way to a possible acquittal on the theory advanced by his counsel.

But this look, though his first, did not prove to be his last. Something in the attitude of the woman he gazed at—or was it the mystery of the heavy black veil that enveloped her features?—woke a strange doubt in his mind. Beckoning to Mr. Orcutt, he communicated with him in a low tone.

"Can it be possible," asked he, "that any thing new could have transpired since last night to give encouragement to the prosecution?"[412]

The lawyer, startled, glanced hastily about him and shook his head.

"No," he cried; "impossible! What could have transpired?"

"Look at Mr. Ferris," whispered the prisoner, "and then at the witness who wears a veil."

With an unaccountable feeling of reluctance, Mr. Orcutt hastily complied. His first glance at the District Attorney made him thoughtful. He recognized the look which his opponent wore; he had seen it many a time before this, and knew what it indicated. As for Imogene, who could tell what went on in that determined breast? The close black veil revealed nothing. Mr. Orcutt impatiently turned back to his client.

"I think you alarm yourself unnecessarily," he whispered. "Ferris means to fight, but what of that? He wouldn't be fit for his position if he didn't struggle to the last gasp even for a failing cause."

Yet in saying this his lip took its sternest line, and from the glitter of his eye and the close contraction of his brow it looked as if he were polishing his own weapons for the conflict he thus unexpectedly saw before him.

Meantime, across the court-room, another whispered conference was going on.

"Hickory, where have you been ever since last night? I have not been able to find you anywhere."

"I was on duty; I had a bird to look after."

"A bird?"[413]

"Yes, a wild bird; one who is none too fond of its cage; a desperate one who might find means to force aside its bars and fly away."

"What do you mean, Hickory? What nonsense is this?"

"Look at Miss Dare and perhaps you will understand."

"Miss Dare?"

"Yes."

Horace's eyes opened in secret alarm.

"Do you mean——"

"I mean that I spent the whole night in tramping up and down in front of her window. And a dismal task it was too. Her lamp burned till daylight."

Here the court was called to order and Byrd had only opportunity to ask:

"Why does she wear a veil?"

To which the other whisperingly retorted:

"Why did she spend the whole night in packing up her worldly goods and writing a letter to the Congregational minister to be sent after the adjournment of court to-day?"

"Did she do that?"

"She did."

"Hickory, don't you know—haven't you been told what she is expected to say or do here to-day?"

"No."

"You only guess?"[414]

"No, I don't guess."

"You fear, then?"

"Fear! Well, that's a big word to a fellow like me. I don't know as I fear any thing; I'm curious, that is all."

Mr. Byrd drew back, looked over at Imogene, and involuntarily shook his head. What was in the mind of this mysterious woman? What direful purpose or shadow of doom lay behind the veil that separated her from the curiosity and perhaps the sympathy of the surrounding crowd? It was in vain to question; he could only wait in secret anxiety for the revelations which the next few minutes might bring.

The defence having rested the night before, the first action of the Judge on the opening of the court was to demand whether the prosecution had any rebuttal testimony to offer.

Mr. Ferris instantly rose.

"Miss Dare, will you retake the stand," said he.

Immediately Mr. Orcutt, who up to the last moment had felt his case as secure as if it had indeed been founded on a rock, bounded to his feet, white as the witness herself.

"I object!" he cried. "The witness thus recalled by the counsel of the prosecution has had ample opportunity to lay before the court all the evidence in her possession. I submit it to the court whether my learned opponent should not have exhausted his witness before he rested his case."[415]

"Mr. Ferris," asked the Judge, turning to the District Attorney, "do you recall this witness for the purpose of introducing fresh testimony in support of your case or merely to disprove the defence?"

"Your honor," was the District Attorney's reply, "I ought to say in fairness to my adversary and to the court, that since the case was closed a fact has come to my knowledge of so startling and conclusive a nature that I feel bound to lay it before the jury. From this witness alone can we hope to glean this fact; and as I had no information on which to base a question concerning it in her former examination, I beg the privilege of reopening my case to that extent."

"Then the evidence you desire to submit is not in rebuttal?" queried the Judge.

"I do not like to say that," rejoined the District Attorney, adroitly. "I think it may bear directly upon the question whether the prisoner could catch the train at Monteith Quarry if he left the widow's house after the murder. If the evidence I am about to offer be true, he certainly could."

Thoroughly alarmed now and filled with the dismay which a mysterious threat is always calculated to produce, Mr. Orcutt darted a wild look of inquiry at Imogene, and finding her immovable behind her thick veil, turned about and confronted the District Attorney with a most sarcastic smile upon his blanched and trembling lips.[416]

"Does my learned friend suppose the court will receive any such ambiguous explanation as this? If the testimony sought from this witness is by way of rebuttal, let him say so; but if it is not, let him be frank enough to admit it, that I may in turn present my objections to the introduction of any irrelevant evidence at this time."

"The testimony I propose to present through this witness is in the way of rebuttal," returned Mr Ferris, severely. "The argument advanced by the defence, that the prisoner could not have left Mrs. Clemmens' house at ten minutes before twelve and arrived at Monteith Quarry Station at twenty minutes past one, is not a tenable one, and I purpose to prove it by this witness."

Mr. Orcutt's look of anxiety changed to one of mingled amazement and incredulity.

"By this witness! You have chosen a peculiar one for the purpose," he ironically exclaimed, more and more shaken from his self-possession by the quiet bearing of his opponent, and the silent air of waiting which marked the stately figure of her whom, as he had hitherto believed, he thoroughly comprehended. "Your Honor," he continued, "I withdraw my objections; I should really like to hear how Miss Dare or any lady can give evidence on this point."

And he sank back into his seat with a look at his client in which professional bravado strangely struggled with something even deeper than alarm.[417]

"This must be an exciting moment to the prisoner," whispered Hickory to Byrd.

"So, so. But mark his control, will you? He is less cut up than Orcutt."

"Look at his eyes, though. If any thing could pierce that veil of hers, you would think such a glance might."

"Ah, he is trying his influence over her at last."

"But it is too late."

Meantime the District Attorney had signified again to Miss Dare his desire that she should take the stand. Slowly, and like a person in a dream, she arose, unloosed her veil, dragged it from before her set features, and stepped mechanically forward to the place assigned her. What was there in the face thus revealed that called down an instantaneous silence upon the court, and made the momentary pause that ensued memorable in the minds of all present? It was not that she was so pale, though her close-fitting black dress, totally unrelieved by any suspicion of white, was of a kind to bring out any startling change in her complexion; nor was there visible in her bearing any trace of the feverish excitement which had characterized it the evening before; yet of all the eyes that were fixed upon her—and there were many in that crowd whose only look a moment before had been one of heartless curiosity—there were none which were not filled with compassion and more or less dread.

Meanwhile, she remained like a statue on the spot[418] where she had taken her stand, and her eyes, which in her former examination had met the court with the unflinching gaze of an automaton, were lowered till the lashes swept her cheek.

"Miss Dare," asked the District Attorney, as soon as he could recover from his own secret emotions of pity and regret, "will you tell us where you were at the hour of noon on the morning Mrs. Clemmens was murdered?"

Before she could answer, before in fact her stiff and icy lips could part, Mr. Orcutt had risen impetuously to his feet, like a man bound to contend every step of the way with the unknown danger that menaced him.

"I object!" he cried, in the changed voice of a deeply disturbed man, while those who had an interest in the prisoner at this juncture, could not but notice that he, too, showed signs of suppressed feeling, and for the first time since the beginning of the trial, absolutely found his self-command insufficient to keep down the rush of color that swept up to his swarthy cheek.

"The question," continued Mr. Orcutt, "is not to elicit testimony in rebuttal."

"Will my learned friend allow the witness to give her answer, instead of assuming what it is to be?"

"I will not," retorted his adversary. "A child could see that such a question is not admissible at this stage of the case."

"I am sure my learned friend would not wish me to[419] associate him with any such type of inexperience?" suggested Mr. Ferris, grimly.

But the sarcasm, which at one time would have called forth a stinging retort from Mr. Orcutt, passed unheeded. The great lawyer was fighting for his life, for his heart's life, for the love and hand of Imogene—a recompense which at this moment her own unconsidered action, or the constraining power of a conscience of whose might he had already received such heart-rending manifestation, seemed about to snatch from his grasp forever. Turning to the Judge, he said:

"I will not delay the case by bandying words with my esteemed friend, but appeal at once to the Court as to whether the whereabouts of Miss Dare on that fatal morning can have any thing to do with the defence we have proved."

"Your Honor," commenced the District Attorney, calmly following the lead of his adversary, "I am ready to stake my reputation on the declaration that this witness is in possession of a fact that overturns the whole fabric of the defence. If the particular question I have made use of, in my endeavor to elicit this fact, is displeasing to my friend, I will venture upon another less ambiguous, if more direct and perhaps leading." And turning again to the witness, Mr. Ferris calmly inquired:

"Did you or did you not see the prisoner on the morning of the assault, at a time distinctly known by you to be after ten minutes to twelve?"[420]

It was out. The line of attack meditated by Mr. Ferris was patent to everybody. A murmur of surprise and interest swept through the court-room, while Mr. Orcutt, who in spite of his vague fears was any thing but prepared for a thrust of this vital nature, started and cast short demanding looks from Imogene to Mansell, as if he would ask them what fact this was which through ignorance or presumption they had conspired to keep from him. The startled look which he surprised on the stern face of the prisoner, showed him there was every thing to fear in her reply, and bounding again to his feet, he was about to make some further attempt to stave off the impending calamity, when the rich voice of Imogene was heard saying:

"Gentlemen, if you will allow me to tell my story unhindered, I think I shall soonest satisfy both the District Attorney and the counsel for the prisoner."

And raising her eyes with a slow and heavy movement from the floor, she fixed them in a meaning way upon the latter.

At once convinced that he had been unnecessarily alarmed, Mr. Orcutt sank back into his seat, and Imogene slowly proceeded.

She commenced in a forced tone and with a sudden quick shudder that made her words come hesitatingly and with strange breaks: "I have been asked—two questions by Mr. Ferris—I prefer—to answer the first. He asked me—where I was at the hour Mrs. Clemmens was murdered."[421]

She paused so long one had time to count her breaths as they came in gasps to her white lips.

"I have no further desire to hide from you the truth. I was with Mrs. Clemmens in her own house."

At this acknowledgment so astonishing, and besides so totally different from the one he had been led to expect, Mr. Ferris started as if a thunderbolt had fallen at his feet.

"In Mrs. Clemmens' house!" he repeated, amid the excited hum of a hundred murmuring voices. "Did you say, in Mrs. Clemmens' house?"

"Yes," she returned, with a wild, ironical smile that at once assured Mr. Ferris of his helplessness. "I am on oath now, and I assert that on the day and at the hour Mrs. Clemmens was murdered, I was in her house and in her dining-room. I had come there secretly," she proceeded, with a sudden feverish fluency that robbed Mr. Ferris of speech, and in fact held all her auditors spell-bound. "I had been spending an hour or so at Professor Darling's, whose house in West Side is, as many here know, at the very end of Summer Avenue, and close to the woods that run along back of Mrs. Clemmens' cottage. I had been sitting alone in the observatory, which is at the top of one of the towers, but being suddenly seized with a desire to see the widow and make that promised attempt at persuading her to reconsider her decision in regard to the money her—her—the prisoner wanted, I came down, and unknown to any one[422] in the house, stole away to the woods and so to the widow's cottage. It was noon when I got there, or very near it, for her company, if she had had any, was gone, and she was engaged in setting the clock where——"

Why did she pause? The District Attorney, utterly stupefied by his surprise, had made no sign; neither had Mr. Orcutt. Indeed, it looked as if the latter could not have moved, much less spoken, even if he had desired it. Thought, feeling, life itself, seemed to be at a standstill within him as he sat with a face like clay, waiting for words whose import he perhaps saw foreshadowed in her wild and terrible mien. But though his aspect was enough to stop her, it was not upon him she was gazing when the words tripped on her lips. It was upon the prisoner, on the man who up to this time had borne himself with such iron-like composure and reserve, but who now, with every sign of feeling and alarm, had started forward and stood surveying her, with his hand uplifted in the authoritative manner of a master.

The next instant he sank back, feeling the eye of the Judge upon him; but the signal had been made, and many in that court-room looked to see Imogene falter or break down. But she, although fascinated, perhaps moved, by this hint of feeling from one who had hitherto met all the exigencies of the hour with a steady and firm composure, did not continue silent at his bidding. On the contrary, her purpose, whatever it was, seemed to acquire new force, for turning from him with a strange, unearthly[423] glare on her face, she fixed her glances on the jury and went steadily on.

"I have said," she began, "that Mrs. Clemmens was winding her clock. When I came in she stepped down, and a short and angry colloquy commenced between us. She did not like my coming there. She did not appreciate my interest in her nephew. She made me furious, frenzied, mad. I—I turned away—then I came back. She was standing with her face lifted toward her clock, as though she no longer heeded or remembered my presence. I—I don't know what came to me; whether it was hatred or love that maddened my brain—but——"

She did not finish; she did not need to. The look she gave, the attitude she took, the appalling gesture which she made, supplied the place of language. In an instant Mr. Ferris, Mr. Orcutt, all the many and confused spectators who hung upon her words as if spell-bound, realized that instead of giving evidence inculpating the prisoner, she was giving evidence accusing herself; that, in other words, Imogene Dare, goaded to madness by the fearful alternative of either destroying her lover or sacrificing herself, had yielded to the claims of her love or her conscience, and in hearing of judge and jury, proclaimed herself to be the murderess of Mrs. Clemmens.

The moment that followed was frightful. The prisoner, who was probably the only man present who foresaw her intention when she began to speak, had sunk back into his seat and covered his face with his hands long before[424] she reached the fatal declaration. But the spectacle presented by Mr. Orcutt was enough, as with eyes dilated and lips half parted in consternation, he stood before them a victim of overwhelming emotion; so overcome, indeed, as scarcely to be able to give vent to the one low and memorable cry that involuntarily left his lips as the full realization of what she had done smote home to his stricken breast.

As for Mr. Ferris, he stood dumb, absolutely robbed of speech by this ghastly confession he had unwillingly called from his witness' lips; while slowly from end to end of that court-room the wave of horror spread, till Imogene, her cause, and that of the wretched prisoner himself, seemed swallowed up in one fearful tide of unreality and nightmare.

The first gleam of relief came from the Judge.

"Miss Dare," said he, in his slow, kindly way that nothing could impair, "do you realize the nature of the evidence you have given to the court?"

Her slowly falling head and white face, from which all the fearful excitement was slowly ebbing in a dead despair, gave answer for her.

"I fear that you are not in a condition to realize the effect of your words," the Judge went on. "Sympathy for the prisoner or the excitement of being recalled to the stand has unnerved or confused you. Take time, Miss Dare, the court will wait; reconsider your words, and then tell us the truth about this matter."[425]

But Imogene, with white lips and drooped head, answered hurriedly:

"I have nothing to consider. I have told, or attempted to tell, how Mrs. Clemmens came to her death. She was struck down by me; Craik Mansell there is innocent."

At this repetition in words of what she had before merely intimated by a gesture, the Judge ceased his questions, and the horror of the multitude found vent in one long, low, but irrepressible murmur. Taking advantage of the momentary disturbance, Byrd turned to his colleague with the agitated inquiry:

"Hickory, is this what you have had in your mind for the last few days?"

"This," repeated the other, with an air of careful consideration, assumed, as Byrd thought, to conceal any emotion which he might have felt; "no, no, not really. I—I don't know what I thought. Not this though." And he fixed his eyes upon Imogene's fallen countenance, with an expression of mingled doubt and wonder, as baffling in its nature as the tone of voice he had used.

"But," stammered Byrd, with an earnestness that almost partook of the nature of pleading, "she is not speaking the truth, of course. What we heard her say in the hut——"

"Hush!" interposed the other, with a significant gesture and a sudden glance toward the prisoner and his counsel; "watching is better than talking just now. Besides, Orcutt is going to speak."[426]

It was so. After a short and violent conflict with the almost overwhelming emotions that had crushed upon him with the words and actions of Imogene, the great lawyer had summoned up sufficient control over himself to reassume the duties of his position and face once more the expectant crowd, and the startled, if not thoroughly benumbed, jury.

His first words had the well-known ring, and, like a puff of cool air through a heated atmosphere, at once restored the court-room to its usual condition of formality and restraint.

"This is not evidence, but the raving of frenzy," he said, in impassioned tones. "The witness has been tortured by the demands of the prosecution, till she is no longer responsible for her words." And turning toward the District Attorney, who, at the first sound of his adversary's voice, had roused himself from the stupor into which he had been thrown by the fearful and unexpected turn which Imogene's confession had taken, he continued: "If my learned friend is not lost to all feelings of humanity, he will withdraw from the stand a witness laboring under a mental aberration of so serious a nature."

Mr. Ferris was an irritable man, but he was touched with sympathy for his friend, reeling under so heavy a blow. He therefore forbore to notice this taunt save by a low bow, but turned at once to the Judge.

"Your Honor," said he, "I desire to be understood by[427] the Court, that the statement which has just been made in your hearing by this witness, is as much of a surprise to me as to any one in this court-room. The fact which I proposed to elicit from her testimony was of an entirely different nature. In the conversation which we held last night——"

But Mr. Orcutt, vacillating between his powerful concern for Imogene, and his duty to his client, would not allow the other to proceed.

"I object," said he, "to any attempt at influencing the jury by the statement of any conversation which may have passed between the District Attorney and the witness. From its effects we may judge something of its nature, but with its details we have nothing to do."

And raising his voice till it filled the room like a clarion, Mr. Orcutt said:

"The moment is too serious for wrangling. A spectacle, the most terrible that can be presented to the eyes of man, is before you. A young, beautiful, and hitherto honored woman, caught in the jaws of a cruel fate and urged on by the emotions of her sex, which turn ever toward self-sacrifice, has, in a moment of mistaken zeal or frantic terror, allowed herself to utter words which sound like a criminal confession. May it please your Honor and Gentlemen of the Jury, this is an act to awaken compassion in the breast of every true man. Neither my client nor myself can regard it in any other light. Though his case were ten times more critical than it is, and condemnation[428] awaited him at your hands instead of a triumphant acquittal, he is not the man I believe him, if he would consent to accept a deliverance founded upon utterances so manifestly frenzied and devoid of truth. I therefore repeat the objection I have before urged. I ask your Honor now to strike out all this testimony as irrelevant in rebuttal, and I beg our learned friend to close an examination as unprofitable to his own cause as to mine."

"I agree with my friend," returned Mr. Ferris, "that the moment is one unfit for controversy. If it please the Court, therefore, I will withdraw the witness, though by so doing I am forced to yield all hope of eliciting the important fact I had relied upon to rebut the defence."

And obedient to the bow of acquiescence he received from the Judge, the District Attorney turned to Miss Dare and considerately requested her to leave the stand.

But she, roused by the sound of her name perhaps, looked up, and meeting the eye of the Judge, said:

"Pardon me, your Honor, but I do not desire to leave the stand till I have made clear to all who hear me that it is I, not the prisoner, who am responsible for Mrs. Clemmens' death. The agony which I have been forced to undergo in giving testimony against him, has earned me the right to say the words that prove his innocence and my own guilt."

"But," said the Judge, "we do not consider you in any condition to give testimony in court to-day, even against[429] yourself. If what you say is true, you shall have ample opportunities hereafter to confirm and establish your statements, for you must know, Miss Dare, that no confession of this nature will be considered sufficient without testimony corroborative of its truth."

"But, your Honor," she returned, with a dreadful calmness, "I have corroborative testimony." And amid the startled looks of all present, she raised her hand and pointed with steady forefinger at the astounded and by-no-means gratified Hickory. "Let that man be recalled," she cried, "and asked to repeat the conversation he had with a young servant-girl called Roxana, in Professor Darling's observatory some ten weeks ago."

The suddenness of her action, the calm assurance with which it was made, together with the intention it evinced of summoning actual evidence to substantiate her confession, almost took away the breath of the assembled multitude. Even Mr. Orcutt seemed shaken by it, and stood looking from the outstretched hand of this woman he so adored, to the abashed countenance of the rough detective, with a wonder that for the first time betrayed the presence of alarm. Indeed, to him as to others, the moment was fuller of horror than when she made her first self-accusation, for what at that time partook of the vagueness of a dream, seemed to be acquiring the substance of an awful reality.

Imogene alone remained unmoved. Still with her eyes fixed on Hickory, she continued:[430]

"He has not told you all he knows about this matter, any more than I. If my word needs corroboration, look to him."

And taking advantage of the sensation which this last appeal occasioned, she waited where she was for the Judge to speak, with all the calmness of one who has nothing more to fear or hope for in this world.

But the Judge sat aghast at this spectacle of youth and beauty insisting upon its own guilt, and neither Mr. Ferris nor Mr. Orcutt having words for this emergency, a silence, deep as the feeling which had been aroused, gradually settled over the whole court. It was fast becoming oppressive, when suddenly a voice, low but firm, and endowed with a strange power to awake and hold the attention, was heard speaking in that quarter of the room whence Mr. Orcutt's commanding tones had so often issued. It was an unknown voice, and for a minute a doubt seemed to rest upon the assembled crowd as to whom it belonged.

But the change that had come into Imogene's face, as well as the character of the words that were uttered, soon convinced them it was the prisoner himself. With a start, every one turned in the direction of the dock. The sight that met their eyes seemed a fit culmination of the scene through which they had just passed. Erect, noble, as commanding in appearance and address as the woman who still held her place on the witness stand, Craik Mansell faced the judge and jury with a quiet, resolute, but[431] courteous assurance, that seemed at once to rob him of the character of a criminal, and set him on a par with the able and honorable men by whom he was surrounded. Yet his words were not those of a belied man, nor was his plea one of innocence.

"I ask pardon," he was saying, "for addressing the court directly; first of all, the pardon of my counsel, whose ability has never been so conspicuous as in this case, and whose just resentment, if he were less magnanimous and noble, I feel I am now about to incur."

Mr. Orcutt turned to him a look of surprise and severity, but the prisoner saw nothing but the face of the Judge, and continued:

"I would have remained silent if the disposition which your Honor and the District Attorney proposed to make of this last testimony were not in danger of reconsideration from the appeal which the witness has just made. I believe, with you, that her testimony should be disregarded. I intend, if I have the power, that it shall be disregarded."

The Judge held up his hand, as if to warn the prisoner and was about to speak.

"I entreat that I may be heard," said Mansell, with the utmost calmness. "I beg the Court not to imagine that I am about to imitate the witness in any sudden or ill-considered attempt at a confession. All I intend is that her self-accusation shall not derive strength or importance from any doubts of my guilt which may[432] spring from the defence which has been interposed in my behalf."

Mr. Orcutt, who, from the moment the prisoner began to speak, had given evidences of a great indecision as to whether he should allow his client to continue or not, started at these words, so unmistakably pointing toward a demolishment of his whole case, and hurriedly rose. But a glance at Imogene seemed to awaken a new train of thought, and he as hurriedly reseated himself.

The prisoner, seeing he had nothing to fear from his counsel's interference, and meeting with no rebuke from the Judge, went calmly on:

"Yesterday I felt differently in regard to this matter. If I could be saved from my fate by a defence seemingly so impregnable, I was willing to be so saved, but to-day I would be a coward and a disgrace to my sex if, in face of the generous action of this woman, I allowed a falsehood of whatever description to place her in peril, or to stand between me and the doom that probably awaits me. Sir," he continued, turning for the first time to Mr. Orcutt, with a gesture of profound respect, "you had been told that the path from Mrs. Clemmens' house to the bridge, and so on to Monteith Quarry Station, could not be traversed in ninety minutes, and you believed it. You were not wrong. It cannot be gone over in that time. But I now say to your Honor and to the jury, that the distance from my aunt's house to the Quarry Station can be made in that number of minutes[433] if a way can be found to cross the river without going around by the bridge. I know," he proceeded, as a torrent of muttered exclamations rose on his ear, foremost among which was that of the much-discomfited Hickory, "that to many of you, to all of you, perhaps, all means for doing this seem to be lacking to the chance wayfarer, but if there were a lumberman here, he would tell you that the logs which are frequently floated down this stream to the station afford an easy means of passage to one accustomed to ride them, as I have been when a lad, during the year I spent in the Maine woods. At all events, it was upon a log that happened to be lodged against the banks, and which I pushed out into the stream by means of the 'pivy' or long spiked pole which I found lying in the grass at its side, that I crossed the river on that fatal day; and if the detective, who has already made such an effort to controvert the defence, will risk an attempt at this expedient for cutting short his route, I have no doubt he will be able to show you that a man can pass from Mrs. Clemmens' house to the station at Monteith Quarry, not only in ninety minutes, but in less, if the exigencies of the case seem to demand it. I did it."

And without a glance at Imogene, but with an air almost lofty in its pride and manly assertion, the prisoner sank back into his seat, and resumed once more his quiet and unshaken demeanor.

This last change in the kaleidoscope of events, that[434] had been shifting before their eyes for the last half hour, was too much for the continued equanimity of a crowd already worked up into a state of feverish excitement. It had become apparent that by stripping away his defence, Mansell left himself naked to the law. In this excitement of the jury, consequent upon the self-accusation of Imogene, the prisoner's admission might prove directly fatal to him. He was on trial for this crime; public justice demanded blood for blood, and public excitement clamored for a victim. It was dangerous to toy with a feeling but one degree removed from the sentiment of a mob. The jury might not stop to sympathize with the self-abnegation of these two persons willing to die for each other. They might say: "The way is clear as to the prisoner at least; he has confessed his defence is false; the guilty interpose false defences; we are acquit before God and men if we convict him out of his own mouth."

The crowd in the court-room was saying all this and more, each man to his neighbor. A clamor of voices next to impossible to suppress rose over the whole room, and not even the efforts of the officers of the court, exerted to their full power in the maintenance of order, could have hushed the storm, had not the spectators become mute with expectation at seeing Mr. Ferris and Mr. Orcutt, summoned by a sign from the Judge, advance to the front of the bench and engage in an earnest conference with the Court. A few minutes afterward the[435] Judge turned to the jury and announced that the disclosures of the morning demanded a careful consideration by the prosecution, that an adjournment was undoubtedly indispensable, and that the jury should refrain from any discussion of the case, even among themselves, until it was finally given them under the charge of the Court. The jury expressed their concurrence by an almost unanimous gesture of assent, and the crier proclaimed an adjournment until the next day at ten o'clock.

Imogene, still sitting in the witness chair, saw the prisoner led forth by the jailer without being able to gather, in the whirl of the moment, any indication that her dreadful sacrifice—for she had made wreck of her life in the eyes of the world whether her confession were true or false—had accomplished any thing save to drive the man she loved to the verge of that doom from which she had sought to deliver him.

[436]

XXXV. PRO AND CON

Hamlet.—Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel?
Polonius.—By the mass, and 'tis like a camel indeed.
Hamlet.—Methinks it is like a weasel.
Polonius.—It is back'd like a weasel. —HAMLET.

SHORTLY after the adjournment of court, Mr. Ferris summoned the two detectives to his office.

"We have a serious question before us to decide," said he. "Are we to go on with the prosecution or are we to stop? I should like to hear your views on the subject."

Hickory was, as usual, the first to speak.

"I should say, stop," he cried. "This fresh applicant for the honor of having slain the Widow Clemmens deserves a hearing at least."

"But," hurriedly interposed Byrd, "you don't give any credit to her story now, even if you did before the prisoner spoke? You know she did not commit the crime herself, whatever she may choose to declare in her anxiety to shield the prisoner. I hope, sir," he proceeded, glancing at the District Attorney, "that you have no doubts as to Miss Dare's innocence?"

But Mr. Ferris, instead of answering, turned to Hickory and said:[437]

"Miss Dare, in summoning you to confirm her statement, relied, I suppose, upon the fact of your having been told by Professor Darling's servant-maid that she—that is, Miss Dare—was gone from the observatory when the girl came for her on the morning of the murder?"

"Yes, sir."

"A strong corroborative fact, if true?"

"Yes, sir."

"But is it true? In the explanation which Miss Dare gave me last night of this affair, she uttered statements essentially different from those she made in court to-day. She then told me she was in the observatory when the girl came for her; that she was looking through a telescope which was behind a high rack filled with charts; and that—— Why do you start?"

"I didn't start," protested Hickory.

"I beg your pardon," returned Mr. Ferris.

"Well, then, if I did make such a fool of myself, it was because so far her story is plausible enough. She was in that very position when I visited the observatory, you remember, and she was so effectually concealed I didn't see her or know she was there, till I looked behind the rack."

"Very good!" interjected Mr. Ferris. "And that," he resumed, "she did not answer the girl or make known her presence, because at the moment the girl came in she was deeply interested in watching something that was going on in the town."[438]

"In the town!" repeated Byrd.

"Yes; the telescope was lowered so as to command a view of the town, and she had taken advantage of its position (as she assured me last night) to consult the church clock."

"The church clock!" echoed Byrd once more. "And what time did she say it was?" breathlessly cried both detectives.

"Five minutes to twelve."

"A critical moment," ejaculated Byrd. "And what was it she saw going on in the town at that especial time?"

"I will tell you," returned the District Attorney, impressively. "She said—and I believed her last night and so recalled her to the stand this morning—that she saw Craik Mansell fleeing toward the swamp from Mrs. Clemmens' dining-room door."

Both men looked up astonished.

"That was what she told me last night. To-day she comes into court with this contradictory story of herself being the assailant and sole cause of Mrs. Clemmens' death."

"But all that is frenzy," protested Byrd. "She probably saw from your manner that the prisoner was lost if she gave this fact to the court, and her mind became disordered. She evidently loves this Mansell, and as for me, I pity her."

"So do I," assented the District Attorney; "still——"[439]

"Is it possible," Byrd interrupted, with feeling, as Mr. Ferris hesitated, "that you do doubt her innocence? After the acknowledgments made by the prisoner too?"

Rising from his seat, Mr. Ferris began slowly to pace the floor.

"I should like each of you," said he, without answering the appeal of Byrd, "to tell me why I should credit what she told me in conversation last night rather than what she uttered upon oath in the court-room to-day?"

"Let me speak first," rejoined Byrd, glancing at Hickory. And, rising also, he took his stand against the mantel-shelf where he could partially hide his face from those he addressed. "Sir," he proceeded, after a moment, "both Hickory and myself know Miss Dare to be innocent of this murder. A circumstance which we have hitherto kept secret, but which in justice to Miss Dare I think we are now bound to make known, has revealed to us the true criminal. Hickory, tell Mr. Ferris of the deception you practised upon Miss Dare in the hut."

The surprised, but secretly gratified, detective at once complied. He saw no reason for keeping quiet about that day's work. He told how, by means of a letter purporting to come from Mansell, he had decoyed Imogene to an interview in the hut, where, under the supposition she was addressing her lover, she had betrayed her conviction of his guilt, and advised him to confess it.

Mr. Ferris listened with surprise and great interest.

"That seems to settle the question," he said.[440]

But it was now Hickory's turn to shake his head.

"I don't know," he remonstrated. "I have sometimes thought she saw through the trick and turned it to her own advantage."

"How to her own advantage?"

"To talk in such a way as to make us think Mansell was guilty."

"Stuff!" said Byrd; "that woman?"

"More unaccountable things have happened," was the weak reply of Hickory, his habitual state of suspicion leading him more than once into similar freaks of folly.

"Sir," said Mr. Byrd, confidingly, to the District Attorney, "let us run over this matter from the beginning. Starting with the supposition that the explanation she gave you last night was the true one, let us see if the whole affair does not hang together in a way to satisfy us all as to where the real guilt lies. To begin, then, with the meeting in the woods——"

"Wait," interrupted Hickory; "there is going to be an argument here; so suppose you give your summary of events from the lady's standpoint, as that seems to be the one which interests you most."

"I was about to do so," Horace assured him, heedless of the rough fellow's good-natured taunt. "To make my point, it is absolutely necessary for us to transfer ourselves into her position and view matters as they gradually unfolded themselves before her eyes. First, then, as I have before suggested, let us consider the interview held by[441] this man and woman in the woods. Miss Dare, as we must remember, was not engaged to Mr. Mansell; she only loved him. Their engagement, to say nothing of their marriage, depended upon his success in life—a success which to them seemed to hang solely upon the decision of Mrs. Clemmens concerning the small capital he desired her to advance him. But in the interview which Mansell had held with his aunt previous to the meeting between the lovers, Mrs. Clemmens had refused to loan him this money, and Miss Dare, whose feelings we are endeavoring to follow, found herself beset by the entreaties of a man who, having failed in his plans for future fortune, feared the loss of her love as well. What was the natural consequence? Rebellion against the widow's decision, of course,—a rebellion which she showed by the violent gesture which she made;—and then a determination to struggle for her happiness, as she evinced when, with most unhappy ambiguity of expression, she begged him to wait till the next day before pressing his ring upon her acceptance, because, as she said:

"'A night has been known to change the whole current of a person's affairs.'

"To her, engrossed with the one idea of making a personal effort to alter Mrs. Clemmens' mind on the money question, these words seemed innocent enough. But the look with which he received them, and the pause that followed, undoubtedly impressed her, and prepared the way for the interest she manifested when, upon looking[442] through the telescope the next day, she saw him flying in that extraordinary way from his aunt's cottage toward the woods. Not that she then thought of his having committed a crime. As I trace her mental experience, she did not come to that conclusion till it was forced upon her. I do not know, and so cannot say, how she first heard of the murder——"

"She was told of it on the street-corner," interpolated Mr. Ferris.

"Ah, well, then, fresh from this vision of her lover hasting from his aunt's door to hide himself in the woods beyond, she came into town and was greeted by the announcement that Mrs. Clemmens had just been assaulted by a tramp in her own house. I know this was the way in which the news was told her, from the expression of her face as she entered the house. I was standing at the gate, you remember, when she came up, and her look had in it determination and horror, but no special fear. In fact, the words she dropped show the character of her thoughts at that time. She distinctly murmured in my hearing: 'No good can come of it, none.' As if her mind were dwelling upon the advantages which might accrue to her lover from his aunt's death, and weighing them against the foul means by which that person's end had been hastened. Yet I will not say but she may have been influenced in the course which she took by some doubt or apprehension of her own. The fact that she came to the house at all, and, having come, insisted upon knowing all[443] the details of the assault, seem to prove she was not without a desire to satisfy herself that suspicion rightfully attached itself to the tramp. But not until she saw her lover's ring on the floor (the ring which she had with her own hand dropped into the pocket of his coat the day before) and heard that the tramp had justified himself and was no longer considered the assailant, did her true fear and horror come. Then, indeed, all the past rose up before her, and, believing her lover guilty of this crime, she laid claim to the jewel as the first and only alternative that offered by which she might stand between him and the consequences of his guilt. Her subsequent agitation when the dying woman made use of the exclamation that indissolubly connected the crime with a ring, speaks for itself. Nor was her departure from the house any too hurried or involuntary, when you consider that the vengeance invoked by the widow, was, in Miss Dare's opinion, called down upon one to whom she had nearly plighted her troth. What is the next act in the drama? The scene in the Syracuse depot. Let me see if I cannot explain it. A woman who has once allowed herself to suspect the man she loves of a murderous deed, cannot rest till she has either convinced herself that her suspicions are false, or until she has gained such knowledge of the truth as makes her feel justified in her seeming treason. A woman of Miss Dare's generous nature especially. What does she do, then? With the courage that characterizes all her movements, she determines upon seeing[444] him, and from his own lips, perhaps, win a confession of guilt or innocence. Conceiving that his flight was directed toward the Quarry Station, and thence to Buffalo, she embraced the first opportunity to follow him to the latter place. As I have told you, her ticket was bought for Buffalo, and to Buffalo she evidently intended going. But chancing to leave the cars at Syracuse, she was startled by encountering in the depot the very man with whom she had been associating thoughts of guilt. Shocked and thrown off her guard by the unexpectedness of the occurrence, she betrays her shrinking and her horror. 'Were you coming to see me?' she asks, and recoils, while he, conscious at the first glimpse of her face that his guilt has cost him her love, starts back also, uttering, in his shame and despair, words that were similar to hers, 'Were you coming to see me?'"

"Convinced without further speech, that her worst fears had foundation in fact, she turns back toward her home. The man she loved had committed a crime. That it was partly for her sake only increased her horror sevenfold. She felt as if she were guilty also, and, with sudden remorse, remembered how, instead of curbing his wrath the day before she had inflamed it by her words, if not given direction to it by her violent gestures. That fact, and the self-blame it produced, probably is the cause why her love did not vanish with her hopes. Though he was stained by guilt, she felt that it was the guilt of a strong nature driven from its bearings by the conjunction[445] of two violent passions,—ambition and love; and she being passionate and ambitious herself, remained attached to the man while she recoiled from his crime.

"This being so, she could not, as a woman, wish him to suffer the penalty of his wickedness. Though lost to her, he must not be lost to the world. So, with the heroism natural to such a nature, she shut the secret up in her own breast, and faced her friends with courage, wishing, if not hoping, that the matter would remain the mystery it promised to be when she stood with us in the presence of the dying woman.

"But this was not to be, for suddenly, in the midst of her complacency, fell the startling announcement that another man—an innocent man—one, too, of her lover's own standing, if not hopes, had by a curious conjunction of events so laid himself open to the suspicion of the authorities as to be actually under arrest for this crime. 'Twas a danger she had not foreseen, a result for which she was not prepared.

"Startled and confounded she let a few days go by in struggle and indecision, possibly hoping, with the blind trust of her sex, that Mr. Hildreth would be released without her interference. But Mr. Hildreth was not released, and her anxiety was fast becoming unendurable, when that decoy letter sent by Hickory reached her, awakening in her breast for the first time, perhaps, the hope that Mansell would show himself to be a true man in this extremity, and by a public confession of guilt release[446] her from the task of herself supplying the information which would lead to his commitment.

"And, perhaps, if it had really fallen to the lot of Mansell to confront her in the hut and listen to her words of adjuration and appeal, he might have been induced to consent to her wishes. But a detective sat there instead of her lover, and the poor woman lived to see the days go by without any movement being made to save Mr. Hildreth. At last—was it the result of the attempt made by this man upon his life?—she put an end to the struggle by acting for herself. Moved by a sense of duty, despite her love, she sent the letter which drew attention to her lover, and paved the way for that trial which has occupied our attention for so many days. But—mark this, for I think it is the only explanation of her whole conduct—the sense of justice that upheld her in this duty was mingled with the hope that her lover would escape conviction if he did not trial. The one fact which told the most against him—I allude to his flight from his aunt's door on the morning of the murder, as observed by her through the telescope—was as yet a secret in her own breast, and there she meant it to remain unless it was drawn forth by actual question. But it was not a fact likely to be made the subject of question, and drawing hope from that consideration, she prepared herself for the ordeal before her, determined, as I actually believe, to answer with truth all the inquiries that were put to her.[447]

"But in an unexpected hour she learned that the detectives were anxious to know where she was during the time of the murder. She heard Hickory question Professor Darling's servant-girl, as to whether she was still in the observatory, and at once feared that her secret was discovered. Feared, I say—I conjecture this,—but what I do not conjecture is that with the fear, or doubt, or whatever emotion it was she cherished, a revelation came of the story she might tell if worst came to worst, and she found herself forced to declare what she saw when the clock stood at five minutes to twelve on that fatal day. Think of your conversation with the girl Roxana," he went on to Hickory, "and then think of that woman crouching behind the rack, listening to your words, and see if you can draw any other conclusion from the expression of her face than that of triumph at seeing a way to deliver her lover at the sacrifice of herself."

As Byrd waited for a reply, Hickory reluctantly acknowledged:

"Her look was a puzzler, that I will allow. She seemed glad——"

"There," cried Byrd, "you say she seemed glad; that is enough. Had she had the weight of this crime upon her conscience, she would have betrayed a different emotion from that. I pray you to consider the situation," he proceeded, turning to the District Attorney, "for on it hangs your conviction of her innocence. First, imagine her guilty. What would her feelings be, as, hiding unseen[448] in that secret corner, she hears a detective's voice inquiring where she was when the fatal blow was struck, and hears the answer given that she was not where she was supposed to be, but in the woods—the woods which she and every one know lead so directly to Mrs. Clemmens' house, she could without the least difficulty hasten there and back in the hour she was observed to be missing? Would she show gladness or triumph even of a wild or delirious order? No, even Hickory cannot say she would. Now, on the contrary, see her as I do, crouched there in the very place before the telescope which she occupied when the girl came to the observatory before, but unseen now as she was unseen then, and watch the change that takes place in her countenance as she hears question and answer and realizes what confirmation she would receive from this girl if she ever thought fit to declare that she was not in the observatory when the girl sought her there on the day of the murder. That by this act she would bring execration if not death upon herself, she does not stop to consider. Her mind is full of what she can do for her lover, and she does not think of herself.

"But an enthusiasm like this is too frenzied to last. As time passes by and Craik Mansell is brought to trial, she begins to hope she may be spared this sacrifice. She therefore responds with perfect truth when summoned to the stand to give evidence, and does not waver, though question after question is asked her, whose answers cannot fail to show the state of her mind in regard to the[449] prisoner's guilt. Life and honor are sweet even to one in her condition; and if her lover could be saved without falsehood it was her natural instinct to avoid it.

"And it looked as if he would be saved. A defence both skilful and ingenious had been advanced for him by his counsel—a defence which only the one fact so securely locked in her bosom could controvert. You can imagine, then, the horror and alarm which must have seized her when, in the very hour of hope, you approached her with the demand which proved that her confidence in her power to keep silence had been premature, and that the alternative was yet to be submitted to her of destroying her lover or sacrificing herself. Yet, because a great nature does not succumb without a struggle, she tried even now the effect of the truth upon you, and told you the one fact she considered so detrimental to the safety of her lover.

"The result was fatal. Though I cannot presume to say what passed between you, I can imagine how the change in your countenance warned her of the doom she would bring upon Mansell if she went into court with the same story she told you. Nor do I find it difficult to imagine how, in one of her history and temperament, a night of continuous brooding over this one topic should have culminated in the act which startled us so profoundly in the court-room this morning. Love, misery, devotion are not mere names to her, and the greatness which sustained her through the ordeal of denouncing her lover in[450] order that an innocent man might be relieved from suspicion, was the same that made it possible for her to denounce herself that she might redeem the life she had thus deliberately jeopardized.

"That she did this with a certain calmness and dignity proves it to have been the result of design. A murderess forced by conscience into confession would not have gone into the details of her crime, but blurted out her guilt, and left the details to be drawn from her by question. Only the woman anxious to tell her story with the plausibility necessary to insure its belief would have planned and carried on her confession as she did.

"The action of the prisoner, in face of this proof of devotion, though it might have been foreseen by a man, was evidently not foreseen by her. To me, who watched her closely at the time, her face wore a strange look of mingled satisfaction and despair,—satisfaction in having awakened his manhood, despair at having failed in saving him. But it is not necessary for me to dilate on this point. If I have been successful in presenting before you the true condition of her mind during this struggle, you will see for yourself what her feelings must be now that her lover has himself confessed to a fact, to hide which she made the greatest sacrifice of which mortal is capable."

Mr. Ferris, who, during this lengthy and exhaustive harangue, had sat with brooding countenance and an anxious mien, roused himself as the other ceased, and glanced with a smile at Hickory.[451]

"Well," said he, "that's good reasoning; now let us hear how you will go to work to demolish it."

The cleared brow, the playful tone of the District Attorney showed the relieved state of his mind. Byrd's arguments had evidently convinced him of the innocence of Imogene Dare.

Hickory, seeing it, shook his head with a gloomy air.

"Sir," said he, "I can't demolish it. If I could tell why Mansell fled from Widow Clemmens' house at five minutes to twelve I might be able to do so, but that fact stumps me. It is an act consistent with guilt. It may be consistent with innocence, but, as we don't know all the facts, we can't say so. But this I do know, that my convictions with regard to that man have undergone a change. I now as firmly believe in his innocence as I once did in his guilt."

"What has produced the change?" asked Mr. Ferris.

"Well," said Hickory, "it all lies in this. From the day I heard Miss Dare accuse him so confidently in the hut, I believed him guilty; from the moment he withdrew his defence, I believed him innocent."

Mr. Ferris and Mr. Byrd looked at him astonished. He at once brought down his fist in vigorous assertion on the table.

"I tell you," said he, "that Craik Mansell is innocent. The truth is, he believes Miss Dare guilty, and so stands his trial, hoping to save her."

"And be hung for her crime?" asked Mr. Ferris.[452]

"No; he thinks his innocence will save him, in spite of the evidence on which we got him indicted."

But the District Attorney protested at this.

"That can't be," said he; "Mansell has withdrawn the only defence he had."

"On the contrary," asserted Hickory, "that very thing only proves my theory true. He is still determined to save Miss Dare by every thing short of a confession of his own guilt. He won't lie. That man is innocent."

"And Miss Dare is guilty?" said Byrd.

"Shall I make it clear to you in the way it has become clear to Mr. Mansell?"

As Byrd only answered by a toss of his head, Hickory put his elbows on the table, and checking off every sentence with the forefinger of his right hand, which he pointed at Mr. Ferris' shirt-stud, as if to instil from its point conviction into that gentleman's bosom, he proceeded with the utmost composure as follows:

"To commence, then, with the scene in the woods. He meets her. She is as angry at his aunt as he is. What does she do? She strikes the tree with her hand, and tells him to wait till to-morrow, since a night has been known to change the whole current of a person's affairs. Now tell me what does that mean? Murder? If so, she was the one to originate it. He can't forget that. It has stamped itself upon Mansell's memory, and when, after the assassination of Mrs. Clemmens, he recalls those words, he is convinced that she has slain Mrs. Clemmens to help him."[453]

"But, Mr. Hickory," objected Mr. Ferris, "this assumes that Mr. Mansell is innocent, whereas we have exceedingly cogent proof that he is the guilty party. There is the circumstance of his leaving Widow Clemmens' house at five minutes to twelve."

To which Hickory, with a twinkle in his eye, replied:

"I won't discuss that; it hasn't been proved, you know. Miss Dare told you she saw him do this, but she wouldn't swear to it. Nothing is to be taken for granted against my man."

"Then you think Miss Dare spoke falsely?"

"I don't say that. I believe that whatever he did could be explained if we knew as much about it as he does. But I'm not called upon to explain any thing which has not appeared in the evidence against him."

"Well, then, we'll take the evidence. There is his ring, found on the scene of murder."

"Exactly," rejoined Hickory. "Dropped there, as he must suppose, by Miss Dare, because he didn't know she had secretly restored it to his pocket."

Mr. Ferris smiled.

"You don't see the force of the evidence," said he. "As she had restored it to his pocket, he must have been the one to drop it there."

"I am willing to admit he dropped it there, not that he killed Mrs. Clemmens. I am now speaking of his suspicions as to the assassin. When the betrothal ring[454] was found there, he suspects Miss Dare of the crime, and nothing has occurred to change his suspicions."

"But," said the District Attorney, "how does your client, Mr. Mansell, get over this difficulty; that Miss Dare, who has committed a murder to put five thousand dollars into his pocket, immediately afterward turns round and accuses him of the crime—nay more, furnishes evidence against him!"

"You can't expect the same consistency from a woman as from a man. They can nerve themselves up one moment to any deed of desperation, and take every pains the next to conceal it by a lie."

"Men will do the same; then why not Mansell?"

"I am showing you why I know that Mansell believes Miss Dare guilty of a murder. To continue, then. What does he do when he hears that his aunt has been murdered? He scratches out the face of Miss Dare in a photograph; he ties up her letters with a black ribbon as if she were dead and gone to him. Then the scene in the Syracuse depot! The rule of three works both ways, Mr. Byrd, and if she left her home to solve her doubts, what shall be said of him? The recoil, too—was it less on his part than hers? And, if she had cause to gather guilt from his manner, had he not as much cause to gather it from hers? If his mind was full of suspicion when he met her, it became conviction before he left; and, bearing that fact in your mind, watch how he henceforth conducted himself. He does not come to Sibley;[455] the woman he fears to encounter is there. He hears of Mr. Hildreth's arrest, reads of the discoveries which led to it, and keeps silent. So would any other man have done in his place, at least till he saw whether this arrest was likely to end in trial. But he cannot forget he had been in Sibley on the fatal day, or that there may be some one who saw his interview with Miss Dare. When Byrd comes to him, therefore, and tells him he is wanted in Sibley, his first question is, 'Am I wanted as a witness?' and, even you have acknowledged, Mr. Ferris, that he seemed surprised to find himself accused of the crime. But, accused, he takes his course and keeps to it. Brought to trial, he remembers the curious way in which he crossed the river, and thus cut short the road to the station; and, seeing in it great opportunities for a successful defence, chooses Mr. Orcutt for his counsel, and trusts the secret to him. The trial goes on; acquittal seems certain, when suddenly she is recalled to the stand, and he hears words which make him think she is going to betray him by some falsehood, when, instead of following the lead of the prosecution, she launches into a personal confession. What does he do? Why, rise and hold up his hand in a command for her to stop. But she does not heed, and the rest follows as a matter of course. The life she throws away he will not accept. He is innocent, but his defence is false! He says so, and leaves the jury to decide on the verdict. There can be no doubt," Hickory finally concluded, "that some of[456] these circumstances are consistent only with his belief that Miss Dare is a murderess: such, for instance, as his scratching out her face in the picture. Others favor the theory in a less degree, but this is what I want to impress upon both your minds," he declared, turning first to Mr. Ferris and then to Mr. Byrd: "If any fact, no matter how slight, leads us to the conviction that Craik Mansell, at any time after the murder, entertained the belief that Miss Dare committed it, his innocence follows as a matter of course. For the guilty could never entertain a belief in the guilt of any other person."

"Yes," said Mr. Ferris, "I admit that, but we have got to see into Mr. Mansell's mind before we can tell what his belief really was."

"No," was Hickory's reply; "let us look at his actions. I say that that defaced picture is conclusive. One day he loves that woman and wants her to marry him; the next, he defaces her picture. Why? She had not offended him. Not a word, not a line, passes between them to cause him to commit this act. But he does hear of his aunt's murder, and he does recall her sinister promise: 'Wait; there is no telling what a day will bring forth.' I say that no other cause for his act is shown except his conviction that she is a murderess."

"But," persisted Mr. Ferris, "his leaving the house, as he acknowledges he did, by this unfrequented and circuitous road?"

"I have said before that I cannot explain his presence[457] there, or his flight. All I am now called upon to show is, some fact inconsistent with any thing except a belief in this young woman's guilt. I claim I have shown it, and, as you admit, Mr. Ferris, if I show that, he is innocent."

"Yes," said Byrd, speaking for the first time; "but we have heard of people manufacturing evidence in their own behalf."

"Come, Byrd," replied Hickory, "you don't seriously mean to attack my position with that suggestion. How could a man dream of manufacturing evidence of such a character? A murderer manufactures evidence to throw suspicion on other people. No fool could suppose that scratching out the face of a girl in a photograph and locking it up in his own desk, would tend to bring her to the scaffold, or save him from it."

"And, yet," rejoined Byrd, "that very act acquits him in your eyes. All that is necessary is to give him credit for being smart enough to foresee that it would have such a tendency in the eyes of any person who discovered the picture."

"Then," said Hickory, "he would also have to foresee that she would accuse herself of murder when he was on trial for it, and that he would thereupon withdraw his defence. Byrd, you are foreseeing too much. My friend Mansell possesses no such power of looking into the future as that."

"Your friend Mansell!" repeated Mr. Ferris, with a smile. "If you were on his jury, I suppose your bias in his favor would lead you to acquit him of this crime?"[458]

"I should declare him 'Not guilty,' and stick to it, if I had to be locked up for a year."

Mr. Ferris sank into an attitude of profound thought. Horace Byrd, impressed by this, looked at him anxiously.

"Have your convictions been shaken by Hickory's ingenious theory?" he ventured to inquire at last.

Mr. Ferris abstractedly replied:

"This is no time for me to state my convictions. It is enough that you comprehend my perplexity." And, relapsing into his former condition, he remained for a moment wrapped in silence, then he said: "Byrd, how comes it that the humpback who excited so much attention on the day of the murder was never found?"

Byrd, astonished, surveyed the District Attorney with a doubtful look that gradually changed into one of quiet satisfaction as he realized the significance of this recurrence to old theories and suspicions. His answer, however, was slightly embarrassed in tone, though frank enough to remind one of Hickory's blunt-spoken admissions.

"Well," said he, "I suppose the main reason is that I made no attempt to find him."

"Do you think that you were wise in that, Mr. Byrd?" inquired Mr. Ferris, with some severity.

Horace laughed.

"I can find him for you to-day, if you want him," he declared.

"You can? You know him, then?"[459]

"Very well. Mr. Ferris," he courteously remarked, "I perhaps should have explained to you at the time, that I recognized this person and knew him to be an honest man; but the habits of secrecy in our profession are so fostered by the lives we lead, that we sometimes hold our tongue when it would be better for us to speak. The humpback who talked with us on the court-house steps the morning Mrs. Clemmens was murdered, was not what he seemed, sir. He was a detective; a detective in disguise; a man with whom I never presume to meddle—in other words, our famous Mr. Gryce."

"Gryce!—that man!" exclaimed Mr. Ferris, astounded.

"Yes, sir. He was in disguise, probably for some purpose of his own, but I knew his eye. Gryce's eye isn't to be mistaken by any one who has much to do with him."

"And that famous detective was actually on the spot at the time this murder was discovered, and you let him go without warning me of his presence?"

"Sir," returned Mr. Byrd, "neither you nor I nor any one at that time could foresee what a serious and complicated case this was going to be. Besides, he did not linger in this vicinity, but took the cars only a few minutes after he parted from us. I did not think he wanted to be dragged into this affair unless it was necessary. He had important matters of his own to look after. However, if suspicion had continued to follow him, I should have[460] notified him of the fact, and let him speak for himself. But it vanished so quickly in the light of other developments, I just let the matter drop."

The impatient frown with which Mr. Ferris received this acknowledgment showed he was not pleased.

"I think you made a mistake," said he. Then, after a minute's thought, added: "You have seen Gryce since?"

"Yes, sir; several times."

"And he acknowledged himself to have been the humpback?"

"Yes, sir."

"You must have had some conversation with him, then, about this murder? He was too nearly concerned in it not to take some interest in the affair?"

"Yes, sir; Gryce takes an interest in all murder cases."

"Well, then, what did he have to say about this one? He gave an opinion, I suppose?"

"No, sir. Gryce never gives an opinion without study, and we detectives have no time to study up an affair not our own. If you want to know what Gryce thinks about a crime, you have got to put the case into his hands."

Mr. Ferris paused and seemed to ruminate. Seeing this, Mr. Byrd flushed and cast a side glance at Hickory, who returned him an expressive shrug.

"Mr. Ferris," ventured the former, "if you wish to[461] consult with Mr. Gryce on this matter, do not hesitate because of us. Both Hickory and myself acknowledge we are more or less baffled by this case, and Gryce's judgment is a good thing to have in a perplexity."

"You think so?" queried the District Attorney.

"I do," said Byrd.

Mr. Ferris glanced at Hickory.

"Oh, have the old man here if you want him," was that detective's blunt reply. "I have nothing to say against your getting all the light you can on this affair."

"Very good," returned Mr. Ferris. "You may give me his address before you go."

"His address for to-night is Utica," observed Byrd. "He could be here before morning, if you wanted him."

"I am in no such hurry as that," returned Mr. Ferris, and he sank again into thought.

The detectives took advantage of his abstraction to utter a few private condolences in each other's ears.

"So it seems we are to be laid on the shelf," whispered Hickory.

"Yes, for which let us be thankful," answered Byrd.

"Why? Are you getting tired of the affair?"

"Yes."

A humorous twinkle shone for a minute in Hickory's eye.

"Pooh!" said he, "it's just getting interesting."[462]

"Opinions differ," quoth Byrd.

"Not much," retorted Hickory.

Something in the way he said this made Byrd look at him more intently. He instantly changed his tone.

"Old fellow," said he, "you don't believe Miss Dare committed this crime any more than I do."

A sly twinkle answered him from the detective's half-shut eye.

"All that talk of having seen through your disguise in the hut is just nonsense on your part to cover up your real notion about it. What is that notion, Hickory? Come, out with it; let us understand each other thoroughly at last."

"Do I understand you?"

"You shall, when you tell me just what your convictions are in this matter."

"Well, then," replied Hickory, with a short glance at Mr. Ferris, "I believe (it's hard as pulling teeth to own it) that neither of them did it: that she thought him guilty and he thought her so, but that in reality the crime lies at the door of some third party totally disconnected with either of them."

"Such as Gouverneur Hildreth?" whispered Byrd.

"Such—as—Gouverneur Hildreth," drawled Hickory.

The two detectives eyed each other, smiled, and turned with relieved countenances toward the District Attorney. He was looking at them with great earnestness.[463]

"That is your joint opinion?" he remarked.

"It is mine," cried Hickory, bringing his fist down on the table with a vim that made every individual article on it jump.

"It is and it is not mine," acquiesced Byrd, as the eye of Mr. Ferris turned in his direction. "Mr. Mansell may be innocent—indeed, after hearing Hickory's explanation of his conduct, I am ready to believe he is—but to say that Gouverneur Hildreth is guilty comes hard to me after the long struggle I have maintained in favor of his innocence. Yet, what other conclusion remains after an impartial view of the subject? None. Then why should I shrink from acknowledging I was at fault, or hesitate to admit a defeat where so many causes combined to mislead me?"

"Which means you agree with Hickory?" ventured the District Attorney.

Mr. Byrd slowly bowed.

Mr. Ferris continued for a moment looking alternately from one to the other; then he observed:

"When two such men unite in an opinion, it is at least worthy of consideration." And, rising, he took on an aspect of sudden determination. "Whatever may be the truth in regard to this matter," said he, "one duty is clear. Miss Dare, as you inform me, has been—with but little idea of the consequences, I am sure—allowed to remain under the impression that the interview which she held in the hut was with her lover. As her belief in the[464] prisoner's guilt doubtless rests upon the admissions which were at that time made in her hearing, it is palpable that a grave injustice has been done both to her and to him by leaving this mistake of hers uncorrected. I therefore consider it due to Miss Dare, as well as to the prisoner, to undeceive her on this score before another hour has passed over our heads. I must therefore request you, Mr. Byrd, to bring the lady here. You will find her still in the court-house, I think, as she requested leave to remain in the room below till the crowd had left the streets."

Mr. Byrd, who, in the new light which had been thrown on the affair by his own and Hickory's suppositions, could not but see the justice of this, rose with alacrity to obey.

"I will bring her if she is in the building," he declared, hurriedly leaving the room.

"And if she is not," Mr. Ferris remarked, with a glance at the consciously rebuked Hickory, "we shall have to follow her to her home, that is all. I am determined to see this woman's mind cleared of all misapprehensions before I take another step in the way of my duty.

[465]"

XXXVI. A MISTAKE RECTIFIED

If circumstances lead me, I will find
Where truth is hid, though it were hid, indeed,
Within the centre. —HAMLET.

IF Mr. Ferris, in seeking this interview with Miss Dare, had been influenced by any hope of finding her in an unsettled and hesitating state of mind, he was effectually undeceived, when, after a few minutes' absence, Mr. Byrd returned with her to his presence. Though her physical strength was nearly exhausted, and she looked quite pale and worn, there was a steady gleam in her eye, which spoke of an unshaken purpose.

Seeing it, and noting the forced humility with which she awaited his bidding at the threshold, the District Attorney, for the first time perhaps, realized the power of this great, if perverted, nature, and advancing with real kindness to the door, he greeted her with as much deference as he ever showed to ladies, and gravely pushed toward her a chair.

She did not take it. On the contrary, she drew back a step, and looked at him in some doubt, but a sudden glimpse of Hickory's sturdy figure in the corner seemed to reassure her, and merely stopping to acknowledge Mr. Ferris' courtesy by a bow, she glided forward and took her stand by the chair he had provided.[466]

A short and, on his part, somewhat embarrassing pause followed. It was broken by her.

"You sent for me," she suggested. "You perhaps want some explanation of my conduct, or some assurance that the confession I made before the court to-day was true?"

If Mr. Ferris had needed any further proof than he had already received that Imogene Dare, in presenting herself before the world as a criminal, had been actuated by a spirit of devotion to the prisoner, he would have found it in the fervor and unconscious dignity with which she uttered these few words. But he needed no such proof. Giving her, therefore, a look full of grave significance, he replied:

"No, Miss Dare. After my experience of the ease with which you can contradict yourself in matters of the most serious import, you will pardon me if I say that the truth or falsehood of your words must be arrived at by some other means than any you yourself can offer. My business with you at this time is of an entirely different nature. Instead of listening to further confessions from you, it has become my duty to offer one myself. Not on my own behalf," he made haste to explain, as she looked up, startled, "but on account of these men, who, in their anxiety to find out who murdered Mrs. Clemmens, made use of means and resorted to deceptions which, if their superiors had been consulted, would not have been countenanced for a moment."[467]

"I do not understand," she murmured, looking at the two detectives with a wonder that suddenly merged into alarm as she noticed the embarrassment of the one and the decided discomfiture of the other.

Mr. Ferris at once resumed:

"In the weeks that have elapsed since the commission of this crime, it has been my lot to subject you to much mental misery, Miss Dare. Provided by yourself with a possible clue to the murder, I have probed the matter with an unsparing hand. Heedless of the pain I was inflicting, or the desperation to which I was driving you, I asked you questions and pressed you for facts as long as there seemed questions to ask or facts to be gained. My duty and the claims of my position demanded this, and for it I can make no excuse, notwithstanding the unhappy results that have ensued. But, Miss Dare, whatever anxiety I may have shown in procuring the conviction of a man I believed to be a criminal, I have never wished to win my case at the expense of justice and right; and had I been told before you came to the stand that you had been made the victim of a deception calculated to influence your judgment, I should have hastened to set you right with the same anxiety as I do now."

"Sir—sir——" she began.

But Mr. Ferris would not listen.

"Miss Dare," he proceeded with all the gravity of conviction, "you have uttered a deliberate perjury in the court-room to-day. You said that you alone were responsible[468] for the murder of Mrs. Clemmens, whereas you not only did not commit the crime yourself but were not even an accessory to it. Wait!" he commanded, as she flashed upon him a look full of denial, "I would rather you did not speak. The motive for this calumny you uttered upon yourself lies in a fact which may be modified by what I have to reveal. Hear me, then, before you stain yourself still further by a falsehood you will not only be unable to maintain, but which you may no longer see reason for insisting upon. Hickory, turn around so Miss Dare can see your face. Miss Dare, when you saw fit to call upon this man to upbear you in the extraordinary statements you made to-day, did you realize that in doing this you appealed to the one person best qualified to prove the falsehood of what you had said? I see you did not; yet it is so. He if no other can testify that a few weeks ago, no idea of taking this crime upon your own shoulders had ever crossed your mind; that, on the contrary, your whole heart was filled with sorrow for the supposed guilt of another, and plans for inducing that other to make a confession of his guilt before the world."

"This man!" was her startled exclamation. "It is not possible; I do not know him; he does not know me. I never talked with him but once in my life, and that was to say words I am not only willing but anxious for him to repeat."

"Miss Dare," the District Attorney pursued, "when[469] you say this you show how completely you have been deceived. The conversation to which you allude is not the only one which has passed between you two. Though you did not know it, you held a talk with this man at a time in which you so completely discovered the secrets of your heart, you can never hope to deceive us or the world by any story of personal guilt which you may see fit to manufacture."

"I reveal my heart to this man!" she repeated, in a maze of doubt and terror that left her almost unable to stand. "You are playing with my misery, Mr. Ferris."

The District Attorney took a different tone.

"Miss Dare," he asked, "do you remember a certain interview you held with a gentleman in the hut back of Mrs. Clemmens' house, a short time after the murder?"

"Did this man overhear my words that day?" she murmured, reaching out her hand to steady herself by the back of the chair near which she was standing.

"Your words that day were addressed to this man."

"To him!" she repeated, staggering back.

"Yes, to him, disguised as Craik Mansell. With an unjustifiable zeal to know the truth, he had taken this plan for surprising your secret thoughts, and he succeeded, Miss Dare, remember that, even if he did you and your lover the cruel wrong of leaving you undisturbed in the impression that Mr. Mansell had admitted his guilt in your presence."[470]

But Imogene, throwing out her hands, cried impetuously:

"It is not so; you are mocking me. This man never could deceive me like that!"

But even as she spoke she recoiled, for Hickory, with ready art, had thrown his arms and head forward on the table before which he sat, in the attitude and with much the same appearance he had preserved on the day she had come upon him in the hut. Though he had no assistance from disguise and all the accessories were lacking which had helped forward the illusion on the former occasion, there was still a sufficient resemblance between this bowed figure and the one that had so impressed itself upon her memory as that of her wretched and remorseful lover, that she stood rooted to the ground in her surprise and dismay.

"You see how it was done, do you not?" inquired Mr. Ferris. Then, as he saw she did not heed, added: "I hope you remember what passed between you two on that day?"

As if struck by a thought which altered the whole atmosphere of her hopes and feelings, she took a step forward with a power and vigor that recalled to mind the Imogene of old.

"Sir," she exclaimed, "let that man turn around and face me!"

Hickory at once rose.

"Tell me," she demanded, surveying him with a look[471] it took all his well-known hardihood to sustain unmoved, "was it all false—all a trick from the beginning to the end? I received a letter—was that written by your hand too? Are you capable of forgery as well as of other deceptions?"

The detective, who knew no other way to escape from his embarrassment, uttered a short laugh. But finding a reply was expected of him, answered with well-simulated indifference:

"No, only the address on the envelope was mine; the letter was one which Mr. Mansell had written but never sent. I found it in his waste-paper basket in Buffalo."

"Ah! and you could make use of that?"

"I know it was a mean trick," he acknowledged, dropping his eyes from her face. "But things do look different when you are in the thick of 'em than when you take a stand and observe them from the outside. I—I was ashamed of it long ago, Miss Dare"—this was a lie; Hickory never was really ashamed of it—"and would have told you about it, but I thought 'mum' was the word after a scene like that."

She did not seem to hear him.

"Then Mr. Mansell did not send me the letter inviting me to meet him in the hut on a certain day, some few weeks after Mrs. Clemmens was murdered?"

"No."

"Nor know that such a letter had been sent?"

"No."[472]

"Nor come, as I supposed he did, to Sibley? nor admit what I supposed he admitted in my hearing? nor listen, as I supposed he did, to the insinuations I made use of in the hut?"

"No."

Imbued with sudden purpose and energy, she turned upon the District Attorney.

"Oh, what a revelation to come to me now!" she murmured.

Mr. Ferris bowed.

"You are right," he assented; "it should have come to you before. But I can only repeat what I have previously said, that if I had known of this deception myself, you would have been notified of it previous to going upon the stand. For your belief in the prisoner's guilt has necessarily had its effect upon the jury, and I cannot but see how much that belief must have been strengthened, if it was not actually induced, by the interview which we have just been considering."

Her eyes took on fresh light; she looked at Mr. Ferris as if she would read his soul.

"Can it be possible——" she breathed, but stopped as suddenly as she began. The District Attorney was not the man from whom she could hope to obtain any opinion in reference to the prisoner's innocence.

Mr. Ferris, noting her hesitation and understanding it too, perhaps, moved toward her with a certain kindly dignity, saying:[473]

"I should be glad to utter words that would give you some comfort, Miss Dare, but in the present state of affairs I do not feel as if I could go farther than bid you trust in the justice and wisdom of those who have this matter in charge. As for your own wretched and uncalled-for action in court to-day, it was a madness which I hope will be speedily forgotten, or, if not forgotten, laid to a despair almost too heavy for mortal strength to endure."

"Thank you," she murmured; but her look, the poise of her head, the color that quivered through the pallor of her cheek, showed she was not thinking of herself. Doubt, the first which had visited her since she became convinced that Craik Mansell was the destroyer of his aunt's life, had cast a momentary gleam over her thoughts, and she was conscious of but one wish, and that was to understand the feelings of the men before her.

But she soon saw the hopelessness of this, and, sinking back again into her old distress as she realized how much reason she still had for believing Craik Mansell guilty, she threw a hurried look toward the door as if anxious to escape from the eyes and ears of men interested, as she knew, in gleaning her every thought and sounding her every impulse.

Mr. Ferris at once comprehended her intention, and courteously advanced.

"Do you wish to return home?" he asked.

"If a carriage can be obtained."[474]

"There can be no difficulty about that," he answered; and he gave Hickory a look, and whispered a word to Mr. Byrd, that sent them both speedily from the room.

When he was left alone with her, he said:

"Before you leave my presence, Miss Dare, I wish to urge upon you the necessity of patience. Any sudden or violent act on your part now would result in no good, and lead to much evil. Let me, then, pray you to remain quiet in your home, confident that Mr. Orcutt and myself will do all in our power to insure justice and make the truth evident."

She bowed, but did not speak; while her impatient eye, resting feverishly on the door, told of her anxiety to depart.

"She will need watching," commented Mr. Ferris to himself, and he, too, waited impatiently for the detectives' return. When they came in he gave Imogene to their charge, but the look he cast Byrd contained a hint which led that gentleman to take his hat when he went below to put Miss Dare into her carriage.

[475]

XXXVII. UNDER THE GREAT TREE

We but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague the inventor. This even-handed justice
Commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice
To our own lips. —MACBETH.

IMOGENE went to her home. Confused, disordered, the prey of a thousand hopes and a thousand fears, she sought for solitude and found it within the four walls of the small room which was now her only refuge.

The two detectives who had followed her to the house—the one in the carriage, the other on foot—met, as the street-door closed upon her retreating form, and consulted together as to their future course.

"Mr. Ferris thinks we ought to keep watch over the house, to make sure she does not leave it again," announced Mr. Byrd.

"Does he? Well, then, I am the man for that job," quoth Hickory. "I was on this very same beat last night."

"Good reason why you should rest and give me a turn at the business," declared the other.

"Do you want it?"

"I am willing to take it," said Byrd.

"Well, then, after nine o'clock you shall."

"Why after nine?"[476]

"Because if she's bent on skylarking, she'll leave the house before then," laughed the other.

"And you want to be here if she goes out?"

"Well, yes, rather!"

They compromised matters by both remaining, Byrd within view of the house and Hickory on a corner within hail. Neither expected much from this effort at surveillance, there seeming to be no good reason why she should venture forth into the streets again that night. But the watchfulness of the true detective mind is unceasing.

Several hours passed. The peace of evening had come at last to the troubled town. In the streets, especially, its gentle influence was felt, and regions which had seethed all day with a restless and impatient throng were fast settling into their usual quiet and solitary condition. A new moon hung in the west, and to Mr. Byrd, pacing the walk in front of Imogene's door, it seemed as if he had never seen the town look more lovely or less like the abode of violence and crime. All was so quiet, especially in the house opposite him, he was fast becoming convinced that further precautions were needless, and that Imogene had no intention of stirring abroad again, when the window where her light burned suddenly became dark, and he perceived the street door cautiously open, and her tall, vailed figure emerge and pass rapidly up the street. Merely stopping to give the signal to Hickory, he hastened after her with rapid but cautious steps.[477]

She went like one bound on no uncertain errand. Though many of the walks were heavily shaded, and the light of the lamps was not brilliant, she speeded on from corner to corner, threading the business streets with rapidity, and emerging upon the large and handsome avenue that led up toward the eastern district of the town before Hickory could overtake Byrd, and find sufficient breath to ask:

"Where is she bound for? Who lives up this way?"

"I don't know," answered Byrd, lowering his voice in the fear of startling her into a knowledge of their presence. "It may be she is going to Miss Tremaine's; the High School is somewhere in this direction."

But even as they spoke, the gliding figure before them turned into another street, and before they knew it, they were on the car-track leading out to Somerset Park.

"Ha! I know now," whispered Hickory. "It is Orcutt she is after." And pressing the arm of Byrd in his enthusiasm, he speeded after her with renewed zeal.

Byrd, seeing no reason to dispute a fact that was every moment becoming more evident, hurried forward also, and after a long and breathless walk—for she seemed to be urged onward by flying feet—they found themselves within sight of the grand old trees that guarded the entrance to the lawyer's somewhat spacious grounds.

"What are we going to do now?" asked Byrd, stopping, as they heard the gate click behind her.

"Wait and watch," said Hickory. "She has not led[478] us this wild-goose chase for nothing." And leaping the hedge, he began creeping up toward the house, leaving his companion to follow or not, as he saw fit.

Meantime Imogene had passed up the walk and paused before the front door. But a single look at it seemed to satisfy her, for, moving hurriedly away, she flitted around the corner of the house and stopped just before the long windows whose brightly illumined sashes proclaimed that the master of the house was still in his library.

She seemed to feel relieved at this sight. Pausing, she leaned against the frame of a trellis-work near by to gather up her courage or regain her breath before proceeding to make her presence known to the lawyer. As she thus leaned, the peal of the church clock was heard, striking the hour of nine. She started, possibly at finding it so late, and bending forward, looked at the windows before her with an anxious eye that soon caught sight of a small opening left by the curtains having been drawn together by a too hasty or a too careless hand, and recognizing the opportunity it afforded for a glimpse into the room before her, stepped with a light tread upon the piazza and quietly peered within.

The sight she saw never left her memory.

Seated before a deadened fire, she beheld Mr. Orcutt. He was neither writing nor reading, nor, in the true sense of the word, thinking. The papers he had evidently taken from his desk, lay at his side undisturbed, and[479] from one end of the room to the other, solitude, suffering, and despair seemed to fill the atmosphere and weigh upon its dreary occupant, till the single lamp which shone beside him burned dimmer and dimmer, like a life going out or a purpose vanishing in the gloom of a stealthily approaching destiny.

Imogene, who had come to this place thus secretly and at this late hour of the day with the sole intent of procuring the advice of this man concerning the deception which had been practised upon her before the trial, felt her heart die within her as she surveyed this rigid figure and realized all it implied. Though his position was such she could not see his face, there was that in his attitude which bespoke hopelessness and an utter weariness of life, and as ash after ash fell from the grate, she imagined how the gloom deepened on the brow which till this hour had confronted the world with such undeviating courage and confidence.

It was therefore a powerful shock to her when, in another moment, he looked up, and, without moving his body, turned his head slowly around in such a way as to afford her a glimpse of his face. For, in all her memory of it—and she had seen it distorted by many and various emotions during the last few weeks—she had never beheld it wear such a look as now. It gave her a new idea of the man; it filled her with dismay, and sent the life-blood from her cheeks. It fascinated her, as the glimpse of any evil thing fascinates, and held her spell-bound long after[480] he had turned back again to his silent contemplation of the fire and its ever-drifting ashes. It was as if a vail had been rent before her eyes, disclosing to her a living soul writhing in secret struggle with its own worst passions; and horrified at the revelation, more than horrified at the remembrance that it was her own action of the morning which had occasioned this change in one she had long reverenced, if not loved, she sank helplessly upon her knees and pressed her face to the window in a prayer for courage to sustain this new woe and latest, if not heaviest, disappointment.

It came while she was kneeling—came in the breath of the cold night wind, perhaps; for, rising up, she turned her forehead gratefully to the breeze, and drew in long draughts of it before she lifted her hand and knocked upon the window.

The sharp, shrill sound made by her fingers on the pane reassured her as much as it startled him. Gathering up her long cloak, which had fallen apart in her last hurried movement, she waited with growing self-possession for his appearance at the window.

He came almost immediately—came with his usual hasty step and with much of his usual expression on his well-disciplined features. Flinging aside the curtains, he cried impatiently: "Who is there?" But at sight of the tall figure of Imogene standing upright and firm on the piazza without, he drew back with a gesture of dismay, which was almost forbidding in its character.[481]

She saw it, but did not pause. Pushing up the window, she stepped into the room; then, as he did not offer to help her, turned and shut the window behind her and carefully arranged the curtains. He meantime stood watching her with eyes in whose fierce light burned equal love and equal anger.

When all was completed, she faced him. Instantly a cry broke from his lips:

"You here!" he exclaimed, as if her presence were more than he could meet or stand. But in another moment the forlornness of her position seemed to strike him, and he advanced toward her, saying in a voice husky with passion: "Wretched woman, what have you done? Was it not enough that for weeks, months now, you have played with my love and misery as with toys, that you should rise up at the last minute and crush me before the whole world with a story, mad as it is false, of yourself being a criminal and the destroyer of the woman for whose death your miserable lover is being tried? Had you no consideration, no pity, if not for yourself, ruined by this day's work, for me, who have sacrificed every thing, done every thing the most devoted man or lawyer could do to save this fellow and win you for my wife?"

"Sir," said she, meeting the burning anger of his look with the coldness of a set despair, as if in the doubt awakened by his changed demeanor she sought to probe his mind for its hidden secret, "I did what any other woman would have done in my place. When we are pushed to the wall we tell the truth."[482]

"The truth!" Was that his laugh that rang startlingly through the room? "The truth! You told the truth! Imogene, Imogene, is any such farce necessary with me?"

Her lips, which had opened, closed again, and she did not answer for a moment; then she asked:

"How do you know that what I said was not the truth?"

"How do I know?" He paused as if to get his breath. "How do I know?" he repeated, calling up all his self-control to sustain her gaze unmoved. "Do you think I have lost my reason, Imogene, that you put me such a question as that? How do I know you are innocent? Recall your own words and acts since the day we met at Mrs. Clemmens' house, and tell me how it would be possible for me to think any thing else of you?"

But her purpose did not relax, neither did she falter as she returned:

"Mr. Orcutt, will you tell me what has ever been said by me or what you have ever known me to do that would make it certain I did not commit this crime myself?"

His indignation was too much for his courtesy.

"Imogene," he commanded, "be silent! I will not listen to any further arguments of this sort. Isn't it enough that you have destroyed my happiness, that you should seek to sport with my good-sense? I say you are innocent as a babe unborn, not only of the crime itself[483] but of any complicity in it. Every word you have spoken, every action you have taken, since the day of Mrs. Clemmens' death, proves you to be the victim of a fixed conviction totally at war with the statement you were pleased to make to-day. Only your belief in the guilt of another and your—your——"

He stopped, choked. The thought of his rival maddened him.

She immediately seized the opportunity to say:

"Mr. Orcutt, I cannot argue about what I have done. It is over and cannot be remedied. It is true I have destroyed myself, but this is no time to think of that. All I can think of or mourn over now is that, by destroying myself, I have not succeeded in saving Craik Mansell."

If her purpose was to probe the lawyer's soul for the deadly wound that had turned all his sympathies to gall, she was successful at last. Turning upon her with a look in which despair and anger were strangely mingled, he cried:

"And me, Imogene—have you no thought for me?"

"Sir," said she, "any thought from one disgraced as I am now, would be an insult to one of your character and position."

It was true. In the eyes of the world Tremont Orcutt and Imogene Dare henceforth stood as far apart as the poles. Realizing it only too well, he uttered a half-inarticulate exclamation, and trod restlessly to the[484] other end of the room. When he came back, it was with more of the lawyer's aspect and less of the baffled lover's.

"Imogene," he said, "what could have induced you to resort to an expedient so dreadful? Had you lost confidence in me? Had I not told you I would save this man from his threatened fate?"

"You cannot do every thing," she replied. "There are limits even to a power like yours. I knew that Craik was lost if I gave to the court the testimony which Mr. Ferris expected from me."

"Ah, then," he cried, seizing with his usual quickness at the admission which had thus unconsciously, perhaps, slipped from her, "you acknowledge you uttered a perjury to save yourself from making declarations you believed to be hurtful to the prisoner?"

A faint smile crossed her lips, and her whole aspect suddenly changed.

"Yes," she said; "I have no motive for hiding it from you now. I perjured myself to escape destroying Craik Mansell. I was scarcely the mistress of my own actions. I had suffered so much I was ready to do any thing to save the man I had so relentlessly pushed to his doom. I forgot that God does not prosper a lie."

The jealous gleam which answered her from the lawyer's eyes was a revelation.

"You regret, then," he said, "that you tossed my happiness away with a breath of your perjured lips?"

"I regret I did not tell the truth and trust God."[485]

At this answer, uttered with the simplicity of a penitent spirit, Mr. Orcutt unconsciously drew back.

"And, may I ask, what has caused this sudden regret?" he inquired, in a tone not far removed from mockery; "the generous action of the prisoner in relieving you from your self-imposed burden of guilt by an acknowledgment that struck at the foundation of the defence I had so carefully prepared?"

"No," was her short reply; "that could but afford me joy. Of whatever sin he may be guilty, he is at least free from the reproach of accepting deliverance at the expense of a woman. I am sorry I said what I did to-day, because a revelation has since been made to me, which proves I could never have sustained myself in the position I took, and that it was mere suicidal folly in me to attempt to save Craik Mansell by such means."

"A revelation?"

"Yes." And, forgetting all else in the purpose which had actuated her in seeking this interview, Imogene drew nearer to the lawyer and earnestly said: "There have been some persons—I have perceived it—who have wondered at my deep conviction of Craik Mansell's guilt. But the reasons I had justified it. They were great, greater than any one knew, greater even than you knew. His mother—were she living—must have thought as I did, had she been placed beside me and seen what I have seen, and heard what I have heard from the time[486] of Mrs. Clemmens' death. Not only were all the facts brought against him in the trial known to me, but I saw him—saw him with my own eyes, running from Mrs. Clemmens' dining-room door at the very time we suppose the murder to have been committed; that is, at five minutes before noon on the fatal day."

"Impossible!" exclaimed Mr. Orcutt, in his astonishment. "You are playing with my credulity, Imogene."

But she went on, letting her voice fall in awe of the lawyer's startled look.

"No," she persisted; "I was in Professor Darling's observatory. I was looking through a telescope, which had been pointed toward the town. Mrs. Clemmens was much in my mind at the time, and I took the notion to glance at her house, when I saw what I have described to you. I could not help remembering the time," she added, "for I had looked at the clock but a moment before."

"And it was five minutes before noon?" broke again from the lawyer's lips, in what was almost an awe-struck tone.

Troubled at an astonishment which seemed to partake of the nature of alarm, she silently bowed her head.

"And you were looking at him—actually looking at him—that very moment through a telescope perched a mile or so away?"

"Yes," she bowed again.

Turning his face aside, Mr. Orcutt walked to the[487] hearth and began kicking the burnt-out logs with his restless foot. As he did so, Imogene heard him mutter between his set teeth:

"It is almost enough to make one believe in a God!"

Struck, horrified, she glided anxiously to his side.

"Do not you believe in a God?" she asked.

He was silent.

Amazed, almost frightened, for she had never heard him breathe a word of scepticism before,—though, to be sure, he had never mentioned the name of the Deity in her presence,—she stood looking at him like one who had received a blow; then she said:

"I believe in God. It is my punishment that I do. It is He who wills blood for blood; who dooms the guilty to a merited death. Oh, if He only would accept the sacrifice I so willingly offer!—take the life I so little value, and give me in return——"

"Mansell's?" completed the lawyer, turning upon her in a burst of fury he no longer had power to suppress. "Is that your cry—always and forever your cry? You drive me too far, Imogene. This mad and senseless passion for a man who no longer loves you——"

"Spare me!" rose from her trembling lips. "Let me forget that."

But the great lawyer only laughed.

"You make it worth my while to save you the bitterness of such a remembrance," he cried. Then, as she remained silent, he changed his tone to one of careless inquiry, and asked:[488]

"Was it to tell this story of the prisoner having fled from his aunt's house that you came here to-night?"

Recalled to the purpose of the hour, she answered, hurriedly:

"Not entirely; that story was what Mr. Ferris expected me to testify to in court this morning. You see for yourself in what a position it would have put the prisoner."

"And the revelation you have received?" the lawyer coldly urged.

"Was of a deception that has been practised upon me—a base deception by which I was led to think long ago that Craik Mansell had admitted his guilt and only trusted to the excellence of his defence to escape punishment."

"I do not understand," said Mr. Orcutt. "Who could have practised such deception upon you?"

"The detectives," she murmured; "that rough, heartless fellow they call Hickory." And, in a burst of indignation, she told how she had been practised upon, and what the results had been upon her belief, if not upon the testimony which grew out of that belief.

The lawyer listened with a strange apathy. What would once have aroused his fiercest indignation and fired him to an exertion of his keenest powers, fell on him now like the tedious repetition of an old and worn-out tale. He scarcely looked up when she was done; and despair—the first, perhaps, she had ever really felt—began[489] to close in around her as she saw how deep a gulf she had dug between this man and herself by the inconsiderate act which had robbed him of all hope of ever making her his wife. Moved by this feeling, she suddenly asked:

"Have you lost all interest in your client, Mr. Orcutt? Have you no wish or hope remaining of seeing him acquitted of this crime?"

"My client," responded the lawyer, with bitter emphasis, "has taken his case into his own hands. It would be presumptuous in me to attempt any thing further in his favor."

"Mr. Orcutt!"

"Ah!" he scornfully laughed, with a quick yielding to his passion as startling as it was unexpected, "you thought you could play with me as you would; use my skill and ignore the love that prompted it. You are a clever woman, Imogene, but you went too far when you considered my forbearance unlimited."

"And you forsake Craik Mansell, in the hour of his extremity?"

"Craik Mansell has forsaken me."

This was true; for her sake her lover had thrown his defence to the winds and rendered the assistance of his counsel unavailable. Seeing her droop her head abashed, Mr. Orcutt dryly proceeded.

"I do not know what may take place in court to-morrow," said he. "It is difficult to determine what will be[490] the outcome of so complicated a case. The District Attorney, in consideration of the deception which has been practised upon you, may refuse to prosecute any further; or, if the case goes on and the jury is called upon for a verdict, they may or may not be moved by its peculiar aspects to acquit a man of such generous dispositions. If they are, I shall do nothing to hinder an acquittal; but ask for no more active measures on my part. I cannot plead for the lover of the woman who has disgraced me."

This decision, from one she had trusted so implicitly, seemed to crush her.

"Ah," she murmured, "if you did not believe him guilty you would not leave him thus to his fate."

He gave her a short, side-long glance, half-mocking, half-pitiful.

"If," she pursued, "you had felt even a passing gleam of doubt, such as came to me when I discovered that he had never really admitted his guilt, you would let no mere mistake on the part of a woman turn you from your duty as counsellor for a man on trial for his life."

His glance lost its pity and became wholly mocking.

"And do you cherish but passing gleams?" he sarcastically asked.

She started back.

"I laugh at the inconsistency of women," he cried. "You have sacrificed every thing, even risked your life for a man you really believe guilty of crime; yet if[491] another man similarly stained asked you for your compassion only, you would fly from him as from a pestilence."

But no words he could utter of this sort were able to raise any emotion in her now.

"Mr. Orcutt," she demanded, "do you believe Craik Mansell innocent?"

His old mocking smile came back.

"Have I conducted his case as if I believed him guilty?" he asked.

"No, no; but you are his lawyer; you are bound not to let your real thoughts appear. But in your secret heart you did not, could not, believe he was free from a crime to which he is linked by so many criminating circumstances?"

But his strange smile remaining unchanged, she seemed to waken to a sudden doubt, and leaping impetuously to his side, laid her hand on his arm and exclaimed:

"Oh, sir, if you have ever cherished one hope of his innocence, no matter how faint or small, tell me of it, even if this last disclosure has convinced you of its folly!"

Giving her an icy look, he drew his arm slowly from her grasp and replied:

"Mr. Mansell has never been considered guilty by me."

"Never?"

"Never."

"Not even now?"[492]

"Not even now."

It seemed as if she could not believe his words.

"And yet you know all there is against him; all that I do now!"

"I know he visited his aunt's house at or after the time she was murdered, but that is no proof he killed her, Miss Dare."

"No," she admitted with slow conviction, "no. But why did he fly in that wild way when he left it? Why did he go straight to Buffalo and not wait to give me the interview he promised?"

"Shall I tell you?" Mr. Orcutt inquired, with a dangerous sneer on his lips. "Do you wish to know why this man—the man you have so loved—the man for whom you would die this moment, has conducted himself with such marked discretion?"

"Yes," came like a breath from between Imogene's parted lips.

"Well," said the lawyer, dropping his words with cruel clearness, "Mr. Mansell has a great faith in women. He has such faith in you, Imogene Dare, he thinks you are all you declare yourself to be; that in the hour you stood up before the court and called yourself a murderer, you spoke but the truth; that——" He stopped; even his scornful aplomb would not allow him to go on in the face of the look she wore.

"Say—say those words again!" she gasped. "Let me hear them once more. He thinks what?"[493]

"That you are what you proclaimed yourself to be this day, the actual assailant and murderer of Mrs. Clemmens. He has thought so all along, Miss Dare, why, I do not know. Whether he saw any thing or heard any thing in that house from which you saw him fly so abruptly, or whether he relied solely upon the testimony of the ring, which you must remember he never acknowledged having received back from you, I only know that from the minute he heard of his aunt's death, his suspicions flew to you, and that, in despite of such suggestions as I felt it judicious to make, they have never suffered shock or been turned from their course from that day to this. Such honor," concluded Mr. Orcutt, with dry sarcasm, "does the man you love show to the woman who has sacrificed for his sake all that the world holds dear."

"I—I cannot believe it. You are mocking me," came inarticulately from her lips, while she drew back, step by step, till half the room lay between them.

"Mocking you? Miss Dare, he has shown his feelings so palpably, I have often trembled lest the whole court should see and understand them."

"You have trembled"—she could scarcely speak, the rush of her emotion was so great—"you have trembled lest the whole court should see he suspected me of this crime?"

"Yes."

"Then," she cried, "you must have been convinced,—Ah!" she hurriedly interposed, with a sudden look of[494] distrust, "you are not amusing yourself with me, are you, Mr. Orcutt? So many traps have been laid for me from time to time, I dare not trust the truth of my best friend. Swear you believe Craik Mansell to have thought this of me! Swear you have seen this dark thing lying in his soul, or I——"

"What?"

"Will confront him myself with the question, if I have to tear down the walls of the prison to reach him. His mind I must and will know."

"Very well, then, you do. I have told you," declared Mr. Orcutt. "Swearing would not make it any more true."

Lifting her face to heaven, she suddenly fell on her knees.

"O God!" she murmured, "help me to bear this great joy!"

"Joy!"

The icy tone, the fierce surprise it expressed, started her at once to her feet.

"Yes," she murmured, "joy! Don't you see that if he thinks me guilty, he must be innocent? I am willing to perish and fall from the ranks of good men and honorable women to be sure of a fact like this!"

"Imogene, Imogene, would you drive me mad?"

She did not seem to hear.

"Craik, are you guiltless, then?" she was saying. "Is the past all a dream! Are we two nothing but victims of[495] dread and awful circumstances? Oh, we will see; life is not ended yet!" And with a burst of hope that seemed to transfigure her into another woman, she turned toward the lawyer with the cry: "If he is innocent, he can be saved. Nothing that has been done by him or me can hurt him if this be so. God who watches over this crime has His eye on the guilty one. Though his sin be hidden under a mountain of deceit, it will yet come forth. Guilt like his cannot remain hidden."

"You did not think this when you faced the court this morning with perjury on your lips," came in slow, ironical tones from her companion.

"Heaven sometimes accepts a sacrifice," she returned. "But who will sacrifice himself for a man who could let the trial of one he knew to be innocent go on unhindered?"

"Who, indeed!" came in almost stifled tones from the lawyer's lips.

"If a stranger and not Craik Mansell slew Mrs. Clemmens," she went on, "and nothing but an incomprehensible train of coincidences unites him and me to this act of violence, then may God remember the words of the widow, and in His almighty power call down such a doom——"

She ended with a gasp. Mr. Orcutt, with a sudden movement, had laid his hand upon her lips.

"Hush!" he said, "let no curses issue from your mouth. The guilty can perish without that."[496]

Releasing herself from him in alarm, she drew back, her eyes slowly dilating as she noted the dead whiteness that had settled over his face, and taken even the hue of life from his nervously trembling lip.

"Mr. Orcutt," she whispered, with a solemnity which made them heedless that the lamp which had been burning lower and lower in its socket was giving out its last fitful rays, "if Craik Mansell did not kill the Widow Clemmens who then did?"

Her question—or was it her look and tone?—seemed to transfix Mr. Orcutt. But it was only for a moment. Turning with a slight gesture to the table at his side, he fumbled with his papers, still oblivious of the flaring lamp, saying slowly:

"I have always supposed Gouverneur Hildreth to be the true author of this crime."

"Gouverneur Hildreth?"

Mr. Orcutt bowed.

"I do not agree with you," she returned, moving slowly toward the window. "I am no reader of human hearts, as all my past history shows, but something—is it the voice of God in my breast?—tells me that Gouverneur Hildreth is as innocent as Craik Mansell, and that the true murderer of Mrs. Clemmens——" Her words ended in a shriek. The light, which for so long a time had been flickering to its end, had given one startling flare in which the face of the man before her had flashed on her view in a ghastly flame that seemed to separate it[497] from all surrounding objects, then as suddenly gone out, leaving the room in total darkness.

In the silence that followed, a quick sound as of rushing feet was heard, then the window was pushed up and the night air came moaning in. Imogene had fled.

Horace Byrd had not followed Hickory in his rush toward the house. He had preferred to await results under the great tree which, standing just inside the gate, cast its mysterious and far-reaching shadow widely over the wintry lawn. He was, therefore, alone during most of the interview which Miss Dare held with Mr. Orcutt in the library, and, being alone, felt himself a prey to his sensations and the weirdness of the situation in which he found himself.

Though no longer a victim to the passion with which Miss Dare had at first inspired him, he was by no means without feeling for this grand if somewhat misguided woman, and his emotions, as he stood there awaiting the issue of her last desperate attempt to aid the prisoner, were strong enough to make any solitude welcome, though this solitude for some reason held an influence which was any thing but enlivening, if it was not actually depressing, to one of his ready sensibilities.

The tree under which he had taken his stand was, as I have intimated, an old one. It had stood there from time immemorial, and was, as I have heard it since said, at once the pride of Mr. Orcutt's heart and the chief ornament[498] of his grounds. Though devoid of foliage at the time, its vast and symmetrical canopy of interlacing branches had caught Mr. Byrd's attention from the first moment of his entrance beneath it, and, preoccupied as he was, he could not prevent his thoughts from reverting now and then with a curious sensation of awe to the immensity of those great limbs which branched above him. His imagination was so powerfully affected at last, he had a notion of leaving the spot and seeking a nearer look-out in the belt of evergreens that hid the crouching form of Hickory; but a spell seemed to emanate from the huge trunk against which he leaned that restrained him when he sought to go, and noticing almost at the same moment that the path which Miss Dare would have to take in her departure ran directly under this tree, he yielded to the apathy of the moment and remained where he was.

Soon after he was visited by Hickory.

"I can see nothing and hear nothing," was that individual's hurried salutation. "She and Mr. Orcutt are evidently still in the library, but I cannot get a clue to what is going on. I shall keep up my watch, however, for I want to catch a glimpse of her face as she steps from the window." And he was off again before Byrd could reply.

But the next instant he was back, panting and breathless.

"The light is out in the library," he cried; "we shall see her no more to-night."[499]

But scarcely had the words left his lips when a faint sound was heard from the region of the piazza, and looking eagerly up the path, they saw the form of Miss Dare coming hurriedly toward them.

To slip around into the deepest shadow cast by the tree was but the work of a moment. Meantime, the moon shone brightly on the walk down which she was speeding, and as, in the agitation of her departure, she had forgotten to draw down her veil, they succeeded in obtaining a view of her face. It was pale, and wore an expression of fear, while her feet hasted as though she were only filled with thoughts of escape.

Seeing this, the two detectives held their breaths, preparing to follow her as soon as she had passed the tree. But she did not pass the tree. Just as she got within reach of its shadow, a commanding voice was heard calling upon her to stop, and Mr. Orcutt came hurrying, in his turn, down the path.

"I cannot let you go thus," he cried, pausing beside her on the walk directly under the tree. "If you command me to save Craik Mansell I must do it. What you wish must be done, Imogene."

"My wishes should not be needed to lead you to do your duty by the man you believe to be innocent of the charge for which he is being tried," was her earnest and strangely cold reply.

"Perhaps not," he muttered, bitterly; "but—ah, Imogene," he suddenly broke forth, in a way to startle these[500] two detectives, who, however suspicious they had been of his passion, had never before had the opportunity of seeing him under its control, "what have you made of me with your bewildering graces and indomitable soul? Before I knew you, life was a round of honorable duties and serene pleasures. I lived in my profession, and found my greatest delight in its exercise. But now——"

"What now?" she asked.

"I seem"—he said, and the hard, cold selfishness that underlay all his actions, however generous they may have been in appearance, was apparent in his words and tones,—"I seem to forget every thing, even my standing and fame as a lawyer, in the one fear that, although lost to me, you will yet live to give yourself to another."

"If you fear that I shall ever be so weak as to give myself to Craik Mansell," was her steady reply, "you have only to recall the promise I made you when you undertook his case."

"Yes," said he, "but that was when you yourself believed him guilty."

"I know," she returned; "but if he were not good enough for me then, I am not good enough for him now. Do you forget that I am blotted with a stain that can never be effaced? When I stood up in court to-day and denounced myself as guilty of crime, I signed away all my chances of future happiness."

There was a pause; Mr. Orcutt seemed to be thinking. From the position occupied by the two detectives his[501] shadow could be seen oscillating to and fro on the lawn, then, amid the hush of night—a deathly hush—undisturbed, as Mr. Byrd afterward remarked, by so much as the cracking of a twig, his voice rose quiet, yet vaguely sinister, in the words:

"You have conquered. If any man suffers for this crime it shall not be Craik Mansell, but——"

The sentence was never finished. Before the words could leave his mouth a sudden strange and splitting sound was heard above their heads, then a terrifying rush took place, and a great limb lay upon the walk where but a moment before the beautiful form of Imogene Dare lifted itself by the side of the eminent lawyer.

When a full sense of the terrible nature of the calamity which had just occurred swept across the minds of the benumbed detectives, Mr. Byrd, recalling the words and attitude of Imogene in face of a similar, if less fatal, catastrophe at the hut, exclaimed under his breath:

"It is the vengeance of Heaven! Imogene Dare must have been more guilty than we believed."

But when, after a superhuman exertion of strength, and the assistance of many hands, the limb was at length raised, it was found that, although both had been prostrated by its weight, only one remained stretched and senseless upon the ground, and that was not Imogene Dare, but the great lawyer, Mr. Orcutt.

[502]

XXXVIII. UNEXPECTED WORDS

It will have blood: they say, blood will have blood.
Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak;
Augurs and understood relations have,
By magot-pies and choughs and rooks, brought forth
The secret'st man of blood.
* * * * *
Foul whisperings are abroad; unnatural deeds
Do breed unnatural troubles; infected minds
To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets. —MACBETH.

"MR. ORCUTT dead?"

"Dying, sir."

"How, when, where?"

"In his own house, sir. He has been struck down by a falling limb."

The District Attorney, who had been roused from his bed to hear these evil tidings, looked at the perturbed face of the messenger before him—who was none other than Mr. Byrd—and with difficulty restrained his emotion.

"I sympathize with your horror and surprise," exclaimed the detective, respectfully. Then, with a strange mixture of embarrassment and agitation, added: "It is considered absolutely necessary that you come to the house. He may yet speak—and—and—you will find Miss Dare there," he concluded, with a peculiarly[503] hesitating glance and a rapid movement toward the door.

Mr. Ferris, who, as we know, cherished a strong feeling of friendship for Mr. Orcutt, stared uneasily at the departing form of the detective.

"What do you say?" he repeated. "Miss Dare there, in Mr. Orcutt's house?"

The short "Yes," and the celerity with which Mr. Byrd vanished, gave him the appearance of one anxious to escape further inquiries.

Astonished, as well as greatly distressed, the District Attorney made speedy preparations for following him, and soon was in the street. He found it all alive with eager citizens, who, notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, were rushing hither and thither in search of particulars concerning this sudden calamity; and upon reaching the house itself, found it wellnigh surrounded by an agitated throng of neighbors and friends.

Simply pausing at the gate to cast one glance at the tree and its fallen limb, he made his way to the front door. It was immediately opened. Dr. Tredwell, whose face it was a shock to encounter in this place, stood before him, and farther back a group of such favored friends as had been allowed to enter the house. Something in the look of the coroner, as he silently reached forth his hand in salutation, added to the mysterious impression which had been made upon Mr. Ferris by the manner, if not words, of Mr. Byrd. Feeling that[504] he was losing his self-command, the District Attorney grasped the hand that was held out to him, and huskily inquired if Mr. Orcutt was still alive.

The coroner, who had been standing before him with a troubled brow and lowered eyes, gravely bowed, and quietly leading the way, ushered him forward to Mr. Orcutt's bedroom door. There he paused and looked as if he would like to speak, but hastily changing his mind, opened the door and motioned the District Attorney in. As he did so, he cast a meaning and solemn look toward the bed, then drew back, watching with evident anxiety what the effect of the scene before him would have upon this new witness.

A stupefying one it seemed, for Mr. Ferris, pausing in his approach, looked at the cluster of persons about the bed, and then drew his hand across his eyes like a man in a maze. Suddenly he turned upon Dr. Tredwell with the same strange look he had himself seen in the eyes of Byrd, and said, almost as if the words were forced from his lips:

"This is no new sight to us, doctor; we have been spectators of a scene like this before."

That was it. As nearly as the alteration in circumstances and surroundings would allow, the spectacle before him was the same as that which he had encountered months before in a small cottage at the other end of the town. On the bed a pallid, senseless, but slowly breathing form, whose features, stamped with the approach[505] of death, stared at them with marble-like rigidity from beneath the heavy bandages which proclaimed the injury to be one to the head. At his side the doctor—the same one who had been called in to attend Mrs. Clemmens—wearing, as he did then, a look of sombre anticipation which Mr. Ferris expected every instant to see culminate in the solemn gesture which he had used at the widow's bedside before she spoke. Even the group of women who clustered about the foot of the couch wore much the same expression as those who waited for movement on the part of Mrs. Clemmens; and had it not been for the sight of Imogene Dare sitting immovable and watchful on the farther side of the bed, he might almost have imagined he was transported back to the old scene, and that all this new horror under which he was laboring was a dream from which he would speedily be awakened.

But Imogene's face, her look, her air of patient waiting, were not to be mistaken. Attention once really attracted to her, it was not possible for it to wander elsewhere. Even the face of the dying man and the countenance of the watchful physician paled in interest before that fixed look which, never wavering, never altering, studied the marble visage before her, for the first faint signs of reawakening consciousness. Even his sister, who, if weak of mind, was most certainly of a loving disposition, seemed to feel the force of the tie that bound Imogene to that pillow; and, though she hovered nearer and nearer the beloved form as the weariful[506] moments sped by, did not presume to interpose her grief or her assistance between the burning eye of Imogene and the immovable form of her stricken brother.

The hush that lay upon the room was unbroken save by the agitated breaths of all present.

"Is there no hope?" whispered Mr. Ferris to Dr. Tredwell, as, seeing no immediate prospect of change, they sought for seats at the other side of the room.

"No; the wound is strangely like that which Mrs. Clemmens received. He will rouse, probably, but he will not live. Our only comfort is that in this case it is not a murder."

The District Attorney made a gesture in the direction of Imogene.

"How came she to be here?" he asked.

Dr. Tredwell rose and drew him from the room.

"It needs some explanation," he said; and began to relate to him how Mr. Orcutt was escorting Miss Dare to the gate when the bough fell which seemed likely to rob him of his life.

Mr. Ferris, through whose mind those old words of the widow were running in a way that could only be accounted for by the memories which the scene within had awakened—"May the vengeance of Heaven light upon the head of him who has brought me to this pass! May the fate that has come upon me be visited upon him, measure for measure, blow for blow, death for death!"—turned with impressive gravity and asked if Miss Dare had not been hurt.[507]

But Dr. Tredwell shook his head.

"She is not even bruised," said he.

"And yet was on his arm?"

"Possibly, though I very much doubt it."

"She was standing at his side," uttered the quiet voice of Mr. Byrd in their ear; "and disappeared when he did, under the falling branch. She must have been bruised, though she says not. I do not think she is in a condition to feel her injuries."

"You were present, then," observed Mr. Ferris, with a meaning glance at the detective.

"I was present," he returned, with a look the District Attorney did not find it difficult to understand.

"Is there any thing you ought to tell me?" Mr. Ferris inquired, when a moment or so later the coroner had been drawn away by a friend.

"I do not know," said Byrd. "Of the conversation that passed between Miss Dare and Mr. Orcutt, but a short portion came to our ears. It is her manner, her actions, that have astonished us, and made us anxious to have you upon the spot." And he told with what an expression of fear she had fled from her interview with Mr. Orcutt in the library, and then gave, as nearly as he could, an account of what had passed between them before the falling of the fatal limb. Finally he said: "Hickory and I expected to find her lying crushed and bleeding beneath, but instead of that, no sooner was the bough lifted than she sprang to her knees, and seeing[508] Mr. Orcutt lying before her insensible, bent over him with that same expression of breathless awe and expectation which you see in her now. It looks as if she were waiting for him to rouse and finish the sentence that was cut short by this catastrophe."

"And what was that sentence?"

"As near as I can recollect, it was this: 'If any man suffers for this crime it shall not be Craik Mansell, but——' He did not have time to say whom."

"My poor friend!" ejaculated Mr. Ferris, "cut down in the exercise of his duties! It is a mysterious providence—a very mysterious providence!" And crossing again to the sick-room, he went sadly in.

He found the aspect unchanged. On the pillow the same white, immovable face; at the bedside the same constant and expectant watchers. Imogene especially seemed scarcely to have made a move in all the time of his absence. Like a marble image watching over a form of clay she sat silent, breathless, intent—a sight to draw all eyes and satisfy none; for her look was not one of grief, nor of awe, nor of hope, yet it had that within it which made her presence there seem a matter of right even to those who did not know the exact character of the bond which united her to the unhappy sufferer.

Mr. Ferris, who had been only too ready to accept Mr. Byrd's explanation of her conduct, allowed himself to gaze at her unhindered.

Overwhelmed, as he was, by the calamity which promised[509] to rob the Bar of one of its most distinguished advocates, and himself of a long-tried friend, he could not but feel the throb of those deep interests which, in the estimation of this woman at least, hung upon a word which those dying lips might utter. And swayed by this feeling, he unconsciously became a third watcher, though for what, and in hope of what, he could scarcely have told, so much was he benumbed by the suddenness of this great catastrophe, and the extraordinary circumstances by which it was surrounded.

And so one o'clock came and passed.

It was not the last time the clock struck before a change came. The hour of two went by, then that of three, and still, to the casual eye, all remained the same. But ere the stroke of four was heard, Mr. Ferris, who had relaxed his survey of Imogene to bestow a fuller attention upon his friend, felt an indefinable sensation of dismay assail him, and rising to his feet, drew a step or so nearer the bed, and looked at its silent occupant with the air of a man who would fain shut his eyes to the meaning of what he sees before him. At the same moment Mr. Byrd, who had just come in, found himself attracted by the subtle difference he observed in the expression of Miss Dare. The expectancy in her look was gone, and its entire expression was that of awe. Advancing to the side of Mr. Ferris, he glanced down at the dying lawyer. He at once saw what it was that had so attracted and moved the District Attorney. A change[510] had come over Mr. Orcutt's face. Though rigid still, and unrelieved by any signs of returning consciousness, it was no longer that of the man they knew, but a strange face, owning the same features, but distinguished now by a look sinister as it was unaccustomed, filling the breasts of those who saw it with dismay, and making any contemplation of his countenance more than painful to those who loved him. Nor did it decrease as they watched him. Like that charmed writing which appears on a blank paper when it is subjected to the heat, the subtle, unmistakable lines came out, moment by moment, on the mask of his unconscious face, till even Imogene trembled, and turned an appealing glance upon Mr. Ferris, as if to bid him note this involuntary evidence of nature against the purity and good intentions of the man who had always stood so high in the world's regard. Then, satisfied, perhaps, with the expression she encountered on the face of the District Attorney, she looked back; and the heavy minutes went on, only more drearily, and perhaps more fearfully, than before.

Suddenly—was it at a gesture of the physician, or a look from Imogene?—a thrill of expectation passed through the room, and Dr. Tredwell, Mr. Ferris, and a certain other gentleman who had but just entered at a remote corner of the apartment, came hurriedly forward and stood at the foot of the bed. At the same instant Imogene rose, and motioning them a trifle aside, with an air of mingled entreaty and command, bent slowly down[511] toward the injured man. A look of recognition answered her from the face upon the pillow, but she did not wait to meet it, nor pause for the word that evidently trembled on his momentarily conscious lip. Shutting out with her form the group of anxious watchers behind her, she threw all her soul into the regard with which she held him enchained; then slowly, solemnly, but with unyielding determination, uttered these words, which no one there could know were but a repetition of a question made a few eventful hours ago: "If Craik Mansell is not the man who killed Mrs. Clemmens, do you, Mr. Orcutt, tell us who is!" and, pausing, remained with her gaze fixed demandingly on that of the lawyer, undeterred by the smothered exclamations of those who witnessed this scene and missed its clue or found it only in the supposition that this last great shock had unsettled her mind.

The panting sufferer just trembling on the verge of life thrilled all down his once alert and nervous frame, then searching her face for one sign of relenting, unclosed his rigid lips and said, with emphasis:

"Has not Fate spoken?"

Instantly Imogene sprang erect, and, amid the stifled shrieks of the women and the muttered exclamations of the men, pointed at the recumbent figure before them, saying:

"You hear! Tremont Orcutt declares upon his death-bed that it is the voice of Heaven which has spoken in this dreadful calamity. You who were present when[512] Mrs. Clemmens breathed her imprecations on the head of her murderer, must know what that means."

Mr. Ferris, who of all present, perhaps, possessed the greatest regard for the lawyer, gave an ejaculation of dismay at this, and bounding forward, lifted her away from the bedside he believed her to have basely desecrated.

"Madwoman," he cried, "where will your ravings end? He will tell no such tale to me."

But when he bent above the lawyer with the question forced from him by Miss Dare's words, he found him already lapsed into that strange insensibility which was every moment showing itself more and more to be the precursor of death.

The sight seemed to rob Mr. Ferris of his last grain of self-command. Rising, he confronted the dazed faces of those about him with a severe look.

"This charge," said he, "is akin to that which Miss Dare made against herself in the court yesterday morning. When a woman has become crazed she no longer knows what she says."

But Imogene, strong in the belief that the hand of Heaven had pointed out the culprit for whom they had so long been searching, shook her head in quiet denial, and simply saying, "None of you know this man as I do," moved quietly aside to a dim corner, where she sat down in calm expectation of another awakening on the part of the dying lawyer.

It came soon—came before Mr. Ferris had recovered[513] himself, or Dr. Tredwell had had a chance to give any utterance to the emotions which this scene was calculated to awaken.

Rousing as the widow had done, but seeming to see no one, not even the physician who bent close at his side, Mr. Orcutt lifted his voice again, this time in the old stentorian tones which he used in court, and clearly, firmly exclaimed:

"Blood will have blood!" Then in lower and more familiar accents, cried: "Ah, Imogene, Imogene, it was all for you!" And with her name on his lips, the great lawyer closed his eyes again, and sank for the last time into a state of insensibility.

Imogene at once rose.

"I must go," she murmured; "my duty in this place is done." And she attempted to cross the floor.

But the purpose which had sustained her being at an end, she felt the full weight of her misery, and looking in the faces about her, and seeing nothing there but reprobation, she tottered and would have fallen had not a certain portly gentleman who stood near by put forth his arm to sustain her. Accepting the support with gratitude, but scarcely pausing to note from what source it came, she turned for an instant to Mr. Ferris.

"I realize," said she, "with what surprise you must have heard the revelation which has just come from Mr. Orcutt's lips. So unexpected is it that you cannot yet believe it, but the time will come when, of all the words[514] I have spoken, these alone will be found worthy your full credit: that not Craik Mansell, not Gouverneur Hildreth, not even unhappy Imogene Dare herself, could tell you so much of the real cause and manner of Mrs. Clemmens' death as this man who lies stricken here a victim of Divine justice."

And merely stopping to cast one final look in the direction of the bed, she stumbled from the room. A few minutes later and she reached the front door; but only to fall against the lintel with the moan:

"My words are true, but who will ever believe them?"

"Pardon me," exclaimed a bland and fatherly voice over her shoulder, "I am a man who can believe in any thing. Put your confidence in me, Miss Dare, and we will see—we will see."

Startled by her surprise into new life, she gave one glance at the gentleman who had followed her to the door. It was the same who had offered her his arm, and whom she supposed to have remained behind her in Mr. Orcutt's room. She saw before her a large comfortable-looking personage of middle age, of no great pretensions to elegance or culture, but bearing that within his face which oddly enough baffled her understanding while it encouraged her trust. This was the more peculiar in that he was not looking at her, but stood with his eyes fixed on the fading light of the hall-lamp, which he surveyed with an expression of concern that almost amounted to pity.[515]

"Sir, who are you?" she tremblingly asked.

Dropping his eyes from the lamp, he riveted them upon the veil she held tightly clasped in her right hand.

"If you will allow me the liberty of whispering in your ear, I will soon tell you," said he.

She bent her weary head downward; he at once leaned toward her and murmured a half-dozen words that made her instantly start erect with new light in her eyes.

"And you will help me?" she cried.

"What else am I here for?" he answered.

And turning toward a quiet figure which she now saw for the first time standing on the threshold of a small room near by, he said with the calmness of a master:

"Hickory, see that no one enters or leaves the sick-room till I return." And offering Imogene his arm, he conducted her into the library, the door of which he shut to behind them.

[516]

CHAPTER XXXIX. MR.GRYCE

What you have spoke, it may be so, perchance.
This tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongues,
Was once thought honest. —MACBETH.

AN hour later, as Mr. Ferris was leaving the house in company with Dr. Tredwell, he felt himself stopped by a slight touch on his arm. Turning about he saw Hickory.

"Beg pardon, sirs," said the detective, with a short bow, "but there's a gentleman, in the library who would like to see you before you go."

They at once turned to the room indicated. But at sight of its well-known features—its huge cases of books, its large centre-table profusely littered with papers, the burnt-out grate, the empty arm-chair—they paused, and it was with difficulty they could recover themselves sufficiently to enter. When they did, their first glance was toward the gentleman they saw standing in a distant window, apparently perusing a book.

"Who is it?" inquired Mr. Ferris of his companion.

"I cannot imagine," returned the other.

Hearing voices, the gentleman advanced.

"Ah," said he, "allow me to introduce myself. I am Mr. Gryce, of the New York Detective Service."[517]

"Mr. Gryce!" repeated the District Attorney, in astonishment.

The famous detective bowed. "I have come," said he, "upon a summons received by me in Utica not six hours ago. It was sent by a subordinate of mine interested in the trial now going on before the court. Horace Byrd is his name. I hope he is well liked here and has your confidence."

"Mr. Byrd is well enough liked," rejoined Mr. Ferris, "but I gave him no orders to send for you. At what hour was the telegram dated?"

"At half-past eleven; immediately after the accident to Mr. Orcutt."

"I see."

"He probably felt himself inadequate to meet this new emergency. He is a young man, and the affair is certainly a complicated one."

The District Attorney, who had been studying the countenance of the able detective before him, bowed courteously.

"I am not displeased to see you," said he. "If you have been in the room above——"

The other gravely bowed.

"You know probably of the outrageous accusation which has just been made against our best lawyer and most-esteemed citizen. It is but one of many which this same woman has made; and while it is to be regarded as the ravings of lunacy, still your character and ability may[518] weigh much in lifting the opprobrium which any such accusation, however unfounded, is calculated to throw around the memory of my dying friend."

"Sir," returned Mr. Gryce, shifting his gaze uneasily from one small object to another in that dismal room, till all and every article it contained seemed to partake of his mysterious confidence, "this is a world of disappointment and deceit. Intellects we admired, hearts in which we trusted, turn out frequently to be the abodes of falsehood and violence. It is dreadful, but it is true."

Mr. Ferris, struck aghast, looked at the detective with severe disapprobation.

"Is it possible," he asked, "that you have allowed yourself to give any credence to the delirious utterances of a man suffering from a wound on the head, or to the frantic words of a woman who has already abused the ears of the court by a deliberate perjury?" While Dr. Tredwell, equally indignant and even more impatient, rapped with his knuckles on the table by which he stood, and cried:

"Pooh, pooh, the man cannot be such a fool!"

A solemn smile crossed the features of the detective.

"Many persons have listened to the aspersion you denounce. Active measures will be needed to prevent its going farther."

"I have commanded silence," said Dr. Tredwell. "Respect for Mr. Orcutt will cause my wishes to be obeyed."

"Does Mr. Orcutt enjoy the universal respect of the town?"[519]

"He does," was the stern reply.

"It behooves us, then," said Mr. Gryce, "to clear his memory from every doubt by a strict inquiry into his relations with the murdered woman."

"They are known," returned Mr. Ferris, with grim reserve. "They were such as any man might hold with the woman at whose house he finds it convenient to take his daily dinner. She was to him the provider of a good meal."

Mr. Gryce's eye travelled slowly toward Mr. Ferris' shirt stud.

"Gentlemen," said he, "do you forget that Mr. Orcutt was on the scene of murder some minutes before the rest of you arrived? Let the attention of people once be directed toward him as a suspicious party, and they will be likely to remember this fact."

Astounded, both men drew back.

"What do you mean by that remark?" they asked.

"I mean," said Mr. Gryce, "that Mr. Orcutt's visit to Mrs. Clemmens' house on the morning of the murder will be apt to be recalled by persons of a suspicious tendency as having given him an opportunity to commit the crime."

"People are not such fools," cried Dr. Tredwell; while Mr. Ferris, in a tone of mingled incredulity and anger, exclaimed:

"And do you, a reputable detective, and, as I have been told, a man of excellent judgment, presume to say that there could be found any one in this town, or even[520] in this country, who could let his suspicions carry him so far as to hint that Mr. Orcutt struck this woman with his own hand in the minute or two that elapsed between his going into her house and his coming out again with tidings of her death?"

"Those who remember that he had been a participator in the lengthy discussion which had just taken place on the court-house steps as to how a man might commit a crime without laying himself open to the risk of detection, might—yes, sir."

Mr. Ferris and the coroner, who, whatever their doubts or fears, had never for an instant seriously believed the dying words of Mr. Orcutt to be those of confession, gazed in consternation at the detective, and finally inquired:

"Do you realize what you are saying?"

Mr. Gryce drew a deep breath, and shifted his gaze to the next stud in Mr. Ferris' shirt-front.

"I have never been accused of speaking lightly," he remarked. Then, with quiet insistence, asked: "Where was Mrs. Clemmens believed to get the money she lived on?"

"It is not known," rejoined the District Attorney.

"Yet she left a nice little sum behind her?"

"Five thousand dollars," declared the coroner.

"Strange that, in a town like this, no one should know where it came from?" suggested the detective.

The two gentlemen were silent.[521]

"It was a good deal to come from Mr. Orcutt in payment of a single meal a day!" continued Mr. Gryce.

"No one has ever supposed it did come from Mr. Orcutt," remarked Mr. Ferris, with some severity.

"But does any one know it did not?" ventured the detective.

Dr. Tredwell and the District Attorney looked at each other, but did not reply.

"Gentlemen," pursued Mr. Gryce, after a moment of quiet waiting, "this is without exception the most serious moment of my life. Never in the course of my experience—and that includes much—have I been placed in a more trying position than now. To allow one's self to doubt, much less to question, the integrity of so eminent a man, seems to me only less dreadful than it does to you; yet, for all that, were I his friend, as I certainly am his admirer, I would say: 'Sift this matter to the bottom; let us know if this great lawyer has any more in favor of his innocence than the other gentlemen who have been publicly accused of this crime.'"

"But," protested Dr. Tredwell, seeing that the District Attorney was too much moved to speak, "you forget the evidences which underlay the accusation of these other gentlemen; also that of all the persons who, from the day the widow was struck till now, have been in any way associated with suspicion, Mr. Orcutt is the only one who could have had no earthly motive[522] for injuring this humble woman, even if he were all he would have to be to first perform such a brutal deed and then carry out his hypocrisy to the point of using his skill as a criminal lawyer to defend another man falsely accused of the crime."

"I beg your pardon, sir," said the detective, "but I forget nothing. I only bring to the consideration of this subject a totally unprejudiced mind and an experience which has taught me never to omit testing the truth of a charge because it seems at first blush false, preposterous, and without visible foundation. If you will recall the conversation to which I have just alluded as having been held on the court-house steps on the morning Mrs. Clemmens was murdered, you will remember that it was the intellectual crime that was discussed—the crime of an intelligent man, safe in the knowledge that his motive for doing such a deed was a secret to the world."

"My God!" exclaimed Mr. Ferris, under his breath, "the man seems to be in earnest!"

"Gentlemen," pursued Mr. Gryce, with more dignity than he had hitherto seen fit to assume, "it is not my usual practice to express myself as openly as I have done here to-day. In all ordinary cases I consider it expedient to reserve intact my suspicions and my doubts till I have completed my discoveries and arranged my arguments so as to bear out with some show of reason whatever statement I may feel obliged to make. But the[523] extraordinary features of this affair, and the fact that so many were present at the scene we have just left, have caused me to change my usual tactics. Though far from ready to say that Mr. Orcutt's words were those of confession, I still see much reason to doubt his innocence, and, feeling thus, am quite willing you should know it in time to prepare for the worst."

"Then you propose making what has occurred here public?" asked Mr. Ferris, with emotion.

"Not so," was the detective's ready reply. "On the contrary, I was about to suggest that you did something more than lay a command of silence upon those who were present."

The District Attorney, who, as he afterward said, felt as if he were laboring under some oppressive nightmare, turned to the coroner and said:

"Dr. Tredwell, what do you advise me to do? Terrible as this shock has been, and serious as is the duty it possibly involves, I have never allowed myself to shrink from doing what was right simply because it afforded suffering to myself or indignity to my friends. Do you think I am called upon to pursue this matter?"

The coroner, troubled, anxious, and nearly as much overwhelmed as the District Attorney, did not immediately reply. Indeed, the situation was one to upset any man of whatever calibre. Finally he turned to Mr. Gryce.

"Mr. Gryce," said he, "we are, as you have observed,[524] friends of the dying man, and, being so, may miss our duty in our sympathy. What do you think ought to be done, in justice to him, the prisoner, and the positions which we both occupy?"

"Well, sirs," rejoined Mr. Gryce, "it is not usual, perhaps, for a man in my position to offer actual advice to gentlemen in yours; but if you wish to know what course I should pursue if I were in your places, I should say: First, require the witnesses still lingering around the dying man to promise that they will not divulge what was there said till a week has fully elapsed; next, adjourn the case now before the court for the same decent length of time; and, lastly, trust me and the two men you have hitherto employed, to find out if there is any thing in Mr. Orcutt's past history of a nature to make you tremble if the world hears of the words which escaped him on his death-bed. We shall probably need but a week."

"And Miss Dare?"

"Has already promised secrecy."

There was nothing in all this to alarm their fears; every thing, on the contrary, to allay them.

The coroner gave a nod of approval to Mr. Ferris, and both signified their acquiescence in the measures proposed.

Mr. Gryce at once assumed his usual genial air.

"You may trust me," said he, "to exercise all the discretion you would yourselves show under the circumstances.[525] I have no wish to see the name of such a man blasted by an ineffaceable stain." And he bowed as if about to leave the room.

But Mr. Ferris, who had observed this movement with an air of some uneasiness, suddenly stepped forward and stopped him.

"I wish to ask," said he, "whether superstition has had any thing to do with this readiness on your part to impute the worst meaning to the chance phrases which have fallen from the lips of our severely injured friend. Because his end seems in some regards to mirror that of the widow, have you allowed a remembrance of the words she made use of in the face of death to influence your good judgment as to the identity of Mr. Orcutt with her assassin?"

The face of Mr. Gryce assumed its grimmest aspect.

"Do you think this catastrophe was necessary to draw my attention to Mr. Orcutt? To a man acquainted with the extraordinary coincidence that marked the discovery of Mrs. Clemmens' murder, the mystery must be that Mr. Orcutt has gone unsuspected for so long." And assuming an argumentative air, he asked:

"Were either of you two gentlemen present at the conversation I have mentioned as taking place on the court-house steps the morning Mrs. Clemmens was murdered?"

"I was," said the District Attorney.

"You remember, then, the hunchback who was so free with his views?"[526]

"Most certainly."

"And know, perhaps, who that hunchback was?"

"Yes."

"You will not be surprised, then, if I recall to you the special incidents of that hour. A group of lawyers, among them Mr. Orcutt, are amusing themselves with an off-hand chat concerning criminals and the clumsy way in which, as a rule, they plan and execute their crimes. All seem to agree that a murder is usually followed by detection, when suddenly a stranger speaks and tells them that the true way to make a success of the crime is to choose a thoroughfare for the scene of tragedy, and employ a weapon that has been picked up on the spot. What happens? Within five minutes after this piece of gratuitous information, or as soon as Mr. Orcutt can cross the street, Mrs. Clemmens is found lying in her blood, struck down by a stick of wood picked up from her own hearth-stone. Is this chance? If so, 'tis a very curious one."

"I don't deny it," said Doctor Tredwell.

"I believe you never did deny it," quickly retorted the detective. "Am I not right in saying that it struck you so forcibly at the time as to lead you into supposing some collusion between the hunchback and the murderer?"

"It certainly did," admitted the coroner.

"Very well," proceeded Mr. Gryce. "Now as there could have been no collusion between these parties, the hunchback being no other person than myself, what are we to think of this murder? That it was a coincidence, or an actual result of the hunchback's words?"[527]

Dr. Tredwell and Mr. Ferris were both silent.

"Sirs," continued Mr. Gryce, feeling, perhaps, that perfect openness was necessary in order to win entire confidence, "I am not given to boasting or to a too-free expression of my opinion, but if I had been ignorant of this affair, and one of my men had come to me and said: 'A mysterious murder has just taken place, marked by this extraordinary feature, that it is a precise reproduction of a supposable case of crime which has just been discussed by a group of indifferent persons in the public street,' and then had asked me where to look for the assassin, I should have said: 'Search for that man who heard the discussion through, was among the first to leave the group, and was the first to show himself upon the scene of murder.' To be sure, when Byrd did come to me with this story, I was silent, for the man who fulfilled these conditions was Mr. Orcutt."

"Then," said Mr. Ferris, "you mean to say that you would have suspected Mr. Orcutt of this crime long ago if he had not been a man of such position and eminence?"

"Undoubtedly," was Mr. Gryce's reply.

If the expression was unequivocal, his air was still more so. Shocked and disturbed, both gentlemen fell back. The detective at once advanced and opened the door.

It was time. Mr. Byrd had been tapping upon it for some minutes, and now hastily came in. His face told the nature of his errand before he spoke.[528]

"I am sorry to be obliged to inform you——" he began.

"Mr. Orcutt is dead?" quickly interposed Mr. Ferris.

The young detective solemnly bowed.

[529]

CHAPTER XL. IN THE PRISON

The jury passing on the prisoner's life,
May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two
Guiltier than him they try.

—MEASURE FOR MEASURE.

Such welcome and unwelcome things at once
'Tis hard to reconcile. —MACBETH.

MR. MANSELL sat in his cell, the prey of gloomy and perturbed thought. He knew Mr. Orcutt was dead; he had been told of it early in the morning by his jailer, but of the circumstances which attended that death he knew nothing, save that the lawyer had been struck by a limb falling from a tree in his own garden.

The few moments during which the court had met for the purpose of re-adjournment had added but little to his enlightenment. A marked reserve had characterized the whole proceedings; and though an indefinable instinct had told him that in some mysterious way his cause had been helped rather than injured by this calamity to his counsel, he found no one ready to volunteer those explanations which his great interest in the matter certainly demanded. The hour, therefore, which he spent in solitude upon his return to prison was one of great anxiety, and it was quite a welcome relief when the cell door opened and the keeper ushered in a strange gentleman. Supposing it to be the new[530] counsel he had chosen at haphazard from a list of names that had been offered him, Mr. Mansell rose. But a second glance assured him he had made a mistake in supposing this person to be a lawyer, and stepping back he awaited his approach with mingled curiosity and reserve.

The stranger, who seemed to be perfectly at home in the narrow quarters in which he found himself, advanced with a frank air.

"My name is Gryce," said he, "and I am a detective. The District Attorney, who, as you know, has been placed in a very embarrassing situation by the events of the last two days, has accepted my services in connection with those of the two men already employed by him, in the hope that my greater experience may assist him in determining which, of all the persons who have been accused, or who have accused themselves, of murdering Mrs. Clemmens, is the actual perpetrator of that deed. Do you require any further assurance of my being in the confidence of Mr. Ferris than the fact that I am here, and in full liberty to talk with you?"

"No," returned the other, after a short but close study of his visitor.

"Very well, then," continued the detective, with a comfortable air of ease, "I will speak to the point; and the first thing I will say is, that upon looking at the evidence against you, and hearing what I have heard from various sources since I came to town, I know you are not the man who killed Mrs. Clemmens. To be sure, you have declined[531] to explain certain points, but I think you can explain them, and if you will only inform me——"

"Pardon me," interrupted Mr. Mansell, gravely; "but you say you are a detective. Now, I have no information to give a detective."

"Are you sure?" was the imperturbable query.

"Quite," was the quick reply.

"You are then determined upon going to the scaffold, whether or no?" remarked Mr. Gryce, somewhat grimly.

"Yes, if to escape it I must confide in a detective."

"Then you do wrong," declared the other; "as I will immediately proceed to show you. Mr. Mansell, you are, of course, aware of the manner of Mr. Orcutt's death?"

"I know he was struck by a falling limb."

"Do you know what he was doing when this occurred?"

"No."

"He was escorting Miss Dare down to the gate."

The prisoner, whose countenance had brightened at the mention of his lawyer, turned a deadly white at this.

"And—and was Miss Dare hurt?" he asked.

The detective shook his head.

"Then why do you tell me this?"

"Because it has much to do with the occasion of my coming here, Mr. Mansell," proceeded Mr. Gryce, in that tone of completely understanding himself which he knew so well how to assume with men of the prisoner's[532] stamp. "I am going to speak to you without circumlocution or disguise. I am going to put your position before you just as it is. You are on trial for a murder of which not only yourself, but another man, was suspected. Why are you on trial instead of him? Because you were reticent in regard to certain matters which common-sense would say you ought to be able to explain. Why were you reticent? There can be but one answer. Because you feared to implicate another person, for whose happiness and honor you had more regard than for your own. Who was that other person? The woman who stood up in court yesterday and declared she had herself committed this crime. What is the conclusion? You believe, and have always believed, Miss Dare to be the assassin of Mrs. Clemmens."

The prisoner, whose pallor had increased with every word the detective uttered, leaped to his feet at this last sentence.

"You have no right to say that!" he vehemently asseverated. "What do you know of my thoughts or my beliefs? Do I carry my convictions on my sleeve? I am not the man to betray my ideas or feelings to the world."

Mr. Gryce smiled. To be sure, this expression of silent complacency was directed to the grating of the window overhead, but it was none the less effectual on that account. Mr. Mansell, despite his self-command, began to look uneasy.[533]

"Prove your words!" he cried. "Show that these have been my convictions!"

"Very well," returned Mr. Gryce. "Why were you so long silent about the ring? Because you did not wish to compromise Miss Dare by declaring she did not return it to you, as she had said. Why did you try to stop her in the midst of her testimony yesterday? Because you saw it was going to end in confession. Finally, why did you throw aside your defence, and instead of proclaiming yourself guilty, simply tell how you were able to reach Monteith Quarry Station in ninety minutes? Because you feared her guilt would be confirmed if her statements were investigated, and were willing to sacrifice every thing but the truth in order to save her."

"You give me credit for a great deal of generosity," coldly replied the prisoner. "After the evidence brought against me by the prosecution, I should think my guilt would be accepted as proved the moment I showed that I had not left Mrs. Clemmens' house at the time she was believed to be murdered."

"And so it would," responded Mr. Gryce, "if the prosecution had not seen reason to believe that the moment of Mrs. Clemmens' death has been put too early. We now think she was not struck till some time after twelve, instead of five minutes before."

"Indeed?" said Mr. Mansell, with stern self-control.

Mr. Gryce, whose carelessly roving eye told little of[534] the close study with which he was honoring the man before him, nodded with grave decision.

"You could add very much to our convictions on this point," he observed, "by telling what it was you saw or heard in Mrs. Clemmens' house at the moment you fled from it so abruptly."

"How do you know I fled from it abruptly?"

"You were seen. The fact has not appeared in court, but a witness we might name perceived you flying from your aunt's door to the swamp as if your life depended upon the speed you made."

"And with that fact added to all the rest you have against me, you say you believe me innocent?" exclaimed Mr. Mansell.

"Yes; for I have also said I believe Mrs. Clemmens not to have been assaulted till after the hour of noon. You fled from the door at precisely five minutes before it."

The uneasiness of Mr. Mansell's face increased, till it amounted to agitation.

"And may I ask," said he, "what has happened to make you believe she was not struck at the moment hitherto supposed?"

"Ah, now," replied the detective, "we come down to facts." And leaning with a confidential air toward the prisoner, he quietly said: "Your counsel has died, for one thing."

Astonished as much by the tone as the tenor of these[535] words, Mr. Mansell drew back from his visitor in some distrust. Seeing it, Mr. Gryce edged still farther forward, and calmly continued:

"If no one has told you the particulars of Mr. Orcutt's death, you probably do not know why Miss Dare was at his house last evening?"

The look of the prisoner was sufficient reply.

"She went there," resumed Mr. Gryce, with composure, "to tell him that her whole evidence against you had been given under the belief that you were guilty of the crime with which you had been charged; that by a trick of my fellow-detectives, Hickory and Byrd, she had been deceived into thinking you had actually admitted your guilt to her; and that she had only been undeceived after she had uttered the perjury with which she sought to save you yesterday morning."

"Perjury?" escaped involuntarily from Craik Mansell's lips.

"Yes," repeated the detective, "perjury. Miss Dare lied when she said she had been to Mrs. Clemmens' cottage on the morning of the murder. She was not there, nor did she lift her hand against the widow's life. That tale she told to escape telling another which she thought would insure your doom."

"You have been talking to Miss Dare?" suggested the prisoner, with subdued sarcasm.

"I have been talking to my two men," was the unmoved retort, "to Hickory and to Byrd, and they not[536] only confirm this statement of hers in regard to the deception they played upon her, but say enough to show she could not have been guilty of the crime, because at that time she honestly believed you to be so."

"I do not understand you," cried the prisoner, in a voice that, despite his marked self-control, showed the presence of genuine emotion.

Mr. Gryce at once went into particulars. He was anxious to have Craik Mansell's mind disabused of the notion that Imogene had committed this crime, since upon that notion he believed his unfortunate reticence to rest. He therefore gave him a full relation of the scene in the hut, together with all its consequences.

Mr. Mansell listened like a man in a dream. Some fact in the past evidently made this story incredible to him.

Seeing it, Mr. Gryce did not wait to hear his comments, but upon finishing his account, exclaimed, with a confident air:

"Such testimony is conclusive. It is impossible to consider Miss Dare guilty, after an insight of this kind into the real state of her mind. Even she has seen the uselessness of persisting in her self-accusation, and, as I have already told you, went to Mr. Orcutt's house in order to explain to him her past conduct, and ask his advice for the future. She learned something else before her interview with Mr. Orcutt ended," continued the detective, impressively. "She learned that she had not[537] only been mistaken in supposing you had admitted your guilt, but that you could not have been guilty, because you had always believed her to be so. It has been a mutual case of suspicion, you see, and argues innocence on the part of you both. Or so it seems to the prosecution. How does it seem to you?"

"Would it help my cause to say?"

"It would help your cause to tell what sent you so abruptly from Mrs. Clemmens' house the morning she was murdered."

"I do not see how," returned the prisoner.

The glance of Mr. Gryce settled confidentially on his right hand where it lay outspread upon his ample knee.

"Mr. Mansell," he inquired, "have you no curiosity to know any details of the accident by which you have unexpectedly been deprived of a counsel?"

Evidently surprised at this sudden change of subject, Craik replied:

"If I had not hoped you would understand my anxiety and presently relieve it, I could not have shown you as much patience as I have."

"Very well," rejoined Mr. Gryce, altering his manner with a suddenness that evidently alarmed his listener. "Mr. Orcutt did not die immediately after he was struck down. He lived some hours; lived to say some words that have materially changed the suspicions of persons interested in the case he was defending."

"Mr. Orcutt?"[538]

The tone was one of surprise. Mr. Gryce's little finger seemed to take note of it, for it tapped the leg beneath it in quite an emphatic manner as he continued: "It was in answer to a question put to him by Miss Dare. To the surprise of every one, she had not left him from the moment they were mutually relieved from the weight of the fallen limb, but had stood over him for hours, watching for him to rouse from his insensibility. When he did, she appealed to him in a way that showed she expected a reply, to tell her who it was that killed the Widow Clemmens."

"And did Mr. Orcutt know?" was Mansell's half-agitated, half-incredulous query.

"His answer seemed to show that he did. Mr. Mansell, have you ever had any doubts of Mr. Orcutt?"

"Doubts?"

"Doubts as to his integrity, good-heartedness, or desire to serve you?"

"No."

"You will, then, be greatly surprised," Mr. Gryce went on, with increased gravity, "when I tell you that Mr. Orcutt's reply to Miss Dare's question was such as to draw attention to himself as the assassin of Widow Clemmens, and that his words and the circumstances under which they were uttered have so impressed Mr. Ferris, that the question now agitating his mind is not, 'Is Craik Mansell innocent, but was his counsel, Tremont Orcutt, guilty?'"[539]

The excited look which had appeared on the face of Mansell at the beginning of this speech, changed to one of strong disgust.

"This is too much!" he cried. "I am not a fool to be caught by any such make-believe as this! Mr. Orcutt thought to be an assassin? You might as well say that people accuse Judge Evans of killing the Widow Clemmens."

Mr. Gryce, who had perhaps stretched a point when he so unequivocally declared his complete confidence in the innocence of the man before him, tapped his leg quite affectionately at this burst of natural indignation, and counted off another point in favor of the prisoner. His words, however, were dry as sarcasm could make them.

"No," said he, "for people know that Judge Evans was without the opportunity for committing this murder, while every one remembers how Mr. Orcutt went to the widow's house and came out again with tidings of her death."

The prisoner's lip curled disdainfully.

"And do you expect me to believe you regard this as a groundwork for suspicion? I should have given you credit for more penetration, sir."

"Then you do not think Mr. Orcutt knew what he was saying when, in answer to Miss Dare's appeal for him to tell who the murderer was, he answered: 'Blood will have blood!' and drew attention to his own violent end?"[540]

"Did Mr. Orcutt say that?"

"He did."

"Very well, a man whose whole mind has for some time been engrossed with defending another man accused of murder, might say any thing while in a state of delirium."

Mr. Gryce uttered his favorite "Humph!" and gave his leg another pat, but added, gravely enough: "Miss Dare believes his words to be those of confession."

"You say Miss Dare once believed me to have confessed."

"But," persisted the detective, "Miss Dare is not alone in her opinion. Men in whose judgment you must rely, find it difficult to explain the words of Mr. Orcutt by means of any other theory than that he is himself the perpetrator of that crime for which you are yourself being tried."

"I find it difficult to believe that possible," quietly returned the prisoner. "What!" he suddenly exclaimed; "suspect a man of Mr. Orcutt's abilities and standing of a hideous crime—the very crime, too, with which his client is charged, and in defence of whom he has brought all his skill to bear! The idea is preposterous, unheard of!"

"I acknowledge that," dryly assented Mr. Gryce; "but it has been my experience to find that it is the preposterous things which happen."

For a minute the prisoner stared at the speaker incredulously; then he cried:[541]

"You really appear to be in earnest."

"I was never more so in my life," was Mr. Gryce's rejoinder.

Drawing back, Craik Mansell looked at the detective with an emotion that had almost the character of hope. Presently he said:

"If you do distrust Mr. Orcutt, you must have weightier reasons for it than any you have given me. What are they? You must be willing I should know, or you would not have gone as far with me as you have."

"You are right," Gryce assured him. "A case so complicated as this calls for unusual measures. Mr. Ferris, feeling the gravity of his position, allows me to take you into our confidence, in the hope that you will be able to help us out of our difficulty."

"I help you! You'd better release me first."

"That will come in time."

"If I help you?"

"Whether you help or not, if we can satisfy ourselves and the world that Mr. Orcutt's words were a confession. You may hasten that conviction."

"How?"

"By clearing up the mystery of your flight from Mrs. Clemmens' house."

The keen eyes of the prisoner fell; all his old distrust seemed on the point of returning.

"That would not help you at all," said he.

"I should like to be the judge," said Mr. Gryce.[542]

The prisoner shook his head.

"My word must go for it," said he.

The detective had been the hero of too many such scenes to be easily discouraged. Bowing as if accepting this conclusion from the prisoner, he quietly proceeded with the recital he had planned. With a frankness certainly unusual to him, he gave the prisoner a full account of Mr. Orcutt's last hours, and the interview which had followed between himself and Miss Dare. To this he added his own reasons for doubting the lawyer, and, while admitting he saw no motive for the deed, gave it as his serious opinion, that the motive would be found if once he could get at the secret of Mr. Orcutt's real connection with the deceased. He was so eloquent, and so manifestly in earnest, Mr. Mansell's eye brightened in spite of himself, and when the detective ceased he looked up with an expression which convinced Mr. Gryce that half the battle was won. He accordingly said, in a tone of great confidence:

"A knowledge of what went on in Mrs. Clemmens' house before he went to it would be of great help to us. With that for a start, all may be learned. I therefore put it to you for the last time whether it would not be best for you to explain yourself on this point. I am sure you will not regret it."

"Sir," said Mansell, with undisturbed composure, "if your purpose is to fix this crime on Mr. Orcutt, I must insist upon your taking my word that I have no information to give you that can in any way affect him."[543]

"You could give us information, then, that would affect Miss Dare?" was the quick retort. "Now, I say," the astute detective declared, as the prisoner gave an almost imperceptible start, "that whatever your information is, Miss Dare is not guilty."

"You say it!" exclaimed the prisoner. "What does your opinion amount to if you haven't heard the evidence against her?"

"There is no evidence against her but what is purely circumstantial."

"How do you know that?"

"Because she is innocent. Circumstantial evidence may exist alike against the innocent and the guilty; real evidence only against the guilty. I mean to say that as I am firmly convinced Miss Dare once regarded you as guilty of this crime, I must be equally convinced she didn't commit it herself. This is unanswerable."

"You have stated that before."

"I know it; but I want you to see the force of it; because, once convinced with me that Miss Dare is innocent, you will be willing to tell all you know, even what apparently implicates her."

Silence answered this remark.

"You didn't see her strike the blow?"

Mansell roused indignantly.

"No, of course not!" he cried.

"You did not see her with your aunt that moment you fled from the house immediately before the murder!"[544]

"I didn't see her."

That emphasis, unconscious, perhaps, was fatal. Gryce, who never lost any thing, darted on this small gleam of advantage as a hungry pike darts upon an innocent minnow.

"But you thought you heard her," he cried; "her voice, or her laugh, or perhaps merely the rustle of her dress in another room?"

"No," said Mansell, "I didn't hear her."

"Of course not," was the instantaneous reply. "But something said or done by somebody—a something which amounts to nothing as evidence—gives you to understand she was there, and so you hold your tongue for fear of compromising her."

"Amounts to nothing as evidence?" echoed Mansell. "How do you know that?"

"Because Miss Dare was not in the house with your aunt at that time. Miss Dare was in Professor Darling's observatory, a mile or so away."

"Does she say that?"

"We will prove that."

Aroused, excited, the prisoner turned his flashing blue eyes on the detective.

"I should be glad to have you," he said.

"But you must first tell me in what room you were when you received this intimation of Miss Dare's presence?"

"I was in no room; I was on the stone step outside of[545] the dining-room door. I did not go into the house at all that morning, as I believe I have already told Mr. Ferris."

"Very good! It will all be simpler than I thought. You came up to the house and went away again without coming in; ran away, I may say, taking the direction of the swamp."

The prisoner did not deny it.

"You remember all the incidents of that short flight?"

The prisoner's lip curled.

"Remember leaping the fence and stumbling a trifle when you came down?"

"Yes."

"Very well; now tell me how could Miss Dare see you do that from Mrs. Clemmens' house?"

"Did Miss Dare tell you she saw me trip after I jumped the fence?"

"She did."

"And yet was in Professor Darling's observatory, a mile or so away?"

"Yes."

A satirical laugh broke from the prisoner.

"I think," said he, "that instead of my telling you how she could have seen this from Mrs. Clemmens' house, you should tell me how she could have seen it from Professor Darling's observatory."

"That is easy enough. She was looking through a telescope."[546]

"What?"

"At the moment you were turning from Mrs. Clemmens' door, Miss Dare, perched in the top of Professor Darling's house, was looking in that very direction through a telescope."

"I—I would like to believe that story," said the prisoner, with suppressed emotion. "It would——"

"What?" urged the detective, calmly.

"Make a new man of me," finished Mansell, with a momentary burst of feeling.

"Well, then, call up your memories of the way your aunt's house is situated. Recall the hour, and acknowledge that, if Miss Dare was with her, she must have been in the dining-room."

"There is no doubt about that."

"Now, how many windows has the dining-room?"

"One."

"How situated?"

"It is on the same side as the door."

"There is none, then, which looks down to that place where you leaped the fence?"

"No."

"How account for her seeing that little incident, then, of your stumbling?"

"She might have come to the door, stepped out, and so seen me."

"Humph! I see you have an answer for every thing."[547]

Craik Mansell was silent.

A look of admiration slowly spread itself over the detective's face.

"We must probe the matter a little deeper," said he. "I see I have a hard head to deal with." And, bringing his glance a little nearer to the prisoner, he remarked:

"If she had been standing there you could not have turned round without seeing her?"

"No."

"Now, did you see her standing there?"

"No."

"Yet you turned round?"

"I did?"

"Miss Dare says so."

The prisoner struck his forehead with his hand.

"And it is so," he cried. "I remember now that some vague desire to know the time made me turn to look at the church clock. Go on. Tell me more that Miss Dare saw."

His manner was so changed—his eye burned so brightly—the detective gave himself a tap of decided self-gratulation.

"She saw you hurry over the bog, stop at the entrance of the wood, take a look at your watch, and plunge with renewed speed into the forest."

"It is so. It is so. And, to have seen that, she must have had the aid of a telescope."

"Then she describes your appearance. She says you[548] had your pants turned up at the ankles, and carried your coat on your left arm."

"Left arm?"

"Yes."

"I think I had it on my right."

"It was on the arm toward her, she declares. If she was in the observatory, it was your left side that she saw."

"Yes, yes; but the coat was over the other arm. I remember using my left hand in vaulting over the fence when I came up to the house."

"It is a vital point," said Mr. Gryce, with a quietness that concealed his real anxiety and chagrin. "If the coat was on the arm toward her, the fact of its being on the right——"

"Wait!" exclaimed Mr. Mansell, with an air of sudden relief. "I recollect now that I changed it from one arm to the other after I vaulted the fence. It was just at the moment I turned to come back to the side door, and, as she does not pretend to have seen me till after I left the door, of course the coat was, as she says, on my left arm."

"I thought you could explain it," returned Mr. Gryce, with an air of easy confidence. "But what do you mean when you say that you changed it at the moment you turned to come back to the side door? Didn't you go at once to the dining-room door from the swamp?"

"No. I had gone to the front door on my former[549] visit, and was going to it this time; but when I got to the corner of the house I saw the tramp coming into the gate, and not wishing to encounter any one, turned round and came back to the dining-room door."

"I see. And it was then you heard——"

"What I heard," completed the prisoner, grimly.

"Mr. Mansell," said the other, "are you not sufficiently convinced by this time that Miss Dare was not with Mrs. Clemmens, but in the observatory of Professor Darling's house, to tell me what that was?"

"Answer me a question and I will reply. Can the entrance of the woods be seen from the position which she declares herself to have occupied?"

"It can. Not two hours ago I tried the experiment myself, using the same telescope and kneeling in the same place where she did. I found I could not only trace the spot where you paused, but could detect quite readily every movement of my man Hickory, whom I had previously placed there to go through the motions. I should not have come here if I had not made myself certain on that point."

Yet the prisoner hesitated.

"I not only made myself sure of that," resumed Mr. Gryce, "but I also tried if I could see as much with my naked eye from Mrs. Clemmens' side door. I found I could not, and my sight is very good."

"Enough," said Mansell; "hard as it is to explain, I must believe Miss Dare was not where I thought her."[550]

"Then you will tell me what you heard?"

"Yes; for in it may lie the key to this mystery, though how, I cannot see, and doubt if you can. I am all the more ready to do it," he pursued, "because I can now understand how she came to think me guilty, and, thinking so, conducted herself as she has done from the beginning of my trial. All but the fact of her denouncing herself yesterday; that I cannot comprehend."

"A woman in love can do any thing," quoth Mr. Gryce. Then admonished by the flush of the prisoner's cheek that he was treading on dangerous ground, he quickly added: "But she will explain all that herself some day. Let us hear what you have to tell me."

Craik Mansell drooped his head and his brow became gloomy.

"Sir," said he, "it is unnecessary for me to state that your surmise in regard to my past convictions is true. If Miss Dare was not with my aunt just before the murder, I certainly had reasons for thinking she was. To be sure, I did not see her or hear her voice, but I heard my aunt address her distinctly and by name."

"You did?" Mr. Gryce's interest in the tattoo he was playing on his knee became intense.

"Yes. It was just as I pushed the door ajar. The words were these: 'You think you are going to marry him, Imogene Dare; but I tell you you never shall, not while I live.'"

"Humph!" broke involuntarily from the detective's[551] lips, and, though his face betrayed nothing of the shock this communication occasioned him, his fingers stopped an instant in their restless play.

Mr. Mansell saw it and cast him an anxious look. The detective instantly smiled with great unconcern. "Go on," said he, "what else did you hear?"

"Nothing else. In the mood in which I was this very plain intimation that Miss Dare had sought my aunt, had pleaded with her for me and failed, struck me as sufficient. I did not wait to hear more, but hurried away in a state of passion that was little short of frenzy. To leave the place and return to my work was now my one wish. When I found, then, that by running I might catch the train at Monteith, I ran, and so unconsciously laid myself open to suspicion."

"I see," murmured the detective; "I see."

"Not that I suspected any evil then," pursued Mr. Mansell, earnestly. "I was only conscious of disappointment and a desire to escape from my own thoughts. It was not till next day——"

"Yes—yes," interrupted Mr. Gryce, abstractedly, "but your aunt's words! She said: 'You think you are going to marry him, Imogene Dare; but you never shall, not while I live.' Yet Imogene Dare was not there. Let us solve that problem."

"You think you can?"

"I think I must."

"How? how?"[552]

The detective did not answer. He was buried in profound thought. Suddenly he exclaimed:

"It is, as you say, the key-note to the tragedy. It must be solved." But the glance he dived deep into space seemed to echo that "How? how?" of the prisoner, with a gloomy persistence that promised little for an immediate answer to the enigma before them. It occurred to Mansell to offer a suggestion.

"There is but one way I can explain it," said he. "My aunt was speaking to herself. She was deaf and lived alone. Such people often indulge in soliloquizing."

The slap which Mr. Gryce gave his thigh must have made it tingle for a good half-hour.

"There," he cried, "who says extraordinary measures are not useful at times? You've hit the very explanation. Of course she was speaking to herself. She was just the woman to do it. Imogene Dare was in her thoughts, so she addressed Imogene Dare. If you had opened the door you would have seen her standing there alone, venting her thoughts into empty space."

"I wish I had," said the prisoner.

Mr. Gryce became exceedingly animated. "Well, that's settled," said he. "Imogene Dare was not there, save in Mrs. Clemmens' imagination. And now for the conclusion. She said: 'You think you are going to marry him, Imogene Dare; but you never shall, not while I live.' That shows her mind was running on you."

"It shows more than that. It shows that, if Miss Dare[553] was not with her then, she must have been there earlier in the day. For, when I left my aunt the day before, she was in entire ignorance of my attachment to Miss Dare, and the hopes it had led to."

"Say that again," cried Gryce.

Mr. Mansell repeated himself, adding: "That would account for the ring being found on my aunt's dining-room floor——"

But Mr. Gryce waved that question aside.

"What I want to make sure of is that your aunt had not been informed of your wishes as concerned Miss Dare."

"Unless Miss Dare was there in the early morning and told her herself."

"There were no neighbors to betray you?"

"There wasn't a neighbor who knew any thing about the matter."

The detective's eye brightened till it vied in brilliancy with the stray gleam of sunshine which had found its way to the cell through the narrow grating over their heads.

"A clue!" he murmured; "I have received a clue," and rose as if to leave.

The prisoner, startled, rose also.

"A clue to what?" he cried.

But Mr. Gryce was not the man to answer such a question.

"You shall hear soon. Enough that you have given[554] me an idea that may eventually lead to the clearing up of this mystery, if not to your own acquittal from a false charge of murder."

"And Miss Dare?"

"Is under no charge, and never will be."

"And Mr. Orcutt?"

"Wait," said Mr. Gryce—"wait."

[555]

XLI. A LINK SUPPLIED

Upon his bloody finger he doth wear
A precious ring.

—TITUS ANDRONICUS.

Make me to see it; or at the least so prove it,
That the probation bear no hinge nor loop
To hang a doubt on.

—OTHELLO.

MR. GRYCE did not believe that Imogene Dare had visited Mrs. Clemmens before the assault, or, indeed, had held any communication with her. Therefore, when Mansell declared that he had never told his aunt of the attachment between himself and this young lady, the astute detective at once drew the conclusion that the widow had never known of that attachment, and consequently that the words which the prisoner had overheard must have referred, not to himself, as he supposed, but to some other man, and, if to some other man—why to the only one with whom Miss Dare's name was at that time associated; in other words, to Mr. Orcutt!

Now it was not easy to measure the importance of a conclusion like this. For whilst there would have been nothing peculiar in this solitary woman, with the few[556] thousands in the bank, boasting of her power to separate her nephew from the lady of his choice, there was every thing that was significant in her using the same language in regard to Miss Dare and Mr. Orcutt. Nothing but the existence of some unsuspected bond between herself and the great lawyer could have accounted, first, for her feeling on the subject of his marriage; and, secondly, for the threat of interference contained in her very emphatic words,—a bond which, while evidently not that of love, was still of a nature to give her control over his destiny, and make her, in spite of her lonely condition, the selfish and determined arbitrator of his fate.

What was that bond? A secret shared between them? The knowledge on her part of some fact in Mr. Orcutt's past life, which, if revealed, might serve as an impediment to his marriage? In consideration that the great mystery to be solved was what motive Mr. Orcutt could have had for killing this woman, an answer to this question was manifestly of the first importance.

But before proceeding to take any measures to insure one, Mr. Gryce sat down and seriously asked himself whether there was any known fact, circumstantial or otherwise, which refused to fit into the theory that Mr. Orcutt actually committed this crime with his own hand, and at the time he was seen to cross the street and enter Mrs. Clemmens' house. For, whereas the most complete chain of circumstantial evidence does not necessarily prove the suspected party to be guilty of a[557] crime, the least break in it is fatal to his conviction. And Mr. Gryce wished to be as fair to the memory of Mr. Orcutt as he would have been to the living man.

Beginning, therefore, with the earliest incidents of the fatal day, he called up, first, the letter which the widow had commenced but never lived to finish. It was a suggestive epistle. It was addressed to her most intimate friend, and showed in the few lines written a certain foreboding or apprehension of death remarkable under the circumstances. Mr. Gryce recalled one of its expressions. "There are so many," wrote she, "to whom my death would be more than welcome." So many! Many is a strong word; many means more than one, more than two; many means three at least. Now where were the three? Hildreth, of course, was one, Mansell might very properly be another, but who was the third? To Mr. Gryce, but one name suggested itself in reply. So far, then, his theory stood firm. Now what was the next fact known? The milkman stopped with his milk; that was at half-past eleven. He had to wait a few minutes, from which it was concluded she was up-stairs when he rapped. Was it at this time she was interrupted in her letter-writing? If so, she probably did not go back to it, for when Mr. Hildreth called, some fifteen minutes later, she was on the spot to open the door. Their interview was short; it was also stormy. Medicine was the last thing she stood in need of; besides, her mind was evidently[558] preoccupied. Showing him the door, she goes back to her work, and, being deaf, does not notice that he does not leave the house as she expected. Consequently her thoughts go on unhindered, and, her condition being one of anger, she mutters aloud and bitterly to herself as she flits from dining-room to kitchen in her labor of serving up her dinner. The words she made use of have been overheard, and here another point appears. For, whereas her temper must have been disturbed by the demand which had been made upon her the day before by her favorite relative and heir, her expressions of wrath at this moment were not levelled against him, but against a young lady who is said to have been a stranger to her, her language being: "You think you are going to marry him, Imogene Dare; but I tell you you never shall, not while I live." Her chief grievance, then, and the one thing uppermost in her thoughts, even at a time when she felt that there were many who desired her death, lay in this fact that a young and beautiful woman had manifested, as she supposed, a wish to marry Mr. Orcutt, the word him which she had used, necessarily referring to the lawyer, as she knew nothing of Imogene's passion for her nephew.

But this is not the only point into which it is necessary to inquire. For to believe Mr. Orcutt guilty of this crime one must also believe that all the other persons who had been accused of it were truthful in the explanations which they gave of the events which had seemingly[559] connected them with it. Now, were they? Take the occurrences of that critical moment when the clock stood at five minutes to twelve. If Mr. Hildreth is to be believed, he was at that instant in the widow's front hall musing on his disappointment and arranging his plans for the future; the tramp, if those who profess to have watched him are to be believed, was on the kitchen portico; Craik Mansell on the dining-room door-step; Imogene Dare before her telescope in Professor Darling's observatory. Mr. Hildreth, with two doors closed between him and the back of the house, knew nothing of what was said or done there, but the tramp heard loud talking, and Craik Mansell the actual voice of the widow raised in words which were calculated to mislead him into thinking she was engaged in angry altercation with the woman he loved. What do all three do, then? Mr. Hildreth remains where he is; the tramp skulks away through the front gate; Craik Mansell rushes back to the woods. And Imogene Dare? She has turned her telescope toward Mrs. Clemmens' cottage, and, being on the side of the dining-room door, sees the flying form of Craik Mansell, and marks it till it disappears from her sight. Is there any thing contradictory in these various statements? No. Every thing, on the contrary, that is reconcilable.

Let us proceed then. What happens a few minutes later? Mr. Hildreth, tired of seclusion and anxious to catch the train, opens the front door and steps out. The[560] tramp, skulking round some other back door, does not see him; Imogene, with her eye on Craik Mansell, now vanishing into the woods, does not see him; nobody sees him. He goes, and the widow for a short interval is as much alone as she believed herself to be a minute or two before when three men stood, unseen by each other, at each of the three doors of her house. What does she do now?

Why, she finishes preparing her dinner, and then, observing that the clock is slow, proceeds to set it right. Fatal task! Before she has had an opportunity to finish it, the front door has opened again, Mr. Orcutt has come in, and, tempted perhaps by her defenceless position, catches up a stick of wood from the fireplace and, with one blow, strikes her down at his feet, and rushes forth again with tidings of her death.

Now, is there any thing in all this that is contradictory? No; there is only something left out. In the whole of this description of what went on in the widow's house, there has been no mention made of the ring—the ring which it is conceded was either in Craik Mansell's or Imogene Dare's possession the evening before the murder, and which was found on the dining-room floor within ten minutes after the assault took place. If Mrs. Clemmens' exclamations are to be taken as an attempt to describe her murderer, then this ring must have been on the hand which was raised against her, and how could that have been if the hand was that of Mr. Orcutt? Unimportant[561] as it seemed, the discovery of this ring on the floor, taken with the exclamations of the widow, make a break in the chain that is fatal to Mr. Gryce's theory. Yet does it? The consternation displayed by Mr. Orcutt when Imogene claimed the ring and put it on her finger may have had a deeper significance than was thought at the time. Was there any way in which he could have come into possession of it before she did? and could it have been that he had had it on his hand when he struck the blow? Mr. Gryce bent all his energies to inquire.

First, where was the ring when the lovers parted in the wood the day before the murder? Evidently in Mr. Mansell's coat-pocket. Imogene had put it there, and Imogene had left it there. But Mansell did not know it was there, so took no pains to look after its safety. It accordingly slipped out; but when? Not while he slept, or it would have been found in the hut. Not while he took the path to his aunt's house, or it would have been found in the lane, or, at best, on the dining-room door-step. When, then? Mr. Gryce could think of but one instant, and that was when the young man threw his coat from one arm to the other at the corner of the house toward the street. If it rolled out then it would have been under an impetus, and, as the coat was flung from the right arm to the left, the ring would have flown in the direction of the gate and fallen, perhaps, directly on the walk in front of the house. If it had, its presence in the dining-room seemed to show it had been carried there by[562] Mr. Orcutt, since he was the next person who went into the house.

But did it fall there? Mr. Gryce took the only available means to find out.

Sending for Horace Byrd, he said to him:

"You were on the court-house steps when Mr. Orcutt left and crossed over to the widow's house?"

"Yes, sir."

"Were you watching him? Could you describe his manner as he entered the house; how he opened the gate; or whether he stopped to look about him before going in?"

"No, sir," returned Byrd; "my eyes may have been on him, but I don't remember any thing especial that he did."

Somewhat disappointed, Mr. Gryce went to the District Attorney and put to him the same question. The answer he received from him was different. With a gloomy contraction of his brow, Mr. Ferris said:

"Yes, I remember his look and appearance very well. He stepped briskly, as he always did, and carried his head—— Wait!" he suddenly exclaimed, giving the detective a look in which excitement and decision were strangely blended. "You think Mr. Orcutt committed this crime; that he left us standing on the court-house steps and crossed the street to Mrs. Clemmens' house with the deliberate intention of killing her, and leaving the burden of his guilt to be shouldered by the tramp. Now, you have called up a memory to me that convinces[563] me this could not have been. Had he had any such infernal design in his breast he would not have been likely to have stopped as he did to pick up something which he saw lying on the walk in front of Mrs. Clemmens' house."

"And did Mr. Orcutt do that?" inquired Mr. Gryce, with admirable self-control.

"Yes, I remember it now distinctly. It was just as he entered the gate. A man meditating a murder of this sort would not be likely to notice a pin lying in his path, much less pause to pick it up."

"How if it were a diamond ring?"

"A diamond ring?"

"Mr. Ferris," said the detective, gravely, "you have just supplied a very important link in the chain of evidence against Mr. Orcutt. The question is, how could the diamond ring which Miss Dare is believed to have dropped into Mr. Mansell's coat-pocket have been carried into Mrs. Clemmens' house without the agency of either herself or Mr. Mansell? I think you have just shown." And the able detective, in a few brief sentences, explained the situation to Mr. Ferris, together with the circumstances of Mansell's flight, as gleaned by him in his conversation with the prisoner.

The District Attorney was sincerely dismayed. The guilt of the renowned lawyer was certainly assuming positive proportions. Yet, true to his friendship for Mr. Orcutt, he made one final effort to controvert the arguments of the detective, and quietly said:[564]

"You profess to explain how the ring might have been carried into Mrs. Clemmens' house, but how do you account for the widow having used an exclamation which seems to signify it was on the hand which she saw lifted against her life?"

"By the fact that it was on that hand."

"Do you think that probable if the hand was Mr. Orcutt's?"

"Perfectly so. Where else would he be likely to put it in the preoccupied state of mind in which he was? In his pocket? The tramp might have done that, but not the gentleman."

Mr. Ferris looked at the detective with almost an expression of fear.

"And how came it to be on the floor if Mr. Orcutt put it on his finger?"

"By the most natural process in the world. The ring made for Miss Dare's third finger was too large for Mr. Orcutt's little finger, and so slipped off when he dropped the stick of wood from his hand."

"And he left it lying where it fell?"

"He probably did not notice its loss. If, as I suppose, he had picked it up and placed it on his finger, mechanically, its absence at such a moment would not be observed. Besides, what clue could he suppose a diamond ring he had never seen before, and which he had had on his finger but an instant, would offer in a case like this?"[565]

"You reason close," said the District Attorney; "too close," he added, as he recalled, with painful distinctness, the look and attitude of Mr. Orcutt at the time this ring was first brought into public notice, and realized that so might a man comport himself who, conscious of this ring's association with the crime he had just secretly perpetrated, sees it claimed and put on the finger of the woman he loves.

Mr. Gryce, with his usual intuition, seemed to follow the thoughts of the District Attorney.

"If our surmises are correct," he remarked, "it was a grim moment for the lawyer when, secure in his immunity from suspicion, he saw Miss Dare come upon the scene with eager inquiries concerning this murder. To you, who had not the clue, it looked as if he feared she was not as innocent as she should be; but, if you will recall the situation now, I think you will see that his agitation can only be explained by his apprehension of her intuitions and an alarm lest her interest sprang from some mysterious doubt of himself."

Mr. Ferris shook his head with a gloomy air, but did not respond.

"Miss Dare tells me," the detective resumed, "that his first act upon their meeting again at his house was to offer himself to her in marriage. Now you, or any one else, would say this was to show he did not mistrust her, but I say it was to find out if she mistrusted him."

Still Mr. Ferris remained silent.[566]

"The same reasoning will apply to what followed," continued Mr. Gryce. "You cannot reconcile the thought of his guilt with his taking the case of Mansell and doing all he could to secure his acquittal. But you will find it easier to do so when I tell you that, without taking into consideration any spark of sympathy which he might feel for the man falsely accused of his crime, he knew from Imogene's lips that she would not survive the condemnation of her lover, and that, besides this, his only hope of winning her for his wife lay in the gratitude he might awaken in her if he succeeded in saving his rival."

"You are making him out a great villain," murmured Mr. Ferris, bitterly.

"And was not that the language of his own countenance as he lay dying?" inquired the detective.

Mr. Ferris could not say No. He had himself been too deeply impressed by the sinister look he had observed on the face of his dying friend. He therefore confined himself to remarking, not without sarcasm:

"And now for the motive of this hideous crime—for I suppose your ingenuity has discovered one before this."

"It will be found in his love for Miss Dare," returned the detective; "but just how I am not prepared to-day to say."

"His love for Miss Dare? What had this plain and homespun Mrs. Clemmens to do with his love for Miss Dare?"[567]

"She was an interference."

"How?"

"Ah, that, sir, is the question."

"So then you do not know?"

Mr. Gryce was obliged to shake his head.

The District Attorney drew himself up. "Mr. Gryce," said he, "the charge which has been made against this eminent man demands the very strongest proof in order to substantiate it. The motive, especially, must be shown to have been such as to offer a complete excuse for suspecting him. No trivial or imaginary reason for his wishing this woman out of the world will answer in his case. You must prove that her death was absolutely necessary to the success of his dearest hopes, or your reasoning will only awaken distrust in the minds of all who hear it. The fame of a man like Mr. Orcutt is not to be destroyed by a passing word of delirium, or a specious display of circumstantial evidence such as you evolve from the presence of the ring on the scene of murder."

"I know it," allowed Mr. Gryce, "and that is why I have asked for a week."

"Then you still believe you can find such a motive?"

The smile which Mr. Gryce bestowed upon the favored object then honored by his gaze haunted the District Attorney for the rest of the week.

[568]

XLII. CONSULTATIONS

That he should die is worthy policy;
But yet we want a color for his death;
'Tis meet he be condemned by course of law.

—HENRY VI.

MR. GRYCE was perfectly aware that the task before him was a difficult one. To be himself convinced that Mr. Orcutt had been in possession of a motive sufficient to account for, if not excuse, this horrible crime was one thing; to find out that motive and make it apparent to the world was another. But he was not discouraged. Summoning his two subordinates, he laid the matter before them.

"I am convinced," said he, "that Mrs. Clemmens was a more important person to Mr. Orcutt than her plain appearance and humble manner of life would suggest. Do either of you know whether Mr. Orcutt's name has ever been associated with any private scandal, the knowledge of which might have given her power over him?"

"I do not think he was that kind of a man," said Byrd. "Since morning I have put myself in the way of such persons as I saw disposed to converse about him, and though I have been astonished to find how many there are who say they never quite liked or altogether[569] trusted this famous lawyer, I have heard nothing said in any way derogatory to his private character. Indeed, I believe, as far as the ladies were concerned, he was particularly reserved. Though a bachelor, he showed no disposition to marry, and until Miss Dare appeared on the scene was not known to be even attentive to one of her sex."

"Some one, however, I forget who, told me that for a short time he was sweet on a certain Miss Pratt," remarked Hickory.

"Pratt? Where have I heard that name?" murmured Byrd to himself.

"But nothing came of it," Hickory continued. "She was not over and above smart they say, and though pretty enough, did not hold his fancy. Some folks declare she was so disappointed she left town."

"Pratt, Pratt!" repeated Byrd to himself. "Ah! I know now," he suddenly exclaimed. "While I stood around amongst the crowd, the morning Mrs. Clemmens was murdered, I remember overhearing some one say how hard she was on the Pratt girl."

"Humph!" ejaculated Mr. Gryce. "The widow was hard on any one Mr. Orcutt chose to admire."

"I don't understand it," said Byrd.

"Nor I," rejoined Mr. Gryce; "but I intend to before the week is out." Then abruptly: "When did Mrs. Clemmens come to this town?"

"Fifteen years ago," replied Byrd.[570]

"And Orcutt—when did he first put in an appearance here?"

"At very much the same time, I believe."

"Humph! And did they seem to be friends at that time?"

"Some say Yes, some say No."

"Where did he come from—have you learned?"

"From some place in Nebraska, I believe."

"And she?"

"Why, she came from some place in Nebraska too!"

"The same place?"

"That we must find out."

Mr. Gryce mused for a minute; then he observed:

"Mr. Orcutt was renowned in his profession. Do you know any thing about his career—whether he brought a reputation for ability with him, or whether his fame was entirely made in this place?"

"I think it was made here. Indeed, I have heard that it was in this court he pleaded his first case. Don't you know more about it, Hickory?"

"Yes; Mr. Ferris told me this morning that Orcutt had not opened a law-book when he came to this town. That he was a country schoolmaster in some uncivilized district out West, and would never have been any thing more, perhaps, if the son of old Stephen Orcutt had not died, and thus made a vacancy in the law-office here which he was immediately sent for to fill."

"Stephen Orcutt? He was the uncle of this man, wasn't he?"[571]

"Yes."

"And quite a lawyer too?"

"Yes, but nothing like Tremont B. He was successful from the start. Had a natural aptitude, I suppose—must have had, to pick up the profession in the way he did."

"Boys," cried Mr. Gryce, after another short ruminative pause, "the secret we want to know is of long standing; indeed, I should not be surprised if it were connected with his life out West. I will tell you why I think so. For ten years Mrs. Clemmens has been known to put money in the bank regularly every week. Now, where did she get that money? From Mr. Orcutt, of course. What for? In payment for the dinner he usually took with her? No, in payment of her silence concerning a past he desired kept secret."

"But they have been here fifteen years and she has only received money for ten."

"She has only put money in the bank for ten; she may have been paid before that and may not. I do not suppose he was in a condition to be very lavish at the outset of his career."

"You advise us, then, to see what we can make out of his early life out West?"

"Yes; and I will see what I can make out of hers. The link which connects the two will be found. Mr. Orcutt did not say: 'It was all for you, Imogene,' for nothing."

And, dismissing the two young men, Mr. Gryce proceeded[572] to the house of Mr. Orcutt, where he entered upon an examination of such papers and documents as were open to his inspection, in the hope of discovering some allusion to the deceased lawyer's early history. But he was not successful. Neither did a like inspection of the widow's letters bring any new facts to light. The only result which seemed to follow these efforts was an increased certainty on his part that some dangerous secret lurked in a past that was so determinedly hidden from the world, and resorting to the only expedient now left to him, he resolved to consult Miss Firman, as being the only person who professed to have had any acquaintance with Mrs. Clemmens before she came to Sibley. To be sure, she had already been questioned by the coroner, but Mr. Gryce was a man who had always found that the dryest well could be made to yield a drop or two more of water if the bucket was dropped by a dexterous hand. He accordingly prepared himself for a trip to Utica.

[573]

XLIII. MRS. FIRMAN

Hark! she speaks. I will set down what comes from her....
Heaven knows what she has known.—MACBETH.

"MISS FIRMAN, I believe?" The staid, pleasant-faced lady whom we know, but who is looking older and considerably more careworn than when we saw her at the coroner's inquest, rose from her chair in her own cozy sitting-room, and surveyed her visitor curiously. "I am Mr. Gryce," the genial voice went on. "Perhaps the name is not familiar?"

"I never heard it before," was the short but not ungracious reply.

"Well, then, let me explain," said he. "You are a relative of the Mrs. Clemmens who was so foully murdered in Sibley, are you not? Pardon me, but I see you are; your expression speaks for itself." How he could have seen her expression was a mystery to Miss Firman, for his eyes, if not attention, were seemingly fixed upon some object in quite a different portion of the room. "You must, therefore," he pursued, "be in a state of great anxiety to know who her murderer was. Now, I am in that same state, madam; we are, therefore, in sympathy, you see."[574]

The respectful smile and peculiar intonation with which these last words were uttered, robbed them of their familiarity and allowed Miss Firman to perceive his true character.

"You are a detective," said she, and as he did not deny it, she went on: "You say I must be anxious to know who my cousin's murderer was. Has Craik Mansell, then, been acquitted?"

"A verdict has not been given," said the other. "His trial has been adjourned in order to give him an opportunity to choose a new counsel."

Miss Firman motioned her visitor to be seated, and at once took a chair herself.

"What do you want with me?" she asked, with characteristic bluntness.

The detective was silent. It was but for a moment, but in that moment he seemed to read to the bottom of this woman's mind.

"Well," said he, "I will tell you. You believe Craik Mansell to be innocent?"

"I do," she returned.

"Very well; so do I."

"Let me shake hands with you," was her abrupt remark. And without a smile she reached forth her hand, which he took with equal gravity.

This ceremony over, he remarked, with a cheerful mien:

"We are fortunately not in a court of law, and so can[575] talk freely together. Why do you think Mansell innocent? I am sure the evidence has not been much in his favor."

"Why do you think him innocent?" was the brisk retort.

"I have talked with him."

"Ah!"

"I have talked with Miss Dare."

A different "Ah!" this time.

"And I was present when Mr. Orcutt breathed his last."

The look she gave was like cold water on Mr. Gryce's secretly growing hopes.

"What has that to do with it?" she wonderingly exclaimed.

The detective took another tone.

"You did not know Mr. Orcutt then?" he inquired.

"I had not that honor," was the formal reply.

"You have never, then, visited your cousin in Sibley?"

"Yes, I was there once; but that did not give me an acquaintance with Mr. Orcutt."

"Yet he went almost every day to her house."

"And he came while I was there, but that did not give me an acquaintance with him."

"He was reserved, then, in his manners, uncommunicative, possibly morose?"[576]

"He was just what I would expect such a gentleman to be at the table with women like my cousin and myself."

"Not morose, then; only reserved."

"Exactly," the short, quick bow of the amiable spinster seemed to assert.

Mr. Gryce drew a deep breath. This well seemed to be destitute of even a drop of moisture.

"Why do you ask me about Mr. Orcutt? Has his death in any way affected young Mansell's prospects?"

"That is what I want to find out," declared Mr. Gryce. Then, without giving her time for another question, said: "Where did Mrs. Clemmens first make the acquaintance of Mr. Orcutt? Wasn't it in some town out West?"

"Out West? Not to my knowledge, sir. I always supposed she saw him first in Sibley."

This well was certainly very dry.

"Yet you are not positive that this is so, are you?" pursued the patient detective. "She came from Nebraska, and so did he; now, why may they not have known each other there?"

"I did not know that he came from Nebraska."

"She has never talked about him then?"

"Never."

Mr. Gryce drew another deep breath and let down his bucket again.[577]

"I thought your cousin spent her childhood in Toledo?"

"She did, sir."

"How came she to go to Nebraska then?"

"Well, she was left an orphan and had to look out for herself. A situation in some way opened to her in Nebraska, and she went there to take it."

"A situation at what?"

"As waitress in some hotel."

"Humph! And was she still a waitress when she married?"

"Yes, I think so, but I am not sure about it or any thing else in connection with her at that time. The subject was so painful we never discussed it."

"Why painful?"

"She lost her husband so soon."

"But you can tell me the name of the town in which this hotel was, can you not?"

"It was called Swanson then, but that was fifteen years ago. Its name may have been changed since."

Swanson! This was something to learn, but not much. Mr. Gryce returned to his first question. "You have not told me," said he, "why you believe Craik Mansell to be innocent?"

"Well," replied she, "I believe Craik Mansell to be innocent because he is the son of his mother. I think I know him pretty well, but I am certain I knew her. She was a woman who would go through fire and water to[578] attain a purpose she thought right, but who would stop in the midst of any project the moment she felt the least doubt of its being just or wise. Craik has his mother's forehead and eyes, and no one will ever make me believe he has not her principles also."

"I coincide with you, madam," remarked the attentive detective.

"I hope the jury will," was her energetic response.

He bowed and was about to attempt another question, when an interruption occurred. Miss Firman was called from the room, and Mr. Gryce found himself left for a few moments alone. His thoughts, as he awaited her return, were far from cheerful, for he saw a long and tedious line of inquiry opening before him in the West, which, if it did not end in failure, promised to exhaust not only a week, but possibly many months, before certainty of any kind could be obtained. With Miss Dare on the verge of a fever, and Mansell in a position calling for the utmost nerve and self-control, this prospect looked any thing but attractive to the benevolent detective; and, carried away by his impatience, he was about to give utterance to an angry ejaculation against the man he believed to be the author of all this mischief, when he suddenly heard a voice raised from some unknown quarter near by, saying in strange tones he was positive did not proceed from Miss Firman:

"Was it Clemmens or was it Orcutt? Clemmens or Orcutt? I cannot remember."[579]

Naturally excited and aroused, Mr. Gryce rose and looked about him. A door stood ajar at his back. Hastening toward it, he was about to lay his hand on the knob when Miss Firman returned.

"Oh, I beg you," she entreated. "That is my mother's room, and she is not at all well."

"I was going to her assistance," asserted the detective, with grave composure. "She has just uttered a cry."

"Oh, you don't say so!" exclaimed the unsuspicious spinster, and hurrying forward, she threw open the door herself. Mr. Gryce benevolently followed. "Why, she is asleep," protested Miss Firman, turning on the detective with a suspicious look.

Mr. Gryce, with a glance toward the bed he saw before him, bowed with seeming perplexity.

"She certainly appears to be," said he, "and yet I am positive she spoke but an instant ago; I can even tell you the words she used."

"What were they?" asked the spinster, with something like a look of concern.

"She said: 'Was it Clemmens or was it Orcutt? Clemmens or Orcutt? I cannot remember.'"

"You don't say so! Poor ma! She was dreaming. Come into the other room and I will explain."

And leading the way back to the apartment they had left, she motioned him again toward a chair, and then said:[580]

"Ma has always been a very hale and active woman for her years; but this murder seems to have shaken her. To speak the truth, sir, she has not been quite right in her mind since the day I told her of it; and I often detect her murmuring words similar to those you have just heard."

"Humph! And does she often use his name?"

"Whose name?"

"Mr. Orcutt's."

"Why, yes; but not with any understanding of whom she is speaking."

"Are you sure?" inquired Mr. Gryce, with that peculiar impressiveness he used on great occasions.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean," returned the detective, dryly, "that I believe your mother does know what she is talking about when she links the name of Mr. Orcutt with that of your cousin who was murdered. They belong together; Mr. Orcutt was her murderer."

"Mr. Orcutt?"

"Hush!" cried Mr. Gryce, "you will wake up your mother."

And, adapting himself to this emergency as to all others, he talked with the astounded and incredulous woman before him till she was in a condition not only to listen to his explanations, but to discuss the problem of a crime so seemingly without motive. He then said, with easy assurance:[581]

"Your mother does not know that Mr. Orcutt is dead?"

"No, sir."

"She does not even know he was counsel for Craik Mansell in the trial now going on."

"How do you know that?" inquired Miss Firman, grimly.

"Because I do not believe you have even told her that Craik Mansell was on trial."

"Sir, you are a magician."

"Have you, madam?"

"No, sir, I have not."

"Very good; what does she know about Mr. Orcutt, then; and why should she connect his name with Mrs. Clemmens?"

"She knows he was her boarder, and that he was the first one to discover she had been murdered."

"That is not enough to account for her frequent repetition of his name."

"You think not?"

"I am sure not. Cannot your mother have some memories connected with his name of which you are ignorant?"

"No, sir; we have lived together in this house for twenty-five years, and have never had a thought we have not shared together. Ma could not have known any thing about him or Mary Ann which I did not. The words she has just spoken sprang from mental confusion. She is almost like a child sometimes."[582]

Mr. Gryce smiled. If the cream-jug he happened to be gazing at on a tray near by had been full of cream, I am far from certain it would not have turned sour on the spot.

"I grant the mental confusion," said he; "but why should she confuse those two names in preference to all others?" And, with quiet persistence, he remarked again: "She may be recalling some old fact of years ago. Was there never a time, even while you lived here together, when she could have received some confidence from Mrs. Clemmens——"

"Mary Ann, Mary Ann!" came in querulous accents from the other room, "I wish you had not told me; Emily would be a better one to know your secret."

It was a startling interruption to come just at that moment The two surprised listeners glanced toward each other, and Miss Firman colored.

"That sounds as if your surmise was true," she dryly observed.

"Let us make an experiment," said he, and motioned her to re-enter her mother's room, which she did with a precipitation that showed her composure had been sorely shaken by these unexpected occurrences.

He followed her without ceremony.

The old lady lay as before in a condition between sleeping and waking, and did not move as they came in. Mr. Gryce at once withdrew out of sight, and, with finger on his lip, put himself in the attitude of waiting. Miss[583] Firman, surprised, and possibly curious, took her stand at the foot of the bed.

A few minutes passed thus, during which a strange dreariness seemed to settle upon the room; then the old lady spoke again, this time repeating the words he had first heard, but in a tone which betrayed an increased perplexity.

"Was it Clemmens or was it Orcutt? I wish somebody would tell me."

Instantly Mr. Gryce, with his soft tread, drew near to the old lady's side, and, leaning over her, murmured gently:

"I think it was Orcutt."

Instantly the old lady breathed a deep sigh and moved.

"Then her name was Mrs. Orcutt," said she, "and I thought you always called her Clemmens."

Miss Firman, recoiling, stared at Mr. Gryce, on whose cheek a faint spot of red had appeared—a most unusual token of emotion with him.

"Did she say it was Mrs. Orcutt," he pursued, in the even tones he had before used.

"She said——" But here the old lady opened her eyes, and, seeing her daughter standing at the foot of her bed, turned away with a peevish air, and restlessly pushed her hand under the pillow.

Mr. Gryce at once bent nearer.

"She said——" he suggested, with careful gentleness.

But the old lady made no answer. Her hand seemed[584] to have touched some object for which she was seeking, and she was evidently oblivious to all else. Miss Firman came around and touched Mr. Gryce on the shoulder.

"It is useless," said she; "she is awake now, and you won't hear any thing more; come!"

And she drew the reluctant detective back again into the other room.

"What does it all mean?" she asked, sinking into a chair.

Mr. Gryce did not answer. He had a question of his own to put.

"Why did your mother put her hand under her pillow?" he asked.

"I don't know, unless it was to see if her big envelope was there."

"Her big envelope?"

"Yes; for weeks now, ever since she took to her bed, she has kept a paper in a big envelope under her pillow. What is in it I don't know, for she never seems to hear me when I inquire."

"And have you no curiosity to find out?"

"No, sir. Why should I? It might easily be my father's old letters sealed up, or, for that matter, be nothing more than a piece of blank paper. My mother is not herself, as I have said before."

"I should like a peep at the contents of that envelope," he declared.

"You?"[585]

"Is there any name written on the outside?"

"No."

"It would not be violating any one's rights, then, if you opened it."

"Only my mother's, sir."

"You say she is not in her right mind?"

"All the more reason why I should respect her whims and caprices."

"Wouldn't you open it if she were dead?"

"Yes."

"Will it be very different then from what it is now? A father's letters! a blank piece of paper! What harm would there be in looking at them?"

"My mother would know it if I took them away. It might excite and injure her."

"Put another envelope in the place of this one, with a piece of paper folded up in it."

"It would be a trick."

"I know it; but if Craik Mansell can be saved even by a trick, I should think you would be willing to venture on one."

"Craik Mansell? What has he got to do with the papers under my mother's pillow?"

"I cannot say that he has any thing to do with them; but if he has—if, for instance, that envelope should contain, not a piece of blank paper, or even the letters of your father, but such a document, say, as a certificate of marriage——"[586]

"A certificate of marriage?"

"Yes, between Mrs. Clemmens and Mr. Orcutt, it would not take much perspicacity to prophesy an acquittal for Craik Mansell."

"Mary Ann the wife of Mr. Orcutt! Oh, that is impossible!" exclaimed the agitated spinster. But even while making this determined statement, she turned a look full of curiosity and excitement toward the door which separated them from her mother's apartment.

Mr. Gryce smiled in his wise way.

"Less improbable things than that have been found to be true in this topsy-turvy world," said he. "Mrs. Clemmens might very well have been Mrs. Orcutt."

"Do you really think so?" she asked; and yielding with sudden impetuosity to the curiosity of the moment, she at once dashed from his side and disappeared in her mother's room. Mr. Gryce's smile took on an aspect of triumph.

It was some few moments before she returned, but when she did, her countenance was flushed with emotion.

"I have it," she murmured, taking out a packet from under her apron and tearing it open with trembling fingers.

A number of closely written sheets fell out.

[587]

XLIV. THE WIDOW CLEMMENS

Discovered
The secret that so long had hovered
Upon the misty verge of Truth.—LONGFELLOW.

"WELL, and what have you to say?" It was Mr. Ferris who spoke. The week which Mr. Gryce had demanded for his inquiries had fully elapsed, and the three detectives stood before him ready with their report.

It was Mr. Gryce who replied.

"Sir," said he, "our opinions have not been changed by the discoveries which we have made. It was Mr. Orcutt who killed Mrs. Clemmens, and for the reason already stated that she stood in the way of his marrying Miss Dare. Mrs. Clemmens was his wife."

"His wife?"

"Yes, sir; and, what is more, she has been so for years; before either of them came to Sibley, in fact."

The District Attorney looked stunned.

"It was while they lived West," said Byrd. "He was a poor schoolmaster, and she a waitress in some hotel. She was pretty then, and he thought he loved her. At all events, he induced her to marry him, and then kept it[588] secret because he was afraid she would lose her place at the hotel, where she was getting very good wages. You see, he had the makings in him of a villain even then."

"And was it a real marriage?"

"There is a record of it," said Hickory.

"And did he never acknowledge it?"

"Not openly," answered Byrd. "The commonness of the woman seemed to revolt him after he was married to her, and when in a month or so he received the summons East, which opened up before him the career of a lawyer, he determined to drop her and start afresh. He accordingly left town without notifying her, and actually succeeded in reaching the railway depot twenty miles away before he was stopped. But here, a delay occurring in the departure of the train, she was enabled to overtake him, and a stormy scene ensued. What its exact nature was, we, of course, cannot say, but from the results it is evident that he told her his prospects had changed, and with them his tastes and requirements; that she was not the woman he thought her, and that he could not and would not take her East with him as his wife: while she, on her side, displayed full as much spirit as he, and replied that if he could desert her like this he wasn't the kind of a man she could live with, and that he could go if he wished; only that he must acknowledge her claims upon him by giving her a yearly stipend, according to his income and success. At all events, some such compromise was effected, for he came East and she went[589] back to Swanson. She did not stay there long, however; for the next we know she was in Sibley, where she set up her own little house-keeping arrangements under his very eye. More than that, she prevailed upon him to visit her daily, and even to take a meal at her house, her sense of justice seeming to be satisfied if he showed her this little attention and gave to no other woman the place he denied her. It was the weakness shown in this last requirement that doubtless led to her death. She would stand any thing but a rival. He knew this, and preferred crime to the loss of the woman he loved."

"You speak very knowingly," said Mr. Ferris. "May I ask where you received your information?"

It was Mr. Gryce who answered.

"From letters. Mrs. Clemmens was one of those women who delight in putting their feelings on paper. Fortunately for us, such women are not rare. See here!" And he pulled out before the District Attorney a pile of old letters in the widow's well-known handwriting.

"Where did you find these?" asked Mr. Ferris.

"Well," said Mr. Gryce, "I found them in rather a curious place. They were in the keeping of old Mrs. Firman, Miss Firman's mother. Mrs. Clemmens, or, rather, Mrs. Orcutt, got frightened some two years ago at the disappearance of her marriage certificate from the place where she had always kept it hidden, and, thinking that Mr. Orcutt was planning to throw her off, she resolved to provide herself with a confidante capable of[590] standing by her in case she wished to assert her rights. She chose old Mrs. Firman. Why, when her daughter would have been so much more suitable for the purpose, it is hard to tell; possibly the widow's pride revolted from telling a woman of her own years the indignities she had suffered. However that may be, it was to the old lady she told her story and gave these letters—letters which, as you will see, are not written to any special person, but are rather the separate leaves of a journal which she kept to show the state of her feelings from time to time."

"And this?" inquired Mr. Ferris, taking up a sheet of paper written in a different handwriting from the rest.

"This is an attempt on the part of the old lady to put on paper the story which had been told her. She evidently thought herself too old to be entrusted with a secret so important, and, fearing loss of memory, or perhaps sudden death, took this means of explaining how she came into possession of her cousin's letters. 'T was a wise precaution. Without it we would have missed the clue to the widow's journal. For the old lady's brain gave way when she heard of the widow's death, and had it not been for a special stroke of good-luck on my part, we might have remained some time longer in ignorance of what very valuable papers she secretly held in her possession."

"I will read the letters," said Mr. Ferris.[591]

Seeing from his look that he only waited their departure to do so, Mr. Gryce and his subordinates arose.

"I think you will find them satisfactory," drawled Hickory.

"If you do not," said Mr. Gryce, "then give a look at this telegram. It is from Swanson, and notifies us that a record of a marriage between Benjamin Orcutt—Mr. Orcutt's middle name was Benjamin—and Mary Mansell can be found in the old town books."

Mr. Ferris took the telegram, the shade of sorrow settling heavier and heavier on his brow.

"I see," said he, "I have got to accept your conclusions. Well, there are those among the living who will be greatly relieved by these discoveries. I will try and think of that."

Yet, after the detectives were gone, and he sat down in solitude before these evidences of his friend's perfidy, it was many long and dreary moments before he could summon up courage to peruse them. But when he did, he found in them all that Mr. Gryce had promised. As my readers may feel some interest to know how the seeming widow bore the daily trial of her life, I will give a few extracts from these letters. The first bears date of fourteen years back, and was written after she came to Sibley:

"NOVEMBER 8, 1867.—In the same town! Within a stone's throw of the court-house, where, they tell me, his business will soon take him almost every day! Isn't it a triumph? and am I not to be congratulated upon my[592] bravery in coming here? He hasn't seen me yet, but I have seen him. I crept out of the house at nightfall on purpose. He was sauntering down the street and he looked—it makes my blood boil to think of it—he looked happy."

"NOVEMBER 10, 1867.—Clemmens, Clemmens—that is my name, and I have taken the title of widow. What a fate for a woman with a husband in the next street! He saw me to-day. I met him in the open square, and I looked him right in the face. How he did quail! It just does me good to think of it! Perk and haughty as he is, he grew as white as a sheet when he saw me, and though he tried to put on airs and carry it off with a high hand, he failed, just as I knew he would when he came to meet me on even ground. Oh, I'll have my way now, and if I choose to stay in this place where I can keep my eye on him, he won't dare to say No. The only thing I fear is that he will do me a secret mischief some day. His look was just murderous when he left me."

"FEBRUARY 24, 1868.—Can I stand it? I ask myself that question every morning when I get up. Can I stand it? To sit all alone in my little narrow room and know that he is going about as gay as you please with people who wouldn't look at me twice. It's awful hard; but it would be worse still to be where I couldn't see what he was up to. Then I should imagine all sorts of things. No, I will just grit my teeth and bear it. I'll get used to it after a while."

"OCTOBER 7, 1868.—If he says he never loved me he lies. He did, or why did he marry me? I never asked him to. He teased me into it, saying my saucy ways had bewitched him. A month after, it was common ways, rude ways, such ways as he wouldn't have in a wife. That's the kind of man he is."

"MAY 11, 1869.—One thing I will say of him. He don't pay no heed to women. He's too busy, I guess. He don't seem to think of any thing but to get along,[593] and he does get along remarkable. I'm awful proud of him. He's taken to defending criminals lately. They almost all get off."

"OCTOBER 5, 1870.—He pays me but a pittance. How can I look like any thing, or hold my head up with the ladies here if I cannot get enough together to buy me a new fall hat. I will not go to church looking like a farmer's wife, if I haven't any education or any manners. I'm as good as anybody here if they but knew it, and deserve to dress as well. He must give me more money."

"NOVEMBER 2, 1870.—No, he sha'n't give me a cent more. If I can't go to church I will stay at home. He sha'n't say I stood in his way of becoming a great man. He is too good for me. I saw it to-day when he got up in the court to speak. I was there with a thick veil over my face, for I was determined to know whether he was as smart as folks say or not. And he just is! Oh, how beautiful he did look, and how everybody held their breaths while he was speaking! I felt like jumping up and saying: 'This is my husband; we were married three years ago.' Wouldn't I have raised a rumpus if I had! I guess the poor man he was pleading for would not have been remembered very long after that. My husband! the thought makes me laugh. No other woman can call him that, anyhow. He is mine, mine, mine, and I mean he shall stay so."

"JANUARY 9, 1871.—I feel awful blue to-night. I have been thinking about those Hildreths. How they would like to have me dead! And so would Tremont, though he don't say nothing. I like to call him Tremont; it makes me feel as if he belonged to me. What if that wicked Gouverneur Hildreth should know I lived so much alone? I don't believe he would stop at killing me! And my husband! He is equal to telling him I have no protector. Oh, what a dreadful wickedness it is in me to put that down on paper! It isn't so—it isn't so; my husband[594] wouldn't do me any harm if he could. If ever I'm found dead in my bed, it will be the work of that Toledo man and of nobody else."

"MARCH 2, 1872.—I hope I am going to have some comfort now. Tremont has begun to pay me more money. He had to. He isn't a poor man any more, and when he moves into his big house, I am going to move into a certain little cottage I have found, just around the corner. If I can't have no other pleasures, I will at least have a kitchen I can call my own, and a parlor too. What if there don't no company come to it; they would if they knew. I've just heard from Adelaide; she says Craik is getting to be a big boy, and is so smart."

"JUNE 10, 1872.—What's the use of having a home? I declare I feel just like breaking down and crying. I don't want company: if women folks, they're always talking about their husbands and children; and if men, they're always saying: 'My wife's this, and my wife's that.' But I do want him. It's my right; what if I couldn't say three words to him that was agreeable, I could look at him and think: 'This splendid gentleman is my husband, I ain't so much alone in the world as folks think.' I'll put on my bonnet and run down the street. Perhaps I'll see him sitting in the club-house window!"

"EVENING.—I hate him. He has a hard, cruel, wicked heart. When I got to the club-house window he was sitting there, so I just went walking by, and he saw me and came out and hustled me away with terrible words, saying he wouldn't have me hanging round where he was; that I had promised not to bother him, and that I must keep my word, or he would see me—he didn't say where, but it's easy enough to guess. So—so! he thinks he'll put an end to my coming to see him, does he? Well, perhaps he can; but if he does, he shall pay for it by coming to see me. I'll not sit day in and day out alone without the glimpse of a face I love, not while I have a husband in the same town with me. He shall come, if it is only for a moment each day, or I'll dare every thing and tell the world I am his wife."[595]

"JUNE 16, 1872.—He had to consent! Meek as I have been, he knows it won't do to rouse me too much. So to-day he came in to dinner, and he had to acknowledge it was a good one. Oh, how I did feel when I saw his face on the other side of the table! I didn't know whether I hated him or loved him. But I am sure now I hated him, for he scarcely spoke to me all the time he was eating, and when he was through, he went away just as a stranger would have done. He means to act like a boarder, and, goodness me, he's welcome to if he isn't going to act like a husband! The hard, selfish—— Oh, oh, I love him!"

"AUGUST 5, 1872.—It is no use; I'll never be a happy woman. Tremont has been in so regularly to dinner lately, and shown me such a kind face, I thought I would venture upon a little familiarity. It was only to lay my hand upon his arm, but it made him very angry, and I thought he would strike me. Am I then actually hateful to him? or is he so proud he cannot bear the thought of my having the right to touch him? I looked in the glass when he went out. I am plain and homespun, that's a fact. Even my red cheeks are gone, and the dimples which once took his fancy. I shall never lay the tip of a finger on him again."

"FEBRUARY 13, 1873.—What shall I cook for him to-day? Some thing that he likes. It is my only pleasure, to see how he does enjoy my meals. I should think they would choke him; they do me sometimes. But men are made of iron—ambitious men, anyhow. Little they care what suffering they cause, so long as they have a good time and get all the praises they want. He gets them more and more every day. He will soon be as far above me as if I had married the President himself. Oh, sometimes when I think of it and remember he is my own husband, I just feel as if some awful fate was preparing for him or me!"

"JUNE 7, 1873.—Would he send for me if he was dying? No. He hates me; he hates me."[596]

"SEPTEMBER 8, 1874.—Craik was here to-day; he is just going North to earn a few dollars in the logging business. What a keen eye he has for a boy of his years! I shouldn't wonder if he made a powerful smart man some day. If he's only good, too, and kind to his women-folks, I sha'n't mind. But a smart man who is all for himself is an awful trial to those who love him. Don't I know? Haven't I suffered? Craik must never be like him."

"DECEMBER 21, 1875.—One thousand dollars. That's a nice little sum to have put away in the bank. So much I get out of my husband's fame, anyhow. I think I will make my will, for I want Craik to have what I leave. He's a fine lad."

"FEBRUARY 19, 1876.—I was thinking the other day, suppose I did die suddenly. It would be dreadful to have the name of Clemmens put on my tombstone! But it would be. Tremont would never let the truth be known, if he had to rifle my dead body for my marriage certificate. What shall I do, then? Tell anybody who I am? It seems just as if I couldn't. Either the whole world must know it, or just himself and me alone. Oh, I wish I had never been born!"

"JUNE 17, 1876.—Why wasn't I made handsome and fine and nice? Think where I would be if I was! I'd be in that big house of his, curtesying to all the grand folks as go there. I went to see it last night. It was dark as pitch in the streets, and I went into the gate and all around the house. I walked upon the piazza too, and rubbed my hand along the window-ledges and up and down the doors. It's mighty nice, all of it, and there sha'n't lie a square inch on that whole ground that my foot sha'n't go over. I wish I could get inside the house once."

"JULY 1, 1876.—I have done it. I went to see Mr. Orcutt's sister. I had a right. Isn't he away, and isn't he my boarder, and didn't I want to know when he was coming home? She's a soft, good-natured[597] piece, and let me peek into the library without saying a word. What a room it is! I just felt like I'd been struck when I saw it and spied his chair setting there and all those books heaped around and the fine things on the mantel-shelf and the pictures on the walls. What would I do in such a place as that? I could keep it clean, but so could any gal he might hire. Oh, me! Oh, me! I wish he'd given me a chance. Perhaps if he had loved me I might have learned to be quiet and nice like that silly sister of his."

"JANUARY 12, 1877.—Some women would take a heap of delight in having folks know they were the wife of a great man, but I find lots of pleasure in being so without folks knowing it. If I lived in his big house and was called Mrs. Orcutt, why, he would have nothing to be afraid of and might do as he pleased; but now he has to do what I please. Sometimes, when I sit down of an evening in my little sitting-room to sew, I think how this famous man whom everybody is afraid of has to come and go just as humble me wants him to; and it makes me hug myself with pride. It's as if I had a string tied round his little finger, which I can pull now and then. I don't pull it much; but I do sometimes."

"MARCH 30, 1877.—Gouverneur Hildreth is dead. I shall never be his victim, at any rate. Shall I ever be the victim of anybody? I don't feel as if I cared now. For one kiss I would sell my life and die happy.

"There is a young Gouverneur, but it will be years before he will be old enough to make me afraid of him."

"NOVEMBER 16, 1878.—I should think that Tremont would be lonely in that big house of his. If he had a heart he would. They say he reads all the time. How can folks pore so over books? I can't. I'd rather sit in my chair and think. What story in all the books is equal to mine?"

"APRIL 23, 1879.—I am growing very settled in my[598] ways. Now that Tremont comes in almost every day, I'm satisfied not to see any other company. My house affairs keep me busy too. I like to have it all nice for him. I believe I could almost be happy if he'd only smile once in a while when he meets my eye. But he never does. Oh, well, we all have our crosses, and he's a very great man."

"JANUARY 18, 1880.—He went to a ball last night. What does it mean? He never seemed to care for things like that. Is there any girl he is after?"

"FEBRUARY 6, 1880.—Oh, he has been riding with a lady, has he? It was in the next town, and he thought I wouldn't hear. But there's little he does that I don't know about; let him make himself sure of that. I even know her name; it is Selina Pratt. If he goes with her again, look out for a disturbance. I'll not stand his making love to another woman."

"MAY 26, 1880.—My marriage certificate is missing. Can it be that Tremont has taken it? I have looked all through the desk where I have kept it for so many years, but I cannot find it. He was left alone in the house a few minutes the other day. Could he have taken the chance to rob me of the only proof I have that we are man and wife? If he has he is a villain at heart, and is capable of doing any thing, even of marrying this Pratt girl who he has taken riding again. The worst is that I dare not accuse him of having my certificate; for if he didn't take it and should find out it is gone, he'd throw me off just as quick as if he had. What shall I do then? Something. He shall never marry another woman while I live."

"MAY 30, 1880.—The Pratt girl is gone. If he cared for her it was only for a week, like an old love I could mention. I think I feel safe again, only I am convinced some one ought to know my secret besides myself. Shall it be Emily? No. I'd rather tell her mother."

"JUNE 9TH, 1880.—I am going to Utica. I shall take[599] these letters with me. Perhaps I shall leave them. For the last time, then, let me say 'I am the lawful wife of Tremont Benjamin Orcutt, the lawyer, who lives in Sibley, New York.' We were married in Swanson, Nevada, on the 3d of July, 1867, by a travelling minister, named George Sinclair.

"MARY ANN ORCUTT, Sibley, N. Y."

[600]

XLV. MR. GRYCE SAYS GOOD-BYE

There still are many rainbows in your sky.—BYRON.

"HELEN?"

"Yes, Imogene."

"What noise is that? The people seem to be shouting down the street. What does it mean?"

Helen Richmond—whom we better know as Helen Darling—looked at the worn, fever-flushed countenance of her friend, and for a moment was silent; then she whispered:

"I have not dared to tell you before, you seemed so ill; but I can tell you now, because joyful news never hurts. The people shout because the long and tedious trial of an innocent man has come to an end. Craik Mansell was acquitted from the charge of murder this morning."

"Acquitted! O Helen!"

"Yes, dear. Since you have been ill, very strange and solemn revelations have come to light. Mr. Orcutt——"

"Ah!" cried Imogene, rising up in the great arm-chair in which she was half-sitting and half-reclining.[601] "I know what you are going to say. I was with Mr. Orcutt when he died. I heard him myself declare that fate had spoken in his death. I believe Mr. Orcutt to have been the murderer of Mrs. Clemmens, Helen."

"Yes, there can be no doubt about that," was the reply.

"It has been proved then?"

"Yes."

Moved to the depths of her being, Imogene covered her face with her hands. Presently she murmured:

"I do not understand it. Why should such a great man as he have desired the death of a woman like her? He said it was all for my sake. What did he mean, Helen?"

"Don't you know?" questioned the other, anxiously.

"How should I? It is the mystery of mysteries to me."

"Ah, then you did not suspect that she was his wife?"

"His wife!" Imogene rose in horror.

"Yes," repeated the little bride with decision. "She was his lawfully wedded wife. They were married as long ago as when we were little children."

"Married! And he dared to approach me with words of love! Dared to offer himself to me as a husband while his hands were still wet with the life-blood of his wife! O the horror of it! The amazing wickedness and presumption of it!"[602]

"He is dead," whispered the gentle little lady at her side.

With a sigh of suppressed feeling, Imogene sank back.

"I must not think of him," she cried. "I am not strong enough. I must think only of Craik. He has been acquitted, you say—acquitted."

"Yes, and the whole town is rejoicing."

A smile, exquisite as it was rare, swept like a sunbeam over Imogene's lips.

"And I rejoice with the rest," she cried. Then, as if she felt all speech to be a mockery, she remained for a long time silent, gazing with ever-deepening expression into the space before her, till Helen did not know whether the awe she felt creeping over her sprang from admiration of her companion's suddenly awakened beauty or from a recognition of the depths of that companion's emotions. At last Imogene spoke:

"How came Mr. Mansell to be acquitted? Mr. Gryce did not tell me to look for any such reinstatement as that. The most he bade me expect was that Mr. Ferris would decline to prosecute Mr. Mansell any further, in which event he would be discharged."

"I know," said Helen, "but Mr. Mansell was not satisfied with that. He demanded a verdict from the jury. So Mr. Ferris, with great generosity, asked the Judge to recommend the jury to bring in a verdict of acquittal, and when the Judge hesitated to do this, the foreman of the jury himself rose, and intimated that he thought the[603] jury were ready with their verdict. The Judge took advantage of this, and the result was a triumphant acquittal."

"O Helen, Helen!"

"That was just an hour ago," cried the little lady, brightly, "but the people are not through shouting yet. There has been a great excitement in town these last few days."

"And I knew nothing of it!" exclaimed Imogene. Suddenly she looked at Helen. "How did you hear about what took place in the court-room to-day?" she asked.

"Mr. Byrd told me."

"Ah, Mr. Byrd?"

"He came to leave a good-bye for you. He goes home this afternoon."

"I should like to have seen Mr. Byrd," said Imogene.

"Would you?" queried the little lady, quietly shaking her head. "I don't know; I think it is just as well you did not see him," said she.

But she made no such demur when a little while later Mr. Gryce was announced. The fatherly old gentleman had evidently been in that house before, and Mrs. Richmond was not the woman to withstand a man like him.

He came immediately into the room where Imogene was sitting. Evidently he thought as Helen did, that good news never hurts.

"Well!" he cried, taking her trembling hand in his,[604] with his most expressive smile. "What did I tell you? Didn't I say that if you would only trust me all would come right? And it has, don't you see? Right as a trivet."

"Yes," she returned; "and I never can find words with which to express my gratitude. You have saved two lives, Mr. Gryce: his—and mine."

"Pooh! pooh!" cried the detective, good-humoredly. "You mustn't think too much of any thing I have done. It was the falling limb that did the business. If Mr. Orcutt's conscience had not been awakened by the stroke of death, I don't know where we should have been to-day. Affairs were beginning to look pretty dark for Mansell."

Imogene shuddered.

"But I haven't come here to call up unpleasant memories," he continued. "I have come to wish you joy and a happy convalescence." And leaning toward her, he said, with a complete change of voice: "You know, I suppose, why Mr. Mansell presumed to think you guilty of this crime?"

"No," she murmured, wearily; "unless it was because the ring he believed me to have retained was found on the scene of murder."

"Bah!" cried Mr. Gryce, "he had a much better reason than that."

And with the air of one who wishes to clear up all misunderstandings, he told her the words which her lover[605] had overheard Mrs. Clemmens say when he came up to her dining-room door.

The effect on Imogene was very great. Hoping to hide it, she turned away her face, showing in this struggle with herself something of the strength of her old days. Mr. Gryce watched her with interest.

"It is very strange," was her first remark. "I had such reasons for thinking him guilty; he such good cause for thinking me so. What wonder we doubted each other. And yet I can never forgive myself for doubting him; I can sooner forgive him for doubting me. If you see him——"

"If I see him?" interrupted the detective, with a smile.

"Yes," said she. "If you see him tell him that Imogene Dare thanks him for his noble conduct toward one he believed to be stained by so despicable a crime, and assure him that I think he was much more justified in his suspicions than I was in mine, for there were weaknesses in my character which he had ample opportunities for observing, while all that I knew of him was to his credit."

"Miss Dare," suggested the detective, "couldn't you tell him this much better yourself?"

"I shall not have the opportunity," she said.

"And why?" he inquired.

"Mr. Mansell and I have met for the last time. A woman who has stained herself by such declarations as I made use of in court the last time I was called to the[606] stand has created a barrier between herself and all earthly friendship. Even he for whom I perjured myself so basely cannot overleap the gulf I dug between us two that day."

"But that is hard," said Mr. Gryce.

"My life is hard," she answered.

The wise old man, who had seen so much of life and who knew the human heart so well, smiled, but did not reply. He turned instead to another subject.

"Well," he declared, "the great case is over! Sibley, satisfied with having made its mark in the world, will now rest in peace. I quit the place with some reluctance myself. 'Tis a mighty pretty spot to do business in."

"You are going?" she asked.

"Immediately," was the reply. "We detectives don't have much time to rest." Then, as he saw how deep a shadow lay upon her brow, added, confidentially: "Miss Dare, we all have occasions for great regret. Look at me now. Honest as I hold myself to be, I cannot blind myself to the fact that I am the possible instigator of this crime. If I had not shown Mr. Orcutt how a man like himself might perpetrate a murder without rousing suspicion, he might never have summoned up courage to attempt it. For a detective with a conscience, that is a hard thought to bear."

"But you were ignorant of what you were doing," she protested. "You had no idea there was any one present who was meditating crime."[607]

"True; but a detective shouldn't be ignorant. He ought to know men; he has opportunity enough to learn them. But I won't be caught again. Never in any company, not if it is composed of the highest dignitaries in the land, will I ever tell again how a crime of any kind can be perpetrated without risk. One always runs the chance of encountering an Orcutt."

Imogene turned pale. "Do not speak of him," she cried. "I want to forget that such a man ever lived."

Mr. Gryce smiled again.

"It is the best thing you can do," said he. "Begin a new life, my child; begin a new life."

And with this fatherly advice, he said good-bye, and she saw his wise, kind face no more.

The hour that followed was a dreary one for Imogene. Her joy at knowing Craik Mansell was released could not blind her to the realization of her own ruined life. Indeed she seemed to feel it now as never before; and as the slow minutes passed, and she saw in fancy the strong figure of Mansell surrounded by congratulating admirers and friends, the full loneliness of her position swept over her, and she knew not whether to be thankful or not to the fever for having spared her blighted and dishonored life.

Mrs. Richmond, seeing her so absorbed, made no attempt at consolation. She only listened, and when a step was heard, arose and went out, leaving the door open behind her.[608]

And Imogene mused on, sinking deeper and deeper into melancholy, till the tears, which for so long a time had been dried at their source, welled up to her eyes and fell slowly down her cheeks. Their touch seemed to rouse her. Starting erect, she looked quickly around as if to see if anybody was observing her. But the room seems quite empty, and she is about to sink back again with a sigh when her eyes fall on the door-way and she becomes transfixed. A sturdy form is standing there! A manly, eager form in whose beaming eyes and tender smile shine a love and a purpose which open out before her quite a different future from that which her fancy had been so ruthlessly picturing.

THE END.

[609]

PUBLICATIONS OF G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS.

THE LEAVENWORTH CASE. A Lawyer's Story. By ANNA KATHERINE GREEN. 16mo, paper, 60 cents; cloth, $1.00.

"In one respect at least, 'The Leavenworth Case' is the peer of Gaboriau's best efforts—the wonderful skill with which the author draws the reader, now this way, now that, in the search for the perpetrator of the mysterious crime with which the story begins, and deludes him until he reaches almost the last page."—New Haven Palladium.

"Wilkie Collins, in his best period, never invented a more ingeniously constructed plot, nor held the reader in such suspense until the final denouement. The most blasé novel-reader will be unable to put aside 'The Leavenworth Case' until he has read the last sentence and mastered the mystery which has baffled him from the beginning."—N. Y. Express.

"She has proved herself as well able to write an interesting story of mysterious crime as any man living."—The Academy, (London.)

"She has worked up a cause celèbre with a fertility of device and ingenuity of treatment hardly second to Wilkie Collins or Edgar Allen Poe."—Christian Union.

"We have read no story for a long time which has had so much of the Wilkie Collins, and Edgar Allen Poe flavor of reality in the telling."—Congregationalist.

"We do not propose to give the plot of the work, however, but merely to say that it is one of the most ingenious of the kind we have ever read."—Buffalo Express.

"This is the sort of book to be eagerly read and thoroughly enjoyed."—St. Paul Pioneer.

"A new novel by a new writer, which enchains our attention from the very first sentence of the first page, is a pleasant surprise. * * * Told with a force and power that indicate great dramatic talent in the writer."—St. Louis Post.

"Its interest is undoubted and it is thoroughly well sustained."—N. Y. Evening Post.

"The story is developed with great skill and shows ingenuity of the highest order."—Troy Times.

"A story of mystery and crime and is here narrated with an artistic skill which inevitably holds the interest of the reader, even to the point of the highest tension, to the close of the last chapter. * * * A real marvel of fiction."—Davenport Gazette.

[610]

A STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE. By ANNA KATHARINE GREEN. 16mo, paper, 50 cents, cloth, $1.00.

"The plot is marked with striking originality, and the story is narrated with a vigor and power rarely met in modern novels. It is deeply interesting from beginning to end, and holds the reader entranced from the moment the first page is read until the last sentence is reached. It is, in fact, a revelation in American romance-writing, and we heartily commend it to the public."—Baltimore Gazette.

"Catches the fancy and chains the interest of the reader to such a degree that he is unwilling to lay it down until every page is devoured."—Toledo Journal.

"The author has chosen a department of fiction where only the best writers succeed, but she has shown herself capable of sustaining her role with wonderful vigor."—Boston Evening Traveller.

"It is an ingenious plot, admirably worked up, and told so straightforward as to be wholly pleasing."—Chicago Inter-Ocean.

"One of the best police detective stories written in America."—Hartford Courant.

"Wilkie Collins would not be ashamed of the construction of this story. * * * It keeps the reader's close attention from first to last."—N. Y. Evening Post.

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"Ingenious in construction, powerful in dramatic interest, and artistic in development."—Boston Gazette.

"A most intensely interesting work of fiction. The story is developed with skill, and the work written in a strong, powerful style."—Augusta (Me.) Farmer.

"The plot is new and sparkling, and the story is carried to its denouement with an ingenuity and brightness of manner that makes it impossible to lay the volume down until completed. * * * It is a marvel of fiction."—Columbus Sunday Capital.

"The plot is very ingenious. * * * The interest in the tale is remarkably well sustained until its conclusion, and the mystery which envelopes the principal character is concealed with a great deal of artistic skill. * * * Shows a spirit of patient research that speaks well for the industry of the writer, and an analytical faculty rarely seen in a woman."—Boston Courier.

X. Y. Z. A Detective Story. By ANNA KATHARINE GREEN. 16mo, paper, 25 cents.

"Well written and extremely exciting and captivating. * * * She is a perfect genius in the construction of a plot."—N. Y. Commercial Advertiser.

"Will keep the sleepiest reader wide-awake from title to finis."—Boston Transcript.

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THE DEFENCE OF THE BRIDE, and Other Poems. By ANNA KATHARINE GREEN. Sq. 16mo, flex. cloth, $1.00.

"Written with a spirit and force that are impressive."—Congregationalist.

[611]

PUBLICATIONS OF G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS.

BAYARD TAYLOR'S NOVELS.

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"If Bayard Taylor has not placed himself, as we are half inclined to suspect, in the front rank of novelists, he has produced a very remarkable book—a really original story, admirably told, crowded with life-like characters full of delicate and subtle sympathies, with ideas the most opposite to his own, and lighted up throughout with that playful humor which suggests always wisdom rather than mere fun."—London Spectator.

II. John Godfrey's Fortunes. RELATED BY HIMSELF 12mo. Household edition, $1.50

"'John Godfrey's Fortunes,' without being melodramatic or morbid, is one of the most fascinating novels which we have ever read. Its portraiture of American social life, though not flattering, is eminently truthful; its delineation of character is delicate and natural; its English, though sometimes careless, is singularly grateful and pleasant."—Cleveland Leader.

III. The Story of Kennett. 12mo. Household edition, $1.50

"Mr. Bayard Taylor's book is delightful and refreshing reading, and great rest after the crowded artistic effects and the conventional interests of even the better kind of English novels."—London Spectator.

"As a picture of rural life, we think this novel of Mr. Taylor's excels any of his previous productions."—N. Y. Evening Post.

"A tale of absorbing interest."—Syracuse Standard.

IV. Joseph and his Friend. A STORY OF PENNSYLVANIA 12mo. Household edition, $1.50

"In Bayard Taylor's happiest vein."—Buffalo Express.

"By far the best novel of the season."—Cleveland Leader.

V. Beauty and the Beast and Tales of Home. 12mo Household edition, $1.50

——————

Bayard Taylor's Complete Works.

The Complete Works of Bayard Taylor. In sixteen volumes. Household edition,

$24.00

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Transcriber's Notes:

The original text had page v before pages iii and iv. This was rearranged in this edition. The List of Illustrations now follows the Table of Contents.

The text uses both "vail" and "veil," "depot" and "depôt."

Obvious punctuation errors were corrected.

The remaining corrections made are indicated by dotted lines under the corrections. Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text will appear.

X Y Z

A DETECTIVE STORY

BY

ANNA KATHARINE GREEN

AUTHOR OF "THE LEAVENWORTH CASE," "A STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE," ETC.

NEW YORK
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
27 & 29 WEST 23D STREET
1883

COPYRIGHT BY
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
1883

[1]

I. THE MYSTERIOUS RENDEZVOUS

Sometimes in the course of his experience, a detective, while engaged in ferreting out the mystery of one crime, runs inadvertently upon the clue to another. But rarely has this been done in a manner more unexpected or with attendant circumstances of greater interest than in the instance I am now about to relate.

For some time the penetration of certain Washington officials had been baffled by the clever devices of a gang of counterfeiters who had inundated the western portion of Massachusetts with spurious Treasury notes. Some of the best talent of the Secret Service had been expended upon the matter, but with no favorable[2] result, when, one day, notice was received at Washington that a number of suspicious-looking letters, addressed to the simple initials, X. Y. Z., Brandon, Mass., were being daily forwarded through the mails of that region; and it being deemed possible that a clue had at last been offered to the mystery in hand, I was sent northward to investigate.

It was in the middle of June, 1881, and the weather was simply delightful. As I stepped from the cars at Brandon and looked up the long straight street with its double row of maple trees sparkling fresh and beautiful in the noonday sun, I thought I had never seen a prettier village or entered upon any enterprise with a lighter or more hopeful heart.

Intent on my task, I went straight to the post-office, and after coming to an understanding with the postmaster, proceeded at once to look over the mail addressed to the mysterious X. Y. Z.

I found it to consist entirely of letters. They were about a dozen in number, and were, with one exception, similar in general appearance and manner of direction, though inscribed in[3] widely different handwritings, and posted from various New England towns. The exception to which I allude had these few extra words written in the lower left-hand corner of the envelope: "To be kept till called for." As I bundled up the letters preparatory to thrusting them back into the box, I noticed that the latter was the only one in a blue envelope, all the others being in the various shades of cream-color and buff.

"Who is in the habit of calling for these letters?" I asked of the postmaster.

"Well," said he, "I don't know his name. The fact is nobody knows him around here. He usually drives up in a buggy about nightfall, calls for letters addressed to X. Y. Z., and having got them, whips up his horse and is off again before one can say a word."

"Describe him," said I.

"Well, he is very lean and very lank. In appearance he is both green and awkward. His complexion is pale, almost sickly. Were it not for his eye, which is keen and twinkling, I should call him an extremely inoffensive-looking person."[4]

The type was not new to me. "I should like to see him," said I.

"You will have to wait till nightfall, then," returned the postmaster. "He never comes till about dusk. Drop in here, say at seven o'clock, and I will see that you have the opportunity of handing him his mail."

I nodded acquiescence to this and sauntered out of the enclosure devoted to the uses of the post-office. As I did so I ran against a young man who was hurriedly approaching from the other end of the store.

"Your pardon," he cried; and I turned to look at him, so gentlemanly was his tone, and so easy the bow with which he accompanied this simple apology.

He was standing before the window of the post-office, waiting for his mail; a good-looking, well-made young man, of a fine countenance, but with a restless eye, whose alert yet anxious expression I could not but note even in the casual glance I gave him. There appeared to be some difficulty in procuring him his mail, and each minute he was kept waiting seemed to increase his impatience almost beyond[5] the bounds of endurance. I saw him lean forward and gasp out a hurried word to the postmaster, and was idly wondering over his anxiety and its probable causes, when I heard a hasty exclamation near me, and looking around, saw the postmaster himself beckoning to me from the door of the enclosure. I immediately hastened forward.

"I don't know what it means," he whispered; "but here is a young man, different from any who have been here before, asking for a letter addressed to X. Y. Z."

"A letter?" I repeated.

"Yes, a letter."

"Give him the whole batch and see what he does," I returned, drawing back where I could myself watch the result of my instructions. The postmaster did as I requested. In another moment I saw the young man start with amazement as a dozen letters were put in his hand. "These are not all for me!" he cried, but even as he made the exclamation, drew to one side, and with a look of mingled perplexity and concern, began opening them one after another, his expression deepening to amazement as he[6] glanced at their contents. The one in the blue envelope, however, seemed to awaken quite different emotions. With an unconscious look of relief, he hastily read the short letter it contained, then with a quick gesture, folded it up and thrust it back into the envelope he held, together with the other letters, in his left hand.

"There must be another X. Y. Z.," said he, approaching the window of the post-office and handing back all the letters he had received, with the exception of the one in the blue envelope, which with a quick movement he had separated from the rest and thrust into his coat-pocket. "I can lay claim to none of these." And with a repetition of his easy bow he turned away and hurriedly quitted the store, followed by the eyes of clerks and customers, to whom he was evidently as much of a stranger as he was to me. Without hesitation I went to the door and looked after him. He was just crossing the street to the tavern on the other side of the way. I saw him enter, felt that he was safe to remain there for a few minutes, and conscious of the great opportunity awaiting me, hastened back to the postmaster.[7]

"Well," cried I, in secret exultation, "our plan has worked admirably. Let me see the letters. As they have been opened, and through no fault of ours, a peep at them now in the cause of justice will harm none but the guilty."

The postmaster demurred, but I soon overcame his scruples; and taking down the letters once more, hastily investigated their contents. I own that I was considerably disappointed at the result. In fact, I found nothing that pointed toward the counterfeiters; only in each letter a written address, together with fifty cents' worth of stamps.

"Some common fraud," I exclaimed. "One of those cheap affairs where, for fifty cents enclosed, a piece of information calculated to insure fortune to the recipient is promised by return of mail."

And disgusted with the whole affair I bundled up the letters, and was about to replace them in the box for the third time when I discovered that it still held a folded paper. Drawing this out, I opened it and started in fresh amazement. If I was not very much mistaken in the appearance of the letter in the blue envelope[8] which I had seen the young man read with so much interest, this was certainly it. But how came it here? Had I not seen him thrust it back into its envelope and afterward put envelope and all into his pocket? But here was no envelope, and here was the letter. By what freak of necromancy had it been transferred from its legitimate quarters to this spot? I could not imagine. Suddenly I remembered that his hand had been full of the other letters when he put, or endeavored to put, this special one back into its envelope, and however unaccountable it may seem, it must be that from haste or agitation he had only succeeded in thrusting it between two letters instead of into the envelope, as he supposed. Whether or not this explanation be true, there was no doubt about my luck being in the ascendant. Mastering my satisfaction, I read these lines written in what appeared to be a disguised hand.

"All goes well. The time has come; every thing is in train, and success is certain. Be in the shrubbery at the northeast corner of the grounds at 9 P.M. precisely; you will be given a mask and such other means as are necessary [9]to insure you the accomplishment of the end you have in view. He cannot hold out against a surprise. The word, by which you will know your friends, is

COUNTERFEIT."

"Ah, ha!" thought I, "this is more like it." And moved by a sudden impulse, I hastily copied the letter into my memorandum-book, and then returning to the original, scratched out with my penknife the word northeast and carefully substituting that of southwest put the letter back into the box, in the hope that when he came to consult the envelope in his pocket (as he would be sure to do sooner or later) he would miss its contents and return to the post-office in search of it.

Nor was I mistaken. I had scarcely accomplished my task, when he reëntered the store, asked to see the letters he had returned, and finding amongst them the one he had lost, disappeared with it back to the tavern. "If he is surprised to read southwest this time instead of northeast, he will think his memory played him false in the first instance," cried I, in inward comment over my last doubtful stroke of policy; and turning to the postmaster, I asked him[10] what place there was in the vicinity which could be said to possess grounds and a shrubbery.

"There is but one," he returned, "Mr. Benson's. All the rest of the folks are too poor to indulge in any such gimcracks."

"And who is Mr. Benson?"

"Well, he is Mr. Benson, the richest man in these parts and the least liked as I take it. He came here from Boston two years ago and built a house fit for a king to live in. Why, nobody knows, for he seems to take no pleasure in it. His children do though, and that is all he cares for I suppose. Young Mr. Benson especially seems to be never tired of walking about the grounds, looking at the trees and tying up the vines. Miss Carrie is different; all she wants is company. But little of that has her father ever allowed her till this very day. He seems to think nobody is good enough to sit down in his parlors; and yet he don't sit there himself, the strange man! but is always shut up in his library or some other out-of-the-way place."

"A busy man?"[11]

"I suppose so, but no one ever sees any thing he does."

"Writes, perhaps?"

"I don't know; he never talks about himself."

"How did he get his money?"

"That we don't know. It seems to accumulate without his help or interference. When he came here he was called rich, but to-day he is said to be worth three times what he was then."

"Perhaps he speculates?"

"If he does, it must be through his son, for he never leaves home himself."

"Has two children, you say?"

"Yes, a son and a daughter: a famous young man, the son; not so much liked, perhaps, as universally respected. He is too severe and reticent to be a favorite, but no one ever found him doing any thing unworthy of himself. He is the pride of the county, and if he were a bit suaver in manner might have been in Congress at this minute."

"How old?"

"Thirty, I should say."[12]

"And the girl?"

"Twenty-five, perhaps."

"A mother living?"

"No; there were some strange stories of her having died a year or so before they came here, under circumstances of a somewhat distressing nature, but they themselves say nothing about it."

"It seems to me they don't say much about any thing."

"That's just it; they are the most reserved people you ever saw. It isn't from them we have heard there is another son floating somewhere about the world. They never speak of him, and what's more, they never write to him; as who should know better than myself?"

An interruption here occurred, and I took the opportunity to saunter out into the crowd of idlers always to be found hanging around a country store at mail-time. My purpose was, as you may conceive, to pick up any stray bits of information that might be floating about concerning these Bensons. Not that I had as yet discovered any thing definite connecting this respectable family with the gang of counterfeiters[13] upon whose track I had been placed; but business is business, and no clue, however slight or unpromising in its nature, is to be neglected when the way is as dark as that which lay before me. With an easy smile, therefore, calculated to allay apprehension and awaken confidence, I took my stand among these loungers. But I soon found that I need do nothing to start the wheel of gossip on the subject of the Bensons. It was already going, and that with a force and spirit that almost took my breath away.

"A fancy ball!" were the first words I heard. "The Bensons give a fancy ball, when they never had three persons at a time in their house before!"

"Yes, and what's more, they are going to have folks over from Clayton and Lawrence and Hollowell and devil knows where. It's to be a smash up, a regular fandango, with masks and all that kind of nonsense."

"They say Miss Carrie teased her father till he had to give in in self-defence. It's her birthday or something like that, and she would have a party."

"But such a party! who ever heard the like in[14] a respectable town like this! It's wicked, that's what I call it, downright wicked to cover up the face God has given you and go strutting around in clothes a Christian man might well think borrowed from the Evil One if he had to wear them in any decent company. All wrong, I say, all wrong, and I am astonished at Mr. Benson. To keep his doors shut as he has, and then to open them in a burst to all sorts of folly. We are not invited at our house."

"Nor we, nor we," shouted some half dozen.

"And I don't know of any one in this town who is," cried a burly man, presumably a butcher by trade. "We are not good enough for the Bensons. They say he is even going to be mean enough to shut the gates and not let a soul inside who hasn't a ticket. And they are going to light up the grounds too!"

"We can peep through the fence."

"Much we will see that way. If you had said climb it—"

"We can't climb it. Big John is going to be there and Tom Henshaw. They mean to keep their good times to themselves, just as they have kept every thing else. It's a queer set they are[15] anyway, and the less we have to do with them the better."

"I should like to see Hartley Benson in masquerade costume, I would."

"Oh, he won't wear any of the fol-de-rol; he's too dignified." And with that there fell a sudden hush over the crowd, for which I was at a loss to account, till, upon looking up, I saw approaching on horseback, a young man in whom I had no difficulty in recognizing the subject of the last remark.

Straight, slight, elegant in appearance, but with an undoubted reserve of manner apparent even at a distance, he rode up to where I stood, and casting a slight glance around, bowed almost imperceptibly, and alighted. A boy caught the bridle of his horse, and Mr. Benson, without a word or further look, passed quickly into the office, leaving a silence behind him that was not disturbed till he returned with what was evidently his noonday mail. Remounting his horse, he stopped a moment to speak to a man who had just come up, and I seized the opportunity to study his face. I did not like it. It was handsome without doubt; the features were[16] regular, the complexion fair, the expression gentlemanly if not commanding; but I did not like it. It was too impenetrable perhaps; and to a detective anxious to probe a man for his motives, this is ever a most fatal defect. His smile was without sunshine; his glance was an inquiry, a rebuke, a sarcasm, every thing but a revelation. As he rode away he carried with him the thought of all, yet I doubt if the admiration he undoubtedly inspired, was in a single case mixed with any warmer feeling than that of pride in a fellow townsman they could not understand. "Ice," thought I; "ice in all but its transparency!" So much for Benson the son.

The ball was to take place that very night; and the knowledge of this fact threw a different light over the letter I had read. The word mask had no longer any special significance, neither the word counterfeit, and yet such was the tenor of the note itself, and such the exaggerated nature of its phrases, I could not but feel that some plot of a reprehensible if not criminal nature was in the process of formation, which, as a rising young detective engaged in a mysterious and elusive search, it behooved me to know. And[17] moved by this consideration, I turned to a new leaf in my memorandum-book, and put down in black and white the following facts thus summarily collected:

"A mysterious family with a secret.

"Rich, but with no visible means of wealth.

"Secluded, with no apparent reason for the same.

"A father who is a hermit.

"A son who is impenetrable.

"A daughter whose tastes are seldom gratified.

"The strange fact of a ball being given by this family after years of reserve and non-intercourse with their neighbors.

"The still stranger fact of it being a masquerade, a style of entertainment which, from its novelty and the opportunities it affords, makes this departure from ordinary rules seem marked and startling.

"The discovery of a letter appointing a rendezvous between two persons of the male sex, in the grounds of the party giving this ball, in which the opportunities afforded by a masquerade are to be used for forwarding some long-cherished scheme."[18]

At the bottom of this I wrote a deduction:

"Some connection between one or more members of this family giving the ball, and the person called to the rendezvous; the entertainment being used as a blind if not as a means."

It was now four o'clock, five hours before the time of rendezvous. How should I employ the interval? A glance at the livery-stable hard by, determined me. Procuring a horse, I rode out on the road toward Mr. Benson's, for the purpose of reconnoitring the grounds; but as I proceeded I was seized by an intense desire to penetrate into the midst of this peculiar household, and judge for myself whether it was worth while to cherish any further suspicions in regard to this family. But how to effect such an entrance? What excuse could I give for my intrusion that would be likely to serve me on a day of such tumult and preoccupation? I looked up and down the road as if for inspiration. It did not come. Meanwhile, the huge trees that surrounded the house had loomed in sight, and presently the beauties of lawn and parterre began to appear beyond the high iron fence, through which I could catch now and then[19] short glimpses of hurrying forms, as lanterns were hung on the trees and all things put in readiness for the evening's entertainment. Suddenly a thought struck me. If Mr. Benson was the man they said, he was not engaged in any of these arrangements. Mr. Benson was a hermit. Now what could I say that would interest a hermit? I racked my brains; a single idea came. It was daring in its nature, but what of that! The gate must be passed, Mr. Benson must be seen—or so my adventurous curiosity decided,—and to do it, something must be ventured. Taking out my card, which was simply inscribed with my name, I wrote on it, "Business private and immediate," and assuming my most gentlemanly and inoffensive manner, rode calmly through the gate to the front of the house. If I had been on foot I doubt if I would have been allowed to pass by the servant lounging about in that region, but the horse carried me through in more senses than one, and almost before I realized it, I found myself pausing before the portico, in full view of a dozen or more busy men and boys.

Imitating the manner of Mr. Benson at the[20] post-office, I jumped from my horse and threw the bridle to the boy nearest me. Instantly and before I could take a step, a servant issued from the open door, and with an expression of anxiety somewhat surprising under the circumstances, took his stand before me in a way to hinder my advance.

"Mr. Benson does not receive visitors to-day," said he.

"I am not a visitor," replied I; "I have business with Mr. Benson," and I handed him my card, which he looked at with a doubtful expression.

"Mr. Benson's commands are not to be disobeyed," persisted the man. "My master sees no one to-day."

"But this is an exceptional case," I urged, my curiosity rising at this unexpected opposition. "My business is important and concerns him. He cannot refuse to see me."

The servant shook his head with what appeared to me to be an unnecessary expression of alarm, but nevertheless retreated a step, allowing me to enter. "I will call Mr. Hartley," cried he.[21]

But that was just what I did not wish. It was Benson the father I had come to see, and I was not to be baffled in this way.

"Mr. Hartley won't do," said I, in my lowest but most determined accents. "If Mr. Benson is not ill, I must beg to be admitted to his presence." And stepping inside the small reception room at my right, I sat down on the first chair I came to.

The man stood for a moment confounded at my pertinacity, then with a last scrutinizing look, that took in every detail of my person and apparel, drew slowly off, shaking his head and murmuring to himself.

Meanwhile the mingled splendor and elegance of my surroundings were slowly making their impression upon me. The hall by which I had entered was spacious and imposing; the room in which I sat, a model of beauty in design and finish. I was allowing myself the luxury of studying its pictures and numerous works of art, when the sound of voices reached my ear from the next room. A man and woman were conversing there in smothered tones, but my senses are very acute, and I had no difficulty in overhearing what was said.[22]

"Oh, what an exciting day this has been!" cried the female voice. "I have wanted to ask you a dozen times what you think of it all. Will he succeed this time? Has he the nerve to embrace his opportunity, or what is more, the tact to make one? Failure now would be fatal. Father—"

"Hush!" broke in the other voice, in a masculine tone of repressed intensity. "Do not forget that success depends upon your prudence. One whisper of what you are about, and the whole scheme is destroyed."

"I will be careful; only do you think that all is going well and as we planned it?"

"It will not be my fault if it does not," was the reply, uttered with an accent so sinister I was conscious of a violent surprise when, in the next instant, the other, with a burst of affectionate fervor, cried in an ardent tone:

"Oh, how good you are, and what a comfort you are to me!"

I was just pondering over the incongruity thus presented, when the servant returned with my card.

"Mr. Benson wishes to know the nature of[23] your business," said he, in a voice I was uncomfortably conscious must penetrate to the next room and awake its inmates to a knowledge of my proximity.

"Let me have the card," said I; and taking it, I added to my words the simple phrase, "On behalf of the Constable of the town," remembering I had heard the postmaster say this position was held by his brother. "There," said I, "carry that back to your master."

The servant took the card, glanced down at the words I had written, started and hastily drew back. "You had better come," said he, leading the way into the hall.

I was only too glad to comply; in fact, escape from that room seemed imperative. But just as I was crossing the threshold, a sudden, quick cry, half joyful, half fearful, rose behind me, and turning, I met the eyes of a young lady peering upon me from a lifted portière, with an expression of mingled terror and longing that would have astonished me greatly, if it had not instantly disappeared at the first sight of my face.

"Pardon me," she exclaimed, drawing back with an embarrassed movement into the room[24] from which she had emerged. But soon recovering herself, she stepped hastily forward, and ignoring me, said to the servant at my side: "Jonas, who is this gentleman, and where are you taking him?"

With a bow, Jonas replied: "He comes on business, miss, and Mr. Benson consents to see him."

"But I thought my father had expressly commanded that no one was to be allowed to enter the library to-day," she exclaimed, but in a musing tone that asked for no response. And hastily as we passed down the hall, I could not escape the uneasy sense that her eager eyes were following us as we went.

"Too much emotion for so small a matter, and a strange desire on the part of every one to keep Mr. Benson from being intruded upon to-day," was my mental comment. And I was scarcely surprised when upon our arrival at the library door we found it locked. However, a knock, followed by a few whispered words on the part of the servant, served to arouse the hermit within, and with a quick turn of the key, the door flew back on its hinges, and the master of the house stood before me.[25]

It was a moment to be remembered: first, because the picture presented to my eyes was of a marked and impressive character; and secondly, because something in the expression of the gentleman before me showed that he had received a shock at my introduction which was not to be expected after the pains which had been taken to prepare his mind for my visit. He was a tall, remarkable-looking man, with a head already whitened, and a form which, if not bowed, had only retained its upright carriage by means of the indomitable will that betrayed itself in his eyes. Seen against the rich background of the stained-glass window that adorned one end of the apartment, his stern, furrowed face and eagerly repellant aspect imprinted itself upon me like a silhouette, while the strong emotion I could not but detect in his bearing, lent to the whole a poetic finish that made it a living picture which, as I have said, I have never been able to forget.

"You have come from the constable of the town," said he, in a firm, hard tone, impressive as his look. "May I ask for what purpose?"

Looking around, I saw the servant had disappeared.[26] "Sir," said I, gathering up my courage, as I became convinced that in this case I had a thoroughly honest man to deal with, "you are going to give a fancy ball to-night. Such an event is a novelty in these parts, and arouses much curiosity. Some of the men about town have even been heard to threaten to leap the fences and steal a look at your company, whether you will or not. Mr. White wants to know whether you need any assistance in keeping the grounds clear of all but your legitimate guests; if so, he is ready to supply whatever force you may need."

"Mr. White is very kind," returned Mr. Benson, in a voice which, despite his will-power, showed that his agitation had in some unaccountable way been increased by my communication. "I had not thought of any such contingency," he murmured, moving over to a window and looking out. "An invasion of rowdies would not be agreeable. They might even find their way into the house." He paused and cast a sudden look at me. "Who are you?" he abruptly asked.

The question took me by surprise, but I[27] answered bravely if not calmly: "I am a man who sometimes assists Mr. White in the performance of his duties, and in case you need it, will be the one to render you assistance to-night. A line to Mr. White, if you doubt me——"

A wave of his meagre hand stopped me. "Do you think you could keep out of my house to-night, any one I did not wish to enter?" he asked.

"I should at least like to try."

"A ticket is given to every invited guest; but if men are going to climb the fences, tickets will amount to but little."

"I will see that the fences are guarded," cried I, gratified at the prospect of being allowed upon the scene of action. "I can hinder any one from coming in that way, if——" Here I paused, conscious of something, I could hardly say what, that bade me be cautious and weigh my words well. "If you desire it and will give me the authority to act for you," I added in a somewhat more indifferent tone.

"I do desire it," he replied shortly, moving over to the table and taking up a card. "Here[28] is a ticket that will insure you entrance into the grounds; the rest you will manage without scandal. I do not want any disturbance, but if you see any one hanging about the house or peering into the windows or attempting to enter in any way except through the front door, you are to arrest them, no matter who they are. I have an especial reason for desiring my wishes attended to in this regard," he went on, not noticing the preoccupation that had seized me, "and will pay well if on the morrow I find that every thing has gone off according to my desires."

"Money is a powerful incentive to duty," I rejoined, with marked emphasis, directing a sly glance at the mirror opposite, in whose depths I had but a moment before been startled by the sudden apparition of the pale and strongly agitated face of young Mr. Benson, who was peering from a door-way half hidden by a screen at our back. "I will be on hand to-night." And with what I meant to be a cynical look, I made my bow and disappeared from the room.

As I expected, I was met at the front door by Mr. Hartley. "A word with you," said he.[29] "Jonas tells me you are from the constable of the town. May I ask what has gone amiss that you come here to disturb my father on a day like this?"

His tone was not unkind, his expression not without suavity. If I had not had imprinted on my memory the startling picture of his face as I had seen it an instant before in the mirror, I should have been tempted to believe in his goodness and integrity at this moment. As it was, I doubted him through and through, yet replied with frankness and showed him the ticket I had received from his father.

"And you are going to make it your business to guard the grounds to-night?" he asked, gloomily glancing at the card in my hand as if he would like to annihilate it.

"Yes," said I.

He drew me into a small room half filled with plants.

"Now," said he, "see here. Such a piece of interference is entirely uncalled for, and you have been alarming my father unnecessarily. There are no rowdies in this town, and if one or two of the villagers should get into the[30] grounds, where is the harm? They cannot get into the house even if they wanted to, which they don't. I do not wish this, our first show of hospitality, to assume a hostile aspect, and whatever my father's expectations may be, I must request you to curtail your duties as much as possible and limit them to responding by your presence when called upon."

"But your father has a right to expect the fullest obedience to his wishes," I protested. "He would not be satisfied if I should do no more than you request, and I cannot afford to disappoint him."

He looked at me with a calculating eye, and I expected to see him put his hand in his pocket; but Hartley Benson played his cards better than that. "Very well," said he, "if you persist in regarding my father's wishes as paramount, I have nothing to say. Fulfil your duties as you conceive them, but don't look for my support if any foolish misadventure makes you ashamed of yourself." And drawing back, he motioned me out of the room.

I felt I had received a check, and hurried out of the house. But scarcely had I entered upon[31] the walk that led down to the gate, when I heard a light step behind me. Turning, I encountered the pretty daughter of the house, the youthful Miss Carrie.

"Wait," she cried, allowing herself to display her emotion freely in face and bearing. "I have heard who you are from my brother," she continued, approaching me with a soft grace that at once put me upon my guard. "Now, tell me who are the rowdies that threaten to invade our grounds?"

"I do not know their names, miss," I responded; "but they are a rough-looking set you would not like to see among your guests."

"There are no very rough-looking men in our village," she declared; "you must be mistaken in regard to them. My father is nervous and easily alarmed. It was wrong to arouse his fears."

I thought of that steady eye of his, of force sufficient to hold in awe a regiment of insurgents, and smiled at her opinion of my understanding.

"Then you do not wish the grounds guarded," I said, in as indifferent a tone as I could assume.[32]

"I do not consider it necessary."

"But I have already pledged myself to fulfil your father's commands."

"I know," she said, drawing a step nearer, with a most enchanting smile. "And that was right under the circumstances; but we, his children, who may be presumed to know more of social matters than a recluse,—I, especially," she added, with a certain emphasis, "tell you it is not necessary. We fear the scandal it may cause; besides, some of the guests may choose to linger about the grounds under the trees, and would be rather startled at being arrested as intruders."

"What, then, do you wish me to do?" I asked, leaning toward her, with an appearance of yielding.

"To accept this money," she murmured, blushing, "and confine yourself to-night to remaining in the background unless called upon."

This was a seconding of her brother's proposition with a vengeance. Taking the purse she handed me, I weighed it for a moment in my hand, and then slowly shook my head. "Impossible," I cried; "but"—and I fixed my eyes[33] intently upon her countenance—"if there is any one in particular whom you desire me to ignore, I am ready to listen to a description of his person. It has always been my pleasure to accommodate myself as much as possible to the whims of the ladies."

It was a bold stroke that might have cost me the game. Indeed, I half expected she would raise her voice and order some of the men about her to eject me from the grounds. But instead of that she remained for a moment blushing painfully, but surveying me with an unfaltering gaze that reminded me of her father's.

"There is a person," said she, in a low, restrained voice, "whom I am especially anxious should remain unmolested, whatever he may or may not be seen to do. He is a guest," she went on, a sudden pallor taking the place of her blushes, "and has a right to be here; but I doubt if he at once enters the house, and I even suspect he may choose to loiter awhile in the grounds before attempting to join the company. I ask you to allow him to do so."

I bowed with an appearance of great respect. "Describe him," said I.[34]

For a moment she faltered, with a distressed look I found it difficult to understand. Then, with a sudden glance over my person, exclaimed: "Look in the glass when you get home and you will see the fac-simile of his form, though not of his face. He is fair, whereas you are dark." And with a haughty lift of her head calculated to rob me of any satisfaction I might have taken in her words, she stepped slowly back.

I stopped her with a gesture. "Miss," said I, "take your purse before you go. Payment of any service I may render your father will come in time. This affair is between you and me, and I hope I am too much of a gentleman to accept money for accommodating a lady in so small a matter as this."

But she shook her head. "Take it," said she, "and assure me that I may rely on you."

"You may rely on me without the money," I replied, forcing the purse back into her hand.

"Then I shall rest easy," she returned, and retreated with a lightsome air toward the house.

The next moment I was on the highway with my thoughts. What did it all mean? Was it,[35] then, a mere love affair across which I had foolishly stumbled, and was I busying myself unnecessarily about a rendezvous that might mean no more than an elopement from under a severe father's eye? Taking out the note which had led to all these efforts on my part, I read it for the third time.

"All goes well. The time has come; every thing is in train, and success is certain. Be in the shrubbery at the northeast corner of the grounds at 9 P.M. precisely; you will be given a mask and such other means as are necessary to insure you the accomplishment of the end you have in view. He cannot hold out against a surprise. The word by which you will know your friends is

COUNTERFEIT."

A love-letter of course; and I had been a fool to suppose it any thing else. The young people are to surprise the old gentleman in the presence of their friends. They have been secretly married perhaps, who knows, and take this method of obtaining a public reconciliation. But that word "Counterfeit," and the sinister tone of Hartley Benson as he said: "It shall not fail through lack of effort on my[36] part!" Such a word and such a tone did not rightly tally with this theory. Few brothers take such interest in their sister's love affairs as to grow saturnine over them. There was, beneath all this, something which I had not yet penetrated. Meantime my duty led me to remain true to the one person of whose integrity of purpose I was most thoroughly convinced.

Returning to the village, I hunted up Mr. White and acquainted him with what I had undertaken in his name; and then perceiving that the time was fast speeding by, strolled over to the tavern for my supper.

The stranger was still there, walking up and down the sitting-room. He joined us at the table, but I observed he scarcely tasted his food, and both then and afterward manifested the same anxious suspense that had characterized his movements from the time of our first encounter.

[37]

II. THE BLACK DOMINO

At half past eight I was at my post. The mysterious stranger, still under my direct surveillance, had already entered the grounds and taken his stand in the southwest corner of the shrubbery, thereby leaving me free to exercise my zeal in keeping the fences and gates free of intruders. At nine the guests were nearly if not all assembled; and promptly at the hour mentioned in the note so often referred to, I stole away from my post and hid myself amid the bushes that obscured the real place of rendezvous.

It was a retired spot, eminently fitted for a secret meeting. The lamps, which had been hung in profusion through the grounds, had been studiously excluded from this quarter. Even the broad blaze of light that poured from the open doors and windows of the brilliantly[38] illuminated mansion, sent no glimmer through the broad belt of evergreens that separated this retreat from the open lawn beyond. All was dark, all was mysterious, all was favorable to the daring plan I had undertaken. In silence I awaited the sound of approaching steps.

My suspense was of short duration. In a few moments I heard a low rustle in the bushes near me, then a form appeared before my eyes, and a man's voice whispered:

"Is there any one here?"

My reply was to glide quietly into view.

Instantly he spoke again, this time with more assurance.

"Are you ready for a counterfeit?"

"I am ready for any thing," I returned, in smothered tones, hoping by thus disguising my voice, to lure him into a revelation of the true purpose of this mysterious rendezvous.

But instead of the explanations I expected, the person before me made a quick movement, and I felt a domino thrown over my shoulders.

"Draw it about you well," he murmured; "there are lynx eyes in the crowd to-night." And while I mechanically obeyed, he bent down[39] to my ear and earnestly continued: "Now listen, and be guided by my instructions. You will not be able to enter by the front door, as it is guarded, and you cannot pass without removing your mask. But the window on the left-hand balcony is at your service. It is open, and the man appointed to keep intruders away, has been bribed to let you pass. Once inside the house, join the company sans céremonie; and do not hesitate to converse with any one who addresses you by the countersign. Promptly at ten o'clock look around you for a domino in plain black. When you see him move, follow him, but with discretion, so that you may not seem to others to be following. Sooner or later he will pause and point to a closed door. Notice that door, and when your guide has disappeared, approach and enter it without fear or hesitation. You will find yourself in a small apartment connecting with the library.

"There is but one thing more to say. If the wineglass you will observe on the library table smells of wine, you may know your father has had his nightly potion and gone to bed. But if it contains nothing more than a small white[40] powder, you may be certain he has yet to return to the library, and that by waiting, you will have the long-wished-for opportunity of seeing him."

And pausing for no reply, my strange companion suddenly thrust a mask into my hand and darted from the circle of trees that surrounded us.

For a moment I stood dumbfounded at the position in which my recklessness had placed me. All the folly, the impertinence even, of the proceeding upon which I had entered, was revealed to me in its true colors, and I mentally inquired what could have induced me to thus hamper myself with the details of a mystery so entirely removed from the serious matter I had in charge. Resolved to abandon the affair, I made a hasty attempt to disengage myself from the domino in which I had been so unceremoniously enveloped. But invisible hands seemed to restrain me. A vivid remembrance of the tone in which these final instructions had been uttered returned to my mind, and while I recognized the voice as that of Hartley Benson, I also recognized the almost saturnine intensity of expression which had once before imbued his[41] words with a significance both forcible and surprising. The secret, if a purely family one, was of no ordinary nature; and at the thought I felt my old interest revive. All the excuses with which I had hitherto silenced my conscience recurred to me with fresh force, and mechanically donning my mask, I prepared to follow out my guide's instructions to the last detail.

The window to which I had been directed stood wide open. Through it came the murmur of music and the hum of gay voices. Visions of a motley crowd decked in grotesque costumes passed constantly before my eyes. Sight and sound combined to allure me. Hurrying to the window, I stepped carelessly in.

A low guttural "Hugh!" at once greeted me. It was from a mask in full Indian costume, whom I saw leaning with a warrior's well-known dignity against the embrasure of the window by which I had entered. Giving him a scrutinizing glance, I came to the conclusion he was a young and not inelegant man; and impelled by a reasonable curiosity as to how I looked myself, I cast my eyes down upon my own person. I found my appearance sufficiently striking. The[42] domino, in which I was wrapped was of a brilliant yellow hue, covered here and there with black figures representing all sorts of fantastic creatures, from hobgoblins of a terrible type, to merry Kate Greenaway silhouettes. "Humph!" thought I, "it seems I am not destined to glide unnoticed amid the crowd."

The first person who approached me was a gay little shepherdess.

"Ah, ha!" was the sportive exclamation with which she greeted me. "Here is one of my wandering sheep!" And with a laugh, she endeavored to hook me to her side by means of her silver crook.

But this blithesome puppet possessed no interest for me. So with a growl and a bound I assured her I was nothing more than a wolf in sheep's clothing, and would eat her up if she did not run away; at which she gayly laughed and vanished, and for a moment I was left alone. But only for a moment. A masked lady, whom I had previously observed standing upright and solitary in a distant corner of the room, now approached, and taking me by the arm, led me eagerly to one side.[43]

"Oh, Joe!" she whispered, "is it you? How glad I am to have you here, and how I hope we are going to be happy at last!"

Fearing to address a person seemingly so well acquainted with the young man whose place I had usurped, I merely pressed, with most perfidious duplicity, the little hand that was so confidingly clasped in mine. It seemed to satisfy her, for she launched at once into ardent speech.

"Oh, Joe, I have been so anxious to have you with us once again! Hartley is a good brother, but he is not my old playmate. Then father will be so much happier if you only succeed in making him forget the past."

Seeing by this that it was Miss Carrie Benson with whom I had to deal, I pressed the little hand again, and tenderly drew her closer to my side. That I felt all the time like a villain of the blackest dye, it is quite unnecessary for me to state.

"Has Hartley told you just what you are to do?" was her next remark. "Father is very determined not to relent and has kept himself locked in his library all day, for fear you should[44] force yourself upon his presence. I could never have gained his consent to give this ball if I had not first persuaded him it would serve as a means to keep you at a distance; that if you saw the house thronged with guests, natural modesty would restrain you from pushing yourself forward. I think he begins to distrust his own firmness. He fears he will melt at the sight of you. He has been failing this last year and—" A sudden choke stopped her voice.

I was at once both touched and alarmed; touched at the grief which showed her motives to be pure and good, and alarmed at the position in which I had thrust myself to the apparent detriment of these same laudable motives. Moved by a desire to right matters, I ventured to speak:

"And do you think," I whispered, in purposely smothered accents, "that if he sees me he will relent?"

"I am sure of it. He yearns over you, Joe; and if he had not sworn never to speak to you again, he would have sent for you long ago. Hartley believes as well as I that the time for reconciliation has come."[45]

"And is Hartley," I ventured again, not without a secret fear of the consequences, "really anxious for reconciliation?"

"Oh, Joe! can you doubt it? Has he not striven from the first to make father forget? Would he encourage you to come here to-night, furnish you with a disguise, and consent to act both as your champion and adviser, if he did not want to see you and father friends again? You don't understand Hartley; you never have. You would not have repelled his advances so long, if you had realized how truly he had forgiven every thing and forgotten it. Hartley has the pride of a person who has never done wrong himself. But even pride gives way before brotherly affection; and you have suffered so much and so long, poor Joe!"

"So, so," thought I, "Joe is then the aggressor!" And for a moment, I longed to be the man I represented, if only to clasp this dear little sister in my arms and thank her for her goodness. "You are a darling," I faintly articulated, inwardly determined to rush forthwith into the garden, hand over my domino to the person for whom it was intended, and make my escape from a[46] scene which I had so little right to enjoy. But at this instant an interruption occurred which robbed me of my companion, but kept me effectually in my place. A black domino swept by us, dragging Miss Benson from my side, while at the same time a harsh voice whispered in my ear:

"To counterfeit wrong when one is right, necessarily opens one to misunderstanding."

I started, recognizing in this mode of speech a friend, and therefore one from whom I could not escape without running the risk of awakening suspicion.

"That is true," I returned, hoping by my abrupt replies to cut short this fresh colloquy and win a speedy release.

But something in my answer roused the interest of the person at my side, and caused a display of emotion that led to quite an opposite result from what I desired.

"You awaken a thousand conjectures in my mind by that reply," exclaimed my friend, edging me a little farther back from the crowd. "I have always had my doubts about—about—" he paused, hunting for the proper phrase—"about[47] your having done what they said," he somewhat lamely concluded. "It was so unlike you. But now I begin to see the presence of a possibility that might perhaps explain much we never understood. Joe, my boy, you never said you were innocent, but——"

"Who are you?" I asked boldly, peering into the twinkling eyes that shone upon me from his sedate mask. "In the discussion of such matters as these, it would be dreadful to make a mistake."

"And don't you recognize your Uncle Joe?" he asked, with a certain plaintive reproach somewhat out of keeping with his costume of "potent, grave, and reverend signior." "I came over from Hollowell on purpose, because Carrie intimated that you were going to make one final effort to see your father. Edith is here too," he murmured, thrusting his face alarmingly near mine. "She would not stay away, though we were all afraid she might betray herself; her emotions are so quick. Poor child! she never doubted you; and if my suspicions are correct——"

"Edith?" I interrupted,—"Edith?" An Edith[48] was the last person I desired to meet under these circumstances. "Where is she?" I tremulously inquired, starting aside in some dismay at the prospect of encountering this unknown quantity of love and devotion.

But my companion, seizing me by the arm, drew me back. "She is not far away; of that you may be sure. But it will never do for you to try and hunt her up. You would not know her in her mask. Besides, if you remain still she will come to you."

That was just what I feared, but upon looking round and seeing no suspicious-looking damsel anywhere near me, I concluded to waive my apprehensions on her account and proceed to the development of an idea that had been awakened by the old gentleman's words.

"You are right," I acquiesced, edging, in my turn, toward the curtained recess of a window near by. "Let us wait here, and meantime you shall tell me what your suspicions are, for I feel the time has come for the truth to be made known, and who could better aid me in proclaiming it than you who have always stood my friend?"[49]

"That is true," he murmured, all eagerness at once. Then in a lower tone and with a significant gesture: "There is something, then, which has never been made known? Edith was right when she said you did not steal the bonds out of your father's desk?"

As he paused and looked me in the face, I was obliged to make some reply. I chose one of the non-committal sort.

"Don't ask me!" I murmured, turning away with every appearance of profound agitation.

He did not suspect the ruse.

"But, my boy, I shall have to ask you; if I am to help you out of this scrape, I must know the truth. Yet if it is as I suspect, I can see why you should hesitate even now. You are a generous fellow, Joe, but even generosity can be carried past its proper limits."

"Uncle," I exclaimed, leaning over him and whispering tremulously in his ear, "what are your suspicions? If I hear you give utterance to them, perhaps it will not be so hard for me to speak."

He hesitated, looked all about us with a questioning glance, put his mouth to my ear, and whispered:[50]

"If I should use the name of Hartley in connection with what I have to say, would you be so very much surprised?"

With a quick semblance of emotion, I drew back.

"You think—" I tremulously commenced, and as suddenly broke off.

"That it was he who did it, and that you, knowing how your father loved him and built his hopes upon him, bore the blame of it yourself."

"Ha!" I exclaimed, with a deep breath as of relief. The suspicions of Uncle Joe were worth hearing.

He seemed to be satisfied with the ejaculation, and with an increase of eagerness in his tone, went quickly on:

"Am I not right, my boy? Is not this the secret of your whole conduct from that dreadful day to this?"

"Don't ask me," I again pleaded, taking care, however, to draw a step nearer and exclaim in almost the same breath: "Why should you think it must necessarily have been one of us? What did you know that you should be so positive[51] it was either he or I who committed this dishonest action?"

"What did I know? Why, what everybody else did. That your father, hearing a noise in his study one night, rose up quietly and slipped to the door of communication in time to hear a stealthy foot leave the room and proceed down the hall toward the apartment usually occupied by you and your brother; that, alarmed and filled with vague distrust, he at once lit the lamp, only to discover his desk had been forcibly broken into and a number of coupon bonds taken out; that, struck to the heart, he went immediately to the room where you and your brother lay, found him lying quiet, and to all appearance asleep, while you looked flushed and with difficulty met his eye; that without hesitation he thereupon accused you of theft, and began to search the apartment; that he found the bonds, as we both know, in a cupboard at the head of your bed, and when you were asked if you had put them there you remained silent, and neither then nor afterward made any denial of being the one who stole them."[52]

A mournful "Yes" was all the reply I ventured upon.

"Now it never seemed to occur to your father to doubt your guilt. The open window and the burglar's jimmy found lying on the floor of the study, being only so many proofs, to his mind, of your deep calculation and great duplicity. But I could not help thinking, even on that horrible morning, that your face did not wear a look of guilt so much as it did that of firm and quiet resolution. But I was far from suspecting the truth, my boy, or I should never have allowed you to fall a victim to your father's curse, and be sent forth like a criminal from home and kindred. If only for Edith's sake I would have spoken—dear, trusting, faithful girl that she is!"

"But—but—" I brokenly ejaculated, anxious to gain as much of the truth as was possible in the few minutes allotted me; "what has awakened your suspicions at this late day? Why should you doubt Hartley now, if you did not then?"

"Well, I cannot really say. Perhaps Edith's persistent aversion to your brother has had[53] something to do with it. Then he has grown cold and hard, while you have preserved your boyish freshness and affection. I—I don't like him, that is the truth; and with my dislike arose doubts, and—and—well, I cannot tell how it is, but I will believe you if you say he was the one to blame in this matter; and what is more, your father will believe you too; for he does not feel the same satisfaction in Hartley's irreproachable character that he used to, and—and—"

A sudden movement in the crowd stopped him. A tall, graceful-looking woman clad entirely in white had just entered the room and seemed to be making her way toward us.

"There is Edith!" he declared. "She is hunting for the yellow domino ornamented with black that she has been told conceals her lover. Shall I go and fetch her here, or will you wait until she spies you of her own accord?"

"I will wait," I uneasily replied, edging nearer to the window with the determination of using it as a means of escape if my companion only gave me the chance. "See! she is in the hands of an old Jew, who seems to be greatly[54] taken with the silver trimmings on her sleeves. Suppose you improve the opportunity to slip away," I laughingly suggested. "Lovers' meetings are not usually of an order to interest third parties."

"Aren't they, you rogue!" retorted the old gentleman, giving me a jocose poke in the ribs. "Well, well, I suppose you are right. But you have not told me—"

"I will tell you every thing in an hour," I hastily assured him. "I am going to meet my father in the library, and after he has heard the truth, you shall be admitted and all will be explained."

"That is only fair," he replied. "Your father has the first rights, of course. But Joe, my boy, remember I am not over and above patient of disposition, and don't keep me waiting too long." And with an affectionate squeeze of my hand, he stepped out from the recess where we stood and made his way once more into the throng.

No sooner had he left my side than I threw up the window. "Now is the time for the real Joe to appear upon the scene," was my mental[55] decision. "I have done for him what he as a gentleman would probably never do for himself—pumped this old party and got every thing in trim for Hartley's discomfiture. But the courting business is another matter; also the interview with the outraged father in the library. That cannot be done by proxy; so here goes for a change of actors."

And with reckless disregard of consequences, I prepared to jump from the window, when a sudden light flashed over the lawn beneath and I saw I was at least twelve feet from the ground.

"Well," I exclaimed, drawing hastily back; "such a leap as that is too much to expect of any man!" And with the humiliating consciousness of being caught in a trap, I proceeded to close the window.

"Joe!"

'Twas a low whisper, but how thrilling! Turning, I greeted, with the show of fervor I considered necessary to the occasion, the white-veiled lady who had glided into my retreat.

"Did you think I was never coming, Joe? Everybody who could get in my way certainly[56] managed to do so. Then Hartley is so suspicious, and followed me with his eyes so persistently, I did not dare show my designs too plainly. It is only this minute he left my side. If you had been anywhere else I do not know as I should have succeeded even now in getting a word with you—oh!"

This exclamation was called forth by a sudden movement that took place near us. The curtain was drawn back and a tall man dressed in a black domino glanced in, gave us a scrutinizing look, bowed, and dropped the curtain again.

"Hartley," she whisperingly explained.

I took her by the hand; there was no help for it; gesture and a lover-like demeanor must, in this case, supply the place of speech.

"Hush!" she entreated. (Not that I had spoken.) "I dare not stay. When you have seen your father, perhaps I will have courage to join you; but now it would be better for me to go." And her eyes roamed toward the curtain, while the little hand I held in mine grew cold and slightly trembled.

I pressed that little hand, but, as you may well[57] believe, did not urge her to remain. Yet she did not seem in a hurry to depart, and I do not know what complications might have ensued, if another movement in the curtain had not reawakened her fears and caused her, notwithstanding her evident reluctance, to start quickly away.

I did not linger long behind her. Scarcely had the curtain fallen from her hand than I stepped hastily forth. But alas for my hopes of escape! No sooner had I joined the group of merry-makers circling about the open door, than I felt a touch on my arm, and looking up, saw before me the Black Domino. The hour of ten had struck and my guide to the library was at hand. There was no alternative left me but to follow him.

[58]

III. AN UNEXPECTED CALAMITY

Five minutes passed, during which I threaded more laughing groups and sauntered down more mysterious passage-ways than I would care to count. Still the mysterious Black Domino glided on before me, leading me from door to door till my patience was nearly exhausted, and I had well-nigh determined to give him the slip and make my way at once to the garden, and the no-doubt-by-this-time-highly-impatient Joe.

But before I had the opportunity of carrying out this scheme, the ominous Black Domino paused, and carelessly pointing to a door at the termination of a narrow corridor, bowed, and hastily withdrew.

"Now," said I, as soon as I found myself alone, "shall I proceed with this farce, or shall I end it? To go on means to interview Mr.[59] Benson, acquaint him with what has come to my knowledge during the last half hour in which I have so successfully personified his son, and by these means perhaps awake him to the truth concerning this serious matter of Joseph's innocence or Hartley's guilt; while to stop now implies nothing more nor less than a full explanation with his son, a man of whose character, manners, and disposition I know little or nothing."

Either alternative presented infinite difficulties, but of the two the former seemed to me more feasible and less embarrassing. At all events, in talking with Mr. Benson, I should not have the sensibilities of a lover to contend with, and however unfortunate in its results our interview might be, would be at the mercy of old blood instead of young, a point always to be considered in a case where one's presumption has been carried beyond the bounds of decorum.

Unlocking the door, I stepped, as I had been told I should, into a small room adjoining the library. All around me were books. Even the door by which I had entered was laden with them, so that when it was closed, all vestige of[60] the door itself disappeared. Across the opening into the library stood a screen, and it was not until I had pushed this somewhat aside that I was able to look into that room.

My first glance assured me it was empty. Stark and bare of any occupant, the high-backed chairs loomed in the funereal gloom, while on the table, toward which I inadvertently glanced, stood a decanter with a solitary wineglass at its side. Instantly I remembered what had been told me concerning that glass, and stepping forward, I took it up and looked at it.

Immediately I heard, or thought I heard, an exclamation uttered somewhere near me. But upon glancing up and down the room and perceiving no one, I concluded I was mistaken, and deliberately proceeded to examine the wineglass and assure myself that no wine had as yet been poured upon the powder I found in it. Satisfied at last that Mr. Benson had not yet taken his usual evening potion, I put the glass back and withdrew again to my retreat.

I do not think another minute could have elapsed, before I heard a step in the room behind me. A door leading into an adjoining apartment[61] had opened and Mr. Benson had come in. He passed immediately to the table, poured out the wine upon the powder, and drank it off without a moment's hesitation. I heard him sigh as he put the glass down.

With a turn of my hand I slipped off both domino and mask, and prepared to announce my presence by tapping on the lintel of the door beside which I stood. But a sudden change in Mr. Benson's lofty figure startled me. He was swaying, and the arms which had fallen to his side were moving with a convulsive action that greatly alarmed me. But almost instantly he recovered himself, and paced with a steady step toward the hall door, which at that moment resounded with a short loud knock.

"Who is there?" he asked, with every appearance of his usual sternness.

"Hartley," was the reply.

"Are you alone?" the old gentleman again queried, making a move as if to unlock the door.

"Carrie is with me; no one else," came in smothered accents from without.

Mr. Benson at once turned the key, but no sooner had he done so than he staggered back.[62] For an instant or two of horror he stood oscillating from side to side, then his frame succumbed, and the terrified eyes of his children beheld his white head lying low, all movement and appearance of life gone from the form that but a moment before towered so proudly before them.

With a shriek, the daughter flung herself down at his side, and even the cheek of Hartley Benson grew white as he leaned over his father's already inanimate body.

"He is dead!" came in a wild cry from her lips. "See! he does not breathe. Oh! Hartley, what could have happened? Do you think that Joe—"

"Hush!" he exclaimed, with a furtive glance around him. "He may be here; let me look. If Joe has done this—" He did not continue, but rose, and with a rapid tread began to cross the floor in my direction.

In a flash I realized my situation. To be found by him now, without a domino, and in the position of listener, would be any thing but desirable. But I knew of no way of escape, or so for the moment it seemed. But great emergencies[63] call forth sudden resources. In the quick look I inadvertently threw around me, I observed that the portière hanging between me and the library was gathered at one side in very heavy folds. If I could hide behind them perhaps I might elude the casual glance he would probably cast into my place of concealment. At all events it was worth trying, and at the thought I glided behind the curtain. I was not disappointed in my calculations. Arrived at the door, he looked in, perceived the domino lying in a heap on the floor, and immediately drew back with an exclamation of undoubted satisfaction.

"He is gone," said he, crossing back to his sister's side. Then in a tone of mingled irony and bitterness, hard to describe, cried aloud with a glance toward the open door: "He has first killed his father and then fled. Fool that I was to think he could be trusted!"

A horrified "Hartley!" burst from his sister's lips and a suppressed but equally vehement "Villain!" from mine; but neither of us had time for more, for almost at the same instant the room filled with frightened guests, among[64] which I discerned the face and form of the old servant Jonas, and the flowing robes and the white garments of Uncle Joe and the graceful Edith.

To describe the confusion that followed would be beyond my powers, especially as my attention was at the time not so much directed to the effect produced by this catastrophe, as to the man whom, from the moment Mr. Benson fell to the floor, I regarded as my lawful prey. He did not quake and lose his presence of mind in this terrible crisis. He was gifted with too much self-control to betray any unseemly agitation even over such a matter as his father's sudden death. Once only did I detect his lip tremble, and that was when an elderly gentleman (presumably a doctor) exclaimed after a careful examination of the fallen man:

"This is no case of apoplexy, gentlemen!"

Then indeed Mr. Hartley Benson shivered, and betrayed an emotion for which I considered myself as receiving a due explanation when, a few minutes later, I observed the same gentleman lay his hand upon the decanter and glass that stood on the table, and after raising them[65] one after the other to his nose, slowly shake his head, and with a furtive look around him, lock them both in a small cupboard that opened over the mantel-piece.

[66]

IV. IN THE LIBRARY

Mr. Benson was really dead. The fact being announced, most of the guests withdrew. In ten minutes after he fell, the room was comparatively clear. Only the various members of the family, together with the gentleman I have already mentioned, remained behind; and, even of these, the two ladies were absent, they having followed the body into the adjoining room, where it had been reverently carried by the attached Jonas and another servant whose face I did not see.

"A most unlooked-for catastrophe," burst from the lips of Uncle Joe. "Did you ever suspect he was a victim to heart disease?" he now asked, this time with looks directed toward the doctor.

"No," came from that gentleman in a short, sharp way, which made Hartley Benson's pale[67] face flush, though his eye did not waver from its steady solemn look toward the door through which his father's form had just been carried. "Mr. Benson was sound through and through a month ago. I know, because I examined him previous to his making his will. There was no heart disease then; that I am ready to take my oath upon."

Hartley Benson's rigid look unfastened itself from the door and turned slowly toward the sombre face of the speaker, while Uncle Joe, with an increased expression of distress, looked slowly around as if he half hoped, half feared to behold his favorite nephew advance upon them from some shadowy corner.

"My father consulted you, then?" said the former, in his slow, reserved way. "Did not that evince some suspicion of disease on his part?"

"Possibly; a man in a despondent frame of mind will often imagine he has some deadly complaint or other. But he was quite sound; too sound, he seemed to think. Your father was not a happy man, Mr. Benson."

There was meaning in the tone, and I was[68] not surprised to observe Hartley draw back. "Why," said he, "do you think—"

"I think nothing," broke in the doctor; "only"—and here he brought down his hand vigorously upon the table—"there has been prussic acid in the glass from which Mr. Benson drank this evening. The smell of bitter almonds is not to be mistaken."

An interval of silent horror followed this announcement, then a vehement "Great Heaven!" broke from the lips of Uncle Joe, while Hartley Benson, growing more and more rigid in his bearing, fixed his eyes on the doctor's face and barely ejaculated:

"Poison?"

"I say this," continued the doctor, too intent upon his own theory to notice either the growth of a terrible fear on the face of Uncle Joe, or the equally remarkable expression of subdued expectation on that of the son, "because long experience has taught me the uselessness of trying to hide such a fact as suicide, and also because, being the coroner of the county, it is my duty to warn you that an investigation will have to take place which will require certain[69] precautions on my part, such as the sealing up of his papers, etc."

"That is true," came from the lips of both brother and son, over whom a visible change had passed at the word "suicide."

"But I cannot think—" the former began in an agitated voice.

"That my father would do such a deed," interposed the latter. "It does not seem probable, and yet he was a very wretched man, and grief will often drive the best of us to despair."

Uncle Joe gave his nephew a strange look, but said no more. The doctor went quietly on:

"I do not know what your father's troubles were, but that he committed suicide I greatly fear, unless it can be proved the acid was taken by mistake, a conclusion which does not seem probable, for from the smell of the decanter it is evident the acid was mixed with the wine, in which I now remember advising him to take the nightly powder I prescribed to him for quite a trivial disorder a few days ago. The only thing that puzzles me is, why, if he meditated death, he should have troubled himself to take this powder. And yet it is certain he did take[70] it, for there is still some of the sediment of it remaining in the bottom of the glass."

"He took the powder because it was already in the glass," broke in Hartley, in a heavy tone of voice. "My sister put it there before she went up stairs to dress. I think she was afraid he would forget it. My father was very careless about small matters."

"He was careful enough not to poison any one else in the family," quoth the doctor. "There was scarcely a drop left in the decanter; he took the whole dose."

"I beg your pardon, sirs, but is it suicide you are talking about?" cried a voice suddenly over their shoulders, making them all start. Jonas, the servant, had entered from the inner room, and unseen by all but myself, had been listening to the last few words as if his life depended upon what they had to say. "If it is, why I have a bit of an observation of my own to make that may help you to settle the matter."

"You! What have you to say?" quoth the doctor, turning in surprise at the confident tone of voice in which the man spoke.[71]

"Not much, I am sure," cried Hartley, to whom the appearance at that moment of his father's old servant was evidently most unwelcome.

"That is for you to judge, gentlemen. I can only tell you what I've seen, and that not ten minutes ago. Mr. Hartley, do you mind the man in the yellow dress that was flitting about the parlors all the evening?"

"Good heavens!" burst in uncontrollable agitation from Uncle Joe; and he caught his nephew by the arm with a look that called back the old rigid expression to the latter's face.

"Yes," was the quiet reply; "I remember seeing such a person."

"Well, sirs, I don't know as you will think any thing of it, but a little while ago I was walking up and down the balcony outside there, when I happened to look into this room, and I saw that man in the yellow dress leaning over this very table, looking into the wineglass Miss Carrie had put there for master. He had it in his hand, and his head was down very close to it, but what he did to it or to the[72] decanter either, I am sure, sirs, I don't know, for I was that frightened at seeing this spectre in the room master had kept locked all day, that I just slipped off the balcony and ran round the house to find Mr. Hartley. But you wasn't in the parlors, sir, nor Miss Carrie neither, and when I got to this room, there was master lying dead on the floor, and everybody crowding around him horror-struck."

"Humph!" ejaculated the doctor, looking at Uncle Joe, who had sunk in a heap into the arm-chair his nephew abstractedly pushed toward him.

"You see, sirs," Jonas resumed, with great earnestness, "Mr. Benson, for some reason or other, had been very particular about keeping his own room to-day. The library door was locked as early as six this morning, and he would let no one in without first asking who was there. That's why I felt so dumbfoundered at seeing this yellow man in the room; besides——"

But no sooner had the good man arrived at this point than he stopped, with a gasp, and after a quick look at Hartley, flushed, and[73] drew back in a state of great agitation and embarrassment. Evidently a suspicion had just crossed the mind of this old and attached servant as to whom the Yellow Domino might be.

"Well, well," cried the doctor, "go on; let us hear the rest."

"I—I have nothing more to say," mumbled the man, while Hartley, with an equal display of embarrassment, motioned the discomfited servant to withdraw, and turned as if to hide his face over some papers on the table.

"I think the man in the yellow domino had better be found," quoth the physician, dryly, glancing from Hartley to the departing form of the servant, with a sharp look. "At all events it would be well enough for us to know who he is."

"I don't see—" began Uncle Joe, but stopped as he perceived the face of Hartley Benson slowly composing itself. Evidently he was as much interested as myself in observing what this not-easily-to-be-understood man would say and do in this sudden crisis.

We were not long left in doubt.[74]

"Doctor," he began, in a slow, hesitating tone, well calculated to produce the effect he desired, "we unfortunately already know who wore a yellow domino this evening. My brother Joe——"

"Hush!" implored his uncle, laying a hand on his nephew's arm with a quick look of distress not lost on the doctor.

"Brother?" repeated the latter. "Pardon me, I did not know——Ah, but I do remember now to have heard that Mr. Benson had another son."

The face of Hartley grew graver and graver. "My brother has been alienated from my father for some time, so you have never seen him here. But to-night he hoped, or made me think he hoped, to effect a reconciliation; so I managed, with my sister, to provide him with the domino necessary to insure him an entrance here. Indeed, I did more; I showed him a private door by which he could find his way into the library, never suspecting any harm could come of son and father meeting even in this surreptitious way. I—I loved my brother, and notwithstanding the past, had confidence[75] in him. Nor can I think now he had any thing to do with the——" Here the voice of this inimitable actor broke in well-simulated distress. He sank on a chair and put his hands before his face.

The doctor had no reason to doubt this man. He therefore surveyed him with a look of grave regard.

"Mr. Benson," said he, "you have my profoundest sympathy. A tragedy like this in a family of such eminent respectability, is enough to overwhelm the stoutest heart. If your brother is here——"

"Dr. Travis," broke in the other, rising and grasping the physician's hand with an appearance of manly impulse impressive in one usually so stern and self contained, "you are, or were, my father's friend; can you or will you be ours? Dreadful as it is to think, my father undoubtedly committed suicide. He had a great dread of this day. It is the anniversary of an occurrence harrowing for him to remember. My brother—you see I shall have to break the secrecy of years—was detected by him in the act of robbing his desk three years[76] ago to-night, and upon each and every recurrence of the day, has returned to his father's house to beg for the forgiveness and restoration to favor which he lost by that deed of crime. Hitherto my father has been able to escape his importunities, by absence or the address of his servants, but to-day he seemed to have a premonition that his children were in league against him, notwithstanding Carrie's ruse of the ball, and the knowledge may have worked upon him to that extent that he preferred death to a sight of the son that had ruined his life and made him the hermit you have seen."

The doctor fell into the trap laid for him with such diabolical art.

"Perhaps; but if that is so, why is your brother not here? Only a few minutes could have elapsed between the time that Jonas saw him leaning over the table with the glass in his hand and the moment when you and your sister entered this room in face of your father's falling form. He must have been present, therefore, when your father came from his bedroom, if not when he drank the fatal glass; why, then, did he take such pains to escape, if[77] actuated by no keener emotion than horror at a father's suicide?"

"I do not know, I cannot say; but that he himself put the poison in the decanter I will not believe. A thief is not necessarily a parricide. Even if he were in great straits and needed the money my father's will undoubtedly leaves him, he would think twice before he ran the risk of making Carrie and myself his natural enemies. No, no, if my father has died from poison, it was through a mistake, or by the administration of his own hand, never by that of Joe Benson's."

"Ah, and has anybody here present dared to charge him with such a deed!"

With a start both gentlemen turned; an accusing spirit stood before them.

"Edith!" broke from Hartley's lips. "This is no place for you! Go back! go back!"

"My place is where the name of Joseph Benson is uttered," she proudly answered, "whether the words be for good or evil. I am his betrothed wife as you know, and again I ask, who has dared to utter an insinuation, however light, that he, the tender son and generous[78] brother, has had a criminal hand in his father's awful death?"

"No one! no one!" essayed Hartley, taking her hand with a weak attempt at soothing. "I was but saying——"

But she turned from him with a gesture of repugnance, and taking a step toward the doctor, looked him entreatingly in the face. "You have not been expressing doubts of Mr. Benson's youngest son, because he happened to wear a disguise and be present when Mr. Benson fell? You do not know Joe, sir; nobody in this town knows him. His own father was ignorant of his worth; but we know him, Uncle Joe and I, and we know he could never do a deed that could stamp him either as a dishonorable or a criminal man. If Mr. Benson has died from poison, I should as soon think this man had a hand in it as his poor exiled brother." And in a burst of uncontrollable wrath and indignation, she pointed, with a sudden gesture, at the startled Hartley.

But that worthy, though evidently taken aback, was not to be caught so easily.

"Edith, you forget yourself," said he, with[79] studied self-possession. "The horrors of this dreadful occurrence have upset you. I do not wonder at it myself, but the doctor will not so readily understand you. Miss Underhill has been strangely attached to my brother," he went on, turning to the latter with an apologetic smile that made Uncle Joe grind his teeth in silent wrath. "They were engaged previous to the affair of which I have just made mention, and naturally she could never bring herself to consider him guilty of a crime which, once acknowledged, must necessarily act as a bar of separation between them. She calls him a martyr, a victim, an exile, any thing but what he actually is. Indeed, she seems really to believe in his innocence, while we,"—he paused and looked up at his sister Carrie who had entered the room,—"while we," he went on slowly and sadly, taking this new ally softly by the hand, "know only too well that the unhappy boy was in every respect guilty of the crime for which his father exiled him. But that is neither here nor there; the dreadful subject before us is not what he once did, but whether his being here to-night has had any thing to do with my[80] father's death. I cannot think it has, and yet——"

The subtle inflection of his voice spoke volumes. This great actor had evidently been driven to bay.

"O Hartley!" came in a terrified cry from his sister; "what is this? You cannot think, they cannot think, Joe could do any thing so dreadful as that?" while over the face of Edith passed a look of despair, as she saw the countenance of the doctor slowly fill with the gloom of suspicion, and even the faithful Uncle Joe turn away as if he too had been touched by the blight of a secret doubt.

"Ah, but I wish Joe were here himself!" she cried with startling emphasis. "He should speak, even if it brought ruin amongst us."

But the doctor was a man not to be moved by so simple a thing as a woman's unreasoning emotion.

"Yes, the Yellow Domino would be very welcome just now," he allowed, with grim decision.

"That he is not here is the most damning fact of all," Hartley slowly observed. "He fled when he saw our father fall."[81]

"But he shall come back," Edith vehemently declared.

"If he does, I shall need no further proof of his innocence," said Uncle Joe.

"Nor I, so that he comes to-night," returned the doctor.

"Then be satisfied, for here he is," I exclaimed from my retreat; and drawing the mask over my face, and hastily enveloping myself in the yellow domino, I stepped forth into full view of the crowd around the table.

[82]

V. THE YELLOW DOMINO

A mingled sound of shrieks and exclamations greeted me.

"Joe!" cried Edith, bounding forward.

But I waved her back, and turned with a severe gesture toward Hartley Benson.

"What are your reasons," I demanded, "for thinking the poisoning that has taken place here was the work of the Yellow Domino?"

"Do you ask me?" he retorted, after a moment's pause, during which my voice echoed through the room, waking strange gleams of doubt on the faces of more than one person present. "You wish to dare me, then?" he hissed, coming a step nearer.

"I wish to know what the Yellow Domino has done that you or any one should consider him as responsible for the tragedy that has here taken place," I steadily replied.[83]

"Are you not my brother, then?" he cried, in mingled rage and anxiety. "Was it not you I met under the evergreens and supplied with a yellow domino, in order to give you the opportunity of seeing our father to-night and effecting the reconciliation which you had so long desired? Are you not he who afterward followed me to this room and hid himself in the closet from which you have just come, all for the purpose, as you said, of throwing yourself at your father's feet and begging pardon for a past of which you had long ago repented? Or are you some reckless buffoon who has presumed to step into the domino my brother left behind him, and careless of the terrible trouble that has overwhelmed this family, come here with your criminal jests to puzzle and alarm us?"

"I am the man to whom you gave the domino, if that is what you wish to know, Hartley Benson; and I am the man whom you led into the ambush of this closet, for such reasons as your own conscience must inform you. If the Yellow Domino put poison into Mr. Benson's wine, then upon me must lie the[84] burden of the consequences, for I alone have worn the disguise of this mask from the moment we met under the evergreens till now, as I think may be proved by this gentleman you call Uncle Joe, and this lady you address as Edith."

This mode of attack had the desired effect.

"Who are you?" burst from Hartley's lips, now blanched to the color of clay. "Unmask him, doctor; let us see the man who dares to play us tricks on such a night as this!"

"Wait!" cried I, motioning back not only the doctor, but Uncle Joe and the ladies—the whole group having started forward at Hartley's words. "Let us first make sure I am the Yellow Domino who has been paraded through the parlors this evening. Miss Benson, will you pardon me if I presume to ask you what were the words of salutation with which you greeted me to-night?"

"Oh!" she cried, in a tremble of doubt and dismay, "I do not know as I can remember; something about being glad to see you, I believe, and my hope that your plans for the evening might succeed."[85]

"To which," said I, "I made no audible reply, but pressed your hand in mine, with the certainty you were a friend though you had not used the word 'Counterfeit.'"

"Yes, yes," she returned, blushing and wildly disturbed, as she had reason to be.

"And you, Uncle Joe," I went on; "what were your words? How did you greet the man you had been told was your erring nephew?"

"I said: 'To counterfeit wrong when one is right, necessarily opens one to a misunderstanding.'"

"To which ambiguous phrase I answered, as you will remember, with a simple, 'That is true,' a reply by the way that seemed to arouse your curiosity and lead to strange revelations."

"God defend us!" cried Uncle Joe.

The exclamation was enough. I turned to the trembling Edith.

"I shall not attempt," said I, "to repeat or ask you to repeat any conversation which may have passed between us, for you will remember it was too quickly interrupted by Mr. Benson for us to succeed in uttering more than a dozen or so words. However, you will do me the[86] kindness to acknowledge your belief that I am the man who stood with you behind the parlor curtains an hour ago."

"I will," she replied, with a haughty lift of her head that spoke more loudly than her blushes.

"It only remains, then, for Mr. Benson to assure himself I am the person who followed him to the closet. I know of no better way of his doing this than to ask him if he remembers the injunctions which he was pleased to give me, when he bestowed upon me this domino."

"No,—that is,—whatever they were, they were given to the man I supposed to be my brother."

"Ha, then; it was to your brother," I rejoined, "you gave that hint about the glass I would find on the library table; saying that if it did not smell of wine I would know your father had not had his nightly potion and would yet come to the library to drink it;—an intimation, as all will acknowledge, which could have but the one result of leading me to go to the table and take up the glass and look into it in the suspicious manner which has been reported to you."[87]

He was caught in his own toils and saw it. Muttering a deep curse, he drew back, while a startled "Humph!" broke from the doctor, followed by a quick, "Is that true? Did you tell him that, Mr. Benson?"

For reply the now thoroughly alarmed villain leaped at my throat. "Off with that toggery! Let us see your face! I shall and will know who you are."

But I resisted for another moment while I added: "It is, then, established to your satisfaction that I am really the man who has worn the yellow domino this evening. Very well, now look at me, one and all, and say if you think I am likely to be a person to destroy Mr. Benson." And with a quick gesture I threw aside my mask, and yielded the fatal yellow domino to the impatient hands of Mr. Hartley Benson.

The result was a cry of astonishment from those to whom the face thus revealed was a strange one, and a curse deep and loud from him to whom the shock of that moment's surprise must have been nearly overwhelming.

"Villain!" he shrieked, losing his self-possession in a sudden burst of fury; "spy! informer![88] I understand it all now. You have been set over me by my brother. Instructed by him, you have dared to enter this house, worm yourself into its secrets, and by a deviltry only equalled by your presumption, taken advantage of your position to poison my father and fling the dreadful consequences of your crime in the faces of his mourning family. It was a plot well laid; but it is foiled, sir, foiled, as you will see when I have you committed to prison to-morrow."

"Mr. Benson," I returned, shaking him loose as I would a feather, "this is all very well; but in your haste and surprise you have made a slight mistake. You call me a spy; so I am; but a spy backed by the United States Government is not a man to be put lightly into prison. I am a detective, sir, connected at present with the Secret Service at Washington. My business is to ferret out crime and recognize a rogue under any disguise and in the exercise of any vile or deceptive practices." And I looked him steadily in the face.

Then indeed his cheek turned livid, and the eye which had hitherto preserved its steadiness sought the floor.[89]

"A detective!" murmured Miss Carrie, shrinking back from the cringing form of the brother whom, but a few hours before, she had deemed every thing that was noble and kind.

"A detective!" echoed Edith, brightening like a rose in the sunshine.

"In government employ!" repeated Uncle Joe, honoring me with a stare that was almost comic in its mingled awe and surprise.

"Yes," I rejoined; "if any one doubts me, I have papers with me to establish my identity. By what means I find myself in this place, a witness of Mr. Benson's death and the repository of certain family secrets, it is not necessary for me to inform you. It is enough that I am here, have been here for a good hour, posted behind that curtain; that I heard Jonas' exclamation as he withdrew from the balcony, saw Mr. Benson come in from his bedroom, drink his glass of wine, and afterward fall at the feet of his son and daughter; and that having been here, and the witness of all this, I can swear that if Mr. Benson drank poison from yonder decanter, he drank poison that was put into it before either he or the Yellow Domino entered[90] this room. Who put it there, it is for you to determine; my duty is done for to-night." And with a bow I withdrew from the group about me and crossed to the door.

But Miss Carrie's voice, rising in mingled shame and appeal, stopped me. "Don't go," said she; "not at least until you tell me where my brother Joseph is. Is he in this town, or has he planned this deception from a distance? I—I am an orphan, sir, who at one blow has lost not only a dearly beloved father but, as I fear, a brother too, in whom, up to this hour, I have had every confidence. Tell me, then, if any support is left for a most unhappy girl, or whether I must give up all hopes of even my brother Joe's sympathy and protection."

"Your brother Joe," I replied, "has had nothing to do with my appearance here. He and I are perfect strangers; but if he is a tall, broad-shouldered, young man, shaped something like myself, but with a ruddy cheek and light curling hair, I can tell you I saw such a person enter the shrubbery at the southwest corner of the garden an hour or so ago."

"No, he is here!" came in startling accents[91] over my shoulders. And with a quick leap Joe Benson sprang by me and stood handsome, tall, and commanding in the centre of the room. "Hartley! Carrie! Edith! what is this I hear? My father stricken down, my father dying or dead, and I left to wander up and down through the shrubbery, while you knelt at his bedside and received his parting blessing? Is this the recompense you promised me, Hartley? this your sisterly devotion, Carrie? this your love and attention to my interests, Edith?"

"O Joe, dear Joe, do not blame us!" Carrie made haste to reply. "We thought you were here. A man was here, that man behind you, simulating you in every regard, and to him we gave the domino, and from him we have learned——"

"What?" sprang in thundering tones from the young giant's throat as he wheeled on his heel and confronted me.

"That your brother Hartley is a villain," I declared, looking him steadily in the eye.

"God!" was his only exclamation as he turned slowly back and glanced toward his trembling brother.[92]

"Sir," said I, taking a step toward Uncle Joe, who, between his eagerness to embrace the new-comer and his dread of the consequences of this unexpected meeting, stood oscillating from one side to the other in a manner ridiculous enough to see, "what do you think of the propriety of uttering aloud and here, the suspicions which you were good enough to whisper into my ears an hour ago? Do you see any reason for altering your opinion as to which of the two sons of Mr. Benson invaded his desk and appropriated the bonds afterward found in their common apartment, when you survey the downfallen crest of the one and compare it with the unfaltering look of the other?"

"No," he returned, roused into sudden energy by the start given by Hartley. And advancing between the brothers, he looked first at one and then at the other with a long, solemn gaze that called out the color on Hartley's pale cheek and made the crest of Joe rise still higher in manly pride and assertion. "Joe," said he, "for three years now your life has lain under a shadow. Accused by your father of a dreadful crime, you have resolutely refused to[93] exonerate yourself, notwithstanding the fact that a dear young girl waited patiently for the establishment of your innocence in order to marry you. To your family this silence meant guilt, but to me and mine it has told only a tale of self-renunciation and devotion. Joe, was I right in this? was Edith right? The father you so loved, and feared to grieve, is dead. Speak, then: Did you or did you not take the bonds that were found in the cupboard at the head of your bed three years ago to-night? The future welfare, not only of this faithful child but of the helpless sister, who, despite her belief in your guilt, has clung to you with unwavering devotion, depends upon your reply."

"Let my brother speak," was the young man's answer, given in a steady and nobly restrained tone.

"Your brother will not speak," his uncle returned. "Don't you see you must answer for yourself? Say, then: Are you the guilty man your father thought you, or are you not? Let us hear, Joe."

"I am not!" avowed the young man, bowing his head in a sort of noble shame that must[94] have sent a pang of anguish through the heart of his brother.

"Oh, I knew it, I knew it!" came from Edith's lips in a joyous cry, as she bounded to his side and seized him by one hand, just as his sister grasped the other in a burst of shame and contrition that showed how far she was removed from any participation in the evil machinations of her elder brother.

The sight seemed to goad Hartley Benson to madness. Looking from one to the other, he uttered a cry that yet rings in my memory: "Carrie! Edith! do you both forsake me, and all because of a word which any villain might have uttered? Is this the truth and constancy of women? Is this what I had a right to expect from a sister, a—a friend? Carrie, you at least always gave me your trust,—will you take it away because a juggling spy and a recreant brother have combined to destroy me?"

But beyond a wistful look and a solemn shake of the head, Carrie made no response, while Edith, with her eyes fixed on the agitated countenance of her lover, did not even seem to hear the words of pleading that were addressed to her.[95]

The shock of the disappointment was too much for Hartley Benson. Clenching his hand upon his breast, he gave one groan of anguish and despair and sank into a chair, inert and helpless. But before we could any of us take a step toward him, before the eyes of the doctor and mine could meet in mutual understanding, he had bounded again to his feet, and in a burst of desperation seized the chair in which he sat, and held it high above his head.

"Fools! dotards!" he exclaimed, his eyes rolling in frenzy from face to face, but lingering longest on mine, as if there he read the true secret of his overthrow, as well as the promise of his future doom. "You think it is all over with me; that there is nothing left for you to do but to stand still and watch how I take my defeat. But I am a man who never acknowledges defeat. There is still a word I have to say that will make things a little more even between us. Listen for it, you. It will not be long in coming, and when you hear it, let my brother declare how much enjoyment he will ever get out of his victory."

And whirling the chair about his head, he[96] plunged through our midst into the hall without.

For an instant we stood stupefied, then Carrie Benson's voice rose in one long, thrilling cry, and with a bound she rushed toward the door. I put out my hand to stop her, but it was not necessary. Before she could cross the threshold the sudden, sharp detonation of a pistol-shot was heard in the hall, and we knew that the last dreadful word of that night's tragedy had been spoken.

The true secret of Hartley Benson's action in this matter was never discovered. That he planned his father's violent death, no one who was present at the above interview ever doubted. That he went further than that, and laid his plans in such a manner that the blame, if blame ensued, should fall upon his innocent brother, was equally plain, especially after the acknowledgment we received from Jonas, that he went out on the balcony and looked in the window at the special instigation of his young master. But why this arch villain, either at his own risk or at that of the man he hated, felt himself[97] driven to such a revolting crime, will never be known; unless, indeed, the solution be found in his undoubted passion for the beautiful Edith, and in the accumulated pressure of certain secret debts for whose liquidation he dared not apply to his father.

I never revealed to this family the true nature of the motives which actuated me in my performance of the part I played that fatal night. It was supposed by Miss Carrie and the rest, that I was but obeying instructions given me by Mr. Benson; and I never undeceived them. I was too much ashamed of the curiosity which was the mainspring of my action to publish each and every particular of my conduct abroad; though I could not but congratulate myself upon its results when, some time afterward, I read of the marriage of Joe and Edith.

The counterfeiters were discovered and taken, but not by me.

FINIS.

Transcriber's Notes:

Punctuation has been standardised.

The remaining corrections made are indicated by dotted lines under the corrections. Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text will appear.

THE MILL MYSTERY

BY

ANNA KATHARINE GREEN

AUTHOR OF "THE LEAVENWORTH CASE," "A STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE," "HAND AND RING," ETC. ETC.

* * * * *

I. THE ALARM

Life, struck sharp on death,
Makes awful lightning.
—MRS. BROWNING.

I had just come in from the street. I had a letter in my hand. It was for my fellow-lodger, a young girl who taught in the High School, and whom I had persuaded to share my room because of her pretty face and quiet ways. She was not at home, and I flung the letter down on the table, where it fell, address downwards. I thought no more of it; my mind was too full, my heart too heavy with my own trouble.

Going to the window, I leaned my cheek against the pane. Oh, the deep sadness of a solitary woman's life! The sense of helplessness that comes upon her when every effort made, every possibility sounded, she realizes that the world has no place for her, and that she must either stoop to ask the assistance of friends or starve! I have no words for the misery I felt, for I am a proud woman, and——But no lifting of the curtain that shrouds my past. It has fallen for ever, and for you and me and the world I am simply Constance Sterling, a young woman of twenty-five, without home, relatives, or means of support, having in her pocket seventy-five cents of change, and in her breast a heart like lead, so utterly had every hope vanished in the day's rush of disappointments.

How long I stood with my face to the window I cannot say. With eyes dully fixed upon the blank walls of the cottages opposite, I stood oblivious to all about me till the fading sunlight—or was it some stir in the room behind me?—recalled me to myself, and I turned to find my pretty room-mate staring at me with a troubled look that for a moment made me forget my own sorrows and anxieties.

"What is it?" I asked, going towards her with an irresistible impulse of sympathy.

"I don't know," she murmured; "a sudden pain here," laying her hand on her heart.

I advanced still nearer, but her face, which had been quite pale, turned suddenly rosy; and, with a more natural expression, she took me by the hand, and said:

"But you look more than ill, you look unhappy. Would you mind telling me what worries you?"

The gentle tone, the earnest glance of modest yet sincere interest, went to my heart. Clutching her hand convulsively, I burst into tears.

"It is nothing," said I; "only my last resource has failed, and I don't know where to get a meal for to-morrow. Not that this is any thing in itself," I hastened to add, my natural pride reasserting itself; "but the future! the future!—what am I to do with my future?"

She did not answer at first. A gleam—I can scarcely call it a glow—passed over her face, and her eyes took a far-away look that made them very sweet. Then a little flush stole into her cheek, and, pressing my hand, she said:

"Will you trust it to me for a while?"

I must have looked my astonishment, for she hastened to add:

"Your future I have little concern for. With such capabilities as yours, you must find work. Why, look at your face!" and she drew me playfully before the glass. "See the forehead, the mouth, and tell me you read failure there! But your present is what is doubtful, and that I can certainly take care of."

"But——" I protested, with a sensation of warmth in my cheeks.

The loveliest smile stopped me before I could utter a word more.

"As you would take care of mine," she completed, "if our positions were reversed." Then, without waiting for a further demur on my part, she kissed me, and as if the sweet embrace had made us sisters at once, drew me to a chair and sat down at my feet. "You know," she naively murmured, "I am almost rich; I have five hundred dollars laid up in the bank, and——"

I put my hand over her lips; I could not help it. She was such a frail little thing, so white and so ethereal, and her poor five hundred had been earned by such weary, weary work.

"But that is nothing, nothing," I said. "You have a future to provide for, too, and you are not as strong as I am, if you have been more successful."

She laughed, then blushed, then laughed again, and impulsively cried:

"It is, however, more than I need to buy a wedding-dress with, don't you think?" And as I looked up surprised, she flashed out: "Oh, it's my secret; but I am going to be married in a month, and—and then I won't need to count my pennies any more; and, so I say, if you will stay here with me without a care until that day comes, you will make me very happy, and put me at the same time under a real obligation; for I shall want a great many things done, as you can readily conceive."

What did I say—what could I say, with her sweet blue eyes looking so truthfully into mine, but—"Oh, you darling girl!" while my heart filled with tears, which only escaped from overflowing my eyes, because I would not lessen her innocent joy by a hint of my own secret trouble.

"And who is the happy man?" I asked, at last, rising to pull down the curtain across a too inquisitive ray of afternoon sunshine.

"Ah, the noblest, best man in town!" she breathed, with a burst of gentle pride. "Mr. B——"

She went no further, or if she did, I did not hear her, for just then a hubbub arose in the street, and lifting the window, I looked out.

"What is it?" she cried, coming hastily towards me.

"I don't know," I returned. "The people are all rushing in one direction, but I cannot see what attracts them."

"Come away then!" she murmured; and I saw her hand go to her heart, in the way it did when she first entered the room a half-hour before. But just then a sudden voice exclaimed below: "The clergyman! It is the clergyman!" And giving a smothered shriek, she grasped me by the arm, crying: "What do they say? 'The clergyman'? Do they say 'The clergyman'?"

"Yes," I answered, turning upon her with alarm. But she was already at the door. "Can it be?" I asked myself, as I hurriedly followed, "that it is Mr. Barrows she is going to marry?"

For in the small town of S—— Mr. Barrows was the only man who could properly be meant by "The clergyman"; for though Mr. Kingston, of the Baptist Church, was a worthy man in his way, and the Congregational minister had an influence with his flock that was not to be despised, Mr. Barrows, alone of all his fraternity, had so won upon the affections and confidence of the people as to merit the appellation of "The clergyman."

"If I am right," thought I, "God grant that no harm has come to him!" and I dashed down the stairs just in time to see the frail form of my room-mate flying out of the front door.

I overtook her at last; but where? Far out of town on that dark and dismal road, where the gaunt chimneys of the deserted mill rise from a growth of pine-trees. But I knew before I reached her what she would find; knew that her short dream of love was over, and that stretched amongst the weeds which choked the entrance to the old mill lay the dead form of the revered young minister, who, by his precept and example, had won not only the heart of this young maiden, but that of the whole community in which he lived and labored.

II. A FEARFUL QUESTION

Nay, yet there's more in this:
I pray thee, speak to me as to thy thinkings,
As thou dost ruminate; and give thy worst of thoughts
The worst of words.
—OTHELLO.

My room-mate was, as I have intimated, exceedingly frail and unobtrusive in appearance; yet when we came upon this scene, the group of men about the inanimate form of her lover parted involuntarily as if a spirit had come upon them; though I do not think one of them, until that moment, had any suspicion of the relations between her and their young pastor. Being close behind her, I pressed forward too, and so it happened that I stood by her side when her gaze first fell upon her dead lover. Never shall I forget the cry she uttered, or the solemn silence that fell over all, as her hand, rigid and white as that of a ghost's, slowly rose and pointed with awful question at the pallid brow upturned before her. It seemed as if a spell had fallen, enchaining the roughest there from answering, for the truth was terrible, and we knew it; else why those dripping locks and heavily soaked garments oozing, not with the limpid waters of the stream we could faintly hear gurgling in the distance, but with some fearful substance that dyed the forehead blue and left upon the grass a dark stain that floods of rain would scarcely wash away?

"What is it? Oh, what does it mean?" she faintly gasped, shuddering backward with wondering dread as one of those tiny streams of strange blue moisture found its way to her feet.

Still that ominous silence.

"Oh, I must know!" she whispered. "I was his betrothed"; and her eyes wandered for a moment with a wild appeal upon those about her.

Whereupon a kindly voice spoke up. "He has been drowned, miss. The blue——" and there he hesitated.

"The blue is from the remains of some old dye that must have been in the bottom of the vat out of which we drew him," another voice went on.

"The vat!" she repeated. "The vat! Was he found——"

"In the vat? Yes, miss." And there the silence fell again.

It was no wonder. For a man like him, alert, busy, with no time nor inclination for foolish explorations, to have been found drowned in the disused vat of a half-tumbled-down old mill on a lonesome and neglected road meant——But what did it mean? What could it mean? The lowered eyes of those around seemed to decline to express even a conjecture.

My poor friend, so delicate, so tender, reeled in my arms. "In the vat!" she reiterated again and again, as if her mind refused to take in a fact so astounding and unaccountable.

"Yes, miss, and he might never have been discovered," volunteered a voice at last, over my shoulder, "if a parcel of school-children hadn't strayed into the mill this afternoon. It is a dreadful lonesome spot, you see, and——"

"Hush!" I whispered; "hush!" and I pointed to her face, which at these words had changed as if the breath of death had blown across it; and winding my arms still closer about her, I endeavored to lead her away.

But I did not know my room-mate. Pushing me gently aside, she turned to a stalwart man near by, whose face seemed to invite confidence, and said:

"Take me in and show me the vat."

He looked at her amazed; so did we.

"I must see it," she said, simply; and she herself took the first step towards the mill.

There was no alternative but to follow. This we did in terror and pity, for the look with which she led the way was not the look of any common determination, and the power which seemed to force her feeble body on upon its fearful errand was of that strained and unnatural order which might at any moment desert her, and lay her a weak and helpless burden at our feet.

"It must be dark by this time down there," objected the man she had appealed to, as he stepped doubtfully forward.

But she did not seem to heed. Her eyes were fixed upon the ruined walls before her, rising drear and blank against the pale-green evening sky.

"He could have had no errand here," I heard her murmur. "How then be drowned here?—how? how?"

Alas! that was the mystery, dear heart, with which every mind was busy!

The door of the mill had fallen down and rotted away years before, so we had no difficulty in entering. But upon crossing the threshold and making for the steps that led below, we found that the growing twilight was any thing but favorable to a speedy or even safe advance. For the flooring was badly broken in places, and the stairs down which we had to go were not only uneven, but strangely rickety and tottering.

But the sprite that led us paused for nothing, and long before I had passed the first step she had reached the bottom one, and was groping her way towards the single gleam of light that infused itself through the otherwise pitchy darkness.

"Be careful, miss; you may fall into the vat yourself!" exclaimed more than one voice behind her.

But she hurried on, her slight form showing like a spectre against the dim gleam towards which she bent her way, till suddenly she paused and we saw her standing with clasped hands, and bent head, looking down into what? We could readily conjecture.

"She will throw herself in," whispered a voice; but as, profoundly startled, I was about to hasten forward, she hurriedly turned and came towards us.

"I have seen it," she quietly said, and glided by us, and up the stairs, and out of the mill to where that still form lay in its ghostly quietude upon the sodden grass.

For a moment she merely looked at it, then she knelt, and, oblivious to the eyes bent pityingly upon her, kissed the brow and then the cheeks, saying something which I could not hear, but which lent a look of strange peace to her features, that were almost as pallid and set now as his. Then she arose, and holding out her hand to me, was turning away, when a word uttered by some one, I could not tell whom, stopped her, and froze her, as it were, to the spot.

That word was suicide!

I think I see her yet, the pale-green twilight on her forehead, her lips parted, and her eyes fixed in an incredulous stare.

"Do you mean," she cried, "that he deserves any such name as that? That his death here was not one of chance or accident, mysterious, if you will, but still one that leaves no stigma on his name as a man and a clergyman?"

"Indeed, miss," came in reply, "we would not like to say."

"Then, I say, that unless Mr. Barrows was insane, he never premeditated a crime of this nature. He was too much of a Christian. And if that does not strike you as good reasoning, he was too— happy."

The last word was uttered so low that if it had not been for the faint flush that flitted into her cheek, it would scarcely have been understood. As it was, the furtive looks of the men about showed that they comprehended all that she would say; and, satisfied with the impression made, she laid her hand on my arm, and for the second time turned towards home.

III.

ADA.

For, in my sense, 't is happiness to die.
—OTHELLO.

There was death in her face; I saw it the moment we reached the refuge of our room. But I was scarcely prepared for the words which she said to me.

"Mr. Barrows and I will be buried in one grave. The waters which drowned him have gone over my head also. But before the moment comes which proves my words true, there is one thing I wish to impress upon you, and that is: That no matter what people may say, or what conjectures they may indulge in, Mr. Barrows never came to his end by any premeditation of his own. And that you may believe me, and uphold his cause in the face of whatever may arise, I will tell you something of his life and mine. Will you listen?"

Would I listen? I could not speak, but I drew up the lounge, and sitting down by her side, pressed my cheek close to hers. She smiled faintly, all unhappiness gone from her look, and in sweet, soft tones, began:

"We are both orphans. As far as I know, neither of us have any nearer relatives than distant cousins; a similarity of condition that has acted as a bond between us since we first knew and loved each other. When I came to S—— he was just settled here, a young man full of zeal and courage. Whatever the experience of his college days had been—and he has often told me that at that time ambition was the mainspring of his existence,—the respect and appreciation which he found here, and the field which daily opened before him for work, had wakened a spirit of earnest trust that erelong developed that latent sweetness in his disposition which more than his mental qualities, perhaps, won him universal confidence and love.

"You have heard him preach, and you know he was not lacking in genius; but you have not heard him speak, eye to eye and hand to hand. It was there his power came in, and there, too, perhaps, his greatest temptation. For he was one for women to love, and it is not always easy to modify a naturally magnetic look and tone because the hand that touches yours is shy and white, and the glance which steals up to meet your own has within it the hint of unconscious worship. Yet what he could do he did; for, unknown, perhaps, to any one here, he was engaged to be married, as so many young ministers are, to a girl he had met while at college.

"I do not mean to go into too many particulars, Constance. He did not love this girl, but he meant to be true to her. He was even contented with the prospect of marrying her, till——Oh, Constance, I almost forget that he is gone, and that my own life is at an end, when I think of that day, six months ago—the day when we first met, and, without knowing it, first loved. And then the weeks which followed when each look was an event, and a passing word the making or the marring of a day. I did not know what it all meant; but he realized only too soon the precipice upon which we stood, and I began to see him less, and find him more reserved when, by any chance, we were thrown together. His cheek grew paler, too, and his health wavered. A struggle was going on in his breast—a struggle of whose depth and force I had little conception then, for I dared not believe he loved me, though I knew by this time he was bound to another who would never be a suitable companion for him.

"At last he became so ill, he was obliged to quit his work, and for a month I did not see him, though only a short square separated us. He was slowly yielding to an insidious disease, some said; and I had to bear the pain of this uncertainty, as well as the secret agony of my own crushed and broken heart.

"But one morning—shall I ever forget it?—the door opened, and he, he came in where I was, and without saying a word, knelt down by my side, and drew my head forward and laid it on his breast. I thought at first it was a farewell, and trembled with a secret anguish that was yet strangely blissful, for did not the passionate constraint of his arms mean love? But when, after a moment that seemed a lifetime, I drew back and looked into his face, I saw it was not a farewell, but a greeting, he had brought me, and that we had not only got our pastor back to life, but that this pastor was a lover as well, who would marry the woman he loved.

"And I was right. In ten minutes I knew, that a sudden freak on the part of the girl he was engaged to had released him, without fault of his own, and that with this release new life had entered his veins, for the conflict was over and love and duty were now in harmony.

"Constance, I would not have you think he was an absolutely perfect man. He was too sensitively organized for that. A touch, a look that was not in harmony with his thoughts, would make him turn pale at times, and I have seen him put to such suffering by petty physical causes, that I have sometimes wondered where his great soul got its strength to carry him through the exigencies of his somewhat trying calling. But whatever his weaknesses—and they were very few,—he was conscientious in the extreme, and suffered agony where other men would be affected but slightly. You can imagine his joy, then, over this unexpected end to his long pain; and remembering that it is only a month previous to the day set apart by us for our marriage, ask yourself whether he would be likely to seek any means of death, let alone such a horrible and lonesome one as that which has robbed us of him to-day?"

"No!" I burst out, for she waited for my reply. "A thousand times, no, no, no!"

"He has not been so well lately, and I have not seen as much of him as usual; but that is because he had some literary work he wished to finish before the wedding-day. Ah, it will never be finished now! and our wedding-day is to-day! and the bride is almost ready. But!" she suddenly exclaimed, "I must not go yet—not till you have said again that he was no suicide. Tell me," she vehemently continued— "tell me from your soul that you believe he is not answerable for his death!"

"I do!" I rejoined, alarmed and touched at once by the fire in her cheek and eye.

"And that," she went, "you will hold to this opinion in the face of all opposition! That, whatever attack men may make upon his memory, you will uphold his honor and declare his innocence! Say you will be my deputy in this, and I will love you even in my cold grave, and bless you as perhaps only those who see the face of the Father can bless!"

"Ada!" I murmured, "Ada!"

"You will do this, will you not?" she persisted. "I can die knowing
I can trust you as I would myself."

I took her cold hand in mine and promised, though I felt how feeble would be any power of mine to stop the tide of public opinion if once it set in any definite direction.

"He had no enemies," she whispered; "but I would sooner believe he had, than that he sought this fearful spot of his own accord."

And seemingly satisfied to have dropped this seed in my breast, she tremblingly arose, and going for her writing-desk, brought it back and laid it on the lounge by her side. "Go for Mrs. Gannon," she said.

Mrs. Gannon was our neighbor in the next room, a widow who earned her livelihood by nursing the sick; and I was only too glad to have her with me at this time, for my poor Ada's face was growing more and more deathly, and I began to fear she had but prophesied the truth when she said this was her wedding-day.

I was detained only a few minutes, but when I came back with Mrs.
Gannon, I found my room-mate writing.

"Come!" said she, in a voice so calm, my companion started and hastily looked at her face for confirmation of the fears I had expressed; "I want you both to witness my signature."

With one last effort of strength she wrote her name, and then handed the pen to Mrs. Gannon, who took it without a word.

"It is my will," she faintly smiled, watching me as I added my name at the bottom. "We have had to do without lawyers, but I don't think there will be any one to dispute my last wishes." And taking the paper in her hand, she glanced hastily at it, then folded it, and handed it back to me with a look that made my heart leap with uncontrollable emotion. "I can trust you," she said, and fell softly back upon the pillow.

"You had better go for Dr. Farnham," whispered Mrs. Gannon in my ear, with an ominous shake of her head.

And though I felt it to be futile, I hastened to comply.

But Dr. Farnham was out, attending to a very urgent case, I was told; and so, to my growing astonishment and dismay, were Dr. Spaulding and Dr. Perry. I was therefore obliged to come back alone, which I did with what speed I could; for I begrudged every moment spent away from the side of one I had so lately learned to love, and must so soon lose.

Mrs. Gannon met me at the door, and with a strange look, drew me in and pointed towards the bed. There lay Ada, white as the driven snow, with closed eyes, whose faintly trembling lids alone betokened that she was not yet fled to the land of quiet shadows. At her side was a picture of the man she loved, and on her breast lay a bunch of withered roses I could easily believe had been his last gift. It was a vision of perfect peace, and I could not but contrast it with what my imagination told me must have been the frenzied anguish of that other death.

My approach, though light, disturbed her. Opening her eyes, she gave me one long, long look. Then, as if satisfied, she softly closed them again, breathed a little sigh, and in another moment was no more.

IV. THE POLLARDS

There's something in his soul,
O'er which his melancholy sits on brood.
—HAMLET.

Fearful as the experiences of this day had been, they were not yet at an end for me. Indeed, the most remarkable were to come. As I sat in this room of death—it was not far from midnight—I suddenly heard voices at the door, and Mrs. Gannon came in with Dr. Farnham.

"It is very extraordinary," I heard him mutter as he crossed the threshold. "One dying and another dead, and both struck down by the same cause."

I could not imagine what he mean, so I looked at him with some amazement. But he did not seem to heed me. Going straight to the bed, he gazed silently at Ada's pure features, with what I could not but consider a troubled glance. Then turning quickly to Mrs. Gannon, he said, in his somewhat brusque way:

"All is over here; you can therefore leave. I have a patient who demands your instant care."

"But——" she began.

"I have come on purpose for you," he put in, authoritatively. "It is an urgent case; do not keep me waiting."

"But, sir," she persisted, "it is impossible. I am expected early in the morning at Scott's Corners, and was just going to bed when you came in, in order to get a little sleep before taking the train."

"Dr. Perry's case?"

"Yes."

He frowned, and I am not sure but what he uttered a mild oath. At all events, he seemed very much put out.

I immediately drew near.

"Oh, sir," I cried, "if you would have confidence in me. I am not unused to the work, and——"

His stare frightened me, it was so searching and so keen.

"Who are you?" he asked.

I told him, and Mrs. Gannon put in a word for me. I was reliable, she said, and if too much experience was not wanted, would do better than such and such a one—naming certain persons, probably neighbors.

But the doctor's steady look told me he relied more on his own judgment than on anything she or I could say.

"Can you hold your tongue?" he asked.

I started. Who would not have done so?

"I see that you can," he muttered, and glanced down at my dress. "When can you be ready?" he inquired. "You may be wanted for days, and it may be only for hours."

"Will ten minutes be soon enough?" I asked.

A smile difficult to fathom crossed his firm lip.

"I will give you fifteen," he said, and turned towards the door. But on the threshold he paused and looked back. "You have not asked who or what your patient is," he grimly suggested.

"No," I answered shortly.

"Well," said he, "it is Mrs. Pollard, and she is going to die."

Mrs. Pollard! Mrs. Gannon and I involuntarily turned and looked at each other.

"Mrs. Pollard!" repeated the good nurse, wonderingly. "I did not know she was sick"

"She wasn't this noon. It is a sudden attack. Apoplexy we call it.
She fell at the news of Mr. Barrows' death."

And with this parting shot, he went out and closed the door behind him.

I sank, just a little bit weakened, on the lounge, then rose with renewed vigor. "The work has fallen into the right hands," thought I. "Ada would wish me to leave her for such a task as this."

And yet I was troubled. For though this sudden prostration of Mrs. Pollard, on the hearing of her young pastor's sorrowful death, seemed to betoken a nature of more than ordinary sensibility, I had always heard that she was a hard woman, with an eye of steel and a heart that could only be reached through selfish interests. But then she was the magnate of the place, the beginning and end of the aristocracy of S——; and when is not such a one open to calumny? I was determined to reserve my judgment.

In the fifteen minutes allotted me, I was ready. Suitable arrangements had already been made for the removal of my poor Ada's body to the house that held her lover. For the pathos of the situation had touched all hearts, and her wish to be laid in the same grave with him met with no opposition. I could therefore leave with a clear conscience; Mrs. Gannon promising to do all that was necessary, even if she were obliged to take a later train than she had expected to.

Dr. Farnham was in the parlor waiting for me, and uttered a grunt of satisfaction as he saw me enter, fully equipped.

"Come; this is business," he said, and led the way at once to his carriage.

We did not speak for the first block. He seemed meditating, and I was summoning up courage for the ordeal before me. For, now that we were started, I began to feel a certain inward trembling not to be entirely accounted for by the fact that I was going into a strange house to nurse a woman of whom report did not speak any too kindly. Nor did the lateness of the hour, and the desolate aspect of the unlighted streets, tend greatly to reassure me.

Indeed, something of the weird and uncanny seemed to mingle with the whole situation, and I found myself dreading our approach to the house, which from its old-time air and secluded position had always worn for me an aspect of gloomy reserve, that made it even in the daylight, a spot of somewhat fearful interest.

Dr. Farnham, who may have suspected my agitation, though he gave no token of doing so, suddenly spoke up.

"It is only right to tell you," he said, "that I should never have accepted the service of an inexperienced girl like you, if any thing was necessary but watchfulness and discretion. Mrs. Pollard lies unconscious, and all you will have to do is to sit at her side and wait for the first dawning of returning reason. It may come at any moment, and it may never come at all. She is a very sick woman."

"I understand," I murmured, plucking up heart at what did not seem so very difficult a task.

"Her sons will be within call; so will I. By daybreak we hope to have her daughter from Newport with her. You do not know Mrs. Harrington?"

I shook my head. Who was I, that I should know these grand folks? And yet——But I promised I would say nothing about days now so completely obliterated.

"She will not be much of an assistance," he muttered. "But it is right she should come—quite right."

I remembered that I had heard that Mrs. Pollard's daughter was a beauty, and that she had made a fine match; which, said of Mrs. Pollard's daughter, must have meant a great deal. I, however, said nothing, only listened in a vague hope of hearing more, for my curiosity was aroused in a strange way about these people, and nothing which the good doctor could have said about them would have come amiss at this time.

But our drive had been too rapid, and we were too near the house for him to think of any thing but turning into the gateway with the necessary caution. For the night was unusually dark, and it was difficult to tell just where the gate-posts were. We, however, entered without accident, and in another moment a gleam of light greeted us from the distant porch.

"They are expecting us," he said, and touched up his horse. We flew up the gravelled road, and before I could still the sudden heart-beat that attacked me at sight of the grim row of cedars which surrounded the house, we were hurrying up between the two huge lions rampant that flanked the steps, to where a servant stood holding open the door. A sense of gloom and chill at once overwhelmed me. From the interior, which I faintly saw stretching before me, there breathed even in that first moment of hurried entrance a cold and haughty grandeur that, however rich and awe-inspiring, was any thing but attractive to a nature like mine.

Drawing back, I let Dr. Farnham take the lead, which he did in his own brusque way. And then I saw what the dim light had not revealed before, a young man's form standing by the newel-post of the wide staircase that rose at our left. He at once came forward, and as the light from the lamp above us fell fully upon him, I saw his face, and started.

Why? I could not tell. Not because his handsome features struck me pleasantly, for they did not. There was something in their expression which I did not like, and yet as I looked at them a sudden sensation swept over me that made my apprehensions of a moment back seem like child's play, and I became conscious that if a sudden call of life or death were behind me urging me on the instant to quit the house, I could not do it while that face was before me to be fathomed, and, if possible, understood.

"Ah, I see you have brought the nurse," were the words with which he greeted Dr. Farnham. And the voice was as thrilling in its tone as the face was in its expression. "But," he suddenly exclaimed, as his eyes met mine, "this is not Mrs. Gannon." And he hurriedly drew the doctor down the hall. "Why have you brought this young girl?" he asked, in tones which, however lowered, I could easily distinguish. "Didn't you know there were reasons why we especially wanted an elderly person?"

"No," I heard the doctor say, and then, his back being towards me, I lost the rest of his speech till the words, "She is no gossip," came to salute me and make me ask myself if there was a secret skeleton in this house, that they feared so much the eyes of a stranger.

"But," the young man went hurriedly on, "she is not at all the kind of person to have over my mother. How could we——" and there his voice fell so as to become unintelligible.

But the doctor's sudden exclamation helped me out.

"What!" he wonderingly cried, "do you intend to sit up too?"

"I or my brother," was the calm response, "Would you expect us to leave her alone with a stranger?"

The doctor made no answer, and the young man, taking a step sidewise, threw me a glance full of anxiety and trouble.

"I don't like it," he murmured; "but there must be a woman of some kind in the room, and a stranger——"

He did not finish his words, but it seemed as if he were going to say: "And a stranger may, after all, be preferable to a neighbor." But I cannot be sure of this, for he was not a man easy to sound. But what I do know is that he stepped forward, to me with an easy grace, and giving me a welcome as courteous as if I had been the one of all others he desired to see, led me up the stairs to a room which he announced to be mine, saying, as he left me at the door:

"Come out in five minutes, and my brother will introduce you to your duties."

So far I had seen no woman in the house, and I was beginning to wonder if Mrs. Pollard had preferred to surround herself with males, when the door was suddenly opened and a rosy-cheeked girl stepped in.

"Ah, excuse me," she said, with a stare; "I thought it was the nurse as was here."

"And it is the nurse," I returned, smiling in spite of myself at her look of indignant surprise. "Do you want any thing of me?" I hastened to ask, for her eyes were like saucers and her head was tossing airily.

"No," she said, almost with spite. "I came to see if you wanted any thing?"

I shook my head with what good nature I could, for I did not wish to make an enemy in this house, even of a chambermaid.

"And you are really the nurse?" she asked, coming nearer and looking at me in the full glare of the gas.

"Yes," I assured her, "really and truly the nurse."

"Well, I don't understand it!" she cried. "I was always Mrs. Pollard's favorite maid, and I was with her when she was took, and would be with her now, but they won't let me set a foot inside the door. And when I asked why they keep me out, who was always attentive and good to her, they say I am too young. And here you be younger than I, and a stranger too. I don't like it," she cried, tossing her head again and again. "I haven't deserved it, and I think it is mighty mean."

I saw the girl was really hurt, so I hastened to explain that I was not the nurse they expected, and was succeeding, I think, in mollifying her, when a step was heard in the hall, and she gave a frightened start, and hurried towards the door.

"So you are sure you don't want anything?" she cried, and was out of my sight before I could answer.

There was nothing to detain me, and I hastened to follow. As I crossed the sill I almost started too, at sight of the tall, slim, truly sinister figure that awaited me, leaning against the opposite wall. He was younger than his brother, and had similar features, but there was no charm here to make you forget that the eye was darkly glittering, and the lip formidable in its subtlety and power. He advanced with much of the easy nonchalance that had so characterized the other.

"Miss Sterling, I believe," said he; and with no further word, turned and led me down the hall to the sick-room. I noticed even then that he paused and listened before he pushed open the door, and that with our first step inside he cast a look of inquiry at the bed that had something beside a son's loving anxiety in it. And I hated the man as I would a serpent, though he bowed as he set me a chair, and was careful to move a light he thought shone a little too directly in my eyes.

The other brother was not present, and I could give my undivided attention to my charge. I found her what report had proclaimed her to be, a handsome woman of the sternly imposing type. Even with her age against her and the shadow of death lying on her brow and cheek, there was something strangely attractive in the features and the stately contour of her form. But it was attraction that was confined to the eye, and could by no means allure the heart, for the same seal of mysterious reserve was upon her that characterized her sons, and in her, as in the younger one of these, it inspired a distrust which I could imagine no smile as dissipating. She lay in a state of coma, and her heavy breathing was the only sound that broke the silence of the great room. "God help me!" thought I; but had no wish to leave. Instead of that, I felt a fearful pleasure in the prospect before me—such effect had a single look had upon me from eyes I trembled to meet again or read.

I do not know how long I sat there gazing in the one direction for that faint sign of life for which the doctor had bid me watch. That he who inspired me with dread was behind me, I knew; but I would not turn my head towards him. I was determined to resist the power of this man, even if I must succumb a trifle to that of the other.

I was, therefore, surprised when a hand was thrust over my shoulder, and a fan dropped into my lap.

"It is warm here," was the comment which accompanied the action.

I thanked him, but felt that his sole object had been to cover his change of position. For, when he sat down again, it was where he could see my face. I therefore felt justified in plying the fan he had offered me, in such a way as to shut off his somewhat basilisk gaze. And so a dreary hour went by.

It was now well on towards morning, and I was beginning to suffer from the languor natural after so many harrowing excitements, when the door opened behind me, and the electric thrill shooting through all my members, testified as to whose step it was that entered. At the same moment the young man at my side arose, and with what I felt to be a last sharp look in my direction, hastened to where his brother stood, and entered into a whispered conversation with him. Then I heard the door close again, and almost at the same instant Mr. Pollard the elder advanced, and without seeking an excuse for his action, sat down close by my side. The fan at once dropped; I had no wish to avoid this man's scrutiny.

And yet when with a secret bracing of my nerves I looked up and met his eyes fixed with that baffling expression upon mine, I own that I felt an inward alarm, as if something vaguely dangerous had reared itself in my path, which by its very charm instinctively bade me beware. I, however, subdued my apprehensions, thinking, with a certain haughty pride which I fear will never be eliminated from my nature, of the dangers I had already met with and overcome in my brief but troubled life; and meeting his look with a smile which I knew to contain a spice of audacity, I calmly waited for the words I felt to be hovering upon his lips. They were scarcely the ones I expected.

"Miss Sterling," said he, "you have seen Anice, my mother's waiting-maid?"

I bowed. I was too much disconcerted to speak.

"And she has told you her story of my mother's illness?" he went on, pitilessly holding me with his glance. "You need not answer," he again proceeded, as I opened my lips. "I know Anice; she has not the gift of keeping her thoughts to herself."

"An unfortunate thing in this house," I inwardly commented, and made a determination on the spot that whatever emotions I might experience from the mysteries surrounding me, this master of reserve should find there was one who could keep her thoughts to herself, even, perhaps, to his own secret disappointment and chagrin.

"She told you my mother was stricken at the sudden news of Mr.
Barrows' death?"

"That was told me," I answered; for this was a direct question, put, too, with an effort I could not help but feel, notwithstanding the evident wish on his part to preserve an appearance of calmness.

"Then some explanation is needed," he remarked, his eyes flashing from his mother's face to mine with equal force and intentness. "My mother"—his words were low, but it was impossible not to hear them—"has not been well since my father died, two months ago. It needed but the slightest shock to produce the result you unhappily see before you. That shock this very girl supplied by the inconsiderate relation of Mr. Barrows' fearful fate. We have taken a prejudice against the girl, in consequence. Do you blame us? This is our mother."

What could I feel or say but No? What could any one, under the circumstances? Why then did a sudden vision of Ada's face, as she gave me that last look, rise up before me, bidding me remember the cause to which I was pledged, and not put too much faith in this man and his plausible explanations.

"I only hope death will not follow the frightful occurrence," he concluded; and do what he would, his features became drawn, and his face white, as his looks wandered back to his mother.

A sudden impulse seized me.

"Another death, you mean," said I; "one already has marked the event, though it happened only a few short hours ago."

His eyes flashed to mine, and a very vivid and real horror blanched his already pallid cheek till it looked blue in the dim light.

"What do you mean?" he gasped; and I saw the doctor had refrained from telling him of Ada's pitiful doom.

"I mean," said I, with a secret compunction I strove in vain to subdue, "that Mr. Barrows' betrothed could not survive his terrible fate—that she died a few hours since, and will be buried in the same grave as her lover."

"His betrothed?" Young Mr. Pollard had risen to his feet, and was actually staggering under the shock of his emotions. "I did not know he had any betrothed. I thought she had jilted him——"

"It is another woman," I broke in, jealous for my poor dead Ada's fame. "The woman he was formerly engaged to never loved him; but this one——" I could not finish the sentence. My own agitation was beginning to master me.

He looked at me, horrified, and I could have sworn the hair rose on his forehead.

"What was her name?" he asked. "Is it—is it any one I know?" Then, as if suddenly conscious that he was betraying too keen an emotion for the occasion, pitiful as it was, he forced his lips into a steadier curve, and quietly said: "After what has happened here, I am naturally overcome by a circumstance so coincident with our own trouble."

"Naturally," I assented with a bow, and again felt that secret distrust warring with a new feeling that was not unlike compassion.

"Her name is Ada Reynolds," I continued, remembering his last question. "She lived——"

"I know," he interrupted; and without another word walked away, and for a long time stood silent at the other end of the room. Then he came back and sat down, and when I summoned up courage to glance at his face, I saw that a change had passed over it, that in all probability was a change for life.

And my heart sank—sank till I almost envied that unconscious form before which we sat, and from which alone now came the one sound which disturbed the ghostly silence of that dread chamber.

V. DOUBTS AND QUERIES

And that well might
Advise him to a caution, to hold what distance
His wisdom can provide.
—MACBETH.

At daybreak the doctor came in. Taking advantage of the occasion, I slipped away for a few minutes to my own room, anxious for any change that would relieve me from the gloom and oppression caused by this prolonged and silent tete-a-tete with a being that at once so interested and repelled me. Observing that my windows looked towards the east, I hastened to throw wide the blinds and lean out into the open air. A burst of rosy sunlight greeted me. "Ah!" thought I, "if I have been indulging in visions, this will dispel them"; and I quaffed deeply and long of the fresh and glowing atmosphere before allowing my thoughts to return for an instant to the strange and harrowing experiences I had just been through. A sense of rising courage and renewed power rewarded me; and blessing the Providence that had granted us a morning of sunshine after a night of so much horror, I sat down and drew from my breast the little folded paper which represented my poor Ada's will. Opening it with all the reverent love which I felt for her memory, I set myself to decipher the few trembling lines which she had written, in the hope they would steady my thoughts and suggest, if not reveal, the way I should take in the more than difficult path I saw stretching before me.

My agitation may be conceived when I read the following:

"It is my last wish that all my personal effects, together with the sum of five hundred dollars, now credited to my name in the First National Bank of S——, should be given to my friend, Constance Sterling, who I hope will not forget the promise I exacted from her."

Five hundred dollars! and yesterday I had nothing. Ah, yes, I had a friend!

The thoughts awakened by this touching memorial from the innocent dead distracted me for a few moments from further consideration of present difficulties, but soon the very nature of the bequest recalled them to my mind, by that allusion to a promise which more than any thing else lay at the bottom of the dilemma in which I found myself. For, humiliating as it is to confess, the persistency with which certain impressions remained in my mind, in spite of the glowing daylight that now surrounded me, warned me that it would be for my peace to leave this house before my presentiments became fearful realities; while on the other hand my promise to Ada seemed to constrain me to remain in it till I had at least solved some of those mysteries of emotion which connected one and all of this family so intimately with the cause to which I had pledged myself.

"If the general verdict in regard to Mr. Barrows' death should be one of suicide," thought I, "how could I reconcile myself to the fact that I fled at the first approaching intimation that all was not as simple in his relations as was supposed, and that somewhere, somehow, in the breast of certain parishioners of his, a secret lay hidden, which, if known, would explain the act which otherwise must imprint an ineffaceable stain upon his memory?"

My heart and brain were still busy with this question when the sound of Mr. Pollard's footsteps passing my door recalled me to a sense of my present duty. Rising, I hurried across the hall to the sick-chamber, and was just upon the point of entering, when the doctor appeared before me, and seeing me, motioned me back, saying:

"Mrs. Harrington has just arrived. As she will doubtless wish to see her mother at once, you had better wait a few moments till the first agitation is over."

Glad of any respite, and particularly glad to escape an introduction to Mrs. Harrington at this time, I slipped hastily away, but had not succeeded in reaching my room before the two brothers and their sister appeared at the top of the stairs. I had thus a full opportunity of observing them, and being naturally quick to gather impressions, took in with a glance the one member of the Pollard family who was likely to have no mystery about her.

I found her pretty; prettier, perhaps, than any woman it had ever been my lot to meet before, but with a doll's prettiness that bespoke but little dignity or force of mind. Dressed with faultless taste and with an attention to detail that at a moment like the present struck one with a sense of painful incongruity, she advanced, a breathing image of fashion and perhaps folly; her rustling robes, and fresh, if troubled face, offering a most striking contrast to the gloom and reserve of the two sombre figures that walked at her side.

Knowing as by instinct that nothing but humiliation would follow any obtrusion of myself upon this petted darling of fortune, I withdrew as much as possible into the shadow, receiving for my reward a short look from both the brothers; the one politely deprecating in its saturnine courtesy, the other full of a bitter demand for what I in my selfish egotism was fain to consider sympathy. The last look did not tend to calm my already disturbed thoughts, and, anxious to efface its impression, I impulsively descended the stairs and strolled out on the lawn, asking myself what was meant by the difference in manner which I had discerned in these two brothers towards their sister. For while the whole bearing of the younger had expressed interest in this pretty, careless butterfly of a woman thus brought suddenly face to face with a grave trouble, the elder had only averted looks to offer, and an arm that seemed to shrink at her touch as if the weight of her light hand on his was almost more than he could bear. Could it be that affection and generosity were on the side of the younger after all, and that in this respect, at least, he was the truer man and more considerate brother?

I could find no more satisfactory answer for this question than for the many others that had suggested themselves since I had been in this house; and being determined not to allow myself to fall into a reverie which at this moment might be dangerous, I gave up consideration of all kinds, and yielded myself wholly to the pleasure of my ramble. And it was a pleasure! For however solemn and austere might be the interior of the Pollard mansion, without here on the lawn all was cheeriness, bloom, and verdure; the grim row of cedars encircling the house seeming to act as a barrier beyond which its gloom and secrecy could not pass. At all events such was the impression given to my excited fancy at the time, and, filled with the sense of freedom which this momentary escape from the house and its influences had caused, I hastened to enjoy the beauties of walk and parterre, stopping only when some fairer blossom than ordinary lured me from my path to inspect its loveliness or inhale its perfume.

The grounds were not large, though, situated as they were in the midst of a thickly populated district, they appeared so. It did not, therefore, take me long to exhaust their attractions, and I was about to return upon my course, when I espied a little summer-house before me, thickly shrouded in vines. Thinking what a charming retreat it offered, I stepped forward to observe it more closely, when to my great surprise I saw it was already occupied, and by a person whose attitude and appearance were such as to at once arouse my strongest curiosity. This person was a boy, slight of build, and fantastic in his dress, with a face like sculptured marble, and an eye which, if a little contracted, had a strange glitter in it that made you look and look again. He was kneeling on the floor of the summer-house, and his face, seen by me in profile, was turned with the fixedness of an extreme absorption towards a small opening in the vines, through which he was intently peering. What he saw or wished to see I could not imagine, for nothing but the blank end of the house lay before him, and there could be very little which was interesting in that, for not one of its windows were open, unless you except the solitary one in my room. His expression, however, showed that he was engaged in watching something, and by the corrugation in his white brow and the peculiar compression of his fresh red lip, that something showed itself to be of great importance to him; a fact striking enough in itself if you consider the earliness of the hour and the apparent immaturity of his age, which did not appear to be more than fourteen.

Resolved to solve this simple mystery, I gave an admonitory cough, and stepped into the summer-house. He at once started to his feet, and faced me with a look I am pondering upon yet, there was so much in it that was wrathful, curious, dismayed, and defiant. The next moment a veil seemed to fall over his vision, the rich red lip relaxed from its expressive curve, and from being one of the most startling visions I ever saw, he became—what? It would be hard to tell, only not a fully responsible being, I am sure, however near he had just strayed to the border-land of judgment and good sense. Relieved, I scarcely knew why, and remembering almost at the same instant some passing gossip I had once heard about the pretty imbecile boy that ran the streets of S——, I gave him a cheerful smile, and was about to bestow some encouraging word upon him, when he suddenly broke into a laugh, and looking at me with a meaningless stare, asked:

"Who are you?"

I was willing enough to answer, so I returned: "I am Constance
Sterling"; and almost immediately added: "And who are you?"

"I am the cat that mews in the well." Then suddenly, "Do you live here?"

"No," I replied, "I am only staying here. Mrs. Pollard is sick—"

"Do they like you?"

The interruption was quick, like all his speech, and caused me a curious sensation. But I conquered it with a laugh, and cheerily replied:

"As I only came last night, it would be hard to say"—and was going to add more, when the curious being broke out:

"She only came last night!" and, repeating the phrase again and again, suddenly darted from my side on to the lawn, where he stood for an instant, murmuring and laughing to himself before speeding away through the shrubbery that led to the gate.

This incident, trivial as it seemed, made a vivid impression upon me, and it was with a mind really calmed from its past agitation that I re-entered the house and took up my watch in the sick-room. I found every thing as I had left it an hour or so before, with the exception of my companion; the younger Mr. Pollard having taken the place of his brother. Mrs. Harrington was nowhere to be seen, but as breakfast had been announced I did not wonder at this, nor at the absence of the elder son, who was doubtless engaged in doing the honors of the house.

My own call to breakfast came sooner than I anticipated; soon enough, indeed, for me to expect to find Mr. Pollard and his sister still at the table. It therefore took some courage for me to respond to the summons, especially as I had to go alone, my companion, of course, refusing to leave his mother. But a glance in the hall-mirror, as I went by, encouraged me, for it was no weak woman's face I encountered, and if Mrs. Harrington was as beautiful as she was haughty, and as haughty as she was beautiful, Constance Sterling at least asked no favors and showed no embarrassment. Indeed, I had never felt more myself than when I lifted the portiere from before the dining-room door and stepped in under the gaze of these two contradictory beings, either of which exerted an influence calculated to overawe a person in my position. The past——But what have I promised myself and you? Not the past, then, but my present will and determination made the ordeal easy.

Mr. Pollard, who is certainly a man to attract any woman's eye, rose gravely as I approached, and presented me with what struck me as a somewhat emphasized respect, to his sister. Her greeting was nothing more nor less than what I expected—that is, indifferently civil,— though I thought I detected a little glimmer of curiosity in the corner of her eye, as if some words had passed in regard to me that made her anxious to know what sort of a woman I was.

But my faculty for observation was very wide-awake that morning, and I may have imagined this, especially as she did not look at me again till she had finished her breakfast and rose to quit the room. Then, indeed, she threw me a hurried glance, half searching, half doubtful in its character, as if she hesitated whether she ought to leave us alone together. Instantly a wild thrill passed through me, and I came perilously near blushing. But the momentary emotion, if emotion it could be called, was soon lost in the deeper feeling which ensued when Mrs. Harrington, pausing at the door, observed, with a forced lightness:

"By-the-way, where is Mr. Barrows? I thought he was always on hand in time of trouble."

I looked at her; somehow, I dared not look at her brother; and, while making to myself such trivial observations as, "She has not been told the truth," and, "They took good care she should overhear no gossip at the station," I was inwardly agitating myself with the new thought, "Can she have had any thing to do with Mr. Barrows? Can she be the woman he was engaged to before he fell in love with Ada?"

The expression of her face, turned though

It was full upon us, told nothing, and my attention, though not my glances, passed to Mr. Pollard, who, motionless in his place, hesitated what reply to give to this simple question.

"Guy has not told you, then," said he, "what caused the shock that has prostrated our mother?"

"No," she returned, coming quickly back.

"It was the news of Mr. Barrows' death, Agnes; the servants say so, and the servants ought to know."

"Mr. Barrows' death! Is Mr. Barrows dead, then?" she asked, in a tone of simple wonder, which convinced me that my surmise of a moment ago was without any foundation. "I did not know he was sick," she went on. "Was his death sudden, that it should affect mother so?"

A short nod was all her brother seemed to be able to give to this question. At sight of it I felt the cold chills run through my veins, and wished that fate had not obliged me to be present at this conversation.

"How did Mr. Barrows die?" queried Mrs. Harrington, after waiting in manifest surprise and impatience for her brother to speak.

"He was drowned."

"Drowned?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"Yesterday."

"Where?"

This time the answer was not forthcoming. Was it because he knew the place too well? I dared not lift my eyes to see.

"Was it in the mill-stream?" she asked.

This time he uttered a hollow "No." Then, as if he felt himself too weak to submit to this cross-questioning, he pushed back his chair, and, hurriedly rising, said:

"It is a very shocking affair, Agnes. Mr. Barrows was found in a vat in the cellar of the old mill. He drowned himself. No one knows his motive."

"Drowned himself?" Did she speak or I? I saw her lips move, and I heard the words uttered as I thought in her voice; but it was to me he directed his look, and to me he seemed to reply:

"Yes; how else account for the circumstances? Is he a man to have enemies?—or is that a place a man would be likely to seek for pleasure?"

"But—" the trembling little woman at my side began.

"I say it is a suicide," he broke in, imperiously, giving his sister one look, and then settling his eyes back again upon my face. "No other explanation fits the case, and no other explanation will ever be given. Why he should have committed such a deed," he went on, in a changed voice, and after a momentary pause, "it would be impossible for me, and perhaps for any other man, to say; but that he did do it is evident, and that is all I mean to assert. The rest I leave for wiser heads than mine." And turning from me with an indescribable look that to my reason, if not to my head, seemed to belie his words, he offered his arm to his bewildered sister and quietly led her towards the door.

The breath of relief I gave as the portiere closed behind them was, however, premature, for scarcely had he seen her on her way upstairs than he came back, and taking his stand directly before me, said:

"You and I do not agree on this question; I see it in your eyes. Now what explanation do you give of Mr. Barrows' death?"

The suddenness of the attack brought the blood to my cheeks, while the necessity of answering drove it as quickly away. He saw I was agitated, and a slight tremble—it could not be called a smile— disturbed the set contour of his lips. The sight of it gave me courage. I let my own curl as I replied:

"You do me too much honor to ask my opinion. But since you wish to know what I think, I consider it only justice to say that it would be easier for an unprejudiced mind to believe that Mr. Barrows had a secret enemy, or that his death was owing to some peculiar and perhaps unexplainable accident, than that he should seek it himself, having, as he did, every reason for living."

"He was very happy, then?" murmured my companion, looking for an instant away, as if he could not bear the intensity of my gaze.

"He loved deeply a noble woman; they were to have been married in a month; does that look like happiness?" I asked.

The roving eye came back, fixed itself upon me, and turned dangerously dark and deep.

"It looks like it," he emphasized, and a strange smile passed over his lips, the utter melancholy of which was all that was plain to me.

"And it was!" I persisted, determined not to yield an iota of my convictions to the persuasiveness of this man. "The woman who knew him best declared it to be so as she was dying; and I am forced to trust in her judgment, whatever the opinion of others may be."

"But happy men——" he began.

"Sometimes meet with accidents," I completed.

"And your credulity is sufficient to allow you to consider Mr.
Barrows' death as the result of accident?"

Lightly as the question was put, I felt that nothing but a deep anxiety had prompted it, else why that earnest gaze from which my own could not falter, or that white line showing about the lip he essayed in vain to steady? Recoiling inwardly, though I scarcely knew why, I forced myself to answer with the calmness of an inquisitor:

"My credulity is not sufficient for me to commit myself to that belief. If investigation should show that Mr. Barrows had an enemy——"

"Mr. Barrows had no enemy!" flashed from Mr. Pollard's lips. "I mean," he explained, with instant composure, "that he was not a man to awaken jealousy or antagonism; that, according to all accounts, he had the blessing, and not the cursing, of each man in the community."

"Yes," I essayed.

"He never came to his death through the instrumentality of another person," broke in Mr. Pollard, with a stern insistence. "He fell into the vat intentionally or unintentionally, but no man put him there. Do you believe me, Miss Sterling?"

Did I believe him? Was he upon trial, then, and was he willing I should see he understood it? No, no, that could not be; yet why asseverate so emphatically a fact of which no man could be sure unless he had been present at the scene of death, or at least known more of the circumstances attending it than was compatible with the perfect ignorance which all men professed to have of them. Did he not see that such words were calculated to awaken suspicion, and that it would be harder, after such a question, to believe he spoke from simple conviction, than from a desire to lead captive the will of a woman whose intuitions, his troubled conscience told him, were to be feared? Rising, as an intimation that the conversation was fast becoming insupportable to me, I confronted him with my proudest look.

"You must excuse me," said I, "if I do not linger to discuss a matter whose consequences just now are more important to us than the fact itself. While your mother lies insensible I cannot rest comfortable away from her side. You will therefore allow me to return to her."

"In a moment," he replied. "There are one or two questions it would please me to have you answer first." And his manner took on a charm that robbed his words of all peremptoriness, and made it difficult, if not impossible, for me to move. "You have spoken of Miss Reynolds," he resumed; "have told me that she declared upon her dying bed that the relations between Mr. Barrows and herself were very happy. Were you with her then? Did you know her well?"

"She was my room-mate," I returned.

It was a blow; I saw it, though not a muscle of his face quivered. He had not expected to hear that I was upon terms of intimacy with her.

"I loved her," I went on, with a sense of cruel pleasure that must have sprung from the inward necessity I felt to struggle with this strong nature. "The proof that she loved me lies in the fact that she has made me heir to all her little savings. We were friends," I added, seeing he was not yet under sufficient control to speak.

"I see," he now said, moving involuntarily between me and the door.
"And by friends you mean confidantes, I presume?"

"Perhaps," I answered, coolly, dropping my eyes.

His voice took a deeper tone; it was steel meeting steel, he saw.

"And she told you Mr. Barrows was happy?"

"That has been already discussed," said I.

"Miss Sterling"—I think I never heard such music in a human voice— "you think me inquisitive, presuming, ungentlemanly, persistent, perhaps. But I have a great wish to know the truth about this matter, if only to secure myself from forming false impressions and wrongfully influencing others by them. Bear with me, then, strangers though we are, and if you feel you can trust me"—here he forced me to look at him,—"let me hear, I pray, what reasons you have for declaring so emphatically that Mr. Barrows did not commit suicide?"

"My reasons, Mr. Pollard? Have I not already given them to you? Is it necessary for me to repeat them?"

"No," he earnestly rejoined, charming me, whether I would or not, by the subtle homage he infused into his look, "if you will assure me that you have no others—that the ones you have given form the sole foundation for your conclusions. Will you?" he entreated; and while his eyes demanded the truth, his lip took a curve which it would have been better for me not to have seen if I wished to preserve unmoved my position as grand inquisitor.

I was compelled, or so it seemed to me, to answer without reserve. I therefore returned a quiet affirmative, adding only in qualification of the avowal, "What other reasons were necessary?"

"None, none," was the quick reply, "for you to believe as you do. A woman but proves her claim to our respect when she attaches such significance to the master-passion as to make it the argument of a perfect happiness."

I do not think he spoke in sarcasm, though to most minds it might appear so. I think he spoke in relief, a joyous relief, that was less acceptable to me at that moment than the sarcasm would have been. I therefore did not blush, but rather grew pale, as with a bow I acknowledged his words, and took my first step towards the doorway.

"I have wounded you," he murmured, softly, following me.

"You do not know me well enough," I answered, turning with a sense of victory in the midst of my partial defeat.

"It is a misfortune that can be remedied," he smiled.

"Your brother waits for us," I suggested, and, lifting the portiere out of his hand, I passed through, steady as a dart, but quaking, oh, how fearfully quaking within! for this interview had not only confirmed me in my belief that something dark and unknown connected the life of this household with that which had suddenly gone out in the vat at the old mill, but deepened rather than effaced the fatal charm which, contrary to every instinct of my nature, held me in a bondage that more than all things else must make any investigation into this mystery a danger and a pain from which any woman might well recoil, even though she bore in her heart memories of a past like mine.

VI. MRS. POLLARD

My mind she has mated, and amazed my sight;
I think but dare not speak.
—MACBETH.

That day was a marked one in my life. It was not only the longest I have ever known, but it was by far the dreariest, and, if I may use the word in this connection, the most unearthly. Indeed, I cannot think of it to this day without a shudder; its effect being much the same upon my memory as that of a vigil in some underground tomb, where each moment was emphasized with horror lest the dead lying before me might stir beneath their cerements and wake. The continual presence of one or both of the brothers at my side did not tend to alleviate the dread which the silence, the constant suspense, the cold gloom of the ever dimly-lighted chamber were calculated to arouse; for the atmosphere of unreality and gloom was upon them too, and, saving the quick, short sigh that escaped from their lips now and then, neither of them spoke nor relaxed for an instant from that strain of painful attention which had for its focus their mother's stony face. Mrs. Harrington, who, in her youthful freshness and dimpled beauty, might have relieved the universal sombreness of the scene, was not in the room all day; but whether this was on account of her inability to confront sickness and trouble, or whether it was the result of the wishes of her brothers, I have never been able to decide; probably the latter, for, though she was a woman of frivolous mind, she had a due sense of the proprieties, and was never known to violate them except under the stress of another will more powerful than her own.

At last, as the day waned, and what light there was gradually vanished from the shadowy chamber, Guy made a movement of discouragement, and, rising from his place, approached his brother, dropped a word in his ear, and quietly left the room. The relief I felt was instantaneous. It was like having one coil of an oppressive nightmare released from my breast. Dwight, on the contrary, who had sat like a statue ever since the room began to darken, showed no evidence of being influenced by this change, and, convinced that any movement towards a more cheerful order of things must come from me, I rose, and, without consulting his wishes, dropped the curtains and lighted the lamp. The instant I had done so I saw why he was so silent and immovable. Overcome by fatigue, and possibly by a long strain of suppressed emotion, he had fallen asleep, and, ignorant of the fact that Guy had left the room, slumbered as peacefully as if no break had occurred in the mysterious watch they had hitherto so uninterruptedly maintained over their mother and me.

The peacefulness of his sleeping face made a deep impression upon me. Though I knew that with his waking the old look would come back, it was an indescribable pleasure to me to see him, if but for an instant, free from that shadowy something which dropped a vail of mistrust between us. It seemed to show me that evil was not innate in this man, and explained, if it did not justify, the weakness which had made me more lenient to what was doubtful in his appearance and character than I had been to that of his equally courteous but less attractive brother.

The glances I allowed myself to cast in his direction were fleeting enough, however. Even if womanly delicacy had not forbidden me to look too often and too long that way, the sense of the unfair advantage I was possibly taking of his weakness made the possibility of encountering his waking eye a matter of some apprehension. I knew that honor demanded I should rouse him, that he would not thank me for letting him sleep after his brother had left the room; and yet, whether from too much heart—he was in such sore need of rest—or from too little conscience—I was in such sore need of knowledge—I let him slumber on, and never made so much as a move after my first startled discovery of his condition.

And so five minutes, ten minutes, went by, and, imperceptibly to myself, the softening influence which his sleeping countenance exerted upon me deepened and strengthened till I began to ask if I had not given too much scope to my, imagination since I had been in this house, and foolishly attributed a meaning to expressions and events that in my calmer moments would show themselves to possess no special significance.

The probability was that I had, and once allowing myself to admit this idea, it is astonishing how rapidly it gained possession of my judgment, altering the whole tenor of my thoughts, and if not exactly transforming the situation into one of cheerfulness and ease, at least robbing it of much of that sepulchral character which had hitherto made it so nearly unbearable to me. The surroundings, too, seemed to partake of the new spirit of life which had seized me. The room looked less shadowy, and lost some of that element of mystery which had made its dimly seen corners the possible abode of supernatural visitants. Even the clock ticked less lugubriously, and that expressionless face on the pillow—

Great God! it is looking at me! With two wide open, stony eyes it is staring into my very soul like a spirit from the tomb, awakening there a horror infinitely deeper than any I had felt before, though I knew it was but the signal of returning life to the sufferer, and that I ought to rouse myself and welcome it with suitable ministrations, instead of sitting there like a statue of fear in the presence of an impending fate. But do what I would, say to myself what I would, I could not stir. A nightmare of terror was upon me, and not till I saw the stony lips move and the face take a look of life in the effort made to speak, did I burst the spell that held me and start to my feet. Even then I dared not look around nor raise my voice to warn the sleeper behind me that the moment so long waited for had come. A power behind myself seemed to hold me silent, waiting, watching for those words that struggled to life so painfully before me. At last they came, filling the room with echoes hollow as they were awful!

"Dwight! Guy! If you do not want me to haunt you, swear you will never divulge what took place between you and Mr. Barrows at the mill."

"Mother!" rang in horror through the room. And before I could turn my head, Dwight Pollard leaped by me, and hiding the face of the dying woman on his breast, turned on me a gaze that was half wild, half commanding, and said:

"Go for my brother! He is in the northwest room. Tell him our mother raves." Then, as I took a hurried, though by no means steady, step towards the door, he added: "I need not ask you to speak to no one else?"

"No," my cold lips essayed to utter, but an unmeaning murmur was all that left them. The reaction from hope and trust to a now really tangible fear had been too sudden and overwhelming.

But by the time I had reached the room to which I had been directed, I had regained in a measure my self-control. Guy Pollard at least should not see that I could be affected by any thing which could happen in this house. Yet when, in answer to my summons, he joined me in the hall, I found it difficult to preserve the air of respectful sympathy I had assumed, so searching was his look, and so direct the question with which he met his brother's message.

"My mother raves, you say; will you be kind enough to tell me what her words were?"

"Yes," returned I, scorning to prevaricate in a struggle I at least meant should be an honest one. "She called upon her sons, and said that she would haunt them if ever they divulged what took place between them and Mr. Barrows at the mill."

"Ah!" he coldly laughed; "she does indeed rave." And while I admired his self-control, I could not prevent myself from experiencing an increased dread of this nature that was so ready for all emergencies and so panoplied against all shock.

I might have felt a more vivid apprehension still, had I known what was passing in his mind as we traversed the hall back to the sick-chamber. But the instinct which had warned me of so much, did not warn me of that, and it was with no other feeling than one of surprise that I noted the extreme deference with which he opened his mother's door for me, and waited even in that moment of natural agitation and suspense for me to pass over the threshold before he presumed to enter himself.

Dwight Pollard, however, did not seem to be so blind, for a change passed over his face as he saw us, and he half rose from the crouching position he still held over his mother's form. He subsided back, however, as I drew to one side and let Guy pass unheeded to the bed, and it was in quite a natural tone he bade me seat myself in the alcove towards which he pointed, till his mother's condition required my services.

That there was really nothing to be done for her, I saw myself in the one glimpse I caught of her face as he started up. She was on the verge of death, and her last moments were certainly due to her children. So I passed into the alcove, which was really a small room opening out of the large one, and flinging myself on the lounge I saw there, asked myself whether I ought to shut the door between us, or whether my devotion to Ada's cause bade me listen to whatever came directly in my way to hear? The fact that I was in a measure prisoned there, there being no other outlet to the room than the one by which I had entered, determined me to ignore for once the natural instincts of my ladyhood; and pale and trembling to a degree I would not have wished seen by either of these two mysterious men, I sat in a dream of suspense, hearing and not hearing the low hum of their voices as they reasoned with or consoled the mother, now fast drifting away into an endless night.

Suddenly—shall I ever forget the thrill it gave me?—her voice rose again in those tones whose force and commanding power I have found it impossible to describe.

"The oath! the oath! Dwight, Guy, by my dying head——"

"Yes, mother," I heard one voice interpose; and by the solemn murmur that followed, I gathered that Guy had thought it best to humor her wishes.

The long-drawn sigh which issued from her lips testified to the relief he had given her, and the "Now Dwight!" which followed was uttered in tones more gentle and assured.

But to this appeal no solemn murmur ensued, for at that instant a scream arose from the bed, and to the sound of an opening door rang out the words: "Keep her away! What do you let her come in here for, to confound me and make me curse the day she was born! Away! I say, away!"

Horrified, and unable to restrain the impulse that moved me, I sprang to my feet and rushed upon the scene. The picture that met my eyes glares at me now from the black background of the past. On the bed, that roused figure, awful with the shadows of death, raised, in spite of the constraining hands of her two sons, into an attitude expressive of the most intense repulsion, terror, and dread; and at the door, the fainting form of the pretty, dimpled, care-shunning daughter, who, struck to the heart by this poisoned dart from the hand that should have been lifted in blessing, stood swaying in dismay, her wide blue eyes fixed on the terrible face before her, and her hands outstretched and clutching in vague fear after some support that would sustain her, and prevent her falling crushed to the floor.

To bound to her side, and lift her gently out of her mother's sight, was the work of a moment. But in that moment my eyes had time to see such a flash of infinite longing take the place of the fierce passions upon that mother's face, that my heart stood still, and I scarcely knew whether to bear my burden from the room, or to rush with it to that bedside and lay it, in all its childlike beauty, on that maddened mother's dying breast. A low, deep groan from the bed decided me. With that look of love on her face, otherwise distorted by every evil passion, Mrs. Pollard had fallen back into the arms of her two sons, and quietly breathed her last.

VII. ADVANCES

For they are actions that a man might play;
But I have that within which passeth show.
—HAMLET.

"Miss Sterling?"

I was sitting by the side of Mrs. Harrington in her own room. By a feverish exertion of strength I had borne her thither from her mother's chamber, and was now watching the returning hues of life color her pale cheek. At the sound of my name, uttered behind me, I arose. I had expected a speedy visit from one of the brothers, but I had been in hopes that it would be Dwight, and not Guy, who would make it.

"I must speak to you at once; will you follow me?" asked that gentleman, bowing respectfully as I turned.

I glanced at Mrs. Harrington, but he impatiently shook his head.

"Anice is at the door," he remarked. "She is accustomed to Mrs. Harrington, and will see that she is properly looked after." And, leading the way, he ushered me out, pausing only to cast one hurried glance back at his sister, as if to assure himself she was not yet sufficiently recovered to note his action.

In the hall he offered me his arm.

"The gas has not yet been lighted," he explained, "and I wish you to go with me to the parlor."

This sounded formidable, but I did not hesitate. I felt able to confront this man.

"I am at your service," I declared, with a comfortable sensation that my tone conveyed something of the uncompromising spirit I felt.

The room to which he conducted me was on the first floor, and was darkness itself when we entered. It was musty, too, and chill, as with the memory of a past funeral and the premonition of a new one.

Even the light which he soon made did not seem to be at home in the spot, but wavered and flickered with faint gasps, as if it longed to efface itself and leave the grand and solitary apartment to its wonted atmosphere of cold reserve. By its feeble flame I noted but two details: one was the portrait of Mrs. Pollard in her youth, and the other was my own reflection in some distant mirror. The first filled me with strange thoughts, the face was so wickedly powerful, if I may so speak; handsome, but with that will beneath its beauty which, when allied to selfishness, has produced the Lucretia Borgias and Catherine de Medicis of the world.

The reflection of which I speak, dimly seen as it was, had, on the contrary, a calming effect upon my mind. Weary as I undoubtedly was, and pale if not haggard with the emotions I had experienced, there was still something natural and alive in my image that recalled happier scenes to my eyes, and gave me the necessary strength to confront the possibilities of the present interview..

Mr. Pollard, who in his taciturn gloom seemed like the natural genius of the spot, appeared to be struck by this same sensation also, for his eyes wandered more than once to the mirror, before he summoned up courage, or, perhaps, I should say, before he took the determination to look me in the face and open the conversation. When he did, it was curious to note the strife of expression between his eye and lip: the one hard, cold, and unyielding; the other deprecating in its half-smile and falsely gentle, as if the mind that controlled it was even then divided between its wish to subdue and the necessity it felt to win.

"Miss Sterling," so he began, "it would be only folly for me to speak as if nothing had occurred but an ordinary and natural death. It would be doing your good sense and womanly judgment but little honor, and putting myself, or, rather, ourselves—for we children are but one in this matter—in a position which would make any after-explanations exceedingly difficult. For explanations can be given, and in a word; for what has doubtless struck you as strange and terrible in my mother's last hours,—explanations which I am sure you will be glad to accept, as it is not natural for one so blooming in her womanliness to wish to hamper her youth with dark thoughts, or to nurse suspicions contrary to her own candid and noble nature."

He paused, but meeting with no response beyond a rather cool bow, the strife between his eye and lip became more marked. He went on, however, as if perfectly satisfied, his voice retaining its confident tone, whatever the disturbance communicated to his inward nature.

"The explanation to which I allude is this," said he. "My mother for the past three months has been the victim of many unwholesome delusions. The sickness of my father, which was somewhat prolonged, made great inroads upon her strength; and his death, followed by the necessity of parting with Mrs. Harrington—whom you perhaps know was for family reasons married immediately upon my father's decease,— sowed the seed of a mental weakness which culminated on her deathbed into a positive delirium. She had a notion, and has had it for weeks, unknown to every one but my brother and myself, that Mrs. Harrington had been the occasion of some great misfortune to us; whereas the innocent girl had done nothing but follow out her mother's wishes, both in her marriage and in her settlement in a distant town. But the love my mother had felt for her was always the ruling passion of her life, and when she came to find herself robbed of a presence that was actually necessary to her well-being, her mind, by some strange subtlety of disease I do not profess to understand, confounded the source of her grief with its cause, attributing to this well-beloved daughter's will the suffering, which only sprang out of the circumstances of the case. As to her wild remarks in regard to Mr. Barrows," he added, with studied indifference, "and the oath she wished us to take, that was but an outgrowth of the shock she had received in hearing of the clergyman's death. For, of course, I need not assure you, Miss Sterling, that for all our readiness to take the oath she demanded, neither my brother nor myself ever were at the mill, or knew any more of the manner or cause of Mr. Barrows' death than you do."

This distinct denial, made in quiet but emphatic tones, caused me to look up at him with what was perhaps something of an expressive glance. For at its utterance the longing cry had risen in my heart, "Oh, that it were Dwight who had said that!" And the realization which it immediately brought of the glad credence which it would have received from me had it only fallen from his lips caused an inward tremble of self-consciousness which doubtless communicated itself to my glance. For Guy Pollard, without waiting for any words I might have to say, leaned towards me with a gratified air, and with what I would like to call a smile, exclaimed:

"You have been in the house scarce twenty-four hours, but I feel as if I could already give you the title of friend. Will you accept it from me, Miss Sterling, and with it my most cordial appreciation and esteem?"

"Ah, this is mere bait!" I thought, and was tempted to indignantly repel the hand he held out; but something restrained me which I am to proud to call fear, and which in reality I do not think was fear, so much as it was wonder and a desire to understand the full motive of a condescension I could not but feel was unprecedented in this arrogant nature. I therefore gave him my hand, but in a steady, mechanical way that I flattered myself committed me to nothing; though the slight but unmistakable pressure he returned seemed to show that he took it for a sign of amity, if not of absolute surrender.

"You relieve me of a great weight," he acknowledged. "Had you been of the commonplace type of woman, you might have made it very uncomfortable for us." "And what have I said and done," I could not help remarking, though neither so bitterly nor with so much irony as I might have done had that desire of which I have spoken been less keen than it was, "to lead you to think I shall not yet do so?"

"Your glance is your surety," was the response he made. "That and your honest hand, which does not lightly fall in that of a stranger." And with a real smile now, though it was by no means the reassuring and perhaps attractive one he doubtless meant it to be, he fixed me with his subtle glance, in which I began to read a meaning, if not a purpose, that made the blood leap indignantly to my heart, and caused me to feel as if I had somehow stumbled into a snare from which it would take more than ordinary skill and patience to escape.

A look down the shadowy room restored my equanimity, however. It was all so unreal, so ghostly, I could not help acknowledging to myself that I was moving in a dream which exaggerated every impression I received, even that which might be given by the bold gaze of an unscrupulous man. So I determined not to believe in it, or in any thing else I should see that night, unless it were in the stern soul of the woman who had just died; a qualification which my mind could not help making to itself as my eyes fell again upon her portrait, with its cruel, unrelenting expression.

"You do not feel at home!" exclaimed Guy, interpreting according to his needs my silence and the look I had thrown about me. "I do not wonder," he pursued. "Dreariness like this has little to do with youth and beauty. But I hope"—here he took a step nearer, while that meaning look—oh, my God! was I deceiving myself?—deepened in his eyes—"I hope the day will come when you will see the sunshine stream through the gloom of these dim recesses, and in the new cheer infused into the life of this old mansion forget the scenes of horror that encompassed the beginning of our friendship." And with a bow that seemed to intimate that necessity, and not his wishes, forced him to terminate this interview, he was stepping back, when the door opened quickly behind him, and the face of Dwight Pollard showed itself on the threshold.

The look he cast first at his brother and then at me caused a fresh tumult to take place in my breast. Was it displeasure he showed? I was pleased to think so. I could not be sure of his feeling, however, for almost on the instant his brow cleared, and advancing with an excuse for his interruption, he spoke a few low words to Guy. The latter gravely bowed, and with just a slight glance in my direction, immediately left the room. I was once more alone with Dwight Pollard.

He seemed to feel the situation as much as I did, for it was several moments before he spoke, and when he did, his voice had a subdued tremble in it which I had not noticed before.

"Miss Sterling," he remarked, "my brother has been talking to you, trying, I presume, to explain to you the distressing scene to which you have just been witness."

I bowed, for I seemed to have no words to say, though he evidently longed to hear me speak.

"My brother is not always considerate in his manner of address," he went on, after a moment's intent scrutiny of my face. "I hope he has not made you feel other than satisfied of our good-will towards you?"

"No," I faintly smiled, wishing I knew what feeling prompted this subtle attempt to learn the nature of the interview which had just passed. "Mr. Guy Pollard has never been any thing but polite to me."

He looked at me again as if he would read my very soul, but I gave him no help to its understanding, and he presently dropped his eyes.

"Did he tell you," he at last resumed, with some effort, "that it is our wish for you to remain in this house till our mother is buried?"

"No," I returned, "he said nothing about it."

"But you will do so?" he queried, in that rich and deep tone which thrilled so dangerously to my heart.

"I—I must have time to think," I faltered, taken by surprise, and not seeing my way as clearly as I could wish. "It is my desire to attend the funeral of Mr. Barrows and Miss Reynolds, and—Mr. Pollard!" I suddenly exclaimed, taking perhaps the most courageous resolution of my life, "I must be honest with you. It is useless for me to deny that the manner and circumstances of your mother's death have made a great impression upon me; that I cannot, in spite of all explanations, but connect some special significance to the oath you were requested to take; and that, weakened as your mother may have been, something more terrible than the mere shock of hearing of her pastor's sudden decease must have occasioned emotions so intense as to end in death and delirium. If, therefore, you are willing to assure me, as your brother has done, that it was entirely a fancy of hers that you ever held any communication with Mr. Barrows at the mill, I will gladly promise to disabuse my mind of all unfavorable impressions, and even promise to stay here, if such be your desire, till the days of your trouble are over, and the body of your mother is laid in her grave."

"And has my brother given you such an assurance as you speak of?"

"He has," I returned.

"Then why do you ask one from me?"

Was it possible for me to tell him?

"If it was not enough coming from his lips, how could it be coming from mine?" he continued.

Shame and confusion kept me silent.

"Would it be?" he persisted, this time with feeling and something like a hint of eagerness in his voice.

I dared not say "Yes," and yet I must have the assurance I demanded, if ever I was to know peace again.

"You no not answer; but I think, I feel confident you would believe my word, Miss Sterling."

"I have asked for it," I returned.

He turned frightfully pale; it seemed as if he would speak, but the words did not come. I felt, my heart growing sick, and as for him, he started violently away from my side, and took a turn or two up and down the room.

"I cannot deny what looks like an accusation," he declared at last, coming and standing before me with a sombre but determined air. "My pride alone is sufficient to deter me. Will you accept from me any thing less. I am not such a man as my brother."

"I will accept your assurance that as the true friend to Ada Reynolds I may remain in this house without stain to her memory or love."

"Then you think—"

"No," said I, with a burst I could not control, "I do not think; I do not want to think; do not make me, I entreat."

He smiled, a sad and fearful smile, and took another turn up and down the seemingly darkening room. When he came back I was cold as marble, and almost as insensible.

"Miss Sterling," were his words, "do you remember a conversation we had this morning?"

I bowed, with a sudden rush of hope that almost melted me again.

"In that conversation I made a solemn assertion; do you recollect what it was?"

"Yes," I looked, if I did not audibly reply.

"I make that assertion again—is it sufficient?" he asked.

At that moment it seemed to me that it was. I looked and felt as if a great weight had been lifted from my heart, and though he flushed deeply, as any man of spirit, let alone one of such a proud and aristocratic nature as his, would be apt to under the circumstances, I saw that he experienced a relief also, and giving way to an impulse I do not yet know whether to regret or not, I held out my hand, saying calmly:

"I will remain, Mr. Pollard."

VIII. A FLOWER FROM THE POLLARD CONSERVATORY

You may wear your rue with a difference.
—HAMLET.

Mrs. Harrington did not immediately recover from the shock she had received. I therefore found myself fully employed the next day. Towards evening, however, a respite came, and I took the opportunity for a stroll up-street, as much for the sake of hearing the gossip of the town as to escape from the atmosphere of sorrow and perplexity by which I was surrounded.

My walk down to the gate was full of a certain uneasy apprehension. I had made no secret of my intentions at the supper-table, and for the reason that neither of the brothers had ventured upon any reply to my remark, I expected one, if not both, of them to join me on the way. But I reached the last turn of the path without meeting any one, and I was congratulating myself upon the prospect of having an hour of perfect freedom, when I detected, leaning on the gate before me, the firm, well-knit figure of a man.

As the two Pollards were more or less alike in form, I could not distinguish at first glance which of the brothers it was. I therefore faltered back a step, and was indeed debating whether I should not give up my project and return to the house, when I saw the gentleman's head turn, and realized that it was too late to retreat. I therefore advanced with as much calmness as I could assume, determined not to vary my conduct, no matter which of the brothers it should turn out to be. But, to my great surprise, the gentleman before me gave me no opportunity to test my resolution. No sooner did he perceive me than he made a hurried gesture that I did not at that moment understand; and, just lifting his hat in courteous farewell, vanished from my sight in the thick bushes which at that place encumbered the grounds.

"It was Dwight; it was Guy," I alternately explained to myself, and knew not whether it would give me most relief to find myself shunned by the one or the other. My final conclusion, that I wished to have nothing further to do with either of them, received, notwithstanding, a rude shock when I arrived at the gate-post. For there, on its broad top, lay a magnificent blossom, the choicest fruit of the hot-house, and it was to beg my acceptance of this that the gentleman had made the peculiar gesture I had noticed—an act which, if it came from Dwight, certainly possessed a significance which I was not yet ready to ignore; while, if it proceeded from his cold and crafty brother—But I would not allow myself to dwell upon that possibility. The flower must be mine, and if afterwards I found that it was to Guy I owed its possession, it would be time enough then for me to determine what to do. So I took the gorgeous blossom off the post and was speeding away down the street, when I was suddenly stopped by the thought that only Guy would have the egotism to bestow a gift upon me in this way; that Dwight, if he had wished to present it at all, would have done so with his own hand, and not left it lying on a gate-post with the assurance it would be gathered up by the fortunate recipient of his favor.

Disgusted with myself, and instantly alive to the possible consequences of my act, I opened my fingers with the laudable intention of dropping the flower to the ground, when I saw standing in the road directly in front of me the beautiful idiot boy whose peculiarities of appearance and conduct had so attracted my attention in the summer-house the day before. He was looking at me with a strange gaze of mingled curiosity and imbecile good-nature, and his hands, white as milk, trembled in the air before him, as if he could scarcely restrain himself from snatching out of my grasp the superb flower I seemed so willing to throw away.

A happy impulse seized me.

"Here," said I, proffering him the blossom. "This will give you more pleasure than it will me."

But, to my great astonishment, he turned on his heel with a loud laugh, and then, shaking his head, and rolling it curiously from side to side, exclaimed, with his usual repetition:

"No, no, it is a lover's gift, a lover's gift; you will wear it in your hair." And he danced about me with grotesque gayety for a moment, then flitted away to a position from which he could still see me without being within reach of my hand.

Under these circumstances I was too proud to fling the flower away; so I dropped it into a basket I held, and walked swiftly down the street. The idiot boy followed me; now skipping a pace or two in advance, and now falling back till I had passed far beyond him. As he flashed back and forth, I saw that his eyes were always on my face, and once, as I confronted him with mine, he broke out into a series of chuckles, and cried: "Do they like you now? do they like you now?" and laughed and danced, and laughed again, till I began to find the situation somewhat embarrassing, and was glad enough when at the corner of a street he disappeared from my view, with the final cry of: "One day, two days; wait till you have been there ten; wait till you have been there twenty!"

Hot and trembling with apprehension lest his foolish speeches had been heard by some passer-by, I hurried on my way to the house where I lived. I reached it in a few minutes, and being so fortunate as to find my landlady in, succeeded before another half-hour had passed in learning all that was generally known about the serious occurrences in which I was just then so profoundly interested.

I heard first that the vat in the old mill had been examined for the purpose of ascertaining how it came to be full enough of water to drown a man; and it was found that, owing to a heavy storm which had lately devastated the country, a portion of the wall above the vat had been broken in by a falling tree, allowing the rain to enter in floods from a jutting portion of the roof. Next, that although an inquest had been held over Mr. Barrows' remains, and a verdict been given of accidental death, the common judgment of the community ascribed his end to suicide. This was mainly owing to the fact that the woman in whose house he had lived had testified to having observed a great change in his appearance during the last few weeks; a change which many were now ready to allow they had themselves perceived; though, from the fact of its having escaped the attention of Ada, I cannot but think they were greatly helped to this conclusion by their own imagination.

The last thing I made sure of was that the two deaths which had followed his so tragically had awakened on all sides the deepest interest and pity, but nothing more. That although the general features of Mrs. Pollard's end were well enough known, no whisper of suspicion had been breathed against her or hers, that showed in the faintest way that any doubt mingled with the general feeling of commiseration. And yet it was too evident she was no favorite with the world at large, and that the respect with which she was universally mentioned was rather the result of the pride felt in her commanding manners and position, than from any personal liking for the woman herself.

As for the sons, they were fine young men in their way, and had the sympathy of everybody in their bereavement; but gossip, if it busied itself with their names at all, was much more interested in wondering what disposition they would make of the property now coming to them, than in inquiring whether or not they could have had any secret relations with the man now dead, which were calculated to explain in any way his mysterious end.

Finally I learned that Ada and Mr. Barrows were to be buried the next day.

Satisfied with the information obtained, I started immediately for the Pollard mansion. It was my wish to re-enter it before dark. But the twilight fell fast, and by the time I reached the gate I could barely discern that a masculine figure was again leaning there, waiting, as it appeared, for my return. The discovery caused me a sensation of relief. Now I should at least learn which of the two brothers showed this interest in my movements, for this time the gentleman betrayed no disposition to leave at my approach; on the contrary, he advanced, and in the mellow accents I had learned in so short a time to listen for, observed:

"I knew you wished to go alone, Miss Sterling, or I should have offered you my protection in your dismal walk. I am glad to see you return before it is quite dark."

"Thank you," I responded, with almost a degree of joyousness in my tone, I was so glad to be rid of the perplexity that had weighed down my spirits for the last half-hour. "It is not pleasant to walk the streets at dusk alone, but necessity has accustomed me to it, and I scarcely think of its dangers now."

"You utter that in a proud tone," he declared, reaching out and taking the basket that hung on my arm.

"I have reason to," I replied, glad it was so dark he could not see the blush which his action had caused. "It was no slight struggle for me to overcome certain prejudices in which I have been reared. That I have been able to do so gives me wholesome satisfaction. I am no longer ashamed to own that I stand by myself, and work for every benefit I obtain."

"Nor need you be," he murmured. "In this age and in this country a woman like you forfeits nothing by maintaining her own independence. On the contrary, she gains something, and that is the respect of every true-hearted man that knows her." And his step lagged more and more in spite of my conscientious efforts to maintain the brisk pace in which I had indulged before I had encountered him at the gate.

"This is a grand old place," I remarked, vaguely anxious to change the drift of the conversation.

"Yes," he answered, moodily; "but it is shadowed." And with a sudden relapse into his most sombre self, he walked at my side in silence, till the sight of the high porch showing itself through the trees warned him that if he had any thing further to say to me, it must be said soon. He therefore paused, forcing me by the action to pause too, and earnestly observed: "I know, however you may address me, Miss Sterling, you cherish a doubt of me in your heart. I cannot resent this, much as my natural pride might prompt me to do so. During the short time in which I have known you, you have won so deeply upon my esteem, that the utmost which I feel able to ask of you under the circumstances is, that, in the two or three days you will yet remain with us, you will allow yourself but one thought concerning me, and that is, that I aspire to be an honest man, and to do not only what the world thinks right, but even what such a conscientious soul as yours must consider so. Are you willing to regard me in this light, and will my mere word be sufficient to cause you to do so?"

It was a searching question after his proffer, and my acceptance of the flower I held concealed, and I hesitated a moment before replying to it. I am so intensely proud; and then I could not but acknowledge to myself that, whatever my excuse, I was certainly running a risk of no ordinary nature in listening to the addresses of a man who could inspire me, or ever had inspired me, with the faintest element of distrust.

He noted my silence and drew back, uttering a sigh that was half impatient and half sorrowful. I felt this sigh, nondescript as it was, re-echo painfully in my heart, and hung my head in remorse; but not before I had caught a glimpse of his face, and been struck by its expression of deep melancholy.

"You have no favor to show me, then?" he asked.

Instantly and without premeditation I seized upon the basket he held in his hand, and impetuously opened the lid.

"Have I not shown you one?" I inquired.

A sound—it never came from him or from me—made us both start. With a fierce expression he turned towards the bushes at our right, but not before I had seen, by the look of astonishment he had cast upon the flower, that, notwithstanding the coincidence of finding him at the gate, he had had nothing to do with its culling or presentation.

"Some one is presuming to play the spy upon us," said he, and drawing my hand through his arm, he led me swiftly towards the porch. "You need not tremble so," he whispered, as we halted an instant between the cedars before mounting the steep steps. "No one in this house wishes to annoy you—or if there should be any one who does," he corrected in a quick tone, while he cast a glance of quick suspicion at the basket in my hand, "that person and I will soon come to an understanding."

"I was only startled," was my quick rejoinder, glad to explain my tremulousness in this way. "Let us go in," I added, feeling that I must escape to some place of solitude, if only to hide my shame and chagrin from every eye.

He acquiesced in my wishes at once, and we were proceeding slowly up the steps, when suddenly a shrill, strange laugh broke from amid the bushes, and the weird voice of the idiot boy, whom I thought had been left behind me in the town, rose once more to my ear, uttering those same words which had so annoyed me earlier in the evening.

"Oh, do you think they like you now? Say, say, do you think they like you now?" But the tone with which he addressed me this time had a ring of menace in it, and I was not surprised to see Dwight Pollard start, though I was somewhat affected by the deep agitation he showed as I tried to explain:

"Oh, it is only the little idiot boy whom you must have seen running about the streets. He seems to have taken a fancy to me, for he followed me nearly all the while I was gone, with something of the same senseless remarks as now."

"The idiot boy!" repeated Mr. Pollard. "Well, we will leave the idiot boy outside." And he held the door open till I had hurried in, when he vehemently closed it, looking at the same time as if he had shut the door on a threatening evil, or, at the most, on a bitter and haunting memory.

That night I did an unworthy thing; I listened to conversation which was not intended for my ears. It happened in this wise: I had been down-stairs on an errand for Mrs. Harrington, and was coming back through the dimly lighted hall, when I saw Dwight Pollard step out of a room in front of me and accost a man that was locking and bolting the front door.

"Simon," I heard him say, "you remember that beautiful flower I noticed yesterday in the conservatory?"

"Yes, sir," the man replied, with some embarrassment in his voice.

"Well, I want it picked to-morrow for my mother's funeral. You will bring it to my room."

"Oh, sir," I heard the man hurriedly interpose, "I'm sure I'm very sorry, sir; but it has already been picked, and there won't be another out before next week."

I knew I ought not to stay there and listen, especially as I could easily have gone on my way without attracting attention; but having heard thus much, I found it impossible to go on till I had at least learned if Mr. Pollard had the motive I suspected in these inquiries of his. His next words satisfied me on this point.

"And who was the fortunate one to obtain this flower?" he asked, in an accent indifferent enough to deceive a merely casual listener.

"Mr. Guy, sir."

"Ah, so he noticed it too!" was the remark with which Mr. Pollard dropped the subject, and hurried away from the gardener's side.

The next instant I perceived him pass into Guy's room, and I saw that an explanation of some kind was about to take place between the brothers.

IX. AN UNEXPECTED DISCOVERY

Hold, hold my heart!
And you, my sinews, grow not instant old.
But bear me stiffly up!

Whether intentionally or unintentionally, I was saved the embarrassment of meeting Guy Pollard at the breakfast-table the next morning. I was, therefore, left in ignorance as to the result of the conversation between the brothers, though from the softened manner of Dwight, and the quiet assurance with which he surrounded me with the delicate atmosphere of his homage, I could not but argue that he had come out master of the situation.

It was, therefore, with mingled feelings of pleasure and apprehension that I left the house at the hour appointed for the double funeral; feelings that would have been yet more alive had I realized that I should not re-enter those gates again, or see the interior of that fatal house, till I had passed through many bitter experiences.

The ceremonies, in spite of the latent suspicion of the community that Mr. Barrows' death had been one of his own seeking, were of the most touching and impressive description. I was overcome by them, and left the churchyard before the final prayer was said, feeling as if the life of the last three days had been a dream, and that here in the memory of my lovely Ada and her griefs lay my true existence and the beginning and ending of my most sacred duty.

Pursuant to this thought I did not turn immediately back to the gloomy mansion which claimed me for the present as its own, but wandered away in an opposite direction, soothing my conscience by the thought that it was many hours yet before the services would be held for Mrs. Pollard, and that neither the brothers nor Mrs. Harrington could have any use for me till that time.

The road I had taken was a sequestered one, and strange as it may seem to some, did not awaken special memories in my mind till I came to a point where an opening in the trees gave to my view the vision of two tall chimneys; when like a flash it came across me that I was on the mill road, and within a few short rods of the scene of Mr. Barrows' death.

The sensation that seized me at this discovery was of the strangest kind. I felt that I had been led there; and without a thought of what I was doing, pressed on with ever-increasing rapidity till I came to the open doorway with its dismantled entrance.

To pass over the now much-trodden grass and take my stand by the dismal walls was the work of an instant; but when I had done this and experienced in a rush the loneliness and ghostly influence of the place, I was fain to turn back and leave it to the dream of its own fearful memories. But the sight of a small piece of paper pinned or pasted on the board that had been nailed in futile precaution across the open doorway deterred me. It was doubtless nothing more important than a notice from the town authorities, or possibly from the proprietors of the place, but my curiosity was excited, and I desired to see it. So I hastened over to where it was, and with little apprehension of the shock that was destined to overwhelm me, read these words:

"Those who say Mr. Barrows committed suicide lie. He was murdered, and by parties whose position places them above suspicion, as their wealth and seeming prosperity rob them of even the appearance of motive for such a terrible deed."

No names mentioned; but O God! And that word murdered. It swam before my eyes; it burned itself into every thing upon which I looked, it settled like a weight of iron upon my heart, pressing me nearer and nearer and nearer to the ground, till finally——Ah! can it be that this is really I, and that I am standing here in a desolate place alone, with no human being in sight, and with a paper in my hand that seems to grow larger and larger as I gaze, and ask me what I mean to do now, and whether in tearing it from the wall where it hung, I allied myself to the accused, or by one stroke proclaimed myself that avenger which, if the words on this paper were true, I owed it to my Ada and the promise which I had given her to be? The cloud that enveloped my brain pressed upon me too closely for me to give an answer to questions so vital and terrific. I was in a maze,—a horrible dream; I could not think, I could only suffer, and at last creep away like a shadow of guiltiness to where a cluster of pine-trees made a sort of retreat into which I felt I could thrust my almost maddened head and be lost.

For great shocks reveal deep secrets, and in the light of this pitiless accusation, this fact had revealed itself without disguise to my eyes, that it was love I felt for Dwight Pollard; not admiration, not curiosity, not even the natural desire to understand one so seemingly impenetrable, but love, real, true, yearning, and despotic love, which if well founded might have made my bliss for a lifetime, and which now——I thrust the paper between my lips to keep down the cry that rose there, and hiding my face deep down in the turf, mourned the weakness that made me so ready a victim, while at the same time I prepared to sustain the struggle which I knew must there and then be waged and decided if I was ever to face the world again with the strength and calmness which my nature demanded, and the extraordinary circumstances of my position imposed.

The result was an hour of misery, with a sensation of triumph at the end; though I do not pretend to say that in this one effort I overcame the admiration and interest which attached my thoughts to this man. The accusation was as yet too vague, and its source too doubtful, to blot his image with ineffaceable stains; but I did succeed in gaining sufficient mastery over myself to make it possible to review the situation and give what I meant should be an unbiased judgment as to the duty it imposed upon me.

The result was a determination to hold myself neutral till I had at least discovered the author of the lines I held in my hand. If they came from a credible person—but how could they do so and be written and posted up in the manner they were? An honest man does not seek any such roundabout way to strike his blow. Only a coward or a villain would take this method to arouse public curiosity, and perhaps create public suspicion.

And yet who could say that a coward and a villain might not be speaking the truth even in an accusation of this nature? The very fact that it met and gave form and substance to my own dim and unrecognized fears, proved that something as yet unknown and unsounded connected the mysterious death of Mr. Barrows with the family towards which this accusation evidently pointed. While my own heart beat with dread, how could I ignore the possibility of these words being the work of an accomplice disgusted with his crime, or of a tool anxious to save himself, and at the same time to avenge some fancied slight? I could not. If peace and hope were lost in the effort, I must learn the truth and satisfy myself, once and for all, as to whose hatred and fear the Pollards were indebted for insinuations at once so tremendous and so veiled.

That I was the only person who had probably seen and read these fatal words, lent purpose to my resolution. If, as I madly hoped, they were but the expression of suspicion, rather than of knowledge, what a satisfaction it would be for me to discover the fact, and possibly unmask the cowardly author, before the public mind had been infected by his doubts.

But how could I, a woman and a stranger, with no other talisman than my will and patience, accomplish a purpose which would be, perhaps, no easy one for a trained detective to carry out to a successful issue? The characters in which the fatal insinuations had been conveyed offered no clue. They were printed, and in so rough and commonplace a manner that the keenest mind would have found itself baffled if it had attempted to trace its way to the writer through the mere medium of the lines he had transcribed. I must, therefore, choose some other means of attaining my end; but what one?

I had never, in spite of the many trials and embarrassments of my life, been what is called an intriguing woman. Nor had I ever amused myself with forming plots or devising plans for extricating imaginary characters out of fancied difficulties by the mere exercise of their wits. Finesse was almost an unknown word to me, and yet, as I sat there with this fatal bit of paper in my hand, I felt that a power hitherto unguessed was awakening within me, and that if I could but restrain the emotions which threatened to dissipate my thoughts, I should yet hit upon a plan by which my design could be attained with satisfaction to myself and safety to others.

For—and this was my first idea—the paper had not been on the wall long. It was too fresh to have hung there overnight, and had, moreover, been too poorly secured to have withstood even for an hour the assaults of a wind as keen as that which had been blowing all the morning. It had, therefore, been put up a few moments before I came, or, in other words, while the funeral services were being held; a fact which, to my mind, argued a deep calculation on the part of the writer, for the hour was one to attract all wanderers to the other end of the town, while the following one would, on the contrary, see this quarter overflow with human beings, anxious to complete the impression made by the funeral services, by a visit to the scene of the tragedy.

That the sky had clouded over very much in the last half-hour, and that the first drops of a heavy thunder-shower were even now sifting through the branches over my head, was doubtless the reason why no one besides myself had yet arrived upon the scene; and, should the storm continue, this evil might yet be averted, and the one person I was most anxious to see, have an opportunity to show himself at the place, without being confounded with a mass of disinterested people. For I felt he would return, and soon, to note the result of his daring action. In the crowd, if a crowd assembled, or alone, if it so chanced that no one came to the spot, he would draw near the mill, and, if he found the notice gone, would betray, must betray, an interest or an alarm that would reveal him to my watchful eye. For I intended to take up my stand within the doorway, using, if necessary, the storm as my excuse for desiring its shelter; while as a precaution against suspicions that might be dangerous to me, as well as a preventive against any one else ever reading these accusatory lines, I determined to dip the paper in the stream, and then drop it near the place where it had been tacked, that it might seem as if it had been beaten off by the rain, now happily falling faster and faster.

All this I did, not without some apprehension of being observed by a watchful eye. For what surety had I that the writer of these words was not even now in hiding, or had not been looking at me from some secret retreat at the very moment I tore the paper off the wall and fled with it into the bushes?

But this fear, if fear it was, was gradually dispelled as the moments sped by, and nothing beyond the wind and the fast driving rain penetrated to where I stood. Nor did it look as if any break in what seemed likely to become a somewhat dread monotony would ever occur. The fierce dash of the storm was like a barrier, shutting me off from the rest of the world, and had my purpose been less serious, my will less nerved, I might have succumbed to the dreariness of the outlook and taken myself away while yet the gruesome influences that lay crouched in the darkness at my back remained in abeyance, and neither ghost's step nor man's step had come to shake the foundations of my courage and make of my silent watch a struggle and a fear.

But an intent like mine was not to be relinquished at the first call of impatience or dread. Honor, love, and duty were at stake, and I held to my resolution, though each passing moment made it more difficult to maintain my hope as well as to sustain my composure.

At last—oh, why did that hollow of darkness behind me reverberate so continually in my fancy?—there seemed, there was, a movement in the bushes by the road, and a form crept gradually into sight that, when half seen, made the blood cease coursing through my veins; and, when fully in view, sent it in torrents to heart and brain; so deep, so vivid, so peculiar was the relief I felt. For—realize the effect upon me if you can—the figure that now stole towards me through the dank grass, looking and peering for the notice I had torn from the wall, was no other than my friend—or was it my enemy?—the idiot boy.

He was soaked with the rain, but he seemed oblivious of the fact. For him the wind had evidently no fierceness, the wet no chill. All his energies—and he seemed, as in that first moment when I saw him in the summer-house, to be alive with them—were concentrated in the gaze of his large eyes, as, coming nearer and nearer, he searched the wall, then the ground, and finally, with a leap, picked up the soaked and useless paper which I had dropped there.

His expression as he raised himself and looked fiercely about almost made me reveal myself. This an idiot, this trembling, wrathful, denunciatory figure, with its rings of hair clinging to a forehead pale with passion and corrugated with thought! Were these gestures, sudden, determined, and full of subdued threatening, the offspring of an erratic brain or the expression of a fool's hatred? I could not believe it, and stood as if fascinated before this vision, that not only upset every past theory which my restless mind had been able to form of the character and motives of the secret denunciator of the Pollards, but awakened new thoughts and new inquiries of a nature which I vaguely felt to be as mysterious as any which had hitherto engaged my attention.

Meantime the boy had crushed the useless paper in his hand, and, flinging it aside, turned softly about as if to go. I had no wish to detain him. I wished to make inquiries first, and learn if possible all that was known of his history and circumstances before I committed myself to an interview. If he were an idiot—well, that would simplify matters much; but, if he were not, or, being one, had moments of reason, then a mystery appeared that would require all the ingenuity and tact of a Machiavelli to elucidate. The laugh which had risen from the shrubbery the night before, and the look which Dwight Pollard had given when he heard it, proved that a mystery did exist, and gave me strength to let the boy vanish from my sight with his secret unsolved and his purposes unguessed.

X. RHODA COLWELL

I spare you common curses.
—MRS. BROWNING.

It was not long after this that the storm began to abate. Sunshine took the place of clouds, and I was enabled to make my way back to the town at the risk of nothing worse than wet feet. I went at once to my boarding-house. Though I was expected back at the Pollards', though my presence seemed almost necessary there, I felt that it would be impossible for me to enter their door till something of the shadow that now enveloped their name had fallen away. I therefore sent them word that unlooked-for circumstances compelled me to remain at home for the present; and having thus dismissed one anxiety from my mind, set myself to the task of gleaning what knowledge I could of the idiot boy.

The result was startling. He was, it seemed, a real idiot—or so had always been regarded by those who had known him from his birth. Not one of the ugly, mischievous sort, but a gentle, chuckling vacant-brained boy, who loved to run the streets and mingle his harmless laughter with the shouts of playing children and the noise of mills and manufactories.

He was an orphan, but was neither poor nor dependent, for—and here was where the fact came in that astonished me—he had for protector a twin sister whose wits were as acute as his were dull; a sister who through years of orphanage had cherished and supported him, working sometimes for that purpose in the factories, and sometimes simply with her needle at home. They lived in a nest of a cottage on the edge of the town, and had the sympathy of all, though not perhaps the full liking of any. For Rhoda, the sister, was a being of an unique order, who, while arousing the interest of a few, baffled the comprehension of the many. She was a problem; a creature out of keeping with her belongings and the circumstances in which she was placed. An airy, lissom, subtle specimen of woman, whose very beauty was of an unknown order, causing as much inquiry as admiration. A perfect blonde like her brother, she had none of the sweetness and fragility that usually accompanies this complexion. On the contrary, there was something bizarre in her whole appearance, and especially in the peculiar expression of her eye, that awakened the strangest feelings and produced even in the minds of those who saw her engaged in the most ordinary occupations of life an impression of remoteness that almost amounted to the uncanny. The fact that she affected brilliant colors and clothed both herself and brother in garments of a wellnigh fantastic make, added to this impression, and gave perhaps some excuse to those persons who regarded her as being as abnormally constituted as her brother, finding it impossible, I suppose, to reconcile waywardness with industry, and a taste for the rich and beautiful with a poverty so respectable, it scarcely made itself known for the reality it was. A blonde gypsy some called her, a dangerous woman some others; and the latter would undoubtedly have been correct had the girl possessed less pride of independence or been unhampered, as she was untrammelled, by the sense of responsibility towards her imbecile brother. As it was, more than one mother had had reason to ask why her son wore such a moody brow after returning from a certain quarter of the town, and at one time gossip had not hesitated to declare that Dwight Pollard—the haughty Dwight Pollard—had not been ashamed to be seen entering her door, though every one knew that no one stepped under its wreath of vines except their intentions were as honorable as the beauty, if not the poverty, of its owner demanded.

When I heard this, and heard also that he visited her no more, I seemed to have gained some enlightenment as to the odd and contradictory actions of my famous idiot boy. He loved his sister, and was in some way imbued with a sense that she had been wronged. He was, therefore, jealous of any one who had, or seemed to have, gained the attention of the man who had possibly forsaken her. Yet even with this explanation of his conduct, there was much for which I could not account, making my intended interview with the sister a matter to be more or less apprehended.

It was therefore with a composure altogether outward and superficial that I started for the quaint and tiny cottage which had been pointed out to me as the abode of these remarkable twins. I reached it just as the clock struck three, and was immediately impressed, as my informants evidently expected me to be, by the air of poetry and refinement that characterized even its humble exterior. But it was not till I had knocked at the door and been ushered into the house by the idiot brother, that my real astonishment began. For though the room in which I found myself did not, as I was afterwards assured, contain a single rich article, it certainly had the effect of luxuriousness upon the eye; and had it not been for my inward agitation and suspense, would have produced a sense of languid pleasure, scarcely to be looked for in the abode of a simple working-girl. As it was, I was dimly conscious of a slight relief in the keen tension of my feelings, and turned with almost a sensation of hope to the boy who was smiling and grimacing beside me. But here another shock awaited me, for this boy was not the one I had seen at the mill barely two hours ago, or, rather, if it were the same—and the identity of his features, figure, and dress with those I knew so well, seemed to proclaim him to be—he was in such a different mood now as to appear like another being. Laughing, merry, and inane, he bore on his brow no sign nor suggestion of the fierce passion I had seen there, nor did his countenance change, though I looked at him steadily and long with a gaze that was any thing but in keeping with his seemingly innocent mirth.

"It is not the boy I have known," I suddenly decided in my mind; and I cannot say in what wild surmises I might have indulged, if at that moment the door at my back had not opened and a figure stepped in which at the first glance attracted my whole attention and absorbed all my thought.

Imagine a woman, lithe, blonde, beautiful, intense; with features regular as the carver's hand could make them, but informed with a spirit so venomous, passionate, and perverse, that you lost sight of her beauty in your wonder at the formidable nature of the character she betrayed. Then see her dressed as no other woman ever dressed before, in a robe of scarlet of a cut and make quite its own, and conceive, if you can, the agitation I felt as I realized that in her I beheld my rival, my antagonist, the enemy of Dwight Pollard's peace and mine.

That her face, even the hatred that visibly contracted it as her eyes met mine, were familiar to me in the countenance and expression of the boy I had met, went for nothing. The beauty and malice of a seeming imbecile, and the same characteristics in a woman subtle and decided as this, awaken very different emotions in the mind. Though I had seen that same brow corrugated before, it was like a revelation to behold it now, and watch how the rosy lips took a straight line and the half-shut, mysterious eyes burned like a thread of light, as she stretched out one white hand and asked half imperiously, half threateningly:

"Who are you, and for what do you come to me?"

"I am Constance Sterling," I retorted, satisfied that nothing short of the heroic treatment would avail with this woman; "and if I do not mistake, I think you know very well why I come here."

"Indeed!" came in something like a hiss from between her set lips. And in one short instant all that was best in her and all that was worst became suddenly visible, as turning to her softly chuckling brother, she motioned him gently out of the room, and then turning to me, advanced a step and said: "Will you explain yourself, Miss— or is it Mrs. Constance Sterling?"

"I will explain myself," I returned, wondering, as I saw her cheeks pale and her eyes emit strange and fitful sparks, if I exerted any such influence over her as she did over me. "I said I thought you knew why I came here. I said this, because this is not the first time we have met, nor am I the first one who has presumed to address the other in a tone that to a sensitive ear sounded like menace. The idiot boy——"

"We will leave my brother out of the discussion," she broke in, in a voice so distinct I scarcely noticed that it was nothing but a whisper.

"I am not alluding to your brother," I declared, meeting her eyes with a look steady as her own, and I hope more open.

"Oh, I see," she murmured; and she took another step, while the flash of her glance cut like a knife. "You accuse me then——"

"Of assuming a disguise to spy upon Dwight Pollard."

It was a well-sped shaft, and quivered alive and burning in her heart of hearts. She gave a spring like the panther she seemed at that minute, but instantly recovered herself, and launching, upon me the strangest smile, mockingly exclaimed:

"You are a brave woman." Then as I did not quail before her passion, drew up her slight figure to its height and said: "We are worthy of each other, you and I. Tell me what you want."

Then I felt my own cheek turn pale, and I was fain to sit upon the pile of cushions that were arranged in one corner for a seat.

"What I want?" I repeated. "I want to know how you dared put in language the insinuations which you hung up on the door of the old mill this morning?"

Her eyes, narrowed, as I have said, in her seemingly habitual desire to keep their secrets to herself, flashed wide open at this, while a low and mirthless laugh escaped her lips.

"So my labor was not entirely wasted!" she cried. "You saw—"

"Both the lines and the writer," I completed, relentlessly preserving the advantage I felt myself to have gained—"the lines before they were defaced by the storm, the writer as she picked up the useless paper and went away."

"So!" she commented, with another echo of that joyless laughter; "there are two spies instead of one in this game!"

"There are two women instead of one who know your enmity and purpose," I retorted.

"How came you at the mill?" she suddenly asked, after a moment of silent communion with her own repressed soul.

"By accident," was all my reply.

"Were you alone?"

"I was."

"Then no one but yourself saw the paper?"

"No one but myself."

She gave me a look I made no sign of understanding.

"Have you told any one of what you saw and read?" she inquired at last, as she perceived I meant to volunteer nothing.

"That I am not called upon to state," I returned.

"Oh, you would play the lawyer!" was her icy and quiet remark.

"I would play nothing," was the answer that came from my lips.

She drew back, and a change passed over her.

Slowly as a fire is kindled, the passion grew and grew on her face. When it was at its height she leaned her two hands on a table that stood between us, and, bending forward, whispered:

"Do you love him? Are you going to fight to keep his name free from stain and his position unassailed before the world?"

Believe me if you can, but I could not answer; possibly because I had as yet no answer to the question in my soul.

She took advantage of my hesitation.

"Perhaps you think it is not worth while to fight me; that I have no real weapons at my command?" and her eyes shot forth a flame that devoured my rising hopes and seared my heart as with a fiery steel.

"I think you are a cruel woman," I declared, "anxious to destroy what no longer gives you pleasure."

"You know my story then?" she whispered. "He has talked about me, and to you?"

"No," I replied, in quiet disdain. "I know nothing save what your own eyes and your conduct tell me."

"Then you shall," she murmured, after a moment's scrutiny of my face. "You shall hear how I have been loved, and how I have been forsaken. Perhaps it will help you to appreciate the man who is likely to wreck both our lives."

I must have lifted my head at this, for she paused and gave me a curious look.

"You don't love him?" she cried.

"I shall not let him wreck my life," I responded.

Her lip curled and her two hands closed violently at her sides.

"You have not known him long," she declared. "You have not seen him at your feet, or heard his voice, as day by day he pleaded more and more passionately for a word or smile? You have not known his touch!"

"No," I impetuously cried, fascinated by her glance and tone.

I thought she looked relieved, and realized that her words might have been as much an inquiry as an assertion.

"Then do not boast," she said.

The blood that was in my cheeks went out of them. I felt my eyes close spasmodically, and hurriedly turned away my head. She watched me curiously.

"Do you think I succumbed without a struggle?" she vehemently asked, after a moment or two of this silent torture "Look at me. Am I a woman to listen to the passionate avowals of the first man that happens to glance my way and imagine he would like to have me for his wife? Is a handsome face and honeyed tongue sufficient to gain my good graces, even when it is backed by the wealth. I love and the position to which I feel myself equal? I tell you you do not know Rhoda Colwell, if you think she could be won easily. Days and days he haunted this room before I let his words creep much beyond my ears. I had a brother who needed all my care and all my affection, and I did not mean to marry, much less to love. But slowly and by degrees he got a hold upon my heart, and then, like the wretch who trusts himself to the maelstrom, I was swept round and round into the whirlpool of passion till not earth nor heaven could save me or make me again the free and light-hearted girl I was. This was two years ago, and today—"

She stopped, choked. I had never seen greater passion, as I had never seen a more fiery nature.

"It is his persistency I complain of," she murmured at last. "He forced me to love him. Had he left me when I first said 'No,' I could have looked down on his face to-day with contempt. But, no, he had a fancy that I was his destiny, and that he must possess me or die. Die? He would not even let me die when I found that my long-sought 'Yes' turned his worship into indifference, and his passion into constraint. But—" she suddenly cried, with a repetition of that laugh which now sounded so fearful in my ears— "all this does not answer your question as to how I dared publish the insinuations I tacked up on the mill-door this morning."

"No," I shudderingly cried.

"Ah! I have waited long," she passionately asserted. "Wrongs like mine are very patient, and are very still, but the time comes at last when even a woman weak and frail as I am can lift her hand in power; and when she does lift it—"

"Hush!" I exclaimed, bounding from my seat and seizing her upraised arm; for her vivid figure seemed to emit a flame like death. "Hush! we want no tirades, you nor I; only let me hear what Dwight Pollard has done, and whether you knew what you were saying when you called him and his family—"

"Murderers!" she completed.

I shook, but bowed my head. She loosed her arm from my grasp and stood for one moment contemplating me.

"You are a powerful rival," she murmured. "He will love you just six months longer than he did me."

I summoned up at once my pride and my composure.

"And that would be just six months too long," I averred, "if he is what you declare him to be."

"What?" came from between her set teeth, and she gave a spring that brought her close to my side. "You would hate him, if I proved to you that he and his brother and his mother were the planners, if not the executors, of Mr. Barrows' death."

"Hate him?" I repeated, recoiling, all my womanhood up in arms before the fearful joy expressed in her voice and attitude. "I should try and forget such a man ever existed. But I shall not be easily convinced," I continued, as I saw her lips open with a sort of eager hope terrible to witness. "You are too anxious to kill my love."

"Oh, you will be convinced," she asserted. "Ask Dwight Pollard what sort of garments those are which lie under the boards of the old mill, and see if he can answer you without trembling."

"Garments?" I repeated, in astonishment; "garments?"

"Yes," said she. "If he can hear you ask that question and not turn pale, stop me in my mad assertions, and fear his doom no more. But if he flinches—"

A frightful smile closed up the gap, and she seemed by a look to motion me towards the door.

"But is that all you are going to tell me?" I queried, dismayed at the prospect of our interview terminating thus.

"Is it not enough?" she asked. "When you have seen him, I will see you again. Can you not wait for that hour?"

I might have answered No. I was tempted to do so, as I had been tempted more than once to exert the full force of my spirit and crush her. But I had an indomitable pride of my own, and did not wish to risk even the semblance of defeat. So I controlled myself and merely replied:

"I do not desire to see Dwight Pollard again. I am not intending to return to his house."

"And yet you will see him," she averred. "I can easily be patient till then." And she cast another look of dismissal towards the door.

"You are a demon!" I felt tempted to respond, but my own dignity restrained me as well as her beauty, which was something absolutely dazzling in its intensity and fire. "I will have the truth from you yet," was what I did say, as I moved, heart-sick and desponding, from her side.

And her slow "No doubt," seemed to fill up the silence like a knell, and give to my homeward journey a terror and a pang which proved that however I had deceived myself, hope had not quite given up its secret hold upon my heart.

And I dreamed of her that night, and in my dream her evil beauty shone so triumphantly that my greatest wonder was not that Dwight Pollard had succumbed to her fascinations, but that having once seen the glint of that subtle soul shine from between those half-shut lids, he could ever have found strength to turn aside and let the fire he had roused burn itself away.

XI. UNDER THE MILL FLOOR

I know, this act shows terrible and grim.
—OTHELLO.

I had never considered myself a courageous person. I was therefore surprised at my own temerity when, with the morning light, came an impulse to revisit the old mill, and by an examination of its flooring, satisfy myself to whether it held in hiding any such articles as had been alluded to by Rhoda Colwell in the remarkable interview just cited. Not that I intended to put any such question to Dwight Pollard as she had suggested, or, indeed, had any intentions at all beyond the present. The outlook was too vague, my own mind too troubled, for me to concoct plans or to make any elaborate determinations. I could only perform the duty of the moment, and this visit seemed to me to be a duty, though not one of the pleasantest or even of the most promising character.

I had therefore risen and was preparing myself in an abstracted way for breakfast, when I was violently interrupted by a resounding knock at the door. Alarmed, I scarcely knew why, I hastened to open it, and fell back in very visible astonishment when I beheld standing before me no less a person than Anice, the late Mrs. Pollard's maid.

"I wanted to see you, miss," she said, coming in without an invitation, and carefully closing the door behind her. "So, as I had leave to attend early mass this morning, I just slipped over here, which, if it is a liberty, I hope you will pardon, seeing it is for your own good."

Not much encouraged by this preamble, I motioned her to take a seat, and then, turning my back to her, went on arranging my hair.

"I cannot imagine what errand you have with me, Anice," said I; "but if it is any thing important, let me hear it at once, as I have an engagement this morning, and am in haste."

A smile, which I could plainly see in the mirror before which I stood, passed slyly over her face. She took up her parasol from her lap, then laid it down again, and altogether showed considerable embarrassment. But it did not last long, and in another moment she was saying, in quite a bold way:

"You took my place beside the mistress I loved, but I don't bear you no grudge, miss. On the contrary, I would do you a good turn; for what are we here for, miss, if it's not to help one another?"

As I had no answer for this worthy sentiment, she lapsed again into her former embarrassed state and as speedily recovered from it. Simpering in a manner that unconsciously put me on my guard, she remarked:

"You left us very suddenly yesterday, miss. Of course that is your own business, and I have nothing to say against it. But I thought if you knew what might be gained by staying—" She paused and gave me a look that was almost like an appeal.

But I would not help her out.

"Why," she went on desperately, with a backward toss of her head, "you might think as how we was not such very bad folks after all. I am sure you would make a very nice mistress to work for, Miss Sterling," she simpered; "and if you would just let me help you with your hair as I did old Mrs. Pollard—"

Angry, mortified, and ashamed of myself that I had listened to her so far, I turned on her with a look that seemed to make some impression even upon her.

"How dare you—" I began, then paused, shocked at my own imprudence in thus betraying the depth of the feelings she had aroused. "I beg your pardon," I immediately added, recovering my composure by a determined effort; "you doubtless did not consider that you are not in a position to speak such words to me. Even if your insinuations meant any thing serious, which I will not believe, our acquaintance"—I am afraid I threw some sarcasm into that word—"has scarcely been long enough to warrant you in approaching me on any subject of a personal nature, least of all one that involves the names of those you live with and have served so long. If you have nothing better to say—"

She rose with a jerk that seemed to my eyes as much an expression of disappointment as anger, and took a reluctant step or two towards the door.

"I am sure I meant no offence, miss," she stammered, and took another step still more reluctantly than before.

I trembled. Outrageous as it may seem, I wished at this moment that honor and dignity would allow me to call her back and question her as to the motive and meaning of her extraordinary conduct. For the thought had suddenly struck me that she might be a messenger—a most unworthy and humiliating one it is true,—and yet in some sort of a way a messenger, and my curiosity rose just in proportion as my pride rebelled.

Anice, who was not lacking in wit, evidently felt, if she could not see, the struggle she had awakened in my mind, for she turned and gave me a look I no longer had the courage to resent.

"It is only something I overheard Mr. Guy say to his brother," she faltered, opening and shutting her parasol with a nervous hand; then, as I let my hair suddenly fall from my grasp, in the rush of relief I felt, blurted out: "You have beautiful hair, miss; I don't wonder Mr. Guy should say, 'One of us two must marry that girl,'" and was gone like a flash from the room, leaving me in a state that bordered on stupefaction.

This incident, so suggestive, and, alas! so degrading to my self-esteem, produced a deep and painful effect on my mind. For hours I could not rid my ears of that final sentence: "One of us two must marry that girl." Nor could the events that speedily followed quite remove from my mind and heart the sting which this knowledge of the Pollards' base calculation and diplomacy had implanted. It had one favorable consequence, however. It nerved me to carry out the expedition I had planned, and gave to my somewhat failing purpose a heart of steel.

The old mill to which I have twice carried you, and to which I must carry you again, was, as I have already said, a dilapidated and much-dismantled structure. Though its walls were intact, many of its staircases were rotten, while its flooring was, as I knew, heavily broken away in spots, making it a dangerous task to walk about its passage-ways, or even to enter the large and solitary rooms which once shook to the whirr and hum of machinery.

But it was not from such dangers as these I recoiled. If Heaven would but protect me from discovery and the possible intrusion of unwelcome visitants, I would willingly face the peril of a fall even in a place so lonesome and remote. Indeed, my one source of gratitude as I sped through the streets that morning lay in the fact, I was so little known in S——, I could pass and re-pass without awakening too much comment, especially when I wore a close veil, as I did on this occasion.

Rhoda Colwell's house lay in my way. I took especial pains not to go by it, great as the relief would have been to know she was at home and not wandering the streets in the garb and character of the idiot boy. Though I felt I could not be deceived as to her identity, the mere thought of meeting her, with that mock smile of imbecility upon her lip, filled me with a dismay that made my walk any thing but agreeable. It was consequently a positive relief when the entrance to the mill broke upon my view, and I found myself at my journey's end unwatched and unfollowed; nor could the unpromising nature of my task quite dash the spirit with which I began my search.

My first efforts were in a room which had undoubtedly been used as an office. But upon inspecting the floor I found it firm, and, convinced I should have to go farther for what I was seeking, I hastily passed into the next room. This was of much larger dimensions, and here I paused longer, for more than one board tilted as I passed over it, and not a few of them were loose and could be shifted aside by a little extra exertion of strength. But, though I investigated every board that rocked under my step, I discovered nothing beneath them but the dust and debris of years, and so was forced to leave this room as I had the other, without gaining any thing beyond a sense of hopelessness and the prospect of a weary back. And so on and on I went for an hour, and was beginning to realize the giant nature of my undertaking, when a sudden low sound of running water broke upon my ears, and going to one of the many windows that opened before me, I looked out and found I was at the very back of the mill, and in full sight of the dark and sullen stream that in times of yore used to feed the great wheel and run the machinery. Consequently I was in the last room upon the ground-floor, and, what struck me still more forcibly, near, if not directly over, that huge vat in the cellar which had served so fatal a purpose only a few short days before.

The sight of a flight of stairs descending at my right into the hollow darkness beneath intensified my emotion. I seemed to be in direct communication with that scene of death; and the thought struck me that here, if anywhere in the whole building, must be found the mysterious hiding-place for which I was in search.

It was therefore with extra care that I directed my glances along the uneven flooring, and I was scarcely surprised when, after a short examination of the various loose boards that rattled beneath me, I discovered one that could be shifted without difficulty. But scarcely had I stooped to raise it when an emotion of fear seized me, and I started back alert and listening, though I was unconscious of having heard any thing more than the ordinary swash of the water beneath the windows and the beating of my own overtaxed heart. An instant's hearkening gave me the reassurance I needed, and convinced that I had alarmed myself unnecessarily, I bent again over the board, and this time succeeded in moving it aside. A long, black garment, smoothly spread out to its full extent, instantly met my eye. The words of Rhoda Colwell were true; the mill did contain certain articles of clothing concealed within it.

I do not know what I expected when, a few minutes later, I pulled the garment out of the hole in which it lay buried, and spread it out before me. Not what I discovered, I am sure; for when I had given it a glance, and found it was nothing more nor less than a domino, such as is worn by masqueraders, I experienced a shock that the mask, which fell out of its folds, scarcely served to allay. It was like the introduction of farce into a terrible tragedy; and as I stood in a maze and surveyed the garment before me till its black outline swam before my eyes, I remember thinking of the effect which had been produced, at a certain trial I had heard of, by the prisoner suddenly bursting into a laugh when the sentence of death was pronounced. But presently this feeling of incongruity gave way to one of hideous dread. If Dwight Pollard could explain the presence of a domino and mask in this spot, then what sort of a man was Dwight Pollard, and what sort of a crime could it have been that needed for its perpetration such adjuncts as these? The highwaymen of olden time, with their "Stand and deliver!" seemed out of place in this quiet New England town; nor was the character of any of the parties involved, of a nature to make the association of this masquerade gear with the tragedy gone by seem either possible or even probable. And yet, there they lay; and not all my wonder, nor all the speculations which their presence evoked, would serve to blot them from the floor or explain the mystery of which they were the sign and seal.

So impressed was I at last by this thought that I broke the spell which bound me, and began to restore the articles to their place. I was just engaged in throwing the mask into the hole, when the low but unmistakable sound of an approaching foot-fall broke upon my ears, startling me more than a thunder-clap would have done, and filling me with a fear that almost paralyzed my movements. I controlled myself, however, and hastily pulled the board back to its place, after which I frantically looked about me for some means of concealment or escape. I found but one. The staircase which ran down to the cellar was but a few feet off, and if I could summon courage to make use of it, would lead to a place of comparative safety. But the darkness of that spot seemed worse than the light of this, and I stood hesitating on the brink of the staircase till the footsteps drew so near I dared not linger longer, and plunged below with such desperate haste, I wonder I did not trip and fall headlong to the cellar-floor. I did not, however, nor do I seem to have made any special noise, for the footsteps above did not hasten. I had, therefore, the satisfaction of feeling myself saved from what might have been a very special danger, and was moving slowly away, when the fascination which all horrible objects exert upon the human soul seized me with a power I could not resist, and I turned slowly but irresistibly towards the corner where I knew the fatal vat to be.

One glimpse and I would have fled; but just at the instant I turned I heard a sound overhead that sent the current of my thoughts in a fresh direction, and lent to my failing courage a renewed strength which made flight at that moment seem nothing more nor less than an impulse of cowardice. This was nothing more nor less than a faint creaking, such as had followed my own lifting of the board which hid the domino and mask; a noise that was speedily followed by one yet more distinct and of a nature to convince me beyond a doubt that my own action was being repeated by some unknown hand. Whose? Curiosity, love, honor, every impulse of my being impelled me to find out. I moved like a spirit towards the stairs. I placed my foot on one step, and then on another, mounting in silence and without a fear, so intent was I upon the discovery which now absorbed me. But just as I reached the top, just when another movement would lift my head above the level of the floor, I paused, realizing as in a flash what the consequences might be if the intruder should prove to be another than Rhoda Colwell, and should have not his back but his face turned towards the place where I stood. The sounds I heard, feeble as they were, did not seem to indicate the presence of a woman, and in another instant a low exclamation, smothered in the throat almost before it was uttered, assured me that it was a man who stood not six feet from me, handling the objects which I had been told were in some way connected with a murder which I was by every instinct of honor bound to discover, if not avenge.

A man! and ah, he was so quiet, so careful! I could not even guess what he was doing, much less determine his identity, by listening. I had a conviction that he was taking the articles out of their place of concealment, but I could not be sure; and in a matter like this, certainty was indispensable. I resolved to risk all, and took another step, clinging dizzily to the first support that offered. It was well I had the presence of mind to do this, or I might have had a serious fall. For no sooner had I raised my head above the level of the floor than my eyes fell upon the well-known form of him I desired least of all men to see in this place—my lover, if you may call him so—Dwight Pollard.

XII. DWIGHT POLLARD

Oh, 'tis too true! how smart
A lash that speech doth give my conscience!
—HAMLET.

He was standing with his back to me, and to all appearance was unconscious that he was under the surveillance of any eye. I had thus a moment in which to collect my energies and subdue my emotions; and I availed myself of it to such good purpose that by the time he had put the board back into its place I was ready to face him. He did not turn round, however; so, after a moment of silent suspense, I mounted the last stair, and thinking of nothing, hoping for nothing, wishing for nothing, stood waiting, with my eyes fixed on the domino he was now rapidly folding into smaller compass.

And thus I stood, like a pallid automaton, when the instant came for him to change his position, and he saw me. The cry that rose to his lips but did not escape them, the reel which his figure gave before it stiffened into marble, testified to the shock he had received, and also to the sense of unreality with which my appearance in this wise must have impressed him. His look, his attitude were those of a man gazing upon a spectre, and as I met his glance with mine, I was conscious of a feeling of unreality myself, as if the whole occurrence were a dream, and he and I but shadows which another moment would dissolve.

But alas! this was no more a dream than were the other strange and tragic events which had gone before; and in an instant we both knew it, and were standing face to face with wretched inquiry in the looks we fixed upon each other across the domino which had fallen from his hands. He was the first to speak.

"Miss Sterling!" he exclaimed, in a light tone, cruelly belied by the trembling lips from which it issued, "by what fortunate chance do I see you again, and in a place I should have thought to be the last you would be likely to visit?"

"By the same chance," I rejoined, "which appears to have brought you here. The desire to make sure if what I heard about the mill having been used as a secreting place for certain mysterious articles, was true." And I pointed to the mask and domino lying at my feet.

His eye, which had followed the direction of my finger, grew dark and troubled.

"Then it was your hand—" he impetuously began.

"Which disturbed these garments before you? Yes. And I shall make no apology for the action," I continued, "since it was done in the hope of proving false certain insinuations which had been made to me in your regard."

"Insinuations?" he repeated.

"Yes," I declared, in an agony between my longing to hear him vindicate himself and the desire to be true to the obligations I was under to Ada Reynolds. "Insinuations of the worst, the most terrible, character." Then, as I saw him fall back, stricken in something more than his pride, I hastened to inquire: "Have you an enemy in town, Mr. Pollard?"

He composed himself with a start, looked at me fixedly, and replied in what struck me as a strange tone even for such an occasion as this:

"Perhaps."

"One who out of revenge," I proceeded, "might be induced to attach your name to suspicions calculated to rob you of honor, if not life?"

"Perhaps," he again returned; but this time with a fierceness that almost made me recoil, though I knew it was directed against some one besides myself.

"Then it may be," I said, "that you have but to speak to relieve my mind of the heaviest weight which has ever fallen upon it. These articles," I pursued, "have they, or have they not, any connection with the tragedy which makes the place in which we stand memorable?"

"I cannot answer you, Miss Sterling."

"Cannot answer me?"

"Cannot answer you," he reiterated, turning haggard about the eyes and lips.

"Then," I brokenly rejoined, "I had better leave this place; I do not see what more I have to do or say here."

"O God!" he cried, detaining me with a gesture full of agony and doubt. "Do not leave me so; let me think. Let me weigh the situation and see where I stand, in your eyes at least. Tell me what my enemy has said!" he demanded, his face, his very form, flashing with a terrible rage that seemed to have as much indignation as fear in it.

"Your enemy," I replied, in the steady voice of despair, "accuses you in so many words—of murder."

I expected to see him recoil, burst forth into cursing or frenzied declamation, by which men betray their inward consternation and remorse; but he did none of these things. Instead of that he laughed; a hideous laugh that seemed to shake the rafters above us and echoed in and out of the caverned recesses beneath.

"Accuses me?" he muttered; and it is not in language to express the scorn he infused into the words.

Stunned, and scarcely knowing what to think, I gazed at him helplessly. He seemed to feel my glance, for, after a moment's contemplation of my face, his manner suddenly changed, and bowing with a grim politeness full of sarcasm, he asked:

"And when did you see my enemy and hold this precious conversation in which I was accused of murder?"

"Yesterday afternoon," I answered. "During the time of your mother's funeral," I subjoined, startled by the look of stupefaction which crossed his face at my words.

"I don't understand you," he murmured, sweeping his hand in a dazed way over his brow. "You saw him then? Spoke to him? Impossible!"

"It is not a man to whom I allude," I returned, almost as much agitated as himself. "It is a woman who is your accuser, a woman who seems to feel she has a right to make you suffer, possibly because she has suffered so much herself."

"A woman!" was all he said; "a woman!" turning pale enough now, God knows.

"Have you no enemies among the women?" I asked, wearied to the soul with the position in which my cruel fate had forced me.

"I begin to think I have," he answered, giving me a look that somehow broke down the barriers of ice between us and made my next words come in a faltering tone:

"And could you stop to bestow a thought upon a man while a woman held your secret? Did you think our sex was so long-suffering, or this special woman so generous——"

I did not go on, for he had leaped the gap which separated us and had me gently but firmly by the arm.

"Of whom are you speaking?" he demanded. "What woman has my secret— if secret I have? Let me hear her name, now, at once."

"Is it possible," I murmured, "that you do not know?"

"The name! the name!" he reiterated, his eyes ablaze, his hand shaking where it grasped my arm.

"Rhoda Colwell," I returned, looking him steadily in the eye.

"Impossible!" his lips seemed to breathe, and his clasp slowly unloosed from my arm like a ring of ice which melts away. "Rhoda Colwell! Good God!" he exclaimed, and staggered back with ever-growing wonder and alarm till half the room lay between us.

"I am not surprised at your emotion," I said; "she is a dangerous woman."

He looked at me with dull eyes; he did not seem to hear what I said.

"How can it be?" he muttered; and his glance took a furtive aspect as it travelled slowly round the room and finally settled upon the mask and domino at my feet. "Was it she who told you where to look for those?" he suddenly queried in an almost violent tone.

I bowed; I had no wish to speak.

"She is an imp, a witch, an emissary of the Evil One," he vehemently declared; and turned away, murmuring, as it seemed to me, those sacred words of Scripture, "Be sure your sin find you out."

I felt the sobs rise in my throat. I could bear but little more. To recover myself, I looked away from him, even passed to a window and gazed out. Any thing but the sight of this humiliation in one who could easily have been my idol. I was therefore standing with my back to him when he finally approached, and touching me with the tip of his finger, calmly remarked;

"I did not know you were acquainted with Miss Colwell."

"Nor was I till yesterday," I rejoined. "Fate made us know each other at one interview, if could be said to ever know such a woman as she is."

"Fate is to blame for much; is it also to blame for the fact that you sought her? Or did she seek you?"

"I sought her," I said; and, not seeing any better road to a proper explanation of my conduct than the truth, I told him in a few words of the notice I had seen posted upon the mill, and of how I had afterwards surprised Rhoda Colwell there, and what the conclusions were which I had thereby drawn; though, from some motive of delicacy I do not yet understand, I refrained from saying any thing about her disguise, and left him to infer that it was in her own proper person I had seen her.

He seemed to be both wonder-stricken and moved by the recital, and did not rest till he had won from me the double fact that Rhoda Colwell evidently knew much more than she revealed, while I, on the contrary, knew much less. The latter discovery seemed to greatly gratify him, and while his brow lost none of the look of heavy anxiety which had settled upon it with the introduction of this woman's name into our colloquy, I noticed that his voice was lighter, and that he surveyed me with less distrust and possibly with less fear. His next words showed the direction his thoughts were taking.

"You have shown an interest in my fate, Miss Sterling, in spite of the many reasons you had for thinking it a degraded one, and for this I thank you with all my heart. Will you prove your womanliness still further by clinging to the belief which I have endeavored to force upon you, that notwithstanding all you have heard and seen, I stand in no wise amenable to the law, neither have I uttered, in your hearing at least, aught but the truth in regard to this whole matter?"

"And you can swear this to me?" I uttered, joyfully.

"By my father's grave, if you desire it," he returned.

A flood of hope rushed through my heart. I was but a weak woman, and his voice and look at that moment would have affected the coldest nature.

"I am bound to believe you," I said; "though there is much I do not understand—much which you ought to explain if you wish to disabuse my mind of all doubt in your regard. I would be laying claim to a cynicism I do not possess, if I did not trust your words just so far as you will allow me. But——" And I must have assumed an air of severity, for I saw his head droop lower and lower as I gazed at him and forbore to finish my sentence.

"But you believe I am a villain," he stammered.

"I would fain believe you to be the best and noblest of men," I answered, pointedly.

He lifted his head, and the flush of a new emotion swept over his face.

"Why did I not meet you two years ago?" he cried.

The tone was so bitter, the regret expressed so unutterable, I could not help my heart sinking again with the weight of fresh doubt which it brought.

"Would it have been better for me if you had?" I inquired. "Is the integrity which is dependent upon one's happiness, or the sympathy of friends, one that a woman can trust to under all circumstances of temptation or trial?"

"I do not know," he muttered. "I think it would stand firm with you for its safeguard and shield." Then, as he saw me draw back with an assumption of coldness I was far from feeling, added gently: "But it was not you, but Rhoda Colwell, I met two years ago, and I know you too well, appreciate you too well, to lay aught but my sincerest homage at your feet, in the hope that, whatever I may have been in the past, the future shall prove me to be not unworthy of your sympathy, and possibly of your regard."

And, as if he felt the stress of the interview becoming almost too great for even his strength, he turned away from me and began gathering up the toggery that lay upon the floor.

"These must not remain here," he observed, bitterly.

But I, drawn this way and that by the most contradictory emotions, felt that all had not been said which should be in this important and possibly final interview. Accordingly, smothering personal feeling and steeling myself to look only at my duty, I advanced to his side, and, indicating with a gesture the garments he was now rolling up into a compact mass, remarked:

"This may or may not involve you in some unpleasantness. Rhoda Colwell, who evidently attaches much importance to her discoveries, is not the woman to keep silent in their regard. If she speaks and forces me to speak, I must own the truth, Mr. Pollard. Neither sympathy nor regard could hold me back; for my honor is pledged to the cause of Mr. Barrows, and not even the wreck of my own happiness could deter me from revealing any thing that would explain his death or exonerate his memory. I wish you to understand this. God grant I may never be called upon to speak!"

It was a threat, a warning, or a danger for which he was wholly unprepared. He stared at me for a moment from his lowly position on the floor, then slowly rose and mechanically put his hand to his throat, as if he felt himself choking.

"I thank you for your frankness," he murmured, in almost inaudible tones. "It is no more than I ought to have expected; and yet—" He turned abruptly away. "I am evidently in a worse situation than I imagined," he continued, after a momentary pacing of the floor. "I thought only my position in your eyes was assailed; I see now that I may have to defend myself before the world." And, with a sudden change that was almost alarming, he asked if Rhoda Colwell had intimated in any way the source of whatever information she professed to have.

I told him no, and felt my heart grow cold with new and undefined fears as he turned his face toward the front of the building, and cried, in a suppressed tone, full of ire and menace:

"It could have come but in one way; I am to be made a victim if——" He turned upon me with a wild look in which there was something personal. "Are you worth the penalty which my good name must suffer?" he violently cried. "For I swear that to you and you only I owe the position in which I now stand!"

"God help me then!" I murmured, dazed and confounded by this unexpected reproach.

"Had you been less beautiful, less alluring in your dignity and grace, my brother——" He paused and bit his lip. "Enough!" he cried. "I had wellnigh forgotten that generosity and forbearance are to actuate my movements in the future. I beg your pardon—and his!" he added, with deep and bitter sarcasm, under his breath.

This allusion to Guy, unpleasant and shocking as it was, gave me a peculiar sensation that was not unlike that of relief, while at the same moment the glimpse of something, which I was fain to call a revelation, visited my mind and led me impetuously to say:

"I hope you are not thinking of sacrificing yourself for another less noble and less generous than yourself. If such is the clew to actions which certainly have looked dubious till now, I pray that you will reconsider your duty and not play the Don Quixote too far."

But Dwight Pollard, instead of accepting this explanation of his conduct with the eagerness of a great relief, only shook his head and declared:

"My brother—for I know who you mean, Miss Sterling—is no more amenable to the law than myself. Neither of us were guilty of the action that terminated Mr. Barrows' life."

"And yet," came in the strange and unexpected tones of a third person, "can you say, in the presence of her you profess to respect and of me whom you once professed to love, that either you or your brother are guiltless of his death?" and turning simultaneously toward the doorway, we saw gleaming in its heavy frame the vivid form and glittering eyes of his most redoubtable enemy and mine— Rhoda Colwell.

He fell back before this apparition and appeared to lose his power of speech. She advanced like an avenging Nemesis between us.

"Speak!" she vehemently exclaimed. "Are you—I say nothing of your brother, who is nothing to me or to her—are you guiltless, in the sense in which she would regard guilt, of David Barrows' death?" And her fierce eyes, shining through her half-closed lashes like lurid fires partly veiled, burned upon his face, which, turning paler and paler, drooped before her gaze till his chin settled upon his breast and we could barely hear the words that fell from his lips:

"God knows I would not dare to say I am."

XIII. GUY POLLARD

I will tell you why.
—HAMLET.

There was a silence, then Dwight Pollard spoke again. "I have made a confession which I never expected to hear pass my lips. She who has forced it from me doubtless knows how much and how little it means. Let her explain herself, then. I have no further business in this place." And, without lifting his head or meeting the eye of either of us, he strode past us towards the door.

But there he paused, for Rhoda Colwell's voice had risen in words that must be answered.

"And where, then, have you business if not here? Do you not know I hold your good name, if not your life, in my hands?"

"My good name," he slowly rejoined, without turning his head, "is already lost in the eyes I most valued. As for my life, it stands in no jeopardy. Would I could say the same for his!" was his fierce addition.

"His?" came from Rhoda Colwell's lips, in surprise. "His?" and with a quick and subtle movement she glided to his side and seized him imperatively by the arm. "Whom do you mean?" she asked.

He turned on her with a dark look.

"Whom do I mean?" he retorted. "Whom should I mean but the base and unnatural wretch who, for purposes of his own, has made you the arbitrator of my destiny and the avenger of my sin—my brother, my vile, wicked brother, whom may Heaven——"

"Stop! Your brother has had nothing to do with this. Do you suppose I would stoop to take information from him? What I know I know because my eyes have seen it, Dwight Pollard! And now, what do you think of the clutch I hold upon your life?" and she held out those two milk-white hands of hers with a smile such as I hope never to see on mortal face again.

He looked at them, then at her, and drew back speechless. She burst into a low but ringing laugh of immeasurable triumph.

"And you thought such a blow as this could come from a man! Dullard and fool you must be, Dwight Pollard, or else you have never known me. Why should he risk his honor and his safety in an action as dangerous to him as ungrateful to you? Because he admires her? Guy Pollard is not so loving. But I—I whom you taught to be a woman, only to fling aside like a weed—Ah, that is another thing! Reason for waiting and watching here; reason for denouncing, when the time came, the man who could take advantage of another man's fears! Ah, you see I know what I am talking about."'

"Speak!" he gasped. "How do you know? You say you saw. How could you see? Where were you, demon and witch in one?"

She smiled, not as before, but yet with a sense of power that only the evil glitter of her sidelong eye kept from making her wholly adorable.

"Will you come into the cellar below?" said she. "Or stay; that may be asking too much. A glance from one of these windows will do." And moving rapidly across the room, she threw up one of the broken sashes before her, and pointed to a stunted tree that grew up close against the wall. "Do you see that limb?" she inquired, indicating one that branched put towards a window we could faintly see defined beneath. "A demon or a witch might sit there for a half-hour and see, without so much as craning her neck, all that went on in the cellar below. That the leaves are thick, and, to those within, apparently hang like a curtain between them and the outer world, would make no difference to a demon's eyes, you know. Such folk can see where black walls intervene; how much more when only a fluttering screen like that shuts off the view." And, drawing back, she looked into his dazed face, and then into mine, as though she would ask: "Have I convinced you that I am a woman to be feared?"

His white cheek seemed to answer Yes, but his eyes, when he raised them, did not quail before her mocking glance, though I thought they drooped a little when, in another moment, they flashed in my direction.

"Miss Sterling," he inquired, "do you understand what Miss Colwell has been saying?"

I shook my head and faltered back. I had only one wish, and that was to be effaced from this spot of misery.

He turned again to her.

"Do you intend to explain yourself further?" he demanded.

She did not answer; her look and her attention were fixed upon me.

"You are not quite convinced he is all that I have declared him to be?" she said, moving towards me. "You want to know what I saw and whether there is not some loophole by which you can escape from utterly condemning him. Well, you shall have my story. I ask nothing more of you than that." And with a quiet ignoring of his presence that was full of contempt, she drew up to my side and calmly began: "You have seen me in the streets in the garb of my brother?"

"Your brother?" cried a startled voice.

It was Dwight Pollard who spoke. He had sprung to her side and grasped her fiercely by the wrist. It was a picture; all the more that neither of them said any thing further, but stood so, surveying each other, till he thought fit to drop her arm and draw back, when she quietly went on as though no interruption had occurred.

"It was a convenient disguise, enabling me to do and learn many things. It also made it possible for me to be out in the evening alone, and allowed me to visit certain places where otherwise I should have been any thing but welcome. It also satisfied a spirit of adventure which I possess, and led to the experience which I am now about to relate. Miss Sterling, my brother has one peculiarity. He can be intrusted to carry a message, and forget it ten minutes after it is delivered. This being generally known in town, I was not at all surprised when one evening, as I was traversing a very dark street, I was met and accosted by a muffled figure, who asked me if I would run to Mr. Barrows' house for him. I was about to say No, when something in his general air and manner deterred me, and I changed it into the half-laughing, half-eager assent which my brother uses on such occasions. The man immediately stooped to my ear and whispered:

"'Tell Mr. Barrows to come with all speed to the old mill. A man has been thrown from his carriage and is dying there. He wants Mr. Barrows' prayers and consolation. Can you remember?'

"I nodded my head and ran off. I was fearful, if I stayed, I would betray myself; for the voice, with all its attempted disguise, was that of Guy Pollard, and the man injured might for all I knew be his brother. Before I reached Mr. Barrows' door, however, I began to have my doubts. Something in the man's manner betrayed mystery, and as Guy Pollard had never been a favorite of mine, I naturally gave to this any thing but a favorable interpretation. I did not stop, though, because I doubted. On the contrary, I pushed forward, for if there was a secret, I must know it; and how could I learn it so readily or so well as by following Mr. Barrows on his errand of mercy?

"The person who came to the door in answer to my summons was fortunately Mr. Barrows himself; fortunately for me, that is; I cannot say it was altogether fortunately for him. He had a little book in his hand, and seemed disturbed when I gave him my message. He did not hesitate, however. Being of an unsuspicious nature, he never dreamed that all was not as I said, especially as he knew my brother well, and was thoroughly acquainted with the exactness with which he always executed an errand. But he did not want to go; that I saw clearly, and laid it all to the little book; for he was the kindest man who ever lived, and never was known to shirk a duty because it was unpleasant or hard.

"I have said he knew my brother well. Remembering this when he came down stairs again ready to accompany me, I assumed the wildest manner in which my brother ever indulged, that I might have some excuse for not remaining at his side while still accompanying him in his walk. The consequence was that not a dozen words passed between us, and I had the satisfaction of seeing him draw near the old mill in almost complete forgetfulness of my proximity. This was what I wanted, for in the few minutes I had to think, many curious surmises had risen in my mind, and I wished to perform my little part in this adventure without hindrance from his watchfulness or care.

"It was a very dark night, as you remember, Dwight Pollard, and it is no wonder that neither he nor the man who came out of the doorway to meet him saw the slight figure that crouched against the wall close by the door they had to enter. And if they had seen it, what would they have thought? That the idiot boy was only more freakish than usual, or was waiting about for the dime which was the usual pay for his services. Neither the clouds, nor the trees, nor the surrounding darkness would have whispered that an eager woman's heart beat under that boy's jacket, and that they had better trust the wind in its sweep, the water in its rush, or the fire in its ravaging, than the will that lay coiled behind the feebly moving lip and wandering, restless eye of the seeming idiot who knelt there.

"So I was safe and for the moment could hear and see. And this was what I saw: A tall and gentlemanly form, carrying a lantern which he took pains should shine on Mr. Barrows' face and not on his own. The expression of the former was, therefore, plain to me, and in it I read something more than reluctance, something which I dimly felt to be fear. His anxiety, however, did not seem to spring from his companion, but from the building he was about to enter, for it was when he looked up at its frowning walls and shadowy portal that I saw him shudder and turn pale. They went in, however. Not without a question or two from Mr. Barrows as to whom his guide was and where the sick man lay, to all of which the other responded shortly or failed to respond at all, facts which went far to convince me that a deception of some kind was being practised upon the confiding clergyman.

"I was consequently in a fever of impatience to follow them in, and had at last made up my mind to do so, when I heard a deep sigh, and glancing up towards the doorway, saw that it was again occupied by the dark figure which I had so lately seen pass in with Mr. Barrows. He had no lantern now, and I could not even discern the full outlines of his form, but his sigh being repeated, I knew who he was as certainly as if I had seen him, for it was one which had often been breathed in my ears, and was as well known to me as the beatings of my own heart. This discovery, as you may believe, Miss Sterling, did not tend to allay either my curiosity or my impatience, and when in a few minutes the watcher drew back, I stole from my hiding-place, and creeping up to the open doorway, listened. A sound of pacing steps came to my ears. The entrance was guarded.

"For a moment I stood baffled, then remembering the lantern which had been carried into the building, I withdrew quietly from the door, and began a tour of inspection round about the mill in the hope of spying some glimmer of light from one or more of the many windows, and in this way learn the exact spot to which Mr. Barrows had been taken. It was a task of no mean difficulty, Miss Sterling, for the bushes cluster thick about those walls, and I had no light to warn me of their whereabouts or of the many loose stones that lay in heaps here and there along the way. But I would not have stopped if firebrands had been under my feet, nor did I cease my exertions or lose my hope till I reached the back of the mill and found it as dark as the side and front. Then indeed I did begin to despair, for the place was so solitary and remote from observation, I could not conceive of any better being found for purposes that required secrecy or concealment. Yet the sombre walls rose before me, dark and unrelieved against the sky; and nothing remained for me but to press on to the broad west end and see if that presented as unpromising an aspect as the rest.

"I accordingly recommenced my toilsome journey, rendered positively dangerous now by the vicinity of the water and the steepness of the banks that led down to it. But I did not go far, for as, in my avoidance of the stream, I drew nearer and nearer the walls, I caught glimpses of what I at first thought to be the flash of a fire-fly in the bushes, but in another moment discovered to be the fitful glimmer of a light through a window heavily masked with leaves. You can imagine what followed from what I told you. How I climbed the tree, and seated myself on the limb that ran along by the window, and pushing aside the leaves, looked in upon the scene believed by those engaged in it to be as absolutely unwitnessed as if it had taken place in the bowels of the earth.

"And what did I see there, Miss Sterling? At first little. The light within was so dim and the window itself so high from the floor, that nothing save a moving shadow or two met my eye. But presently becoming accustomed to the position, I discovered first that I was looking in on a portion of the cellar, and next that three figures stood before me, two of which I immediately recognized as those of Mr. Barrows and Guy Pollard. But the third stood in shadow, and I did not know then, nor do I know now, who it was, though I have my suspicions, incredible as they may seem even to myself. Mr. Barrows, whose face was a study of perplexity, if not horror, seemed to be talking. He was looking Guy Pollard straight in the face when I first saw him, but presently I perceived him turn and fix his eyes on that mysterious third figure which he seemed to study for some signs of relenting. But evidently without success, for I saw his eyes droop and his hands fall helplessly to his side as if he felt that he had exhausted every argument, and that nothing was left to him but silence.

"All this, considering the circumstances and the scene, was certainly startling enough even to one of my nature and history, but when in a few minutes later I saw Guy Pollard step forward, and seizing Mr. Barrows by the hand, draw him forward to what seemed to be the verge of a pit, I own that I felt as if I were seized by some deadly nightmare, and had to turn myself away and look at the skies and trees for a moment to make sure I was not the victim of a hallucination. When I looked back they were still standing there, but a change had come over Mr. Barrows' face. From being pale it had become ghastly, and his eyes, fixed and fascinated, were gazing into those horrid depths, as if he saw there the horrible fate which afterwards befell him. Suddenly he drew back, covering his face with his hands, and I saw a look pass from Guy Pollard to that watchful third figure, which, if it had not been on the face of a gentleman, I should certainly call demoniacal. The next instant the third figure stepped forward, and before I could move or utter the scream that rose to my lips, Mr. Barrows had disappeared from view in the horrid recesses of that black hole, and only Guy Pollard and that other mysterious one, who I now saw wore a heavy black domino and mask, remained standing on its dark verge.

"A cry, so smothered that it scarcely came to my ears, rose for an instant from the pit, then I saw Guy Pollard stoop forward and put what seemed to be a question to the victim below. From the nature of the smile that crossed his lip as he drew back, I judged it had not been answered satisfactorily; and was made yet more sure of this when the third person, stooping, took up the light, and beckoning to Guy Pollard, began to walk away. Yes, Miss Sterling, I am telling no goblin tale, as you can see if you will cast your eyes on our companion over there. They walked away, and the light grew dimmer and dimmer and the sense of horror deeper and deeper, till a sudden cry, rising shrill enough now from that deadly hole, drew the two conspirators slowly back to stand again upon its fatal brink, and, as it seemed to me, propound again that question, for answer to which they appeared ready to barter their honor, if not their souls.

"And this time they got it. The decisive gesture of the masked figure, and the speed with which Guy Pollard disappeared from the spot, testified that the knowledge they wanted was theirs, and that only some sort of action remained to be performed. What that action was I could not imagine, for, though Mr. Pollard carried away the lantern, the masked figure had remained.

"Meantime darkness was ours; a terrible darkness, as you may imagine, Miss Sterling, in which it was impossible not to wait for a repetition of that smothered cry from the depths of this unknown horror. But it did not come; and amid a silence awful as the grave, the minutes went by till at last, to my great relief, the light appeared once more in the far recesses of the cellar, and came twinkling on till it reached the masked figure, which, to all appearance, had not moved hand or foot since it went away.

"Miss Sterling, you have doubtless consoled yourself during this narration with the thought that the evil which I had seen done had been the work of Guy and a person who need not necessarily have been our friend here. But I must shatter whatever satisfaction you may have derived from the possible absence of Dwight Pollard from this scene, by saying that when the lantern paused and I had the opportunity to see who carried it, I found that it was no longer in the hand of the younger brother, but had been transferred to that of Dwight, and that he, not Guy, now stood in the cellar before me.

"As I realize that we are not alone, I will not dilate upon his appearance, much as it struck me at the time. I will merely say he offered a contrast to Guy, who, if I may speak so plainly in this presence, had seemed much at home in the task he had set himself, uncongenial as one might consider it to the usual instincts and habits of a gentleman. But Dwight—you see I can be just, Miss Sterling—looked anxious and out of place; and, instead of seeming to be prepared for the situation, turned and peered anxiously about him, as if in search of the clergyman he expected to find standing somewhere on this spot. His surprise and horror when the masked figure pointed to the pit were evident, Miss Sterling; but it was a surprise and a horror that immediately settled into resignation, if not apathy; and after his first glance and shuddering start in that direction he did not stir again, but stood quite like a statue while the masked figure spoke, and when he did move it was to return the way he had come, without a look or a gesture toward the sombre hole where so much that was manly and kind lay sunk in a darkness that must have seemed to that sensitive nature the prototype of his grave."

"And is that all, Miss Colwell?" came with a strange intonation from Dwight Pollard's lips, as she paused, with a triumphant look in my direction.

"It is all I have to tell," was the reply; and it struck me that her tone was as peculiar as his. "Minutes, seconds even, spent under such circumstances, seem like hours; and after a spell of what appeared an interminable waiting, I allowed myself to be overcome by the disquiet and terror of my situation, and dropping from my perch, crept home."

"You should have stayed another hour," he dryly observed. "I wonder at an impatience you had never manifested till then."

"Do you?"

The meaning with which she said this, the gesture with which she gave it weight, struck us both aback.

"Woman!" he thundered, coming near to her with the mingled daring and repugnance with which one advances to crush a snake, "do you mean to say that you are going to publish this much of your story and publish no more? That you will tell the world this and not tell——"

"What I did not see?" she interpolated, looking him straight in the eye as might the serpent to which I have compared her.

"Good God!" was his horrified exclamation; "and yet you know——"

"Pardon me," her voice broke in again. "You have heard what I know," and she bowed with such an inimitable and mocking grace, and yet with such an air of sinister resolve, that he stood like one fascinated, and let her move away towards the door without seeking by word or look to stop her. "I hold you tight, you see," were her parting words to him as she paused just upon the threshold to give us a last and scornful look. "So tight," she added, shaking her close-shut hand, "that I doubt if even your life could escape should I choose to remember in court what I have remembered before you two here to-day."

"And forget——" he began.

"And forget," she repeated, "what might defeat the ends of that justice which demands a life for the one so wantonly sacrificed in the vat whose hideous depths now open almost under your feet." And, having said these words, she turned to go, when, looking up, she found her passage barred by the dark form of Guy Pollard, who, standing in the doorway with his hands upon either lintel, surveyed her with his saturnine smile, in which for this once I saw something that did not make me recoil, certain as I now was of his innate villainy and absolute connection with Mr. Barrows' death.

She herself seemed to feel that she had met her master; for, with a hurried look in his face, she drew slowly back, and, folding her arms, waited for him to move with a patience too nonchalant not to be forced.

But he did not seem inclined to move, and I beheld a faint blush as of anger break out on her cheek, though her attitude retained its air of superb indifference, and her lips, where they closed upon each other, did not so much as break their lines for an instant.

"You are not going, Miss Colwell," were the words with which he at last broke the almost intolerable suspense of the moment; "at least, not till you have given us the date of this remarkable experience of yours."

"The date?" she repeated, icily. "What day was it that Mr. Barrows was found in the vat?" she inquired, turning to me with an indifferent look.

His hand fell like iron on her arm.

"You need not appeal to Miss Sterling," he remarked. "I am asking you this question, and I am not a man to be balked nor frightened by you when my life itself is at stake. What night was it on which you saw me place Mr. Barrows in the vat? I command you to tell me, or——"

His hands closed on her arm, and—she did not scream, but I did; for the look of the inquisitor was in his face, and I saw that she must succumb, or be broken like a reed before our eyes.

She chose to succumb. Deadly pale and shaking with the terror with which he evidently inspired her, she turned like a wild creature caught in the toils, and gasped out:

"It was a night in August—the seventeenth, I think. I wish you and your brother much joy of the acknowledgment."

He did not answer, only dropped her arm, and, looking at me, remarked:

"I think that puts a different face upon the matter."

It did indeed. For Mr. Barrows had only been dead four days, and to-day was the twenty-eight of September.

* * * * *

I do not know how long it was before I allowed the wonder and perplexity which this extraordinary disclosure aroused in me to express itself in words. The shock which had been communicated to me was so great, I had neither thought nor feeling left, and it was not till I perceived every eye fixed upon me that I found the power to say:

"Then Mr. Barrows' death was not the result of that night's work.
The hand that plunged him into the vat drew him out again.
But—but——" Here my tongue failed me. I could only look the question
with which my mind was full.

Dwight Pollard immediately stepped forward.

"But whose were the hands that thrust him back four days ago? That is what you would ask, is it not, Miss Sterling?" he inquired, with a force and firmness he had not before displayed.

"Yes," I endeavored to say, though I doubt if a sound passed my lips.

His face took a more earnest cast, his voice a still deeper tone.

"Miss Sterling," he began, meeting my eye with what might have been the bravado of despair, but which I was fain to believe the courage of truth, "after what you have just heard, it would be strange, perhaps, if you should place much belief in any thing we may say upon this subject. And yet it is my business to declare, and that with all the force and assurance of which I am capable, that we know no more than you, how Mr. Barrows came to find himself again in that place; that we had nothing to do with it, and that his death, occurring in the manner and at the spot it did, was a surprise to us which cost my mother her life, and me——well, almost my reason," he added, in a lower tone, turning away his face.

"Can this be true?" I asked myself, unconsciously taking on an air of determination, as I remembered I was prejudiced in his favor, and wished to believe him innocent of this crime.

This movement on my part, slight as it was, was evidently seen and misinterpreted by them all. For a look of disappointment came into Dwight Pollard's face, while from his brother's eye flashed a dangerous gleam that almost made me oblivious to the fact that Rhoda. Colwell was speaking words full of meaning and venom.

"A specious declaration!" she exclaimed. "A jury would believe such assertions, of course; so would the world at large, It is so easy to credit that this simple and ordinary method of disposing of a valuable life should enter the mind of another person!"

"It is as easy to credit that," answered Dwight Pollard, with an emphasis which showed that he, if not I, felt the force of this sarcasm, "as it would be to believe that Mr. Barrows would return to a spot so fraught with hideous memories, except under the influence of a purpose which made him blind to all but its accomplishment. The fact that he died there, proves to my mind that no other will than his own plunged him anew into that dreadful vat."

"Ah! and so you are going to ascribe his death to suicide?" she inquired, with a curl of her lip that was full of disdain.

"Yes," he sternly responded with no signs of wavering now, though her looks might well have stung the stoutest soul into some show of weakness.

"It is a wise stroke," she laughed, with indescribable emphasis. "It has so much in Mr. Barrows' life and character to back it. And may I ask," she went on, with a look that included Guy Pollard's silent and contemptuous figure in its scope, "whether you have anything but words wherewith to impress your belief upon the public? I have heard that judge and jury like facts, or, at the least, circumstantial proof that a man's denial is a true one."

"And proofs we have!"

It was Guy Pollard who spoke this time, and with an icy self-possession that made her shiver in spite of herself.

"Proofs?" she repeated.

"That we were not near the mill the night before Mr. Barrows was found. We were both out of town, and did not return till about the time the accident was discovered."

"Ah!" was her single sarcastic rejoinder; but I saw—we all saw— that the blow had told, bravely as she tried to hide it.

"You, can make nothing by accusing us of this crime," he continued; "and if I might play the part of a friend to you, I would advise you not to attempt it." And his cold eye rested for a moment on hers before he turned and walked away to the other end of the room.

The look, the action, was full of contempt, but she did not seem to feel it. Following him with her gaze for a minute, she murmured, quietly: "We will see"; then turning her look upon Dwight and myself, added slowly: "I think you are effectually separated at all events," and was gone almost without our realizing how or where.

I did not linger long behind. What I said or what they said I cannot remember. I only know that in a few minutes I too was flying along the highway, eager for the refuge which my solitary home offered me. Events had rushed upon me too thickly and too fast. I felt ill as I passed the threshold of my room, and was barely conscious when a few hours later the landlady came in to see why I had not made my appearance at the supper-table.

XIV. CORRESPONDENCE

Letters, my Lord.
—HAMLET.

My illness, though severe, was not of long continuance. In a week I was able to be about my room; and in a fortnight I was allowed to read the letters that had come to me. There were two, either of them calculated to awaken dangerous emotions; and, taken together, making a draft on my powers which my newly gained health found it hard to sustain. The one was signed Rhoda Colwell, and the other Dwight Pollard. I read Rhoda Colwell's first.

It opened without preamble:

I sought revenge and I have found it. Not in the way I anticipated, perhaps, but still in a way good enough to satisfy both myself and the spirit of justice. You will never trust Dwight Pollard again. You will never come any nearer to him than you have to-day. You have an upright soul, and whether you believe his declarations or not, can be safely relied upon to hold yourself aloof from a man who could lend his countenance to such a cowardly deed as I saw perpetrated in the old cellar a month or so ago. Honor does not wed with dishonor, nor truth with treachery. Constance Sterling may marry whom she may; it will never be Dwight Pollard.

Convinced of this, I have decided to push my vengeance no further. Not that I believe Mr. Barrows committed suicide, any more than I believe that Dwight and Guy Pollard could be saved by any mere alibi, if I chose to speak. Men like them can find ready tools to do their work, and if they had been an hundred miles away instead of some six, I should still think that the will which plunged Mr. Barrows into his dreadful grave was the same which once before had made him taste the horrors of his threatened doom. But public disgrace and execration are not what I seek for my recreant lover. The inner anguish which no eye can see is what I have been forced to endure and what he shall be made to suffer. Guilty or not he can never escape that now; and it is a future which I gloat upon and from which I would not have him escape, no, not at the cost of his life, if that life were mine, and I could shorten it at a stroke.

And yet since human nature is human nature, and good hearts as well as bad yield sometimes to a fatal weakness, I would add that the facts which I suppress are always facts, and that if I see in you or him any forgetfulness of the gulf that separates you, I shall not think it too late to speak, though months have been added to months, and years to years, and I am no longer any thing but old

RHODA COLWELL.

Close upon these words I read these others:

MISS STERLING:—Pardon me that I presume to address you. Pardon the folly, the weakness of a man who, having known you for less than a week, finds the loss of your esteem the hardest of the many miseries he is called upon to bear.

I know that I can never recover this esteem—if, indeed, I ever possessed it. The revelation of the secret which disgraced our family has been fatal; the secret which our mother commanded us on her deathbed to preserve, foreseeing that, if it should become known that we had been guilty of the occurrence of the seventeenth of August, nothing could save us from the suspicion that we were guilty of the real catastrophe of the twenty-fourth of September. Alas! my mother was a keen woman, but she did not reckon upon Rhoda Colwell; she did not reckon upon you. She thought if we kept silence, hell and heaven would find no tongue. But hell and heaven have both spoken, and we stand suspected of crime, if not absolutely accused of it.

Hard as this is to bear—and it is harder than you might think for one in whom the base and cowardly action into which he was betrayed a month ago has not entirely obliterated the sense of honor—I neither dare to complain of it nor of the possible consequences which may follow if Rhoda Colwell slights my brother's warning and carries out her revenge to the full. Deeds of treachery and shame must bear their natural fruit, and we are but reaping what we sowed on that dreadful night when we allowed David Barrows to taste the horrors of his future grave. But though I do not complain, I would fain say a final word to one whose truth and candor have stood in such conspicuous relief to my own secrecy and repression. Not in way of hope, not in way of explanation even. What we have done we have done, and it would little become me to assign motives and reasons for what in your eyes—and, I must now allow, in my own—no motive or reason can justify or even excuse. I can only place myself before you as one who abhors his own past; regarding it, indeed, with such remorse and detestation that I would esteem myself blessed if it had been my body, instead of that of Mr. Barrows, which had been drawn from the fatal pit. Not that any repentance can rid me of the stain which has fallen upon my manhood, or make me worthy of the honor of your faintest glance; but it may make me a less debased object in your eyes, and I would secure that much grace for myself even at the expense of what many might consider an unnecessary humiliation. For you have made upon my mind in the short time I have known you a deep, and, as I earnestly believe, a most lasting and salutary impression. Truth, candor, integrity, and a genuine loyalty to all that is noblest and best in human nature no longer seem to me like mere names since I have met you. The selfishness that makes dark deeds possible has revealed itself to me in all its hideous deformity since the light of your pure ideal fell upon it; and while naught on earth can restore me to happiness, or even to that equanimity of mind which my careless boyhood enjoyed, it would still afford me something like relief to know that you recognize the beginning of a new life in me, which, if not all you could desire, still has that gleam of light upon it which redeems it from being what it was before I knew you. I will, therefore, ask not a word from you, but a look. If, when I pass your house to-morrow afternoon at six o'clock, I see you standing in the window, I shall know you grant me the encouragement of your sympathy, a sympathy which will help me to endure the worst of all my thoughts, that indirectly, if not directly, Guy and myself may be guilty of Mr. Barrows' death; that our action may have given him an impetus to destroy himself, or at least have shown him the way to end his life in a seemingly secret manner; though why a man so respected and manifestly happy as he should wish to close his career so suddenly, is as great a mystery to me as it can possibly be to you.

One other word and I am done. If, in the mercy of your gentle and upright nature, you accord me this favor, do not fear that I shall take advantage of it, even in my thoughts. Nor need you think that by so doing you may hamper yourself in the performance of a future duty; since it would be as impossible for me to ask, as for you to grant, the least suppression of the truth on your part; your candor being the charm of all others which has most attracted my admiration and secured my regard.

DWIGHT POLLARD.

Of the emotions produced in me by these, two letters I will say nothing; I will only mention some of my thoughts. The first naturally was, that owing to my illness I had not received the latter letter till a week after it was written; consequently Dwight Pollard had failed to obtain the slight token of encouragement which he had requested. This was a source of deep regret to me, all the more that I did not know how to rectify the evil without running the risk of rousing suspicion in the breast of Rhoda Colwell. For, unreasonable as it may seem, her words had roused in me a dread similar to that which one might feel of a scorpion in the dark. I did not know how near she might be to me, or when she might strike. The least stir, the least turn of my head towards the forbidden object, might reveal her to be close at my side. I neither dared trust the silence nor the fact that all seemed well with me at present. A woman who could disguise herself as she could, and whom no difficulty deterred from gaining her purpose, was not one to brave with impunity, however clear might seem the outlook. I felt as if my very thoughts were in danger from her intuition, and scarcely dared breathe my intentions to the walls, lest the treacherous breeze should carry them to her ears and awaken that formidable antagonism which in her case was barbed with a power which might easily make the most daring quail. And yet she must be braved; for not to save his life could I let such an appeal as he had made me go unanswered; no, though I knew the possibility remained of its being simply the offspring of a keen and calculating mind driven to its last resource. It was enough that I felt him to be true, however much my reason might recognize the possibility of his falsehood. Rather than slight a noble spirit struggling with a great distress, I would incur any penalty which a possible lapse of judgment might bring; my temperament being such that I found less shame in the thought that I might be deceived, than that, out of a spirit of too great caution and self-love, I should fail an unhappy soul at the moment when my sympathy might be of inestimable benefit to its welfare.

The venomous threats and extreme show of power displayed in Rhoda Colwell's letter had overreached themselves. They roused my pride. They made me question whether it was necessary for us to live under such a dominion of suspense as she had prepared for us. If Dwight Pollard's asseverations were true, it would be a cruel waste of peace and happiness for him or me to rest under such a subjection, when by a little bravery at the outset her hold upon us might be annihilated and her potency destroyed.

The emotions which I have agreed to ignore came in to give weight to this thought. To save myself it was necessary to prove Dwight Pollard true. Not only my sense of justice, but the very life and soul of my being, demanded the settling of all suspicion and the establishment of my trust upon a sure foundation. While a single doubt remained in my mind I was liable to shame before my best self, and shame and Constance Sterling did not mix easily or well, especially with that leaven of self-interest added, to which I have alluded only a few paragraphs back.

But how, with my lack of resources and the apparent dearth of all means for attaining the end I had in view, I was to prove Rhoda Colwell's insinuations false, and Dwight Pollard's assertion true, was a question to which an answer did not come with very satisfactory readiness. Even the simple query as to how I was to explain my late neglect to Dwight Pollard occasioned me an hour of anxious thought; and it was not till I remembered that the simplest course was always the best, and that with a snake in the grass like Rhoda Colwell, the most fearless foot trod with the greatest safety, that I felt my difficulties on that score melt away. I would write to Dwight Pollard, and I would tell Rhoda Colwell I had done so, thus proving to her that I meditated nothing underhanded, and could be trusted to say what I would do, and do what I should say.

This decision taken, I sat down immediately and penned the following two notes:

MISS RHODA COLWELL:—Owing to illness, your letter has just been read by me. To it I will simply reply that you are right in believing my regard could never be given to a guilty man. As long as the faintest doubt of Mr. Pollard remains in my mind we are indeed separated by a gulf. But let that doubt in any way be removed, and I say to you frankly that nothing you could threaten or the world perform, would prevent my yielding to him the fullest sympathy and the most hearty encouragement.

I send him to-day, in the same mail which carries this, a few lines, a copy of which I inclose for your perusal.

Yours, CONSTANCE STERLING.

MR. DWIGHT POLLARD:—For two weeks I have been too ill to cross my room, which must account both for this note and the tardiness I have displayed in writing it.

You assert that you know nothing of the causes or manner of a certain catastrophe. I believe you, and hope some day to have more than a belief, viz., a surety of its truth founded on absolute evidence.

Till that time comes we go our several ways, secure in the thought that to the steadfast mind calumny itself loses its sting when met by an earnest purpose to be and do only what is honest and upright.

CONSTANCE STERLING.

If you have any further communication to make to me, let me request that it be allowed to pass through the hands of Miss Colwell. My reasons for this are well founded.

XV. A GOSSIP

This something settled matter in his heart,
Whereon his brains still beating, puts him thus
From fashion of himself.
—HAMLET.

I had not taken this tone with both my correspondents without a secret hope of being able to do something myself towards the establishment of Mr. Pollard's innocence. How, I could not very plainly perceive that day or the next, but as time elapsed and my brain cleared and my judgment returned, I at last saw the way to an effort which might not be without consequences of a satisfactory nature. What that effort was you may perhaps conjecture from the fact that the first walk that I took was in the direction of the cottage where Mr. Barrows had formerly lived. The rooms which he had occupied were for rent, and my ostensible errand was to hire them. The real motive of my visit, however, was to learn something more of the deceased clergyman's life and ways than I then knew; if happily out of some hitherto unnoticed event in his late history I might receive a hint which should ultimately lead me to the solution of the mystery which was involving my happiness.

I was not as unsuccessful in this attempt as one might anticipate. The lady of the house was a gossip, and the subject of Mr. Barrows' death was an inexhaustible topic of interest to her. I had but to mention his name, and straightway a tide of words flowed from her lips, which, if mostly words, contained here and there intimations of certain facts which I felt it was well enough for me to know, even if they did not amount to any thing like an explanation of the tragedy. Among these was one which only my fear of showing myself too much interested in her theme prevented me from probing to the bottom. This was, that for a month at least before his death Mr. Barrows had seemed to her like a changed man. A month—that was about the interval which had elapsed between his first visit to the mill and his last; and the evidence that he showed an alteration of demeanor in that time might have its value and might hot. I resolved to cultivate Mrs. Simpson's acquaintance, and sometime put her a question or two that would satisfy me upon this point.

This determination was all the easier to make in that I found the rooms I had come to see sufficiently to my liking to warrant me in taking them. Not that I should have hesitated to do this had they been as unattractive as they were pleasant. It was not their agreeableness that won me, but the fact that Mr. Barrows personal belongings had not yet been moved, and that for a short time at least I should find myself in possession of his library, and face to face with the same articles of taste and study which had surrounded him in his lifetime, and helped to mould, if not to make, the man. I should thus obtain a knowledge of his character, and some day, who knows, might flash upon his secret. For that he possessed one, and was by no means the plain and simple character I had been led to believe was apparent to me from the first glimpse I had of these rooms; there being in every little object that marked his taste a certain individuality and purpose that betrayed a stern and mystic soul; one that could hide itself, perhaps, beneath a practical exterior, but which, in ways like this, must speak, and speak loudly too, of its own inward promptings and tendency.

The evening when I first brought these objects under a close and conscientious scrutiny, was a memorable one to me. I had moved in early that day, and with a woman's unreasoning caprice had forborne to cast more than the most cursory glance around, being content to see that all was as I left it at my first visit, and that neither desk nor library had been disturbed. But when supper was over, and I could set myself with a free mind to a contemplation of my new surroundings, I found that my curiosity could no longer delay the careful tour of inspection to which I felt myself invited by the freshness and beauty of the pictures, and one or two of the statuettes which adorned the walls about me. One painting in especial attracted me, and made me choose for my first contemplation that side of the room on which it hung. It was a copy of some French painting, and represented the temptation of a certain saint. A curious choice of subject, you may think, to adorn a Protestant clergyman's wall, but if you could have seen it, and marked the extreme expression of mortal struggle on the face of the tempted one, who, with eyes shut, and hands clutching till it bent the cross of twigs stuck in the crevices of the rocks beneath which he writhed, waited for the victory over self that was just beginning to cast its light upon his brow, you would have felt that it was good to hang before the eyes of any one in whom conflict of any kind was waging. Upon me the effect was instantaneous, and so real that I have never been able to think of that moment without a sense of awe and rending of the heart. Human passion assumed a new significance in my mind, and the will and faith of a strong man suffering from its power, yet withstanding it to the very last gasp by the help of his trust in God, rose to such an exalted position in my mind, that I felt then, as I feel now whenever I remember this picture, that my whole moral nature had received, from its contemplation, an impetus towards religion and self-denial. While I was still absorbed in gazing at it, my landlady entered the room, and seeing me posed before the picture, quite sympathizingly exclaimed:

"Isn't that a dreadful painting, Miss Sterling, to have in any one's room? I don't wonder Mr. Barrows wanted to cover it up."

"Cover it up?" I repeated, turning hastily in my surprise.

"Yes," she replied, going to a drawer in his desk and taking out a small engraving, which she brought me. "For nearly a month before his death he had this picture stuck up over the other with pins. You can see the pin-holes now, if you look; they went right through the canvas. I thought it a very sensible thing to do, myself; but when I spoke of it to him one day, remarking that I had always thought the picture unfit for any one to see, he gave me such a look that I thought then he must be crazy. But no one else saw any thing amiss in him, and, as I did not want to lose a good lodger, I let him stay on, though my mind did sometimes misgive me."

The engraving she had handed me was almost as suggestive as the painting it had been used to conceal; but at this remarkable statement front Mrs. Simpson's lips I laid it quickly down.

"You think he was crazy?" I asked.

"I think he committed suicide," she affirmed.

I turned to the engraving again, and took it up. What a change had come over me that a statement against which I had once so honestly rebelled for Ada's sake should now arouse something like a sensation of joy in my breast!

Mrs. Simpson, too much interested in her theme to notice me, went confidently on.

"You see, folks that live in the same house with a person, learn to know them as other folks can't. Not that Mr. Barrows ever talked to me; he was a deal too much absorbed in his studies for that; but he ate at my table, and went in and out of my front door, and if a woman cannot learn something about a man under those circumstances, then she is no good, that is all I have got to say about her."

I was amused and slightly smiled, but she needed no encouragement to proceed.

"The way he would drop into a brown study over his meat and potatoes was a caution to my mind. A minister that don't eat is—an anomaly," she burst out. "I have boarded them before, and I know they like the good things of life as well as anybody. But Mr. Barrows, latterly at least, never seemed to see what was on the table before him, but ate because his plate of food was there, and had to be disposed of in some way. One day, I remember in particular, I had baked dumplings, for he used to be very fond of them, and would eat two without any urging; but this day he either did not put enough sauce on them, or else his whole appetite had changed; for he suddenly looked down at his plate and shuddered, almost as if he were in a chill, and, getting up, was going away, when I summoned up courage to ask if the dumplings were not as good as usual. He turned at the door—I can see him now,—and mechanically shaking his head, seemed to be trying to utter some apology. But he presently stopped in that attempt, and, pointing quickly at the table, said, in his accustomed tones: 'You need not make me any more desserts, Mrs. Simpson, I shall not indulge in them in the future'; and went out, without saying whether he was sick or what. And that was the end of the dumplings, and of many a good thing besides."

"And is that all—" I began; but she broke in before the words were half out of my mouth.

"But the strangest thing I ever see in him was this: I have not said much about it, for the people that went to his church are a high and mighty lot, and wouldn't bear a word said against his sanity, even by one as had more opportunities than they of knowing him. But you are a stranger in town, and can't have no such foolish touchiness about a person that is nothing to you, so I will just tell you all about it. You see, when he had visitors—and off and on a good many came—I used to seat them in the parlor below, till I was sure he was ready to receive them. This had happened one evening, and I had gone up to his door to notify him that a stranger was down-stairs, when I heard such a peculiar noise issuing from his room, that I just stood stock-still on the door-mat to listen. It was a swishing sound, followed by a—Miss Sterling," she suddenly broke in, in a half awe-struck, half-frightened tone, "did you ever hear any one whipped? If you have, you will know why I stood shuddering at that door full two minutes before I dared lift my hand and knock. Not that I could believe Mr. Barrows was whipping any body, but the sound was so like it, and I was so certain besides that I had heard something like a smothered cry follow it, that nothing short of the most imperative necessity would have given me the courage to call him; my imagination filling the room with all sorts of frightful images; images that did not fade away in a hurry," she went on, with a look of shrinking terror about her which I am not sure was not reflected in my own face, "when, after the longest waiting I ever had at his door, he slowly came across the room and opened it, showing me a face as white as a sheet, and a hand that trembled so that he dropped the card I gave him and had to pick it up. Had there been a child there——"

"But there wasn't!" I interrupted, shocked and forced to defend him in spite of myself.

"No, nor anybody else. For when he went down-stairs, I looked in and there was no one there, and nothing uncommon about the room, except that I thought his bookcase looked as if it had been moved. And it had; for next day when I swept this room—it did not need sweeping, but one can't wait for ever to satisfy their curiosity—I just looked behind that case, and what do you think I found? A strap—a regular leather strap—just such as——"

"Good God!" I interrupted; "you do not think he had been using it when you went to the door?"

"I do," she said. "I think he had a fit of something like insanity upon him, and had been swinging that strap——Well, I will not say against what, for I do not know, but might it not have been against the fiends and goblins with which crazy people sometimes imagine they are surrounded?"

"Possibly," I acquiesced, though my tone could not have been one of any strong conviction.

"Insane persons sometimes do strange things," she continued; "and that he did not show himself violent before folks is no sign he did not let himself out sometimes when he was alone. The very fact that he restrained himself when he went into the pulpit and visited among his friends, may have made him wilder when he got all by himself. I am sure I remember having heard of a case where a man lived for ten years in a town without a single neighbor suspecting him of insanity; yet his wife suffered constantly from his freaks, and finally fell a victim to his violence."

"But Mr. Barrows was such a brilliant man," I objected. "His sermons up to the last were models of eloquence."

"Oh, he could preach," she assented.

Seeing that she was not to be moved in her convictions, I ventured upon a few questions.

"Have you ever thought," I asked, "what it was that created such a change in him? You say you noticed it for a month before his death; could any thing have happened to disturb him at that time?"

"Not that I know of," she answered, with great readiness. "I was away for a week in August, and it was when I first came back that I observed how different he was from what he had been before. I thought at first it was the hot weather, but heat don't make one restless and unfit to sit quiet in one's chair. Nor does it drive a man to work as if the very evil one was in him, keeping the light burning sometimes till two in the morning, while he wrote and walked, and walked and wrote, till I thought my head would burst with sympathy for him."

"He was finishing a book, was he not? I think I have heard he left a completed manuscript behind him?"

"Yes; and don't you think it very singular that the last word should have been written, and the whole parcel done up and sent away to his publisher, two days before his death, if he did not know what was going to happen to him?"

"And was it?" I inquired.

"Yes, it was; for I was in the room when he signed his name to it, and heard his sigh of relief, and saw him, too, when, a little while afterwards, he took the bundle out to the post-office. I remember thinking, 'Well, now for some rest nights!' little imagining what rest was in store for him, poor soul!"

"Did you know that Mr. Barrows was engaged?" I suddenly asked, unable to restrain my impatience any longer.

"No, I did not," she rather sharply replied, as if her lack of knowledge on that subject had been rather a sore point with her. "I may have suspected there was some one he was interested in, but I am sure nobody ever imagined her as being the one. Poor girl, she must have thought a heap of him to die in that way."

She looked at me as she said this, anticipating, perhaps, a return of the confidences she had made me. But I could not talk of Ada to her, and after a moment of silent waiting she went eagerly on.

"Perhaps a lover's quarrel lay at the bottom of the whole matter," she suggested. "Miss Reynolds was a sweet girl and loved him very devotedly, of course; but they might have had a tiff for all that, and in a nature as sensitive as his, the least thing will sometimes unhinge the mind."

But I could only shake my head at this; the supposition was at once too painful and absurd.

"Well, well," the garrulous woman went on, in no wise abashed, "there are some things that come easy and some things that come hard. Why Mr. Barrows went the way he did is one of the hard things to understand, but that he did go, and that of his own frenzied will, I am as sure as that two and two make four, and four from four leaves nothing."

I thought of all the others who secretly or openly expressed the same opinion, and felt my heart grow lighter. Then I thought of Rhoda Colwell, and then——

"Just what time was it," I asked, "when you were away in August? Was it before the seventeenth, or after? I inquire, because——"

But evidently she did not care why I inquired.

"It was during that week," she broke in. "I remember because it was on the sixteenth that Mr. Pollard died, and I was not here to attend the funeral. I came back——"

But it was no matter to me now when she came back. She had not been at home the night when Mr. Barrows was beguiled into his first visit to the mill, and she had mentioned a name I had long been eager to have introduced into the conversation.

"You knew Mr. Pollard?" I therefore interposed without ceremony. "He was a very rich man, was he not?"

"Yes," she assented. "I suppose the children will have the whole property, now that the old lady is gone. I hope Mr. Harrington will be satisfied. He just married that girl for her money. That, I am sure, you will hear everybody say."

"Yet she is exceedingly pretty," I suggested.

"Oh, yes, too pretty; she makes one think of a wax doll. But these English lords don't care for beauty without there is a deal of hard cash to back it, and if Agnes Pollard had been as poor as—what other beauty have we in town?"

"There is a girl called Rhoda Colwell," I ventured.

"Rhoda Colwell! Do you call her a beauty? I know some folks think she is—well, then, let us say as Rhoda Colwell, he would have made her any proposal sooner than that of his hand."

"And is Mr. Harrington a lord?" I asked, feeling that I was lighting upon some very strange truths.

"He is the next heir to one. A nephew I believe, or else a cousin. I cannot keep track of all those fine distinctions in people I never saw."

"They were married privately and right after Mr. Pollard's death, I have heard."

"Yes, and for no other earthly reason that one ever heard of than to have it settled and done; for Mr. Harrington did not take away his wife from the country; nor does he intend to as far as I can learn. Everybody thought it a very strange proceeding, and none too respectful to Mr. Pollard's memory either."

I thought of all I had heard and seen in that house, and wondered.

"Mr. Pollard was such a nice man, too," she pursued, in a musing tone. "Not a commanding person, like his wife, but so good and kind and attentive to poor folks like me. I never liked a man more than I did Mr. Pollard, and I have always thought that if he had had a different kind of mother for his children—but what is the use of criticising the poor woman now. She is dead and so is he, and the children will do very well now with all that money to back them in any caprice they may have."

"You seem to know them well," I remarked, fearful she would observe the emotion I could not quite keep out of my face.

"No," she returned, with an assumption of grimness, which was evidently meant for sarcasm, "not well. Every one knows the Pollards, but I never heard any one say they knew them well."

"Didn't Mr. Barrows?" I tremblingly inquired, anxious for her reply, yet fearful of connecting those two names.

"Not that I ever saw," she returned, showing no special interest in the question, or in the fact that it was seemingly of some importance to me.

"Didn't they use to come here to see him?" I proceeded, emboldened by her evident lack of perspicuity. "None of them?" I added, seeing her about to shake her head.

"Oh, Dwight or Guy would come here if they had any business with him," she allowed. "But that isn't intimacy; the Pollards are intimate with nobody."

She seemed to be rather proud of it, and as I did not see my way just then to acquire any further information, I sank with a weary air into a chair, turning the conversation as I did so upon other and totally irrelevant topics. But no topic was of much interest to her, that did not in some way involve Mr. Barrows; and after a few minutes of desultory chat, she pleaded the excuse of business and hurriedly left the room.

XVI. THE GREEN ENVELOPE

Sir, you shall understand what hath befall'n,
Which, as I think, you know not. Here is a letter.
—OTHELLO.

Her departure was a relief to me. First, because I had heard so much, I wanted an opportunity of digesting it; and, secondly, because of my interest in the engraving she had shown me, and the impatience I felt to study it more closely. I took it up the moment she closed the door.

It was the picture of a martyr, and had evidently been cut from some good-sized book. It represented a man clothed in a long white garment, standing with his back to the stake, and his hand held out to the flames, which were slowly consuming it. As a work of art, it was ordinary; as the illustration of some mighty fact, it was full of suggestion. I gazed at it for a long time, and then turned to the bookcase. Was the book from which it had been taken there? I eagerly hoped so. For, ignorant as I may seem to you, I did not know the picture or the incident it represented; and I was anxious to know both. For Mr. Barrows was not the man to disfigure a work of art by covering it with a coarse print like this unless he had a motive; and how could even a suspicion of that motive be mine, without a full knowledge of just what this picture implied?

But though I looked from end to end of the various shelves before me, I did not succeed in finding the volume from which this engraving had been taken. Large books were there in plenty, but none of the exact size of the print I held in my hand. I own I was disappointed, and turned away from the bookcase at last with a feeling of having been baffled on the verge of some very interesting discovery.

The theory advanced with so much assurance by Mrs. Simpson had not met with much credence on my part. I believed her facts, but not the conclusions she drew from them. Nothing she had related to me convinced me that Mr. Barrows was in any way insane; nor could I imagine for a moment that he could be so without the knowledge of Ada, if not of his associates and friends.

At the same time I was becoming more and more assured in my own mind that his death was the result of his own act, and, had it not been for the difficulty of imagining a reason for it, could have retired to rest that night with a feeling of real security in the justness of a conclusion that so exonerated the man I loved. As it was, that secret doubt still remained like a cloud over my hopes, a doubt which I had promised myself should be entirely removed before I allowed my partiality for Mr. Pollard to take upon itself the character of partisanship. I therefore continued my explorations through the room.

Mr. Barrows' desk presented to me the greatest attraction of any thing there; one that was entirely of the imagination, of course, since nothing could have induced me to open it, notwithstanding every key stood in its lock, and one of the drawers was pulled a little way out. Only the law had a right to violate his papers; and hard as it was to deny myself a search into what was possibly the truest exponent of his character, I resolutely did so, consoling myself with the thought that if any open explanation of his secret had been in these drawers, it would have been produced at the inquest.

As for his books, I felt no such scruples. But then, what could his books tell me? Nothing, save that he was a wide student and loved the delicate and imaginative in literature. Besides, I had glanced at many of the volumes, in my search after the one which had held the engraving. Yet I did pause a minute and run my eye along the shelves, vaguely conscious, perhaps, that often in the most out-of- the-way corners lurks the secret object for which we are so carefully seeking. But I saw nothing to detain me, and after one brief glance at a strong and spirited statuette that adorned the top shelf, I hurried on to a small table upon which I thought I saw a photographic album.

I was not mistaken; and it was with considerable interest I took it up and began to run over its pages in search for that picture of Ada which I felt ought to be there. And which was there; but which I scarcely looked at twice, so much was my attention attracted by an envelope that fell out from between the leaves as I turned them eagerly over. That envelope, with its simple direction, "Miss Ada Reynolds, Monroe Street, S——," made an era in my history. For I no sooner perceived it than I felt confident of having seen it or its like before; and presently, with almost the force of an electric shock, I recollected the letter which I had brought Ada the afternoon of the day she died, and which, as my startled conscience now told me, had not only never been given her, but had not been so much as seen by me since, though all her belongings had passed into my hands, and the table where I had flung it had been emptied of its contents more than once. That letter and this empty envelope were, in style, handwriting, and direction, facsimiles. It had, therefore, come from Mr. Barrows; a most significant fact, and one which I had no sooner realized than I was seized by the most intense excitement, and might have done some wild and foolish thing, had not the lateness of the hour restrained me, and kept my passionate hopes and fears within their proper bounds. As it was, I found myself obliged to take several turns up and down the room, and even to open the window for a breath of fresh air, before I could face the subject with any calmness, or ask myself what had become of this letter, with any hope of receiving a rational reply.

That in the startling and tragic events of that day it had been overlooked and forgotten, I did not wonder. But that it should have escaped my notice afterwards, or if mine, that of the landlady who took charge of the room in my absence, was what I could not understand. As far as I could remember, I left the letter lying in plain view on the table. Why, then, had not some one seen and produced it? Could it be that some one more interested than I knew had stolen it? Or was the landlady of my former home alone to blame for its being lost or mislaid?

Had it been daylight I should have at once gone down to my former boarding-place to inquire; but as it was ten o'clock at night, I could only satisfy my impatience by going carefully over the incidents of that memorable day, in the hope of rousing some memory which would lead to an elucidation of this new mystery. First, then, I distinctly recollected receiving the letter from the postman. I had met him at the foot of the steps as I came home from my unsuccessful search for employment, and he had handed me the letter, simply saying: "For Miss Reynolds." I scarcely looked at it, certainly gave it no thought, for we had been together but a week, and I had as yet taken no interest in her concerns. So mechanical, indeed, had been my whole action in the matter, that I doubt if the sight of Mr. Barrows' writing alone, even though it had been used in transcribing her name, would have served to recall the incident to my mind. But the shade of the envelope—it was of a peculiar greenish tint—gave that unconscious spur to the memory which was needed to bring back the very look of the writing which had been on the letter I had so carelessly handled; and I found, as others have found before me, that there is no real forgetfulness in this world; that the most superficial glance may serve to imprint images upon the mind, which only await time and occasion to reappear before us with startling distinctness.

My entrance into my own room, my finding it empty, and the consequent flinging of the letter down on the table, all came back to me with the utmost clearness; even the fact that the letter fell face downwards and that I did not stop to turn it over. But beyond that all was blank to me up to the moment when I found myself confronting Ada standing with her hand on her heart in that sudden spasm of pain which had been the too sure precursor of her rapidly approaching doom.

But wait! Where was I standing when I first became conscious of her presence in the room? Why, in the window, of course. I remembered now just how hot the afternoon sun looked to me as I stared at the white walls of the cottage over the way. And she—where was she?— between me and the table? Yes! She had, therefore, passed by the letter, and might have picked it up, might even have opened it, and read it before the spell of my revery was broken, and I turned to find her standing there before my eyes. Her pallor, the evident distress under which she was laboring, even the sudden pain which had attacked her heart, might thus be accounted for, and what I had always supposed to be a purely physical attack prove to be the result of a mental and moral shock. But, no. Had she opened and read the letter it would have been found there; or if not there, at least upon her person after death. Besides, her whole conduct between the moment I faced her and that of the alarm in the street below precluded the idea that any thing of importance to her and her love had occurred to break her faith in the future and the man to whose care she was pledged. Could I not remember the happy smile which accompanied her offer of assistance and home to me? And was there any thing but hope and trust in the tone with which she had designated her lover as being the best and noblest man in town? No; if she had read his communication and afterwards disposed of it in some way I did not observe, then it was not of the nature I suspected; but an ordinary letter, similar in character to others she had received, foretelling nothing, and only valuable in the elucidation of the mystery before me from the fact of its offering proof presumptive that he did not anticipate death, or at all events did not meditate it.

An important enough fact to establish, certainly; but it was not the fact in which I had come to believe, and so I found it difficult to give it a place in my mind, or even to entertain the possibility of Ada's having seen the letter at all. I preferred rather to indulge in all sorts of wild conjectures, having the landlady, the servant, even Dr. Farnham, at their base; and it was not till I was visited by some mad thought of Rhoda Colwell's possible connivance in the disappearance of this important bit of evidence, that I realized the enormity of my selfish folly, and endeavored to put an end to its further indulgence by preparing stoically for bed.

But sleep, which would have been so welcome, did not come; and after a long and weary night, I arose in any thing but a refreshed state, to meet the exigencies of what might possibly prove to be a most important day.

The first thing to be done was undoubtedly to visit my old home and interview its landlady. If nothing came of that, to hunt up the nurse, Mrs. Gannon, whom, as you will remember, I had left in charge of my poor Ada's remains when sudden duty in the shape of Dr. Farnham carried me away to the bedside of Mrs. Pollard; and if this also came to naught, to burst the bonds of secrecy which I had maintained, and by taking this same Dr. Farnham into my confidence obtain at least an adviser who would relieve me, if only partially, from the weight of responsibility, which I now felt to be pressing rather too heavily upon my strength.

But though I carried out this programme as far as seeking for and procuring an interview with Mrs. Gannon at her place of nursing, I did not succeed in obtaining the least clew to the fate of this mysteriously lost letter. Neither of the women mentioned had seen it, nor was it really believed by them to have been on the table when they arranged the room after my Ada's peaceful death. Yet even to this they could not swear, nor would the landlady admit but that it might still have been lying there when they came to carry Ada away, though she would say that it could not have been anywhere in view the next day, for she had thoroughly cleaned and tidied up the room herself, and as in doing this she had been obliged to shift every article off the table on to the bed and back again, she must not only have seen, but handled the letter twice; and this she was morally certain she did not do.

I was therefore in as great perplexity as ever, and was seriously meditating a visit to Dr. Farnham, when I bethought me of making one final experiment before resorting to this last and not altogether welcome alternative.

This was to examine every thing which had been on the table, in the hope of discovering in some out-of-the-way receptacle the missing letter for which I had such need. To be sure it was an effort that promised little, there having been but few articles on the table capable of concealing even such a small object as this I was in search of; but when one is at their wits' ends, they do not stop to discuss probabilities, or even to weigh in too nice a scale the prospect of success.

Recalling, therefore, just what had been on the table, I went to the trunk in which these articles were packed, and laid them out one by one on the floor. They were as follows: A work-basket of Ada's; a box of writing-paper; a copy of Harper's Magazine; an atlas; and two volumes of poetry, one belonging to Ada and one to me.

A single glance into the work-basket was sufficient, also into the box of stationery. But the atlas was well shaken, and the magazine carefully looked through, before I decided it was not in them. As for the two books of poetry, I disdained them so completely, I was about to toss them back unopened, when there came upon me a disposition to be thorough, and I looked at them both, only to find snugly ensconced in my own little copy of Mrs. Browning the long-sought and despaired-of letter, with its tell-tale green envelope unbroken, and its contents, in so far as I could see, unviolated and undisturbed.

XVII. DAVID BARROWS

"I have lived long enough."
—MACBETH.

Before I proceeded to open this letter, I reasoned some time with myself. The will by which I had come into possession of Ada's effects was, as I knew, informal and possibly illegal. But it was the expression of her wishes, and there had been no one to dispute them or question my right to the inheritance she had so innocently bequeathed me. At the same time I felt a hesitation about opening this letter, as I had about using her money; and it was not till I remembered the trust she had reposed in me, and the promise I had given her to support Mr. Barrows' good name before the world, that I summoned up sufficient determination to break its seal. My duty once clear to me, however, I no longer hesitated. This is the result:

September 23d.—Evening.

My Beloved Ada:—Could I by any means mitigate the blow which I am forced to deal you, believe me it should be done. But no words can prepare you for the terrible fact I am about to reveal, and I think from what I know of you, and of your delicate but strong soul, that in a matter of life and death like this the most direct language is what you would choose me to employ.

Know then, dearest of all women, that a duty I dare not fly from condemns me to death; that the love we have cherished, the hopes in which we have indulged, can have no fulfilment in this world, but must be yielded as a sacrifice to the inexorable claim of conscience and that ideal of right which has been mine since I took upon myself the lofty vocation of a Christian minister.

You, my people, my own self even, have thought me an honest man. God knows I meant to be, even to the point of requiring nothing from others I was not willing to give myself. But our best friends do not know us; we do not know ourselves. When the hour of trial came, and a sudden call was made upon my faith and honor, I failed to sustain myself, failed ignominiously, showing myself to be no stronger than the weakest of my flock—ay, than the child that flies before a shadow because it is black, and he does not or will not see that it is his father's form that casts it.

Such lapses on the part of men professing to lead others demand heavy penalties. I feared to lose my life, therefore my life must go. Nothing short of this would reinstate me in my own eyes, or give to my repentance that stern and absolute quality which the nature of my sin imperatively demands.

That I must involve you in my sorrow and destruction is the bitterest drop in my cup. But dainty and flower-like as you are, you have a great nature, and would not hold me back from an act necessary to the welfare and honor of my eternal soul. I see you rather urging me on, giving me your last kiss, and smiling upon me with your own inspiring smile. So sure am I of this, that I can bear not to see you again; bear to walk for the last time by your house, leaving only my blessing in the air. For it is a part of my doom that I may not see you; since, were I to find myself in your presence, I could scarcely forbear telling you whither I was going, and that no man must know till all has been accomplished.

I go, then, without other farewell than these poor words can give you. Be strong, and bear my loss as many a noble woman before you has borne the wreck of all her hopes. When I am found—as some day I shall be—tell my people I died in the Christian faith, and for the simple reason that my honor as a man and a minister demanded it. If they love me they will take my word for it; but if questions should arise, and a fuller knowledge of my fate and the reasons which led me to such an act should in your judgment seem to be required, then go to my desk, and, in a secret drawer let into the back, you will find a detailed confession which will answer every inquiry and set straight any false or unworthy suspicions that may arise.

But heed these words and mark them well: Till such a need should arise, the manuscript is to be kept inviolate even from you; and no matter what the seeming need, or by what love or anxiety you may be driven, touch not that desk nor drawer till ten days have elapsed, or I shall think you love my body more than me, and the enjoyment of temporal comfort to the eternal weight of glory which is laid up for those who hold out steadfast to the end.

And now, my dear, my dear, with all the affection of my poor, weak, erring heart, I hold out arms of love towards you. Farewell for a short space. When we meet again may it be on equal terms once more, the heavy sin blotted out, the grievous wrong expiated.

Till then, God bless you.

DAVID.

Do not wonder at my revealing nothing of this in our late interviews. You were so happy, I dared not drop a shadow one day sooner than was necessary into your young life. Besides, my struggle was dark and secret, and could brook no eye upon it save that of the eternal God.

XVIII. A LAST REQUEST

'T is she
That tempers him to this extremity.
—Richard III.

The night had fallen. I was in a strange and awe-struck mood. The manuscript, which after some difficulty I had succeeded in finding, lay before, me unopened. A feeling as of an invisible presence was in the air. I hesitated to turn the page, written, as I already felt, with the life-blood of the man in whose mysterious doom the happiness of my own life had become entangled.

Waiting for courage, I glanced mechanically about the room. How strangely I had been led in this affair! How from the first I seemed to have been picked out and appointed for the solving of this mystery, till now I sat in the very room, at the very desk, in front of the very words, of its victim. I thought of Dwight Pollard struggling with his fate, and unconscious that in a few minutes the secret of Mr. Barrows' death would be known; of Rhoda Colwell, confident of her revenge and blind to the fact that I held in my hand what might possibly blunt her sharpest weapon, and make her most vindictive effort useless. Then each and every consideration of a purely personal nature vanished, and I thought only of the grand and tortured soul of him upon whose solemn and awesome history I was about to enter. Was it, as his letter seemed to imply, a martyr's story? I looked at the engraving of Cranmer, which had been a puzzle to me a few days before, and understanding it now, gathered fortitude by what it seemed to suggest, and hastily unrolled the manuscript.

This is what I read:

"He that would save his life shall lose it."

In order that the following tale of sin and its expiation may be understood, I must give a few words to the motives and hopes under which I entered the ministry.

I am a believer in the sacred character of my profession, and the absolute and unqualified devotion of those embracing it to the aims and purposes of the Christian religion. Though converted, as it is called, in my sixteenth year, I cannot remember the time my pulse did not beat with appreciation for those noble souls who had sacrificed every joy and comfort of this temporal life for the sake of their faith and the glory of God. I delighted in Fox's "Book of Martyrs," and while I shuddered over its pages in a horror I did not wholly understand, I read them again and again, till there was not a saint whose life I did not know by heart, with just the death he died and the pangs he experienced. Such a mania did this become with me at one time, that I grew visibly ill, and had to have the book taken away from me and more cheerful reading substituted in its stead.

Feeling thus strongly in childhood, when half, if not all, my interest sprang from the fascination which horrors have upon the impressible mind, what were my emotions and longings when the real meaning of the Christian life was revealed to me, and I saw in this steadfastness of the spirit unto death the triumph of the immortal soul over the weaknesses of the flesh and the terrors of a purely transitory suffering!

That the days for such display of firmness in the fiery furnace were over was almost a matter of regret to me in the first flush of my enthusiasm for the cause I had espoused. I wished so profoundly to show my love, and found all modern ways so tame in comparison to those which demanded the yielding up of one's very blood and life. Poor fool! did I never think that those who are the bravest in imagination fail often the most lamentably when brought face to face with the doom they have invoked.

I have never been a robust man, and consequently have never entered much into those sports and exercises incident to youth and early manhood that show a man of what stuff he is made. I have lived in my books till I came to S——, since which I have tried to live in the joys and sorrows of my fellow-beings.

The great rule of Christian living has seemed to me imperative. Love your neighbor as yourself, or, as I have always interpreted it, more than yourself. For a man, then, to sacrifice that neighbor to save himself from physical or mental distress, has always seemed to me not only the height of cowardice, but a direct denial of those truths upon which are founded the Christian's ultimate hope. As a man myself, I despise with my whole heart such weaklings; as a Christian minister I denounce them. Nothing can excuse a soul for wavering in its duty because that duty is hard. It is the hard things we should take delight in facing; otherwise we are babes and not men, and our faith a matter of expediency, and not that stern and immovable belief in God and His purposes which can alone please Deity and bring us into that immediate communion with His spirit which it should be the end and aim of every human soul to enjoy.

Such are my principles. Let us see how I have illustrated them in the events of the last six weeks.

On the sixteenth of August, five weeks ago to-day, I was called to the bedside of Samuel Pollard. He had been long sinking with an incurable disease, and now the end was at hand and my Christian offices required. I was in the full tide of sermon-writing when the summons came, and I hesitated at first whether to follow the messenger at once or wait till the daylight had quite disappeared, and with it my desire to place on paper the thoughts that were inspiring me with more than ordinary fervor.

But a question to my own heart decided me. Not my sermon, but the secret disinclination I always felt to enter this special family, was what in reality held me back; and this was a reason which, as you will have seen from the words I have already written, I could not countenance. I accordingly signified to the messenger that I would be with Mr. Pollard in a few moments, and putting away my papers, prepared to leave the room.

There, is a saying in the Bible to the effect that no man liveth to himself, nor dieth to himself. If in the course of this narrative I seem to show little consideration for the secrets of others, let this be at once my explanation and excuse: That only in the cause of truth do I speak at all; and that in holding up before you the follies and wrong-doings of persons you know, I subject them to no heavier penalty than that which I have incurred through my own sin. I shall therefore neither gloss over nor suppress any fact bearing upon a full explanation of my fate; and when I say I hesitated to go to Mr. Pollard because of my inherent dislike to enter his house, I will proceed to give as my reason for this dislike, my unconquerable distrust of his wife, who, if a fine-looking and capable woman, is certainly one to be feared by every candid and truth-loving nature.

But, as I said before, I did not yield to the impulse I had within me to stay; and, merely stopping to cast a parting glance about my room—why, I do not know, for I could have had no premonition of the fact that I was bidding good-by to the old life of hope and peace forever—I hastened after the messenger whom I had sent on before me to Mr. Pollard's home.

Small occurrences sometimes make great impressions on the mind. As I was turning the corner at Halsey Street, the idiot boy Colwell came rushing by, and almost fell into my arms. I started back, shuddering, as if some calamity had befallen me. An invincible repugnance to any thing deformed or half-witted has always been one of my weaknesses, and for him to have touched me—I hate myself as I write it, but I cannot think of it now without a chill in my veins and an almost unbearable feeling of physical contamination. Yet as I would be as just to myself as I hope to be to others, I did not let this incident pass, without a struggle to conquer my lower nature. Standing still, I called the boy back, and deliberately, and with a reverential thought of the Christ, I laid my hand on his arm, and, stooping, kissed him. It cost me much, but I could never have passed that corner without doing it; nor were I to live years on this earth, instead of a few short days, should I ever let another week go by without forcing my body into some such contact with what nature has afflicted and man contemned.

The pallor which I therefore undoubtedly showed upon entering Mr. Pollard's room was owing to the memory of this incident rather than to any effect which the sight of the dying man had upon me. But before I had been many minutes in the room, I found my pulse thrilling with new excitement and my manhood roused to repel a fresh influence more dangerous, if less repulsive, than the last.

Let me see if I can make it plain to you. Mr. Pollard, whom we have all known as an excellent but somewhat weak man, lay with his face turned towards the room, and his gaze fixed with what I felt to be more than the common anxiety of the dying upon mine. At his side sat his wife, cold, formidable, alert, her hand on his hand, her eye on his eye, and all her icy and implacable will set, as I could plainly see, between him and any comfort or encouragement I might endeavor to impart. She even allowed her large and commanding figure to usurp the place usually accorded me on such occasions, and when, after a futile effort or so on my part to break down the barrier of restraint that such a presence necessarily imposed, I arose from my seat at the foot of the bed, and, approaching closer, would have leaned over her husband, she put out her other hand and imperatively waved me aside, remarking:

"The doctor says he must have air."

There are some persons whose looks and words are strangely controlling. Mrs. Pollard is one of these, and I naturally drew back. But a glance at Mr. Pollard's face made me question if I was doing right in this. Such disappointment, such despair even, I had seldom seen expressed in a look; and convinced that he had something of real purport to say to me, I turned towards his wife, and resolutely remarked:

"The dying frequently have communications to make to which only their pastor's ear is welcome. Will you excuse me, then, if I request a moment's solitude with Mr. Pollard, that I may find out if his soul is at rest before I raise my prayers in its behalf?"

But, before I had finished, I saw that any such appeal would be unavailing. If her immovable expression had not given me this assurance, the hopeless closing of his weak and fading eyes would have sufficiently betrayed the fact.

"I cannot leave Mr. Pollard," were the words with which she tempered her refusal. "If he has any communication to make, let him make it in my presence. I am his wife." And her hand pressed more firmly upon his, and her eyes, which had not stirred from his face even when I addressed her, assumed a dark, if not threatening look, which gradually forced his to open and meet them.

I felt that something must be done.

"Mr. Pollard," said I, "is there any thing you wish to impart to me before you die? If so, speak up freely and with confidence, for I am here to do a friend and a pastor's duty by you, even to the point of fulfilling any request you may have to make, so it be only actuated by right feeling and judgment." And determinedly ignoring her quick move of astonishment, I pressed forward and bent above him, striving with what I felt to be a purely righteous motive, to attract his glance from hers, which was slowly withering him away as if it were a basilisk's.

And I succeeded. After an effort that brought the sweat out on his brow, he turned his look on mine, and, gathering strength from my expression, probably, gave me one eager and appealing glance, and thrust his left hand under his pillow.

His wife, who saw every thing, leaned forward with an uneasy gesture.

"What have you there?" she asked.

But he had already drawn forth a little book and placed it in my hand.

"Only my old prayer-book," he faltered. "I felt as if I should like
Mr. Barrows to have it."

She gave him an incredulous stare, and allowed her glance to follow the book. I immediately put it in my pocket.

"I shall take a great deal of pleasure in possessing it," I remarked.

"Read it," he murmured; "read it carefully." And a tone of relief was in his voice that seemed to alarm her greatly; for she half rose to her feet and made a gesture to some one I did not see, after which she bent again towards the dying man and whispered in his ear.

But, though her manner had all its wonted force, and her words, whatever they were, were lacking in neither earnestness nor purpose, he did not seem to be affected by them. For the first time in his life, perhaps, he rose superior to that insidious influence, and, nerved by the near approach of death, kept his gaze fixed on mine, and finally stammered:

"Will you do some thing else for me?"

"I will," I began, and might have said more, but he turned from me and with sudden energy addressed his wife.

"Margaret," said he, "bring me my desk."

Had a thunderbolt fallen at her feet, she could not have looked more astonished. I myself was somewhat surprised; I had never heard that tone from him before.

"My desk!" he cried again; "I want it here."

At this repetition of his request, uttered this time with all the vehemence of despair. Mrs. Pollard moved, though she did not rise. At the same moment a quick, soft step was heard, and through the gloom of the now rapidly darkening chamber I saw their younger son draw near and take his stand at the foot of the bed.

"I have but a few minutes," murmured the sick man. "Will you refuse to make them comfortable, Margaret?"

"No, no," she answered hastily, guided as I could not but see by an almost imperceptible movement of her son's hand; and rising with a great show of compliance, she proceeded to the other end of the room. I at once took her place by the side of his pillow.

"Is there no word of comfort I can give you?" said I, anxious for the soul thus tortured by earthly anxieties on the very brink of the grave.

But his mind, filled with one thought, refused to entertain any other.

"Pray God that my strength hold out," he whispered. "I have an act of reparation to make." Then, as his son made a move as if to advance, he caught my hand in his, and drew my ear down to his mouth. "The book," he gasped; "keep it safely—they may try to take it away—don't—"

But here his son intervened with some word of warning; and Mrs. Pollard, hurriedly approaching, laid the desk on the bed in such a way that I was compelled to draw back.

But this did not seem to awaken in him any special distress. From the instant his eyes fell upon the desk, a feverish strength seemed to seize him, and looking up at me with something of his old brightness of look and manner, he asked to have it opened and its contents taken out.

Naturally embarrassed at such a request, I turned to Mrs. Pollard.

"It seems a strange thing for me to do," I began; but a lightning glance had already passed between her and her son, and with the cold and haughty dignity for which she is remarkable, she calmly stopped me with a quiet wave of her hand.

"The whims of the dying must be respected," she remarked, and reseated herself in her old place at his side.

I at once proceeded to empty the desk. It contained mainly letters, and one legal-looking document, which I took to be his will. As I lifted this out, I saw mother and son both cast him a quick glance, as if they expected some move on his part. But though his hands trembled somewhat, he made no special sign of wishing to see or touch it, and at once I detected on their faces a look of surprise that soon took on the character of dismay, as with the lifting of the last paper from the desk he violently exclaimed:

"Now break in the bottom and take out the paper you will find there. It is my last will and testament, and by every sacred right you hold in this world, I charge you to carry it to Mr. Nicholls, and see that no man nor woman touches it till you give it into his hands."

"His will!" echoed Mrs. Pollard, astonished.

"He don't know what he says. This is his will," she was probably going to assert, for her hand was pointing to the legal-looking document I have before mentioned; but a gesture from her son made her stop before the last word was uttered. "He must be wandering in his mind," she declared. "We know of no will hidden away in his desk. Ah!"

The last exclamation was called forth by the sudden slipping into view of a folded paper from between the crevices of the desk. I had found the secret spring. The next instant the bottom fell out, and the paper slipped to the floor. I was quick to recover it. Had I not been, Mrs. Pollard would have had it in her grasp. As it was, our hands met, not without a shock, I fear, on either side. A gasp of intense suspense came from the bed.

"Keep it," the dying eyes seemed to say; and if mine spoke as plainly as his did, they answered with full as much meaning and force:

"I will."

Guy Pollard and his mother looked at each other, then at the pocket into which I had already thrust the paper. The dying man followed their glances, and with a final exertion of strength, raised himself on his elbow.

"My curse on him or her who seeks to step between me and the late reparation I have sought to make. Weaker than most men, I have submitted to your will, Margaret, up to this hour, but your reign is over at last, and—and—" The passionate words died away, the feverish energy succumbed, and with one last look into my face, Samuel Pollard fell back upon his pillow, dead.

XIX. A FATAL DELAY

Would'st thou have that
Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life,
And live a coward in thine own esteem,
Letting "I dare not," wait upon "I would,"
Like the poor cat i' the adage?
—MACBETH.

He was to all appearance immediately forgotten. As with mutual consent we all turned and faced each other, Mrs. Pollard with a stern, inexorable look in her dark eye, which, while it held me enchained, caused me to involuntarily lay my hand upon the document which I had hidden in my breast She noticed the movement, and smiled darkly with a sidelong look at her son. The smile and the look affected me strangely. In them I seemed to detect something deeper than hatred and baffled rage, and when in a moment later her son responded to her glance by quietly withdrawing from the room, I felt such revolt against their secrecy that for a moment I was tempted to abandon an undertaking that promised to bring me in conflict with passions of so deep and unrelenting a nature.

But the impression which the pain and despair of my dead friend had made upon me was as yet too recent for me to yield to my first momentary apprehensions; and summoning up what resolution I possessed, I took my leave of Mrs. Pollard, and was hastening towards the door, when her voice, rising cold and clear, arrested me.

"You think, then, that it is your duty to carry this paper from the house, Mr. Barrows?"

"Yes, madam, I do," was my short reply.

"In spite of my protest and that of my son?"

"Yes, madam."

"Then upon your head be the consequences!" she exclaimed, and turned her back upon me with a look which went with me as I closed the door between us; lending a gloom to the unlighted halls and sombre staircases that affected me almost with an impulse of fear.

I dreaded crossing to where the stairs descended; I dreaded going down them into the darkness which I saw below. Not that I anticipated actual harm, but that I felt I was in the house of those who longed to see me the victim of it; and my imagination being more than usually alert, I even found myself fancying the secret triumph with which Guy Pollard would hail an incautious slip on my part, that would precipitate me from the top to the bottom of this treacherous staircase. That he was somewhere between me and the front door, I felt certain. The deadly quiet behind and before me seemed to assure me of this; and, ashamed as I was of the impulse that moved me, I could not prevent myself from stepping cautiously as I prepared to descend, saying as some sort of excuse to myself: "He is capable of seeing me trip without assistance," and as my imagination continued its work: "He is even capable of putting out his foot to help forward such a catastrophe."

And, indeed, I now think that if this simple plan had presented itself to his subtle mind, of stunning, if not disabling me, and thus making it possible for them to obtain his father's will without an open assault, he would not have hesitated to embrace it. But he evidently did not calculate, as I did, the chances of such an act, or perhaps he felt that I was likely to be too much upon my guard to fall a victim to this expedient, for I met no one as I advanced, and was well down the stairs and on my way to the front door, before I perceived any signs of life in the sombre house. Then a sudden glare of light across my path betrayed the fact that a door had been swung wide in a certain short passage that opened ahead of me; and while I involuntarily stopped, a shadow creeping along the further wall of that passage warned me that some one—I could not doubt it to be Guy Pollard—had come out to meet me.

The profound stillness, and the sudden pause which the shadow made as I inconsiderately stumbled in my hesitation, assured me that I was right in attributing a sinister motive to this encounter. Naturally, therefore, I drew back, keeping my eyes upon the shadow. It did not move. Convinced now that danger of some kind lay ahead of me, I looked behind and about me for some means of escaping from the house without passing by my half-seen enemy. But none presented themselves. Either I must slink away into the kitchen region—a proceeding from which my whole manhood revolted,—or I must advance and face whatever evil awaited me. Desperation drove me to the latter course. Making one bound, I stood before that lighted passage. A slim, firm figure confronted me; but it was not that of Guy, but of his older brother, Dwight.

The surprise of the shock, together with a certain revelation which came to me at the same moment, and of which I will speak hereafter, greatly unnerved me. I had not been thinking of Dwight Pollard. Strange as it may seem, I had not even missed him from the bedside of his father. To see him, then, here and now, caused many thoughts to spring into my mind, foremost among which was the important one as to whether he was of a nature to lend himself to any scheme of violence. The quickness with which I decided to the contrary proved to me in what different estimation I had always held him from what I had his mother and brother.

It was consequently no surprise to me when he leaned forward and spoke to me with consideration and force. I was only surprised at a his words:

"Don't stop, Mr. Barrows," said he. "Go home at once; only"—and here he paused, listened, then proceeded with increased emphasis, "don't go by the way of Orchard Street." And without waiting for my reply, he stepped back and noiselessly regained the apartment he had left, while I, in a confusion of emotions difficult to analyze at the moment, hastily accepted his advice, and withdrew from the house.

The relief of breathing the fresh air again was indescribable. If I had not escaped the miasma and oppression of a prison, I certainly had left behind me influences of darkness and sinister suggestion, which, in the light of the calm moonbeams that I found flooding the world without, had the effect upon me of a vanished horror. Only I was still haunted by that last phrase which I had heard uttered, "Don't go by the way of Orchard Street," an injunction which simply meant, "Don't go with that document to the lawyer's to-night."

Now was this order, given as it was by Dwight Pollard, one of warning or of simple threat? My good-will toward this especial member of the Pollard family inclined me to think it the former.

There was danger, then, lurking for me somewhere on the road to Mr. Nicholls' house. Was it my duty to encounter this danger? It appeared to me not, especially as it was not necessary for me to acquit myself so instantly of the commission with which I had been intrusted. I accordingly proceeded directly home.

But once again in my familiar study, I became conscious of a strong dissatisfaction with myself. Indeed, I may speak more forcibly and say I was conscious of a loss of trust in my own manhood, which was at once so new and startling that it was as if a line had been drawn between my past and present. This was due to the discovery I had made at the moment I had confronted Dwight Pollard—a discovery so humiliating in its character that it had shaken me, body and soul. I had found in the light of that critical instant that I, David Barrows, was a coward! Yes, gloss it over as I would, the knowledge was deep in my mind that I lacked manhood's most virile attribute; that peril, real or imaginary, could awaken in me fear; and that the paling cheek and trembling limbs of which I had been so bitterly conscious at that instant were but the outward signs of a weakness that extended deep down into my soul.

It was a revelation calculated to stagger any man, how much more, then, one who had so relied upon his moral powers as to take upon himself the sacred name of minister. But this was not all. I had not only found myself to be a coward, but I had shown myself such to another's eyes. By the searching look which Dwight Pollard had given me before he spoke, and the quiet, half-disdainful curve which his lips took at the close of his scrutiny, I was convinced that he saw the defect in my nature, and despised me for it, even while he condescended to offer me the protection which my fears seemed to demand. Or—the thought could come now that I was at home, and had escaped the dangers lying in wait for me on the road to my duty—he had made use of my weakness to gain his own ends. The carrying of that document to Mr. Nicholls meant loss of property to them all perhaps, and he had but taken means, consistent with his character, to insure the delay which his brother had possibly planned to gain in some more reprehensible manner. And I had yielded to my fears and let his will have its way. I hated myself as I considered my own weakness. I could find no excuse either for my pusillanimity or for that procrastination of my duty into which it had betrayed me. I found I could not face my own scorn; and, rising from my study-chair, I took my hat and went out. I had determined to make amends for my fault by going at once to Orchard Street.

And I did; but alas! for the result! The half-hour I had lost was fatal. To be sure I met with no adventure on my way, but I found Mr. Nicholls out. He had been summoned by a telegram to Boston, and had been absent from the house only fifteen minutes. I meditated following him to the station, but the whistle sounded just as I turned away from his door, and I knew I should be too late. Humiliated still further in my own estimation, I went home to wait with what patience I could for the two or three days which must elapse before his return.

Before I went to bed that night I opened the book which Mr. Pollard had given me, in the expectation of finding a letter in it, or, at least, some writing on the title-page or the blank pages of the book. But I was disappointed in both regards. With the exception of some minute pencil-marks scattered here and there along the text—indications, doubtless, of favorite passages—I perceived nothing in the volume to account for the extreme earnestness with which he had presented it.

XX. THE OLD MILL

Whither wilt thou lead me? speak; I'll go no farther.
—HAMLET.

I did not sleep well that night, but this did not prevent me from beginning work early in the morning. The sermon I had been interrupted in the afternoon before, had to be completed that day; and I was hard at work upon it when there came a knock at my study-door. I arose with any thing but alacrity and opened it. Dwight Pollard stood before me.

It was a surprise that called up a flush to my cheeks; but daylight was shining upon this interview, and I knew none of those sensations which had unnerved me the night before. I was simply on my guard, and saw him seat himself in my own chair, without any other feeling than that of curiosity as to the nature of his errand. He likewise was extremely self-possessed, and looked at me calmly for some instants before speaking.

"Last night," he began, "you refused a request which my mother made of you."

I bowed.

"It was a mistake," he continued. "The paper which my father gave you cannot be one which he in his right senses would wish seen by the public. You should have trusted my mother, who knew my father much better than you did."

"It was not a matter of trust," I protest. "A document had been given me by I a dying man, with an injunction to put it into certain hands. I had no choice but to fulfil his wishes in this regard. Your mother herself would have despised me if I had yielded to her importunities and left it behind me."

"My mother," he commenced.

"Your mother is your mother," I put in. "Let us have respect for her widowhood, and leave her out of this conversation."

He looked at me closely, and I understood his glance.

"I cannot return you your father's will," I declared, firmly.

He held my glance with his.

"Have you it still?" he asked.

"I cannot return it to you," I repeated.

He arose and approached me courteously. "You are doing what you consider to be your duty," said he. "In other words than my mother used, I simply add, on our heads must be the consequences." And his grave look, at once half-sad and half-determined, impressed me for the first time with a certain sort of sympathy for this unhappy family. "And this leads me to the purpose of my call," he proceeded, deferentially. "I am here at my mothers wish, and I bring you her apologies. Though you have done and are doing wrong by your persistence in carrying out my poor father's wishes to the detriment of his memory, my mother regrets that she spoke to you in the manner she did, and hopes you will not allow it to stand in the way of your conducting the funeral services."

"Mr. Pollard," I replied, "your father was my friend, and to no other man could I delegate the privilege of uttering prayers over his remains. But I would not be frank to you nor true to myself if I did not add that it will take more than an apology from your mother to convince me that she wishes me well, or is, indeed, any thing but the enemy her looks proclaimed her to be last night."

"I am sorry——" he began, but meeting my eye, stopped. "You possess a moral courage which I envy you," he declared. And waiving the subject of his mother, he proceeded to inform me concerning the funeral and the arrangements which had been made.

I listened calmly. In the presence of this man I felt strong. Though he knew the secret of my weakness, and possibly despised me for it, he also knew what indeed he had just acknowledged, that in some respects I was on a par with him.

The arrangements were soon made, and he took his leave without any further allusion to personal matters. But I noticed that at the door he stopped and cast a look of inquiry around the room. It disconcerted me somewhat; and while I found it difficult to express to myself the nature of the apprehensions which it caused, I inwardly resolved to rid myself as soon as possible of the responsibility of holding Mr. Pollard's will. If Mr. Nicholls did not return by the day of the funeral, I would go myself to Boston and find him.

No occurrence worth mentioning followed this interview with Dwight Pollard. I conducted the services as I had promised, but found nothing to relate concerning them, save the fact that Mrs. Pollard was not present. She had been very much prostrated by her husband's death, and was not able to leave her room, or so it was said. I mistrusted the truth of this, however, but must acknowledge I was glad to be relieved of a presence not only so obnoxious to myself, but so out of tune with the occasion. I could ignore Guy, subtle and secret as he was, but this woman could not be ignored. Where she was, there brooded something dark, mysterious, and threatening; and whether she smiled or frowned, the influence of her spirit was felt by a vague oppression at once impossible to analyze or escape from.

From the cemetery I went immediately to my house. The day was a dreary one, and I felt, chilled. The gray of the sky was in my spirit, and every thing seemed unreal and dark and strange. I was in a mood, I suppose, and, unlike myself on other similar occasions, did not feel that drawing towards the one dear heart which hitherto had afforded me solace and support. I had not got used to my new self as yet, and till I did, the smile of her I loved was more of a reproach to me than consolation.

I was stopped at the gate by Mrs. Banks. She is my next-door neighbor, and in the absence of my landlady who had gone to visit some friends, took charge of any message which might be left for me while I was out. She looked flurried and mysterious.

"You have had a visitor," she announced.

As she paused and looked as if she expected to be questioned, I naturally asked who it was.

"She said she was your sister," she declared. "A tall woman with a thick veil over her face. She went right up to your study, but I think she must have got tired of waiting, for she went away again a few moments ago."

My sister! I had no sister. I looked at Mrs. Banks in amazement

"Describe her more particularly," said I.

"That I cannot do," she returned. "Her veil hid her features too completely for me to see them. I could not even tell her age, but I should say, from the way she walked that she was older than you."

A chill, which did not come entirely from the east wind then blowing, ran sharply through my veins.

"I thank you," said I, somewhat incoherently, and ran hastily upstairs. I had a presentiment as to the identity of this woman.

At the door of my study I paused and looked hurriedly around. No signs of any disturbance met my eye. Crossing over to my desk, I surveyed the papers which I had left scattered somewhat loosely over it. They had been moved. I knew it by the position of the blotter, which I had left under a certain sheet of paper, and which now lay on top. Hot and cold at once, I went immediately to the spot where I had concealed Mr. Pollard's will. It was in my desk, but underneath a drawer instead of in it, and by this simple precaution, perhaps, I had saved it from destruction; for I found it lying in its place undisturbed, though the hand which had crept so near its hiding-place was, as I felt certain, no other than that of Mrs. Pollard, searching for this very document.

It gave me a shuddering sense of disquiet to think that the veiled figure of this portentous woman had glided over my floors, reflected itself in my mirrors, and hung, dark and mysterious in its veiling drapery, over my desk and the papers which I had handled myself so lately.

I was struck, too, by the immovable determination to compass her own ends at any and every risk, which was manifested by this incident; and, wondering more and more as to what had been the nature of the offence for which Mr. Pollard sought to make reparation in his will, I only waited for a moment of leisure in order to make another effort at enlightenment by a second study of the prayer-book which my dying friend had placed so earnestly in my hands.

It came, as I supposed, about eight o'clock that evening. The special duties of the day were done, and I knew of nothing else that demanded my attention. I therefore took the book from my pocket, where I had fortunately kept it, and was on the point of opening its pages, when there came a ring at the door-bell below.

As I have said before, my landlady was away. I consequently went to the door myself, where I was met by an unexpected visitor in the shape of the idiot boy, Colwell. Somewhat disconcerted at the sight of a face so repugnant to me, I was still more thrown off my balance when I heard his errand. He had been sent, he said, by a man who had been thrown from his wagon on the north road, and was now lying in a dying condition inside the old mill, before which he was picked up. Would I come and see him? He had but an hour or so to live, and wished very much for a clergyman's consolation.

It was a call any thing but agreeable to me. I was tired; I was interested in the attempt which I was about to make to solve a mystery that was not altogether disconnected with my own personal welfare, and—let me acknowledge it, since events have proved I had reason to fear this spot—I did not like the old mill. But I was far from conceiving what a wretched experience lay before me, nor did the fact that the unwelcome request came through the medium of an imbecile arouse any suspicion in my mind as to the truth of the message he brought. For, foolish as he is in some regards, his reliability as an errand-boy is universally known, while his partiality for roaming, as well as for excitements of all kinds, fully accounted for the fact of his being upon the scene of accident.

I had, then, nothing but my own disinclinations to contend with, and these, strong as they were, could not, at that time, and in the mood which my late experience had induced, long stand in the way of a duty so apparent.

I consequently testified my willingness to go to the mill, and in a few minutes later set out for that spot with a mind comparatively free from disagreeable forebodings. But as we approached the mill, and I caught a glimpse of its frowning walls glooming so darkly from out the cluster of trees that environed them, I own that a sensation akin to that which had been awakened in me by Mrs. Pollard's threats, and the portentous darkness of her sombre mansion, once again swept with its chilling effect over my nerves.

Shocked, disgusted with myself at the recurrence of a weakness for which I had so little sympathy, I crushed down the feelings I experienced, and advanced at once to the door. A tall and slim figure met me, clothed in some dark enveloping garment, and carrying a lantern.

"The injured man is within," said he.

Something in the voice made me look up. His face was entirely in shadow.

"Who are you?" I asked.

He did not reply.

"Let us go in," he said.

A week before I would have refused to do this without knowing more of my man. But the shame from which I had suffered for the last few days had made me so distrustful of myself that I was ready to impute to cowardice even the most ordinary instinct of self-preservation.

I accordingly followed the man, though with each step that I took I felt my apprehensions increase. To pierce in this manner a depth of sombre darkness, with only the dim outline of an unknown man moving silently before me, was any thing but encouraging in itself. Then the way was too long, and the spot we sought too far from the door. A really injured man would not be carried beyond the first room, I thought, and we had already taken steps enough to be half-way through the building. At last I felt that even cowardice was excusable under these circumstances, and, putting out my hand, I touched the man before me on the shoulder.

"Where are we going?" I demanded.

He continued to move on without reply.

"I shall follow you no longer if you do not speak," I cried again. "This midnight journey through an old building ready to fall into ruins seems to me not only unpleasant but hazardous."

Still no answer.

"I warned you," I said, and stopped, but the next moment I gave an almost frantic bound forward. A form had come up against me from behind, and I found that a man was following as closely upon my steps as I had been following those of the person who stalked before me.

The thrill of this discovery will never be forgotten by me. For a moment I could not speak, and when I did, the sound of my voice only added to my terrors.

"You have me in a trap," said I; "who are you, and what are your intentions with me?"

"We have you where we can reason with you," exclaimed the voice of him who pressed against my back; and at the sound of those gentlemanly tones with their underlying note of sarcasm, I understood that my hour had come. It was the voice and intonation of Guy Pollard.

XXI. THE VAT

Des.—Talk you of killing?'
Oth.—Ay, I do.
Des.—Then, heaven
Have mercy on me!
—OTHELLO.

I quivered with shame, for I felt my heart sink. But there was no pause in the smooth, sarcastic tones behind me. "When a man persists in judging of his duty contrary to the dictates of reason, he must expect restraint from those who understand his position better than he does himself."

"Then," quoth I, with suddenly acquired strength, "I am to understand that the respectable family of Pollard finds itself willing to resort to the means and methods of highwaymen in order to compass its ends and teach me my duty."

"You are," a determined voice returned.

At that word, uttered as it was in a tone inexorable as fate, my last ray of hope went out. The voice was that of a woman.

I however, made a strong effort for the preservation of my dignity and person.

"And will Samuel Pollard's oldest and best-beloved son, the kind-hearted and honest Dwight, lend himself to a scheme of common fraud and violence?" I asked.

The reply came in his brother's most sarcastic tones. "Dwight has left us," he declared. "We have no need of honesty or kind-heartedness here. What we want for this business is an immovable determination."

Startled, I looked up. The lantern which had hitherto swung from the hand of my guide stood on the floor. By its light three things were visible. First, that we stood at the head of a staircase descending into a depth of darkness which the eye could not pierce; secondly, that in all the area about me but two persons stood; and third, that of these two persons one of them was masked and clad in a long black garment, such as is worn at masquerade balls under the name of a domino. Struck with an icy chill, I looked down again. Why had I allowed myself to be caught in such a trap? Why had I not followed Mr. Nicholls immediately to Boston when I heard that he was no longer in town? Or, better still, why had I not manufactured for myself a safeguard in the form of a letter to that gentleman, informing him of the important document which I held, and the danger in which it possibly stood from the family into whose toils I had now fallen? I could have cursed myself for my dereliction.

"David Barrows," came in imperative tones from the masked figure, "will you tell us where this will is?"

"No," I returned.

"Is it not on your person?" the inquisitorial voice pursued.

"It is not," I answered, firmly, thankful that I spoke the truth in this.

"It is in your rooms, then; in your desk, perhaps?"

I remained silent.

"Is it in your rooms?" the indomitable woman proceeded.

"You who have been there should know," I replied, feeling my courage rise, as I considered that they could not assail my honor, while my life without my secret would benefit them so little that it might be said to stand in no danger.

"I do not understand you," the icy voice declared; while Guy, stepping forward, planted his hand firmly on my shoulder and said:

"Wherever it is, it shall be delivered to our keeping to-night. We are in no mood for dallying. Either you will give us your solemn promise to obtain this will, and hand it over to us without delay and without scandal, or the free light of heaven is shut out from you forever. You shall never leave this mill."

"But," I faltered, striving in vain to throw off the incubus of horror which his words invoked, "what good would my death do you? Could it put Mr. Pollard's will in your hands?"

"Yes," was the brief and decided reply, "if it is anywhere in your rooms."

It was a word that struck home. The will was in my rooms, and I already saw it, in my imagination, torn from its hiding-place by the unscrupulous hand that held me.

Mastering my emotion with what spirit I could, I looked quickly about me. Was there no means of escape? I saw none. In the remote and solitary place which they had chosen for this desperate attempt, a cry would be but waste breath, even if we were in that part of the mill which looked toward the road. But we were not; on the contrary, I could see by the aid of the faint glimmer which the lantern sent forth, that the room in which we had halted was as far as possible from the front of the building, for its windows were obscured by the brush-wood which only grew against the back of the mill. To call out, then, would be folly, while to seek by any force or strategy to break away from the two relentless beings that controlled me could only end in failure, unless darkness would come to my aid and hide my road of escape. But darkness could only come by the extinguishing of the lantern, and that it was impossible for me to effect; for I was not strong enough to struggle in its direction with Guy Pollard, nor could I reach it by any stretch of foot or hand. The light must burn and I must stay there, unless—the thought came suddenly—I could take advantage of the flight of steps at the head of which I stood, and by a sudden leap, gain the cellar, where I would stand a good chance of losing myself amid intricacies as little known to them as to myself. But to do this I must be free to move, and there was no shaking myself loose from the iron clutch that held me.

"You see you are in our power," hissed the voice of the woman from between the motionless lips of her black mask.

"I see I am," I acknowledged, "but I also see that you are in that of God." And I looked severely towards her, only to drop my eyes again with an irrepressible shudder.

For, lay it to my weakness or to the baleful influence which emanated from the whole ghostly place, there was something absolutely appalling in this draped and masked figure with its gleaming eyes and cold, thin voice.

"Shall we have what we want before your death or after?" proceeded Guy Pollard, with a calm but cold ignoring of my words that was more threatening than any rudeness.

I did not answer at first, and his grip upon me tightened; but next moment, from what motive I cannot say, it somewhat relaxed; and, startled, with the hope of freedom, I exclaimed with a vehemence for which my former speech must have little prepared them:

"You shall not have it at all. I cannot break my word with your father, and I will not stay here to be threatened and killed;" and making a sudden movement, I slipped from his grasp, and plunged down the steps into the darkness below.

But, scarcely had my feet touched the cellar floor, before I heard the warning cry shrill out from above:

"Take care! There is an open vat before you. If you fall into that, we shall be free of your interference without lifting a hand."

An open vat! I had heard of the vats in the old mill's cellar. Instinctively recoiling, I stood still, not knowing whether to advance or retreat. At the same moment I heard the sound of steps descending the stairs.

"So you think this a better place for decision than the floor above?" exclaimed Guy Pollard, drawing up by my side. "Well, I not sure but you are right," he added; and I saw by the light of the lantern which his companion now brought down the stairs, the cold glimmer of a smile cross his thin lips and shine for a moment from his implacable eyes. Not knowing what he meant, I glanced anxiously about, and shrank with dismay as I discerned the black hole of the vat he had mentioned, yawning within three feet of my side. Was it a dream, my presence in this fearful spot? I looked at the long stretch of arches before me glooming away into the darkness beyond us, and felt the chill of a nameless horror settle upon my spirit.

Was it because I knew those circles of blackness held many another such pit of doom as that into which I had so nearly stumbled? Or was it that the grisly aspect of the scene woke within me that slumbering demon of the imagination which is the bane of natures like mine.

Whatever it was, I felt the full force of my position, and scarcely cared whether my voice trembled or not as I replied:

"You surely have me in your hands; but that does not mean that it is I who must make a decision. If I understand the situation, it is for you to say whether you will be murderers or not."

"Then you do not intend to put us in possession of my father's will?"

"No," I murmured, and bowed my head for the blow I expected from him.

But he dealt me no blow. Instead of that he eyed me with a look which grew more and more sinister as I met his glance with one which I meant should convey my indomitable resolution. At last he spoke again:

"I think you will reconsider your determination," said he, with a meaning I did not even then fathom, and exchanging a quick glance with the silent figure at his right, he leaned towards me and—what happened? For a moment I could not tell, but soon, only too soon, I recognized by my stunned and bleeding body, by the closeness of the air I suddenly breathed, and by the circle of darkness that shut about me, and the still more distinct circle of light that glimmered above, that I had been pushed into the pit whose yawning mouth had but a few short moments before awakened in me such dismay.

Aghast, almost mad with the horror of a fate so much more terrible than any I had anticipated, I strove to utter a cry; but my tongue refused its office, and nothing but an inarticulate murmur rose from my lips. It was not piercing enough to clear the edge of the vat, and my soul sunk with despair as I heard its fruitless gurgle and realized by the sound of departing steps, and the faint and fainter glimmer of the circle of light which at my first glance had shone quite brightly above my hideous prison-house, that my persecutors had done their worst and were now leaving me alone in my trap to perish.

God! what an instant it was! To speak, to shriek, to call, nay plead for aid, was but the natural outcome of the overwhelming anguish I felt, but the sound of steps had died out into an awful stillness, and the glimmering circle upon which my staring eyes were fixed had faded into a darkness so utter and complete, that had the earth been piled above my head, I could not have been more wholly hidden from the light.

I had fallen on my knees, and desperate as I was, had made no attempt to rise. Not that I thought of prayer, unless my whole dazed and horrified being was a prayer. The consolations which I had offered to others did not seem to meet this case. Here was no death in the presence of friends and under the free light of heaven. This was a horror. The hand of God which could reach every other mortal, whatever their danger or doom, seemed to stop short at this gate of hell. I could not even imagine my soul escaping thence. I was buried; body and soul, I was buried and yet I was alive and knew that I must remain alive for days if not for weeks.

I do not suppose that I remained in this frightful condition of absolute hopelessness for more than five minutes, but it seemed to me an eternity. If a drowning man can review his life in an instant, what was there not left for me to think and suffer in the lapse of those five horrible minutes? I was young when the unscrupulous hand of this daring murderer pushed me into this pit; I was old when with a thrill of joy such as passes over the body but once In a lifetime, I heard a voice issue from the darkness, saying severely, "David Barrows, are you prepared for a decision now?" and realized that like the light which now sprang into full brilliance above my head, hope had come again into my life, and that I had to speak but a dozen words to have sunshine and liberty restored to me.

The rush of emotion which this startling change brought was almost too much for my reason. Looking up into the sardonic face, I could now discern peering over the edge of the vat, I asked with a frantic impulse that left me no time for thought, if an immediate restoration to freedom would follow my compliance with his wishes, and when he answered: "Yes," I beheld such a vision of sunshiny fields and a happy, love-lighted home, that my voice almost choked as I responded, that I did not think his father would have wished me to sacrifice my life or force a son of his into the crime of murder, for the sake of any reparation which money could offer. And as I saw the face above me grow impatient, I told in desperate haste where I had concealed the will and how it could be obtained without arousing the suspicions of my neighbors.

He seemed satisfied and hastily withdrew his face; but soon returned and asked for the key of my house. I had it in my pocket and hurriedly pitched it up to him, when he again disappeared.

"When shall I be released?" I anxiously called out after him.

But no answer came back, and presently the light began to fade as before, and the sound of steps grow fainter and fainter till silence and darkness again settled upon my dreadful prison-house.

But this time I had hope to brighten me, and shutting my eyes, I waited patiently. But at last, as no change came and the silence and darkness remained unbroken, I became violently alarmed and cried to myself: "Am I the victim of their treachery? Have they obtained what they want and now am I to be left here to perish?"

The thought made my hair stand on end and had I not been a God-fearing man I should certainly have raised my voice in curses upon my credulity and lack of courage. But before my passion could reach its height, hope shone again in the shape of returning light. Some one had entered the cellar and drawn near the edge of the vat; but though I strained my gaze upward, no face met my view, and presently I heard a voice which was not that of Guy Pollard utter in tones of surprise and apprehension:

"Where is the clergyman? Guy said I should find him here in good condition?"

The masked figure, who was doubtless the one addressed, must have answered with a gesture towards the hole in which I lay, for I heard him give vent to a horrified exclamation and then say in accents of regret and shame: "Was it necessary?" and afterwards: "Are you sure he is not injured?"

The answer, which I did not hear, seemed to satisfy him, for he said no more, and soon, too soon, walked away again, carrying the light and leaving me, as I now knew, with that ominous black figure for my watch and guardian,—a horror that lent a double darkness to the situation which was only relieved now by the thought that Dwight Pollard's humanity was to be relied on, and that he would never wantonly leave me there to perish after the will had been discovered and destroyed.

It was well that I had this confidence, for the time I now had to wait was long. But I lived it through and at last had the joy of hearing footsteps and the voice of Guy saying in a dry and satisfied tone: "It is all right," after which the face of Dwight looked over the edge of the vat and he gave me the help which was needed to lift me out.

I was a free man again. I had slipped from the gates of hell, and the world with all its joys and duties lay before me bright and beautiful as love and hope could make it. Yet whether it was the gloom of the cellar in which we still lingered, or the baleful influence that emanated, from the three persons in whose presence I once more stood, I felt a strange sinking at my heart and found myself looking back at the pit from which I had just escaped, with a sensation of remorse, as if in its horrid depths I had left or lost something which must create a void within me forever.

My meditations in this regard were interrupted by the voice of Guy.

"David Barrows," said he, "we hold the paper which was given you by my father."

I bowed with a slight intimation of impatience.

"We have looked at it and it is as he said, his will. But it is not such a one as we feared, and to-morrow, or as soon as we can restore the seal, we shall return it to you for such disposition as your judgment suggests."

I stared at him in an amazement that made me forget my shame.

"You will give it back?" I repeated.

"To-morrow," he laconically replied.

XXII THE CYPHER

Ah, my false heart, what hast thou done?

This is a story of fact; it is also a story of mental struggle. I shall not, therefore, be considered too diffuse if I say that this unlooked for ending to my unhappy adventure threw me into a strange turmoil of feeling, from which I had no rest until the next day came. That they should promise to restore the will, to obtain which they had resorted to measures almost criminal in their severity, awoke in me the greatest astonishment. What could it mean? I waited to see the will before replying.

It came, as Guy Pollard had promised, at noon of the following day. It was in a new envelope, and was sealed just as it had been before it left my possession. Had I not known into what unscrupulous hands it had fallen, I should have doubted if it had ever been opened. As it was, I was not only confident that it had been read from end to end, but fearful that it had been tampered with, and perhaps altered. To get it out of my hands, and if possible, my mind also, I carried it at once to Mr. Nicholls, who, I had ascertained that morning, had returned to town the day before.

He received me with affability, but looked a little surprised when he learned my errand.

"I was just going to call on the family," said he; "I drew up Mr.
Pollard's will myself, and—-"

"You drew up Mr. Pollard's will?" I hastily interrupted. "You know, then, its contents, and can tell me—-"

"Pardon me," he as hastily put in, "the family have the first right to a knowledge of what Mr. Pollard has done for them."

I felt myself at a loss. To explain my rights and the great desire which I experienced to ascertain whether the tenor of the paper he now held coincided with that which he had submitted to Mr. Pollard for his signature, necessitated a full relation of facts which I was not yet certain ought to be made public. For if the will had not been meddled with, and Mr. Pollard's wishes stood in no danger of being slighted or ignored, what else but a most unhappy scandal could accrue from the revelation which I should be forced to make? Then, my own part in the miserable affair. If not productive of actual evil, it was still something to blush for, and I had not yet reached that stage of repentance or humility which made it easy to show the world a weakness for which I had no pity nor sympathy myself. Yet to guard the interests with which I had been entrusted, it was absolutely necessary that the question which so much disturbed me should be answered. For, if any change had been made in this important paper by which the disposition of Mr. Pollard's property should be turned aside from the channel in which he had ordered it, I felt that no consideration for the public welfare or my own good fame should hinder me from challenging its validity.

My embarrassment evidently showed itself, for the acute lawyer, after a momentary scrutiny of my face, remarked:

"You say Mr. Pollard gave you this will to hand to me. Do you know the cause of this rather extraordinary proceeding, or have you any suspicion why, in the event of his desiring me to have in charge a paper which ought to be safe enough in his own house, he choose his pastor for his messenger instead of one of his own sons?"

"Mr. Nicholls," I returned, with inward satisfaction for the opportunity thus given me for reply, "the secrets which are confided to a clergyman are as sacred as those which are entrusted to a lawyer. I could not tell you my suspicions if I had any; I can only state the facts. One thing, however, I will add. That owing to circumstances which I cannot explain, but greatly regret, this paper has been out of my hands for a short time, and in speaking as I did, I wished merely to state that it would be a satisfaction to me to know that no harm has befallen it, and that this is the very will in spirit and detail which you drew up and saw signed by Mr. Pollard."

"Oh," exclaimed the lawyer, "if that is all, I can soon satisfy you." And tearing open the envelope, he ran his eye over the document and quietly nodded.

"It is the same," he declared. "There has been no meddling here."

And feeling myself greatly relieved, I rose without further conversation and hastily took my leave.

But when I came to think of it all again in my own room, I found my equanimity was not yet fully restored. A doubt of some kind remained, and though, in consideration of the manifold duties that pressed upon me, I relentlessly put it aside, I could not help its lingering in my mind, darkening my pleasures, and throwing a cloud over my work and the operations of my mind. The sight which I now and then caught of the Pollards did not tend to allay my anxieties. There was satisfaction in their countenances, and in that of Guy, at least, a certain triumphant disdain which could only be partly explained by the victory which he had won over me through my fears. I awaited the proving of the will with anxiety. If there were no seeming reparation made in it, I should certainly doubt its being the expression of Mr. Pollard's wishes.

What was my surprise, then, when the will having been proved, I obtained permission to read it and found that it not only contained mention of reparation, but that this reparation was to be made to Margaret his wife.

"For sums loaned by her to me and lost, I desire to make reparation by an added bequest—" so it read; and I found myself nonplussed and thrown entirely out in all my calculations and conjectures. The anxiety he had shown lest the will should fall into this very woman's hands, did not tally with this expression of justice and generosity, nor did the large sums which he had left to his three children show any of that distrust which his countenance had betrayed towards the one who was present with him at the time of his death. Could it be that he had given me the wrong paper or was he, as Mrs. Pollard had intimated, not responsible for his actions and language at that time. I began to think the latter conjecture might be true, and was only hindered in the enjoyment of my old tranquility by the remembrance of the fearful ordeal I had been subjected to in the mill, and the consideration which it brought of the fears and suspicions which must have existed to make the perpetration of such an outrage possible.

But time, which dulls all things, soon began to affect my memory of that hideous nightmare, and with it my anxiety lest in my unfaithfulness to my trust, I had committed a wrong upon some unknown innocent. Life with its duties and love with its speedy prospect of marriage gradually pushed all unpleasant thoughts from my mind, and I was beginning to enjoy the full savor of my happy and honorable position again, when my serenity was again, and this time forever, destroyed by a certain revelation that was accidentally made to me.

The story of it was this. I had taken by mistake with me to a funeral the prayer-book with which Mr. Pollard had presented me. I was listening to the anthem which was being sung, and being in a nervous frame of mind, was restlessly fingering the leaves of the book which I held in my hand, when my eye, running over the page that happened to open before me, caught sight of some of the marks with which the text was plentifully bestowed. Mechanically I noticed the words under which they stood, and mechanically I began reading them, when, to my great astonishment and subsequent dismay, I perceived they made sense, in short had a connection which, when carried on from page to page of the book, revealed sentences which promised to extend themselves into a complete communication. This is the page I happened upon, with its lines and dots. Note the result which accrues from reading the marked words alone.

[Illustration:

THE EPIPHANY.

with haste, and found Mary and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which told them concerning this child. And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them. And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called JESUS, which was so named of the angel before he was conceived in the womb.

The same Collect, Epistle, and Gospel shall serve for every day after, unto the Epiphany.

The Epiphany,

Or the Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles.

THE COLLECT.

O God, who by the leading of a star didst manifest thy only-begotten Son to the Gentiles, Mercifully grant that we, who know thee now by faith, may after this life have the fruition of thy glorious Godhead through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

THE EPISTLE. Eph iii. I.

For this cause, I Paul the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles, if ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God, which is given me to you ward. How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery (as I wrote afore in few words, whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ) which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy Apostles and Prophets by the Spirit, that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ, by the Gospel whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power. Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly]

It was but one of many, and you can imagine how difficult I found it to continue with the service and put the subject from my mind till the funeral was over and I could return to solitude and my third and final examination into the meaning of this mysterious gift.

You can also imagine my wonder when by following out the plan I have indicated, the subjoined sentences appeared, which, if somewhat incoherent at times—as could only be expected from the limited means at his command—certainly convey a decided meaning, especially after receiving the punctuation and capital letters, which, after long study and some after-knowledge of affairs, I have ventured upon giving them:

"My sin is ever before me.

"Correct, lest thou bring me to nothing.

"Do those things which are requisite and necessary for a pure and humble one, Grace by name, begotten by son, he born of first wife and not obedient to the law abroad, a prisoner.

"Revelation made known in few words whereby when ye read ye may understand the mystery which was made known unto the sons, fellow-heirs of Grace.

"Go and search diligently for the young child.

"The higher powers resist and are a terror to good works.

"Do that which is good and thou shalt have praise, minister of God.

"Wherefore ye must needs be subject for wrath, for they are attending continually upon this thing.

"Render therefore to all their dues; tribute to whom tribute; honor to whom honor.

"Two possessed of devils, exceeding fierce of the household, hope
Grace may evermore be cast away.

"They murmur against the good man of the house, and do not agree to mercifully defend against perils in the city an honest and good heart.

"My will leave(s) heritage to Grace.

"The devil is against me.

"Behold a woman grievously vexed with lost sheep of the house.

"Then came she, saying: 'It is not mete to take the children's bread and to cast it to the dogs. Be unto, us an offering named as becometh saints. For this ye know, that no unclean person hath any inheritance because of disobedience and fellowship with works of darkness. For it is a shame to speak of those things which are done of them in secret.'

"Beelzebub, the chief of devils, and sons cast out man; taketh from him all wherein he trusteth and divideth the spoils against me.

"To purge conscience, the new testament means redemption of the transgressions under first testament.

"Said a devil: 'Father, ye do dishonor me. Say ye know him not, thy son, and suffer that a notable prisoner, his wife and child, were not called by thy name.' 'I will,' said I. But I deny all here. My soul is sorrowful unto death, as I bear false witness against them.

"The hand that betrayeth me is with me.

"I appoint you to sift as wheat.

"This must be accomplished, for the things concerning me have an end.

"Words sent unto me out of prison, said: 'Daughter weep(s). Beseech thee graciously to fetch home to thee my child in tribulation. For lo, the ungodly bend their bow and make ready their arrows within the quiver, that they may privily shoot at them which are true of heart. Show I thy marvellous loving-kindness unto an undefined soul forsaken on every side of mother and friendly neighbors. Make haste to deliver and save. I am clean forgotten, as a dead man out of mind. I am become as a broken vessel.'

"Whilst I held my tongue, my bones consumed away daily.

"I will inform thee and teach thee ill the way wherein thou shalt go.

"Blessed are folk chosen to inheritance; the children of them that dwell under the king.

"Poor Grac(e) come over the see (sea), unaware that I were sick.

"Deliver my darling from the lions, so will I give thee thanks.

"O let not them that are mine enemies triumph that hate me.

"They imagine deceitful words against them that are quiet in the land.

"Child is in thy land.

"Look after daughter among honorable women. House in City of the
East Wind.

[Footnote: Number omitted for obvious reasons.]"—C-H-A-R-L-E-S-S-
T-R-E-E-T.

"Child I have looked upon not.

"I promised with my lips and spake with my mouth, but God turned his mercy upon me, and upon health hath sent forth his voice, yea, and that a mighty voice.

"I sink, and the deep waters drown me.

"Mine adversaries hath broken my heart.

"Let the things that should have been for them be for the poor prisoner's posterity.

"Break down the carved work and search out my will.

"Walk to table under southwest borders of room, take the wood that hath in it operations of the law, and cleave.

"For my days are gone like a shadow, and I am withered as grass."

XXIII. TOO LATE

What fear is this, which startles in our ears?
—ROMEO AND JULIET.

The conclusion which I drew from these sentences after a close and repeated perusal of them was to this effect:

That Mr. Pollard instead of possessing only two sons, as was generally supposed, had in reality been the father of three. That the eldest, born in all probability before Mr. Pollard's removal to this country (he was an Englishman by birth), had, by some act of violence or fraud, incurred the penalty of the law, and was even now serving out a term of imprisonment in his native land. That this son had a daughter innocent and virtuous, whom he desired to commit to the care of her grandfather; that he had even sent her over here for that purpose, but that Mr. Pollard, taken down with the illness which afterwards ended in death, had not only failed to be on hand to receive her, but that, surrounded and watched by his wife and sons, who, in their selfish pride, were determined to ignore all claims of kinship on the part of one they despised, he had not even had the chance to take such measures for her safety and happiness as his love and regard for her lonely and desolate position seemed to demand. That the will, whose concealment in his desk he had managed to describe, had been made in recompense for this neglect, and that by it she would receive that competence and acknowledgment of her rights which the hatred of her unscrupulous relatives would otherwise deny her.

And this was the will I had weakly given up, and it was upon the head of this innocent child that the results of my weakness must fall.

When I first recognized this fact I felt stupefied. That I, David Barrows, should be the cause of misery and loss to a guileless and pure soul! I could not realize it, nor believe that consequences so serious and irremediable could follow upon an act into which I had been betrayed by mere cowardice. But soon, too soon, the matter became plain to me. I saw what I had done and was overwhelmed, for I could no longer doubt that the real will had been destroyed and that the one which had been returned to me was a substituted one, perhaps the very same which I had seen among the papers of Mr. Pollard's desk.

The result of my remorse was an immediate determination on my part to search out the young girl, left in this remarkable manner to my care, and by my efforts in her behalf do what I could to remedy the great evil which, through my instrumentality, had befallen her.

The purpose was no sooner taken than I prepared to carry it out. S—— could hold no duty for me now paramount to this. I was a father and my child lingered solitary and uncared-for in a strange place. I took the first train the next morning for the "city of the east-wind."

The hour at which I arrived at number — Charles Street, was one of deep agitation to me, I had thought so continually upon my journey of the young waif I was seeking. Would she be the embodiment of ingenuousness which her grandfather had evidently believed her to be? Should I find her forgiving and tractable; or were the expectations I had formed false in their character and founded rather upon Mr. Pollard's wishes than any knowledge he had of her disposition and acquirements?

The house was, as far as I could judge from the exterior, of a most respectable character, and the lady who answered my somewhat impatient summons was one of those neat and intelligent-looking persons who inspire confidence at first glance. To my inquiries as to whether there was living in her house a young English lady by the name of Grace—I did not like to venture upon that of Pollard, there being some phrases in the communication I have shown you which led me to think that Mr. Pollard had changed his name on coming to this country,—she gave me a look of such trouble and anxiety that I was instantly struck with dismay.

"Miss Merriam?" she exclaimed; then, as I bowed with seeming acquiescence, continued in a tone that conveyed still more disquiet than her face, "She was here; but she is gone, sir; a woman took her away."

A woman! I must have grown pale, for she swung wide the door and asked me to come in.

"We can talk better in the hall," she remarked, and pointed to a chair into which I half fell.

"I have a great interest in this young lady," I observed; "in short, I am her guardian. Can you tell me the name of the person with whom she went away, or where she can be found now?"

"No sir," she answered, with the same expression of trouble. "The woman gave us no name nor address, and the young lady seemed too much frightened to speak. We have felt anxious ever since she went, sir; for the letter she showed us from the captain of the ship which brought her over, told us to take great care of her. We did not know she had a guardian or we should not have let her go. The woman seemed very pleasant, and paid all the bills, but——"

"But what?" I cried, too anxious to bear a moment's delay.

"She did not lift her veil, and this seemed to me a suspicious circumstance."

Torn with apprehension and doubt, I staggered to my feet.

"Tell me all about this woman," I demanded. "Give me every detail you can remember. I have a dreadful fear that it is some one who should never have seen this child."

"Well, sir, she came at about eleven in the morning——"

"What day?" I interrupted her to ask.

"Thursday," she replied, "a week ago yesterday."

The very day after the will was returned to me. If she were the woman I feared, she had evidently lost no time.

"She asked for Miss Merriam," the lady before me pursued, evidently greatly pitying my distress, "and as we knew no reason why our young boarder should not receive visitors, we immediately proceeded to call her down. But the woman, with a muttered excuse, said she would not trouble us; that she knew the child well, and would go right up to her room if we would only tell her where it was. This we did and should have thought no more of the matter, if in a little while she had not reappeared in the hall, and, inquiring the way to my room, told me that Miss Merriam had decided to leave my house; that she had offered her a home with her, and that they were to go immediately.

"I was somewhat taken aback by this, and inquired if I could not see Miss Merriam. She answered 'What for?' and when I hinted that money was owing me for her board, she drew out her pocket-book and paid me on the spot. I could say nothing after this, 'But are you a relative, ma'am?' to which her quick and angry negative, hidden, however, next moment, by a suave acknowledgment of friendship, gave me my first feeling of alarm. But I did not dare to ask her any further questions, much as I desired to know who she was and where she was going to take the young girl. There was something in her manner that overawed me, at the same time it filled me with dread. But if I could not speak to her I meant to have some words with Miss Merriam before she left the house. This the woman seemed to wish to prevent, for she stood close by me when the young girl came down, and when I stepped forward to say good-by, pushed me somewhat rudely aside and took Miss Merriam by the arm. 'Come, my dear,' she cried, and would have hurried her out without a word. But I would not have that. The sorrow and perplexity in Miss Merriam's face were too marked for me to let her depart in silence. So I persisted in speaking, and after saying how sorry I was to have her go, asked her if she would not leave her new address with me in case any letters should come for her. Her answer was a frightened look at her companion who immediately spoke for her. 'I have told you,' said she, 'that Miss Merriam goes home with me. It is not likely she will have any letters, but if she should, you can send them to the place mentioned on this card,' and she pulled a visiting card from her bag and gave it to me, after which she immediately went away, dragging Miss Merriam after her."

"And you have that card?" I cried. "Why did you not show it to me at once?"

"O, sir," she responded with a sorrowful shake of her head, "it was a fraud, a deception. The card was not hers but another person's, and its owner don't even know Miss Merriam."

"How do you know this?" I asked. "Have you seen this other person?"

"Yes, sir, I had occasion to, for a letter did come for Miss Merriam only a short time after she left. So thinking it a good opportunity to see where she had gone, I carried it to the address which was on the card given me, and found as I have told you that it was not the same lady at all who lived there, and that there was not only no Miss Merriam in the house but that her name was not even known there."

"And you saw the lady herself?"

"Yes, sir."

"And are you sure it was not the same as the one who was here?"

"Oh yes; she was short and stout and had a frank way of speaking, totally unlike that of the veiled woman."

"And the latter? How was she shaped? You have not told me."

I asked this in trembling tones. Though I was sure what the answer would be, I dreaded to have my fears confirmed.

"Well, sir, she was tall and had a full commanding figure, very handsome to look at. She was dressed all in gray and had a way of holding her head that made an ordinary sized woman like myself feel very small and insignificant. Yet she was not agreeable in her appearance; and I am sure that if I could have seen her face I should have disliked her still more, though I do not doubt it was in keeping with her figure, and very handsome."

I could have no doubts as to whom this described, yet I made one final effort to prove my suspicions false.

"You have given me the description of a person of some pretensions to gentility," I remarked, "yet from the first you have forborne to speak of her as a lady."

"An involuntary expression of my distrust and dislike I suppose.
Then her dress was very plain, and the veil she wore quite common."

I thought of the dress and veil which my self-designated "sister" had worn in the visit she paid to my rooms and wondered if they would not answer to the description of these.

"What was the color of her veil?" I inquired.

"Dark blue."

That was the color of the one which had been worn by my mysterious visitor, as I had found from subsequent questions put to my neighbor, and I could no longer have the least uncertainty as to who the woman was who had carried off Mr. Pollard's grandchild. Sick at heart and fearing I scarcely knew what, I asked for the letter which had been left for Miss Merriam, and receiving it from the hand of this amiable woman in whom I appeared to have inspired as much confidence as her former visitor had alarm, I tore it open, and in my capacity of guardian read what it contained. Here it is:

MY DEAR MISS MERRIAM:

The gentleman, in the hope of whose protection you came to this country, is dead. I am his son and naturally feel it incumbent upon me to look after your interests. I am therefore, coming shortly to see you; but till I do so, remember that you are not to receive any one who may call, no matter what their name, sex, or apparent business. If you disobey me in this regard you may do yourself a permanent injury. Wait till my card is brought you, and then judge for yourself whether I am a person in whom you can trust. Hoping to find you in good health, and as happy as your bereaved condition will admit of, I remain sincerely yours,

DWIGHT GAYLORD POLLARD.

"Ah, he wrote a day too late!" I involuntarily exclaimed; then perceiving the look of curiosity which this unguarded expression had awakened on the face of my companion, folded the letter up and put it quietly in my pocket. "It is an unhappy piece of business," I now observed, "but I shall hope to find Miss Merriam very soon, and place her where she will be both safe and happy."

And feeling that I ought to know something of the appearance and disposition of one I so fully intended to befriend, I inquired whether she was a pretty girl.

The reply I received was almost enthusiastic.

"I do not know as you would call her pretty, sir, she is so pale and fragile; but if her features are not regular nor her color good, she has something unusually attractive in her face, and I have heard more than one gentleman here say, 'Miss Merriam is lovely.'"

"And her manners?"

"Very modest, sir, and timid. She seems to have a secret sorrow, for I have often seen her eyes fill when she thought no one was looking at her."

"Do you know her history or connections?"

"No, sir."

"Then she never talked to you about herself?"

"No, sir; though so young, she was strangely like a woman in many things. An uncommonly sweet child, sir, an uncommonly sweet child."

I felt the sting of a great reproach in my heart, and, anxious to hide the depth of my emotion, rose to leave. But the good woman, detaining me, Inquired what she should do with Miss Merriam's trunk.

"What," I exclaimed, "is that still here?" "Yes, sir; she took, as I noticed, a bag of some size with her, but she left her trunk. In the flurry of their departure I forgot to speak about it. I have expected an expressman after it every day, but none has come. That is another reason why I have felt anxious."

"I do not wonder," I exclaimed. "Sometimes," she observed, "I have thought it was my duty to speak to the police about the matter; it would be such a dreadful thing if any harm had come to her."

"I will speak to the police if necessary," said I. And determined as I had never been before in my life, I left the house and proceeded directly to the depot, where I took the first train for S——.

XXIV. CONFRONTED

Stop up the access and passage to remorse;
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it!
—MACBETH.

Being in the confessional, I have not forborne to tell the worst of myself; I will not, therefore, hesitate to tell the best. When on that very afternoon I entered Mrs. Pollard's grounds, it was with a resolve to make her speak out, that had no element of weakness in it. Not her severest frown, nor that diabolical look from Guy's eye, which had hitherto made me quail, should serve to turn me aside from my purpose, or thwart those interests of right and justice which I felt were so deeply at stake. If my own attempt, backed by the disclosures which had come to me through the prayer-book I had received from Mr. Pollard, should fail, then the law should take hold of the matter and wrench the truth from this seemingly respectable family, even at the risk of my own happiness and the consideration which I had always enjoyed in this town.

The house, when I approached it, struck me with an odd sense of change. I did not stop at the time to inquire why this was, but I have since concluded, in thinking over the subject, that the parlor curtains must have been drawn up, something which I do not remember ever having seen there before or since. The front door also was ajar, and when I rang the bell it was so speedily answered that I had hardly time to summon up the expression of determination which I felt would alone gain me admittance to the house. But my presence instead of seeming unwelcome, seemed to be almost expected by the servant who opened to me. He bowed, smiled, and that, too, in almost a holiday fashion; and when I would have asked for Mrs. Pollard, interrupted me by a request to lay off my overcoat in a side room, which he courteously pointed out to me.

There was something in this and in the whole aspect of the place which astonished me greatly. If this sombre dwelling with its rich but dismally dark halls and mysterious recesses could be said to ever wear an air of cheer, the attempt certainly had been made to effect this to-day. From the hand of the bronze figure that capped the newel-post hung wreaths of smilax and a basket full of the most exquisite flowers; while from a half-open door at my right came a streak of positive light, and the sound of several voices animated with some sentiment that was strangely out of accord with the solemn scene to which this very room had so lately been a witness. Can they be having a reception? I asked myself; and almost ashamed of the surmise, ever in the house of one so little respected, I, nevertheless, turned to the civil servant before me and remarked:

"There is something going on here of which I was ignorant. Is Mrs.
Pollard entertaining guests to-day?"

"Did you not know, sir?" he inquired. "I thought you had been invited, perhaps; Miss Pollard is going to be married this afternoon."

Miss Pollard going to be married! Could any thing have been worse? Shocked, I drew back; Miss Pollard was a beautiful girl and totally innocent, in as far as I knew, of any of the wrong which had certainly been perpetrated by some members of her family. It would never do to mortify her or to mar the pleasure of her wedding-day by any such scene as my errand probably involved. She must be saved sorrow even if her mother—But at that instant the vague but pathetic form of another young girl flitted in imagination before my eyes, and I asked myself if I had not already done enough injury to the helpless and the weak, without putting off for another hour even that attempt at rescue, which the possibly perilous position of Mr. Pollard's grandchild so imperatively demanded. As I thought this and remembered that the gentleman to whom Miss Pollard was engaged was an Englishman of lordly connections and great wealth, I felt my spirit harden and my purpose take definite form. Turning, therefore to the servant before me I inquired if Mrs. Pollard was above or below; and learning that she had not yet come down-stairs, I tore a leaf out of my note-book and wrote on it the following lines:

I know your daughter is on the point of descending to her marriage. I know also that you do not want to see me. But the interests of Miss Merriam demand that you should do so, and that immediately. If you do not come, I shall instantly enter the parlor and tell a story to the assembled guests which will somewhat shake your equanimity when you come to appear before them. My moral courage is not to be judged by my physical, madam, and I shall surely do this thing.

David Barrows

The servant, who still lingered before me, took this note.

"Give it to Mrs. Pollard," I requested. "Tell her it is upon a matter of pressing importance, but do not mention my name, if you please; she will find it in the note." And seeing by the man's face that my wishes would be complied with, I took up my stand in a certain half-curtained recess and waited with loudly beating heart for the issue.

She came. I saw her when she first put foot on the stairs, and notwithstanding my strong antipathy, I could not repress a certain feeling of admiration from mixing with the dread the least sight of her always occasioned me. Her form, which was of the finest, was clad in heavy black velvet, without a vestige of ornament to mar its sombre richness, and her hair, now verging towards gray, was piled up in masses on the top of her haughty head, adding inches to a height that in itself was almost queenly. But her face! and her cruel eye and the smile of her terrible lip. I grew cold as I saw her approach, but I did not move from my place or meditate the least change in the plan I had laid for her subjection.

She stopped just two feet from where I stood, and without the least bend of her head or any gesture of greeting, looked at me. I bore it with quietude, and even answered glance with glance, until I saw her turn pale with the first hint of dismay which she had possibly ever betrayed; then I bowed and waited for her to speak. She did so with a hiss like a serpent.

"What does this mean?" she cried. "What do you hope to gain from me, that you presume to write me such a letter on an occasion like this?"

"Madam," I rejoined, "you are in haste, and so am I; so, without expressing any opinion of the actions which have driven me to this step, I will merely say that I want but one thing of you, but that I want immediately, without hesitation and without delay. I allude to Miss Merriam's address, which you have, and which you must give me on the spot."

She shrank. This cold, confident, imperious woman shrank, and this expression of emotion, while it showed she was not entirely without sensation, awoke within me a strange fear, since how dark must be her secret, if she could tremble at the thought of its discovery. She must have seen that I was affected, for her confidence immediately returned.

"I do not know,—" she began to say.

But I mercilessly interrupted her.

"But I know," said I, with an emphasis on the pronoun, "and know so much that I am sure the company within would be glad to hear what I could tell them. Mr. Harrington, for instance, who I hear is of a very honorable family in England, would be pleased to learn—"

"Hush!" she whispered, seizing my wrist with a hand of steel. "If I must tell you I will, but no more words from you, do you hear, no more words."

I took out my note-book and thrust it into her hand.

"Write," I, commanded; "her full address, mind you, that I may find her before the day is over."

She gave me a strange glance but took the book and pencil without a word.

"There!" she cried, hurriedly writing a line and passing the book back to me. "And now go; our time for further conversation will come later."

But I did not stir. I read aloud the line she had given me and then said:

"Madam, this address is either a true or a false one. Which, I shall soon know. For upon leaving here, I shall proceed immediately to the telegraph-office, from which I shall telegraph to the police station nearest to this address, for the information I desire. I shall receive an answer within the hour; and if I find you have deceived me I shall not hesitate to return here, and so suitably accompanied that you will not only open to me, but rectify whatever mistake you may have made. Your guests will not be gone in an hour," I ruthlessly added.

Her face, which had been pale, turned ghastly. Glancing up at a clock which stood a few feet from the recess in which we stood, she gave an involuntary shudder and looked about for Guy.

"Your son, fertile as he is in resources, cannot help you," I remarked. "There is no pit of darkness here; besides I have learned a lesson, madam; and not death itself would deter me now from doing my duty by this innocent child. So if you wish to change this address—"

I stopped; a strain of music had risen from the parlor. It was Mendelssohn's Wedding March. Mrs. Pollard started, cast a hurried look above and tore the note-book out of my hands.

"You are a fiend," she hissed, and hurriedly scratching out the words she had written, she wrote another number and name. "You will find she is there," she cried, "and since I have complied with your desire, you will have no need to return here till you bring the young girl home."

The emphasis she placed on the last word startled me. I looked at her and wondered if Medea wore such a countenance when she stabbed her children to the heart. But it flashed and was gone, and the next moment she had moved away from my side and I had stepped to the door. As I opened it to pass out I caught one glimpse of the bride as she came down the stairs. She looked exquisite in her simple white dress, and her face was wreathed in smiles.

XXV. THE FINAL BLOW

It was a deadly blow! A blow like that
Which swooping unawares from out the night,
Dashes a man from some high starlit peak
Into a void of cold and hurrying waves.

The distrust which I felt for Mrs. Pollard was so great that I was still uncertain as to whether she had given me the right address. I therefore proceeded to carry out my original design and went at once to the telegraph-office. The message I sent was peremptory and in the course of half an hour this answer was returned.

Person described, found. Condition critical. Come at once.

There was a train that left in fifteen minutes. Though I had just come from Boston, I did not hesitate to return at once. By six o'clock of that day I stood before the house to which I had been directed. My first sight of it struck me like death. God, what was I about to encounter! What sort of a spot was this, and what was the doom that had befallen the child committed to my care. Numb with horror, I rang the door-bell with difficulty, and when I was admitted by a man in the guise of an officer, I felt something like an instantaneous relief, though I saw by his countenance that he had any thing but good news to give me.

"Are you the gentleman who telegraphed from S——?" he asked.

I bowed, not feeling able to speak.

"Relative or friend?" he went on.

"Friend," I managed to reply.

"Do you guess what has happened?" he inquired.

"I dare not," I answered, with a fearful look about me on walls that more than confirmed my suspicions.

"Miss Merriam is dead," he answered.

I drew a deep breath. It was almost a relief.

"Come in," he said, and opened the door of a room at our right. When we were seated and I had by careful observation made sure we were alone, I motioned for him to go on. He immediately complied. "When we received your telegram, we sent a man here at once. He had some difficulty in entering and still more in finding the young lady, who was hidden in the most remote part of the house. But by perseverance and some force he at last obtained entrance to her room where he found—pardon my abruptness, it will be a mercy to you for me to cut the story short—that he had been ordered here too late; the young lady had taken poison and was on the point of death."

The horror in my face reflected itself faintly in his.

"I do not know how she came to this house," he proceeded; "but she must have been a person of great purity and courage; for though she died almost immediately upon his entrance, she had time to say that she had preferred death to the fate that threatened her, and that no one would mourn her for she had no friends in this country, and her father would never hear how she died."

I sprang wildly to my feet.

"Did she mention no names?" I asked.

"Did she not say who brought her to this hell of hells, or murmur even with her dying breath, one word that would guide us in fixing this crime upon the head of her who is guilty of it?"

"No," answered the officer, "no; but you are right in thinking it was a woman, but what woman, the creature below evidently does not know."

Feeling that the situation demanded thought, I composed myself to the best of my ability.

"I am the Rev. David Barrows of S——," said I, "and my interest in this young girl is purely that of a humanitarian. I have never seen her. I do not even know how long she has been in this country. But I learned that a girl by the name of Grace Merriam had been beguiled from her boarding-place here in this city, and fearing that some terrible evil had befallen her, I telegraphed to the police to look her up."

The officer bowed.

"The number of her boarding-place?" asked he.

I told him, and not waiting for any further questions, demanded if
I might not see the body of the young girl.

He led me at once to the room in which it lay, and stood respectfully at the door while I went in alone. The sight I saw has never left me. Go where I will, I see ever before me that pure young face, with its weary look hushed in the repose of death. It haunts me, it accuses me. It asks me where is the noble womanhood that might have blossomed from this sweet bud, had it not been for my pusillanimity and love of life? But when I try to answer, I am stopped by that image of death, with its sealed lips and closed eyes never to open again—never, never, whatever my longing, my anguish, or my despair.

But the worst shock was to come yet. As I left the room and went stumbling down the stairs, I was met by the officer and led again into the apartment I had first entered on the ground floor.

"There is some one here," he began, "whom you may like to question."

Thinking it to be the woman of the house, I advanced, though somewhat reluctantly, when a sight met my eyes that made me fall back in astonishment and dread. It was the figure of a woman dressed all in gray, with a dark-blue veil drawn tightly over her features.

"Good God!" I murmured, "who is this?"

"The woman who brought her here," observed the officer. "Farrell, there, has just found her."

And then I perceived darkly looming in the now heavy dusk the form of another man, whose unconscious and business-like air proclaimed him to be a member of the force.

"Her name is Sophie Preston," the officer continued, motioning to the woman to throw up her veil. "She is a hard character, and some day will have to answer for her many crimes."

Meanwhile, I stood rooted to the ground; the name, the face were strange, and neither that of her whom I had inwardly accused of this wrong.

"I should like to ask the woman—" I commenced, but here my eyes fell upon her form. It was tall and it was full, but it was not by any means handsome. A fearful possibility crossed my mind. Approaching the woman closely, I modified my question.

"Are you the person who took this young lady from her boarding place?" I asked.

"Yes, sir," was the reply, uttered in smooth but by no means cultivated tones.

"And by what arts did you prevail upon this young and confiding creature to leave her comfortable home and go out into the streets with you?"

She did not speak, she smiled. O heaven! what depths of depravity opened before me in that smile!

"Answer!" the officer cried.

"Well, sir, I told her," she now replied, "that I was such and such a relative, grandmother, I think I said; and being a dutiful child—"

But I was now up close to her side, and, leaning to her very ear I interrupted her.

"Tell me on which side of the hall was the parlor into which you went."

"The right," she answered, without the least show of hesitation.

"Wrong," I returned; "you have never been there."

She looked frightened.

"O, sir," she whispered, "hush! hush! If you know—" And there she stopped; and instantly cried aloud, in a voice that warned me I should make nothing by pressing my suspicions at this time and in this place, "I lured the young lady from her home and I brought her here. If it is a criminal act I shall have to answer for it. We all run such risks now and then."

To me, with my superior knowledge of all the mysteries which lay behind this pitiful tragedy, her meaning was evident. Whether she had received payment sufficient for the punishment possibly awaiting her, or whether she had been frightened into assuming the responsibility of another, she was evidently resolved to sustain her role of abductress to the end.

The look she gave me at the completion of her words intensified this conviction, and not feeling sufficiently sure of my duty to dispute her at the present time, I took advantage of her determination, and outwardly, if not inwardly, accepted her confession as true.

I therefore retreated from her side, and being anxious to avoid the coroner, who was likely to enter at any minute, I confined myself to asking a few leading questions, which being answered in a manner seemingly frank, I professed myself satisfied with the result, and hastily withdrew.

XXVI. A FELINE TOUCH

Thou hast not half the power to do me harm,
as I have to be hurt.
—OTHELLO.

The tumult in my mind and heart were great, but my task was not yet completed, and till it was I could neither stop to analyze my emotions nor measure the depths of darkness into which I had been plunged by an occurrence as threatening to my peace as it was pitiful to my heart. Mrs. Pollard was to be again, interviewed, and to that formidable duty every thing bowed, even my need of rest and the demand which my whole body made for refreshment.

It was eight o'clock when I stood for the second time that day at her door; and, contrary to my expectations, I found as little difficulty in entering as I had before. Indeed, the servant was even more affable and obliging than he had been in the afternoon, and persisted in showing me into a small room off the parlor, now empty of guests, and going at once for Mrs. Pollard.

"She will see you, sir, I am sure," was his last remark as he went out of the door, "for, though she is so very tired, she told me if you called to ask you to wait."

I looked around on the somewhat desolate scene that presented itself, and doubtingly shook my head. This seeming submission on the part of a woman so indomitable as she, meant something. Either she was thoroughly frightened or else she meditated some treachery. In either case I needed all my self-command. Happily, the scene I had just quitted was yet vividly impressed upon my mind, and while it remained so, I felt as strong and unassailable as I had once felt weak and at the mercy of my fears.

I did not have to wait long. Almost immediately upon the servant's call, Mrs. Pollard entered the room and stood before me. Her first glance told me all. She was frightened.

"Well?" she said, in a hard whisper, and with a covert look around as if she feared the very walls might hear us. "You have found the girl and you have come to ask for money. It is a reasonable request, and if you do not ask too much you shall have it. I think it will heal all wounds."

My indignation flared up through all my horror and dismay.

"Money?" I cried, "money? what good will money do the dead; you have killed her, madam."

"Killed her?" No wonder she grew pale, no wonder she half gasped.
"Killed her?" she repeated.

"Yes," I returned, not giving her time to think, much less speak. "Lured by you to a den of evil, she chose to die rather than live on in disgrace. The woman who lent you her clothes has been found, and—I see I have reached you at last," I broke in. "I thought God's justice would work."

"I—I—" She had to moisten her lips before she could speak. "I don't understand what you mean. You say I lured her, that is a lie. I never took her to this den of evil as you call it."

"But you knew the street and number of the house, and you gave her into the hand of the woman who did take her there."

"I knew the number of the house but I did not know it was a den of evil. I thought it was a respectable place, cheaper than the one she was in. I am sorry—"

"Madam," I interrupted, "you will find it difficult to make the world believe you so destitute of good sense as not to know the character of the house to which such a woman as you entrusted her with would be likely to lead her. Besides, how will you account for the fact that, you wore a dress precisely like that of this creature when you enticed Miss Merriam away from her home. Is there any jury who will believe it to be a coincidence, especially when they learn that you kept your veil down in the presence of every one there?"

"But what proof have you that it was I who went for Miss Merriam?
The word of this woman whom you yourself call a creature?"

"The word of the landlady, who described Miss Merriam's visitor as tall and of a handsome figure, and my own eyesight, which assured me that the woman who came with her to her place of death was not especially tall nor of a handsome figure. Besides, I talked to the latter, and found she could tell me nothing of the interior of the house where Miss Merriam boarded. She did not even know if the parlors were on the right or the left side of the hall."

"Indeed!" came in Mrs. Pollard's harshest and most cutting tones. But the attempted sarcasm failed. She was shaken to the core, and there was no use in her trying to hide it. I did not, therefore, seek to break the silence which followed the utterance of this bitter exclamation; for the sooner she understood the seriousness of her position the sooner I should see what my own duty was. Suddenly she spoke, but not in her former tones. The wily woman had sounded the depths of the gulf upon the brink of which she had inadvertently stumbled, and her voice, which had been harsh? and biting, now took on all the softness which hypocrisy could give it.

But her words were sarcastic as ever.

"I asked you a moment ago," said she, "what money you wanted. I do not ask that now, as the girl is dead and a clergyman is not supposed to take much interest in filthy lucre. But you want something, or you would not be here. Is it revenge? It is a sentiment worthy of your cloth, and I can easily understand the desire you may have to indulge in it."

"Madam," I cried, "can you think of no other motive than a desire for vengeance or gain? Have you never heard of such a thing as justice?"

"And do you intend—" she whispered.

"There will be an inquest held," I continued. "I shall be called as a witness, and so doubtless will you. Are you prepared to answer all and every question that will be put you?"

"An inquest?" Her face was quite ghastly now. "And have you taken pains to publish abroad my connection with this girl?"

"Not yet."

"She is known, however, to be a grandchild of Mr. Pollard?"

"No," said I.

"What is known?" she inquired.

"That she was Mr. Pollard's protege."

"And you, you alone, hold the key to her real history?"

"Yes," I assented, "I."

She advanced upon me with all the venom of her evil nature sparkling in her eye. I met the glance unmoved. For a reason I will hereafter divulge, I no longer felt any fear of what either she or hers might do.

"I alone know her history and what she owes to you," I repeated. She instantly fell back. Whether she understood me or not, she saw that her hold upon me was gone, that the cowardice she had been witness to was dead, and that she, not I, must plead for mercy.

"Mr. Barrows," said she; "what is this girl to you that you should sacrifice the living to her memory?"

"Mrs. Pollard," I returned with equal intensity, "shall I tell you? She is the victim of my pusillanimity. That is what she is to me, and that is what makes her memory more to me than the peace or good name of her seemingly respectable murderers."

Was it the word I used or did some notion of the effect which a true remorse can have upon a conscientious soul, pierce her cold heart at last? I cannot tell; I only know that she crouched for an instant as if a blow had fallen upon her haughty head, then rising erect again—she was a proud woman still and would be to her death, whatever her fate or fortune—she gave me an indescribable look, and in smothered tones remarked:

"Your sympathies are with the innocent. That is well; now come with me, I have another innocence to show you, and after you have seen it tell me whether innocence living or innocence dead has the most claim upon your pity and regard." And before I realized what she was doing, she had led me across the room to a window, from which she hastily pulled aside the curtain that hung across it.

The sight that met my eyes was like a dream of fairyland let into the gloom and terror of a nightmare. The window overlooked the conservatory, and the latter being lighted, a vision of tropical verdure and burning blossoms flashed before us. But it was not upon this wealth of light and color that the gaze rested in the fullest astonishment and delight. It was upon two figures seated in the midst of these palm-trees and cacti, whose faces, turned the one towards the other, made a picture of love and joy that the coldest heart must feel, and the most stolid view with delight. It was the bridegroom and his bride, Mr. Harrington and the beautiful Agnes Pollard.

I felt the hand that lay upon my arm tremble.

"Have you the heart to dash such happiness as that?" murmured a voice in my ear.

Was it Mrs. Pollard speaking? I had never heard such a tone as that from her before. Turning, I looked at her. Her face was as changed as her voice; there was not only softness in it but appeal. It was no longer Mrs. Pollard who stood beside me, but the mother.

"She has never made a mistake," continued this terrible being, all the more terrible to me now that I saw capabilities of feeling in her. "She is young and has her whole life before her. If you pursue the claims of justice as you call them, her future will be wrecked. It is no fool she has married but a proud man, the proudest of his race. If he had known she had for a brother one whom his own country had sentenced to perpetual imprisonment, he would not have married her had his love been ten times what it is. It was because her family was honored and could bestow a small fortune upon her in dowry that he braved his English prejudices at all. What then do you think would be the result if he knew that not only was her brother a convict, but her mother——" She did not finish, but broke in upon herself with a violence that partook of frenzy. "He would first ignore her, then hate her. I know these Englishmen well."

It was true. The happiness or misery of this young creature hung upon my decision. A glance at her husband's face made this evident. He would love her while he could be proud of her; he would hate her the moment her presence suggested shame or opprobrium.

My wily antagonist evidently saw I was impressed, for her face grew still softer and her tone more insinuating.

"She was her father's darling," she whispered. "He could never bear to see a frown upon her face or a tear in her eye. Could he know now what threatened her do you think he would wish you to drag disgrace upon her head for the sake of justice to a being who is dead?"

I did not reply. The truth was I felt staggered.

"See what an exquisite creature she is," the mother now murmured in my ear. "Look at her well—she can bear it—and tell me where in the world you will find beauty more entrancing or a nature lovelier and more enticing?"

"Madam," said I, turning upon her with a severity the moment seemed to deserve, "In a den of contamination, amid surroundings such as it will not do for me to mention even before her who could make use of them to destroy the innocence that trusted in her, there lies the dead body of one as pure, as lovely, and as attractive as this; indeed her beauty is more winning for it has not the stamp of worldliness upon it."

The mother before me grew livid. Her brows contracted and she advanced upon me with a menacing gesture almost as if she would strike me. In all my experience of the world and of her I had never seen such rage; it was all but appalling. Involuntarily I raised my hand, in defence.

But she had already remembered her position and by a violent change now stood before me calm and collected as of old.

"You have been injured by me and have acquired the right to insult me," cried she. Then as I made no move, said: "It is not of the dead we were speaking. It was of her, Samuel Pollard's child. Do you intend to ruin her happiness or do you not? Speak, for it is a question I naturally desire to have settled."

"Madam," I now returned, edging away from that window with its seductive picture of youthful joy, "before I can settle it I must know certain facts. Not till I understand how you succeeded in enticing her from her home, and by what means you transferred her into the care of the vile woman who took your place, will I undertake to consider the possibility of withholding the denunciation which it is in my power to make."

"And you expect me to tell—" she began.

"Every thing," I finished, firmly.

She smiled with a drawing in of her lips that was feline. Then she glared; then she looked about her and approached nearer to me by another step.

"I wish I could kill you," her look said. "I wish by the lifting of my finger you would fall dead." But her lips made use of no such language. She was caught in the toils, and lioness as she was, found herself forced to obey the will that ensnared her.

"You want facts; well, you shall have them. You want to know how I managed to induce Miss Merriam to leave the house where my husband had put her. It is a simple question. Was I not her grandfather's wife, and could I not be supposed to know what his desires were concerning her?"

"And the second fact?"

She looked at me darkly.

"You are very curious," said she.

"I am," said I.

Her baleful smile repeated itself.

"You think that by these confessions I will place myself in a position which will make it impossible for me, to press my request. You do not understand me, sir. Had I committed ten times the evil I have done, that would not justify you in wantonly destroying the happiness of the innocent."

"I wish to know the facts," I said.

"She went with me to a respectable eating house," Mrs. Pollard at once explained. "Leave her to eat her lunch, I went to a place near by, where the woman you saw, met me by appointment, and putting on the clothes I had worn, went back for the girl in my stead. As I had taken pains not to raise my veil except just at the moment when I wanted to convince her I was her natural guardian, the woman had only to hold her tongue to make the deception successful. That she did this is evident from the result. Is there any thing more you would like to know?"

"Yes," I replied, inwardly quaking before this revelation of an inconceivable wickedness, yet steadily resolved to probe it to the very depths. "What did you hope to gain by this deliberate plan of destruction? The girl's death, or simply her degradation?"

The passion in this woman's soul found its vent at last.

"I hoped to lose her; to blot her out of my path—and hers," she more gently added, pointing with a finger that trembled with more than one fierce emotion, at the daughter for whom she had sacrificed so much. "I did not think the girl would die; I am no murderess whatever intimation you may make to that effect. I am simply a mother."

A mother! O horrible! I looked at her and recoiled. That such a one as this should have the right to lay claim to so holy a title and asperse it thus!

She viewed my emotion but made no sign of understanding it. Her words poured forth like a stream of burning liquid.

"Do you realize what this girl's living meant? It meant recognition, and consequently disgrace and a division of our property, the loss of my daughter's dowry, and of all the hopes she had built on it. Was I, who had given to Samuel Pollard the very money by means of which he had made his wealth, to stand this? Not if a hundred daughters of convicts must perish."

"And your sons?"

"What of them?"

"Had they no claim upon your consideration. When you plunged them into this abyss of greed and deceit did no phantom of their lost manhood rise and confront you with an unanswerable reproach?"

But she remained unmoved.

"My sons are men; they can take care of themselves."

"But Dwight—"

Her self-possession vanished.

"Hush!" she whispered with a quick look around her. "Do not mention him. I have sent him away an hour ago but he may have come back. I do not trust him."

This last clause she uttered beneath her breath and with a spasmodic clutch of her hand which showed she spoke involuntarily. I was moved at this. I began to hope that Dwight at least, was not all that his mother would have him.

"And yet I must speak of him," said I, taking out the letter he had written to Miss Merriam. "This letter addressed to one you have so successfully destroyed seems to show that he returns your mistrust."

She almost tore it out of my hands.

"When was this letter received?" she asked, reading it with burning eyes and writhing lips.

"The day after Miss Grace left her home."

"Then she never saw it?"

"No."

"Who has seen it?"

"Myself and you."

"No one else?"

"No one but the writer."

She laughed.

"We will destroy it," she said; and deliberately tore it up.

I stooped and picked up the fragments.

"You forget," said I, "this letter may be called for by the coroner.
It is known that I took it in charge."

"I might better have burnt it," she hissed.

"Not so, I should then have had to explain its loss."

Her old fear came back into her eyes.

"Now I have merely to give it up and leave it to Mr. Dwight Pollard to explain it. He doubtless can."

"My son will never betray his mother."

"Yet he could write this letter."

She frowned.

"Dwight has his weakness," said she.

"It is a pity his weakness did not lead him to send this letter a few hours sooner."

"That is where his very weakness fails. He struggles because he knows his mother partly, and fails because he does not know her wholly."

"And Guy?"

"He knows me better."

The smile with which this was said was the culminating point in a display of depravity such as I had never beheld, even in hovels of acknowledged vice. Feeling that I could not endure much more, I hastened to finish the interview.

"Madam," said I, "by your own acknowledgment you deserve neither consideration nor mercy. What leniency I then show will be for your daughter alone, who, in so far as I can see, is innocent and undeserving of the great retribution which I could so easily bring upon this family. But do not think because I promise to suppress your name from the account I may be called upon to give the coroner, that your sin will be forgotten by Heaven, or this young girl's death go unavenged. As sure as you are the vilest woman I ever met, will suffering and despair overtake you. I do not know when, and I do not know by what means, but it will be bitter when it comes, and the hand of man will not be able to save you."

But it was as if I had not spoken. All she seemed to hear, all, at least, that she paid the least attention to, was the promise I had made.

"You are decided, then, upon secrecy?" she asked.

"I am decided upon saying nothing that will bring your name into public notice."

Her proud manner immediately returned. You would have thought she had never suffered a humiliation.

"But how will you account for your interest in this young person?"

"By telling a portion of the truth. I shall say that my attention was called to her by a letter from Mr. Pollard requesting me to hunt her up and take care of her after he was dead. I shall not say he called her his grandchild unless I am positively forced to do so, nor will I mention the treatment I have received at your hands."

"And the woman you saw?"

"Is your business. I have nothing to do with her."

The shadow which till this moment rested upon her haughty brow, cleared away. With a quick gesture, from which she could not entirely exclude a betrayal of triumph, she dropped the curtain across that charming picture of bridal felicity by which she had won so much, and turning upon me with all the condescension of a conqueror, she exclaimed:

"I once did you an injustice, Mr. Barrows, and called you a name that was but little complimentary to your cloth. Allow me to make such amends as I can and call you what you most surely are—the most generous and least vindictive of men."

This was intolerable. I made haste to leave the room.

"Mrs. Pollard," said I, "no amenities can take place between us. From this hour on we are strangers, till the time conies when we shall appear before the judgment-seat of God. In that day, neither you nor I can hold back one iota of the truth. Think of this, and repent your part in this awful tragedy of sin, if you can." And I turned away toward the door.

But just as I was about to open it, it swung slowly aside, and in the frame-work made by the lintels, I saw Guy Pollard standing with a quiet look of inquiry on his face.

"Mother," said he, in the calmest and most courteous of tones, "shall I let this gentleman pass?"

The reply came in accents equally calm and courteous:

"Certainly, my son."

And Guy Pollard made me a deep bow, and drew softly aside from my path.

I had been within an inch of my death, but it scarcely ruffled me.

XXVII. REPARATION

If hearts are weak, souls should at least be strong.
I will be brief, for my short date of breath
Is not so long as is a tedious tale.
—ROMEO AND JULIET.

Let me hasten to the end.

When I told Mrs. Pollard that I would suppress that portion of the truth which connected her name with this fatal affair, I did not of course mean that I would resort to any falsehood or even prevarication. I merely relied upon the improbability of my being questioned close enough to necessitate my being obliged to reveal the astounding facts which made this matter a destructive one for the Pollards. And I was right in my calculations. Neither socially, nor at the formal inquiry before the coroner, was any question raised of relationship between the dead girl and the family in S——; and this fact, taken with the discreet explanations accorded by Dwight Pollard of his father's, and afterwards of his own interest in her, as shown in the letter which he had sent to her address, is the reason why this affair passed without scandal to the parties concerned.

But not without results for deep down in the heart of one person an influence was at work, destined ere long to eventuate in the tragedy to which these lines are the clue. Remorse deep as my nature and immovable as my sin, has gotten hold upon me, and nothing short of death, and death in the very shape from which I fled in such a cowardly manner, will ever satisfy my soul or allay that burning sense of shame and regret which makes me fear the eye of man and quake at the thought of eternal justice.

For in a final interview with Dwight Pollard I have become convinced that, however unprincipled his brother might be, it was with no intention of carrying out his threats that he plunged me into the vat on that fatal night; that, recognizing the weakness in me, he had resorted to intimidation to ensure his ends; and that all the consequences which followed might have been averted, if I had but remained true to my trust.

Being a Christian minister, and bound by my creed and faith to resist the devil and face the wrath of men, my dereliction in this regard acquires an importance not to be measured by the ordinary standard of law or social usage. For, when I failed to support my principles under trial, Christian faith was betrayed and the avowed power of God put to mockery and shame. I go, therefore, to the death I then shunned, deliberately, conscientiously, determinedly. For the sake of God, for the sake of honor, for the sake of those higher principles which it should be the glory of men to sustain at all risk and in every furnace of affliction, I lay down youth, love, and life, confident that if in so doing I rob one sweet soul of its happiness, I sow anew in other hearts the seed of that stern belief in God and the requirements of our faith which my cowardly act must have gone so far to destroy.

May God accept the sacrifice in the spirit in which I perform it, and in His gracious mercy make light, not the horrors of the pit into which I am about to descend, but the heart of him who must endure them. Whether long or short, they will be such as He sends me, and the end must be peace.

XXVIII. TWO OR ONE

How all the other passions fleet to air,
As doubtful thoughts and rash embrac'd despair,
And shuddering fear, and green-ey'd jealousy.
O love, be moderate; allay thy ecstasy.
—MER. OF VENICE.

I had finished it; the last line had been read, and I sat in a maze of astonishment and awe. What my thoughts were, what my judgment upon this astounding act of self-destruction for conscience sake, it will not interest you to know. In a matter so complicated with questions of right and wrong, each man must feel for himself, and out of his own nature adjudge praise, or express censure; I, Constance Sterling, shall do neither; I can only wonder and be still.

One point, however, in this lengthy confession I will allude to, as it involves a fact. Mr. Barrows says that he goes to his death, the same death from which he fled when he yielded to the threats of Guy Pollard and gave up the will. He expected, therefore, to find the vat dry, and looked forward to hours, if not days, of long-drawn suffering in a spot devoid of warmth, light, water, and food. His injunction to Ada in that last letter of his—not to make any move to find him for ten days—favors this idea, and proves what his expectations were.

But, by the mercy of God, the vat had been half filled with water in the interim which had elapsed between his first and last visit to the mill, and the prison thus becoming a cistern, he must have come to his end in a few moments after his fatal plunge. It was the one relief which a contemplation of this tragedy brought to my overwrought mind.

But with the next day came a reaction; and with a heart full of rejoicing, I prepared to communicate to Dwight Pollard the fact of his release from the dominion of Rhoda Colwell. For whether this record of the past showed him to be a man worthy of full honor or not, it certainly sufficed to exonerate him from all suspicion of being the direct cause of David Barrow's death, and I knew her well enough, or thought I did, to feel certain that no revenge, unless the greatest, would ever satisfy her, and that in losing her hold upon his life and love, she would make no attempt that would merely darken his name before the world. It was therefore with a fearless heart I penned the following lines.

MISS COLWELL:

Your suspicions were unfounded. I have Mr. Barrows' own words to the effect that he meditated death by imprisonment in the vat. I go to acquaint Dwight Pollard with the fact that any accusation on your part must fail before the minute and circumstantial confession which Mr. Barrows has left behind him.

Signing this letter, I despatched it at once to its destination; then taking the important manuscript in my hand, I set out for the Pollard mansion.

It was a day full of sunshine and promise. As I sped through the streets and approached that end of the town which hitherto it had taken all my courage to face, I was astonished at the lightness of my own heart and the beneficent aspect which every object about me seemed to have acquired. Even the place I had come to visit looked less dreary than usual, and I found myself in the grounds and half way up the stoop, before I realized the least falling of that shadow which seemed inseparable from this particular spot. And even now it only came with the thought of Guy, whose possible presence at the door would be any thing but desirable. But my errand being one of peace I was enabled to contemplate even this contingency with equanimity, and was about to ring the bell with a trembling but determined hand, when the door suddenly opened and Dwight Pollard stood before me.

The look of surprise and delight which he gave me brought the color to my cheeks.

"Ah, what a pleasure!" he murmured. Then with a quick look in my face, added earnestly, "You bring good news."

"The best," I answered cheerily, and following him in, I took my stand once more in that dismal parlor where weeks ago I had received my first intimation of the feeling which his every look and gesture now conveyed.

"Mr. Pollard," I now managed to say with a certain dignity, "you see me here because Providence has lately put into my hands a document which completely exonerates you from the charges which Rhoda Colwell has threatened to make against you. Read it, and when you understand the tragedy we so much deplore, we will see how much or how little can be done with the lives it has so deeply affected." And placing the thickly written sheets in his hands I withdrew to the first window I saw and mechanically threw aside the curtains that hid it.

The sight that met my gaze made me for an instant forget the importance of what I had just done. The window I had chosen was the one which looked into the conservatory, and the picture which Mr. Barrows describes as having seen from this spot was then and there before my eyes. The tropical growth, the gorgeous blossoms, even the beautiful woman and the sturdy man. Mr. and Mrs. Harrington were lovers, then, still. The mother's death and that of the devoted clergyman had not served to reveal the secret which secured the happiness of this bright, attractive, if somewhat worldly, pair. I own I was glad of this, little as I felt myself in sympathy with the radiant but superficial Agnes. Youth, love, and joy are so precious that it lightens the heart to behold their sunshine even on the faces of those whose characters we do not envy.

Nevertheless, the thoughts suggested by this unexpected scene did not long serve to distract me from the more serious matter in hand. Dropping the curtains, I cast one look, toward Mr. Pollard. He was sitting with his face bent over the manuscript, a deep corrugation marked his brow, and a settled look of pain his mouth. I turned away again; I could not bear that look; all my strength was needed for the effort which it might possibly be my duty to make. I sat down in a remote corner and diligently set my soul to patience.

It was well, for my suspense was long, so long that hope and courage began to fail and an inward trembling to take the place of the joyous emotions with which I had placed this confession in his hands. Nevertheless, it came to an end at last, and, with an agitation easy to conceive, I heard him roll the manuscript up, rise, and approach to where I sat. I did not look up, I could not; but I felt his gaze burning through my half-closed lids, and terrified lest I should reveal my weakness and my hopes, I set my lips together, and stilled the beatings of my heart, till I must have struck his sense with the chill and immobility of a totally insensible woman. The despair which the sight caused him, showed itself in his tone when he spoke.

"You share my own opinion of myself," said he. "You consider me the destroyer of Mr. Barrows."

I looked up. What grief, what shame, what love I beheld in the face above me. Slowly I shook my head.

"Mr. Barrows does not accuse you," said I. Then, determined to be truthful to the core at all risks and at all hazards, I added earnestly, "But you were to blame; greatly to blame; I shall never hide that fact from you or from myself. I should be unworthy of your esteem if I did."

"Yes," he earnestly assented, "and I would be less than a man if I did not agree with you." Then, in a lower tone and with greater earnestness yet, continued, "It is not pleasant for a man to speak ill of his own flesh and blood; but after having read words as condemnatory as these, it may be pardoned me, perhaps, if I speak as much of the truth as is necessary to present myself in a fair light to the woman upon whose good opinion rests all my future happiness. Constance, I love you—"

But at this word I had hurriedly risen.

"Oh!" I somewhat incoherently exclaimed; "not here! not under your own roof!"

But at his look I sank back.

"Yes," he imperatively cried, "here and now. I cannot wait another day, another hour. My love for you is too great, too absorbing, for any paltry considerations to interpose themselves upon my attention now. I must tell you what you are to me, and ask you, as you are a just and honest woman, to listen while I lay bare to you my life— the life I long to consecrate to your happiness, Constance."

I looked up.

"Thank you," he murmured; but whether in return for my look or the smile which his look involuntarily called up, I cannot say, for he went on instantly in continuation of his former train of thought, "Constance, you have read this confession from Mr. Barrows which you have just placed in my hands?"

"Yes," I nodded gravely.

"You can, then, understand what a dilemma we were in some three months ago. My sister had attracted the notice of an English aristocrat. He loved her and wished to marry her. We admired him—or rather we admired his position (I would be bitterly true at this hour) and wished to see the union effected. But there was a secret in our family, which if known, would make such a marriage impossible. A crime perpetrated before my birth had attached disgrace to our name and race, and Mr. Harrington is a man to fly disgrace quicker than he would death. Miss Sterling, it would be useless for me to try to make myself out better than I am. When I heard that my father, whom I am just beginning to revere but of whom in those days I had rather a careless opinion, was determined to acknowledge his convict son through the daughter which had been sent over here, I revolted. Not that I begrudged this young girl the money he wished to leave her,—though from a somewhat morbid idea of reparation which my father possessed, he desired to give her an amount that would materially affect our fortunes—but that I loved my sister, and above all loved the proud and isolated position we had obtained in society, and could not endure the results which the revelation of such a stain in, our family must produce. Not my mother, whose whole life since her marriage had been one haughty protest against this secret shame, nor Guy, with all his cynicism and pride, felt stronger on this point than I. To my warped judgment any action within the bounds of reason seemed justifiable that would prevent my dying father from bringing this disgrace upon his children; and being accustomed to defer to my mother's judgments and desires,—she was not only a powerful woman, Constance, but possessed of a strange fascination for those she loved and sought to govern—I lent myself sufficiently to her schemes to stand neutral in the struggle between my father's wishes and her determination, though that father would often turn upon me with a gaze of entreaty that went to my heart. That he had taken advantage of his last journey to Boston to have a new will drawn, and that his only desire now was for an opportunity to get this same safely transferred into the hands of his lawyer, I never suspected any more than did my mother or brother. We thought that as far as the past was concerned we were secure, and that if we could prevent an interview between him and Mr. Nicholls, the future would likewise be safe from a discovery of our secret It was therefore a terrible shock to my mother and afterwards to me when we learned that he had already accomplished the act we so much dreaded and that the clergyman we had called in at my father's urgent request, had been entrusted with the paper that was to proclaim our shame to the world. But the disappointment, great as it was, had little time to exert its force on me, for with my brother's recital of what had taken place at my father's deathbed there came a new dread which I find it difficult to name but which you will understand when I say that it led me to give Mr. Barrows the warning of which he has spoken. My brother—I cannot speak of him with calmness—is a man to be feared, Miss Sterling. Not that I would not be a match for him in all matters of open enmity; but in ways of secrecy and deep dealing, he is master, and all the more to be dreaded that he makes it impossible for one to understand him or measure the depths of turpitude to which he would descend. When, therefore I heard him say he should have that will back before it could pass into the hands of Mr. Nicholls, I trembled; and as the night passed and morning came without showing any diminution in the set determination of his expression, I decided upon visiting Mr. Barrows, in the hope of influencing him to return the will of his own accord. But I soon saw that in spite of the weakness I detected in him there was small prospect of his doing this; and turning my steps home again, I confronted my mother and my brother and asked them what they meant to do; they told me, that is, they told me partly; and I, with that worse dread in my soul, was fain to be satisfied with the merely base and dishonorable scheme they meditated. To take Mr. Barrows at a disadvantage, to argue with him, threaten him, and perhaps awe him by place and surroundings to surrender to them the object of their desires, did not seem to me so dreadful, when I thought of what they might have done or might yet attempt to do if I stood in their way too much. So, merely stipulating that they would allow me to accompany them to the mill, I let matters take their course, and true to my own secret desire to retain their confidence and so save him, and if possible them, from any act that would entail consequences of a really serious nature, I gave them my assistance to the extent of receiving Mr. Barrows at the door and conducting him through the mill to the room which my brother had designated to me as the one in which they proposed to hold their conference.

"But the task was uncongenial, and at the first words which Guy chose to employ against Mr. Barrows, I set down my lantern on the floor and escaped to the outer air again. Money, station, fame before the world, seemed to me but light matters at that moment, and if I had followed my first impulse I should have rushed back to the assistance of Mr. Barrows. But considerations terrible and strange prevented me from following this impulse. In the first place I was not myself free from a desire to see the contents of the will and judge for myself to what extent my father had revealed our disgrace to the world; and secondly, the habit of years is not broken in an instant, and this mother who gave her countenance to an act I so heartily disapproved, had for all her reserve and a nature seriously differing from my own, ever been the dominator of my actions and the controlling force of my life. I could not brave her, not yet, not while any hope remained of righting matters, without a demonstration that would lead to open hostilities. So with a weakness I now wonder at, I let the minutes go by till the sound of coming steps warned me that my brother was at hand. What he told me was brief and to the point He had obtained the clergyman's consent to read the will and was on his way to get it. "But, Mr. Barrows?" I inquired. "Is in the cellar there with mother." "The cellar!" I repeated. But he was already in the yard, on his way to the town. I was disturbed. The calmness of his tone had not deceived me. I felt that something was wrong; what I could not tell. Taking the lantern he had left behind him, I made my way to the cellar. It seemed empty. But when I had reached the other end I found myself confronted by a ghostly figure in which I was forced to recognize my mother, though the sight of her in the masquerade costume she had adopted; gave me a shock serious as the interests involved. But this surprise, great as it was, was soon lost in that of finding her alone; and when to my hurried inquiry as to where Mr. Barrows was, she pointed to the vat, you can imagine the tide of emotions that swept over me. But no, that is impossible. They were not what you would have felt, they were not what I would feel now. Mingled with my shame and the indignant protest of my manhood against so unworthy an exercise of power, was that still dominating instinct of dread which any interference with my mother's plans or wishes had always inspired; and so when I learned that the worst was over and that Mr. Barrows would be released on Guy's return, I subdued my natural desire to rescue him and went away, little realizing that in thus allying myself with his persecutors, I had laid the foundations of a remorse that would embitter my whole after existence. The return of my brother with the will caused me fresh emotions. As soon as I saw him I knew there was a struggle before me; and in handing him back the lantern, I took occasion to ask if he had opened the document. He looked at me a moment before replying and his lip took a sinister curl. 'I have,' he said. 'And what does it contain?' 'What we wish,' he answered, with a strange emphasis. I was too much astonished to speak. I could not believe this to be true, and when, Mr. Barrows having been released, we had all returned home, I asked to see the will and judge for myself. But Guy refused to show it. 'We are going to return it,' he said, and said no more. Nor would my mother give me any further information. Either I had betrayed myself in the look I gave Guy on his return to the mill, or else some underlying regard for my feelings had constrained her to spare me actual participance in a fraud. At all events, I did not know the truth till the real will had been destroyed and the substituted one placed in Mr. Nicholls' hands, and then it was told to me in a way to confound my sense of right and make me think it would be better to let matters proceed to this false issue, than by a public acknowledgment of the facts, bring down upon me and mine the very disgrace from which I had been so desirous of escaping. I was caught in the toils you see, and though it would have been a man's part to have broken through every constraint and proclaimed myself once and for all on the side of right, I had nothing whereby to show what the last wishes of my father had been, and could only say what would ruin us without benefiting the direct object of those wishes. I therefore kept their counsel and my own; stilling my conscience when it spoke too loud, by an inward promise to be not only a friend to my older brother's child, but to part with the bulk of my fortune to her. That she would need my friendship I felt, as the letter I wrote to her shows, but that such evil would come upon her as did, or that my delay to see her would make it impossible for me ever to behold her in this world, I had yet too much filial regard to imagine. I was consequently overwhelmed by the news of her death, and though I never knew the whole truth till now, I was conscious of a distrust so great that from that day to the worser ones which followed, I never looked at those nearest to me without a feeling of deep separation such as is only made by some dark and secret crime. I was alone, or so I felt, and was gradually becoming morbid from a continual brooding on this subject, when the great blow fell which changed whatever vague distress I felt into an active remorse and positive fear. Mr. Barrows was found dead, drowned in the very vat into which my brother had forced him a month or so before. What did it mean? It was impossible for me to guess the truth, but I could not but recognize the fact that we were more or less responsible for his death; that the frenzy which had doubtless led to this tragedy was the outcome of the strain which had been put upon his nerves, and though personally I had had nothing to do with placing him in the vat, I was certainly responsible for allowing him to remain there a moment after I knew where he was. It was, therefore, with the deepest horror and confusion that I rushed home with this news, only to find that it had outstripped me, and that my mother, foreseeing the dangers which this death might bring upon us, had succumbed to the shock, and lay, as you know, in a most alarming condition herself. The perilous position into which we were thrown by these two fatal occurrences necessitated a certain confidence between my brother and myself. To watch our mother, and stifle any unguarded expressions into which she might be betrayed, to watch you, and when we saw it was too late to prevent your sharing our secret, to make our hold upon you such that you would feel it to your own advantage to keep it with us, was perhaps only pardonable in persons situated as we were. But, Constance, while with Guy the feeling that made this last task easy was one of selfish passion only, mine from the first possessed a depth and fervency which made the very thought of wooing you seem a desecration and a wrong. For already had your fine qualities produced their effect, and in the light of your high and lofty nature, my own past looked deformed and dark. And when the worst came, and Rhoda Colwell's threats put a seemingly immovable barrier between us, this love which had sprung up in a very nightmare of trouble, only seemed to take deeper and more lasting root, and I vowed that whether doomed to lifelong regret or not, I would live worthy of you, and be in misery what I could so easily be in joy, the man you could honor, if not love. That this hour would ever come I dared not dream, but now that it has, can you, will you give me so much as you have, and not give me more? I know I have no right to ask any thing from you; that the secrets of our family are a burden which any woman might well shrink from sharing, but if you do not turn from me, will you turn from them? Love is such a help to the burdened, and I love you so fondly, so reverently."

He was on his knees; his forehead was pressed against my arm. The emotion which shook his whole body communicated itself to me. I felt that whatever his past weaknesses had been, he possessed a character capable of the noblest development, and, yielding to the longing with which my whole being was animated, I was about to lay my hand upon his head, when he lifted his face and, gazing earnestly at me, said:

"One moment; there is yet a cloud which ought to be blown away from between us—Rhoda Colwell. I loved her; I sought her love; but once gained, my eyes opened. I saw her imperfections; I felt the evil in her nature. I knew if I married her, I should ruin my life. I left her. I seemed to have no choice, for my love died with my esteem, and she was not a woman to marry without love. Could I have done differently, Constance?"

I answered as my whole heart inclined me to. I could not refuse this love coming into my desolate life. It seemed to be mine. Whatever trials, fear, or disquietude it might bring, the joy of it was great enough to make these very trials desirable, if only to prove to him and me that the links which bound us were forged from truest metal, without any base alloy to mar their purity and undermine their strength.

And so that spot of gloom, which had been the scene of so much that was dark and direful, became the witness of a happiness which seemed to lift it out of the veil of reserve in which it had been shrouded for so long, and make of the afternoon sun, which at that moment streamed in through the western windows, a signal of peace, whose brightness as yet has never suffered change or eclipse.

THE END.

THE
FORSAKEN INN

A NOVEL

BY

ANNA KATHARINE GREEN

Author of
"The Leavenworth Case," "A Matter of Millions,"
"Behind Closed Doors," etc.

GROSSET & DUNLAP
Publishers New York

COPYRIGHT, 1889 and 1890
BY ROBERT BONNER'S SONS

COPYRIGHT, 1909
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY

TO MY HUSBAND.

THE FORSAKEN INN.

CHAPTER I. THE OAK PARLOR

WAS riding between Albany and Poughkeepsie. It was raining furiously, and my horse, already weary with long travel, gave unmistakable signs of discouragement. I was, therefore, greatly relieved when, in the most desolate part of the road, I espied rising before me the dim outlines of a house, and was correspondingly disappointed when, upon riding forward, I perceived that it was but a deserted ruin I was approaching, whose fallen chimneys and broken windows betrayed a dilapidation so[6] great that I could scarcely hope to find so much as a temporary shelter therein.

Nevertheless, I was so tired of the biting storm that I involuntarily stopped before the decayed and forbidding structure, and was, in truth, withdrawing my foot from the stirrup, when I heard an unexpected exclamation behind me, and turning, saw a chaise, from the open front of which leaned a gentleman of most attractive appearance.

"What are you going to do?" he asked.

"Hide my head from the storm," was my hurried rejoinder. "I am tired, and so is my horse, and the town, according to all appearances, must be at least two miles distant."

"No matter if it is three miles! You must not take shelter in that charnel-house," he muttered; and moved along in his seat as if to show me there was room beside him.

"Why," I exclaimed, struck with sudden curiosity, "is this one of the haunted houses we hear of? If so, I shall certainly enter, and be much obliged to the storm for driving me into so interesting a spot." I thought he looked embarrassed. At all events, I am sure he hesitated for a moment whether or not to ride on and leave me[7] to my fate. But his better impulses seemed to prevail, for he suddenly cried: "Get in with me, and leave mysteries alone. If you want to come back here after you have learned the history of that house, you can do so; but first ride on to town and have a good meal. Your horse will follow easily enough after he is rid of your weight."

It was too tempting an offer to be refused; so thankfully accepting his kindness, I alighted from my horse, and after tying him to the back of the chaise, got in with this genial stranger. As I did so I caught another view of the ruin I had been so near entering.

"Good gracious!" I exclaimed, pointing to the structure that, with its projecting upper story and ghastly apertures, presented a most suggestive appearance, "if it does not look like a skull!"

My companion shrugged his shoulders, but did not reply. The comparison was evidently not a new one to him.

That evening, in a comfortable inn parlor, I read the following manuscript. It was placed in my hands by this kindly stranger, who in so doing explained that it had been written by the[8] last occupant of the old inn I was so nearly on the point of investigating. She had been its former landlady, and had clung to the ancient house long after decay had settled upon its doorstep and desolation breathed from its gaping windows. She died in its north room, and from under her pillow the discolored leaves were taken, the words of which I now place before you.

JANUARY 28, 1775.

I do not understand myself. I do not understand my doubts nor can I analyze my fears. When I saw the carriage drive off, followed by the wagon with its inexplicable big box, I thought I should certainly regain my former serenity. But I am more uneasy than ever. I cannot rest, and keep going over and over in my mind the few words that passed between us in their short stay under my roof. It is her face that haunts me. It must be that, for it had a strange look of trouble in it as well as sickness; but neither can I forget his, so fair, so merry, and yet so unpleasant, especially when he glanced at her and—as I could not help but think before they went away—when he glanced at me. I do not like him, and the[9] chills creep over me whenever I remember his laugh, which was much too frequent to be decent, considering how poorly his young wife looked.

They are gone, and their belongings with them; but I am as much afraid as if they were still here. Why? That is what I cannot tell. I sit in the room where they slept, and feel as strange and terrified as if I had encountered a ghost there. I dread to stay and dread to move and write, because I must relieve myself in some way—that is, if I am to have any sleep to-night. Am I ill, or was there something unexplained and mysterious in their actions? Let me go over the past and see.

They came last evening about twilight. I was in the front of the house, and seeing such a good-looking couple in the carriage, and such a pile of baggage with them that they had to have an extra wagon to carry it, I ran out in all haste to welcome them. She had a veil drawn over her face, and it was so thick that I could not see her features, but her figure was slight and graceful, and I took a fancy to her at once, perhaps because she held her arms out when she saw me, as if she thought she beheld in me a friend. He did not please me so well,[10] though there is no gainsaying that he is handsome enough, and speaks, when he wishes to, with a great deal of courtesy. But I thought he ought to give his attention to his young and ailing wife, instead of being so concerned about his baggage. Had that big box of his contained gold, he could not have looked at it more lovingly or been more anxious about its handling. He said it held books; but, pshaw! what is there in books, that a man should love them better than his wife, and watch over their welfare with the utmost concern, while allowing a stranger to help her out of the carriage and up the inn steps?

But I will not dwell any longer upon this. Men are strange beings, and must not be judged by rules that apply to women. Let me see if I can remember when it was that I first saw her face. Ah, yes; it was in the parlor. She had taken a seat there while her husband looked through the house and decided which room to take. There were four empty, and two of them were the choicest and airiest in the inn, but he passed by these and insisted upon taking one that was stuffy with disuse, because it was on the ground floor, and so convenient for us to bring his great box into.[11]

His great box! I was so provoked at this everlasting concern about his great box, that I ran to the parlor, intending to ask the lady herself to interfere. But when I got to the threshold I paused, and did not speak, for the lady—or Mrs. Urquhart, as I presently found she called herself—had risen from her seat and was looking in the glass with an expression so sad and searching that I forgot my errand and only thought of comforting her. But the moment she heard my step she drew down the veil which she had tossed back, and coming quickly toward me, asked if her husband had chosen a room.

I answered in the affirmative, and began to complain that it was not a very cheerful one. But she paid small attention to my words, and presently I found myself following her to the apartment designated. She entered, making a picture, as she crossed the threshold, which I shall not readily forget. For in her short, quick walk down the hall she had torn the bonnet from her head, and though she was not a strictly beautiful woman, she was sufficiently interesting to make her every movement attractive. But that is not all. For some reason the moment possessed an importance[12] for her which I could not measure. I saw it in her posture, in the pallor of her cheeks and the uprightness of her carriage. The sudden halt she made at the threshold, the half-startled exclamation she gave as her eyes fell on the interior, all showed that she was laboring under some secret agitation. But what was the cause of that agitation I have not been able to determine. She went in, but as she did so, I heard her murmur:

"Oak walls! Ah, my soul! it has come soon!"

Not a very intelligible exclamation, you will allow, but as intelligible as her whole conduct. For in another moment every sign of emotion had left her, and she stood quite calm and cold in the center of the room. But her pallor remained, and I cannot make sure now whether this betokened weary resignation or some secret and but half recognized fear.

Had I looked at him instead of at her, I might have understood the situation better. But, though I dimly perceived his form drawn up in the empty space at the left of the door, it was not until she had passed him and flung herself into a chair, that I thought to look in his direction. Then it was too late, for he had turned his face aside and[13] was gazing with rather an obtrusive curiosity at the old-fashioned room, murmuring, as he did so, some such commonplaces to his wife as:

"I hope you are not fatigued, my dear. Fine old house, this. Quite English in style, eh?"

To all of which she answered with a nod or word, till suddenly, without look or warning, she slipped from her chair and lay perfectly insensible upon the dark boards of the worm-eaten floor.

I uttered an exclamation, and so did he; but it was my arms that lifted her and laid her on the bed. He stood as if frozen to his place for a moment, then he mechanically lifted his foot and set it with an air of proprietorship on the box before which he had been standing.

"Strange and inexplicable conduct," thought I, and looked the indignation I could not but feel. Instantly he left his position and hastened to my side, offering his assistance and advice with that heartless officiousness which is so unbearable when life and death are at stake.

I accepted as little of his help as was possible, and when, after persistent effort on my part, I saw her lids fluttering and her breast heaving, I turned to him with as inoffensive an air as my mingled[14] dislike and distrust would admit, and asked how long they had been married. He flushed violently, and with a sudden rage that at once robbed him of that gentlemanly appearance which, in him, was but the veneer to a coarse and brutal nature, he exclaimed:

"—— you! and by what right do you ask that?"

But before I could reply he recovered himself and was all false polish again, bowing with exaggerated politeness, as he exclaimed:

"Excuse me; I have had much to disturb me lately. My wife's health has been very feeble for months, and I am worn out with anxiety and watching. We are now on our way to a warmer climate, where I hope she will be quite restored."

And he smiled a very strange and peculiar smile, that went out like a suddenly extinguished candle, as he perceived her eyes suddenly open, and her gaze pass reluctantly around the room, as if forced to a curiosity against which she secretly rebelled.

"I think Mrs. Urquhart will do very well now," was his hurried remark at this sight. He evidently wished to be rid of me, and though I hated[17] to leave her, I really found nothing to say in contradiction to his statement, for she certainly looked completely restored. I therefore turned away with a heavy heart toward the door, when the young wife, suddenly throwing out her arms, exclaimed:

"Do not leave me in this horrible room alone! I am afraid of it—actually afraid! Couldn't you have found some spot in the house less gloomy, Edwin?"

I came back.

"There are plenty of rooms—" I began.

But he interrupted me without any ceremony.

"I chose this room, Honora, for its convenience. There is nothing horrible about it, and when the lamps are lit you will find it quite pleasant. Do not be foolish. We sleep here or nowhere, for I cannot consent to go upstairs."

She answered nothing, but I saw her eyes go traveling once again around the walls, followed in a furtive way by his. Whereupon I looked about me, too, and tried to get a stranger's impression of the place. I was astonished at its effect upon my imagination. Though I had been in and out of the room fifty times before I had never noticed till[18] now the extreme dismalness and desolation of its appearance.

Once used as an auxiliary parlor, it had that air of uninhabitableness which clings to such rooms, together with a certain something else, equally unpleasant, to which at that moment I could give no name, and for which I could neither find then nor now any sufficient reason. It was paneled with oak far above our heads, and as the walls above had become gray with smoke, there was absolutely no color in the room, not even in the hangings of the gaunt four-poster that loomed dreary and repelling from one end of the room. For here, as elsewhere, time had been at work, and tints that were once bright enough had gradually been subdued by dust and smoke into one uniform dimness. The floor was black, the fireplace empty, the walls without a picture, and yet it was neither from this grayness nor from this barrenness that one recoiled. It was from something else—something that went deeper than the lack of charm or color—something that clung to the walls like a contagion and caught at the heart-strings where they are weakest, smothering hope and awakening horror, till in each faded chair[19] a ghost seemed sitting, gazing at you with immovable eyes that could tell tales, but would not.

There was but one window in the room, and that looked toward the west. But the light that should have entered there was frightened, also, and halted on the ledge without, balked by the thick curtains that heavily enshrouded it. A haunted chamber! or so it appeared at that moment to my somewhat excited fancy, and for the first time in my life, here, I felt a dread of my own house, and experienced the uncanny sensation of some one walking over my grave.

But I soon recovered myself. Nothing of a disagreeable nature had ever happened in this room, nor had we had any special reason for shutting it up, except that it was in an out-of-the-way place, and not usually considered convenient, notwithstanding Mr. Urquhart's opinion to the contrary.

"Never mind," said I, with a last effort to soothe the agitated woman. "We will let in a little light, and dissipate some of these shadows." And I attempted to throw back the curtains of the window, but they fell again immediately and I[20] experienced a sensation as of something ghostly passing between us and the light.

Provoked at my own weakness, I tore the curtains down and flung them into a corner. A straggling beam of sunset color came in, but it looked out of place and forlorn upon that black floor, like a stranger who meets with no welcome. The poor young wife seemed to hail it, however, for she moved instantly to where it lay and stood as if she longed for its warmth and comfort. I immediately glanced at the fireplace.

"I will soon have a rousing fire for you," I declared. "These old fireplaces hold a large pile of wood."

I thought, but I must be mistaken, that he made a gesture as if about to protest, but, if so, reason must have soon come to his aid, for he said nothing, though he looked uneasy, as I moved the andirons forward and made some other trivial arrangements for the fire which I had promised them.

"He thinks I am never going," I muttered to myself, and took pleasure in lingering; for, anxious as I was to have the room heated up for her comfort, I knew that every moment I stayed there[21] would be one less for her to spend with her surly husband alone.

At last I had no further excuse for remaining, and so with the final remark that if the fire failed to give them cheer we had a sitting room into which they could come, I went out. But I knew, even while saying it, that he would not grant her the opportunity of enjoying the sitting room's coziness; that he would not let her out of his sight, if he did out of the room, and that for her to remain in his presence was to be in darkness, solitude and gloom, no matter what walls surrounded her or in what light she stood.

My impressions were not far wrong. Mr. and Mrs. Urquhart came to supper, but that was all. Before the others had finished their roast they had eaten their pudding and gone; and though he had talked, and laughed, and shown his white teeth, the impression left behind them was a depressing one which even Hetty felt, and she has anything but a sensitive nature.

I went to the room once again in the evening. I found them both seated, but in opposite parts of the room; he by his great box, and she in an easy chair which I had caused to be brought down[22] from my own room for her especial use. I did not look at him, but I did at her, and was astonished to see, first, how dignified she was; and next how pretty. Had she been happy and at her ease, I should probably have been afraid of her, for the firelight, which now shone on her wan young cheek, brought out evidences of character and culture in her expression which proved her to be, by birth and training, of a position superior to what one would be led to expect from her husband's aspect and manner. But she was not happy nor at her ease, and wore, instead of the quiet and commanding look of the great lady, such an expression of secret dread that I almost forgot my position of landlady, and should certainly, if he had not been there, fallen at her side and taken her poor, forsaken head upon my breast. But that silent, immovable form, sitting statue-like beside his big box, smiling, for aught I knew, but if so, breathing out a chill that forbade all exhibition of natural feeling, held me in check, as it held her, so that I merely inquired whether there was anything I could do for her; and when she shook her head, starting a tear down her cheek as she did so, I dared do nothing more than give her[23] one look of sympathetic understanding, and start for the door.

A command from him stopped me.

"My wife will need a slight supper before she goes to bed," said he. "Will you be good enough to see that one is brought?"

She roused herself up with quite a startled look of wonder.

"Why, Edwin," she began, "I never have been in the habit—"

But he hushed her at once.

"I know what is best for you," said he. "A small plate of luncheon, Mrs. Truax; and let it be nice and inviting."

I courtesied, gave her another glance, and went out. Her countenance had not lost its look of wonder. Was he going to be considerate, after all?

The lunch was prepared and taken to her.

Not long after this the inn quieted down, and such guests as were in the house prepared for rest. Midnight came; all was dark in room and hall. I was sure of this, for I went through the whole building myself, contrary to my usual habit, which was to leave this task to my man-of-all-work, Burritt. All was dark, all was quiet, and I was just[24] dropping off to sleep, when there shot up suddenly from below a shriek, which was quickly smothered, but not so quickly that I did not recognize in it that tone which is only given by hideous distress or mortal fear.

"It is Mrs. Urquhart!" I cried in terror, to myself; and plunging into my clothes, I hurried down stairs.[25]

CHAPTER II. BURRITT

All was quiet in the halls, but as I proceeded toward their room I perceived a figure standing near the doorway, which, in another moment, I saw to be that of Burritt. He was trembling like a leaf, and was bent forward, listening.[26]

"Hush!" he whispered; "they are talking. All seems to be right. I just heard him call her darling."

I drew the man away and took his place. Yes; they were talking in subdued but not unkindly tones. I heard him bid her be composed, and caught, as I thought, a light reply that ought to have satisfied me that Mrs. Urquhart had simply suffered from some nightmare horror at which she was as ready to laugh now as he. But my nature is a contradictory one, and I was not satisfied. The echo of her cry was still ringing in my ears, and I felt as if I would give the world for a momentary peep into their room. Influenced by this idea, I boldly knocked, and in an instant—too soon for him not to have been standing near the door—I heard his breath through the keyhole and the words:

"Who is there, and what do you want?"

"We heard a cry," was my response, "and I feared Mrs. Urquhart was ill again."

"Mrs. Urquhart is very well," came hastily, almost gayly, from within. "She had a dream, and was willing that every one should know it. Is not that all?" he said, seemingly addressing his wife.[27]

There was a murmur within, and then I heard her voice. "It was only a dream, dear Mrs. Truax," it said, and convinced against my will, I was about to return to my room, when I brushed against Burritt. He had not moved, and did not look as if he intended to.

"Come," said I, "there is no use of our remaining here."

"Can't help it," was his whispered reply. "In this hall I stay till morning. When I see a lamb in the care of a wolf, I find it hard to sleep. There is a door between us, but please God there shan't be anything more."

And knowing Burritt, I did not try to argue, but went quietly and somewhat thoughtfully to my room, vaguely relieved that I left him behind, though convinced there would be no further need of his services.

And so it was. No more sounds disturbed the house, and when I came down, with the first streak of daylight, I found Burritt gone about his work.

Breakfast was served to the Urquharts in their own room. I had wished to carry it in myself, but I found this inconvenient, and so I sent Hetty.[28] When she came back I asked her how Mrs. Urquhart looked.

"Very well, ma'am," was the quick reply. "And see! I don't think she's as unhappy as we all thought last night, or she wouldn't be giving me a bright new crown."

I glanced at the girl's palm. There was indeed a bright new crown in it.

"Did she give you that?" I inquired.

"Yes, ma'am; she herself. And she laughed when she did it, and said it was for the good breakfast I had brought her."

I was busy at the time, and could not stop to give the girl's words much thought; but as soon as I had any leisure, I went to see for myself how Mrs. Urquhart looked when she laughed.

I was five minutes too late. She had just donned her traveling bonnet and veil, and though I heard her laugh slightly once, I did not see her face.

I saw his, however, and was surprised at the good nature in it. He was quite the gentleman, and if he had not been in such a hurry, would have doubtless made, or endeavored to make, himself very agreeable. But he was just watching his[29] great box carried out to the wagon, and while he took pains to talk to me—was it to keep me from talking to her?—he was naturally a little absentminded. He was in haste, too, and insisted upon placing his wife in the carriage before all his baggage was taken from the room. And she seemed willing to go. I watched her on purpose to see, for I was not yet satisfied that she was not playing a part at his dictation, but I could discover no hint of reluctance in her manner, but rather a quiet alacrity, as if she felt glad to quit a room to which she had taken a dislike.

When I saw this, and noted the light step of her feet, I said to myself that I had been a fool, and lost a little of the interest I had felt for her. Nor did I regain it till after they had driven away, though she showed a consideration for me at the last which I had not expected, leaning from the carriage to give me a good-by pressure of the hand, and even nodding again and again as they disappeared down the road. For the fear which could be dissipated in a night was not the fear with which I had credited her; and of ordinary excitements and commonplace natures I had seen enough in my long experience as landlady to[30] make me unwilling to trouble myself with any more of them.

But when the carriage and its accompanying wagon had quite disappeared, and Mr. and Mrs. Urquhart were virtually as far beyond my reach as if they were already in New York, I became conscious of a great uneasiness. This was the more strange in that there seemed to be no especial cause for it. They had left my house in apparently better spirits than they had entered it, and there was no longer any reason why I should concern myself about them. And yet I did concern myself, and came into the house and into the room they had just vacated, with feelings so unusual that I was astonished at myself, and not a little provoked. I had a vague feeling that the woman who had just left was somehow different from the one I had seen the night before.

But I am a busy woman, and I do not think I should have let this trouble me long if it had not been for Burritt. But when he came into the room after me, and shut the door behind him and stood with his back against it, looking at me, I knew I was not the only one who felt uncomfortable about the Urquharts. Rising from the chair[31] where I had been sitting, counting the cost of fitting up that room so as to make it look habitable, I went toward him and met his gaze pretty sharply.

"Well, what is it?" I asked.

"I don't know," was the somewhat sullen reply. "I don't feel right about those folks, and yet—" He stopped and scratched his head—"I don't know what I'm afraid of. Are you sure they left nothing behind them?"

The last words were uttered in such a tone I did not know for a minute what to say.

"Left anything behind them!" I replied. "They left their money, if that is what you mean. I don't know what else they could have left."

Notwithstanding which assertion, I involuntarily glanced about the room as if half expecting to see some one of their many belongings protruding from a hitherto unsearched corner. His gaze followed mine, but presently returned, and we stood again looking at each other.

"Nothing here," said I.

"Where is it, then?" he asked.

I frowned in displeasure.

"Where is what?" I demanded. "You speak like a fool. Explain yourself."[32]

He took a step toward me and lowered his voice. Every one knows Burritt, so I need not describe him. You can all imagine how he looked when he said:

"Did you see me handling of the big box, ma'am?"

I nodded yes.

"Saw how I was the one to help carry it in, and also how I was the one to first take hold on it when he wanted it carried out?" I again nodded yes.

"Well, ma'am, that box was a heavy load to lift into the wagon, but, ma'am"—here his voice became quite sepulchral—"it wasn't as heavy as it was when we lifted it out, and it hadn't the same feel either. Now, what had happened to it, and where is the stuff he took out of it?"

I own I had never in my life felt creepy before that minute. But with his eyes staring at me so impressively, and his voice sunk to a depth that made me lean forward to hear what he had to say, I do declare I felt as if an icy breath had been blown across the roots of my hair.

"Burritt, you want to frighten me," I exclaimed, as soon as I could get my voice. "The box[33] seemed heavier to you than it did just now. There was no change in it, there could not be, or we should find something here to account for it. Remember you did not sleep last night, and lack of rest makes one fanciful."

"It does not make a man feel stronger, though, and I tell you the box was not near so heavy to-day as yesterday. Besides, as I said before, it acted differently under the handling. There was something loose in it to-day. Yesterday it was packed tight."

I shook my head, and tried to throw off the oppression caused by his manner. But seeing his eyes travel to the window, I looked that way too.

"He didn't carry anything out of the door," declared Burritt, at this moment, "because I watched it, and I know. But that window is only three feet from the ground, and I remember now that at the instant I first laid my ear to the keyhole, I heard a strange, grating sound just like that of a window being lowered by a very careful hand. Shall I look outside it, ma'am?"

I replied by going quickly to the window myself, lifting it, which I did with very little trouble, and glancing out. The familiar garden, with[34] its path to the river, lay before me; but though I allowed myself one quick look in its direction, it was to the ground immediately beneath the window that I turned my attention, and it was here that I instantly, and to the satisfaction of both Burritt and myself, discovered unmistakable signs of disturbance. Not only was there the impression of a finely booted foot imprinted in the loose earth, but there was a large stone lying against the house which we were both confident had not been there the day before.

"He went roaming through the garden last night," cried Burritt, "and he brought back that stone. Why?"

I shuddered instead of replying. Then remembering that I had seen the young wife well and happy only a few minutes before, felt confused and mystified beyond any power to express.

"I will have a look at that stone," continued Burritt; and without waiting for my sanction, he vaulted out of the window and lifted the stone.

After a moment's consideration of it he declared:

"It came from the river bank; that is all I can make out of it."[35]

And dropping the stone from his hand, he suddenly darted down the path to the river.

He was not gone long. When he came back, he looked still more doubtful than before.

"If I know that bank," he declared, "there has been more than one stone taken from it, and some dirt. Suppose we examine the floor, ma'am."

We did so, and just where the box had been placed we discovered some particles of sand that were not brought in from the road.

"What does it mean?" I cried.

Burritt did not answer. He was looking out toward the river. Suddenly he turned his eyes upon me and said in his former suppressed tone:

"He filled the box with stone and earth, and these were what we carried out and put into the wagon. But it was full when it came, and very heavy. Now, what was it filled with, and what has become of the stuff?"

It was the question then; it is the question now.

Burritt hints at crime, and has gone so far as to spend all the afternoon searching the river banks. But he has discovered nothing, nor can he explain what it was he looked for or expected[36] to find. Nor are my own thoughts and feelings any clearer. I remember that the times are unsettled, that the spirit of revolution is in the air, and try to be charitable enough to suppose that it was treasure the young husband brought with him, and that all the perturbation and distress which I imagine myself to have witnessed in his behavior and that of his wife were owing to the purpose that they had formed of burying, in this spot, the silver and plate which they were perhaps unwilling to risk to the chances of war. But when I try to stifle my graver fears with this surmise, I recall the fearful nature of the shriek which startled me from my sleep, and repeat, tremblingly, to myself:

"Some one was in mortal agony at the moment I heard that cry. Was it the young wife, or was it—"[37]

CHAPTER III. A FEARFUL DISCOVERY

APRIL 3, 1791.

T is sixteen years since I wrote the preceding chapters of this history of mystery and crime. When the pen dropped from my hand—why did it drop? Was it because of some noise I heard?

I imagine so now, and tremble. I did not anticipate ever adding a line to the words I had written. The impulse which had led me to put upon paper my doubts concerning the two Urquharts soon passed, and as nothing ever occurred to recall this couple to my mind, I gradually allowed their name and memory to vanish from my thoughts, only remembering them when chance led me into the oak parlor. Then, in[38]deed, I recollected their manner and my fears, and then I also felt repeated, though every time with fainter and fainter power, the old thrill of undefined terror which stopped my record of that day with the half-finished question as to who had uttered the shriek that had startled me the night before. To-day I again take up my pen. Why? Because to-day, and only since to-day, can I answer this question.

Sixteen years ago! which makes me sixteen years older. My house, too, has aged, and the oak parlor—I never refurnished it—is darker, gloomier, and more forbidding than it was then, and in truth, why should it not be? When I remember what was revealed to me a week ago, I wonder that its walls did not drop fungi, and its chill strike death through the man or woman who was brave enough to enter it. Horrible, horrible room! You shall be torn from my house if the rest of the structure goes with you. Neither I nor another shall ever enter your fatal portal again.

It was a week ago to-day that the coach from New York set down at my door a stranger of fine and quaint appearance, whose white hair be[39]tokened him to be aged, but whose alert and energetic movements showed that, if he had passed the line of fourscore, he had still enough of the fire of youth remaining to make his presence welcome in whatever place he chose to enter. As had happened sixteen years before, I was looking out of the window when the coach drove up, and, being at once attracted by the stranger's person and manner, I watched him closely while he was alighting, and was surprised to observe what intent and searching glances he cast at the house.

"He could not be more interested if he were returning to the home of his fathers," I murmured involuntarily to myself, and hastened to the door in order to receive him.

He came forward courteously. But after the first few words between us he turned again and gazed with marked curiosity up and down the road and again at the house.

"You seem to be acquainted with these parts," I ventured. He smiled.

"This is an old house," he answered, "and you are young." (I am fifty-five.) "There must have been owners of the place before you. Do you know their names?"[40]

"I bought the place of Dan Forsyth, and he of one Hammond. I don't know as I can go back any further than that. Originally the house was the property of an Englishman. There were strange stories about him, but it was so long ago that they are almost forgotten."

The stranger smiled again, and followed me into the house. Here his interest seemed to redouble.

Instantly a thought flashed through my brain.

"He is its ancient owner, the Englishman. I am standing in the presence of—"

"You wish to know my name," interrupted his genial voice. "It is Tamworth. I am a Virginian, and hope to stay at your inn one night. What kind of a room have you to offer me?"

There was a twinkle in his eyes I did not understand. He was looking down the hall, and I thought his gaze rested on the corridor leading to the oak parlor.

"I should like to sleep on the ground floor," he added.

"I have but one room," I began.

"And one is all I want," he smiled. Then, with a quick glance at my face: "I suppose you are a[41] little particular whom you put into the oak parlor. It is not every one who can appreciate such romantic surroundings."

I surveyed him, completely puzzled. Whereupon he looked at me with an expression of surprise and incredulity that added to the mystery of the moment.

"The room is gloomy and uninviting," I declared; "but beyond that, I do not know of any especial claim it has upon our interest."

"You astonish me," was his evidently sincere reply; and he walked on, very thoughtfully, straight to the room of which we were speaking. At the door he paused. "Don't you know the secret of this room," he asked, giving me a very bright and searching glance.

"If you mean anything concerning the Urquharts," I began doubtfully.

"Urquharts!" he carelessly repeated. "I do not know anything about them. I am speaking of an old tradition. I was told—let me see how long it is now—well, it must be sixteen years at least—that this house contained a hidden chamber communicating with a certain oak parlor in the west wing. I thought it was curious, and—Why,[42] madam, I beg your pardon; I did not mean to distress you. Can it be possible that you were ignorant of this fact?—you, the owner of this house!"

"Are you sure it is a fact?" I gasped. I was trembling in every limb, but managed to close the door behind us before I sank into a chair. "I have lived in this house twenty years. I know its rooms and halls as I do my own face, and never, never have I suspected that there was a nook or corner in it which was not open to the light of day. Yet—yet it is true that the rooms on this floor are smaller than those above, this one especially." And I cast a horrified glance about me, that reminded me, even against my will, of the searching and peculiar look I had seen cast in the same direction by Mr. Urquhart sixteen years before.

"I see that I have stumbled upon a bit of knowledge that has been kept from the purchasers of this property," observed the old gentleman. "Well, that does not detract from the interest of the occasion. When I knew I was to pass this way, I said to myself I shall certainly stop at the old inn with the secret chamber in it, but I did not[43] think I should be the first one to disclose its secret to the present generation. But my information seems to affect you strangely. Is it such a disturbing thing to find that one's house has held a disused spot within it, that might have been made useful if you had known of its existence?"

I could not answer. I was enveloped in a strange horror, and was only conscious of the one wish—that Burritt had lived to help me through the dreadful hour I saw before me.

"Let us see if my information has been correct," continued Mr. Tamworth. "Perhaps there has been some mistake. The secret chamber, if there is one, should be behind this chimney. Shall I hunt for an opening?"

I managed to shake my head. I had not strength for the experiment yet. I wanted to prepare myself.

"Tell me first how you heard about this room?" I entreated.

He drew his chair nearer to mine with the greatest courtesy.

"There is no reason why I should not tell you," replied he, "and as I see that you are in no mood[44] for a long story, I shall make my words as few as possible. Some years ago I had occasion to spend a night in an inn not unlike this, on Long Island. I was alone, but there was a merry crowd in the tap room, and being fond of good company, I presently found myself joining in the conversation. The talk was of inns, and many a stirring story of adventure in out-of-the-way taverns did I listen to that night before the clock struck twelve. Each man present had some humorous or thrilling experience to relate, with the exception of a certain glum and dark-browed gentleman, who sat somewhat apart from the rest, and who said nothing. His reticence was in such marked contrast to the volubility about him that he finally attracted universal attention, and more than one of the merry-makers near him asked if he had not some anecdote to add to the rest. But though he replied with sufficient politeness, it was evident that he had no intention of dropping his reserve, and it was not till the party had broken up and the room was nearly cleared that he deigned to address any one. Then he turned to me, and with a very peculiar smile, remarked:

"'A dull collection of tales, sir. Bah! if they[45] had wanted to hear of an inn that was really romantic, I could have told them—'

"'What?' I involuntarily ejaculated. 'You will not torture me by suggesting a mystery you will not explain.'

"He looked very indifferent.

"'It is nothing,' he declared, 'only I know of an inn—at least it is used for an inn now—which has in its interior a secret chamber so deftly hidden away in the very heart of the house that I doubt if even its present owner could find it without the minutest directions from the man who saw it built. I knew that man. He was an Englishman, and he had a fancy to make his fortune through the aid of smuggled goods. He did it; and though always suspected, was never convicted, owing to the fact that he kept all his goods in this hidden room. The place is sold now, but the room remains. I wonder if any forgotten treasures lie in it. Imagination could easily run riot over the supposition, do you not think so, sir?'

"I certainly did, especially as I imagined myself to detect in every line of his able and crafty face that he bore a closer relation to the Englishman than he would have me believe. I did not betray[46] my feelings, however, but urged him to tell me how in a modern house, a room, or even a closet, could be so concealed as not to awaken any one's suspicion. He answered by taking out pencil and paper, and showing me, by a few lines, the secret of its construction. Then seeing me deeply interested, he went on to say:

"'We find what we have been told to search for; but here is a case where the secret has been so well kept that in all possibility the question of this room's existence has never arisen. It is just as well.'

"Meantime I was studying the plan.

"'The hidden chamber lies,' said I, 'between this room,' designating one with my forefinger, 'and these two others. From which is it entered?'

"He pointed at the one I had first indicated.

"'From this,' he affirmed. 'And a quaint, old-fashioned room it is, too, with a wainscoting of oak all around it as high as a man's head. It used to be called the oak parlor, and many a time has its floor rung to the tread of the king's soldiers, who, disappointed in their search for hidden goods, consented to take a drink at their host's expense, little recking that, but a few feet away,[47] behind the carven chimneypiece upon which they doubtless set down their glasses, there lay heaps and heaps of the richest goods, only awaiting their own departure to be scattered through the length and breadth of the land.'

"'And this house is now an inn?' I remarked.

"'Yes.'

"'Curious. I should like nothing better than to visit that inn.'

"'You doubtless have.'

"'It is not this one?' I suddenly cried, looking uneasily about me.

"'Oh, no; it is on the Hudson River, not fifty miles this side of Albany. It is called the Happy-Go-Lucky, and is in a woman's hands at present; but it prospers, I believe. Perhaps because she has discovered the secret, and knows where to keep her stores.' And with a shrug of his shoulders he dismissed the subject, with the remark: 'I don't know why I told you of this. I never made it the subject of conversation before in my life.'

"This was just before the outbreak in Lexington, sixteen years ago, ma'am, and this is the first time I have found myself in this region since that[48] day. But I have never forgotten this story of a secret room, and when I took the coach this morning I made up my mind that I would spend the night here, and, if possible, see the famous oak parlor, with its mysterious adjunct; never dreaming that in all these years of your occupancy you would have remained as ignorant of its existence as he hinted and you have now declared."

Mr. Tamworth paused, looking so benevolent that I summoned up my courage, and quietly informed him that he had not told me what kind of a looking man this stranger was.

"Was he young?" I asked. "Had he a blond complexion?"

"On the contrary," interrupted Mr. Tamworth, "he was very dark, and, in years, as old or nearly as old as myself."

I was disappointed. I had expected a different reply. As he talked of the stranger, I had, rightfully or wrongfully, with reason or without reason, seen before me the face of Mr. Urquhart, and this description of a dark and well-nigh aged man completely disconcerted me.

"Are you certain this man was not in disguise?" I asked.[49]

"Disguise?"

"Are you certain that he was not young, and blond, and—"

"Quite sure," was the dry interruption. "No disguise could transform a young blood into the man I saw that night. May I ask—"

In my turn I interrupted him. "Pardon me," I entreated, "but an anxiety I will presently explain forces another question from me. Were you and this stranger alone in the room when you held this conversation? You say that it had been full a few minutes before. Were there none of the crowd remaining besides your two selves?"

Mr. Tamworth looked thoughtful. "It is sixteen years ago," he replied, "but I have a dim remembrance of a man sitting at a table somewhat near us, with his face thrown forward on his arms. He seemed to be asleep; I did not notice him particularly."

"Did you not see his face?"

"No."

"Was he young?"

"I should say so."

"And blond?"

"That I cannot say."[50]

"And he remained in that attitude all the time you were talking?"

"Yes, madam."

"And continued so when you left the room?"

"I think so."

"Was he within earshot? Near enough to hear all you said?"

"Most assuredly, if he listened."

"Mr. Tamworth," I now entreated, "try, if possible, to remember one other fact. If each man present told a story that night, you must have had ample opportunity of noting each man's face and observing how he looked. Now, of all that sat in the room, was there not one of an age not exceeding thirty-five, of fair complexion and gentlemanly appearance, yet with a dangerous look in his small blue eye, and a something in his smile that took all the merriment out of it?"

"A short but telling description," commented my guest. "Let me see. Was there such a man among them? Really, I cannot remember."

"Think, think. Hair very thin above the temples, mustache heavy. When he spoke he invariably moved his hands; seemed to be nervous, and anxious to hide it."[51]

"I see him," was Mr. Tamworth's sudden remark. "That description of his hands recalls him to my mind. Yes; there was such a man in the room that night. I even recollect his story. It was coarse, but not without wit."

I advanced and surveyed Mr. Tamworth very earnestly. "The man you thought asleep—the man who was near enough to hear all the Englishman said—was he or was he not the same we have just been talking about?"

"I never thought of it before, but he did look something like him—his figure, I mean; I did not see his face."

"It was he," I murmured, with intense conviction, "and the villain—" But how did I know he was a villain? I paused and pointed to the huge mantel guarding the fireplace. "If you know how to enter the secret room, do so. Only I should like to have a few witnesses present besides myself. Will you wait till I call one or two of my lodgers?"

He bowed with great urbanity. "If you wish to make the discovery public," said he, "I, of course, have no objection."

But I saw that he was disappointed.[52]

"I can never confront the secret of that room alone," I insisted. "I must have Dr. Kenyon here at least." And without waiting for my impulses to cool, I sent a message to the doctor's room, and was rewarded in a moment by the appearance at the door of that excellent man.

It did not take many words for me to explain to him our intentions. We were going to search for a secret chamber which we had been told opened into the room in which we then found ourselves. As I did not wish to make any mystery of the affair, and as I naturally had my doubts as to what the room might disclose, I asked the support of his presence.

He was gratified—the doctor always is gratified at any token of appreciation—and perceiving that I had no further reason for delay, I motioned to Mr. Tamworth to proceed.

How he discovered the one movable panel in that old-fashioned wainscoting, I have never inquired. When I saw him turn toward the fireplace and lay his ear to the wall, I withdrew in haste to the window, feeling as if I could not bear to watch him, or be the first to catch a glimpse of[55] the mysterious depths which in another moment must open before his touch. What I feared I cannot say. As far as I could reason on the subject, I had no cause to fear anything; and yet my shaking frame and unevenly throbbing heart were but the too sure tokens of an excessive and uncontrollable agitation. The view from the window increased it. Before me lay the river from whose banks sand and stone had been taken sixteen years before to replace—what? I knew no more this minute than I did then. I might know in the next. By the faint tapping that came to my ears I must—and it was this thought that sent a chill through me, and made it so difficult for me to stand. And yet why should it? Was not that old theory of ours, that the Urquharts had brought treasure in their great box, still a plausible one? Nay, more, was it not even a probable one, since we had discovered that the house held so excellent a hiding place, unknown to the world at large, but known to this man, as Mr. Tamworth's story so plainly showed? Yes; and yet I started with uncontrollable forebodings, when I heard an exclamation of satisfaction behind me, and hardly found courage to turn around, even when I knew that an open[56]ing had been effected, and that they were only waiting for my approach to enter it.

And it took courage, both on my part and on theirs; for the air which rushed from the high and narrow slit of darkness before us was stifling and almost deadly. But in a few minutes, after one or two experiments with a lighted candle, Dr. Kenyon stepped through the opening, followed by Mr. Tamworth, and, in a long minute afterward, by myself.

Shall I ever forget my emotions as I looked about me and saw, by the lamp which the doctor carried, nothing more startling than an old oak chest in one corner, a pile of faded clothing in another, and in a third—Heavens! what is it? We all stare, and then a shriek escapes my lips as piercing and terror-stricken as any that ever disturbed those fearful shadows; and I rush blindly from the spot, followed by Mr. Tamworth, whose face, as I turn to look at him, gives me another pang of fear, so white and sick it looks in the sudden glare of day.

Worse than I had thought, worse than I had dreamed! I cannot speak, and fall into a chair, waiting in mortal terror for the doctor, who[57] stayed some minutes behind. When his kindly but not undisturbed countenance showed itself again in the gap at the side of the fireplace, I could almost have thrown myself at his feet.

"What is it?" I gasped. "Tell me at once. Is it a man or a woman or—"

"It is a woman. See! here is a lock of her hair. Beautiful, is it not? She must have been young."

I stared at it like one demented. It was of a[58] peculiar reddish-brown, with a strange little kink and curl in it. Where had I seen such hair before? Somewhere. I remembered perfectly how the whole bright head looked with the firelight playing over it. Oh, no, no, no, it was not that of Mrs. Urquhart. Mrs. Urquhart went away from this house well and happy. I am mad, or this strand of gleaming hair is a dream. It is not her head it recalls to me, and yet—my soul, it is!

The doctor, knowing me well, did not try to break the silence of that first grewsome minute. But when he saw me ready to speak, he remarked:

"It is an old crime, perpetrated, probably, before you came into the house. I would not make any more of it than you can help, Mrs. Truax."

I scarcely heeded him.

"Is there no bit of clothing or jewelry left upon her by which we might hope to identify her?" I asked, shuddering, as I caught Mr. Tamworth's eye, and realized the nature of the doubts I there beheld.

"Here is a ring I found upon the wedding finger," he replied. "It was doubtless too small to be drawn off at the time of her death, but it came away easily enough now."[59]

And he held out a plain gold circlet which I eagerly took, looked at, and fell at their feet as senseless as a stone.

On the inner surface I had discovered this legend:

E. U. to H. D. Jan. 27, 1775.

[60]

CHAPTER IV. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Never have I felt such relief as when, upon my resuscitation, I remembered that I had put upon paper all the events and all the suspicions which had troubled me during that fatal night of January the 28th, sixteen years before. With that in my possession, I could confront any suspicion which might arise, and it was this thought which lent to my bearing at this unhappy time a dignity and self-possession which evidently surprised the two gentlemen.

"You seem more shocked than astonished," was Mr. Tamworth's first remark, as, mistress once more of myself, I led the way out of that horrible room into one breathing less of death and the charnel house.

"You are right," said I. "Mysteries which have troubled me for years are now in the way of being explained by this discovery. I knew that something either fearful or precious had been left in the keeping of this house or grounds; but I[61] did not know what this something was, and least of all did I suspect that its hiding place was between walls whose turns and limitations I thought I knew as well as I do the paths of my garden."

"You speak riddles," Dr. Kenyon now declared. "You knew that something fearful or precious had been left in your house—"

"Pardon me," I interrupted; "I said house or grounds. I thought it was in the grounds, for how could I think that the house could, without my knowledge, hold anything of the nature I have just suggested?"

"You knew, then, that a person had been murdered?"

"No," I persisted, with a strange calmness, considering how agitated I was, both by my memories and the fears I could not but entertain for the future; "I know nothing; nor can I, even with the knowledge of this discovery, understand or explain what took place in my house sixteen years ago."

And in a few hurried words I related the story of the mysterious couple who had occupied that room on the night of January 27, 1775.

They listened to me as if I were repeating a[62] fairy tale, and as I noted the sympathizing air with which Dr. Kenyon tried to hide his natural incredulity, I again congratulated myself that I had been a weak enough woman to keep an account of the events which had so impressed me.

"You think I am drawing upon my imagination," I quietly remarked, as silence fell upon my narration.

"By no means," the doctor began, hurriedly; "but the details you give are so open to question, and the conclusions you expect us to draw from them are so serious, that I wish, for your own sake, we had heard something of the Urquharts, and your doubts and suspicions in their regard, before we had made the discovery which points to death and crime. You see I speak plainly, Mrs. Truax."

"You cannot speak too plainly, Doctor Kenyon; and my opinion so entirely coincides with yours that I am going to furnish you with what you ask." And without heeding their looks of astonishment, I rang the bell for one of the girls, and sent her to a certain drawer in my desk for the folded paper which she would find there.

"Here!" I exclaimed, as the paper was brought,[63] "read this, and you will soon see how I felt about the Urquharts on the evening of the day they left us."

And I put into their hands the record I had made of that day's experience.

While they were reading it, I puzzled myself with questions. If this body which we had just found sepulchered in my house was, as the initials in the ring seemed to declare, that of Honora Urquhart, who was the woman who passed for her at the time of the departure of this accused couple from my doors? I was with them, and saw the lady, and supposed her to be the same I had entertained at my table the night before. But then I chiefly noted her dress and height, and did not see her face, which was hidden by her veil, and did not hear her voice beyond the short and somewhat embarrassed laugh she gave at some little incident which had occurred. But Hetty had seen her, and had even received money from her hand; and Hetty could not have been deceived, nor was Hetty a girl to be bribed. How was I, then, to understand the matter? And where, in case another woman had taken Mrs. Urquhart's place, had that woman come from?[64]

I thought of the low window, and the ease with which any one could climb into it; and then, with a flash of startled conviction, I thought of the huge box.

"Great heavens!" I ejaculated, feeling the hair stir anew on my forehead. "Can it be that he brought her in that? That she was with them all the time, and that the almost hellish tragedy to which this ring points was the scheme of two vile and murderous lovers to suppress an unhappy wife that stood in the way of their desires?"

I could not think it. I could not believe that any man could be so void of mercy, or any woman so lost to every instinct of decency, as to plan, and then coolly carry out to the end, a crime so unheard of in its atrocity. There must be some other explanation of the facts before us. Why, the date in the ring is enough. If that speaks true, the marriage between Edwin Urquhart and the gentle Honora was but a day old, and even the worst of men take time to weary of their wives before they take measures against them. Yet, the look and manner of the man! His affection for the box, and his manifest indifference for his wife! And, lastly, and most convincing of all,[65] this awful token in the room beyond! What should I, what could I think!

At this point in my surmises I grew so faint that I turned to Dr. Kenyon and Mr. Tamworth for relief. They had just finished my record of the past, and were looking at each other in surprise and horror.

"It surpasses the most atrocious deeds of the middle ages," quoth Mr. Tamworth.

"In a country deemed civilized," finished the doctor.

"Then you think," I tremblingly began—

"That you have harbored two demons under your roof, Mrs. Truax. There seems to be no doubt that the woman who went away with Mr. Urquhart was not the woman who came with him. She lies here, while the other—"

He paused, and Mr. Tamworth took up the word.

"It seems to have been a strangely triumphant piece of villainy. The woman who profited by it must have had great self-control and force of character. Don't you think so, doctor?"

"Unquestionably," was the firm reply.

"You do not say how you account for her presence here," I now reluctantly intimated.[66]

"I think she was hidden in the great box. It was large enough for that, was it not, Mrs. Truax?"

I nodded, much agitated.

"His care of it, his call for a supper, the change in its weight, and the fact that its contents were of a different character in going than coming, all point to the fact of its having been used for the purpose we intimated. It strikes one as most horrible, but history furnishes us with precedents of attempts equally daring, and if the box was well furnished with holes—did you notice any breathing places in it?"

"No," I returned; "but I did not cast two glances at the box. I was jealous of it, for the young wife's sake, though, as God knows, I had little idea of what it contained, and merely noticed that it was big and clumsy, and capable of holding many books."

"Yet you must have noticed, even in a cursory glance, whether its top or sides were broken by holes."

"They were not, but—"

"But what?"

"I do remember, now, that he flung his traveling-cloak across it just as the men went to lift it[67] from the wagon, and that the cloak remained upon it all the time it was in their hands, and until after we had all left the room. But it was taken away later, for when I went in the second time, I saw it lying across the chair."

"And the box?"

"Was hidden by the foot of the bed behind which he had dragged it."

"And the cloak? Was it over the box when it went out?"

"No; but I have thought since we have been talking, that the box might have been turned over after its occupant left it. The holes, if there were any, would thus be on the bottom, and would escape our detection."

"Very possible, but the sand with which we supposed the box had been filled would have sifted through."

"Not if a good firm piece of stuff was laid in first, and there were plenty of such in the secret chamber."

"That is true. But Burritt, you write, was listening at the door, and yet you mention no remarks of his concerning any noises heard by him from within. And noise must have been made if[68] this was done, as it must have had to be done after the tragedy."

"I know I do not," was the hurried reply. "But Burritt probably did not remain at the door all the time. There is a window seat at the end of the corridor, and upon it he probably lolled during the few hours of his watch. Besides, you must remember that Burritt left his post some time before daylight. He had his duties to attend to, some of which necessitated his being in the stables by four o'clock, at least."

"I see; and so the affair prospered, as most very daring deeds do, and they escaped without suspicion, or rather without suspicion pointed enough to lead to their being followed. I wonder where they escaped to, and if in all the years that have elapsed, they have for one moment imagined that they were happy."

"Happy!" was my horrified exclamation. "Oh, if I could find them! If I could drag them both to this room and make them keep company with their victim for a week, I should feel it too slight a retribution for them."

"Heaven has had its eye upon them. We have been through fearful crises since that day, and[69] much unrighteous as well as righteous blood has been shed in this land. They may both be dead."

"I do not believe it," I muttered. "Such wretches never die." Then, with a renewed remembrance of Hetty, I remarked: "Curses on the duties that kept me out of this room on that fatal morning. Had I seen the woman's face, this horrid crime would at least been spared its triumph. But I was obliged to send Hetty, and she saw nothing strange in the woman, though she received money from her hand, and—"

"Where is Hetty?" interrupted the doctor.

"She is married, and lives in the next town."

"So, so. Well, we must hunt her up to-morrow, and see what she has to say about the matter now."

But we soon found ourselves too impatient to wait till the morrow, so after we had eaten a good supper in a cheerful room, Dr. Kenyon mounted his horse, and rode away to the farm house where Hetty lived. While he was gone, Mr. Tamworth summoned up courage to re-enter that cave of horror, and bring out the contents of the oak chest we had seen there. These were mostly stuffs in a more or less good state of preservation, and all the assistance they lent to the understand[70]ing of the tragedy that mystified us was the fact that the chest contained nothing, nor the room itself, of sufficient substance to help the wicked Urquhart in giving weight to the box which he had emptied of its living freight. This is doubtless the reason he resorted to the garden for the sand and stone he found there.

Dr. Kenyon returned about midnight, and was met at the door by Mr. Tamworth and myself.

"Well?" I cried, in great excitement.

"Just as I supposed," he returned. "She did not see the lady's face either. The latter was in bed, and the girl took it for granted that the arm and hand which reached her out a silver piece from between the bed curtains were those of Mrs. Urquhart."

"My house is cursed!" was my sudden exclamation. "It has not only lent itself to the success of the most demoniacal scheme that ever entered into the heart of man, but it has kept its secret so long that all hope of explaining its details or reaching the guilty must be abandoned."

"Not so," quoth Mr. Tamworth. "Though an old man, I dedicate myself to this task. You will hear again of the Urquharts."[71]

CHAPTER V. AN INTERIM OF SUSPENSE

MAY 5, 1791.

OW fearful! To hear a spade in the night and know that this spade is digging a grave! I sit at my desk and listen to hear if any one in the house has been aroused or is suspicious, and then I turn to the window and try to pierce the gloom to see if anything can be discerned, from the house, of the grewsome act now being performed in the garden. For after much consultation and several conferences with the authorities, we have decided to preserve from public knowledge, not only the secret of the room hidden in my house, but of the discovery which has lately been made there. But while much harm would accrue to me by revelations which would throw a pall of horror over my inn, and make it no better than a place of[72] morbid curiosity forever, the purposes of justice would be rather hindered than helped by a publicity which would give warning to the guilty couple, and prevent us from surprising them in the imagined security which the lapse of so many years must have brought them.

And so a grave is being dug in the garden, where, at the darkest hour of night, the remains of the sweet and gentle bride are to be placed without tablet or mound.

Meanwhile do there hide in any part of this wicked world two hearts which throb with unusual terrors this night? Or does there pass across the mirror of a guilty memory any unusual shapes of horror prognostic of detection and coming punishment? It would comfort my uneasy heart to know; for the spirit of vengeance has seized upon me, and my house will never seem washed of its stain, or my conscience be quite at rest as to the past, till that vile man and woman pay, in some way, the penalty of their crime.

That we know nothing of them but their names lends an interest to their pursuit. The very difficulty before us, the hopelessness almost of the[73] task we have set ourselves, have raised in me a wild and well-nigh superstitious reliance on Providence and the eternal justice, so that it seems natural for me to expect aid even from such sources as dreams and visions, and make the inquiry in which I have just indulged the reasonable expression of my belief in the mysterious forces of right and wrong, which will yet bring this long triumphant, but now secretly threatened, pair to justice.

Dr. Kenyon, who is as practical as he is pious, smiles at my confidence; but Mr. Tamworth neither mocks nor frowns. He has shouldered the responsibility of finding this man, and has often observed, in his long life, that a woman's intuitions go as far as a man's reasoning.

To-morrow he will start upon his travels.

JUNE 12, 1791.

It is foolish to put every passing thought on paper, but these sheets have already served me so well that I cannot resist the temptation of making them the repositories of my secret fears and hopes. Mr. Tamworth has been gone a month, and I have heard nothing from him. This is all the more[74] difficult to bear that Dr. Kenyon also has left me, thus taking from my house all in whom I can confide or to whom I can talk. For I will not place confidence in servants, and there are no guests here at present upon whose judgment I can rely concerning even a lesser matter than this which occupies all my thoughts.

I must talk, then, to thee, unknown reader of these lines, and declare on paper what I have said a thousand times to myself—what a mystery this whole matter is, and how little probability there is of our ever understanding it! Why was it that Edwin Urquhart, if he loved one woman so well that he was willing to risk his life to gain her, would subject himself to the terrors which must follow any crime, no matter how secretly performed, by marrying a woman he must kill in twenty-four hours? Marriages are not compulsory in this country, and any one must acknowledge that it would be easier for a strong man—and he certainly was no weakling—to refuse a woman at the nuptial altar than to undertake and carry out a scheme so full of revolting details and involving so much risk as this which we have been forced to ascribe to him.[75]

Then the woman, the unknown and fearful creature who had allowed herself to be boxed up and carried, God knows, how many fearful miles, just for the purpose of assuming a position which she seemingly might have obtained in ways much less repulsive and dangerous! Was it in human nature to go through such an ordeal, and if it were, what could the circumstances have been that would drive even the most insensible nature into such an adventure! I question, and try to answer my own inquiries, but my imagination falters over the task, and I am no nearer to the satisfaction of my doubts than I was in the harrowing minute when the knowledge of this tragedy first flashed upon me.

I must have patience. Mr. Tamworth must write to me soon.

AUGUST 10, 1791.

News, news, and such news! How could I ever have dreamed of it! But let me transcribe Mr. Tamworth's letter:

To Mrs. Clarissa Truax,
Mistress of the Happy-go-lucky Inn:

RESPECTED MADAM: After a lengthy delay,[76] occupied in researches, made doubly difficult by the changes which have been wrought in the country by the late conflict, I have just come upon a fact that has the strongest bearing upon the serious tragedy which we are both so interested in investigating. It is this:

That every year the agent of a certain large estate in Albany, N. Y., forwards to France a large sum of money, for the use and behoof of one Honora Quentin Urquhart, daughter of the late Cyrus Dudleigh, of Albany, and wife of one Edwin Urquhart, a gentleman of that same city, to whom she was married in her father's house on January 27, 1775, and with whom she at once departed for France, where she and her husband have been living ever since.

Thus by chance, almost, have I stumbled upon an explanation of the tragedy we found so inexplicable, and found that clew to the whereabouts of the wretched pair which is so essential to their apprehension and the proper satisfaction of the claims of justice.

With great consideration I sign myself,

Your obedient servant,
ANTHONY TAMWORTH.

[77]

AUGUST 11, 8 o'clock.

I was so overwhelmed by the above letter that I found it impossible at the time to comment upon it. To-day it is too late, for this morning a packet arrived from Mr. Tamworth containing another letter of such length that I am sure it must be one of complete explanation. I burn to read it, but I have merely had time to break the seal and glance at the first opening words. Will my guests be so kind as to leave me in peace to-night, so that I may satisfy a curiosity which has become almost insupportable?

MIDNIGHT.

No time to-night; too tired almost to write this.

AUGUST 12.

The packet is read. I am all of a tremble. What a tale! What a— But why encumber these sheets with words of mine? I will insert the letter and let it tell its own portion of the strange and terrible history which time is slowly unrolling before us.[78]

PART II. AN OLD ALBANY ROMANCE

CHAPTER VI. THE RECLUSE

To Mrs. Clarissa Truax,
of the Happy-go-lucky Inn:

RESPECTED MADAM: Appreciating your anxiety, I hasten to give you the particulars of an interview which I have just had with a person who knew Edwin Urquhart. They must be acceptable to you, and I shall make no excuse for the length of my communication, knowing that each detail in the lives of the three persons connected with this crime must be of interest to one who has brooded upon the subject as long as you have.

The person to whom I allude is a certain Mark Felt, a most eccentric and unhappy being now living the life of a recluse amid the forests of the[79] Catskills. I became acquainted with his name at the time of my first investigation into the history of the Dudleigh and Urquhart families, and it was to him I was referred when I asked for such particulars as mere neighbors and public officials found it impossible to give.

I was told, however, at the same time, that I should find it hard to gain his confidence, as for sixteen years now he had avoided the companionship of men, by hiding in the caves and living upon such food as he could procure through the means of gun and net. A disappointment in love was said to be at the bottom of this, the lady he was engaged to having thrown herself into the river at about the time of the marriage of his friend.

He was, notwithstanding, a good-hearted man, and if I could once break through the reserve he had maintained for so many years, they thought I would be able to surprise facts from him which I could never hope to reach in any other way.

Interested by these insinuations, and somewhat excited, for an old man, at the prospect of bearding such a lion in his den, I at once made up my mind to seek this Felt; and accordingly one bright[80] day last week crossed the river and entered the forest. I was not alone. I had taken a guide who knew the location of the cave which Felt was supposed to inhabit, and through his efforts my journey was made as little fatiguing as possible. Fallen brambles were removed from my path, limbs lifted, and where the road was too rough for the passage of such faltering feet as mine, I found myself lifted bodily, in arms as strong and steadfast as steel, and carried like a child to where it was smoother.

Thus I was enabled to traverse paths that at first view appeared inaccessible, and finally reached a spot so far up the mountain side that I gazed behind me in terror lest I should never be able to return again the way I had come. My guide, seeing my alarm, assured me that our destination was not far off, and presently I perceived before me a huge overhanging cliff, from the upper ledges of which hung down a tangle of vines and branches that veiled, without wholly concealing, the yawning mouth of a cave.

"That is where the man we are seeking lives, eats, and sleeps," quoth my guide, as we paused for a moment to regain our breath. And imme[81]diately upon his words, and as if called forth by them, we perceived an unkempt and disheveled head slowly uprear itself through the black gap before us, then hastily disappear again behind the vines it had for a moment disturbed.

"I will encounter him alone," I thereupon declared; and leaving the guide behind me, I pushed forward to the cliff, and pausing before the entrance of the cave, I called aloud:

"Mark Felt, do you want to hear news from your friend Urquhart?"

For a moment all was still, and I began to fear that my somewhat daring attempt had failed in its effect. But this was only for an instant, for presently something between a growl and a cry issued from the darkness within, and the next moment the wild and disheveled head showed itself again, and I heard distinctly these words:

"He is no friend of mine, your Edwin Urquhart."

"Then," I returned, without a moment's hesitation, "do you want to hear news of your enemy?—for I have some, and of the rarest nature, too."

The wild eyes flashed as if a flame of fire had[82] shot from them, and the head that held them advanced till I could see the whole bearded countenance of the man.

"Is he dead?" he asked, with an eagerness and underlying triumph in the voice that argued well for the presence of those passions upon the rousing of which I relied for the revelations I sought.

"No," said I, "but death is looking his way. With a little more knowledge of his early life and a little more insight into his character at the time he married Honora Dudleigh, the law will have so firm a hold upon him that I can safely promise any one who longs to see him pay the penalty of his evil deeds a certain opportunity of doing so."

The vines trembled and suddenly parted their full length, and Mark Felt stepped out into the sunshine and confronted me. What he wore I cannot say, for his personality was so strong I received no impression of anything else. Not that he was tall or picturesque, or even rudely handsome. On the contrary, he was as plain a man as I had ever seen, with eyes to which some defect lent a strange, fixed glare, and a mouth whose under jaw protruded so markedly beyond the upper that his profile gave you a shock when[85] any slight noise or stir drew his head to one side and thus revealed it to you. Yet, in spite of all this, in spite of tangled locks and a wide, rough beard, half brown, half white, his face held something that fixed the attention and fascinated the eye that encountered it. Did it lie in his eyes? How could it, with one looking like a fixed stone of agate and the other like a rolling ball of fire? Was it in his smile? How could it be when his smile had no joy in it, only a satisfaction that was not of good, but evil, and promised trouble rather than relief or sympathy? It must be in the general expression of his features, which seemed made only to mirror the emotions of a soul full of vitality and purpose—a soul which, if clouded by wrongs and embittered by heavy memories, possessed at least the characteristic of force and the charm of an unswerving purpose.

He seemed to recognize the impression he had made, for his lips smiled with a sort of scornful triumph before he said:

"These are peculiar words for a stranger. May I ask your name and whose interests you represent?"

His speech was quick, and had an odd halt in it,[86] such as might be expected from one who had not conferred with his fellows for years. But there was no rudeness in its tone, nor was there any mistaking the fact that he was, both by nature and education, a gentleman. I began to take an interest in him apart from my mission.

"Mr. Felt," I replied, "my name is Tamworth. I am from Virginia, and only by chance have I become involved in a matter near to you and the man who, you tell me, is, or was, your enemy. As for the interests I represent, they are those of justice, and justice only; and it is in her behalf and for the triumph of law and righteousness that I now ask you for your confidence and such details concerning your early intercourse with Edwin Urquhart as will enable me to understand a past that will certainly yield us a clew to the present. Are you willing to give them?"

"Will I give them?" he laughed. "Will I break the seal which guards the tablets of my youth, and let a stranger's eyes read lines to which I have shut my own for these many years! Do you not know that for me to tell you what I once knew of Edwin Urquhart is to bare my own breast to view, and subject to new sufferings a[87] heart that it has taken fifteen years of solitude to render callous?"

I gave no answer to this, only looked at him and stood waiting.

"You have hunted me out, you have touched the last string that ceases to vibrate in a man's breast—that of a wild desire for vengeance—and now you ask me—"

"To ease your memories of a burden. To drag into light the skeleton of old days, and by the light thus thrown upon it to see that it is only a skeleton, that, once beheld, should be buried and its old bones forgotten. You are too much of a man, Felt, to waste away in these wilds. Come! forget I am a stranger, and relieve yourself and me by opening these tablets you speak of, even if it does cost you a pang of the old sorrow. The talk we have had has already made a flutter in the long-closed leaves, and should I leave you this minute you could not smother the thoughts and memories to which our conversation has given rise. Then why not think to purpose and—"

He raised one hand and stopped me. The gesture was full of fire, and so was the eye he now turned away from me to gaze up at the overhang[88]ing steeps above, with their great gorges and magnificent play of light and shadow; at the valley beneath, with its broad belt of shining water winding in and out through fertile banks and growing towns, and finally at the blue dome of the sky, across which great clouds went sailing in shapes so varied and of size so majestic that it was like a vision of floating palaces on a sea of translucent azure.

Gasping in a strange mood between delight and despair, he flung up his arms.

"Ah! I have loved these hills. Of all the longings and affections that one by one have perished from my heart, the solitary passion for nature has alone remained, unlessened and undisturbed. I love these trees with their countless boughs; these rocks, with their hidden pitfalls and sudden precipices. The sky that bends above me here is bluer than any other sky; and when it frowns and gathers its storms together, and hurls them above these ledges and upon my uncovered head, I throw up my arms as I do now and exult in the tumult, and become a part of it, till the hunger in my soul is appeased, and the blood in my veins runs mildly again. And now I must quit all this.[89] I must give to men thoughts that have been closely wedded to Nature. I must tear her image from my heart, and in her pure place substitute interests in a life I thought forever sacrificed to her worship. It is a bitter task, but I will perform it. There are other calls than those which reverberate from yon peaks. I have just heard one, and my feet go down once more into the valleys."

His arms fell with the last words, and his eyes returned again to my face.

"Come into the cave," said he. "I cannot tell my story in the sight of these pure skies."

I followed him without a word. He had affected me. The invocation in which he had indulged, and which, from another man, and other circumstances, would have struck me as a theatrical attempt upon my sympathy as forced as it was unnatural, was in him so appropriate, and in such keeping with the grandeur of the scene by which we were surrounded, that I was disarmed of criticism, and succumbed without resistance to his power.

The cave, once entered, was light enough. On the ground were spread in profusion leaves and twigs of the sweet-smelling cedar, making a carpet[90] as pleasing as it was warm and healthful. On one side I saw a mound of the same, making a couch, across which a great cloak was spread; while beyond, the half-defined forms of a rude seat and table appeared, lending an air of habitableness to the spot, which, from the exterior, I had hardly expected to find. A long slab of stone served as a hearth, and above it I perceived a hole in the rock, toward which a thin column of smoke was rising from a few smouldering embers that yet remained burning upon the great stone below. Altogether, it was a home I had entered; and awed a little at the remembrance that it had been the refuge of this solitary man through years pregnant with events forever memorable in the history of the world as those which gave birth to a new nation, I sank down upon the pile of cedar he pointed out to me, and waited in some impatience for him to begin his tale.

This he seemed in no hurry to do. He waited so long with his chin sunk in his two hands and his eyes fixed upon vacancy, that I grew restless and was about to break the silence myself, when, without moving, he suddenly spoke.[91]

CHAPTER VII. TWO WOMEN

"You want to hear about Edwin Urquhart. Well, you shall, but first I promise you that I shall talk much less of him than of another person. Why? because it is on account of this other person that I hate him, and solely because of this other person that I avenge myself, or seek to assist others in avenging the justice you say he has outraged.

"We were friends from boyhood. Reared in the same town and under the same influences, there was a community of interests between us that threw us together and made us what is called friends. But I never liked him. That is, I never felt a confidence in him which is essential to a mutual understanding. And, though I accepted his companionship, and was much with him at the most critical time of my life, I always kept one side, and that the better side, of my nature closed to him.

"He was a gentleman with no expectations; I[92] the inheritor of a small fortune that made my friendship of temporary use to him, even if it did not offer him much to rely on in the future. We lived, he with an uncle who was ready to throw him off the moment he was assured that he would not marry one of his daughters, and I in my own house, which, if no manor, was at least my own, and for the present free from debt. I myself thought that Urquhart intended to marry one of the girls to whom I have just alluded. But it seems that he never meant to do this, and only encouraged his uncle to think so because he was not yet ready to give up the shelter he enjoyed with him. But of this, as I say, I was ignorant, and was consequently very much astonished when, one nightfall, in passing the great Dudleigh place, he remarked:

"'How would you like to drink a glass with me in yonder? Better than in the Fairfax kitchen, eh?'

"I thought he was joking. ''Tis a fine old house,' I observed. 'No doubt its wines are good. But it is no tavern, and I question if Miss Dudleigh would make either of us very welcome.'

"'You do! Then you don't know Miss Dud[93]leigh,' he vaunted, with a proud swelling of his person, and a lift of his head that almost took my breath away. For, though he was a handsome fellow—too handsome for a man no worthier than he—I should no more have presumed to have associated him in my thoughts with Miss Dudleigh than if he had been a worker in her fields. Not so much because she was rich—very rich for that day and place—or that her family was an old one, and his but a mushroom stock, as that she was a being of the gentlest instincts and the purest thoughts, while he was what you may have gathered from my words—vain, coarse, cowardly and mean; an abject cur beside her, who was, and is, one of the sweetest women the sun ever shone upon."

At this expression of admiration on the part of the hermit, which proved him to be in entire ignorance of the crime which had been perpetrated against this woman, I found myself struck so aghast that I could not forbear showing it. But he was too engrossed in his reminiscences to notice my emotion, and presently continued his story by saying:

"I probably betrayed my astonishment to Ur[94]quhart, for he gave a great laugh, and forced me about toward the gates.

"'We will not be turned out,' he said. 'Let us go in and pay our respects.'

"'But,' I stammered.

"'Oh, it's all right,' he pursued. 'The fair lady is of age and has the privilege of choosing her future husband. I shall live in clover, eh? Well, it is time I lived in something. I have had a hard enough time of it so far, for a none too homely fellow.'

"I was overwhelmed; more than that, I was sickened by these words, whose import I understood only too well. Not that I had any special interest in Miss Dudleigh; indeed, I hardly knew her; but any such woman inspires respect, and I could not think of her as allied to this man without a spasm of revolt that almost amounted to fear.

"'You are going to marry her, this white rose!' I exclaimed. 'I should as soon have thought of your marrying a princess of the royal house. I hope you appreciate your unbounded good fortune.'

"He pointed to the great chimneys and imposing facade of the fine structure before us. 'Do[95] you think I am so blind as not to know the advantage of being the master in a house like that? You must not think me quite a fool if I am not as clever a fellow as you are. Remember that I am a poorer one and like my ease better.'

"'But Miss Dudleigh?'

"'Oh, she's a trifle peaked and dull, but she's fond and not too exacting.'

"I was angry, but had no excuse for showing it. Righteous indignation he could never have understood, and to have provoked a quarrel without any definite end in view would have been folly. I remained silent, therefore, but my heart burned within me.

"It had not lost its heat when we entered her house, and when my eyes fell upon her seated at her spinet in front of a latticed window that brought out her gentle figure in all its sweet simplicity, I felt like clutching, and flinging back over the threshold, which his desecrating foot should never have crossed, the hollow-hearted being at my side, who could neither see her beauty nor estimate the worth of her innocent affection.

"There was an aunt or some such relative in the room with her, but this did not hinder the glad[96] smile from rising to her lips as she saw us—or rather him, for she hardly seemed to notice my presence. I learned afterward that this aunt had been greatly instrumental in bringing these incongruous natures together; that for reasons of her own, which I have never attempted to fathom, she thought Edwin Urquhart the best husband that her niece could have, and not only introduced him into the house, but stood so much his friend during the first days of his courtship that she gradually imparted to her niece her own enthusiasm, till the poor girl saw—or thought she saw—the ideal of her dreams in the base and shallow being whom I called my friend.

"However that may be, she certainly rose from her spinet that night in a pretty confusion that made her absolutely lovely, and advancing with the mingled dignity of the heiress and the tender bashfulness of the maiden in the presence of him she loved, she tendered us a courtesy whose grace put me out of ease with myself, so much it expressed the manners of people removed from the sphere in which it had hitherto been my lot to move.

"But Urquhart showed no embarrassment.[97] His fine figure—he had that—bent forward with the most courtly of bows, and after the introduction of my humble self to her notice, he entered into a conversation which, if shallow, was at least bright, and for the moment interesting. As I had no wish to talk, I gave myself up to watching her, and came away at last more fixed than ever in my belief of her extreme worthiness and of his extreme presumption in thinking of calling so perfect a creature his.

"'Would to God she was as poor as Janet Fairfax,' I thought to myself. 'Then she would never have attracted his attention, and might have known what happiness was with some man who could appreciate her. Now she is doomed, and being fatherless and motherless, will rush on to her fate, and no one can stop her.'

"Thus I thought, and thus I continued to think as chance and Urquhart's stubborn will led me more and more to her house, and within the radius of her gentle influence. But my thoughts never went further. I never saw her, even in my dreams, fostered by me, or soothed of an old grief by my love and affection. For though she was a dainty and gracious being, with beauty enough to de[98]light the eyes and warm the heart, she was not the one destined to move me, and awake the tumultuous passions that lay dormant in my own scarcely understood nature. Urquhart, therefore, was not acting unwisely in taking me there so often, though, if I could have foreseen what was likely to be the result of those visits, I should have leaped from my house's roof on to the stones below before I had passed again under those fatal portals.

"And yet—would I? Do we fear suffering or apathy most? Is it from experience or the monotony of a commonplace existence that we quickest flee? A man with passions like mine must love; and if that love comes girt with flame and mysterious death, he still must embrace it, and rise and fall as the destinies will.

"But I talk riddles. I have not yet told you of her; and yet speak of fire and death. I will try to be more coherent, if only to show that the years have brought me some mastery over myself. One day—it was a fall day and beautiful as limpid sunshine and a world of yellowing woods could make it—I went to Miss Dudleigh's house to apologize for my friend, who had wished to improve the gorgeous sunshine elsewhere.[99]

"I had by this time lost all fear of her, as well as of her rich and spacious surroundings, and passed through the hospitable door and along the wide halls to the especial room in which we were wont to find her, with that freedom engendered by an intimacy as cordial as it was sincere. It was the room where first I had seen her, the room with the wide latticed window at the back, and the spinet beneath it, and the old carven chair of oak in which her white-clad form had always looked so ethereal; and I entered it smiling, expecting to see her delicate figure rise from the window, and advance toward me with that look of surprise and possible disappointment which the absence of Urquhart would be apt to arouse in this too loving nature. But the room was empty and the spinet closed, and I was about turning to find a servant, when I felt an influence stealing over me so subtile and so peculiar that I stood petrified and enthralled, hardly knowing if it were music that held me spell-bound or some unknown and subduing perfume, that, filling my senses, worked upon my brain, and made me feel like a man transported at a breath from the land of reality into a land of dreams.[100]

"So potent the spell, so inexplicable its action, that minutes may have elapsed before I wrenched myself free from its power and looked to see what it was that so moved me. When I did, I found myself at a loss to explain it. Whether it was music or perfume, or just the emanation from an intense personality, I have never determined. I only know that when I turned, I saw standing before me, in an attitude of waiting, a woman of such marvelous attractions, and yet of an order of beauty so bizarre and out of keeping with the times and the place in which she stood, that I forgot to question everything but my own sanity and the reality of a vision so unprecedented in all my experience. I therefore simply stood like her, speechless and lost, and only came to myself when the figure before me suddenly melted from a statue into a woman, and, with a deep and graceful courtesy, almost daring in its abandonment, said:

"'You must be Master Felt, I take it. Master Urquhart would never be so thrown off his balance by a simple girl like me.'

"There are voices that pierce like arrows and sink deep into the heart, which closes over their[101] sweetness forever. So it was with this voice. From its first sound to its last it held me enthralled, and had she shown but half the beauty she did, those accents of hers would have made me her slave. As it was, I was more than her slave. I instantly became all and everything to her. I breathed but as she breathed, and in the absorbing delight which from that moment took hold of me I lost all sense of the proprieties and conventionalities of social intercourse, and only thought of drinking in at one draught the strange and mysterious loveliness which I saw revealed before me.

"She was not a tall woman, no taller than Miss Dudleigh. Nor was she of marked carriage or build. Her form, indeed, seemed only made to express suppleness and passion, and was as speaking in its slight proportions as if it had breathed forth the nobler attributes of majesty and strength. Her dress was dark, and clung to every curve with a loving persistence bewildering in its effect upon an eye like mine. Upon the bust, and just below the white throat, burned a mass of gorgeous flowers as ruddy as wine; and from one delicate hand a long vine trailed to the floor. But[102] it was in her face that her power lay; in her eyes possibly, though I scarcely think so, for there were curves to her lips such as I have never seen in any other, and a delicate turn to her nostril that at times made me feel as if she were breathing fire. Her skin was pale, her forehead broad and low, her nose straight, and her lips of a brilliant vermilion. I, however, saw only her eyes, though I may have been influenced by the rest of her bewildering physiognomy; they were so large, so changeful, so full of alternating flames and languor, so indeterminate in color, and yet so persistent in their effect upon the eye and the feelings. Looking at them, I swore she was an anomaly. Gazing into them, I resolved that she was this only because she let herself be natural and sought to smother none of the fires which had been enkindled by a bountiful nature within her soul.

"While I was reasoning thus, she made me another mock courtesy, and explaining her presence by saying she was a cousin of Miss Dudleigh's, ventured to remark that, if Master Felt would be kind enough to state his errand, she would be glad to carry it to Miss Dudleigh. I answered confusedly, but with a fervor she could[103] not fail to understand, and following up this effort by another, led her into a conversation in which my responses gradually became such as she should expect from a gentleman and an equal.

"For with her, notwithstanding her beauty, and the sense of splendor and luxury which breathed from her mysterious presence, I never felt that sense of personal inferiority I experienced at first with Miss Dudleigh. Whether I recognized then, as now, the lack of those high qualities which lift one mortal above another, I do not know. I am only certain that, while I regarded her as a woman to be obeyed, to be loved, to be followed through life, through death, into whatsoever regions of horror, danger, and pain she might lead me, I never looked upon her as a being out of my world or beyond my reach, except so far as her caprice might carry her.

"It was therefore with the fixed determination to force from her some of the interest she had awakened in me, that I grasped at this first opportunity of conversation; and in spite of her unrest—she did not want to linger—held her to the spot till I had made her feel that a man had come into her life whose will meant something, and to whom,[104] if she did not subdue the light of her glances, she must give account for every added throb she caused to beat in his proud heart.

"This done I let her go, for Miss Dudleigh was not well and needed her, and the door closed behind her mysterious smile, and the sound of her steps died out in the hall, and in fancy only could I behold her supple, dark-clad form go up the broad staircase, projecting itself now against the golden daylight falling through one window, and now against the clustering vines that screened another, till she disappeared in regions of which I knew nothing and whither even my daring imagination presumed not to follow. And the vision never left my eyes nor her form my heart, and I went out in my turn, a burning, eager, determined man, where in a short half hour before I had entered cold and self-satisfied, without hope and without exaltation.

"This was the beginning. In a week the earth and sky held nothing for me but that woman. Her name, which I had not learned at our first interview, was Marah Leighton—a fitting watch-word for a struggle that could terminate only with my life! For I had got to the pass that this[105] woman must be mine. I would have her for my wife or see her dead; she should never leave the town with another. Yes; homely as I was, without recommendation of family, or more means than enough to keep a wife from want, I boldly entered upon this determination, and in the face of some dozen lovers, that at the first revelation of her beauty began to swarm about her steps, pressed my claims and pushed forward my suit till I finally gained a hearing, and after that a promise, which, if vague, was more than any of her other lovers could boast of, or why did they all gradually withdraw from the struggle, leaving me alone in my homage?

"The uncertainties of her position (she was an orphan and dependent upon Miss Dudleigh for subsistence) had added greatly to my tenderness for her. It also added to my hope. For if I were poor, she was poorer, and ought to find in the managing of my humble home a satisfaction she could not experience in the enjoyment of a relative's bounty, even if that relative was a woman like Honora Dudleigh. And yet one doubts an exultant happiness; and as I grew to know her better, I realized that if I ever did succeed in mak[106]ing her mine, I must see to it that my fortunes bettered, as she would never be happy as a poor man's wife, even if that man brought her independence and love.

"She loved splendor, she loved distinction, she loved the frivolities of life. Not with a childish pleasure or even a girlish enthusiasm, but with a woman's strong and determined spirit. I have seen her pace through and through those great halls just for the pleasure of realizing their spaciousness; and though the sight made my heart cringe, I have admired her step and the poise of her head as much as if she had been the queen of it all, and I her humblest vassal. Then her luxury! It showed as plainly in her poverty as it could have done in wealth. If it were flowers she handled, it was as a goddess would handle them. None were too beautiful, or too costly, or too rare for her restless fingers to pluck, or her dainty feet to tread on. Had she possessed jewels, she would have worn them like roses, and flung them away almost as freely if they had displeased her or she had grown weary of them. Love was to her a jewel, and she wore it just now because it suited her fancy to do so; but would not the day come[107] when she would grow tired of it or demand another, and so fling it and me to the dogs?

"I did not ask. I was permitted to walk at her side, and pay her my court, and now and then, when the humor took her, to press her hand or drop a kiss upon the rosy palm; and while I could do this, was it for me to question a future which seemed more likely to hold fewer pleasures than more?

"But I grow diffuse; I must return to facts. Honora Dudleigh, who saw my devotion, encouraged it. I wondered at it sometimes, for she knew the smallness of my fortune, and must have known the nature of the woman I expected to share it. But as time passed I wondered less, for her woman's intuition must have told her, what observation had as yet failed to tell me, that there was trouble in the air, and that Marah needed a protector.

"The day that I first recognized this fact made an era in my life. I had been so happy, so at ease with myself, so sure of her growing confidence and of my coming happiness. That I had cause for this, the conduct of her friends and the jealousy of her lovers seemed to prove. Though she gave[108] no visible token of her regard, she clung to me as to a support, and allowed my passion the constant feast of her presence and the stimulation of her voice.

"Her enchantments, and they were innumerable, were never spared me, nor did she stint herself of a smile that could allure, nor of a glance that could arouse or perplex.

"I was happy, and questioned only the extent of my patience, which I felt fast giving way as the preparations for Miss Dudleigh's marriage proceeded without my seeing any immediate prospect of my own. You can realize, then, the maddening nature of the shock which I received when, coming quietly into the house as I did one day, I beheld her face disappearing through one of the doorways, with that look upon it which I had always felt was natural to it, but which no passion of mine had ever been able to evoke, and then perceived in the shadow from which she had just glided, Edwin Urquhart, pale as excessive feeling could make him, and so shaken by the first real emotion which had ever probably moved his selfish soul that he not only failed to see me when I advanced, but hastened by me, and away into the[109] solitudes of the garden, without noticing my existence, or honoring with a reply the words of wrath and confusion which, in my misery and despair, I threw after him."[110]

CHAPTER VIII. A SUDDEN BETROTHAL

"As for myself," continued Mark Felt, "I stood crushed, and after the first torrent of emotion had swept by, lifted my head like a drowning man and looked wildly about, as if, in the catastrophe which overwhelmed me, all nature must have changed, and I should find myself in a strange place. The sight of the door through which Marah Leighton had passed stung me into tortured existence again. With a roar of passion and hate I sprang toward it, burst it open, and passed in. Instantly silence and semi-darkness fell upon me, through which I felt her presence exhaling its wonted perfume, though I could see nothing but the dim shapes of unaccustomed articles of furniture grouped against a window that was almost completely closed from the light of day.

"Advancing, I gazed upon chair after chair. They were all empty, and not till I reached the further corner did I find her, thrown at full length upon a couch, with her head buried in her arms,[111] and motionless as any stone. Confused, appalled even, for I had never seen her otherwise than erect and mocking, I stumbled back, and would have fled, but that she suddenly arose, and flinging back her head, gave me one look, which I felt rather than saw, and bursting into a peal of laughter, called me to account for disturbing the first minute of rest she had known that day.

"I was dumfounded. If she had consulted all her wiles, and sought for the one best way to silence me, she could not have chanced on one surer than this. I gazed at her quite helpless, and forgot—actually forgot—what had drawn me into her presence, and only asked to get a good glimpse of her face, which, in the dim light, was more like that of a spirit than of a woman—a mocking spirit, in whom no love could lodge, whatever my fancy might have pictured in the delirium of the moment that had just passed.

"She seemed to comprehend my mood, for she flung back the curtain and drew herself up to her full height before me.

"'Did you think I was playing the coquette?' she asked. 'Well, perhaps I was; women like me must have their amusements; but—'[112]

"Oh! the languishment in that but. I shut my eyes as I heard it. I could neither bear its sound, nor the sight of her face.

"'You listened to him. He was making love to you—he, the promised husband of another; and you—'

"She forced me to open my eyes.

"'And I?' she repeated, with an indescribable emphasis that called up the blushes to my cheek.

"'And you,' I went on, answering her demand without hesitation, 'the beloved of an honest man who would die to keep you true, and will die if you play him false!'

"She sighed. Softness took the place of scorn; she involuntarily held out her hand.

"I was amazed; she had never done so much before. I seized that hand, I pressed it wildly, hungrily, and with lingering fondness.

"'Do you not know that you are everything to me?' I asked. 'That to win you I am ready to do everything, barter anything, suffer anything but shame! You are my fate, Marah; will you not let me be yours?'

"She was silent; she had drawn her hand from mine and had locked it in its fellow, and now stood[113] with them hanging down before her, fixed as a statue, in a reverie I could neither fathom nor break.

"'You are beautiful,' I went on, 'too beautiful for me; but I love you. You are proud, also, and would grace the noblest palaces of the old world; but they are far away, and my home is near and eager to welcome you. You are dainty and have never taught your hands to toil, or your feet to walk our common earth; but there are affections that sweeten labor, and under my roof you will be so honored, so aided and so beloved, that you will soon learn there are pleasures of the fireside that can compensate for its cares, and triumphs of the affections that are beyond the dignities of outside life.'

"Her lip curled and her hands parted. She lifted one rosy palm and looked at it, then she glanced at me.

"'I shall never work,' she said.

"My heart contracted, but I could not give her up. Madness as it was to put faith and life in the grasp of such a woman, I was too little of a man or too much of a one to turn my back upon a hope which, even in its realization, could bring me nothing but pain.[114]

"'You shall not work,' I declared. And I meant it. If I died she should not handle anything harsher than rose leaves in her new home.

"'You want me?' She breathed it. I stood in a gasp of hope and fear.

"'More than I want heaven! Or, rather, you are my heaven.'

"'We will be married before Honora,' she murmured. And gliding from my side before I had recovered from the shock of a promise so unexpected, a bliss so unforeseen and immediate, she vanished from my sight, and nothing but the perfume which lingered behind her remained to tell me that it was not all a dream, and I the most presumptuous being alive.

"And so the hour that opened in disaster ended in joy; and from the heart of what I deemed an irredeemable disaster rose a hope that for several days put wings to my feet. Then something began to tarnish my delight, an impalpable dread seized me, and though I worked with love and fury upon my house, which I had begun adorning for my bride, I began to question if she had played the coquette in smiling upon Edwin Urquhart, and whether in the mockery of the laugh[115] with which she had dismissed my accusations there had not been some regret for a love she dared not entertain, but yet suffered to lose. The memory of the glow in her eyes, as she turned away from him at my step, returned with growing power, and I decided that if this were coquetry, it were sweeter than love, and longed to ask her to play the coquette with me. But she never did, and though she did not smile upon him again in my presence, I felt that her beauty was more bewildering, her voice more enchanting, when he was in the room with us than when chance or my purpose found us alone. To settle my doubts, I left watching her and began to watch him, and when I found that he betrayed nothing, I turned my attention from them both and bestowed it upon Miss Dudleigh."[116]

CHAPTER IX. MARAH

"Great heaven! why had I not noticed Miss Dudleigh before! In her changed face, and in the wasting of her delicate form, I saw that my fears were not all vain, inasmuch as they were shared by her; and shocked at evidences so much beyond my expectations, I knew not whether to shed the bitter tears which rose to my eyes in pity for her or in rage for myself.

"We were sitting all together, and I had a full opportunity to observe the mournful smile that now and then crossed her lips as Marah uttered some brighter sally than common or broke—as she often did—into song that rippled for a minute through the heavy air and then ceased as suddenly as it had begun. She looked much oftener at Marah than at Urquhart, and seemed to be asking in what lay the charm that subdued everybody, even herself. And when she seemed to receive no answer to her secret questioning, her eyes fell and a sigh stirred her lips, which, if unheard by[117] the preoccupied man at her side, rang on in my ears long after I had bidden farewell to her and the siren whose smiles, intentionally or unintentionally, seemed destined to bring shipwreck into three lives.

"It was not the last time I heard that sigh. As the weeks progressed it fluttered oftener and oftener from between those pale lips, and at last the change in Miss Dudleigh became so marked that people stopped in the midst of their talk about the stamp act to remark upon Miss Dudleigh's growing weakness, and venture assertions that she would never live to be a bride. And yet the preparations for her bridal and for mine went on, and the day set apart for the latter drew bewilderingly near.

"Marah saw my perplexity and her cousin's grief, but did nothing to dispel the one or assuage the other. She seemed to be too busy. She was embroidering a famous stomacher for herself, and while a sprig of it remained unworked she had neither eyes nor attention for anything else, even for the bleeding hearts around her. She would smile—O yes, smile upon me, smile upon Honora, and not smile upon him; but she would not meet[118] her cousin's true eyes, nor would she grant me one minute apart from the rest in which I could utter my fears or demand the breaking of that spell whose effects were so visible, even if its workings were secret and imperceptible. But at last the stomacher was finished, and as it dropped from her hands I threw myself at her feet, and from this position, looking into her eyes, I whispered:

"'This is the last thing that shall ever flaunt itself between us. You are to be mine now, and in token of your truth come with me into the conservatory, for I have words to utter that will not be put off.'

"'You are cruel,' she murmured, 'you are tyrannical. This is a time of revolt; shall I revolt, too?'

"Maddened, for her eyes were not looking at me, but at him, I leaped to my feet, and, regardless of everything but my determination to end this uncertainty then and there, I lifted her and carried her out of the room into another, where I could have her alone, and without the humiliating sense of his presence.

"My bold act seemed to frighten her, for she stood very still where I had placed her, only[121] trembling slightly when I looked at her and cried:

"'Did you ask that question of me? Am I to understand you want to break your fetters?'

"She plucked a rose from her breast and crumpled it to atoms between her hands.

"'O why are they not golden ones!' she asked. 'I am miserable because we must be poor; because—because I want to ride in a carriage, because I want to wear jewels and own a dozen servants, and trample on the pride of women plainer than myself. I hate your humble home, I hate your stiff Dutch kitchen, I hate your sordid ways and the decent respectability that is all you can offer me. Were you beautiful as Adonis, it would make no difference. I was born to drink wine and not water, and I shall never forgive you for forcing me to take your crystal goblet in my hands, while, if I had waited—'

"She stopped, panting. I let my whole pent-up jealousy out in a word.

"'Edwin Urquhart has not even a crystal goblet to offer you. He is poorer than I am, and will remain so till he has actually married Miss Dudleigh.'[122]

"'Don't I know it!' she flashed out. 'If it had been otherwise do you think—'

"She had the grace or the wisdom to falter. I regret it now. I regret that she did not go on and reveal her whole soul to me in one fell burst of feeling. As it was, I trembled with jealousy and passion, but I did not cast her from me.

"'Then you acknowledge—' I cried.

"But she would acknowledge nothing. 'I love no one,' she asserted, 'no one. I want what I want, but none of you can give it to me.'

"Then blame me as you will, I took a great resolve. I determined to give her what she craved; convinced of her sordid nature, convinced of her heartlessness and the folly of ever thinking she could even understand, much less reciprocate my passion, I was so much under her sway at that moment that I would have flung at her feet kingdoms had I possessed them. Flushing, I seized her hand.

"'You do not know what a man in love can do,' I cried. 'Trust me; give me yourself as you have promised, and sooner or later I will give you what you have asked. I am not a weak man or an incompetent one. Politics opens a vast field to an[123] ambitious nature, and if war breaks out, as we all expect it will, you will see me rise to the front, if I have you for my wife and inspiration.'

"The scorn in her eyes did not abate. 'O you men!' she cried. 'You think you give us everything with a promise. A war! What is the history of wars? Demolished homes, broken fortunes, rack, ruin and desolation. Is there gold, or honor, or ease in these? A war! It will not be a war. It will be a struggle in which men will fight barefoot and on empty stomachs for the privilege of calling themselves free. I have no sympathy with such a war. It robs us of comfort in the present and brings nothing worth waiting for in the future. Were I to have my will, I would take the arm of the first officer returning to England and remain there. I hate this country, so new, so crude, so democratic! I should like to live where I could ride over the necks of common people.'

"A tory and an aristocrat! Another gulf between us. I looked at her in horror, but, alas! the horror was strangely mixed with admiration. She was such a burning embodiment of pride. Her peculiar beauty—the source of which I have never to this day been able to fathom—lent itself so readily[124] to the expression of fury and disdain, that, recoil as I would from her principles, I could not shut my eyes to the fascination of her glance or the torturing charm that hid in the corners of her pouting lips. She was a queen. Oh, yes, but the queen of some strange realm in a distant oriental land, where right and wrong were only words, and the sole end of beauty was delight, without reference to God or one's fellows. I saw it all, I felt it all, yet I lingered. She was to be my wife in three days, and the intoxication of this prospect was in my blood and brain.

"'You will do so and so,' were her next words. 'You will give me what I ask when you have won it. But I cannot wait for the winning; I want it now. Do you know what I would do to get the wealth I was born to? I would risk life! I would walk on burning plowshares! I would—'

"She stopped, and I saw the lines come out in her forehead. She was thinking—thinking deeply. I felt the shadow of a great horror creeping over me. I caught her impetuously in my arms. I kissed her passionately to drive away the demons. I begged and implored her to forget her evil thoughts, and be the woman I could love and che[125]rish; and finally I moved her. She shook herself free, but she also shook the shadow from her brow. She even found a smile to bestow upon me; and was it a tear? Could it have been a tear I saw for a moment glisten in her eye as she turned half petulantly, half imperiously away? I have never known, but the very suspicion filled my heart to overflowing, and the great sobs rose in my breast; and—fool that I was—I was about to beg her pardon, when she gave me one other look, and I merely faltered out:

"'Where will you find another love like mine, Marah? If you got your gold, you would soon miss something which only comes with love. You would be unhappy, and curse the day you left my arms. I am your master, Marah; why not make me a happy one?'

"'I expect,' she murmured, 'to marry you.'

"'And then?' I could not help it; the words sprang to my lips involuntarily.

"Her eyes opened wide; she literally flashed them upon me. I felt their lightnings play all about my doubtful nature, and scorch it.

"'I will be your wife,' she uttered gravely.

"I fell at her feet. I kissed the hem of her[126] robe. In that moment I adored her. 'O best and fairest!' I cried, 'I will make you happy. I will fill your hopes to the full. You shall ride in a carriage, and your will shall be a law to those who smile in scorn upon you now, and you will be—'

"'Mistress Felt, of most honorable degree,' she finished, with the half laughing disdain she could never keep long out of her words.

"And thus I became again her slave, and lived in that sweet, if servile, condition till the hour of our nuptials came, and I went to conduct her to the church where, in sight of half the town, she was to be made my wife. Shall I ever forget that morning? It was a December day, but the heavens were blue and the earth white, and not a cloud bespoke a rising storm. As for me, I walked on air, all the more that I knew Urquhart was out of town and would not be present at the wedding. He had gone away on some behest of Miss Dudleigh's immediately after the last interview I have mentioned, and would not come back, or so I had been told, till after Miss Leighton had been Mistress Felt for a week. So there was nothing to mar my day or make my entrance into Miss Dudleigh's house anything but one of pro[127]mise. I saw Miss Dudleigh first. She was standing in the vast colonial hall when I entered, and in her gala robes, and with the sunshine on her head, she looked almost happy. Yet she was greatly changed from her old self, and I felt much like pouring out my soul to her and bidding her to break a tie that would never bring her peace, or even honor. But I feared to shatter my own hopes. Selfish being that I was, I dreaded to have her made free, lest— What? My thoughts did not interpret my fears, for at that moment a sunbeam struck down the stairs and through my heart, and, looking up, I saw Marah descending, and thought and reason flew to greet her.

"She had been robed by her cousin's bounteous hand, and her dress of stiff yellow brocade burned in the morning light with almost as much brilliance as the sunshine itself. Folded across her bust was the wonderful stomacher, under whose making I had suffered so many emotions that each sprig of work upon it seemed to have its own tale of misery for my eyes, and fixed against this and her white throat were those masses of flowers without which her beauty never seemed quite complete. In her hair, which was piled high[128] above her forehead, flashed a huge golden comb, and upon her arm gleamed two bracelets, whose exquisite workmanship was well known to me, for they had been an heirloom in my family for years. She was fair as a dream, proud as a queen, cold as a statue, but she was mine! Was not the minister waiting for us at the church? and were not the horses that were to take us there even now champing their bits before the door?

"She rode with me. Four white horses had been attached to Miss Dudleigh's coach, and behind these we passed in state out through the noble park that separated this lordly house from the rest, into the closely packed streets, where hundreds waited to catch a glimpse of the most beautiful woman in Albany, going to be made a bride.

"Miss Dudleigh rode behind us in another coach, and the murmur which greeted our appearance did not die out till after she had passed, for they knew she would soon be riding the same road with even greater state, if not with so much beauty; and the people of Albany loved Honora Dudleigh, for she was ever a beneficent spirit to them, and more than ever, since a shadow had fal[129]len upon her happiness, and she had come to know what misery was.

"And thus we passed on, Marah with a glowing flush of triumph burning on her cheek and I in one of those moods of happiness whose rapture was so unalloyed that I scarcely heard the half-laughing comments of those who saw with wonder how plain was the man who had succeeded in carrying off this well-known beauty. And the greater part of the way was traversed, and the bells of the old North Church became audible, and in a moment more we should have seen the belfry of the church itself rising before us, when, suddenly, the woman that I loved, the woman whose nuptials the minister was waiting to celebrate, gave a great start, and, turning quickly toward me, cried:

"'Turn the horses' heads! I do not go to the church with you to-day. Not if you kill me, Mark Felt!'

"You have heard of stray bullets coming singing from some unknown quarter and striking a person seated at a feast. Such a bullet struck me then. I looked at her in horror."[130]

CHAPTER X. AT THE FOOT OF THE STAIRS

"'You think I am playing with you,' she murmured. 'I am not. I have sickened of these nuptials and am going back. If you want to, you may kill me where I sit. You carry a dagger, I know; one more red blossom will not show on my breast. Give it to me if you will, but turn the horses.'

"She meant it, however much my lost heart might cry out for its happiness and honor. Leaning forward, I told the pompous driver that Miss Leighton had been taken very ill, and bade him drive back; and then with the calmness born of utter despair and loss, I said to her:

"'In pity for my pride drop your head upon my shoulder. I have said you were sick, and sick you must be. It is the least you can do for me now.'

"She obeyed me. That head on which in fancy I had set the crowns of empires, for whose every hair my heart had given a throb, sank coldly down till it rested upon the heart she had broken; and while I steadied my nerves to meet the[131] changed faces of the crowd, the carriage gave a sudden turn, and amid murmurings that fell almost unheeded on my benumbed senses, we wheeled about and faced again the gates through which we had so lately issued.

"'She is ill,' I shouted to Miss Dudleigh, as we passed her carriage. But she gave me no reply. She was gazing over the heads of the crowd at some distant object that enthralled her every look and sense; and moved by her expression as I thought never to be moved by anything again, I followed her glance, and there, on the outskirts of the crowd, crouching amid branches that yet refused to hide him, I saw Edwin Urquhart; and the miserable truth smote home to my heart that it was he who had stopped my marriage—he, whom I had thought far distant, but who had now come to hinder, by some secret gesture or glance, my bride on her path to the altar.

"A dagger was hidden in my breast, and I still wonder that I did not leap from the carriage, burst through the crowd, and slay him where he crouched in cowardly ambush. But I let the moment go by, perhaps because I dreaded to bring the shadow of another woe into Miss Dudleigh's[132] white face, and almost immediately the throng had surged in thickly between us, and Miss Dudleigh's carriage had turned after ours, and there was nothing further to do but to ride back, with the false face pressed in seeming insensibility to my breast, and that false heart beating out its cold throbs of triumph upon mine.

"I bore it, glancing down but once upon her. Had the ride before me been one of miles I should have gone on in the same mechanical way, for my very being was petrified. Rage, fear, sorrow and despair, all seemed like dreams to me. I wondered that I had ever felt anything, and stared on and on at the blue sky before me, conscious of but one haunting thought that repeated itself again and again in my brain—that her power lay not in her eyes, as I had always been assured, but in those strange curves about her mouth. For her eyes were closed now, and yet I was coldly conscious of the fact that she had never looked more beautiful or more fitted to move a man, if a man had any heart left to be moved.

"The stopping of the carriage before the great door of Miss Dudleigh's house roused me to the necessity for action.[133]

"'I must carry you in,' I whispered. 'I beg your pardon for it, but it is necessary to the farce.' And following up my words by action, I lifted her from the seat, cold and unresponsive as a stone, and carried her into the house and set her down before the astonished eyes of such servants as had remained to guard the house in our absence.

"'Miss Leighton has not been married,' I cried. 'She was taken ill on the way to church, and I have brought her back. She needs no attendance.' And I waved them all back, for their startled, gaping countenances infuriated me, and threatened to shatter the dreadful calmness which was my only strength.

"As they disappeared, murmuring and peering, Miss Dudleigh entered. I gave her one glance and dropped my eyes. She and I could not bear each other's looks yet. Meantime Marah stood erect in the center of the hall, her face pale, her lips set, her eyes fixed upon vacancy. Not a word passed our three mouths. At last a petulant murmur broke the dreadful silence, and Marah, tossing her head in disdain, turned away before our eyes and began to mount the stairs.[134]

"I felt my blood, which for many minutes had seemed at a standstill, pour with a rush through vein and artery, and darting to her side, I caught her by the hand and held her to her place.

"'You shall not go up,' I cried, 'till you and I have understood each other. You have refused to marry me to-day. Was it some caprice that moved you, or—' I paused and looked behind me; Miss Dudleigh had shrunk from sight into one of the rooms—'or because you saw Edwin Urquhart in the crowd and followed his commanding gesture?'

"The hand which I held grew cold as ice. She drew it away and looked at me haughtily, but I saw that I had frightened her.

"'Edwin Urquhart is nothing to me,' came in low but emphatic tones from her lips. 'I did not want to marry any one, and I said so. It would be better if more brides hesitated on the threshold of matrimony instead of crossing it to their ruin.'

"I could have killed her, but I subdued myself. I knew that I had lost her; that in another moment she would be gone, never to enter my presence again as my promised wife; but I utter[135]ed no word, honored her with no glance; merely made her a low bow and stepped back, as I thought, master of myself again.

"But in that final instant one last arrow entered my breast, and darting back to her side, I whispered, in what must have been a terrible voice:

"'Go, falsest of the false! I have done with you! But if you have lied to me—if you think to trip up Edwin Urquhart in his duty, and break Honora Dudleigh's noble heart, and shame my honor—I will kill you as I would a snake in the grass! You shall never approach the altar with another as nearly as you have this day with me!'

"And with the last mockery of a look, in which every detail of her beauty flashed with almost an unbearable insistence upon my eyes, I turned my back upon her and strode toward the outer door."[136]

CHAPTER XI. HONORA

"But I did not pass it. A sound struck my ear. It was that of a smothered sob, and it came from the room where I had first seen Miss Dudleigh. Instantly a vision of that sweet form bowed in misery struck upon my still palpitating heart; and moved at a grief I knew to be well nigh as bitter as my own, I stopped before the half-closed door, and gently pushed it open.

"Miss Dudleigh at once advanced to meet me. Tears were on her cheeks, but she walked very firmly, and took my hand with an inquiry in her soft eyes that almost drove me distracted.

"'What shall I do?' I cried to myself. 'Tell this woman to beware, or leave her to fight her battles alone?' No answer came from my inmost soul. I was appalled by her weakness and my own selfishness, and bowed my head and said nothing.

"'A strange ending to the hopes of this day,' were the words that thereupon fell from her lips.[137] 'Is—is—Marah ill, or did one of her strange moods overtake her?'

"'I do not understand Miss Leighton,' I replied. 'The time I have spent in the study of her character has been wasted. I shall never undertake to open the book again.'

"'Then,' she faltered, and an absolute terror grew in her eyes, 'you are going to leave her. She is going to be free, and—' The white cheeks grew scarlet. She evidently feared that she had shown me her heart.

"Affected, but irresolute still, I took her hand and carried it to my lips.

"'Let me thank you,' said I, 'for glimpses into a nature so noble and womanly that I am saved in this hour from cursing all womankind.'

"Ah, how she sighed.

"'You are good,' she murmured. 'You have deserved a better fate. But it is the lot of goodness and truth ever to meet with misappreciation and disdain. Here, here, only,' and she struck her breast with her clenched right hand, 'lie the rewards for honesty, long-suffering, and tenderness. In the world without there is nothing.'

"Tears, which I could not restrain, welled up[138] to my eyes. I could never have wept for my own suffering, but for hers it seemed both natural and real. Ah, why had she thrown the treasures of her heart away upon a fool? Why had she given the trust of her heart to a villain? I opened my lips to speak; she saw his name faltering on my tongue, and stopped me.

"'Don't!' she breathed. 'I know what you would say and I cannot bear it. I was motherless, fatherless, almost friendless, and I relied upon the wisdom of an aunt, whose judgment was, perhaps, not all that it should have been. But it is too late now for regrets. I have launched my boat, and it must sail on; only—you are an honest man and will respect my confidence—was it Mr. Urquhart I saw on the outskirts of the crowd to-day?'

"I bowed. I knew she had not asked because she had any doubts as to the fact of his being there, but because she wanted to see if I had recognized him and owed any of my misery to that fact.

"'It was he,' said I, and said no more.

"The mask fell from her countenance. She clasped her hands together till they showed white as marble.[139]

"'Oh! we are four miserable ones!' she cried. 'He—'

"It was my turn to stop her.

"'I would rather you did not say it,' I exclaimed. 'I can bear much, but not to hear another person utter words that will force me to think of the dagger I carry always in my breast. Besides, we may be mistaken.' I did not believe it, but I forced myself to say it. 'She declares he is nothing to her, and if that is so, you might wish to have kept silent.'

"'She says! Ah! can you believe her? do you?'

"'I must—or go mad.'

"'Then I will believe her, too. I am so slightly tied to this world that has deceived me, that I will trust on a little while longer, even if my trust lands me in my grave. I had rather die than discover deceit where I had looked for honesty and gratitude.'

"I was a coward, perhaps, but I did not try to dissuade her. Though she was fatherless and motherless, and loverless and friendless, I let her grasp at this wisp of hope and cling to it, though I knew it would never hold, and that her only chance for happiness was passing from her.[140]

"'If he were not poor,' she now breathed rather than whispered, 'I would find it easier to rend myself free. But he has nothing but what lies in my future, and if I should make a mistake and do injustice to a man that is merely suffering under a temporary intoxication, I should rob him of his only hope, without adding one chance to my own.'

"I bowed, and made a movement toward the door. I could not stand much more of this strain.

"'You are going?' she cried. 'Well, I cannot keep you. But that dagger! You will promise me to throw it away? You do not need it in defense, and you do not want to kill me before my time.'

"No, no; I did not want to kill her. Grief was doing that fast enough; so I thought at that time. Shuddering, but resolute, I drew the tiny steel from my breast and laid it in her hand.

"'It is all I can give you to show you my appreciation of your goodness.' And not trusting myself to linger longer lest I should take it again from her hand, I went out and walked hastily from the house.[141]

"If you asked me what road I took, or through what streets I passed, or whose eye I encountered in my next hour's walking through the town, I could not tell you. If jeers followed me, I heard them not; if I was the recipient of sympathizing looks and wondering conjectures, they were all lost upon eyes that were blind and ears that were deaf. I did not even feel; and did not realize till night that I had been wandering for hours without my cloak, which I had left in the carriage and forgotten to take again when I went out. The first knowledge I had of my surroundings was when I found an obstruction in my path, and looking up, saw myself in front of my own door, and not two feet from me, Edwin Urquhart."[142]

CHAPTER XII. EDWIN URQUHART

N that moment Mark Felt paused and cast a glance toward the Hudson far below us. Then he resumed his narrative.

"I drew back," he said, "and clenched my hands to keep myself from strangling Urquhart. Then I broke into hurried pants, that subsided gradually into words of perplexity and[143] amazement as I met his eye, and realized that it contained nothing but a rude sort of sympathy and good fellowship.

"'How? Why? What do you mean by coming back?' I cried. 'You said you would be gone a week. You swore—'

"A gay laugh interrupted me.

"'And must a man keep every oath he makes, especially when it separates him from a charming betrothed, and a friend who swore that he would make this day his wedding one?'

"'Urquhart!'

"'Felt!'

"'Are you a monster or are you—'

"'A self-possessed man who is going to take in charge a crazy one. Come into the house, Mark, a dozen eyes can see us here.'

"He took me in charge; he piloted me into my own dwelling—he whose whole body I had always esteemed weaker than my little finger; my enemy too, or so I considered him; the cause of half my grief, of all my shame, the beginning and end of my hatreds.

"When we were closeted, as we soon were in the room I had expended so much upon to make[144] worthy of my bride, he came and stood before me and uttered these unexpected words:

"'Felt, I like you. You are the only friend I have, and I am indebted to you. Now, what have you against me?'

"I was astonished. His whole look and bearing were so different from what I had expected, so different from anything I had ever seen in him before. I began to question my doubts, and dropped my eyes as he pursued:

"'You have been disappointed in your marriage, I hear; but that need not make you as downcast as this. A woman as capricious as Miss Leighton might easily imagine she was too ill to go through the ceremony to-day. But she must have repented of her folly by this time, and in a week will reward you as your patience deserves. But what have I got to do with it? For incredible as it appears, your every look and tone assures me that you blame me for this mishap.'

"Was he daring me? If so, he should find me his equal. I raised my eyes and surveyed him.

"'Shall I tell you why this is so—why I associate Miss Leighton's caprice with your return, and regard both with suspicion? Because I have seen[145] you look on her with love; because I have surprised the passion in your face and beheld her—'

"'Well?'

"The tone was indescribable. It was as if a hand had taken me by the throat and choked me. I drew off and was silent.

"He seized the word at once.

"'You have seen nothing. If you think you have, then have you deceived yourself. Marah Leighton has beauty, but it is not a kind that moves me—'

"He paled. Was it horror of the lie he was uttering? I have never known, never shall know.

"'The woman I am going to marry is Honora Dudleigh.'

"I gazed at him, determined to find the truth if it were in him. He bore my look unflinchingly, though his color did not return, and his hands trembled nervously.

"'You love her?' I asked.

"'I love her,' he returned.

"'And your wedding day—'

"'Is set.'

"'May it have no interruptions,' I remarked.[146]

"He laughed—an uneasy laugh, I thought—but jealousy was not yet dead within me.

"'And yours?' he inquired.

"'I have had mine,' I returned. 'I shall never have another.'

"He shook his head and looked at me inquisitively. I repeated my assertion.

"'I shall never approach the altar again with a woman. I am done with such things, and done with love.'

"He finished his laugh.

"'Wait till you see Marah Leighton smile again,' he cried; and with the first reappearance of his old manner that I had seen in him since the beginning of this interview, he caught up a wine glass off the table, and filling it with wine, exclaimed jovially: 'Here's to our future wives! May they be all that love paints them!'

"I thought his mirth indecent, his manner out of keeping with the occasion, and the whole situation atrocious. But I saw he was about to leave, and said nothing; but I did not drink his toast. When he was gone, I broke his glass by flinging it at my own reflection, in a glass I had bought to mirror her beauty; and before the day was spent,[147] I had destroyed every destructible article in the house whose value or whose prettiness spoke of the attempt I had made to alter my home from a bachelor's abode to the nest I had thought in keeping with the dove I had failed to place there. As I did it I filled the house with mocking laughter; that I should have thought that this or that would please her, who would have found a palace open to criticism, and the splendors of a throne room scarce grand enough for her taste! I was but suffering the stings of a lifetime compressed into a day, and was miserable because I could see no prospect but further addition to my suffering."[148]

CHAPTER XIII. BEFORE THE WEDDING

"Two weeks after this I was sitting beside my solitary hearth, musing upon my misery and longing for the blessed relief of sleep. There was no one with me in the house. I had dismissed every servant; for I would have no spies about me, prying into my misery; and though I could not keep the world of men and women from my doors, I could at least refuse to admit them; and this I did—living the life of a recluse almost as much as I do here, but with less ease, because the wind would bring whispers, and the walls were not thick enough to shut out from my fancy the curious glances I felt to be cast upon them by every passer-by that wandered through the street.

"On this night I had been thinking of Miss Dudleigh, of whose visibly failing health various murmurs had reached me, and I felt, notwithstanding my determination to hold myself aloof from every one and everything that could in any way reopen my still smarting wound, I could[149] more easily find the sleep I longed for if some word from the great house would relieve the suspense in which my ignorance kept me. But I would not go there if I died of my anxiety, nor would I stoop to question any of the market men or women, who were the only persons admitted now within my doors.

"The clock was striking, and the strange sense of desolation which is inseparable from this sound to a solitary man (you see I have no clock here) was stealing over me, when I heard a tap on one of the windows overlooking my small garden, and a voice came through the lattice, crying:

"'Massa—Massa Felt.'

"I knew the voice at once. It was that of one of Miss Dudleigh's servants, an honest black, who had always been devoted to me from the day he did me some trifling service with Miss Leighton. Hearing it now, and after such thoughts, I was so moved by the promise it gave of news from the one quarter I desired, that I stumbled as I rose, and found difficulty in answering him. Nor did I recover my self-possession for hours; for the story he had to tell—after numerous apologies for his presumption in disturbing me—was so signifi[150]cant of coming evil that my mind was thrown again into turmoil, and the passions which I had tried to smother were roused again into action.

"It was simply this: That one evening after Mr. Urquhart's departure, and the extinguishing of all the lights in the house, he had occasion to cross the garden. That in doing this he had heard voices, and, stepping cautiously forward, perceived, lying upon the snow-covered ground, near a certain belt of evergreens, the shadows of two persons, whose forms were hidden from his sight. Being both curious and concerned, he halted before coming too close and, listening, heard Mr. Urquhart's voice, and presently that of Miss Leighton, both speaking very earnestly.

"'Will you undertake it? Can you go through with it without shrinking?' was what the former had said.

"'I will undertake it, and I can go through with it,' was what the latter had replied.

"Frightened at a discovery which might mean nothing and which might mean misery to a mistress the day of whose marriage was scarcely a month away, the negro held his breath, determined to hear more. He was immediately re[151]warded by catching the words: 'You are a brave girl and my queen!' and then something like a prayer for a kiss, or some such favor, as a seal to their compact. But to this she returned a vigorous 'No,' followed by the mysterious sentence: 'I shall give you nothing till I am dead, and then I will give you everything.'

"After which they made a move as if to separate, which action so alarmed the now deeply disconcerted negro that he drew back in haste, hiding behind some neighboring bushes till they had passed him and disappeared, he out of the gate, and she through the small side entrance into the house. This was the previous night, and for nearly twenty-four hours the poor negro had tortured himself as to what he should do with the information thus surreptitiously gained. He lacked the courage to tell his mistress, and finally he had thought of me, who was her best friend, and who must have known there was something amiss with Miss Leighton, or why had I not married her when everything was ready and the minister waiting with his book in his hand?

"Not answering this insinuation, I put to him one or two of the many questions that were burn[152]ing in my brain. Had he told any of the other servants what he had seen? And did Miss Dudleigh look as if she suspected there was anything wrong?

"He answered that he had not dared to speak a word of it even to his wife; and as for Miss Dudleigh, she was ill so much of the time that it was hard to tell whether she had any other cause for uneasiness or not. He only knew that she was greatly changed since this miserable deceiver came into the house.

"I believed him, and amid all my struggle and wrath tried to fix my mind upon her alone. I succeeded only partially, but enough to enable me to write this line, which I entreated him to carry to her:

'HONORED MISS DUDLEIGH—You will forgive me if I overstep the bounds of friendship in yielding to the inner voice which compels me to say that if before or on your marriage day you need advice or protection, you may command both from

Your respectful servant,

'MARK FELT.'

"I did not expect a reply to this note, and I did not receive any. I thought I went as far as my position toward her allowed, but I have questioned it since—questioned if I should not have[153] told her what the negro had heard and seen, and let her own judgment decide her fate. But I was not in my right mind in those days. I was too much a part of all this misery to be a fair judge of my own duty; and then the mysterious nature of Miss Leighton's remark, the incomprehensibility of the words—'I shall give you nothing till I am dead, and then I shall give you everything'—added such unreality to the scene, and awakened such curious conjectures, that I did not know where any of us stood, or to what especial misery the future pointed.

"'Till she was dead!' What could she, what did she mean? She would then give him everything! Ah! ah!—when she was dead! Well, so be it. Meanwhile, there was no prospect of death for any one, unless it was for Miss Dudleigh, whom rumor acknowledged to be still fading, though everything was being done for her comfort, and physician after physician employed.

"I saw Cæsar once again in these days. I met him in the street, seemingly greatly to his delight, for he smiled till his teeth shone from ear to ear, and made haste to remark, in quite a jovial voice:[154]

"'I specs it's all right, massa. Massa Urquhart never looks at Miss Leighton now, but always doin' his best for missus, making her smile quite happy when she isn't coughing that dreadful cough. We will have a gay wedding yet. Yes; Miss Leighton seems to spect that; for she all de time making pretty things and trying them on missus, and laughing and cheering her up, just as if she didn't spect any one to die.'

"Yes, but this change of manner frightened me. I grew feverishly anxious, and spent night and day in asking myself unanswerable questions. Nor did these in any way abate when one day I was startled by the tidings that all preparations for refitting the great house had stopped; that the doctors had decided that Miss Dudleigh must remove to a warmer climate, and that accordingly upon her marriage she and her husband would set sail for the Bermudas, there to take up their abode till her health was quite restored. I doubted my ears; I doubted the facts; I doubted Urquhart, and I doubted one other most of all whose name I find it hard to mention even to myself.

"Yet I should not have doubted her; I should have remembered the flame that was always burn[155]ing in the depths of her eyes, and had confidence in that, if in nothing else. What if she had always been cold to me; she was not cold to him, and I should have known this and prepared myself. But I did not. I knew neither the extent of his villainy nor that of her despair. Had I done so, I might not have been crouching here a disappointed and hopeless man, while she—

"But I am running beyond my tale. After the news I had just imparted, I heard nothing more till the very week of the wedding. Then one of Miss Dudleigh's servants came to me with a note, the result of which was, that I walked out in the afternoon, and that she passed me in her carriage, and seeing me, stopped the horses and took me in, and that we rode on a short distance together.

"'I wish to talk to you,' she said. 'I wish to proffer you a request; to beg of you a favor. I want you,' she stammered and her eyes filled with tears, 'to see me married.'

"I opened my eyes with a quick denial, but I closed them again without speaking. After all, why not please her? Could I suffer more at this wedding than in thinking over it in my dungeon[156] of a room at home? She would be there, of course, but I need not look at her; and if he or she meditated any treachery, where ought I to be but in the one place where my presence would be most useful? I decided to gratify Miss Dudleigh, almost before the inquiry in her eyes had changed to a look of suspense. 'Yes, I will come,' said I.

"She drew a deep breath, and smiled with tender sweetness.

"'I thank you,' she rejoined. 'I thank you most deeply and most truly. I do not know why I desired it so much. Possibly because I feel something like a sister to you, possibly because I feel afraid—'

"She stopped, blushing. 'I do not mean afraid. Why should I feel afraid? Edwin is very good to me; very good. I did not know he could be so attentive.' And she sighed.

"I felt that sigh go through and through me. Looking at her I took a sudden resolution.

"'Honora,' I said (I had never called her by her first name before), 'do not give your happiness into Edwin Urquhart's keeping. You have yet three days before you for reconsidera[157]tion. Break your bonds, and, unhampered by uncongenial ties, seek in another climate for that peace of mind you will never enjoy here or elsewhere as his wife.'

"She stared at me for a moment with wide-open and appealing eyes; then she shook her head, and answered quietly:

"'One broken-off wedding in the family is enough. I cannot shock society with another. But, oh, Mark! why did you not warn me at first? I think I would have listened; I think so.'

"'Forgive me,' I entreated. 'You know it would have been presumptuous in me at first; afterward she stood in the way.'

"'I know,' she answered, and turned away her head.

"I saw she did not wish me to leave her yet; so I said:

"'You are going away; you are going to leave Albany.'

"'I must, or so Edwin thinks. He says I will never recover in this climate.'

"'Do you wish to go?'

"'Yes; I think I do. I can never be happy here, and perhaps when we are far away, and have[158] only each other to think of, the love and confidence of which I have dreamed may come. At all events, I comfort myself with that hope.'

"'But it is a long, long sea voyage. Have you strength enough to carry you through?'

"'If I have not,' she intimated, with a mournful smile, 'he will be free, and I released without scandal from a marriage that fills you with apprehension.'

"'Oh,' I cried, 'would I were your brother indeed! This should never go on.' Then impelled by what I thought to be my duty, I inquired: 'And your money, Honora?'

"She flushed, but answered in the same spirit in which I had spoken.

"'As little of it as may be will remain with him. That much my old guardian insisted upon. Do not ask me any more questions, Mark.'

"'None of a nature so personal,' I promised. 'But there is one thing—can you not guess what it is?—which I ought to know. It is about Marah.'

"The words came with effort, and hurt her as much as me. But she answered bravely:

"'She returns to Schenectady the same day that[159] we depart. I hoped she would not linger to the wedding, but she seems to have a strange desire to face again the people who have talked about her so freely these last few weeks. So what can I say to dissuade her?'

"'Let her stay,' I muttered; 'but let her beware how she behaves on that day, for there will be two eyes watching her, prompt to see any treachery, and prompt, too, to avenge it.'

"'You will have nothing to avenge,' murmured Honora; 'that is all in the past.'

"I prayed to Heaven she might be right, and ere long bowed in adieu and left her. I saw neither herself nor any one else again till I entered the Dudleigh mansion three days later to witness her nuptials."[160]

CHAPTER XIV. A CASSANDRA AT THE GATE

"Miss Dudleigh, moved, perhaps, by the unpleasant eclat which had followed the broken-off marriage of her cousin, chose to celebrate her own wedding in her own house, and with as little ceremony as possible. Only her most intimate friends, therefore, were invited, but these were numerous enough to fill the halls and most of the lower rooms.

"When I entered there was a sudden cessation of conversation; but this I had expected. If anything could add to the interest of the occasion, certainly it was my presence; and, feeling this, I made them all a profound obeisance, and, neither shirking their glances nor inviting them, I took my place in the spot I had chosen for myself, and waited, with a face as impassive as a mask, but with a heart burning with fury and love, not for the coming of the bride, but of her who in this hour ought to have been standing at my side as my wife.[161]

"But I miscalculated if I thought she would enter with them. Even her bold and arrogant spirit shrank from a position so conspicuous, and it was not till they had presented themselves and taken their places in front of the latticed window so associated with my past, that I felt that peculiar sensation which always followed the entrance of Marah into the same room with myself, and, yielding to the force that constrained me, I searched the throng with eager looks, and there, where the crowd was thickest, and the shadow deepest, I saw her. She was gazing straight at me, and there was in her great eyes a look which I did not then understand, and about which I have since tortured myself by asking again and again if it were remorse, entreaty, farewell, or despair that spoke through it. Sometimes I have thought it was fear. Sometimes— But why conjecture? It was an unreadable expression to me then, and even in remembrance it is no clearer. Whatever it betokened, my pride bent before it, and a flood of the old feeling rushed over my heart, making me quite weak for a moment.

"But I conquered myself, as far as all betrayal of my feelings was concerned, and turning from[162] the spot that so enthralled me, I fixed my gaze upon the bride.

"She was looking beautiful; more beautiful than any one had seen her look for weeks. A bright color suffused her delicate cheeks, and in her eyes burned a strange excitement, which did the work of happiness in lighting up her face. But it was a transient glow which faded imperceptibly but surely, as the ceremony proceeded, and passed completely away as the last inexorable words were uttered which made her the wife of the false being at her side.

"He, on the contrary, was pale up to that same critical moment—very pale, when one remembers his naturally florid complexion; but as her color went, his rose, and when the minister withdrew, and friends began to crowd around them, he grew so jovial and so noisy that more than one person glanced at him with suspicion, and cast pitying looks at the now quiet and immobile young wife.

"Meantime I sought with eager anxiety to catch one more glimpse of Marah. But she had shrunk from sight, and was not to be found. And the gayety ran high and the wine was poured[163] freely, and the bridegroom drank with ever-increasing excitement, toasting his bride, but never looking at her, though her eyes turned more than once upon him with an appeal that affected painfully more than one person in the crowd. At last she rose, and, at this signal, he put down his glass, and, with a low bow to the company, prepared to follow her from the room. They passed close to the place where I stood, and I caught one glance from his eyes. It was a laughing one, but there was uneasiness in it. There might have been something more, but I had not time to search for it, for at that moment I felt her dress brush against my sleeve, and turned to give her the smile which I knew her friendly heart demanded.

"'You will wait till we go?' fell in a whisper from her lips; and I nodded with another smile, and they went on and I stood where they had left me, in one of those moods which made me, as far as all human intercourse is concerned, as much of an isolated being as I am in these mountains. I did not wake again from this abstraction till that same premonitory feeling, of which I have so often spoken, told me that something in which I was deeply interested was about to happen. Looking[164] up, I found myself in the room alone. During the hour of my abstraction the guests had gone out, and I had neither noticed their departure nor the gradual cessation of the noise which at one time had filled my ears with hubbub. But the bride had not gone. She was at that moment coming down the stairs, and it was this fact which had pierced to my inner consciousness, and aroused once more in me a vivid sense of my surroundings. He was with her, and behind them, gliding like a wraith from landing to landing, came Marah, clad like the bride in a traveling dress, but without the bonnet which betokened an instant departure.

"Not anticipating her presence so near, I felt my courage fail, and pushing forward, joined the group of servants at the door. They, seeing in this departure of their mistress a possibly endless separation, were weeping and uttering exclamations that not only showed their devotion, but their fears. Shocked lest these words should reach her ears, I quieted them; and then seeing that the carriage which stood outside had a stranger for a driver, and that there was no accompanying wagon filled with their body servants and baggage, I asked the friendly Cæsar, who had pressed close[165] to my side, if Mrs. Urquhart was not going to take a maid with her.

"The negro at once growled out an injured 'No!' and when I expressed my astonishment, he explained that 'There was no one here good enough to please Massa Urquhart. That he was going to pick up with some one in New York. That, though missus was sick, he would not even let her have her own gal go wid her as far as the city; said he would do everything for her hisself—as if any man could do for missus like her own Sally, who had been wid her ever since 'fore she was born!'

"'And the baggage?' I asked, troubled more than I can say by what certainly augured anything but favorably for her future.

"'Oh, massa send dat round to his house. He got books, an' a lot o' things to add to it. Dere's enough o' dat; an' den more went down de ribber on a sloop a week an' more ago.'

"'So! so! And they are going to ride?'

"'Yes, sah. You see, dey want to catch de ship w'at set sail for Bermudas, an' got to hurry; so massa says.'

"By this time Urquhart and his bride had reach[166]ed the door. He was still gay and she was still quiet. But in her eye glistened a tear, while in his there gleamed nothing softer than that vague spark of triumph which one might expect to see in a man who had just married the richest heiress in Albany.

"'Good-by! good-by! good-by!' came in soft tones from her lips; and she was just stepping over the threshold, when there suddenly appeared at the foot of the steps an old crone, so seamed and bowed with age, so weird and threatening of aspect, that we all started back appalled, and were about to draw Mrs. Urquhart out of her path, when the unknown creature raised her voice, and pointing with one skinny hand straight into the bride's face, shrieked:

"'Beware of oak walls! Beware of oak walls! They are more dangerous to you than fire and water! Beware of oak walls!'

"A shriek interrupted her. It came, not from the bride, but from the interior of the well-nigh forsaken hall behind us.

"Instantly the old crone drew herself up into an attitude more threatening and more terrible than before.[167]

[169]

"'And you,' she cried, pointing now beyond us toward a figure which I could feel shrinking in inexplicable terror against the wall. 'And you cannot trust them either! There is death within oak walls. Beware! beware!'

"A curse, a rush, and Edwin Urquhart had flung himself at the old witch's throat. But he fell to the pavement without touching her. With the utterance of her last word, she had slipped from before our eyes and melted into the crowd which curiosity and interest had drawn within the gates, to watch this young couple's departure.

"'Who was that creature? Let me have her! Give her up, I say!' leaped from the infuriated bridegroom's lips, as he rushed up and down before the crowd with threatening arms and flashing eyes.

"But there was no response from the surging throng; while from his frightened wife such an appealing cry rung out that he returned from the vain pursuit, and regaining his place at Honora's side, put her into the carriage. But as he did so he could not refrain from casting a stealthy look behind him, which betrayed to me, if to no one else, that his anger was more on account of the[170] words uttered to Marah than to the tender being clinging to his arm. And a jealous fury took hold of me also, and I should not have been sorry if I had seen him fall then and there, the victim of a thunderbolt more certain, if not more terrible, than that which had just overwhelmed the two women nearest to our hearts.

"'Good-by! good-by! good-by!' came again from the bride's pale lips; and this time I felt that the words were for me, and I waved my hand in response, but could not speak. And so they rode away, followed by the lamentations of the servants, from whom the old crone's ominous outburst had torn the last semblance of self-control.

"'Another carriage for Miss Leighton!' I now heard uttered somewhere like a command. And startled at the pang it caused me, I darted back into the house, determined to have one parting word with my lost love.

"She was not there, nor could she be found by any searching."[171]

CHAPTER XV. THE CATASTROPHE

HAVE but little more to tell," Mark Felt continued, "but that little is everything to me.

"When we became positively assured that Miss Leighton had disappeared from the house and would not be on hand to take the stage to Sche[172]nectady, the excitement, which had been increasing on all sides since the ceremony, culminated, and the whole town was set agog to find her, if only to solve the mystery of a nature whose actions had now become inexplicable.

"I was the first to start the pursuit. Haunted by her last look, and thrilled to every extremity by the terror of the shriek she had uttered, I did not wait for the alarm to become public, but rushed immediately up stairs at the first intimation of her disappearance.

"Though I had never pierced those regions before, my good or evil fate took me at once to a room which I saw at one glance to be hers. The boxes waiting to be carried down, the tags and ends of ribbons that I recognized, the nameless something which speaks of one particular personality and no other, all were there to assure me that I stood in the chamber which for six months or more had palpitated with the breath of the one being I loved.

"But of that I dared not think; it was no time for dreams; and only stopping to see that her bonnet had been taken, but her gloves left, I hurried down again and out of the house.[173]

"An impulse which I cannot understand took me to Edwin Urquhart's house, or, rather, to that portion of a house which he had hired for his use since he had been looking forward to his marriage with Miss Dudleigh. Why I should go there I cannot say, unless jealousy whispered that only in this place could she hope for one final word with him, as he and his bride stopped at the door for his portion of the baggage. Be this as it may, I turned neither to right nor left till I came to his house, and when I had reached it I found that, with all my haste, I was too late, for not a soul was in its empty rooms, while far down the street which leads to the bridge I saw a carriage disappearing, which, from the wagon following it so closely, I knew to be the one containing Urquhart and his bride.

"'She has not been here,' thought I, 'or I should have met her, unless—' and my eye stole with a certain shrinking terror toward the river which skirted along the garden at the back—'unless'— But even my thoughts stopped here. I would not, could not, think of what, if it were true, would end all things for me.

"Leaving this place, I wandered aimlessly[174] through the streets, studying each face that I met for intimations which should guide me in my search. If not a madman, I was near enough to one to make the memory of that hour hideous to me; and when at last, worn out as much by my emotions as by the countless steps I had taken, I returned to my house for a bite and sup, something in the sight of its desolation overpowered me, and yielding to a despair which assured me that I should never again see her in this world, I sank on the floor inert and powerless, and continued thus till morning, without movement and almost without consciousness.

"Fatal repose! And yet I do not know if I should call it so. It only robbed me of a few hours less of conscious misery. For when I roused, when I became again myself, and looked about my house, there on the floor, underneath a curtain window which had been left unlatched, I saw a letter containing these words:

'HONORED AND MUCH ABUSED FRIEND:—When you read this, Marah will be no more. After all that has passed—after our broken marriage and the departure of my cousin—life has become insupportable; and, believing that you would rather know me dead than miserable, I[175] ventured to write you these words, and ask you to forgive me, now that I am gone.

'I loved him: let that explain everything.

'Despairingly yours,
'MARAH LEIGHTON.'

"With shrieks I tore from the house. Marah dying! Marah dead! I would see about that. Racing down to the gate, I paused. Some one was leaning on it. It was Cæsar, and at the first glimpse I had of his face I knew I was too late—that all was over, and that the whole town knew it.

"'Oh, massa, I wanted to go in, but I was frightened. I's been waiting here an hour, sah; when dey told me dat dey had found her bonnet floating on de ribber, I know'd how you'd feel, sah, and so I come here and—'

"I found words to ask him a question. 'When was this found, and where?'

"'This morning, sah, at daybreak. It was caught by one of the strings to that old log, sah, that lies out in the ribber back of—' he hesitated—'Massa Urquhart's house, sah.'

"I knew; and I had glanced that way just as her bright head was perhaps sinking under the water. I threw up my arms in anguish and stumbled back into the house.[176]

"'Then every one knows—' I managed to say on the threshold.

"'Dat she cared for him? Yes, sah; I fear so. How could dey help it, sah? Mor'n one person saw her run down de street and go into massa's old house just before de carriage stopped thar, and as she didn't come out again, I 'specs it was from dat big log at the foot of the garden she jumped into de ribber. All de folks pities you very much, sah—'

"I choked him off with a look.

"'Who has been sent after Mr. and Mrs. Urquhart to inform them of what has happened?'

"'No one yet, sah. But Massa Hatton—'

"'Mr. Hatton is an old man. We must have a young one for this business. Go saddle me the quickest horse in your stables. I will ride after them, and overtake them, too, before they can reach Poughkeepsie. He shall know—'

"A glance from the negro's eye warned me to be careful. I smothered my impatience and let only my earnestness appear.

"'Mrs. Urquhart ought to know that her cousin is dead,' I declared.

"'I'll tell Massa Hatton,' said the black.[177]

"But my caution was now too much aroused for me to make Mr. Hatton the medium of my request—he was Mrs. Urquhart's old guardian and future agent; and subduing the extreme fury of my feelings, I obtained his permission to act as his messenger. Had he known of the letter which had been thrown into my window, he might not have given his consent so freely; but I had told no man of that, and he and others saw me ride away without a seeming suspicion of the murderous thoughts that struggled with my grief, and almost overwhelmed it.

"For to me her death—if she were dead—was the result of a compact entered into with the despicable Urquhart, who, if he could not have her for himself, was willing she should go where no other man could have her. Though the idea seemed quixotic, though it be an anomaly in human experience, for a woman thus to sacrifice herself, I could not ascribe any other motive to her deed; for the memory of that interview she had held with her cousin's future husband in the garden was still fresh in my mind. Do you remember the words as told me by the negro who overheard them? First, the question from his[178] lips: 'Will you undertake it? Can you go through with it without shrinking and without fear?' And the reply from hers: 'I will undertake it, and I can go through with it,' followed by that assurance which struck me as being so inexplicable at the time, and which, with all the light that this late horrible event has thrown upon it, still preserves its mystery for me. 'I shall give you nothing till I am dead, and then I will give you everything.' If the conclusions I drew seemed wild, were they not warranted by these words? Did she not speak of death, and did he not encourage her?

"If she were not dead—and sometimes this thought would cross my burning brain—then she was with him, forced into the company of his unwilling wife in that last interview which they must have held in his cottage. In either case he was a villain and a coward, deserving of death; and death he should have, and from the hand of him whom he had doubly outraged.

"But as I rode out of town and came in sight of the river, I found myself seized by terrifying thoughts. Should I have to ride by the place where I could see them stooping with boat hooks[181] they had brought up from the river bottom? Could I endure to face this picture, then to pass it, then to ride on, feeling it ever at my back, blackening the morning, destroying the noontide, making more horrible the night? Could I go from this place till I knew whether or not the sullen waters would yield up their beautiful prey, and would my body proceed while my heart was on this river bank, and my jealousy divided between the wretch who had urged her on to death and these other men who might yet touch her unconscious form and gaze upon her disfigured beauty? And the answer which welled up from within me was, yes, I could go; I could pass that picture; I could feel it glooming ever and ever upon me from behind my back, and never turn my head;—such an impetus of hate was upon me, driving me forward after the wretch fleeing in self-complacency and triumph into a future of wealth and social consideration.

"But when I had done all this, when my too fleet horse had carried me beyond sight of the city, and nature, with its irresistible beauty, had begun to influence my understanding, other thoughts[182] came trooping in upon me, and a vision of Honora Dudleigh's face as she took the dagger from my hands and an implied promise from my lips, rose before me till I could see nothing else. Honora, Honora, Honora who trusted me! who had suffered everything but the sight of blood! who was a bride, and whom it would be base ingratitude for me to plunge into the depths of dishonor and despair! And the struggle was so fierce, and the torture of it so keen, that ere long my brain succumbed to the strain, and from the height of anguished feeling I sank into apathy, and from apathy into unconsciousness, till I no longer knew where I was or possessed power to guide my horse. In this condition I was found wandering in a field and thence carried to a farm house, where I remained a prey to fever. When I returned to consciousness, three weeks had elapsed.

"As soon as I could be moved, I went back to Albany. I found the community there settled in the belief that I had joined in death the woman I so much loved, and was shown a letter which had been sent me, and which had been opened by the authorities after all hope had been given up of my[183] return. It was from Mrs. Urquhart, and related how they had changed their plans upon reaching New York. Having found a ship on the point of sailing for France, they had determined to go there instead of to the Bermudas, and, consequently, requested me to inform Mr. Hatton of the fact, and also assure him that he would hear from them personally as soon as a letter could reach him from the other side. As she was in haste—in truth, was writing this in the post office on the way to the ship—she would only add that her health had been improved by her long journey down the river, and that when I heard from her again, she was sure she would be able to write that all her fondest hopes had been fully realized.

"And so Marah was in the river, and Urquhart on the seas. I had been robbed of everything, even vengeance, and life had nothing for me, and I was determined to leave it, not in the vulgar way of suicide, but by cloistering myself in the great forests. As no one said me nay, I at once carried out this scheme; and to show you how dead I had become to the world, I will tell you that as I turned the lock of my door and took my first[184] step forward on the road which led to this spot, a great shout broke out in the market place:

"'The farmers of Lexington have fired upon the king's troops!'

"And I did not even turn my head!"[185]

CHAPTER XVI. A DREAM ENDED

There was silence in the cave. Mark Felt's story was at an end.

For a moment I sat and watched him; then, as I realized all that I must yet gather from his lips, I broke the stillness by saying, in my lowest and most suggestive tone, these two words:

"And Marah?"

The name did not seem unwelcome. Striking his breast, he cried:

"She lies here! Though she despised me, deceived me, broke my heart in life, and in death betrayed a devotion for another that was at once my dishonor and the downfall of my every hope, I have never been able to cast her out of my heart. I love her, and shall ever love her, and so I am never lonely. For in my dreams I imagine that death has changed her. That she can see now where truth and beauty lie; that she would fain come back to them and me; and that she does, walking with softened steps through the forest,[186] beaming upon me in the moon rays and smiling upon me in the sunshine till—"

Great sobs broke from the man's surcharged breast. He flung himself down on the floor of the cave and hid his face in his hands. He had forgotten that I had come on an errand of vengeance. He had forgotten the object of that vengeance; he had forgotten everything but her.

I saw the mistake I had made, and for the moment I quailed before the prospect of rectifying it. He had shown me his heart. I had peered into its depths, and it seemed an impossible thing to tear the last hope from his broken life; to show her in her true light to his horrified eyes; to tell him she was not dead; that it was Honora Urquhart who was dead; and that the woman he mourned and beheld in his visions as a sanctified spirit was not only living upon the fruits of a crime, but triumphing in them; that, in short, he had thrown away communion with men to brood upon a demon.

My feelings were so strong, my shrinking so manifest, that he noticed them at last. Rising up, he surveyed me with a growing apprehension.

"How you look at me!" he cried. "It is not[187] only pity for the past I see in your eyes, but fear for the future. What is it? What can threaten me now of importance enough to call up such an expression to your face? Since Marah is dead—"

"Wait!" I cried. "First let me ask if Marah is dead." His face, which was turned toward me, grew so pale I felt my own heart contract.

"If—Marah—is—dead!" he gasped, growing huskier with each intonation till the last word was almost unintelligible.

"Yes," I continued, ignoring his glance and talking very rapidly; "her body was never found. You have no proof that she perished. The letter that she wrote you may have been a blind. Such things have happened. Try and remember that such things have happened."

He did not seem to hear me. Turning away, he looked about him with wide-open and questioning eyes, like a child lost in a wood.

"I cannot follow you," he murmured. "Marah living?" His own words seemed to give him life. He turned upon me again. "Do you know that she is living?" he asked. "Is it this you have come to tell me? If so, speak, speak! I can bear the news. I have not lost all firmness. I—I—"[188]

He stopped and looked at me piteously. I saw I must speak, and summoned up my courage.

"Marah may not be living," I said, "but she did not perish in the river. It would have been better for you, though, and infinitely better for her if she had. She only lived to do evil, Mr. Felt. In bemoaning her you have wasted a noble manhood."

"Oh!"

The cry came suddenly, and rang through the cavern like a knell. I could not bear it, and hurried forward my revelation.

"You tell me that you received a letter from Mrs. Urquhart before she set sail for France. Was it the only letter which she has ever sent you? Have you never heard from her since?"

"Never!" He looked at me almost in anger. "I did not want to. I bade the postmaster to destroy any letters which came for me. I had cut myself loose from the world."

"Have you that letter? Did you keep it?"

"No; I gave it back to the men who opened it. What was it to me?"

"Mark Felt," I now asked, "did you know Honora Dudleigh's writing?"[189]

"Of course. Why should you question it? Why—"

"And was this letter in her writing? written by her hand?"

"Of course—of course; wasn't it signed with her name?"

"But the handwriting? Couldn't it have been an imitation? Wasn't it one? Was it not written by Marah, and not Honora? She was a clever woman, and—"

"Written by Marah? By Marah? Great heavens, did she go with them, then? Were my secret doubts right? Is she lost to me in eternity as well as here? Is she living with him?"

"She was living with him, and there is good reason to believe she is doing so still. There is a Mr. Urquhart in Paris, and a Mrs. Urquhart. As Marah is the woman he loved, she must be this latter."

"Must be? I do not see why you should say must be! Is Honora dead? Is—"

"Honora is dead—has been dead for sixteen years. The woman who sailed with Mr. Urquhart called herself Honora, but she was not Honora. She who rightfully bore this name was dead and[190] hidden away. It is of crime that I am speaking. Edwin Urquhart is a murderer, and his victim was—"

It was not necessary to say more. In the suddenly outstretched hand, with its open palm; in the white face so drawn that his mother would not have known it; in the gradual sinking and collapsing of the whole body, I saw that I had driven the truth home at last, and that silence now was the only mercy left to show him.

I was silent, therefore, and waited as we wait beside a death bed for the final sigh of a departing spirit. But life, and not death, was in the soul of this man before me. Ere long he faintly stirred, then a smothered moan left his lips, followed by one word, and that word was the echo of my own:

"Murder."

The sound it made seemed to awake whatever energy of horror lay dormant within him. Bestirring himself, he lifted his head and repeated again that fearsome word:

"Murder!"

Then he leaped to his feet, and his aspect grew terrible as he looked up and shouted, as it were, into the heavens that same dread word:[191]

"Murder!"

Filled with horror, I endeavored to take him by the arm, but he shook me off, and cried in a terrible voice:

"A fiend, a demon, a creature of the darkest hell! I have worshiped her, pardoned her, dreamed of her for fifteen years in solitudes dedicated to God! O Creator of all good! What sacrilege I have committed! How shall I ever atone for a manhood wasted on a dream, and for thoughts that must have made the angels of Heaven veil their faces in wonder and pity.

"You must have a story to tell," he now said, turning toward me, with the first look of natural human curiosity which I had seen in his face since I came.

"Yes," said I, "I have; but it will not serve to lessen your horror; it will only add to it."

"Nothing can add to it," was his low reply. "And yet I thank you for the warning."

Encouraged by his manner, which had become strangely self-possessed, I immediately began, and told him of the visit of this bridal party at your inn; then as I saw that he had judged himself correctly, and that he was duly prepared for all I[192] could reveal, I added first your suspicions, and then a full account of our fatal discovery in the secret chamber.

He bore it like a man upon whom emotion has spent all its force; only, when I had finished, he gave one groan, and then, as if he feared I would mistake the meaning of this evidence of suffering, he made haste to exclaim:

"Poor Honora! My heart owes her one cry of pity, one tear of grief. I shall never weep for any one else; though, if I could, it would be for myself and the wasted years with which I have mocked God's providence."

Relieved to find him in this mood, I rose and shook his hand cordially.

"You will come back to Albany with me?" I entreated. "We have need of you, and this spot will never be a home to you again."

"Never!"

The echo was unexpected, but welcome. I led the way out of the cave.

"See! it is late," I urged.

He shook his head and cast one prolonged look around him.

"What do I not leave behind me here? Love,[193] grief, dreams. And to what do I go forward? Can you tell me? Has the future in it anything for a man like me?"

"It has vengeance!"

He gave a short cry.

"In which she is involved. Talk to me not of that! And yet," he presently added, "what it is my duty to do, I shall do. It is all that is left to me now. But I will do nothing for vengeance. That would be to make a slave of myself again."

I had no answer for this, and therefore gave none. Instead I shouted to my guide, and after receiving from him such refreshments as my weary condition demanded, I gave notice that I was ready to descend, and asked the recluse if he was ready to accompany me.

He signified an instant acquiescence, and before the sun had quite finished its course in the west we found ourselves at the foot of the mountains. As civilization broke upon us Mr. Felt drew himself up, and began to question me about the changes which the revolution had made in our noble country.

. . . . . . . . .

I will not weary you, my dear Mrs. Truax, with[194] the formalities which followed upon our return to Albany. I will merely add that you may expect a duly authorized person to come to you presently for such testimony in this matter as it may be in your power to give; after which a suitable person will proceed to France with such papers as may lead to the delivering up of these guilty persons to the United States authorities; in which case justice must follow, and your inn will be avenged for the most hideous crime which has ever been perpetrated within our borders.

Most respectfully,

ANTHONY TAMWORTH.

[195]

PART III. RETRIBUTION

CHAPTER XVII. STRANGE GUESTS

SEPTEMBER 29, 1791.

Two excitements to-day. First, the appearance at my doors of the person of whose coming I was advised by Mr. Tamworth. He came in his own carriage, and is a meager, hatchet-faced man, whose eye makes me restless, but has not succeeded in making me lose my self-possession. He stayed three hours, all of which he made me spend with him in the oak parlor, and when he had finished with me and got my signature to a long and complicated affidavit, I felt that I would rather sell my house and flee the place than go through such another experience. Happily it is likely to be a long time before I shall be called upon to do so. A voyage to France and back is[196] no light matter; and what with complications and delays, a year or more is likely to elapse before the subject need be opened again in my hearing. I thank God for this. For not only shall I thus have the opportunity of regaining my equanimity, which has been sorely shaken by these late events, but I shall have the chance of adding a few more dollars to my store, against the time when scandal will be busy with this spot, and public reprobation ruin its excellent character and custom.

The oak parlor I have shut and locked. It will not be soon entered again by me.

The other excitement to which I referred was the coming of two new guests from New York, elegant ladies, whose appearance and manners quite overpowered me in the few minutes of conversation I held with them when they first entered my house.

. . . . . . . . .

Good God! what is that? I thought I felt something brush my sleeve. Yet there is no one near me, and nothing astir in the room! And why should such a sudden vision of the old oak parlor rise before my eyes? And why, if I must[197] see it, should it be the room as it looked to me on that night when the two Urquharts sat within it, and not the room as I saw it to-day!

Positively I must throw away the key of that room; its very presence in my desk makes me the victim of visions.

OCTOBER 5, 1791.

Why is it that we promise ourselves certain things, even swear that we will perform such and such acts, and yet never keep our promises or hold to our oaths? Sixteen years ago I expressed a determination to refit the oak parlor and make it look more attractive to the eye; I never did it. A year since I declared in language as strong as I knew how to employ, not that I would refit the oak parlor, but that I would tear it from the house, even at the cost of demolishing the whole structure.

And now, only a week since, I promised myself, as my diary will testify, that I would throw away the key of this place, if only to rid myself of unpleasant reminders. But the key is still with me, and the room intact. I have neither the power nor the inclination to touch it. The ghost of the[198] woman who perished there restrains me. Why? Because we are not done with that room. The end of its story is not yet. This I feel; and I feel something further; I feel that it will be entered soon, and that the person who is to enter it is already in my house.

I have spoken of two ladies—God knows with but little realization of the fatal interest they would soon possess for me. They came without servants some four days ago, and saying they wished to remain for a short time in this beautiful spot, at once accepted the cheerful south room which I reserve for such guests as these. As they are very handsome and distinguished-looking, I felt highly gratified at their patronage, and was settling down to a state of complacency over the prospects of a profitable week, when something, I cannot tell what, roused in me a spirit of suspicion, and I began to notice that the elder lady was of a very uneasy disposition, exhibiting a proneness to wander about the house and glide through its passages, especially those on the ground floor, which at first made me question her sanity, and then led me to wonder if through some means unknown to me she had not received a hint[199] as to our secret chamber. I watch, but cannot yet make out. Meanwhile a description of these women may not come amiss.

They are both beautiful, the younger especially. When I first saw them seated in my humble parlor, I thought them the wife and daughter of one of our great generals, they looked so handsome and carried themselves so proudly. But I was presently undeceived, for the name they gave was a foreign one, which my English tongue finds it very hard even yet to pronounce. It is written Letellier, with a simple Madame before it for the mother, and Mademoiselle for the daughter, but how to speak it—well, that is a small matter. I do speak it and they never smile, though the daughter's eye lights up at times with a spark of what I should call mirth, if her lips were not so grave and her brow so troubled.

Yes; troubled is the word, though she is so young. I find it difficult to regard her in any other light than that of a child. Though she endeavors to appear indifferent and has a way of carrying herself that is almost noble, there is certainly grief in her eye and care on her brow. I see it when she is alone, or rather before she be[200]comes aware of another's presence; I see it when she is with her mother; but when strangers come in or she assembles with the rest of the household in the parlor or at the table, then it vanishes, and a sweet charm comes that reminds me—

But this is folly, sheer folly. How could she look like Mrs. Urquhart? Imagination carries me too far. Equal innocence and a like gentle temper have produced a like result in sweetening the expression. That is all, and yet I remember the one woman when I look at the other, and shudder; for the woman who calls this child daughter has her eye on the oak parlor, and may meditate evil—must, if she knows its secret and yet wishes to enter it. But my imagination is carrying me too far again. This woman, whatever her faults, loves her daughter, and where love is there cannot be danger. Yet I shudder.

Madame Letellier merits the description of an abler pen than mine. I like her, and I hate her. I admire her, and I fear her. I obey her, and yet hold myself in readiness for rebellion, if only to prove to myself that I will be strong when the time comes; that no influence, however exerted, or however hidden under winning smiles or[201] quietly controlling glances, shall have power to move me from what I may consider my duty, or from the exercise of such vigilance as my secret fears seem to demand. I hate her; let me remember that. And I distrust her. She is here for evil, and her eye is on the oak parlor. Though it is locked and the key hidden on my person, she will find means to possess herself of that key and open that door. How? We will see. Meantime all this is not a description of Madame Letellier.

She is finely formed; she is graceful; she is youthful. She dresses with a taste that must always make her conspicuous wherever she may be. You could not enter a room in which she was without seeing her, for her glance has a strange power that irresistibly draws your glance to it, though her eyes are lambent rather than brilliant, and if large, rarely opened to their full extent. Her complexion is dark; that is, in comparison with her daughter's, which is of a marble-like purity. But it has strange flushes in it, and at times seems almost to sparkle. Her hair is brown, and worn high, with a great comb in it, setting off the contour of her face, which is almost[202] perfect. But it is in the expression of her mouth that her fascination lies. Without sweetness, except when it smiles upon her daughter, without mirth, without any expression speaking of good-will or tenderness, there is yet a turn to the lips that moves the gazer peculiarly, making it dangerous to watch her long unless you are hardened by doubts, as I am. Her hands are exquisite, and her form beauty itself.

The daughter is statuesque; not in the sense of coldness or immobility, but in the regularity of her features and the absence of any coloring in her cheeks. She is lovely, and there breathes through every trait a gentle soul that robs my admiration of all awe and makes my old and empty heart long to serve her. Her eyes are gray and her hair a reddish brown, with kinks and curls in it like— But, pshaw! there comes that dream again! Was Honora Urquhart's hair so very unique that a head of wavy brown hair should bring her up so startlingly to my mind?

They are stopping here on their way to Albany—so the elder lady says. They came from New York. So they did, but if my intuitions are not greatly at fault, the place they started from was[203] France. The fact that the marks and labels have all been effaced from their baggage is suspicious in itself. Can they be friends of the two miserable wretches who dishonored my house with a ghastly crime? Is it from them that madame's knowledge comes, if she has any knowledge? The thought awakens my profoundest distrust. Would that Mr. Tamworth were within reach! I think I will write him. But what could I write that would not look foolish on paper? I had better wait a while till I see something or hear something more definite.[204]

CHAPTER XVIII. MRS. TRUAX TALKS

OCTOBER 7, 1791.

HIS morning I was exceedingly startled by one of my guests suddenly asking me before several of the others, if my inn had a ghost.

"A ghost!" I cried, for the moment quite aghast.

"Yes," was the reply; "it has the look of a house which could boast of such a luxury. Don't you think so, Mr. Westgate?"

This is a newcomer who had just been introduced.

"Well," observed the latter, "as I have seen only this room, and as this room is anything but ghostlike at the present moment, I hardly consider myself competent to judge."

"But the exterior! Surely you noticed the exterior. Such a rambling old structure; such a[205] beetling top to it, as if it had settled down here to brood over a mysterious past. I never see it, especially at twilight, that I don't wonder what lies so heavily upon its conscience. Is it a crime? There would be nothing strange about it if it was. Such old houses rarely have a clean past."

It was nonchalantly said, but it sank deep into my heart. Not that I felt that he had any motive in saying it—I knew the young scapegrace too well—but that I was conscious from his first word of two eyes burning on my face, which robbed me of all self-possession, though I think I sat without movement, and only paled the slightest in the world.

"A house that dates back to a time when the white men and the red fought every inch of the territory on which it stands would be an anomaly if it did not have some drops of blood upon it," I ventured to say, as soon as I could command my emotions.

"True," broke in a low, slow voice—that of Madame Letellier. "Do you know of any especial tragedy that makes the house memorable?"

I turned and gave her a look before replying. She was seated in the shadows of a remote corner,[206] and had so withdrawn herself behind her daughter that I could see nothing of her face. But her hands were visible, and from the force with which she held them clasped in her lap I perceived that the subject we were discussing possessed a greater interest for her than for any one else in the room. "She has heard something of the tragedy connected with this house," was my inward comment, as I prepared to answer her.

"There is one," I began, and paused. Something of the instinct of the cat with the mouse had entered into me. I felt like playing with her suspense, cruel as it may seem.

"Oh, tell us!" broke in the daughter, a sudden flush of interest suffusing for a moment her white cheek. "That is, if it is not too horrible. I never like horrible stories; they frighten me. And as for a ghost—if I thought you kept such a creature about your house, I should leave it at once."

"We have no ghosts," I answered, with a gravity that struck even myself unpleasantly, it was in such contrast to her mellow and playful tones. "Ghosts are commonplace. We countenance nothing commonplace here."

"Good!" broke in a voice from the crowd of[207] young men. "The house is above such follies. It must have some wonderful secret, then. What is it, Mrs. Truax? Do you own a banshee? Have you a—"

"Mamma, you hurt me!"

The cry was involuntary. Madame had caught her daughter by the hand and was probably unaware what passion she had put into her clasp. Mademoiselle Letellier blushed again at the sound of her own voice, and prayed her mother's pardon with the most engaging of smiles. As she did so, I caught a glimpse of that mother's face. It was white as death. "Decidedly, she knows more than she ought to," thought I. "And yet she wants to know more. Why?"

"The Happy-Go-Lucky Inn," I observed, as soon as the flutter caused by this incident had subsided, "is no more haunted by a banshee than by a ghost. But that is not saying it should not be. It is old enough, it is respectable enough; it has traditions enough. I could tell you tales of its owners, and incidents connected with the coming and going of the innumerable guests who have frequented it both before and during the revolution, that would keep you here till morning. But[208] the one story I will tell must suffice. We should lose our character of mystery if I told you all. Besides, how could I tell all? Who could ever tell the complete story of such a house as this?"

"Hear! hear!" cried another young man.

"Years ago—" I stopped again, wickedly stopped. "Madame, will you not come forward where it is lighter?"

"I thank you," Madame Letellier responded.

She rose deliberately and came forward, tall, mute and commanding. She sat down in the light; she looked me in the face; she robbed me even of my doubts. I felt my heart turn over in my breast and wondered.

"You do not proceed," she murmured.

"Pardon me," said I; and assuming a nonchalance I was far from feeling, I commenced again. I had played with her fears. I would play with them further. I would see how much she could bear. I resumed:

"Years ago, when I was younger and had been mistress of this place but a short time, there entered this place one evening, at nightfall, a young couple. Did you speak, madame? Excuse me, it was your daughter, then?"[209]

"Yes," chimed in the latter, coming forward and taking her stand by the mother, greatly to the delight of the young gentlemen present, who asked for nothing better than an opportunity to gaze upon her modest but exquisite face. "Yes; it was I. I am interested, that is all."

I began to hate my role, but went on stolidly.

"They were a handsome pair, and I felt an interest in them at once. But this interest immeasurably heightened when the young man, almost before the door had closed upon them, drew me apart and said: 'Madame, we are an unhappy couple. We have been married just four hours.'"

Here I paused for breath, and to take a good look at madame.

She was fixed as a stone, but her eyes were burning. Evidently she expected the relation of a story which she knew. I would disappoint her. I would cause in her first a shock of relief, and then I would reawaken her fears and probe her very soul. Slowly, and as if it were a matter of course, I proceeded to say:

"It was a run-away match, and as the young husband remarked, 'a great disappointment to my[210] wife's father, who is an English general and a great man. My wife loves me, and will never allow herself to be torn from me; but she is not of age, and her father is but a few minutes' ride behind us. Will you let us come in? We dare not risk the encounter on the road; he would shoot me down like a dog, and that would kill my young wife. If we see him here, he may take pity on our love, and—'

"He needed to say no more. My own compassion had been excited, as much by her countenance as by his words, and I threw open the doors of this very room.

"'Go in,' said I, 'I have a woman's heart, and cannot bear to see young people in distress. When the general comes—'

"'We shall hear him,' cried the girl; 'he has half a dozen horsemen with him. We saw them when we were on the brow of the hill.'

"'Take comfort, then,' I cried, as I closed the door, and went to see after the solitary horse which had brought them to this place.

"But before I could provide the meal with which I meant to strengthen them for the scene that must presently ensue, I heard the antici[211]pated clattering of hoofs, and simultaneously with it, the unclosing of this door and the cry of the young wife to her husband:

"'I cannot bear it. At his first words I should fall in a faint; and how could I resist him then? No; let me fly; let me hide myself; and when he comes in, swear that you are here alone; that you brought no bride; that she left you at the altar—anything to baffle his rage and give us time.' And the young thing sprang out before me, and lifting her hands, prayed with great wide-open eyes that I would assist the lie, and swear to her father, when he came in, that her husband had ridden up alone.

"I was not as old then as I am now, I say, and I was very tender toward youthful lovers. Though I thought the scheme a wild one and totally impracticable, she so governed me by her looks and tones that I promised to do what she asked, saying, however, that if she hid herself she must do it well, for if she were found my reputation for reliability would be ruined. And standing there where you see that jog in the wall, she promised, and giving just one look of love to her companion, who stood white but[212] firm on the threshold, she sped from our sight down the hall.

"A moment later the general's foot was where hers had been, and the general's voice was filling the house, asking for his daughter.

"'She is not here,' came from the young man in firm and stern accents. 'You have been pleased to think she was with me all these miles, but you will not find her. You can search if you please. I have nothing to say against that. But it will be time wasted.'

"'We will see about that. The girl is here, is she not?' the father asked, turning to me.

"'No,' was my firm reply; 'she is not.'

"I do not know how I managed the lie, but I did. Something in the young man's aspect had nerved me. I began to think she would not be found, though I could see no good reason for this conclusion.

"'Scatter!' he now shouted to his followers. 'Search the house well. Do not leave a nook or cranny unpenetrated. I am not General B—— for nothing.' And turning to me, he added: 'You have brought this on yourself by a lie. I saw my daughter in this fellow's arms as they passed over[213] the ridge of the hill. She is here, and in half an hour will be in my hands.'

"But the clock on the staircase struck not only the half hour, but the hour, and yet, though every room and corridor, the cellar and the garret, were searched, no token was found of the young wife's presence. Meanwhile the husband stood like a statue on the threshold, waiting with what seemed to me a strange certitude for the return of the father from his fruitless search.

"'Has she escaped from one of the windows?' I asked, moved myself to a strange curiosity.

"He looked at me, but made no reply.

"'It is dark; it is late. If the general chooses to remain here to-night—'

"'He will not find her,' was the reply.

"I was frightened—I know not why, but I was frightened. The young man had a supernatural air. I began to think of demon lovers, and was glad when the general finally appeared, storming and raving.

"'It is a conspiracy!' was his cry. 'You are all in league to deceive me. Where is my daughter, Mrs. Truax? I ask you because you have a character to lose.'

"'It is impossible for me to tell you,' was my[214] reply. 'If she was to be found in my house, you must have found her. As you have not, there is but one conclusion to draw. She is not within these walls.'

"'She is not outside of them. I set a watch in the beginning, at the four corners of the house. None of my men have seen so much as a flutter of her dress. She is here, I say, and I ask you to give her up.'

"'This I am perfectly willing to do,' I rejoined, 'but I do not know where to find her. Let that but once be done, and I shall not stand in the way of your rights.'

"'Very well,' he cried. 'I will not search further to-night; but to-morrow—' A meaning gesture finished his sentence; he turned to the young man. 'As for you,' he cried, 'you will remain here. Unpleasant as it may be for us both, we will keep each other's company till morning. I do not insist upon conversation.' And without waiting for a reply, the sturdy old soldier took up his station in the doorway, by which action he not only shut the young man in, but gave himself a position of vantage from which he could survey the main hall and the most prominent passages.[215]

"The rest were under charge of his followers, whom he had stationed all through the house, just as if it were in a state of siege. One guarded the east door and another the west, and on each landing of the staircase a sentinel stood, silent but alert, like a pair of living statues.

"I did not sleep that night; the mystery of the whole affair would have kept me awake even if my indignation had let me rest. I sat in the kitchen with my girls, and when the morning came, I joined the general again with offers of a breakfast.

"But he would eat nothing till he had gone through the house again; nor would he, in fact, eat here at all; for his second search ended as vainly as his first, and he was by this time so wroth, not only at the failure to recover his child, but at the loss which his dignity had suffered by this failure, that he had no sooner reached this spot, and found the young husband still standing where he had left him, than with a smothered execration, leveled not only at him, but the whole house, he strode out through the doorway, and finding his horse ready saddled in front, mounted and rode away, followed by all his troop.

"And now comes the strangest part of the tale.[216]

"He was no sooner gone, and the dust from his horse's hoofs lost in the distance, than I turned to the young husband, and cried:

"'And now where is she? Let us have her here at once. She must be hungry, and she must be cold. Bring her, my good sir.'

"'I do not know where she is. We must be patient. She will return herself as soon as she thinks it safe.'

"I could not believe my ears.

"'You do not know where she is?' I repeated. 'How could you be so self-possessed through all these hours and all this maddened searching if you did not know she was safe?'

"'I did know she was safe. She swore to me before she set foot on your doorstep that she could so hide herself in these walls that no one could ever find her till she chose to reveal herself; and I believed her, and felt secure.'

"I did not know what to say.

"'But she is a stranger,' I murmured. 'What does she know about my house?'

"'She is a stranger to you,' he retorted, 'but she may not be a stranger to the house. How long have you lived here?'[217]

"I could not say long. It was at the most but a year; so I merely shook my head, but I felt strangely nonplussed.

"This feeling, however, soon gave way to one much more serious as the moments fled by and presently the hours, and she did not come. We tried to curb our impatience, tried to believe that her delay was only owing to extra caution; but as morning waxed to noon, alarm took the place of satisfaction in our breasts, and we began to search the house ourselves, calling her name up and down the halls and through the empty rooms, till it seemed as if the very walls must open and reveal us the being so frantically desired.

"'She is not in the house,' I now asserted to the almost frenzied bridegroom. 'Our lies have come back upon our heads, and it is in the river we must look for her.'

"But he would not agree with me in this, and repeated again and again: 'She said she would hide here. She would not deceive me, nor would she have sought death alone. Leave me to look for her another hour. I must, I can, I will find her yet!'

"But he never did. After that last fond look[218] with which she turned down that very hall you see before you, we saw her no more; and if my house owns no ghost and never echoes to the sound of a banshee's warning, it is not because it does not own a mystery which is certainly thrilling enough to give us either."

"Oh!" cried out several voices, as I ceased, "is that all? And what became of the poor bridegroom? And did the father ever come back? And haven't you ever really found out where the poor thing went to? And do you think she died?"

For reply I rose. I had never taken my eye off madame, and the strain upon us both had been terrible; but I let my glance wander now, and smiling genially into the eager faces which had crowded around me, I remarked:

"I never spoil a good story by too many explanations. You have heard all you will from me to-night. So do not question me further. Am I not right, madame?"

"Perfectly," came in her even tones. "And I am sure we are all very much obliged to you."

I bowed and slipped away into the background. I was worn out.

An hour later I was passing through the hall[219] above on my way to my own room. As I passed madame's door, I saw it open, and before I had taken three steps away I felt her soft hand on my arm.

"Your pardon, Mrs. Truax," were her words; "but my daughter has been peculiarly affected by the story you related to us below. She says it is worse than any ghost story, and that she cannot rid herself of the picture of the young wife flitting out of sight down the hall. I am really afraid it has produced a very bad effect upon her, and that she will not sleep. Is it—was it a true story, Mrs. Truax, or were you merely weaving fancies out of a too fertile brain?"

I smiled, for she was smiling, and shook my head, looking directly into her eyes.

"Your daughter need not lose her sleep," I said, "on account of any story of mine. I saw they wanted something blood-curdling, so I made up a tale to please them. It was all imagination, madame; all imagination. I should not have told it if it had been otherwise. I think too much of my house."

"And you had nothing to found it upon? Just drew upon your fancy?"[220]

I smiled. Her light tone did not deceive me as to the anxiety underlying all this; but it was not in my plan to betray my powers of penetration. I preferred that she should think me her dupe.

"Oh," I returned, as ingenuously as if I had never had a suspicious thought, "I do not find it difficult to weave a tale. Of course such a story could not be true. Why, I should be afraid to stay in the inn myself if it were. I could never abide anything mysterious. Everything with me must be as open as the day."

"And with me," she laughed; but there was a false note in her mirth, though I did not appear to notice it. "I did not suppose the story was real, but I thought you must have some old tradition to found it upon; some old wife's tale or some secret history which is a part and parcel of the house, and came to you with it."

But I shook my head, still smiling, and answered, quite at my ease:

"No old wife's tale that I have ever heard amounts to much. I can make up a better story any day than those which come down with a house like this. It was all the work of my imagination,[221] I assure you. I tried to please them, and I hope I did it."

Her face changed at once. It was as if a black veil had been drawn away from it.

"My daughter will be so relieved," she affirmed. "I don't mind such lugubrious tales myself, but she is young and sensitive, and so tender-hearted. I am sure I thank you, Mrs. Truax, for your consideration, and beg leave to wish you a good-night."

I returned her civility, and we passed into our several rooms. Would I could know with what thoughts, for my own were as much a mystery to me as were hers.

OCTOBER 9, 1791.

Madame never addresses her daughter by her first name. Consequently we do not know it. This is a matter of surprise to the whole house, and many are the conjectures uttered by the young men as to what it can be. I have no especial curiosity about it—I would much rather know the mother's, and yet I frequently wonder; for it seems unnatural for a mother always to address her child as mademoiselle. Is she her mo[222]ther? I sometimes think she is not. If the interest in the oak parlor is what I think it is, then she cannot be, for what mother would wish to bring peril to her child? And peril lies at the bottom of all interest there; peril to the helpless, the trusting and the ignorant. But is she as interested there as I thought her? I have observed nothing lately to assure me of it. Perhaps, after all, I have been mistaken.[223]

CHAPTER XIX. IN THE HALLS AT MIDNIGHT

OCTOBER 10, 1791.

I was not mistaken. Madame is not only interested in, but has serious designs upon the oak parlor. Not content with roaming up and down the hallway leading to it, she was detected yesterday morning trying to open its door, and when politely questioned as to whom she was seeking, answered that she was looking for the sitting room, which, by the way, is on the other side of the house. And this is not all. As I lay in my bed last night resting as only a weary woman can rest, I heard a light tap at my door. Rising, I opened it, and was astonished to see standing before me the light figure of mademoiselle.

"Excuse me for troubling you," said she, in her pure English—they both speak good English, though with a foreign accent—"I am sorry to wake you, but I am so anxious about my mother. She went to bed with me, and we fell asleep; but when I woke a little while ago she was missing,[224] and though I have waited for her a long time, she does not return. I am not well, and easily frightened! Oh, how cold it is."

I drew her in, wrapped a shawl about her, and led her back to her room.

"Your mother will return speedily," I promised. "Doubtless she felt restless, and is taking a turn or two up and down the hall."

"Perhaps; for her dressing gown and slippers are gone. But she never did anything like this before, and in a strange house—"

A slight trembling stopped the young lady from continuing.

Urging her to get into bed, I spoke one or two further words of a comforting nature, at which the lovely girl seemed to forget her pride, for she threw her arms about my neck with a low sigh, and then, pushing me softly from her, observed:

"You are a kind woman; you make me feel happier whenever you speak to me."

Touched, I made some loving reply, and withdrew. I longed to linger, longed to tell her how truly I was her friend; but I feared the mother's return—feared to miss the knowledge of madame's whereabouts, which my secret suspicion made im[225]portant; so I subdued my feelings and hastened quickly to my room, where I wrapped myself in a long, dark cloak. Thus equipped, I stole back again to the hall, and gliding with as noiseless a step as possible, found my way to the back stairs, down which I crept, holding my breath, and listening intently.

To many who read these words the situation of those back stairs is well known; but there may be others who will not understand that they lead directly, after a couple of turns, to that hall upon which opens the oak parlor. Five steps from the lower floor there is a landing, and upon this landing there is a tall Dutch clock, so placed as to offer a very good hiding place behind it to any one anxious to gaze unobserved down the hall. But to reach the clock one has to pass a window, and as this looks south, and was upon this night open to the moonlight, I felt that the situation demanded circumspection.

I, therefore, paused when I reached the last step above the platform, and listened intently before proceeding further. There was no noise; all was quiet, as a respectable house should be at two o'clock in the morning. Yet from the hall be[226]low came an undefinable something which made me feel that she was there; a breathing influence that woke every nervous sensibility within me, and made my heart-beats so irregular that I tried to stop them lest my own presence should be betrayed. She was there, a creeping, baleful figure, blotting the moonshine with her tall shadow, as she passed, panther-like, to and fro before that closed door, or crouched against the wall in the same attitude of listening which I myself assumed. Or so I pictured her as I clung to the balustrade above, asking myself how I could cross that strip of moonlight separating me from that vantage-point I longed to gain. For that I knew her to be there was not enough. I must see her, and learn, if possible, what the attraction was which drew her to this fatal door. But how, how, how? If she were watching, as secrecy ever watches, I could not take a step upon that platform without being discerned. Not even if a friendly cloud came to obscure the brightness of the moon, could I hope to project my dark figure into that belt of light without discovery. I must see what was to be seen from the step where I stood, and to do this I knew but one way. Taking up the end of my[227] long cloak, I advanced it the merest trifle beyond the edge of the partition that separated me from the hall below. Then I listened again. No sound, no stir. I breathed deeply and thrust my arm still further, the long cloak hanging from it dark and impenetrable to the floor below. Then I waited. The moonlight was not quite as bright as it had been; surely that was a cloud I saw careering over the face of the sky above me, and in another moment, if I could wait for it, the hall would be almost dark. I let my arm advance an inch or so further, and satisfied now that I had got the slit which answers for an arm-hole into a position that would afford me full opportunity of looking through the black wall I had thus improvised, I watched the cloud for the moment of comparative darkness which I so confidently expected. It came, and with it a sound—the first I had heard. It was from far down the hall, and was, as near as I could judge, of a jingling nature, which for an instant I found it hard to understand. Then the quick suspicion came as to what it was, and unable to restrain myself longer I separated the slit I have spoken of with the fingers of my right hand, and looked through.[228]

There she was, standing before the door of the oak parlor, fitting keys. I knew it at my first glimpse, both from her attitude and the slight noise which the keys made. Taken aback, for I had not expected this, I sank out of sight, cloak and all, asking myself what I should do. I finally decided to do nothing. I would listen, and if the least intimation came to prove that she had succeeded in her endeavor, I would then spring down the steps that separated us and hold her back by the hair of her head. Meanwhile I congratulated myself that the lock of that room was a peculiar one, and that the only key I knew of that would unlock it was under the pillow of the bed I had just left.

She worked several minutes; then the moon came out. Instantly all was still. I knew whither she had gone. Near the door she was tampering with is a short passageway leading to another window. Into this she had slipped, and I could look out now with impunity, sure that she would not see me.

But I remained immovable. There was another cloud rushing up from the south, and in another moment I was confident that I should hear again[229] the slight clatter of the key against the lock. And I did, and not only once, but several times, which fact assured me that she had not only brought a handful of keys with her, but that these keys must have come from some more distant quarter than the town; that indeed she had come provided to the Happy-Go-Lucky for this nocturnal visit, and that any doubts I might cherish were likely to have a better foundation in fact than is usual with women circumstanced like myself.

She did not succeed in her efforts. Had she brought burglar's tools I hardly think she would have been able to open that lock; as it was, there was no hope for her, and presently she seemed to comprehend this, for the slight sounds ceased and, presently, I heard a step, and peering recklessly from my corner, I perceived her gliding away toward the front stairs. I smiled, but it could not have been in a way she would have enjoyed seeing, and crept noiselessly to my own room, and our doors closed simultaneously.

This morning I watched with some anxiety for her first look. It was slightly inquiring. Summoning up my best smile, I gave her a cheerful good-morning, and then observed:[230]

"I am glad to see you look so well this morning! Your daughter seemed to be concerned about you in the night because you had left your bed. But I told her I was sure all was right, that you were feeling nervous, and only wanted a breath of the fresh air you would find in the halls." And my glance did not flinch, nor my mouth lose its smile, though she surveyed me keenly with eyes whose look might penetrate a stone.

"You understand your own sex," was her light reply, after this short study of my face. "Yes; I was very nervous. I have cares on my mind, and, though my daughter does not realize it, I often lie awake at her side, longing for space to breathe in and freedom to move as freely as my uneasiness demands. Last night my feelings were too much for my self-control, and I arose. I hope I did not seriously disturb you, or awaken anybody, with my restless pacing up and down the hall."

I assured her that it took more than this to disturb me, and that after quieting her daughter I had immediately fallen asleep; all of which she may have believed or may not; I had no means of reading her mind, as she had no means of reading mine.[231]

But whether she was deceived or whether she was not, she certainly looked relieved, and after some short remarks about the weather, turned from me with the most cheerful air in the world, to greet her daughter.

As for me, I have made up my mind to change my room. I shall not say anything about it or make any fuss on the subject, but to-night, and for some nights to come, I intend to take up my abode in a certain small room in the west wing, not very far removed from the dreadful oak parlor.[232]

CHAPTER XX. THE STONE IN THE GARDEN

OCTOBER 11, 1791.

This morning the post brought two letters for my strange guests. Being anxious to see how they would be received, I carried them up to Madame Letellier's room myself.

The ladies were sitting together, the daughter embroidering. At the sight of the letters in my hand they both rose, the daughter reaching me first.

"Let me have them!" she cried, a glad, bright color showing for a moment on her cheek.

"From your father?" asked the mother, in a tone of nonchalance that did not deceive me.

The girl shook her head. A smile as exquisite as it was sad made her mouth beautiful. "From—" she began, but stopped, whether from an instinct of maidenly shame or some secret signal from her mother, I cannot say.

"Well, never mind," the mother exclaimed, and turned away toward the window in a manner that gave me my dismissal.[233]

So I went out, having learned nothing, save the fact that mademoiselle had a lover, and that her lips could smile.

They did not smile again, however. Next day she looked whiter than ever, and languid as a broken blossom.

"She is ill," declared madame. "The stairs she has to climb are too much for her."

"Ah, ha!" thought I to myself. "That is the first move," and waited for the next development.

It has not come as soon as I expected. Two days have passed, and though Mademoiselle Letellier grows paler and thinner, nothing more has been said about the stairs. But the time has not passed without its incident, and a serious enough one, too, if these women are, as I fear, in the secret of the hidden chamber.

It is this: In the garden is a white stone. It is plain-finished but unlettered. It marks the resting-place of Honora Urquhart. For reasons which we all thought good, we have taken no uninterested person into the secret of this grave, any more than we have into that of the hidden chamber.

Consequently no one in the house but myself[234] could answer Madame Letellier, when, stopping in her short walk up and down the garden path, she asked what the white stone meant and what it marked. I would not answer her. I had seen from the window where I stood the quick surprise with which she had come to a standstill at the sight of this stone, and I had caught the tremble in her usually steady voice as she made the inquiry I have mentioned above. I therefore hastened down and joined her before she had left the spot.

"You are wondering what this stone means," I observed, with an indifferent tone calculated to set her at her ease. Then suddenly, and with a changed voice and a secret look into her face, I added: "It is a headstone; a dead body lies here."

She quivered, and her lids fell. For all her self-possession—and she is the most self-possessed person I ever saw in my life—she showed a change that gave me new thoughts and made me summon up all the strength I am mistress of, in order to preserve the composure which her agitation had so deeply shaken.

"You shock me," were her first words, uttered very slowly, and with a transparent show of in[237]difference. "It is not usual to find a garden used for a burial place. May I ask whose body lies here? That of some faithful black or of a favorite horse?"

"It is not that of a horse," I returned, calmly. And greatly pleased to find that I had placed her in a position where she would be obliged to press the question if she would learn anything more, I walked slowly on, convinced that she would follow me.

She did, giving me short side glances, which I bore with an equanimity that much belied the tempest of doubt, repugnance and horror that were struggling blindly in my breast. But she did not renew the subject of the grave. Instead of that, she opened one of her most fascinating conversations, endeavoring by her wiles and graces to get at my confidence and insure my good will.

And I was hypocrite enough to deceive her into thinking she had done so. Though I showed her no great warmth, I carefully restrained myself from betraying my real feelings, allowing her to talk on, and giving her now and then an encouraging word or an inviting smile.[238]

For I felt that she was a serpent and must be met as such. If she were the woman I thought her, I should gain nothing and lose all by betraying my distrust, while if she felt me to be her dupe I might yet light upon the secret of her interest in the oak parlor.

Her daughter was waiting for us in the doorway when we reached the house. At the sight of her pure face, with its tender gray eyes and faultless features, a strong revulsion seized me, and I found it difficult not to raise my arms in protest between her beauty and winning womanliness and the subtile and treacherous-hearted being who glided so smoothly toward her. But the movement, had I made it, would have been in vain. At the sight of each other's faces a lovely smile arose on the daughter's lips, while on the mother's flashed a look of love which would be unmistakable even on the countenance of a tiger, and which was at this moment so vivid and so real that I never doubted again, if I had ever doubted before, that mademoiselle was her own child—flesh of her flesh, and bone of her bone.

"Ah, mamma," cried one soft voice, "I have been so lonesome!"[239]

"Darling," returned the other, in tones as true and caressing, "I will not leave you again, even for a walk, till you are quite well." And taking her by the waist, she led her down the hall toward the stairs, looking back at me as she did so, and saying: "I cannot take her to Albany until she is better. You must think what we can do to make her strong again, Mrs. Truax." And she sighed as she looked up the short flight of stairs her daughter had to climb.

OCTOBER 15, 1791.

That stone in the garden seems to possess a magnetic attraction for madame. She is over it or near it half the time. If I go out in the early morning to gather grapes for dinner, there she is before me, pacing up and down the paths converging to that spot, and gazing with eager eyes at that simple stone, as if by the force of her will she would extract its secret and make it tell her what she evidently burns to know. If I want flowers for the parlor mantel, and hurry into the garden during the heat of the day, there is madame with a huge hat on her head, plucking asters or pulling down apples from the low-hanging branches of[240] the trees. It is the same at nightfall. Suspicious, always suspicious now, I frequently stop, in passing through the upper western hall, to take a peep from the one window that overlooks this part of the garden. I invariably see her there; and remembering that her daughter is ill, remembering that in my hearing she promised that daughter that she would not leave her again, I feel impelled at times to remind her of the fact, and see what reply will follow. But I know. She will say that she is not well herself; that the breeze from the river does her good; that she loves nature, and sleeps better after a ramble under the stars. I cannot disconcert her—not for long—and I cannot compete with her in volubility and conversational address, so I will continue to play a discreet part and wait.

OCTOBER 17, 1791.

Madame has become bolder, or her curiosity more impatient. Hitherto she has been content with haunting the garden, and walking over and about that one place in it which possesses peculiar interest for her and me. But this evening, when she thought no one was looking, when after a hur[241]ried survey of the house and grounds she failed to detect my sharp eyes behind the curtain of the upper window, she threw aside discretion, knelt down on the sod of that grave, and pushed aside the grass that grows about the stone, doubtless to see if there was any marks or inscription upon it. There are none, but I determined she should not be sure of this, so before she could satisfy herself, I threw up the window behind which I stood, making so much noise that it alarmed her, and she hastily rose.

I met her hasty look with a smile which it was too dark for her to see, and a cheerful good evening which I presume fell with anything but a cheerful sound upon her ears.

"It is a lovely evening," I cried. "Have you been admiring the sunset?"

"Ah, so much!" was her quick reply, and she began to saunter in slowly. But I knew she left her thoughts out there with that mysterious grave.

12 M.

Another midnight adventure! Late as it is, I must put it down, for I cannot sleep, and to-morrow will bring its own story.[242]

I had gone to bed, but not to sleep. The anxieties under which I now labor, the sense of mystery which pervades the whole house, and the secret but ever-present apprehension of some impending catastrophe, which has followed me ever since these women came into the house, lay heavily on my mind, and prevented all rest. The change of room may also have added to my disturbance. I am wedded to old things, old ways, and habitual surroundings. I was not at home in this small and stuffy apartment, with its one narrow window and wretched accommodations. Nor could I forget near what it lay, nor rid myself of the horror which its walls gave me whenever I realized, as I invariably did at night, that only a slight partition separated me from the secret chamber, with its ghastly memories and ever to be remembered horrors.

I was lying, then, awake, when some impulse—was it a magnetic one?—caused me to rise and look out of the window. I did not see anything unusual—not at first—and I drew back. But the impulse returned, and I looked again, and this time perceived among the shadows of the trees something stirring in the garden, though what I[243] could not tell, for the night was unusually dark, and my window very poorly situated for seeing.

But that there was something there was enough, and after another vain attempt to satisfy myself as to its character, I dressed and went out into the hall, determined to ascertain if any outlet to the house was open.

I did not take a light, for I know the corridors as I do my own hand. But I almost wished I had as I sped from door to door and window to window; for the events which had blotted my house with mystery were beginning to work upon my mind, and I felt afraid, not of my shadow, for I could not see it, but of my step, and the great gulfs of darkness that were continually opening before my eyes.

However, I did not draw back, and I did not delay. I tried the front door, and found it locked; then the south door, and finally the one in the kitchen. This last was ajar. I knew then what had happened. Madame has had more than one talk with Chloe lately, and the good negress has not been proof against her wiles, and has taught her the secret of the kitchen lock. I shall talk to Chloe to-morrow. But, meantime, I must follow madame.[244]

But should I? I know what she is doing in the garden. She is wandering round and round that grave. If I saw her I could not be any surer of the fact, and I would but reveal my own suspicions to her by showing myself as a spy. No; I will remain here in the shadows of the kitchen, and wait for her to return. The watch may be weird, but no weirder than that of a previous night. Besides, it will not be a long one; the air is too chilly outside for her to risk a lengthy stay in it. I shall soon perceive her dark figure glide in through the doorway.

And I did. Almost before I had withdrawn into my corner I heard the faint fall of feet on the stone without, then the subdued but unmistakable sound of the opening door, and lastly the locking of it and the hasty tread of footsteps as she glided across the brick flagging and disappeared into the hall beyond.

"She has laid the ghost of her unrest for to-night," thought I. "To-morrow it will rise again." And I felt my first movement of pity for her.

Alas! does that unrest spring from premeditated or already accomplished guilt? Whichever it[245] may be—and I am ready to believe in either or both—she is a burdened creature, and the weight of her fears or her intentions lies heavily upon her. But she hides the fact with consummate address, and when under the eyes of people smiles so brightly and conducts herself with such a charming grace that half the guests that come and go consider her as lovely and more captivating than her daughter. What would they think if they could see her as I do rising in the night to roam about a grave, the unmarked headstone of which baffles her scrutiny?

OCTOBER 18, 1791.

This morning I rose at daybreak, and going into the garden, surveyed the spot which I had imagined traversed by Madame Letellier the night before. I found it slightly trampled, but what interested me a great deal more than this was the fact that, on a certain portion of the surface of the stone I have so often mentioned, there were to be seen small particles of a white substance, which I soon discovered to be wax.

Thus the mystery of her midnight visit is solved. She has been taking an impression of[246] what, in her one short glimpse of yesterday evening, she had thought to be an inscription. What a wonderful woman she is! What skill she shows; what secrecy and what purpose. If she cannot compass her end in one way, she will in another; and I begin to have, notwithstanding my repugnance and fear, a wholesome respect for her ability and the relentless determination which she shows in every action she performs.

When she finds that her wax shows her nothing but the natural excrescences and roughnesses of an unhewn stone, will she persist in her visits to the garden? I think not.

OCTOBER 19, 1791.

My last surmise was a true one. Madame has not spent a half hour all told in the garden since that night. She has turned her attention again to the oak parlor, and soon we shall see her make some decided move in regard to it.[247]

CHAPTER XXI. IN THE OAK PARLOR

OCTOBER 20, 1791.

HE long expected move has been made. This morning madame asked me if I had not some room on the ground floor which I could give to her daughter and her in exchange for the one they now occupy. Her daughter had been accustomed to living on one floor, and felt the stairs keenly.

I answered at first—"No." Then I appeared to bethink me, and told her, with seeming reluctance, that there was one room below which I sometimes[248] opened to guests, but that just now it was in such a state of dilapidation I had shut it up till I could find the opportunity of repairing it.

"Oh!" she replied, subduing her eagerness to the proper point, "you need not wait for that. We are not particular persons. Only let me see the roses come back to my daughter's cheeks, and I can bear any amount of discomfort. Where is this room?"

I pretended not to hear her.

"It would take two days to get it into any sort of condition fit for sleeping in," I murmured reflectively. "The floor is so loose in places that you cannot walk across it without danger of falling through. Then there is the chimney—"

She was standing near me and I heard her draw her breath quickly, but she gave no other sign of emotion, not even in the sound of her voice as she interrupted me with the words:

"Oh! if you have got to make the room all over, we might as well not consider the subject. But I am sure it is not necessary. Do let me see it, and I can soon tell you whether we can be comfortable there or not."

I had sworn to myself never to enter that room[249] again, but such oaths are easily broken. Leaving her for a moment, I procured my key, and taking her with me down the west hall, I unlocked the fatal door and bade her enter.

She hesitated for an instant, but only for an instant. Then she walked coolly in, and stood waiting while I crossed the floor to the window and threw it open. Her first glance flashed to the mantel and its adjacent wainscoting; then, finding everything satisfactory in that direction, it flew over the desolate walls and stiff, high-backed chairs, till it rested on the bare four-poster, denuded of its curtains and coverlets.

"A gloomy place!" she declared; "but you can easily make it look inviting with fresh curtains and a cheerful fire. I am sure that, dismal as it is, it will be more welcome to my daughter than the sunny room up stairs. Besides, the window looks out on the river, and that is always interesting. You will let us come here, will you not? I am sure, if we are willing, you ought to be."

I gasped inwardly, and agreed with her. Yet I made a few more objections. But as I intended that she should sleep in this room, I finally cleared my brow, and announced that the room should be[250] ready for her occupancy on Friday; and with this she had to be content.

OCTOBER 21.

Bless God that I am mistress in my own house! I can order, I can have performed whatever I choose, without fuss, without noise, and without gossip. This is very fortunate just now, for while I am openly having the floor mended in the oak parlor, I am secretly having another piece of work done, which, if once known, would arouse suspicions and awaken conjectures that would destroy all my plans concerning the mysterious guests who insist upon inhabiting the accursed oak parlor.

What this work is can be best understood by a glance at the accompanying diagram, which is a copy of the one drawn up by the Englishman for Mr. Tamworth.

A—Oak parlor. B—Bedroom. C—Kitchen, etc. D—Passage I have had made.

1—Secret chamber. 2—Fireplace. 3—Secret spring. 4—Garden window. 5—Door to oak parlor. 6—Clock on stairs to second story. Entrance to room B under stairway.

Here you see that the secret chamber lies between the rooms A and B. A is the parlor and B is the small room in which I had put up my bed after the nocturnal adventure of October 10. It has always been used as a store room until now, and as no one handles the keys of this[251] house but myself, the fact of my using it for any other purpose is known only to Margery and a certain quiet and reticent workman from Cruger's shop, to whom I have intrusted the task of opening a passage at D through the wall. For I must have proper means of communication with this room before I can allow Madame Letellier and her daughter to take up their abode in it.[252] Though the former's plans are a mystery to me; though I feel that she loves her daughter, and, therefore, cannot meditate evil against her, still my doubts of her are so great that I must know her intentions, if possible, and to do this I contemplate keeping a watch over that den of wicked memories which will be at once both unsuspected and vigilant.

The flooring of the parlor is nearly completed, and to-night will see the door of communication between my room and the secret chamber hung and ready for use.

OCTOBER 22.

A month ago, if any one had told me that I would not only walk of my own free will into the secret chamber, but take up my abode in it, eat in it and sleep in it, I would have said that person was mad. And yet this is just what I have done.

The result of my first vigil was unexpected. I had looked for—well, I hardly know what I did look for. My anticipations were vague, but they did not lead me in the right direction. But let me tell the story. After I had installed my guests in[253] their new apartment, I informed them that I would have to say good-by for a season, as I had an affection of the eyes—which was true enough—which at times compelled me to shut myself up in a dark room and forego all company. That I felt one of these spells coming on—which was not true—and that by a speedy resort to darkness and quiet, I hoped to prevent the attack from reaching its usual point of distress. Mademoiselle Letellier looked disappointed, but madame ill disguised her relief and satisfaction. Convinced now beyond all doubt that she had some plan in mind which made her dread my watchfulness, I made such final arrangements as were necessary, and betook myself at once to my new room. Once there, I moved immediately into the dark chamber, and walking with the utmost circumspection, crossed to the wall adjoining the oak parlor, and laying my ear against the opening into that room, I listened.

At first I heard nothing, probably because its inmates were still. Then I caught an exclamation of weariness, and soon some words of desultory conversation. Relieved beyond expression, not only because I could hear, but because they talked in English, I withdrew again into my own room.[254] The most difficult problem in the world was solved. I had found the means by which I could insinuate myself, unseen and unsuspected, into the secret confidences of two women, at moments when they felt themselves alone and at the mercy of no judgment but that of God. Should I learn enough to pay me for the humiliation of my position? I did not weary myself by questioning. I knew my motive was pure, and fixed my mind upon that.

Several times before the day was over did I return to the secret chamber and bend my ear to the wall. But in no instance did I linger long, for if the two ladies spoke at all it was on trivial subjects, and in such tones as indicated that neither their passions nor any particular interests were engaged. For such talk I had no ear.

"It will not be always so," I thought to myself. "When night comes and the heart opens, they will speak of what lies upon their minds."

And so it happened. As the inn grew quiet and the lights began to disappear from the windows, I crept again to my station against the partition, and in a darkness and atmosphere that at any other time in my life would have completely unnerved me, hearkened to the conversation within.[255]

"Oh, mamma," were the first words I heard, uttered in English, as all their talk was when they were moved or excited, "if you would only explain! If you would only tell me why you do not wish me to receive letters from him! But this silence—this love and this silence are killing me. I cannot bear it. I feel like a lost child who hears its mother's voice in the darkness, but does not know how to follow that voice to the refuge it bespeaks."

"Time was when daughters found it sufficient to know that their parents disapproved of an act, without inquiring into their reasons for it. Your father has told you that the marquis is not eligible as a husband for you, and he expects this to content you. Have I the right to say more than he?"

"Not the right, perhaps, mamma. I do not appeal to your sense of right, but to your love. I am very unhappy. My whole life's peace is trembling in the balance. You ought to see it—you do see it—yet you let me suffer without giving me one reason why I should do so."

The mother's voice was still.

"You see!" the daughter went on again, after what seemed like a moment of helpless waiting.[256] "Though my arms are about you, and my cheek pressed close to yours, you will not speak. Do you wonder that I am heart-broken—that I feel like turning my face to the wall and never looking up again?"

"I wonder at nothing."

Was that madame's voice? What boundless misery! what unfathomable passion! what hopeless despair!

"If he were unworthy!" her daughter here exclaimed.

"It you could point to anything he lacks. But he has wealth, a noble name, a face so handsome that I have seen both you and papa look at him in admiration; and as for his mind and attainments, are they not superior to those of all the young men who have ever visited us? Mamma, mamma, you are so good that you require perfection in a son-in-law. But is he not as near it as a man may be? Tell me, darling, for in my dreams he always seems so."

I heard the answer, though it came slowly and with apparent effort.

"The marquis is an admirable young man, but we have another suitor in mind whose cause we[257] more favor. We wish you to marry Armand Thierry."

"A shop-keeper and a revolutionist! Oh, mamma!"

"That is why we brought you away. That is why you are here—that you might have opportunity to bethink yourself, and learn that the parents' views in these matters are the truest ones, and that where we make choice, there you must plight your troth. I assure you that our reasons are good ones, if we do not give them. It is not from tyranny—"

Here the set, strained voice stopped, and a sudden movement in the room beyond showed that the mother had risen. In fact, I presently heard her steps pacing up and down the floor.

"I know it is not tyranny," the daughter finished, in the soft tones that were so great a contrast to her mother's. "Tyranny I could have understood; but it is mystery, and that is not so easily comprehended. Why should you and papa be mysterious? What is there in our simple life to create secrecy between persons who love each other so dearly? I see nothing, know nothing; and yet—"[258]

"Honora!"

The word struck me like a blow. "Honora!" Great heaven! was that the name of this young girl?

"You are giving too free range to your imagination. You—"

I did not hear the rest. I was thinking of the name I had just heard, and wondering if my suspicions were at fault. They would never have called their child Honora. Who were these women, then? Friends of the Dudleighs? Avengers of the dead? I glued my ear still closer to the wall.

"We have cherished you." The mother was still speaking. "We have given you all you craved, and more than you asked. From the moment you were born we have both lavished all the tenderness of our hearts upon you. And all we ask in return is trust." The hard voice, hard because of emotion, I truly believe, quavered a little over that word, but spoke it and went on. "What we do for you now, as always, is for your best good. Will you not believe it, Honora?"

The last appeal was uttered in a passionate tone.[259] It seemed to move the daughter, for her voice had a sob in it as she replied:

"Yes, yes; but why not enlighten me as to your reasons for a course so remarkable? Most parents desire their daughters to do well, but you, on the contrary, not only wish, but urge me to do ill. A noble lover sues for my hand, and his cause is slighted; an ignoble one requests the same favor, and you run to grant it. Is there love in this? Is there consideration? Perhaps; but if so, you should be able to show where it lies. I am not a child, young as I am; I will understand any reasons you may advance. Then let me have your confidence; it is all I ask, and surely it is not much, when you see how I suffer from my disappointment."

The restless steps ceased. I heard a groan close to my ear; the mother was evidently suffering frightfully.

"Papa is prosperous," the daughter pleadingly continued. "I know your decision cannot be the result of financial difficulties. And then, if it were, the marquis is rich, and—"

"Honora!"—the mother had turned. I heard her advance toward her daughter—"do you real[260]ly love the marquis? You have seen him but a few times, have held hardly any intercourse with him, and at your age fancy often takes the place of love. You do not love him, Honora, my child; you cannot; you will forget—"

"Oh, mamma! Oh, mamma! Oh, mamma!"

The tone was enough. Silence reigned, broken at last by Mademoiselle Letellier saying: "It is not necessary to see such a man as he is very many times in order to adjudge him to be the best and noblest that the world contains. But, mamma, you are not correct in saying that I scarcely know him. Though you will not be frank with me, I am going to be frank with you and tell you something that I have hitherto kept closely buried in my breast. I did not think I should ever speak of it to any one, not even to you. Some dreams are so sweet to brood upon alone. But the shadow which your silence has caused to fall between us has taught me the value of openness and truth. I shall never hide anything from you again; so listen, sweet mamma, while I open to you my heart, and learn, as you can only learn from me, how your Honora first came to know and appreciate the Marquis de la Roche-Guyon."[261]

"Was it not," interrupted the mother, "at the great ball where he was formally introduced to us?"

"No, mamma."

Madame sighed.

"Girls are all alike," she cried. "You think you know them, and lo! there comes a day when you find that it is in a stranger's hand you must look for a key to their natures."

"And is not this what God wills?" suggested the child. "Indeed, indeed, you must blame nature and not me. I did not want to deceive you. I only found it impossible to speak. Besides, if you had looked at me closely enough, you would have seen yourself that I had met the marquis before. Such blushes do not come with a first introduction. I remember their burning heat yet. Are my cheeks warm now? I feel as if they ought to be. But there is nothing to grieve you in these blushes. It is only the way a loving heart takes to speak. There is no wicked shame in them; none, none."

"Oh, God!"

Did the daughter hear that bitter exclamation? She did not appear to; for her voice was quite[262] calm, though immeasurably loving, as she proceeded in these words:

"I was always a mother-girl. From the first day I can remember, I have known nothing sweeter than to sit within reach of your fondling hand. You were always so tender with me, mamma, even when I must have grieved you or disappointed your hopes or your pride. If I were in the way I never saw it, nor can I remember, of all the looks which have sometimes puzzled me in your face, one that spoke of impatience or lack of sympathy with my pleasures or my griefs. With papa it was not always so. No; don't stop me. You must let me speak of him. Though he has never been unkind to me, he has a way of frowning at times that frightens me. Whether he is displeased or simply ill I cannot say, but I have always felt a dread of papa's presence which I never felt of yours; and yet you frown, too, at times, though never upon me, mamma, dear—never upon me."

A pause that was filled in by a kiss, and then the tender voice went on:

"You can imagine, then, what a turmoil was aroused in my breast when one day, while leaning[263] from the window, I saw a face in the street below that awakened within me such strange feelings I could not communicate them even to my mother. I who had hitherto confessed to her every trivial emotion of my life, shrank in a moment, as it were, from revealing a secret no deeper than that I had looked for one half minute upon the form of a passing stranger, and in that minute learned more of my own heart and of the true meaning of life than in all the sixteen years I had hitherto lived. You have seen him since, and you know he possesses every grace that can render a man attractive; but to me that day he did not look like a man at all, or if I thought of him as such, I thought of him as one who set a pattern to his fellows, while retaining his own immeasurable superiority. He did not see me. I do not know that I wished him to. I was quite content to watch him from where I stood, and note his lordly walk and kindly mien, and dream—oh, what did I dream that day! The memory of your own girlhood must tell you, mamma. I did not know his name; I did not suspect his rank; but from his youth I judged him to be single, from his bearing I knew him to be noble, and from his look, which called[264] out a reflected brightness on every face he chanced to pass, I was assured that he was happy and that he was good. And what does a girl's fancy need more? Still a glimpse so short might not have had such deep consequences if it had not been followed by an event which rendered those first impressions indelible."

"An event, Honora?"

"Yes, mamma. You remember the day you sent me with Cecile to take my first lessons in tambour work of Madame Douay?"

"Remember? Oh, my child, that awful day when you came near losing your life! When the house fell with you in it, and—"

"Yes, yes, mamma, and I came home looking so pale you thought I was hurt, and fainted away, and would have died yourself if I had not kissed you back to life. Well, mamma, dear, I was hurt, but not in my body. It was my heart that had received a wound—a wound from which I never shall recover, for it was made by the greatness, the goodness, the noble self-sacrifice of the marquis."

"Honora! And you never mentioned his name—never!"[265]

"I know, I know, mamma; but you have already forgiven me for that. You know it was from no unworthy motive. Think how you felt when you first saw papa. Think—"

A hurried movement from the mother interrupted her.

"Do not keep me in suspense," she pleaded; "let me hear what you have to tell."

"But you are cold; you shudder. Let me get a shawl."

"No, no, child, I am not cold, only impatient. Go on with your story—go on. How came you to meet the marquis in that place?"

"Ah," cried the daughter, "it was a strange occurrence. It all came about through a mistake of Cecile's. Madame Douay, as we were told by the concierge, lived on the fourth floor, but Cecile made a miscount and we went up to the fifth, and as there was a Madame Douay there also, we did not detect our error, but went into her apartments and were seated in the small salon to await madame's presence. We had not told our errand, so we could not blame the maid who admitted us, nor, though madame failed to appear, did we ever remember to blame any one, for presently through[266] the open window near which we sat there came the sound of voices from the room above, and a drama began of such startling interest that we could think of nothing else.

"Two men were talking. Young men they seemed, and though I could not see them, I could tell from the fresh, fine voice of the one that he was a true man, and from the sneering, smothered tones of the other that he was not only a cynic, but of vicious tendencies. The first one was saying, 'I never suspected this,' when my attention was first called to their words, and the answer which came was as follows: 'If you had, I should not have had the pleasure of seeing you here. Men are not apt to rush voluntarily upon their deaths, and that you are a dead man you already know; for I have sworn to kill you as the clock strikes three, and it is but ten minutes of that time, and you have not a weapon with which to defend yourself.'

"Mamma, you can imagine my feelings at hearing these words, though they were uttered by a person I could not see, to another person equally unknown to me? I looked at Cecile and she looked at me, but we could neither of us move. Every[267] faculty seemed paralyzed save that of hearing. We held our breaths and listened for the reply. It came instantly and without a thrill in its clear accents.

"'You are a gentleman, and no common assassin. How can you reconcile such an act as this with your honor, or with what sophistries quiet the stings of your conscience when time shall have shown you the sin of so unprovoked an onslaught?'

"'It is not unprovoked,' was the harsh and bitter reply. 'You promised to marry Mademoiselle de Fontaine, and yesterday, at three o'clock—ah, I was there!—you formally renounced your claims. This is an insult that calls for blood, and blood it shall have. Twenty-four hours have elapsed less ten minutes, since you cast this slur upon a noble lady's good name. When the hour is ripe, you will pay the penalty it requires with your life.'

"'But,' urged his young companion, 'Mademoiselle de Fontaine had herself requested the breaking off of this contract. I am but following the lady's behests in withdrawing from a position forced upon us against our will, and in direct opposition to her happiness.'[268]

"'And by what right do you presume to follow the behests of a lady still under age? Has she not guardians to consult? Should not I—'

"'You?'

"'Pardon me, I have not introduced myself, it seems. I am the Marquis de la Roche-Guyon.'"

Honora paused; her mother's exclamation had stopped her:

"The marquis! Oh! Honora, and you have always said he was so good!"

"Wait, mamma; remember it is the cynical voice which is speaking, and the marquis's voice is not cynical. The words, however, are what I have told you; 'I am the Marquis de la Roche-Guyon.'

"Of course, not knowing either party, nor this name, least of all realizing that it was the one by which the gentleman addressed was himself known, I did not understand why it should create so great an impression. But that it did was evident, not only from the momentary hush that followed, but from the violent exclamation that burst from the young man's lips. 'You scoundrel!' was his cry. But instantly he seemed to regret the word, for he said almost with the same breath: 'Your pardon,[269] but there is but one man in the world besides myself who could, under any circumstances, have a right to that name.'

"'And that man?'

"'Is my cousin, the deceased marquis's son, long esteemed dead also, and now legally accepted as such.'

"'And what assures you that I am not he? Your eyes? Well, I am changed, Louis, but not so changed that a good look should not satisfy you that I am the man I claim to be. Besides, you should know this mark on my forehead. You gave it to me—'

"'Isidor!'

"I could not comprehend it then, but I have learned since that the marquis—our marquis, I mean—had only just come into his title; that the son of the preceding Marquis de la Roche-Guyon had been so long missing that the courts had finally adjudged him dead, and given up his inheritance to his cousin; that the first act of the new marquis was to liberate the Demoiselle de Fontaine from an engagement that stood in the way of her marriage with one more desirable to her; and that the unexpected appearance of the real[270] heir in this sudden and mysterious manner was as great a surprise to him as any mortal circumstance could be. Yet to me, who waited with palpitating heart and anxious ears for what should be said next, there was no evidence of this in his tone. With the politeness we are accustomed to in Frenchmen he observed:

"'You are welcome, Isidor;' and then, as if struck himself by the incongruity between this phrase and the look and manner of his companion, he added, in slow tones—'even if you do bring a sword with you.'

"The other, the real marquis, as I suppose, seemed to hesitate at this, and I began to hope he was ashamed of his dreadful threats and would speedily beg the other's pardon. But I did not know the man, or realize the determination which lay at the bottom of his furious and uncompromising words. But he soon made it evident to us.

"'Louis,' he exclaimed, 'you have always been my evil genius. From our childhood you have stood in my way with your superior strength, beauty, prowess and address. When I was young I simply shrank from you in shame and distaste, but as I grew older I learned to detest you; and[271] now that I see you again, after five years of absence, handsome as ever, taller than ever, and radiant, notwithstanding your nearness to death, with memories such as I have never known, nor can know, and beliefs such as I have never cherished nor will cherish, I hate you so that I find it difficult to wait for the five minutes yet to elapse before my word will let me lift my pistol and fire upon you.'

"'Then it is your hate of me, and not your fondness for your sister, that has led you to lay this trap for me?' exclaimed the other. 'I should think your hate would be satisfied by the change which your return will make in my prospects. From the marquisate of La Roche-Guyon to a simple captaincy in his majesty's guards is quite a step, Isidor. Will it not suffice to soothe an antagonism which I never shared?'

"'Nothing can soothe it, not even your death! You have robbed me of too much. First, of the world's esteem, then of my mother's confidence, and, lastly, of my father's love. Yes; deny it if you will, my father loved you better than he did me. This was the reason he sent me from home; and when, shipwrecked and captured by savages,[272] I found myself thrown into an Eastern dungeon, half my misery and all my rage were in the thought that he would not consider my loss a misfortune, but die in greater peace and hope from knowing that his family honors would devolve upon one more after his own heart than myself. Oh! I have had cause, and I have had time to nourish my hate. Five years in a dungeon affords one leisure, and on every square stone of that wall, and upon every inch of its relentless pavement, I have beaten out this determination with my bare hands and manacled feet, that if I ever did escape, and ever did return to the home of my fathers, I would have full pay for the suffering you have caused me, even if I had it in your blood. I have returned, and I find my father dead, and in his place yourself, happy, insolent, and triumphant. Can you blame me for remembering my vows, for resenting what will ever seem an insult to my sister, and for wishing to hurry the time that moves so slowly toward the fatal stroke of three?'

"'I do not blame you, because you are a madman. I do not fear you, because, having no one in the world to love, I do not greatly dread a[273] sudden release from it. But I pity you because you have suffered, and will defend myself because your sufferings will be increased rather than diminished by the success of your crazy intentions.'

"The answer came, quick and furious:

"'I do not want your pity, and I scorn any defense which you can make. Do you think I have not made my calculations well? There is nothing here which can give you hope. We are alone on the sixth story. Beneath us are only women, and if you call from the window, I can shoot you dead before your voice can reach the street. Perhaps, though, you do not think of saving yourself, but of ensnaring me. Bah! as if the sight of the headsman would stop me now. Besides, I am prepared for flight. Have you looked at this house? It is not like other houses; it is double, and the room in which we stand has other foundations and walls from this one behind me which I guard with my pistol. Let the deed be once done—and the clock, as you see, gives us but one minute more—and I leap into this other apartment, down another flight of stairs from those you came up, and so to another door that opens upon another street. Then shout, if you will; I am safe. As to your life, it is as[274] much at my command as if my bullet were already in your heart.'

"'We will see!' was the thundering reply, and with these words a rush was made that shook the floor above our heads, and scattered bits of plaster down upon us. Released by the action from the fearful spell which had benumbed my limbs, I felt that I could move at last, and, leaping to my feet, I uttered scream after scream. But they perished in my throat, smothered by a new fear; for at this moment my arm was caught by Cecile, and following, with horrified gaze, the pointing of her uplifted hand, I saw the straight line of the window-ledge before me dip and curve, and yielding to the force of her agonized strength, I let myself be dragged across the floor, while before us, beneath us, above us, all was one chaos of heaving and crashing timbers, which, in another instant, broke into a thunder of confused sounds, and we beheld beneath us a pit of darkness, death, and tumult, where, but an instant before, were all the appurtenances of a comfortable and luxurious home.

"We were safe, for we had reached the flooring of the second house before that of the first[275] had completely fallen, but I could not think of myself, narrow as my escape had been, and marvelous as was the warning which had revealed to Cecile the only path of safety. For in the clouded space above me, overhanging a gulf I dared not measure with my eyes or sound with my imagination, I saw clinging by one arm to a beam the awful figure of a man, while crouching near him on a portion of flooring that still clung intact to the wall, I beheld another in whose noble traits, distorted though they were by the emotions of the moment, I recognized him who, but a month before, had changed the world for me with his look.

"Ah! mamma, and a thousand deaths lay between us; and we could neither reach him nor give any alarm, for the space in which we found ourselves was small and shut from the outer world by a door which was locked. How it became locked I never knew, but I have thought that the maid in flying might have turned the key behind her, under some wild impression that by this means she would shut out destruction. However that may be, we were helpless and threatened by death. But our own situation did not alarm us, for theirs[276] was so much more terrible, especially that of the man whose straining arm clung so frantically to a support that threatened every moment to slip from his grasp. I could not look at him, and scarcely could I look at the other. But I did, for in his face there was such a high and noble resolve that it made me forget his danger, till suddenly I heard him speak high above the sounds that arose in a tempest from the street:

"'Do not despair, Isidor. I think I can reach you and pull you up upon the beam. You shall not die a dog's death if I can help it. Hold on and I will come.' And he began to move and raise himself upon the narrow platform on which he stood, and I saw that he meant what he said, and involuntarily and with but little reason I cried:

"'Don't do it! He is your enemy. Save yourself; he is but a murderer; let him go.'

"I said that; I who never had a cruel thought before in my life. But he, without looking to see whence this voice came, answered boldly:

"'It is because he is my enemy that I wish to save him. I could never enjoy a safety won at the expense of his death. Isidor, you must live! So hold on, my cousin.'[277]

[279]

"And without saying anything further, this brave man set about a task that seemed to me at that moment not only superhuman but impossible. Gathering himself up, he prepared to make a spring, and in another instant would have launched himself toward that rocking beam, if Cecile, driven to extremity by the slow tottering of the floor upon which we stood, had not shrieked:

"'And to save him you would leave us to perish?'

"He paused and gave one look. 'Yes!' he cried. 'God help you, but you look like innocent women, while he—' The leap was made. He lay clinging to the beam. His cousin, who had not fallen, cast one glance up; their eyes met, and Isidor, as he was called, gave one great sob. 'Oh, Louis!' he murmured, and was silent.

"And then, mamma, there began a struggle for rescue such as I dare not even recall. I saw it because I could not look elsewhere, but I crushed its meaning from my consciousness, lest I should myself perish before I saw him safe. And all the while the figure hanging over us swayed with the rocking of the beam, and gave no help until[280] that last terrible moment when his cousin, reaching down, was able to sustain him under the arm till he could get his other hand up and clasp it around the beam. Then it all looked well, and we began to hope, when suddenly and without warning the nearly rescued man gave a great shriek, and crying, 'You have conquered!' unloosed his grasp, and fell headlong into the abyss.

"Mamma, I did not faint. An unnatural strength seemed given to me. But I looked at the marquis, and for the first time he looked at me, and I saw the expression of horrified amaze with which he had beheld his cousin disappear gradually change to one of the softest and divinest looks that ever visited a noble visage, and knew that even out of that pit of death love had arisen for us two, and that henceforth we belonged to each other, whether our span of life should be cut short in a moment or extended into an eternity of years. His own heart seemed to assure him of the same sweet fact, for the next moment he was renewing his superhuman efforts, but this time for our rescue and his own. He worked himself along that beam; he gave another leap; he landed at our side, and tore a way for us through that closed[281] door. In another five minutes we were in the street, with half Paris surging about us, but before the crowd had quite seized upon me, he had found time to whisper in my ear:

"'I am the Marquis de la Roche-Guyon. It will always be a matter of thankfulness to me that I was not left to sacrifice the fairest woman in the world to the rescue of a thankless coward.'

"Mamma, do you blame me for giving such a man my heart, and do you wonder that what I have dedicated to this hero I can never yield to any other man?"

The mother was silent—for a long time silent. Was she horror-stricken at the story of a danger she had never fully comprehended till now? Or were her thoughts busy with her own past, and its possible incommunicable secrets of blood and horror? The cry she gave at last betrayed anguish, but did not answer this question.

"My child! my child! my child!" That was all, but it seemed torn from her heart, that bled after it.

"He was not long in seeking me out, mamma, dear. With grace and consideration he paid me his court, and I was happy till I saw that you and[282] papa frowned upon an alliance that to me seemed laden with promise. I could not understand it, nor could I understand our hurried departure from France, nor our secret journey here. All has been a mystery to me; but your will is my will, and I dare not complain."

"Pure heart!" broke from the mother's lips. "Would to God—"

"What, dear mamma?"

"That you had been moved by a lesser man than the Marquis de la Roche-Guyon."

"A lesser man?"

"With Armand Thierry, since he is the one you will have to marry."

"I shall not marry him."

"Shall not?"

"If I cannot give my hand where my heart is, I remain unmarried. I dishonor no man with unmeaning marriage vows."

"Honora!"

"I may never be happy, but I will never be base. You yourself cannot wish me to be that. You, who married for love, must understand that a woman loses her title to respect when she utters vows to one man while her heart is with another."[283]

"But—"

"You did marry for love, didn't you, sweet mamma? I like to think so. I like to think that papa never cared for any other woman in all the world but you, and that from the moment you first saw him, you knew him to be the one man capable of rousing every noble instinct within you. It is so sweet to enshrine you in such a pure romance, mamma. Though you have been married sixteen years—ah, how old I am!—I see you sit and look at papa sometimes, for a long, long time without speaking, and though you do not smile, I think, 'She is dreaming of the days when life was pure joy, because it was pure love,' and I long to ask you to tell me about those days, because I am sure, if you did, you would tell me the sweetest story of mutual love and devotion. Isn't it so, mamma mine?"

Would that mother answer? Could she? I seemed to behold her figure pausing petrified in the darkness, drawing deep breaths, and scarcely knowing whether to curse or pray. I listened and listened, but it was long before the answer came. Then it was short and hurried, like the pants of one dying.[284]

"Honora, you hurt me." Another silence. "You make my task too hard. If I know what love is—" She found it hard to go on; but she did—"all the more anguish it must cost me to deny you what is so deeply desired. I—I would make you happy if I could. I will make you happy if it is in my power to do so, but I can hold out no hope—none, none."

"Nor tell me why?"

"Nor tell you why."

"Mamma, you suffer. I see it now, and somehow it makes it easier for me to bear my own suffering. You do not willfully deny me what is as much as my life to me."

"Willfully! Honora! Listen." The mother had stopped in her walk, for I heard her restless tread no more. "You say that I suffer, child. I have never had one happy day. Whatever romance you have woven about me, I have never known, from the hour of my birth till now, one moment of such delight as you experienced when you saw the character of the marquis unfold before you so grandly. The nearest I have ever come to bliss was when you were first placed in my arms. Then, indeed, for one wild moment, I felt the bap[285]tism of true love. I looked at you, and my heart opened. Alas! it was to take in pain as well as joy. You had the face— Oh, Heaven! what am I saying? This darkness unnerves me, Honora. Let us have light, light, anything to keep my reason from faltering."

"Mother, mother, you are ill!"

"No. I am simply weak. I always am when I recall your birth and the first few days that followed it. I was so glad to have something I could really love; so glad to feel that my heart beat, and to know that it beat for one so innocent, so sweet, so helpless as yourself. What if I had pains and hours of darkness, did I not have your smile, also, and, later on, your love? Child, if there has been any good in my life—and sometimes I have thought there was a little—it came from you. So, never even question again if I could hurt you willfully. I not only could not do this and live, but to save you from pain I would dare— What would I not dare? Let man or angels say."

Before such passion as this young Honora sank helpless.

"Oh, mamma, mamma," she moaned, "forgive[286] me. I did not know—how could I know? Don't sob, mamma, dear; let me hold you—so; now lay your cheek against mine and simply love me. I will lie quite still and ask no questions, and you will rest, too; and God will bless us, as he always blesses the loving and the true."

But madame did not comply with this endearing request. Satisfying her daughter with a few kisses and some words that the paroxysm of her grief was past, she resumed her walk up and down the room, pausing every now and then as if to listen, and hastily resuming her walk as some slight exclamation from the bed assured her that mademoiselle was not yet asleep. As these pauses always took place when she was near the wall behind which I crouched, I frequently heard her breath, which came heavily, and once the rustle of her gown. But I did not stir. As long as her uneasy form flitted about the room, I clung to the partition, listening, determined that nothing should move me—not even my own terrors. And though night presently merged into midnight, and the silence and horror of the spot became frightful, I kept my post, for the stealthy tread continued, and so did the desultory scraps of conversation,[287] which proved that, if the mother was waiting for the daughter to sleep, the daughter was equally waiting for the mother to retire. And so daylight came, and with it exhaustion to more than one of us three watchers.

And this is the record of the first night spent by me in the secret chamber.[288]

CHAPTER XXII. A SURPRISE FOR HONORA

OCTOBER 22, 1791.

VENTS crowd. This morning the one girl I have taken into my confidence cameto my room with a strange tale. A stranger had arrived, an elegant young gentleman of foreign appearance, who had not yet given his name, but who must be a person of importance, if bearing and address go for anything. He came on horseback,[289] attended by his valet, and his first word, after some directions in regard to his horse, was a request to see the landlady. When told she was ill, he asked for the clerk, and to him was about to put some question, when an exclamation from the doorway interrupted them. Turning, they saw madame standing there, her face petrified into an expression of terrified surprise.

"Mrs.—"

"Hush!" sprang from the lady's lips before he could finish his exclamation; and advancing, she laid her hand on his arm, saying, in French, which, by the way, my clerk understands: "If you hope anything from us, do not speak the name that is faltering on your tongue. For reasons of our own, for reasons of a purely domestic nature, we are traveling incognito. Let me ask you as a gentleman to humor our whim, and to know us at present as Madame and Mademoiselle Letellier."

He bowed, but flushed with embarrassment.

"And mademoiselle? She is well, I trust?"

"Quite well."

"And yourself?"

"Quite well, also. May I ask what has brought[290] you into these parts, whom we thought in another and somewhat distant country?"

"Need you ask?"

They had drawn a little apart by this time, and the clerk heard no more; but their manner—the lady's especially—was so singular that he thought I ought to know that she was here under a false name, and so had sent Margery to me with the news. As for the gentleman and Madame Letellier, they were still conversing in the lowest tones together.

Interested intensely in this new development in the drama hourly unfolding before my eyes, I dismissed Margery with an instruction or two, and passed into the hidden chamber, where I again laid my ear to the wall. The mother would have something to say when she returned, and I determined to hear what it was.

I had to wait a long time, but was rewarded at last by the sound of voices and the distinct exclamation from the daughter's lips:

"Oh, mamma! what has happened?"

The mother's reply was delayed, but it came at last:

"My face is becoming strangely communica[291]tive. You will read all my thoughts next. What makes you think anything has happened? Is this a place for occurrences?"

"Oh, mamma! you cannot deceive me. Your very limbs are trembling. See, you can hardly stand; and then, how you look at me! Oh, mamma, dear! is it good news or bad? for from your eyes it might be either. Has he—"

"He, he—always he!" the mother passionately interrupted. "You do not love your mother. You are thinking always of one whom you never saw till a year ago. My doubts, my fears, my sufferings are nothing to you. I might die—"

"Hush! hush! Whenever did you speak like this before, mamma? Love you! Did ever a child love her mother more? But our affection is sure, while that of him you do not like me to mention is threatened, and its existence forbidden. I cannot help but think, mamma, and of him. If I could, I were a traitor to the noblest instincts that sway a woman's heart. I may not marry him—you say I never will—but think of him I must, and pray for him I will, till the last breath has left my lips. So, what is your news, dear mamma? Has papa written?"[292]

"It is too early for the mail."

"True, true. Some one has come, then; a messenger, perhaps, from New York. M. Dubois—"

"Dubois is a traitor. He has not kept the secret of our whereabouts. We have to settle with Monsieur and Madame Dubois, meanwhile—"

"What?"

"Honora, can I trust you?"

"Trust me?"

"Ah! who is trembling now?"

"I! I! But how can I help it! You glance toward the door; you seem afraid some one will come. You—you—"

"Tut! do not mind me! Answer what I ask. Could you see the marquis—talk to him, hear him urge his love and plead for yours, without forgetting that your obedience is mine, and that you are not to give him so much as the encouragement of a glance, till I either give you permission to do so or command from you his immediate and unqualified dismissal?"

"See him?" It was all the poor girl had heard.

"Yes; see him. You have come from Paris—why not he? Since Dubois has proved himself a traitor—"[293]

"Oh, mamma!" came now in great sobs, "you are not playing with me. He has come; he is here; the horse I heard stop at the door—"

"Was that of the marquis," acknowledged the mother. "He is in the sitting room, child, but he does not expect you at present. This evening you shall see him if you will promise me what I have asked. Otherwise he must go. I will have no complications arising out of a secret betrothal. If you have not sufficient strength—"

"Oh, I have strength, mamma! I have strength. Only let me see him, and prove to myself that he is not worn by trouble and suspense, and I will do all you ask of me. Ah, how well I feel! What a beautiful—what a lovely day this is! Must I not go out till evening? May I not take one wee walk in the garden?"

"Not one, my child. At nine o'clock you may go to the sitting room for a half hour. Till then, think over what I have said, and prepare your lips to be dumb and your eyes to remain downcast; for I am firm in my demands, and nothing will make me change them."

"You may trust me." There was despair in the tones now. . . .[294]

As they talked but little after this, and as I was greatly interested in seeing the young man who had been heralded by such glowing descriptions, I stole back to my room, and, putting on a green shade, hastened to join my guests in the front part of the house. One glance from beneath my hurriedly uplifted shade was sufficient to assure me as to which of the gentlemen there assembled was the one I sought. So frank a face, so fine a form, so attractive a manner, were not often seen in my inn, and prepossessed at once in his favor, I advanced to the owner of all these graces, and, calling him by name, bade him welcome to my house.

He must understand our language well, for he immediately turned with gentle urbanity, and discerning, perhaps, something in my face which assured him of my sympathy and respect, entered into a fluent conversation with me that at once increased my admiration and awakened my pity. For I saw that his nature was strong and his feelings deep, and as the future could have nothing but shame and misery, I instinctively felt oppressed by the fate which awaited him.

He did not seem to feel any apprehension himself. His eyes were bright; his smile beaming;[295] his bearing full of hope. Now and then his glance would steal toward the door or through the open windows, as if he longed to catch a glimpse of some passing face or form; and at last, swayed by that sympathy which we women all feel for true love in man or woman, I asked him to accompany me into the garden, promising him a view that would certainly delight him. As the garden was plainly visible from the oak parlor, you can readily understand to what view I alluded. But he had no suspicion of my meaning, and followed me with some reluctance.

But his aspect changed materially when, in walking up and down the paths, I casually remarked:

"This is the least inhabited side of the inn. Only one room is occupied, and that by two foreigners—Madame and Mademoiselle Letellier. Yet it has a pleasant outlook, as you yourself can see."

"Is she—are they behind those windows?" he asked, with an impetuosity I could not but admire in a man with so much to recommend him to the consideration of others. "I beg your pardon," he added, a moment later, after a stolen glance at[296] the house. "I know those ladies, and anything in connection with them is interesting to me."

I believed it, and had hard work to hide my secret trouble. But his preoccupation assisted me, and at length I found courage to remark:

"They are from Paris, I understand. A fine woman, Madame Letellier. Must be much admired in her own land?"

He seemed to have no reason for resenting my curiosity.

"She is," was his quick reply. "She is not only admired, but respected. I have never heard her name mentioned but with honor. I am happy to be known as her friend."

I gave him one quick look. Good God! What lay before this man! And he so unconscious! I felt like wishing the inn would fall to atoms before our eyes, crushing beneath it the sin of the past and his false hopes for the future. He saw nothing. He was smiling upon a rose which he had plucked and was holding in his hand.

"This inn is one of the antiquities," I now observed, anxious to know if any hint of its secrets had ever reached his ears. "They say it is one of the first structures reared on the river. Have[297] you ever heard any of the traditions connected with it?"

"Oh, no," he smiled. "The Happy-Go-Lucky is quite a stranger to me. You cherish up all its legends, though, I have no doubt. Are there any tales of ghosts among them? I can easily imagine certain disembodied spirits wandering through its narrow halls and up and down its winding staircases."

"What spirits?" I asked, convinced, however, by his manner that he was talking at random, with the probable aim of prolonging our walk within view of the window behind which his darling might stand concealed.

"Madame must inform me. I have too little acquaintance with this country to venture among its traditions."

"There is a story," I began; but here a finely modulated but piercing voice rang musically down the paths from the house, and we heard:

"Your eyes will certainly suffer, Mrs. Truax, if you let the hot sun glare upon them so mercilessly." And, turning, we saw madame's smiling face looking from her casement with a meaning that struck us both dumb and led me to shorten our[298] walk lest my interest in the romance then going on should be suspected and my usefulness thus become abridged.

Was it to forestall my suspicions, rid herself of my vigilance, or to insure herself against any forgetfulness on her daughter's part, that madame, some two hours later, sent me the following note:

"DEAR MRS. TRUAX: I can imagine that after your walk in the blazing sunlight you do not feel very well this evening. I must nevertheless request of you a favor, my need being great and you being the only person who can assist me. The Marquis de la Roche-Guyon, with whom I saw you promenading, has come to this place with the express intention of paying court to my daughter. As I am not prepared to frown upon his suit, and equally unprepared to favor it, I do not feel at liberty to refuse him the pleasure of an interview with my daughter, and yet do not desire them to enjoy such an interview alone. As I am ill, quite ill, with a sudden and excruciating attack of pain in my right hip, may I ask if you will fulfill the office of chaperon for me, and, without embarrassment to either party, take such measures as will prevent an absolute confidence between them, till I have obtained the sanction of my husband to an intimacy which I myself dare not encourage?

"Very truly your debtor, if you accomplish this, MADAME LETELLIER."

[299]

[301]

CHAPTER XXIII. IN THE SECRET CHAMBER

Have only twenty-four hours elapsed? Is it but yesternight that all the terrible events took place, the memory of which are now making my frame tremble? So the clock says, and yet how hard it is to believe it. Madame Letellier— But I will preserve my old method. I will not anticipate events, but relate them as they occurred.

To go back then to the note which I received from madame. I did not like it. I did not see its consistency, and I did not mean to be its dupe. If she intended remaining in the oak parlor, then over the oak parlor I would keep watch; for from her alone breathed whatever danger there might be for any of us, and to her alone did I look for the explanation of her mysterious presence in a spot that should have held a thousand repellent forces for her and hers. As for her sudden illness, that was nonsense. She was as well as I was myself. Had I not seen her standing at the window an hour or two before?[302]

But here I made a mistake. Madame was really ill, as I presently had occasion to observe. For not only was a physician summoned, but word came that she wished to see me, also; and when I went to her room I found her in bed, her face pallid and distorted with pain, and her whole aspect betraying the greatest physical suffering.

It was a rheumatic attack, affecting mainly her right limb, and made her so helpless that, for a moment, I stood aghast at what looked to me like a dispensation of Providence. But in another instant I began to doubt again; for though I knew it was beyond anybody's power to simulate the suffering under which she evidently labored, I was made to feel, by her penetrating and restless looks, that her mind retained its hold upon its purpose, whatever that purpose might be, and that for me to relax my vigilance now would be to give her an advantage that would be immediately seized upon.

I therefore held my sympathies in check; and, while acting the part of the solicitous landlady, watched for that glance or word which should reveal her secret intentions. Her daughter, whose eyes were streaming with tears, stood over her[303] like a pitying angel, and not till we had done all we could to relieve her mother, and subdue her pain, did she allow her longing eyes to turn toward the clock that beat out the passing moments with mechanical precision. It was just a quarter to nine.

The mother saw that glance, and hid her face for a moment; then she took mademoiselle by the hand, and drawing her down to her, whispered audibly:

"I expect you to keep your appointment. Mrs. Truax will send one of the girls to sit with me. Besides, I feel better, and as if I could sleep. Only remember your promise, dear. No look, no hint of your feelings."

Mademoiselle flushed scarlet. Stealing a look at me, she drew back embarrassed, but oh! how joyous. I felt my old heart quiver as I surveyed her, and in spite of the dread form of the redoubtable woman stretched before me, in spite of the grewsome room and its more than grewsome secrets, something of the fairy light of love seemed to fall upon my spirit and lift the darkness from the place for one short and glowing moment.

"Look in the glass," the mother now command[304]ed. "You need to tie up your curls again and to put a fresh flower at your throat. I do not wish you to show weariness. Mrs. Truax"—these words to me in low tones, as her daughter withdrew to the other side of the room—"you received my note?"

I nodded.

"You will do what I ask?"

I nodded again. Deliberate falsehood it was, but I showed no faltering.

"Then I will excuse you now."

I rose.

"And do not send any one to me. I wish to sleep, and another's presence would disturb me. See, the pain is almost gone."

She did look better.

"Your wishes shall be regarded," I assured her. "If you do feel worse, ring this bell and Margery will notify me." And placing the bell rope near her hand, I drew back and presently quitted the room.

Lingering in the hall just long enough to see the lovely Honora flit across the threshold of the sitting-room which I had purposely ordered vacant for her use, I hurried to my room.[305]

It was dark, dark as the secret chamber into which I now stole with the lightest and wariest of steps. Horror, gloom, and apprehension were in the air, which brooded stiflingly in the narrow spot, and had it not been for the righteous purpose sustaining me, I should have fallen at this critical moment, crushed beneath the terrible weight of my own feelings.

But one who has to listen, straining every faculty to catch the purport of what is going on behind an impenetrable wall, soon forgets himself and his own sensations. As I pressed my ear to the wall and caught the sound of a prolonged and painful stir within, I only thought of following the movements of madame, who, I was now sure, had left her bed and was dragging herself, with what difficulty and distress I could but faintly judge by the involuntary groans which now and then left her, across the floor toward the door, the key of which I presently heard turn.

This done, a heavy silence followed, then the slow, dragging sound began again, interrupted now by weary pants and heavy sobs that at first chilled me and then shook me with such fear that it was with difficulty that I could retain my place[306] against the wall. She was crawling in my direction, and at each instant I heard the pants grow louder.

I gradually withdrew, step by step, till I found myself pressed up against the wall in the remotest corner I could find. And here was I standing, enveloped in darkness and dread, when the sounds changed to that of a shuddering, rushing noise which I had heard once before in my life, and from a narrow gap through which the faint light in the room beyond dimly shone in a thread of lesser darkness, the aperture grew, till I could feel rather than see her form, crawling, not walking, through the opening, and hear, distinct enough, her horrible, gurgling tones as she murmured:

"I shall have to grope for what I want—touch it, feel it, for I cannot see. O God! O God! What horror! What punishment!"

Nearer, nearer over the floor she came, dragging her useless limb behind her. Her outstretched arm groped, groped about the floor, while I stood trembling and agonized with horror till her hand touched the skirt of my dress, when, with a great shriek of suddenly liberated feeling, I pushed her from me, and crying out, "Murderess! do[307] you seek the bones of your victim?" I flung open the door against which I stood and let the light from my own room stream in upon us two.

Her face as I saw it at that moment has never left my memory. She had fallen in a heap at my first move, and now lay crushed before me, with only her wide-staring eyes and shaking lips to tell me that she lived.

"You thought I did not know you," I burst forth. "You thought, because I had never seen your face, you could come back here, bringing your innocent daughter with you, and cast yourself into the very atmosphere of your crime without awakening the suspicion of the woman whose house you had made a sepulcher of for so many years. But crime was written too plainly on your brow. The spirit of Honora Urquhart, breaking the bounds of this room, has walked ever beside you, and I knew you from the first moment that you strayed down this hall."

Broken sounds, unintelligible murmurings, were all that greeted me.

"You are punished," I went on, "in the misery of your daughter. Nemesis has reached you. The blood of Honora Urquhart has called aloud[308] from these walls, and not yourself only, but the still viler being whose name you have so falsely shared, must answer to man and God for the life you so heartlessly sacrificed and the rights you so falsely usurped."

"Mercy!" came in one quick gasp from the crushed heap of humanity before me.

But I was inexorable. I remembered Honora Urquhart's sweet face, and at that moment could think of nothing else. So I went on.

"You have had years of triumph. You have borne your victim's name, worn your victim's clothes, sported with your victim's money. And he, her husband, has looked on and smiled. Day after day, month after month, year after year, you have gone in and out before your friends, unmolested and unafraid; but God's vengeance, though it halts, is sure and keen. Across land and across water the memories of this room have drawn you, and not content with awakening suspicion, you must make suspicion certainty by moving a spring unknown even to myself, and entering this spot, from which the bones of your victim were taken only two months ago, Marah Leighton!"

Moved by the name, she stood up. Tottering[309] and agonized with pain, but firm once more and determined, she towered before me, her face turned toward the room she had left, her hand lifted, her whole attitude that of one listening.

"Hark!" she cried.

It was a knock, a faint, low, trembling knock that we heard, then the word "Mamma" came in muffled accents from the hallway.

A convulsion crossed the countenance of the miserable woman before me.

"Oh, God! my daughter, my daughter!" she cried. And falling at my feet, she groveled in anguish as she pleaded:

"Will you kill her? She knows nothing, suspects nothing. The whole fifteen years of her life are pure. She is a flower. I love her—I love her, though she looks like the woman I hated and killed. She bears her name—why, I do not know—I could not call her anything else; she is my living reproach, and yet I love her. Do you not see it was for her I crossed the water, for her I plunged my living hand into this tomb to learn if our secret had ever been discovered, and if there was any hope that she might yet be made happy? Ah, woman, woman, you are not a wretch—a de[310]mon! You will not sentence this innocent soul to disgrace and misery. Even if I must die—and I swear that I will die if you say so—leave to my child her hopes; keep secret my sin, and take the blessing of the most miserable being that crawls upon the earth, as a solace for your old age. Hear me; hear a wretched mother's plea—"

"It is too late," I broke in. "Even were I silent there are others upon your track. I doubt if your husband does not already know that the day of his prosperity is at an end."

She gave a low cry, and tottered from the place. Entering her own room, she threw herself upon the bed. I followed, drawing the curtains about her. Then closing the door of communication between the oak parlor and the chamber beyond, I passed to the door behind which we could yet hear her daughter's soft voice calling, and, unlocking it, let the radiant creature in.

"Oh, mamma!" she began, "I could not keep my word—"

But here I held up my hand, and drawing her softly out, told her that her mother needed rest just now, and that if she would come to my room for a little while it would be best; and so prevail[311]ed upon her that she promised to do what I asked, though I saw her cast longing glances through the partly opened door toward the somber bed so like a tomb, and which at that moment was a tomb, had she known it—a tomb of hope, of joy, of peace for evermore.

I was just going out, when a slight stir detained me. Looking back, I saw a hand thrust out from between the falling curtains. Just a hand, but how eloquent it was! Pointing it out to mademoiselle, I said:

"Your mother's hand. Give it a kiss, mademoiselle, but do not part the curtains."

She smiled and crossed to that ominous bed. Kneeling, she kissed the hand, which thereupon raised itself and rested on her head. In another instant it was drawn slowly away, and, with a startled look, the half-weeping daughter rose and glided again to my side.

As I closed the door I thought of those words: "And the sins of the father shall be visited upon the children to the third and fourth generation."[312]

CHAPTER XXIV. THE MARQUIS

But the events of the night are not over. As soon as I had seen mademoiselle comfortably ensconced in my old room up stairs, I returned to the sitting room, where the marquis still lingered. He was standing in the window when I entered, and turned with quite a bright face to greet me. But that brightness soon vanished as he met my glance, and it was with something like dismay that he commented upon my paleness, and asked if I were ill.

I told him I was ill at ease; that events of a most serious nature were transpiring in the house; that he was concerned in them heavily, grievously; that I could not rest till I had taken him into my confidence, and shown him upon what a precipice he was standing.

He evidently considered me demented, but as he looked at me longer, and noted my steady and unflinching gaze, he gradually turned pale, and uttered, in irrepressible anxiety, the one word—"Honora!"[313]

"Miss Urquhart is well," I began, "and is as ignorant as yourself of the shadows that hover over her. She is all innocence and truth, sir. Honor, candor and purity dwell in her heart, and happiness in her eyes. Yet is that happiness threatened by the worst calamity that can befall a sensitive human being, and if you hold her in esteem—"

"Ma foi!" he broke in, with violent impetuosity. "I do not esteem her; I love her. What are these dreadful secrets? How is her happiness threatened? Tell me without hesitation, for I have entreated her to be my wife, and she—"

"She thinks it is a parent's whim, alone, which keeps her from responding fully to your wishes," I finished. "But madame's objections have deeper ground than that. Miserable woman as she is, she has some idea of honor left. She knew her daughter could not safely marry into a high and noble family, and so—"

"What is this you say?" came again in the quick and hurried tones of despair. "Mrs. Urquhart—"

"Wait," I broke in. "You call her Mrs. Urquhart, but she has no claim to that title. She and Edwin Urquhart have never been married."[314]

He recoiled sharply, with a gesture of complete disbelief.

"How do you know?" he demanded. "They are strangers to you. I have known them in their own home. All the world credits their marriage, and—"

"All the world does not know what transpired in this house sixteen years ago, when Edwin Urquhart stopped here with his bride on his way to France."

He stared, seemed shaken, but presently hastened to remark:

"Ah, madame, you acknowledge that she is his wife. You said bride. One does not call a woman by that name without acknowledging a marriage service."

"The woman he brought here was his bride. Edwin Urquhart is no common criminal, Marquis de la Roche-Guyon."

It was hard to make him understand. It was hard to undermine his trust, step by step, inch by inch, till he found no hope, no shred of doubt to cling to. But it had to be done. If only to avert worse calamities and more heart-rending scenes, he must know at once, and before he took another[315] step in relation to Miss Urquhart, just what her position was, and to what shame and suffering he was subjecting himself by accepting her love and pledging his own.

The task was not done till I had shown him this diary of mine, and related all that had just occurred in the room below. Then, indeed, he seemed to comprehend his position, and completely crushed and horror-stricken, subsided into a dreadful silence before me, the lines of years coming into his face as I watched him, till he became scarcely recognizable for the lordly and light-hearted cavalier whose dreams of love I had so fearfully interrupted some half hour or so before. From this lethargy of despair I did not seek to rouse him. I knew when he had anything to say he would speak, and till he had faced the situation and had made up his mind to his duty, I could wait his decision with perfect confidence in his fine nature and nice sense of honor.

You may, therefore, imagine my feelings when, after a long delay—an hour at least—he suddenly remarked:

"We have been a proud family. From time immemorial we have held ourselves aloof from[316] whatever could be thought to stain our honor or impeach our good name. I cannot drag the unfathomable disgrace of all these crimes into a record so pure as that of the Roche-Guyon race. Though I had wished to bestow upon my wife a name and position of which she could be proud, I must content myself with merely giving her the comfort of a true heart and such support as can be provided by a loving but unaccustomed hand."

"Marquis—" I commenced.

But he cut my words short with a firm and determined gesture.

"My name is Louis de Fontaine," he explained. "Henceforth my cousin will be known as the marquis. It is the least I can do for the old French honor."

'Twas so simply, so determinedly done that I stood aghast as much at the serenity of his manner as the act which required such depth of sacrifice from one of his traditions and rearing.

"Then you continue to consider yourself the suitor of Miss Urquhart," I stammered. "You will marry her, though her parents may be called upon to perish upon the scaffold in an ignominy as great as ever befell two guilty mortals?"[317]

The answer came brokenly, but with unwavering strength:

"Did you not say that she was innocent? Is she to be crushed beneath the guilt of her parents? Am I to take the last prop from one so soon to be bereft of all the supports upon which she has leaned from infancy? If I cling to her, she may live through her horror and shame; but should I fail her—great heavens! would we not have another life to answer for before God? Besides," he added, with the simplicity which marked his whole bearing, "I love her. I could not do otherwise if I would."

To this final word I could make no rejoinder. With a reverence unmingled with the taint of compassion, I took my departure, and being anxious by this time to know how my young charge was bearing her seclusion, I went to the room where I had left her, and softly opened the door.[318]

CHAPTER XXV. MARK FELT

UBJECTED as I have been in the last three hours to distress and turmoil, I was delighted to find mademoiselle asleep, and to behold her peaceful face. Gazing at it, and noting the happy smile which unconsciously lingered on her lips, I could not but feel that, despite the hideous revelations which lay before her, her lot was an enviable one, allied as it promised to be with that of one of such high principles as the marquis. Though I am old now and have had my day, the love of the innocent and pure is sacred to me, and in this case it certainly has the charm of a spotless lily blooming in the jaws of hell.

As it was late and I was almost exhausted, I began to think of rest. But my uneasiness in re[319]gard to madame would not let me sleep till I had made another visit to her room. So, leaving the gentle sleeper lapped in serenest dreams, I proceeded to descend once more. As I passed the great clock on the stairs, I noticed that it was almost midnight and began to hasten my steps, when I heard a loud knock at the front door.

This is not an infrequent sound with us, but it greatly startled me this night. I even remember pausing and looking helplessly up and down the hall, as if it were a question whether I should obey the unwelcome summons. But such knocking as speedily followed could not be long ignored. So, subduing my impatience, I hastened to the door, and unlocking it, threw it open. A gust of rain and wind greeted me.

This was my first surprise, for I had not even noticed that the weather was unpleasant, so completely had I been absorbed by what had been going on in the house. My next was the bearing and appearance of the stranger who demanded my hospitality. For though both face and form were unknown to me, there was that in his aspect which stirred recollections not out of keeping with the unhappy subject then occupying all my[320] thoughts. Yet I could not speak his name, or put into words the anticipations that vaguely agitated me, and led him through the hall and into the comfortable sitting room so lately vacated by the marquis, with no more distinct impression in my mind than that something was about to happen which would complete rather than interrupt the horrors of this eventful night.

And when the light fell full upon him, and I could see his eager eyes, this feeling increased, and no sooner had his cloak fallen from his shoulders and his hat left his head, than I recognized the prominent jaw and earnest face, and putting no curb on my impetuosity, I exclaimed at once, and without a doubt:

"Mr. Felt!"

The utterance of this name seemed to cause no surprise to my new guest.

"The same," he replied; "and you are Mrs. Truax, of course. Mr. Tamworth has described you to me, also this inn, till I feel as if I knew its every stone. I did not wish to visit it, but I could not help myself. An unknown influence has been drawing me here for days, and though I resisted it with all my strength, it finally became so[321] powerful that I rose from my bed at night, saddled my horse, and started in this direction. I have been twenty hours on the road, but part of these I have spent in the thicket just over against you on the opposite side of the road. For the sight of the house awakened in my mind such a disturbance that I feared to show myself at the door. A voice out of the air seemed to cry, 'Not yet! not yet!' Nevertheless I could not go back nor leave the spot, which, once seen, possessed for me a fatal fascination."

I was speechless. Good God! were the old psychological influences at work, and had they acted upon him at forty miles distance?

"You come from Albany?" I at last stammered forth. "You must have had a wet time of it; it storms heavily, I see."

"Storms?" he repeated, glancing at the cloak he had thrown off. "Great Heaven! my cloak is saturated, and I did not even know it rained. A touch of the old spell," he murmured. "Something is about to happen to me; something has drawn me with purpose to this house."

I felt awe-struck. Would he guess next what that something was?[322]

"At eleven o'clock," he went on, with the abstracted air of one recalling an experience, "I felt a pang shoot through my breast. I had been looking steadfastly at these walls, and somewhere about the building a light seemed to go out, for a pall of darkness suddenly settled upon it, simultaneously with the cessation of that imaginary cry which had hitherto detained me. Where was that light, Mrs. Truax, and what has happened here that I should feel myself called upon to cross this threshold to-night?"

I did not answer at once, for I was trembling. Was I to be subjected to another such an ordeal as I had experienced earlier in the evening and be forced to prepare, by such means as lay in my power, a much abused man for a most dreadful revelation? It began to look so.

"What has called me here?" he repeated. "Danger to her or death to him? They are thousands of miles away, and Tamworth could not have yet reached them, but peril of some deadly nature menaces them, I know. A stroke has gone home to him or her, and it is in this place I am to learn it; is it not so, Mrs. Truax?"

"Perhaps," I tremblingly assented. "There is[323] a gentleman here from France who may be able to tell you something of the man and the woman you mean. Would it affect you very much to hear disastrous news of them?"

"I cannot say," he answered; "it should not. Mr. Tamworth tells me that he has acquainted you with the story of my life. Do you think I should feel overwhelmed at any retribution following a crime that was committed almost as much against me as against the pure and noble being who was the visible sufferer?"

"I shrink from answering," I returned; "the human heart is a curious thing. If he alone were to suffer—"

"Ah, he!" was the bitter ejaculation.

"Or if she," I proceeded, "were bound by no ties appealing to the sympathies! But she is a mother—"

"Good God!"

I had not thought it would affect him so, and stood appalled.

"A mother!" he repeated; "she! she! the tigress, the heartless one, with no more soul than the naked dagger I should have plunged into her breast and did not! Great Heaven! and this[324] child has lived, I suppose; is grown up and—and—"

"Is the sweetest, purest, most unworldly of beautiful women that these eyes have ever rested upon."

I thought he would spring upon me, he leaned forward with so much impetuosity.

"How do you know?" he asked, and my heart stood still at the question.

"Because I have seen her," I presently rejoined. "Because I have had opportunities for studying her heart. She is called Honora, and she is like Miss Dudleigh, only more beautiful and with more claims to what is called character."

He did not seem to take in my words.

"You have been to France?" he declared.

"No," I corrected; "Miss Urquhart has been here."

He fell back, then started forward again, opened his lips and stared wildly, half fearfully about the room.

"Here?" he repeated, evidently overcome at the idea. "Why did they send her here? I should as soon have expected them to send her into the murk of the bottomless pit. A girl, an innocent girl, you say, and sent here?"[325]

"They had reason; besides, she did not come alone."

This time he understood me.

"Oh!" he shrieked, "she in the house. I might have known it," he went on more calmly; "I did, only I would not believe it. Her crime has drawn her to the place of its perpetration. She could not resist the magnetic influence which all places of blood have upon the guilty. She has come back! And he?"

I shook my head.

"The man had less courage," I declared. "Perhaps because he was more guilty; perhaps because he had less love."

"Love?"

"It was love for the daughter which drew the mother here, not the spell of her crime or the accusing spirit of the dead. The woman who wronged you has some heart; she was willing to risk detection, and with it her reputation and life, to see if by any possibility she could venture to give happiness to the one being whom she really loves."

"Explain; I do not understand. How could she hope to find happiness for her child here?"[326]

"By settling the question which evidently tortured her. By determining once for all whether the crime of sixteen years back had ever been discovered, and if she found it had not, to satisfy at once her own pride and her daughter's heart by giving that daughter to as noble a gentleman as ever carried a sword."

"And they are here now?"

"They are here."

"And she has discovered—"

"The futility of all her hopes."

He drew back, and his heavy breath echoed in deep pants through the room.

"What an end for Marah Leighton!" he gasped.

"What an end! And she is here!" he went on, after a moment of silent emotion—"under this roof! No wonder I felt myself called hither. And she knows her crime is detected? How came she to know this? Did you recognize her and tell her?"

"I recognized her and told her. There was no other course. We met in the secret chamber, whither she had come to make her own terrible investigations; and the sight of her there, on the spot where she had left the innocent to die, was[327] too much for my sense of justice. I accused her to her face, and she crouched before me as under the lash. There was no possibility of denial after that, and she now lies—"

"Wait!" he cried, catching me painfully by the arm. "When was this day? To-day—to-night?"

"Not two hours ago."

His brow took on a look of awe.

"You see," he murmured, "she has power over me yet. When her hope broke, something snapped within me here. I abhor her, but I feel her grief. She was once all the world to me."

I recognized his right to emotion, and did not profane it by any words of mine. Instead of that I sought to leave him, but he would not let me go till he had asked me another question.

"And the daughter?" he urged. "Does she know of the opprobrium which must fall upon her head?"

"She sleeps," I replied, "with a smile of the shyest delight upon her lips. Her lover has followed her to this place, and the last words she heard to-night were those of his devotion. Her suffering must come to-morrow; yet it will be mitigated, for he will not forsake her, whatever[328] shame may follow his loyalty. I have his word for that."

"Then the earth holds two lovers," was Mark Felt's rejoinder. "I thought it held but one." And with a sigh he let go my arm and turned to the window, with its background of driving rain and pitiless flashes of lightning.

I took the opportunity to excuse myself for a few minutes, and hurrying again into the hall, hastened, with nervous fear and an agitation greatly heightened by the unexpected interview I had just been through, to the now oft-opened door leading into the oak parlor.

I found it closed but not locked, and pushing it open, listened for a moment, then took a glance within. All was quiet and ghostly. A single candle guttering on the table at one end of the room lent a partial light by which I could discern the funereal bed and the other heavy and desolate-looking articles of furniture with which the room was encumbered. Honora's flowers, withering on the window seat, spoke of tender hopes not yet vanished from her tender dreams, but elsewhere all was hard, all was dreary, all was inexorably forbidding and cold. I shuddered as I[329] looked, and shuddered still more as I approached the bed and paused firmly before it.

"Madame Letellier"—it was the only name by which I could bring myself to address her at that instant—"there is one gleam of brightness in your sky. The marquis knows the story of your guilt, yet consents to marry your daughter."

I received no reply.

Shaken by fresh doubts, and moved by an inexplicable terror, I stood still for a moment gathering up my strength, then I repeated my words, this time with sharp emphasis and scarcely concealed importunity.

"Madame," said I, "the marquis knows your guilt, yet consents to marry your daughter."

But the silence within remained unbroken, and not a movement displaced the somber falling curtains.

Agitated beyond endurance, I stretched forth my hands and drew those curtains aside. An unexpected sight met my eyes. There was no madame there; the bed was empty.[330]

CHAPTER XXVI. FOR THE LAST TIME

My eyes turned immediately in the direction of the secret chamber. Its entrance was closed, but I knew she was hidden there as well as if the door had been open and I had seen her.

What should I do? For a moment I hesitated, then I rushed from the room and hastened back to Mr. Felt. I found him standing with his face to the door, eagerly awaiting my return.

"What has happened?" he asked, importunately. "Your face is as pale as death."

"Because death is in the house. Madame—"

"Ah!"

"Lies not in her bed, nor is she to be found in her room. There is another place, however, in which instinct tells me we shall find her, and if we do, we shall find her dead!"

"In her daughter's room? At her daughter's bedside?"

"No; in the secret chamber."

He gazed at me with wild and haggard aspect.[331]

"You are right," he hoarsely assented. "Let us go; let us seek her; it may not be too late."

The entrance to this hidden room was closed, as I have said, and as I had never assisted at its opening, I did not know where to find the hidden spring by means of which the panel was moved. We had, therefore, to endure minutes of suspense while Mr. Felt fumbled at the wainscoting. The candle I held shook with my agitation, and though I had heard nothing of the storm before, it seemed now as if every gust which came swooping down upon the house tore its way through my shrinking consciousness with a force and menace that scattered the last remnant of self-possession. Not an instant in the whole terrible day had been more frightful to me, no, not the moment when I first heard the sliding of this very panel and the sound of her crawling form approaching me through the darkness. The vivid flashes of lightning that shot every now and then through the cracks of the closely shuttered window, making a skeleton of its framework, added not a little to its terror, there being no other light in the room save that and the flickering, almost dying flame, with which I strove to aid Mr. Felt's endeavors and only suc[332]ceeded in lighting up his anxious and heavily bedewed forehead.

"Oh, oh!" was my moan; "this is terrible! Let us quit it or go around to my own room, where there is an open door."

But he did not hear me. His efforts had become frantic, and he tore at the wainscoting as if he would force it open by main strength.

"You cannot reach her that way," I declared. "Perhaps my hand may be more skillful. Let me try."

But he only increased his efforts. "I am coming, Marah; I am coming!" he called, and at once, as if guided by some angel's touch, his fingers slipped upon the spring. Immediately it yielded, and the opening so eagerly sought for was made.

"Go in," he gasped, "go in."

And so it was that the fate which had forced me against my will, and in despite of such intense shrinking, to pass so frequently into that hideous spot, where death held its revel and Nemesis awaited her victim, drove me thither once again, and, as I now hope, for the last time. For, there upon the floor, and almost in the same spot where we had found lying the remains of innocent[333] Honora Urquhart, we saw, as my premonition had told me we should, the outstretched form of the unhappy being who had usurped her place in life, and now, in retribution of that act, had laid her head down upon the same couch in death. She was pulseless and quite cold. Upon her mouth her left hand lay pressed, as if, with her last breath, she sought to absorb the pure kiss which had been left there by the daughter she so much loved.[334]

CHAPTER XXVII. A LAST WORD

Did Marah Leighton will the coming of her old lover to my inn on that fatal night? That is the question I asked, when, with the first breaking of the morning light, I discovered lying on the table under an empty phial, a letter addressed, not to her husband, nor to her child, but to him, Mark Felt. It is a question that will never be answered, but I know that he comforts himself with the supposition, and allows the trembling hope to pass, at times, across his troubled spirit, that in the bitterness of those last hours some touch of the divine mercy may have moved her soul and made her fitter for his memory to dwell upon.

The letter I afterward read. It was as follows:

TO THE MAN WHO GAVE ALL, BORE ALL, AND REAPED NOTHING BUT SUFFERING:

I am not worthy to write you, even with the prospect of death before me. But an influence I do not care to combat drives me to make you, of all men, the confidant of my remorse.

I did not perish sixteen years ago in the Hud[335]son River. I lived to share in and profit by a crime that has left an indelible stain upon my life and an ineffaceable darkness within my soul. You know, or soon will know, what that crime was and how we prospered in it. Daring as it was dreadful, I heard its fearful details planned by his lips, without a shudder, because I was mad in those days, mad for wealth, mad for power, mad for adventure. The only madness I did not feel was love. This I say to comfort a pride that must have been sorely wounded in those days, as sorely wounded as your heart.

Edwin Urquhart could make my eyes shine and my blood run swiftly, but not so swiftly as to make me break my troth with you, had he not sworn to me that through him I should gain what moved me more than any man's love. How he was to accomplish this I could not see in the beginning, and was so little credulous of his being able to keep his oaths that I let myself be drawn by you almost to the church door.

But I got no further. There in the crowd he stood with a command in his eyes which forbade any further advance. Though I comprehended nothing then, I obeyed his look and went back, for my heart was not in any marriage, and it was in the hopes to which his looks seemed to point. Later he told me what those hopes were. He had been down to Long Island, and, while there, had chanced to hear in some tavern of the Happy-Go-Lucky Inn and its secret chamber, and he saw, or thought he saw, how he could make me his without losing the benefit of an alliance with Miss Dudleigh. And I thought I saw also, and entered into his plans, though they comprised crime and entailed horrors[336] upon me from which woman naturally shrinks. I was hard as the nether millstone of which the Bible speaks, and went determinedly on in the path of dissimulation and crime which had been marked out for me, till we came to this inn. Then, owing, perhaps, to my long imprisonment in the dreadful box, I began to feel qualms of physical fear and such harrowing mental forebodings that more than once during that terrible evening I came near shouting for release.

But I was held back by apprehensions as great as any from which a premature release from my place of hiding could have freed me. I dared not face Honora, and I dared not subject Edwin Urquhart to the consequences of a public recognition of our perfidy, and so I let my opportunity go by, and became the sharer, as I was already the instigator, of the unheard-of crime by which I became, in the eyes of the world, his wife.

What I suffered during its perpetration no word of mine can convey. I cringed to her moans; I shook under the blow that stifled them. And when all was over, and the bolts which confined me were shot back, and I found myself once more on my feet and in the free air of this most horrible of rooms, I looked about, not for him, but her, and when I did not see her or any token of her death, I was seized by such an agony of revulsion that I uttered a great and irrepressible cry which filled the house, and brought more than one startled inquirer to our door.

For retribution and remorse were already busy within me, and in the lurking shadows about the fireplace I thought I saw the long and narrow slit made by the half-closed panel standing open[337] between me and the secret place of her entombment. And though it was but an optical delusion, the panel being really closed, it might as well have been the truth, for I have never been able to rid myself of the sight of that chimerical strip of darkness, with its suggestions of guilt and death. It haunted my vision; it ruined my life; it destroyed my peace. If I shut my eyes at night, it opened before me. If I arrayed myself in jewels and rich raiment, and paused to take but a passing look at myself in the glass, this horror immediately came between me and my own image, blotting the vision of wealth from my eyes; so that I went into the homes of the noble or the courts of the king a clouded, miserable thing, seeing nothing but that black and narrow slit closing upon youth and beauty and innocence forever and forever and forever.

My child came. Ah! that I should have to mention her here! I do it in penance; I do it in despair; since with her my heart woke, and for her that heart is now broken, never to be healed again. Oh, if the knowledge of my misery wakens in you one thought that is not of revenge, cast a pitying eye upon this darling one, left in a hateful country without friends, without lover, without means. For friends and lover and means will all leave her with the revelations which the morning will bring, and unless Heaven is merciful to her innocence as it has been just to my guilt, she will have no other goal before her than that which has opened its refuge to me.

As for her father, let Heaven deal with him. He gave me this darling child; so I may not curse him, even if I cannot bless.

MARAH.

[338]

OCTOBER 23, 1791.

I have seen one bright thing to-day, and that was the faint and almost unearthly gleam which shot for a moment from beneath Honora's falling lids as I told her what love was and how the marquis only awaited her permission to speak to assure her of his boundless affection and his undying purpose to be true to her even to the point of assuming her griefs and taking upon himself the protection of her innocence.

If it had not been for this, I should have felt that the world was too dark to remain in, and life too horrible to be endured.

NOVEMBER 30, 1791.

I thought that when Honora Urquhart left my house to be married to M. De Fontaine, in the church below the hill, peace would return to us once more.

But there is no peace. This morning another horrible tragedy defiled my doorstep.

I was sitting in the open porch waiting for the mail coach, for it seemed to me that it was about time I received some word from Mr. Tamworth. It was yet some minutes before the time when the[339] rumble of the coach is usually heard, and I was brooding, as was natural, over the more than terrible occurrences of the last few weeks, when I heard the clatter of horses' hoofs, and looking up and down the road, saw a small party of men approaching from the south. As they came nearer, I noticed that one of the riders was white-haired and presumably aged, and was interesting myself in him, when he came near enough for me to distinguish his features, and I perceived it was no other than Mr. Tamworth.

Rising in perturbation, I glanced at the men behind and abreast of him, and saw that one of these rode with lowered head and oppressed mien, and was just about to give that person a name in my mind when the horse he bestrode suddenly reared, bolted, and dashed forward to where I sat, flinging his rider at the very threshold of my house, where he lay senseless as the stone upon which his head had fallen.

For an instant both his companions and myself paused aghast at a sight so terrible and bewildering; then, amid cries from the road and one wild shriek from within, I rushed forward, and turning over the head, looked upon the face of the fallen[340] man. It was not a new one to me. Though changed and seamed and white now in death, I recognized it at once. It was that of Edwin Urquhart.

. . . . . . . . .

This noon I took down the sign which has swung for twenty years over my front door. "Happy-Go-Lucky" is scarcely the name for an inn accursed by so many horrors.

FEBRUARY 3, 1792.

This week I have fulfilled the threat of years ago. I have had the oak parlor and its hideous adjunct torn from my house.

Now, perhaps, I can sleep.

MARCH 16.

News from Honora. The distant relative who succeeded to the estates and the title of the Marquis de la Roche-Guyon has fallen a victim to the guillotine. Would this have been the fate of Honora's husband had he forsaken her and returned home? There is reason to believe it. At all events, she finds herself greatly comforted by this news for the sacrifice which her husband[341] made to his love, and no longer regrets the exile to which he has been forced to submit for her sake. Wonderful, wonderful Providence! I view its workings with renewed awe every day.

SEPTEMBER 5, 1795.

I have been from home. I have been on a visit to New York. I have tasted of change, of brightness, of free and cheerful living, and I can settle down now in this old and fast-decaying inn with something else to think about than ruin and fearful retribution.

I have been visiting Madame De Fontaine. She wished me to come, I think, that I might see how amply her married life had fulfilled the promise of her courtship days. Though she and her noble husband live in peaceful retirement, and without many of the appurtenances of wealth, they find such resources of delight in each other's companionship that it would be hard for the most exacting witness of their mutual felicity to wish them any different fate, or to desire for them any wider field of social influence.

The marquis—I shall always call him thus—has found a friend in General Washington, and though[342] he is never seen at the President's receptions, or mingles his voice in the councils of his adopted country, there are evidences constantly appearing of the confidence reposed in him by this great man, which cannot but add to the exile's contentment and satisfaction.

Honora has developed into a grand beauty. The melancholy which her unhappy memories have necessarily infused into her countenance have given depth to her expression, which was always sweet, and frequently touching. She looks like a queen, but like a queen who has known not only grief, but love. There is nothing of despair in her glance, rather a lofty hope, and when her affections are touched, or her enthusiasm roused, she smiles with such a heavenly brightness in her countenance, that I think there is no fairer woman in the world, as I am assured there is none worthier.

Her husband agrees with me in this opinion, and is so happy that she said to me one day:

"I sometimes wonder how my heart succeeds in holding the joy which Heaven has seen fit to grant me. In it I read the forgiveness of God for the unutterable sins of my parents; and though[343] the shadows will come, and do come, whenever I think upon the past, or see a face which, like yours, recalls memories as bitter as ever overwhelmed an innocent girl in her first youth, I find that with every year of love and peaceful living the darkness grows less, as if, somewhere in the boundless heavens, the mercy of God was making itself felt in the heart of her who once called herself my mother."

And hearing her speak thus, I felt my own breast lose something of the oppression which had hitherto weighed it down. And as the days passed, and I experienced more and more of the true peace that comes with perfect love and perfect trust, I found my tears turned to rejoicing and the story of my regrets into songs of hope.

And so I have come back comforted and at rest. If there are yet ghosts haunting the old inn, I do not see them, and though its walls are dismantled, its custom gone, and its renown a thing of the past, I can still sit on its grass-grown doorstep and roam through its fast-decaying corridors without discovering any blacker shadow following in my wake than that of my own figure, bent now with age, and only held upright by the firmness of the[344] little cane with which I strive to give aid to my tottering and uncertain steps.

The grace of God has fallen at last upon the Happy-Go-Lucky Inn.

[345]

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"Figuring in the pages of this story there are several strong characters. Typical New England folk and an especially sturdy one, old Cy Walker, through whose instrumentality Chip comes to happiness and fortune. There is a chain of comedy, tragedy, pathos and love, which makes a dramatic story."—Boston Herald.

THE LION AND THE MOUSE. A story of American Life. By Charles Klein, and Arthur Hornblow. With illustrations by Stuart Travis, and Scenes from the Play.

The novel duplicated the success of the play; in fact the book is greater than the play. A portentous clash of dominant personalities that form the essence of the play are necessarily touched upon but briefly in the short space of four acts. All this is narrated in the novel with a wealth of fascinating and absorbing detail, making it one of the most powerfully written and exciting works of fiction given to the world in years.

[346]

THE AFFAIR AT THE INN. By Kate Douglas Wiggin. With illustrations by Martin Justice.

"As superlatively clever in the writing as it is entertaining in the reading. It is actual comedy of the most artistic sort, and it is handled with a freshness and originality that is unquestionably novel."—Boston Transcript. "A feast of humor and good cheer, yet subtly pervaded by special shades of feeling, fancy, tenderness, or whimsicality. A merry thing in prose."—St. Louis Democrat.

ROSE O' THE RIVER. By Kate Douglas Wiggin. With illustrations by George Wright.

"'Rose o' the River,' a charming bit of sentiment, gracefully written and deftly touched with a gentle humor. It is a dainty book—daintily illustrated."—New York Tribune. "A wholesome, bright, refreshing story, an ideal book to give a young girl."—Chicago Record-Herald. "An idyllic story, replete with pathos and inimitable humor. As story-telling it is perfection, and as portrait-painting it is true to the life."—London Mail.

TILLIE: A Mennonite Maid. By Helen R. Martin. With illustrations by Florence Scovel Shinn.

The little "Mennonite Maid" who wanders through these pages is something quite new in fiction. Tillie is hungry for books and beauty and love; and she comes into her inheritance at the end. "Tillie is faulty, sensitive, big-hearted, eminently human, and first, last and always lovable. Her charm glows warmly, the story is well handled, the characters skilfully developed."—The Book Buyer.

LADY ROSE'S DAUGHTER. By Mrs. Humphry Ward. With illustrations by Howard Chandler Christy.

"The most marvellous work of its wonderful author."—New York World. "We touch regions and attain altitudes which it is not given to the ordinary novelist even to approach."—London Times. "In no other story has Mrs. Ward approached the brilliancy and vivacity of Lady Rose's Daughter."—North American Review.

THE BANKER AND THE BEAR. By Henry K. Webster.

"An exciting and absorbing story."—New York Times. "Intensely thrilling in parts, but an unusually good story all through. There is a love affair of real charm and most novel surroundings, there is a run on the bank which is almost worth a year's growth, and there is all manner of exhilarating men and deeds which should bring the book into high and permanent favor."—Chicago Evening Post.

[347]

LAVENDER AND OLD LACE. By Myrtle Reed.

A charming story of a quaint corner of New England where bygone romance finds a modern parallel. One of the prettiest, sweetest, and quaintest of old-fashioned love stories * * * A rare book, exquisite in spirit and conception, full of delicate fancy, of tenderness, of delightful humor and spontaneity. A dainty volume, especially suitable for a gift.

DOCTOR LUKE OF THE LABRADOR. By Norman Duncan. With a frontispiece and inlay cover.

How the doctor came to the bleak Labrador coast and there in saving life made expiation. In dignity, simplicity, humor, in sympathetic etching of a sturdy fisher people, and above all in the echoes of the sea, Doctor Luke is worthy of great praise. Character, humor, poignant pathos, and the sad grotesque conjunctions of old and new civilizations are expressed through the medium of a style that has distinction and strikes a note of rare personality.

THE DAY'S WORK. By Rudyard Kipling. Illustrated.

The London Morning Post says: "It would be hard to find better reading * * * the book is so varied, so full of color and life from end to end, that few who read the first two or three stories will lay it down till they have read the last—and the last is a veritable gem * * * contains some of the best of his highly vivid work * * * Kipling is a born story-teller and a man of humor into the bargain.

ELEANOR LEE. By Margaret E. Sangster. With a frontispiece.

A story of married life, and attractive picture of wedded bliss * * * an entertaining story of a man's redemption through a woman's love * * * no one who knows anything of marriage or parenthood can read this story with eyes that are always dry * * * goes straight to the heart of every one who knows the meaning of "love" and "home."

THE COLONEL OF THE RED HUZZARS. By John Reed Scott. Illustrated by Clarence F. Underwood.

"Full of absorbing charm, sustained interest, and a wealth of thrilling and romantic situations. So naively fresh in its handling, so plausible through its naturalness, that it comes like a mountain breeze across the far-spreading desert of similar romances."—Gazette-Times, Pittsburg. "A slap-dashing day romance."—New York Sun.

[348]

THE FAIR GOD; OR, THE LAST OF THE TZINS. By Lew Wallace. With illustrations by Eric Pape.

"The story tells of the love of a native princess for Alvarado, and it is worked out with all of Wallace's skill * * * it gives a fine picture of the heroism of the Spanish conquerors and of the culture and nobility of the Aztecs."—New York Commercial Advertiser.

"Ben Hur sold enormously, but The Fair God was the best of the General's stories—a powerful and romantic treatment of the defeat of Montezuma by Cortes."—Athenæum.

THE CAPTAIN OF THE KANSAS. By Louis Tracy.

A story of love and the salt sea—of a helpless ship whirled into the hands of cannibal Fuegians—of desperate fighting and tender romance, enhanced by the art of a master of story telling who describes with his wonted felicity and power of holding the reader's attention * * * filled with the swing of adventure.

A MIDNIGHT GUEST. A Detective Story. By Fred M. White. With a frontispiece.

The scene of the story centers in London and Italy. The book is skilfully written and makes one of the most baffling, mystifying, exciting detective stories ever written—cleverly keeping the suspense and mystery intact until the surprising discoveries which precede the end.

THE HONOUR OF SAVELLI. A Romance. By S. Levett Yeats. With cover and wrapper in four colors.

Those who enjoyed Stanley Weyman's A Gentleman of France will be engrossed and captivated by this delightful romance of Italian history. It is replete with exciting episodes, hair-breadth escapes, magnificent sword-play, and deals with the agitating times in Italian history when Alexander II was Pope and the famous and infamous Borgias were tottering to their fall.

SISTER CARRIE. By Theodore Drieser. With a frontispiece, and wrapper in color.

In all fiction there is probably no more graphic and poignant study of the way in which man loses his grip on life, lets his pride, his courage, his self-respect slip from him, and, finally, even ceases to struggle in the mire that has engulfed him. * * * There is more tonic value in Sister Carrie than in a whole shelfful of sermons.

[349]

THE SHUTTLE, By Frances Hodgson Burnett

With inlay cover in colors by Clarence F. Underwood.

This great international romance relates the story of an American girl who, in rescuing her sister from the ruins of her marriage to an Englishman of title, displays splendid qualities of courage, tact and restraint. As a study of American womanhood of modern times, the character of Bettina Vanderpoel stands alone in literature. As a love story, the account of her experience is magnificent. The masterly handling, the glowing style of the book, give it a literary rank to which very few modern novels have attained.

THE MAKING OF A MARCHIONESS,

By Frances Hodgson Burnett

Illustrated with half tone engravings by Charles D. Williams. With initial letters, tail-pieces, decorative borders. Beautifully printed, and daintily bound, and boxed.

A delightful novel in the author's most charming vein. The scene is laid in an English country house, where an amiable English nobleman is the centre of matrimonial interest on the part of both the English and Americans present.

Graceful, sprightly, almost delicious in its dialogue and action. It is a book about which one is tempted to write ecstatically.

THE METHODS OF LADY WALDERHURST,

By Francis Hodgson Burnett

A Companion Volume to "The Making of a Marchioness."

With illustrations by Charles D. Williams, and with initial letters, tail-pieces, and borders, by A. K. Womrath. Beautifully printed and daintily bound, and boxed.

"The Methods of Lady Walderhurst" is a delightful story which combines the sweetness of "The Making of a Marchioness," with the dramatic qualities of "A Lady of Quality." Lady Walderhurst is one of the most charming characters in modern fiction.

VAYENNE, By Percy Brebner
With illustrations by E. Fuhr.

This romance like the author's The Princess Maritza is charged to the brim with adventure. Sword play, bloodshed, justice grown the multitude, sacrifice, and romance, mingle in dramatic episodes that are born, flourish, and pass away on every page.

[350]

DARREL OF THE BLESSED ISLES. By Irving Bacheller. With illustrations by Arthur Keller.

"Darrel, the clock tinker, is a wit, philosopher, and man of mystery. Learned, strong, kindly, dignified, he towers like a giant above the people among whom he lives. It is another tale of the North Country, full of the odor of wood and field. Wit, humor, pathos and high thinking are in this book."—Boston Transcript.

D'RI AND I: A Tale of Daring Deeds in the Second War with the British. Being the Memoirs of Colonel Ramon Bell, U. S. A. By Irving Bacheller. With illustrations by F. C. Yohn.

"Mr. Bacheller is admirable alike in his scenes of peace and war. D'ri, a mighty hunter, has the same dry humor as Uncle Eb. He fights magnificently on the 'Lawrence,' and was among the wounded when Perry went to the 'Niagara.' As a romance of early American history it is great for the enthusiasm it creates."—New York Times.

EBEN HOLDEN: A Tale of the North Country. By Irving Bacheller.

"As pure as water and as good as bread," says Mr. Howells. "Read 'Eben Holden'" is the advice of Margaret Sangster. "It is a forest-scented, fresh-aired, bracing and wholly American story of country and town life. * * * If in the far future our successors wish to know what were the real life and atmosphere in which the country folk that saved this nation grew, loved, wrought and had their being, they must go back to such true and zestful and poetic tales of 'fiction' as 'Eben Holden,'" says Edmund Clarence Stedman.

SILAS STRONG: Emperor of the Woods. By Irving Bacheller. With a frontispiece.

"A modern Leatherstocking. Brings the city dweller the aroma of the pine and the music of the wind in its blanches—an epic poem * * * forest-scented, fresh-aired, and wholly American. A stronger character than Eben Holden."—Chicago Record-Herald.

VERGILIUS: A Tale of the Coming of Christ. By Irving Bacheller.

A thrilling and beautiful story of two young Roman patricians whose great and perilous love in the reign of Augustus leads them through the momentous, exciting events that marked the year just preceding the birth of Christ.

Splendid character studies of the Emperor Augustus, of Herod and his degenerate son, Antipater, and of his daughter "the incomparable" Salome. A great triumph in the art of historical portrait painting.

GROSSET & DUNLAP, - NEW YORK

Transcriber's Notes:

Obvious punctuation errors repaired.

Variations in page numbering are due to placement of illustrations and blank pages occurring in the original text.

The original text had some printing errors resulting in repeated and missing text. The orginal text is preserved here:

Original text from page 139:

deceit where I had looked for honesty and gratitude.'
the result of a compact entered into with the despicable Urquhart, who, if he could not have her grasp at this wisp of hope and cling to it, though I knew it would never hold, and that her only chance for happiness was passing from her.

Original text from page 177:

almost overwhelmed it.

"For to me her death--if she were dead--was

"I was a coward, perhaps, but I did not try to dissuade her. Though she was fatherless and motherless, and loverless and friendless, I let her for himself, was willing she should go where no

The remaining corrections made are indicated by dotted lines under the corrections. Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text will appear.

ELEVEN POSSIBLE CASES.

FRANK R. STOCKTON, FRANKLIN FYLES, JOAQUIN MILLER, MAURICE THOMPSON, INGERSOLL LOCKWOOD, EDGAR FAWCETT, BRAINARD GARDNER SMITH, KIRKE MUNROE, NYM CRINKLE, ANNA KATHERINE GREEN, AND Q.

CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED:
LONDON, PARIS & MELBOURNE.
1891.

[ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.]

THE ONLY GIRL AT OVERLOOK.

BY FRANKLIN FYLES.

CHAPTER I.

Two names were used for the only girl at Overlook. In addressing her, the men of the place always said "Miss Warriner." In mentioning her, they often said "Mary Mite." The reason for this distinctive difference was revealed by the sight of Miss Mary Warriner herself, as she sat on a high stool behind a rude desk, under a roughly-boarded shelter, and with rapid fingers clicked the key of a telegraphic instrument. There was a perfect poise of quiet self-possession which would have been very impressive dignity in an older and bigger person, and which, although here limited by eighteen years and one hundred pounds, still made a demand for respectful treatment. Therefore the men, when in her presence, never felt like calling her anything else than "Miss Warriner." If she had been less like a stately damsel in miniature, and more like such a child as she was in size only; if her employment had been something not so near to science as that of telegraphy, and not so far off from juvenile simplicity; if her brown hair had been loosely curled, instead of closely coiled, and if her skirts had stopped at her ankles instead of reaching to her feet, then she might have been nicknamed "Mary Mite" within her own hearing, as she was beyond it, by those who described her smallness in a sobriquet. There may have been a variance of opinion among those dwellers at Overlook who had made any estimate of her composure, but if there was one who believed that she merely assumed a reserve of manner because she was among two hundred men, he had not yet tried his chances of exceptional acquaintance.

Overlook was crude and temporary. The inhabitants were making a roadbed for a new railway at a spot where the job was extraordinary, requiring an uncommonly large proportion of brain to brawn in the work. Those who were mental laborers in the remarkable feat of engineering, or were at least bosses of the physical toil, were the ones who had errands at the telegraphic shed, and for whom Mary sent and received messages over the wires. The isolated colony of workers was one hundred miles deep in a wilderness of mountain and forest, but not as many seconds distant, measured by the time necessary for electrical communication from the construction company's headquarters in a great city.

"Must you wait for an answer?" Mary said, as she clicked the last word of a message. "It's an hour since your first telegram went, and they seem in no hurry to reply."

Polite indifference, and nothing else, was in her clear, gentle voice. There was neither boldness nor shyness in the eyes that opened wide and blue, as she lifted them from the paper to the man whom she questioned. There was no more of a smile than of a pout on the mouth that worded the inquiry. She did not indicate the faintest interest as to whether he went or stayed, although she did suggest that he might as well go.

"I'd rather lounge here, if you don't mind," was Gerald Heath's answer.

Here the alertness of the placid girl was faintly shown by a quick glance, but it was so furtive that the subject of her wariness did not know his face was being scrutinized; and she was quickly convinced that she was not the cause of his remaining, for he said: "I'll tell you why I'm anxious about the telegram, and in a hurry to get it."

Gerald Heath had been lazily leaning against the makeshift desk of the telegrapher, as he waited, and for pastime had whittled the smooth birch sapling that formed its outer edge. He had chipped and shaved, after the manner of those to whom a sharp pocket knife and a piece of wood provide a solace. There had been no conversation, except a few words concerning the messages. But now he heightened himself to six feet by standing erect, and took on the outlines of a magnificent physique. His proportions had not been realized before by the girl at the other side of the counter. She comprehended, too, that if his somewhat unkempt condition were changed to one which included a face cleaned of stubbed beard, a suit of modish clothes to replace the half-worn corduroys, and the shine of a silk hat and polished boots at his now dusty extremities, he would become a young gentleman whose disregard might be an appreciable slight. That was the conclusion which she reached without any visible sign that her careless eyes were conveying any sort of impression to her mind. As it was, he looked an unusually burly specimen of the men to whom isolation from city life had imparted an aspect of barbarians. Before he had uttered another word she realized that he was wholly engrossed in the matter of his telegrams, and had no thought of the individuality of the listener. Not only was she not the thing that made him wait, but she might as well have been old, ugly, or a man, if only she had ears to hear.

It was a summer afternoon, and the clear, balmy weather was seasonable. The removal of protective canvas had left the structure an open shed, over the front of which hung the boughs of the two trees against whose massive trunks it leaned. Gerald Heath reached up with both hands and held the foliage aside.

"Do you get an unobstructed view?" he said. "Now, I've helped lay out railroads through many a place, where it was a shame to let trains go faster than a mile a day. I've surveyed routes that ought to provide special trains for passengers with eyes in their heads—trains with speed graduated between sixty miles an hour and sixty hours a mile. It is an outrage on nature and art that travelers should ever be whisked past Overlook without a good chance to see what we're looking at. That's why I wrote to the president of the company a month ago, telling him how a slight deviation from the surveyed line would enable passengers to get what's in our view now. He asked how much the line would be lengthened by my plan. 'A hundred yards,' I answered. And I submitted a map, showing how the tracks, after coming out from the tunnel, might make a small detour to this very spot, instead of going behind a mass of rocks that will completely hide this——" and a comprehensive gesture of one arm followed his sweep of vision.

Places that get their names on impulse are apt to have appropriate ones. Camps of railway makers in a hitherto unbroken country are not often miscalled. An ensuing town on the same site may be unmeaningly named as a permanency, but the inspirations that afford transient nomenclature are usually descriptive. It was so in the case of Overlook. The railway tunneled through the mountain, and emerged at a height of 1000 feet above a wide valley. Mary had daily, and all day long, sat overlooking the prospect. It had astonished and enchanted her at first, but familiarity had blunted the keenness of her appreciation. As shown to her anew, it was like a fresh disclosure. Gerald Heath stood holding aside the boughs, which otherwise obscured a part of the landscape, and seemed like an exhibitor of some wondrously big and beautiful picture. Miles away were hills rising behind one another, until they left only a little of sky to be framed by the eave of the shed, as seen by the telegrapher. The diversities of a wilderness, distantly strong in rugged forms, but indistinct in details, became gradually definite and particular as they came nearer, and were suggestive of conscious design, where they edged a broken, tumultuous river. Overlook was shelved so high on a precipitous mountain that, from Mary's point of vision, the foreground almost directly underneath passed out of her sight, and it was as though the spectator stood on a platform before a painted canvas, too spacious for exhibition in an ordinary manner. But in this work the shapes and the colors, the grandeur and the beauty were inconceivably beyond human copying.

Gerald Heath appeared to feel, however, that if he was not the painter of this enormous landscape, he at least had the proprietary interest of a discoverer, and it was with something of the air of an art collector, proudly extolling his choicest possession, that he turned his eyes from it to Mary Warriner. The expression of admiration on her face, although quiet and delicate, was quite satisfactory—for a moment only; and then the denotement of delight passed out of her visage, as though expelled by some physical pang. It was the suddenness of the change, for it was of itself very slight, that made it perceptible. Gerald instinctively turned to look for the cause.

Into the picture had come a human figure. A few yards in front of the hut stood a man. In relation to the landscape far beyond he was gigantic, and the shade of the trees made him devilishly black by contrast with the sunlight of heaven that illumined the rest. He was thus for an instant in silhouette, and it chanced that his sharp outlines included a facial profile, with the points of a mustache and beard giving satanic suggestion to an accidental attitude of malicious intrusion. The illusion was almost startling, but it was momentary, and then the form became the commonplace one of Tonio Ravelli, who walked under the shelter.

"Do-a I eentrude?" he asked, with an Italian accent and an Italian bearing. "I suppose no, eh? Thece ees a placa beesness."

Mary's small departure from a business-like perfunctory manner ended at once. She took the scrap of paper which Ravelli laid on her desk, and without a word translated its writing into telegraphic clicks. Ravelli was a sub-contractor, and this was one of his frequent communications with officials at the company's city office. The response was likely to be immediate, and he waited for it.

"To get the full value of this view," Gerald Heath resumed, and now he addressed himself to Mary directly, as though with almost a purpose of ignoring Ravelli, to whose greeting he had barely responded, "you need to come upon it suddenly—as I once did. We had been for months blasting and digging through the mountain. Every day's duty in that hole was like a spell of imprisonment in a dark, damp dungeon. And your men, Ravelli, looked like a chain-gang of convicts."

"You woulda no dare say so mooch to their-a fa-ces," Ravelli retorted, with an insolence that was unmistakably intentional.

"O, I didn't mean a reflection on them," said Gerald, disregarding the other's quarrelsome aggressiveness. "We all look rascally in the mud, drip, and grime of tunnel work. And your gang of swarthy Italians are bound to have a demoniac aspect underground."

It was more careless than intentional that Gerald thus provoked Ravelli. There had been dislike between them, growing out of friction between their respective duties as a civil engineer and a sub-contractor, for the former was necessarily a critic of the latter's work. But they had never quarreled, and Gerald saw nothing in this occasion, as Ravelli seemed to, for any outbreak of temper.

"Bettare be civ-vil with-a your tongue," Ravelli sneered.

"Well, I think so, too, as we are with a lady."

"Zat ees why-a I inseest you treat-a me as one gentleman."

So it seemed that he was especially regardful of how he figured in the presence of Mary Warriner.

"Like one gentleman? Oh, I will treat you like two gentlemen—so politely;" and Gerald began to again nonchalantly whittle the birchen pole. "I was going to tell how, when at last we broke through the rock at this end of the tunnel, I happened to be right there. A blast tore out an aperture several feet wide. We saw daylight through the smoke. We rushed pell-mell over the broken stone, and struggled with one another to get through first. It was—why, it was you, Ravelli, wasn't it?—whom I tussled with. Yes, we got into the breach together. You tried to push me back. You couldn't—of course, you couldn't;" and the narrator's reference to his own superior strength was exasperatingly accompanied by a glance not free from contempt.

"Eet was-a all een fun," Ravelli smilingly explained to Mary, and then his eyes turned darkly upon Gerald: "Eef eet had-a been one earnest fight——," the different result was vaguely indicated by a hard clinch of fists and a vicious crunch of teeth.

It was beyond a doubt that Ravelli could not bear to be belittled to Mary; but she and Gerald were alike inattentive to his exhibition of wrath.

"No prisoner was ever more exultant to escape," Heath went on, "than I was to get out of that dark, noisome hole into clean sunlight. I ran to this very spot, and—well, the landscape was on view, just as it is now. It was like getting from gloom out into glory."

The young man's exuberant words were not spoken with much enthusiasm, and yet they had sufficient earnestness to prove their sincerity. He had stopped whittling, and his knife lay on the desk, as he turned his back against the sapling and rested both elbows on it.

"So I've been writing to the president of the company, urging him to deflect the route a trifle, so that passengers might come out of the tunnel to see a landscape worth a thousand miles of special travel, and to be had by going less than as many feet. This is the very latest day for changing the survey. To-morrow will be too late. That is why I'm telegraphing so urgently."

Click, click, click. Mary went to the telegraphic instrument. She delivered the message by word of mouth, instead of taking it down in the usual manner with a pen.

"Gerald Heath, Overlook," she translated from the metallic language of the instrument. "Your idea is foolish. We cannot entertain it. Henry Deckerman, president."

Gerald looked like a man receiving a jury's verdict involving great pecuniary loss, if not one of personal condemnation, as he listened to the telegram.

"Zat ees what-a I theenk," remarked Ravelli, with insolent elation; "you ar-r-e one-a fool, as ze president he say."

Gerald was already angered by the dispatch. The taunting epithet was timed to excite him to fury, which he impulsively spent upon the more immediate provoker. He seized Ravelli by the throat, but without choking him, and almost instantly let him go, as though ashamed of having assailed a man of not much more than half his own strength and nearly twice his age. With Italian quickness Ravelli grabbed Gerald's knife from the desk, against which he was flung. He would have used it too, if self-defense had been necessary, but he saw that he was not to be further molested, and so he concealed the weapon under his arm, while Gerald strode away, unaware of his escape from a stab.

"He is-a one beeg bully," said Ravelli, with forced composure. "Eef a lady had-a not been here——"

"You tormented him," the girl interrupted. "I once saw the best-natured mastiff in the world lose his temper and turn on a——" She stopped before saying "cur," and added instead: "If he was foolish, you were not very wise to tease him."

"He is-a what to you, zat you take-a hees part?"

She bit her lip in resentment, but made no reply.

"Pare-haps he is one-a lover oof you?"

Still she would not reply to his impertinence. That angered him more than the severest rejoinder would have done.

"Oh, I am sure-a zat he ees one suitor."

She gave way at length to his provocation, and yet without any violent words, for she simply said: "You are insulting, while he is at least reasonably polite—when he heeds me at all, which isn't often."

"Not-a often? But somewhat closely he heed-a you. See zat."

With an open palm he struck the place on the sapling where Gerald had whittled. The spot was on the outer edge, where Mary could not see it from her seat. She went around to the front of the primitively constructed desk, or high counter, to gratify her curiosity. There she saw that Gerald had carved a hand—her own hand, as she instantly perceived. The small and shapely member was reproduced in the fresh, pale wood with rare fidelity. She had unconsciously posed it, while working the key of the telegraphic instrument under the jack-knife sculptor's eyes, and there had been ample time for him to whittle a fac-simile into the birch.

"He is almost as impertinent as you are," she said, and turned to see how Ravelli took the comment.

But Ravelli had disappeared.

Then, being alone, she laid a hand of her own coquettishly alongside its wooden counterpart, and critically admired the likeness.

"It was an unwarranted liberty," she said to herself, "but he did it very well."

The delicate fiber of the wood had favored the carver's purpose. The imitation hand bore a shade of flattery in the barely tinted birchen white, and in the fine grained satin smoothness that the keen blade had wrought, but this was not too much for more than a reasonable compliment. As to the modeling, that was sincerely accurate, and the fingers rested on the key precisely as Mary had seen them during many hours of many days. It is an excessively vain girl who admires herself as actually as she does a portrait, and the telegrapher really saw more beauty in the birchen hand than she had ever observed in the live one. As she contemplated it, Ravelli returned noiselessly behind her.

"I a-wish to say something, Mees Warriner."

The Italian accent of Ravelli grated with unnatural harshness on Mary's ears, and if he had been an intruder upon her privacy, instead of a man in a really public place, she would not have been surprised into a deep flush. She snatched her hand away from its wooden counterpart, and clasped it with its mate behind her, as she leaned her shoulder against the carving to hide it.

"If you have a message to send," she said, "I can't get it on the wire too soon. It's within five minutes of time to shut off."

She started to go behind the desk. He stopped her with a touch upon her shoulder, and she shrank away reprovingly, although it was solely the man's earnestness that had made him do it.

"No, no; it ees not words for-a ze wire zat I have-a for you," he said. "I wish-a to tell to yourself something. Will you lees-ten?"

"Yes, if it is something that I ought to hear."

"Thees eez it. I am a-more than I seem here—deef-e-rent—so deef-e-rent you would hardly know-a me. In zis place I am on-ly a contractor for ze laborer. I am-a as com-mon as my gang in-a clothes—in-a manner, too, eh? But een one hour—een one minute—I could-a conveence you zat I am-a something finer."

Mary did not show in her perfectly regained composure that she was so much as puzzled by the man's enigmatic talk. She said: "I don't see how it could be worth while, Mr. Ravelli."

"O, yes—I beg-a par-don for ze contradiction—yes, it ees worth-a while. Away from-a here, Mary, I would-a be so deef-e-rent zat you a-love me."

"Stop, Mr. Ravelli—stop."

The command was positive, but it was not obeyed.

"I love-a you."

He caught her by one wrist as he began. She was utterly unresistant. If she had struggled or cried out, he would have gone on with his voluble, excited declaration; but her placidity was incomprehensible to him.

"Mr. Ravelli," she began after a moment, "you understand English?"

"Perfectly, Mees Warriner."

"Well, here is plain English for you. I would use Italian if I could, so that you mightn't mistake me. You are to let go of my hand."

He did it.

"You are to go away instantly, and never come here again except on business. Go at once."

That he did not do.

"For what-a did you come here, into one camp oof men eef——"

"If I didn't expect to be unsafe? I'll tell you. It was a mistake. Operator No. 9 was ordered to this post. No. 9 had been a man, who had within a week been discharged, and his number given to me. By an oversight, no alteration was made in the record to show the sex of the new No. 9. I couldn't afford to lose the work. Besides——"

"Well-a, besides——"

"Besides, I reasoned that every man at Overlook would protect me against all the other men—if——"

"Yes, eef——"

"Yes, if I cared absolutely nothing for any single one of them. Therefore, I am not afraid. But you must not annoy me."

Fury flashed into the man's eyes, into his reddened face, into the sudden tension of his gripped hands. The girl's contemptuous indifference maddened him. She saw this, and was at once alarmed, for she realized that here was a reckless lover—one who heated dangerously where another would have chilled under disdain; but she maintained an unshaken voice, as she said: "You may as well know, however, that I am amply protected. The night watchman is ordered to include this combined office and residence of mine in every round he makes. So I sleep quite unconcernedly. In the daytime, too, I shall have defense, if it becomes necessary."

"O, have-a no alarm, Mees Warriner," and the man's facial expression softened singularly as he gazed wistfully at the girl. "I haf said I love-a you." Then, with a startlingly quick transition, he glared menacingly off in the direction that Gerald Heath had gone. It seemed curious to Mary, too, that in his rage his English was clearer than usual, as he growled: "It is your lover that should be afraid of me." He flung out one fist in a fierce menace, and added in Italian: "Nel vindicarvi bisogna ch'egli mi rende la sua vita."

CHAPTER II.

The full moon looked for Mary Warriner's little house that night as soon as a clearance of the sky permitted, and then beamed down on her abode effulgently. But it was eleven o'clock before the gusty wind blew the thick clouds aside and let the orb illumine Overlook. Back of the shed in which the telegrapher worked by day was a structure in which she slept at night. It was built of slabs, with big growing trees to form its irregular corners, and their lowest limbs contributed the rafters, while stripped bark and evergreen boughs made the roof. The foliage swayed above in the fitful wind, and covered the cabin and the grass around it with commingling, separating, capering shadows of leaves, as though a multitude of little black demons were trying to get to the slumberer within. Their antics looked spiteful and angry at first: but as the wind lessened to a breeze, and as the moon seemed to mollify them, they became frolicsome without malice; and at length, when the merest zephyrs impelled their motions, they gambolled lazily, good-humoredly above and around the couch of Mary Mite.

It was midnight when a man shot into the open space around the cabin like a missile. He ran first to the front of the structure, where a tarpaulin curtained the shed for the night, and gazed for a moment blankly at this indication that the hour was not one of business. Tremendous haste was denoted in his every step and gesture. He plucked twice at the canvas, as though to pull it down. Then he skurried around to the single window of Mary's apartment, whose only door opened into the shed, and pounded with his knuckles on the ill-fitted sash, making it clatter loudly. Silence within followed this noise without. "Hello! Wake up!" he cried. "Don't fool for a minute. Wake up!"

There was no response, and he skipped to and fro in his impatience. He was an ordinary shoveler and pounder, with nothing to distinguish him from the mass of manual laborers at Overlook, but, unlike the usual man with an errand at the telegraphic station, flourished a scrap of paper.

"I want to telegraph," he shouted, and struck the window again. "Get up quick! It's life and death!"

Mary Warriner was convinced that her services were urgently and properly required. She peeped warily out to inspect the man, estimated him to be merely a messenger, and then opened wide the sash, which swung laterally on hinges. Her delicate face bore the same sort of calm that characterized it in business hours, but the moon shone on it now, the hair had got loose from the bondage of knot and pin, and for an outer garment she was carelessly enwrapped in a white, fleecy blanket. The man did not give her time to inquire what was wanted.

"You're the telegraph girl, ain't you?" he exclaimed. "Well, here's something to telegraph. It's in a hurry, hurry, hurry. Don't lose a minute."

"I couldn't send it to-night," Mary said.

"You must."

"It isn't possible. There is nobody at the other end of the line to receive it. The wire is private—belongs to the railroad company—isn't operated except in the daytime. You'll have to wait until to-morrow."

"To-morrow I'll be a hundred years old, or else dead," the man almost wailed in despair.

"What?"

"I was only ten years old yesterday. To-night I'm sixty. To-morrow'll be too late. Here—here—send it to-night, Miss. Please send it to-night."

The mystified girl mechanically took the piece of paper which he thrust into her hands, but her eyes did not drop before they discovered the insanity in his face, and when they did rest on the paper they saw a scrawl of hieroglyphics. It was plain that this midnight visitor was a maniac. She screamed for help.

A watchman responded almost instantly to her call. Upon seeing the cause of the girl's fright, he treated the incident as a matter of course. The lunatic wobbled like a drunken man about to collapse, as he mumbled his request over and over again.

"Here, now, Eph," the watchman said, with as much of cajolery as command, "you mustn't bother the young lady. Ain't you ashamed to scare her this way? Get right out of this."

The watchman took the other by the arm, and, as they started off—one insisting and one objecting—the official looked back to say: "He won't hurt nobody, Miss Warriner—he's just a little cranky, that's all."

Mary watched them out of sight, and while she was doing so, Gerald Heath approached from the contrary direction. He had heard the girl's scream. Why he was within earshot he might not have been able to explain satisfactorily, for it was not his habit to take midnight walks, even when the air was so brightly moonlit and so temporarily fine; but if cross-questioned, he would doubtless have maintained that he had sought only to escape from the darkness and closeness of his shanty quarters. Besides, where would he so likely wander, in quest of good sight and breath, as to the spot whence he could view the scenery which he in vain asked the railway company to exhibit to their passengers. As he turned the corner of the cabin he saw Eph and the watchman departing, and comprehended the disturbance.

"Eph has been frightening you, Miss Warriner," he said.

Mary screamed again, but this time it was a low, musical little outcry of modesty. She had not observed Gerald's approach. She clutched the blanket closely around her white throat, which had been almost as much exposed as by an ordinary cut of frock, and drew under cover the gleaming wrists which had all day been bared to a greater extent by sleeves of handy working length. Then she reached out one taper arm, and swung the sash around on its hinges, so its inner covering of muslin made a screen between her and the visitor. He did not apologize for his intrusion, and she pouted a little on her safe side of the sash, at his failure to do so.

"I see it was Eph that alarmed you," he said. "What did he do?"

She told him, and then asked: "Who is he, and what ails him?"

"He is a common laborer with an uncommon affliction," was the reply. "One day an excavation caved in, and for an hour he was buried. Some timbers made a little space around his head, but the rest of him was packed in earth. He had breathed the inclosed air two or three times over, and was almost suffocated when we got him out. He was insensible. He never came back to his senses. He believes he is living at the rate of more than a year every hour. This is why he was in such a hurry with his imaginary message."

"Poor fellow," came from the obverse side of the sash.

"Yes, poor fellow," the narrator assented. "I understood his hallucination at once. When a man is suddenly placed in mortal peril, his past life dashes before him. Half drowned men afterward tell of reviewing in a minute the events of years. It is a curious mental phenomenon. Well, this poor chap had that familiar experience, but with a singular sequence. The impression that all his lifetime before the accident happened in a brief time has remained in his disordered mind. He believes that his whole earthly existence is condensed—that future years, as well as his past ones, are compressed into days, and his days into minutes. Nothing can disabuse him of this idea. Everything is to him ephemeral. That's why I nicknamed him Eph—short for Ephemeral, you see. He doesn't remember his real name, and on the roll he had only a number. He has done his work well enough until within a few days, but now his malady seems to have turned to the worst. He has talked wildly of getting some physicians to check the speed of time with him, and it may have been that he wished to telegraph to this fancied expert."

"It is singular," Mary said, "and very sad."

The midnight incident seemed to have come to a conclusion. It was a proper time for Gerald to say good-night and go away. He still stood on the opposite side of the half-open sash, around the edge of which appeared a small set of finger tips, which pulled the screen a little closer, showing that the girl was minded to shut herself in. But a hand twice as big opposed hers, gently yet strongly, and in doing so it touched hers; upon which she let go, and the window flew open.

"Oh, you mustn't see me," Mary exclaimed, as Gerald got a vanishing glimpse of the white-draped figure. "Good-night."

"You will be afraid if left alone," Gerald protested; "you can't go to sleep, nervous as you must be."

"I surely can't go to sleep talking," was her rejoinder, with the first touch of coquetry she had indulged in at Overlook.

"I won't talk, then. I'll only keep guard out here until daylight. Eph may return."

"But there's the watchman. It is his duty."

"It would be my delight."

That silenced the invisible inmate of the cabin. The moon shone into the square opening, but Mary was ensconced somewhere in the darkness that bordered the income of light.

"Should I apologize?" Gerald at length began again. "It is like this, Miss Warriner. I used to know how to behave politely to a lady. But for six years I've lived in wildernesses—in railroad camps—from Canada to Mexico. We've had no ladies in these rough places—no women, except once in a while some mannish washerwoman or cook. That's what makes you so rare—so unexpected—that is why it would be a delight to be a patrolman outside your quarters—that is why I don't wish to go away."

"Oh!—oh! I am interesting because I am the only specimen of my sex at Overlook. That isn't a doubtful compliment; it is no compliment at all. Good-night."

"You misconstrue me altogether. I mean——"

"I am sure you do not mean," and now the tone was pleadingly serious, "to remain here at my window after I request you to go away. I am, as you have said, the only girl at Overlook."

"If there were a thousand girls at Overlook——"

"Not one of them, I trust, would prolong a dialogue with a young gentleman at night through the open window of her bedroom."

Half in respectful deference to Mary's unassailable statement of the rule of propriety applicable to the situation, and half in inconsiderate petulance at being dismissed, Gerald let go of the sash with an impulse that almost closed it. This time two miniature hands came out under the swinging frame. Would more than one hand have been naturally used? Was it not an awkward method of shutting a window? And Mary Warriner was not a clumsy creature. But there were the hands, and Gerald grasped them. They fluttered for freedom, like birds held captive in broad palms by completely caging fingers. Then he uncovered them, but for an instant kept them prisoners by encircling the wrists long enough to impetuously kiss them. Another second and they were gone, the window was closed, and they were alone.

He walked slowly away, accusing himself of folly and ungentlemanliness, and he felt better upon getting out of the clear, searching moonshine into the dim, obscuring shade of rocks and trees, among which the path wound crookedly. There rapid footsteps startled him, as though he was a skulking evildoer, and the swift approach of a man along an intersecting pathway, made him feel like taking to cowardly flight. But he recognized the monomaniac, Eph, who was in a breathless tremor.

"Mr. Heath, could a man walk to Dimmersville before the telegraph station there opens in the morning?" Eph asked, with several catches of breath and a reeling movement of physical weakness.

"You go to bed, Eph," was the reply, meant to be soothing, "and I'll see that your telegram goes from here the earliest thing in the morning. That won't be more than six or seven hours from now."

"Six or seven hours," the poor fellow deploringly moaned; "I'll be a good many years older by that time. Oh, it's awful to have your life go whizzing away like mine does," and he clutched at Gerald with his fidgety hands, with a vague idea of slowing himself by holding to a normal human being.

Then he darted away, swaying from side to side with faintness, and disappeared in the foliage which lined the path he was following.

Gerald watched him out of sight, and was about to resume his own different way when the voice of Tonio Ravelli was heard, with its Italian extra a to the short words and a heavy emphasis on the final syllable of the long ones.

"Mistair Heath," he said, "I saw-a your affectionate parting weez Mees Warriner."

Gerald had just then the mind of a culprit, and he began to explain apologetically: "It was cowardly in me to insult a defenseless girl. She didn't invite it. I am ashamed of myself."

He hardly realized to whom he was speaking. The two men were now walking rapidly, Ravelli taking two strides to one of the bigger Gerald, in order to keep alongside.

"You-a should be ashamed—you-a scoundrel."

As much of jealous fury and venomous malice as could be vocalized in six words was in Ravelli's sudden outbreak. Gerald was astounded. He turned upon his companion, caught him by both lapels of the coat, and shook him so violently that his boot-soles pounded the ground. Ravelli staggered back upon being loosed, and threw one arm around a tree to steady himself.

"I didn't mean to hurt you," said Gerald, "but you shouldn't be reckless with your language. Perhaps you don't know what scoundrel means in English."

"I saw you-a kiss her hands."

"Did you? Well, do you know what I'd do to you, Ravelli, if I saw you kiss her hands—as I did—without her consent? I'd wring your miserable neck. Now, what are you going to do to me?"

"I am-a going to keel you!"

The blade of a knife flashed in Ravelli's right hand, as he made a furious onslaught; but the stronger and quicker man gripped both of his assailant's wrists, threw him violently to the ground, and tortured him with wrenches and doublings until he had to drop the weapon. In the encounter the clothes of both men were torn, and when Ravelli regained his feet blood was dripping from his hand. The blade had cut it.

"You meant to kill me," Gerald exclaimed.

"I said-a so," was the sullen, menacing response.

"And with my own knife!" and Gerald, picking up the knife, recognized it.

"Your own knife—ze one zat you carve-a Mary's hand with so lovingly."

Ravelli had retained it since the previous afternoon, when he had picked it up from Mary Warriner's desk. Its blade was now red with blood, as Gerald shut and pocketed it.

"You cowardly murderer!"

"Murderer? Not-a yet. But I meant to be."

Ravelli turned off by the cross-path, and Gerald passed on.

CHAPTER III.

The first man to go to work at Overlook in the morning was Jim Wilson, because he had to rouse the fire under a boiler early enough to provide steam for a score of rock drills. The night watchman awakened him at daybreak, according to custom, and then got into a bunk as the other got out of one.

"Everything all right?" Jim asked.

"I guess so," the other replied. "But I hain't seen your boiler sence before midnight. Eph was disturbin' Mary Mite, and so I hung 'round her cabin pretty much the last half of the night."

Jim went to his post at the boiler, and at an unaccustomed pace, from the point where he first saw and heard steam hissing upward from the safety valve. On quitting the night previous, he had banked the fire as usual, and this morning he should have found it burning so slowly that an hour of raking, replenishing, and open draughts would no more than start the machinery at seven o'clock. Going nearer he found that open dampers and a fresh supply of coal had set the furnace raging.

What was that which protruded from the open door, and so nearly filled the aperture that the draught was not impaired?

A glance gave the answer. It was the legs and half the body of a man, whose head and shoulders were thoroughly charred, as Jim was horrified to see when he pulled the remains out upon the ground.

Jim ran to tell the superintendent, and within a few minutes a knot of excited men surrounded the body. The gathering grew in numbers rapidly. By means of the clothing the dead and partially burned man was identified at once as Tonio Ravelli. That he had been murdered was an equally easy conclusion. The murderer had apparently sought to cremate the corpse. Whether he had found it physically impossible, or had been frightened away, could only be conjectured.

"Who can have done it?" was the question asked by Superintendent Brainerd, the autocrat of Overlook.

There was a minute of silence, with all staring intently at the body, as though half expecting it to somehow disclose the truth. The night watchman was first to speak.

"Eph might have done it," he said.

Then he told of the monomaniac's visit to the telegraph station, and of the acute stage which his malady had reached. Nobody else present had seen him since the previous evening. Superintendent Brainerd ordered a search of the lodgings. Ten minutes were sufficient for a round of the different quarters. Eph was in none of them. The searchers returned to the furnace, and with them came Gerald Heath.

"I met Eph yonder where the paths cross, not a hundred yards from here, a little past midnight," Gerald said. "He was terribly excited. That was after he had tried in vain to telegraph a crazy message. Evidently his delusion, that his whole life was condensed into a brief space, had driven him to a frenzy. He spoke of walking to Dimmersville, but I tried to quiet him, and he disappeared."

Dimmersville was a town about ten miles distant, in a direction opposite to that from which the railroad had worked its way through the mountains. No wire connected it with Overlook, and there was no public road for the nearest third of the way, although a faint trail showed the course that a few persons had taken on foot or horseback.

"Very likely Eph has gone toward Dimmersville," Brainerd argued, "and we must try to catch him."

Before the order could be specifically given a horse and a rider arose over the edge of the level ground and came into the midst of the assemblage. The man in the saddle had a professional aspect, imparted chiefly by his smoothly shaven face. In this era of mustaches a hairless visage is apt to be assigned to a clergyman, who shaves thus from a motive of propriety; an actor, who does it from necessity; or somebody who aims at facial distinction without the features suitable to that purpose. A countenance of which it can only be said that it has one nose, one mouth, and two eyes, all placed in expressive nonentity, and which is dominated utterly by hair on and around it, may be less lost to individuality if entirely shaven. Of such seemed the visage of the dark man, who calmly rode into the excitement at Overlook.

"Which way have you come?" Brainerd asked.

"From Dimmersville," was the reply.

"Did you see anybody on the way?"

"I started very early. Folks were not out of their beds in the houses—as long as there were any houses—and that is only for five or six miles, you know. After that—yes—I did see one man. A curiously excited chap. He looked tired out. He asked the distance to Dimmersville, and whether the telegraph office would be open by the time he got there. Then he skurried on before I'd half answered him."

All that was known of the murder was told to the stranger by half a dozen glib tongues, and it was explained to him that he had encountered the maniacal fugitive.

"I knew there was something wrong about him," said the stranger. "It is my business to be observant."

He dismounted and hitched his horse to a tree. The dead body was shown to him. He examined it very thoroughly. All the particulars were related to him over and over. Then he drew Superintendent Brainerd aside.

"My name is Terence O'Reagan," he said, and in his voice was faintly distinguishable the brogue of the land whence the O'Reagans came. "I am a government detective. I have been sent to work up evidence in the case of some Italian counterfeiters. We had a clew pointing to a sub-contractor here—the very man who lies there dead. Our information was that he used some of the bogus bills in paying off his gang. Now, it isn't going outside my mission to investigate his death—if you don't object."

"I would be glad to have you take hold of it," Brainerd replied. "We can't bring the authorities here before noon, at the earliest, and in the mean time you can perhaps clear it all up."

The eagerly curious men had crowded close to this brief dialogue, and had heard the latter part of it. O'Reagan became instantly an important personage, upon whose smallest word or movement they hung expectantly, and nobody showed a keener interest than Gerald Heath. The detective first examined the body. The pockets of Ravelli's clothes contained a wallet, with its money untouched, beside a gold watch.

"So robbery was not the object," said O'Reagan to Brainerd. "The motive is the first thing to look for in a case of murder."

Next, he found blood on the waistcoat, a great deal of it, but dried by the fire that had burned the shoulders and head; and in the baked cloth were three cuts, under which he exposed three stab wounds. Strokes of a knife had, it seemed, killed the victim before he was thrust partially into the furnace.

A storm was coming to Overlook unperceived, for the men were too much engrossed in what lay there on the ground, ghastly and horrible, to pay any attention to the clouding sky. Gloom was so fit for the scene, too, that nobody gave a thought from whence it came. To Gerald Heath the going out of sunlight, and the settling down of dusky shadows seemed a mental experience of his own. He stood bewildered, transfixed, vaguely conscious of peril, and yet too numb to speak or stir. Detective O'Reagan, straightening up from over the body, looked piercingly at Gerald, and then glanced around at the rest.

"Is there anybody here who saw Tonio Ravelli last night?" he asked.

"I did," Gerald replied.

"Where and when?"

"At the same place where I met Eph, and immediately afterward."

"Ah! now we are locating Eph and Ravelli together. That looks like the lunatic being undoubtedly the stabber."

"And we must catch him," Brainerd interposed. "I'll send riders toward Dimmersville immediately."

"No great hurry about that," the detective remarked; "he is too crazy to have had any clear motive or any idea of escape. It will be easy enough to capture him." Then he turned to Gerald, and questioned with the air of a cross-examiner: "Did the two men have any words together?"

"No," was the ready answer; "I don't know that they even saw each other at that time. Eph went away an instant before Ravelli came."

"Did you talk with Ravelli?"

"Yes."

"About what?"

"Not about Eph at all."

"About what, then?"

Now the reply came reluctantly: "A personal matter—something that had occurred between us—an incident at the telegraph station."

"The station where Eph had awakened the girl operator? Was it a quarrel about her?"

"That is no concern of yours. You are impertinent."

"Well, sir, the question is pertinent—as the lawyers say—and the answer concerns you, whether it does me or not. You and Ravelli quarreled about the girl?"

"The young lady shall not be dragged into this. She wasn't responsible for what happened between Ravelli and me."

"What did happen between you and Ravelli?"

The two men stood close to and facing each other. The eyes of the detective glared gloatingly at an upward angle into the pale but still firm face of the taller Gerald, and then dropped slowly, until they became fixed on a red stain on the sleeve of the other's coat. Did he possess the animal scent of a bloodhound?

"What is that?" he sharply asked. He seized the arm and smelled of the spotted fabric. "It is blood! Let me see your knife."

Quite mechanically Gerald thrust one hand into his trousers pocket and brought out the knife which he had taken back from Ravelli, whose blood was on it yet.

The storm was overhead. A first peal of thunder broke loudly. It came at the instant of the assemblage's tensest interest—at the instant when Gerald Heath was aghast with the revelation of his awful jeopardy—at the instant of his exposure as a murderer. It impressed them and him with a shock of something supernatural. The reverberation rumbled into silence, which was broken by O'Reagan:

"There'll be no need to catch Eph," he said, in a tone of professional glee. "This man is the murderer."

Again thunder rolled and rumbled angrily above Overlook, and the party stood aghast in the presence of the man dead and the man condemned.

"Bring him to the telegraph station," O'Reagan commanded.

Nobody disputed the detective's methods now—not even Gerald; and a prisoner as completely as though manacled, although not touched by any one, he went with the rest.

Mary Warriner had taken down the tarpaulin front of her shed when the men approached. In the ordinary course of her early morning doings she would wait an hour to dispatch and receive the first telegrams of the day, and then go to breakfast alone at the table where the engineers and overseers would by that time have had their meal. She was astonished to see nearly the whole population of Overlook crowd around her quarters, while a few entered. But she went quickly behind the desk, and took her place on the stool. The soberness of the faces impressed her, but nothing indicated that Gerald was in custody, and her quick thought was that some disaster made it necessary to use the wire importantly.

"I wish to send a message," said O'Reagan, stepping forward.

The eyes of the girl rested on him inquiringly, and he palpably flinched, but as obviously nerved himself to proceed, and when he spoke again the Irish accent became more pronounced to hear, although not sufficiently to be shown in the printed words: "I will dictate it slowly, so that you can transmit it as I speak. Are you ready?"

Mary's fingers were on the key, and her bright, alert face was an answer to the query.

"To Henry Deckerman, president," the detective slowly said, waiting for the clicks of the instrument to put his language on the wire; "Tonio Ravelli, a sub-contractor here, was murdered last night."

Mary's hand slid away from the key after sending that, and the always faint tint in her cheeks faded out, and her eyes flickered up in a scared way to the stern faces in front of her. The shock of the news that a man had been slain, and that he was a man who, only the previous day, had proffered his love to her, was for a moment disabling. But the habit of her employment controlled her, and she awaited the further dictation.

"His body was found this morning in the furnace of the steam boiler." O'Reagan resumed deliberately, "where it had evidently been placed in a vain attempt to destroy it."

A shudder went through Mary, and she convulsively wrung her small hands together, as though to limber them from a cramp. But her fingers went back to the key.

"The murderer has been discovered," the detective slowly continued, and the operator kept along with his utterance word by word. "He killed Ravelli for revenge. It was a love affair." Here the girl grew whiter still, and the clicks became very slow, but they did not cease. O'Reagan's voice was cold and ruthless: "The motive of the murderer was revenge. His name is Gerald Heath."

All but the name flashed off on the wire. Mary Warriner's power to stir the key stopped at that. She did not faint. She did not make any outcry. For a moment she looked as though the soul had gone out of her body, leaving a corpse sitting there. A grievous wail of wind came through the trees, and a streak of lightning zig-zagged down the blue-clouded sky.

"Go on," said O'Reagan.

"I will not," was the determined response.

"Why not?"

"Because it is not so. Gerald Heath never murdered Ravelli."

Gerald had stood motionless and silent. Now he gave way to an impulse as remarkable as his previous composure had been singular. If there had been stagnation in his mind, it was now displaced by turbulence. He grasped Mary's hands in a fervid grip; then dropped them and faced the others.

"I did not kill the Italian," he said. "He attacked me with my knife which he had stolen. In the struggle his hand was cut, but I took the weapon away from him. He quitted me alive and unhurt. I never saw him again. You don't believe it? Mary does, and that is more than all else."

"The circumstances don't favor you," the detective retorted, "they convict you. You killed Ravelli because you and he were both in love with this young lady."

"Isn't it the rejected suitor who kills the other one for spite?" This was in Mary Warriner's voice, weak, but still steady. "Ravelli loved me, I knew, and I drove him away. Mr. Heath loved me, I believed, and I had not repulsed him. If I were the cause of a murder between them, it should be Ravelli who killed Gerald."

"You detested Ravelli?" O'Reagan asked, with a strange bitterness.

"Yes."

"And you love Heath?"

The answer was no more hesitant than before; "Yes."

"Send the rest of my message," and the detective was boisterous. "Send the name. Gerald Heath is the murderer."

He roughly seized her hand and clapped it on the key. She drew it away, leaving his there. A blinding flash of lightning illumined the place, and what looked like a missile of fire flew down the wire to the instrument, where it exploded. O'Reagan fell insensible from the powerful electrical shock. The rest did not altogether escape, and for a minute all were dazed. The first thing that they fully comprehended was that O'Reagan was getting unsteadily to his feet. He was bewildered. Staggering and reeling, he began to talk.

Mary was first to perceive the import of his utterance. He was merely going on with what he had been saying, but the manner, not the matter, was astounding.

He spoke with an Italian accent, and made Italian gestures.

"You-a send ze message," he said; "Heath ees ze murder-are. Send-a ze message, I say."

Tonio Ravelli had unwittingly resumed his Italian style of English.

His plenitude of hair and whiskers was gone; and in the face, thereby uncovered, nobody could have recognized him in Detective O'Reagan but for his lapse into the foreign accent; and he said so much before discovering his blunder that his identification, as indeed Ravelli, was complete.

Who, then, was the dead man? Why, he was Eph.

Nothing but the fear of being himself condemned as a murderer of the maniac, as a part of the scheme of revenge against Gerald, induced Ravelli to explain. He had found Eph lying dead in the path, after both had parted from Gerald. The plot to exchange clothes with the corpse, drag it to the furnace, burn away all possibility of recognition, and thus make it seem to be his murdered self, was carried out with all the hot haste of a jealous vengeance. Ravelli was not an Italian, although very familiar with the language of Italy, and able, by a natural gift of mimicry, to hide himself from pursuit for a previous crime. Overlook had been a refuge until his passion for Mary Warriner led him to abandon his disguise. Thereupon, he had turned himself into Terence O'Reagan, a detective, whose malicious work wrought happiness for Gerald Heath and Mary Warriner.

A THING THAT GLISTENED.

BY FRANK R. STOCKTON.

In the fall of 1888 the steamship Sunda, from Southampton, was running along the southern coast of Long Island, not many hours from port, when she was passed by one of the great British liners, outward bound. The tide was high, and the course of both vessels was nearer the coast than is usual—that of the Sunda being inside of the other.

As the two steamers passed each other there was a great waving of hats and handkerchiefs. Suddenly there was a scream from the Sunda. It came from Signora Rochita, the prima donna of an opera troupe, which was coming to America in that ship.

"I have lost my bracelet," she cried in Italian, and then, turning to the passengers, she repeated the cry in very good English.

The situation was instantly comprehended by every one. It was late in the afternoon; the captain had given a grand dinner to the passengers, at which the prima donna had appeared in all her glories of ornamentation, and the greatest of these glories, a magnificent diamond bracelet, was gone from the arm with which she had been enthusiastically waving her lace handkerchief.

The second officer, who was standing near, dashed into the captain's office and quickly reappeared with chart and instruments, and made rapid calculation of the position of the vessel at the time of the accident, making an allowance for the few minutes that had passed since the first cry of the signora. After consultation with the captain and recalculations of the distance from land and some other points, he announced to the weeping signora that her bracelet lay under a little black spot he had made on the chart, and that if she chose to send a diver for it she might get it, for the depth of water at that place was not great.

By profession I am a diver, and the next day I was engaged to search for the diamond bracelet of Signora Rochita. I had a copy of the chart, and, having hired a small schooner with several men who had been my assistants before, and taking with me all the necessary accouterments and appliances, I set out for the spot indicated, and by afternoon we were anchored, we believed, at or very near it. I lost no time in descending. I wore, of course, the usual diver's suit, but I took with me no tools nor any of the implements used by divers when examining wrecks, but carried in my right hand a brilliant electric lamp connected with a powerful battery on the schooner. I held this by an insulated handle, in which there were two little knobs, by which I could light or extinguish it.

The bottom was hard and smooth, and lighting my lamp I began to look about me. If I approached the bracelet I ought to be able to see it sparkle, but after wandering over considerable space, I saw no sparkles nor anything like a bracelet. Suddenly, however, I saw something which greatly interested me. It was a hole in the bottom of the ocean, almost circular, and at least ten feet in diameter. I was surprised that I had not noticed it before, for it lay not far from the stern of our vessel.

Standing near the rocky edge of the aperture, I held out my lamp and looked down. Not far below I saw the glimmer of what seemed to be the bottom of this subterranean well. I was seized with a desire to explore this great hole running down under the ordinary bottom of the sea. I signaled to be lowered, and although my comrades were much surprised at such an order, they obeyed, and down I went to the well. The sides of this seemed rocky and almost perpendicular, but after descending about fifteen feet they receded on every side, and I found myself going down into a wide cavern, the floor of which I touched in a very short time.

Holding up my lamp, and looking about me, I found myself in a sea cave, some thirty feet in diameter, with a dome-like roof, in which, a little to one side of the center, was the lower opening of the well. I became very much excited; this was just the sort of place into which a bracelet or anything else of value might be expected to have the bad luck to drop. I walked about and gazed everywhere, but I found nothing but rocks and water.

I was about to signal to be drawn up, when above me I saw what appeared to be a flash of darkness coming down through the well. With a rush and a swirl it entered the cavern, and in a moment I recognized the fact that a great fish was swooping around and about me. Its movements were so rapid and irregular, now circling along the outer edge of the floor of the cavern, then mounting above me, until its back seemed to scrape the roof, that I could not form a correct idea of the size of the creature. It seemed to me to be at least twenty feet along. I stood almost stupefied, keeping my eyes, as far as possible, fixed upon the swiftly moving monster.

Sometimes he came quite near me, when I shuddered in every fiber, and then he shot away, but ever gliding with powerful undulations of his body and tail, around, about, and above me. I did not dare to signal to be drawn up, for fear that the terrible creature would enter the well hole with me. Then he would probably touch me, perhaps crush me against the wall, but my mind was capable of forming no plans. I only hoped the fish would ascend and disappear by the way he came.

My mind was not in its strongest condition, being much upset by a great trouble, and I was so frightened that I really did not know what I ought to do, but I had sense enough left to feel sure that the fish had been attracted into the cavern by my lamp. Obviously, the right thing to do was to extinguish it, but the very thought of this nearly drove me into a frenzy. I could not endure to be left alone with the shark in darkness and water. It was an insane idea, but I felt that, whatever happened, I must keep my eyes upon him.

Now the great fish began to swoop nearer and nearer to me, and then, suddenly changing its tactics, it receded to the most distant wall of the cavern, where, with its head toward me, it remained, for the first time, motionless. But this did not continue long. Gently turning over on its side, it opened its great mouth, and in an instant, with a rush, it came directly at me. My light shone full into its vast mouth, glistening with teeth, and there was a violent jerk which nearly threw me from my feet, and all was blackness. The shark had swallowed my lamp! By rare good fortune, he did not take my hand also.

Now I frantically tugged at my signal rope. Without my lamp I had no thought but a desire to be pulled out of the water, no matter what happened. In a few minutes I sat, divested of my diving suit, and almost insensible, upon the deck of the schooner. As soon as I was able to talk I told my astonished comrades what had happened, and while we were discussing this strange occurrence, one of them, looking over the side, saw slowly rising to the surface the body of a dead shark.

"By George," he cried, "here is the beast. He has been killed by the current from the battery."

We all crowded to the rail and looked down upon the monster. He was about ten feet long, and it was plain that he had died for making himself the connection between the poles of the battery.

"Well," said the captain pleasantly. "I suppose you are not going down again?"

"Not I," I replied. "I give up this job."

Then suddenly I cried:

"Come boys, all of you. Make fast to that shark, and get him on board. I want him."

Some of the men laughed, but my manner was so earnest that in a moment they all set about to help me. A small boat was lowered, lines were made fast to the dead fish with block and tackle, and we hauled him on deck. I then got a butcher's knife from the cabin and began to cut him open.

"Look here, Tom!" exclaimed the captain, "that's nonsense. Your lamp's all smashed to pieces, and if you get it out, it will never be any good to you."

"I don't care for the lamp," I answered, working away energetically, "but an idea has struck me. It's plain that this creature had a fancy for shining things. If he swallowed a lamp, there is no reason why he should not have swallowed anything else that glittered."

"Oho!" cried the captain, "you think he swallowed the bracelet, do you?"

And instantly everybody crowded more closely about me.

I got out the lamp. Its wires were severed as smoothly as if they had been cut by shears. Then I worked on. Suddenly there was a cry from every man. Something glimmered in the dark interior of the fish. I grasped it and drew it out. It was not a bracelet, but a pint bottle which glimmered like a glow-worm. With the bottle in my hand, I sat upon the deck and gazed at it. I shook it. It shone brighter. A bit of oiled silk was tied tightly over the cork, and it was plain to see that it was partly filled with a light colored oil, into which a bit of phosphorous had been dropped, which, on being agitated, filled the bottle with a dim light.

But there was something more in the bottle than phosphorus and oil. I could see a tin tube, corked at each end, and the exposed parts of the corks spreading enough to prevent the tin from striking the glass. We all knew that this was one of those bottles containing a communication of some sort, which are often thrown into the sea, and float about until they are picked up. The addition of the oil and phosphorus was intended to make it visible by night as well as by day, and this was plainly the reason why it had been swallowed by a light-loving shark.

I poured out the oil and extracted the tube. Wiping it carefully, I drew out the corks, and then, from the little tin cylinder, I pulled a half sheet of note paper, rolled up tightly. I unrolled it, and read these words:

Before I jump overboard, I want to let people know that I killed John Polhemus. So I have fixed up this bottle. I hope it may be picked up in time to keep Jim Barker from being hung. I did think of leaving it on the steamer, but I might change my mind about jumping overboard, and I guess this is the best way. The clothes I wore and the hatchet I did it with are under the woodshed, back of Polhemus's house.

HENRY RAMSEY.

I sprang to my feet with a yell. Jim Barker was my brother, now lying in prison under sentence of death for the murder of Polhemus; all the circumstantial evidence, and there was no other, had been against him. The note was dated eight months back. Oh! cruel fool of a murderer.

The shark was thrown overboard, and we made best speed to port, and before the end of the afternoon I had put Ramsey's note into the hands of the lawyer who had charge of my brother's case.

Fortunately he was able to identify the handwriting and signature of Ramsey, a man who had been suspected of the crime, but against whom no evidence could be found. The lawyer was almost as excited as I was by the contents of this note, and early the next morning we started together for the house of the Polhemus family. There, under the woodshed, we found carefully buried a bloodstained shirt and vest, and the hatchet.

My impulse was to fly to my brother, but this my lawyer forbade. He would take charge of the affair, and no false hopes must be excited, but he confidently assured me that my brother was as good as free.

Returning to the city, I thought I might as well make my report to Signora Rochita. The lady was at home and saw me. She showed the most intense interest in what I told her, and insisted upon every detail of my experiences. As I spoke of the shark, and the subterranean cave, she nearly fainted from excitement, and her maid had to bring her smelling salts. When I had finished, she looked at me steadily for a moment, and then said:

"I have something to tell you, but I hardly know how to say it. I never lost my bracelet. I intended to wear it at the captain's dinner, but when I went to put it on I found the clasp was broken, and, as I was late, I hurried to the table without the bracelet, and thought of it no more until, when we were all waving and cheering, I glanced at my wrist and found it was not there. Then, utterly forgetting that I had not put it on, I thought it had gone into the sea. It was only this morning that, opening what I supposed was the empty box, I saw it. Here it is."

I never saw such gorgeous jewels.

"Madame," said I, "I am glad you thought you lost it, for I have gained something better than all these."

"You are a good man," said she, and then she paid me liberally for my services. When this business had been finished, she asked:

"Are you married?" I answered that I was not.

"Is there any one you intend to marry?"

"Yes," said I.

"What is her name?" she asked.

"Sarah Jane McElroy."

"Wait a minute," said she, and she retired into another room. Presently she returned and handed me a little box.

"Give this to your ladylove," said she; "when she looks at it, she will never forget that you are a brave man."

When Sarah Jane opened the box, there was a little pin with a diamond head, and she gave a scream of delight. But I saw no reason for jumping or crying out, for after having seen the Signora's bracelet, this stone seemed like a pea in a bushel of potatoes.

"I don't need anything," she said, "to remind me that you are a brave man. I am going to buy furniture with it."

I laughed, and remarked that "every little helps."

When I sit, with my wife by my side, before the fire in our comfortable home, and consider that the parlor carpet, and the furniture and the pictures, and the hall and stair carpet, and all the dining-room furniture, with the china and the glass and the linen, and all the kitchen utensils, and two bedroom suits on the second story, both hardwood, and all the furniture and fittings of a very pleasant room for a single man, the third story front, were bought with the pin that the signora gave to Sarah Jane, I am filled with profound respect for things that glitter. And when I look on the other side of the fire and see Jim smoking his pipe just as happy as anybody, then I say to myself that, if there are people who think that this story is too much out of the common, I wish they would step in here and talk to Jim about it. There is a fire in his eyes when he tells you how glad he is that it was the shark instead of him, that is very convincing.

A LION AND A LIONESS

BY JOAQUIN MILLER.

CHAPTER I.

I doubt if you will find either profit or pleasure in reading this incident of my third voyage up the Nile. It is really not worth reading. I have written it down merely for a few friends who know something of the facts; and also to escape the annoyance of having to tell it over as one of the features of my four years' travel in the Orient. But to begin. Wearying of the Levant, I was resting a time in Rome, when I was formally invited, as well as specially urged, to witness the marriage ceremony between the Grand Duchess Alexandria and the Duke of Edinburgh. Let us pass over these wasteful follies, the waste of time, the waste of sense, of soul! I have only mentioned the reason for my presence in St. Petersburg; have only mentioned the fact of my being there, because I saw a face in that gathering of people that could not be forgotten. It was the face of a tall, dark, and serenely silent Dolores; a young woman who had surely met and made the acquaintance of sorrow early in the morning of life. I sometimes wonder if I could ever have known or cared to know any one who had not sorrowed deeply. And yet I now know very well that, in whatever guise that woman could have come, there could have been no two roads for us from the day of her coming to the day of her going.

Let me be a little confidential right here. I knew, I had always known, I should meet this woman. I had waited for her; worked hard, built up the battlements and the fortress of my soul so that I might receive her into it; and defend her well against my baser self when she should come. And now tell me—have you never had a thought, a conviction like this? A certainty in your own heart that your other and better self would come to you complete and entire some day, soon or late, so soon as you might have the fortress ready? The doctors said she was dying. She had been trying to stand between the Czar and the Jews. She may not have been of that "peculiar people," but I think she had the money of Rothschilds and Sir Moses Montefiore behind her.

There had been attempts at assassination, followed by executions. Some of the condemned were women. It was as if this woman herself had been condemned to death. I think she suffered more than all the others put together; she was so very, very sensitive to the pain and sorrow of others.

There are souls like that. But there is a good God. The soul that suffers keenly can and shall enjoy keenly. You can, if you care to persist in it, make yourself, as the centuries wheel past, more than an entire nation in this.

We had common ground to work on in the cause of the condemned people. It was on this ground that we first met; as two swift streams that flow in the same direction and so finally unite forever. All that could be done was done speedily; for "the law's delay," whatever else must be laid to the door of Russia, is not one of her sins.

As summer took flight we went south with the birds. For she surely felt that she was dying. Besides, she had been impressed with the idea of restoring Jerusalem and having this homeless race re-established in the holy city. Her religion? I think it was all religions. I saw her kneel in the Kremlin at Moscow, cross herself in St. Peter's at Rome, and bend low at prayer in the Synagogue at Alexandria. I think she would have done the same in a mosque. As stated before, I had, previous to meeting her, been all over Syria. And so, whenever she referred to her cherished idea, as she so often did, of forming Jewish settlements in and about Jerusalem and restoring Israel, I took occasion to explain how impossible and impractical it all was.

I remember telling her how that in a whole day's ride from Babylon toward Jerusalem I had seen no living thing save a single grasshopper! I explained to her that the path of civilization had been in the track of the setting sun ever since the dawn of history, and that it was not in the power of man to reverse this course. I attempted to show that the tide of population would pour upon the salubrious and fertile shores of the farthest west till the heart of civilization would beat right there. I explained to her that wherever the great strong heart of commerce beat strongest, there would be found the strongest and best of these people whom she hoped to help; while the weak and helpless of that race would remain stranded by the waters of the Levant, as in Russia now.

"Why not, then, let us anticipate this and build the city of refuge by your great sea in the path of this civilization which you say will so surely come?"

Like the golden doors of dawn was the great earnest idea to me as she spoke. But of course I know, as I said before, that the "peculiar people" could not be induced to brave the desert. They do not seek rest, but action—employment in the marts. They would rest but a single night even by the sweet waters of Jacob's well.

CHAPTER II.

As winter came on and Egypt began to be oppressively full of tourists, it was decided that we should make our escape up the Nile and haunt the ruin of Kamak and other places until the outgoing tide set in. Once fairly on our way, it did not take long to persuade me that she was not only gaining strength each day in body but in soul. We had been more than a month on the Nile; a tattered palm tree here tossing in the wind and sand; a gaunt, clay-colored camel yonder, all legs and hair; beggars, disease, despair all around us; a land to fly from, fit place for tombs, jackals, and famishing lions!

But she was stronger, there were roses in her face. Her glorious black hair had not the dampness of death in it now, but was luxuriously sensate with renewed life and health and possible happiness.

One warm sunset, as the boat lay with its prow in the yellow sand that seemed to stretch away into infinity, she proposed that she and I should ascend to the top of the tall ruins on a hill a little distance back from the river, and there wait and watch and listen for the coming day.

It was a dreadful place. I had already walked a little way out, but on seeing a shriveled black hand stretching up from the sand, I had turned back; only to stumble over the head of a mummy which I had afterward seen one of our servants gather up and take to his Arab camp for firewood. Still, we had been pent up in the boat much; and then would not she be with me?

Two Arabs were taken with us to carry a bottle of water and the rugs and robes. The hill was steeper than it at first seemed; and the ascent through the sand heavy. I was having an opportunity to test her strength and endurance. I might also have an occasion to test her courage before the break of morning, for as we entered between two towering columns of red granite, one of the Arabs dropped on a knee and spread his hand as wide as he could in the sand. But wide as he spread it, he could not more than half cover the fresh foot-print of a huge lion.

The clamber to the top was steep and hard. Yet it was not nearly so steep and hard as I could have wished it, when I reflected that very likely before midnight a lion might pass that way.

We found that these wonderful columns of granite were coped with great slabs of granite. These granite slabs were of astonishing breadth and thickness. This temple, as it is called, had probably been a tomb. I took good care to see that there was no other means of ascent to the place where we had chosen to spend the night than the one by which we had ascended. And I remember how eagerly I wished for a crowbar in order that I might break down a little of the débris, so that the ascent might be less easy for prowling beasts.

But as there was nothing of the sort at hand, I dismissed the two Arabs and resolved to be as brave, if possible, as the singularly brave and beautiful woman who had come here to hear the voices of desolation.

The sky was rimmed with yellow; yellow to the east, yellow to the west; a world of soft and restful yellow that melted away by gradations as the eye ascended from the desert. It was like melody in its serene harmonies and awful glory.

And she at my side partook of it all; she breathed it, absorbed it, literally became a part of it. I saw her grow and glow. Soul and body I saw her dilate and expand till she was in absolute harmony with the awe and splendor that encompassed us. I felt that she had been in the midst of, even a part of, this tawny desolation ages and ages before. Perhaps her soul had been born here, born before the pyramids.

CHAPTER III.

With my own hands I spread her couch of skins and rugs in the remotest corner of a great stone slab that still lifted its unbroken front, in defiance of time, high above the tawny sands of the desert. The night was very sultry, even here on this high and roomy summit. The broad, deep slab of granite was still warm with sunshine gone away, and gave out heat like a dying furnace. The steep and arduous ascent had taxed her strength, and unloosing her robe as I turned to examine more minutely our strange quarters on the top of this lofty tomb, or temple, she sank to rest, half reclining on her arm, her chin in her upturned palm, her face lifted away toward the rising moon.

Half a dozen paces to the right I saw two tall and ponderous columns of granite standing in line with those that supported the great slab on which she rested. Evidently these grand and solitary columns had also once been topped by granite slabs. But these had fallen to the ground under the leveling feet of many centuries, and now lay almost swallowed up in the sea of yellow sands below. I put out my foot carefully, trying to reach the broad top of the nearest column of granite, but it was beyond me. Stepping back a couple of paces and quietly removing my boots, I gathered up my strength and made a leap, landing almost in the center of the column's top. A half step backward, another leap—who could resist the challenge of that lone and kingly column that remained? I landed securely as before, then turned about. Her face had not lifted an instant from the awful majesty of the Orient.

Slowly, wearily, the immense moon came shouldering up through the seas of yellow sand. These billows of sand seemed to breathe and move. The expiring heat of the departed sun made them scintillate and shimmer in a soft and undulating light. And yet it was not light; only the lone and solemn ghost of a departed day. Yellow and huge and startling stood the moon at last, full grown and fearful in its nearness and immensity on the topmost lift of yellow sands in the yellow seas before us. Distance seemed to be annihilated. The moon seemed to have forgotten her place and all proportion. Looking down into the sullen Nile, it seemed a black and bottomless chasm. And it seemed so far away! And the moon so very near.

Black as blackest Egypt rolled the somber Nile down and on and on through this world of yellow light; this light that was not light. Silence, desolation, death lay on all things below, about, above. The west was molten yellow gold, faint and fading, it is true: but where the yellow sands left off and the yellow skies began no man could say or guess, save by the yellow stars that studded the west with an intense yellow.

Yellow to the right and yellow to the left, yellow overhead and yellow underfoot; with only this endless chasm of Erebus cleaving the yellow earth in halves with its bottomless pit of endless and indissoluble blackness.

After a time—and all the world still one sea of softened yellow, torn in two by Charon's chasm of black waters—I silently leaped back, replaced my boots on my feet and then held my breath. For I had seen, or perhaps felt, an object move on the lifted levels of sand between us and the moon.

Cautiously I sank down on my breast and peered low and long up the horizon. I saw, heard nothing. Glancing around to where my companion lay, I saw that she still had not stirred from the half reclining position she had first taken, with half lifted face in her upturned palm.

Then she had seen nothing, heard nothing. This, however, did not argue much. Her life had not been of the desert. She had spent her years in the study of men and women. I had spent mine with wild beasts. I could trust her to detect motives in men, give the warning note of danger from dangerous men; but the wild beasts and wilder men of the border were mine to watch and battle with, not hers.

She had seen nothing; evidently she feared nothing, and so was resting, resting in mind as in body. And as I glanced again over my shoulder and saw how entirely content she seemed, I was glad. Surely she depended entirely on me; on my watchfulness and my courage. And this made me more watchful and more resolute and stout of heart. A man likes to be trusted. A true man likes a true woman's trust, much indeed. A strong man likes to be leaned upon. It makes him stronger, braver, better. Let women never forget this. Admit that she, too, has her days of strength and endurance; and admit that she, too, has her peculiar fortress of strength and courage, and these also man respects and regards with piteous tenderness. But man, incapable of her finer and loftier courage and endurance, resents her invasion of his prerogative.

It is only a womanly man who can really love a manly woman. But to continue: Looking up a third time to this woman at my side, I saw that she had let her head sink low on her leaning arm. She was surely sleeping. How I liked her trust and her faith in me? And how I liked her courage, too, and her high quality of endurance. It was her courage that had brought me up here this night to the contemplation of awful and all-glorious Africa. Silently and without lifting a finger, she had shown me a world of burnished gold. I had surely seen God through her. We stood nearer together now than ever before. This single hour of indescribable glory should forever stand as an altar in the desert. Our souls had melted and flown and tided on, intermingled like molten gold in the golden atmosphere and the yellow scene that wrapped us round about, and no word had been said. When God speaks so audibly let man be silent.

I must have looked longer on the sleeping and trustful woman at my side than I ought to have looked, for on turning my eyes again to the horizon, there distinctly on the yellow sand and under the yellow moon moved, stealthily as a cat, yet graceful and grand, the most kingly beast I ever beheld. He did not look right nor left, but moved along with huge head in the air, slow and stately, and triumphant in his fearful symmetry and strength.

CHAPTER IV.

I half arose and felt for a trusty six-shooter. This pistol was not one that had been purchased for this or any other occasion, as the worthless pistols of the time are usually purchased, but it had been my companion from boyhood.

As I half arose the lion suddenly halted. He lifted his proud head higher still in the air, and to my consternation half turned about and looked straight in my direction. Then a sidewise and circuitous step or two with his long reach of hinder leg, his wide and deep and flexible flank; slow and kingly; splendid to see!

I sank down again, quite willing to let him interview the land of Arabs in the black chasm below. They had spears and guns and everything down there, everything but courage to face a lion with; and I was not going to interfere with a fight which at the first had promised to be entirely their own.

But this new movement of mine only accentuated his graceful motion. The head now turned in the air, like the head of a man. I had time to note, and I record it with certainty, that the massive head and the tumbled mane towered straight above the shoulder. In fact, the lower parts of the long mane looked most like the long shaggy beard of a man falling down upon his broad breast. This I noted as he still kept on in his sidewise circuit above us and around us on the yellow sand and under the yellow moon. At times he was almost indistinct. But the carriage of that head! There was a fine fascination in the lift and the movement and the turn of that stately head that must ever be remembered, but can never be described.

As he came nearer—for his sidewise walk was mainly in our direction—I saw that he, too, was yellow, as if born of this yellow world in this yellow night; but his was a more ponderous yellow; the yellow of red and rusty old gold. At times he seemed almost black; and all the time terrible.

In half a minute more he would be too close for comfort, and I decided to arouse my companion. She wakened fully awake, if I may be allowed to express a fact so awkwardly. You may know that there are people like that.

"What is it?"

"A lion."

"Are you sure?"

"Certain."

"Where?"

"Right before your eyes."

"Why, I see nothing."

She had looked and was still looking far out against the yellow horizon where her eyes had rested when she fell asleep. And as she looked, or rather before I ventured to point her to the spot almost under the tomb where the lion strode, he passed on and was by this time perhaps almost quite under the great slab of granite where we rested.

I was about to whisper the fact in her ear when I fancied I felt the whole tomb tremble! Then it seemed to shake, or rather rumble again. Then again it rumbled. Then again! Then there was a roar that literally shook the sand. I heard the sand sift and rattle down like drops of rain from where it lay in the crevices as I listened to find whether or not he was moving forward toward the place by which we had ascended. He was surely moving forward. I felt rather than heard him move. I assert—and I must content myself for the present with merely asserting—that you can feel the movements of an animal under such circumstances. And I assert further that an animal, especially a wild beast, can feel your movements under almost any circumstances. The undeveloped senses deserve a book by themselves. But just now, with the largest lion I ever saw coming straight upon me, is hardly the time or place to write such a treatise.

Pistol in hand I sprang to the steep and rugged passage. And not a second too soon. His mighty head was almost on a level with the granite slab. And he was half crouching for a bound and a spring upward, which would perhaps land him in our faces. I could see—or did I feel—that his huge hinder feet were spread wide out and sunken in the sand with preparation to bend all their force toward bearing him upward in one mighty bound.

I fired! fired right into his big red mouth, between two hideous pickets of ugly yellow teeth. He fell back, and then, gathering his ferocious strength, he bounded up and forward again; this time striking his left shoulder heavily against a projecting corner of the granite slab. Fortunately the ascent was slightly curving, so that the distance could not be made at a single bound without collision, else had we both surely been destroyed.

Again the supple and comely beast, disdaining to creep or crawl, made a mighty leap upward. But only to strike the rounding corner of the great granite slab and fall back as before.

But I knew he would reach us in time! And if ever man did wish for fitting arms to fight with and defend woman it was I at that time. True, I had five shots left; but what were they in the face of this furious king of beasts? I began to fear that they would only serve to enrage him.

Still, he should have all I had to give. Death is, has been, and will be. The best we can make of it all is to try and see that we shall not die ingloriously.

The woman had been by my side all this time. And now, as the lion paused as if to gather up the broken thunderbolts of his strength, she laid a hand on my arm, never so gently, and said: "Let me go down and meet him face to face. I think he will not harm me."

"Madam," I exclaimed impetuously, "you will meet him up here, and face to face, soon enough, I think."

"No, that will not do. You must trust the lion; as Daniel did."

I pushed her back, as she tried to pass down, almost violently.

"There!" I cried as I wheeled about and forced her before me for an instant, "if you have real courage leap to the head of yonder column, then on to the next! Quick! be brave enough to save yourself and——"

"No! I will not run away and leave you to die."

"For God's sake you will run away and save me."

"Why? How?"

"I will join you there, go! Quick, or it will be too late!"

Another leap of the lion! Bang! Bang!

This time he did not fall back, but held on by sheer force of his powerful arms; his terrible claws tearing at the granite slab as they hung and hooked over its outer edge.

Bang! Bang! Bang! The last shot. I hurled my revolver in his face, for he had not flinched or given back a single grain. His breath and my breath were mingled there in the smoke of my pistol. I heard—or did I feel—his great hinder feet fastening in the steep earth under him for his final struggle to the top?

I turned, saw that she had reached the farther column; and with three leaps and a bound I had crossed the granite slabs and stood erect on the nearer one! Not a moment had I left. The lion, with great noise of claws on the granite, came tearing to the surface. I crouched down out of breath on the outer edge of my column, so as to be surely out of reach of his ponderous paws. I expected him to decide the matter at once, to reach us or give it up instantly. But he seemed in no haste now. He scarcely advanced at all, for what seemed to me to be a long time. Finally, jerking his tail like the swift movement of a serpent, he strode along the farthest edge of the granite slab and seemed to take no notice of us whatever. Blood was dripping from his mouth, but he did not seem to heed it.

Once more he strode with his old majesty, and seemed ashamed that he should have descended to the indignity of a struggle to gain the place where he now stood sullen and triumphant. Enraged? He was choking, dying with rage; and yet this kingly creature would not even condescend to look in our direction.

Why, I could feel his fearful rage as he now walked on and around the edge of that granite slab. At length he came opposite to where I lay crouching on the farther edge of my column. He passed on without so much as turning his eyes in my direction. And yet I felt, I felt and knew, as distinctly as if he could have talked and told me, that he was carefully measuring the distance.

When the lion, in his stately round, came to the narrow pass by which he had ascended he paused an instant, and half lowered his head.

Ah, how devoutly I did pray that he would be generous enough to descend to the sands and gracefully present us with his absence.

But no! Lifting his huge head even higher in the air than before, he now passed on hurriedly, came on around to where in his stately majesty he stood with quivering flank and flashing eye almost within reach of me. Yet he still disdained to even so much as look at me. His head was far above me as I crouched there on the farther edge of my column; his flashing eyes were lifted and looking far above me and beyond me. Maybe he was on the lookout over the desert for the coming of his companion.

Soon, however, he set his huge paws on the very edge of the great slab on which he stood, and then suddenly threw his right paw out toward me and against the edge of my column with the force and velocity of a catapult!

I heard the sharp, keen claws strike and scrape on the granite as if they had been hooks of steel.

Then he threw himself on his breast, and hitching himself a little to one side, he threw his right paw so far that it landed full in the center of my column's top and tore a bit of my coat sleeve. Then he hitched his huge body a little farther on over the edge and again threw his huge paw right at my face. It fell short of its mark only a few inches, as it seemed to me. But, having hastily gathered in my garments, his claws did not find anything to fasten on and they drew back empty.

At this point three dusky etchings stood out against the golden east on the yellow sands, and looked intently at us with their enormous heads high in the air. And now the beast slowly arose and moved on. A lion's head seems always disproportionately large, but when he is exercising for an appetite to eat you it looks large indeed.

The monster who was occupying the platform with us surely saw his followers; indeed, he must have seen them long before; but his unbending dignity seemed to forbid that he should take any heed of them.

The new-born hope that he would descend and join his followers died as he came on around.

And now something strange and notable transpired. This one incident is my excuse for thus elaborating this otherwise passive and tediously dull sketch of this night. I had risen to my feet, and as the lion came on around, this woman, with a force that was irresistible, sprang to my side, thrust me behind her, and stepping forward with a single spring, she stood on the edge of the column nearest to the lion.

I would have followed, but that same force, which I can now understand was a mental force and not at all a physical force, held me hard and fast to where I stood.

She had let her robe fall as she sprang forward and now stood only as the hand of God had fashioned her; a snow-white silhouette of perfect comeliness against the terrible and bloody mouth and tossing mane of the lion. She leaned forward as he came on around and close to the edge of his slab. She looked him firmly and steadily in the face, her wondrous eyes, her midnight eyes of all Israel, the child of the wilderness, had once more met the lion of the desert as of old.

Who was this woman here who stepped between death and me and stood looking a wounded lion in the face? Was this Judith again incarnate? Or was this something more than Judith? Was it the Priestess and the Prophetess Miriam, back once more to the banks of the Nile? Was it the old and forgotten mastery of all things animate which Moses and his sister knew that gave her dominion over the king of the desert? Or was her name Mary? "That other Mary," if you will, who won all things to her side, God in heaven, God upon earth, by the sad, sweet pity of her face, and the story of holy love that was written there? The lion's head for a moment forgot its lofty defiance as she leaned a little forward. Then the tossed and troubled mane rose up and rolled forward like an inflowing sea. It never seemed so terrible. He was surely about to spring! And she, too! Her right foot settled solidly back, her left knee bent like a bow, her shapely and snowy shoulders, under their glory of black hair, bowed low. Her dauntless and defiant spirit had already precipitated itself forward and was smiting the imperious beast full in his blazing eyes. I knew that her body would follow her spirit in an instant more.

Face to face! Spirit to spirit! Soul to soul! A second only the combat lasted. The awful ferocity and force of the brute was beaten down, melted like lofty battlements of snow before the burning arrows of the sun, and he slowly, surlily, shrank in size, in spirit, in space. A paw drew back from the edge of the block, the eyes drooped, the head dropped a little, and the terrible mane seemed terrible no more, as slowly, doggedly, mightily, aye doggedly and majestically, too, at the same time, this noble creature forced himself sidewise and back a little.

Then he hesitated. Rebellion was in his mighty heart. He turned suddenly and looked her full in the face once more. All the beast that was in him rose up. The terrible mane now seemed more terrible than before. With great head tossed, tail whipped back, and teeth in the air, talons unsheathed and legs gathered under him, he was about to bound forward.

But the woman was before him! With eyes still fastened on his face, she with one long leap forward drove not only her shining soul but her snowy body right against his teeth. Or rather, she had surely done so had not the lion, half turned about, shrank back as she leaped forward. Then slowly, looking back with his blazing but cowering eyes, feeling back with his spirit still defiant, if but to see whether her courage failed her in the least or her mighty spirit was still in battle armor; and then he passed. His companions had drawn back and into a depression in the desert where he slowly and sullenly joined them.

One, two, three, four dim yet distinct black silhouettes against the yellow east; then but a single confused black etching; away, away, smaller and smaller, gone!

I gathered up her robe, crossed over, and letting it fall on her shoulders where she still stood, looking down and after the beast. I picked up my pistol from where it had fallen, a few feet below, and as she turned about, carefully reloaded it from cartridges by chance in my vest pocket.

Returning to the summit, I found her again resting on her couch at the corner of the huge slab, tranquilly as if we had not been disturbed. I did not speak. Not a single word had been uttered all this time.

I sat down at the feet of this woman—not at her side, as before—and let my own feet dangle down over the edge on the side farthest away from the isolated columns. Neither of us spoke; nor did she move hand or foot till morning.

THE CHEATED JULIET.

BY Q.

Extracted from the Memoirs of a Retired Burglar.

The house in question was what Peter the Scholar (who corrects my proof-sheets) calls one of the rusinurby sort—the front facing a street and the back looking over a turfed garden with a lime tree or two, a laburnum, and a lawn-tennis court marked out, its white lines plain to see in the starlight. At the end of the garden a door, painted dark green, led into a narrow lane between high walls, where, if two persons met, one had to turn sideways to let the other pass. The entrance to this lane was cut in two by a wooden post about the height of your hip, and just beyond this, in the high road, George was waiting for us with the dog-cart.

We had picked the usual time—the dinner-hour. It had just turned dark, and the church-clock, two streets away, was chiming the quarter after eight, when Peter and I let ourselves in by the green door I spoke of and felt along the wall for the gardener's ladder that we knew was hanging there. A simpler job there never was. The bedroom window we had marked on the first-floor stood right open to the night air; and inside there was the light of a candle or two flickering, just as a careless maid will leave them after her mistress has gone down to dinner. To be sure there was a chance of her coming back to put them out; but we could hear her voice going in the servants' hall as we lifted the ladder and rested it against the sill.

"She's good for half a hour yet," Peter whispered, holding the ladder while I began to climb; "but if I hear her voice stop, I'll give the signal to be cautious."

I went up softly, pushed my head gently above the level of the sill, and looked in.

It was a roomy place with a great half-tester bed, hung with curtains, standing out from the wall on my right. The curtains were of chintz, a dark background with flaming red poppies sprawling over it; and the further curtain hid the dressing-table, and the candles upon it and the jewel-case that I confidently hoped to stand upon it also. A bright Brussels carpet covered the floor, and the wall-paper, I remember—though for the life of me I can't tell why—was a pale grey ground, worked up to imitate watered silk, with sprigs of gilt honeysuckle upon it.

I looked round and listened for half a minute. The house was still as death up here—not a sound in the room or in the passages beyond. With a nod to Peter to hold the ladder firm I lifted one leg over the sill, then the other, dropped my feet carefully upon the thick carpet and went quickly round the bed to the dressing-table.

But at the corner, and as soon as ever I saw round the chintz curtain, my knees gave way, and I put out a hand towards the bed-post.

Before the dressing-table, and in front of the big glass, in which she could see my white face, was an old lady seated.

She wore a blaze of jewels and a low gown out of which rose the scraggiest neck and shoulders I have ever looked on. Her hair was thick with black dye and fastened with a diamond star. The powder between the two candles showed on her cheek-bones like flour on a miller's coat. Chin on hand, she was gazing steadily into the mirror before her, and even in my fright I had time to note that a glass of sherry and a plate of rice and curry stood at her elbow, among the rouge-pots and powder-puffs.

While I stood stock still and pretty well scared out of my wits, she rose, still staring at my image in the glass, folded her hands modestly over her bosom, and spoke in a deep tragical voice—

"The Prince!"

Then, facing sharply round, she held out her thin arms.

"You have come—at last?"

There wasn't much to say to this except that I had. So I confessed it. Even with the candles behind her I could see her eyes glowing like a dog's, and an uglier poor creature this world could scarcely show.

"Is the ladder set against the window?"

"Since you seem to know, ma'am," said I, "it is."

"Ah, Romeo! Your cheeks are ruddy—your poppies are too red."

"Then I'm glad my colour's come back; for, to tell the truth, you did give me a turn, just at first. You were looking out for me, no doubt——"

"My Prince!"—She stretched out her arms again, and being pretty well at my wits' end I let her embrace me. "It has been so long," she said. "Oh, the weary while! And they ill-treat me here. Where have you been, all this tedious time?"

I wasn't going to answer that, you may be sure. It appeared to me that 'twas my right to ask questions rather than stand there answering them.

"If they've been ill-treating you, ma'am," said I, "they shall answer for it."

"My love!"

"Yes, ma'am. Would it be taking a liberty if I asked their names?"

"There is Gertrude—"

"Gertrude's hash is as good as settled, ma'am."

I checked Gertrude off on my thumb.

"—that's my niece."

For a moment I feared I'd been a little too prompt. But she went on——

"And next there's Henry; and the children—who have more than once made faces at me; and Phipson."

"Phipson's in it too?"

"You know her?"

"Don't I?" It surprised me a trifle to find that Phipson was a female.

"Three times to-night she pulled my hair, and the rice she brought me—look at it! all stuck together and sodden."

"Phipson shall pay for it with her blood."

"My hero—my darling! Don't spare Phipson. She screams bitterly if a pin is stuck into her. I did it once. Stick her all over with pins."

By this I'd begun to guess what was pretty near the truth—that I was talking with a mad aunt of the family below, and that the game was in my hands if I played it with decent care. So I brought her to face the important question.

"Look here," I said, "all this shall be done when you are out of their hands. At present I'm running a considerable risk in braving these persecutors of yourn. Dearest madam, the ladder's outside and the carriage waiting. Hadn't we better elope at once?"

She gave a sob, and fell on my shoulders.

"Oh, is it true—is it true? Pinch me, that I may awake if this is but a happy dream!"

"You are ready?"

"This moment."

"There's just one other little matter, ma'am—your jewels. You won't leave them to your enemies, I suppose?"

This was the dangerous moment, and I felt a twitch of the nerves as I watched her face to see how she would take the suggestion. But the poor silly soul turned up her eyes to mine, all full of tears and confidence.

"Dearest, I am old, old. Had you come earlier, my beauty had not wanted jewels to set it off. But now I must wear them to look my best—as your bride."

She hid her face in her hands for a second, then turned to the dressing-table, lifted her jewel-case and put it into my hands.

"I am ready," she repeated: "let us be quick and stealthy as death."

She followed me to the window and looking out, drew back.

"What horrible, black depths!"

"It's as easy," said I, "as pie. You could do it on your head; look here——," I climbed out first and helped her, setting her feet on the rungs.

We went down in silence, I choking with laughter all the way at the sight of Peter below, who was looking with his mouth open and his lips too weak to meet on the curses and wonderment that rose up from the depths of him. When I touched turf and handed him the jewel-case, he took it like a man in a trance.

We put the ladder back into its place and stole over the turf together. But outside the garden-door Peter could stand no more of it—

"I've a fire-arm in my pocket," whispered he, pulling up, "and I'm going to fire it off to relieve my feelings if you don't explain here and now. Who, in pity's name, is she?"

"You mug—she's the Original Sleeping Beauty. I'm eloping with her, and you've got her jewels."

"Pardon me, Jem," he says in his gentlemanly way, "if I don't quite see. Are you taking her off to melt her or marry her? For how to get rid of her else——"

The poor old creature had halted, too, three paces ahead of us, and waited while we whispered, with the moonlight, that slanted down into the lane, whitening her bare neck and flashing in her jewels.

"One moment," I said, and stepped forward to her. "You had better take off those ornaments here, my dear, and give them to my servant to take care of. There's a carriage waiting for us at the end of the lane, and when he has stowed them under the seat we can climb in and drive off——"

"To the end of the world—to the very rim of it, my hero."

She pulled the gems from her ears, hair, and bosom, and handed them to Peter, who received them with a bow. Next she searched in her pocket and drew out a tiny key. Peter unlocked the case, and having carefully stowed the diamonds inside, locked it again, handed back the key, touched his hat, and walked off towards the dog-cart.

"My dearest lady," I began, as soon as we were alone between the high walls, "if the devotion of a life——"

Her bare arm crept into mine. "There is but a little time left for us in which to be happy. Year after year I have marked off the almanack: day by day I have watched the dial. I saw my sisters married, and my sisters' daughters; and still I waited. Each had a man to love her and tend her, but none had such a man as I would have chosen. There were none like you, my Prince."

"No, I daresay not."

"Oh, but my heart is not so old! Take my hand—it is firm and strong; touch my lips—they are burning——"

A low whistle sounded at the top of the lane. As I took her hands I pushed her back, and turning, ran for my life. I suppose that, as I ran, I counted forty before her scream came, and then the sound of her feet pattering after me.

She must have run like a demon; for I was less than ten yards ahead when Peter caught my wrist and pulled me up on to the back-seat of the dog-cart. And before George could set the horse going her hand clutched at the flap on which my feet rested. It missed its grasp, and she never got near enough again. But for half a minute I looked into that horrible face following us and working with silent rage; and for half a mile at least I heard the patter of her feet in the darkness behind. Indeed, I can hear it now.

THE MYSTIC KREWE.

BY MAURICE THOMPSON.

CHAPTER I.

About seventy years ago a young man of strong physique and prepossessing appearance arrived at New Orleans. He had come from New York, of which city he was a native, and had brought with him a considerable sum of money, supplemented by a letter of introduction to Judge Favart de Caumartin, who was then at the flood tide of his fame.

It would not be fair to call our young man ("our hero" would be the good old phrase) an adventurer, without taking pains to qualify the impression that might be produced. Hepworth Coleman had his own way of looking at life. Fifty years later he would have been a tragedian—probably a famous one, but the conditions were not favorable to awakening histrionic ambition at the time when his character, his tastes, his ambition should have been forming. What he saw that was most fascinating to him had no distinct form; it lay along the south-western horizon, a dreamy, mist-covered something not unlike the confines of romance.

Hepworth Coleman was rich, and what was, perhaps, a greater misfortune, he had no living kinsfolk for whom he cared or who cared for him. Practically speaking, he was alone in the world: moreover, he had an imagination. Scott's novels, Byron's poetry, the French romances, and I know not what else of the sort, had been his chief reading. For physical recreation he had turned to fencing and pistol practice. When I add that he was but twenty-two and unmarried, the rest might be guessed, but Coleman was not a young man of the world in the worst sense—he had not turned to evil sources of dissipation. Healthy, vigorous, full of spirit, he nevertheless had sentimental longings as indefinite as they were persistent.

Youth is the spring time when "Longen folk to gon on pilgrimages," as old Chaucer words it, and it would be hard to find the young man who has not felt the vaguely outlined yet irresistible desire to wander, to go over the horizon into a strange, new world. Hepworth Coleman, when he was taken with this longing, felt no restraint cast around him. He was absolutely free, had all the means necessary—why should he not go where he pleased? If it seems strange that he should have been attracted to New Orleans rather than to the Old World, we must remember what New Orleans was in 1820. No other city, not even Paris, could at that time compare with it as a center of genuine romance, nor was this romance unmixed with lawlessness of the most picturesque kind. Money poured into it from a hundred sources more or less illegitimate, besides the streams of wealth produced by cotton, sugar, and rice industries. Gambling was indeed a fine art, duelling appeared more a pastime than anything else, and what went on in the gilded halls and melody-filled salles may be imagined, I suppose, though, I do not care to cast a glance that way.

Hepworth Coleman had heard much of the gay city, of its warm, odorous atmosphere, its hospitality, its social charm, the smack of reckless romance in all its ways. Somehow the desire to go there got hold of his imagination and he went.

The letter to Judge Favart de Caumartin was given to Coleman by his banker, who in handing it to him said:

"I don't know the Judge personally, never saw him; but he has done a lot of business through us. He is very rich, evidently very influential, and certainly will be of use to you. I feel that I can take the liberty of sending you to him, because—well, he is under many obligations to the bank, and is likely to want many more large favors. I fancy that you'll find him a trifle eccentric, but enthusiastically hospitable. A creole of the creoles I judge him to be, and a representative of the nabobs."

Young Coleman considered himself lucky to carry with him a document that would give him introduction to a person so renowned as Judge Favart de Caumartin, of whom he had been recently reading a good deal owing to a duel fought between the Judge and one Colonel Sam Smith, of the United States army, in which the latter had been killed. The duel had brought out history from which it appeared that Judge Favart de Caumartin had fought before, not once only, but many times, and always to the death of his antagonist. Along with these facts were disclosed numerous picturesque details of the Judge's past life, with more than hints that in his young days he had been a pirate or something of the sort. The account also made the most of his wealth, his almost reckless liberality, his eccentricity, and, most of all, the air of mystery which still hung over his business operations.

All this was rich food for an imagination already thoroughly saturated with the spirit of romantic adventure, and during the voyage from New York to New Orleans Hepworth Coleman found deep satisfaction in anticipating what he felt was in store for him. In every fiber of his frame he felt the assurance that he was on the way to new and strange experiences.

His banker had sent a letter to precede his arrival by a few days, asking a friend to secure suitable apartments for Mr. Hepworth Coleman, gentleman, the consequence being that a dark young man, small but well-built and handsome, met him at the landing to conduct him to his suit of elegant rooms on Royal Street.

"Is you Meestu Coleman, sah?" inquired this young stranger in a musical and respectful tone of voice. "I look fo' zat ma' at prayson."

"Yes, sir, that is my name," said Coleman briskly, at the same time he showed by his look that he would like to know whom he was meeting.

"Varee glad you come, Meestu Coleman; varee glad, sah, indeed. Got your rooms all prepare fo' you, sah. Yes, sah, zey is beautifu' an' sharming rooms."

"Thank you; I am much indebted. Are you the gentleman to whom Mr. Cartwright, the banker, wrote in my behalf?"

"Nah, sah, not any banker write to me; I been told to meet you at zis place at prayson. Happy to see you. Mist Coleman; varee happy."

There was an elegant carriage at hand waiting for our friend. A negro driver in livery and a small black footman stood by.

Coleman entered the vehicle, followed closely by the young creole who had met him on the landing. He saw his baggage hoisted into a little wagon to come after the carriage.

For some reason not exactly explained this whole proceeding affected Coleman peculiarly; he felt a sort of vague uneasiness, as if he were passing into an atmosphere of mystery, if not of danger.

As he was whirled through the narrow streets he caught glimpses of queer tile-covered houses with curious hanging galleries. High walls and gloomy courts flanked these, and here and there a dusky palm or a bright orange tree flung up its foliage. Blooming magnolia clumps filled the air with a heavy, languid odor.

But what most attracted the attention of Coleman was a company of four or five young men dressed like dandies, swaggering along on one of the banquettes (sidewalks) and singing a drinking song at the top of their voices. One of these hilarious fellows made a lasting impression on our young friend's imagination. He was a tall, olive-skinned, handsome man, apparently about twenty-five, strikingly dressed in a plaid coat, a vest of red and black velvet, gray trousers, and a profusely ruffled shirt. Evidently he was the leading spirit of the party. At all events he was somewhat in front, with his black cap set well back on his shapely head, while his jet black hair fell in shining curls over his strong shoulders. He was shouting forth the French drinking carol in a voice as sweet as it was loud, and at the same time waving in the air a small cane. The entire group looked the worse for wine, their faces flushed and their eyes brilliant.

"Who is that strange-looking man in front?" inquired Coleman of his creole companion, as they passed them by.

"Zat ge'man ees ze goozh Favart de Caumartin," was the answer that fairly startled the interrogator.

Coleman actually grew red in the face and exclaimed:

"That Judge Favart de Caumartin! Surely, sir, you are mistaken."

"Beg pahdon, sah, zat ees Monsieur le Juge Favart de Caumartin. I him know varee well myself at prayson."

Coleman turned and stared back through the window at the strutting youthful figure leading the noisy rout.

How could that be the celebrated duellist, the guardian pirate!

"It cannot be," he muttered aloud. "It is impossible."

"Varee well, Meestu Coleman," said the young Creole dryly; "but I mus' inqui yo' pahdon, sah. Monsieur le Juge Favart de Caumartin ees to me well acquainted. I wemark to you, sah, zat zare ees not any mistake."

"Oh certainly, sir; I beg a thousand pardons!" exclaimed Coleman, pulling himself together and seeing his breach of etiquette. "Of course you were right; but I was so surprised to see the Judge looking so young. I had supposed he was an aged man. I am astonished."

"Oh, Monsieur le Juge ees not so young—not so varee—hees hair not much gray." While they were still discussing this matter the carriage stopped in front of a square, heavy-looking house, which, painted a dull red and projecting its upper gallery over the banquette, flung out on either side a heavy brick wall on whose top was a jagged dressing of broken bottles and jags. It looked more like a convent than like an apartment-house.

Hepworth Coleman found his suit of rooms admirable in every respect, large, airy, luxuriously furnished. His creole conductor parted with him at the door without giving his name or address and without any explanation whatever of his connection with the matter of securing these elegant apartments or with making his arrival easy and pleasant.

Some silent and obsequious negro servants were at hand to do his bidding; but he soon dismissed them; while he flung himself upon a sofa and lit his pipe. Altogether incomprehensible to him were the suggestions of secrecy and mystery connected with his reception; scarcely less so was the youthful, nay, boyish appearance of Judge Favart de Caumartin.

As if the mysterious atmosphere meant to continue growing denser, it was while he lay along the luxuriant scarlet sofa, smoking, resting, and meditating, that a beautiful girl came and stood for a moment in the doorway of his chamber. She blushed sweetly at sight of him, recoiled violently, and then slipped swiftly away, leaving behind her a rustle of fine stuff, a sparkle of rare jewels, and a lingering bouquet of violets and roses.

Coleman felt the delicious shock of her magnetic beauty thrill through him. A sort of shimmering outline of her body wavered or appeared to waver in the door after she had gone, so dazzling had been the effect of her fresh, pure, flower-like, yet intensely human, beauty. He heard her feet tap swiftly and lightly along the hall. Involuntarily and with unpardonable curiosity he sprang up and, hurrying to the door, looked out, but she was not in sight. For the first time in his life, he felt his heart beating unnaturally.

CHAPTER II.

Evening was drawing on, sending a soft twilight into the room, when Coleman's dinner was brought in by a shy and silent old colored woman. He had not ordered the meal, nor had he felt the need of it. Doubtless the stimulus afforded by the unusual character of his surroundings held his sense of hunger in abeyance.

The old woman retired as soon as she had arranged the repast on a round mahogany table. Coleman found the oysters, the wine, the broiled fish, the French bread, and the black coffee excellent to such a degree that he ate almost everything before him; then leaning far back in his chair he began to study the silver set from which all those good things had been taken. The platter was in the form of a flounder, the sugar bowl was a frog, the cream pitcher a heron, the coffee-pot a pelican. These curious pieces were exquisitely carved, and on each was cut the name Favart de Caumartin in plain, bold letters. Even on the five-armed silver candle-stick in which burned fragrant myrtle wax tapers appeared that striking inscription. He surveyed the room now with a more critical eye, discovering at once that the pictures, the curtains, the carpets, and indeed all the articles of furniture were costly and beautiful beyond anything he had ever seen before. Evidently he was in Judge Favart de Caumartin's house.

The moon was shining brilliantly when Coleman went forth for a short walk in the street. Not many people were abroad, it being the dinner-hour, but certain cafés were crowded with men and women who were drinking champagne and discussing the dishes on well-spread tables.

At the door of one these gorgeous rooms Coleman met the young man whom a few hours before he had seen leading the singers in the street. It occurred to him that now was as good as any time to present his letter to the Judge, so he forthwith stepped near him and said, lifting his hat:

"I believe I have the honor of meeting Judge Favart de Caumartin?"

The gentleman stared at him a moment very deliberately, then, with just a suspicion of a smile and with a courteous dignity wholly inimitable and indescribable, doffed his queer little black cap as he spoke:

"And who does me the honor of addressing me?"

"I am Hepworth Coleman of New York?"

"Ah!"

"I hold a letter to you from Mr. Phineas Cartwright, of the firm of Cartwright & Vanderveer, bankers."

"Indeed! I feel honored."

Coleman produced the letter and tendered it: but not without a vague feeling of insecurity of some sort. He had not expected this peculiar reserve and caution on the part of the Judge. Could it be that he was to be treated as an infliction to be borne for mere policy's sake. His distrust and doubt, however, were of short duration, for the Judge had no sooner read the epistle, which was much longer than any mere letter of introduction, than his whole manner changed. He held out his hand.

"I am charmed, delighted, sir," he said, with a slight creole accent that made his voice very pleasing. "I am proud to see you. I hope you find your rooms agreeable."

Coleman clasped his hand and felt that measure of relief which comes when one is suddenly lifted out of a very awkward situation.

The Judge read the banker's letter over again with great deliberation and apparently with much concentration of mind, while Coleman, who could not remove his eyes from his fascinating dark face, stood waiting for an opportunity to say:

"You do me infinite honor, Judge, in quartering me in your own house. I had not expected and could not expect such hospitality."

The Judge hesitated, then with a calm smile remarked that whatever he could do for so distinguished a visitor would be but a small expression of the greater hospitality that he would like to bestow were he able.

"And now," he presently continued, "come with me to my own private apartments, where we can have some quiet conversation and a smoke."

Coleman could not fail to see that the Judge was still somewhat touched with wine, though the mood of wild hilarity had passed off.

They passed along the street until they reached a narrow blind alley into which the moonlight fell but dimly between dusky walls.

To Coleman's surprise the Judge led the way into this, then up a flight of winding and rather rickety stairs to a dark hall, along which they passed to what seemed a great distance. At the end the Judge fumbled for some time, and by some means opened a low, heavy door leading into a room that reeked with the odor of tobacco and the fumes of wine. Passing across this by the light of a dim dormer window they reached a close passageway which led to another prison-like door, which the Judge managed to open after a great deal of trouble. The room that they now entered was exceedingly small—a mere cell in extent, as Coleman felt rather than saw, the walls, damp and grimy, being almost within reach on either hand.

"Stand here for one moment, please," said the Judge, touching Coleman's arm, "until I call a servant."

Then he stepped briskly back through the doorway and drew the solid shutter to with a hollow clang. Some strange echoes went wandering away as if from distance to distance, above, below, around, followed by absolute silence. A faint flicker of light came from above, but it seemed a reflection rather than a direct beam from the moon, and the air was close, heavy, atrociously bad.

Coleman stood amazed for a few moments before going to the door, which he found immovable. He groped around the wall only to discover that there was no other outlet.

CHAPTER III.

Judge Favart de Caumartin's residence was a large, rambling structure, more like a hotel than like a private house. Considering that his wife was dead and that he had but one living child, a daughter of seventeen, it was strange that he kept up such an extensive establishment, in which, perhaps, twenty rooms stood richly furnished but unoccupied. It was his pleasure, however, and his pleasure was law.

Mlle. Olympe de Caumartin was greatly surprised when by merest chance she discovered Hepworth Coleman making himself quite at home in a remote room of the house. We have seen how she showed her confusion as she stepped into the doorway and found herself face to face with the young man. The glance that passed between them wrought a wonder in the heart of each. I shall not say that they fell in love at first sight. Love cannot be so accurately traced that its origin can be exactly found out in any particular case. It is enough to record that Mlle. Olympe de Caumartin caught something new, something sweet from that momentary gaze, and shut it up in her heart involuntarily, with a thrill that never again quite left her breast. She was back through halls and rooms to her own boudoir, her cheeks and lips rosy with excitement, and a gentle tremor in her limbs.

That evening in the library the Judge told his daughter that he had given a suit of rooms in the farthest wing of the mansion to a wealthy young gentleman from New York.

"I have had letters from Mr. Cartwright, my banker there, asking me to take care of him, and this seemed the best I could do under the circumstances. I did not see my way to bringing him any nearer to us. We don't care to have another member added to our family, eh, Olympe, dear?"

Mlle. de Caumartin blushed. She may have felt a touch of guilt because she could not muster courage to tell her father that she had already visited Mr. Coleman.

"I have not seen him yet," continued the Judge; "I thought it best to let him have some rest before calling upon him. Cartwright advises me that he is of an excellent family—a man to be given the greatest attention, and for my banker's sake, if for nothing else, I must meet the demand upon my hospitality. He came a fortnight earlier than I expected; but I had Jules watching for him, and you know Jules never fails."

"But you should have told me before, father dear," said Mlle. Olympe. "Only a while ago, while wandering through the distant wing of the house, I invaded this young gentleman's apartment. It surprised him evidently as much as it abashed me."

"The obvious moral of which is," replied the Judge quickly, "that you are hereafter to be more careful about what rooms you are stumbling into." As he spoke his dark oval face, with its fine, grave smile, was almost like a boy's. The flush that lay under the skin shone through with a suggestion of some repressed stimulus, as if a great passion had forced it up. In his eyes an underglow, so to call it, smoldered with fascinating vagueness.

Mlle. Olympe sat for a moment on his knee and stroked his long black hair.

"You will stay with me to-night, father, dear," she presently murmured, coaxingly; "you will not go out to-night."

"I must be gone a little while," he said, rising at once, "but just a little while."

She clung close to him.

"Not this night, please," she urged, with a touching tremor in her voice. "Oh! you remember this night a year ago you had that dreadful adventure in the dark room. You must not go out; please, for my sake, do not."

An expert observer could have seen while this was going on a strange, half-worried, almost fiercely concentrated expression in the Judge's eyes. It was as if he mightily wished to remain with his child, but could not by any effort resist some powerful temptation tugging at him and drawing him away.

He kissed her tenderly, pushed her gently from him and went out.

The girl cast herself upon a sofa and buried her face in her hands, as a vision of that night one year before came up before her eyes.

Some strange masked men had brought her father home far in the night, white as a ghost, helpless, speechless, apparently dead. They put him down there in the room and vanished.

He had no wound, no bruise, no mark of any violence. But he recovered very slowly, and he never told what had befallen him.

Mlle. Olympe knew of her father's frequent duels, and if he had been brought in dead or badly off on account of pistol ball or rapier thrust she would not have been surprised beyond measure, but this mysterious performance of the masked men and the unaccountable condition of the Judge were taken hold upon by her imagination and raised to the highest power of romantic meaning.

A year had passed, and she might not have recalled the exact anniversary but for the prattle of an old servant to the effect that she had seen her master, the Judge, marching at the head of a company of masked men, himself wearing an "invisible" mask and a queer black velvet cap.

Mlle. Olympe observed that her father was flushed as if with wine, and his bearing was indicative of some subtile and indescribable excitement within him. When he went away she felt that something startling was going to happen soon.

CHAPTER IV.

When Hepworth Coleman suddenly found himself a prisoner in that close, dark room, he did not at first suspect any treachery on the part of Judge Favart de Caumartin. He expected that gentleman to return in the course of a few minutes, but this favorable impression was soon removed by certain startling events that crowded one upon another.

First a low, rumbling, clanging sound, like the beating of metallic gongs in the distance, came through the walls and filled the cell. Then as this died away to utter silence he heard tumultuous whispering all around, above, below. The thousand voices all seemed to be saying the same thing, which presently he made out to be the words: "The Krewe is coming; make ready for the Krewe!" When the whispering ended little purple lights began to flash here and there, but so mysteriously glinted that he could not locate them, and these were followed by phantom faces, wan, waxen, faintly luminous, appearing and fading instantly, succeeded by intense darkness.

Now, Hepworth Coleman was a man of iron nerve, an athlete in body and spirit, who, although full of romantic and poetic impulses, was at the base of his character as brave and steadfast as a lion. Still, even the best courage has its moment of faltering, and just at the point when one whole wall of his cell was withdrawn, so that he stood in the full glare of twenty brilliant chandeliers that lighted a large, gorgeously decorated hall, he felt the blood grow stiflingly heavy on his heart. Before him stood a file of fantastic figures, men oddly clad and strangely armed, who clashed their brazen shields together and pointed their swords at his breast. On the walls of the spacious room hung weird-looking trophies, skulls, pictures of dead men, ghastly and livid, pistols, swords, and strange banners. The floor was carpeted with heavy Persian tapestry, thickly padded underneath.

Coleman stood gazing while the file of armed men—perhaps platoon would be more correct—went through some silent but intricate evolutions after beating their shields together and threatening him with their swords. When the movements were ended one of the masters came up to him and struck him lightly with the flat of his weapon across the cheek, saying in a loud whisper:

"Beware! you are in imminent danger."

Coleman took him at his word and instantly let go a blow from the shoulder. His close-set fist met the masker's jaw with a sound of crushing pasteboard, and down went the man outstretched at full length on the floor, his shield and sword giving forth a muffled clang as they crossed upon the soft carpet.

Quick as a cat Coleman leaped forward and picked up the sword, a beautiful rapier, and, assuming a defensive attitude, cried out boldly:

"Come one at a time and I will fight you all!"

The fantastic figures looked at one another with evident questioning, though not a word was said.

Meantime the fallen one scrambled to his feet and swore two or three bitter French oaths. The leader rebuked him with gestures.

"Come one at a time, you cowardly villains," repeated Coleman, "and I'll soon finish you all. Come on, the first one, if you dare meet a man!"

He was terribly angry, but his voice was steady and even.

There was a space of silence. Then the leader said something to one of the men, who immediately cast aside his shield and advanced with his rapier.

It was a short conflict. Coleman disarmed his antagonist with ease in less than a minute.

Another man came on and shared the same fate, with the addition of a prick through the wrist of the sword-arm.

This was exhilarating to Coleman in his exasperation at being made the butt of some mysterious trick.

"Come next," he cried; "I want the best of you—and the best is a coward. Come on!"

Evidently the mystic band now felt the gravity that the occasion was assuming. The maskers looked to their leader.

"Don't stand there afraid," sneered Coleman; "come on and get your turn. Who's next?"

One after another responded, only to fare badly. As yet, however, all had escaped without deadly hurt, when the leader himself made ready to fight. Those who had come to grief were quietly cared for by others, and all seemed to treat the proceedings as by no means startling or even unusual.

When the leader threw aside his shield and took off his tall plume-covered hat, Coleman was able to recognize Judge Favart de Caumartin, more by his form and bearing than by any disclosure of his features.

As the Judge handled his rapier, all the company of maskers, even the sorely-wounded ones, came forward to look on with eager expectation. His was steel that never yet had failed to find the vitals of his opponent. But, on the other hand, there stood Coleman, steadfast and alert, the very picture of strength and will, and the embodiment of quickness and certainty, his sword bearing at its point a tiny red clot of blood.

They looked with straining eyes and did not feel sure of the result even with their captain as their champion.

"Come on, sir, and take your punishment, you cowardly leader of cowards!" exclaimed Coleman in a most exasperating tone. "Don't stand there dreading it. Pluck up a little nerve and come on!"

It is useless to say that Judge Favart de Caumartin needed no bullying of this sort to urge him into combat. With beautiful swiftness and grace he sprang forward and at once took the offensive. Then followed sword play that was amazing to look at. Each combatant showed that mastery of the fencing art which makes the weapon appear to be a part of the man. So swiftly leaped the shining shafts of steel that the eye saw only fine symmetrical figures shimmering between the fighters, while spangles of fire leaped from the crossing edges. Coleman felt at once that he had met his match; the Judge tingled with the discovery that here at last was a master.

From the first it was a fight to the death if possible. Neither could hope to disarm the other, nor was there probability of any mere disablement ending the contest. The watchers, looking on in breathless suspense, heard with intensely straining ears the almost magically rapid clinking of the blades.

Coleman fought as if with the energy of all the accumulated romance of his recent experiences, half recognizing, as he parried and thrust and feinted and recovered guard, the vivid picturesqueness, the melodramatic unreality, and yet the deadly intensity of the situation. He did not know where he was or why he had been brought there. The whole affair had mystery enough in it to have destroyed the will power of any weaker man; but to him, while the strangeness affected his imagination, there was nothing in the matter to make him falter or to weaken the force of his arm. A fine glow of enthusiasm flashed indeed into his blood, and with it an access of cunning grace and swift certainty of hand and eye. The feeling prevailed that he had in some strange way stepped out of the real world into the world of romance, and as he fought, the charm of heroism fell upon him, and, like the knights of old, he felt the strength of a glorious desperation. All round him the vague spirit of dreamland seemed to hover, though the hideous pictures of skeletons and cadavers gleamed real enough in the glare of the chandeliers. What inspired him most, however, was the knowledge that he was trying his force with that of the greatest duellist in the world, and one who had always killed his man.

There was something more that gave spirit and courage to Coleman: he was in some indirect way remembering the beautiful girl who had appeared at the door of his room, and he half imagined that he was doing battle for the right to know more of her. Youth is a mystery in itself, and love knows no law of origin or of progress. By some cerebral slight, some trick of thinking under a thought, so to say, Coleman was making a love dream keep time to the ringing strokes of his sword. A girl whose name he did not know, whose voice he had never heard, was inspiring him as he strained every nerve.

As the combat proceeded, the lookers-on saw that Coleman's play was new to the Judge, who found great difficulty in meeting and parrying certain eccentric movements that invariably ended in a thrust of lightning quickness. Presently the Judge tore off his mask with his left hand. He had to do this at the risk of his life, for he could not breath freely with it on. But his great skill saved him even then; nay, more, it came near giving him the victory. As Coleman lunged, the agile creole leaped aside and returned quickly with a wicked thrust that barely reached his adversary's breast, piercing it to the depth of a half inch.

Now the fight took on more of passion and less of grace, as if the men felt that it was to be a test of strength at last. Round and round, back and forth, this way and that, they leaped, and recoiled, and advanced; their faces—one dark and beautiful as a southern night, the other fair and magnetic as a New England June day—fixed and staring, the white froth gathering on their lips.

When the end came it was like nothing ever before witnessed in a New Orleans duel. How it happened not one of the observers could tell; but the two men appeared to rush into each other's arms, and then it was seen that each had run the other through.

That broke the charm. The masked men sprang forward and separated the combatants, and all began to speak at once.

CHAPTER V.

Judge Favart de Caumartin and Hepworth Coleman were, by order of the Judge himself, taken to the Judge's mansion, where their wounds were examined by physicians and surgeons quickly summoned.

Mlle. Olympe de Caumartin found herself nursing two almost dying patients at the same time. Although she suspected that this was the result of a duel between her father and the young stranger, she was not told the secret of the affair until long afterward.

Strange to say, although the Judge was much the older man, and was wounded much nearer the heart, he recovered and was walking about in his house before Coleman had even taken a turn for the better. The first thing he did was to order his daughter to cease her nursing of the young man.

"It is not proper," he said, "for a young girl to be the nurse of a man who is a stranger."

Mlle. Olympe blushed scarlet, and was so much confused that she could not find a word to say. It had been a great pleasure to her to wait upon Coleman, who, though for the greater part of the time quite insensible of her presence, seemed to respond better to her care than to the treatment of the doctors. She had been having her sweet dream, was in love with him, indeed, and the command of her father struck her like a blow.

Judge Favart de Caumartin suspected the truth about his daughter, and was not slow in making up his mind in the matter. He gave strict orders that the hall between Coleman's rooms and the rest of the mansion should be kept at all times locked and barred.

Love laughs at such precautions. Hepworth Coleman, during his convalescence, lay on his back and thought of nobody but Mlle. Olympe, and when at last he was able to get up he sent for her. It so chanced that the Judge, having got well in a measure, was gone up to Natchez on business.

Mlle. Olympe did not go to see the young man; but she wrote him a note explaining her father's wishes.

"But he has never forbidden you to come to see me when you are able to walk so far as to the library," she added very frankly, "and I see no reason why you should stay away."

When the Judge returned it was too late to interfere, as he soon discovered, and he had to bow to the inevitable.

The mystery of the adventure with the masked men in that secret salle has never been further explained. Judge Favart de Caumartin would not consent to his daughter's marriage until he had exacted a promise from Coleman that he would never divulge what he knew.

The truth was that Coleman knew very little. He tried to discover the blind alley into which the Judge had led him on that eventful evening, but there was no such alley to discover. The whereabouts of the mysterious hall cannot be pointed out to-day, although from that memorable Tuesday in the spring of 1820 up to the Mardi-Gras of 1891, every anniversary of the Mystic Krewe has been duly celebrated by a fantastic band that at a certain hour of the night parades the streets of New Orleans. I do not refer to the regular carnival societies. These are but playful imitations of mystery. The genuine Krewe, as weirdly, strange and mysterious as ever, may be seen only on Royal Street, a small band headed by a tall, slender, dark man, who wears an invisible mask and a quaint black velvet cap. Where they come from nobody has ever been able to discover. Who they are is not known even to the great Rex, the king of the Carnival.

Hepworth Coleman and Mlle. Olympe de Caumartin were married in due time and lived on Royal Street all their lives. Every year on the evening of Mardi-Gras, they were called upon to give dinner to the Mystic Krewe, thirteen in number, who ate in silence with their masks on. The last of these dinners was in 1860. That year saw the twain, who for forty years had been happy together, laid in their tomb side by side.

Strangely enough there is no record whatever of Judge Favart de Caumartin's death; indeed, there is a tradition to the effect that he it is who still leads the Mystic Krewe.

STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A MILLION DOLLARS.

BY INGERSOLL LOCKWOOD.

Old New Yorkers may remember Dingee's famous Club House in lower Greene Street. From 1800 to 1850 it was the most fashionable gambling house in the metropolis, its founder, Alphonse Dingee, having been the first to introduce roulette and rouge et noir into the new world. It was in 1850 or a little later that ill health obliged his son Cyrill to sell the business out. He retired to his country seat at Bricksburg, quite a palatial residence for those days, where he died shortly after, leaving a round million dollars and one child, a daughter, Daisy. Spite of the fact that she was popularly known throughout the country as the "gambler's daughter," there were several respectable young men in the place who would have been only too happy to administer an estate worth a round million with Daisy thrown in for better or worse.

But Daisy Dingee knew what she wanted, and it was nothing more nor less than an alliance with the most aristocratic family in the country, to wit: the Delurys, whose large white mansion at the other end of the town was as tumble-down and shabby looking as Daisy's was neat, fresh, and well kept. Miss Dingee, therefore, proceeded to throw herself at the head of one Monmouth Delury, mentally and physically a colorless sort of an individual, who, for want of sufficient intellect to make an honest living, passed his time going to seed with the thousand or so acres of land belonging to him and his maiden sisters, Hetty, Prudence, and Martha, three women who walked as stiff as they talked, although they never were known to discuss any subject other than the Delury family.

When Daisy's proposition was made known to them they tried to faint, but were too stiff to fall over, and were obliged to content themselves with gasping out:

"What! Daisy Dingee marry our brother, the head of the Delury family!"

But it was the first idea that had ever entered the brother's head, and he clung to it with a parent's affection for his first born. In a few months Mr. and Mrs. Monmouth Delury set out for Paris with that proverbial speed with which Americans betake themselves to the French capital when occasion offers. They found it a much pleasanter place than Bricksburg. Delury improved rapidly and Daisy fell quite in love with him, made her will in his favor, contracted the typhoid fever and died.

Whereupon the really disconsolate widower sent for his three sisters to join him. They had but one objection to going, that was to part company with the dear old homestead, but they overcame it the day after receiving Monmouth's letter, which happened to be a Friday, and took the Saturday's steamer.

To confess the truth, the Delurys had been so land-poor that their spare aristocratic figures were rather the result of necessity than inclination. Six months of Paris life under the benign protection of Dingee's round million made different women of them. It was wonderful what a metamorphosis Parisian dressmakers and restaurateurs effected in their figures. They became round and plump. They stopped talking about Bricksburg, signed themselves the Misses Delury of New York, enrolled themselves as patrons of art, gave elegant dinners, and in a very short time set up pretensions to being the leaders of the American colony.

But remorseless fate was at their heels. Figaro unearthed the secret of old Dingee's million, and the Delurys suddenly found themselves the sensation of Paris, the butt of ridicule in the comic papers. Monmouth had been in poor health for several months, and this killed him.

Dingee's million was now in the eye of the law divided up among his three sisters, but fate willed it otherwise, for the following year Hetty, the eldest, died of Roman fever, and six months later Prudence fell a victim to rat poison in a small hotel at Grasse, City of Delightful Odors, in the south of France, whither she had gone in search of balmy air for her sister Martha, who had suddenly developed symptoms of consumption.

Left thus alone in the world with old Dingee's million and an incurable ailment, Martha's only ambition was to reach Bricksburg and die in the old white Delury mansion. It seemed to her that its great spacious rooms would enable her to breathe more easily and to fight death off for possibly another year.

But it was not to be. She got as far as Paris when old Dingee's million again changed hands, going this time by will to Martha's only relatives, twin brothers, John and William Winkletip, produce dealers in Washington street, New York.

The will was a peculiar one, as was to be expected:

I give, devise, and bequeath all the property popularly known as the "Dingee Million" to my cousins John and William Winkletip, produce dealers of New York, as joint tenants for their lives and the life of each of them, with remainder over to the eldest son of the survivor, his heirs and assigns forever; provided, that said remainder man shall be of full age at the time of his father's decease, and shall thereupon enter the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church and devote his life and the income of this estate to the encouragement of legislative enactment throughout the United States for the suppression of gambling and wager laying.

In default of such male heir, the Dingee million was to be divided up among certain religious and eleemosynary institutions.

When the cablegram from Paris informing them of their extraordinary luck reached the Winkletip Brothers, they were down in the cellar of the old tenement which served as their place of business, with their long jean coats on, busily engaged in sorting onions. As the Winkletips were only a little past fifty, and as strong as hickory knobs, their families were quite satisfied to get only a life estate in the Dingee million, for, barring accidents, the brothers had twenty-five or thirty years to live yet.

True, Brother John had a son, Cyrus, who would soon be of age, but he was a worthless wight, whose normal condition was alcoholic stupor, barely characterized with sufficient lucidity to enable him to distinguish rotten vegetables from sound.

"He will die years before his father," every one remarked, "and then the gambler's money will go where it ought to go."

There had been a fire next door to the Winkletips about the time the good news had arrived from Paris; a huge warehouse had burned down, leaving a brick wall towering sixty feet above the old wooden tenement in which the brothers did business. They had given notice to the authorities; but the inspectors had pronounced the wall perfectly safe. So the two brothers continued to come and go, in their best Sunday clothes, however, for they were only engaged in settling up the old business.

Suddenly, without the slightest warning, the huge wall fell with a terrific crash upon the wooden tenement, crushing it like an egg-shell. When the two brothers were taken out from the ruins, John was pronounced dead and a coroner's permit was given to remove him to a neighboring undertaker's establishment. William lived six hours, conscious to the last and grateful to an all-wise Providence that his worthless nephew would now be excluded from any control over the Dingee million.

John Winkletip was a grass widower, his wife, an Englishwoman, having abandoned him and returned to England, and for many years he had made his home with his only other child, a widowed daughter, Mrs. Timmins, who was openly opposed to many of her father's peculiar notions, as she termed them, one of which was his strong advocacy of cremation; he being one of the original stockholders and at the time of his death a director of the Long Island Cremation Society.

Consequently Mrs. Timmins gave orders that immediately after the coroner's inquest, her father's body should be removed to her residence in Harlem, but as the officers of the Cremation Society held the solemnly executed direction and authorization of their late friend and associate to incinerate his remains, they were advised by the counsel of their corporation that such an instrument would justify them in taking possession of the remains at the very earliest moment possible and removing it to the crematory.

Warned by the undertakers of Mrs. Timmins' threatened interference, they resolved not to risk even the delay necessary to procure a burial casket; in fact it would be a useless expense, anyway, and consequently John Winkletip began his last ride on earth lying in the cool depths of the undertaker's ice box.

As Mrs. Timmins's cab turned into Washington Street she met a hearse, but not until she had reached the undertaker's establishment was her suspicion transformed into certainty by being told that her father's body was already on its way to the crematory.

Mrs. Timmins was a long-headed woman. She knew the uncertainties of cab transportation through the crowded streets below Canal, and dismissing her cab at the Chambers Street station of the Third Avenue Elevated, she was soon speeding on her way to the Long Island City ferry.

This she reached just as a boat was leaving the slip. Misfortune number one. When she finally reached the Long Island side, she threw herself into the carriage nearest at hand, crying out:

"To the crematory! Five dollars extra if you get me there in time!"

It was not many minutes before Mrs. Timmins became aware of the fact that the horse was next to worthless, and could scarcely be lashed into a respectable trot. Mrs. Timmins was nearly frantic. Every minute her head was thrust out of the window to urge the hackman to greater speed. There was but one consoling thought—the hearse itself might get blocked or might have missed a boat!

As again and again her head was thrust out of the carriage window her hair became disheveled, for she had removed her hat, and the superstitious Hibernian on the box was upon the point of abandoning his post at sight of the wild and crazed look presented by Mrs. Timmins. Was she not some one's ghost, making this wild and mysterious ride?

But the promise of an extra five dollars kept the man at his post.

Suddenly a cry of joy escaped Mrs. Timmins's lips. The hearse was just ahead of them; but its driver had the better horses, and half suspecting that something was wrong, he whipped up vigorously and disappeared in a cloud of dust. Mrs. Timmins's horse was now as wet as if he had been dipped into the river, and she expected every minute to see him give out; but, strange to say, he had warmed up to his work, and now, in response to the driver's urging, broke into a run.

Again Mrs. Timmins caught a glimpse of the black coach of death in the dust clouds ahead of her. The race became every instant more exciting. It was a strange sight, and instinctively the farmers, in their returning vegetable wagons, drew aside to let them pass. Once more the hearse disappeared in the dust clouds. This was the last Mrs. Timmins saw of it until she drew up in front of the crematorium. There it stood, with its black doors thrown wide open. She had come too late! Her father's body had already been thrust into the fiery furnace.

The antagonism of Winkletip's family to his views concerning the cremation of the dead was an open secret with every attaché of the society, and the men in charge were determined that the society should come out the winner. They were on the lookout for the body. Everything, to the minutest detail, was in readiness. The furnace had been pushed to its greatest destroying power, and hence was it that haste overcame dignity when the foam-flecked and panting horses of the undertaker drew up in front of the entrance of the crematory.

The ice-chest was snatched from the hearse, borne hurriedly into the furnace-room, set upon the iron platform, wheeled into the very center of the white flames, whose waving, curling, twisting tongues seemed reaching out to their fullest length, impatient for their prey, and the iron doors slammed shut with a loud, resounding clangor.

At that instant a woman, hatless and breathless, with disheveled hair, burst into the furnace-room.

"Hold! Hold!" she shrieked, and then her hands flew to her face, and staggering backward and striking heavily against the wall, she sank, limp and lifeless, in a heap on the stone floor of the furnace-room.

But the two men in charge had neither eyes nor ears for Mrs. Timmins. As the doors closed they sprang to their posts of observation, in front of the two peep-holes, and stood watching the effect of the flames upon the huge ice-chest.

Its wooden covering parted here and there with a loud crack, laying bare the metal case, from the seams of which burst fitful puffs of steam. Now came a sight so strange and curious that the two men held their breath as they gazed upon it! By the vaporizing of the water from the melted ice the flames were pushed back from the chest, and it lay there for an instant, as if protected by some miraculous aura.

Then happened something which caused the men to reel and stagger as if their limbs were paralyzed by drink, and which painted their faces with as deep a pallor as death's own hand could have laid upon them.

From the furnace depths came forth a dull, muffled cry of "Help! Help!"

Making a desperate effort, the men tore open first the outer and then the inner doors of the fire chamber. As the air rushed in, the lid of the metal chest burst silently open. Again the cry of "Help!" rang out, and two hands quivered for an instant above the edge of the chest, then with a loud and defiant roar the flames closed in upon it, and began to lick it up ravenously. The doors were banged shut, and John Winkletip had his way.

But the Dingee million seemed to draw back instinctively from the touch of the worthless Cy Winkletip.

With loud cries of joy, the various beneficiaries under Martha Delury's will now discovered that Cyrus Winkletip was born on the 11th day of August, and that as his father had departed this life on the 10th day of August, the son was not of full age when his father died. But the law put an end to this short-lived joy by making known one of its curious bits of logic, which so often startle the layman.

It was this: The law takes no note of parts of a day, and therefore as Cyrus Winkletip was of age on the first minute of his twenty-first birthday, he was also of age on the last minute of the day before—consequently on the first minute of the day before he was twenty-one!

This gave the Dingee million to Cy Winkletip!

Under constant and stringent surveillance and tutelage, Cy Winkletip was, after several years of as close application as was deemed safe in view of his weak mental condition, admitted to the ministry in accordance with the provisions of Miss Delury's will.

At last the wicked Dingee million seemed safely launched upon its task of undoing the wrong it had done; but Cy Winkletip's mind ran completely down in five years and he died a wretched slavering, idiot.

Mrs. Timmins was inclined to warn off the Dingee million with a gesture of horror; but, yielding to the solicitation of her friends, she consented to take title in order that she might create a trust with it for some good and noble purpose. To this end, by a last will and testament she created and endowed the American Society for the Suppression of Gambling and Wager-laying, and then died.

The trustees at once began to erect the buildings called for, but before the society had had an opportunity to suppress a single gaming establishment, the lawyers, at the prayer of Mrs. John Winkletip, Mrs. Timmin's mother, fell tooth and nail upon the trust, which was declared too "vague, shadowy, and indefinite to be executed," and the Dingee million, its roundness now sadly shrunken, made its way across the ocean to Mrs. John Winkletip, of Clapham Common, London.

She died last year and with her the wanderings of the Dingee million came to an end. She willed it to trustees for building and maintaining a Hospital for Stray Dogs and Homeless Cats, and those learned in the law say that the trust will stand.

A LOST DAY.

BY EDGAR FAWCETT.

"My Family," John Dalrymple would say, "have the strange failing (that is, nearly all of them except myself, on the paternal side) of——"

And then somebody would always try to interrupt him. At the Gramercy, the small but charming club of which he had been for years an honored member, they made a point of interrupting him when he began on his family failing. Not a few of them held to the belief that it was a myth of Dalrymple's imagination. Still, others argued, all of the clan except John himself had been a queer lot; there was no real certainty that they had not done extraordinary acts. Meanwhile, apart from his desire to delve among ancestral records and repeat tales which had been told many times before, he was a genuine favorite with his friends. But that series of family anecdotes remained a standing joke.

They all pitied him when it became known that his engagement to the pretty winsome widow, Mrs. Carrington, was definitely broken. He was past forty now, and had not been known to pay serious court to any woman before in at least ten years. Of course Mrs. Carrington was rich. But then her money could not have attracted Dalrymple, for he was rich himself, in spite of his plain way of living there in that small Twenty-second Street basement house.

But the widow's money had doubtless lured to her side the gentleman who had cut poor Dalrymple out. A number of years ago, when this little occurrence which we are chronicling took place, it was not so easy as it is now to make sure of a foreigner's credentials and antecedents. The Count de Pommereul, a reputed French nobleman of high position, had managed to get into the Gramercy as a six-months' member, and had managed also to cross the thresholds of numerous select New York drawing-rooms. At the very period of his introduction to Mrs. Carrington her engagement with Dalrymple had already become publicly announced. Then, in a few weeks, society received a shock. Dalrymple was thrown over, and it transpired that the brilliant young widow was betrothed to the Count.

Dalrymple, calm and self-contained, had nothing to say on the subject of why he had received such shabby treatment, and nobody ventured to interrogate him. Some people believed in the Count, others thought that there was a ring of falsity about him, for all his frame was so elegantly slender and supple, for all his mustache was so glossily dark, and his eyes so richly lustrous. Dalrymple meanwhile hid his wound, met the Count constantly at the Club, though no longer even exchanging bows with him, and—worked at his revenge in secret as a beaver works at the building of his winter ranch. He succeeded, too, in getting superb materials for that revenge. They surprised even himself when a few relatives and friends in Paris mailed him appalling documentary evidence as to what sort of a character this Count really was. There is no doubt that he now held in his hand a thunderbolt, and had only to hurl it when he pleased.

He did not tell a single soul what he had learned. The thought of just how he should act haunted him for several days. One evening he went home from the club a little earlier than usual, and tossed restlessly for a good while after going to bed. When sleep came it found him still irresolute as to what course he should take.

It seemed to him that he had now a succession of dreams, but he could recall none of them on awaking. And he awoke in a peculiar way. There was yet no hint of dawn in the room, and only the light from his gas, turned down to a very dim star. He was sitting bolt upright in bed, and feverish, fatigued sensations oppressed him. "What have I been dreaming?" he asked himself again and again. But as only a confused jumble of memories answered him, he sank back upon the pillows, and was soon buried in slumber.

It was past nine o'clock in the morning when he next awoke. He felt decidedly better. Both the feverishness and the fatigue had left him. He went to the club and breakfasted there. It was almost empty of members, as small clubs are apt to be at that hour of the morning. But in the hall he met his old friend Langworth and bowed to him. Langworth, who was rather near-sighted, gave a sudden start and a stare. "How odd," thought Dalrymple, as he passed on into the reading-room, "I hope there's nothing unexpected about my personal appearance." Just at the doorway of the room he met another old friend, Summerson, a man extremely strict about all matters of propriety. Summerson saw him and then plainly made believe that he had not seen. As they moved by one another Dalrymple said lightly, "Good-morning, old chap. How's your gout?"

Summerson, who was very tall and excessively dignified, gave a comic squirm. Then his eyelids fluttered and with the tips of his lips he murmured, "Better," as he glided along.

"Pooh," said Dalrymple to himself. "Getting touchy, I suppose, in his old age. How longevity disagrees with some of us mortals."

He nearly always took a bottle of seltzer before breakfast, and this morning old Andrew (a servant who had been in the club many years) poured it out for him.

"I hope you're all right again this mornin', sorr," said Andrew with his Celtic accent and in an affable half whisper.

"All right, Andrew," was the reply. "Why, you must be thinking of some one else. I haven't been ill. My health has been excellent for a long time past."

"Yes, sorr," said Andrew, lowering his eyes and respectfully retiring.

That last "Yes, sorr," had a dubious note about its delivery that almost made Dalrymple call the faithful old fellow back and further question him. "All right again?" As if he had ever been all wrong! Oh, well, poor Andrew was ageing; others had remarked that fact months ago.

A different servant came to announce breakfast. There were only about five men in the dining-room as Dalrymple entered it. All of them gazed at him in an unusual way, or had late events led him to think that they did so? At the table nearest him sat Everdell, one of the jolliest men in the club, a person whose face was nearly always wreathed in smiles.

"Good-morning!" said Dalrymple, as he caught Everdell's eye!

"Good-morning!" The tones were replete with mild consternation, and the look that went with them was smileless to the degree of actual gloom. Then Everdell, who had just finished his breakfast, rose and drew near to Dalrymple.

"'Pon my word," he said, "I'm delighted to see you all right again so soon."

"All right again so soon?" was the reply. "What in mercy's name do you mean?"

"Oh, my dear old fellow," began Everdell, fumbling with his watch-chain, "it was pretty bad, you know, yesterday."

"Pretty—bad—yesterday?"

"I saw you in the morning, and for an hour or so in the afternoon. Perhaps no one would have noticed it if you hadn't stayed here all day, and poured those confidences into people's ears about De Pommereul. You didn't appear to have drank a drop in the club; there's the funny part of it. You went out several times, though, and came back again. All that you had to drink (except some wine here at dinner, you remember) you must have got outside. I wasn't here at ten o'clock when De Pommereul came in. I'm glad I wasn't. You must have been dreadful. If Summerson and Joyce hadn't rushed in between you and the Count, heaven knows what would have happened. As it is——"

At this point Dalrymple broke in with cold harshness: "Look here, Everdell, I always disliked practical jokes, and I've known for a number of years that you're given to them. You've never attempted to make me your butt before, however, and you'll have the kindness to discontinue any such proceeding now."

Everdell drew back for a moment, frowned, shrugged his shoulders, and then muttering, "Oh, if you're going to put it in that way," strode quickly out of the dining-room.

Dalrymple scarcely ate a morsel of breakfast. After he had gulped down some hot coffee he repaired to the reading-room. As he re-entered it a waiter handed him several letters. One, which he opened first, was marked "immediate," and had been sent him from his own house by an intelligent and devoted woman servant there, who had been for a long period in his employ. This letter made poor Dalrymple's head swim as he read it. Written and signed by Mr. Summerson himself, as chairman of the house committee of the club, it ordered him to appear that same evening before a meeting of the governors and answer to a charge of disorderly conduct on the previous night. Then it went on to state that he (Dalrymple) had been seen throughout the previous day at the club in a state of evident intoxication, and had, finally, between the hours of 10 and 11 P. M., accosted and grossly insulted the Count de Pommereul in the main drawing-room of the Gramercy.

"Disorderly conduct," "evident intoxication," "grossly insulted the Count de Pommereul." These words were trembling on Dalrymple's lips as he presently approached Summerson himself, the very gentleman who had signed the letter, and who stood in the hall, arrayed for the street.

"What—what does it all mean?" gasped Dalrymple. "I—I never was intoxicated in my life, Lawrence Summerson; you ought to know that! I played euchre last night, up in the card-room, from nine o'clock till twelve, with Ogden and Folsom and yourself. If there's any practical joke being got up against me, for God's sake——"

"Wait a minute, please," said Summerson. He went back into the coat-room, disarrayed himself of his street wraps, and finally joined Dalrymple. His first words, low and grave, ran thus: "Can it be possible you don't recollect that our game of euchre was played the night before last and not last night?" Then he went with Dalrymple into a corner of the reading room, and they talked together for a good while.

Dalrymple went back to his home that day in a mental whirl. It still wanted a number of hours before the Governing Committee would meet. He had lost a day out of his life—there could be no doubt of that. If he had moved about the Club at all yesterday with a drunken manner, reviling De Pommereul to everybody who would lend him an ear—if he had afterward met De Pommereul in the Club and directed toward him in loud and furious tones a perfect torrent of accusation—he himself was completely, blankly ignorant.

For a good while he sat quite still and thought. Then he summoned Ann, the elderly and very trustworthy Ann, who had been his dear mother's maid, and was now his housekeeper. He questioned Ann, and after dismissing her he pondered her answers. Three times yesterday she had seen him, and regarding his appearance Ann had her distinct opinions.

Suddenly a light flashed upon Dalrymple while he sat alone and brooded. He sprang up and a cry, half of awe, half of gladness, left his lips. The baffling problem had been solved!

That evening he presented himself before the Governing Committee. All assembled were sorry for him. Of course, punishment must be dealt, but for an old and popular member like Dalrymple it must not be expulsion. The general feeling of the Club had indeed already been gauged, and it was in favor of suspension for six months or a year at the farthest.

Dalrymple, however, was determined that he should be visited with no punishment at all. And he meant to state why.

The judges, as he faced them, all looked politely grim. The President, after a few suave preliminaries, asked Dalrymple if he had anything to say concerning the charges preferred against him. Dalrymple then proceeded to speak with a clear voice and composed demeanor.

His first sentences electrified his hearers. "I have no possible recollection of yesterday," he began, "and it is precisely as much of a lost day to me as though I had lain chloroformed for twenty-four hours. On Wednesday night I returned home from this club and went to rest. I never really woke until Friday, possibly a little while after midnight, and then within my own bed. On Thursday morning I must have risen in a state of somnambulism, hypnotism, mental aberration, whatever you please, and not come to myself until Thursday had passed, and I had once more retired. Of what yesterday occurred I therefore claim to have been the irresponsible agent, and to have become so through no fault of my own. I am completely innocent of the misdemeanors charged against me, and I now solemnly swear this, on my word of honor as a gentleman."

Here Dalrymple paused. The members of the committee interchanged glances amid profound silence. On some faces doubt could be read, but on others its veriest opposite. The intense stillness had become painful when Dalrymple spoke again.

"I had hoped that I should escape throughout my own lifetime all visitations of this distressing kind. My grandfather and two of my uncles not only walked in their sleep to an alarming degree, but were each subject to strange conditions of mind, in which acts were performed by them that they could not possibly remember afterward." Here the speaker paused, soon continuing, however, in a lower and more reflective tone:

"Yes, my family have had the strange failing (that is, nearly all of them except myself, on the paternal side) of——"

But he said no more. The tension was loosened, and a great roar of laughter rose from the whole committee. How often every man there had joked him about that marvelous budget of stories which he infallibly began one way and one way only! And when the familiar formula sounded forth, it was all the funnier to those who heard it because of the solemn, judicial circumstances in which it again met their hearing.

The plaintiff was honorably acquitted. As for De Pommereul, as every word that Dalrymple had said concerning his past life in France happened to be perfectly true, the Count never reappeared at the Gramercy. His engagement with Mrs. Carrington was soon afterward broken off by the lady herself, and for a good while it was rumored that this lady had repentantly made it optional with Dalrymple whether he should once more become her accepted sweetheart.

But Dalrymple remained a bachelor. He is quite an old man now, yet he may be found in the card-room of the Gramercy nearly every evening. He is very willing to tell you the story of his "lost day" if you ask him courteously for it, and not in any strain of fun-poking; but he attempts no more voluntary recitals on the subject of his "family's" maladies or mishaps.

A TRAGEDY OF HIGH EXPLOSIVES.

BY BRAINARD GARDNER SMITH.

CHAPTER I.

In the course of my work last year I had occasion to go over a file of old Liverpool newspapers, and thus came upon a remarkable paragraph in the ship news. Translated out of the language of commerce, it was to the effect that the good ship Empress, just arrived from Australia, reported that while rounding the Cape of Good Hope she had been driven southward far out of her course by a storm; and that away down in the Southern Atlantic had sighted a vessel drifting aimlessly about. The first mate boarded her, and, returning, reported that the derelict was the ship Albatross. That she had been abandoned was plain, for all the boats were gone, and so were the log and the ship's instruments. On the deck, close by the companion hatch, lay two bodies, or rather skeletons, clad in weather-rotted garments, that showed them to have been man and woman. These bodies were headless, but the heads were nowhere to be found on the deserted deck. The mate found on the cabin table an open book, with writing on its pages. A pen lay on the table, and a small inkstand, in which the ink had evidently long since dried. The book was evidently a journal or diary, so the mate reported, and he put it in his pocket, meaning to carry it aboard the Empress; but when he was getting down into his small boat the book slipped from his pocket, dropped into the water and sunk. The Albatross was badly water-logged, and, he thought, could not have floated much longer. To this report the editor of the paper added a note saying that the readers would all doubtless remember that the Albatross had sailed from Liverpool several years before, bound for Australia, and it was thought to have gone down with all on board, as no news of her had since been received.

That was the substance of the remarkable paragraph. What was almost as remarkable to me, a newspaper man, was that the Liverpool paper had evidently made no effort to learn the owners of the Albatross, the name of her captain and crew, or whether or not she carried any passengers. I carefully searched files to see if there was any further reference to the case. There was none. After the manner of his kind, the editor of the paper had, so it seemed, taken it for granted that his intelligent readers "would remember" all the particulars that they wanted to know.

I was much impressed by the paragraph. My professional instinct told me that there was a good newspaper story there, and I was disgusted that any editor could let it go untold. I also experienced more than usual curiosity to know how those headless bodies came there, or rather, why they should lie there on the deck headless. Then there was that journal that had been found lying open on the cabin table, as though the writer had been interrupted in the writing which had never been finished. What light might that little book not throw on the mystery? And now it was lying fathoms deep in the Southern Atlantic. Of what use to speculate over the matter. Thanks to the careless mate and the stupid editor, that mystery would remain forever unsolved. But in spite of reason I did speculate considerably over the matter, and, try as I did, could not banish the story from my mind.

A few weeks after that I went into Northern Vermont to report the Benton murder trial, which was attracting much more than local attention. I was pleased to find that the prosecuting attorney was an old classmate of mine, George Judson. I had known him pretty well as a hard-working and remarkably bright man, with a curious streak in his mental make-up that led him to investigate every new "ism" that appeared. We used to call him a Spiritualist, and, had the word been in use, I am sure would have called him a crank. He was five years older than I, had married immediately after graduating, had prospered as a lawyer, and now had a good home for his wife and two children. He seemed much pleased to renew the acquaintance of college days, and insisted that I should make his house my home during my stay in the town.

One Saturday evening as we sat in his comfortable library smoking after dinner, Judson said, with some apparent hesitation:

"There's going to be a show here this evening that may interest you."

"Yes?"

"Yes. There's a woman living here who does some remarkable things when in a trance. There are a few of us who are curious about such things, and I've asked her and them here to my house this evening."

"What is it?" I asked lightly; "the cabinet act?"

Judson looked a trifle hurt. "Yes," he answered, slowly, "she's a medium, and you newspaper men have said that she's a fraud. But I've seen manifestations that I can't explain on any theory other than that they were the work of higher powers, and I'm going to look into it further."

The same old Judson, I thought. He was evidently more in earnest than his assumed indifference indicated. I marveled that the shrewd, successful lawyer could be so easily deluded, for I was sure that he was deluded. I had attended many a séance, and had helped to expose more than one medium, and knew that the whole matter of manifestations was nothing but a more or less clumsy juggle. But I kept my thoughts to myself—experience had taught me that when it was known that there was present at a séance a pronounced unbeliever in that phase of Spiritualism, the "conditions" were usually "unfavorable" for a "manifestation." So I said that I should be glad to see the "show," as he called it. Then I encouraged Judson to talk, and he talked well. From mediums and cabinets, and manifestations and the ways of spirits generally, our conversation drifted to the marvelous and the mysterious, and finally I told the story of the Albatross and the headless skeletons. Judson was much impressed by the story. He joined me in anathematizing the careless mate of the Empress and the stupid editor of the Liverpool paper. His lifelong habit of seeking to know the unknowable, re-enforced by the detective instinct that is developed in every good lawyer as well as newspaper man, made him unnaturally anxious to solve the mystery. The thought came to me just then that if Spiritualism was good for anything it would be in such a case. What I said was, "I have often wondered whether the peculiar power of the trance medium might not be employed in such cases. Now, is it impossible that that journal found on the Albatross, and which I believe contains the solution of our mystery, should be materialized for us here?"

Judson jumped at the idea. "Yes, yes," he said hurriedly, "it shall be—it must be. How fortunate!" He spoke with such earnestness and confidence that I showed my surprise in my face. I also voiced it.

"You talk as though the thing were already accomplished. My experience with mediums has led me to consider them a trifle unreliable, but you seem to be sure of this one."

"Not of the medium but of myself. I had better tell you now what but one other living person knows—that I have a very peculiar power. I don't attempt to explain it, but it is no less a fact. I seem to be able, by mere force of will, to control certain persons. This medium is one of them. I have never been able to produce any results unaided, but more than once have I thought into visible form those who had long before died."

The same old story you see. Judson was apparently an out-and-out Spiritualist, ready to be humbugged by the first shrewd trickster that came along. He went on:

"Now, this evening you will see a remarkable woman; I have been able to control her in a remarkable way. I confess that I had never thought of seeking the materialization of an inanimate object. But I believe that it can be done. It shall be done. We shall have that journal this night."

I was almost convinced by my friend's absolute confidence; then saddened by the thought that this usually hard-headed, keen young lawyer had such a weak spot in his brain. He was the last man you would expect to be deluded by the tricks of the medium. At the same time I found myself, in spite of my skepticism, wondering what would come of it all. That evening I was seated in Judson's large parlor, one of about twenty persons of the sort usually seen at such séances; the Spiritualists of the place, I thought. The room had been arranged after the fashion customary. There was an improvised cabinet in one corner, chairs in a semi-circle in front of it, not too near. Judson seemed a sort of master of ceremonies, passing in and out, greeting newcomers, whispering a word here and there. He was pale, I thought, and seemed rather pre-occupied. We waited perhaps a quarter of an hour, and then Judson ushered into the room a tall, slender woman, middle-aged, gray-haired, with rather strongly marked features and dark eyes that had a tired look. She seemed a person of nerves. A trifle above the average medium in appearance of intelligence and refinement, and with rather less of the self-assertive boldness usually displayed by the women who make a business of communing with spirits. There was no preliminary nonsense. She entered the cabinet in a business-like way. Judson turned the gas down low, so that we were in the dimmest sort of a dim religious light—just the light, I have always observed, that seemed most congenial to spirits, or, rather, that aided most effectually in the tricks played by the mediums. Then he sat down by my side and said: "Let us all clasp hands."

I grasped with my left the fat hand of a large woman next to me, and Judson seized my right with his left hand. It was quite cold, and I thought trembled a little. He leaned over me and whispered in my ear: "I am determined to see that journal to-night. If will can do it, it shall be done. Join your will with mine. You are a man of will. Let us force the powers to yield to our combined wills."

I was startled by the intensity of his manner more than by the words. In spite of my half disgust at the whole proceedings, that were such an exact repetition of more than one humbugging séance, I was forced into a respectful attitude of mind, and at once became an interested assistant, where a moment before I had been an unbelieving, critical observer. I nodded my head, and Judson's grasp of my hand became firm.

Then there was complete silence for many moments. I bent all my mind to the one thought that I would see that journal wherever in the large world it might be. At first my thoughts would wander, but then it seemed to me that Judson's grasp tightened and drew the desultory thought back to the one subject of his own thoughts. I have considered this a good deal since and conclude that Judson did, for the time at least, possess some extraordinary power, possibly pure force of will. At all events, I grew more and more determined to have my will done. Then there came a calm voice from behind the curtain of the cabinet.

"What is your wish?"

No one spoke for a moment, and then a weak voice at my left said something about a desire to see a child that had died, and another voice expressed the wish to look upon the form of a departed husband. I was too much occupied with my own thoughts to notice then that this was the same old scene, enacted as at all the other séances. Again there was perfect silence; it seemed interminable. I could hear the breathing of the fat woman on my left. I could hear my watch ticking in my pocket. I thought that I could hear my heart beat, but all the time there was the firm pressure of the cold hand of my friend, and the constant thought, now shaped into words and the words into a sentence, and that sentence continually repeating itself until I seemed to hear that too: "I will see that journal to-night."

And still that strange silence. The air in the room became close. Every door and window had been carefully closed, and the breathing of twenty or more persons had made large drafts on the oxygen. Suddenly a breath fanned my cheek, then a stronger draught, and then a steady current of air set against my face. I felt it move my hair, and it smelled of the sea. It was salty. Yes, undoubtedly a strong, steady sea breeze was in that room, and it brought with it the smell of a ship, tar and oakum and pitch—the odor that arises when the sun beats hotly down upon the unprotected deck and the boards shrink and the great pine masts feel the fierce heat. But there was no heat; only at first that cool sea breeze and then the patter of rain, seemingly on the floor of the room in which we sat.

Then a low moan came from behind the curtains of the cabinet, and then the sound of a heavy fall. At this some of the women shrieked weakly. There was a general letting go of hands, and Judson sprang to the cabinet and disappeared behind its folds. After an instant of silence we heard his voice: "More light." I hastened to turn on the gas. Judson pulled aside the curtains, and we saw that the woman was lying outstretched on the floor.

"She has fainted," said Judson, calmly. "That is all. I believe that she is subject to such attacks. I doubt, my friends, if we shall have any manifestations to-night. May I ask you all to consider the meeting adjourned? I will give our friend here all medical attention."

He spoke so calmly and with such authority that without a word the little company passed out of the room and out of the house. Judson and I raised the woman to a couch, and he brought water and bathed her face. She opened her eyes, sighed deeply, and then sat up. There was a strange scared look on her face.

"Where is it?" she asked faintly.

"Here," said Judson, and he drew from beneath his coat a small book and handed it to her. She turned away with a shudder.

"No, no. Take it away. Take it away."

Judson handed it to me. "Will you kindly take this book to the library," said he; "I will join you in a moment."

I obeyed mechanically. Before going into the library I stepped to the broad piazza and looked out into the night. The snow lay white on the ground, stars twinkled in the frosty sky, it was very cold, and I could hear the snow creak under the feet of passers-by, and yet I had felt that sea breeze and heard the patter of rain. What did it mean? I shivered, entered the warm house, turned the light high in the library, shut the door, and not till then looked at the book in my hand. It was a small blankbook about six inches long and four inches wide, well bound in leather and thoroughly water-soaked. I opened it. The leaves were wet and discolored, and I could see that the pages were covered with writing. I turned to the fly-leaf and there read these words:

"Arthur Hartley's journal. Begun on board the ship Albatross, March 7, 1851."

I stood in a daze, glaring at the written words, utterly confounded. The door opened and Judson entered hurriedly. His cheeks were now flushed, his eyes fairly blazed with light, his face was bright with a smile of triumph. "I knew it! I knew it!" he said loudly. "What a victory! What a victory! Even Nature yields to the power of Will!"

He paced back and forth rapidly, showing no desire to see the book that had come to us so strangely. Then he threw himself into a big chair, lighted a cigar, puffed at it vigorously a moment, then became quiet, looked intently at the glowing coals in the grate, and said calmly:

"Well, let's see what Mr. Hartley has to say for himself. Read the journal, please."

I had been standing all this time by the table, with the little damp book in my hand, and watching Judson curiously. I drew up a chair, opened to the first page and began to read.

CHAPTER II.

March 7.—I begin this journal for two reasons. First, my dear mother asked me to keep a record of my voyage and of my life, that she might read it when I got back home. She thinks that I am coming home again. I promised her to do so, but I shall never see England again. I hope the day may come when I can take my dear mother to my Australian home, but I shall never set foot on the island that holds the woman I hate, and that holds so many women like her. In the second place, I want to write down not only my impressions in this new experience, but my thoughts. I have many of them. I want to see them spread out before me. We are now well started on the voyage, five days out from Liverpool. Uncle John is still ill enough, and says that he wants to die. Captain Raymond laughs at him, and says that a little sea-sickness will do him good. I like Captain Raymond. He is big and burly, and has a deep voice, and a heavy brown beard. He's just the typical sea captain, an interesting person to a man who saw the sea for the first time six days ago. I'm glad to find that I'm a good sailor, and can thoroughly enjoy the new experiences that present themselves in the beginning of the long voyage we have started upon. I have written the word "enjoy"; let it stand. I thought I never should have known enjoyment again, but I do. There's enjoyment in the knowledge that each hour puts miles of ocean between me and the woman that has spoiled my life. No, I won't admit that. She shan't have the satisfaction of spoiling my life. She tried hard enough, God knows. She played with my heart, much as though it were a mouse and she a cat. She is a cat. A sleek, soft, purring cat, and with claws. I could eat out my own heart when I think how she played with it. I was fair game for this experienced coquette, and now I suppose she is boasting of another conquest, telling of her victory over the simple country lad. Well, let her enjoy her conquest while she may. The country boy will one day come back with money enough to buy her and her purse-proud heart. Yes, I will go back to England and I'll humble her at my feet. What rot I'm writing. Mother, if you ever see these pages, read these words with sympathy, as the idle ravings of a man well-nigh gone mad over a woman's false beauty. I never told the story, even to you, my dear mother. I dare say you guessed much of it. You know how Helen Rankine came down from London to our quiet country home. You know how beautiful and gracious she was. How kind and loving to you; how apparently frank and friendly with me. She was the first woman I ever saw to whom I gave a second thought, save you, dear mother. We rode and drove and chatted together. She drew my very heart from me. I told her all my plans and hopes and aspirations; of my love of the art to which I had devoted my life; that I hoped to go to London and study, and then to Rome; that I wanted to become a great painter. She was so full of hearty sympathy, so kind, so womanly, that before I knew it she had me enslaved. For all the graciousness and frankness and sympathy were but the means she used in her heartlessness to enslave me. Then came a day, a day to be remembered; a day like that when, beguiled by another beautiful fiend in woman form, our first father, poor, foolish man, ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and so lost his paradise. I told Helen of my love; and how I did love that woman! And she put on an appearance of surprise, and squeezed a cold tear or two from her beautiful eyes, and said that she thought I knew and understood. And when half dazed I asked her what she meant, what it was that I was thought to have known, she had to blush, and said that she had long been engaged to her cousin, John Bruce, who was now with his regiment in India, and that when he came home they were to be married. And then she said something about my being so young and having a great career before me, and that she should always be my friend and pray for my success. And she stretched out her hand toward me. I think she must have seen the hate in my face, for my great love turned to great hate even while she spoke, and all the wholesome currents of my being seemed poisoned by the supreme passion, and she turned pale, and her hand dropped, and I cursed her.

March 10.—A call from Uncle John interrupted me the other day, and I have had no heart to write since. My moods shame me. I wrote those words with burning cheek and throbbing heart. I have just read them without an emotion. Why can't I be a man, and not a silly, raving boy? Not that the hate that burns in my heart is abating. It can never abate. It will grow and grow, and keep me true to my purpose. No more mooning over art and the hope of a great name; but hard work and money-making. Uncle John promises us both fortunes. He feels confident that his explosive will work such wonders in Australian mines that within ten years we can go back to England rich beyond the dreams of avarice. But I shall never see England again. No matter what I may have written here. Never shall I set foot on the land that rears such women as the one I hate. Captain Raymond was almost angry when he learned that in Uncle John's innocent-looking boxes was a compound powerful enough to blow us all out of the water. But he was somewhat reassured when uncle insisted that as long as the Albatross floated she and we were safe; for he says that the explosive is only an explosive when wet. Captain Raymond said that he'd try and keep it dry then, and he sent men into the hole where the boxes were stored, and had them placed carefully in an unused cabin. We are the only passengers. I made sure that no woman was to be on board during the long voyage. I came near being disappointed in this, for Captain Raymond tells me that his wife was to sail with him, and had made all preparations, even to sending some boxes of clothing aboard, when the sudden death of her father prevented her from going. I'm sure I'm sorry that Mrs. Raymond's father is dead, but I'm very glad that Mrs. Raymond is not on this ship. I don't want to look on woman's face, nor hear woman's voice. There's but one woman to me in the wide world, and, dear mother, forgive me if sometimes I cannot thank her for bringing me into the world. You understand me, mother. You know what I have suffered. You can sympathize with me when I say that I exult at the thought that leagues of ocean lie between me and that other woman, who——

March 12.—A strange thing has happened since I last wrote in this book. As I was writing I heard quite a commotion on deck—cries of the sailors, sharp orders from officers, and the tramping of feet. I rushed on deck. Uncle John and the captain were standing on the poop, looking intently across the water; the first mate was shouting orders that I couldn't understand, and the crew were lowering the long boat.

"What's the matter?" I asked, joining uncle and the captain.

"There's a little boat adrift out yonder," answered Uncle John pointing, "and the lookout says that there are a couple of bodies lying in it. There, do you see it, on the top of that wave!"

I saw it; a mere shell it seemed, poised for a moment on the top of a swell, and then sliding down into the trough of the sea, quite out of sight. The long boat was soon lowered, and, guided by the cries of the lookout, made straight for the little boat. It seemed very long before it was reached, and then we saw the sailors make it fast to the long boat and begin to pull slowly back toward the Albatross. It was slow and hard work towing that boat, small as it seemed, through the rather heavy sea. There was no sign of life in her. What was behind those low gunwales? What were the men bringing to us? At length they came alongside, and then we saw that there were two bodies lying there.

"A man and a woman, sir," called up the mate. "There's life in 'em both, but precious little."

It was nice work getting the two boats alongside and the bodies out of them and up to the deck; but it was done by the aid of slings, the woman being brought up first. Uncle John, by virtue of his profession, gave directions as to placing her on the deck, and then knelt by her side. I stood aloof. Why had that woman come to us in mid-ocean! Why was it? Fate?

"She is alive," cried Uncle John. "Captain, we must get her below at once."

I glanced at the woman. Thick locks of matted black hair lay around a face on which the sun and wind and the salt sea-water had done fearful work. And yet those blackened and blistered features somehow had a familiar look. Where had I seen them? I could not tell. Four sailors carried her below and I turned to look at her companion, who had been laid on the deck. Uncle John just took time to grasp his wrist and said, "He's alive, too"; then he dropped the limp hand and hurried below. Always the way. Women first. This dying man might get what attention he could. The woman must be nursed back to life to deceive the first fool that takes her fancy. I turned to the man, a common sailor evidently, brawny and bearded. The mate was by his side, and together we did what we could to nourish the spark of life that kept the pulse feebly fluttering in the big brown wrist. It was afternoon when these two waifs were found, and all night we fought with death. Now Uncle John says that he thinks that they will live. Neither of them has spoken, but each has taken a little nourishment and the pulse shows gaining strength. Captain Raymond has turned his cabin over to the woman, and as I write uncle is sitting by her side. For the time he has forgotten his wonderful explosive. The old professional air has come back, and he is like the Dr. Hartley of the days before he gave up medicine for chemical investigation. The question continually repeats itself to me, What has brought this woman here? Reason as I may, I feel, I know, that she has come to me; to me who was happy in the thought of not seeing her kind for months. Another question asks itself, Has she come for good or ill? There can be but one answer to that question.

March 13.—The sailor whom we rescued gains strength fast. He was able to talk a little to-day. Briefly told, his story, as far as I got it, is that he was one of the crew of the Vulture, bound from England to India with army stores and arms, including a large consignment of powder. One day, he can't say how many days ago, the ship caught fire in the hold. There were frantic and unavailing efforts made to get at the flames and extinguish them; and then the order was given to flood the hold, but before it could be executed there was a tremendous roar, and the sailor knew nothing else until he found himself in the water clinging to a fragment of the wreckage that strewed the sea. The ship had been blown up and had sunk at once. Not far from him floated one of the quarter-boats apparently uninjured. He managed to swim to it, and clamber in. There he was able to stand up and look around him. At first he could see no sign of life, but in another moment he heard a faint cry behind him, and, turning, saw a woman clinging to a broken spar. With a bit of broken board he paddled to her and got her into the boat. Like himself, she was unharmed, save by the awful shock and fright. He paddled around and around, but saw no further sign of life. Once a man's body rose near the boat; rose slowly, turned, and sank again, and that was the last they saw of the twoscore men that but a little moment before had been full of life and vigor.

This much I heard the sailor tell, and then stopped him, for he was tired. The woman still sleeps and has showed no signs of consciousness.

March 14.—The sailor, whose name is Richard Jones, was able to crawl out on deck this morning. He completed his story. The young woman, he said, was the only passenger on the Vulture. He did not know her name. It had been talked among the crew that she was going out to her lover, an officer in the Indian Army who had been wounded; that she would not wait for the regular East Indiaman, but had managed to secure passage on the Vulture. When she realized that she and the sailor, Jones, were the only ones alive of all those that had been on the vanished ship, and that they were quite alone on the ocean, in a small boat, without oars, or sail, or food, or drink, she cried a little and wrung her hands and became very quiet. She took her place in the bow, and there she sat. Jones sat in the stern and paddled clear of the wreckage, and then, using the piece of board for a rudder, kept the boat before the wind. Luckily there was very little sea. He thought that they were in the track of Indiamen, and so kept good hope. He tried to encourage the young woman, but she seemed to prefer silence, and so he kept still. Thus they drifted. The sun beat down upon their unprotected heads. They began to want for water. They did not think so much of food as of water. Jones doesn't know how long they were adrift. He doesn't know when the girl lost consciousness. He remembers that one day she moaned a little, and in the night he thought that he heard her whispering to herself. He thought that she was praying, perhaps. Then he began to lose consciousness. He remembers seeing a beautiful green field, with trees, and a brook running through it. He says that men suffering from thirst on the ocean often have such visions. He remembers nothing else until he opened his eyes and saw me bending over him.

Uncle John reports no change in the condition of the young woman. She lies in a stupor, apparently. The pulse daily grows stronger, he says, and she swallows freely the nourishment administered.

CHAPTER III.

April 2.—It is more than two weeks since I wrote in my journal. I have been ill—a sort of low fever that kept me in my cabin. Nothing serious, Uncle John said, and so it has proved, except that I am very weak. Uncle has been kind, but most of his time has been devoted to that woman. He says that it is a very interesting case. She became conscious a few days ago, and has gained strength since. She will be on deck in a day or two, he thinks. I'm anxious to see her. I want to see if there really is anything familiar in her face. It's fortunate for her that clothing of Mrs. Raymond's is on board. She'd be in a plight, else. I asked Uncle John what her name was. He looked queer, and said that he didn't know. Strange that he hasn't asked her. The sailor, Jones, seems quite recovered and has taken his place among the crew. We were rather short-handed, and the captain was glad enough to have him. He can be of service. But the woman can be nothing but a trouble, to me at least, for I must see her daily, I suppose. And yet I am anxious to see her, too. This fever has left me rather childish as well as weak.

April 3.—Thank God for these pages to which I can talk, else I should go mad, I think. Could you read these words as they flow from my pen, mother, you might well wonder whether I had not indeed gone mad. But I will be quite calm while I tell of what fate, or Satan, or whatever evil power it is, has done for me. I was sitting on the deck this morning, still very weak, when I heard footsteps behind me, and Uncle John's voice saying, "Good-morning, Arthur." I turned and saw him standing near me, and leaning on his arm Helen Rankine! I write these words calmly enough now. Can you imagine what I felt when I saw her? I staggered to my feet, muttered some incoherent words, and would have fallen had not Uncle John sprang to my side and caught me. "Why, what's the matter, Arthur? Calm yourself, my boy. Is it possible that you know this young lady?"

By a supreme effort of will, aided by the memory of that day when we last parted, I drew myself up and bowed, and I said that I had had the great honor of once knowing Miss Helen Rankine, and that I had had no idea that it was she we were fortunate enough to have rescued.

Uncle looked at me in wonder as I said these words with sneering politeness. The girl looked at me questioningly, but there was no shadow of recognition on her face.

"Then your name is Helen Rankine?" said Uncle John kindly, turning toward the girl and speaking as though to a little child.

A troubled look passed over her face, and then she said quietly, "I do not know. I cannot remember."

"Do you know this gentleman, Mr. Arthur Hartley?" he asked in the same kindly way.

Again the troubled look, an apparent effort to seize some elusive thought, and then again the voice I knew so well, but now so unnaturally calm:

"I do not know him."

I stood aghast at what seemed the consummate acting of a heartless and conscienceless woman, and yet on the instant I saw that there was no acting there. Let me stop a moment, mother, and describe her. You remember how beautiful she was, with that rich, dark beauty you once spoke of as "Italian." It was that beauty that enslaved me. You remember that I have written of her appearance as she lay on the deck the day she was saved. The days of illness and quiet in the cabin below had almost obliterated all the ravages done by wind and sun and sea. The olive cheeks were a little darker than of old, and the hands browner. The face was not quite so pure an oval as when you saw it last; the color of lip and cheek not quite so vivid. The large brown eyes had lost the sparkle and the changing light that once pierced my boyish, foolish heart. Clad in a simple gown, belted at the waist and hanging in folds to the deck, her dark hair parted across her broad forehead and confined in a simple knot, and with a strange calm on the face that once expressed her varying moods as they came and went, she seemed to me to be another, a better, an almost unearthly Helen, come to me here to atone for the great wrong that she had done me; and, for the moment, I forgot my hate.

My uncle gave his arm to Helen, and they walked the deck while I watched them. What did it mean, this failure of Helen to recognize me? Was I right in thinking the girl to be Helen Rankine. Yes; I could not be mistaken. That graceful walk, some of its old-time spring and elasticity gone, to be sure, was the walk of Helen; the turn of the lovely neck; the pose of the head were hers. Then the story of the sailor, Jones, the fore-castle gossip that she was going out to India to join her soldier-lover; how well it tallied with what she had told me on that fatal day when she spurned my proffered love. But I would not dwell more on that. I will not now. I must force myself to forget, just for a little time, the past, that I may solve the mystery of the present. My head throbs; my brain is in a whirl.

April 4.—After writing this I threw myself into my berth and tried to think over clearly the strange occurrences of the day. I was aroused by Uncle John asking me if I felt well enough to take a turn with him on deck. I joined him at once, and we paced the deck without speaking. It was a lovely night and the stars filled the heavens. At length Uncle John said, "Arthur, here's a very remarkable case. This poor girl has lost her memory completely, and no wonder, after her terrible sufferings. She cannot remember an event that happened before she opened her eyes in the cabin below. She can talk well, reads readily, shows the breeding of a lady, but as far as the past is concerned, she might as well be a week-old baby. You say that her name is Helen Rankine. Who is Helen Rankine? Where did you meet her?"

Uncle John had never known why I was so ready to give up my dreams of artist life and join him in his Australian scheme. I told him the whole story of my infatuation for Helen and her heartless perfidy. He listened intently. When I had finished, he said:

"My boy, let me say one thing, first of all. On your own evidence, forming my opinion solely from what you have told me, I think you have done a good girl injustice. I don't believe that Helen Rankine coquetted with you. Like many a young fellow before you, you thought that the frank friendliness of a young woman who looked upon you as a boy, though perhaps not your senior in years, was encouragement to make love to her. She thought that you knew of her engagement, so she said, and felt a security that misled you. You are not the first lad that has had such an experience and cursed all women, and vowed that he'd never trust one again. I'll trot your children on my knee yet. Well, so much for the Helen of the past. Now for the Helen of the present, for we might as well call her Helen as anything else."

"But she is Helen; Helen Rankine. I can swear it," I interrupted.

"Well, well. So be it. I confess it looks so. I have taken a physician's liberty, and examined her clothing for marks. I find it marked 'H. R.'"

"Isn't that proof enough?" I asked eagerly.

"Yes. I dare say it is. Still there are other girls whose initials are H. R. You and I have our task. It is to try and lead this poor girl back to the past. The awful experiences and sufferings of those days in the boat have affected her brain. Whether beyond cure or not I know not. Now remember, Arthur," and Uncle John looked at me seriously; "remember, that even if this girl is the girl you think has wronged you, in fact she is not the same girl. She knows no more of you than she knows of me, whom she never saw in her life before. Another thing, if she is Helen Rankine, she is engaged to John Bruce. Perhaps she wears his ring on her finger. You and I as gentlemen are bound to do what we can to deliver her to him as speedily as possible. And I pray God that we may see her meet him in her right mind, the same free-hearted English girl that he is now dreaming of."

I bowed my head, but could not say a word. Is Uncle John right, and have I been a weak, blind fool of a boy, thinking that the girl, who was merely kind, was encouraging me to love her? I feel my face burn at the thought. I can't think clearly yet, but I see my duty.

April 10.—If I lacked proof of the girl's identity, I have it now. Yesterday we sat together on the deck for hours, I trying gently to lead her back to the past. Helen Rankine used to wear several valuable rings. Now she wears but one. "You have a pretty ring," I said, pointing to her hand! How white and dimpled it used to be. How I longed to catch it to my lips, to kiss the pretty rosy-tipped fingers! Her hand! Now brown with wind and sun, but still dimpled and rosy tipped. Like a child she laid it in mine.

"Yes," she said, "it is a pretty ring."

"Where did you get it, Helen?" I asked.

"I don't remember," she said quietly.

"May I look at it?" I asked.

"Oh, yes," and she slipped it from her finger and laid it in my hand.

"What are these letters engraved within?" I asked.

"Are there letters there?" she said. "I didn't know it. So there are. To H. R., from J. B. What does that mean?"

"Don't you know?" I asked. Oh, it was hard to see that calm face, to hear that calm voice. Better the blush and silent avowal of love, even for another, than that blank gaze.

"No. I do not know what those letters mean," she answered.

"Perhaps 'H. R.' stands for your own name," said I.

She smiled like a happy child. "Yes, yes. That must be it. But the 'J. B.,' what do they stand for?"

I hesitated—who would not?

"Perhaps they stand for—for John Bruce," I said slowly, looking her steadily in the eyes. She returned the gaze with the calm confidence of a child.

"Who is John Bruce?" she asked. "I can't remember John Bruce."

My heart gave a great leap, then sank like lead. Am I then such a villain that I rejoice at the thought that Helen Rankine has no memory of her lover? Where is the hate that I boasted of? It has gone. It could not live before the calm eyes of the girl by my side. But I had my duty to do.

"John Bruce is in India, Helen," said I. "Don't you remember? And you were going to him, and when you reached him you were to marry him. He loves you dearly, and you loved him dearly. Can't you remember?"

The troubled look came to the dark eyes and ruffled the calm brow. A faint flush passed across the rich, warm cheeks. Then, like a spoiled child, she shook her head and said:

"No, no, no, no!" with a little pat of the foot and nod at the last "No." "I do not know anything about it at all. I do not know John Bruce, and of course I do not love him. How could I? But I know you, Arthur, and I love you," and she laid her hand in mine, with a pretty smile.

I wonder if I'm the same man that set sail in the Albatross six short weeks ago? The Arthur Hartley then was a mad, foolish boy. The Arthur Hartley now is a grave, serious man. I feel that years and years have passed, instead of weeks. How much I am changed let this prove: I held Helen's hand in mine and answered gently, "I am very glad you love me, Helen. I hope you will ever love me. I certainly love you dearly. I could not love a sister more."

She smiled at this and patted my hand, and then we sat, hand in hand, without speaking, until the shadows deepened on the deck.

May 2.—You have been much in my thoughts of late, dear mother, but you will never know it. You will never see these words. I had thought not to write in this book again, for I feel sure that it will never reach you; but I seem to be urged to keep some record of our eventful voyage. We are lying becalmed far in the Southern Atlantic, so Captain Raymond says. An awful storm that drove us at its will, and before which it seemed possible for no ship to live, has driven us here far out of our course. For six days we have been lying here motionless. The storm that raged with such terrible fury seems to have exhausted all the winds of the heavens. I never knew anything more thoroughly depressing than this calm. Even writing seems a task beyond me. But, indeed, I am not as strong as before the attack of fever. I do not seem to regain my strength. I had in mind to describe the storm. It is beyond my powers. We lost a long boat and a quantity of spars. Two sailors, one of them Richard Jones, saved but to be lost, were washed overboard and never seen again. There is no change in Helen. She is apparently perfectly happy, but it is the happiness of a contented and healthy child. She takes much pleasure in being with me, and sits by the hour with her hand in mine, while I talk of the England that we have left and of the scenes of other days. But nothing awakens the dormant memory. Uncle John has got back to his studies, and talks explosives to any one who will listen.

May 17.—Here we lie, still becalmed. It is horrible! What will come of it all? The sailors are ready to take to the boats and quit the ship, and it requires all of Captain Raymond's firmness and kindness, for he is a kind captain, and all of Mate Robinson's sternness, to deal with the crew. The steward tells me in great confidence that the men say that the Albatross is bewitched, and that Helen is the witch that has done it. I can see that they follow her with black looks, in which is something of fear, as she walks the deck, singing softly to herself and happy as a bird—the only happy soul aboard. Why should she not be happy? She has no past, looks forward to no future. She lives in the present, Nature's own child. The ocean that gave her to us seems to have claimed her as its own. She loves the sea in all its moods. When the storm was at its fiercest and the huge waves swept over us, she insisted on being on deck, and clapped her hands and laughed in glee, as thoughtless of danger as one of Mother Cary's chickens. Now, when this horrible calm is drawing the very life out of us all, she sings and laughs and is merry; or, when not merry, wears a calm, passionless, almost soulless face. I don't wonder that the men think that she is a witch. She has bewitched me more than once.

CHAPTER IV.

May 2l.—I am sitting alone in the cabin writing. It is very late. I hear the steps of the mate as he paces the deck. The calm still holds us in its fearful clasp. Great God! What is to be the end of it all? There has been a break in the monotony of our existence to-day. Uncle John got into a hot discussion with Captain Raymond at the dinner table about the efficacy of the wonderful explosive compound. The captain seemed doubtful. Uncle John was for the instant angry.

"I'll show you, then," he said, and he rushed into the cabin where his boxes are stored, and came out shortly with two tin cans, each holding something less than a pint. He unscrewed the top of one disclosing a brownish powder. "Take care," said the captain, who seemed needlessly cautious, and almost fearful.

"Why, I thought you said it was useless," said Uncle John with a laugh, "and yet you are afraid of it. Look here." He lighted a match and held it close to the powder. A dark smoke arose that instantly extinguished the little flame, and floated off, leaving a queer smell behind. That was all.

"Perfectly harmless, captain," continued uncle, who had now recovered his usual good nature. "Perfectly harmless unless you wet it. Then look out."

The cook had made a sort of dumpling for dinner, and a great lot of it remained. Uncle John took a mess of this dough, for it was little else, squeezed it until it was quite dry and molded it into a ball. "Come with me," he said, "and, Arthur, bring a plate of that dough with you." He took the cans and we followed him to the deck. There he carefully covered the ball of dough with the powder, and, going to the rail, threw it as far as he could out over the placid sea. As the ball struck the water there was a loud explosion and the spray was thrown high into the air. The crew, who had been hanging over the port rail forward, turned and rushed over to see what was up. Uncle John made another ball and threw it with like result.

"Oh, houly torpeter!" growled one of the men, and they turned back to their former places. Uncle John, now evidently anxious to give us thorough proof of the value of his compound, was for throwing more balls, when the boatswain, rolling aft, touched his hat, and said to the captain:

"Please, sur, there's a big shark as has showed his fin hoff the port bow, and if so be that the doctor'll wait a bit with his torpeters, we'll show 'im some fun a-catchin' of it."

"All right, bo'sun," said the captain, and we all went over to the port rail.

"There he is," said the captain, pointing to a sharp, black thing, that, rising just above the water, was cutting quietly through it. "That is his fin, and there's a big shark under it or I'm much mistaken."

The sailors had got a large hook, and had baited it with a piece of salt beef, and made it fast to a stout line with a chain that the fish couldn't bite off. This tempting morsel was flung overboard, and, as it fell with a splash into the water, we saw the fin cut toward it, and then disappear. The next instant there was a great tug at the rope.

"Hurrah! we've got 'um!" yelled the boatswain. "Walk away with 'im now, my hearties."

A dozen sailors had manned the rope, and now started to drag the big fish out of the water. There was a tremendous pull, a great splashing, and then the men tumbled in a heap on the dock, and the hook was jerked sharply over the rail.

"Cuss the luck," growled the boatswain. "The 'ook didn't 'old."

The taste of salt beef evidently suited the shark, for he was soon right alongside, cruising back and forth, looking for more. We could see him distinctly, and a tremendous fellow he was. Again the men baited the hook and dropped it overboard. We saw the big fish dart forward, turn on his side and grab the bait with a sharp snap of his terrible jaws. Again the hook would not catch, and the shark was waiting for more beef. The men were about to make a third attempt when Uncle John started.

"Wait a bit, men," he said. "I've got a hook that will hold. Give me a piece of the meat."

The men fell back and looked eagerly. The cook handed up a big chunk of meat. "Wipe it as dry as you can," said uncle, "and tie it firmly to the rope." When this was done he sprinkled the powder from the can carefully over the meat; then he carried it cautiously to the rail. The shark was cruising back and forth. Uncle lowered the meat slowly into the water, right in front of the monster. He saw the bait and darted at it, and then there was a tremendous report, and the spray flew into our faces as we leaned over the rail. The next moment we saw the big fish floating motionless on the water.

"Blessed if 'e 'asn't blowed 'is 'ead clean hoff," said the boatswain.

It was so. That terrible compound of Uncle John's had needed only the impact of the shark's teeth to explode it with deadly effect. Uncle looked perfectly happy. The effect on Helen was strange. For the first time since she had been with us she seemed to be angry.

"I think you are very cruel," she said to Uncle John, "to kill that beautiful shark. He had not harmed you. I shall not love you any more." As she said this she stepped to my side and grasped my hand, as though she feared uncle and wanted my protection. The men heard her words and the effect was marked. They had been in high good humor over the death of the shark, the sailors' most dreaded enemy, but at these strange words they shrank away with gloomy faces, and I could hear muttered curses, and the words "witch" and "she-devil." That put an end to the good humor that for the first time in days seemed to pervade the becalmed vessel. Uncle John made one more "torpeter" with the little powder that remained in the open can. The other he carried to his cabin. When I left the deck just before beginning this writing the sailors were huddled together forward and eagerly talking, but very quietly. The sea was like a glass in which the stars of this strange southern sky were all mirrored.

Again, impelled by I know not what power, I come to my journal. For what strange eyes am I writing these words? I doubt whether I shall have strength to put down the record that I feel ought to be put down. Perhaps the power that impels me to write at all will give me the needed strength. I have lost the reckoning of the days, but that matters not. After writing the words with which my last entry closed I went to my little cabin and was soon asleep. I was awakened by stealthy feet without my door, followed by sounds of a struggle on deck, two or three pistol shots, curses and groans and the trampling of feet. I jumped from my bunk, threw on some clothing, and hurried out. The large cabin was in total darkness. I rushed to the companion way. As I stepped upon the deck I saw before me a struggling throng, and then there was a crash, and I knew no more for a time. I know now that I was struck on the head by one of the crew who had been watching for me. When I recovered consciousness I was lying bound hand and foot on the deck. It was early daylight, I struggled to rise, but could not stir. I saw the crew carrying bags and casks and clothing and lowering them over the side. Two or three forms lay on the deck, but I could not see who or what they were. I recognized the boatswain's voice giving orders. He asked if there was water enough and food, if the log and chronometer and compasses had been stowed away. It was all confusion, and my brain seemed on fire; but I knew that the crew were preparing to quit the ship. Where was Uncle John, where was Captain Raymond, and where was Helen? At this I again struggled and strove to rise, and the noise I made attracted the boatswain and he came to me.

"You're fast enough, my lad," said he, smiling grimly. "Best lie quiet and listen. Th' lads 'ave 'ad enough of this bediviled ship and the witch that 'as bediviled 'er. So we're goin' to ship our cable and put hoff. You seem so fond o' the witch that we'll leave you with 'er. She'll care for thee, never fear," and he turned on his heel.

I tried to speak, but must have fainted with the effort. When I again became conscious, I was still lying on the deck, but my bonds had been cut, and I managed to stagger to my feet. I looked all around. Not a living being could I see. Just then the sun came up, and as his glowing disc showed above the quiet water, I caught, far away in the south, a faint sparkle, and then saw two small dark spots, that before my straining gaze disappeared. I doubt not that what I saw were the boats containing the crew of the Albatross. I turned and looked around the deck. The forms that I had seen were no longer visible, but just aft of the wheel was a piece of canvas covering something. I walked over feebly, for the blow that I had received had shaken me badly, and lifted the canvas. There lay the dead bodies of my dear uncle and Captain Raymond and big First Mate Robinson. Like a man in a dream I covered them again, and again looked about the deck. Where was Helen? Not on the deck. Had the villains taken her with them? I made my feeble way below and went to Helen's cabin. The door was shut. I tried to open it. It was locked. I examined the lock. The key was in it, and on the outside. They had locked her in. I cautiously turned the key, opened the door, and entered. There lay Helen, her dark hair streaming back over the pillow. One round cheek rested softly on her brown, dimpled hand, the other bore a lovely flush. The half-parted lips were like crimson rose-buds, and over her bosom her white nightrobe rose and fell gently. She was asleep. As I stood there she opened her eyes. When she saw me she smiled happily and said in a sweet, sleepy voice, "Is it time to get up, Arthur? Why, how pale you look. Are you ill?" And she rose on one arm and the smile faded away.

"Yes, Helen," I said, as steadily as I could. "It's time to get up. Come into the cabin as quickly as you can. I am not at all well." And I left the little cabin, still like a man in a dream. Helen soon joined me. I asked her if she had slept well. She had. Had she heard no unusual noises in the night? No; she had not awakened once. So it was. Like a tired, healthy child, Helen had slept through all that awful tragedy. I shan't attempt to try and tell of the task I had in making her comprehend our awful situation. She did not comprehend it. She wept bitterly when I told her of the three dead bodies on the deck. She moaned over my "poor, bruised head," and with gentle hands bathed and bound it up. Then she said that she was hungry. We found the lockers in great confusion, but the crew had left food enough of one sort or another to satisfy our immediate needs. There was an awful task before us, and I explained it to Helen. We must consign those dead bodies to the sea. She shuddered at the thought, but, like an obedient child, tried to help me. How I managed to encase those silent forms in canvas I hardly know, but I did, and got them to the side of the ship. Then I got my prayer book and read the blessed burial service, while Helen looked on in troubled wonder. Then came the hardest task of all, but it was done, and the bodies, one after the other, fell with a great splash into the still sea. I had thought to bind heavy weights to the feet, and they sank at once, and Helen and I were left quite alone. I am writing this with great difficulty, for we are dying—dying of thirst. Why I write I do not know. There is no water on board. The sailors, after filling their casks from the great casks in the hold, left the water running. When we sought to draw there was not a drop left. There is a change coming over Helen. She sometimes looks at me strangely. She seems almost shy. I wonder what it is. Is memory coming back? Or has she learned that she is a woman and I a man? But she is not for me. There is John Bruce, and I vowed to take her safely to him, and I shall——. Mother, good——. I can't write more. I see that the end is....

CHAPTER V.

The writing in the little water-soaked book became entirely illegible. Indeed, the last few lines were very indistinct, and showed the failing of mental and physical strength. I sat staring at the yellow page and then looked up at Judson. He was gazing intently at me.

"Well, go on; go on," he said impatiently.

"That's all," said I.

He seized the book from my hands, and turned the leaves feverishly. "Yes, yes. That is all. Why man, we're not much wiser than we were. We've got something, but we haven't solved the mystery of the headless skeletons."

"No, nor are we likely to," said I.

"Not likely to? We must!" said Judson, in a sharp, strained voice. He seemed to be much excited. I looked at my watch.

"It's Sunday morning," said I, and luckily Sunday, I thought. Judson wouldn't be good for much in a trial after such an evening as this. As for myself, I was tired and hungry, and I said so.

"So am I," said Judson, dropping the excited air, but with an effort. "Sit still a moment." He came back soon with a tray on which were cold meat, and bread and butter, and crackers, and Rochefort cheese, and a bottle of Macon Vieux.

"You evidently know what a hungry newspaper man wants in the middle of the night," said I.

"I know what a hungry lawyer wants," and he drew the cork.

"Now," said he, after we had taken the edge off our appetites and were enjoying the Burgundy, "we must know the rest of that story."

"Easier said than done."

"Why so? Does it seem more difficult to get a message directly from Arthur Hartley than to get that journal from the bottom of the ocean? I do not think so. This night's experience has given me a confidence in the power of will over nature that nothing can shake. There is but one obstacle that stands in the way of our success. The woman whom you call the medium was thoroughly prostrated, as you saw. She seemed badly frightened, too. She said that she had never had such an experience: that she felt that she could not live through another. As she expressed it, she felt that she had been the battle ground where two great forces had met and contended. I soothed her as best I could and sent her home. I did not tell her that I thought that she was right. She was. She was the unconscious medium through which will overcame the forces of nature. This evening she must be the medium through which, in obedience to our will, the Spirit of Arthur Hartley shall speak with us."

"Suppose she refuses."

"She will obey me, or rather my will," said Judson quietly. "It's merely a question of whether it is safe to subject her to the ordeal. But as it will be nothing compared with that she has just been through I shall attempt it, if she is at all able to bear it. I must have that mystery solved."

I slept very late that morning and joined the family at the Sunday afternoon dinner; and then went with Judson to the library to smoke.

"It's all right," he said, as soon as we were seated. "She will come this evening."

"Will all those other persons be here?" I asked.

"Oh, no. You and I and the woman only."

It was ten o'clock that evening when Judson entered the library, where I sat reading before the glowing grate, and said:

"She's here. Come into the parlor."

It was with more than ordinary emotions that I followed him. The medium was the only person in the room. The cabinet still stood where it had stood twenty-four hours before. She looked the picture of ill health. Great hollows were beneath the tired eyes, and she moved feebly. She bowed gravely to me, and entered the cabinet. Judson turned the gas down low.

"If you will remain entirely passive," he said softly, "I think we shall get the communication without trouble." There was a calm confidence in his voice, quite different from the intensity of his manner the night before. We sat quietly for many minutes, until I began to grow uneasy. I tried to think of nothing with very poor success, but while I was making the effort strenuously there came from the cabinet a clear, firm voice. Its tones were something like those in which the woman the night before had said: "What do you wish?" but as the voice proceeded it took on a manlier tone, with that indescribable accent we call "English." These were the words:

"Since you wish it, I will finish the story of my life on earth. Listen. When I ceased writing in my book on the Albatross it was because I had lost control of my pen, and of my mind as well. I managed to crawl to the deck. Helen was lying motionless in the shadow of the companion hatch. I threw myself down by her side. She put out her hand and grasped mine, and a flush crossed her face. I was too weak to speak, and thus hand in hand we lay for I don't know how long. Gradually I lost consciousness, perhaps in sleep. At all events, my spirit was not free. The frail body still had strength enough to retain it. I was aroused by something dropping on my face. As consciousness came back I saw that the sky had become overcast; that a cool breeze was blowing, and that a gentle rain was falling. Helen was sitting erect and with parted lips drinking in the grateful rain-laden air. I tried to rise, but could not. She was much stronger than I, and at my direction went below and brought blankets and clothes, which she spread on the deck that they might catch the falling drops. She seemed quite vigorous, and already I felt my own strength coming back. Soon she was able to squeeze water from a blanket into a small can which stood by the mast. We were in too great agony of thirst to think of small matters of neatness. She offered the can to me.

"'Drink, yourself, Helen,' I said.

"'No,' she answered, with a smile. 'No, you need it most.' And kneeling by my side, she slipped her arm under my head, and with her other hand held the water to my lips.

"I drank eagerly. The draught was life to me. Never had water such strength-giving power. I hardly noticed that it left a queer taste upon my lips. I sat erect. Helen, with her arm still around my neck, drank what remained in the can. Then she looked me full in the face. There was a new expression in the lovely eyes; the old vague, calm look had gone. A deep flush was on her brow as she spoke:

"'Arthur,' she said, and there was a tremor in the rich, deep voice. 'Arthur, my memory has come back. No, do not speak, but hear me. The past all returned the night after that awful day when we buried those dead bodies in the sea. I now remember and understand all that you and the dear doctor said to me. I remember our parting in England; I remember John Bruce; I remember why I set out for India so suddenly. I heard that he was wounded. I thought duty called me. For I did not love him, Arthur. How could I? I had not seen him since we were children, and our fathers betrothed us. But, Arthur, a higher power than hate or love has given us to each other, and I can tell you, dear, that I love you. Oh, I love you! My darling; my noble, faithful darling! Oh, Arthur, Arthur!'

"She threw herself upon my breast with burning face and streaming eyes. The blood leaped through my veins. She raised her sweet face and our lips met for the first time.

"There was an awful crash, and our freed spirits took their happy flight together. We had drank from the can that had contained Uncle John's explosive. A little of the powder had clung to the can, floated on the water, and adhered to our lips when we drank. The impact of that first ecstatic kiss had exploded the compound and our heads were blown from our shoulders. That's all. Good-by."

THE BUSHWHACKER'S GRATITUDE.

BY KIRKE MUNROE.

As we sat over our after-dinner coffee and cigars in the major's cosy library, one evening last winter, I discovered my host to be in a reminiscent mood, and ventured to ask him a question that I had frequently meditated. He smiled and was silent for a moment before answering.

"Yes, I have, as you suggest, experienced a number of what may be termed adventures since entering Uncle Sam's service. Of them all, however, I have no difficulty in recalling one that stands out pre-eminently as the most thrilling experience of my life;" and then he gave this narrative:

"Shortly after the close of the war, I was ordered to a remote section of the South, not far from the Gulf coast, to investigate certain claims against the Government that involved what, for that part of the country, was a large sum of money. As, for several reasons, it was deemed advisable that my real business there should be kept secret, I assumed the rôle of a settler, took possession of a vacant tract of land, built a two-pen log cabin, engaged a negro servant, and proceeded to explore the country with a view to making the acquaintance of my neighbors.

"The place in which I was located was remote from railroads or regular routes of travel, and was about as wild and lawless a district as could well be found east of the Mississippi. It was a limestone country, abounding in sink-holes, caverns, and underground rivers, and thickly covered with a primeval growth of timber. A few clearings at long intervals marked the fields and garden patches of its widely scattered inhabitants, who were as primitive a set of people as I had ever encountered. During the war it had been a very hot-bed of bushwhacking, and its men had plundered and killed on both sides, with a slight predilection in favor of Southerners and a bitter hatred of Yankees. Although I carefully concealed my connection with the army, and was most guarded in my remarks whenever forced to allude to the war, I could not hide the fact that I was a Northern man. On that account alone I was from the first an object of suspicion and close scrutiny to my neighbors, by most of whom my friendly overtures were received with a sullen unresponsiveness that was, to say the least, discouraging.

"My nearest neighbor was a giant of a man named Case Haffner, who, as I learned before leaving Washington, was the acknowledged leader of the district and foremost in all its deeds of deviltry. He, better than any other, could furnish me with the information I wished to acquire. For this reason I had taken up my abode as near to him as the unwritten law of the country, which forbade neighbors to live within less than a mile of each other, allowed. In vain did I strive to cultivate his acquaintance. He would have nothing to do with me. Only by stratagem did I succeed in meeting him, when he simply ignored my presence and walked away without a word. He lived alone with his son Abner, a bright, keen-witted lad of about fifteen, the pride of his father's life and the sole object of his ambitions. With this boy I also tried to scrape an acquaintance, hoping to win the father's confidence through him, but to no purpose. He either eluded me or fled like a startled deer if by chance we met. While others of the neighborhood sought my house with a view to satisfy their curiosity, with Case Haffner and his son 'Ab,' I could hold no intercourse.

"So matters stood at the end of a month, when, late one evening, on returning from an all day's ride to a remote corner of the settlement I was overtaken by a terrific thunder storm while still some distance from home. I was accompanied by Cæsar, my negro servant, and we were on horseback. Bewildered by the storm we lost our way, and after a half hour of hopeless wandering, floundering and general discomfort I was more than thankful to discover a feeble light twinkling in the window of a log cabin.

"Receiving no response to my repeated knockings at the door, I pushed it open and entered. I had not recognized the cabin and did not know until I saw Case Haffner sitting on a stool before the great mud-chinked fire-place, that it was his. The man's face was buried in his hands, and he did not look up at my entrance, nor in any way betray a consciousness of my presence. As I glanced about the rudely-furnished room in search of Abner, my eye fell upon a bed on which lay the motionless form of the boy. The light was dim, and fancying him to be asleep, I called him by name.

"At this the man by the fire sprang to his feet, and glaring at me like a wild beast, cried out with a terrible oath that his son was dead, and for me to be gone before he killed me for intruding on his misery. Instead of obeying him I stepped to the bedside. The boy was to all appearance lifeless, but disregarding the father's protest, and making a careful examination of the body, I became convinced that the vital spark had not yet fled. He had been stricken with one of the quick fevers of that country and had apparently succumbed to it. With a slight medical knowledge gained in the army, I saw that there was still a chance of saving him. Cæsar was at once dispatched to fetch my traveling medicine case, while I heated a kettle of water. Case Haffner meantime regarding my movements with an apathetic indifference. To make a long story short, I succeeded before morning in restoring the boy to life and a healthful sleep. At the end of a week, during which I visited him daily, his recovery was assured.

"In all this time, though the father watched my every movement with a catlike intentness, he never spoke to me if he could help it nor did he express the slightest gratitude for the service I had rendered him. Thus, when the boy was so far recovered that I had no longer an excuse for visiting the Haffners' cabin, I was apparently as far from gaining their friendship or confidence as I had been before the night of the storm.

"This state of affairs continued unchanged when at the end of three months from my arrival in that place I found my business there nearly concluded. I had established the validity of the claims I had been sent to investigate, had reported upon them, and had been ordered to settle them with the money that would be forwarded to me for that purpose. At the same time I imagined that all this business had been conducted with such secrecy as to be unsuspected by a human being beside myself and my principals in the matter. Thus thinking, I went alone, and without a feeling of insecurity, to the nearest railway station, where I expected to receive the money. It did not arrive on that day; but instead I found a cipher dispatch stating that it would be sent a week later. Accepting the situation with as good grace as possible, I purchased some provisions, placed them in the canvas bag that I had provided for the money and returned to my temporary forest home.

"Late that night I was awakened from a sound sleep by a knock at the door of my room. In answer to my inquiry of 'Who's there?' came a request in the voice of my negro man, that I would give him some medicine to relieve 'de colic misery dat was like to kill him.' As he had made similar requests, with which I had complied, several times before, I unsuspiciously opened the door.

"The candle that I had just lighted gave me a glimpse of Cæsar, with ashen face and the muzzle of a revolver pressed against his head. At the same moment a pistol was leveled at my own face and I was seized and bound by two masked men. In vain did I demand the meaning of this outrage. No answer was given, and I was led outside, while a hasty but thorough search was made of every portion of the cabin. It was, of course, a fruitless one, and after a while the two men who made it rejoined the one who was guarding me.

"Now one of them spoke, and in a voice which in spite of its disguised tone I at once recognized as that of Case Haffner said, 'You mought as well give us that money, Major, fer we're bound to have it, and the quicker you surrender it the easier we'll let you off.'

"I answered that I had no money; that it had not arrived. They replied that they knew all about my business, and that being closely watched I had been seen to bring that money, which they knew I expected to receive, home from the railway station the evening before.

"Finally their leader said: 'Well, Major, ef you are bound not to own up till we force you to, we'll have to try a dose of the Black Hole, and I reckon that'll fetch you to terms quicker'n most anything.'

"I had heard of the Black Hole, and the suggestion thrilled me with horror. It was a pit in the lime rock reputed to be of fabulous depth and was located at some distance from my cabin in one of the most impenetrable of the forest recesses. From it, so the negroes had told me, issued uncanny moanings and groans which they attributed to the ghosts of those who they declared had been flung into it by the bushwhackers when they wished to effectually remove all traces of some of their numerous deeds of blood.

"I protested and made promises, but to no purpose. My money or the Black Hole was the only answer I received, as I was hurried away through the forest. No other word was spoken, and, left to my own bitter reflections, I took no note of the direction in which we were going, nor of the distance traversed. When we at length halted I became conscious of a hollow moaning sound that seemed to come from the earth at my feet.

"Once more the question was asked, 'Will you give in, Major, and tell us where the money is, or shall we drop you into the back door of hell?'

"I answered, 'For God's sake, gentlemen, believe me when I say that I have received no money. If I had I would gladly give it as the price of my life.'

"A mocking laugh was their only reply. In another moment a slender rope was knotted under my pinioned arms and a sudden push left me swinging helplessly in the mouth of the awful pit beside which we had halted.

"'We'll wait here just one hour, Major,' came to me in Case Haffner's voice, 'and give you a chance to consider the situation. If you decide to let us have the money inside of that time, jest holler, and we'll pull you up. If you decide to go to hell and take the greenbacks with you, why, we'll jest have ter bid you good-by, that's all.'

"Then I was slowly lowered down, down, down, through the blackness. So slow was my descent that I seemed to be suspended for hours and to sink miles into the heart of the earth. The pain of the slender cord cutting into my flesh was well-nigh intolerable, and I bear livid evidences of it to this day; with each moment the moaning, gurgling, and groaning from the unknown depths into which I was sinking became more distinct and horrible.

"Suddenly, those above let go of the rope and with a yell of despair I dropped, I do not know how far, into water that closed above my head. As I rose to the surface, choking and gasping for breath, I felt that I was being swept forward by a powerful current, and as I again sank my feet touched bottom. A moment later I stood in water up to my shoulders and again breathed freely. For some time I was confused beyond the power of thought by the hollow roar of the black waters rushing through those awful caverns. All surrounding space seemed filled with snarling, formless monsters, cautiously advancing and making ready to spring at me. Even now I often awake at night with the horror of that moment strong upon me. It was so unendurable that I resolved to end it. It was with great difficulty that I maintained my footing. I could not do so much longer. Why should I attempt to? There was absolutely no hope of escape. I tried to pray 'Oh, Lord Jesus, receive my soul.' Then my muscles relaxed and I was swept away by the rushing torrent.

"I have no idea how far I was carried before my feet again touched bottom, this time in water that was not above my waist. I had closed my eyes. Now I opened them. A bright light was swinging to and fro not a hundred feet from me. I stared at it blankly and with little interest, only wondering with a languid curiosity what sort of a subterranean ignis fatuus it might be, when suddenly my bewildered senses were startled into renewed activity by the sound of a shout. It was a human voice uttering a long-drawn 'Hello-o-o!' that echoed and reechoed weirdly through the cavernous depths about me. I essayed to answer, but could not. Then I slowly made my way through the shoaling water toward the light.

"In another minute I stood beside a boy, the one whose life I had saved two months before, and as he cut the thongs that bound my arms he said cheerily:

"'It's all right, Major. Paw'lowed you'd be coming along this yere way 'bout this time o' night, en' telled me to shorely be on hand to meet up with yer. Now, ef yo'll foller me, we'll be outen this direckly.'

"The boy was standing in the mouth of a narrow passage, that, free from water, led away almost at right angles to the main channel of the underground river. It ended at a well-like opening in which stood a rude ladder, climbing this, we emerged through a well concealed trap door into the very room where Abner Haffner had laid at the point of death two months before."

"Is that all?" I asked, as the major paused and lighted a fresh cigar.

"Yes, it's all of that story. I could not cause the arrest of the gang, even had I known who composed it, without causing that of their leader, and from the moment that blessed light illumined the black waters of that underground river I would not have harmed Case Haffner for anything the world holds best worth having. No; by daylight I was well out of that section of country, nor have I ever since set foot in it."

"Have you ever heard again from that boy?"

"Who, Abner? Well, I should say I had. I put him through college, and he is in Congress to-day. If I should tell you his real name you would instantly recognize it as that of one of the smartest men ever sent to Washington from the far South."

THE END OF ALL.

BY NYM CRINKLE.

The difficulty that I experience in complying with your request, dear spirit, springs from the terrestrial limitations of thought and expression, from which, as you may well know, I have not been long enough with you to free myself.

I shall, however, give you a plain narrative of the events attending the extinction of life on our planet, asking you only to remember that I am doing it just as I would have done it, were it possible, for a fellow human being while on earth, using the phraseology and the terrestrial time divisions with which I am most familiar.

The circumstance which at our last intercourse I was trying to explain to you was simply this: In the early summer of the year 1892 a sudden interruption of navigation occurred on the Pacific coast, which, curiously enough, attracted very little attention outside of scientific circles. I was living at the house of my wealthy friend, Judge Brisbane, in Gramercy Park. To tell you the truth, I was in love with his beautiful daughter, of whom I shall have to speak more fully to you, for she was intimately associated with me in the appalling scenes which you desire me to describe.

I was sitting in the Judge's library on the night of June 25. His daughter was present, and I had been conversing with her in an undertone while the Judge read the evening papers. He suddenly laid down the paper, took off his spectacles, and, turning round in his chair, said to me: "Did you see the brief dispatch in the morning papers two days ago from San Francisco, saying that all the eastern-bound vessels were overdue on that coast?"

I replied at once that I had not noticed it.

"It is astonishing," he said, "that in our present system of journalism the most important events connected with the welfare of mankind receive the slightest attention from the newspapers, and the trivialities of life are most voluminously treated. A movement in the iron trade that affects millions of homes gets a brief paragraph in small type, and the quarrel of a ballet girl with her paramour receives illuminated attention down whole columns. Here is something taking place in the Pacific Ocean of surpassing interest to the race, and nobody pays the slightest attention to it except, perhaps, the consignees and shipping clerks."

"What is it?" we both asked, with the languid interest that young people, having an overmastering personal affair on hand, would be apt to take in matters of national or universal importance.

The Judge got up, and going to a side table, where he kept his papers piled in chronological order, pulled out a recent issue of a morning journal, and after looking it over searchingly a moment, said:

"Here. I should think you would notice such a paragraph as this." Then he read, as I recollect, a telegraphic dispatch to this effect:

"SAN FRANCISCO, June 23.—Considerable anxiety is felt here in commercial circles by the non-arrival of any eastward-bound vessels for a week. The steamship Cathay of the Occidental Line is overdue four days. An unusual easterly wind has been blowing for twenty-four hours. Weather mild.

"That dispatch, you will perceive," said the Judge, "was sent two days ago. Now here, on the 25th, I read in the evening paper another dispatch from San Francisco, hidden away at the bottom of a column of commercial news. Listen to this:

"SAN FRANCISCO, June 25.—The entire suspension of travel from the West continues to excite the gravest apprehensions. Nothing but coastwise vessels have come in during the past eight days. The U. S. cruiser Mobile left Honolulu three weeks ago for this coast. There is no official intimation of a storm in the Chinese seas."

The Judge laid the paper down, and regarded us both a moment in silence, as if expecting to hear some remark that indicated our suddenly awakened curiosity.

I don't think we responded with any adequate interest to the occasion. Miss Brisbane did, indeed, stare at her father in her dreamy, abstracted way a moment, and then got up, and, going to the open window, began to arrange the curtains, as if relinquishing whatever problem there was to the superior acumen of the masculine mind.

I think I said that it looked as if there had been a cyclone somewhere, and if there had we should in all probability get the accounts of it soon enough.

"But, young man," replied the Judge, with his majesterial emphasis, "cyclones do not extend from the fiftieth degree of north latitude to the fortieth degree of south latitude, and vessels are due at San Francisco from Melbourne and Japan."

"What, then, other than a storm at sea could have caused a detention of all these vessels?" I asked, and I must have unwittingly betrayed in the tone of my voice, or the expression of my face, that considerate superciliousness with which youth regards the serious notions of mature philosophers, for the Judge, putting his gold spectacles upon his nose, and regarding me over the top of them a moment, said rather severely:

"Other than the known and regular phenomena of this planet do not interest young men. If I could answer your question there would be no special interest in the matter."

I mention these trivial incidents because, insignificant as they may seem, they were the first ripples of that disaster which was soon enough to overwhelm us all, and to show you what were the only premonitions the world had of the events which were to follow.

On June 26, the subject did not occur to me. A hundred other things of far more immediate consequence to me occupied my attention. A young man who is preparing to get married is not apt to take somber views of anything. Nor is he very apt to allow the contumacy of age in his prospective father-in-law to aggravate him. It was a pardonable freak, I thought, in a man who had retired in most respects from the active world, to dogmatize a little about that world now that he judged it through his favorite evening paper. When, therefore, on the night of the 26th, while at the tea-table, the Judge broke out again about the meteorological wave on the Pacific coast, his daughter Kate and I exchanged a rapid but furtive glance which said, in the perfect understanding of lovers, "There comes the old gentleman's new hobby again, and we can well afford to treat it leniently."

The Judge had the damp evening paper in his hand, and he disregarded the steaming cup of tea which his daughter had poured for him.

"Well," he said, with a toss of self-satisfied import. "Now the newspapers are waking up to the significance of the California news." He then read from the paper, as nearly as I can recollect, something like the following:

SAN FRANCISCO, June 26.—There is an intense and growing anxiety on this coast with respect to the non-appearance of any eastward-bound vessels. The breeze from the east continues, and is unprecedented.

"Now, I should like to know," said the Judge, as he laid down the paper and took up his tea-cup, "why a breeze from the east in California should be unprecedented."

"Because," I ventured to remark, "it usually blows from the sea at this season."

"Nonsense," exclaimed the Judge with vigor. "A variation for a few days in wind or weather is a common occurrence everywhere. Fancy a message sent all over the world from the West Indies that the trade winds were six days late, or a telegram from Minnesota that the winter frosts had been interfered with for a week by pleasant sunshine. No, sir. The event of importance to the Californian at this moment is the mysterious something that has happened out at sea, and there is no excuse for his associating a summer breeze from the east with it, except that there is something peculiar about that breeze that associates it in the mind with the predominant mystery."

I smiled. "You will pardon me, Judge, but it seems to me," I said, "that you are trying to invest the whole affair with an occult significance that is subjective. I suppose that in a few hours the matter will be explained and forgotten."

In a moment we were in one of those foolish little wrangles in which, so far as argument is concerned, the younger man is at a great disadvantage, when the elder, however unreasonable his claims, enforces them with the advantage of age and position. I remember that the desire to convince Kate on the one hand that I was free from what I conceived to be her father's unreasonableness, and sustain my independence of views on the other hand, led me to say much more than was polite, for I exasperated the old gentleman, and with a curt and not altogether complimentary remark he got up and left the room.

The moment he was gone I turned to the daughter and laughingly said: "Well, my dear, I am afraid I have offended your father without intending it, but you at least understand me, and are free from his superstition."

To my surprise she regarded me with a serious air, and replied: "I do not know what you mean by superstition. My father believes that something has happened, and I feel that he is right."

"You do not mean to tell me," I said, "that you believe anything has happened that can concern us?"

She made no reply. I looked at her with some astonishment, and wondered if I had offended her by opposing her father's childish views.

"Perhaps," I persisted, "you, too, think I am stupidly unreasonable because I will not consent to be dishonestly chimerical."

I well remember the look of sad reproach with which she silently regarded me, and I well remember, too, the thought that came into my mind. I said to myself: "This is the same obduracy that her father has shown. Odd it is that I never noticed the trait in her before." Then I added, with an equal obduracy that I was not conscious of:

"Perhaps you, too, have discovered some peculiarity of good sense in me that is offensive, and you are afraid that something will happen if we——"

Here she interrupted me in her quiet, resolute, and reproachful way.

"Something has happened," she said.

I was amazed. If I had suddenly discovered that the woman I loved was unfaithful to me it could not have produced, in my frame of mind at that moment, a greater shock. It seemed to me then that the wooing of months, the confidence and affection of a year, were to be sacrificed in a moment of infatuated stubbornness. The very thought was so unnatural that it produced a revulsion in my own feelings.

"My darling," I said, as I went toward her impulsively, "we are playing the unworthy part of fools. Nothing can ever happen that will make us love each other less, or prevent you from being my wife."

I put my arm around her in the old familiar way. She was passive and irresponsive. She stood there, limply holding the curtain, with one white arm upraised, her beautiful head bent over and her eyes cast down so that I could not look into her face. This stony obduracy was so new and unlike her that I withdrew my arm and stepped back a little to regard her with astonishment, not unmingled with pique. At that moment she lifted her head slowly, and as she looked at me with a dreamy and far-away pathos I saw that her eyes were filled with tears.

"It seems to me," she said, with a voice that sounded as if it was addressed to an invisible phantom way beyond me. "It seems to me that I shall never be your wife!"

I must have stared at her several seconds in silence. Then I said:

"You are ill. You are not yourself. When you have recovered your normal condition I will come back."

I snatched a kiss from her lips, that were strangely cold, and rushed from the house.

It was not till the next morning, when I woke up after a short and disturbed sleep, that my mind reverted to the cause of all this purely sentimental disagreement, and I felt a strong desire to have events prove that the Judge was slightly monomaniacal, and that I was right. I went to Riccadonnas' for my breakfast and got all the morning papers, as usual, but this time with a distinct confidence that the news would be the best vindication of my good sense, and that I should yet have a good laugh at the Judge.

I opened the paper as I sipped my coffee, and the first thing my eyes fell on were the headlines of a dispatch from St. Louis. I read them with an inexplicable sense of something sinking in me. As I recall them they ran as follows:

"Strange news from the West. All communication west of Salt Lake City ceases. Meteorological puzzle. What is the matter with the wires?"

Then followed the dispatch, which I have not forgotten:

ST. LOUIS, June 26, 8 P. M.—A dispatch received here from Yuma on the Texas Pacific announces that no eastern-bound train has come in since morning, and all attempts to open communication by telegraph with points west of that place have failed. It is the opinion of railroad men that a great storm is raging in California. Weather here pleasant, with a steady, dry wind from the east blowing.

Immediately following this was another news item which I can quote from memory:

DENVER, June 26, 9 P. M.—Intelligence from Cheyenne is to the effect that railway travel and telegraphic communication west of Pocatello on the Union Pacific and Ogden and on the Central Pacific have been interrupted by a storm. The telegraph wires are believed to be in good condition, but up to nine o'clock there has been no return current.

I read these paragraphs over three or four times. Ordinarily I should have passed them by and given my attention to other and more congenial news. But now a dull fear that events were conspiring to widen the breach between myself and the Brisbanes focussed my interest on them. There was that easterly wind blowing again; was I, too, growing superstitious? I turned over all the papers. The news was the same in all, but there was not an editorial paragraph of comment in any of the sheets, which, indeed, teamed with all the details of active commercial, political, and social life.

I went down town after eating my breakfast and found that the intelligence had not awakened any public attention that was observable. The two or three persons to whom I spoke with regard to it treated it as one of the passing sensations of the hour that would be explained sooner or later. It was not till the evening papers of the 27th came out that the matter began to be discussed. The dispatches in these papers were of a nature to arouse widespread anxiety. It was very obvious from their construction and import that the feeling west of the Mississippi was more intense than had up to this time been suspected. The columns of the papers were filled with brief but rather startling telegrams from various points. Denver, El Paso, Salt Lake City, Cheyenne, St. Paul, St. Louis, and Chicago sent anxious sentences which had a thrill of trepidation in their broken phrases. And it was easy to see that this feeling of deep concern increased with each dispatch from a point further west.

Telegrams sent to St. Louis, Chicago, and St. Paul represented the condition of anxiety in Ogden and Pocatello to be bordering on excitement. Fears were entertained, the dispatches said, of a "meteorological cataclysm," and thousands who had friends either on the coast or in transit were besieging the telegraph offices in vain.

The hurried comments of the evening papers on the news were singularly unsatisfactory and non-committal. "The unprecedented storm that is now raging on the Pacific slope," I read, "and which has temporarily cut off communications with the far West, will by its magnitude fill the country with the most serious apprehensions." "The earliest news from California, which shall give us the details of the storm," said another paper, "will be looked for with eagerness, and will be promptly and fully furnished to our readers."

As curious as anybody could be to know what kind of a storm it was that had stopped railroad travel from Idaho to Mexico, and remarking with surprise that the Signal Office utterly refused to recognize a great storm anywhere, I dismissed the subject from my mind with the reflection that there would in all probability be explanatory news in the morning, and resolved to make my usual visit to the Brisbane family.

To my surprise, Kate received me cordially, and with no other allusion to the unpleasantness of the night before than a demure remark that she was afraid she had offended me.

"Let us not refer to it at all," I said, "and thus avoid making idiots of ourselves."

"I am glad you came to-night," she remarked, after a moment's silence, "for I wanted to tell you of the change we are going to make."

A little pang darted through me. It was said so seriously.

"What is it, my dear," I asked, trying to be as affectionate as if the conditions had not changed.

"My father and I have determined to go to Europe."

"To Europe!" I repeated, aghast. "You surely do not mean it?"

"Yes," resolutely. "He wanted to consult you about it, but was afraid you would disagree with his plans."

"And when did he make up his mind to take this sudden move?"

"This morning."

"And you intend to go with him?"

"Yes, and I was going to ask you to go, too."

"When do you propose to go?"

"Immediately."

It was evident to my mind now that this old man was a panic-stricken monomaniac, and had infected his daughter with his fears.

"Kate," I said, as I took her by her hands and pulled her to the sofa beside me, "you are running away from something; it is not from me, is it?"

"I want you to go with us," she answered.

"But you knew when you asked me that I could not go so suddenly. You expected me to refuse."

"No," she said, "I expect you to consent."

"Be careful. In a moment of bravado I may take you at your word, at any cost!"

She caught hold of me. "Do," she said, tremulously, and I felt a little shiver in her hand. "Do, do."

"I would rather go with you than lose you," I said at a hazard, "and if you are determined to go, I believe I will accompany you if your father will consent."

"We are determined," she calmly replied.

"But I must put my affairs in order," I suggested.

"How many hours will it take you?"

"Hours?" I repeated. "You would not like to start to-night, surely?"

"Yes," she answered, "I would gladly start to-night."

My patience was giving way very fast at this imperturbable obduracy. "Perhaps," I said, "you will give me some adequate reason for a haste that I cannot comprehend."

She did not answer. She was listening, with her head averted, and she held up her hand for me to listen also, as if that were her answer. Then there came through the open window the hoarse cry of a distant newsboy who was bellowing an "extra."

There was something weird in her attitude and action, connecting, as they did, her motives with that discordant, ominous cry.

"It's an extra," I said, as unconcernedly as possible. "I'll get a copy. There may be some good news for you," and I made a move toward the window.

"Don't," she said, quietly. "We were talking about going to Europe. Pa is not familiar with the business of securing passages, and you are. You could relieve him of a great deal of worry, and if you would go with us——"

"Kate," I said, "do you want me to go?"

"Yes, I do," she replied. "I do not want to leave you here."

"Then," I said, "I will go. I will see your father in the morning and tell him that I will attend to the whole business of securing passages. I will set about arranging my affairs at once."

She then let me plague her a little about her timidity, and after a half hour of playful badinage on my part I came away, with a parting promise on my lips to lose no delay in making the arrangements for our departure.

Such, however, was not my intention. I felt sure that the Judge and his daughter would change their minds if I could only manage to delay matters a few days. To go running off to Europe at a moment's notice would be utter folly for me.

As I left the house I heard the voices of the newsboys in various keys still calling the extras. I bought a paper and read it under the gaslight of the church on Twentieth Street. "Display" headlines announced, "As Silent as the Grave; Nothing Heard from the Pacific. Great Excitement in Chicago and St. Louis." I must have stood there ten minutes poring over the strange news. An expedition in a special train had been sent west from Yuma that day, with railroad men and doctors. It had left at 3 P. M. The train reached Mesquite in less than an hour, and word was sent back from that station, "All right here; track clear; will reach the springs at 9 P. M." A dispatch from Yuma sent at 10 o'clock and received at St. Louis said, "Nothing further heard from the special." News from Chicago, where the excitement appeared to be momentarily growing, reflected intelligence from Denver, St. Paul, and Kansas City, and it was vain to ignore the fact that the entire West was in an alarming condition of anxiety. A special train was fitting out at Cheyenne under Government orders to start in the morning with a corps of Signal Service men, army officers, and electricians. It was to go provided with every scientific appliance, and to carry an insulated cable to be paid out from the car. The accounts said that the people were all on the streets in Cheyenne, and an enormous mob surrounded the station where the preparations were making.

For the first time I felt, as I threw the paper away, what I can only call a sense of misgiving. As I walked up the deserted avenue this feeling grew upon me, and when I reached Twenty-third Street, on my way to the Fifth Avenue Hotel, a sudden and entirely new reflection made me stop unconsciously as I turned it over in my mind. "If this strange news has affected Judge Brisbane and his daughter so seriously, why may it not be affecting millions of other people similarly? If there is at this moment a panic in the West, how long will it take the reflex wave to reach New York?"

The next morning events, or at least the publication of them, had reached that condition which arrests public attention everywhere. The news from the West swamped all else in the morning journals. The editors, by their work, now acknowledged that the mysterious silence on the Pacific Slope was by far the most important subject for consideration before the world. The moment I glanced at the sheets I saw that there was but one theme in the journalistic mind.

Two days had passed, and the silence was unbroken. Never before in the history of the world had the absence of news become such important news. Public attention was now mainly centered on the attempt to get a train of observation through from Cheyenne.

There was a hopeful spirit to most of the accounts, as if it was believed that science would unravel the mystery. But there was nothing from any quarter of the globe that as yet afforded the feeblest gleam of comfort. The Government train was to start early on this, the morning of the 28th, and the papers were only able to furnish details of the preparation and reports of the public excitement in Cheyenne and Denver. The officers on the train were to send dispatches from every station west of Pocatello. They were sagacious, experienced men, and the expedition was under the direction of the well-known engineer, General Albert Carrall.

I felt as I read the accounts that these men would probably clear up the mystery, and I resolved to delay engaging the passages on the ocean steamer until the next day. So I wrote a carefully worded note to Judge Brisbane, informing him that I would attend to the matter immediately. Had I then had the slightest knowledge of the cumulative rapidity with which a panic moves I would not have taken this risk. But my whole object was to gain time, with the hope that something would occur to change the minds of my two timid friends.

On the night of the 28th I avoided the Brisbane establishment, although my desire drew me in that direction. I resolved to wait until the morrow, and if nothing happened to change the determination of the Judge to go to Europe, to then make my arrangements to go with him and Kate. That night there was a visible change in the metropolis. The theaters were deserted, men and women were congregated at the corners and were walking in the roadways—a sure indication in a great city of some popular disturbance. The bulletins and news centers were crowded, and the mystery of the great silence was being discussed by everybody. One thing struck everybody with a vague terror, and it was the accounts of the strange wind that was now blowing at Cheyenne and Denver. One special correspondent at Cheyenne said "that it seemed to him that the atmosphere of the earth, influenced by some incomprehensible suction, was all rushing to an unseen vortex. It was not in any sense a disturbance of the atmosphere that we usually call a wind, but a steady, silent draught. And the spectacle of trees bent over and held all day by the pressure, but unfluttered and unrelieved by fluctuant variations, filled them with wonder and dread."

I got up early on the morning of the 29th, for I had slept lightly and fitfully. To my surprise I found that almost everybody else was up. It made me realize, as I had not done before, the feverish tension of public expectation. The news, if news it can be called, was startling. Let me try and repeat it to you just as it was presented to my sense. The special train, upon which the eyes of the whole country were fixed, had been heard from. It had gone west from Cheyenne and passed through Pocatello without interruption. Then followed the dispatches received from it at Cheyenne as it passed the stations beyond Pocatello. They were in this order and to this effect:

MICHANO, 10 A. M.—All right. Instruments working well. Track clear. Inhabitants appear to be moving east. No intelligence of a definite character obtained. Shoshone 108 miles west. Expect to make it in four hours.

BANNOCK, 2:30 P. M.—Conditions unchanged. Passed moving settlers all the way. They are going east with chattels. Wind from the east has the pressure without the violence of a gale. Party in good spirits.

SUNSHINE, 3:15.—Vast herds of wild cattle now impeding progress. Wind increasing. Road otherwise clear.

AMERICAN FALLS, 4:40.—Signs of the exodus decreasing. Country strewn with household goods. Reports here that all the teams that went out on the roads west have not returned. Expect to hear something definite from Minidoka.

MINIDOKA, 6:10.—Electrical and barometrical indications unchanged. Signs of life disappearing. Party in excellent spirits, and eager to reach the facts.

The next dispatch was from Cheyenne, and was sent at eight o'clock. It simply said, "Nothing further heard from Government party. Wire in good order."

Then followed two telegrams of gruesome brevity and significance:

POCATELLO, 9 P. M.—Nothing here.

CHEYENNE, 10 P. M.—Nothing has come over the special wire up to this hour. Microphonic tests at Pocatello indicate that the train is still moving. Electrical tests indicate that the current is unbroken.

Finally there was a special message from the New York Star's correspondent at Cheyenne, dated 11 P. M. It was about to this effect:

The current on the Government wire was broken at 10:40. Delicate tests show that the wire is now grounded. The dire conclusion of experts here is that the train ran from some point west of Minidoka from about 6:15 to 10:40 without human control, and then met with an accident. At the rate at which it was moving the train must have reached Shoshone. Terrible excitement here.

My keen sense detected in the newspaper itself certain infallible little signs that the news had disturbed the precision and routine of the office. Lines of type were in the wrong place, and typographical errors made it difficult to get the exact sense. Dispatch after dispatch, all bearing the same import of panic, was huddled into the column. From St. Louis the announcement was:

An unprecedented excitement here over the news from Cheyenne. The authorities appear to have lost their heads, and are unable to preserve order. Eastward-bound trains are carrying away people at a mob rate. We are in the midst of chaos.

From Chicago the intelligence was similarly appalling. "A panic prevails here," said the dispatch. "Impelled by a senseless apprehension of disaster, people have lost their reason. The Mayor has just issued a call upon the best citizens to assist him in preserving order."

It required no news expert to see that all the issues of life were temporarily suspended by the tremendous and growing interest in this stupendous mystery. Channels of news worn smooth by the placid streams of everyday platitudes began to show the roll of this new freshet. A dispatch from Washington was unintentionally significant. It read like this: "The only explanation forwarded by Colonel Sandford of the abandonment of the Pike's Peak signal station by himself and party is that of a coward. He says the wind pressure indicated that the place would speedily become untenable."

I turned over the sheet in which these disheartening facts were presented and looked at the editorial page. There was a double-leaded leader, evidently written late at night, and its conclusions were more gruesome than the facts, for while the facts could be interpreted in various ways according to the reader's condition of mind, there was no mistaking the official tone of the editor whose business it was to weigh and estimate the public value of news. It seemed to me that this umpire to whom we instinctively looked for opinions had thrown up the sponge, so to speak. Let me recall his words as they were impressed upon me that morning:

That a grave crisis has arrived in the conditions of life on this planet, it would be folly and is impossible any longer to deny. It is not our province nor is it within our power to offer any solution of the stupendous mystery that is now enveloping a part of our continent. It is only imperative upon us, as brave agents in the dispensing of truth, to say, with all the candor that we can summon, that the effort of the Government to open communication with the vast region west of what must now be known as the Meridian of Silence has dismally failed, and it is the conviction of the maturest judgment, based upon all the facts of the attempt that are obtainable, that it failed because the explorers themselves ceased to exist when they had passed a certain pretty well-defined line which we now know extends north and south from Helena in Montana to Yuma on the borders of Mexico.

I found myself standing by my breakfast table reading this. I had risen unconsciously. My breakfast was unheeded. An ungovernable impulse to go anywhere seized me. To sit still with this crushing uncertainty was impossible. I found myself in a coupé. Where I got it I do not distinctly remember. But I do remember that it was by means of an extraordinary offer to the driver, who, like all his fellows, was dashing through the streets at a headlong pace. And I also have a very clear recollection of the strange nervous effect produced upon me by seeing the people along the curbs on Broadway watching the flying vehicles with a mute terror, as if the very recklessness of the drivers afforded them a palpable distraction from the unintelligible weight of their own fears. I speedily noticed that the stream of humanity on the streets was tending down town, and almost immediately I understood that it was heading, like myself, for the news centers. I could get no farther than Chambers Street, owing to the block of people and vehicles, and the driver rudely refused to take the risk of a jam. I looked at the City Hall clock. It was only eight. My heart was beating rapidly, and I knew enough of the effect of emotion on the cardiac system to understand that it was caused by suspense. A thousand new terrors were in the air of which the experience and the sagacity of man were ignorant. I forced my way with the greatest difficulty across the park, which was full of restless but strangely mute people, and got near enough to the newspaper bulletins to read the painted lines. They were feverishly indicative of the cross currents of excitement in the country, and were in short, decisive sentences like this: "The President asked to appoint a day of humiliation and prayer immediately. The Governor of Colorado, crazed by the excitement, commits suicide. Mob rule in Chicago. Rioting in Denver. Breakdown of the Alton & Chicago road. Unparalleled scenes at El Paso. Fanaticism in New Orleans. The Christian pastors of this city will meet at Cooper Union at ten o'clock, irrespective of sect. Panic in Milwaukee."

Held by a numbing sort of fascination, I read these sentences over and over. Across Printing House Square, on another bulletin, in big black letters I saw the line, "It baffles the world. Has annihilation set in!" There was something weird in the use of the pronoun IT. It seemed to be man's last effort in language to express a mystery that was specific and yet incomprehensible, and I found that by the common consent of ignorance men were referring to the phenomenon as IT. I looked at the strained, anxious faces of the mob, and a great fear fell upon me. With it came an awful reproach. I would go instantly and redeem my word to Kate by securing passages to Europe. I had to fight my way by inches out of the stolid and frightened crowd to the steamship office on lower Broadway, and there I found another jam. The street was full of private carriages, and it was impossible to get anywhere near the entrance to the office. I saw a policeman who was on the outside of the press, and who was walking up and down in a restless and unofficial manner. "What is the matter here?" I asked him. He looked me all over, as if he suspected that I had fallen out of the clouds. Then he said: "Tryin' to get tickets for Europe! Where d' you come frum?" and then, after a restless turn or two he added as he passed me, "But it ain't no use, 'cause there ain't steamships enough in the world!"

Then it was, I think, that the whole terrible truth first lit my consciousness like the sudden upflaring of a bale fire. The inhabitants were fleeing from the country. They were all affected as had been the Brisbanes. I was the only dolt and idiot and liar who had no instincts of danger, and who had failed to rescue the woman I loved when she had appealed to me.

Then I plunged wildly out into the street with a feeling of desperation and that sinking of the spirits that comes only in the worst crises and when one begins to comprehend how helpless man is. I saw that in the brief time that had elapsed a change had taken place in the aspect of the crowds. When I got to Broadway again it was with the utmost difficulty that I could make my way at all against the surging mass of people that seemed momentarily to swell. It was utterly unlike any crowd in numbers and disposition that I had ever encountered. It was made up of all classes. It had lost that American characteristic of good-humor, which had been swallowed up in a dire personal and selfish instinct of self-preservation. It was animated by a vague terror, and disregarded every consideration but that of personal safety. A horrible conviction seized me that the ordinary restraints of society were breaking down, and that speedily panic would mount to chaos. I saw that this dread was adding to the terror of everybody, aside from the fear of IT. Like an assemblage in a burning building, the fear of each other was more subtile and operative than the fear of the elements. By indefatigable labor I got off the main thoroughfare and reached Hudson Street, and here in the crowd I learned the latest news and discovered the cause of the rapidly increasing excitement. I had run against an intimate friend and associate, by accident. His first words were, as he wiped the perspiration out of his eyes, "Well, this is awful, eh?"

"What's the news?" I asked.

"The latest is that The Death Line has moved. The Thurbers have a private wire, and I just heard that Denver is cut off now! It looks as if it was every man for himself."

So terrible was this announcement, and so engrossed was I with the despairing thoughts that it gave rise to, that I took little heed of what was going on about me until I reached Canal Street. The one dull conviction that it was useless to fight against now was that annihilation had set in; that some destroying wave had started out to encircle the globe and that the race was doomed. Something, God alone knew what, had happened to our planet, and humanity was to be swept away in one of those cataclysms with which soulless Nature prepares for a new order of existence.

I was rudely awakened from this reverie of wretchedness by the crowd which surged against me with a blind, unvindictive violence. My one desire was to get uptown to the woman I loved and had neglected, and I saw that every minute was adding to the difficulty.

How I reached the Brevoort House I do not know. But there I found a number of citizens who had not utterly lost their heads, and who had come together for counsel. There was a private wire in the house, and they were receiving intelligence from several central points in the city. The looks of these men, who were huddled into the parlor, were enough to dismay the most resolute observer. Their pale faces and painfully set mouths indicated the sense of an awful crisis which wisdom did not know how to meet or avoid. A well-known citizen read the dispatches to them as they were received, and torn as I was by impatience, my curiosity held me there to hear. It was now about half-past eleven in the morning. The rapidity with which events had moved since I got up was made startlingly apparent by the information here furnished. The authorities, together with a number of influential citizens, had come together as if by a common instinct at the Fifth Avenue Hotel. The Mayor, the Police and Fire Commissioners, several wealthy bankers, and a number of prominent clergymen were holding some kind of council and sending out appeals for co-operation and addresses to the public, which latter were entirely unheeded. As I forced myself into the room I saw and heard a venerable and majestic gentleman, evidently a clergyman, addressing those present in an impassioned manner. There were tears in his eyes and an awful sadness in his voice. "Men and brethren," he said, "it is appointed unto all men once to die. If it be appointed unto us who remain to die together, let us die like Christians who still retain our faith in eternal justice and eternal mercy, and not like wild beasts that devour each other."

A report came that the fatal east wind was blowing. And at this there was a general movement of those present, as if the time were too short to waste in longer listening. I came up Lafayette Place to Astor Place with the intention of reaching Fourth Avenue. Both spaces were choked with people, and on Eighth Street I saw a woman on the steps of a private residence, wildly calling on the mob, which paid no attention to her, to repent, for the day of judgment was at hand. Her white hair was blown over her face and her arms were frantically gesticulating. Into the great hall of the Cooper Union a mass of religious people had flocked, and a number of speakers were making addresses and offering up prayers. When I passed the woman who was exhorting the crowd I had noticed the manner in which her hair, which was of soft, flossy white, streamed out straight in front of her, but it did not occur to me until I reached the square in front of the Cooper Union that this was caused by the peculiar and ominous draft of wind from the east of which I had heard so much, for it was there that I saw a crowd pointing up to the roof of the vast building known as the Bible House, which appeared to be covered with people. Some of them were holding flags and drapery, and the material floated out westward without any of the undulating motion which always marks a flag in a disturbed current. These extemporized pennants stood out as if they were starched. I could see that this sign produced a dumb sort of terror in the crowd. It seemed to me then that all emotion of which I was capable was centered in the one desire to get to the woman I loved and die with her. A crushing and at the same time an animating remorse, as if somehow I had been responsible for her death at least, in disregarding her warnings, and somehow doubly guilty in mistrusting her motives, unmanned me and inflamed me. It was with something of the same disregard of everybody but oneself that I had seen in others that I fought my way to Twenty-first Street. What brutalities I committed need not be recounted. That hour remains with me an acute and jangled memory of frenzy. I reached the steps of Judge Brisbane's house torn and bleeding. The terrible scenes were in my eyes, and the dreadful, monotonous tumult of human desperation—that vast sigh of doomed humanity, pierced here and there by the wails and shrieks of despair and the cries of innocence for help, was in my ears. The celerity with which it had all come on left no chance for cool reason. An invisible phantom was at the heels of the community and we were part of a mighty stampede. After fumbling for an instant at the bell and pushing back several ghastly creatures who were on the steps, I must have applied my shoulder to the door and pushed it in. Some one appeared to be resisting on the other side, but it gave way and I half fell into Judge Brisbane's vestibule. An instant later we were looking into each other's faces, I, bloody and soiled and ragged and wild with the frenzy of fear and impatience; he, pale as death, but resolute, and holding an enormous bar over me.

"Quick!" he said. "Help me fasten this door!"

That sudden call of duty struck something habitual in me, and, without knowing exactly what I was doing, I found myself assisting him in barricading the door. The endeavor somewhat changed the current of my thoughts from the danger that was unseen to the danger that was storming under our windows. I must have muttered some kind of excuse for my conduct to the Judge, for he said: "No time for apologies or recriminations now. The house is full of my neighbors, who have come here for protection. Go upstairs and look after the women. The best and only thing we can do is to preserve a quiet place to die in, and not be trampled to pieces. Are you armed?"

I dashed up the broad staircase, and found the upper rooms occupied by women, some of whom, in morning attire hastily thrown on, were sitting around with their heads in their hands, while others were huddled at the windows, staring with strained looks of terror at the crowds on the street. Walking up and down the room, wringing his hands, a middle-aged man was giving expression to the most terrible irony and cowardice, without reference to his listeners.

I ran my eye over the huddled groups of frightened women. The one I sought was not there. I flew through the groaning figures on the stairway up to her chamber. I knocked loudly, and called her by name passionately. Then I listened. I heard nothing but the dull sounds of the human tumult that came through the open casement, and the sighing tones of the telegraph wires as the steady draft from the east swept through them. I shook the door, and abjured her to come to me. Then in my madness I burst it in. She was on her knees at the bed, with her hands on her ears, and her head buried in the bedclothes. I fell down on my knees beside her, and put my arm around her. "Kate," I said, "we will die together. Look up. Love at least is eternal." She was cold. I caught her head between my hands, and turned her beautiful face toward me. My God, she was dead! Dead, with her staring eyes full of terror, and her beautiful mouth set in hard and ghastly lines. Then it was that I felt rise up within me for the first time the rebellious bitterness of the natural man. Need I tell you that at such moments man is little better than an animal, save in his free agency that enables him to defy? I passed hours there—moaning, cursing, bewailing. When at last the force of the paroxysm had expended itself, I shook my fist in the face of heaven, with the obduracy of Pagan Greek, and said: "Come on now, you envious Fates, and do your worst speedily, or I will be too quick for you!"

Judge Brisbane found me there, raving.

"Do you know?" I asked.

"Yes," he answered, "and I am grateful. She is spared much that we must endure."

"And so," I said, "life, love, and the vaunted future of the race end in mockery."

"It seems so," he replied. "But we cannot be sure. Come with me."

We ascended to the roof. The spectacle that greeted us was indescribable. The tops of all the houses were black with people, who were staring mutely and with childish terror into the West. The steady, subdued organ tone of the rushing atmosphere could now be heard above all else. We stood there in silence a few moments, and then I said, "It's terrible. What do you suppose is taking place?"

"I suppose," replied the Judge, "that we are losing our atmosphere. Reeling it off, so to speak, slowly, as we revolve. Our planet has entered some portion of the ethereal space where the conditions are sucking us dry of oxygen. As it recedes from the earth the water disappears, and we shall be left to revolve like the moon, without air and without liquid, and consequently without life."

He said this meditatively, less as if he were answering my question than if he were formulating his own fears.

"Then," I remarked, "if this takes place gradually, the millions have got to struggle and writhe and fight together in suffocation. We can at least blow our brains out and cheat such a fate."

"I should hate," said the Judge, "to think that the man who was to marry Kate had not the bravery to face his destiny."

That was all that was said. We came down, and some ripples of intelligence reached us during the afternoon from one or two persons who made their way into the house. We learned that in the frenzy of fear the populace were committing the most extraordinary excesses. The shore line of the Atlantic was crowded with people, many of whom plunged into the ocean in the vain attempt to get away. The scenes in the city were too revolting to narrate, for a large class of the community, released from all restraint of moral and civil law, were bent on securing all the lawless pleasures that force could command, during the few hours that was left to them. And the line was steadily coming East. Chicago was cut off at twelve o'clock. And at four intelligence had ceased coming from Buffalo. At this time the sound of the winds was like the roar of the sea. I had torn myself away from the window where I had been staring at the now packed and struggling masses of people, and had locked myself in the room with the dead body of Kate. There was a vial of opium on her table that had been used for neuralgia; I swallowed it, and sat down by the bedside. I know not how long I remained there. But a loud report, as of a discharged cannon, roused me. I remember staggering and panting in the dark, with a semi-consciousness that the end had come, and I now know that report was occasioned by the bursting of the drums of my ears.

I remember nothing more. I have given you a plain statement of my experiences in that crisis, and I dare say they are uneventful enough by the side of the experiences of millions.

SHALL HE MARRY HER?

BY ANNA KATHERINE GREEN.

CHAPTER I.

When I met Taylor at the club the other night, he looked so cheerful I scarcely knew him.

"What is it?" cried I, advancing with outstretched hand.

"I am going to be married," was his gay reply. "This is my last night at the club."

I was glad, and showed it. Taylor is a man for whom domestic life is a necessity. He has never been at home with us, though we all liked him and he, in his way, liked us.

"And who is the fortunate lady?" I inquired; for I had been out of town for some time and had not as yet been made acquainted with the latest society news.

"My intended bride is Mrs. Walworth, the young widow——"

He must have seen a change take place in my expression, for he stopped.

"You know her, of course," he added, after a short study of my face.

I had by this time regained my self-possession.

"Of course," I repeated, "and I have always thought her one of the most attractive women in town. Another shake upon it, old man?"

But my heart was heavy and my mind perplexed, notwithstanding the forced cordiality of my tones, and I took an early opportunity to withdraw by myself and think over the situation.

Mrs. Walworth! She was a pretty woman, and what was more, she was, to all appearance, a woman whose winning manners bespoke a kindly heart. "Just the person," I contemplated, "whom I would pick out for the helpmate of my somewhat exacting friend, if——" I paused on that if. It was a formidable one, and grew none the smaller or less important under my broodings. Indeed, it seemed to dilate until it assumed gigantic proportions, worrying me and weighing so heavily upon my conscience that I at last rose from the newspaper at which I had been hopelessly staring, and looking up Taylor again, asked him how soon he expected to become a Benedict.

His answer startled me. "In a week," he replied, "and if I have not asked you to the ceremony, it is because Helen is not in a position to——"

I supposed he finished the sentence, but I did not hear him. If the marriage was so near, of course it would be folly on my part to attempt to hinder it. I drew off for the second time.

But I could not remain easy. Taylor is a good fellow, and it would be a shame to allow him to marry a woman with whom he could never be happy. He would feel any such disappointment so keenly, so much more keenly than most men. A lack of principle or even of sensibility on her part, would make him miserable. Anticipating heaven, it would not take a hell to make him wretched, a purgatory would do it. Was I right, then, in letting him proceed in his intentions regarding Mrs. Walworth, when she possibly was the woman who——I paused and tried to call up her countenance before me. It was a sweet one and possibly a true one. I might have trusted her for myself, but I do not look for perfection and Taylor does, and will certainly go to the bad if he is deceived in his expectations. But in a week! It is too late for interference—only it is never too late till the knot is tied. As I thought of this, I decided impulsively, and perhaps you may say unwisely, to give him a hint of his danger, and I did it in this wise.

"Taylor," said I, when I had him safely in my own rooms, "I am going to tell you a bit of personal history, curious enough I think to interest you even upon the eve of your marriage. I do not know when I shall see you again, and I should like you to know how a lawyer and a man of the world can sometimes be taken in."

He nodded, accepting the situation good-humoredly, though I saw by the abstraction with which he gazed into the fire, that I should have to be very interesting to lure him from the thoughts that engrossed him. As I meant to be very interesting, this did not greatly concern me.

"One morning last spring," I began, "I received in my morning mail a letter, the delicate penmanship of which at once attracted my attention and awakened my curiosity. Turning to the signature, I read the name of a young lady friend of mine, and, somewhat startled at the thought that this was the first time I had ever seen the handwriting of one I knew so well, I perused the letter with an interest that presently became painful as I realized the tenor of its contents. I will not quote the letter, though I could, but confine myself to saying that after a modest recognition of my friendship for her—quite a fatherly friendship, I assure you, as she is only eighteen and I, as you know, am well on toward fifty—she proceeded to ask, in an humble and confiding spirit, for the loan—do not start—of fifty dollars. Such a request coming from a young girl, well connected, and with every visible sign of being generously provided for by her father, was certainly startling to an old bachelor of settled ways and strict notions, but remembering her youth and the childish innocence of her manner, I turned over the page and read as her reason for proffering such a request, that her heart was set upon aiding a certain poor family that stood in immediate need of food, clothes, and medicines, but that she could not do what she wished because she had already spent all the money allowed her by her father for such purposes, and dared not go to him for more, as she had once before offended him by doing this, and feared if she repeated her fault he would carry out the threat he had then made of stopping her allowance altogether. But the family was a deserving one and she could not see any member of it starve, so she came to me, of whose goodness she was assured, convinced I would understand her perplexity and excuse her—and so forth and so forth, in language quite childlike and entreating, which, if it did not satisfy my ideas of propriety, at least touched my heart, and made any action which I could take in the matter extremely difficult.

"To refuse her request would be at once to mortify and aggrieve her; to accede to it and give her the fifty dollars she asked—a sum, by the way, I could not well spare—would be to encourage an action, easily pardoned once, but which if repeated would lead to unpleasant complications, to say the least. The third course of informing her father of what she needed I did not even consider, for I knew him well enough to be sure that nothing but pain to her would be the result. I therefore compromised the affair by enclosing the money in a letter in which I told her that I comprehended her difficulty and sent with pleasure the amount she needed, but that as a friend I must add that while in the present instance she had run no risk of being misunderstood or unkindly censured, that such a request made to another man and under other circumstances might provoke a surprise capable of leading to the most unpleasant consequences, and advised her if she ever again found herself in such a strait to appeal directly to her father, or else to deny herself a charity which she was in no position to bestow.

"This letter I undertook to deliver myself, for one of the curious points of her communication had been the entreaty that I would not delay the help she needed by trusting the money to any hand but my own, but would bring it to a certain hotel down town, and place it at the beginning of the book of Isaiah in the large Bible I would find lying on a side table in the small parlor off the main one. She would seek it there before the morning was over, and so, without the intervention of a third party, acquire the means she desired for helping a poor and deserving family.

"I knew the hotel she mentioned, and I remembered the room, but I did not remember the Bible. However, it was sure to be in the place she indicated, and though I was not in much sympathy with my errand, I respected her whim, and carried the letter down town. I had reached Main Street, and was in sight of the hotel designated, when suddenly, on an opposite corner of the street, I saw the young girl herself. She looked as fresh as the morning, and smiled so gayly I felt somewhat repaid for the annoyance she had caused me; and, gratified that I could cut matters short by putting the letter directly in her hand, I crossed the street to her side. As soon as we were face to face, I said:

"'How fortunate I am to meet you. Here is the amount you need sealed up in this letter. You see I had it all ready.'

"The face she lifted to mine wore so blank a look that I paused astonished.

"'What do you mean?' she asked, her eyes looking straight into mine with such innocence in their clear blue depths I was at once convinced she knew nothing of the matter with which my thoughts were busy. 'I am very glad to see you, but I do not in the least understand what you mean by the amount I need,' and she glanced at the letter I held out with an air of distrust mingled with curiosity.

"I could not explain myself. If she had been made the victim of a conspiracy to procure money from me, it would not help to preserve that sweet innocence of hers to know it. So, with a laugh, I put the letter in my pocket, saying:

"'You cut me short in my efforts to do a charitable action. I heard, no matter how, that you were interested just now in a destitute family, and took this way of assisting you in their behalf.'

"Her blue eyes opened wider. 'The poor are always with us,' she replied; 'but I know of no special family just now that requires any such help as you intimate. If I did, papa would give me what assistance I needed.'

"I was greatly pleased to hear her say this, for I am very fond of my young friend, but I was deeply indignant also against the unknown person who had taken advantage of my regard for this young girl to force money from me. I, therefore, did not linger at her side, but, after due apologies, hastened immediately here, where there is a man employed who, to my knowledge, had once been a trusted member of the police.

"Telling him no more of the story than was necessary to insure his co-operation in the plan I had formed to discover the author of this fraud, I extracted the bank-notes from the letter I had written, and put in their place stiff pieces of manilla paper. Taking the envelope so filled to the hotel already alluded to, I placed it at the opening chapters of Isaiah in the Bible as described. There was no one in either of the rooms when I went in, and I encountered only a bell-boy as I came out; but at the door I ran against a young man whom I strictly forbore to recognize, but whom I knew to be my improvised detective coming to take his stand in some place where he could watch the parlor, and note who went into it.

"At noon I returned to the hotel, passed immediately to the small parlor, and looked into the Bible. The letter was gone. Coming out of the room, I was at once joined by my detective.

"'Has the letter been taken?' he eagerly inquired.

"I nodded.

"His brows wrinkled and he looked both troubled and perplexed.

"'I don't understand it,' he remarked, 'I've seen every one who has gone into that room since you left it, but I do not know now any more than before who took the letter. You see,' he continued, as I looked at him sharply, 'I had to remain out here. If I had gone even into the large room the Bible would not have been disturbed nor the letter either, so in the hope of knowing the rogue at sight, I strolled about this hall and kept my eye constantly on that door, but——'

"He looked embarrassed and stopped.

"'You say the letter is gone?' he suggested, after a moment.

"'Yes,' I returned.

"He shook his head. 'Nobody went into that room or came out of it,' he went on, 'whom you would have wished me to follow. I should have thought myself losing time if I had taken one step after any one of them.'

"'But who did go into that room?' I urged, impatient at his perplexity.

"'Only three persons this morning,' he returned. 'You know them all.' And he mentioned first Mrs. Couldock."

Taylor, who was lending me the superficial attention of a pre-occupied man, smiled frankly at the utterance of this name. "Of course she had nothing to do with such a debasing piece of business," he observed.

"Of course not," I repeated. "Nor does it seem likely that Miss Dawes could have been concerned in it either. Yet my detective told me that she was the next person who went into the parlor."

"I do not know Miss Dawes so well," remarked Taylor carelessly.

"But I do," said I, "and I would as soon suspect my sister of a dishonorable act as this noble, self-sacrificing woman."

"The third person?" suggested Taylor.

I got up and crossed the floor. When my back was to him I said quietly:

"Was Mrs. Walworth."

The silence that followed was very painful. I did not dare to break it, and he doubtless found himself unable to do so. It must have been five minutes before either of us spoke, then he suddenly cried:

"Where is that detective, as you call him? I want to see him."

"Let me see him for you," said I. "I should hardly wish Sudley, discreet as I consider him, to know you had any interest in this affair."

Taylor rose and came to where I stood.

"You believe," said he, "that she, the woman I am about to marry, is the one who wrote you that infamous letter?"

I faced him quite frankly. "I do not feel ready to acknowledge that," I replied. "One of those three women took my letter from out the Bible where I placed it; which of them wrote the lines that provoked it, I do not dare conjecture. You say it was not Mrs. Couldock. I say it was not Miss Dawes, but——"

He broke in upon me impetuously.

"Have you the letter?" he asked.

I had and showed it to him.

"It is not Helen's handwriting," he said.

"Nor is it that of Mrs. Couldock or Miss Dawes."

He looked at me for a moment in a wild sort of way.

"You think she got some one to write it for her?" he cried. "Helen! my Helen! But it is not so; it cannot be so. Why, Huntley, to have sent such a letter as that over the name of an innocent young girl, who but for the happy chance of your meeting her as you did, might never have had the opportunity of righting herself in your estimation, argues a cold and calculating selfishness closely allied to depravity. And my Helen is an angel—or so I have always thought her."

The depth to which his voice sank in the last sentence showed that for all his seeming confidence he was not without his doubts. I began to feel very uncomfortable, and not knowing what consolation to offer, I ventured upon the suggestion that he should see Mrs. Walworth and frankly ask her whether she had been to the hotel on Main Street on such a day, and if so, if she had seen a letter addressed to Miss N. lying on the table of the small parlor. His answer showed how much his confidence in her had been shaken.

"A woman who, for the sake of paying some unworthy debt, or of gratifying some whim of feminine vanity, could make use of a young girl's signature to obtain money, would not hesitate at any denial. She would not even blanch at my questions."

He was right.

"I must be convinced in some other way," he went on. "Mrs. Couldock or Miss Dawes do not either of them possess any more truthful or ingenuous countenance than she does, and though it seems madness to suspect such women——"

"Wait," I broke in, "let us be sure of all the facts before we go on. You lie down here and close your eyes; now pull the rug up so. I will have Sudley in and question him. If you do not turn toward the light he will not know who you are."

Taylor followed my suggestion and in a few moments Sudley stood before me. I opened upon him quite carelessly.

"Sudley," said I, throwing down the newspaper I had been ostensibly reading. "You remember that little business you did for me in Main Street last month? Something I've been reading made me think of it again."

"Yes, sir."

"Have you never had a conviction yourself as to which of the three ladies you saw go into the parlor took the letter I left hid in the Bible?"

"No, sir. You see, I could not. All of them are well known in society here and all of them belong to the most respectable families. I wouldn't dare to choose between them, sir."

"Certainly not," I rejoined, "unless you had some good reason for doing so, such as having been able to account for the visits of two of the ladies to the hotel and not of the third."

"They all had good pretexts for being there. Mrs. Couldock gave her card to the boy before going into the parlor and left as soon as he returned with word that the lady she called to see was not in. Miss Dawes gave no card but asked for a Miss Terhune, I think, and did not remain a moment after she was informed that that lady had left the hotel."

"And Mrs. Walworth?"

"She came in from the street adjusting her veil, and upon looking around for a mirror, was directed to the parlor, into which she at once stepped. She remained there but a moment and when she came out passed directly into the street."

These words disconcerted me; the mirror was just over the table in the small room, but I managed to remark nonchalantly:

"Could you not tell whether any of these ladies opened the Bible?"

"Not without seeming intrusive."

I sighed and dismissed the man. When he was gone I approached Taylor.

"He can give us no assistance," I cried.

My friend was already on his feet, looking very miserable.

"I know of but one thing to do," he remarked. "To-morrow I shall call upon Mrs. Couldock and Miss Dawes and entreat them to tell me if for any reason they undertook to deliver a letter mysteriously left in the Bible of the —— Hotel one day last month. They may have been deputed to do so, and be quite willing to acknowledge it."

"And Mrs. Walworth? Will you not ask her the same question?"

He shook his head and turned away.

"Very well," said I to myself, "then I will."

CHAPTER II.

Accordingly, the next day I called upon Mrs. Walworth. She lived, as I already knew, in a small and unpretentious house just on the verge of our most fashionable quarter. But there was great taste displayed in the furnishing of that house, and I was not at all surprised to see evidences here and there of a poverty which the general effect tended to make you forget. I was fortunate enough to find her in, and still more fortunate to find her alone, but my courage fell as I confronted her, for she has one of those appealing faces that equally interest and baffle you, making you feel that unless your errand be one of peace and comfort, you had better not confront so tremulous a mouth and so tender a hazel eye. But I had steeled myself against too much sympathy when I entered her presence, so barely pausing to make my most ingratiating bow, I took her by the hand, and gently forcing her to stand for a moment where the light from the one window fell full upon her face, I said:

"You must pardon my intrusion upon you at a time when you are naturally busy, but there is something you can do for me that will rid me of a great anxiety. You remember being in —— Hotel one morning last month?"

She was looking quietly up at me, her lips parted, her eyes smiling and expectant, but at the mention of that hotel I thought—and yet I may have been mistaken—that a slight change took place in her expression, if it was only that the glance grew more gentle and the smile more marked.

But her voice when she answered was the same as that with which she had uttered her greeting.

"I do not remember," she replied, "yet I may have been there; I go to so many places. Why do you ask?" she inquired.

"Because if you were there on that morning—and I have been told you were—you may be able to solve a question that is greatly perplexing me."

Still the same gentle inquiring look on her face, only now there was a little furrow of wonder or interest between the eyes.

"I had business in that hotel on that morning," I continued. "I had left a letter for a young friend of mine in the Bible that lies on the small table of the inner parlor, and as she never received it, I have been driven into making all kinds of inquiries, in hope of finding some explanation of the fact. As you were there at the time, you may have seen something that would aid me. Is it not possible, Mrs. Walworth?"

Her smile, which had faded, reappeared on the lips which Taylor so much admired, a little pout became visible and she looked quite enchanting.

"I do not even remember being at that hotel at all," she protested. "Did Mr. Taylor say I was there?" she inquired, with just that added look of exquisite naïveté which the utterance of a lover's name should call up on the face of a prospective bride.

"No," I answered gravely, "Mr. Taylor, unhappily, was not with you that morning."

She looked startled.

"Unhappily," she repeated. "What do you mean by that word?" And she drew back looking very much displeased.

I had expected this and so was not thrown off my guard.

"I mean," I proceeded calmly, "that if you had had such a companion with you on that morning I should now be able to put my question to him, instead of taking up your time and interrupting your affairs by my importunities."

She lost her look of anger and acquired one of doubt. Did she survey me so closely because she was anxious to know if I had compromised her in the eyes of her intended husband? Or was her expression merely that natural to innocence equally startled and perplexed? I could not determine.

"You will tell me just what you mean?" said she earnestly.

I was equally emphatic in my reply. "That is only just. You ought to know why I trouble you with this matter. It is because this letter of which I speak was taken from its hiding place by some one who went into the hotel parlor between the hours of half past ten and twelve, and to my certain knowledge only three persons crossed its threshold on that especial morning at that especial time. I naturally appeal to each of them in turn for an answer to the problem that is troubling me. You know Miss N. Seeing by accident a letter addressed to her lying in a Bible in a strange hotel, you might think it your duty to take it out and carry it to her. If you did and if you lost it——"

"But I didn't," she interrupted warmly. "I know nothing about any such letter, and if you had not declared so positively that I was in that hotel on that especial day, I should be tempted to deny that, too, for I have no recollection of going there last month."

"Not for the purpose of rearranging a veil that had been blown off?"

"Oh!" she said, but as one who recalls a forgotten fact, not as one who is tripped up in an evasion.

I began to think her innocent and lost some of the gloom which had been oppressing me.

"You remember now," said I.

"Oh, yes, I remember that."

Her manner so completely declared that her acknowledgments stopped there, I saw it would be useless to venture further. If she were innocent she could not tell more, if she were guilty she would not; so feeling that the inclination of my belief was in favor of the former hypothesis, I again took her hand and said:

"I see that you can give me no help. I am sorry, for the whole happiness of a man, and perhaps that of a woman also, depends upon the discovery as to who took the letter from out the Bible where I had hidden it on that unfortunate morning." And making her another low bow, I was about to take my departure when she grasped me impulsively by the arm.

"What man?" she whispered, and in a lower tone still, "What woman?"

I turned and looked at her. "Great heaven!" thought I, "can such a face hide a selfish and intriguing heart?" and in a flash I summoned up in comparison before me the plain, honest, and reliable countenance of Mrs. Couldock and that of the comely and unpretending Miss Dawes, and knew not what to think.

"You do not mean yourself?" she continued as she met my look of distress.

"No," I returned; "happily for me, my welfare is not bound up in the honor of any woman," and leaving that shaft to work its way into her heart if that heart was vulnerable, I took my leave, more troubled and less decided than when I entered.

For her manner had been absolutely that of a woman surprised by insinuations she was too innocent to rate at their real importance; and yet if she did not take away that letter who did? Mrs. Couldock? Impossible. Miss Dawes? The thought was untenable even for an instant. I waited in great depression of spirits for the call which I knew Taylor would not fail to make me that evening.

When he came I saw what the result of my revelations was likely to be as plainly as I see it now. He had conversed frankly with Mrs. Couldock and with Miss Dawes and was perfectly convinced as to the utter ignorance of them both in regard to the whole affair. In consequence, Mrs. Walworth was guilty in his estimation, and being held guilty could be no wife for him, much as he had loved her and urgent as may have been the causes for her act.

"But," said I, in some horror of the consequences of an interference for which I was almost ready to blame myself now, "Mrs. Couldock and Miss Dawes could have done no more than deny all knowledge of this letter. Now Mrs. Walworth does that, and——"

"You have seen her? You have asked her——"

"Yes, I have seen her and I have asked her, and not an eyelash drooped as she affirmed a complete ignorance of the whole affair."

Taylor's head fell.

"I told you how that would be," he murmured at last. "I cannot feel that it is any proof of her innocence. Or rather," he added, "I should always have my doubts."

"And Mrs. Couldock and Miss Dawes?"

"Ah!" he cried, rising and turning away. "There is no question of marriage between either of them and myself."

I was therefore not astonished when the week went by and no announcement of his wedding appeared. But I was troubled and I am troubled still, for if mistakes are made in criminal courts and the innocent sometimes through the sheer force of circumstantial evidence are made to suffer for the guilty, might it not be that in this letter question of morals, Mrs. Walworth has been wronged, and that when I played the part of arbitrator in her fate, I only succeeded in separating two hearts whose right it was to be made happy? It is impossible to tell. Nor is time likely to solve the riddle. Must I then forever blame myself, or did I only do in this matter what any honest man would have done in my place? Answer me, some one, for I do not find my lonely bachelor life in any wise brightened by the doubt, and would be grateful to any one who would relieve me of it.

THE END.

Uniform with this Work.

Noughts and Crosses. By Q, Author of "Dead Man's Rock," &c.

Fourteen to One, and other Stories. By ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS.

Otto the Knight, and other Stories. By OCTAVE THANET.

Eleven Possible Cases. By FRANK STOCKTON, JOAQUIN MILLER, Q, and others.

A Singer's Wife. By FANNY N. D. MURFREE.

The Poet's Audience, and Delilah. By CLARE SAVILE CLARKE.

THE OLD STONE HOUSE AND OTHER STORIES

BY

ANNA KATHARINE GREEN

Short Story Index Reprint Series

BOOKS FOR LIBRARIES PRESS

FREEPORT, NEW YORK

First Published 1891

[1]

THE OLD STONE HOUSE.

was riding along one autumn day through a certain wooded portion of New York State, when I came suddenly upon an old stone house in which the marks of age were in such startling contrast to its unfinished condition that I involuntarily stopped my horse and took a long survey of the lonesome structure. Embowered in a forest which had so grown in thickness and height since the erection of this building that the boughs of some of the tallest trees almost met across its decayed roof, it presented even at first view an appearance of picturesque solitude almost approaching to desolation. But when my eye had time to note that the moss was clinging to eaves from under which the scaffolding had never been taken, and that of the ten large windows in the blackened front of the house only two had ever been furnished[2] with frames, the awe of some tragic mystery began to creep over me, and I sat and wondered at the sight till my increasing interest compelled me to alight and take a nearer view of the place.

The great front door which had been finished so many years ago, but which had never been hung, leaned against the side of the house, of which it had almost become a part, so long had they clung together amid the drippings of innumerable rains. Close beside it yawned the entrance, a large black gap through which nearly a century of storms had rushed with their winds and wet till the lintels were green with moisture and slippery with rot. Standing on this untrod threshold, I instinctively glanced up at the scaffolding above me, and started as I noticed that it had partially fallen away, as if time were weakening its supports and making the precipitation of the whole a threatening possibility. Alarmed lest it might fall while I stood there, I did not linger long beneath it, but, with a shudder which I afterwards remembered, stepped into the house and proceeded to inspect its rotting, naked, and unfinished walls. I found[3] them all in the one condition. A fine house had once been planned and nearly completed, but it had been abandoned before the hearths had been tiled, or the wainscoting nailed to its place. The staircase which ran up through the centre of the house was without banisters but otherwise finished and in a state of fair preservation. Seeing this and not being able to resist the temptation which it offered me of inspecting the rest of the house, I ascended to the second story.

Here the doors were hung and the fireplaces bricked, and as I wandered from room to room I wondered more than ever what had caused the desertion of so promising a dwelling. If, as appeared, the first owner had died suddenly, why could not an heir have been found, and what could be the story of a place so abandoned and left to destruction that its walls gave no token of ever having offered shelter to a human being? As I could not answer this question I allowed my imagination full play, and was just forming some weird explanation of the facts before me when I felt my arm suddenly seized from behind, and paused aghast. Was I then[4] not alone in the deserted building? Was there some solitary being who laid claim to its desolation and betrayed jealousy at any intrusion within its mysterious precincts? Or was the dismal place haunted by some uneasy spirit, who with long, uncanny fingers stood ready to clutch the man who presumed to bring living hopes and fears into a spot dedicated entirely to memories? I had scarcely the courage to ask, but when I turned and saw what it was that had alarmed me, I did not know whether to laugh at my fears or feel increased awe of my surroundings. For it was the twigs of a tree which had seized me, and for a long limb such as this to have grown into a place intended for the abode of man, necessitated a lapse of time and a depth of solitude oppressive to think of.

Anxious to be rid of suggestions wellnigh bordering upon the superstitious, I took one peep from the front windows, and then descended to the first floor. The sight of my horse quietly dozing in the summer sunlight had reassured me, and by the time I had recrossed the dismal threshold, and regained[5] the cheerful highway, I was conscious of no emotions deeper than the intense interest of a curious mind to solve the mystery and understand the secret of this remarkable house.

Rousing my horse from his comfortable nap, I rode on through the forest; but scarcely had I gone a dozen rods before the road took a turn, the trees suddenly parted, and I found myself face to face with wide rolling meadows and a busy village. So, then, this ancient and deserted house was not in the heart of the woods, as I had imagined, but in the outskirts of a town, and face to face with life and activity. This discovery was a shock to my romance, but as it gave my curiosity an immediate hope of satisfaction, I soon became reconciled to the situation, and taking the road which led to the village, drew up before the inn and went in, ostensibly for refreshment. This being speedily provided, I sat down in the cosy dining-room, and as soon as opportunity offered, asked the attentive landlady why the old house in the woods had remained so long deserted.

She gave me an odd look, and then glanced aside at an old man who sat doubled up in the[6] opposite corner. "It is a long story," said she, "and I am busy now; but later, if you wish to hear it, I will tell you all we know on the subject. After father is gone out," she whispered. "It always excites him to hear any talk about that old place."

I saw that it did. I had no sooner mentioned the house than his white head lifted itself with something like spirit, and his form, which had seemed a moment before so bent and aged, straightened with an interest that made him look almost hale again.

"I will tell you," he broke in; "I am not busy. I was ninety last birthday, and I forget sometimes my grandchildren's names, but I never forget what took place in that old house one night fifty years ago—never, never."

"I know, I know," hastily interposed his daughter, "you remember beautifully; but this gentleman wishes to eat his dinner now, and must not have his appetite interfered with. You will wait, will you not, sir, till I have a little more leisure?"

What could I answer but Yes, and what could the poor old man do but shrink back[7] into his corner, disappointed and abashed. Yet I was not satisfied, nor was he, as I could see by the appealing glances he gave me now and then from under the fallen masses of his long white hair. But the landlady was complaisant and moved about the table and in and out of the room with a bustling air that left us but little opportunity for conversation. At length she was absent somewhat longer than usual, whereupon the old man, suddenly lifting his head, cried out:

"She cannot tell the story. She has no feeling for it; she wasn't there."

"And you were," I ventured.

"Yes, yes, I was there, always there; and I see it all now," he murmured. "Fifty years ago, and I see it all as if it were happening at this moment before my eyes. But she will not let me talk about it," he complained, as the sound of her footsteps was heard again on the kitchen boards. "Though it makes me young again, she always stops me just as if I were a child. But she cannot help my showing you—"

Here her steps became audible in the hall, and his words died away on his lips. By the[8] time she had entered, he was seated with his head half turned aside, and his form bent over as if he were in spirit a thousand miles from the spot.

Amused at his cunning, and interested in spite of myself at the childish eagerness he displayed to tell his tale, I waited with a secret impatience almost as great as his own perhaps, for her to leave the room again, and thus give him the opportunity of finishing his sentence. At last there came an imperative call for her presence without, and she hurried away. She was no sooner gone than the old man exclaimed:

"I have it all written down. I wrote it years and years ago, at the very time it happened. She cannot keep me from showing you that; no, no, she cannot keep me from showing you that." And rising to his feet with a difficulty that for the first time revealed to me the full extent of his infirmity, he hobbled slowly across the floor to the open door, through which he passed with many cunning winks and nods.

"It grows quite exciting," thought I, and half feared his daughter would not allow him to return. But either she was too much engrossed[9] to heed him, or had been too much deceived by his seeming indifference when she last entered the room, to suspect the errand which had taken him out of it. For sooner than I had expected, and quite some few minutes before she came back herself, he shuffled in again, carrying under his coat a roll of yellow paper, which he thrust into my hand with a gratified leer, saying:

"There it is. I was a gay young lad in those days, and could go and come with the best. Read it, sir, read it; and if Maria says anything against it, tell her it was written long before she was born and when I was as pert as she is now, and a good deal more observing."

Chuckling with satisfaction, he turned away, and had barely disappeared in the hall when she came in and saw me with the roll in my hand.

"Well! I declare!" she exclaimed; "and has he been bringing you that? What ever shall I do with him and his everlasting manuscript? You will pardon him, sir; he is ninety and upwards, and thinks everybody is as interested in the story of that old house as he is himself."[10]

"And I, for one, am," was my hasty reply. "If the writing is at all legible, I am anxious to read it. You won't object, will you?"

"Oh, no," was her good-humored rejoinder. "I won't object; I only hate to have father's mind roused on this subject, because he is sure to be sick after it. But now that you have the story, read it; whether you will think as he did, on a certain point, is another question. I don't; but then father always said I would never believe ill of anybody."

Her smile certainly bore out her words, it was so good-tempered and confiding; and pleased with her manner in spite of myself, I accepted her invitation to make use of her own little parlor, and sat down in the glow of a brilliant autumn afternoon to read this old-time history.

Will Juliet be at home to-day? She must know that I am coming. When I met her this morning, tripping back from the farm, I gave her a look which, if she cares anything about me, must have told her that I would be among the lads who would be sure to pay her their respects at early candle-light. For I cannot[11] resist her saucy pout and dancing dimples any longer. Though I am barely twenty, I am a man, and one who is quite forehanded and able to take unto himself a wife. Ralph Urphistone has both wife and babe, and he was only twenty-one last August. Why, then, should I not go courting, when the prettiest maid that has graced the town for many a year holds out the guerdon of her smiles to all who will vie for them?

To be sure, the fact that she has more than one wooer already may be considered detrimental to my success. But love is fed by rivalry, and if Colonel Schuyler does not pay her his addresses, I think my chances may be considered as good as any one's. For am I not the tallest and most straightly built man in town, and have I not a little cottage all my own, with the neatest of gardens behind it, and an apple-tree in front whose blossoms hang ready to shower themselves like rain upon the head of her who will enter there as a bride? It is not yet dark, but I will forestall the sunset by a half hour and begin my visit now. If I am first at her gate, Lemuel Phillips may look less arrogant[12] when he comes to ask her company to the next singing school.

I was not first at her gate; two others were there before me. Ah, she is prettier than ever I supposed, and chirper than the sparrow which builds every year a nest in my old apple-tree. When she saw me come up the walk, her cheeks turned pink, but I do not know if it was from pleasure or annoyance, for she gave nothing but vexing replies to every compliment I paid her. But then Lemuel Phillips fared no better; and she was so bitter-sweet to Orrin Day that he left in a huff and vowed he would never step across her threshold again. I thought she was a trifle more serious after he had gone, but when a woman's eyes are as bright as hers, and the frowns and smiles with which she disports herself chase each other so rapidly over a face both mischievous and charming, a man's judgment goes astray, and he scarcely knows reality from seeming. But true or false, she is pretty as a harebell and bright as glinting sunshine; and I mean to marry her, if only Colonel Schuyler will hold himself aloof.[13]

Colonel Schuyler may hold himself aloof, but he is a man like the rest of us for all that. Yesterday as I was sauntering in the churchyard waiting for the appearance of a certain white-robed figure crowned by the demurest of little hats, I caught a glimpse of his face as he leaned on one of the tombstones near Patience Goodyear's grave, and I saw that he was waiting also for the same white figure and the same demure hat. This gave me a shock; for though I had never really dared to hope he would remain unmoved by a loveliness so rare in our village, and indeed, as I take it, in any village, I did not think he would show so much impatience, or await her appearance with such burning and uncontrollable ardor.

Indeed I was so affected by his look that I forgot to watch any longer for her coming, but kept my gaze fixed on his countenance, till I saw by the change which rapidly took place in it that she had stepped out of the great church door and was now standing before us, making the sunshine more brilliant by her smiles, and the spring the sweeter for her presence.[14]

Then I came to myself and rushed forward with the rest of the lads. Did he follow behind us? I do not think so, for the rosy lips which had smiled upon us with so airy a welcome soon showed a discontented curve not to be belied by the merry words that issued from them, and when we would have escorted her across the fields to her father's house, she made a mocking curtsy, and wandered away with the ugliest old crone who mouths and mumbles in the meeting-house. Did she do this to mock us or him? If to mock him he had best take care, for beauty scorned is apt to grow dangerous. But perhaps it was to mock us? Well, well, there would be nothing new in that; she is ever mocking us.

They say the Colonel passes her gate a dozen times a day, but never goes in and never looks up. Is he indifferent then? I cannot think so. Perhaps he fears her caprices and disapproves of her coquetry. If that is so, she shall be my wife before he wakens to the knowledge that her coquetry hides a passionate and loving heart.[15]

Colonel Schuyler is a dark man. He has eyes which pierce you, and a smile which, if it could be understood, might perhaps be less fascinating than it is. If she has noticed his watching her, the little heart that flutters in her breast must have beaten faster by many a throb. For he is the one great man within twenty miles, and so handsome and above us all that I do not know of a woman but Juliet whose voice does not sink a tone lower whenever she speaks of him. But he is a proud man, and seems to take no notice of any one. Indeed he scarcely appears to live in our world. Will he come down from his high estate at the beck of this village beauty? Many say not, but I say yes; with those eyes of his he cannot help it.

Juliet is more capricious than ever. Lemuel Phillips for one is tired of it, and imitating Orrin Day, bade her a good-even to-night which I am sure he does not intend to follow with a blithe good-morrow.

I might do the same if her pleading eyes would let me. But she seems to cling to me[16] even when she is most provokingly saucy; and though I cannot see any love in her manner, there is something in it very different from hate; and this it is which holds me. Can a woman be too pretty for her own happiness, and are many lovers a weariness to the heart?

Juliet is positively unhappy. To-day when she laughed the gayest it was to hide her tears, and no one, not even a thoroughly spoiled beauty, could be as wayward as she if there were not some bitter arrow rankling in her heart. She was riding down the street on a pillion behind her father, and Colonel Schuyler, who had been leaning on the gate in front of his house, turned his back upon her and went inside when he saw her coming. Was this what made her so white and reckless when she came up to where I was standing with Orrin Day, and was it her chagrin at the great man's apparent indifference which gave that sharp edge to the good-morning with which she rode haughtily away? If it was I can forgive you, my lady-bird, for there is reason for your folly if I am any judge of my fellow-men. Colonel[17] Schuyler is not indifferent but circumspect, and circumspection in a lover is an insult to his lady's charms.

She knows now what I knew a week ago. Colonel Schuyler is in love with her and will marry her if she does not play the coquette with him. He has been to her house and her father already holds his head higher as he paces up and down the street. I am left in the lurch, and if I had not foreseen this end to my hopes, might have been a very miserable man to-night. For I was near obtaining the object of my heart, as I know from her own lips, though the words were not intended for my ears. You see I was the one who surprised him talking with her in the garden. I had been walking around the place on the outer side of the wall as I often did from pure love for her, and not knowing she was on the other side was very much startled when I heard her voice speaking my name; so much startled that I stood still in my astonishment and thus heard her say:

"Philo Adams has a little cottage all his own and I can be mistress of it any day,—or so[18] he tells me. I had rather go into that little cottage where every board I trod on would be my own, than live in the grandest room you could give me in a house of which I would not be the mistress."

"But if I make a home for you," he pleaded, "grand as my father's, but built entirely for you—"

"Ah!" was her soft reply, "that might make me listen to you, for I should then think you loved me."

The wall was between us, but I could see her face as she said this as plainly as if I had been the fortunate man at her side. And I could see his face too, though it was only in fancy I had ever beheld it soften as I knew it must be softening now. Silence such as followed her words is eloquent, and I feared my own passions too much to linger till it should be again broken by vows I had not the courage to hear. So I crept away conscious of but one thing, which was that my dream was ended, and that my brave apple-tree would never shower its bridal blossoms upon the head I love, for whatever threshold she crosses as mistress it will not[19] now be that of the little cottage every board of which might have been her own.

If I had doubted the result of the Colonel's offer to Juliet, the news which came to me this morning would have convinced me that all was well with them and that their marriage was simply a matter of time. Ground has been broken in the pleasant opening on the verge of the forest, and carts and men hired to bring stone for the fine new dwelling Colonel Schuyler proposes to rear for himself. The whole town is agog, but I keep the secret I surprised, and only Juliet knows that I am no longer deceived as to her feelings, for I did not go to see her to-night for the first time since I made up mind that I would have her for my wife. I am glad I restrained myself, for Orrin Day, who had kept his word valiantly up to this very day, came riding by my house furiously a half hour ago, and seeing me, called out:

"Why didn't you tell me she had a new adorer? I went there to-night and Colonel Schuyler sat at her side as you and I never[20] sat yet, and—and—" he stammered frantically, "I did not kill him."

"You—Come back!" I shouted, for he was flying by like the wind. But he did not heed me nor stop, but vanished in the thick darkness, while the lessening sound of his horse's hoofs rang dismally back from the growing distance.

So this man has loved her passionately too, and the house which is destined to rise in the woods will throw a shadow over more than one hearthstone in this quiet village. I declare I am sorry that Orrin has taken it so much to heart, for he has a proud and determined spirit, and will not forget his wrongs as soon as it would be wise for him to do. Poor, poor Juliet, are you making enemies against your bridal day? If so, it behooves me at least to remain your friend.

I saw Orrin again to-day, and he looks like one haunted. He was riding as usual, and his cloak flew out behind him as he sped down the street and away into the woods. I wonder if she too saw him, from behind her lattice. I[21] thought I detected the curtain move as he thundered by her gate, but I am so filled with thoughts of her just now that I cannot always trust my judgment. I am, however, sure of one thing, and that is that if Colonel Schuyler and Orrin meet, there will be trouble.

I never thought Orrin handsome till to-day. He is fair, and I like dark men; and he is small, and I admire men of stature. But when I came upon him this morning, talking and laughing among a group of lads like ourselves, I could not but see that his blue eye shone with a fire that made it as brilliant as any dark one could be, and that in his manner, verging as it did upon the reckless, there was a spirit and force which made him look both dangerous and fascinating. He was haranguing them on a question of the day, but when he saw me he stepped out of the crowd, and, beckoning me to follow him, led the way to a retired spot, where, the instant we were free from watching eyes, he turned and said: "You liked her too, Philo Adams. I should have been willing if you—" Here he choked and paused. I had never seen a face so full of[22] fiery emotions. "No, no, no," he went on, after a moment of silent struggle; "I could not have borne it to see any man take away what was so precious to me. I—I—I did not know I cared for her so much," he now explained, observing my look of surprise. "She teased me and put me off, and coquetted with you and Lemuel and whoever else happened to be at her side till I grew beside myself and left her, as I thought, forever. But there are women you can leave and women you cannot, and when I found she teased and fretted me more at a distance than when she was under my very eye, I went back only to find—Philo, do you think he will marry her?"

I choked down my own emotions and solemnly answered: "Yes, he is building her a home. You must have seen the stones that are being piled up yonder on the verge of the forest."

He turned, glared at me, made a peculiar sound with his lips, and then stood silent, opening and closing his hands in a way that made my blood run chill in spite of myself.

"A house!" he murmured, at last; "I wish I had the building of that house!"[23]

The tone, the look he gave, alarmed me still further.

"You would build it well!" I cried. It was his trade, the building of houses.

"I would build it slowly," was his ominous answer.

Juliet certainly likes me, and trusts me, I think, more than any other of the young men who used to go a-courting her. I have seen it for some time in the looks she has now and then given me across the meeting-house during the long sermon on Sunday mornings, but to-day I am sure of it. For she has spoken to me, and asked me—But let me tell you how it was: We were all standing under Ralph Urphistone's big tree, looking at his little one toddling over the grass after a ball one of the lads had thrown after her, when I felt the slightest touch on my arm, and, glancing round, saw Juliet.

She was standing beside her father, and if ever she looked pretty it was just then, for the day was warm and she had taken off her great hat so that the curls flew freely around her face that was dimpled and flushed with some feeling[24] which did not allow her to lift her eyes. Had she touched me? I thought so, and yet I did not dare to take it for granted, for Colonel Schuyler was standing on the edge of the crowd, frowning in some displeasure at the bare head of his provoking little betrothed, and when Colonel Schuyler frowns there is no man of us but Orrin who would dare approach the object of his preference, much less address her, except in the coldest courtesy.

But I was sure she had something to say to me, so I lingered under the tree till the crowd had all dispersed and Colonel Schuyler, drawn away by her father, had left us for a moment face to face. Then I saw I was right.

"Philo," she murmured, and oh, how her face changed! "you are my friend, I know you are my friend, because you alone out of them all have never given me sharp words; will you, will you do something for me which will make me less miserable, something which may prevent wrong and trouble, and keep Orrin—"

Orrin? did she call him Orrin?

"Oh," she cried, "you have no sympathy. You—"[25]

"Hush!" I entreated. "You have not treated me well, but I am always your friend. What do you want me to do?"

She trembled, glanced around her in the pleasant sunshine, and then up into my face.

"I want you," she murmured, "to keep Orrin and Colonel Schuyler apart. You are Orrin's friend; stay with him, keep by him, do not let him run alone upon his enemy, for—for there is danger in their meeting—and—and—"

She could not say more, for just then her father and the Colonel came back, and she had barely time to call up her dimples and toss her head in merry banter before they were at her side.

As for myself, I stood dazed and confused, feeling that my six feet made me too conspicuous, and longing in a vague and futile way to let her know without words that I would do what she asked.

And I think I did accomplish it, though I said nothing to her and but little to her companions. For when we parted I took the street which leads directly to Orrin's house; and when Colonel Schuyler queried in his soft[26] and gentlemanlike way why I left them so soon, I managed to reply:

"My road lies here"; and so left them.

I have not told Orrin what she said, but I am rarely away from his vicinity now, during those hours when he is free to come and go about the village. I think he wonders at my persistent friendship, sometimes, but he says nothing, and is not even disagreeable to—me. So I share his pleasures, if they are pleasures, expecting every day to see him run across the Colonel in the tavern or on the green; but he never does, perhaps because the Colonel is always with her now, and we are not nor are ever likely to be again.

Do I understand her, or do I understand Orrin, or do I even understand myself? No, but I understand my duty, and that is enough, though it is sometimes hard to do it, and I would rather be where I could forget, instead of being where I am forced continually to remember.

Am I always with Orrin when he is not at work or asleep? I begin to doubt it. There[27] are times when there is such a change in him that I feel sure he has been near her, or at least seen her, but where or how, I do not know and cannot even suspect. He never speaks of her, not now, but he watches the house slowly rising in the forest, as if he would lay a spell upon it. Not that he visits it by daylight, or mingles with the men who are busy laying stone upon stone; no, no, he goes to it at night, goes when the moon and stars alone shed light upon its growing proportions; and standing before it, seems to count each stone which has been added through the day, as if he were reckoning up the months yet remaining to him of life and happiness.

I never speak to him during these expeditions. I go with him because he does not forbid me to do so, but we never exchange a word till we have left the forest behind us and stand again within the village streets. If I did speak I might learn something of what is going on in his bitter and burning heart, but I never have the courage to do so, perhaps because I had rather not know what he plans or purposes.[28]

She is not as daintily rounded as she was once. Her cheek is thinner, and there is a tremulous move to her lip I never saw in it in the old coquettish days. Is she not happy in her betrothal, or are her fears of Orrin greater than her confidence in me? It must be the latter, for Colonel Schuyler is a lover in a thousand, and scarcely a day passes without some new evidence of his passionate devotion. She ought to be happy, if she is not, and I am sure there is not another woman in town but would feel herself the most favored of her sex if she had the half of Juliet's prospects before her. But Juliet was ever wayward; and simply because she ought to increase in beauty and joy, she pales and pines and gets delicate, and makes the hearts of her lovers grow mad with fear and longing.

Where have I been? What have I seen, and what do the events of this night portend? As Orrin and myself were returning from our usual visit to the house in the woods—it is well up now, and its huge empty square looms weirdly enough in the moonlighted forest,—we came[29] out upon the churchyard in front of the meeting-house, and Orrin said:

"You may come with me or not, I do not care; but I am going in amongst these graves. I feel like holding companionship with dead people to-night."

"Then so do I," said I, for I was not deceived by his words. It was not to hold companionship with the dead, but with the living, that he chose to linger there. The churchyard is in a direct line with her house, and, sitting on the meeting-house steps one can get a very good view of the windows of her room.

"Very well," he sighed, and disdained to say more.

As for myself, I felt too keenly the weirdness of the whole situation to do more than lean my back against a tree and wait till his fancy wearied of the moonlight and silence. The stones about us, glooming darkly through the night, were not the most cheerful of companions, and when you add to this the soughing of the willows and the flickering shadows which rose and fell over the face of the meeting-house as the branches moved in the wind, you can understand why[30] I rather regretted the hitherto gloomy enough hour we were accustomed to spend in the forest.

But Orrin seemed to regret nothing. He had seated himself where I knew he would, on the steps of the meeting-house, and was gazing, with chin sunk in his two hands, down the street where Juliet dwelt. I do not think he expected anything to happen; I think he was only reckless and sick with a longing he had not the power to repress, and I watched him as long as I could for my own inner sickness and longing, and when I could watch no longer I turned to the gnomish gravestones that were no more motionless or silent than he.

Suddenly I felt myself shiver and start, and, turning, beheld him standing erect, a black shadow against the moonlighted wall behind him. He was still gazing down the street but no longer in apathetic despair, but with quivering emotion visible in every line of his trembling form. Reaching his side, I looked where he looked, and saw Juliet—it must have been Juliet to arouse him so,—standing with some companion at the gate in the wall that opens[31] upon the street. The next moment she and the person with her stepped into the street, and, almost before we realized it, they began to move towards us, as if drawn by some power in Orrin or myself, straight, straight to this abode of death and cold moonbeams.

It was not late, but the streets were otherwise deserted, and we four seemed to be alone in the whole world. Breathing with Orrin and almost clasping his hand in my oneness with him, I watched and watched the gliding approach of the two lovers, and knew not whether to be startled or satisfied when I saw them cross to the churchyard and enter where we had entered ourselves so short a time before. For us all to meet, and meet here, seemed suddenly strangely natural, and I hardly knew what Orrin meant when he grasped me forcibly by the arm and drew me aside into the darkest of the dark shadows which lay in the churchyard's farthest corner.

Not till I perceived Juliet and the Colonel halt in the moonlight did I realize that we were nothing to them, and that it was not our influence but some purpose or passion of their[32] own which had led them to this gruesome spot.

The place where they had chosen to pause was at the grave of old Patience Goodyear, and from the corner where we stood we could see their faces plainly as they turned and looked at each other with the moonbeams pouring over them. Was it fancy that made her look like a wraith, and he like some handsome demon given to haunting churchyards? Or was it only the sternness of his air, and the shrinking timidity of hers, which made him look so dark and she so pallid.

Orrin, who stood so close to me that I could hear his heart beat as loudly as my own, had evidently asked himself the same question, for his hand closed spasmodically on mine, as the Colonel opened his lips, and neither of us dared so much as to breathe lest we should lose what the lovers had to say.

But the Colonel spoke clearly, if low, and neither of us could fail to hear him as he said:

"I have brought you here, Juliet mine, because I want to hear you swear amongst the graves that you will be no man's wife but mine."[33]

"But have I not already promised?" she protested, with a gentle uplift of her head inexpressibly touching in one who had once queened it over hearts so merrily.

"Yes, you have promised, but I am not satisfied. I want you to swear. I want to feel that you are as much mine as if we had stood at the altar together. Otherwise how can I go away? How can I leave you, knowing there are three men at least in this town who would marry you at a day's notice, if you gave them full leave. I love you, and I would marry you to-night, but you want a home of your own. Swear that you will be my wife when that home is ready, and I will go away happy. Otherwise I shall have to stay with you, Juliet, for you are more to me than renown, or advancement, or anything else in all God's world."

"I do not like the graves; I do not want to stay here, it is so late, so dark," she moaned.

"Then swear! Lay your hand on Mother Patience's tombstone, and say, 'I will be your wife, Richard Schuyler, when the house is finished which you are building in the woods';[34] and I will carry you back in my arms as I carry you always in my heart."

But though Orrin clinched my arm in apprehension of her answer, and we stood like two listening statues, no words issued from her lips, and the silence grew appalling.

"Swear!" seemed to come from the tombs; but whether it was my emotion that made it seem so, or whether it was Orrin who threw his voice there, I did not know then and I do not know now. But that the word did not come from the Colonel was evident from the startled look he cast about him and from the thrill which all at once passed over her form from her shrouded head to her hidden feet.

"Do the heavens bid me?" she murmured, and laid her hand without hesitation on the stone before her, saying, "I swear by the dead that surround us to be your wife, Richard Schuyler, when the house you are building for me in the woods is completed." And so pleased was he at the readiness with which she spoke that he seemed to forget what had caused it, and caught her in his arms as if she had been a child, and so bore her away from before our[35] eyes, while the man at my side fought and struggled with himself to keep down the wrath and jealousy which such a sight as this might well provoke in one even less passionate and intemperate than himself.

When the one shadow which they now made had dissolved again into two, and only Orrin and myself were left in that ghostly churchyard, I declared with a courage I had never before shown:

"So that is settled, Orrin. She will marry the Colonel, and you and I are wasting time in these gloomy walks."

To which, to my astonishment, he made this simple reply, "Yes, we are wasting time"; and straightway turned and left the churchyard with a quick step that seemed to tell of some new and fixed resolve.

Colonel Schuyler has been gone a week, and to-night I summoned up courage to call on Juliet's father. I had no longer any right to call upon her; but who shall say I may not call on him if he chooses to welcome me and lose his time on my account. The reason for[36] my going is not far to seek. Orrin has been there, and Orrin cannot be trusted in her presence alone. Though he seems to have accepted his fate, he is restless, and keeps his eye on the ground in a brooding way I do not comprehend and do not altogether like. Why should he think so much, and why should he go to her house when he knows the sight of her is inflaming to his heart and death to his self-control?

Juliet's father is a simple, proud old man who makes no attempt to hide his satisfaction at his daughter's brilliant prospects. He talked mainly of the house, and if he honored Orrin with half as much of his confidence on that subject as he did me, then Orrin must know many particulars about its structure of which the public are generally ignorant. Juliet was not to be seen—that is, during the first part of the evening, but towards its close she came into the room and showed me that same confiding courtesy which I have noticed in her ever since I ceased to be an aspirant for her hand. She was not so pale as on that weird night when I saw her in the churchyard, and I thought her step had a light spring in it which spoke of[37] hope. She wore a gown which was coquettishly simple, and the fresh flower clinging to her bosom breathed a fragrance that might have intoxicated a man less determined to be her friend. Her father saw us meet without any evident anxiety; and if he was as complacent to Orrin when he was here, then Orrin had a chance to touch her hand.

But was he as complacent to Orrin? That I could not find out. I am only sure that I will be made welcome there again if I confine my visits to the father and do not seek anything more from Juliet than that simple touch of her hand.

Orrin has not repeated his visit, but I have repeated mine. Why? Because I am uneasy. Colonel Schuyler's house does not progress, and whether there is any connection between this fact and that of Orrin's sudden interest in the sawmills and quarries about here, I cannot tell, but doubts of his loyalty will rise through all my friendship for him, and I cannot keep away from Juliet any longer.

Does Juliet care for Colonel Schuyler? I[38] have sometimes thought no, and I have oftener thought yes. At all events she trembles when she speaks of him, and shows emotion of no slight order when a letter of his is suddenly put in her hand. I wish I could read her pretty, changeful face more readily. It would be a comfort for me to know that she saw her own way clearly, and was not disturbed by Orrin's comings and goings. For Orrin is not a safe man, I fear, and a faith once pledged to Colonel Schuyler should be kept.

I do not think Juliet understands just how great a man Colonel Schuyler promises to be. When her father told me to-night that his daughter's betrothed had been charged with some very important business for the Government, her pretty lip pouted like a child's. Yet she flushed, and for a minute looked pleased when I said, "That is a road which leads to Washington. We shall hear of you yet as being presented at the White House."

I think her father anticipates the same. For he told me a few minutes later that he had sent for tutors to teach his daughter music and the languages. And I noticed that at this she[39] pouted again, and indeed bore herself in a way which promised less for her future learning than for that influence which breathes from gleaming eyes and witching smiles. Ah, I fear she is a frivolous fairy, but how pretty she is, and how dangerously captivating to a man who has once allowed himself to study her changes of feeling and countenance. When I came away I felt that I had gained nothing, and lost—what? Some of the complacency of spirit which I had acquired after much struggle and stern determination.

Colonel Schuyler has not yet returned, and now Orrin has gone away. Indeed, no one knows where to find him nowadays, for he is here and there on his great white horse, riding off one day and coming back the next, ever busy, and, strange to say, always cheerful. He is making money, I hear, buying up timber and then selling it to builders, but he does not sell to one builder, whose house seems to suffer in consequence. Where is the Colonel, and why does he not come home and look after his own?[40]

I have learned her secret at last, and in a strange enough way. I was waiting for her father in his own little room, and as he did not come as soon as I anticipated, I let my secret despondency have its way for a moment, and sat leaning forward, with my head buried in my hands. My face was to the fire and my back to the door, and for some reason I did not hear it open, and was only aware of the presence of another person in the room by the sound of a little gasp behind me, which was choked back as soon as it was uttered. Feeling that this could come from no one but Juliet, I for some reason hard to fathom sat still, and the next moment became conscious of a touch soft as a rose-leaf settle on my hair, and springing up, caught the hand which had given it, and holding it firmly in mine, gave her one look which made her chin fall slowly on her breast and her eyes seek the ground in the wildest distress and confusion.

"Juliet—" I began.

But she broke in with a passion too impetuous to be restrained:

"Do not—do not think I knew or realized[41] what I was doing. It was because your head looked so much like his as you sat leaning forward in the firelight that I—I allowed myself one little touch just for the heart's ease it must bring. I—I am so lonesome, Philo, and—and—"

I dropped her hand. I understood the whole secret now. My hair is blonde like Orrin's, and her feelings stood confessed, never more to be mistaken by me.

"You love Orrin!" I gasped; "you who are pledged to Colonel Schuyler!"

"I love Orrin," she whispered, "and I am pledged to Colonel Schuyler. But you will never betray me," she said.

"I betray you?" I cried, and if some of the bitterness of my own disappointed hopes crept into my tones, she did not seem to note it, for she came quite close to my side and looked up into my face in a way that almost made me forget her perfidy and her folly. "Juliet," I went on, for I felt never more strongly than at this moment that I should act a brother's part towards her, "I could never find it in my heart to betray you, but are you sure that you are[42] doing wisely to betray the Colonel for a man no better than Orrin. I—I know you do not want to hear me say this, for if you care for him you must think him good and noble, but Juliet, I know him and I know the Colonel, and he is no more to be compared with the man you are betrothed to than—"

"Hush!" she cried, almost commandingly, and the airy, dainty, dimpled creature whom I knew seemed to grow in stature and become a woman, in her indignation; "you do not know Orrin and you do not know the Colonel. You shall not draw comparisons between them. I will have you think of Orrin only, as I do, day and night, ever and always."

"But," I exclaimed, aghast, "if you love him so and despise the Colonel, why do you not break your troth with the latter?"

"Because," she murmured, with white cheeks and a wandering gaze, "I have sworn to marry the Colonel, and I dare not break my oath. Sworn to be his wife when the house he is building is complete; and the oath was on the graves of the dead; on the graves of the dead!" she repeated.[43]

"But," I said, without any intimation of having heard that oath, "you are breaking that oath in private with every thought you give to Orrin. Either complete your perjury by disowning the Colonel altogether, or else give up Orrin. You cannot cling to both without dishonor; does not your father tell you so?"

"My father—oh, he does not know; no one knows but you. My father likes the Colonel; I would never think of telling him."

"Juliet," I declared solemnly, "you are on dangerous ground. Think what you are doing before it is too late. The Colonel is not a man to be trifled with."

"I know it," she murmured, "I know it," and would not say another word or let me.

And so the burden of this new apprehension is laid upon me; for happiness cannot come out of this complication.

Where is Orrin, and what is he doing that he stays so much from home? If it were not for the intent and preoccupied look which he wears when I do see him, I should think that he was absenting himself for the purpose of[44] wearing out his unhappy passion. But the short glimpses I have had of him as he has ridden busily through the town have left me with no such hope, and I wait with feverish impatience for some fierce action on his part, or what would be better, the Colonel's return. And the Colonel must come back soon, for nothing goes well in a long absence, and his house is almost at a standstill.

Colonel Schuyler has come and, I hear, is storming angrily over the mishaps that have delayed the progress of his new dwelling. He says he will not go away again till it is completed, and has been riding all the morning in every direction, engaging new men to aid the dilatory workmen already employed. Does Orrin know this? I will go down to his house and see.

And now I know Orrin's secret. He was not at home, of course, and being determined to get at the truth of his mysterious absences, I mounted a horse of my own and rode off to find him.[45]

Why I took this upon myself, or whether I had the right to do it, I have not stopped to ask. I went in the direction he had last gone, and after I had ridden through two villages I heard of him as having passed still farther east some two hours before.

Not in the least deterred, I hurried on, and having threaded a thicket and forded a stream, I came upon a beautiful open country wholly new to me, where, on the verge of a pleasant glade and in full view of a most picturesque line of hills, I saw shining the fresh boards of a new cottage. Instantly the thought struck me, "It is Orrin's, and he is building it for Juliet," and filled with a confusion of emotions, I spurred on my horse, and soon drew up before it.

Orrin was standing, pale and defiant, in the doorway, and as I met his eye, I noticed, with a sick feeling of contempt, that he swung the whip he was holding smartly against his leg in what looked like a very threatening manner.

"Good-evening, Orrin," I cried. "You have a very pleasant site here—preferable to the Colonel's, I should say."[46]

"What has the Colonel to do with me?" was his fierce reply, and he turned as if about to go into the house.

"Only this," I calmly answered; "I think he will get his house done first."

He wheeled and faced me, and his eye which had looked simply sullen shot a fierce and dangerous gleam.

"What makes you think that?" he cried.

"He has come back, and to-day engaged twenty extra men to push on the work."

"Indeed!" and there was contempt in his tone. "Well, I wish him joy and a sound roof!"

And this time he did go into the house.

As he had not asked me to follow, I of course had no alternative but to ride on. As I did so, I took another look at the house and saw with a strange pang at the heart that the plastering was on the walls and the windows ready for glazing. "I was wrong," said I to myself; "it is Orrin's house which will be finished first."

And what if it is? Will she turn her back[47] upon the Colonel's lofty structure and take refuge in this cottage remote from the world? I cannot believe it, knowing how she loves show and the smiles and gallantries of men. And yet—and yet, she is so capricious and Orrin so determined that I do not know what to think or what to fear, and I ride back with a heavy heart, wishing she had never come up from the farm to worry and inflame the souls of honest men.

And now the Colonel's work goes on apace, and the whole town is filled with the noise and bustle of lumbering carts and eager workmen. The roof which Orrin so bitterly wished might be a sound one has been shingled; and under the Colonel's eye and the Colonel's constant encouragement, part after part of the new building is being fitted to its place with a precision and despatch that to many minds promise the near dawning of Juliet's wedding-day. But I know that afar in the east another home is nearer completion than this, and whether she knows it too or does not know it (which is just as probable), her wilful, sportive, and butterfly nature seems[48] to be preparing itself for a struggle which may rend if not destroy its airy and delicate wings.

I have prepared myself too, and being still and always her friend, I stand ready to mediate or assist, as opportunity offers or circumstances demand. She realizes this, and leans on me in her secret hours of fear, or why does her face brighten when she sees me, and her little hand thrust itself confidingly forth from under its shrouding mantle and grasp mine with such a lingering and entreating pressure? And the Colonel? Does he realize, too, that I am any more to her than her other cast-off lovers and would-be friends? Sometimes I think he does, and eyes me with suspicion. But he is ever so courteous that I cannot be sure, and so do not trouble myself in regard to a jealousy so illy founded and so easily dispelled.

He is always at Juliet's side and seems to surround her with a devotion which will make it very difficult for any other man, even Orrin, to get her ear.

The crisis is approaching. Orrin is again in town, and may be seen riding up and down the[49] streets in his holiday clothes. Have some whispers of his secret love and evident intentions reached the ear of the Colonel? Or is Juliet's father alone concerned? For I see that the blinds of her lattice are tightly shut, and watch as I may, I cannot catch a glimpse of her eager head peering between them at the flaunting horseman as he goes careering by.

The hour has come and how different is the outcome from any I had imagined. I was sitting last night in my own lonely little room, which opens directly on the street, struggling as best I might against the distraction of my thoughts which would lead me from the book I was studying, when a knock on the panels of my door aroused me, and almost before I could look up, that same door swung open and a dark form entered and stood before me.

For a moment I was too dazed to see who it was, and rising ceremoniously, I made my bow of welcome, starting a little as I met the Colonel's dark eyes looking at me from the folds of the huge mantle in which he had wrapped himself. "Your worship?" I began,[50] and stumbling awkwardly, offered him a chair which he refused with a gesture of his smooth white hand.

"Thank you, no," said he, "I do not sit down in your house till I know if it is you who have stolen the heart of my bride away from me and if it is you with whom she is prepared to flee."

"Ah," was my involuntary exclamation, "then it has come. You know her folly, and will forgive it because she is such a child."

"Her folly? Are you not then the man?" he cried; but in a subdued tone which showed what a restraint he was putting upon himself even in the moment of such accumulated emotions.

"No," said I; "if your bride meditates flight, it is not with me she means to go. I am her friend, and the man who would take her from you is not. I can say no more, Colonel Schuyler."

He eyed me for a moment with a deep and searching gaze which showed me that his intellect was not asleep though his heart was on fire.[51]

"I believe you," said he; and threw aside his cloak and sat down. "And now," he asked, "who is the man?"

Taken by surprise, I stammered and uttered some faint disclaimer; but seeing by his steady look and firm-set jaw that he meant to know, and detecting as I also thought in his general manner and subdued tones the promise of an unexpected forbearance, I added impulsively:

"Let the wayward girl tell you herself; perhaps in the telling she will grow ashamed of her caprice."

"I have asked her," was the stern reply, "and she is dumb." Then in softer tones he added: "How can I do anything for her if she will not confide in me. She has treated me most ungratefully, but I mean to be kind to her. Only I must first know if she has chosen worthily."

"Who is there of worth in town?" I asked, softened and fascinated by his manner. "There is no man equal to yourself."

"You say so," he cried, and waved his hand impatiently. Then with a deep and thrilling intensity which I feel yet, he repeated, "His name, his name? Tell me his name."[52]

The Colonel is a man of power, accustomed to control men. I could not withstand his look or be unmoved by his tones. If he meant well to Orrin and to her, what was I that I should withhold Orrin's name. Falteringly I was about to speak it when a sudden sound struck my ears, and rising impetuously I drew him to the window, blowing out the candles as I passed them.

"Hark!" I cried, as the rush of pounding hoofs was heard on the road, and "Look!" I added, as a sudden figure swept by on the panting white horse so well known by all in that town.

"Is it he?" whispered the dark figure at my side as we both strained our eyes after Orrin's fast vanishing form.

"You have seen him," I returned; and drawing him back from the window, I closed the shutters with care, lest Orrin should be seized with a freak to return and detect me in conference with his heart's dearest enemy.

Silence and darkness were now about us, and the Colonel, as if anxious to avail himself of the surrounding gloom, caught my arm as I moved to relight the candles.[53]

"Wait," said he; and I understood and stopped still.

And so we stood for a moment, he quiet as a carven statue and I restless but obedient to his wishes. When he stirred I carefully lit the candles, but I did not look at him till he had donned his cloak and pulled his hat well over his eyes. Then I turned, and eying him earnestly, said:

"If I have made a mistake—"

But he quickly interrupted me, averring:

"You have made no mistake. You are a good lad, Philo, and if it had been you—" He did not say what he would have done, but left the sentence incomplete and went on: "I know nothing of this Orrin Day, but what a woman wills she must have. Will you bring this fellow—he is your friend is he not?—to Juliet's house in the morning? Her father is set on her being the mistress of the new stone house and we three will have to reason with him, do you see?"

Astonished, I bowed with something like awe. Was he so great-hearted as this? Did he intend to give up his betrothed to the man[54] whom she loved, and even to plead her cause with the father she feared? My admiration would have its vent, and I uttered some foolish words of sympathy, which he took with the stately, rather condescending grace which they perhaps merited; after which, he added again: "You will come, will you not?" and bowed kindly and retreated towards the door, while I, abashed and worshipful, followed with protestations that nothing should hinder me from doing his will, till he had passed through the doorway and vanished from my sight.

And yet I do not want to do his will or take Orrin to that house. I might have borne with sad equanimity to see her married to the Colonel, for he is far above me, but to Orrin—ah, that is a bitter outlook, and I must have been a fool to have promised aught that will help to bring it about. Still, am I not her sworn friend, and if she thinks she can be happy with him, ought I not to do my share towards making her so?

I wonder if the Colonel knows that Orrin too has been building himself a house?[55]

I did not sleep last night, and I have not eaten this morning. Thoughts robbed me of sleep, and a visit from Orrin effectually took away from me whatever appetite I might have had. He came in almost at daybreak. He looked dishevelled and wild, and spoke like a man who had stopped more than once at the tavern.

"Philo," said he, "you have annoyed me by your curiosity for more than a year; now you can do me a favor. Will you call at Juliet's house and see if she is free to go and come as she was a week ago?"

"Why?" I asked, thinking I perceived a reason for his bloodshot eye, and yet being for the moment too wary, perhaps too ungenerous, to relieve him from the tension of his uncertainty.

"Why?" he repeated. "Must you know all that goes on in my mind, and cannot I keep one secret to myself?"

"You ask me to do you a favor," I quietly returned. "In order to do it intelligently, I must know why it is asked."

"I do not see that," objected Orrin, "and if you were not such a boy I'd leave you on the spot and do the errand myself. But you mean[56] no harm, and so I will tell you that Juliet and I had planned to run away together last night, but though I was at the place of meeting, she did not come, nor has she made any sign to show me why she failed me."

"Orrin," I began, but he stopped me with an oath.

"No sermons," he protested. "I know what you would have done if instead of smiling on me she had chanced to give all her poor little heart to you."

"I should not have tempted her to betray the Colonel," I exclaimed hotly, perhaps because the sudden picture he presented to my imagination awoke within me such a torrent of unsuspected emotions. "Nor should I have urged her to fly with me by night and in stealth."

"You do not know what you would do," was his rude and impatient rejoinder. "Had she looked at you, with tears in her arch yet pathetic blue eyes, and listened while you poured out your soul, as if heaven were opening before her and she had no other thought in life but you, then—"

"Hush!" I cried, "do you want me to go to her house for you, or do you want me to stay away?"[57]

"You know I want you to go."

"Then be still, and listen to what I have to say. I will go, but you must go too. If you want to take Juliet away from the Colonel you must do it openly. I will not abet you, nor will I encourage any underhanded proceedings."

"You are a courageous lad," he said, "in other men's affairs. Will you raise me a tomb if the Colonel runs me through with his sword?"

"I at least should not feel the contempt for you which I should if you eloped with her behind his back."

"Now you are courageous on your own behalf," laughed he, "and that is better and more to the point." Yet he looked as if he could easily spit me on his own sword, which I noticed was dangling at his heels.

"Will you come?" I urged, determined not to conciliate or enlighten him even if my forbearance cost me my life.

He hesitated, and then broke into a hoarse laugh. "I have drunk just enough to be reckless," said he; "yes, I will go; and the devil must answer for the result."[58]

I had never seen him look so little the gentleman, and perhaps it was on this very account I became suddenly quite eager to take him at his word before time and thought should give him an opportunity to become more like himself; for I could not but think that if she saw him in this condition she must make comparisons between him and the Colonel which could not but be favorable to the latter. But it was still quite early, and I dared not run the risk of displeasing the Colonel by anticipating his presence, so I urged Orrin into that little back parlor of mine, where I had once hoped to see a very different person installed, and putting wine and biscuits before him, bade him refresh himself while I prepared myself for appearing before the ladies.

When the hour came for us to go I went to him. He was pacing the floor and trying to school himself into patience, but he made but a sorry figure, and I felt a twinge of conscience as he thrust on his hat without any attempt to smooth his dishevelled locks, or rearrange his disordered ruffles. Should I permit him to go thus disordered, or should I detain him long[59] enough to fit him for the eye of the dainty Juliet? He answered the question himself. "Come," said he, "I have chewed my sleeve long enough in suspense. Let us go and have an end of it. If she is to be my wife she must leave the house with me to-day, if not, I have an hour's work before me down yonder," and he pointed in the direction of his new house. "When you see the sky red at noonday, you will know what that is."

"Orrin!" I cried, and for the first time I seized his arm with something like a fellow-feeling.

But he shook me off.

"Don't interfere with me," he said, and strode on, sullen and fierce, towards the place where such a different greeting awaited him from any that he feared.

Ought I to tell him this? Ought I to say: "Your sullenness is uncalled for and your fierceness misplaced; Juliet is constant, and the Colonel means you nothing but good"? Perhaps; and perhaps, too, I should be a saint and know nothing of earthly passions and jealousies. But I am not. I hate this Orrin, hate him[60] more and more as every step brings us nearer to Juliet's house and the fate awaiting him from her weakness and the Colonel's generosity. So I hold my peace and we come to her gate, and the recklessness that has brought him thus far abandons him on the instant and he falls back and lets me go in several steps before him, so that I seem to be alone when I enter the house, and Juliet, who is standing in the parlor between the Colonel and her father, starts when she sees me, and breaking into sobs, cries:

"Oh, Philo, Philo, tell my father there is nothing between us but what is friendly and honorable; that I—I—"

"Hush!" commanded that father, while I stared at the Colonel, whose quiet, imperturbable face was for the first time such a riddle to me that I hardly heeded what the elder man said. "You have talked enough, Juliet, and denied enough. I will now speak to Mr. Adams and see what he has to say. Last night my daughter, who, as all the town knows, is betrothed to this gentleman"—and he waved his hand deferentially towards the Colonel—"was[61] detected by me stealing out of the garden gate with a little packet on her arm. As my daughter never goes out alone, I was naturally startled, and presuming upon my rights as her father, naturally asked her where she was going. This question, simple as it was, seemed to both terrify and unnerve her. Stumbling back, she looked me wildly in the eye and answered, with an effrontery she had never shown me before, that she was flying to escape a hated marriage. That Colonel Schuyler had returned, and as she could not be his wife, she was going to her aunt's house, where she could live in peace without being forced upon a man she could not love. Amazed, for I had always supposed her duly sensible of the honor which had been shown her by this gentleman's attentions, I drew her into my study and there, pulling off the cloak which she held tightly drawn about her, I discovered that she was tricked out like a bride, and had a whole bunch of garden roses fastened in her breast. 'A pretty figure,' cried I, 'for travelling. You are going away with some man, and it is a runaway match I have interrupted.' She could not deny it, and just[62] then the Colonel came in and—but we will not talk about that. It remained for us to find out the man who had led her to forget her duty, and I could think of no man but you. So I ask you now before my trembling daughter and this outraged gentleman if you are the villain."

But here Colonel Schuyler spoke up quietly and without visible anger: "I was about to say when this gentleman's entrance interrupted my words that I had been convinced overnight that our first suspicions were false, and that Mr. Adams was, as your daughter persists in declaring, simply a somewhat zealous friend."

"But," hastily vociferated the old man, "there has been no one else about my daughter for months. If Mr. Adams is not to blame for this attempted escapade, who is? I should like to see the man, and see him standing just there."

"Then look and tell me what you think of him," came with an insolent fierceness from the doorway, and Orrin, booted and spurred, with mud on his holiday hose, and his hat still on his head, strode into our midst and confronted us all with an air of such haughty defiance that it half robbed him of his ruffianly appearance.[63]

Juliet shrieked and stepped back, fascinated and terrified. The Colonel frowned darkly, and the old man, who had seemed by his words to summon him before us, quailed at the effect of his words and stood looking from the well-known but unexpected figure thus introduced amongst us, to the Colonel who persistently avoided his gaze, till the situation became unbearable, and I turned about as if to go.

Instantly the Colonel took advantage of the break and spoke to Orrin: "And so it is to you, sir, that I have to address the few words I have to say?"

"Yes, to him and to me!" cried little Juliet, and gliding from between the two natural protectors of her girlhood she crossed the floor and stood by Orrin's side.

This action, so unexpected and yet so natural, took away whatever restraint we had hitherto placed upon ourselves, and the Colonel looked for a moment as if his self-control would abandon him entirely and leave him a prey to man's fiercest and most terrible passions. But he has a strong soul, and before I could take a step to interpose myself between him and Juliet,[64] his face had recovered its steady aspect and his hands ceased from their ominous trembling. Her father, on the contrary, seemed to grow more ireful with every instant that he saw her thus defiant of his authority, while Orrin, pleased with her courage and touched, I have no doubt, by the loving confidence of her pleading eyes, threw his arm about her with a gesture of pride which made one forget still more his disordered and dishevelled condition.

I said nothing, but I did not leave the room.

"Juliet!"—the words came huskily from the angry father's lips, "come from that man's embrace, and do not make me shudder that I ever welcomed the Colonel to my dishonored house."

But the Colonel, putting out his hand, said calmly:

"Let her stay; since she has chosen this very honorable gentleman to be her husband, where better could she stand than by his side?"

Then forcing himself still more to seem impassive, he bowed to Orrin, and with great suavity remarked: "If she had chosen me to that honor, as I had every reason to believe she had, it would not have been many more[65] weeks before I should have welcomed her into a home befitting her beauty and her ambition. May I ask if you can do as much for her? Have you a home for your bride in which I may look forward to paying her the respects which my humble duty to her demands?"

Ah then, Orrin towered proudly, and the pretty Juliet smiled with something of her old archness.

"Saddle your horse," cried the young lover, "and ride to the east. If you do not find a wee, fresh nest there, I am no prophet. What! steal a wife and not have a home to put her in!"

And he laughed till the huge brown rafters above his head seemed to tremble, so blithe did he feel, and so full of pride at thus daring the one great man in the town.

But the Colonel did not laugh, nor did he immediately answer. He had evidently not heard of the little cottage beyond both thicket and stream, and was consequently greatly disconcerted. But just when we were all wondering what held him so restrained, and what the words were which should break the now oppressive silence, he spoke and said:[66]

"A wee nest is no place for the lady who was to have been my wife. If you will have patience and wait a month she shall have the home that has been reared for her. The great stone house would not know any other mistress, and therefore it shall be hers."

"No, no," Orrin began, aghast at such generosity. But the thoughtless Juliet, delighted at a prospect which promised her both splendor and love, uttered such a cry of joy that he stopped abashed and half angry, and turning upon her, said: "Are you not satisfied with what I can give you, and must you take presents even from the man you have affected to despise?"

"But, but, he is so good," babbled out the inconsiderate little thing, "and—and I do like the great stone house, and we could be so happy in it, just like a king and queen, if—if—"

She had the grace to stop, perhaps because she saw nothing but rebuke in the faces around her. But the Colonel, through whose voice ran in spite of himself an icy vein of sarcasm, observed, with another of his low bows:[67]

"You shall indeed be like king and queen there. If you do not believe me, come there with me a month hence, and I will show you what a disappointed man can do for the woman he has loved." And taking by the arm the old man who with futile rage had tried more than once to break into this ominous conversation, he drew him persuasively to his side, and so by degrees from the room.

"Oh," cried Juliet, as the door closed behind them, "can he mean it? Can he mean it?"

And Orrin, a little awed, did not reply, but I saw by his face and bearing that whether the Colonel meant it or not was little to him; that the cottage beyond the woods was the destined home of his bride, and that we must be prepared to lose her from our midst, perhaps before the month was over which the Colonel had bidden them to wait.

I do not know through whom Dame Gossip became acquainted with yesterday's events, but everywhere in town people are laying their heads together in wonder over the jilting of Colonel Schuyler and the unprecedented magnanimity which he has shown in giving his new[68] house to the rebellious lovers. If I have been asked one question to-day, I have been asked fifty, and Orrin, who flies into a rage at the least intimation that he will accept the gift which has been made him, spends most of his time in asserting his independence, and the firm resolution which he has made to owe nothing to the generosity of the man he has treated with such unquestionable baseness. Juliet keeps very quiet, but from the glimpse I caught of her this afternoon at her casement, I judge that the turn of affairs has had a very enlivening effect upon her beauty. Her eyes fairly sparkled as she saw me; and with something like her old joyous abandonment of manner, she tore off a branch of the flowering almond at her window and tossed it with delicious laughter at my feet. Yet though I picked it up and carried it for a few steps beyond her gate, I soon dropped it over the wall, for her sparkle and her laughter hurt me, and I would rather have seen her less joyous and a little more sensible of the ruin she had wrought.

For she has wrought ruin, as any one can see who looks at the Colonel long enough to note[69] his eye. For though he holds himself erect and walks proudly through the town, there is that in his look which makes me tremble and hold my own weak complainings in check. He has been up to his house to-day, and when he came back there was not a blind from one end of the street to the other but quivered when he went by, so curious are the women to see him who they cannot but feel has merited all the sympathy if not the homage of their sex. Ralph Urphistone tells me to-night that the workmen at the new house have been offered extra wages if they put the house into habitable condition by the end of the month.

For all his secret satisfaction Orrin is very restless. He has tried to induce Juliet to marry him at once, and go with him to the little cottage he has raised for her comfort. But she puts him off with excuses, which, however, are so mingled with sweet coquetries and caresses, that he cannot reproach her without seeming insensible to her affection, and it is not until he is away from the fascination of her presence, and amongst those who do not hesitate to say that[70] he will yet see the advantage of putting his brilliant bird in a cage suitable to her plumage, that he remembers his manhood and chafes at his inability to assert it. I am sorry for him in a way, but not so deeply as I might be if he were more humble and more truly sensible of the mischief he has wrought.

Orrin will yet make himself debtor to the Colonel. Something has happened which proves that fate—or man—is working against him to this end, and that he must from the very force of circumstances finally succumb. I say man, but do I not mean woman? Ah, no, no, no! my pen ran away with me, my thoughts played me false. It could have been no woman, for if it was, then is Juliet a—Let me keep to facts. I have not self-control enough for speculation.

To-day the sun set red. As we had been having gray skies, and more or less rain for a fortnight, the brightness and vivid crimson in the west drew many people to their doors. I was amongst them, and as I stood looking intently at the sky that was now one blaze of[71] glory from horizon to zenith, Orrin stepped up behind me and said:

"Do you want to take a ride to-night?"

Seeing him look more restless and moody than ever, I answered "Yes," and accordingly about eight that night he rode up to my door and we started forth.

I thought he would turn in the direction of the stone house, for one night when I had allowed myself to go there in my curiosity at its progress, I had detected him crouching in one of the thickest shadows cast by the surrounding trees. But if any such idea had been in his mind, it soon vanished, for almost the instant I was in the saddle, he wheeled himself about and led the way eastward, whipping and spurring his horse as if it were a devil's ride he contemplated, and not that easy, restful canter under the rising moon demanded by our excited spirits and the calm, exquisite beauty of the summer night.

"Are you not coming?" was shouted back to me, as the distance increased between us.

My answer was to spur my own horse, and as we rode once more side by side, I could not but[72] note what a wild sort of beauty there was in him as he thus gave himself up to the force of his feelings and the restless energy of this harum-scarum ride. "Very different," thought I, "would the Colonel look on a horse at this hour of night"; and wondered if Juliet could see him thus she would any longer wound him by her hesitations, after having driven him by her coquetries to expect full and absolute surrender on her part.

Did he guess my thoughts, or was his mind busy with the same, that he suddenly cried in harsh but thrilling tones:

"If I had her where she ought to be, here behind me on this horse, I would ride to destruction before I would take her back again to the town and the temptations which beset her while she can hear the sound of hammer upon stone."

"And you would be right," I was about to say in some bitterness, I own, when the full realization of the road we were upon stopped me and I observed instead:

"You would take her yonder where you hope to see her happy, though no other woman lives within a half-mile of the place."[73]

"No man you should say," quoth Orrin bitterly, lashing his horse till it shot far ahead of me, so that some few minutes passed before we were near enough together for him to speak again. Then he said: "She loads me with promises and swears that she loves me more than all the world. If half of this is true she ought to be happy with me in a hovel, while I have a dainty cottage for her dwelling, where the vines will soon grow and the birds sing. You have not seen it since it has been finished. You shall see it to-night."

I choked as I tried to answer, and wondered if he had any idea of what I had to contend with in these rides I seemed forced to take without any benefit to myself. If he had, he was merciless, for once launched into talk he kept on till I was almost wild with hateful sympathy and jealous chagrin. Suddenly he paused.

The forest we had been threading had for the last few minutes been growing thinner, and as the quick cessation in his speech caused me to look up, I saw, or thought I saw, a faint glow shining through the branches before me, which[74] could not have come from the reflection made by the setting sun, as that had long ago sunk into darkness.

Orrin who, as he had ceased speaking, had suddenly reined in his panting horse, now gave a shout and shot forward, and I, hardly knowing what to fear or expect, followed him as fast as my evidently weary animal would carry me, and thus bounding along with but a few paces between us, we cleared the woods and came out into the open fields beyond. As we did so a cry went up from Orrin, faintly echoed by my own lips. It was a fire that we saw, and the flames, which had now got furious headway, rose up like pillars to the sky, illuminating all the country round, and showing me, both by their position and the glare of the stream beneath them, that it was Orrin's house which was burning, and Orrin's hopes which were being destroyed before our eyes. The cry he gave as he fully realized this I shall never forget, nor the gesture with which he drove his spurs into his horse and flashed down that long valley into the ever-increasing glare that lighted first his flowing hair and the wet flanks of the animal he[75] bestrode, and finally seemed to envelop him altogether, till he looked like some avenging demon rushing through his own element of fury and fire.

I was far behind him, but I made what time I could, feeling to the core, as I passed, the weirdness of the solitude before me, with just this element of horror flaming up in its midst. Not a sound save that of our pounding hoofs interrupted that crackling sound of burning wood, and when the roof fell in, as it did before I could reach his side, I could hear distinctly the echo which followed it. Orrin may have heard it too, for he gave a groan and drew in his horse, and when I reached him I saw him sitting there before the smouldering ashes of his home, silent and inert, without a word to say or an ear to hear the instinctive words of sympathy I could not now keep back.

Who had done it? Who had started the blaze which had in one half-hour undone the work and hope of months? That was the question which first roused me and caused me to search the silence and darkness of the night for[76] some trace of a human presence, if only so much as the mark of a human foot. And I found it. There, in the wet margin of the stream, I came upon a token which may mean nothing and which may mean—But I cannot write even here of the doubts it brought me; I will only tell how on our slow and wearisome passage home through the sombre woods, Orrin suddenly let his bridle fall, and, flinging up his arms above his head, cried bitterly:

"O that I did not love her so well! O that I had never seen her who would make of me a slave when I would be a man!"

The gossips at the corners nod knowingly this morning, and Orrin, whose brow is moodier than the Colonel's, walks fiercely amongst them without word and without look. He is on his way to Juliet's house, and if there is enchantment left in smiles, I bid her to use it, for her fate is trembling in the balance, and may tip in a direction of which she little recks.

Orrin has come back. Striding impetuously into the room where I sat at work, he drew[77] himself up till his figure showed itself in all its full and graceful proportions.

"Am I a man?" he asked, "or," with a fall in his voice brimmed with feeling, "am I a fool? She met me with such an unsuspicious look, Philo, and bore herself with such an innocent air, that I not only could not say what I meant to say, but have promised to do what I have sworn never to do—accept the Colonel's unwelcome gift, and make her mistress of the new stone house."

"You are—a man," I answered. For what are men but fools where women of such enchantment are concerned!

He groaned, perhaps at the secret sarcasm hidden in my tone, and sat down unbidden at the table where I was writing.

"You did not see her," he cried. "You do not know with what charms she works, when she wishes to comfort and allure." Ah! did I not. "And Philo," he went on, almost humbly for him, "you are mistaken if you think she had any hand in the ruin which has come upon me. She had not. How I know it I cannot say, but I am ready to swear it, and you must[78] forget any foolish fears I may have shown or any foolish words I may have uttered in the first confusion of my loss and disappointment."

"I will forget," said I.

"The fact is I do not understand her," he eagerly explained. "There was innocence in her air, but there was mockery too, and she laughed as I talked of my grief and rage, as though she thought I was playing a part. It was merry laughter, and there was no ring of falsehood in it, but why should she laugh at all?"

This was a question I could not answer; who could? Juliet is beyond the comprehension of us all.

"But what is the use of plaguing myself with riddles?" he now asked, starting up as suddenly as he had sat down. "We are to be married in a month, and the Colonel—I have seen the Colonel—has promised to dance at our wedding. Will it be in the new stone house? It would be a fitting end to this comedy if he were to dance in that?"

I thought as Orrin did about this, but with more seriousness perhaps; and it was not till[79] after he had left me that I remembered I had not asked whom he suspected of firing his house, now that he was assured of the innocence of her who was most likely to profit by its burning.

"Now I understand Juliet!" was the cry with which Orrin burst into my presence late this afternoon. "Men are saying and women whispering that I destroyed my own house, in order to save myself the shame of accepting the Colonel's offer while I had a roof of my own." And, burning with rage, he stamped his foot upon the ground, and shook his hand so threateningly in the direction of his fancied enemies that I felt some reflection of his anger in my own breast, and said or tried to say that they could not know him as I did or they would never accuse him of so mean a deed, whatever else they might bring against him.

"It makes me wild, it makes me mad, it makes me feel like leaving the town forever!" was his hoarse complaint as I finished my feeble attempt at consolation. "If Juliet were half the woman she ought to be she would come and live with me in a log-cabin in the woods[80] before she would accept the Colonel's house now. And to think that she, she should be affected by the opinions of the rest, and think me so destitute of pride that I would stoop to sacrifice my own home for the sake of stepping into that of a rival's. O woman, woman, what are you made of? Not of the same stuff as we men, surely."

I strove to calm him, for he was striding fiercely and impatiently about the room. But at my first word he burst forth with:

"And her father, who should control her, aids and encourages her follies. He is a slave to the Colonel, who is the slave of his own will."

"In this case," I quietly observed, "his will seems to be most kindly."

"That is the worst of it," chafed Orrin. "If only he offered me opposition I could struggle with him. But it is his generosity I hate, and the humiliating position into which it thrusts me. And that is not all," he angrily added, while still striding feverishly about the room. "The Colonel seems to think us his property ever since we decided to accept his, and as[81] a miser watches over his gold so does he watch over us, till I scarcely have the opportunity now of speaking to Juliet alone. If I go to her house, there he is sitting like a black statue at the fireplace, and when I would protest, and lead her into another room or into the garden, he rises and overwhelms me with such courtesies and subtle disquisitions that I am tripped up in my endeavors, and do not know how to leave or how to stay. I wish he would fall sick, or his house tumble about his head!"

"Orrin, Orrin!" I cried. But he interrupted my remonstrance with the words:

"It is not decent. I am her affianced husband now, and he should leave us alone. Does he think I can ever forget that he used to court her once himself, and that the favors she now shows me were once given as freely, if not as honestly, to him? He knows I cannot forget, and he delights—"

"There, Orrin," I broke in, "you do him wrong. The Colonel is above your comprehension as he is above mine; but there is nothing malevolent in him."

"I don't know about that," rejoined his an[82]gry rival. "If he wanted to steal back my bride he could take no surer course for doing it. Juliet, who is fickle as the wind, already looks from his face to mine as if she were contrasting us. And he is so damned handsome and suave and self-forgetting!"

"And you," I could not help but say, "are so fierce and sullen even in your love."

"I know it," was his half-muttered retort, "but what can you expect? Do you think I will see him steal her heart away from before my eyes?"

"It would be but a natural return on his part for your former courtesies," I could not forbear saying, in my own secret chagrin and soreness of heart.

"But he shall not do it," exclaimed Orrin, with a backward toss of his head, and a sudden thump of his strong hand on the table before me. "I won her once against all odds, and I will keep her if I have to don the devil's smiles myself. He shall never again see her eyes rest longer on his face than mine. I will hold her by the power of my love till he finds himself forgotten, and for very shame steals away, leav[83]ing me with the bride he has himself bestowed upon me. He shall never have Juliet back."

"I doubt if he wishes to," I quietly remarked, as Orrin, weary with passion, ran from my presence.

I do not know whether Orrin succeeded or not in his attempts to shame the Colonel from intruding upon his interviews with Juliet. I am only sure that Orrin's countenance smoothed itself after this day, and that I heard no more complaints of Juliet's wavering fidelity. I myself do not believe she has ever wavered. Simply because she ought from every stand-point of good judgment and taste to have preferred the Colonel and clung to him, she will continue to cleave to Orrin and make him the idol of her wayward heart. But it is all a mystery to me and one that does not make me very happy.

I went up by myself to the new stone house to-day, and found that it only needs the finishing touches. Twenty workmen or more were there, and the great front door had just been brought and was leaning against the walls preparatory to being hung. Being curious to see[84] how they were progressing within, I climbed up to one of the windows and looked in, and not satisfied with what I could thus see, made my way into the house and up the main staircase, which I was surprised to see was nearly completed.

The sound of the hammer and saw was all about me, and the calling of orders from above and below interfered much with any sentimental feelings I might have had. But I was not there to indulge in sentiment, and so I roamed on from room to room till I suddenly came upon a sight that drove every consideration of time and place from my mind, and made me for a moment forgetful of every other sentiment than admiration. This was nothing less than the glimpse which I obtained in passing one of the windows, of the Colonel himself down on his knees on the scaffolding aiding the workmen. So, so, he is not content with hurrying the work forward by his means and influence, but is lending the force of his example, and actually handling the plane and saw in his anxiety not to disappoint Juliet in regard to the day she has fixed for her marriage.[85]

A week ago I should have told Orrin what I had seen, but I had no desire to behold the old frowns come back to his face, so I determined to hold my silence with him. But Juliet ought to know with what manner of heart she has been so recklessly playing, so after stealing down the stairs I felt I should never have mounted, I crept from the house and made my way as best I could through the huge forest-trees that so thickly clustered at its back, till I came upon the high-road which leads to the village. Walking straight to Juliet's house I asked to see her, and shall never forget the blooming beauty of her presence as she stepped into the room and gave me her soft white hand to kiss.

As she is no longer the object of my worship and hardly the friend of my heart, I think I can speak of her loveliness now without being misunderstood. So I will let my pen trace for once a record of her charms, which in that hour were surely great enough to excuse the rivalry of which they had been the subject, and perhaps to account for the disinterestedness of the man who had once given her his heart.[86]

She is of medium height, this Juliet, and her form has that sway in it which you see in a lily nodding on its stem. But she is no lily in her most enchanting movements, but rather an ardent passion-flower burning and palpitating in the sun. Her skin, which is milk-white, has strange flushes in it, and her eyes, which never look at you twice with the same meaning, are blue, or gray, or black, as her feeling varies and the soul informing them is in a state of joy, or trouble. Her most bewitching feature is her mouth, which has two dangerous dimples near it that go and come, sometimes without her volition and sometimes, I fear, with her full accord and desire. Her hair is brown and falls in such a mass of ringlets that no cap has ever yet been found which can confine it and keep it from weaving a golden net in which to entangle the hearts of men. When she smiles you feel like rushing forward; when she frowns you question yourself humbly what you have done to merit a look so out of keeping with the playful cast of her countenance and the arch bearing of her spirited young form. She was dressed, as she always is, simply, but there was infinite coquetry in the tie[87] of the blue ribbon on her shoulder, and if a close cap of dainty lace could make a face look more entrancing, I should like the privilege of seeing it. She was in an amiable mood and smiled upon my homage like a fairy queen.

"I have come to pay my final respects to Juliet Playfair," I announced; "for by the tokens up yonder she will soon be classed among our matrons."

My tone was formal and she looked surprised at it, but my news was welcome and so she made me a demure little courtesy before saying joyously:

"Yes, the house is nearly done, and to-morrow Orrin and I are going up there together to see it. The Colonel has asked us to do this that we might say whether all is to our liking and convenience."

"The Colonel is a man in a thousand," I began, but, seeing her frown in her old pettish way, I perceived that she partook enough of Orrin's spirit to dislike any allusion to one whose generosity threw her own selfishness into startling relief.

So I said no more on this topic, but let my[88] courtesy expend itself in good wishes, and came away at last with a bewildering remembrance of her beauty, which I am doing my best to blot out by faithfully recounting to myself the story of those infinite caprices of hers which have come so near wrecking more than one honorable heart.

I do not expect to visit her again until I pay my respects to her as Orrin's wife.

It is the day when Orrin and Juliet are to visit the new house. If I had not known this from her own lips, I should have known it from the fact that the workmen all left at noon, in order, as one of them said, to leave the little lady more at her ease. I saw them coming down the road, and had the curiosity to watch for the appearance of Orrin and the Colonel at Juliet's gate but they did not come, and assured by this that they meditated a later visit than I had anticipated, I went about my work. This took me up the road, and as it chanced, led me within a few rods of the wood within which lies the new stone house. I had not meant to go there, for I have haunted the place enough,[89] but this time there was reason for it, and satisfied with the fact, I endeavored to fix my mind on other matters and forget who was likely at any moment to enter the forest behind me.

But when one makes an effort to forget he is sure to remember all the more keenly, and I was just picturing to my mind Juliet's face and Juliet's pretty air of mingled pride and disdain as the first sight of the broad stone front burst upon her, when I heard through the stillness of the woods the faint sound of a saw, which coming from the direction of the house seemed to say that some one was still at work there. As I had understood that all the men had been given a half-holiday, I felt somewhat surprised at this, and unconsciously to myself moved a few steps nearer the opening where the house stood, when suddenly all was still and I could not for the moment determine whether I had really heard the sound of a saw or not. Annoyed at myself, and ashamed of an interest that made every trivial incident connected with this affair of such moment to me, I turned back to my work, and in a few moments had finished it and left the wood, when what was my[90] astonishment to see Orrin coming from the same place, with his face turned toward the village, and a hardy, determined expression upon it which made me first wonder and then ask myself if I really comprehended this man or knew what he cherished in his heart of hearts.

Going straight up to him, I said:

"Well, Orrin, what's this? Coming away from the house instead of going to it? I understood that you and Juliet were expecting to visit it together this afternoon."

He paused, startled, and his eyes fell as I looked him straight in the face.

"We are going to visit it," he admitted, "but I thought it would be wiser for me to inspect the place first and see if all was right. An unfinished building has so many traps in it, you know." And he laughed loudly and long, but his mirth was forced, and I turned and looked after him, as he strode away, with a vague but uneasy feeling I did not myself understand.

"Will the Colonel go with you?" I called out.

He wheeled about as if stung. "Yes," he shouted, "the Colonel will go with us. Did[91] you suppose he would allow us the satisfaction of going alone? I tell you, Philo," and he strode back to my side, "the Colonel considers us his property. Is not that pleasant? His property! And so we are," he fiercely added, "while we are his debtors. But we shall not be his debtors long. When we are married—if we are married—I will take Juliet from this place if I have to carry her away by force. She shall never be the mistress of this house."

"Orrin! Orrin!" I protested.

"I have said it," was his fierce rejoinder, and he left me for the second time and passed hurriedly down the street.

I was therefore somewhat taken aback when a little while later he reappeared with Juliet and the Colonel, in such a mood of forced gayety that more than one turned to look after them as they passed merrily laughing down the road. Will Juliet never be the mistress of that house? I think she will, my Orrin. That dimpled smile of hers has more force in it than that dominating will of yours. If she chooses to hold her own she will hold it, and neither you nor the Colonel can ever say her nay.[92]

What did Orrin tell me? That she would never be mistress of that house? Orrin was right, she never will; but who could have thought of a tragedy like this? Not I, not I; and if Orrin did and planned it— But let me tell the whole just as it happened, keeping down my horror till the last word is written and I have plainly before me the awful occurrences of this fearful day.

They went, the three, to that fatal house together, and no man, saving myself perhaps, thought much more about the matter till we began to see Juliet's father peering anxiously from over his gate in the direction of the wood. Then we realized that the afternoon had long passed and that it was getting dark; and going up to the old man, I asked whom he was looking for. The answer was as we expected.

"I am looking for Juliet. The Colonel took her and Orrin up to their new house, but they do not come back. I had a dreadful dream last night, and it frightens me. Why don't they come? It must be dark enough in the wood."

"They will come soon," I assured him, and moved off, for I do not like Juliet's father.[93]

But when I passed by there again a half-hour later and found the old man still standing bare-headed and with craning neck at his post, I became very uneasy myself, and proposed to two or three neighbors, whom I found standing about, that we should go toward the woods and see if all were well. They agreed, being affected, doubtless, like myself, by the old man's fears, and as we proceeded down the street, others joined us till we amounted in number to a half-dozen or more. Yet, though the occasion seemed a strange one, we were not really alarmed till we found ourselves at the woods and realized how dark they were and how still. Then I began to feel an oppression at my heart, and trod with careful and hesitating steps till we came into the open space in which the house stands. Here it was lighter, but oh! how still. I shall never forget how still; when suddenly a shrill cry broke from one amongst us, and I saw Ralph Urphistone pointing with finger frozen in horror at something which lay in ghastly outline upon the broad stone which leads up to the gap of the great front door.[94]

What was it? We dared not approach to see, yet we dared not linger quiescent. One by one we started forward till finally we all stood in a horrified circle about the thing that looked like a shadow, and yet was not a shadow, but some horrible nightmare that made us gasp and shudder till the moon came suddenly out, and we saw that what we feared and shrank from were the bodies of Juliet and Orrin, he lying with face upturned and arms thrown out, and she with her head pillowed on his breast as if cast there in her last faint moment of consciousness. They were both dead, having fallen through the planks of the scaffolding, as was shown by the fatal gap open to the moonlight above our heads. Dead! dead! and though no man there knew how, the terror of their doom and the retribution it seemed to bespeak went home to our hearts, and we bowed our heads with a simultaneous cry of terror, which in that first moment was too overwhelming even for grief.

The Colonel was nowhere to be seen, and after the first few minutes of benumbing horror, we tried to call aloud his name. But the cries[95] died in our throat, and presently one amongst us withdrew into the house to search, and then another and another, till I was left alone in awful attendance upon the dead. Then I began to realize my own anguish, and with some last fragment of secret jealousy—or was it from some other less definite but equally imperative feeling?—was about to stoop forward and lift her head from a pillow that I somehow felt defiled it, when a quick hand drew me aside, and looking up, I saw Ralph standing at my back. He did not speak, and his figure looked ghostly in the moonlight, but his hand was pointing toward the house, and when I moved to follow him, he led the way into the hollow entrance and up the stairway till we came to the upper story where he stopped, and motioned me toward a door opening into one of the rooms.

There were several of our number already standing there, so I did not hesitate to approach, and as I went the darkness in which I had hitherto moved disappeared before the broad band of moonlight shining into the room before us, and I saw, darkly silhouetted against a shining background, the crouching figure of the[96] Colonel, staring with hollow eyes and maddened mien out of the unfinished window through which in all probability the devoted couple had stepped to their destruction.

"Can you make him speak?" asked one. "He does not seem to heed us, though we have shouted to him and even shook his arm."

"I shall not try," said I. "Horror like this should be respected." And going softly in I took up my station by his side in silent awe.

But they would have me talk, and finally in some desperation I turned to him and said, quietly:

"The scaffolding broke beneath them, did it not?" At which he first stared and then flung up his arms with a wild but suppressed cry. But he said nothing, and next moment had settled again into his old attitude of silent horror and amazement.

"He might better be lying with them," I whispered after a moment, coming from his side. And one by one they echoed my words, and as he failed to move or even show any symptoms of active life, we gradually drifted from the spot till we were all huddled again[97] below in the hollow blackness of that doorway guarded over by the dead.

Who should tell her father? They all looked at me, but I shook my head, and it fell to another to perform this piteous errand, for fearful thoughts were filling my brain, and Orrin did not look altogether guiltless to me as he lay there dead beside the maiden he had declared so fiercely should never be mistress of this house.

Was ever such a night of horror known in this town!

They have brought the two bruised bodies down into the village and they now lie side by side in the parlor where I last saw Juliet in the bloom and glow of life. The Colonel is still crouching where I left him. No one can make him speak and no one can make him move, and the terror which his terror has produced affects the whole community, not even the darkness of the night serving to lessen the wild excitement which drives men and women about the streets as if it were broad daylight, and makes of every house an open thorough-[98]fare through which anybody who wishes can pass.

I, who have followed every change and turn in this whole calamitous affair, am like one benumbed at this awful crisis. I too go and come through the streets, hear people say in shouts, in cries, with bitter tears and wild lamentations, "Juliet is dead!" "Orrin is dead!" and get no sense from the words. I have even been more than once to that spot where they lie in immovable beauty, and though I gaze and gaze upon them, I feel nothing—not even wonder. Only the remembrance of that rigid figure frozen into its place above the gulf where so much youth and so many high hopes fell, has power to move me. When amid the shadows which surround me I see that, I shudder and the groan rises slowly to my lips as if I too were looking down into a gulf from which hope and love would never again rise.

The Colonel is now in his father's house. He was induced to leave the place by Ralph Urphistone's little child. When the great man[99] first felt the touch of those baby fingers upon his, he shuddered and half recoiled, but as the little one pulled him gently but persistently towards the stair, he gradually yielded to her persuasion, and followed till he had descended to the ground-floor and left the fatal house. I do not think any other power could have induced him to pass that blood-stained threshold. For he seems thoroughly broken down, and will, I fear, never be the same man that he was before this fearful tragedy took place before his eyes.

All day I have paced the floor of my room asking myself if I should allow Juliet to be laid away in the same tomb as Orrin. He was her murderer, without doubt, and though he has shared her doom, was it right for me to allow one stone to be raised above their united graves. Feeling said no, but reason bade me halt before I disturbed the whole community with whispers of a crime. I therefore remained undecided, and it was in this same condition of doubt that I finally went to the funeral and stood with the rest of the lads beside the open grave which had been dug for the unhappy[100] lovers in that sunny spot beside the great church door. At sight of this grave and the twin coffins about to be lowered into it, I felt my struggle renewed, and yet I held my peace and listened as best I could to the minister's words and the broken sobs of such as had envied these two in their days of joyance, but had only pity for pleasure so soon over and hopes doomed to such early destruction.

We were all there; Ralph and Lemuel and the other neighbors, old and young, all except that chief of mourners, the Colonel; for he was still under the influence of that horror which kept him enchained in silence, and had not even been sensible enough of the day and its mournful occasion to rise and go to the window as the long funeral cortege passed his house. We were all there and the minister had said the words, and Orrin's body had been lowered to its final rest, when suddenly, as they were about to move Juliet, a tumult was observed in the outskirts of the crowd, and the Colonel towering in his rage and appalling in his just indignation, fought his way through the recoiling masses till he stood in our very midst.[101]

"Stop!" he cried, "this burial must not go on." And he advanced his arm above Juliet's body as if he would intervene his very heart between it and the place of darkness into which it was about to descend. "She was the victim, he the murderer; they shall not lie together if I have to fling myself between them in the grave which you have dug."

"But—but," interposed the minister, calm and composed even in the face of this portentous figure and the appalling words which it had uttered, "by what right do you call this one a murderer and the other a victim? Did you see him murder her? Was there a crime enacted before your eyes?"

"The boards were sawn," was the startling answer. "They must have been sawn or they would never have given way beneath so light a weight. And then he urged her—I saw him—pleaded with her, drew her by force of eye and hand to step upon the scaffold without, though there was no need for it, and she recoiled. And when her light foot was on it and her half-smiling, half-timid face looked back upon us, he leaped out beside her, when instantly came the sound[102] of a great crack, and I heard his laugh and her cry go up together, and—and—everything has been midnight in my soul ever since, till suddenly through the blank and horror surrounding me I caught the words, 'They will lie together in one tomb!' Then—then I awoke and my voice came back to me and my memory, and hither I hastened to stop this unhallowed work; for to lay the victim beside her murderer is a sacrilege which I for one would come back even from the grave to prevent."

"But why," moaned the father feebly amid the cries and confusion which had been aroused by so gruesome an interference on the brink of the grave, "but why should Orrin wish my Juliet's death? They were to have been married soon—"

But piteous as were his tones no one listened, for just then a lad who had been hiding behind the throng stepped out before us, showing a face so white and a manner so perturbed that we all saw that he had something to say of importance in this matter.

"The boards have been sawn," he said. "I wanted to know and I climbed up to see." At[103] which words the whole crowd moved and swayed, and a dozen hands stooped to lift the body of Juliet and carry it away from that accursed spot.

But the minister is a just man and cautious, and he lifted up his arms in such protest that they paused.

"Who knows," he suggested, "that it was Orrin's hand which handled the saw?"

And then I perceived that it was time for me to speak. So I raised my voice and told my story, and as I told it the wonder grew on every face and the head of each man slowly drooped till we all stood with downcast eyes. For crime had never before been amongst us or soiled the honor of our goodly town. Only the Colonel still stood erect; and as the vision of his outstretched arm and flaming eyes burned deeper and deeper into my consciousness, I stammered in my speech and then sobbed, and was the first to lift the silent form of the beauteous dead and bear it away from the spot denounced by one who had done so much for her happiness and had met with such a bitter and heart-breaking reward.[104]

And where did we finally lay her? In that spot—ah! why does my blood run chill while I write it—where she stood when she took that oath to the Colonel, whose breaking caused her death.

A few words more and this record must be closed forever. That night, when all was again quiet in the village and the mourners no longer went about the streets, Lemuel, Ralph, and I went for a final visit to the new stone house. It showed no change, that house, and save for the broken scaffolding above gave no token of its having been the scene of such a woful tragedy. But as we looked upon it from across its gruesome threshold Lemuel said:

"It is a goodly structure and nigh completed, but the hand that began it will never finish it, nor will man or woman ever sleep within its walls. The place is accursed, and will stand accursed till it is consumed by God's lightning or falls piecemeal to the ground from natural decay. Though its stones are fresh, I see ruin already written upon its walls."

It was a strong statement, and we did not believe it, but when we got back to the village we were met by one who said:[105]

"The Colonel has stopped the building of the new house. 'It is to be an everlasting monument,' he says, 'to a rude man's pride and a sweet woman's folly.'"

Will it be a monument that he will love to gaze upon? I wot not, or any other man who remembers Juliet's loveliness and the charm it gave to our village life for one short year.

What was it that I said about this record being at an end? Some records do not come to an end, and though twenty years have passed since I wrote the above, I have cause this day to take these faded leaves from their place and add a few lines to the story of the Colonel's new house.

It is an old house now, old and desolate. As Lemuel said—he is one of our first men—it is accursed and no one has ever felt brave enough or reckless enough to care to cross again its ghostly threshold. Though I never heard any one say it is haunted, there are haunting memories enough surrounding it for one to feel a ghastly recoil from invading precincts defiled by such a crime. So the kindly forest has taken[106] it into its protection, and Nature, who ever acts the generous part, has tried to throw the mantle of her foliage over the decaying roof, and about the lonesome walls, accepting what man forsakes and so fulfilling her motherhood.

I am still a resident in the town, and I have a family now that has outgrown the little cottage which the apple-tree once guarded. But it is not to tell of them or of myself that I have taken these pages from their safe retreat to-day, but to speak of the sight which I saw this morning when I passed through the churchyard, as I often do, to pluck a rose from the bush which we lads planted on Juliet's grave twenty years ago. They always seem sweeter to me than other roses, and I take a superstitious delight in them, in which my wife, strange to say, does not participate. But that is neither here nor there.

The sight which I thought worth recording was this: I had come slowly through the yard, for the sunshine was brilliant and the month June, and sad as the spot is, it is strangely beautiful to one who loves nature, when as I approached the corner where Juliet lies, and[107] which you will remember was in the very spot where I once heard her take her reluctant oath, I saw crouched against her tomb a figure which seemed both strange and vaguely familiar to me. Not being able to guess who it was, as there is now nobody in town who remembers her with any more devotion than myself, I advanced with sudden briskness, when the person I was gazing upon rose, and turning towards me, looked with deeply searching and most certainly very wretched eyes into mine. I felt a shock, first of surprise, and then of wildest recollection. The man before me was the Colonel, and the grief apparent in his face and disordered mien showed that years of absence had not done their work, and that he had never forgotten the arch and brilliant Juliet.

Bowing humbly and with a most reverent obeisance, for he was still the great man of the county, though he had not been in our town for years, I asked his pardon for my intrusion, and then drew back to let him pass. But he stopped and gave me a keen look, and speaking my name, said: "You are married, are you not?" And when I bowed the meek acquies[108]cence which the subject seemed to demand, he sighed as I thought somewhat bitterly, and shrugging his shoulders, went thoughtfully by and left me standing on the green sward alone. But when he had reached the gate he turned again, and without raising his voice, though the distance between us was considerable, remarked: "I have come back to spend my remaining days in the village of my birth. If you care to talk of old times, come to the house at sunset. You will find me sitting on the porch."

Gratified more than I ever expected to be by a word from him, I bowed my thanks and promised most heartily to come. And that was the end of our first interview.

It has left me with very lively sensations. Will they be increased or diminished by the talk he has promised me?

I had a pleasant hour with the Colonel, but we did not talk of her. Had I expected to? I judge so by the faint but positive disappointment which I feel.

I have been again to the Colonel's, but this time I did not find him in. "He is much out[109] evenings," explained the woman who keeps house for him, "and you will have to come early to see him at his own hearth."

What is there about the Colonel that daunts me? He seems friendly, welcomes my company, and often hands me the hospitable glass. But I am never easy in his presence, though the distance between us is not so great as it was in our young days, now that I have advanced in worldly prosperity and he has stood still. Is it that his intellect cows me, or do I feel too much the secret melancholy which breathes through all his actions, and frequently cuts short his words? I cannot answer; I am daunted by him and I am fascinated, and after leaving him think only of the time when I shall see him again.

The children, who have grown up since the Colonel has been gone, seem very shy of him. I have noted them more than once shrink away from his path, huddling and whispering in a corner, and quite forgetting to play as long as his shadow fell across the green or the sound[110] of his feet could be heard on the turf. I think they fear his melancholy, not understanding it. Or perhaps some hint of his sorrows has been given them, and it is awe they feel rather than fear. However that may be, no child ever takes his hand or prattles to him of its little joys or griefs; and this in itself makes him look solitary, for we are much given in this town to merry-making with our little ones, and it is a common sight to see old and young together on the green, making sport with ball or battledore.

And it is not the children only who hold him in high but distant respect. The best men here are contented with a courteous bow from him, while the women—matrons now, who once were blushing maidens—think they have shown him enough honor if they make him a deep curtsey and utter a mild "Good-morrow."

The truth is, he invites nothing more. He talks to me because he must talk to some one, but our conversation is always of things outside of our village life, and never by any chance of the place or any one in it. He lives at his father's house, now his, and has for his sole companion an old servant of the family, who[111] was once his nurse, and who is, I believe, the only person in the world who is devotedly attached to him.

Unless it is myself. Sometimes I think I love him; sometimes I think I do not. He fascinates me, and could make me do most anything he pleased, but have I a real affection for him? Almost; and this is something which I consider strange.

Where does the Colonel go evenings? His old nurse has asked me, and I find I cannot answer. Not to the tavern, for I am often there; not to the houses of the neighbors, for none of them profess to know him. Where then? Is the curiosity of my youth coming back to me? It looks very much like it, Philo, very much like it.

My daughter said to me to-day: "Father, do not go any more to the Colonel's." And when I asked her why, she answered that her lover—she has a lover, the minx—had told her that the Colonel held secret talks with the witches, and though I laughed at this, it has set me thinking. He goes to the forest at night, and roams[112] for hours among its shadows. Is this a healthy occupation for a man, especially a man with a history? I shall go early to the Schuyler homestead to-night and stay late, for these midnight communings with nature may be the source of the hideous gloom which I have observed of late is growing upon his spirits. No other duty seems to me now greater than this, to win him back to a healthy realization of life, and the need there is of looking cheerfully upon such blessings as are left to our lot.

I went to the Colonel's at early candle-light, and I stayed till ten, a late hour for me, and, as I hoped, for him. When I left I caught a sight of old Hannah, standing in a distant hallway, and I thought she looked grateful; at all events, she came forward very quickly after my departure, for I heard the key turn in the lock of the great front door before I had passed out of the gate.

Why did I not go home? I had meant to, and there was every reason why I should. But I had no sooner felt the turf under my feet and seen the stars over my head, than I[113] began to wander in the very opposite direction, and that without any very definite plan or purpose. I think I was troubled, and if not troubled, restless, and yet movement did not seem to help me, for I grew more uneasy with every step I took, and began to look towards the woods to which I was half unconsciously tending as if there I should find relief just as the Colonel, perhaps, was in the habit of doing. Was it a mere foolish freak which had assailed me, or was I under some uncanny influence, caught from the place where I had been visiting?

I was yet asking myself this, when I heard distinctly through the silence of the night the sound of a footstep behind me, and astonished that any one else should have been beguiled at this hour into a walk so dreary, I slipped into the shadow of a tree that stood at the wayside and waited till the slowly advancing figure should pass and leave me free to pursue my way or to go back unnoticed and undisturbed.

I had not long to wait. In a moment a weirdly muffled form appeared abreast of me, and it was with difficulty I suppressed a cry,[114] for it was the Colonel I saw, escaped, doubtless, from his old nurse's surveillance, and as he passed he groaned, and the sad sound coming through the night at a time when my own spirits were in no comfortable mood affected me with almost a superstitious power, so that I trembled where I stood and knew not whether to follow him or go back and seek the cheer of my own hearth. But I decided in another moment to follow him, and when he had withdrawn far enough up the road not to hear the sound of my footfalls, I stepped out from my retreat and went with him into the woods.

I have been as you know a midnight wanderer in that same place many a time in my life; but never did I leave the fields and meadows with such a foreboding dread, or step into the clustering shadows of the forest with such a shrinking and awe-struck heart. Yet I went on without a pause or an instant of hesitation, for I knew now where he was going, and if he were going to the old stone house I was determined to be his companion, or at least his watcher. For I knew now that I loved him and could never see him come to ill.[115]

There was no moon at this time, but the sound of his steps guided me and when I had come into the open place where the stars shone I saw by the movement which took place in the shadows lying around the open door of the old house, that he was near the fatal threshold and would in another moment be across it and within those mouldy halls. That I was right, another instant proved, for suddenly through the great hollow of the open portal a mild gleam broke and I saw he had lighted a lantern and was moving about within the empty rooms.

Softly as man could go, I followed him. Crouching in the doorway, with ear turned to the emptiness within, I listened. And as I did so, I felt the chill run through my blood and stiffen the hair on my head, for he was talking as he walked, and his tones were affable and persuasive, as if two ghosts roamed noiselessly at his side and he were showing them as in the days of yore, the beauties of his nearly completed home.

"An ample parlor, you see," came in distinct, suave monotone to my ear. "Room enough for many a couple on gala nights, as even sweet[116] Mistress Juliet will say. Do you like this fireplace, and will there be space enough here for the portrait which Lawrence has promised to make of young Madam Day? I do not like too much light myself, so I have ordered curtains to be hung here. But if Mistress Juliet prefers the sunshine, we will tell the men nay, for all is to be according to your will, fair lady, as you must know, being here. Pardon me, that was an evil step; you should have a quick eye for such mishaps, friend Orrin, and not leave it to my courtesy to hold out a helping hand. Ah! you like this dusky nook. It was made for a sweet young bride to hide in when her heart's fulness demands quiet and rest. Do the trees come too near the lattice? If so they shall be trimmed away. And this dining-parlor—Can you judge of it with the floor half laid and its wainscoting unnailed? I trow not, but you can trust me, pretty Juliet, you can trust me; and Orrin, too, need not speak, for me to know just how to finish this study for him. Up-stairs? You do not wish to go up-stairs? Ah, then, you miss the very cream of the house. I have worked with my own hand[117] upon the rooms up-stairs, and there is a little Cupid wrought into the woodwork of a certain door which I greatly wish you to pass an opinion upon. I think the wings lack airiness, but the workmen swear it is as if he would fly from the door at a whisper. Come, Mistress Juliet; come, friend Orrin, if I lead the way you need not hesitate. Come! come!"

Was he alone? Were those eager steps of his unaccompanied, and should I not behold, if I looked within, the blooming face of Juliet and the frowning brows of Orrin, crowding close behind him as he moved? The fancy invoked by his words was so vivid, that for a moment I thought I should, and I never shall forget the thrill which seized me as I leaned forward and peered for one minute into the hall and saw there his solitary figure pausing on the lower step of the stairs, with that bend of the body which bespeaks an obeisance which is half homage and half an invitation. He was still talking, and as he went up, he looked back smiling and gossiping over his shoulder in a smooth and courtly way which made it impossible for me to withdraw my fascinated eyes.[118]

"No banisters, sweet Juliet? Not yet—not yet; but Orrin will protect you from falling. No harm can come to you while he is at your side. Do you admire this sweep to the stairs? I saw a vision when I planned it, of a pretty woman coming down at the sound of her husband's step. The step has changed in sound to my imagination, but the pretty woman is prettier than ever, and will look her best as she comes down these stairs. Oh, that is a window-ledge for flowers. A honeymoon is nothing without flowers, and you must have forget-me-nots and pansies here till one cannot see from the window. You do not like such humble flowers? Fie! Mistress Juliet, it is hard to believe that,—even Orrin doubts it, as I see by his chiding air."

Here the gentle and bantering tones ceased, for he had reached the top of the stair. But in another moment I heard them again as he passed from room to room, pausing here and pausing there, till suddenly he gave a cheerful laugh, spoke her name in most inviting accents, and stepped into that room.

Then as if roused into galvanic action, I rose[119] and followed, going up those midnight stairs and gaining the door where he had passed as if the impulse moving me had lent to my steps a certainty which preserved me from slipping even upon that dank and dangerous ascent. When in view of him again, I saw, as I had expected, that he was drawn up by the window and was bowing and beckoning with even more grace and suavity than he had shown below. "Will you not step out, Mistress Juliet?" he was saying; "I have a plan which I am anxious to submit to your judgment and which can only be decided upon from without. A high step true, but Orrin has lifted you over worse places and—and you will do me a great favor if only—" Here he gave a malignant shriek, and his countenance, from the most smiling and benignant expression, altered into that of a fiend from hell. "Ha, ha, ha!" he yelled. "She goes, and he is so fearful for her that he leaps after. That is a goodly stroke! Both—both—Crack! Ah, she looks at me, she looks—"

Silence and then a frozen figure crouching before my eyes, just the silence and just the figure I remembered seeing there twenty years[120] before, only the face is older and the horror, if anything, greater. What did it mean? I tried to think, then as the full import of the scene burst upon me, and I realized that it was a murderer I was looking upon, and that Orrin, poor Orrin, had been innocent, I sank back and fell upon the floor, lost in the darkness of an utter unconsciousness.

I did not come to myself for hours; when I did I found myself alone in the old house.

Nothing was ever done to the Colonel, for when I came to tell my story the doctors said that the facts I related did not prove him to have been guilty of crime, as his condition was such that his own words could not be relied upon in a matter on which he had brooded more or less morbidly for years. So now when I see him pass through the churchyard or up and down the village street and note that he is affable as ever when he sees me, but growing more and more preoccupied with his own thoughts I do not know whether to look upon him with execration or profoundest pity, nor can any man guide me or satisfy my mind as to[121] whether I should blame his jealousy or Orrin's pride for the pitiful tragedy which once darkened my life, and turned our pleasant village into a desert.

Of one thing only have I been made sure; that it was the Colonel who lit the brand which fired Orrin's cottage.

[122]

A MEMORABLE NIGHT.

CHAPTER I.

am a young physician of limited practice and great ambition. At the time of the incidents I am about to relate, my office was in a respectable house in Twenty-fourth Street, New York City, and was shared, greatly to my own pleasure and convenience, by a clever young German whose acquaintance I had made in the hospital, and to whom I had become, in the one short year in which we had practised together, most unreasonably attached. I say unreasonably, because it was a liking for which I could not account even to myself, as he was neither especially prepossessing in appearance nor gifted with any too great amiability of character. He was, however, a brilliant theorist and an unquestionably trustworthy practitioner, and for these reasons probably I entertained for him[123] a profound respect, and as I have already said a hearty and spontaneous affection.

As our specialties were the same, and as, moreover, they were of a nature which did not call for night-work, we usually spent the evening together. But once I failed to join him at the office, and it is of this night I have to tell.

I had been over to Orange, for my heart was sore over the quarrel I had had with Dora, and I was resolved to make one final effort towards reconciliation. But alas for my hopes, she was not at home; and, what was worse, I soon learned that she was going to sail the next morning for Europe. This news, coming as it did without warning, affected me seriously, for I knew if she escaped from my influence at this time, I should certainly lose her forever; for the gentleman concerning whom we had quarrelled, was a much better match for her than I, and almost equally in love. However, her father, who had always been my friend, did not look upon this same gentleman's advantages with as favorable an eye as she did, and when he heard I was in the house, he came hurrying[124] into my presence, with excitement written in every line of his fine face.

"Ah, Dick, my boy," he exclaimed joyfully, "how opportune this is! I was wishing you would come, for, do you know, Appleby has taken passage on board the same steamer as Dora, and if he and she cross together, they will certainly come to an understanding, and that will not be fair to you, or pleasing to me; and I do not care who knows it!"

I gave him one look and sank, quite overwhelmed, into the seat nearest me. Appleby was the name of my rival, and I quite agreed with her father that the tête-à-têtes afforded by an ocean voyage would surely put an end to the hopes which I had so long and secretly cherished.

"Does she know he is going? Did she encourage him?" I stammered.

But the old man answered genially: "Oh, she knows, but I cannot say anything positive about her having encouraged him. The fact is, Dick, she still holds a soft place in her heart for you, and if you were going to be of the party—"[125]

"Well?"

"I think you would come off conqueror yet."

"Then I will be of the party," I cried. "It is only six now, and I can be in New York by seven. That gives me five hours before midnight, time enough in which to arrange my plans, see Richter, and make everything ready for sailing in the morning."

"Dick, you are a trump!" exclaimed the gratified father. "You have a spirit I like, and if Dora does not like it too, then I am mistaken in her good sense. But can you leave your patients?"

"Just now I have but one patient who is in anything like a critical condition," I replied, "and her case Richter understands almost as well as I do myself. I will have to see her this evening of course and explain, but there is time for that if I go now. The steamer sails at nine?"

"Precisely."

"Do not tell Dora that I expect to be there; let her be surprised. Dear girl, she is quite well, I hope?"[126]

"Yes, very well; only going over with her aunt to do some shopping. A poor outlook for a struggling physician, you think. Well, I don't know about that; she is just the kind of a girl to go from one extreme to another. If she once loves you she will not care any longer about Paris fashions."

"She shall love me," I cried, and left him in a great hurry, to catch the first train for Hoboken.

It seemed wild, this scheme, but I determined to pursue it. I loved Dora too much to lose her, and if three weeks' absence would procure me the happiness of my life, why should I hesitate to avail myself of the proffered opportunity. I rode on air as the express I had taken shot from station to station, and by the time I had arrived at Christopher Street Ferry my plans were all laid and my time disposed of till midnight.

It was therefore with no laggard step I hurried to my office, nor was it with any ordinary feelings of impatience that I found Richter out; for this was not his usual hour for absenting himself and I had much to tell him and many advices to give. It was the first balk I had received and I was fuming over it, when I[127] saw what looked like a package of books lying on the table before me, and though it was addressed to my partner, I was about to take it up, when I heard my name uttered in a tremulous tone, and turning, saw a man standing in the doorway, who, the moment I met his eye, advanced into the room and said:

"O doctor, I have been waiting for you an hour. Mrs. Warner has been taken very bad, sir, and she prays that you will not delay a moment before coming to her. It is something serious I fear, and she may have died already, for she would have no one else but you, and it is now an hour since I left her."

"And who are you?" I asked, for though I knew Mrs. Warner well—she is the patient to whom I have already referred—I did not know her messenger.

"I am a servant in the house where she was taken ill."

"Then she is not at home?"

"No, sir, she is in Second Avenue."

"I am very sorry," I began, "but I have not the time—"

But he interrupted eagerly: "There is a car[128]riage at the door; we thought you might not have your phaeton ready."

I had noticed the carriage.

"Very well," said I. "I will go, but first let me write a line—"

"O sir," the man broke in pleadingly, "do not wait for anything. She is really very bad, and I heard her calling for you as I ran out of the house."

"She had her voice then?" I ventured, somewhat distrustful of the whole thing and yet not knowing how to refuse the man, especially as it was absolutely necessary for me to see Mrs. Warner that night and get her consent to my departure before I could think of making further plans.

So, leaving word for Richter to be sure and wait for me if he came home before I did, I signified to Mrs. Warner's messenger that I was ready to go with him, and immediately took a seat in the carriage which had been provided for me. The man at once jumped up on the box beside the driver, and before I could close the carriage door we were off, riding rapidly down Seventh Avenue.[129]

As we went the thought came, "What if Mrs. Warner will not let me off!" But I dismissed the fear at once, for this patient of mine is an extremely unselfish woman, and if she were not too ill to grasp the situation, would certainly sympathize with the strait I was in and consent to accept Richter's services in place of my own, especially as she knows and trusts him.

When the carriage stopped it was already dark and I could distinguish little of the house I entered, save that it was large and old and did not look like an establishment where a man servant would be likely to be kept.

"Is Mrs. Warner here?" I asked of the man who was slowly getting down from the box.

"Yes, sir," he answered quickly; and I was about to ring the bell before me, when the door opened and a young German girl, courtesying slightly, welcomed me in, saying:

"Mrs. Warner is up-stairs, sir; in the front room, if you please."

Not doubting her, but greatly astonished at the barren aspect of the place I was in, I stumbled up the faintly lighted stairs before me and entered the great front room. It was empty, but[130] through an open door at the other end I heard a voice saying: "He has come, madam"; and anxious to see my patient, whose presence in this desolate house I found it harder and harder to understand, I stepped into the room where she presumably lay.

Alas! for my temerity in doing so; for no sooner had I crossed the threshold than the door by which I had entered closed with a click unlike any I had ever heard before, and when I turned to see what it meant, another click came from the opposite side of the room, and I perceived, with a benumbed sense of wonder, that the one person whose somewhat shadowy figure I had encountered on entering had vanished from the place, and that I was shut up alone in a room without visible means of egress.

This was startling, and hard to believe at first, but after I had tried the door by which I had entered and found it securely locked, and then bounding to the other side of the room, tried the opposite one with the same result, I could not but acknowledge I was caught. What did it mean? Caught, and I was in haste, mad haste. Filling the room with my[131] cries, I shouted for help and a quick release, but my efforts were naturally fruitless, and after exhausting myself in vain I stood still and surveyed, with what equanimity was left me, the appearance of the dreary place in which I had thus suddenly become entrapped.

[132]

CHAPTER II.

t was a small square room, and I shall not soon forget with what a foreboding shudder I observed that its four blank walls were literally unbroken by a single window, for this told me that I was in no communication with the street, and that it would be impossible for me to summon help from the outside world. The single gas jet burning in a fixture hanging from the ceiling was the only relief given to the eye in the blank expanse of white wall that surrounded me; while as to furniture, the room could boast of nothing more than an old-fashioned black-walnut table and two chairs, the latter cushioned, but stiff in the back and generally dilapidated in appearance. The only sign of comfort about me was a tray that stood on the table, containing a couple of bottles of wine and two glasses. The bottles were full and the glasses clean, and to add to this appearance of hospitality a box of cigars rested invit[133]ingly near, which I could not fail to perceive, even at the first glance, were of the very best brand.

Astonished at these tokens of consideration for my welfare, and confounded by the prospect which they offered of a lengthy stay in this place, I gave another great shout; but to no better purpose than before. Not a voice answered, and not a stir was heard in the house. But there came from without the faint sound of suddenly moving wheels, as if the carriage which I had left standing before the door had slowly rolled away. If this were so, then was I indeed a prisoner, while the moments so necessary to my plans, and perhaps to the securing of my whole future happiness, were flying by like the wind. As I realized this, and my own utter helplessness, I fell into one of the chairs before me in a state of perfect despair. Not that any fears for my life were disturbing me, though one in my situation might well question if he would ever again breathe the open air from which he had been so ingeniously lured. I did not in that first moment of utter downheartedness so much as inquire the reason for the trick which had been played upon[134] me. No, my heart was full of Dora, and I was asking myself if I were destined to lose her after all, and that through no lack of effort on my part, but just because a party of thieves or blackmailers had thought fit to play a game with my liberty.

It could not be; there must be some mistake about it; it was some great joke, or I was the victim of a dream, or suffering from some hideous nightmare. Why, only a half hour before I was in my own office, among my own familiar belongings, and now—But, alas, it was no delusion. Only four blank, whitewashed walls met my inquiring eyes, and though I knocked and knocked again upon the two doors which guarded me on either side, hollow echoes continued to be the only answer I received.

Had the carriage then taken away the two persons I had seen in this house, and was I indeed alone in its great emptiness? The thought made me desperate, but notwithstanding this I was resolved to continue my efforts, for I might be mistaken; there might yet be some being left who would yield to my entreaties if they were backed by something substantial.[135]

Taking out my watch, I laid it on the table; it was just a quarter to eight. Then I emptied my trousers pockets of whatever money they held, and when all was heaped up before me, I could count but twelve dollars, which, together with my studs and a seal ring which I wore, seemed a paltry pittance with which to barter for the liberty of which I had been robbed. But it was all I had with me, and I was willing to part with it at once if only some one would unlock the door and let me go. But how to make known my wishes even if there was any one to listen to them? I had already called in vain, and there was no bell—yes, there was; why had I not seen it before? There was a bell and I sprang to ring it. But just as my hand fell on the cord, I heard a gentle voice behind my back saying in good English, but with a strong foreign accent:

"Put up your money, Mr. Atwater; we do not want your money, only your society. Allow me to beg you to replace both watch and money."

Wheeling about in my double surprise at the presence of this intruder and his unexpected ac[136]quaintance with my name, I encountered the smiling glance of a middle-aged man of genteel appearance and courteous manners. He was bowing almost to the ground, and was, as I instantly detected, of German birth and education, a gentleman, and not the blackleg I had every reason to expect to see.

"You have made a slight mistake," he was saying; "it is your society, only your society, that we want."

Astonished at his appearance, and exceedingly irritated by his words, I stepped back as he offered me my watch, and bluntly cried:

"If it is my society only that you want, you have certainly taken very strange means to procure it. A thief could have set no neater trap, and if it is money you want, state your sum and let me go, for my time is valuable and my society likely to be unpleasant."

He gave a shrug with his shoulders that in no wise interfered with his set smile.

"You choose to be facetious," he observed. "I have already remarked that we have no use for your money. Will you sit down? Here is some excellent wine, and if this[137] brand of cigars does not suit you, I will send for another."

"Send for the devil!" I cried, greatly exasperated. "What do you mean by keeping me in this place against my will? Open that door and let me out, or—"

I was ready to spring and he saw it. Smiling more atrociously than ever, he slipped behind the table, and before I could reach him, had quietly drawn a pistol, which he cocked before my eyes.

"You are excited," he remarked, with a suavity that nearly drove me mad. "Now excitement is no aid to good company, and I am determined that none but good company shall be in this room to-night. So if you will be kind enough to calm yourself, Mr. Atwater, you and I may yet enjoy ourselves, but if not—" the action he made was significant, and I felt the cold sweat break out on my forehead through all the heat of my indignation.

But I did not mean to show him that he had intimidated me.

"Excuse me," said I, "and put down your pistol. Though you are making me lose irre[138]deemable time, I will try and control myself enough to give you an opportunity for explaining yourself. Why have you entrapped me into this place?"

"I have already told you," said he, gently laying the pistol before him, but within easy reach of his hand.

"But that is preposterous," I began, fast losing my self-control again. "You do not know me, and if you did—"

"Pardon me, you see I know your name."

Yes, that was true, and the fact set me thinking. How did he know my name? I did not know him, nor did I know this house, or any reason for which I could have been beguiled into it. Was I the victim of a conspiracy, or was the man mad? Looking at him very earnestly, I declared:

"My name is Atwater, and so far you are right, but in learning that much about me you must also have learned that I am neither rich nor influential, nor of any special value to a blackmailer. Why choose me out then for—your society? Why not choose some one who can—talk?"[139]

"I find your conversation very interesting."

Baffled, exasperated almost beyond the power to restrain myself, I shook my fist in his face, notwithstanding I saw his hand fly to his pistol.

"Let me go!" I shrieked. "Let me go out of this place. I have business, I tell you, important business which means everything to me, and which, if I do not attend to it to-night, will be lost to me for ever. Let me go, and I will so far reward you that I will speak to no one of what has taken place here to-night, but go my ways, forgetful of you, forgetful of this house, forgetful of all connected with it."

"You are very good," was his quiet reply, "but this wine has to be drunk." And he calmly poured out a glass, while I drew back in despair. "You do not drink wine?" he queried, holding up the glass he had filled between himself and the light. "It is a pity, for it is of most rare vintage. But perhaps you smoke?"

Sick and disgusted, I found a chair, and sat down in it. If the man were crazy, there was certainly method in his madness. Besides, he[140] had not a crazy eye; there was calm calculation in it and not a little good-nature. Did he simply want to detain me, and if so, did he have a motive it would pay me to fathom before I exerted myself further to insure my release? Answering the wave he made me with his hand by reaching out for the bottle and filling myself a glass, I forced myself to speak more affably as I remarked:

"If the wine must be drunk, we had better be about it, as you cannot mean to detain me more than an hour, whatever reason you may have for wishing my society."

He looked at me inquiringly before answering, then tossing off his glass, he remarked:

"I am sorry, but in an hour a man can scarcely make the acquaintance of another man's exterior."

"Then you mean—"

"To know you thoroughly, if you will be so good; I may never have the opportunity again."

He must be mad; nothing else but mania could account for such words and such actions; and yet, if mad, why was he allowed to enter[141] my presence? The man who brought me here, the woman who received me at the door, had not been mad.

"And I must stay here—" I began.

"Till I am quite satisfied. I am afraid that will take till morning."

I gave a cry of despair, and then in my utter desperation spoke up to him as I would to a man of feeling:

"You don't know what you are doing; you don't know what I shall suffer by any such cruel detention. This night is not like other nights to me. This is a special night in my life, and I need it, I need it, I tell you, to spend as I will. The woman I love"—it seemed horrible to speak of her in this place, but I was wild at my helplessness, and madly hoped I might awake some answering chord in a breast which could not be void of all feeling or he would not have that benevolent look in his eye—"the woman I love," I repeated, "sails for Europe to-morrow. We have quarrelled, but she still cares for me, and if I can sail on the same steamer, we will yet make up and be happy."[142]

"At what time does this steamer start?"

"At nine in the morning."

"Well, you shall leave this house at eight. If you go directly to the steamer you will be in time."

"But—but," I panted, "I have made no arrangements. I shall have to go to my lodgings, write letters, get money. I ought to be there at this moment. Have you no mercy on a man who never did you wrong, and only asks to quit you and forget the precious hour you have made him lose?"

"I am sorry," he said, "it is certainly quite unfortunate, but the door will not be opened before eight. There is really no one in the house to unlock it."

"And do you mean to say," I cried aghast, "that you could not open that door if you would, that you are locked in here as well as I, and that I must remain here till morning, no matter how I feel or you feel?"

"Will you not take a cigar?" he asked.

Then I began to see how useless it was to struggle, and visions of Dora leaning on the steamer rail with that serpent whispering soft[143] entreaties in her ear came rushing before me, till I could have wept in my jealous chagrin.

"It is cruel, base, devilish," I began. "If you had the excuse of wanting money, and took this method of wringing my all from me, I could have patience, but to entrap and keep me here for nothing, when my whole future happiness is trembling in the balance, is the work of a fiend and—" I made a sudden pause, for a strange idea had struck me.

[144]

CHAPTER III.

hat if this man, these men and this woman, were in league with him whose rivalry I feared, and whom I had intended to supplant on the morrow. It was a wild surmise, but was it any wilder than to believe I was held here for a mere whim, a freak, a joke, as this bowing, smiling man before me would have me believe?

Rising in fresh excitement, I struck my hand on the table. "You want to keep me from going on the steamer," I cried. "That other wretch who loves her has paid you—"

But that other wretch could not know that I was meditating any such unusual scheme, as following him without a full day's warning. I thought of this even before I had finished my sentence, and did not need the blank astonishment in the face of the man before me to convince me that I had given utterance to a foolish accusation. "It would have been some sort of[145] a motive for your actions," I humbly added, as I sank back from my hostile attitude; "now you have none."

I thought he bestowed upon me a look of quiet pity, but if so he soon hid it with his uplifted glass.

"Forget the girl," said he; "I know of a dozen just as pretty."

I was too indignant to answer.

"Women are the bane of life," he now sententiously exclaimed. "They are ever intruding themselves between a man and his comfort, as for instance just now between yourself and this good wine."

I caught up the bottle in sheer desperation.

"Don't talk of them," I cried, "and I will try and drink. I almost wish there was poison in the glass. My death here might bring punishment upon you."

He shook his head, totally unmoved by my passion.

"We deal punishment, not receive it. It would not worry me in the least to leave you lying here upon the floor."

I did not believe this, but I did not stop to[146] weigh the question then; I was too much struck by a word he had used.

"Deal punishment?" I repeated. "Are you punishing me? Is that why I am here?"

He laughed and held out his glass to mine.

"You enjoy being sarcastic," he observed. "Well, it gives a spice to conversation, I own. Talk is apt to be dull without it."

For reply I struck the glass from his hand; it fell and shivered, and he looked for the moment really distressed.

"I had rather you had struck me," he remarked, "for I have an answer for an injury like that; but for a broken glass—" He sighed and looked dolefully at the pieces on the floor.

Mortified and somewhat ashamed, I put down my own glass.

"You should not have exasperated me," I cried, and walked away beyond temptation, to the other side of the room.

His spirits had received a dampener, but in a few minutes he seized upon a cigar and began smoking; as the wreaths curled over his head he began to talk, and this time it was on sub[147]jects totally foreign to myself and even to himself. It was good talk; that I recognized, though I hardly listened to what he said. I was asking myself what time it had now got to be, and what was the meaning of my incarceration, till my brain became weary and I could scarcely distinguish the topic he discussed. But he kept on for all my seeming, and indeed real, indifference, kept on hour after hour in a monologue he endeavored to make interesting, and which probably would have been so if the time and occasion had been fit for my enjoying it. As it was, I had no ear for his choicest phrases, his subtlest criticisms, or his most philosophic disquisitions. I was wrapped up in self and my cruel disappointment, and when in a certain access of frenzy I leaped to my feet and took a look at the watch still lying on the table, and saw it was four o'clock in the morning, I gave a bound of final despair, and throwing myself on the floor, gave myself up to the heavy sleep that mercifully came to relieve me.

I was roused by feeling a touch on my breast. Clapping my hand to the spot where I had felt the intruding hand, I discovered that my watch[148] had been returned to my pocket. Drawing it out I first looked at it and then cast my eyes quickly about the room. There was no one with me, and the doors stood open between me and the hall. It was eight o'clock, as my watch had just told me.

That I rushed from the house and took the shortest road to the steamer, goes without saying. I could not cross the ocean with Dora, but I might yet see her and tell her how near I came to giving her my company on that long voyage which now would only serve to further the ends of my rival. But when, after torturing delays on cars and ferry-boats, and incredible efforts to pierce a throng that was equally determined not to be pierced, I at last reached the wharf, it was to behold her, just as I had fancied in my wildest moments, leaning on a rail of the ship and listening, while she abstractedly waved her hand to some friends below, to the words of the man who had never looked so handsome to me or so odious as at this moment of his unconscious triumph. Her father was near her, and from his eager attitude and rapidly wandering gaze I saw that he was watching for me. At last he[149] spied me struggling aboard, and immediately his face lighted up in a way which made me wish he had not thought it necessary to wait for my anticipated meeting with his daughter.

"Ah, Dick, you are late," he began, effusively, as I put foot on deck.

But I waved him back and went at once to Dora.

"Forgive me, pardon me," I incoherently said, as her sweet eyes rose in startled pleasure to mine. "I would have brought you flowers, but I meant to sail with you, Dora, I tried to—but wretches, villains, prevented it and—and—"

"Oh, it does not matter," she said, and then blushed, probably because the words sounded unkind, "I mean—"

But she could not say what she meant, for just then the bell rang for all visitors to leave, and her father came forward, evidently thinking all was right between us, smiled benignantly in her face, gave her a kiss and me a wink and disappeared in the crowd that was now rapidly going ashore.

I felt that I must follow, but I gave her one look and one squeeze of the hand, and then as I[150] saw her glances wander to his face, I groaned in spirit, stammered some words of choking sorrow and was gone, before her embarrassment would let her speak words, which I knew would only add to my grief and make this hasty parting unendurable.

The look of amazement and chagrin with which her father met my reappearance on the dock can easily be imagined.

"Why, Dick," he exclaimed, "aren't you going after all? I thought I could rely on you. Where's your pluck, lad? Scared off by a frown? I wouldn't have believed it, Dick. What if she does frown to-day; she will smile to-morrow."

I shook my head; I could not tell him just then that it was not through any lack of pluck on my part that I had failed him.

When I left the dock I went straight to a restaurant, for I was faint as well as miserable. But my cup of coffee choked me and the rolls and eggs were more than I could face. Rising impatiently, I went out. Was any one more wretched than I that morning and could any one nourish a more bitter grievance? As I strode towards my lodgings I chewed the cud[151] of my disappointment till my wrongs loomed up like mountains and I was seized by a spirit of revenge. Should I let such an interference as I had received go unpunished? No, if the wretch who had detained me was not used to punishment he should receive a specimen of it now and from a man who was no longer a prisoner, and who once aroused did not easily forego his purposes. Turning aside from my former destination, I went immediately to a police-station and when I had entered my complaint was astonished to see that all the officials had grouped about me and were listening to my words with the most startled interest.

"Was the man who came for you a German?" one asked.

I said "Yes."

"And the man who stood guardian over you and entertained you with wine and cigars, was not he a German too?"

I nodded acquiescence and they at once began to whisper together; then one of them advanced to me and said:

"You have not been home, I understand; you had better come."[152]

Astonished by his manner I endeavored to inquire what he meant, but he drew me away, and not till we were within a stone's throw of my office did he say, "You must prepare yourself for a shock. The impertinences you suffered from last night were unpleasant no doubt, but if you had been allowed to return home, you might not now be deploring them in comparative peace and safety."

"What do you mean?"

"That your partner was not as fortunate as yourself. Look up at the house; what do you see there?"

A crowd was what I saw first, but he made me look higher, and then I perceived that the windows of my room, of our room, were shattered and blackened and that part of the casement of one had been blown out.

"A fire!" I shrieked. "Poor Richter was smoking—"

"No, he was not smoking. He had no time for a smoke. An infernal machine burst in that room last night and your friend was its wretched victim."

I never knew why my friend's life was made[153] a sacrifice to the revenge of his fellow-countrymen. Though we had been intimate in the year we had been together, he had never talked to me of his country and I had never seen him in company with one of his own nation. But that he was the victim of some political revenge was apparent, for though it proved impossible to find the man who had detained me, the house was found and ransacked, and amongst other secret things was discovered the model of the machine which had been introduced into our room, and which had proved so fatal to the man it was addressed to. Why men who were so relentless in their purposes towards him should have taken such pains to keep me from sharing his fate, is one of those anomalies in human nature which now and then awake our astonishment. If I had not lost Dora through my detention at their hands I should look back upon that evening with sensations of thankfulness. As it is, I sometimes question if it would not have been better if they had let me take my chances.

Have I lost Dora? From a letter I received to-day I begin to think not.

[154]

THE BLACK CROSS.

black cross had been set against Judge Hawkins' name; why, it is not for me to say. We were not accustomed to explain our motives or to give reasons for our deeds. The deeds were enough, and this black cross meant death; and when it had been shown us, all that we needed to know further was at what hour we should meet for the contemplated raid.

A word from the captain settled that; and when the next Friday came, a dozen men met at the place of rendezvous, ready for the ride which should bring them to the Judge's solitary mansion across the mountains.

I was amongst them, and in as satisfactory a mood as I had ever been in my life; for the night was favorable, and the men hearty and in first-rate condition.

But after we had started, and were threading a certain wood, I began to have doubts. Feel[155]ings I had never before experienced assailed me with a force that first perplexed and then astounded me. I was afraid, and what rather heightened than diminished the unwonted sensation, was the fact that I was not afraid of anything tangible, either in the present or future, but of something unexplainable and peculiar, which, if it lay in the skies, certainly made them look dark indeed; and if it hid in the forest, caused its faintest murmur to seem like the utterance of a great dread, as awful as it was inexplicable.

I nevertheless proceeded, and should have done so if the great streaks of lightning which now and then shot zigzag through the sky had taken the shape of words and bid us all beware. I was not one to be daunted, and knew no other course than that of advance when once a stroke of justice had been planned, and the direction for its fulfilment marked out. I went on, but I began to think, and that to me was an experience; for I had never been taught to reflect, only to fight and obey.

The house towards which we were riding was built on a hillside, and the first thing we saw[156] on emerging from the forest, was a light burning in one of its distant windows. This was a surprise; for the hour was late, and in that part of the country people were accustomed to retire early, even such busy men as the Judge. He must have a visitor, and a visitor meant a possible complication of affairs; so a halt was called and I was singled out to reconnoitre the premises, and bring back word of what we had a right to expect.

I started off in a strange state of mind. The fear I had spoken of had left me, but a vague shadow remained, through which, as through a mist, I saw the light in that far away window beckoning me on to what I felt was in some way to make an end of my present life. As I drew nearer to it, the feeling increased; then it, too, left me, and I found myself once more the daring avenger. This was when I came to the foot of the hill and discovered I had but a few steps more to take.

The house, which had now become plainly visible, was a solid one of stone, built as I have said, on the hillside. It faced the road, as was shown by the large portico, dimly to be dis[157]cerned in that direction; but its rooms were mainly on the side, and it was from one of these that the light shone. As I came yet nearer, I perceived that these rooms were guarded by a piazza, which, communicating with the portico in front, afforded an open road to that window and a clear sight of what lay behind it.

I was instantly off my horse and upon the piazza, and before I had had time to realize that my fears had returned to me with double force, I had crept with stealthy steps towards that uncurtained window and looked in.

What did I see? At first nothing but a calm, studious figure, bending above a batch of closely written papers, upon which the light shone too brightly for me to perceive much of what lay beyond them. But gradually an influence, of whose workings I was scarcely conscious, drew my eyes away, and I began to discover on every side strange and beautiful objects which greatly interested me, until suddenly my eyes fell upon a vision of loveliness so enchanting that I forgot to look elsewhere, and became for the moment nothing but sight and feeling.

It was a picture, or so I thought in that first[158] instant of awe and delight. But presently I saw that it was a woman, living and full of the thoughts that had never been mine; and at the discovery a sudden trembling seized me; for I had never seen anything in heaven or earth like her beauty, while she saw nothing but the man who was bending over his papers.

There was a door or something dark behind her, and against it her tall strong figure, clad in a close white gown, stood out with a distinctness that was not altogether earthly. But it was her face that held me, and made of me from moment to moment a new man.

For in it I discerned what I had never believed in till now, devotion that had no limit, and love which asked nothing in return. She seemed to be faltering on the threshold of that room, like one who would like to enter but does not dare, and in another moment, with a smile that pierced me through and through, she turned as if to go. Instantly I forgot everything but my despair, and leaned forward with an impetuosity that betrayed my presence, for she glanced quickly towards the window, and seeing me, turned pale, even while she rose in[159] height till I felt myself shrink and grow small before her.

Thrusting out her hand, she caught from the table before her what looked like a small dagger, and holding it up, advanced upon me with blazing eyes and parted lips, not seeing that the Judge had risen to his feet, not seeing anything but my face glued against the pane, and staring with an expression that must have struck her to the heart as surely as her look pierced mine. When she was almost upon me I turned and fled. Hell could not have frightened me, but Heaven did; and for me that woman was Heaven whether she smiled or frowned, gazed upon another with love, or raised a dagger to strike me to the ground.

How soon I met my mates I cannot say. In a few minutes, doubtless, for they had stolen after me and had detected me running away from the window. I was forced to tell my tale, and I told it unhesitatingly, for I knew I could not save him—if I wanted to—and I knew I should save her or die in the attempt.

"He is alone there with a girl," I announced. "Whether she is his wife or not I cannot say,[160] but there is no cross against her name, and I ask that she be spared not only from sharing his fate, but from the sight of his death, for she loves him."

This from me! No wonder the captain stared, then laughed. But I did not laugh in return, and being the strongest man in the band and the surest with my rifle, he did not trifle long, but listened to my plans and in part consented to them, so that I retreated to my post at the gateway with something like confidence, while he, approaching the door, lifted the knocker and let it fall with a resounding clang that must have rung like a knell of death to the hearts within.

For the Judge knew our errand. I saw it in his face when he rose to his feet, and he had no hope, for we had never failed in our attempts, and the house, though strongly built, was easily assailable.

While the captain knocked, three men had scaled the portico and were ready to enter the open windows, if the Judge refused to appear or[161] offered any resistance to what was known as the captain's will.

"Death to the Judge!" was the cry; and it was echoed not only at the door, but around the house, where the rest of the men had drawn a cordon ready to waylay any one who sought to escape. Death to the Judge! And the Judge was loved by that woman and would be mourned by her till—But a voice is speaking, a voice from out that great house, and it asks what is wanted and what the meaning is of these threats of death.

And the captain answers short and sharp:

"The Ku-Klux commands but never explains. What it commands now is for Judge Hawkins to come forth. If he shrinks or delays his house will be entered and burnt; but if he will come out and meet like a man what awaits him, his house shall go free and his family remain unmolested."

"And what is it that awaits him?" pursued the voice.

"Four bullets from four unerring rifles," returned the captain.

"It is well; he will come forth," cried the[162] voice, and then in a huskier tone: "Let me kiss the woman I love. I will not keep you long."

And the captain answered nothing, only counted out clearly and steadily, "One—two—three," up to a hundred, then he paused, turned, and lifted his hand; when instantly our four rifles rose, and at the same moment the door, with a faint grating sound I shall never forget, slowly opened and the firm, unshrinking figure of the Judge appeared.

We did not delay. One simultaneous burst of fire, one loud quick crack, and his figure fell before our eyes. A sound, a cry from within, then all was still, and the captain, mounting his horse, gave one quick whistle and galloped away. We followed him, but I was the last to mount, and did not follow long; for at the flash of those guns I had seen a smile cross our victim's lip, and my heart was on fire, and I could not rest till I had found my way back to that open doorway and the figure lying within it.

There it was, and behind it a house empty as my heart has been since that day. A man's dress covering a woman's form—and over the[163] motionless, perfect features, that same smile which I had seen in the room beyond and again in the quick glare of the rifles.

I had harbored no evil thought concerning her, but when I beheld that smile now sealed and fixed upon her lips, I found the soul I had never known I possessed until that day.

[164]

A MYSTERIOUS CASE.

t was a mystery to me, but not to the other doctors. They took, as was natural, the worst possible view of the matter, and accepted the only solution which the facts seem to warrant. But they are men, and I am a woman; besides, I knew the nurse well, and I could not believe her capable of wilful deceit, much less of the heinous crime which deceit in this case involved. So to me the affair was a mystery.

The facts were these:

My patient, a young typewriter, seemingly without friends or enemies, lay in a small room of a boarding-house, afflicted with a painful but not dangerous malady. Though she was comparatively helpless, her vital organs were strong, and we never had a moment's uneasiness concerning her, till one morning when we found her in an almost dying condition from having[165] taken, as we quickly discovered, a dose of poison, instead of the soothing mixture which had been left for her with the nurse. Poison! and no one, not even herself or the nurse, could explain how the same got into the room, much less into her medicine. And when I came to study the situation, I found myself as much at loss as they; indeed, more so; for I knew I had made no mistake in preparing the mixture, and that, even if I had, this especial poison could not have found its way into it, owing to the fact that there neither was nor ever had been a drop of it in my possession.

The mixture, then, was pure when it left my hand, and, according to the nurse, whom, as I have said, I implicitly believe, it went into the glass pure. And yet when, two hours later, without her having left the room or anybody coming into it, she found occasion to administer the draught, poison was in the cup, and the patient was only saved from death by the most immediate and energetic measures, not only on her part, but on that of Dr. Holmes, whom in her haste and perturbation she had called in from the adjacent house.[166]

The patient, young, innocent, unfortunate, but of a strangely courageous disposition, betrayed nothing but the utmost surprise at the peril she had so narrowly escaped. When Dr. Holmes intimated that perhaps she had been tired of suffering, and had herself found means of putting the deadly drug into her medicine, she opened her great gray eyes, with such a look of child-like surprise and reproach, that he blushed, and murmured some sort of apology.

"Poison myself?" she cried, "when you promise me that I shall get well? You do not know what a horror I have of dying in debt, or you would never say that."

This was some time after the critical moment had passed, and there were in the room Mrs. Dayton, the landlady, Dr. Holmes, the nurse, and myself. At the utterance of these words we all felt ashamed and cast looks of increased interest at the poor girl.

She was very lovely. Though without means, and to all appearance without friends, she possessed in great degree the charm of winsomeness, and not even her many sufferings, nor the indignation under which she was then laboring,[167] could quite rob her countenance of that tender and confiding expression which so often redeems the plainest face and makes beauty doubly attractive.

"Dr. Holmes does not know you," I hastened to say; "I do, and utterly repel for you any such insinuation. In return, will you tell me if there is any one in the world whom you can call your enemy? Though the chief mystery is how so deadly and unusual a poison could have gotten into a clean glass, without the knowledge of yourself or the nurse, still it might not be amiss to know if there is any one, here or elsewhere, who for any reason might desire your death."

The surprise in the child-like eyes increased rather than diminished.

"I don't know what to say," she murmured. "I am so insignificant and feeble a person that it seems absurd for me to talk of having an enemy. Besides, I have none. On the contrary, every one seems to love me more than I deserve. Haven't you noticed it, Mrs. Dayton?"

The landlady smiled and stroked the sick girl's hand.[168]

"Indeed," she replied, "I have noticed that people love you, but I have never thought that it was more than you deserved. You are a dear little thing, Addie."

And though she knew and I knew that the "every one" mentioned by the poor girl meant ourselves, and possibly her unknown employer, we were none the less touched by her words. The more we studied the mystery, the deeper and less explainable did it become.

And indeed I doubt if we should have ever got to the bottom of it, if there had not presently occurred in my patient a repetition of the same dangerous symptoms, followed by the same discovery, of poison in the glass, and the same failure on the part of herself and nurse to account for it. I was aroused from my bed at midnight to attend her, and as I entered her room and met her beseeching eyes looking upon me from the very shadow of death, I made a vow that I would never cease my efforts till I had penetrated the secret of what certainly looked like a persistent attempt upon this poor girl's life.

I went about the matter deliberately. As soon as I could leave her side, I drew the nurse[169] into a corner and again questioned her. The answers were the same as before. Addie had shown distress as soon as she had swallowed her usual quantity of medicine, and in a few minutes more was in a perilous condition.

"Did you hand the glass yourself to Addie?"

"I did."

"Where did you take it from?"

"From the place where you left it—the little stand on the farther side of the bed."

"And do you mean to say that you had not touched it since I prepared it?"

"I do, ma'am."

"And that no one else has been in the room?"

"No one, ma'am."

I looked at her intently. I trusted her, but the best of us are but mortal.

"Can you assure me that you have not been asleep during this time?"

"Look at this letter I have been writing," she returned. "It is eight pages long, and it was not begun when you left us at 10 o'clock."

I shook my head and fell into a deep revery. How was that matter to be elucidated, and how was my patient to be saved? Another draught[170] of this deadly poison, and no power on earth could resuscitate her. What should I do, and with what weapons should I combat a danger at once so subtle and so deadly? Reflection brought no decision, and I left the room at last, determined upon but one point, and that was the immediate removal of my patient. But before I had left the house I changed my mind even on this point. Removal of the patient meant safety to her, perhaps, but not the explanation of her mysterious poisoning. I would change the position of her bed, and I would even set a watch over her and the nurse, but I would not take her out of the house—not yet.

And what had produced this change in my plans? The look of a woman whom I met on the stairs. I did not know her, but when I encountered her glance I felt that there was some connection between us, and I was not at all surprised to hear her ask:

"And how is Miss Wilcox to-day?"

"Miss Wilcox is very low," I returned. "The least neglect, the least shock to her nerves, would be sufficient to make all my efforts useless. Otherwise—"[171]

"She will get well?"

I nodded. I had exaggerated the condition of the sufferer, but some secret instinct compelled me to do so. The look which passed over the woman's face satisfied me that I had done well; and, though I left the house, it was with the intention of speedily returning and making inquiries into the woman's character and position in the household.

I learned little or nothing. That she occupied a good room and paid for it regularly seemed to be sufficient to satisfy Mrs. Dayton. Her name, which proved to be Leroux, showed her to be French, and her promptly paid $10 a week showed her to be respectable—what more could any hard-working landlady require? But I was distrustful. Her face, though handsome, possessed an eager, ferocious look which I could not forget, and the slight gesture with which she had passed me at the close of the short conversation I have given above had a suggestion of triumph in it which seemed to contain whole volumes of secret and mysterious hate. I went into Miss Wilcox's room very thoughtful.

"I am going—"[172]

But here the nurse held up her hand. "Hark," she whispered; she had just set the clock, and was listening to its striking.

I did hark, but not to the clock.

"Whose step is that?" I asked, after she had left the clock, and sat down.

"Oh, some one in the next room. The walls here are very thin—only boards in places."

I did not complete what I had begun to say. If I could hear steps through the partition, then could our neighbors hear us talk, and what I had determined upon must be kept secret from all outsiders. I drew a sheet of paper toward me and wrote:

"I shall stay here to-night. Something tells me that in doing this I shall solve this mystery. But I must appear to go. Take my instructions as usual, and bid me good-night. Lock the door after me, but with a turn of the key instantly unlock it again. I shall go down stairs, see that my carriage drives away, and quietly return. On my re-entrance I shall expect to find Miss Wilcox on the couch with the screen drawn up around it, you in your big chair, and the light lowered. What I do there[173]after need not concern you. Pretend to go to sleep."

The nurse nodded, and immediately entered upon the programme I had planned. I prepared the medicine as usual, placed it in its usual glass, and laid that glass where it had always been set, on a small table at the farther side of the bed. Then I said "Good-night," and passed hurriedly out.

I was fortunate enough to meet no one, going or coming. I regained the room, pushed open the door, and finding everything in order, proceeded at once to the bed, upon which, after taking off my hat and cloak and carefully concealing them, I lay down and deftly covered myself up.

My idea was this—that by some mesmeric influence of which she was ignorant, the nurse had been forced to either poison the glass herself or open the door for another to do it. If this were so, she or the other person would be obliged to pass around the foot of the bed in order to reach the glass, and I should be sure to see it, for I did not pretend to sleep. By the low light enough could be discerned for safe[174] movement about the room, and not enough to make apparent the change which had been made in the occupant of the bed. I waited with indescribable anxiety, and more than once fancied I heard steps, if not a feverish breathing close to my bed-head; but no one appeared, and the nurse in her big chair did not move.

At last I grew weary, and fearful of losing control over my eyelids, I fixed my gaze upon the glass, as if in so doing I should find a talisman to keep me awake, when, great God! what was it I saw! A hand, a creeping hand coming from nowhere and joined to nothing, closing about that glass and drawing it slowly away till it disappeared entirely from before my eyes!

I gasped—I could not help it—but I did not stir. For now I knew I was asleep and dreaming. But no, I pinch myself under the clothes, and find that I am very wide awake indeed; and then—look! look! the glass is returning; the hand—a woman's hand—is slowly setting it back in its place, and—

With a bound I have that hand in my grasp. It is a living hand, and it is very warm and[175] strong and fierce, and the glass has fallen and lies shattered between us, and a double cry is heard, one from behind the partition, through an opening in which this hand had been thrust, and one from the nurse, who has jumped to her feet and is even now assisting me in holding the struggling member, upon which I have managed to scratch a tell-tale mark with a piece of the fallen glass. At sight of the iron-like grip which this latter lays upon the intruding member, I at once release my own grasp.

"Hold on," I cried, and leaping from the bed, I hastened first to my patient, whom I carefully reassured, and then into the hall, where I found the landlady running to see what was the matter. "I have found the wretch," I cried, and drawing her after me, hurried about to the other side of the partition, where I found a closet, and in it the woman I had met on the stairs, but glaring now like a tiger in her rage, menace, and fear.

That woman was my humble little patient's bitter but unknown enemy. Enamoured of a man who—unwisely, perhaps—had expressed in her hearing his admiration for the pretty[176] typewriter, she had conceived the idea that he intended to marry the latter, and, vowing vengeance, had taken up her abode in the same house with the innocent girl, where, had it not been for the fortunate circumstance of my meeting her on the stairs, she would certainly have carried out her scheme of vile and secret murder. The poison she had bought in another city, and the hole in the partition she had herself cut. This had been done at first for the purpose of observation, she having detected in passing by Miss Wilcox's open door that a banner of painted silk hung over that portion of the wall in such a way as to hide any aperture which might be made there.

Afterward, when Miss Wilcox fell sick, and she discovered by short glimpses through her loop-hole that the glass of medicine was placed on a table just under this banner, she could not resist the temptation to enlarge the hole to a size sufficient to admit the pushing aside of the banner and the reaching through of her murderous hand. Why she did not put poison enough in the glass to kill Miss Wilcox at once I have never discovered. Probably she feared[177] detection. That by doing as she did she brought about the very event she had endeavored to avert, is the most pleasing part of the tale. When the gentleman of whom I have spoken learned of the wicked attempt which had been made upon Miss Wilcox's life, his heart took pity upon her, and a marriage ensued, which I have every reason to believe is a happy one.

[178]

SHALL HE WED HER?

hen I met Taylor at the Club the other night, he looked so cheerful I scarcely knew him.

"What is it?" cried I, advancing with outstretched hand.

"I am going to be married," was his gay reply. "This is my last night at the Club."

I was glad, and showed it. Taylor is a man for whom domestic life is a necessity. He has never been at home with us, though we all liked him, and he in his way liked us.

"And who is the fortunate lady?" I inquired; for I had been out of town for some time, and had not as yet been made acquainted with the latest society news.

"My intended bride is Mrs. Walworth, the young widow—"[179]

He must have seen a change take place in my expression, for he stopped.

"You know her, of course?" he added, after a careful study of my face.

I had by this time regained my self-possession.

"Of course," I repeated, "and I have always thought her one of the most attractive women in the city. Another shake upon it, old man."

But my heart was heavy and my mind perplexed notwithstanding the forced cordiality of my tones, and I took an early opportunity to withdraw by myself and think over the situation.

Mrs. Walworth? She is a pretty woman, and what is more, she is to all appearance a woman whose winning manners bespeak a kindly heart. "Just the person," I contemplated, "whom I would pick out for the helpmate of my somewhat exacting friend, if—" I paused on that if. It was a formidable one and grew none the smaller or less important under my broodings. Indeed, it seemed to dilate until it assumed gigantic proportions, worrying me and weighing so heavily upon my conscience that I at last rose from the newspaper at which[180] I had been hopelessly staring, and looking up Taylor again asked him how soon he expected to become a benedict.

His answer startled me. "In a week," he replied, "and if I have not asked you to the ceremony it is because Helen is not in a position to—"

I suppose he finished the sentence, but I did not hear him. If the marriage was so near, of course it would be folly on my part to attempt to hinder it. I drew off for the second time.

But I could not remain easy. Taylor is a good fellow, and it would be a shame to allow him to marry a woman with whom he could never be happy. He would feel any such disappointment so keenly, so much more keenly than most men. A lack of principle or even of sensibility on her part would make him miserable. Anticipating heaven, he would not need a hell to make him wretched; a purgatory would do it. Was I right then in letting him proceed in his intentions regarding Mrs. Walworth, when she possibly was the woman who—I paused and tried to call up her countenance[181] before me. It was a sweet one and possibly a true one. I might have trusted her for myself, but I do not look for perfection, and Taylor does, and will certainly go to the bad if he is deceived in his expectations. But in a week! It is too late for interference—only it is never too late till the knot is tied. As I thought of this, I decided impulsively, and perhaps you may say unwisely, to give him a hint of his danger, and I did it in this wise:

"Taylor," said I, when I had him safely in my own rooms, "I am going to tell you a bit of personal history, curious enough, I think, to interest you even upon the eve of your marriage. I do not know when I shall see you again, and I should like you to know how a lawyer and man of the world can sometimes be taken in."

He nodded, accepting the situation good-humoredly, though I saw by the abstraction with which he gazed into the fire that I should have to be very interesting to lure him from the thoughts that engrossed him. As I meant to be very interesting, this did not greatly concern me.[182]

"One morning last spring," I began, "I received in my morning mail a letter, the delicate penmanship of which at once attracted my attention and awakened my curiosity. Turning to the signature, I read the name of a young lady friend of mine, and somewhat startled at the thought that this was the first time I had ever seen the handwriting of one I knew so well, I perused the letter with an interest that presently became painful as I realized the tenor of its contents. I will not quote the letter, though I could, but confine myself to saying that after a modest recognition of my friendship for her—quite a fatherly friendship, I assure you, as she is only eighteen, and I, as you know, am well on towards fifty—she proceeded to ask in a humble and confiding spirit for the loan—do not start—of fifty dollars. Such a request coming from a young girl well connected and with every visible sign of being generously provided for by her father, was certainly startling to an old bachelor of settled ways and strict notions, but remembering her youth and the childish innocence of her manner, I turned over the page and read as her reason for proffering such a request, that her heart was set[183] upon aiding a certain poor family that stood in immediate need of food, clothes, and medicines, but that she could not do what she wished, because she had already spent all the money allowed her by her father for such purposes and dared not go to him for more, as she had once before offended him by doing this, and feared if she repeated her fault he would carry out the threat he had then made of stopping her allowance altogether. But the family was a deserving one and she could not see any member of it starve, so she came to me, of whose goodness she was assured, convinced I would understand her perplexity and excuse her, and so forth and so forth, in language quite child-like and entreating, which, if it did not satisfy my ideas of propriety, at least touched my heart and made any action which I could take in the matter extremely difficult.

"To refuse her request would be at once to mortify and aggrieve her; to accede to it and give her the fifty dollars she asked—a sum by the way I could not well spare—would be to encourage an action easily pardoned once, but which if repeated would lead to unpleasant com[184]plications, to say the least. The third course, of informing her father of what she needed, I did not even consider, for I knew him well enough to be sure that nothing but pain to her would be the result. I therefore compromised the affair by inclosing the money in a letter, in which I told her that I comprehended her difficulty and sent with pleasure the amount she needed, but that as a friend I must add that while in the present instance she had run no risk of being misunderstood or unkindly censured, that such a request made to another man and under other circumstances might provoke a surprise capable of leading to the most unpleasant consequences, and advised her if she ever again found herself in such a strait to appeal directly to her father, or else to deny herself a charity which she was in no position to bestow.

"This letter I undertook to deliver myself, for one of the curious points of her communication had been the entreaty that I would not delay the help she needed by trusting the money to any hand but my own, but would bring it to a certain hotel down-town and[185] place it at the beginning of the book of Isaiah in the large Bible I would find lying on a side table in the small parlor off the main one. She would seek it there before the morning was over, and so, without the intervention of a third party, acquire the means she desired for helping a poor and deserving family.

"I knew the hotel she mentioned, and I remembered the room, but I did not remember the Bible. However, it was sure to be in the place she indicated; and though I was not in much sympathy with my errand, I respected her whim and carried the letter down-town. I had reached Main Street and was in sight of the hotel designated, when suddenly on the opposite corner of the street I saw the young girl herself. She looked as fresh as the morning, and smiled so gayly I felt somewhat repaid for the annoyance she had caused me, and gratified that I could cut matters short by putting the letter directly in her hand, I crossed the street to her side. As soon as we were face to face, I said:

"'How fortunate I am to meet you. Here is the amount you need sealed up in this letter. You see I had it all ready.'[186]

"The face she lifted to mine wore so blank a look that I paused, astonished.

"'What do you mean?' she asked, her eyes looking straight into mine with such innocence in their clear blue depths, I was at once convinced she knew nothing of the matter with which my thoughts were busy. 'I am very glad to see you, but I do not in the least understand what you mean by the amount I need.' And she glanced at the letter I held out, with an air of distrust mingled with curiosity.

"'You cut me short in my efforts to do a charitable action. I heard, no matter how, that you were interested just now in a destitute family, and took this way of assisting you in their behalf.'

"Her blue eyes opened wider. 'The poor are always with us,' she replied, 'but I know of no especial family just now that requires any such help as you intimate. If I did, papa would give me what assistance I needed.'

"I was greatly pleased to hear her say this, for I am very fond of my young friend, but I was deeply indignant also against the unknown[187] person who had taken advantage of my regard for this young girl to force money from me. I therefore did not linger at her side, but after due apologies hastened immediately here where there is a man employed who to my knowledge had once been a trusted member of the police.

"Telling him no more of the story than was necessary to ensure his co-operation in the plan I had formed to discover the author of this fraud, I extracted the bank-notes from the letter I had written, and put in their place stiff pieces of manila paper. Taking the envelope so filled to the hotel already referred to, I placed it at the opening chapters of Isaiah in the Bible, as described. There was no one in any of the rooms when I went in, and I encountered only a bell-boy as I came out, but at the door I ran against a young man whom I strictly forbore to recognize, but whom I knew to be my improvised detective coming to take his stand in some place where he could watch the parlor and note who went into it.

"At noon I returned to the hotel, passed immediately to the small parlor and looked into the Bible. The letter was gone. Coming out[188] of the room, I was at once joined by my detective.

"'Has the letter been taken?' he eagerly inquired.

"I nodded.

"His brows wrinkled and he looked both troubled and perplexed.

"'I don't understand it,' he remarked. 'I've seen every one who has gone into that room since you left it, but I do not know any more than before who took the letter. You see,' he continued, as I looked at him sharply, 'I had to remain out here. If I had gone even into the large room, the Bible would not have been disturbed, nor the letter either. So, in the hope of knowing the rogue at sight, I strolled about this hall, and kept my eye constantly on that door, but—'

"He looked embarrassed, and stopped. 'You say the letter is gone,' he suggested, after a moment.

"'Yes,' I returned.

"He shook his head. 'Nobody went into that room or came out of it,' he went on, 'whom you would have wished me to follow. I should[189] have thought myself losing time if I had taken one step after any one of them.'

"'But who did go into that room?' I urged, impatient at his perplexity.

"'Only three persons this morning,' he returned. 'You know them all.' And he mentioned first Mrs. Couldock."

Taylor, who was lending me the superficial attention of a preoccupied man, smiled frankly at the utterance of this name. "Of course, she had nothing to do with such a debasing piece of business," he observed.

"Of course not," I repeated. "Nor does it seem likely that Miss Dawes could have been concerned in it. Yet my detective told me that she was the next person who went into the parlor."

"I do not know Miss Dawes so well," remarked Taylor, carelessly.

"But I do," said I; "and I would as soon suspect my sister of a dishonorable act as this noble, self-sacrificing woman."

"The third person?" suggested Taylor.

I got up and crossed the floor. When my back was to him, I said, quietly—"was Mrs. Walworth."[190]

The silence that followed was very painful. I did not care to break it, and he, doubtless, found himself unable to do so. It must have been five minutes before either of us spoke; then he suddenly cried:

"Where is that detective, as you call him? I want to see him."

"Let me see him for you," said I. "I should hardly wish Sudley, discreet as I consider him, to know you had any interest in this affair."

Taylor rose and came to where I stood.

"You believe," said he, "that she, the woman I am about to marry, is the one who wrote you that infamous letter?"

I faced him quite frankly. "I do not feel ready to acknowledge that," I replied. "One of those three women took my letter out from the Bible, where I placed it; which of them wrote the lines that provoked it I do not dare conjecture. You say it was not Mrs. Couldock, I say it was not Miss Dawes, but—"

He broke in upon me impetuously.

"Have you the letter?" he asked.

I had, and showed it to him.[191]

"It is not Helen's handwriting," he said.

"Nor is it that of Mrs. Couldock or Miss Dawes."

He looked at me for a moment in a wild sort of way.

"You think she got some one to write it for her?" he cried. "Helen! my Helen! But it is not so; it cannot be so. Why, Huntley, to have sent such a letter as that over the name of an innocent young girl, who, but for the happy chance of meeting you as she did might never have had the opportunity of righting herself in your estimation, argues a cold and calculating selfishness closely allied to depravity. And my Helen is an angel—or so I have always thought her."

The depth to which his voice sank in the last sentence showed that for all his seeming confidence he was not without his doubts.

I began to feel very uncomfortable, and not knowing what consolation to offer, I ventured upon the suggestion that he should see Mrs. Walworth and frankly ask her whether she had been to the hotel on Main Street on such a day, and if so, if she had seen a letter addressed[192] to Miss N—— lying on the table of the small parlor. His answer showed how much his confidence in her had been shaken.

"A woman who, for the sake of paying some unworthy debt or of gratifying some whim of feminine vanity, could make use of a young girl's signature to obtain money, would not hesitate at any denial. She would not even blench at my questions."

He was right.

"I must be convinced in some other way," he went on. "Mrs. Couldock or Miss Dawes do not either of them possess any more truthful or ingenuous countenance than she does, and though it seems madness to suspect such women—"

"Wait," I broke in. "Let us be sure of all the facts before we go on. You lie down here and close your eyes; now pull the rug up so. I will have Sudley in and question him. If you do not turn towards the light he will not know who you are."

Taylor followed my suggestion, and in a few moments Sudley stood before me. I opened upon him quite carelessly.[193]

"Sudley," said I, throwing down the newspaper I had been ostensibly reading, "you remember that little business you did for me in Main Street last month? Something I've been reading made me think of it again."

"Yes, sir."

"Have you never had a conviction yourself as to which of the three ladies you saw go into the parlor took the letter I left hid in the Bible?"

"No, sir. You see I could not. All of them are well known in society here and all of them belong to the most respectable families. I wouldn't dare to choose between them, sir."

"Certainly not," I rejoined, "unless you have some good reason for doing so, such as having been able to account for the visits of two of the ladies to the hotel, and not of the third."

"They all had a good pretext for being there. Mrs. Couldock gave her card to the boy before going into the parlor, and left as soon as he returned with word that the lady she called to see was not in. Miss Dawes gave no card, but asked for a Miss Terhune, I think,[194] and did not remain a moment after she was informed that that lady had left the hotel."

"And Mrs. Walworth?"

"She came in from the street adjusting her veil, and upon looking around for a mirror was directed to the parlor, into which she at once stepped. She remained there but a moment, and when she came out passed directly into the street."

These words disconcerted me; the mirror was just over the table in the small room, but I managed to remark nonchalantly:

"Could you not tell whether any of these three ladies opened the Bible?"

"Not without seeming intrusive."

I sighed and dismissed the man. When he was gone I approached Taylor.

"He can give us no assistance," I cried.

My friend was already on his feet, looking very miserable.

"I know of only one thing to do," he remarked. "To-morrow I shall call upon Mrs. Couldock and Miss Dawes, and entreat them to tell me if, for any reason, they undertook to deliver a letter mysteriously left in the Bible of the[195] —— Hotel one day last month. They may have been deputed to do so, and be quite willing to acknowledge it."

"And Mrs. Walworth? Will you not ask her the same question?"

He shook his head and turned away.

"Very well," said I to myself, "then I will."

Accordingly the next day I called upon Mrs. Walworth.

Taking her by the hand, I gently forced her to stand for a moment where the light from the one window fell full upon her face. I said:

"You must pardon my intrusion upon you at a time when you are naturally so busy, but there is something you can do for me that will rid me of a great anxiety. You remember being in —— Hotel one morning last month?"

She was looking quietly up at me, her lips parted, her eyes smiling and expectant, but at the mention of that hotel I thought—and yet I may have been mistaken—that a slight change took place in her expression, if it was only that the glance grew more gentle and the smile more marked.[196]

But her voice when she answered was the same as that with which she had uttered her greeting.

"I do not remember," she replied, "yet I may have been there; I go to so many places. Why do you ask?" she inquired.

"Because if you were there on that morning—and I have been told you were—you may be able to solve a question that is greatly perplexing me."

Still the same gentle, inquiring look on her face; only now there was a little furrow of wonder or interest between the eyes.

"I had business in that hotel on that morning," I continued. "I had left a letter for a young friend of mine in the Bible that lies on the small table of the inner parlor, and as she never received it I have been driven into making all kinds of inquiries in the hope of finding some explanation of the fact. As you were there at the time you may have seen something that would aid me. Is it not possible, Mrs. Walworth?"

Her smile, which had faded, reappeared. On the lips which Taylor so much admired a little[197] pout became visible, and she looked quite enchanting.

"I do not even remember being at that hotel at all," she protested. "Did Mr. Taylor say I was there?" she inquired, with just that added look of exquisite näivete which the utterance of a lover's name should call up on the face of a prospective bride.

"No," I answered gravely; "Mr. Taylor, unhappily, was not with you that morning." She looked startled.

"Unhappily," she repeated. "What do you mean by that word?" And she drew back looking very much displeased.

I had expected this, and so was not thrown off my guard.

"I mean," I proceeded calmly, "that if you had had such a companion with you on that morning I should now be able to put my questions to him, instead of taking your time and interrupting your affairs by my importunities."

"You will tell me just what you mean," said she, earnestly.

I was equally emphatic in my reply. "That is only just. You ought to know why I trouble[198] you with this matter. It is because this letter of which I speak was taken from its hiding-place by some one who went into the hotel parlor between the hours of 10:30 and 12 o'clock, and as to my certain knowledge only three persons crossed its threshold on that especial morning at that especial time, I naturally appeal to each of them in turn for an answer to the problem that is troubling me. You know Miss N——. Seeing by accident a letter addressed to her lying in a Bible in a strange hotel, you might have thought it your duty to take it out and carry it to her. If you did and if you lost it—"

"But I didn't," she interrupted, warmly. "I know nothing about any such letter, and if you had not declared so positively that I was in that hotel on that especial day I should be tempted to deny that too, for I have no recollection of going there last month."

"Not for the purpose of rearranging a veil that had been blown off?"

"Oh!" she said, but as one who recalls a forgotten fact, not as one who is tripped up in an evasion.[199]

I began to think her innocent, and lost some of the gloom which had been oppressing me.

"You remember now?" said I.

"Oh, yes, I remember that."

Her manner so completely declared that her acknowledgments stopped there, I saw it would be useless to venture further. If she were innocent she could not tell more, if she were guilty she would not; so, feeling that the inclination of my belief was in favor of the former hypothesis, I again took her hand, and said:

"I see that you can give me no help. I am sorry, for the whole happiness of a man, and perhaps that of a woman also, depends upon the discovery as to who took the letter from out the Bible where I had hidden it on that unfortunate morning." And, making her another low bow, I was about to take my departure, when she grasped me impulsively by the arm.

"What man?" she whispered; and in a lower tone still, "What woman?"

I turned and looked at her. "Great[200] heaven!" thought I, "can such a face hide a selfish and intriguing heart?" and in a flash I summoned up in comparison before me the plain, honest, and reliable countenance of Mrs. Couldock and that of the comely and unpretending Miss Dawes, and knew not what to think.

"You do not mean yourself?" she continued, as she met my look of distress.

"No," I returned; "happily for me my welfare is not bound up in the honor of any woman." And leaving that shaft to work its way into her heart, if that heart were vulnerable, I took my leave, more troubled and less decided than when I entered.

For her manner had been absolutely that of a woman surprised by insinuations she was too innocent to rate at their real importance. And yet, if she did not take away that letter, who did? Mrs. Couldock? Impossible. Miss Dawes? The thought was untenable, even for an instant. I waited in great depression of spirits for the call I knew Taylor would not fail to make that evening.

When he came I saw what the result of my revelations was likely to be as plainly as I see[201] it now. He had conversed frankly with Mrs. Couldock and with Miss Dawes, and was perfectly convinced as to the utter ignorance of them both in regard to the whole affair. In consequence, Mrs. Walworth was guilty in his estimation, and being held guilty could be no wife for him, much as he had loved her, and urgent as may have been the cause for her act.

"But," said I, in some horror of the consequences of an interference for which I was almost ready to blame myself now, "Mrs. Couldock and Miss Dawes could have done no more than deny all knowledge of this letter. Now Mrs. Walworth does that, and—"

"You have seen her? You have asked her—"

"Yes, I have seen her, and I have asked her, and not an eyelash drooped as she affirmed a complete ignorance of the whole affair."

Taylor's head fell.

"I told you how that would be," he murmured at last. "I cannot feel that it is any proof of her innocence. Or rather," he added, "I should always have my doubts."

"And Mrs. Couldock and Miss Dawes?"[202]

"Ah!" he cried, rising and turning away; "there is no question of marriage between either of them and myself."

I was therefore not astonished when the week went by and no announcement of his wedding appeared. But I was troubled and am troubled still, for if mistakes are made in criminal courts, and the innocent sometimes, through the sheer force of circumstantial evidence, are made to suffer for the guilty, might it not be that in this little question of morals Mrs. Walworth has been wronged, and that when I played the part of arbitrator in her fate, I only succeeded in separating two hearts whose right it was to be made happy?

It is impossible to tell, nor is time likely to solve the riddle. Must I then forever blame myself, or did I only do in this matter what any honest man would have done in my place? Answer me, some one, for I do not find my lonely bachelor life in any wise brightened by the doubt, and would be grateful to any one who would relieve me of it.

CYNTHIA WAKEHAM'S MONEY

BOOK I.

A VILLAGE MYSTERY

I. A Woman's Face

It was verging towards seven o'clock. The train had just left Marston station, and two young men stood on the platform surveying with very different eyes the stretch of country landscape lying before them. Frank Etheridge wore an eager aspect, the aspect of the bright, hopeful, energetic lawyer which he was, and his quick searching gaze flashed rapidly from point to point as if in one of the scattered homes within his view he sought an answer to some problem at present agitating his mind. He was a stranger in Marston.

His companion, Edgar Sellick, wore a quieter air, or at least one more restrained. He was a native of the place, and was returning to it after a short and fruitless absence in the west, to resume his career of physician amid the scenes of his earliest associations. Both were well-made, and handsome, and, to draw at once a distinction between them which will effectually separate their personalities, Frank Etheridge was a man to attract the attention of men, and Edgar Sellick that of women; the former betraying at first glance all his good qualities in the keenness of his eye and the frankness of his smile, and the latter hiding his best impulses under an air of cynicism so allied to melancholy that imagination was allowed free play in his behalf. They had attended the same college and had met on the train by chance.

"I am expecting old Jerry, with a buggy," announced Edgar, looking indifferently down the road. The train was on time but Jerry was not, both of which facts were to be expected. "Ah, here he comes. You will ride to the tavern with me?"

"With pleasure," was Frank's cheerful reply; "but what will you do with Jerry? He's a mile too large, as you see yourself, to be a third party in a buggy ride."

"No doubt about that, but Jerry can walk; it will help to rob him of a little of his avoirdupois. As his future physician I shall prescribe it. I cannot have you miss the supper I have telegraphed for at Henly's."

And being a determined man, he carried this scheme through, to Jerry's manifest but cheerfully accepted discomfort. As they were riding off, Edgar leaned from the buggy, and Frank heard him say to his panting follower:

"Is it known in town that I am coming to-night?" To which that panting follower shrilly replied: "Ay, sir, and Tim Jones has lit a bond-fire and Jack Skelton hoisted a flag, so glad they be to have you back. Old Dudgeon was too intimate with the undertaker, sir. We hopes as you will turn a cold shoulder to him-the undertaker I mean."

At which Frank observed his friend give one of hi peculiar smiles which might mean so little and might mean so much, but whatever it meant had that touch of bittersweet in it which at once hurts and attracts.

"You like your profession?" Frank abruptly asked.

Edgar turned, surveyed the other questioningly for a moment, then remarked:

"Not as you like yours. Law seems to be a passion with you."

Frank laughed. "Why not? I have no other love, why not give all my heart to that?"

Edgar did not answer; he was looking straight before him at the lights in the village they were now rapidly approaching.

"How strange it is we should have met in this way," exclaimed the young lawyer. "It is mighty fortunate for me, whatever it may be for you. You know all the people in town, and perhaps can tell me what will shorten my stay into hours."

"Do you call that fortunate?" interrogated the other with one of his quiet smiles.

"Well, no, only from a business view. But you see, Edgar, it is so short a time since I have thought of anything but business, that I have hardly got used to the situation. I should be sorry, now I come to think of it, to say good-by to you before I heard how you had enjoyed life since we parted on a certain Commencement day. You look older, while I-"

He laughed. How merry the sound, and how the growing twilight seemed to brighten at it! Edgar looked for a moment as if he envied him that laugh, then he said:

"You are not tripped up by petty obstacles. You have wings to your feet and soar above small disappointments. My soles cling to the ground and encounter there difficulty after difficulty. Hence the weariness with which I gain anything. But your business here,-what is it? You say I can aid you. How?"

"Oh, it is a long story which will help to enliven our evening meal. Let us wait till then. At present I am interested in what I see before me. Snug homes, Edgar, and an exquisite landscape."

The other, whose face for the last few minutes had been gradually settling into sterner and sterner lines, nodded automatically but did not look up from the horse he was driving.

"Who lives in these houses? Old friends of yours?" Frank continued.

Edgar nodded again, whipped his horse and for an instant allowed his eyes to wander up and down the road.

"I used to know them all," he acknowledged, "but I suppose there have been changes."

His tone had altered, his very frame had stiffened. Frank looked at him curiously.

"You seem to be in a hurry," he remarked. "I enjoy this twilight drive, and-haloo! this is an odd old place we are coming to. Suppose you. pull up and let me look at it."

His companion, with a strange glance and an awkward air of dissatisfaction, did as he was bid, and Frank leaning from the buggy gazed long and earnestly at the quaint old house and grounds which had attracted his attention. Edgar did not follow his example but sat unmoved, looking fixedly at the last narrow strip of orange light that separated night from day on the distant horizon.

"I feel as if I had come upon something uncanny," murmured Frank. "Look at that double row of poplars stretching away almost as far as we can see! Is it not an ideal Ghost's Walk, especially in this hour of falling shadows? I never saw anything so suggestive in a country landscape before. Each tree looks like a spectre hob-nobbing with its neighbor. Tell me that this is a haunted house which guards this avenue. Nothing less weird should dominate a spot so peculiar."

"Frank, I did not know you were so fanciful," exclaimed the other, lashing his horse with a stinging whip.

"Wait, wait! I am not fanciful, it is the place that is curious. If you were not in a hurry for your supper you would see it too. Come, give it a look. You may have observed it a hundred times before, but by this light you must acknowledge that it looks like a place with a history. Come, now, don't it?"

Edgar drew in his horse for the second time and impatiently allowed his glance to follow in the direction indicated by his friend. What he saw has already been partially described. But details will not be amiss here, as the house and its surroundings were really unique, and bespoke an antiquity of which few dwellings can now boast even in the most historic parts of Connecticut.

The avenue of poplars which had first attracted Frank's attention had this notable peculiarity, that it led from nowhere to nowhere. That is, it was not, as is usual in such cases, made the means of approach to the house, but on the contrary ran along its side from road to rear, thick, compact, and gruesome. The house itself was of timber, and was both gray and weather-beaten. It was one of the remnants of that old time when a family homestead rambled in all directions under a huge roof which accommodated itself to each new projection, like the bark to its tree. In this case the roof sloped nearly to the ground on one side, while on the other it beetled over a vine-clad piazza. In front of the house and on both sides of it rose a brick wall that, including the two rows of trees within its jealous cordon, shut off the entire premises from those of the adjoining neighbors, and gave to the whole place an air of desolation and remoteness which the smoke rising from its one tall chimney did not seem to soften or relieve. Yet old as it all was, there was no air of decay about the spot, nor was the garden neglected or the vines left untrimmed.

"The home of a hermit," quoth Frank. "You know who lives there of course, but if you did not I would wager that it is some old scion of the past-"

Suddenly he stopped, suddenly his hand was laid on the horse's rein falling somewhat slack in the grasp of his companion. A lamp had at that instant been brought into one of the front rooms of the house he was contemplating, and the glimpse he thus caught of the interior attracted his eyes and even arrested the gaze of the impatient Edgar. For the woman who held the lamp was no common one, and the face which showed above it was one to stop any man who had an eye for the beautiful, the inscrutable, and the tragic. As Frank noted it and marked its exquisite lines, its faultless coloring, and that air of profound and mysterious melancholy which made it stand out distinctly in the well-lighted space about it, he tightened his grip on the reins he had snatched, till the horse stood still in the road, and Edgar impatiently watching him, perceived that the gay look had crept from his face, leaving there an expression of indefinable yearning which at once transfigured and ennobled it.

"What beauty! What unexpected beauty!" Frank whispered at last. "Did you ever see its like, Edgar?"

The answer came with Edgar's most cynical smile:

"Wait till she turns her head."

And at that moment she did turn it. On the instant Frank drew in his breath and Edgar expected to see him drop his hand from the reins and sink back disillusionized and indifferent. But he did not. On the contrary, his attitude betrayed a still deeper interest and longing, and murmuring, "How sad! poor girl!" he continued to gaze till Edgar, with one strange, almost shrinking look in the direction of the unconscious girl now moving abstractedly across the room, tore the reins from his hands and started the horse again towards their place of destination.

Frank, whom the sudden movement seemed to awaken as from a dream, glanced for a moment almost angrily at his companion, then he settled back in his seat, saying nothing till the lights of the tavern became visible, when he roused himself and inquired:

"Who is that girl, Edgar, and how did she become so disfigured?"

"I don't know," was the short reply; "she has always been so, I believe, at least since I remember seeing her. It looks like the scar of a wound, but I have never heard any explanation given of it."

"Her name, Edgar?"

"Hermione Cavanagh."

"You know her?"

"Somewhat."

"Are you"-the words came with a pant, shortly, intensely, and as if forced from him-"in love-with her?"

"No." Edgar's passion seemed for the moment to be as great as that of the other. "How came you to think of such a thing?"

"Because-because," Frank whispered almost humbly, "you seemed so short in your replies, and because, I might as well avow it, she seems to me one to command the love of all men."

"Well, sirs, here I be as quick as you," shouted a voice in their rear, and old Jerry came lumbering forward, just in time to hold their horse as they alighted at the tavern.

II. A Lawyer's Adventure

Supper that night did not bring to these two friends all the enjoyment which they had evidently anticipated. In the first place it was continually interrupted by greetings to the young physician whose unexpected return to his native town had awakened in all classes a decided enthusiasm. Then Frank was moody, he who was usually gaiety itself. He wanted to talk about the beautiful and unfortunate Miss Cavanagh, and Edgar did not, and this created embarrassment between them, an embarrassment all the more marked that there seemed to be some undefined reason for Edgar's reticence not to be explained by any obvious cause. At length Frank broke out impetuously:

"If you won't tell me anything about this girl, I must look up some one who will. Those cruel marks on her face have completed the charm of her beauty, and not till I know something of their history and of her, will I go to sleep to-night. So much for the impression which a woman's face can make upon an unsusceptible man."

"Frank," observed the other, coldly, "I should say that your time might be much better employed in relating to me the cause for your being in Marston."

The young lawyer started, shook himself, and laughed.

"Oh, true, I had forgotten," said he, and supper being now over he got up and began pacing the floor. "Do you know any one here by the name of Harriet Smith?"

"No," returned the other, "but I have been away a year, and many persons may have come into town in that time."

"But I mean an old resident," Frank explained, "a lady of years, possibly a widow."

"I never heard of such a person," rejoined Edgar. "Are you sure there is such a woman in town? I should be apt to know it if there were."

"I am not sure she is here now, or for that matter that she is living, but if she is not and I learn the names and whereabouts of any heirs she may have left behind her, I shall be satisfied with the results of my journey. Harriet Smith! Surely you have heard of her."

"No," Edgar protested, "I have not."

"It is odd," remarked Frank, wrinkling his brows in some perplexity. "I thought I should have no trouble in tracing her. Not that I care," he avowed with brightening countenance. "On the contrary, I can scarcely quarrel with a fact that promises to detain me in your company for a few days."

"No? Then your mind has suddenly changed in that regard," Edgar dryly insinuated.

Frank blushed. "I think not," was his laughing reply. "But let me tell my story. It may interest you in a pursuit that I begin to see is likely to possess difficulties." And lighting a cigar, he sat down with his friend by the open window. "I do not suppose you know much about Brooklyn, or, if you do, that you are acquainted with that portion of it which is called Flatbush. I will therefore explain that this outlying village is a very old one, antedating the Revolution. Though within a short car-drive from the great city, it has not yet given up its life to it, but preserves in its one main street at least, a certain individuality which still connects it with the past. My office, as you know, is in New York, but I have several clients in Brooklyn and one or two in Flatbush, so I was not at all surprised, though considerably put out, when one evening, just as I was about to start for the theatre, a telegram was handed me by the janitor, enjoining me to come without delay to Flatbush prepared to draw up the will of one, Cynthia Wakeham, lying, as the sender of the telegram declared, at the point of death. Though I knew neither this name, nor that of the man who signed it, which was Hiram Huckins, and had no particular desire to change the place of my destination at that hour, I had really no good reason for declining the business thus offered me. So making a virtue of necessity, I gave up the theatre and started instead for Flatbush, which, from the house where I lodge in upper New York, is a good hour and a half's ride even by the way of the bridge and the elevated roads. It was therefore well on towards ten o'clock before I arrived in the shaded street which in the daylight and in the full brightness of a summer's sun I had usually found so attractive, but which at night and under the circumstances which had brought me there looked both sombre and forbidding. However I had not come upon an errand of pleasure, so I did not spend much time in contemplating my surroundings, but beckoning to the conductor of the street-car on which I was riding, I asked him if he knew Mrs. Wakeham's house, and when he nodded, asked him to set me down before it. I thought he gave me a queer look, but as his attention was at that moment diverted, I could not be sure of it, and before he came my way again the car had stopped and he was motioning to me to alight.

"'That is the house,' said he, pointing to two huge gate-posts glimmering whitely in the light of a street-lamp opposite, and I was on the sidewalk and in front of the two posts before I remembered that a man on the rear platform of the car had muttered as I stepped by him: 'A visitor for Widow Wakeham, eh; she must be sick, then!'

"The house stood back a short distance from the street, and as I entered the gate, which by the way looked as if it would tumble down if I touched it, I could see nothing but a gray mass with one twinkling light in it. But as I drew nearer I became aware that it was not a well-kept and hospitable mansion towards which I was tending, however imposing might be its size and general structure. If only from the tangled growth of the shrubbery about me and the long dank stalks of the weeds that lay as if undisturbed by mortal feet upon the walk, I could gather that whatever fortune Mrs. Wakeham might have to leave she had not expended much in the keeping of her home. But it was upon reaching the house I experienced the greatest surprise. There were walls before me, no doubt, and a huge portico, but the latter was hanging as it were by faith to supports so dilapidated that even the darkness of that late hour could not hide their ruin or the impending fall of the whole structure. So old, so uncared-for, and so utterly out of keeping with the errand upon which I had come looked the whole place that I instinctively drew back, assured that the conductor had made some mistake in directing me thither. But no sooner had I turned my back upon the house, than a window was thrown up over my head and I heard the strangely eager voice of a man say:

"'This is the place, sir. Wait, and I will open the door for you.'

"I did as he bade me, though not without some reluctance. The voice, for all its tone of anxiety, sounded at once false and harsh, and I instinctively associated with it a harsh and false face. The house, too, did not improve in appearance upon approach. The steps shook under my tread, and I could not but notice by the faint light sifting through the bushes from the lamp on the other side of the way, that the balustrades had been pulled from their places, leaving only gaping holes to mark where they had once been. The door was intact, but in running my hand over it I discovered that the mouldings had been stripped from its face, and that the knocker, hanging as it did by one nail, was ready to fall at the first provocation. If Cynthia Wakeham lived here, it would be interesting to know the extent of her wealth. As there seemed to be some delay in the opening of the door, I had time to note that the grounds (all of these houses have grounds about them) were of some extent, but, as I have said, in a manifest condition of overgrowth and neglect. As I mused upon the contrast they must afford in the bright daylight to the wide and well-kept lawns of the more ambitious owners on either side, a footstep sounded on the loose boards which had evidently been flung down at one side of the house as a sort of protection to the foot from the darkness and mud of the neglected path, and a woman's form swung dimly into view, laden with a great pile of what looked to me like brushwood. As she passed she seemed to become conscious of my presence, and, looking up, she let the huge bundle slip slowly from her shoulders till it lay in the darkness at her feet.

"'Are you,' she whispered, coming close to the foot of the steps, 'going in there?'

"'Yes,' I returned, struck by the mingled surprise and incredulity in her tone.

"She stood still a minute, then came up a step.

"'Are you a minister?' she asked.

"'No,' I laughed; 'why?'

"She seemed to reason with herself before saying: 'No one ever goes into that house; I thought perhaps you did not know. They won't have any one. Would you mind telling me,' she went on, in a hungry whisper almost thrilling to hear, coming as it did through the silence and darkness of the night, 'what you find in the house? I will be at the gate, sir, and-'

"She paused, probably awed by the force of my exclamation, and picking up her bundle of wet boughs, slunk away, but not without turning more than once before she reached the gate. Scarcely had she disappeared into the street when a window went up in a neighboring house. At the same moment, some one, I could not tell whether it was a man or a woman, came up the path as far as the first trees and there paused, while a shrill voice called out:

"'They never unlocks that door; visitors ain't wanted.'

"Evidently, if I were not admitted soon I should have the whole neighborhood about me.

"I lifted the knocker, but it came off in my hand. Angry at the mischance, and perhaps a little moved by the excitement of my position, I raised the broken piece of iron and gave a thundering knock on the rotten panels before me. Instantly the door opened, creaking ominously as it did so, and a man stood in the gap with a wretched old kerosene lamp in his hand. The apologetic leer on his evil countenance did not for a moment deceive me.

"'I beg your pardon,' he hurriedly exclaimed, and his voice showed he was a man of education, notwithstanding his forlorn and wretched appearance, 'but the old woman had a turn just as you came, and I could not leave her.'

"I looked at him, and instinct told me to quit the spot and not enter a house so vilely guarded. For the man was not only uncouth to the last degree in dress and aspect, but sinister in expression and servilely eager in bearing.

"'Won't you come in?' he urged. 'The old woman is past talking, but she can make signs; perhaps an hour from now she will not be able to do even that.'

"'Do you allude to the woman who wishes to make her will?' I asked.

"'Yes,' he answered, greedily, 'Cynthia Wakeham, my sister.' And he gently pushed the door in a way that forced me to enter or show myself a coward.

"I took heart and went in. What poverty I beheld before me in the light of that solitary smoking lamp! If the exterior of the house bore the marks of devastation, what shall I say of the barren halls and denuded rooms which now opened before me? Not a chair greeted my eyes, though a toppling stool here and there showed that people sat in this place. Nor did I see a table, though somewhere in some remote region beyond the staircase I heard the clatter of plates, as if eating were also known in this home of almost ostentatious penury. Staircase I say, but I should have said steps, for the balustrades were missing here just as they had been missing without, and not even a rail remained to speak of old-time comfort and prosperity.

"'I am very poor,' humbly remarked the man, answering my look of perplexity. 'It is my sister who has the money.' And moving towards the stairs, he motioned me to ascend.

"Even then I recoiled, not knowing what to make of this adventure; but hearing a hollow groan from above, uttered in tones unmistakably feminine, I remembered my errand and went up, followed so closely by the man, that his breath, mingled with the smell of that vile lamp, seemed to pant on my shoulder. I shall never smell kerosene again without recalling the sensations of that moment.

"Arriving at the top of the stair, up which my distorted shadow had gone before me, I saw an open door and went in. A woman was lying in one corner on a hard and uncomfortable bed, a woman whose eyes drew me to her side before a word had been spoken.

"She was old and in the last gasp of some fatal disease. But it was not this which impressed me most. It was the searching look with which she greeted me,-a piteous, hunted look, like that of some wild animal driven to bay and turning upon her conqueror for some signs of relenting or pity. It made the haggard face eloquent; it assured me without a word that some great wrong had been done or was about to be done, and that I must show myself at once her friend if I would gain her confidence.

"Advancing to her side, I spoke to her kindly, asking if she were Cynthia Wakeham, and if she desired the services of a lawyer.

"She at once nodded painfully but unmistakably, and, lifting her hand, pointed to her lips and shook her head.

"'She means that she cannot speak,' explained the man, in a pant, over my shoulder.

"Moving a step aside in my disgust, I said to her, not to him:

"'But you can hear?'

"Her intelligent eye responded before her head could nod its painful acquiescence.

"'And you have property to leave?'

"'This house,' answered the man.

"My eyes wandered mechanically to the empty cupboards about me from which the doors had been wrenched and, as I now saw from the looks of the fireplace, burned.

"'The ground-the ground is worth something,' quoth the man.

"The avidity with which he spoke satisfied me at least upon one point-he was the expectant heir.

"'Your name?' I asked, turning sharply upon him.

"'Hiram Huckins.'

"It was the name attached to the telegram.

"'And you are the brother of this woman?'

"'Yes, yes.'

"I had addressed him, but I looked at her. She answered my look with a steadfast gaze, but there was no dissent in it, and I considered that point settled.

"'She is a married woman, then?'

"'A widow; husband died long years ago.'

"'Any children?'

"'No.' And I saw in her face that he spoke the truth. But you and she have brothers or sisters? You are not her only relative?"

"'I am the only one who has stuck by her,' he sullenly answered. 'We did have a sister, but she is gone; fled from home years ago; lost in the great world; dead, perhaps. She don't care for her; ask her.'

"I did ask her, but the haggard face said nothing. The eyes burned, but they had a waiting look.

"'To whom do you want to leave your property?' I inquired of her pointedly.

"Had she glanced at the man, had her face even changed, or so much as a tremor shook her rigid form, I might have hesitated. But the quiet way in which she lifted her hand and pointed with one finger in his direction while she looked straight at me, convinced me that whatever was wrong, her mind was made up as to the disposal of her property. So taking out my papers, I sat down on the rude bench drawn up beside the bed and began to write.

"The man stood behind me with the lamp. He was so eager and bent over me so closely that the smell of the lamp and his nearness were more than I could bear.

"'Set down the lamp,' I cried. 'Get a table-something-don't lean over me like that.'

"But there was nothing, actually nothing for him to put the lamp on, and I was forced to subdue my disgust and get used as best I could to his presence and to his great shadow looming on the wall behind us. But I could not get used to her eyes hurrying me, and my hand trembled as I wrote.

"'Have you any name but Cynthia?' I inquired, looking up.

"She painfully shook her head.

"'You had better tell me what her husband's name was,' I suggested to the brother.

"'John Lapham Wakeham,' was the quick reply.

"I wrote down both names. Then I said, looking intently at the dying widow:

"'As you cannot speak, you must make signs. Shake your hand when you wish to say no, and move it up and down when you wish to say yes. Do you understand?'

"She signalled somewhat impatiently that she did, and then, lifting her hand with a tremulous movement, pointed anxiously towards a large Dutch clock, which was the sole object of adornment in the room.

"'She urges you to hurry,' whispered the man. 'Make it short, make it short. The doctor I called in this morning said she might die any minute.'

"As from her appearance I judged this to be only too possible, I hastily wrote a few words more, and then asked:

"'Is this property all that you have to leave?'

"I had looked at her, though I knew it would be the man who would answer.

"'Yes, yes, this house,' he cried. 'Put it strong; this house and all there is in it.'

"I thought of its barren rooms and empty cupboards, and a strange fancy seized me. Going straight to the woman, I leaned over her and said:

"'Is it your desire to leave all that you possess to this brother? Real property and personal, this house, and also everything it contains?'

"She did not answer, even by a sign, but pointed again to the clock.

"'She means that you are to go right on,' he cried. 'And indeed you must,' he pursued, eagerly. 'She won't be able to sign her name if you wait much longer.'

"I felt the truth of this, and yet I hesitated.

"'Where are the witnesses?' I asked. 'She must have two witnesses to her signature.'

"'Won't I do for one?' he inquired.

"'No,' I returned; 'the one benefited by a will is disqualified from witnessing it.'

"He looked confounded for a moment. Then he stepped to the door and shouted, 'Briggs! Briggs!'

"As if in answer there came a clatter as of falling dishes, and as proof of the slavery which this woman had evidently been under to his avarice, she gave a start, dying as she was, and turned upon him with a frightened gaze, as if she expected from him an ebullition of wrath.

"'Briggs, is there a light in Mr. Thompson's house?'

"'Yes,' answered a gruff voice from the foot of the stairs.

"'Go then, and ask him or the first person you see there, if he will come in here for a minute. Be very polite and don't swear, or I won't pay you the money I promised you. Say that Mrs. Wakeham is dying, and that the lawyer is drawing up her will. Get James Sotherby to come too, and if he won't do it, somebody else who is respectable. Everything must be very legal, sir,' he explained, turning to me, 'very legal.'

"Not knowing what to think of this man, but seeing only one thing to do, I nodded, and asked the woman whom I should name as executor. She at once indicated her brother, and as I wrote in his name and concluded the will, she watched me with an intentness that made my nerves creep, though I am usually anything but susceptible to such influences. When the document was ready I rose and stood at her side in some doubt of the whole transaction. Was it her will I had expressed in the paper I held before me, or his? Had she been constrained by his influence to do what she was doing, or was her mind free to act and but obeying its natural instincts? I determined to make one effort at finding out. Turning towards the man, I said firmly:

"'Before Mrs. Wakeham signs this will she must know exactly what it contains. I can read it to her, but I prefer her to read the paper for herself. Get her glasses, then, if she needs them, and bring them here at once, or I throw up this business and take the document away with me out of the house.'

"'But she has no glasses,' he protested; 'they were broken long ago.'

"'Get them,' I cried; 'or get yours,-she shall not sign that document till you do.'

"But he stood hesitating, loth, as I now believe, to leave us together, though that was exactly what I desired, which she, seeing, feverishly clutched my sleeve and, with a force of which I should not have thought her capable, made wild gestures to the effect that I should not delay any longer, but read it to her myself.

"Seeing by this, as I thought, that her own feelings were, notwithstanding my doubts, really engaged in the same direction as his, I desisted from my efforts to separate the two, if it were only for a moment, and read the will aloud. It ran thus:

"The last will and testament of Cynthia Wakeham, widow of John Lapham Wakeham, of Flatbush, Kings County, New York.

"First: I direct all my just debts and funeral expenses to be paid.

"Second: I give, devise, and bequeath to my brother, Hiram Huckins, all the property, real and personal, which I own, or to which I may be entitled, at the time of my death, and I appoint him the sole executor of this my last will and testament.

"Witness my hand this fifth day of June, in the year eighteen hundred and eighty-eight.

"Signed, published, and declared by the Testatrix to be her last will and testament, in our presence who, at her request and in her presence and in the presence of each other, have subscribed our names hereto as witnesses, on this 5th day of June, 1888.

"'Is that the expression of your wishes?' I asked, when I had finished.

"She nodded, and reached out her hand for the pen.

"'You must wait,' said I, 'for the witnesses.'

"But even as I spoke their approach was heard, and Huckins was forced to go to the door with the lamp, for the hall was pitch dark and the stairs dangerous. As he turned his back upon us, I thought Mrs. Wakeham moved and opened her lips, but I may have been mistaken, for his black and ominous shadow lay over her face, and I could discern but little of its expression.

"'Is there anything you want?' I asked her, rising and going to the bedside.

"But Huckins was alert to all my movements, if he had stepped for a moment away.

"'Give her water,' he cried, wheeling sharply about. And pointing to a broken glass standing on the floor at her side, he watched me while I handed it to her.

"'She mus'n't give out now,' he pursued, with one eye on us and the other on the persons coming upstairs.

"'She will not,' I returned, seeing her face brighten at the sound of approaching steps.

"'It's Miss Thompson and Mr. Dickey,' now spoke up the gruff voice of Briggs from the foot of the steps. 'No other folks was up, so I brought them along.'

"The young woman, who at this instant appeared in the doorway, blushed and cast a shy look over her shoulder at the fresh-faced man who followed her.

"'It's all right, Minnie,' immediately interposed that genial personage, with a cheerful smile; 'every one knows we are keeping company and mean to be married as soon as the times improve.'

"'Yes, every one knows,' she sighed, and stepped briskly into the room, her intelligent face and kindly expression diffusing a cheer about her such as the dismal spot had doubtless lacked for years.

"I heard afterward that this interesting couple had been waiting for the times to improve, for the last fifteen years."

III. Continuation of A Lawyer's Adventure

"The two witnesses had scarcely entered the room before the dying woman stretched out her hand again for the pen. As I handed it to her and placed the document before her on my portfolio, I asked:

"'Do you declare this paper to be your last will and testament and do you request these persons to witness it?'

"She bowed a quick acquiescence, and put the pen at the place I pointed out to her.

"'Shall I support your hand?' I pursued, fearful she would not have the strength to complete the task.

"But she shook her head and wrote her name in hastily, with a feverish energy that astonished me. Expecting to see her drop back exhausted if not lifeless as the pen left the paper, I drew the document away and bent to support her. But she did not need my assistance. Indeed she looked stronger than before, and what was still more astonishing, seemed even more anxious and burningly eager.

"'Is she holding up till the witnesses have affixed their signatures?' I inwardly queried. And intent upon relieving her, I hastily explained to them the requirements of the case, and did not myself breathe easily till I saw their two names below hers. Then I felt that she could rest; but to my surprise but one sigh of relief rose in that room, and that was from the cringing, cruel-eyed inheritor, who, at the first intimation that the document was duly signed and attested, sprang from his corner with such a smile that the place seemed to grow hideous, and I drew involuntarily back.

"'Let me have it,' were his first words. 'I have lived in this hole, and for fifteen years made myself a slave to her whims, till I have almost rotted away like the place itself. And now I want my reward. Let me have the will.'

"His hand was on the paper and in my surprise I had almost yielded it up to him, when another hand seized it, and the dying, gasping woman, mumbling and mouthing, pointed for the third time to the clock and then to one corner of the paper, trying to make me understand something I entirely failed to comprehend.

"'What is it?' I asked. 'What do you want? Is not the will to your liking?'

"'Yes, yes,' her frenzied nods seemed to say, and yet she continued pointing to the clock and then to the paper while the angry man before her stared and muttered in a mixture of perplexity and alarm which added no little to the excitement of the harrowing scene.

"'Let me see if I can tell what she wants,' suddenly observed the young woman who had signed the paper as a witness. And bringing her sweet womanly face around where the rolling eye of the woman could see her, she asked with friendly interest in her tone, 'Do you wish the time of day written on the will?'

"Oh, the relief that swept over that poor woman's tortured countenance! She nodded and looked up at me so confidingly that in despite of the oddity of the request I rapidly penned after the date, the words 'at half-past ten o'clock p.m.,' and caused the witnesses to note the addition.

"This seemed to satisfy her, and she sank back with a sign that I was to yield to her brother's demand and give him the paper he coveted, and when I hesitated, started up again with such a frenzied appeal in her face that in the terror of seeing her die before our eyes, I yielded it to his outstretched hand, expecting at the most to see him put it in his pocket.

"But no, the moment he felt it in his grasp, he set down the lamp, and, without a look in her direction or a word of thanks to me or the two neighbors who had come to his assistance, started rapidly from the room. Disturbed and doubting my own wisdom in thus yielding to an impulse of humanity which may be called weakness by such strong-minded men as yourself, I turned to follow him, but the woman's trembling hand again stopped me; and convinced at last that I was alarming myself unnecessarily and that she had had as much pleasure in making him her heir as he in being made so, I turned to pay her my adieux, when the expression of her face, changed now from what it had been to one of hope and trembling delight, made me pause again in wonder, and almost prepared me for the low and thrilling whisper which now broke from her lips in distinct tones.

"'Is he gone?'

"'Then you can speak,' burst from the young woman.

"The widow gave her an eloquent look.

"'I have not spoken,' said she, 'for two days; I have been saving my strength. Hark!' she suddenly whispered. 'He has no light, he will pitch over the landing.

"'No, no, he has gone by it in safety, he has reached-' she paused and listened intently, trembling as she did so-'Will he go into that room?-Run! follow! see if he has dared-but no, he has gone down to the kitchen,' came in quick glad relief from her lips as a distant door shut softly at the back end of the house. 'He is leaving the house and will never come back. I am released forever from his watchfulness; I am free! Now, sir, draw up another will, quick; let these two kind friends wait and see me sign it, and God will bless you for your kindness and my eyes will close in peace upon this cruel world.'

"Aghast but realizing in a moment that she had but lent herself to her brother's wishes in order to rid herself of a surveillance which had possibly had an almost mesmeric influence upon her, I opened my portfolio again, saying:

"'You declare yourself then to have been unduly influenced by your brother in making the will you have just signed in the presence of these two witnesses?'

"To which she replied with every evidence of a clear mind,

"'I do; I do. I could not move, I could not breathe, I could not think except as he willed it. When he was near, and he was always near, I had to do just as he wished-perhaps because I was afraid of him, perhaps because he had the stronger will of the two, I do not know; I cannot explain it, but he ruled me and has done so all my life till this hour. Now he has left me, left me to die, as he thinks, unfriended and alone, but I am strong yet, stronger than he knows, and before I turn my face to the wall, I will tear my property from his unholy grasp and give it where I have always wanted it to go-to my poor, lost, unfortunate sister.'

"'Ah,' thought I, 'I see, I see-'; and satisfied at last that I was no longer being made the minister of an unscrupulous avarice, I hastily drew up a second will, only pausing to ask the name of her sister and the place of her residence.

"'Her name is Harriet Smith,' was the quick reply, and she lived when last I heard of her in Marston, a little village in Connecticut. She may be dead now, it is so long since I received any news of her,-Hiram would never let me write to her,-but she may have had children, and if so, they are just as welcome as she is to the little I have to give.'

"'Her children's names?' I asked.

"'I don't know, I don't know anything about her. But you will find out everything necessary when I am gone; and if she is living, or has children, you will see that they are reinstated in the home of their ancestors. For,' she now added eagerly, 'they must come here to live, and build up this old house again and make it respectable once more or they cannot have my money. I want you to put that in my will; for when I have seen these old walls toppling, the doors wrenched off, and its lintels demolished for firewood, for firewood sir, I have kept my patience alive and my hope up by saying, 'Never mind; some day Harriet's children will make this all right again. The old house which their kind grandfather was good enough to give me for my own, shall not fall to the ground without one effort on my part to save it. And this is how I will accomplish it. This house is for Harriet or Harriet's children if they will come here and live in it one year, but if they will not do this, let it go to my brother, for I shall have no more interest in it. You .heed me, lawyer?'

"I nodded and wrote on busily, thinking, perhaps, that if Harriet or Harriet's children did not have some money of their own to fix up this old place, they would scarcely care to accept their forlorn inheritance. Meantime the two witnesses who had lingered at the woman's whispered entreaty exchanged glances, and now and then a word expressive of the interest they were taking in this unusual affair.

"'Who is to be the executor of this will?' I inquired.

"'You,' she cried. Then, as I started in surprise, she added: 'I know nobody but you. Put yourself in as executor, and oh, sir, when it is all in your hands, find my lost relatives, I beseech you, and bring them here, and take them into my mother's room at the end of the hall, and tell them it is all theirs, and that they must make it their room and fix it up and lay a new floor-you remember, a new floor-and-' Her words rambled off incoherently, but her eyes remained fixed and eager.

"I wrote in my name as executor.

"When the document was finished, I placed it before her and asked the young lady who had been acting as my lamp-bearer to read it aloud. This she did; the second will reading thus:

"The last will and testament of Cynthia Wakeham, widow of John Lapham Wakeham, of Flatbush, Kings County, New York.

"First: I direct all my just debts and funeral expenses to be paid.

"Second: I give, devise, and bequeath all my property to my sister, Harriet Smith, if living at my death, and, if not living, then to her children living at my death, in equal shares, upon condition, nevertheless, that the legatee or legatees who take under this will shall forthwith take up their residence in the house I now occupy in Flatbush, and continue to reside therein for at least one year thence next ensuing. If neither my said sister nor any of her descendants be living at my death, or if so living, the legatee who takes hereunder shall fail to comply with the above conditions, then all of said property shall go to my brother, Hiram Huckins.

"Third: I appoint Frank Etheridge, of New York City, sole executor of this my last will and testament, thereby revoking all other wills by me made, especially that which was executed on this date at half-past ten o'clock.

"Witness my hand this fifth day of June, in the year eighteen hundred and eighty-eight.

"Signed, published, and declared by the testatrix to be her last will and testament, in our presence, who, at her request and in her presence and in the presence of each other, have subscribed our names hereto as witnesses, on this 5th day of June, 1888, at five minutes to eleven p.m.

"This was satisfactory to the dying widow, and her strength kept up till she signed it and saw it duly attested; but when that was done, and the document safely stowed away in my pocket, she suddenly collapsed and sank back in a dying state upon her pillow.

"'What are we going to do?' now cried Miss Thompson, with looks of great compassion at the poor woman thus bereft, at the hour of death, of the natural care of relatives and friends. 'We cannot leave her here alone. Has she no doctor-no nurse?'

"'Doctors cost money,' murmured the almost speechless sufferer. And whether the smile which tortured her poor lips as she said these words was one of bitterness at the neglect she had suffered, or of satisfaction at the thought she had succeeded in saving this expense, I have never been able to decide.

"As I stooped to raise her now fallen head a quick, loud sound came to our ears from the back of the house, as of boards being ripped up from the floor by a reckless and determined hand. Instantly the woman's face assumed a ghastly look, and, tossing up her arms, she cried:

"'He has found the box!-the box! Stop him! Do not let him carry it away! It is-' She fell back, and I thought all was over; but in another instant she had raised herself almost to a sitting position, and was pointing straight at the clock. 'There! there! look! the clock!' And without a sigh or another movement she sank back on the pillow, dead."

IV. Flint and Steel

"Greatly startled, I drew back from the bed which but a moment before had been the scene of such mingled emotions.

"'All is over here,' said I, and turned to follow the man whom with her latest breath she had bidden me to stop from leaving the house.'

"As I could not take the lamp and leave my companions in darkness, I stepped out into a dark hall; but before I had taken a half dozen steps I heard a cautious foot descending the back stairs, and realizing that it would be both foolish and unsafe for me to endeavor to follow him through the unlighted rooms and possibly intricate passages of this upper hall, I bounded down the front stairs, and feeling my way from door to door, at last emerged into a room where there was a lamp burning.

"I had found the kitchen, and in it were Huckins and the man Briggs. Huckins had his hand on the latch of the outside door, and from his look and the bundle he carried, I judged that if I had been a minute later he would have been in full flight from the house.

"'Put out the light!' he shouted to Briggs.

"But I stepped forward, and the man did not dare obey him, and Huckins himself looked cowed and dropped his hand from the door-knob.

"'Where are you going?' I asked, moving rapidly to his side.

"'Isn't she dead?' was his only answer, given with a mixture of mockery and triumph difficult to describe.

"'Yes,' I assented, 'she is dead; but that does not justify you in flying the house.'

"'And who says I am flying?' he protested. 'Cannot I go out on an errand without being told I am running away?'

"'An errand,' I repeated, 'two minutes after your sister has breathed her last! Don't talk to me of errands. Your appearance is that of flight, and that bundle in your arms looks like the cause of it.'

"His eye, burning with a passion very natural under the circumstances, flashed over me with a look of disdain.

"'And what do you know of my appearance, and what is it to you if I carry or do not carry a bundle out of this house? Am I not master of everything here?'

"'No,' I cried boldly; then, thinking it might perhaps be wiser not to undeceive him as to his position till I had fully sounded his purposes, I added somewhat nonchalantly: 'that is, you are not master enough to take anything away that belonged to your sister. If you can prove to me that there is nothing in that bundle save what is yours and was yours before your sister died, well and good, you may go away with it and leave your poor dead sister to be cared for in her own house by strangers. But while I have the least suspicion that property of any nature belonging to this estate is hidden away under that roll of old clothes, you stop here if I have to appeal first to the strength of my arms and then to that of the law.'

"'But,' he quavered, 'it is mine-mine. I am but carrying away my own. Did you not draw up the will yourself? Don't you know she gave everything to me?'

"'What I know has nothing to do with it,' I retorted. 'Did you think because you saw a will drawn up in your favor that therefore you had immediate right to what she left, and could run away with her effects before her body was cold? A will has to be proven, my good man, before an heir has any right to touch what it leaves. If you do not know this, why did you try to slink away like a thief, instead of walking out of the front door like a proprietor? Your manner convicts you, man; so down with the bundle, or I shall have to give you in charge of the constable as a thief.'

"'You!-' he began, but stopped. Either his fears were touched or his cunning awakened, for after surveying me for a moment with mingled doubt and hatred, he suddenly altered his manner, till it became almost cringing, and muttering consolingly to himself, 'After all it is only a delay; everything will soon be mine,' he laid the bundle on the one board of the broken table beside us, adding with hypocritical meekness: 'It was only some little keepsakes of my sister, not enough to make such a fuss about.'

"'I will see to these keepsakes,' said I, and was about to raise the bundle, when he sprang upon me.

"'You-you-!' he cried. 'What right have you to touch them or to look at them? Because you drew up the will, does that make you an authority here? I don't believe it, and I won't see you put on the airs of it. I will go for the constable myself. I am not afraid of the law. I will see who is master in this house where I have lived in wretched slavery for years, and of which I shall be soon the owner.'

"'Very well,' said I, 'let us go find the constable.'

"The calmness with which I uttered this seemed at once to abash and infuriate him.

"He alternately cringed and ruffled himself, shuffling from one foot to the other till I could scarcely conceal the disgust with which he inspired me. At last he blurted forth with forced bravado:

"'Have I any rights, or haven't I any rights! You think because I don't know the law, that you can make a fool of me, but you can't. I may have lived like a dog, and I may not have a good coat to my back, but I am the man to whom this property has been given, as no one knows better than yourself; and if I chose to lift my foot and kick you out of that door for calling me a thief, who would blame me?-answer me that.'

"'No one,' said I, with a serenity equal to his fury 'if this property is indeed to be yours, and if I know it as you say.'

"Struck by the suggestion implied in these words, as by a blow in the face for which he was wholly unprepared, he recoiled for a moment, looking at me with mingled doubt and amazement.

"'And do you mean to deny to my face, within an hour of the fact, and with the very witnesses to it still in the house, what you yourself wrote in this paper I now flaunt in your face? If so, you are the fool, and I the cunning one, as you will yet see, Mr. Lawyer.

"I met his look with great calmness.

"'The hour you speak of contained many minutes, Mr. Huckins; and it takes only a few for a woman to change her mind, and to record that change.'

"'Her mind?' The stare of terror and dismay in his eyes was contradicted by the laugh on his lips. 'What mind had she after I left her? She couldn't even speak. You cannot frighten me.'

"'Mr. Huckins,' I now said, beckoning to the two witnesses whom our loud talking had guided to the spot where we were, 'I have thought best to tell you what some men might have thought it more expedient perhaps to conceal. Mrs. Wakeham, who evidently felt herself unduly influenced by you in the making of that will you hold in your hand, immediately upon your withdrawal testified her desire to make another, and as I had no interest in the case save the desire to fulfil her real wishes, I at once complied with her request, and formally drew up a second will more in consonance with her evident desires.'

"'It is a lie, a lie; you are deceiving me!' shrieked the unhappy man, taken wholly by surprise. 'She couldn't utter a word; her tongue was paralyzed; how could you know her wishes?'

"'Mrs. Wakeham had some of the cunning of her brother,' I observed. 'She knew when to play dumb and when to speak. She talked very well when released from the influence of your presence.'

"Overwhelmed, he cast one glance at the two witnesses, who by this time had stepped to my side, and reading confirmation in the severity of their looks, he fell slowly back against the table where he stood leaning heavily, with his head fallen on his breast.

"'Who has she given the house to?' he asked at last faintly, almost humbly.

"'That I have no right to tell you,' I answered. 'When the will is offered for probate you will know; that is all the comfort I can give you.'

"'She has left nothing to me, that much I see,' he bitterly exclaimed; and his head, lifted with momentary passion, fell again. 'Ten years gone to the dogs,' he murmured; 'ten years, and not a cent in reward! It is enough to make a man mad.' Suddenly he started forward in irrepressible passion. 'You talk about influence,' he cried, 'my influence; what influence did you have upon her? Some, or she would never have dared to contradict her dying words in that way. But I'll have it out with you in the courts. I'll never submit to being robbed in this way.'

"'You do not know that you are robbed,' said I, 'wait till you hear the will.'

"'The will? This is her will!' he shrieked, waving before him the paper that he held; 'I will not believe in any other; I will not acknowledge any other.'

"'You may have to,' now spoke up Mr. Dickey in strong and hearty tones; 'and if I might advise you as a neighbor, I would say that the stiller you keep now the better it probably will be for you in the future. You have not earned a good enough reputation among us for disinterestedness to bluster in this way about your rights.'

"'I don't want any talk from you,' was Huckins' quick reply, but these words from one who had the ears of the community in which he lived had nevertheless produced their effect; for his manner changed and it was with quite a softened air that he finally put up the paper in his pocket and said: 'I beg pardon if I have talked too loud and passionately. But the property was given to me and it shall not be taken away if any fight on my part can keep it. So let me see you all go, for I presume you do not intend to take up your abode in this house just yet.'

"'No,' I retorted with some significance, 'though it might be worth our while. It may contain more keepsakes; I presume there are one or two boards yet that have not been ripped up from the floors. Then ashamed of what was perhaps an unnecessary taunt, I hastened to add: 'My reason for telling you of the existence of a second will is that you might no longer make the one you hold an excuse for rifling these premises and abstracting their contents. Nothing here is yours-yet; and till you inherit, if ever you do inherit, any attempt to hide or carry away one article which is not manifestly your own, will be regarded by the law as a theft and will be punished as such. But,' I went on, seeking to still further mitigate language calculated to arouse any man's rage, whether he was a villain or not, 'you have too much sense, and doubtless too much honesty to carry out such intentions now you know that you have lost whatever rights you considered yourself to possess, so I will say no more about it but at once make my proposition, which is that we give this box into the charge of Mr. Dickey, who will stand surety for it till your sister can be found. If you agree to this-'

"'But I won't agree,' broke in Huckins, furiously. 'Do you think I am a fool? The box is mine, I say, and-'

"'Or perhaps,' I calmly interrupted, 'you would prefer the constable to come and take both it and the house in charge. This would better please me. Shall I send for the constable?'

"'No, no, you! Do you want to make a prison-bird of me at once?'

"'I do not want to,' said I, 'but the circumstances force me to it. A house which has given up one treasure may give up another, and for this other I am accountable. Now as I cannot stay here myself to watch over the place, it necessarily follows that I must provide some one who can. And as an honest man you ought to desire this also. If you felt as I would under the circumstances, you would ask for the company of some disinterested person till our rival claims as executors had been duly settled and the right heir determined upon.'

"'But the constable? I don't want any constable.'

"'And you don't want Mr. Dickey?'

"'He's better than the constable.'

"'Very well; Mr. Dickey, will you stay?'

"'Yes, I'll stay; that's right, isn't it, Susan?'

"Miss Thompson who had been looking somewhat uneasy, brightened up as he spoke and answered cheerfully:

"'Yes, that's right. But who will see me home?'

"'Can you ask?' I inquired.

"She smiled and the matter was settled.

"In the hall I had the chance to whisper to Mr. Dickey:

"'Keep a sharp lookout on the fellow. I do not trust him, and he may be up to tricks. I will notify the constable of the situation and if you want help throw up a window and whistle. The man may make another attempt to rob the premises.'

"'That is so,' was the whispered reply. 'But he will have to play sharp to get ahead of me.'

V. Difficulties

"During the short walk that ensued we talked much of the dead widow and her sinister brother.

"'They belong to an old family,' observed Miss Thompson, 'and I have heard my mother tell how she has danced in their house at many a ball in the olden times. But ever since my day the place has borne evidences of decay, though it is only in the last five years it has looked as if it would fall to pieces. Which of them do you think was the real miser, he or she? Neither of them have had anything to do with their neighbors for ten years at least.'

"'Do not you know?' I asked.

"'No,' said she, 'and yet I have always lived in full view of their house. You see there were years in which no one lived there. Mr. Wakeham, who married this woman about the time father married mother, was a great invalid, and it was not till his death that the widow came back here to live. The father, who was a stern old man, I have heard mother tell, gave his property to her because she was the only one of his children who had not displeased him, but when she was a widow this brother came back to live with her, or on her, we have never been able to determine which. I think from what I have seen to-night it must have been on her, but she was very close too, or why did she live like a hermit when she could have had the friendship of the best?'

"'Perhaps because her brother overruled her; he has evidently had an eye on this property for a long time.'

"'Yes, but they have not even had the comforts. For three years at least no one has seen a butcher's cart stop at their door. How they have lived none of us know; yet there was no lack of money or their neighbors would have felt it their duty to look after them. Mrs. Wakeham has owned very valuable stocks, and as for her dividends, we know by what the postmaster says that they came regularly.'

"'This is very interesting,' said I. 'I thought that fellow's eyes showed a great deal of greed for the little he was likely to inherit. Is there no one who is fully acquainted with their affairs, or have they lived so long out of the pale of society that they possess no friends?'

"'I do not know of any one who has ever been honored with their confidence,' quoth the young lady. 'They have shown so plainly that they did not desire attention that gradually we have all ceased to go to their doors.'

"'And did not sickness make any difference? Did no one go near them when it was learned how ill this poor woman was?'

"'We did not know she was ill till this morning. We had missed her face at the window, but no doctor had been called, and no medicine bought, so we never thought her to be in any danger. When we did find it out we were afraid to invade premises which had been so long shut against us; at least I was; others did go, but they were received so coldly they did not remain; it is hard to stand up against the sullen displeasure of a man like Mr. Huckins.'

"'And do you mean to say that this man and his sister have lived there alone and unvisited for years?'

"'They wished it, Mr. Etheridge. They courted loneliness and rejected friendship. Only one person, Mr. H-, the minister, has persisted in keeping up his old habit of calling once a year, but I have heard him say that he always dreaded the visit, first, because they made him see so plainly that they resented the intrusion, and, secondly, because each year showed him barer floors and greater evidences of poverty or determined avarice. What he will say now, when he hears about the two wills and the brother trying to run away with his sister's savings, before her body was cold, I do not know. There will be some indignation felt in town you may be sure, and considerable excitement. I hope you will come back to-morrow to help me answer questions.'

"'I shall come back as soon as I have been to Marston.'

"'So you are going to hunt up the heirs? I pray you may be successful.'

"'Do you know them? Have you ever heard anything about them?' I asked.

"'Oh, no. It must be forty years since Harriet Huckins ran away from home. To many it will be a revelation that such a person lives.'

"'And we do not even know that she does,' said I.

"'True, true, she may be dead, and then that hateful brother will have the whole. I hope he won't. I hope she is alive and will come here and make amends for the disgrace which that unsightly building has put upon the street.'

"'I hope so too,' said I, feeling my old disgust of Huckins renewed at this mention of him.

"We were now at her gate, so bidding her good-by, I turned away through the midnight streets, determined to find the constable. As I went hurrying along in the direction of his home, Miss Thompson's question repeated itself in my own mind. Had Mrs. Wakeham been the sufferer and victim which her appearance, yes and her words to me, had betokened? Or was her brother sincere in his passion and true in his complaints that he had been subject to her whims and had led the life of a dog in order to please her. With the remembrance of their two faces before me, I felt inclined to believe her words rather than his, and yet her last cry had contained something in its tone beside anxiety for the rights of an almost unknown heir; there had been anger in it,-the anger of one whose secret has been surprised and who feels himself personally robbed of something dearer than life.

"However, at this time I could not stop to weigh these possibilities or decide this question. Whatever was true as regarded the balance of right between these two, there was no doubt as to the fact that this man was not to be trusted under temptation. I therefore made what haste I could, and being fortunate enough to find the constable still up, succeeded in interesting him in the matter and obtaining his promise to have the house put under proper surveillance. This done, I took the car for Fulton Ferry, and was so fortunate as to reach home at or near two o'clock in the morning. This was last night, and to-day you see me here. You disappoint me by saying that you know no one by the name of Harriet Smith."

"Yet," exclaimed Edgar, rousing himself from his attitude of listening, "I know all the old inhabitants. Harriet Smith," he continued in a musing tone, "Harriet-What is there in the name that stirs up some faint recollection? Did I once know a person by that name after all?"

"Nothing more likely."

"But there the thing stops. I cannot get any farther," mused Edgar. "The name is not entirely new to me. I have some vague memory in connection with it, but what memory I cannot tell. Let me see if Jerry can help us." And going to the door, he called "Jerry! Jerry!"

The response came slowly; heavy bodies do not soon overcome their inertia. But after the lapse of a few minutes a shuffling footstep was heard. Then the sound of heavy breathing, something between a snore and a snort, and the huge form of the good-natured driver came slowly into view, till it paused and stood in the door opening, which it very nearly filled.

"Did you call, sirs?" asked he, with a rude attempt at a bow.

"Yes," responded Edgar, "I wanted to know if you remembered a woman by the name of Harriet Smith once living about here."

"Har-ri-et Smith," was the long-drawn-out reply; "Har-ri-et Smith! I knows lots of Harriets, and as for Smiths, they be as plenty as squirrels in nut time; but Har-ri-et Smith-I wouldn't like to say I didn't, and I wouldn't like to say I did."

"She is an old woman now, if she is still living," suggested Frank. "Or she may have moved away."

"Yes, sir, yes, of course "; and they perceived another slow Harriet begin to form itself upon his lips.

Seeing that he knew nothing of the person mentioned, Edgar motioned him away, but Frank, with a lawyer's belief in using all means at his command, stopped him as he was heavily turning his back and said:

"I have good news for a woman by that name. If you can find her, and she turns out to be a sister of Cynthia Wakeham, of Flatbush, New York, there will be something good for you too. Do you want to try for it?"

"Do I?" and the grin which appeared on Jerry's face seemed to light up the room. "I'm not quick," he hastily acknowledged, as if in fear that Frank would observe this fault and make use of it against him; "that is, I'm not spry on my feet, but that leaves me all the more time for gossip, and gossip is what'll do this business, isn't it, Dr. Sellick?" Edgar nodding, Jerry laughed, and Frank, seeing he had got an interested assistant at last, gave him such instructions as he thought he needed, and dismissed him to his work.

When he was gone, the friends looked for an instant at each other, and then Frank rose.

"I am going out," said he. "If you have friends to see or business to look after, don't think you must come with me. I always take a walk before retiring."

"Very well," replied Edgar, with unusual cheeriness. "Then if you will excuse me I'll not accompany you. Going to walk for pleasure? You'd better take the road north; the walk in that direction is the best in town."

"All right," returned Frank; "I'll not be gone more than an hour. See you again in the morning if not to-night." And with a careless nod he disappeared, leaving Edgar sitting alone in the room.]

On the walk in front of the house he paused.

"To the north," he repeated, looking up and down the street, with a curious shake of the head; "good advice, no doubt, and one that I will follow some time, but not to-night. The attractions in an opposite direction are too great," And with an odd smile, which was at once full of manly confidence and dreamy anticipation, he turned his face southward and strode away through the warm and perfumed darkness of the summer night.

He took the road by which he had come from the depot, and passing rapidly by the few shops that clustered about the hotel, entered at once upon the street whose picturesque appearance had attracted his attention earlier in the evening.

What is he seeking? Exercise-the exhilaration of motion-the refreshment of change? If so, why does he look behind and before him with an almost guilty air as he advances towards a dimly lighted house, guarded by the dense branches of a double row of poplars? Is it here the attraction lies which has drawn him from the hotel and the companionship of his friend? Yes, for he stops as he reaches it and gazes first along the dim shadowy vista made by those clustered trunks and upright boughs, and then up the side and across the front of the silent house itself, while an expression of strange wistfulness softens the eager brightness of his face, and his smile becomes one of mingled pride and tenderness, for which the peaceful scene, with all its picturesque features, can scarcely account.

Can it be that his imagination has been roused and his affections stirred by the instantaneous vision of an almost unknown woman? that this swelling of the heart and this sudden turning of his whole nature towards what is sweetest, holiest, and most endearing in life means that his hitherto free spirit has met its mate, and that here in the lonely darkness, before a strange portal and in the midst of new and untried scenes, he has found the fate that comes once to every man, making him a changed being for ever after?

The month is June and the air is full of the scent of roses. He can see their fairy forms shining from amid the vines clambering over the walls and porches before him. They suggest all that is richest and spiciest and most exquisite in nature, as does her face as he remembered it. What if a thorn has rent a petal here and there, in the luxurious flowers before him, are they not roses still? So to him her face is all the lovelier for the blemish which might speak to others of imperfection, but which to him is only a call for profounder tenderness and more ardent devotion. And if in her nature there lies a fault also, is not a man's first love potent enough to overlook even that? He begins to think so, and allows his glances to roam from window to window of the nearly darkened house, as if half expecting her sweet and melancholy head to look forth in quest of the stars-or him.

The living rooms are mainly on the side that overlooks the garden, and scarcely understanding by what impulse he is swayed, he passes around the wall to a second gate, which he perceives opening at right angles to the poplar walk. Here he pauses a moment, looking up at the window which for some reason he has determined to be hers, and while he stands there, the moonlight shows the figure of another man coming from the highway and making towards the self-same spot. But before this second person reaches Frank he pauses, falters, and finally withdraws. Who is it? The shadow is on his face and we cannot see, but one thing is apparent, Frank Etheridge is not the only man who worships at this especial shrine to-night

VI. Young Men's Fancies

The next morning at about nine o'clock Frank burst impetuously into Edgar's presence. They had not met for a good-night the evening before and they had taken breakfast separately.

"Edgar, what is this I hear about Hermione Cavanagh? Is it true she lives alone in that house with her sister, and that they neither of them ever go out, not even for a half-hour's stroll in the streets?"

Edgar, flushed at the other's excitement, turned and busied himself a moment with his books and papers before replying.

"Frank, you have been among the gossips."

"And what if I have! You would tell me nothing, and I knew there was a tragedy in her face; I saw it at the first glance."

"Is it a tragedy, this not going out?"

"It is the result of a tragedy; must be. They say nothing and nobody could draw from her beyond the boundary of that brick wall we rode by so carelessly. And she so young, so beautiful!"

"Frank, you exaggerate," was all the answer he received.

Frank bit his lip; the phrase he had used had been a trifle strong for the occasion. But in another moment he was ready to continue the conversation.

"Perhaps I do speak of an experiment that has never been tried; but you know what I mean. She has received some shock which has terrified her and made her afraid of the streets, and no one can subdue this fear or induce her to step through her own gate. Is not that sad and interesting enough to move a man who recognizes her beauty?"

"It is certainly very sad," quoth the other, "if it is quite true, which I doubt."

"Go talk to your neighbors then; they have not been absent like yourself for a good long year."

"I am not interested enough," the other began.

"But you ought to be," interpolated Frank. "As a physician you ought to recognize the peculiarities of such a prejudice. Why, if I had such a case-"

"But the case is not mine. I am not and never have been Miss Cavanagh's physician."

"Well, well, her friend then."

"Who told you I was her friend?"

"I don't remember; I understood from some one that you used to visit her."

"My neighbors, as you call them, have good memories."

"Did you use to visit her?"

"Frank, Frank, subdue your curiosity. If I did, I do not now. The old gentleman is dead, and it was he upon whom I was accustomed to call when I went to their house."

"The old gentleman?"

"Miss Cavanagh's father."

"And you called upon him?"

"Sometimes."

"Edgar, how short you are."

"Frank, how impatient you are."

"But I have reason."

"How's that?"

"I want to hear about her, and you mock me with the most evasive replies."

Edgar turned towards his friend; the flush had departed from his features, but his manner certainly was not natural. Yet he did not look unkindly at the ardent young lawyer. On the contrary, there was a gleam of compassion in his eye, as he remarked, with more emphasis than he had before used:

"I am sorry if I seem to be evading any question you choose to put. But the truth is you seem to know more about the young lady than I do myself. I did not know that she was the victim of any such caprice."

"Yet it has lasted a year."

"A year?"

"Just the time you have been away." "Just-" Edgar paused in the repetition. Evidently his attention had been caught at last. But he soon recovered himself. "A strange coincidence," he laughed. "Happily it is nothing more."

Frank surveyed his friend very seriously.

"I shall believe you," said he.

"You may," was the candid rejoinder. And the young physician did not flinch, though Etheridge continued to look at him steadily and with undoubted intention. "And now what luck with Jerry?" he suddenly inquired, with a cheerful change of tone.

"None; I shall leave town at ten."

"Is there no Harriet Smith here?"

"Not if I can believe him."

"And has been none in the last twenty years?"

"Not that he can find out."

"Then your quest here is at an end?"

"No, it has taken another turn, that is all."

"You mean-"

"That I shall come back here to-morrow. I must be sure that what Jerry says is true. Besides-But why mince the matter? I-I have become interested in that girl, Edgar, and want to know her-hear her speak .Cannot you help me to make her acquaintance? If you used to

go to the house-Why do you frown? Do you not like Miss Cavanagh?"

Edgar hastily smoothed his forehead.

"Frank, I have never thought very much about her. She was young when I visited her father, and then that scar-"

"Never mind," cried Frank. He felt as if a wound in his own breast had been touched.

Edgar was astonished. He was not accustomed to display his own feelings, and did not know what to make of a man who did. But he did not finish his sentence.

"If she does not go out," he observed instead, "she may be equally unwilling to receive visitors."

"Oh, no," the other eagerly broke in; "people visit there just the same. Only they say she never likes to hear anything about her peculiarity. She wishes it accepted without words."

It was now Edgar's turn to ask a question.

"You say she lives there alone? You mean with servants, doubtless?"

"Oh, yes, she has a servant. But I did not say she lived there alone; I said she and her sister."

Edgar was silent.

"Her sister does not go out, either, they say."

"No? What does it all mean?"

"That is what I want to know."

"Not go out? Emma!"

"Do you remember Emma?"

"Yes, she is younger than Hermione."

"And what kind of a girl is she?"

"Don't ask me, Frank. I have no talent for describing beautiful women."

"She is beautiful, then?"

"If her sister is, yes."

"You mean she has no scar." It was softly said, almost reverently.

"No, she has no scar."

Frank shook his head.

"The scar appeals to me, Edgar."

Edgar smiled, but it was not naturally. The constraint in his manner had increased rather than diminished, and he seemed anxious to start upon the round of calls he had purposed to make.

"You must excuse me," said he, "I shall have to be off. You are coming back to-morrow?"

"If business does not detain me."

"You will find me in my new office by that time. I have rented the small brown house you must have noticed on the main street. Come there, and if you do not mind bachelor housekeeping, stay with me while you remain in town. I shall have a good cook, you may be sure, and as for a room, the north chamber has already been set apart for you."

Frank's face softened and he grasped the doctor's hand.

"That's good of you; it looks as if you expected me to need it."

"Have you not a Harriet Smith to find?"

Frank shrugged his shoulders. "I see that you understand lawyers."

Frank rode down to the depot with Jerry. As he passed Miss Cavanagh's house he was startled to perceive a youthful figure bending over the flower-beds on the inner side of the wall. "She is not so pretty by daylight," was his first thought. But at that moment she raised her head, and with a warm thrill he recognized the fact that it was not Hermione, but the sister he was looking at.

It gave him something to think of, for this sister was not without her attractions, though they were less brilliant and also less marred than those of the sad and stately Hermione.

When he arrived at his office his first inquiry was if anything had been heard from Flatbush, and upon being told to the contrary he immediately started for that place. He found the house a scene of some tumult. Notwithstanding the fact that the poor woman still lay unburied, the parlors and lower hall were filled with people, who stared at the walls and rapped with wary but eager knuckles on the various lintels and casements. Whispers of a treasure having been found beneath the boards of the flooring had reached the ear of the public, and the greatest curiosity had been raised in the breasts of those who up to this day had looked upon the house as a worm-eaten structure fit only for the shelter of dogs.

Mr. Dickey was in a room above, and to him Frank immediately hastened.

"Well," said he, "what news?"

"Ah," cried the jovial witness, coming forward, "glad to see you. Have you found the heirs?"

"Not yet," rejoined Frank. "Have you had any trouble? I thought I saw a police-officer below."

"Yes, we had to have some one with authority here. Even Huckins agreed to that; he is afraid the house will be run away with, I think. Did you see what a crowd has assembled in the parlors? We let them in so that Huckins won't seem to be the sole object of suspicion; but he really is, you know. He gave me plenty to do that night."

"He did, did he?"

"Yes; you had scarcely gone before he began his tactics. First he led me very politely to a room where there was a bed; then he brought me a bottle of the vilest rum you ever drank; and then he sat down to be affable. While he talked I was at ease, but when he finally got up and said he would try to get a snatch of sleep I grew suspicious, and stopped drinking the rum and set myself to listening. He went directly to a room not far from me and shut himself in. He had no light, but in a few minutes I heard him strike a match, and then another and another. 'He is searching under the boards for more treasure,' thought I, and creeping into the next room I was fortunate enough to come upon a closet so old and with such big cracks in its partition that I was enabled to look through them into the place where he was. The sight that met my eye was startling. He was, as I conjectured, peering under the boards, which he had ripped up early in the evening; and as he had only the light of a match to aid him, I would catch quick glimpses of his eager, peering face and then lose the sight of it in sudden darkness till the gleam of another match came to show it up again. He crouched upon the floor and crept along the whole length of the board, thrusting in his arm to right and left, while the sweat oozed on his forehead and fell in large drops into the long, narrow hollow beneath him. At last he seemed to grow wild with repeated disappointments, and, starting up, stood looking about him at the four surrounding walls, as if demanding them to give up their secrets. Then the match went out, and I heard him stamp his foot with rage before proceeding to put back the boards and shift them into place. Then there came silence, during which I crept on tiptoe to the place I had left, judging that he would soon leave his room and return to see if I had been watching him.

"The box was on the bed, and throwing myself beside it, I grasped it with one arm and hid my face with the other, and as I lay there I soon became conscious of his presence, and I knew he was looking from me to the box, and weighing the question as to whether I was sleeping sound enough for him to risk a blow. But I did not stir, though I almost expected a sudden crash on my head, and in another moment he crept away, awed possibly by my superior strength, for I am a much bigger man than he, as you must see. When I thought him gone I dropped my arm and looked up. The room was in total darkness. Bounding to my feet I followed him through the halls and came upon him in the room of death. He had the lamp in his hand, and he was standing over his sister with an awful look on his face.

"'Where have you hidden it?' he hissed to the senseless form before him. "That box is not all you had. Where are the bonds and the stocks, and the money I helped you to save?'

"He was so absorbed he did not see me. He stooped by the bed and ran his hand along under the mattresses; then he lifted the pillows and looked under the bed. Then he rose and trod gingerly over the floor, as if to see if any of the boards were loose, and peered into the empty closet, and felt with wary hand up and down the mantel sides. At last his eyes fell on the clock, and he was about to lift his hand to it when I said:

"'The clock is all right; you needn't set it; see, it just agrees with my watch!"

"What a face he turned to me! I tell you it is no fun to meet such eyes in an empty house at one o'clock at night; and if you hadn't told me the police would be within call I should have been sick enough of my job, I can tell you. As it was, I drew back a foot or two and hugged the box a little more tightly, while he, with a coward's bravado, stepped after me and whispered below his breath:

"'You are making yourself too much at home here. If I want to stop the clock, now that my sister is dead, what is that to you? You have no respect for a house in mourning, and I am free to tell you so.'

"To this tirade I naturally made no answer, and he turned again to the clock. But just as I was asking myself whether I should stop him or let him go on with his peerings and pokings, the bell rang loudly below. It was a welcome interruption to me, but it made him very angry. However, he went down and welcomed, as decently as he knew how, a woman who had been sent to his assistance by Miss Thompson, evidently thinking that it was time he made some effort to regain my good opinion by avoiding all further cause for suspicion.

"At all events, he gave me no more trouble that night, nor since, though the way he haunts the door of that room and the looks he casts inside at the clock are enough to make one's blood run cold. Do you think there are any papers hidden there?"

"I have no doubt of it," returned Frank. "Do you remember that the old woman's last words were, 'The clock! the clock!' As soon as I can appeal to the Surrogate I shall have that piece of furniture examined."

"I shall be mortally interested in knowing what you find there," commented Mr. Dickey. "If the property comes to much, won't Miss Thompson and I get something out of it for our trouble?"

"No doubt," said Frank.

"Then we will get married," said he, and looked so beaming, that Frank shook him cordially by the hand.

"But where is Huckins?" the lawyer now inquired. "I didn't see him down below."

"He is chewing his nails in the kitchen. He is like a dog with a bone; you cannot get him to leave the house for a moment."

"I must see him," said Frank, and went down the back stairs to the place where he had held his previous interview with this angry and disappointed man.

At first sight of the young lawyer Huckins flushed deeply, but he soon grew pale and obsequious, as if he had held bitter communing with himself through the last thirty-six hours, and had resolved to restrain his temper for the future in the presence of the man who understood him. But he could not help a covert sneer from creeping into his voice.

"Have you found the heirs?" he asked, bowing with ill-mannered grace, and pushing forward the only chair there was in the room.

"I shall find them when I need them," rejoined Frank. "Fortunes, however small, do not usually go begging."

"Then you have not found them?" the other declared, a hard glitter of triumph shining in his sinister eye.

"I have not brought them with me," acknowledged the lawyer, warily.

"Perhaps, then, you won't," suggested Huckins, while be seemed to grow instantly at least two inches in stature. "If they are not in Marston where are they? Dead! And that leaves me the undisputed heir to all my sister's savings."

"I do not believe them dead," protested Frank.

"Why?" Huckins half smiled, half snarled.

"Some token of the fact would have come to you. You are not in a strange land or in unknown parts; you are living in the old homestead where this lost sister of yours was reared. You would have heard if she had died, at least so it strikes an unprejudiced mind."

"Then let it strike yours to the contrary," snapped out his angry companion. "When she went away it was in anger and with the curse of her father ringing in her ears. Do you see that porch?" And Huckins pointed through the cracked windows to a decayed pair of steps leading from the side of the house. "It was there she ran down on her way out. I see her now, though forty years have passed, and I, a little fellow of six, neither understood nor appreciated what was happening. My father stood in the window above, and he cried out: 'Don't come back! You have chosen your way, now go in it. Let me never see you nor hear from you again.' And we never did, never! And now you tell me we would have heard if she had died. You don't know the heart of folks if you say that. Harriet cut herself adrift that day, and she knew it."

"Yet you were acquainted with the fact that she went to Marston."

The indignant light in the brother's eye settled into a look of cunning.

"Oh," he acknowledged carelessly, "we heard so at the time, when everything was fresh. But we heard nothing more, nothing."

"Nothing?" Frank repeated. "Not that she had married and had had children?"

"No," was the dogged reply. "My sister up there," and Huckins jerked his hand towards the room where poor Mrs. Wakeham lay, "surmised things, but she didn't know anything for certain. If she had she might have sent for these folks long ago. She had time enough in the last ten years we have been living in this hole together."

"But," Etheridge now ventured, determined not to be outmatched in cunning, "you say she was penurious, too penurious to live comfortably or to let you do so."

Huckins shrugged his shoulders and for a moment looked balked; then he cried: "The closest women have their whims. If she had known any such folks to have been living as you have named, she would have sent for them."

"If you had let her," suggested Frank.

Huckins turned upon him and his eye flashed. But he very soon cringed again and attempted a sickly smile, which completed the disgust the young lawyer felt for him.

"If I had let her," he repeated; "I, who pined for companionship or anything which would have put a good meal into my mouth! You do not know me, sir; you are prejudiced against me because I want my earnings, and a little comfort in my old age."

"If I am prejudiced against you, it is yourself who has made me so," returned the other. "Your conduct has not been of a nature to win my regard, since I have had the honor of your acquaintance."

"And what has yours been, worming, as you have, into my sister's confidence-"

But here Frank hushed him. "We will drop this," said he. "You know me, and I think I know you. I came to give you one last chance to play the man by helping me to find your relatives. I see you have no intention of doing so, so I will now proceed to find them without you."

"If they exist," he put in.

"Certainly, if they exist. If they do not-"

"What then?"

"I must have proofs to that effect. I must know that your sister left no heirs but yourself."

"That will take time," he grumbled. "I shall be kept weeks out of my rights."

"The Surrogate will see that you do not suffer."

He shuddered and looked like a fox driven into his hole.

"It is shameful, shameful!" he cried. "It is nothing but a conspiracy to rob me of my own. I suppose I shall not be allowed to live in my own house." And his eyes wandered greedily over the rafters above him.

"Are you sure that it is yours?"

"Yes, yes, damn you!" But the word had been hasty, and he immediately caught Frank's sleeve and cringed in contrition. "I beg your pardon," he cried, "perhaps we had better not talk any longer, for I have been too tried for patience. They will not even leave me alone in my grief," he whined, pointing towards the rooms full, as I have said, of jostling neighbors and gossips.

"It will be quiet enough after the funeral," Frank assured him.

"Oh! oh! the funeral!" he groaned.

"Is it going to be too extravagant?" Frank insinuated artfully.

Huckins gave the lawyer a look, dropped his eyes and mournfully shook his head.

"The poor woman would not have liked it," he muttered; "but one must be decent towards one's own blood."

VII. The Way Opens

Frank succeeded in having Mr. Dickey appointed as Custodian of the property, then he went back to Marston.

"Good-evening, Doctor; what a nest of roses you have here for a bachelor," was his jovial cry, as he entered the quaint little house, in which Sellick had now established himself. "I declare, when you told me I should always find a room here, I did not realize what a temptation you were offering me. And in sight-" He paused, changing color as he drew back from the window to which he had stepped,-"of the hills," he somewhat awkwardly added.

Edgar, who had watched the movements of his friend from under half lowered lids, smiled dryly.

"Of the hills," he repeated. Then with a short laugh, added, "I knew that you liked that especial view."

Frank's eye, which was still on a certain distant chimney, lighted up wonderfully as he turned genially towards his friend.

"I did not know you were such a good fellow," he laughed. "I hope you have found yourself made welcome here."

"Oh, yes, welcome enough."

"Any patients yet?"

"All of Dudgeon's, I fear. I have been doing little else but warning one man after another: 'Now, no words against any former practitioner. If you want help from me, tell me your symptoms, but don't talk about any other doctor's mistakes, for I have not time to hear it.'"

"Poor old Dudgeon!" cried Frank. Then, shortly: "I'm a poor one to hide my impatience. Have you seen either of them yet?"

"Either-of-them?"

"The girls, the two sweet whimsical girls. You know whom I mean, Edgar."

"You only spoke of one when you were here before, Frank."

"And I only think of one. But I saw the other on my way to the depot, and that made me speak of the two. Have you seen them?"

"No," answered the other, with unnecessary dryness; "I think you told me they did not go out."

"But you have feet, man, and you can go to them, and I trusted that you would, if only to prepare the way for me; for I mean to visit them, as you have every reason to believe, and I should have liked an introducer."

"Frank," asked the other, quietly, but with a certain marked earnestness, "has it gone as deep as that? Are you really serious in your intention of making the acquaintance of Miss Cavanagh?"

"Serious? Have you for a minute thought me otherwise?

"You are not serious in most things."

"In business I am, and in-"

"Love?" the other smiled.

"Yes, if you can call it love, yet."

"We will not call it anything," said the other. "You want to see her, that is all. I wonder at your decision, but can say nothing against it. Happily, you have seen her defect."

"It is not a defect to me."

"Not if it is in her nature as well?"

"Her nature?"

"A woman who for any reason cuts herself off from her species, as she is said to do, cannot be without her faults. Such idiosyncrasies do not grow out of the charity we are bid to have for our fellow-creatures."

"But she may have suffered. I can readily believe she has suffered from that same want of charity in others. There is nothing like a personal defect to make one sensitive. Think of the averted looks she must have met from many thoughtless persons; and she almost a beauty!"

"Yes, that almost is tragic."

"It can excuse much."

Edgar shook his head. "Think what you are doing, Frank, that's all. I should hesitate in making the acquaintance of one who for any reason has shut herself away from the world."

"Is not her whim shared by her sister?"

"They say so."

"Then there are two whose acquaintance you would hesitate to make?"

"Certainly, if I had any ulterior purpose beyond that of mere acquaintanceship."

"Her sister has no scar?"

Edgar, weary, perhaps, of the conversation, did not answer.

"Why should she shut herself up?" mused Frank, too interested in the subject to note the other's silence.

"Women are mysteries," quoth Edgar, shortly.

"But this is more than a mystery," cried Frank. "Whim will not account for it. There must be something in the history of these two girls which the world does not know."

"That is not the fault of the world," retorted Edgar, in his usual vein of sarcasm.

But Frank was reckless. "The world is right to be interested," he avowed. "It would take a very cold heart not to be moved with curiosity by such a fact as two girls secluding themselves in their own house, without any manifest reason. Are you not moved by it, Edgar? Are you, indeed, as indifferent as you seem?"

"I should like to know why they do this, of course, but I shall not busy myself to find out. I have much else to do."

"Well, I have not. It is the one thing in life for me; so look out for some great piece of audacity on my part, for speak to her I will, and that, too, before I leave the town."

"I do not see how you will manage that, Frank."

"You forget I am a lawyer."

Yet for all the assurance manifested by this speech, it was some time before Frank could see his way clearly to what he desired. A dozen plans were made and dismissed as futile before he finally determined to seek the assistance of a fellow-lawyer whose name he had seen in the window of the one brick building in the principal street. "Through him," thought he, "I may light upon some business which will enable me to request with propriety an interview with Miss Cavanagh." Yet his heart failed him as he went up the steps of Mr. Hamilton's office, and if that gentleman, upon presenting himself, had been a young man, Frank would certainly have made some excuse for his intrusion, and retired. But he was old and white-haired and benignant, and so Frank was lured into introducing himself as a young lawyer from New York, engaged in finding the whereabouts of one Harriet Smith, a former resident of Marston.

Mr. Hamilton, who could not fail to be impressed by Etheridge's sterling appearance, met him with cordiality.

"I have heard of you," said he, "but I fear your errand here is bound to be fruitless. No Harriet Smith, so far as I know, ever came to reside in this town. And I was born and bred in this street. Have you actual knowledge that one by that name ever lived here, and can you give me the date?"

The answers Frank made were profuse but hurried; he had not expected to gain news of Harriet Smith; he had only used the topic as a means of introducing conversation. But when he came to the point in which he was more nearly interested, he found his courage fail him. He could not speak the name of Miss Cavanagh, even in the most casual fashion, and so the interview ended without any further result than the making on his part of a pleasant acquaintance. Subdued by his failure, Frank quitted the office, and walked slowly down the street. If he had not boasted of his intentions to Edgar, he would have left the town without further effort; but now his pride was involved, and he made that an excuse to his love. Should he proceed boldly to her house, use the knocker, and ask to see Miss Cavanagh? Yes, he might do that, but afterwards? With what words should he greet her, or win that confidence which the situation so peculiarly demanded? He was not an acknowledged friend, or the friend of an acknowledged friend, unless Edgar-But no, Edgar was not their friend; it would be folly to speak his name to them. What then? Must he give up his hopes till time had paved the way to their realization? He feared it must be so, yet he recoiled from the delay. In this mood he re-entered Edgar's office.

A woman in hat and cloak met him.

"Are you the stranger lawyer that has come to town?" she asked.

He bowed, wondering if he was about to hear news of Harriet Smith.

"Then this note is for you," she declared, handing him a little three-cornered billet.

His heart gave a great leap, and he turned towards the window as he opened the note. Who could be writing letters to him of such dainty appearance as this? Not she, of course, and yet-He tore open the sheet, and read these words:

"If not asking too great a favor, may I request that you will call at my house, in your capacity of lawyer.

"As I do not leave my own home, you will pardon this informal method of requesting your services. The lawyer here cannot do my work.

"Yours respectfully,

"HERMIONE CAVANAGH."

He was too much struck with amazement and delight to answer the messenger at once. When he did so, his voice was very business-like.

"Will Miss Cavanagh be at liberty this morning?" he asked. "I shall be obliged to return to the city after dinner."

"She told me to say that any time would be convenient to her," was the answer.

"Then say to her that I will be at her door in half an hour."

The woman nodded, and turned.

"She lives on the road to the depot, where the two rows of poplars are," she suddenly declared, as she paused at the door.

"I know," he began, and blushed, for the woman had given him a quick glance of surprise. "I noticed the poplars," he explained.

She smiled as she passed out, and that made him crimson still more.

"Do I wear my heart on my sleeve?" he murmured to himself, in secret vexation. "If so, I must wrap it about with a decent cloak of reserve before I go into the presence of one who has such power to move it." And he was glad Edgar was not at home to mark his excitement.

The half hour wore away, and he stood on the rose-embowered porch. Would she come to the door herself, or would it be the sad-eyed sister he should see first? It mattered little. It was Hermione who had sent for him, and it was with Hermione he should talk. Was it his heart that was beating so loudly? He had scarcely answered the question, when the door opened, and the woman who had served as a messenger from Miss Cavanagh stood before him.

"Ah!" said she, "come in." And in another moment he was in the enchanted house.

A door stood open at his left, and into the room thus disclosed he was ceremoniously ushered.

"Miss Cavanagh will be down in a moment," said the woman, as she slowly walked away, with more than one lingering backward look.

He did not note this look, for his eyes were on the quaint old furniture and shadowy recesses of the staid best room, in which he stood an uneasy guest. For somehow he had imagined he would see the woman of his dreams in a place of cheer and sunshine; at a window, perhaps, where the roses looked in, or at least in a spot enlivened by some evidences of womanly handiwork and taste. But here all was stiff as at a funeral. The high black mantel-shelf was without clock or vase, and the only attempt at ornament to be seen within the four grim walls was an uncouth wreath, made of shells, on a background of dismal black, which hung between the windows. It was enough to rob any moment of its romance. And yet, if she should look fair here, what might he not expect of her beauty in more harmonious surroundings.

As he was adjusting his ideas to this thought, there came the sound of a step on the stair, and the next moment Hermione Cavanagh entered his presence.

VIII. A Search and Its Results

Hermione Cavanagh, without the scar, would have been one of the handsomest of women. She was of the grand type, with height and a nobility of presence to which the extreme loveliness of her perfect features lent a harmonizing grace. Of a dazzling complexion, the hair which lay above her straight fine brows shone ebon-like in its lustre, while her eyes, strangely and softly blue, filled the gazer at first with surprise and then with delight as the varying emotions of her quick mind deepened them into a more perfect consonance with her hair, or softened them into something like the dewy freshness of heaven-born flowers. Her mouth was mobile, but the passions it expressed were not of the gentlest, whatever might be the language of her eyes, and so it was that her face was in a way a contradiction of itself, which made it a fascinating study to one who cared to watch it, or possessed sufficient understanding to read its subtle language; She was oddly dressed in a black, straight garment, eminently in keeping with the room; but there was taste displayed in the arrangement of her hair, and nothing could make her face anything but a revelation of beauty, unless it was the scar, and that Frank Etheridge did not see.

"Are you-" she began and paused, looking at him with such surprise that he felt his cheeks flush-"the lawyer who was in town a few days ago on some pressing inquiry?"

"I am," returned Frank, making her the low bow her embarrassment seemed to demand.

"Then you must excuse me," said she; "I thought you were an elderly man, like our own Mr. Hamilton. I should not have sent for you if-"

"If you had known I had no more experience," he suggested, with a smile, seeing her pause in some embarrassment.

She bowed; yet he knew that was not the way she would have ended the sentence if she had spoken her thought.

"Then I am to understand," said he, with a gentleness born of his great wish to be of service to her, "that you would prefer that I should send you an older adviser. I can do it. Miss Cavanagh."

"Thank you," she said, and stood hesitating, the slight flush on her cheek showing that she was engaged in some secret struggle. "I will tell you my difficulty," she pursued at last, raising her eyes with a frank look to his face. "Will you be seated?"

Charmed with the graciousness of her manner when once relieved from embarrassment, he waited for her to sit and then took a chair himself.

"It is a wearisome affair," she declared, "but one which a New York lawyer can solve without much trouble." And with the clearness of a highly cultivated mind, she gave him the facts of a case in which she and her sister had become involved through the negligence of her man of business.

"Can you help me?" she asked.

"Very easily," he replied. "You have but to go to New York and swear to these facts before a magistrate, and the matter will be settled without difficulty."

"But I cannot go to New York."

"No? Not on a matter of this importance?"

"On no matter. I do not travel, Mr. Etheridge."

The pride and finality with which this was uttered, gave him his first glimpse of the hard streak which there was undoubtedly in her character. Though he longed to press the question he judged that he had better not, so suggested carelessly:

"Your sister, then?"

But she met this suggestion, as he had expected her to, with equal calmness and pride.

"My sister does not travel either."

He looked the astonishment he did not feel and remarked gravely:

"I fear, then, that the matter cannot be so easily adjusted." And he began to point out the difficulties in the way, to all of which she listened with a slightly absent air, as if the affair was in reality of no great importance to her.

Suddenly she waved her hand with a quick gesture.

"You can do as you please," said she. "If you can save us from loss, do so; if not, let the matter go; I shall not allow it to worry me further." Then she looked up at him with a total change of expression, and for the first time the hint of a smile softened the almost severe outline of her mouth. "You are searching, I hear, for a woman named Harriet Smith; have you found her, sir?'

Delighted at this evidence on her part of a wish to indulge in general conversation, he answered with alacrity:

"Not yet. She was not, as it seems, a well-known inhabitant of this town as I had been led to believe. I even begin to fear she never has lived here at all. The name is a new one to you, I presume."

"Smith." Can the name of Smith ever be said to be new?" she laughed with something like an appearance of gayety.

"But Harriet," he explained, "Harriet Smith, once Harriet Huckins."

"I never knew any Harriet Smith," she averred. "Would it have obliged you very much if I had?"

He smiled, somewhat baffled by her manner, but charmed by her voice, which was very rich and sweet in its tones.

"It certainly would have saved me much labor and suspense," he replied.

"Then the matter is serious?"

"Is not all law-business serious?"

"You have just proved it so," she remarked.

He could not understand her; she seemed to wish to talk and yet hesitated with the words on her lips. After waiting for her to speak further and waiting in vain, he changed the subject back to the one which had at first occupied them.

"I shall be in Marston again," said he; "if you will allow me I will then call again and tell you exactly what I can do for your interest."

"If you will be so kind," she replied, and seemed to breathe easier.

"I have one intimate friend in town," pursued Frank, as he rose to take his departure, "Dr. Sellick. If you know him-"

Why did he pause? She had not moved and yet something, he could not say what, had made an entire change in her attitude and expression. It was as if a chill had passed over her, stiffening her limbs and paling her face, yet her eyes did not fall from his face, and she tried to speak as usual.

"Dr. Sellick?"

"Yes, he has returned to Marston after a year of absence. Have not the gossips told you that?"

"No; that is, I have seen no one-I used to know Dr. Sellick," she added with a vain attempt to be natural. "Is that my sister I hear?" And she turned sharply about.

Up to this moment she had uniformly kept the uninjured side of her face towards him, and ne had noticed the fact and been profoundly touched by her seeming sensitiveness. But he was more touched now by the emotion which made her forget herself, for it argued badly for his hopes, and assured him that for all Sellick's assumed indifference, there had been some link of feeling between these two which he found himself illy prepared to accept.

"May I not have the honor," he requested, "of an introduction to your sister?"

"She is not coming; I was mistaken," was her sole reply, and her beautiful face turned once more towards him, with a deepening of its usual tragic expression which lent to it a severity which would have appalled most men. But he loved every change in that enigmatical countenance, there was so much character in its grave lines. So with the consideration that was a part of his nature he made a great effort to subdue his jealous curiosity, and saying, "Then we will reserve that pleasure till another time," bowed like a man at his ease, and passed quickly out of the door.

Yet his heart was heavy and his thoughts in wildest turmoil; for he loved this woman and she had paled and showed the intensest emotion at the mention of a man whom he had heard decry her. He might have felt worse could he have seen the look of misery which settled upon her face as the door closed upon him, or noted how long she sat with fixed eyes and paling lips in that dreary old parlor where he had left her. As it was, he felt sufficiently disturbed and for a long time hesitated whether or not he should confront Edgar with an accusation of knowing Miss Cavanagh better than he acknowledged. But Sellick's reserve was one that imposed silence, and Frank dared not break through it lest he should lose the one opportunity he now had of visiting Marston freely. So he composed himself with the thought that he had at least gained a footing in the house, and if the rest did not follow he had only himself to blame. And in this spirit he again left Marston.

He found plenty of work awaiting him in his office. Foremost in interest was an invitation to be present at the search which was to be instituted that afternoon in the premises of the Widow Wakeham. The will of which he had been made Executor, having been admitted to probate, it had been considered advisable to have an inventory made of the personal effects of the deceased, and this day had been set apart for the purpose. To meet this appointment he hurried all the rest, and at the hour set, he found himself before the broken gate and gardens of the ruinous old house in Flatbush. There was a crowd already gathered there, and as he made his appearance he was greeted by a loud murmur which amply proved that his errand was known. At the door he was met by the two Appraisers appointed by the Surrogate, and within he found one or two workmen hob-nobbing with a detective from police headquarters.

The house looked barer and more desolate than ever. It was a sunshiny day, and the windows having been opened, the pitiless rays streamed in showing all the defects which time and misuse had created in the once stately mansion. Not a crack in plastering or woodwork but stood forth in bold relief that day, nor were the gaping holes in the flooring of hall and parlor able to hide themselves any longer under the strips of carpet with which Huckins had endeavored to conceal them.

"Shall we begin with the lower floor?" asked one of the workmen, poising the axe he had brought with him.

The Appraisers bowed, and the work of demolition began. As the first sound of splitting boards rang through the empty house, a quick cry as of a creature in pain burst from the staircase without, and they saw, crouching there with trembling hands held out in protest, the meagre form of Huckins.

"Oh, don't! don't!" he began; but before they could answer, he had bounded down the stairs to where they stood and was looking with eager, staring eyes into the hole which the workmen had made.

"Have you found anything?" he asked. "It is to be all mine, you know, and the more you find the richer I'll be. Let's see-let's see, she may have hidden something here, there is no knowing." And falling on his knees he thrust his long arm into the aperture before him, just as Mr. Dickey had seen him do in a similar case on the night of the old woman's death.

But as his interference was not desired, he was drawn quietly back, and was simply allowed to stand there and watch while the others proceeded in their work. This he did with an excitement which showed itself in alternate starts and sudden breathless gasps, which, taken with the sickly smiles with which he endeavored to hide the frowns caused by his natural indignation, made a great impression upon Frank, who had come to regard him as a unique specimen in nature, something between a hyena and a fox.

As the men held up a little packet which had at last come to light very near the fireplace, he gave a shriek and stretched out two clutching hands.

"Let me have it!" he cried. "I know what that is; it disappeared from my sister's desk five years ago, and I could never get her to tell where she had put it. Let me have it, and I will open it here before you all. Indeed I will, sirs-though it is all mine, as I have said before."

But Etheridge, quietly taking it, placed it in his pocket, and Huckins sank back with a groan.

The next place to be examined was the room upstairs. Here the poor woman had spent most of her time till she was seized with her last sickness, and here the box had been found by Huckins, and here they expected to find the rest of her treasures. But beyond a small casket of almost worthless jewelry, nothing new was discovered, and they proceeded at Frank's suggestion to inspect the room where she had died, and where the clock still stood towards which she had lifted her dying hand, while saying, "There! there!"

As they approached this place, Huckins was seen to tremble. Catching Frank by the arm, he whispered:

"Can they be trusted? Are they honest men? She had greenbacks, piles of greenbacks; I have caught her counting them. If they find them, will they save them all for me?"

"They will save them all for the heir," retorted Frank, severely. "Why do you say they are for you, when you know you will only get them in default of other heirs being found."

"Why? why? Because I feel that they are mine. Heirs or no heirs, they will come into my grasp yet, and you of the law cannot help it. Do I look like a man who will die poor? No, no; but I don't want to be cheated. I don't want these men to rob me of anything which will rightfully be mine some day."

"You need not fret about that," said Frank. "No one will rob you,' and he drew disdainfully aside.

The Appraisers had now surveyed the room awful with hideous memories to the young lawyer. Pointing to the bed, they said:

"Search that," and the search was made.

A bundle of letters came to light and were handed over to Frank.

"Why did she hide those away?" screamed Huckins. "They ain't money."

Nobody answered him.

The lintels of the windows and doors were now looked into, and the fireplace dismantled and searched. But nothing was found in these places, nor in the staring cupboards or beneath the loosened boards. Finally they came to the clock.

"Oh, let me," cried Huckins, "let me be the first to stop that clock. It has been running ever since I was a little boy. My mother used to wind it with her own hands. I cannot bear a stranger's hand to touch it. My-my sister would not have liked it."

But they disregarded even this appeal; and he was forced to stand in the background and see the old piece taken down and laid at length upon the floor with its face to the boards. There was nothing in its interior but the works which belonged there, but the frame at its back seemed unusually heavy, and Etheridge consequently had this taken off, when, to the astonishment of all and to the frantic delight of Huckins, there appeared at the very first view, snugly laid between the true and false backing, layers of bills and piles of sealed and unsealed papers.

"A fortune! A fortune!" cried this would-be possessor of his sister's hoarded savings. "I knew we should find it at last. I knew it wasn't all in that box. She tried to make me think it was, and made a great secret of where she had put it, and how it was all to be for me if I only let it alone. But the fortune was here in this old clock I have stared at a thousand times. Here, here, and I never knew it, never suspected it till-"

He felt the lawyer's eyes fall on him, and became suddenly silent.

"Let's count it!" he greedily cried, at last.

But the Appraisers, maintaining their composure, motioned the almost frenzied man aside, and summoning Frank to assist them, made out a list of the papers, which were most of them valuable, and then proceeded to count the loose bills. The result was to make Huckins' eyes gleam with joy and satisfaction. As the last number left their lips, he threw up his arms in unrestrained glee, and cried:

"I will make you all rich some day. Yes, sirs; I have not the greed of my poor dead sister; I intend to spend what is mine, and have a good time while I live. I don't intend any one to dance over my grave when I am dead."

His attitude was one so suggestive of this very same expression of delight, that more than one who saw him and heard these words shuddered as they turned from him; but he did not care for cold shoulders now, or for any expression of disdain or disapproval. He had seen the fortune of his sister with his own eyes, and for that moment it was enough.

IX. The Two Sisters

When Frank returned again to Marston he did not hesitate to tell Edgar that "he had business relations with Miss Cavanagh." This astonished the doctor, who was of a more conservative nature, but he did not mingle his astonishment with any appearance of chagrin, so Frank took heart, and began to dream that he had been mistaken in the tokens which Miss Cavanagh had given of being moved by the news of Dr. Sellick's return.

He went to see her as soon as he had supped with his friend, and this time he was introduced into a less formal apartment. Both sisters were present, and in the moment which followed the younger's introduction, he had leisure to note the similarity and dissimilarity between them, which made them such a delightful study to an interested observer.

Emma was the name of the younger, and as she had the more ordinary and less poetic name, so at first view she had the more ordinary and less poetic nature. Yet as the eye lingered on her touching face, with its unmistakable lines of sadness, the slow assurance gained upon the mind that beneath her quiet smile and gentle self-contained air lay the same force of will which spoke at once in the firm lip and steady gaze of the older woman. But her will was beneficent, and her character noble, while Hermione bore the evidences of being under a cloud, whose shadow was darkened by something less easily understood than sorrow.

Yet Hermione, and not Emma, moved his heart, and if he acknowledged to himself that a two-edged sword lay beneath the forced composure of her manner, it was with the same feelings with which he acknowledged the scar which offended all eyes but his own. They were both dressed in white, and Emma wore a cluster of snowy pinks in her belt, but Hermione was without ornament. The beauty of the latter was but faintly shadowed in her younger sister's face, yet had Emma been alone she would have stood in his mind as a sweet picture of melancholy young womanhood.

Hermione was evidently glad to see him. Fresh and dainty as this, their living room, looked, with its delicate white curtains blowing in the twilight breeze, there were hours, no doubt, when it seemed no more than a prison-house to these two passionate young hearts. To-night cheer and an emanation from the large outside world had come into it with their young visitor, and both girls seemed sensible of it, and brightened visibly. The talk was, of course, upon business, and while he noticed that Hermione led the conversation, he also noticed that when Emma did speak, it was with the same clear grasp of the subject which he had admired in the other. "Two keen minds," thought he, and became more deeply interested than ever in the mystery of their retirement, and evident renouncement of the world.

He had to tell them he could do nothing for them unless one or both of them would consent to go to New York.

"The magistrate whom I saw," said he, "asked if you were well, and when I was forced to say yes, answered that for no other reason than illness could he excuse you from appearing before him. So if you will not comply with his rules, I fear your cause must go, and with it whatever it involves."

Emma, whose face showed the greater anxiety of the two, started as he said this, and glanced eagerly at her sister. But Hermione did not answer that glance. She was, perhaps, too much engaged in maintaining her own self-control, for the lines deepened in her face, and she all at once assumed that air of wild yet subdued suffering which had made him feel at the time of his first stolen glimpse of her face that it was the most tragic countenance he had ever beheld.

"We cannot go," came forth sharply from her lips, after a short but painful pause. "The case must be dropped." And she rose, as if she could not bear the weight of her thoughts, and moved slowly to the window, where she leaned for a moment, her face turned blankly on the street without.

Emma sighed, and her eyes fell with a strange pathos upon Frank's almost equally troubled face.

"There is no use," her gentle looks seemed to say. "Do not urge her; it will be only one grief the more."

But Frank was not one to heed such an appeal in sight of the noble drooping figure and set white face of the woman upon whose happiness he had fixed his own, though neither of these two knew it as yet. So, with a deprecating look at Emma, he crossed to Hermione's side, and with a slow, respectful voice exclaimed:

"Do not make me feel as if I had been the cause of loss to you. An older man might have done better. Let me send an older man to you, then, or pray that you reconsider a decision which will always fill me with regret."

But Hermione, turning slowly, fixed him with her eyes, whose meaning he was farther than ever from understanding, and saying gently, "The matter is at end, Mr. Etheridge," came back to the seat she had vacated, and motioned to him to return to the one he had just left. "Let us talk of other things," said she, and forced her lips to smile.

He obeyed, and at once opened a general conversation. Both sisters joined in it, and such was his influence and the impulse of their own youth that gradually the depth of shadow departed from their faces and a certain grave sort of pleasure appeared there, giving him many a thrill of joy, and making the otherwise dismal hour one to be happily remembered by him through many a weary day and night.

When he came to leave he asked Emma, who strangely enough had now become the most talkative of the two, whether there was not something he could do for her in New York or elsewhere before he came again.

She shook her head, but in another moment, Hermione having stepped aside, she whispered:

"Make my sister smile again as she did a minute ago, and you will give me all the happiness I seek."

The words made him joyous, and the look he bestowed upon her in return had a promise in it which made the young girl's dreams lighter that night, for all the new cause of anxiety which had come into her secluded life.

X. Doris

Frank Etheridge walked musingly towards town. When half-way there he heard his name pronounced behind him in tremulous accents, and turning, saw hastening in his wake the woman who had brought him the message which first took him to Miss Cavanagh's house. She was panting with the haste she had made, and evidently wished to speak to him. He of course stopped, being only too anxious to know what the good woman had to say. She flushed as she came near to him.

"Oh, sir," she cried with an odd mixture of eagerness and restraint, "I have been wanting to talk to you, and if you would be so good as to let me say what is on my mind, it would be a great satisfaction to me, please, and make me feel a deal easier."

"I should be very glad to hear whatever you may have to tell me," was his natural response. "Are you in trouble? Can I help you?"

"Oh, it is not that," she answered, looking about to see if any curious persons were peering at them through the neighboring window-blinds, "though I have my troubles, of course, as who hasn't in this hard, rough world; it is not of myself I want to speak, but of the young ladies. You take an interest in them, sir?"

It was naturally put, yet it made his cheek glow.

"I am their lawyer," he murmured.

"I thought so," she went on as if she had not seen the evidences of emotion on his part, or if she had seen them had failed to interpret them. "Mr. Hamilton is a very good man but he is not of much use, sir; but you look different, as if you could influence them, and make them do as other people do, and enjoy the world, and go out to church, and see the neighbors, and be natural in short."

"And they do not?"

"Never, sir; haven't you heard? They never either of them set foot beyond the garden gate. Miss Emma enjoys the flower-beds and spends most of her time working at them or walking up and down between the poplars, but Miss Hermione keeps to the house and grows white and thin, studying and reading, and making herself wise-for what? No one comes to see them-that is, not often, sir, and when they do, they are stiff and formal, as if the air of the house was chilly with something nobody understood. It isn't right, and it's going against God's laws, for they are both well and able to go about the world as others do. Why, then, don't they do it? That is what I want to know."

"And that is what everybody wants to know," returned Frank, smiling; "but as long as the young ladies do not care to explain themselves I do not see how you or any one else can criticise their conduct. They must have good reasons for their seclusion or they would never deny themselves all the pleasures natural to youth."

"Reasons? What reasons can they have for actions so extraordinary? I don't know of any reason on God's earth which would keep me tied to the house, if my feet were able to travel and my eyes to see."

"Do you live with them?"

"Yes; or how could they get the necessaries of life? I do their marketing, go for the doctor when they are sick, pay their bills, and buy their dresses. That's why their frocks are no prettier," she explained.

Frank felt his wonder increase.

"It is certainly a great mystery," he acknowledged. "I have heard of elderly women showing their eccentricity in this way, but young girls!"

"And such beautiful girls! Do you not think them beautiful?" she asked.

He started and looked at the woman more closely. There was a tone in her voice when she put this question that for the first time made him think that she was less simple than her manner would seem to indicate.

"What is your name?" he asked her abruptly.

"Doris, sir."

"And what is it you want of me?"

"Oh, sir, I thought I told you; to talk to the young ladies and show them how wicked it is to slight the good gifts which the Lord has bestowed upon them. They may listen to you, sir; seeing that you are from out of town and have the ways of the big city about you."

She was very humble now and had dropped her eyes in some confusion at his altered manner, so that she did not see how keenly his glance rested upon her nervous nostril, weak mouth, and obstinate chin. But she evidently felt his sudden distrust, for her hands clutched each other in embarrassment and she no longer spoke with the assurance with which she had commenced the conversation.

"I like the young ladies," she now explained, "and it is for their own good I want them to do differently."

"Have they never been talked to on the subject? Have not their friends or relatives tried to make them break their seclusion?"

"Oh, sir, the times the minister has been to that house! And the doctor telling them they would lose their health if they kept on in the way they were going! But it was all waste breath; they only said they had their reasons, and left people to draw what conclusions they would."

Frank Etheridge, who had a gentleman's instincts, and yet who was too much of a lawyer not to avail himself of the garrulity of another on a question he had so much at heart, stopped, and weighed the matter a moment with himself before he put the one or two questions which her revelations suggested. Should he dismiss the woman with a rebuke for her forwardness, or should he humor her love for talk and learn the few things further which he was in reality burning to hear. His love and interest naturally gained the victory over his pride, and he allowed himself to ask:

"How long have they kept themselves shut up? Is it a year, do you think?"

"Oh, a full year, sir; six months at least before their father died. We did not notice it at first, because they never said anything about it, but at last it became very evident, and then we calculated and found they had not stepped out of the house since the day of the great ball at Hartford."

"The great ball!"

"Yes, sir, a grand party that every one went to. But they did not go, though they had talked about it, and Miss Hermione had her dress ready. And they never went out again, not even to their father's funeral. Think of that, sir, not even to their father's funeral."

"It is very strange, said he, determined at whatever cost to ask Edgar about that ball, and if he went to it.

"And that is not all," continued his now thoroughly reassured companion. "They were never the same girls again after that time. Before then Miss Hermione was the admiration and pride of the whole town, notwithstanding that dreadful scar, while Miss Emma was the life of the house and of every gathering she went into. But afterwards-well, you can see for yourself what they are now; and it was just so before their father died."

Frank longed to ask some questions about this father, but reason bade him desist. He was already humiliating himself enough in thus discussing the daughters with the servant who waited upon them; others must tell him about the old gentleman.

"The house is just like a haunted house," Doris now remarked. Then as she saw him cast her a quick look of renewed interest, she glanced nervously down the street and asked eagerly: "Would you mind turning off into this lane, sir, where there are not so many persons to pry and peer at us? It is still early enough for people to see, and as everybody knows me and everybody by this time must know you, they may wonder to see us talking together, and I do so long to ease my whole conscience now I am about it."

For reply, he took the road she had pointed out. When they were comfortably out of sight from the main street, he stopped again and said:

"What do you mean by haunted?"

"Oh, sir," she began, "not by ghosts; I don't believe in any such nonsense as ghosts; but by memories sir, memories of something which has happened within those four walls and which are now locked up in the hearts of those two girls, making them live like spectres. I am not a fanciful person myself, nor given to imaginings, but that house, especially on nights when the wind blows, seems to be full of something not in nature; and though I do not hear anything or see anything, I feel strange terrors and almost expect the walls to speak or the floors to give up their secrets, but they never do; and that is why I quake in my bed and lie awake so many nights."

"Yet you are not fanciful, nor given to imaginings," smiled Frank.

"No, for there is ground for my secret fears. I see it in the girls' pale looks, I hear it in the girls' restless tread as they pace hour after hour through those lonesome rooms."

"They walk for exercise; they do not use the streets, so they make a promenade of their own floors."

"Do people walk for exercise at night?"

"At night?"

"Late at night; at one, two, sometimes three, in the morning? Oh, sir, it is uncanny, I tell you."

"They are not well; lack of change affects their nerves and they cannot sleep, so they walk."

"Very likely, but they do not walk together. Sometimes it's one, and sometimes it's the other. I know their different steps, and I never hear them both at the same time."

Frank felt a cold shiver thrill his blood.

"I have been in the house," she resumed, after a minute's pause, "for five years; ever since Mrs. Cavanagh died, and I cannot tell you what its secret is. But it has one, I am certain, and I often go about the halls and into the different rooms and ask low to myself, 'Was it here that it happened, or was it there?'-There is a little staircase on the second floor which takes a quick turn towards a big empty room where nobody ever sleeps, and though I have no reason for shuddering at that place, I always do, perhaps because it is in that big room the young ladies walk so much. Can you understand my feeling this way, and I no more than a servant to them?"

A month ago he would have uttered a loud disclaimer, but he had changed much in some regards, so he answered: "Yes, if you really care for them."

The look she gave him proved that she did, beyond all doubt.

"If I did not care for them do you think I would stay in such a gloomy house? I love them both better than anything else in the whole world, and I would not leave them, not for all the money any one could offer me."

She was evidently sincere, and Frank felt a vague relief.

"I am glad," said he, "that they have so good a friend in their own house; as for your fears you will have to bear them, for I doubt if the young ladies will ever take any one into their confidence."

"Not-not their lawyer?"

"No," said he, "not even their lawyer."

She looked disappointed and suddenly very ill at ease.

"I thought you might be masterful," she murmured, "and find Out. Perhaps you will some day, and then everything will be different. Miss Emma is the most amiable," said she, "and would not long remain a prisoner if Miss Hermione would consent to leave the house."

"Miss Emma is the younger?"

"Yes, yes, in everything."

"And the sadder!"

"I am not so sure about that, but she shows her feelings plainer, perhaps because her spirits used to be so high."

Frank now felt they had talked long enough, interesting as was the topic on which they were engaged. So turning his face towards the town, he remarked:

"I am going back to New York to-night, but I shall probably be in Marston again soon. Watch well over the young ladies, but do not think of repeating this interview unless something of great importance should occur. It would not please them if they knew you were in the habit of talking them over to me, and it is your duty to act just as they would wish you to."

"I know it, sir, but when it is for their good-"

"I understand; but let us not repeat it, Doris." And he bade her a kind but significant good-by.

It was now quite dusk, and as he walked towards Dr. Sellick's office, he remembered with some satisfaction that Edgar was usually at home during the early evening. He wanted to talk to him about Hermione's father, and his mood was too impatient for a long delay. He found him as he expected, seated before his desk, and with his wonted precipitancy dashed at once into his subject.

"Edgar, you told me once that you were acquainted with Miss Cavanagh's father; that you were accustomed to visit him. What kind of a man was he? A hard one?"

Edgar, taken somewhat by surprise, faltered for a moment, but only for a moment.

"I never have attempted to criticise him," said he; "but let me see; he was a straightforward man and a persistent one, never let go when he once entered upon a thing. He could be severe, but I should never have called him hard. He was like-well he was like Raynor, that professor of ours, who understood everything about beetles and butterflies and such small fry, and knew very little about men or their ways and tastes when they did not coincide with his own. Mr. Cavanagh's hobby was not in the line of natural history, but of chemistry, and that is why I visited him so much; we used to experiment together."

"Was it his pastime or his profession? The house does not look as if it had been the abode of a rich man."

"He was not rich, but he was well enough off to indulge his whims. I think he inherited the few thousands, upon the income of which he supported himself and family."

"And he could be severe?"

"Very, if he were interrupted in his work; at other times he was simply amiable and absent-minded. He only seemed to live when he had a retort before him."

"Of what did he die?"

"Apoplexy, I think; I was not here, so do not know the particulars."

"Was he-" Frank turned and looked squarely at his friend, as he-always did when he had a venturesome question to put-"was he fond of his daughters?"

Edgar had probably been expecting some such turn in the conversation as this, yet he frowned and answered quite hastily, though with evident conscientiousness:

"I could not make out; I do not know as I ever tried to; the matter did not interest me."

But Frank was bound to have a definite reply.

"I think you will be able to tell me if you will only give your mind to it for a few moments. A father cannot help but show some gleam of affection for two motherless girls."

"Oh, he was proud of them," Edgar hurriedly asserted, "and liked to have them ready to hand him his coffee when his experiments were over; but fond of them in the way you mean, I think not. I imagine they often missed their mother."

"Did you know her?"

"No, only as a child. She died when I was a youngster."

"You do not help me much," sighed Frank.

"Help you?"

"To solve the mystery of those girls' lives."

"Oh!" was Edgar's short exclamation.

"I thought I might get at it by learning about the father, but nothing seems to give me any clue."

Edgar rose with a restless air.

"Why not do as I do-let the matter alone?"

"Because," cried Frank, hotly, "my affections are engaged. I love Hermione Cavanagh, and I cannot leave a matter alone that concerns her so nearly."

"I see," quoth Edgar, and became very silent. When Frank returned to New York it was with the resolution to win the heart of Hermione and then ask her to tell him her secret. He was so sure that whatever it was, it was not one which would stand in the way of his happiness.

XI. Love

Frank's next business was to read the packet of letters which had been found in old Mrs. Wakeham's bed. The box abstracted by Huckins had been examined during his absence and found to contain securities, which, together with the ready money and papers taken from the clock, amounted to so many thousands that it had become quite a serious matter to find the heir. Huckins still clung to the house, but he gave no trouble. He was satisfied, he said, to abide by the second will, being convinced that if he were patient he would yet inherit through it. His sister Harriet was without doubt dead, and he professed great willingness to give any aid possible in verifying the fact. But as he could adduce no proofs nor suggest any clue to the discovery of this sister's whereabouts if living, or of her grave if dead, his offers were disregarded, and he was allowed to hermitize in the old house undisturbed.

Meantime, false clues came in and false claims were raised by various needy adventurers. To follow up these clues and sift these claims took much of Frank Etheridge's time, and when he was not engaged upon this active work he employed himself in reading those letters to which I have already alluded.

They were of old date and were from various sources. But they conveyed little that was likely to be of assistance to him. Of the twenty he finally read, only one was signed Harriet, and while that was very interesting to him, as giving some glimpses into the early history of this woman, it did not give him any facts upon which either he or the police could work. I will transcribe the letter here:

"MY DEAR CYNTHIA:

"You are the only one of the family to whom I dare write. I have displeased father too much to ever hope for his forgiveness, while mother will never go against his wishes, even if the grief of it should make me die. I am very unhappy, I can tell you that, more unhappy than even they could wish, but they must never know it, never. I have still enough pride to wish to keep my misery to myself, and it would be just the one thing that would make my burden unbearable, to have them know I regretted the marriage on account of which I have been turned away from their hearts and home forever. But I do regret it, Cynthia, from the bottom of my heart. He is not kind, and he is not a gentleman, and I made a terrible mistake, as you can see. But I do not think I was to blame. He seemed so devoted, and used to make me such beautiful speeches that I never thought to ask if he were a good man; and when father and mother opposed him so bitterly that we had to meet by stealth, he was always so considerate, and yet so determined, that he seemed to me like an angel till we were married, and then it was too late to do anything but accept my fate. I think he expected father to forgive us and take us home, and when he found these expectations false he became both ugly and sullen, and so my life is nothing but a burden to me, and I almost wish I was dead. But I am very strong, and so is he, and so we are likely to live on, pulling away at the chain that binds us, till both are old and gray.

"Pretty talk for a young girl's reading, is it not? But it relieves me to pour out my heart to some one that loves me, and I know that you do. But I shall never talk like this to you again or ever write you another letter. You are my father's darling, and I want you to remain so, and if you think too much of me, or spend your time in writing to me, he will find it out, and that will help neither of us. So good-by, little Cynthia, and do not be angry that I put a false address at the top of the page, or refuse to tell you where I live, or where I am going. From this hour Harriet is dead to you, and nothing shall ever induce me to break the silence which should remain between us but my meeting you in another world, where all the follies of this will be forgotten in the love that has survived both life and death.

"Your sorrowing but true sister,

"HARRIET."

The date was forty years back, and the address was New York City-an address which she acknowledged to be false. The letter was without envelope.

The only other allusion to this sister found in the letters was in a short note written by a person called Mary, and it ran thus:

"Do you know whom I have seen? Your sister Harriet. It was in the depot at. New Haven. She was getting off the train and I was getting on, but I knew her at once for all the change which ten years make in the most of us, and catching her by the arm, I cried, 'Harriet, Harriet, where are you living?' How she blushed and what a start she gave! but as soon as she saw who it was she answered readily enough, 'In Marston,' and disappeared in the crowd before I could say another word. Wasn't it a happy chance, and isn't it a relief to know she is alive and well. As for her looks, they were quite lively, and she wore nice clothing like one in very good circumstances. So you see her marriage did not turn out as badly as some thought."

This was of old date also, and gave no clue to the sender, save such as was conveyed by the signature Mary. Mary what? Mr. Huckins was the only person who was likely to know.

Frank, who had but little confidence in this man and none in his desire to be of use in finding the legal heir, still thought it best to ask him if there was any old friend of the family whose first name was Mary. So he went to Flatbush one afternoon, and finding the old miser in his house, put to him this question and waited for his reply.

It came just as he expected, with a great show of willingness that yet was without any positive result.

"Mary? Mary?" he repeated, "we have known a dozen Marys. Do you mean any one belonging to this town?"

"I mean some one with whom your sister was intimate thirty years ago. Some one who knew your other sister, the one who married Smith; some one who would simply sign her first name in writing to Mrs. Wakeham, and who in speaking of Mrs. Smith would call her Harriet."

"Ah!" ejaculated the cautious Huckins, dropping his eyes for fear they would convey more than his tongue might deem fit. "I'm afraid I was too young in those days to know much about my sister's friends. Can you tell me where she lived, or give me any information beyond her first name by which I could identify her?'

"No," was the lawyer's quick retort; "if I could I should not need to consult you; I could find the woman myself."

"Ah, I see, I see, and I wish I could help you, but I really don't know whom you mean, I don't indeed, sir. May I ask where you got the name, and why you want to find the woman?"

"Yes, for it involves your prospects. This Mary, whoever she may have been, was the one to tell Mrs. Wakeham that Harriet Smith lived in Marston. Doesn't that jog your memory, Huckins? You know you cannot inherit the property till it is proved that Harriet is dead and left no heirs."

"I know," he whined, and looked quite disconsolate, but he gave the lawyer no information, and Frank left at last with the feeling that he had reached the end of his rope.

As a natural result, his thoughts turned to Marston-were they ever far away from there? "I will go and ease my heart of some of its burden," thought he; "perhaps my head may be clearer then, and my mind freer for work." Accordingly he took the train that day, and just as the dew of evening began to fall, he rode into Marston and stopped at Miss Cavanagh's door.

He found Hermione sitting at an old harp. She did not seem to have been playing but musing, and her hands hung somewhat listlessly upon the strings. As she rose the instrument gave out a thrilling wail that woke an echo in his sensibilities for which he was not prepared. He had considered himself in a hopeful frame of mind, and behold, he was laboring instead under a morbid fear that his errand would be in vain. Emma was not present, but another lady was, whose aspect of gentle old age was so sweet and winning that he involuntarily bent his head in reverence to her, before Hermione could utter the introduction which was trembling on her tongue.

"My father's sister," said she, "and our very dear aunt. She is quite deaf, so she would not hear you speak if you attempted it, but she reads faces wonderfully, and you see she is smiling at you as she does not smile at every one. You may consider yourself introduced."

Frank, who had a tender heart for all misfortune, surveyed the old lady wistfully. How placid she looked, how at home with her thoughts! It was peacefulness to the spirit to meet her eye. Bowing again, he turned towards Hermione and remarked:

"What a very lovely face! She looks as if she had never known anything but the pleasures of life."

"On the contrary," returned Hermione, "she has never known much but its disappointments. But they have left no trace on her face, or in her nature, I think. She is an embodiment of trust, and in the great silence there is about her, she hears sounds and sees visions which are denied to others. But when did you come to Marston?"

He told her he had just arrived, and, satisfied with the slight look of confusion which mantled her face at this acknowledgment, launched into talk all tending to one end, his love for her. But he did not reach that end immediately; for if the old lady could not hear, she could see, and Frank, for all his impetuosity, possessed sufficient restraint upon himself not to subject himself or Hermione to the criticism of even this most benignant relative. Not till Mrs. Lovell left the room, as she did after a while,-being a very wise old lady as well as mild,-did he allow himself to say:

"There can be but one reason now for my coming to Marston-to see you, Miss Cavanagh; I have no other business here."

"I thought," she began, with some confusion-evidently she had been taken by surprise,-"that you were looking for some one, a Harriet Smith, I think, whom you had reason to believe once lived here."

"I did come to Marston originally on that errand, but I have so far failed in finding any trace of her in this place that I begin to think we were mistaken in our inferences that she had ever lived here."

"Yet you had reason for thinking that she did," Hermione went on, with the anxiety of one desirous to put off the declaration she probably saw coming.

"Yes; we had reasons, but they prove to have been unfounded."

"Was-was your motive for finding her an important one?" she asked, with some hesitation, and a look of curiosity in her fine eyes.

"Quite; a fortune of some thousands is involved in her discovery. She is heiress to at least a hundred thousand dollars from a sister she has not seen since they were girls together."

"Indeed!" and Hermione's eyes opened in some surprise, then fell before the burning light in his.

"But do not let us talk of a matter that for me is now of secondary interest," cried he, letting the full stream of his ardor find its way. "You are all I can think of now; you, you, whom I have loved since I caught the first glimpse of your face one night through the window yonder. Though I have known you but a little while, and though I cannot hope to have awakened a kindred feeling in you, you have so filled my mind and heart during the few short weeks since I learned your name, that I find it impossible to keep back the words which the sight of your face calls forth. I love you, and I want to guard you from loneliness forever. Will you give me that sweet right?"

"But," she cried, starting to her feet in an excitement that made her face radiantly beautiful, "you do not seem to think of my misfortune, my-"

"Do you mean this scar?" he whispered softly, gliding swiftly to her side. "It is no misfortune in my eyes; on the contrary, I think it endears you to me all the more. I love it, Hermione, because it is a part of you. See how I feel towards it!" and he bent his head with a quick movement, and imprinted a kiss upon the mark she had probably never touched herself but with shrinking.

"Oh!" went up from her lips in a low cry, and she covered her face with her hands in a rush of feeling that was not entirely connected with that moment.

"Did you think I would let that stand in my way?" he asked, with a proud tenderness with which no sensitive woman could fail to be impressed. "It is one reason more for a man to love your beautiful face, your noble manners, your soft white hand. I think half the pleasure would be gone from the prospect of loving you if I did not hope to make you forget what you have perhaps too often remembered."

She dropped her hands, and he saw her eyes fixed upon him with a strange look.

"O how wicked I have been!" she murmured. "And what good men there are in the world!"

He shook his head.

"It is not goodness," he began, but she stopped him with a wave of her hand.

A strange elation seemed to have taken hold of her, and she walked the floor with lifted head and sparkling eye.

"It restores my belief in love," she exclaimed, "and in mankind." And she seemed content just to brood upon that thought.

But he was not; naturally he wished for some assurance from her; so he stepped in her path as she was crossing the room, and, taking her by the hands, said, smilingly:

"Do you know how you can testify your appreciation in a way to make me perfectly happy?"

She shook her head, and tried to draw her hands away.

"By taking a walk, the least walk in the world, beyond that wooden gate."

She shuddered and her hands fell from his.

"You do not know what you ask," said she; then after a moment, "it was that I meant and not the scar, when I spoke of my misfortune. I cannot go outside the garden wall, and I was wrong to listen to your words for a moment, knowing what a barrier this fact raises up between us."

"Hermione,-" he was very serious now, and she gathered up all her strength to meet the questions she knew were coming,-"why cannot you go beyond the garden gate? Cannot you tell me? Or do you hesitate because you are afraid I shall smile at your reasons for this determined seclusion?"

"I am not afraid of your smiling, but I cannot give my reasons. That I consider them good must answer for us both."

"Very well, then, we will let them answer. You need not take the walk I ask, but give me instead another pleasure-your promise to be my wife."

"Your wife?"

"Yes, Hermione."

"With such a secret between us?"

"It will not be a secret long."

"Mr. Etheridge," she cried with emotion, "you do not know the woman you thus honor. If it had been Emma-"

"It is you I love."

"It would have been safe," she went on as if she had not heard him. "She is lovely, and amiable, and constant, and in her memory there is no dark scar as there is in mine, a scar deeper than this," she said, laying her finger on her cheek, "and fully as ineffaceable."

"Some day you will take me into your confidence," he averred, "and then that scar will gradually disappear."

"What confidence you have in me!" she cried. "What have you seen, what can you see in me to make you trust me so in face of my own words?"

"I think it is the look in your eyes. There is purity there, Hermione, and a deep sadness which is too near like sorrow to be the result of an evil action."

"What do you call evil?" she cried. Then suddenly, "I once did a great wrong-in a fit of temper-and I can never undo it, never, yet its consequences are lasting. Would you give your heart to a woman who could so forget herself, and who is capable of forgetting herself again if her passions are roused as they were then?"

"Perhaps not," he acknowledged, "but my heart is already given and I do not know how to take it back."

"Yet you must," said she. "No man with a career before him should marry a recluse, and I am that, whatever else I may or may not be. I would be doing a second ineffaceable wrong if I took advantage of your generous impulse and bound you to a fate that in less than two months would be intolerably irksome to one of your temperament."

"Now you do not know me," he protested.

But she heeded neither his works nor his pleading look.

"I know human nature," she avowed, "and if I do not mingle much with the world I know the passions that sway it. I can never be the wife of any man, Mr. Etheridge, much less of one so generous and so self-forgetting as yourself."

"Do you-are you certain?" he asked.

"Certain."

"Then I have not succeeded in raising one throb of interest in your breast?"

She opened her lips and his heart stood still for her answer, but she closed them again and remained standing so long with her hands locked together and her face downcast, that his hopes revived again, and he was about to put in another plea for her hand when she looked up and said firmly:

"I think you ought to know that my heart does not respond to your suit. It may make any disappointment which you feel less lasting."

He uttered a low exclamation and stepped back.

"I beg your pardon," said he, "I ought not to have annoyed you. You will forget my folly, I hope."

"Do you forget it!" cried she; but her lips trembled and he saw it.

"Hermione! Hermione!" he murmured, and was down at her feet before she could prevent it. "Oh, how I love you!" he breathed, and kissed her hand wildly, passionately.

XII. How Much Did It Mean?

Frank Etheridge left the presence of Hermione Cavanagh, carrying with him an indelible impression of her slender, white-robed figure and pallid, passion-drawn face. There was such tragedy in the latter, that he shuddered at its memory, and stopped before he reached the gate to ask himself if the feeling she displayed was for him or another. If for another, then was that other Dr. Sellick, and as the name formed itself in his thoughts, he felt the dark cloud of jealousy creep over his mind, obscuring the past and making dangerous the future.

"How can I know," thought he, "how can I know?" and just as the second repetition passed his lips, he heard a soft step near him, and, looking up, saw the gentle Emma watering her flowers.

To gain her side was his first impulse. To obtain her confidence the second. Taking the heavy watering-pot from her hand, he poured its contents on the rose-bush she was tending, and then setting it down, said quietly:

"I have just made your sister very unhappy. Miss Cavanagh."

She started and her soft eyes showed the shadow of an alarm.

"I thought you were her friend," she said.

He drew her around the corner of the house towards the poplar trees. "Had I been only that," he avowed, "I might have spared her pain, but I am more than that, Miss Cavanagh, I am her lover."

The hesitating step at his side paused, and though no great change came into her face, she seemed to have received a shock.

"I can understand," said she, "that you hurt her."

"Is she so wedded to the past, then?" he cried. "Was there some one, is there some one whom she-she-"

He could not finish, but the candid-eyed girl beside him did not profess to misunderstand him. A pitiful smile crossed her lips, and she looked for a minute whiter than her sister had done, but she answered firmly:

"You could easily overcome any mere memory, but the decision she has made never to leave the house, I fear you cannot overcome."

"Does it spring-forgive me if I go beyond the bounds of discretion, but this mystery is driving me mad-does it spring from that past attachment you have almost acknowledged?"

She drooped her head and his heart misgave him. Why should he hurt both these women when his whole feeling towards them was one of kindness and love?

"Pardon me," he pleaded. "I withdraw the question; I had no right to put it."

"Thank you," said she, and looked away from him towards the distant prospect of hill and valley lying before them.

He stood revolving the matter in his disturbed mind.

"I should have been glad to have been the means of happiness to your sister and yourself. Such seclusion as you have imposed upon yourselves seems unnecessary, but if it must be, and this garden wall is destined to be the boundary of your world, it would have been a great pleasure to me to have brought into it some freshness from the life which lies beyond it. But it is destined not to be."

The sad expression in her face changed into one of wistfulness.

"Then you are not coming any more?" said she.

He caught his breath. There was disappointment in her tones and this could mean nothing but regret, and regret meant the loss of something which might have been hope. She felt, then, that he might have won her sister if he had been more patient.

"Do you think it will do for me to come here after your sister has told me that it was useless for me to aspire to her hand?"

She gave him for the first time a glance that had the element of mirthfulness in it.

"Come as my friend," she suggested; then in a more serious mood added: "It is her only chance of happiness, but I do not know that I would be doing right in influencing you to pursue a suit which may not be for yours. You know, or will know after reflection (and I advise you to reflect well), whether an alliance with women situated as we are would be conducive to your welfare. If you decide yes, think that a woman taken by surprise, as my sister undoubtedly was, may not in the first hurried moment of decision know her own mind, but also remember that no woman who has taken such a decision as she has, is cast in the common mould, and that you may but add to your regrets by a persistency she may never fully reward."

Astonished at her manner and still more astonished at the intimation conveyed in her last words, he looked at her as one who would say:

"But you also share her fate and the resolve that made it."

She seemed to understand him.

"Free Hermione," she whispered, "from the shackles she has wound about herself and you will free me."

"Miss Emma," he began, but she put her finger on her lips.

"Hush!" she entreated; "let us not talk any more about it. I have already said what I never meant should pass my lips; but the affection I bear my sister made me forget myself; she does so need to love and be loved."

"And you think I-"

Ah, sir, you must be the judge of your own chances. You have heard her refusal and must best know just how much it means."

How much it means!" Long did Frank muse over that phrase, after he had left the sweet girl who had uttered it. As he sat with Edgar at supper, his abstracted countenance showed that he was still revolving the question, though he endeavored to seem at home with his friend and interested in the last serious case which had occupied the attention of the newly settled doctor. How much it means! Not much, he was beginning to say to himself, and insensibly his face began to brighten and his manner to grow less restrained, when Edgar, who had been watching him furtively, broke out:

"Now you are more like yourself. Business responsibilities are as hard to shake off as a critical case in medicine."

"Yes," was the muttered reply, as Frank rose from the table, and took the cigar his friend offered him. "And business with me just now is particularly perplexing. I cannot get any clue to Harriet Smith or her heirs, nor can the police or the presumably sharp detective I have put upon the search."

"That must please Huckins."

"Yes, confound him! such a villain as he is! I sometimes wonder if he killed his sister."

"That you can certainly find out."

"No, for she had a mortal complaint, and that satisfies the physicians. But there are ways of hastening a death, and those I dare avow he would not be above using. The greed in his eyes would do anything; it even suffices to make him my very good friend, now that he sees that he might lose everything by opposing me."

"I am glad you see through his friendship."

"See through a sieve?"

"He plays his part badly, then?"

"He cannot help it, with that face of his; and then he gave himself away in the beginning. No attitude he could take now would make me forget the sneak I saw in him then."

This topic was interesting, but Edgar knew it was no matter of business which had caused the fitful changes he had been observing in Frank's tell-tale countenance. Yet he did not broach any other theme, and it was Frank who finally remarked:

"I suppose you think me a fool to fix my heart on a woman with a secret."

"Fool is a strong word," answered Edgar, somewhat bitterly, "but that you were unfortunate to have been attracted by Hermione Cavanagh, I think any man would acknowledge. You would acknowledge it yourself, if you stopped to weigh the consequences of indulging a passion for a woman so eccentric."

"Perhaps I should, if my interest would allow me to stop. But it won't, Edgar; it has got too strong a hold upon me; everything else sinks in importance before it. I love her, and am willing to sacrifice something for her sake."

"Something, perhaps; but in this case it would be everything."

"I do not think so."

"You do not think so now; but you would soon."

"Perhaps I should, but it is hard to realize it. Besides, she would drop her eccentricities if her affections once became engaged."

"Oh, if you have assurance of that."

"Do I need assurance? Doesn't it stand to reason?

A woman loved is so different from a woman-" scorned, he was going to say, but, remembering himself, added softly, "from a woman who has no one to think of but herself."

"This woman has a sister," observed Edgar.

Frank faltered. "Yes, and that sister is involved in her fate," thought he, but he said, quietly: "Emma Cavanagh does not complain of Hermione; on the contrary, she expresses the greatest affection for her."

"They are both mysteries," exclaimed Edgar, and dropped the subject, though it was not half talked out.

Frank was quite willing to accept his silence, for he was out of sorts with his friend and with himself. He knew his passion was a mad one, and yet he felt that it had made giant strides that day, and had really been augmented instead of diminished by the refusal he had received from Hermione, and the encouragement to persistence which he had received from her usually shy sister. As the evening wore on and the night approached, his thoughts not only grew in intensity, but deepened into tenderness. It was undoubtedly a passion that had smitten him, but that passion was hallowed by the unselfish feelings of a profound affection. He did not want her to engage herself to him if it would not be for her happiness. That it would be, every throb of his heart assured him, but he might be mistaken, and if so, better her dreams of the past than a future he could not make bright. He was so moved at the turmoil which his thoughts made in his usually quiet breast, that he could not think of sleep, but sat in his room for hours indulging in dreams which his practical nature would have greatly scorned a few short weeks before. He saw her again in fancy in every attitude in which his eyes had ever beheld her, and sanctified thus by distance, her beauty seemed both wonderful and touching. And that was not all. Some chord between them seemed to have been struck, and he felt himself drawn towards her as if (it was a strange fancy) she stood by that garden gate, and was looking in his direction with rapt, appealing eyes. So strong became that fancy at last, that he actually rose to his feet and went to the window which opened towards the south.

"Hermione! Hermione!" broke in longing from his lips, and then annoyed at what he could not but consider a display of weakness on his part he withdrew from the window, determined to forget for the moment that there lived for him such a cause for love and sorrow. But what man can forget by a mere effort of will, or what lover shut his eyes to the haunting vision which projects itself upon the inner consciousness. In fancy he saw her still, and this time she seemed to be pacing up and down the poplar walk, wringing her hands and wildly calling his name. It was more than he could bear. He must know if this was only an hallucination, and in a feverish impulse he rushed from his room with the intention of going to her at once.

But he no sooner stood in the hall than he realized he was not alone in the house, and that he should have to pass Edgar's door. He naturally felt some hesitation at this and was inclined to give up his purpose. But the fever urging him on said no; so stealing warily down the hall he stepped softly by the threshold of his friend's room, when to his surprise he perceived that the door was ajar.

Pushing it gently open he found the room brilliant with moonlight but empty. Greatly relieved and considering that the doctor had been sent for by some suffering patient, he passed at once out of the house.

He went directly to that of Hermione, walking where the shadows were thickest as if he were afraid of being recognized. But no one was in the streets, and when he reached the point where the tall poplar-trees made a wall against the moonbeams, he slid into the deep obscurity he found there with a feeling of relief such as the heart experiences when it is suddenly released from some great strain.

Was she in the poplar walk? He did not mean to accost her if she were, nor to show himself or pass beyond the boundary of the wall, but he must know if her restless spirit drove her to pace these moonlit walks, and if it were true or not that she was murmuring his name.

The gate which opened in the wall at the side of the house was in a direct line with the window he had long ago fixed upon as hers. He accordingly took up his station at that spot and as he did so he was sure that he saw the flitting of some dark form amid the alternate bands of moonlight and shadow that lay across the weird pathway before him. Holding his breath he listened. Oh, the stillness of the night! How awesome and yet how sweet it was! But is there no break in the universal silence? Above his head the ever restless leaves make a low murmuring, and far away in the dim distances rises a faint sound that he cannot mistake; it is the light footfall of a dainty woman.

He can see her now. She is coming towards him, her shadow gliding before her. Seeing it he quails. From the rush of emotion seizing him, he knows that he should not be upon this spot, and panting with the effort, he turns and flees just as the sudden sound of a lifted window comes from the house.

That arrests him. Pausing, he looks of the window that is open, and in the dark square thus made he sees her face bright with the moonlight streaming over it. Instantly he recovers himself. It is Emma's step, not Hermione's, he hears upon the walk, Hermione is above and in an anxious mood, for she is looking eagerly out and calling her sister by name.

"I am coming," answers back the clear, low voice of Emma from below.

"It is late," cries Hermione, "and very cold. Come in, Emma."

"I am coming," repeated the young girl. And in another moment he heard her step draw nearer, saw her flitting figure halt for a moment on the door-step before him and then disappear just as the window closed above. He had not been observed.

Relieved, he drew a long breath and leaned his head against the garden wall. Ah, how fair had been the vision of his beloved one's face in the moonlight. It filled him with indescribable thoughts; it made his spirit reel and his heart burn; it made him ten times her lover. Yet because he was her lover he felt that he ought not to linger there any longer; that the place was hallowed even from his presence, and that he should return at once to the doctor's house. But when he lifted his head he heard steps, this time not within the wall but on the roadside behind him, and alert at once to the mischievous surmises which might be aroused by the discovery of his presence there, he remained perfectly still in the hope that his form would be so lost in the deep shadows where he had withdrawn himself, that he would not be seen.

But the person, whoever it was, had evidently already detected him, for the footsteps turned the corner and advanced rapidly to where he stood. Should he step forward and meet the intruder, or remain still and await the words of surprise he had every reason to expect? He decided to remain where he was, and in another moment realized his wisdom in doing so, for the footsteps passed on and did not halt till they had reached the gate. But they paused there and at once he felt himself seized by a sudden jealousy and took a step forward, eager to see what this man would do.

He did not do much; he cast a look up at the house, and a heavy sigh broke from his lips; then he leaned forward and plucked a rose that grew inside the wall and kissed it there in the moonlight, and put it inside his breast-pocket; then he turned again towards the highway, and started back in surprise to see Frank Etheridge standing before him.

"Edgar!" cried the one.

"Frank!" exclaimed the other.

"You have misled me," accused Frank; "you do love her, or you would not be here."

"Love whom?" asked Edgar, bitterly.

"Hermione."

"Does Hermione tend the flowers?"

"Ah!" ejaculated Frank, understanding his friend for the first time; "it is Emma you are attached to. I see! I see! Forgive me, Edgar; passion is so blind to everything but its own object. Of course it is Emma; why shouldn't it be!"

Yet for all its assurance his voice had strange tones in it, and Edgar, already annoyed at his own self-betrayal, looked at him suspiciously as they drew away together towards the main street.

"I am glad to find this out," said Frank, with a hilarity slightly forced, or so thought his friend, who could not know what thoughts and hopes this discovery had awakened in the other's breast. "You have kept your secret well, but now that I know it you cannot refuse to make me your confidant, when there is so much to tell involving my happiness as well as your own."

"I have no happiness, Frank."

"Nor I; but I mean to have."

"Mean to marry Miss Cavanagh?"

"Of course, if I can induce her to marry me."

"I do not mean to marry Emma."

"You do not? Because she has a secret? because she is involved in a mystery?"

"Partly; that would be enough, Frank; but I have another good reason. Miss Emma Cavanagh does not care for me."

"You know that? You have asked her?"

"A year ago; this is no sudden passion with me; I have loved her all my life."

"Edgar! And you mean to give her up?"

"Give her up?"

"If I were you, nothing would induce me to resign my hopes, not even her own coldness. I would win her. Have you tried again since your return?"

"Frank, she is a recluse now; I could not marry a recluse; my wife must play her part in the world, and be my helpmate abroad as well as at home."

"Yes, yes; but as I said in my own case, win her love and that will all right itself. No woman's resolve will hold out against a true passion."

"But you forget, she has no true passion for me."

Frank did not answer; he was musing over the subject. He had had an opportunity for seeing into the hearts of these girls which had been denied to Edgar. Had he seen love there? Yes, but in Hermione's breast, not Emma's. And yet Emma was deeply sad, and it was Emma whom he had just seen walking her restlessness off under the trees at midnight.

"Edgar," he suddenly exclaimed, "you may not understand this girl. Their whole existence is a mystery, and so may their hearts be. Won't you tell me how it was she refused you? It may serve to throw some light upon the facts."

"What light? She refused me as all coquettish women refuse the men whom they have led to believe in their affection."

"Ah! you. once believed, then, in her affection."

"Should I have offered myself if I had not?"

"I don't know; I only know I didn't wait for any such belief on the part of Hermione."

"You are impulsive, Frank, I am not; I weigh well what I do, fortunately for myself."

"Yet you did not prosper in this affair."

"No, because I did not take a woman's waywardness into consideration. I thought I had a right to count upon her regard, and I found myself mistaken."

"Explain yourself," entreated Frank.

"Will not to-morrow do? Here we are at home, and it must be one o'clock at least."

"I should sleep better if I knew it all now," Frank intimated.

"Well, then, come to my room; but there is nothing in the story to specially interest you. I loved her-"

"Edgar, you must be explicit. I am half lawyer in listening to this tale; I want to understand these girls."

"Girls? It is of Emma only that I have to speak."

"I know, but tell the story with some details; tell me where you first met her."

"Oh, if I must," sighed Edgar, who hated all talk about himself, "let's be comfortable." And throwing himself into a chair, he pointed out another to Frank.

"This is more like it," acknowledged the latter.

Edgar lit a cigar; perhaps he felt that he could hide all emotion behind its fumes. Frank did not take one.

"I have known Emma Cavanagh ever since we were children," began Edgar. "As a school-boy I thought her the merriest-eyed witch in town. -Is she merry now?"

Frank shook his head.

"Well, I suppose she has grown older, but then she was as full of laughter and fun as any blue-eyed Mischief could well be, and I, who have a cynical turn of mind, liked the brightness of hers as I shall never like her sadness-if she is sad. But that was in my adolescence, and being as shy as I was inclined to be cynical, I never showed her my preference, or even joined the mirthful company of which she was the head. I preferred to stand back and hear her laughter, or talk to Hermione while watching her sister."

"Ah!" thought Frank.

"When I went to college she went to school, and when I graduated as a doctor she was about graduating also. But she did not come home at that time for more than a fleeting visit. Friends wished her company on a trip abroad, and she went away from Marston just as I settled here for my first year of practice. I was disappointed at this, but I made what amends to myself I could by cultivating the acquaintance of her father, and making myself necessary to him by my interest in his studies. I spent much of my spare time at the house, and though I never asked after Emma, I used to get continual news of her from her sister."

"Ah!" again ejaculated Frank to himself.

"At last she returned, and-I do not know how she looks now, but she was pretty then, wonderfully pretty, and more animated in her manner than any other woman I have ever seen. I saw her first at a picnic, and though I lacked courage to betray the full force of my feeling, I imagined she understood me, for her smiles became dazzling, and she joked with everybody but me. At last I had her for a few minutes to myself, and then the pent up tension of months had its way, and I asked her to be my wife. Frank, you may find it easy to talk about these things, but I do not. I can only say she seemed to listen to me with modest delight, and when I asked her for her answer she gave me a look I shall never forget, and would have spoken but that her father called her just then, and we were obliged to separate. I saw her for just another moment that day, but there were others about, and I could only whisper, 'If you love me, come to the ball next week'; to which she gave me no other reply than an arch look and a smile which, as I have said before, appeared to promise me all I could desire. Appeared, but did not; for when I called at the house the next day I was told that Mr. Cavanagh was engaged in an experiment that could not be interrupted, and when I asked to see the ladies received word that they were very busy preparing for the ball and could see no one. Relieved at this, for the ball was near at hand, I went home, and being anxious to do the honorable thing, I wrote to Mr. Cavanagh, and, telling him that I loved his daughter, formally asked for the honor of her hand. This note I sent by a messenger.

"I did not receive an immediate reply (why do you want all these particulars, Frank?); but I did not worry, for her look was still warm in my memory. But when two days passed and no message arrived I became uneasy, and had it not been for the well-known indifference of Mr. Cavanagh to all affairs of life outside of his laboratory, I should have given up in despair. But as it was, I kept my courage up till the night of the ball, when it suddenly fell, never to rise again. For will you believe it, Frank, she was not there, nor any of her family, though all had engaged to go, and had made many preparations for the affair, as I knew."

"And did no letter come? Did you never see Miss Cavanagh again, or any of her family?"

"I received a note, but it was very short, though it was in Emma's handwriting. She had not been well, was her excuse, and so could not be present at the ball. As for the offer I had been kind enough to make her, it was far above her deserts, and so must be gratefully declined. Then came a burst of something like contrition, and the prayer that I would not seek to make her alter her mind, as her decision was irrevocable. Added to this was one line from her father, to the effect that interesting as our studies were, he felt compelled to tell me he should have no further time to give to them at present, and so bade me a kindly adieu. Was there ever a more complete dismissal? I felt as if I had been thrust out of the house."

Frank, who was nothing if not sympathetic, nodded quickly, but did not break into those open expressions of indignation which his friend had evidently anticipated. The truth was, he was too busy considering the affair, and asking himself what part Hermione had taken in it, and whether all its incongruities were not in some way due to her. He was so anxious to assure himself that this was not so, that he finally asked:

"And was that the end? Did you never see any of them again?"

"I did not wish to," was the answer. "I had already thought of trying my fortunes in the West, and when this letter came, it determined me. In three weeks I had left Marston as I thought forever, but I was not successful in the West."

"And you will be here," observed Frank.

"I think so," said Edgar, and became suddenly silent.

Frank looked at him a long time and then said quietly:

"I am glad you love her still."

Edgar, flushing, opened his lips, but the other would not listen to any denial.

"If you had not loved her, you would not have come back to Marston, and if you did not love her still, you would not pluck roses from her wall at midnight."

"I was returning from a patient," objected Edgar, shortly.

"I know, but you stopped. You need not blush to own it, for, as I say, I think it a good thing that you have not forgotten Miss Cavanagh." And not being willing to explain himself further, Frank rose and sauntered towards the door. "We have talked well into the night," he remarked; "supposing we let up now, and continue our conversation to-morrow."

"I am willing to let up," acquiesced Edgar, "but why continue to-morrow? Nothing can be gained by fruitless conjectures on this subject, while much peace of mind may be lost by them."

"Well, perhaps you are right," quoth Frank.

XIII. Fresh Doubts

Frank was recalled to business the next day by the following letter from Flatbush:

DEAR MR. ETHERIDGE:

It has been discovered this afternoon that Mr. Huckins has left town. When he went or where he has gone, no one seems to know. Indeed, it was supposed that he was still in the house, where he has been hiding ever since the investigations were over, but a neighbor, having occasion to go in there to-day, found the building empty, and all of Mr. Huckins' belongings missing. I thought you would like to know of this disappearance.

Yours truly,

A. W. SENEY.

As this was an affair for the police, Frank immediately returned to New York; but it was not many days before he was back again in Marston, determined to see Miss Cavanagh once more, and learn if his suit was as really hopeless as it appeared. He brought a box of some beautiful orchids with him, and these he presented to Miss Emma as being the one most devoted to flowers.

Hermione looked a little startled at his presence, but Mrs. Lovell, the dear old lady who was paying them a visit, smiled gently upon him, and he argued well from that smile, knowing that it was not without its meaning from one whose eyes were so bright with intelligence as hers.

The evening was cool for summer, and a fire had been lighted in the grate. By this fire they all sat and Frank, who was strangely happy, entertained the three recluses with merry talk which was not without a hidden meaning for one of the quiet listeners. When the old aunt rose and slipped away, the three drew nearer, and the conversation became more personal. At last-how was it done-Emma vanished also, and Frank, turning to utter some witty speech, found only Hermione's eyes confronting him in the fire-glow. At once the words faltered on his tongue, and leaning forward he reached out his hand, for she was about to rise also.

"Do not rob me of this one moment," he prayed. "I have come back, you see, because I could not stay away. Say that it does not anger you; say that I may come now and then and see your face, even if I may not hope for all that my heart craves."

"Do I look angry?" she asked, with a sad smile.

"No," he whispered; "nor do you look glad."

"Glad," she murmured, "glad-"; and the bitterness in her tone revealed to him how strong were the passions that animated her. "I have no business with gladness, not even if my own fate changed. I have forfeited all joy, Mr. Etheridge; and that I thought you understood."

"You speak like one who has committed a crime," he smiled; "nothing else should make you feel as you do."

She started and her eyes fell. Then they rose suddenly and looked squarely into his. "There are other crimes than those which are marked by blood," said she. "Perhaps I am not altogether guiltless."

Frank shuddered; he had expected her to repel the charge which he had only made in the hopes of showing her into what a morbid condition she had fallen.

"My hands are clean," she went on, "but my soul is in shadow. Why did you make me speak of it? You are my friend and I want to keep your friendship, but you see why it must not grow into love; must not, I say, for both our sakes. It would be fatal."

"I do not see that," he cried impetuously. "You do not make me see it. You hint and assert, but you tell me nothing. You should give me facts, Hermione, and then I could judge whether I should go or stay."

She flushed, and her face, which had been lifted to his, slowly sank.

"You do not know what you ask of me," she murmured.

"I know that I have asked you to be my wife."

"And it was generous of you, very generous. Such generosity merits confidence, but-Let us talk of something else," she cried. "I am not fit-not well enough, I mean, to speak of serious matters to-night. Tell me about your affairs. Tell me if you have found Harriet Smith."

"No," he returned, greatly disappointed, for there had been something like yielding in her manner a moment before. "There is no Harriet Smith, and I do not even know that there is a Hiram Huckins, for he too has disappeared and cannot be found."

"Hiram Huckins?"

"Yes, her brother and the brother of Mrs. Wakeham, whose will has made all this trouble. He is the heir who will inherit her property if Harriet Smith or her children cannot be found, and as the latter contingency is not likely to happen, it is odd that he should have run away without letting us know where he can be found."

"Is he a good man?"

"Hardly. Indeed I consider him a rascal; but he has a good claim on the property, as I have already said, and that is what angers me. A hundred thousand dollars should not fall into the hands of one so mean and selfish as he is."

"Poetic justice is not always shown in this world. Perhaps if you found the true heirs, you would find them also lacking in much that was admirable."

"Possibly; but they would not be apt to be as bad as he is."

"Is he dishonest?"

"I do not like to accuse him, but neither would I like to trust him with another man's money.'

"That is unfortunate," said she. "And he will really have this money if you do not find any nearer heirs?"

"Certainly; his name follows theirs in the will."

"It is a pity," she observed, rising and moving towards the harp. "Do you want to hear a song that Emma composed when we were happier than we are now?"

"Indeed I do," was his eager reply. "Sing, I entreat you, sing; it will make me feel as if the gloom was lifting from between us."

But at this word, she came quickly back and sat down in her former place by the fire.

"I do not know what came over me," said she; "I never sing." And she looked with a severe and sombre gaze into the flames before her.

"Hermione, have you no right to joy, or even to give joy to others?"

"Tell me more about the case that is interesting you. Supposing you found Harriet Smith or her children?"

"I would show them the will and put them in the way of securing their fortune."

"I should like to see that will."

"Would you?"

"Yes, it would interest me."

"You do not look very interested."

"Do I not? Yet I am, I assure you."

"Then you shall see it, or rather this newspaper copy of it which I happen to have in my pocket-book."

"What, that little slip?"

"It is not very large."

"I thought a will was something ponderous."

"Sometimes it is, but this is short and very much to the point; it was drawn up in haste."

"Let me take it," said she.

She took it and carried it over to the lamp. Suddenly she turned about and her face was very white.

"What odd provision is this," she cried, "about the heir being required to live a year in the house where this woman died?"

"Oh," said he, "that is nothing; any one who inherits this money would not mind such a condition as that. Mrs. Wakeham wanted the house fitted up, you see. It had been her birthplace."

Hermione silently handed him back the slip. She looked so agitated that he was instantly struck by it.

"Why are you affected by this?" he cried. "Hermione, Hermione, this is something to you!"

She roused herself and looked calmly at him, shaking her head.

"You are mistaken," she declared. "It is nothing to me.

"To some one you know, then,-to your sister?"

"How could it be anything to her, if not to me?"

"True; I beg your pardon; but you seem to feel a personal disappointment."

"You do not understand me very well," said she, and turned towards the door in welcome of her sister, who just then came in. She was followed by Doris with a tray on which were heaped masses of black and white cherries in bountiful profusion.

"From our own trees," said Emma, as she handed him a plate.

He made his acknowledgments, and leaned forward to take the cherries which Doris offered him.

"Sir," whispered that woman, as she pushed into view a little note which she held in her hand under the tray, "just read this, and I won't disobey you again. It's something you ought to know. For the young ladies' sakes do read it, sir."

He was very angry, and cast her a displeased look, but he took the note. Hermione was at the other end of the room, and Emma was leaning over her aunt, so the action was not seen; but he felt guilty of a discourtesy for all that, and ate his cherries with a disturbed mind. Doris, on the contrary, looked triumphant, and passed from one to the other with a very cheerful smile.

When Frank arrived home he read that note. It was from Doris herself, and ran thus:

"Something has happened to the young ladies. They were to have had new dresses this month, and now they say they must make the old ones do. There is less too for dinner than there was, and if it were not for the fruit on our trees we would not have always enough to eat. But that is not the worst; Miss Emma says I shall have to leave them, as they cannot pay me any longer for my work. As if I would leave them, if I starved! Do, do find out what this means, for it is too much to believe that they are going to be poor with all the rest they have to endure."

Find out what it meant! He knew what it meant; they had sacrificed their case, and now they must go hungry, wear old clothes, and possibly do their own work. It made him heart-sick; it made him desperate; it made him wellnigh forget her look when she said: "Our friendship must not grow into love, must not, I say, for both our sakes. It would be fatal."

He resolved to see Hermione the next morning, and, if possible, persuade her to listen to reason, and give up a resolve that endangered both her own and her sister's future comfort.

XIV. In The Night Watches

Meantime in the old house Hermione sat watching Emma as she combed out her long hair before the tiny mirror in their bedroom. Her face, relieved now from all effort at self-control, betrayed a deep discouragement, which deepened its tragic lines and seemed to fill the room with gloom. Yet she said nothing till Emma had finished her task and looked around, then she exclaimed:

"Another curse has fallen upon us; we might have been rich, but must remain poor. Do you think we can bear many more disappointments, Emma?"

"I do not think that I can," murmured Emma, with a pitiful smile. "But what do you mean by riches? Gaining our case would not have made us rich."

"No."

"Has-has Mr. Etheridge offered himself? Have you had a chance of that happiness, and refused it?"

Hermione, who had been gazing almost sadly at her sister as she spoke the foregoing words, flushed, half angrily, half disdainfully, and answered with sufficient bitterness in her voice:

"Could I accept any man's devotion now? Could I accept even his if it were offered to me? Emma, your memory seems very short, or you have never realized the position in which I stand."

Emma, who had crimsoned as painfully as her sister at that one emphasized word, which suggested so much to both sisters, did not answer for a moment, but when she did her words came with startling distinctness.

"You do me wrong; I not only have realized, to the core of my heart, your position and what it demands, but I have shared it, as you know, and never more than when the question came up as to whether we girls could marry with such a shadow hanging over us."

"Emma, what do you mean?" asked Hermione, rising and confronting her sister, with wide open, astonished eyes. For Emma's appearance was, startling, and might well thrill an observer who had never before seen her gentleness disturbed by a passion as great as she herself might feel.

But Emma, at the first sight of this reflection of her own emotions in Hermione's face, calmed her manner, and put a check upon her expression.

"If you do not know," said she, "I had rather not be the one to tell you. But never say again that I do not realize your position."

"Emma, Emma," pursued Hermione, without a change of tone or any diminution in the agitation of her manner to show that she had heard these words, "have you had a lover and I not know it? Did you give up that when-" The elder sister choked; the younger smiled, but with an infinite sadness.

"I should not have spoken of it," said she; "I would not have done so, but that I hoped to influence you to look on this affair with different eyes. I-I believe you ought to embrace this new hope, Hermione. Do but tell him!"

"Tell him! that would be a way to gain him surely."

"I do not think it would cause you to lose him; that is, if you could assure him that your heart is free to love him as such a man ought to be loved."

The question in these words made Hermione blush and turn away; but her emotion was nothing to that of the quieter sister, who, after she had made this suggestion, stood watching its effect with eyes in which the pain and despair of a year seemed at once to flash forth to light.

"I honor him," began Hermione, in a low, broken voice, "but you know it was not honor simply that I felt for-"

"Do not speak his name," flashed out Emma. "He-you-do not care for each other, or-or-you and I would never be talking as we are doing here to-night. I am sure you have forgotten him, Hermione, for all your hesitations and efforts to be faithful. I have seen it in your eyes for weeks, I have heard it in your voice when you have spoken to this new friend. Why then deceive yourself; why let a worn-out memory stand in the way of a new joy, a real joy, an unsullied and wholly promising happiness?"

"Emma! Emma, what has come to you? You never talked to me like this before. Is it the memory of this folly only that stands in the way of what you so astonishingly advocate? Can a woman situated as I am, give herself up to any hope, any joy?"

"Yes, for the situation will change when you yield yourself once again to the natural pleasures of life. I do not believe in the attitude you have taken, Hermione; I have never believed in it, yet I have cheerfully shared it because, because-you know why; do not let us talk of those days."

"You do not know all my provocation," quoth Hermione.

"Perhaps not, but nothing can excuse the sacrifice you are making of your life. Consider, Hermione. Why should you? Have you not duties to the present, as well as to the past? Should you not think of the long years that may lie between this hour and a possible old age, years which might be filled with beneficence and love, but which now-"

"Emma, Emma, what are you saying. Are you so tired of sharing my fate that you would try to make me traitor to my word, traitor to my love-"

"Hush," whispered again Emma, "you do not love him. Answer me, if you do. Plunge deep into your heart, and say if you feel as you did once; I want to hear the words from your lips, but be honest."

"Would it be any credit to me if I did not? Would you think more of me if I acknowledged the past was a mistake, and that I wrecked my life for a passion which a year's absence could annul."

But the tender Emma was inexorable, and held her sister by the hands while she repeated.

"Answer, answer! or I shall take your very refusal for a reply."

But Hermione only drooped her head, and finally drew away her hands.

"You seem to prefer the cause of this new man," she murmured ironically. "Perhaps you think he will make the better brother-in-law."

The flush on Emma's cheek spread till it dyed her whole neck.

"I think," she observed gravely, "that Mr. Etheridge is the more devoted to you, Hermione. Dr. Sellick"-what did not that name cost her?-"has not even looked up at our windows when riding by the house."

Hermione's eye flashed, and she bounded imperiously to her feet.

"And that is why I think that he still remembers. And shall I forget?" she murmured more softly, "while he cherishes one thought of grief or chagrin over the past?"

Emma, whose head had fallen on her breast, played idly with her long hair, and softly drew it across her face.

"If you knew," she murmured, "that he did not cherish one thought such as you imagine, would you then open your heart to this new love and the brightness in the world and all the hopes which belong to our time of life."

"If, if," repeated Hermione, staring at the half-hidden face of her sister as at some stranger whom she had found persistent and incomprehensible. "I don't know what you mean by your ifs. Do you think it would add to my content and self-satisfaction to hear that I had reared this ghastly prison which I inhabit on a foundation of sand, and that the walls in toppling would crash about my ears and destroy me? You must have a strange idea of a woman's heart, if you thought it would make me any readier to face life if I knew I had sacrificed my all to a chimera."

Emma sighed. "Not if it gave you a new hope," she whispered.

"Ah," murmured Hermione, and her face softened for the first time. "I dare not think of that," she murmured. "I dare not, Emma; I DARE NOT."

The younger sister, as if answered, threw back her hair and looked at Hermione quite brightly.

"You will come to dare in time," said she, and fled from the room like a spirit.

When she was gone, Hermione stood still for many minutes; then she began quietly to let down her own hair. As the long locks fell curling and dark about her shoulders, a dreamier and dreamier spirit came upon her, mellowing the light in her half-closed eyes, and bringing such a sweet, half-timid, half-longing smile to her lips that she looked the embodiment of virginal joy. But the mood did not last long, and ere the thick curls were duly parted and arranged for the night, the tears had begun to fall, and the sobs to come till she was fain to put out her light and hide behind the curtains of her bed the grief and remorse which were pressing upon her.

Meanwhile Emma had stolen to her aunt's room, and was kneeling down beside her peaceful figure.

"Aunt, dear Aunt," she cried, "tell me what my duty is. Help me to decide if Hermione should be told the truth which we have so long kept from her."

She knew the old lady could not hear, but she was in the habit of speaking to her just as if she could, and often through some subtle sympathy between them the sense of her words was understood and answered in a way to surprise her.

And in this case Mrs. Lovell seemed to understand, for she kissed Emma with great fondness, and then, taking the sweet, troubled, passionate face between her two palms, looked at her with such love and sympathy that the tears filled Emma's eyes, for all her efforts at self-control.

"Tell her," came forth at last, in the strange, loud tones of the perfectly deaf, "and leave the rest to God. You have kept silence, and the wound has not healed; now try the truth, and may heaven bless you and the two others whom you desire to make happy."

And Emma, rising up, thanked God that he had left them this one blessing in their desolation-this truehearted and tender-souled adviser.

***

That night, as Hermione was tossing in a restless sleep, she suddenly became aware of a touch on her shoulder, and, looking up, she saw her sister standing before her, with a lighted candle in her hand, and her hair streaming about her.

"What is the matter?" she cried, bounding up in terror, for Emma's face was livid with its fixed resolve, and wore a look such as Hermione had never seen there before.

"Nothing," cried the other, "nothing; only I have something to tell you-something which you should have known a long time ago-something about which you should never have been deceived. It is this, Hermione. It was not you Dr. Sellick wished to marry, but myself." And with the words the light was blown out, and Hermione found herself alone.

BOOK II.

THE SECRET OF THE LABORATORY

XV. The Beginning of Changes

As Frank went by the house early the next morning on his way to the train, he paused and glanced at one of the upper windows, where he had once before seen Hermione's face looking out. The blinds were closed, but the slats were slightly turned, and through them he thought, but he could not be quite sure, he caught the glimpse of a pair of flashing eyes. In the hope that this was so, he laid his hand upon the gate and then glanced up again, as if asking permission to open it. The blinds moved and in another instant fell back, and he saw the face he loved, looking very pale but sweet, bending towards him from the clustering honeysuckles.

"May I come in," he asked, "just for a few words more? You know we were interrupted last night."

She shook her head, and his heart sank; then she seemed to repent her decision and half opened her lips as if to speak, but no words came. He kept his hand on the gate, and his face grew eloquent.

"You cannot say no," he now pleaded, smiling at the blush that was slowly mantling on her cheek. "I may not be here again for weeks, and if you do not let me say good-by I shall always think I have displeased you, and that will not add to my happiness or peace."

"Wait," came in sudden eagerness from her lips, and he saw her disappear from the window and appear, almost before he could realize his own relief, in the open doorway before him. "Come in," said she, with the first full glad smile he had ever seen on her lips.

But though he bounded up the steps he did not enter the house. Instead of that he seized her hand and tried to induce her to come out in the open air to him. "No close rooms," said he, "on such a morning as this. Come into the poplar-walk, come; let me see you with the wind blowing your hair about your cheeks."

"No, no!" burst from her lips in something almost like fright. "Emma goes into the garden, but not I. Do not ask me to break the habit of months, do not."

But he was determined, tenderly, firmly determined.

"I must," said he; "I must. Your white cheeks and worn face demand the freshness of out-door air. I do not say you must go outside the gate, but I do say you must feel again what it is to have the poplars rustle above your head and the grass close lovingly over your feet. So come, Hermione, come, for I will not take no, I will not, even from the lips whose business it shall be to command me in everything else."

His eyes entreated her, his hand constrained her; she sought to do battle with his will, but her glances fell before the burning ardor of his. With a sudden wild heave of her breast, she yielded, and he drew her down into the garden and so around to the poplar-walk. As she went the roses came out on her cheeks, and she seemed to breathe like a creature restored to life.

"Oh, the blue, blue sky!" she cried, "and oh, the hills! I have not seen them for a year. As for the poplars, I should love to kiss their old boughs, I am so glad to be beneath them once more."

But as she proceeded farther her spirits seemed to droop again, and she cast him furtive looks as much as to say:

"Is it right? ought I to be enjoying all this bliss?"

But the smile on his face was so assured, she speedily took courage again, and allowed him to lead her to the end of the poplar-walk, far up in those regions where his eye had often strayed but his feet never been even in fancy. On a certain bench they sat down, and he turned towards her a beaming face.

"Now I feel as if you were mine," he cried. "Nothing shall part us after this, not even your own words."

But she put her hands out with a meek, deprecating gesture, very unlike the imperious one she had indulged in before.

"You must not say that," she cried. "My coming out may have been a weakness, but it shall not be followed by what you yourself might come to regard as a wrong. I am here, and it was for your pleasure I came, but that commits me to nothing and you to nothing, unless it be to the momentary delight. Do you hear that bird sing?"

"You are lovely with that flickering sunlight on your face," was all the reply he made.

And perhaps he could have made no better, for it gave her a sweet sense of helplessness in the presence of this great love, which to a woman who had been so long bearing herself up in solitary assertion had all the effect of rest and relief.

"You make me feel as if my youth was not quite gone," said she; "but," she added, as his hand stole towards hers, "you have not yet made me feel that I must listen to all the promptings of love. There is a gulf between me and you across which we cannot shake hands. But we can speak, friend, to one another, and that is a pleasure to one who has travelled so long in a wilderness alone. Shall we not let that content us, or do you wish to risk life and all by attempting more?"

"I wish to risk everything, anything, so as to make you mine."

"You do not know what you are saying. We are talking pure foolishness," was her sudden exclamation, as she leapt to her feet. "Here, in this pure air and in sight of the fields and hills, the narrow, confining bands which have held me to the house seem to lose their power and partake of the unsubstantiality of a dream. But I know that with my recrossing of the threshold they will resume their power again, and I shall wonder I could ever talk of freedom or companionship with one who does not know the secrets of the house or the shadow which has been cast by them upon my life."

"You know them, and yet you would go back," he cried. "I should say the wiser course would be to turn away from a place so fatal to your happiness and hopes, and, yielding to my entreaties, go with me to the city, where we will be married, and-"

"Frank, what a love you have for me! a love which questions nothing, not even my past, notwithstanding I say it is that past which separates us and makes me the recluse I am."

"You have filled me with trust by the pure look in your eyes," said he. "Why should I ask you to harrow up your feelings by telling me what you would have told me long ago, if it had not been too painful?"

"You are a great, good man," she cried. "You subdue me who have never been subdued before, except by my own passionate temper. I reverence you and I-love-you. Do not ask me to say anything more." And the queenly, imperious form swayed from side to side, and the wild tears gushed forth, and she fled from his side down the poplar-walk, till she came within sight of the house, when she paused, gathering up her strength till he reached the place where she stood, when she said:

"You are coming again, some time?"

"I am coming again in a week."

"You will find a little packet awaiting you in the place where you stay. You will read it before you see me again?"

"I will read it."

"Good-by," said she; and her face in its most beautiful aspect shone on him for a moment; then she retreated, and was lost to his view in the shrubbery.

As he passed the house on his way to the gate, he saw Doris casting looks of delight down the poplar-walk, where her young mistress was still straying, and at the same instant caught a hurried glimpse of Mrs. Lovell and Emma, leaning from the window above, in joyful recognition of the fact that a settled habit had been broken, and that at his inducement Hermione had consented to taste again the out-door air.

He was yet in time for the train, for he had calculated on this visit, and so made allowances for it. He was therefore on the point of turning towards the station, when he saw the figure of a man coming down the street, and stopped, amazed. Was it-could it be-yes, it was Hiram Huckins. He was dressed in black, and looked decent, almost trim, but his air was that of one uncertain of himself, and his face was disfigured by an ingratiating leer which Etheridge found almost intolerable. He was the first to speak.

"How do you do, Mr. Etheridge?" said he, ambling up, and bowing with hypocritical meekness. "You didn't expect to see me here, did you? But business calls me. My poor, dear sister Harriet is said to have been in Marston, and I have come to see if it is true. I do not find her, do you?"

The sly, half-audacious, half-deprecating look with which he uttered these words irritated Frank beyond endurance.

"No," he rejoined. "Your valuable time will be wasted here. You will have to look elsewhere for your dear sister."

"It has taken you a long time to find that out," insinuated the other, with his most disagreeable leer. "I suppose, now, you thought till this very last night that you would find her in the graveyard or in some of these old houses. Else why should you waste your valuable time in a place of such mean attractions?"

They were standing directly in front of the Cavanagh house and Frank was angry enough to lift his hand against him at these words, for the old man's eyes-he was not old but he always presented the appearance of being so-had wandered meaningly towards the windows above him, as if he knew that behind them, instead of in any graveyard, centred the real attractions of the place for Frank.

But though a lawyer may have passions, he, as a rule, has learned to keep a curb upon them, especially in the presence of one who is likely to oppose him.

So bowing with an effort at politeness, young Etheridge acknowledged that he had only lately given up his hope, and was about to withdraw in his haste to catch the train, when Huckins seized him by the arm with a low chuckle and slyly whispered:

"You've been visiting the two pretty hermitesses, eh? Are they nice girls? Do they know anything about my sister? You look as if you had heard good news somewhere. Was it in there?"

He was eager; he was insinuating; he seemed to hang upon Frank's reply. But the lawyer, struck and troubled by this allusion to the women he so cherished, on lips he detested beyond any in the world, stood still for a moment, looking the indignation he dared not speak.

Huckins took advantage of this silence to speak again, this time with an off-hand assurance only less offensive than his significant remarks.

"I know they keep at home and do not go out in the world to hear the gossip. But women who keep themselves shut up often know a lot about what is going on around them, Mr. Etheridge, and as you have been there I thought-"

"Never mind what you thought," burst out Frank, unable to bear his insinuations any longer. "Enough that I do not go there to hear anything about Harriet Smith. There are other law cases in the world besides yours, and other clients besides your sister and her heirs. These young ladies, for instance, whom you speak of so freely."

"I am sure," stammered Huckins, with great volubility, and an air of joviality which became him as little as the suspicious attitude he had hitherto taken, "I never meant to speak with the least disrespect of ladies I have never met. Only I was interested you know, naturally interested, in anything which might seem to bear upon my own affairs. They drag so, don't they, Mr. Etheridge, and I am kept so long out of my rights."

"No longer than justice seems to demand, Mr. Huckins; your sister, and her heirs, if they exist, have rights also."

"So you say," quoth Huckins, "and I have learned not to quarrel with a lawyer. Good-day, Mr. Etheridge, good-day. Hope to hear that some decision has been arrived at soon."

"Good-day," growled Frank, and strode rapidly off, determined to return to Marston that very night if only to learn what Huckins was up to. But before he had gone a dozen steps he came quickly back and seized that person by the arm. "Where are you going?" he asked; for Huckins had laid his hand on Miss Cavanagh's gate and was about to enter.

"I am going to pay a visit," was the smiling reply. "Is there anything wrong in that?"

"I thought you did not know these young ladies-that they were strangers to you?"

"So they are, so they are, but I am a man who takes a great interest in eccentric persons. I am eccentric myself; so was my sister Cynthia; so I may say was Harriet, though how eccentric we have still to find out. If the young ladies do not want to see an old man from New York they can say so, but I mean to give them the chance. Have you anything to say against it?"

"No, except that I think it an unwarrantable intrusion about which you had better think twice-"

"I have thought," retorted Huckins, with a mild obstinacy that had a sinister element in it, "and I can't deny myself the pleasure. Think of it! two healthy and beautiful girls under twenty-four who never leave the house they live in! That is being more unlike folks than Cynthia and myself, who were old and who had a fortune to guard. Besides we did leave the house, or rather I did, when there was business to look after or food to buy. But they don't go out for anything, I hear, anything. Mr. Ruthven-he is the minister you know-has given me his card by way of introduction; so you see they will have to treat me politely, and that means I shall at least see their faces."

His cunning, his satisfaction, and a certain triumph underlying all, affected Frank like the hiss of a serpent. But the business awaiting him in New York was imperative, and the time remaining to him before the train left was barely enough to enable him to reach the station. So curbing his disgust and the dread he had of seeing this knave enter Hermione's door, he tore himself away and made what haste he could to the station. He arrived just as the first whistle of the coming train was heard, and owing to a short delay occasioned by the arrival of a telegram at the station, he was enabled to write two notes, one to Miss Cavanagh and one to Dr. Sellick. These he delivered to Jerry, with strict injunctions to deliver them immediately, and as the train moved off carrying him back to his duties, he had the satisfaction of seeing the lumbering figure of that slow but reliable messenger disappear around the curve in the highway which led directly to Miss Cavanagh's house.

XVI. A Strange Visitor

Frank's visit and interview with Hermione had this advantage for the latter, that it took away some of the embarrassment which her first meeting with Emma, after the revelations of the night before, had necessarily occasioned. She had breakfasted in her own room, feeling that it would be impossible for her to meet her sister's eye, but having been led into giving such proof of her preference for Mr. Etheridge, and the extent of his influence over her, there could of course be no further question of Dr. Sellick, or any need for explanations between herself and Emma regarding a past thus shown to be no longer of vital interest to her. When, therefore, she came in from the garden and saw Emma waiting for her at the side-door, she blushed, but that was all, in memory of the past night; and murmuring some petty commonplace, sought to pass her and enter again the house which she had not left before in a full year.

But Emma, who was bright with a hope she had not felt in months, stopped her with a word.

"There is an old man waiting in the parlor who says he wants to see us. He sent in this card-it has Dr. Ruthven's name on it-and Doris says he seemed very eager and anxious. Can you guess who he can be?"

"No," rejoined Hermione, wondering. "But we can soon see. Our visitors are not so numerous that we can afford to slight one." And tripping by Emma, she led the way into the parlor.

A slight, meagre, eager-eyed man, clad in black and wearing a propitiatory smile on very thin lips, rose as she entered, and bowed with an awkward politeness that yet had something of the breeding of a gentleman in it

Hermione did not like his looks, but she advanced cordially enough, perhaps because her heart was lighter than usual, and her mind less under the strain of one horrible fixed idea than it had been in months.

"How do you do?" said she, and looked at him inquiringly.

Huckins, with another bow, this time in recognition of her unexpected beauty and grace, shambled uneasily forward, and said in a hard, strained voice which was even more disagreeable than his face:

"I am sure you are very good to receive me, Miss Cavanagh. I-I had a great desire to come. Your father-"

She drew back with a gasp.

"My father-" she repeated.

"Was an old friend of mine," he went on, in a wheedling tone, in seeming oblivion of the effect his words had had upon her. "Did you never hear him speak of Hope, Seth Hope?"

"Never," cried Hermione, panting, and looking appealingly at Emma, who had just entered the room.

"Yet we were friends for years," declared the dissimulator, folding his hands with a dreary shake of his head.

"For years?" repeated Emma, advancing and surveying him earnestly.

"Our father was a much older man than you, Mr.-Mr. Hope."

"Perhaps, perhaps, I never saw him. But we corresponded for years. Have you not come across letters signed by my name, in looking over his effects?"

"No," answered Emma, firmly, while Hermione, looking very pale, retreated towards the door, where she stopped in mingled distress and curiosity.

"Then he must have destroyed them all," declared their visitor. "Some people do not keep letters. Yet they were full of information, I assure you; full, for it was upon the ever delightful subject of chemistry we corresponded, and the letters I wrote him sometimes cost me a week's effort to indite."

Emma, who had never met a man like this before, looked at him with wide-open eyes. Had Hermione not been there, she would have liked to have played with his eccentricities, and asked him numberless questions. But with her sister shrinking in the doorway, she dared not encourage him to pursue a theme which she perceived to be fraught with the keenest suffering for Hermione. So she refrained from showing the distrust which she really felt, and motioning the old man to sit down, asked, quietly:

"And was it for these letters you came? If so, I am sorry that none such have been found."

"No, no," cried Huckins, with stammering eagerness, as he marked the elder sister's suspicious eyes and unencouraging manner. "It was not to get them back that I ventured to call upon you, but for the pleasure of seeing the house where he lived and did so much wonderful work, and the laboratory, if you will be so good. Why has your sister departed?" he suddenly inquired, in fretful surprise, pointing to the door where Hermione had stood a moment before.

"She probably has duties," observed Emma, in a troubled voice. "And she probably was surprised to hear a stranger ask to see a room no one but the members of his family have entered since our father's death."

"But I am not a stranger," artfully pursued the cringing Huckins, making himself look as benevolent as he could. "I am an admirer, a devoted admirer of your remarkable parent, and I could show you papers"-but he never did,-"of writing in that same parent's hand, in which he describes the long, narrow room, with its shelves full of retorts and crucibles, and the table where he used to work, with the mystic signs above it, which some said were characters taken from cabalistic books, but which he informed me were the new signs he wished to introduce into chemistry, as being more comprehensive and less liable to misinterpretation than those now in use."

"You do seem to know something about the room," she murmured softly, too innocent to realize that the knowledge he showed was such as he could have gleaned from any of Mr. Cavanagh's intimate friends.

"But I want to see it with my own eyes. I want to stand in the spot where he stood, and drink in the inspiration of his surroundings, before I go back to my own great labor."

"Have you a laboratory? Are you a chemist?" asked Emma, interested in despite of the dislike his wheedling ways and hypocritical air naturally induced.

"Yes, yes, I have a laboratory," said he; "but there is no romance about mine; it is just the plain working-room of a hard-working man, while his-"

Emma, who had paled at these words almost as much as her sister had done at his first speech about her father, recoiled with a look in which the wonderment was strangely like fear.

"I cannot show you the room," said she. "You exaggerate your desire to see it, as you exaggerate the attainments and the discoveries of my father. I must ask you to excuse me," she continued, with a slight acknowledgment in which dismissal could be plainly read. "I am very busy, and the morning is rapidly flying. If you could come again-"

But here Hermione's full deep tones broke from the open doorway.

"If he wishes to see the place where father worked, let him come; there is no reason why we should hide it from one who professes such sympathy with our father's pursuits."

Huckins, chuckling, looked at Emma, and then at her sister, and moved rapidly towards the door. Emma, who had been taken greatly by surprise by her sister's words, followed slowly, showing more and more astonishment as Hermione spoke of this place, or that, on their way upstairs, as being the spot where her father's books were kept, or his chemicals stored, till they came to the little twisted staircase at the top, when she became suddenly silent.

It was now Emma's turn to say:

"This is the entrance to the laboratory. You see it is just as you have described it."

Huckins, with a sly leer, stepped into the room, and threw around one quick, furtive look which seemed to take in the whole place in an instant. It was similar to his description, and yet it probably struck him as being very different from the picture he had formed of it in his imagination. Long, narrow, illy lighted, and dreary, it offered anything but a cheerful appearance, even in the bright July sunshine that sifted through the three small windows ranged along its side. At one end was a row of shelves extending from the floor to the ceiling, filled with jars, chemicals, and apparatus of various kinds. At the other end was a table for collecting gases, and beneath each window were more shelves, and more chemicals, and more apparatus. A large electric machine perched by itself in one corner, gave a grotesque air to that part of the room, but the chief impression made upon an observer was one of bareness and desolation, as of the husk of something which had departed, leaving a smell of death behind. The girls used the room for their dreary midnight walks; otherwise it was never entered, except by Doris, who kept it in perfect order, as a penance, she was once heard to declare, she having a profound dislike to the place, and associating it always, as we have before intimated, with some tragic occurrence which she believed to have taken place there.

Huckins, after his first quick look, chuckled and rubbed his hands together, in well-simulated glee.

"Do I see it?" he cried; "the room where the great Cavanagh thought and worked! It is a privilege not easily over-estimated." And be flitted from shelf to drawer, from drawer to table, with gusts of enthusiasm which made the cold, stern face of Hermione, who had taken up her stand in the doorway, harden into an expression of strange defiance.

Emma, less filled with some dark memory, or more swayed by her anxiety to fathom his purposes, and read the secret of an intrusion which as yet was nothing but a troublous mystery to her, had entered the room with him, and stood quietly watching his erratic movements, as if she half expected him to abstract something from the hoard of old chemicals or collection of formulas above which he hung with such a pretence of rapture.

"How good! how fine! how interesting!" broke in shrill ejaculation from his lips as he ambled hither and thither. But Emma noticed that his eye ever failed to dwell upon what was really choice or unique in the collection of her father's apparatus, and that when by chance he touched an alembic or lifted a jar, it was with an awkwardness that betrayed an unaccustomed hand.

"You do not hold a retort in that way," she finally remarked, going up to him and taking the article in question out of his hand. "This is how my father was accustomed to handle them," she proceeded, and he, taken aback for the instant, blushed and murmured something about her father being his superior and she the very apt pupil of a great scholar and a very wise man.

"You wanted to see the laboratory, and now you have seen it," quoth Hermione from her place by the door. "Is there anything else we can do for you?"

The chill, stern tones seemed to rouse him and he turned towards the speaker.

"No, no, my dear, no, no. You have been very good." But Emma noticed that his eyes still kept roaming here, there, and everywhere while he spoke, picking up information as a bird picks up worms.

"What does he want?" thought she, looking anxiously towards her sister.

"You have a very pleasant home," he now remarked, pausing at the head of those narrow stairs and peering into the nest of Hermione's own room, the door of which stood invitingly open. "Is that why you never leave it?" he unexpectedly asked, looking with his foxy eyes from one sister to the other.

"I do not think it is necessary for us to answer you," said Emma, while Hermione, with a flash in her eye, motioned him imperiously down, saying as she slowly followed him:

"Our friends do not consider it wise to touch upon that topic, how much more should a stranger hesitate before doing so?"

And he, cowering beneath her commanding look and angry presence, seemed to think she was right in this and ventured no more, though his restless eyes were never still, and he appeared to count the very banisters as his hand slid down the railing, and to take in every worn thread that showed itself in the carpet over which his feet shuffled in almost undignified haste.

When they were all below, he made one final remark:

"Your father owed me money, but I do not think of pressing my claim. You do not look as if you were in a position to satisfy it."

"Ah," exclaimed Emma, thinking she had discovered the motive of his visit at last; "that is why you wanted to see the laboratory."

"Partly," he acknowledged with a sly wink, "but not altogether. All there is there would not buy up the I. O. U. I hold. I shall have to let the matter go with other bad debts I suppose. But three hundred dollars is a goodly sum, young ladies, a goodly sum."

Emma, who knew that her father had not been above borrowing money for his experiments, looked greatly distressed for a moment, but Hermione, who had now taken her usual place as leader, said without attempting to disguise the tone of suspicion in her voice:

"Substantiate your claim and present your bill and we will try to pay it. We have still a few articles of furniture left."

Huckins, who had never looked more hypocritically insinuating or more diabolically alert, exclaimed,

"I can wait, I can wait."

But Hermione, with a grand air and a candid look, answered bitterly and at once:

"What we cannot do now we can never do. Our fortunes are not likely to increase in the future, so you had better put in your claim at once, if you really want your pay."

"You think so?" he began; and his eye, which had been bright before, now gleamed with the excitement of a fear allayed. "I-"

But just then the bell rang with a loud twang, and he desisted from finishing his sentence.

Emma went to the door and soon came back with a letter which she handed to Hermione.

"The man Jerry brought it," she explained, casting a meaning look at her sister.

Hermione, with a quick flush, stepped to the window and in the shadow of the curtains read her note. It was a simple word of warning.

DEAR MISS CAVANAGH:

I met a man at your gate who threatened to go in. Do not receive him, or if you have already done so, distrust every word he has uttered and cut the interview short. He is Hiram Huckins, the man concerning whom I spoke so frankly when we were discussing the will of the Widow Wakeham.

Yours most truly,

FRANK ETHERIDGE.

The flush with which Hermione read these lines was quite gone when she turned to survey the intruder, who had forced himself upon her confidence and that of her sister by means of a false name. Indeed she looked strangely pale and strangely indignant as she met his twinkling and restless eye, and, to any one who knew the contents of the note which she held, it would seem that her first words must be those of angry dismissal.

But instead of these, she first looked at him with some curiosity, and then said in even, low, and slightly contemptuous tones:

"Will you not remain and lunch with us, Mr. Huckins?" At this unexpected utterance of his name he gave a quick start, but soon was his cringing self again. Glancing at the letter she held, he remarked:

"My dear young lady, I see that Mr. Etheridge has been writing to you. Well, there is no harm in that. Now we can shake hands in earnest"; and as he held out his wicked, trembling palm, his face was a study for a painter.

XVII. Two Conversations

That afternoon, as Emma was sitting in her own room, she was startled by the unexpected presence of Hermione. As they were not in the habit of intruding upon each other above stairs, Emma rose in some surprise. But Hermione motioning her back into her chair, fell at her feet in sudden abandon, and, laying her head in her sister's lay, gave way to one deep sob. Emma, too much astonished to move at this unexpected humiliation of one who had never before bent her imperious head in that household, looked at the rich black locks scattered over her knees with wonder if not with awe.

"Hermione!" she whispered, "Hermione! do not kneel to me, unless it be with joy."

But the elder sister, clasping her convulsively around the waist, murmured:

"Let me be humble for a moment; let me show that I have something in me besides pride, reckless endurance, and determined will. I have not shown it enough in the past. I have kept my sufferings to myself, and my remorse to myself, and alas! also all my stern recognition of your love and unparalleled devotion. I have felt your goodness, oh, I have felt it, so much so, at times, that I thought I could not live, ought not to live, just because of what I have done to you; but I never said anything, could not say anything! Yet all the remorse I experienced was nothing to what I experience now that I know I was not even loved-"

"Hush," broke in Emma, "let those days be forgotten. I only felt that you ought to know the truth, because sweeter prospects are before you, and-"

"I understand," murmured Hermione, "you are always the great-hearted, unselfishly minded sister. I believe you would actually rejoice to see me happy now, even if it did not release you from the position you have assumed. But it shall release you; you shall not suffer any longer on my account. Even if it is only to give you the opportunity of-of meeting with Dr. Sellick, you shall go out of this house to-day. Do you hear me, Emma, to-day?"

But the ever-gentle, ever-docile Emma rose up at this, quite pale in her resolution. "Till you put foot out of the gate I remain this side of it," said she. "Nothing can ever alter my determination in this regard."

And Hermione, surveying her with slowly filling eyes, became convinced that it would be useless to argue this point, though she made an effort to do so by saying with a noble disregard of her own womanly shame which in its turn caused Emma's eyes to fill:

"Dr. Sellick has suffered a great wrong, I judge; don't you think you owe something to him?"

But Emma shook her head, though she could not prevent a certain wistful look from creeping into her face. "Not what I owe to you," said she, and then flushed with distress lest her sister should misjudge the meaning of her words.

But Hermione was in a rarely generous mood. "But I release you from any promise you have made or any obligations you may consider yourself to be under. Great heaven! do you think I would hold you to them now?"

"I hold myself," cried Emma. "You cannot release me,-except," she added, with gentle intimation, "by releasing yourself."

"I cannot release myself," moaned Hermione. "If we all perish I cannot release myself. I am a prisoner to this house, but you-"

"We are sister prisoners," interpolated Emma, softly. Then with a sudden smile, "I was in hopes that he who led you to break one resolution might induce you to break another."

But Hermione, flushing with something of her old fire, cried out warmly: "In going out of the house I broke a promise made to myself, but in leaving the grounds I should-oh, I cannot tell you what I should do; not even you know the full bitterness of my life! It is a secret, locked in this shrinking, tortured heart, which it almost breaks, but does not quite, or I should not linger in this dreadful world to be a cause of woe to those I cherish most."

"But Hermione, Hermione-"

"You think you know what has set a seal on my lips, the gloom on my brow, the death in my heart; but you do not, Emma. You know much, but not the fatal grief, the irrepressible misery. But you shall know, and know soon. I have promised to write out the whole history of my life for Mr. Etheridge, and when he has read it you shall read it too. Perhaps when you learn what the real horror of this house has been, you may appreciate the force of will-power which it has taken for me to remain in it."

Emma, who had never suspected anything in the past beyond what she herself knew, grew white with fresh dismay. But Hermione, seeing it, kissed her, and, speaking more lightly, said: "You kept back one vital secret from me in consideration of what you thought the limit of my endurance. I have done the same for you under the same consideration. Now we will equalize matters, and perhaps-who knows?-happier days may come, if Mr. Etheridge is not too much startled by the revelations I have to make him, and if Dr. Sellick-do not shrink, Emma-learns some magnanimity from his friend and will accept the explanations I shall think it my duty to offer him."

But at this suggestion, so unlike any that had ever come from Hermione's lips before, the younger sister first stared, and then flung her arms around the speaker, with cries of soft deprecation and shame.

"You shall not," she murmured. "Not if I lose him shall he ever know why that cruel letter was written. It is enough-it shall be enough-that he was dismissed then. If he loves me he will try his fate again. But I do not think he does love me, and it would be better for him that he did not. Would he ever marry a woman who, not even at his entreaty, could be induced to cross the limits of her home?"

"Mr. Etheridge should not do it either; but he is so generous-perhaps so hopeful! He may not be as much so when he has read what I have to write."

"I think he will," said Emma, and then paused, remembering that she did not know all that her sister had to relate.

"He would be a man in a thousand then," whispered the once haughty Hermione. "A man to worship, to sacrifice all and everything to, that it was in one's power to sacrifice."

"He will do what is right," quoth Emma.

Hermione sighed. Was she afraid of the right?

Meantime, in the poplar-walk below, another talk was being held, which, if these young girls could have heard it, might have made them feel even more bitterly than before, what heavy clouds lay upon any prospect of joy which they might secretly cherish. Doris, who was a woman of many thoughts, and who just now found full scope for all her ideas in the unhappy position of her two dear young ladies, had gone into the open air to pick currants and commune with herself as to what more could be done to bring them into a proper recognition of their folly in clinging to a habit or determination which seemed likely to plunge them into such difficulties.

The currant bushes were at the farther end of the garden near the termination of the poplar-walk, and when, in one of the pauses of her picking, she chanced to look up, she saw advancing towards her down that walk the thin, wiry figure of the old man who had taken luncheon with the young ladies, and whom they called, in very peculiar tones, she thought, Mr. Huckins. He was looking from right to left as he came, and his air was one of contemplation or that of a person who was taking in the beauties of a scene new to him and not wholly unpleasant.

When he reached the spot where Doris stood eying him with some curiosity and not a little distrust, he paused, looked about him, and perceiving her, affected some surprise, and stepped briskly to where she was.

"Picking currants?" he observed. "Let me help you. I used to do such things when a boy."

Astonished, and not a little gratified at what she chose to consider his condescension, Doris smiled. It was a rare thing now for a man to be seen in this lonesome old place, and such companionship was not altogether disagreeable to Mistress Doris.

Huckins rubbed his hands together in satisfaction at this smile, and sidled up to the simpering spinster with a very propitiatory air.

"How nice this all is," he remarked. "So rural, so peaceful, and so pleasant. I come from a place where there is no fruit, nor flowers, nor young ladies. You must be happy here." And he gave her a look which she thought very insinuating.

"Oh, I am happy enough," she conceded, "because I am bound to be happy wherever the young ladies are. But I could wish that things were different too." And she thought herself very discreet that she had not spoken more clearly.

"Things?" he repeated softly.

"Yes, my young ladies have odd ideas; I thought you knew."

He drew nearer to her side, very much nearer, and dropped the currants he had plucked gently into her pail.

"I know they have a fixed antipathy to going out, but they will get over that."

"Do you think so?" she asked eagerly.

"Don't you?" he queried, with an innocent look of surprise. He was improving in his dissimulation, or else he succeeded better with those of whom he had no fear.

"I don't know what to think. Are you an old friend of theirs?" she inquired. "You must be, to lunch with them."

"I never saw them before to-day," he returned, "yet I am an old friend. Reason that out," he leered.

"You like to puzzle folks," she observed, picking very busily but smiling all the while. "Do you give answers with your puzzles?"

"Not to such sharp wits as yours. But how beautiful Miss Cavanagh is. Has she always had that scar?"

"Ever since I knew her."

"Pity she should have such a blemish. You like her, don't you, very much?"

"I love her."

"And her sister-such a sweet girl!"

"I love them both."

"That is right. I should be sorry to have any one about them who did not love them. I love them, or soon shall, very much."

"Are you," Doris inquired, with great inquisitiveness, "going to remain in Marston any time?"

"I cannot say," sighed the old man; "I should like to. I should be very happy here, but I am afraid the young ladies do not like me well enough."

Doris had cherished some such idea herself an hour ago, and had not wondered at it then, but now her feelings seemed changed.

"Was it to see them you came to Marston?" said she.

"Merely to see them," he replied.

She was puzzled, but more eager than puzzled, so anxious was she to find some one who could control their eccentricities.

"They will treat you politely," she assured him. "They are peculiar girls, but they are always polite."

"I am afraid I shall not be satisfied with politeness," he insinuated. "I want them to love me, to confide in me. I want to be their friend in fact as I have so long been in fancy."

"You are some relative of theirs," she now asserted, "or you knew their father well or their mother."

"I wouldn't say no," he replied,-but to which of these three intimations, he evidently did not think it worth while to say.

"Then," she declared, "you are the man I want. Mr. Etheridge-that is the lawyer from New York who has lately been coming here-does not seem to have much confidence in himself or me. But you look as if you might do something or suggest something. I mean about getting the young ladies to give up their whims."

"Has this Mr.-Mr. Etheridge, did you call him?-been doing their business long?"

"I never saw him here till a month ago."

"Ah! a month ago! And do they like him? Do they seem inclined to take his advice? Does he press it upon them?"

"I wish I knew. I am only a poor servant, remember, though my bringing up was as good almost as theirs. They are kind to me, but I do not sit down in the parlor; if I did, I might know something of what is going on. I can only judge, you see, by looks."

"And the looks? Come, I have a great interest in the young ladies-almost as great as yours. What do their looks say?-I mean since this young man came to visit them? He is a young man, didn't you say?"

"Yes, he is young, and so good-looking. I have thought-now don't spill the currants, just as we have filled the pail-that he was a little sweet on Miss Hermione, and that that was why he came here so often, and not because he had business."

"You have?" twitted the old man, almost dancing about her in his sudden excitement. "Well, well, that must be seen to. A wedding, eh, a wedding? That's what you think is coming?" And Doris could not tell whether it was pleasure or alarm that gave so queer a look to his eyes.

"I cannot say-I wish I could," she fervently cried; "then I might hope to see a change here; then we might expect to see these two sweet young ladies doing like other folks and making life pleasant for themselves and every one about them. But Miss Hermione is a girl who would be very capable of saying no to a young man if he stood in the way of any resolve she had taken. I don't calculate much on her being influenced by love, or I would never have bothered you with my troubles It is fear that must control her, or-" Doris paused and looked at him knowingly-"or she must be lured out of the house by some cunning device."

Huckins, who had been feeling his way up to this point, brightened as he noticed the slyness of the smile with which she emphasized this insinuation, and from this moment felt more assured. But he said nothing as yet to show how he was affected by her words. There was another little matter he wanted settled first.

"Do you know," he asked, "why she, and her sister, too, I believe, have taken this peculiar freak? Have they ever told you, or have you ever-" how close his head got to hers, and how he nodded and peered-"surprised their secret?"

Doris shook her head. "All a mystery," she whispered, and began picking currants again, that operation having stopped as they got more earnest.

"But it isn't a mystery," he laughed, "why you want to get them out of the house just now, I know your reason for that, and think you will succeed without any device of love or cunning."

"I don't understand you," she protested, puckering her black brows and growing very energetic. "I don't want to do it now any more than I have for the last twelve months. Only I am getting desperate. I am not one who can want a thing and be patient. I want Miss Hermione Cavanagh and her sister to laugh and be gay like other girls, and till they give up all this nonsense of self-seclusion they never will; and so I say to myself that any measures are justifiable that lead to that end. Don't you think I am right?"

He smiled warily and took her pail of currants from her hand.

"I think you are the brightest woman and have one of the clearest heads I ever knew. I don't remember when I have seen a woman who pleased me so well. Shall we be friends? I am only a solitary bachelor travelling hither and thither because I do not know how else to spend my money; but I am willing to work for your ends if you are willing to work for mine."

"And what are they?" she simpered, looking very much delighted. Doris was not without ambition, and from this moment not without her hopes.

"To make these young ladies trust me so that I may visit them off and on while I remain in this place. I thought it was pleasant here before, but now-" The old fellow finished with a look and a sigh, and Doris' subjugation was complete.

Yet she did not let him at this time any further into her plans, possibly because she had not formed any. She only talked on more and more about her love for the young ladies, and her wonder over their conduct, and he, listening for any chance word which might help him in his own perplexity, walked back at her side, till they arrived in sight of the house, when he gave her the pail and slunk back to come on later alone. But a seed was sown at that interview which was destined to bear strange fruit; and it is hard telling which felt the most satisfaction at the understood compact between them-the hard, selfish, and scheming miser, or the weak and obstinate serving-woman, who excused to herself the duplicity of her conduct by the plea, true enough as far as it went, that she was prompted by love for those she served, and a desire to see the two women she admired as bright and happy as their youth and beauty demanded.

XVIII. Suspense

The letter which Frank sent to Edgar described his encounter with Huckins, and expressed a wish that the Doctor would employ some proper person to watch his movements and see that he did not make himself disagreeable to the Misses Cavanagh, whom he had evidently set himself to annoy.

What, then, was Etheridge's surprise to receive on the following day a reply from his friend, to the effect that Mr. Huckins had not only called upon the young ladies mentioned by him, but had made himself very much at home with them, having lunched, dined, and report even said breakfasted at their table.

This was startling news to Frank, especially after the letter he had written to Hermione, but he restrained himself from returning at once to Marston, as he was half tempted to do, and wrote her again, this time beseeching her in plain words to have nothing to do with so suspicious a person as he knew this Huckins to be, and advised her where to appeal for assistance in case this intolerable intruder was not willing to be shaken off.

This letter brought the following answer:

DEAR MR. ETHERIDGE:

Do not be concerned about us. Mr. Huckins will not trouble us unduly. Knowing his character, we are not likely to be misled by him, and it amuses us in our loneliness to have so queer and surprising a person as our guest.

Aunt Lovell is very sharp and keeps a keen eye upon him. He does not offend us except by his curiosity, but as that is excusable in an old man introduced into a household like ours, we try to make the best of it. When you come yourself we will dismiss the intruder.

Ever sincerely yours,

HERMIONE CAVANAGH.

This letter was put very near Frank's heart, but it did not relieve him from his anxiety. On the contrary, it added to his fears, because it added to his mystification. What did Huckins want of the Misses Cavanagh, and what was the real reason for the indulgence they showed him? Was there a secret in their connection which he ought to know? He began to hasten his business and plan to leave the city again, this time for more than a single night.

Meantime, Dr. Sellick was not without his own secret doubts. Hide it as he would, he still cherished the strongest affection for the once dimpling, dainty, laughing-eyed Emma. Not a day passed but he had to combat a fervent desire to pass her gate, though when he yielded to this temptation he went by like an automaton, and never looked to right or left unless it was dark night.

His was a proud soul and an exacting one. His self-esteem had been hurt, and he could not bring himself to make even the shadow of an advance towards one who had been the instrument of his humiliation. And yet he trembled when he thought of misfortune approaching her, and was almost as anxious as Frank about the presence in her house of the hypocritical and unprincipled Huckins. Had he listened only for a moment to the pleading of his better instincts, he would have gone to their door and lent his entreaties to those of Frank for a speedy dismissal of their unreliable guest; but the hour had not yet come for such a self-betrayal, and so he refrained, even while cursing himself for a pride which would not yield even at the impending danger of one so passionately beloved.

He however kept a man at watch upon the suspected stranger, a precaution which certainly did not amount to much, as the danger, if there was any, was not one which a detective stationed outside of the Misses Cavanagh's house would be able to avert.

Meanwhile Huckins, who was in his element, grew more insinuating and fatherly in his manner, day by day. To him this run of a house in which there lurked a mystery worth his penetrating, was a bliss that almost vied with that of feeling himself on the road to wealth. He pottered and poked about in the laboratory, till there was not a spot in the room or an article on the shelves which had not felt the touch of his hand; and Hermione and Emma, with what some might have thought a curious disregard of their father's belongings, let him do this, merely restricting him from approaching their own rooms. Possibly they felt as if some of the gloom of the place was lifted by the presence of even this evil-eyed old man; and possibly the shadows which were growing around them both, as .Hermione labored day after day upon the history she was writing for her lover, made this and every other circumstance disconnected with the important theme they were considering, of little moment to them. However that may be, he came and went as he would, and had many sly hours in the long, dim laboratory and in the narrow twisted corridors at the back of the house, and what was worse and perhaps more disastrous still, on the stairs and in the open doorways with Doris, who had learned to toss her head and smile very curiously while busying herself in the kitchen, or taking those brief minutes of respite abroad, which the duties of the place demanded. And so the week passed, and Saturday night came.

It was seven o'clock, and train-time, and the blinds in the Cavanagh house guarding the front windows were tipped just a little. Behind one of these sat Emma, listening to the restless tread of Hermione pacing the floor in the room above. She knew that the all-important letter was done, but she could not know its contents, or what their effect would be upon the free, light-hearted man whose approach they were expecting. She thought she ought to know all that Hermione had been through in the year which had passed, yet the wild words uttered by her sister in their late memorable interview, had left a doubt in her mind which a week's meditations had only served to intensify. Yet the fears to which it had given rise were vague, and she kept saying to herself: "There cannot be anything worse than I know. Hermione exaggerated when she intimated that she had a secret bitterer than that we keep together. She has suffered so much she cannot judge. I will hope that all will go right, and that Mr. Etheridge will receive her explanations and so make her his everlasting debtor. If once she is made to feel that she owes him something, she will gradually yield up her resolve and make both him and me happy. She will see that some vows are better broken than kept, and-"

Here her thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of Hermione. The latter had not been able to walk off her excitement, and so had come down-stairs to bear the moments of suspense with her sister.

"I hope he will not stop," she cried. "I do not feel as if I could see him till-"

"You will have to," murmured Emma, "for here he comes." And the next moment the ardent, anxious face of the young lawyer appeared at the gate, making the whole outside world seem brighter to one pair of eyes which watched him.

"He wants to talk about our visitor," declared Hermione. "I cannot talk about anything so trivial to-day; so do you see him, and when he rises to go, say that Doris will bring a certain packet to his door to-night. I will not meet his eyes till that ordeal is passed." And with a gasp that showed what this moment was to her, she flew from the room, just as Doris' step was heard in the hall on her way to the front door.

"Where is your sister?" were the first words uttered by Frank, as he came into the room.

"Upstairs," answered Emma. "She does not feel as if she can see you again till everything is clear between you. The letter she promised is written, and you shall have it to-night. Then if you wish to come again-" her smile completed the sentence.

He took heart at this smile.

"I do not doubt," said he, "that I shall be here very early in the morning." And then he glanced all around him.

"Does Huckins still bother you?" he asked.

"Oh," she cried, with some constraint, "we allow him to come here. It is the least we can do for one-"

She paused, and seemed to bite off her words.

"Do not let us talk of trivialities," she completed, "till the great question of all is settled. To-morrow, if you come, we will speak of this visitor of whom you so little approve."

"Very well," he rejoined, with some wistfulness, and turned with his usual impetuosity towards the door. "I will go to Dr. Sellick's, then, at once, that I may receive your sister's communication the sooner. Tell her every moment will be an hour till it is in my hands."

"Doris will carry it to you as soon as it is dark. Had we known you were going to stop here, she might have had it ready now. As it is, look for it as I have said, and may it bring you no deeper pain than the mystery of our seclusion has already done. Hermione has noble qualities, and if her temper had never been injured by the accident which befell her in her infancy, there might have been no call for Doris' errand to-night."

"I will remember that," said he, and left the house with the confident smile of a man who feels it impossible to doubt the woman towards whom his heart has gone out in the fullest love.

When the door was shut behind him, Hermione came stealing again down-stairs.

"Does he-is he-prepared to receive the letter?" she asked.

Emma nodded. "I promised that it should go as soon as it is dusk."

"Then send Doris to me in half an hour; and do not try to see me again to-night. I must bear its long and tedious hours alone." And for a second time Hermione disappeared from the room.

In half an hour Doris was sent upstairs. She found Hermione standing in the centre of her room with a thick packet in her hand. She was very pale and her eyes blazed strangely. As Doris advanced she held out the packet with a hand that shook notwithstanding all her efforts to render it firm.

"Take this," she said; "carry it to where Mr. Etheridge stays when here, and place it in his hands yourself, just as you did a former note I entrusted to you."

Doris, with a flush, seized the letter, her face one question, but her lips awed from speaking by the expression of her mistress' face.

"You will do what I say?" asked Hermione.

The woman nodded.

"Go then, and do not wait for an answer; there will be none to-night."

Her gesture of dismissal was imperative and Doris turned to go.

But Hermione had one word more to say. "When you come back," she added, "come to my door and tap on it three times. By that I shall know you have delivered the letter; but you need not come in."

"Very well, Miss," answered the woman, speaking for the first time. And as Hermione turned her back, she gave her young mistress one burning, inquisitive look and then slid out of the room with her eyes on the packet which she almost seemed to devour with her eyes.

As she passed the laboratory door she detected the thin weasel-like face of Huckins looking out.

"What is that?" he whispered, pointing eagerly at the packet.

"Be in the highway at Dobbins' corner, and I'll tell you," she slyly returned, going softly on her way.

And he, with a chuckle which ought to have sounded through that house like a premonition of evil, closed the laboratory door with a careful hand, and descending the twisted staircase which led to the hall below, prepared to follow out her injunction in his own smooth and sneaking way.

"I think I'll spend the evening at the prayer-meeting," he declared, looking in at Emma, as he passed the sitting-room door. "I feel the need of such comfort now and then. Is there anything I can do for either of you up street?"

Emma shook her head; she was glad to be rid of his company for this one evening; and he went out of the front door with a quiet, benevolent air which may not have imposed on her, but which certainly did on Doris, who was watching from the garden to see him go.

They met, as she had suggested, at Dobbins' corner. As it was not quite dark, they walked into a shaded and narrow lane where they supposed themselves to be free from all observation.

"Now tell me," said he, "what your errand is. That it is important I know from the way you look. What is it, good, kind Doris; anything that will help us in our plans?"

"Perhaps," said she. "It is a letter for Mr. Etheridge; see how big and thick it is. It ought to tell a deal, this letter; it ought to explain why she never leaves the house."

The woman's curious excitement, which was made up of curiosity and a real desire to know the secret of what affected her two young mistresses so closely, was quickly communicated to the scheming, eager old man. Taking the packet from her hand, he felt of it with trembling and inquisitive fingers, during which operation it would have been hard to determine upon which face the desire to break the seal was most marked.

"It may contain papers-law papers," he suggested, his thumb and forefinger twitching as they passed over the fastening.

But Doris shook her head.

"No," she declared vivaciously, "there are no law-papers in that envelope. She has been writing and writing for a week. It is her secret, I tell you-the secret of all their queer doings, and why they stay in the house so persistently."

"Then let us surprise that secret," said he. "If we want to help them and make them do like other reasonable folks, we must know with what we have to contend."

"I am sure we would be justified," she rejoined. "But I am afraid Miss Hermione will find us out. Mr. Etheridge will tell her somebody meddled with the fastening."

"Let me take the letter to the hotel, and I will make that all right. It is not the first "But here he discreetly paused, remembering that Doris was not yet quite ready to receive the full details of his history.

"But the time? It will take an hour to open and read all there is written here, and Miss Hermione is waiting for me to tell her that I have delivered it to Mr. Etheridge."

"Tell her you had other errands. Go to the stores-the neighbors. She need never know you delivered this last."

"But if you take it I won't know what is in it, and I want to read it myself."

"I will tell you everything she writes. My memory is good, and you shall not miss a word."

"But-but-"

"It is your only chance," he insinuated; "the young ladies will never tell you themselves."

"I know it; yet it seems a mean thing to do. Can you close the letter so that neither he nor they will ever know it has been opened?"

"Trust me," he leered.

"Hurry then; I will be in front of Dr. Sellick's in an hour. Give me the letter as you go by, and when I have delivered it, meet me on my way back and tell me what she says."

He promised, and hastened with his treasure to the room he still kept at the hotel. She watched him as long as he was in sight and then went about her own improvised errands. Did she realize that she had just put in jeopardy not only her young mistresses' fortunes, but even their lives?

XIX. A Discovery

Frank Etheridge waited a long time that night for the promised communication. Darkness came, but no letter; eight o'clock struck, and still there was no sign of the dilatory Doris. Naturally impatient, he soon found this lengthy waiting intolerable. Edgar was busy in his office, or he would have talked to him. The evening paper which he had brought from New York had been read long ago, and as for his cigar, it lacked flavor and all power to soothe him. In his exasperation he went to the book-shelves, and began looking over the numberless volumes ranged in neat rows before him. He took out one, glanced at it, and put it back; he took out another, without even seeing what its title was, looked at it a moment, sighed, and put that back; he took out a third, which opened in his hand at the title-page, saw that it was one of those old-fashioned volumes, designated The Keepsake, and was about to close and replace it as he had done the others, when his attention was suddenly and forcibly attracted by a name written in fine and delicate characters on the margin at the top. It was no other than this:

HARRIET SMITH

Gift of her husband

October 3rd 1848

Harriet Smith! Astounded, almost aghast, he ran to Edgar's office with the volume.

"Edgar! Edgar!" he cried; "look here! See that name! And the book was in your library too. What does it mean? Who was, who is Harriet Smith, that you should have her book?"

Dr. Sellick, taken by surprise, stared at the book a minute, then jumped to his feet in almost as much excitement as Frank himself.

"I got that book from Hermione Cavanagh years ago; there was a poem in it she wanted me to read. I did not know I had the book now. I have never even thought of it from that day to this. Harriet Smith! Yes, that is the name you want, and they must be able to tell you to whom it belongs."

"I believe it; I know it; I remember now that they have always shown an interest in the matter. Hermione wanted to read the will, and-Edgar, Edgar, can they be the heirs for whom we are searching, and is that why Huckins haunts the house and is received by them in plain defiance of my entreaties?"

"If they are the heirs they would have been likely to have told you. Penniless young girls are not usually backward in claiming property which is their due."

"That is certainly true, but this property has been left under a condition. I recollect now how disappointed Hermione looked when she read the will. Give me the book; I must see her sister or herself at once about it." And without heeding the demurs of his more cautious friend, Frank plunged from the house and made his way immediately to the Cavanagh mansion.

His hasty knock brought Emma to the door. As he encountered her look, and beheld the sudden and strong agitation under which she labored, he realized for the first time that he was returning to the house before reading the letter upon which so much depended.

But he was so filled with his new discovery that he gave that idea but a thought.

"Miss Cavanagh-Emma," he entreated, "grant me a moment's conversation. I have just found this book in Dr. Sellick's library-a book which he declares was once given him by your sister-and in it-" They had entered the parlor by this time and were standing by a table upon which burned a lamp-"is a name."

She started, and was bending to look at the words upon which his finger rested, when the door opened. Hermione, alarmed and not knowing what to think of this unexpected return of her lover so soon, as she supposed, after the receipt of her letter, had come down from her room in that mood of extreme tension which is induced by an almost unendurable suspense.

Frank, who in all his experience of her had never seen her look as she did at this moment, fell back from the place where he stood and hastily shook his head.

"Don't look like that," he cried, "or you will make me feel I can never read your letter."

"And have you not read it?" she demanded, shrinking in her turn till she stood on the threshold by which she had entered. "Why then are you here? What could have brought you back so soon when you knew-"

"This," he interpolated hastily, holding up the book which he had let fall on the table at her entrance. "See! the name of Harriett Smith is written in it. Tell me, I pray, why you kept from me so persistently the fact that you knew the person to whom the property I hold in trust rightfully belongs."

The two girls with a quick glance at each other drooped their heads.

"What was the use?" murmured Emma, "since Harriet Smith is dead and her heirs can never claim the property. We are her heirs, Mr. Etheridge; Harriet Smith was our mother, married to father thirty-nine years ago after a widowhood of only three months. It was never known in this place that she had had a former husband or had borne the name of Smith. There was so much scandal and unhappiness connected with her first most miserable marriage, that she suppressed the facts concerning it as much as possible. She was father's wife and that was all that the people about here knew."

"I see," said Frank, wondering greatly at this romance in real life.

"But you might have told me," he exclaimed. "When you saw what worriment this case was causing me, you might have informed me that I was expending my efforts in vain."

"I wished to do so," answered Emma, "but Hermione dreaded the arguments and entreaties which would follow."

"I could not bear the thought of them," exclaimed the girl from the doorway where she stood, "any more than I can bear the thought now when a matter of much more importance to me demands your attention."

"I will go," cried Frank. But it was to the empty doorway he spoke; Hermione had vanished with these passionate words.

"She is nearly ill," explained Emma, following him as he made for the door. "You must excuse one who has borne so much."

"I do not excuse her," he cried, "I love her." And the look he cast up the stairs fully verified this declaration. "That is why I go with half on my lips unsaid. To-morrow we will broach the topic again, meanwhile beware of Huckins. He means you no good by being here. Had I known his connection with you, he should never have entered these doors."

"He is our uncle; our mother's brother."

"He is a scamp who means to have the property which is rightfully your due."

"And he will have it, I suppose," she returned. "Hermione has never given me a hope that she means to contend with him in this matter."

"Hermione has had no counsellor but her own will. To-morrow she will have to do with me. But shut the door on Huckins; promise me you will not see him again till after you have seen me."

"I cannot-I know too little what is in that letter."

"Oh, that letter!" he cried, and was gone from the house.

When he arrived at Dr. Sellick's again, he found Doris awaiting him, looking very flushed and anxious. She had a shawl drawn around her, and she held some bundles under that shawl.

"I hope," she said, "that you did not get impatient, waiting for me. I had some errands to do, and while doing them I lost the letter you expected and had to go back and look for it. I found it lying under the counter in Mr. Davis' store and that is why it is so soiled, but the inside is all right, and I can only beg your pardon for the delay."

Drawing the packet from under her shawl, she handed it to the frowning lawyer, her heart standing still as she saw him turn it over and over in his hand. But his looks if angry were not suspicious, and with a relieved nod she was turning to go when he observed:

"I have one word to say to you, Doris. You have told me that you have the welfare of the young ladies you serve at heart. Prove this to be so. If Mr. Huckins comes to the door to-night, or in the early morning, say that Miss Cavanagh is not well and that he had better go to the hotel. Do not admit him; do not even open the door, unless Miss Cavanagh or her sister especially command you to do so. He is not a safe friend for them, and I will take the responsibility of whatever you do."

Doris, with wide-stretched eyes and panting breath, paused to collect her faculties. A week ago she would have received this intimation regarding anybody Mr. Etheridge might choose to mention, with gratitude and a certain sense of increased importance. But ambition and the sense of being on intimate and secret terms with a man and bachelor who boasted of his thousands, had made a change in her weak and cunning heart, and she was disposed to doubt the lawyer's judgment of what was good for the young ladies and wise for her.

But she did not show her doubt to one whom she had secretly wronged so lately; on the contrary she bowed with seeming acquiescence, and saying, "Leave me alone to take good care of my young ladies," drew her shawl more closely about her and quietly slid from the house.

A man was standing in the shadow of a great elm on the corner.

As she passed, he whispered: "Don't stop, and don't expect to see me to-night. There is some one watching me, I am sure. To-morrow, if I can I will come."

She had done a wicked and dangerous thing, and she had not learned the secret.

XX. The Devil's Cauldron

Frank, being left alone, sat down with the letter Doris had given him. These are the words he read:

"DEAR MR. ETHERIDGE:

"I must ask you to walk by my house as early as nine o'clock to-morrow morning. If, having read this letter, you still feel ready to meet fate at my side, you will enter and tell me so. But if the horror that has rested upon my life falls with this reading upon yours, then pass by on the other side, and I will understand your verdict and accept it.

"It was at a very early age that I first felt the blight which had fallen upon my life with the scar which disfigures one side of my face. Such expressions as 'Poor dear! what a pity!'-'She would be very beautiful if it were not for that,' make a deep impression upon a child's mind, especially if that child has a proud and sensitive nature, eager for admiration and shrinking from pity. Emma, who is only a year younger than myself, seemed to me quite an enviable being before I knew what the word envy meant, or why I felt so hot and angry when the neighbors took her up and caressed her, while they only cast looks of compassion at me. I hated her and did not know it; I hated the neighbors, and I hated the places where they met, and the home where I was born. I only loved my mother; perhaps, because she alone never spoke of my misfortune, and when she kissed me did not take pains to choose that side of my face which was without blemish. O my mother! if she had lived! But when I was just fifteen, and was feeling even more keenly than ever what it was to have just missed being the beauty of the town, she died, and I found myself left with only a stern and cruelly abstracted father for guardian, and for companion, a sister, who in those days was a girl so merry by nature, and so full of play and sport, that she was a constant source of vexation to me, who hated mirth, and felt aggrieved by a cheerfulness I could not share. These passions of jealousy and pride did not lessen with me as I slowly ripened into womanhood. All our family have been victims of their own indomitable will, and even Emma, gentle as you see her to be now, used to have violent gusts of temper when she was crossed in her plans or pleasures. I never flashed out into bitter speech as she did, or made a noise when I was angry, but I had that slow fire within me which made me perfectly inexorable when I had once made up my mind to any course-no one, not even my father or my sister, having the least influence over me. And so it was that those who knew me began to dread me, even while they were forced to acknowledge that I possessed certain merits of heart and understanding. For the disappointment which had soured my disposition had turned me towards study for relief, and the determination to be brilliant, if I could not be beautiful, came with my maturity, and saved me, perhaps, from being nothing but a burden to my family and friends.

"It was Mr. Lothrop, the Episcopalian minister, who first gave me this turn toward serious pursuits. He was a good man, who had known my mother, and after her death he used to come to the house, and finding me moping in a corner, while Emma made the room gay with her talk, he would draw me out with wonderful stories of women who had become the centre of a great society by the brilliance of their attainments and the sparkle of their wit. Once he called me beautiful, and when he saw the deep flush, which I could not subdue, mantle my cheeks and agitate my whole body, he took me very kindly by the hand, and said:

"'Hermione, you have splendid powers. Perhaps God allowed a little defect to fall upon your beauty, in order to teach you the value of the superior faculties with which you are endowed. You can be a fine, grand woman, if you will.'

"Alas! he did not know that one unconscious tribute to my personal attractions would just then have gone much farther with me than any amount of appreciation for my mental abilities. Yet his words had their effect, and from that moment I began to study-not as my father did, with an absorbed, passionate devotion to one line of thought; that seemed to me narrow and demoralizing, perhaps because almost every disappointment or grief incident to those days could be traced to my father's abstraction to everything disconnected with his laboratory. If I wished to go to the city, or extend my knowledge of the world by travel, it was: 'I have an experiment on hand: I cannot leave the laboratory.' If I wished a new gown, or a set of books, it was: 'I am not rich, and I must use all my spare means in buying the apparatus I need, or the chemicals which are necessary to the discoveries I am in the way of making.' Yet none of those discoveries or experiments ever resulted in anything further than the acquiring on his part of a purely local fame for learning. Therefore no special branch for me, but a general culture which would fit me to shine in any society it might henceforth be my good fortune to enter.

"My father might brood over his books, and bend his back over the retort and crucible; my sister might laugh and attract the liking of a crowd of foolish heads, but I would be the Sevigny, the Rambouillet of my time, and by the eloquence of my conversation and the grace of my manner win for myself that superiority among women which nature had designed for me, but of which cruel fate had robbed me, even before I knew its worth.

"You will say these are great hopes for a village girl who had never travelled beyond her native town, and who knew the great world only through the medium of books. But is it not in villages and quiet sequestered places that lofty ambitions are born? Is it the city boy who becomes the President of our United States, or the city girl who startles the world with her talent as poet, artist, or novelist?

"I read, and learned the world, and felt that I knew my place in it. When my training should be complete, when I had acquired all that my books and the companionship of the best minds in Marston could teach, then I would go abroad, and in the civilization of other lands complete the education which had now become with me a passion, because in it I saw the stepping-stone to the eminence I sought.

"I speak plainly; it is necessary. You must know what was passing in my mind during my girlhood's years, or you will not understand me or the temptations which befell me. Besides, in writing thus I am preparing myself for the revelation of a weakness I have shrunk till now from acknowledging. It must be made. I cannot put it off any longer. I must speak of Dr. Sellick, and explain if possible what he gradually became to me in those lonely and studious years.

"I had known him from a child, but I did not begin to think of him till he began to visit our house. He was a student then, and he naturally took a great interest in chemistry. My father's laboratory was convenient, well-stocked with apparatus, and freely opened to him. To my father's laboratory he accordingly came every day when he was in town, till it began to be quite a matter of course to see him there.

"I was very busy that summer, and for some time looked upon this only as a habit on his part, and so took little heed of his presence. But one day, being weary with the philosophy I had been studying, I took from the shelves a book of poems, and sitting down in the dimmest corner of our stiff old parlor, I began to read some impassioned verses, which, before I knew it, roused my imagination and inflamed my heart to a point which made it easy for any new romantic impression to be made upon me.

"At this instant fate and my ever-cruel destiny brought into my presence Edgar Sellick. He had been like myself hard at work, and had become weary, and anxious perhaps for a change, or, as I am now compelled to think, eager to talk of one whose very existence I was tempted to forget when she was, as then, away from home. He had come into the room where I was, and was standing, flushed and handsome, in the one bright streak of sunlight that flashed at that moment over the floor. I had always liked him, and thought him the only real gentleman in town, but something quite new in my experience made my heart swell as I met his eyes that day, and though I will not call it love (not now), it was something which greatly moved me and made me feel that in the gaze and seeming interest of this man I saw the true road to happiness and to the only life which would ever really satisfy me. For, let it be my excuse, under all my vanity, a vanity greater for the seeming check it had received, dwelt an ardent and irrepressible desire for affection, such affection as I had never received since my dying mother laid her trembling hand upon my head and bade me trust the good God for a happiness I had never possessed. My disfigurement owed its deepest sting to the fact, never revealed to others before, and scarcely acknowledged to myself then, that it stood in the way, as I thought, to my ever being passionately beloved. When, therefore, I saw the smile on Dr. Sellick's face, and realized that he was looking for me, I rose up with new hopes in my heart and a new brightness in my life.

"But we said nothing, he or I, beyond the merest commonplaces, and had my powers of observation been as keen then as they are now, since a new light has been shed upon those days, I would have perceived that his eye did not brighten when it rested upon me, save when some chance mention was made of Emma, and of the pleasures she was enjoying abroad. But no doubts came to me at that time. Because my heart was warm I took it for granted that his was so also, and not dreaming of any other reason for his attentions than the natural one of his desiring my society for its own sake, I gradually gave myself up to a feeling of which it is shame now for me to speak, but which, as it was the origin of all my troubles, I must compel myself to acknowledge here in all its force and fervor.

"The fact that he never uttered a word of love or showed me any attention beyond that of being constantly at my side, did not serve to alarm or even dispirit me. I knew him to have just started upon his career as physician, and also knew him to be proud, and was quite content to cherish my hopes and look towards a future that had unaccountably brightened into something very brilliant indeed.

"It was while matters were in this condition that Emma came home from her trip. I remember the occasion well, and how pretty she looked in her foreign gowns. You, who have only seen her under a shadow, cannot imagine how pleasing she was, fresh from her happy experiences abroad, and an ocean trip, which had emphasized the roses on her cheek and the brightness in her eyes. But though I saw it all and felt that I could never compete with the gaiety which was her charm, I did not feel that old sickly jealousy of her winsome ways which once distorted her figure in my eyes, nor did I any longer hate her laugh or shrink from her merry banter. For I had my own happiness, as I thought, and could afford to be lenient towards a gay young thing who had no secret hope like mine to fill her heart and make it too rich with joy for idle mirth.

"It was a gay season for humble little Marston, and various picnics followed by a ball in Hartford promised festivities enough to keep us well alive. I did not care for festivities, but I did care for Dr. Sellick, and picnics and balls offered opportunities beyond those given by his rather commonplace visits to the house. I therefore looked forward to the picnics at the seashore with something like expectancy, and as proof of my utter blindness to the real state of affairs, it never even entered into my head that it would be the scene of his first meeting with Emma after an absence of many months.

"Nor did any behavior on his part at this picnic enlighten me as to his true feelings, or the direction in which they ran. He greeted Emma in my presence, and the unusual awkwardness with which he took her hand told me nothing, though it may have whispered something to her. I only noticed that he had the most refined features and the most intellectual head of any one present, and was very happy thereat, and disposed to accord him an interview if he showed any inclination to draw me away from the rest of the merrymakers. But he did not, though he strolled several times away by himself; and once I saw him chatting with Emma; but this fact made no impression upon me and my Fool's Paradise remained still intact.

"But that night on reaching home I felt that something was going wrong. Aunt Lovell was then with us, and I saw her cast a glance of dismay upon me as I entered the room where she and Emma had been closeted together. Emma, too, looked out of sorts, and hardly spoke to me when I passed her in the hall. Indeed, that quick temper of which I have already spoken was visible in her eyes, and if I had opened my own lips I am sure she would have flashed out with some of her bitter speeches. But I was ignorant of having given her any cause for anger; so, thinking she was jealous of the acquirements which I had made in her absence, and the advantages they now gave me in any gathering where cultured people came together, I hurried by her in some disdain, and in the quiet of my own room regained the equanimity my aunt's look and Emma's manifest ill-feeling towards me had for a moment shaken.

"It was the last time I was to encounter anger in that eye. When I met her next morning I discovered that some great change had passed over her. The high spirits I had always secretly deprecated were gone, and in their place behold an indescribable gentleness of manner which has never since forsaken her.

"But this was not all; her attitude towards me was different. From indifference it had budded into love; and if one can become devoted in a night, then was it devotion that she showed in every look and every word she bestowed upon me from that day. The occasion for this change I did not then know; when I did, a change passed over me also.

"Meantime a grave event took place. I was out walking, and my path took me by the church. I mean the one that stands by itself on the top of the hill. Perhaps you have been there, perhaps you have not. It is a lonesome-looking structure, but it has pleasant surroundings, while the view of the sea which you get from its rear is superb. I often used to go there, just for the breath of salt-water that seemed to hover about the place, and as there was a big flat stone in the very spot most favorable for observation, I was accustomed to sit there for hours with my book or pencil for company.

"Had Edgar Sellick loved me he would have been acquainted with my habits. This is apparent to me now, but then I seemed to see nothing beyond my own wishes and hopes. But this does not explain what happened to me there. I was sitting on the stone of which I have spoken, and was looking at the long line of silver light on the horizon which we call the sea, when I suddenly heard voices. Two men were standing on the other side of the church, engaged, in all probability, in gazing at the landscape, but talking on a subject very remote from what they saw before them. I heard their words distinctly. They were these:

"'I tell you she is beautiful.'

"I did not recognize the voice making use of this phrase, but the one that answered was well known to me, and its tones went through me like a knife.

"'Oh, yes, if you only see one side of her face.'

"They were speaking of me, and the last voice, careless, indifferent, almost disdainful as it was, was that of Edgar Sellick.

"I quailed as at a mortal blow, but I did not utter a sound. I do not know as I even moved; but that only shows the control a woman unconsciously holds over herself. For nothing short of a frenzied scream could have voiced the agony I felt, or expressed the sudden revolt which took place within me, sickening me at once with life, past, present, and future. Not till they had strolled away did I rise and dash down the hill into the wood that lies at its foot, but when I felt myself alone and well shielded from the view of any chance observer, I groaned again and again, and wrung my hands in a misery to which I can do but little justice now. I had been thrust so suddenly out of paradise. I had been so sure of his regard, his love. The scar which disfigured me in other eyes had been, as I thought, no detriment in his. He loved me, and saw nothing in me but what was consistent with that love. And now I heard him with my own ears speak contemptuously of that scar. All that I had hoped, all that I had confided in, was gone from me in an instant, and I felt myself toppling into a misery I could neither contemplate nor fathom. For an hour I walked the paths of that small wood, communing with myself; then I took my resolve. Life, which had brought me nothing but pain and humiliation, was not worth living. The hopes I had indulged, the love in which I had believed, had proved a mockery, and the shame which their destruction brought was worse than death, and so to be more shunned than death. I was determined to die.

"The means were ready to my hand. Further on in that very wood I knew of a pool. It was a deep, dark, deadly place, as its name of Devil's Cauldron betokens, and in it I felt I could most fitly end the life that was dear to no one. I began to stray towards that place. As I went I thought of home, but with no feelings of longing or compunction. Emma might be kind, had been kind for the last day or so, but Emma did not love me, would not sacrifice anything for me, would not grieve, save in the decent way her sisterhood would naturally require. As for my father, he would feel the interruption it would cause in his experiments, but that would not last long, and in a few days he would be again in his beloved laboratory. No one, not a single being, unless it was dear Aunt Lovell, would sincerely mourn me or sigh over the death of the poor girl with a scar. Edgar Sellick might raise his eyebrows in some surprise, and Edgar Sellick should know what a careless word could do. I had a pencil and paper in my pocket, and I meant to use them. He should not go through life happy and careless, when a line from me would show him that the death of one who had some claims upon his goodness, lay at his door.

"The sight of the dim, dark pool did not frighten me from these intentions. I was in that half-maddened state of disgust and shame which makes the promise of any relief look inviting and peaceful. I loved the depth of that cool, clear water. I saw in it rest, peace, oblivion. Had I not had that letter to write I would have tasted that rest and peace, and these words would never have come to your eyes. But the few minutes I took to write some bitter and incoherent lines to Dr. Sellick saved me from the doom I contemplated. Have I reason to be thankful it was so? To-morrow morning will tell me.

"The passion which guided my pencil was still in my face when I laid the paper down on the bank and placed a stone above it. The eyes which saw those evidences of passion were doubtless terrified by them, for as I passed to the brink of the pool and leaned over it I felt a frenzied grasp on my arm, and turning, I met the look of Emma fixed upon me in mortal terror and apprehension.

"'What are you going to do?' she cried. 'Why are you leaning over the Devil's Cauldron like that?'

"I had not wished to see her or to say good-by to any one. But now, that by some unaccountable chance she had come upon me, in my desperation I would give her one kiss before I went to my doom.

"'Emma,' I exclaimed, meeting her look without any sharp sense of shame, 'life is not as promising for me as it is for you; life is not promising for me at all, so I seek to end it.'

"The horror in her eyes deepened. The grasp on my arm became like that of a man.

"'You are mad,' she cried. 'You do not know what you are doing. What has happened to drive you to a deed like this? I-I thought-' and here she stammered and lost for the moment her self-control-'that you seemed very happy last night.'

"'I was,' I cried. 'I did not know then what a blighted creature I was. I thought some one might be brought to love me, even with this frightful, hideous scar on my face. But I know now that I am mistaken; that no man will ever overlook this; that I must live a lonely life, a suffering life; and I have not the strength or the courage to do so. I-I might have been beautiful,' I cried, 'but-'

"Her face, suddenly distorted by the keenest pain, drew my attention, even at that moment of immeasurable woe, and made me stop and say in less harsh and embittered tones:

"'No one will miss me very much, so do not seek to stop me.'

"Her head fell forward, her eyes sought the ground, but she did not loosen her hold on my arm. Instead of that, it tightened till it felt like a band of steel.

"'You have left a letter there,' she murmured, allowing her eyes to wander fearfully towards it. 'Was it to me? to our father?'

"'No,' I returned.

"She shuddered, but her eyes did not leave the spot. Suddenly her lips gave a low cry; she had seen the word Sellick.

"'Yes,' I answered in response to what I knew were her thoughts. 'It is that traitor who is killing me. He has visited me day by day, he has followed me from place to place; he has sought me, smiled upon me, given me every token of love save that expressed in words; and now, now I hear him, when he does not know I am near, speak disrespectfully of my looks, of this scar, as no man who loves, or ever will love, could speak of any defect in the woman he has courted.'

"'You did not hear aright,' came passionately from her lips. 'You are mistaken. Dr. Sellick could not so far forget himself.'

"'Dr. Sellick can and did. Dr. Sellick has given me a blow for which his fine art of healing can find no remedy. Kiss me, Emma, kiss me, dear girl, and do not hold me so tight; see, we might tumble into the water together!'

"'And if we did,' she gasped, 'it would be better than letting you go alone. No, no, Hermione, you shall never plunge into that pool while I live to hold you back. Listen to me, listen. Am I nothing to you? Will you not live for me? I have been careless, I know, happy in my own hopes and pleasures, and thinking too little, oh, much too little, of the possible griefs or disappointments of my only sister. But this shall be changed; I promise you shall all be changed. I will live for you henceforth; we will breathe, work, suffer, enjoy together. No sister shall be tenderer, no lover more devoted than I will be to you. If you do not marry, then will not I. No pleasure that is denied you shall be accepted by me. Only come away from this dark pool; quit casting those glances of secret longing into that gruesome water. It is too awful, too loathsome a place to swallow so much beauty; for you are beautiful, no matter what any one says; so beautiful that it is almost a mercy you have some defect, or we should not dare to claim you for our own, you are so far above what any of us could hope for or expect.'

"But the bitterness that was in my soul could not be so easily exorcised.

"'You are a good girl,' I said, 'but you cannot move me from my purpose.' And I tried to disengage myself from her clasp.

"But the young face, the young form which I had hitherto associated only with what was gay, mirthful, and frivolous, met me with an aspect which impressed even me and made me feel it was no child I had to deal with but a woman as strong and in a state of almost as much suffering as myself.

"'Hermione,' she cried, 'if you throw yourself into that pool, I shall follow you. I will not live ten minutes after you. Do you know why? Because I-I caused you that scar which has been the torment of your life. It was when we were children-babes, and I have only known it since last night. Auntie Lovell told me, in her sympathy for you and her desire to make me more sisterly. The knowledge has crushed me, Hermione; it has made me hate myself and love you. Nothing I can do now can ever atone for what I did then; though I was so young, it was anger that gave me strength enough to deal the blow which has left this indelible mark behind it. Isn't it terrible? I the one to blame and you the one to suffer!-But there must be no dying, Hermione, no dying, or I shall feel myself a murderess. And you do not want to add that horror to my remorse, now that I am old enough to feel remorse and realize your suffering. You will be a little merciful and live for my sake if not for your own.'

"She was clinging to me, her face white and drawn, upturned towards mine with pitiful pleading, but I had no words with which to comfort her, nor could I feel as yet any relenting in my fixed purpose. Seeing my unmoved look she burst into sobs, then she cried suddenly:

"'I see I must prepare to die too. But not to-day, Hermione. Wait a month, just one month, and then if you choose to rush upon your fate, I will not seek to deter you, I will simply share it; but not to-day, not in this rush of maddened feeling. Life holds too much-may yet give you too much, for any such reckless disregard of its prospects. Give it one chance, then, and me one chance-it is all I ask. One month of quiet waiting and then-decision.'

"I knew no month would make any difference with me, but her passionate pleading began to work upon my feelings.

"'It will be a wretched time for me,' said I, 'a purgatory which I shall be glad to escape.'

"'But for my sake,' she murmured, 'for my sake; I am not ready to die yet, and your fate-I have said it-shall be mine.'

"'For your sake then,' I cried, and drew back from the dangerous brink upon which we had both been standing. 'But do not think,' I added, as we paused some few feet away, 'that because I yield now, I will yield then. If after a month of trying to live, I find myself unable, I shall not consult you, Emma, as to my determination, any more than I shall expect you to embrace my doom because in the heat of your present terror you have expressed your intention of doing so.'

"'Your fate shall be my fate, as far as I myself can compass it,' she reiterated. And I, angry at what I thought to be an unwarrantable attempt to put a check upon me, cried out in as bitter a tone as I had ever used: 'So be it,' and turned myself towards home."

XXI. In the Laboratory

"But Emma, with a careful remembrance of what was due to my better nature, stopped to pick up the letter I had left lying under a stone, and joining me, placed it in my hand, by which it was soon crumpled up, torn, and scattered to the wind. As the last bits blew by us, we both sighed and the next minute walked rapidly towards home.

"You will say that all this was experience enough for one day, but fate sometimes crowds us with emotions and eventful moments. As we entered the house, I saw auntie waiting for us at the top of the first stairs; and when she beckoned to Emma only, I was glad-if I could be glad of anything-that I was to be left for a few minutes to myself. Turning towards a little crooked staircase which leads to that part of the house containing my own room and my father's laboratory, I went wearily up, feeling as if each step I took dragged a whole weight of woe behind it.

"I was going to my own room, but as I passed the open laboratory door, I perceived that the place was empty, and the fancy took me, I know not why, to go in. I had never liked the room, it was so unnaturally long, so unnaturally dismal, and so connected with the pursuits I had come to detest. Now it had an added horror for me. Here Dr. Sellick had been accustomed to come, and here was the very chair in which he had sat, and the table at which he had worked. Why, then, with all this old and new shrinking upon me did I persistently cross the threshold and darken my already clouded spirit with the torturing suggestions I found there? I do not know. Perhaps my evil spirit lured me on; perhaps-I am beginning to believe in a Providence now-God had some good purpose in leading me to fresh revelations, though up to this time they have seemed to cause me nothing but agony and shame.

"No one was in the room, I say, and I went straight to its middle window. Here my father's desk stood, for he used the room for nearly every purpose of his life. I did not observe the desk; I did not observe anything till I turned to leave; then I caught sight of a letter lying on the desk, and stopped as if I had been clutched by an iron hand, for it was an open letter, and the signature at the bottom of the sheet was that of Edgar Sellick.

"'Can I never escape from that man?' thought I, and turned passionately away. But next minute I found myself bending over it, devouring it first with my eyes, and then taking it to my heart, for it was an expression of

love for the daughter of the man to whom it was addressed, and that man was my father.

"This language as I now know referred to Emma, and she was under no error in regard to it, nor was my father nor my aunt. But I thought it referred to me, and as I read on and came upon the sentence in which he asked, as I supposed, for my hand and the privilege of offering himself to me at the coming ball, I experienced such a revulsion of feeling that I lost all memory of the words I had overheard him speak, or attributed them to some misunderstanding on my part, which a word or look from him could easily explain.

"Life bloomed for me again, and I was happy, madly happy for a few short moments. Even the horrible old room I was in seemed cheerful, and I was just acknowledging to myself that I should have made a great mistake if I had carried out my wicked impulse toward self-destruction, when my father came in. He shrank back when he saw me; but I thought nothing of that; I did not even wonder why Emma was closeted with aunt. I only thought of the coming ball, and the necessity of preparing myself for it right royally.

"I had come from the desk, and was crossing the floor to go out. My happiness made me turn.

"'Father,' said I, taking what I thought to be an arch advantage of the situation; 'may I not have a new dress for the ball?'

"He paused, cast a glance at his desk, and then another at me. He had been, though I did not know it, in conversation with Emma and my aunt, and was more alive to the matters of the hour than usual. It was therefore with some display of severity that he confronted me and said:

"'You are not going to the ball, Hermione.'

"Struck as by a blow, the more severely that it was wholly unexpected, I gasped:

"'Not going to the ball when you know what depends upon it? Do you not like Dr. Sellick, father?'

"He mumbled something between his lips, and advancing to the desk, took up the letter which he thus knew I had read, and ostentatiously folded it.

"'I like Dr. Sellick well enough,' was his reply, 'but I do not approve of balls, and desire you to keep away from them.'

"'But you said we might go,' I persisted, suspecting nothing, seeing nothing in this but a parent's unreasonable and arbitrary display of power. 'Why have you changed your mind? Is it because Dr. Sellick has fixed upon that time for making me the offer of his hand?'

"'Perhaps,' his dry lips said.

"Angry as I had never been in all my life, I tried to speak, and could not. Had I escaped suicide to have my hopes flung in this wanton way again to the ground, and for no reason that I or any one else could see?'

"'But you acknowledge,' I managed at last to stammer, 'that you like him.'

"'That is not saying I want him for a son-in-law.'

"'Whom do you want?' I cried. 'Is there any one else in town superior to him in wit or breeding? If he loves me-'

"My father's lip curled.

"'He says he does.' I flashed out fiercely.

"'You should not have read my letters,' was all my father replied.

"I was baffled, exasperated, at my wits' end; all the more that I saw his eye roaming impatiently towards the pneumatic trough where some hydrogen gas was collecting for use.

"'Father, father,' I cried, 'be frank to me. What are your objections to Dr. Sellick? He is your friend; he works with you; he is promising in his profession; he has every qualification but that of wealth-'

"'That is enough,' broke in my father.

"I looked at him in dismay and shrank back. How could I know he was honestly trying to save me from a grief and shame they all thought me unequal to meeting. I saw nothing but his cold smile, heard nothing but his harsh words.

"'You are cruel; you are heartless,' burst from me in a rage. 'You never have shown the least signs of a mercenary spirit before, and now you make Dr. Sellick's lack of money an excuse for breaking my heart.'

"'Hermione,' my father slowly rejoined, 'you have a frightful temper. You had better keep down the exhibitions of it when you are in this room.'

"'This room!' I repeated, almost beside myself. 'This grave rather of every gentle feeling and tender thought which a father should have towards a most unfortunate child. If you loved me but half as well as you love these old jars-'

"But here his face, usually mild in its abstraction, turned so pale and hard that I was frightened at what I had said.

"'Hermione,' he cried, 'there is no use trying to show you any consideration. Know the truth then; know that-'

"Why did he not go on? Why was he not allowed to tell me what I may have been but little fitted to hear, but which if I had heard it at that time would have saved me from many grave and fatal mistakes. I think he would have spoken; I think he meant to tell me that Dr. Sellick's offer was for Emma, and not for me, but Emma herself appeared just then at the door, and though I did not detect the gesture she made, I gather that it was one of entreaty from the way he paused and bit his lip.

"'It is useless to talk,' he exclaimed. 'I have said that you are to stay home from the ball. I also say that you are not to accept or refuse Dr. Sellick's addresses. I will answer his letter, and it will not be one of acceptance.'

"Why did I not yield to his will and say nothing? When I saw how everything was against me, why did I not succumb to circumstances, and cease to maintain a struggle I knew then to be useless? Because it was not in my nature to do so; because Providence had given me an indomitable will which had never been roused into its utmost action till now. Drawing myself up till I felt that I was taller than he, I advanced with all the fury of suppressed rage, and quietly said the fatal words which, once uttered, I never knew how to recall:

"'If you play the tyrant, I will not play the part of submissive slave. Keep me here if you will; restrain me from going where my fancy and my desires lead, and I will obey you. But, father, if you do this, if you do not allow me to go to the ball, meet Dr. Sellick, and accept his offer, then mark me, I will never go out of this house again. Where you keep me I will stay till I am carried out a corpse, and no one and nothing shall ever make me change my mind."

"He stared, laughed, then walked away to his pneumatic trough. 'Suit yourself about that,' said he, 'I have nothing to do with your whims.' Probably he thought I was raving and would forget my words before the day was out.

"But there was another person present who knew me better, and I only realized what I had done when I beheld Emma's slight body lying insensible at my feet.'

XXII. Steel Meets Steel

Up to this point Frank had read with an absorption which precluded the receiving of all outward impressions. But the secret reached, he drew a long breath and became suddenly conscious of a lugubrious sound breaking in upon the silence with a gloomy iteration which was anything but cheering.

The foghorn was blowing out on Dog Island.

"I could have done without that accompaniment," thought he, glancing at the sheets still before him. "It gives me a sense of doom."

But the fog was thick on the coast and the horn kept on blowing.

Frank took up the remaining sheets.

"Life for me was now at an end indeed, and not for me only, but for Emma. I had not meant to involve her in my fate. I had forgotten her promise, forgotten. But when I saw her lying there I remembered, and a sharp pang pierced me for all my devouring rage. But I did not recall my words, I could not. I had uttered them with a full sense of what they meant to me and the scorn with which they were received only deepened my purpose to keep the threat I had made. Can you understand such a disposition, and can you continue to love the possessor of it?

"My father, who was shocked at Emma's fall, knowing better than I did perhaps the real misery which lay behind it, cast me a look which did not tend to soften my obduracy, and advanced to pick her up. When he had carried her to her own room, I went proudly to mine, and such was the depth of my anger and the obstinate nature of my will that I really felt better able to face the future now that I had put myself into a position requiring pride and purpose to sustain it. But I did feel some relenting when I next saw Emma-such a change was visible in her manner. Meekness had taken the place of the merriment which once made the house to ring, and the eye which once sparkled now showed sadness and concern. I did not, however suspect she had given up anything but freedom, and though this was much, as I very soon began to find, I was not yet by any means so affected by her devotion, that I could do more than beg her to reconsider her own determination and break a promise from which I would be only too happy to release her.

"But the answer with which she always met my remonstrances was, 'Your fate shall be my fate. When it becomes unbearable to us both you will release me by releasing yourself.' Which answer always hardened me again, for I did not wish to be forced to think that the breaking up of our seclusion rested with me, or that anything but a relenting on my father's part could make any change in my conduct.

"Meanwhile that father maintained towards me an air of the utmost indifference. He worked at his experiments as usual, came and went through the sombre house, which was unrelieved now by Emma's once bright sallies and irrepressible laughter, and made no sign that he saw any difference in it or us. Aunt Lovell alone showed sympathy, and when she saw that sympathy accomplished nothing, tried first persuasion and then argument.

"But she had iron and steel to deal with and she soon ceased her gentle efforts, and as the time of her visit was drawing to a close, returned again to those gentle expressions of silent sympathy more natural to her nature; and so the first week passed.

"We had determined, Emma and I, that no one beside our four selves should ever know the secret of our strange behavior. Neighbors might guess, gossips might discuss it, but no one should ever know why we no longer showed ourselves in the street, went to any of the social gatherings of the place, or attended the church from which we had never before been absent. When, therefore, the ball came off and we were not seen there, many were the questions asked, and many were the surmises uttered, but we did not betray our secret, nor was it for some time after this that the people about us awoke to the fact that we no longer left our home.

"What happened when this fact was fully realized, I will not pause to relate, for matters of a much more serious nature press upon me and I must now speak of the bitter and terrible struggle which gradually awoke between my father and myself. He had as I have already related, shown nothing at first but indifference, but after the first week had passed he suddenly seemed to realize that I meant what I said. The result was a conflict between us from the effects of which I am still suffering.

"The first intimation I received of his determination to make me break my word came on a Sunday morning. He had been in his room dressing for church, and when he came out he rapped at my door and asked if I were ready to go with him.

"Naturally I flung wide the door and let him see my wrathful figure in its morning dress.

"'Can you ask,' I cried, 'when you yourself have made it impossible for me to enjoy anything outside of this house, even the breath of fresh air to which all are entitled?'

"He looked as if he would like to strike me, but he did notonly smiled. If I could have known all that lay under that smile, or been able to fathom from what I knew of my own stubborn nature, the terrible depths which its sarcasm barely suggested!

"'You would be a fool if you were not so wicked,' was all he said, and shuffled away to my sister's door.

"In a few minutes he came back.

"'Hermione,' he cried, 'put on your hat and come directly with me to church.'

"I simply looked at him.

"'Do you hear?' he exclaimed, stepping into the room and shutting the door after him. 'I have had enough of this nonsense, and to-day you go out with me to church or you never shall call me father again.'

"'Have you been a father to me?' I asked.

He shook and quivered and was a picture of rage. I remembered as I looked at him, thinking, 'Behold the source of my own temper,' but I said nothing, and was in no other way affected by what I saw.

"'I have been such a father to you as your folly and blindness deserved,' he exclaimed. 'Should I continue to treat you according to your deserts, I would tell you what would lay you in shame at my feet. But I have promised to be silent, and silent will I be, not out of consideration for you, but because your punishment will some day be the greater. Will you give up this whim and go with me, and so let your sister go also, or will you not?'

"'I will not.'

"He showed a sudden change of manner. 'I will ask you the same question next Sunday,' said he, and left my presence with his old air of indifference and absorption. No subject disconnected with his work could rouse more than a temporary passion in him.

"He kept his word. Every Sunday he came on the same errand to my door, and every Sunday he went forth alone. During the week days he did not trouble me. Indeed, I do not know as he thought of me then, or even of Emma, who had always been dearer to him than I. He was engaged on some new experiment, some vital discovery that filled him with enthusiasm and made every moment passed out of his laboratory a trial and a loss to him. He ate that he might work, he slept that he might gather new strength and inspiration for the next day. If visitors came he refused to see them; the one visitor who could have assisted him at the retort and crucible had been denied the door, and any other was a hindrance. Our troubles, our cares, our schemes, or our attempts to supply the table and dress ourselves upon the few and fewer dollars he now allowed us, sank into insignificance before the one idea with which he was engrossed. I do not think he even knew when we ceased having meat for dinner. That Emma was growing pale and I desperate did not attract his attention as much as a speck of dust upon a favorite jar or a crack in one of his miserable tubes.

"That this deep absorption of his was real and not assumed was made evident to me the first Sunday morning he forgot to come to my door. It was a relief not to have to go through the usual formula, but it alarmed me too. I was afraid I was to be allowed to go my own way unhindered, and I was beginning to feel a softness towards Emma and a longing for the life of the world, which made me anxious for some excuse to break a resolution which was entailing upon me so much more suffering than I had anticipated. Indeed, I think if my father had persisted in his practice and come but two or three Sunday mornings more to my door, that my pride would have yielded at last, and my feet in spite of me have followed him out of a house that, since it had become my prison, had become more than ever hateful to me. But he stopped just as a crisis was taking place in my feelings, and my heart hardened again. Before it could experience again the softening effects of Emma's uncomplaining presence the news came that Dr. Sellick had left the town, and my motive for quitting the house was taken from me. Henceforth I felt no more life or hope or ambition than if I had been an automaton.

"This mood received one day a startling interruption. As I was sitting in my room with a book in my hand I felt too listless to read, the door opened, and my father stood before me. As it was weeks since he had appeared on a Sunday morning and months since he had showed himself there on a week day, I was startled, especially as his expression was more eager and impatient than I had ever seen it except when he was leaning over his laboratory table. Was his heart touched at last? Had he good news for me, or was he going to show his fatherhood once more by proffering me an invitation to go out with him in a way which my pride would allow me to accept? I rose in a state of trembling agitation, and made up my mind that if he spoke kindly I would break the hideous bonds which held me and follow him quickly into the street.

"But the words which fell from his lips drove every tender impulse back into my heart.

"'Have you any jewels, Hermione? I think I gave your mother some pearls when we were married. Have you them? I want them if you have.'

"The revulsion of feeling was too keen. Quivering with disappointment, I cried out, bitterly:

"'What to do? To give us bread? We have not had any too much of it lately.'

"He stared, but did not seem to take in my words.

"'Fetch the pearls,' he cried; 'I cannot afford to waste time like this; my experiments will suffer.'

"'And have you no eye, no heart,' I asked, 'for the sufferings of your daughters? With no motive but an arbitrary love of power, you robbed me of my happiness. Now you want my jewels; the one treasure I have left either in the way of value, or as a remembrance of the mother who loved me.'

"Of all this he heard but one word.

"'Are they valuable?' he asked. 'I had hoped so, but I did not know. Get them, child, get them. The discovery upon which my fame may rest will yet be made."

"'Father, father, you want to sell them,' I screamed. 'My mother's jewels; my dead mother's jewels!'

"He looked at me; this protest had succeeded in entering his ears, and his eye, which had been simply eager, became all at once dangerous.

"'I do not care whose they were,' he hissed, 'so long as they are now mine. It is money I want, and money I will have, and if they will get it for me you had better be thankful. Otherwise I shall have to find some other way to raise it.'

"I was cowed; he did not say what other way, but I knew by his look I had better not drive him into it, so I went to the place where I kept these sacred relics, and taking them out, laid them in his trembling, outstretched hand.

"'Are these all?' he asked. And I wondered, for he had never shown the least shrewdness in any matter connected with money before.

"'All but a trivial little locket which Emma wears,' said I.

"'Is it worth much?'

"'Scarcely five dollars,' I returned.

"'Five dollars would buy the bit of platinum I want,' he muttered. But he did not ask for the locket, for I saw it on Emma's neck the next day.

"This was the beginning of a fresh struggle. My father begrudged us everything: the food we ate; the plain, almost homely, clothes we wore. He himself wellnigh starved his own body, and when in the midst of an experiment, his most valuable retort broke in his hand, you could have heard his shriek of dismay all over the house. The following Sunday he did not go to church; he no longer had a coat to wear; he had sold his only broadcloth suit to a wandering pedlar.

"Our next shock was the dismissal of the man who had always kept our garden in order. Doris would have been sent away also, but that father knew this would mean a disorder in the household which might entail interruption in his labors. He did not dare to leave himself to the tender mercies of his daughters. But her pay was stopped.

"Meanwhile his discovery delayed. It was money that he needed, he said, more money, much more money. He began to sell his books. In the midst of this a stranger came to visit him, and now the real story of my misery begins."

XXIII. A Growing Horror

"There are some men who fill you from the beginning with a feeling of revulsion. Such a one was Antony Harding. When he came into the parlor where I sat, I felt it difficult to advance and greet him with the necessary formalities, so forcibly did I shrink from his glance, his smile, his bow of easy assurance. Not that he was ugly of feature, or possessed of any very distinguishing marks in face or form to render him personally repulsive. He was what some might have called good-looking, and many others a gentlemanly-appearing man. But to me he was simply revolting, and I could not then or now tell why, for, as far as I know, he has never done anything incompatible with his standing as a gentleman and a man of family and wealth.

"He had some claim upon my father, and desired very much to see him. I, who could not dispute that claim, was going to call my father, when Mr. Harding stopped me, thinking, I really believe, that he would not see me again, and I was forced, greatly against my will, to stand and answer some half-dozen innocent enough questions while his eyes roamed over my features and took in the scar I turned towards him as a sort of defence. Then he let me go, but not before I saw in him the beginning of that fever which made me for a while hate the very name of love.

"With a sense of disgust quite new to me, I rushed from the room to the laboratory. The name by which he had introduced himself was a strange one to me, and I had no idea my father would see him. But as soon as I uttered the word Harding, the impatience with which he always met any interruption gave way to a sudden and irresistible joy, and, jumping up from his seat, he cried:

"'Show him up! show him up. He is a rich man and interested in chemistry. He cannot but foresee the fame which awaits the man who brings to light the discovery I am seeking.'

"'He says he has some claim on you,' I murmured, anything but pleased at this prospect of seeing a man whose presence I so disliked, inveigled into matters which might demand his reappearance in the house.

"'Claims? claims? Perhaps he has; I cannot remember. But send him up; I shall soon make him forget any claims he may have.'

"I did as my father bade me. I sent the smiling, dapper, disagreeably attentive man to the laboratory, and when this was done, went to the window and threw it up with some vague idea of cleansing the room from an influence which stifled me.

"You may imagine then with what a sense of apprehension I observed that my father fairly glowed with delight when he came to the supper-table. From being the half-sullen, half-oblivious companion who had lately chilled our board and made it the scene of anything but cheer or comfort, he had brightened at once into a garrulous old man, ready with jests and full of condescending speeches in regard to his great experiments. Emma, to whom I had said nothing, looked her innocent pleasure at this, and both of us started in amazement when he suddenly turned towards me, and surveyed me with something like interest and pleasurable curiosity.

"'Why do you look at me like that?' I could not help saying. 'I should think you had never seen me before, father.'

"'Perhaps I never have,' he laughed. Then quite seriously: 'I was looking to see if you were as handsome as Mr. Harding said you were. He told me he had never seen so beautiful a woman in his life.'

"I was shocked; more than that, I was terrified; I half-rose from the table, and forgetting everything else which made my life a burden to me, I had some wild idea of rushing from the house, from the town, anywhere to escape the purpose I perceived forming itself in my father's mind.

"'Father,' I cried, with a trembling in my tones that was not common to them, even in the moments of my greatest displeasure; 'I hate that man, and abominate the very idea of his presuming to admire me. Do not ever mention him to me again. It makes my very soul turn sick.'

"It was an unwise speech; it was the unwisest speech I could have made. I felt this to be so the moment I had spoken, and stole a look of secret dismay at Emma, who sat quite still and helpless, gazing, in silent consternation from my father to myself.

"'You will hate no one who can help me perfect my experiments,' he retorted. 'If I command you to do so, you must even love him, though we have not got so far as that yet.'

"'I will never love anybody again,' I answered bitterly. 'And I would not love this man if your discoveries and my own life even hung upon it.'

"'You would not?' He was livid now. 'Well, we shall see. He is coming here to dinner to-morrow, and if you dare to show him anything but the respect due to an honored guest you will live to rue it as you have never rued anything yet.'

"Threats that are idle on some lips are anything but idle on ours, as I think you have already begun to perceive. I therefore turned pale and said no more, but all night the tormenting terror was upon me, and when the next day came I was but little fitted to sustain the reputation for beauty which I had so unfortunately earned from a distasteful man's lips the day before.

"But Antony Harding was not one to easily change his first impressions. He had made up his mind that I was beautiful, and he kept to that opinion to the last. I had dressed myself in my most expensive but least becoming gown, and I wore my hair in a way to shock the taste of most men. But I saw from the first moment that his eyes fell on my face that this made no difference to him, and that I must take other means to disillusionize him. So then I resorted to a display of stupidity. I did not talk, and looked, if I looked at all, as if I did not understand. But he had seen glimpses of brightness in me the day before, and this ruse succeeded no better than the other. He even acted as if he admired me more as a breathing, sullen image than as a living, combative woman.

"My father, who watched us as he never had watched anything before but rising bubbles of gas or accumulating crystals, did not show the displeasure I feared, possibly because he saw that I was failing in all my endeavors; and when the meal over, he led the way to the parlor, he even smiled upon me in a not altogether unfriendly way. I felt a sinking of the heart when I saw that smile. Better to me were his frowns, for that smile told me that, love or no love, liking or no liking, I was to be made the bait to win this man's money for the uses of chemistry.

"Walking steadfastly into the parlor, I met the stranger's admiring eye.

"'You would not think,' I remarked, 'that my life at present was enclosed within these four walls.'

"It was the first sentence I had voluntarily addressed him, and it must have struck him as a very peculiar one.

"'I do not understand what you mean,' he returned, with that unctuous smile which to me was so detestable. 'Something interesting, I have no doubt.'

"'Very interesting,' I dryly rejoined. 'I have taken a vow never to leave this house, and I mean to keep it.'

"He stared at me now in some apprehension, and my heart gave a bound of delight. I had frightened him. He thought I was demented.

"My father, seeing his look of astonishment, but not knowing what I had said, here advanced and unconsciously made matters worse by remarking, with an effort at jocularity:

"'Don't mind what Hermione says; for a smart girl and a good one, she sometimes talks very peculiarly.'

"'I should think so,' my companion's manner seemed to assert, but he gave a sudden laugh, and made some observation which I scarcely heard in my fierce determination to end this matter at once.

"'Do you not think,' I persisted, 'that a woman who has doomed herself to perpetual seclusion has a right to be peculiar?'

"'A woman of such beauty possesses most any rights she chooses to assert,' was his somewhat lame reply. He had evidently received a shock, and was greatly embarrassed.

"'I laughed low to myself, but my father, comprehending as in a flash what I was attempting, turned livid and made me a threatening gesture.

"'I fear,' said he, 'that you will have to excuse my daughter for to-night. The misfortune which has befallen her has soured her temper, and this is not one of her amiable days.'

"I made a curtsey deep as my disdain. 'I leave you to the enjoyment of your criticisms,' I exclaimed, and fled from the room in a flutter of mingled satisfaction and fear.

"For though I had saved myself from any possible persecution on the part of Mr. Harding, I had done it at the cost of any possible reconciliation between my father and myself. And I was not yet so hardened that I could contemplate years of such life as I was then living without a pang of dread. Alas! if I had known what I was indeed preparing for myself, and how much worse a future dwelt in his mind than any I had contemplated!

"Emma, who had been a silent and unobtrusive witness to what had occurred, soon followed me to my room.

"'What have you done?' she asked. 'Why speak so to a stranger?'

"'Father wants me to like him; father wants me to accept his attentions, and I detest him. I abhor his very presence in the house.'

"'But-'

"'I know he has only been here but twice; but that is enough, Emma; he shall not come here again with any idea that he will receive the least welcome from me.'

"'Is he a person known to father? Is he-"

"'Rich? Oh, yes; he is rich. That is why father thinks him an eligible son-in-law. His thousands would raise the threatened discovery into a fact.'

"'I see. I pity you, Hermione. It is hard to disappoint a father in his dearest hopes.'

"I stared at her in sudden fury.

"'Is that what you are thinking of?' I demanded, with reckless impetuosity. 'After all the cruel disappointment he has inflicted upon me-'

"But Emma had slipped from the room. She had no words now with which to meet my gusts of temper.

"A visit from my father came next. Though strong in my resolve not to be shaken, I secretly quaked at the cold, cruel determination in his face. A man after all is so much more unrelenting than a woman.

"'Hermione,' he cried, 'you have disobeyed me. You have insulted my guest, and you have shaken the hopes which I thought I had a right to form, being your father and the author of your being. I said if you did this you should suffer, but I mean to give you one more chance. Mr. Harding was startled rather than alienated. If you show yourself in future the amiable and sensible woman which you can be, he will forget this foolish ebullition and make you the offer his passion inspires. This would mean worldly prosperity, social consideration, and everything else which a reasonable woman, even if she has been disappointed in love, could require. While for me-you cannot know what it would be for me, for you have no capability for appreciating the noble study to which I am devoted.'

"'No,' I said, hard and cold as adamant, 'I have no appreciation for a study which, like another Moloch, demands, not only the sacrifice of the self-respect, but even the lives of your unhappy children.'

"'You rave,' was his harsh reply. 'I offer you all the pleasures of life, and you call it immolation. Is not Mr. Harding as much of a gentleman as Dr. Sellick? Do I ask you to accept the attentions of a boor or a scapegrace? He is called a very honorable man by those who know him, and if you were ten times handsomer than you are, ten times more amiable, and had no defect calculated to diminish the regard of most men, you would still be scarcely worthy to bear the name of so wealthy, honorable, and highly esteemed a young man.'

"'Father, father!' I exclaimed, scarcely able to bear from him this allusion to my misfortune.

"'Why he has taken such a sudden, and, if I may say it, violent fancy to you, I find it hard to understand myself. But he has done this, and he has not scrupled to tell me so, and to intimate that he would like the opportunity of cultivating your good graces. Will you, then-I ask it for the last time-extend him a welcome, or must I see my hopes vanish, and with them a life too feeble to survive the disappointment which their loss must occasion.'

"'I cannot give any sort of welcome to this man,' I returned. 'If I did, I would be doing him a wrong, as well as you and myself. I dislike him, father, more than I can make you understand. His presence is worse than death to me; I would rather go to my coffin than to his arms. But if I liked him, if he were the beau-ideal of my dreams, could I break the vow I made one day in your presence? This man is not Dr. Sellick; do not then seek to make me forget the oath of isolation I have taken.'

"'Fool! fool!' was my father's furious retort. 'I know he is not Dr. Sellick. If he were I should not have his cause to plead to you.'

"How nearly his secret came out in his rage. 'If I could make you understand; make you see-'

"'You make me see that I am giving you a great and bitter disappointment,' I broke in. 'But it only equalizes matters; you have given me one.'

"He bounded to my side; he seized my arm and shook it.

"'Drop that foolish talk,' he cried. 'I will hear no more of it, nor of your staying in the house on that account or any other. You will go out to-morrow. You will go out with Mr. Harding. You will-'

"'Father,' I put in, chill as ice, 'do you expect to carry me out in your arms?'

"He fell back; he was a small man, my father, and I, as you know, am large for a woman.

"'You vixen!' he muttered, 'curses on the day when you were born!'

"'That curse has been already pronounced,' I muttered.

"He stood still, he made no answer, he seemed to be gathering himself together for a final appeal. Had he looked at me a little longer; had he shown any sympathy for my position, any appreciation for my wrongs, or any compunction for the share he had taken in them, I might have shown myself to have possessed some womanly softness and latent gentleness. But instead of that he took on in those few frightful moments such a look of cold, calculating hate that I was at once steeled and appalled. I hardly knew what he said when he cried at last:

"'Once! twice! thrice! Will you do what I desire, Hermione?'

"I only knew he had asked something I could not grant, so I answered, with what calmness I could, in the old formula, now for some months gone into disuse, 'I will not,' and sank, weary with my own emotions, into a chair.

"He gave me one look-I shall never forget it,-and threw up his arms with what sounded like an imprecation.

"'Then your sin be upon your own head!' he cried, and without another word left the room.

"I was frightened; never had I seen such an expression on mortal face before. And this was my father; the man who had courted my mother; who had put the ring upon her finger at the altar; who had sat at her dying bed and smiled as she whispered: 'For a busy man, you have always been a good husband to me.' Was this or that the real man as he was? Had these depths been always hidden within him, or had I created them there by my hardness and disobedience? I will never know.

XXIV. Father and Child

"The night which followed this day was a sleepless one for me. Yet how I dreaded the morning! How I shrank from the first sight of my father's face! Had Auntie Lovell been with us I should have prevailed upon her to have gone to him and tried to smooth the way to some sort of reconciliation between us, but she was in Chicago, and I was not yet upon such terms with Emma that I could bear to make of her a go-between. I preferred to meet him without apology, and by dutifulness in all other respects make him forget in time my failure to oblige him in one. I had made up my mind to go out of the house that day, though not with Mr, Harding.

"But sometimes it seems as if Providence stepped in our way when we try to recover from any false position into which we have been betrayed by the heat and stress of our own passions. When I tried to rise I found myself ill, and for several days after that I knew little and cared less where I was, or what my future was like to be. When I was well enough to get up and go about my duties again, I found the house and my father in very much the same condition as they were before the fatal appearance of Mr. Harding. No look from his eye revealed that any great change had taken place in his attitude towards me, and after learning that Mr. Harding had come once since my illness, been closeted with my father for some time, and had then gone away with a rather formal and hard good-by to the anxious Emma, I began to feel that my fears had been part of the delirium of the fever which had afterwards set in, and that I was alarming myself and softening my heart more than was necessary.

"The consequence was that I did not go out that afternoon, nor the next morning, nor for a week after, though I was always saying to myself that I would surprise them yet by a sudden dash out of the house when they showed, or rather my father showed, any such relenting in his studied attitude of indifference as would make such an action on the part of one constituted like myself, possible.

"But he was thinking of anything else but relenting, and even I began to see in a few days that something portentous lay behind the apparent apathy of his manner. He worked as he had of old, or rather he shut himself up in his laboratory from morning until night, but when he did appear, there was something new in his manner that deeply troubled me. I began to shrink at the sound of his step, and more than once went without a meal rather than meet the cold glance of his eye.

"Emma, who seemed to have little idea of what I suffered and of what I dreaded (what did I dread? I hardly knew) used to talk to me sometimes of our father's failing health; but I either hushed her or sat like a stone, I was in such a state of shuddering horror. I remember one day as I stole past the laboratory door, I beheld her with her arms round his neck, and the sight filled me with tumult, but whether it was one of longing or repugnance, or a mixture of both, I can hardly tell. But I know it was with difficulty I repressed a cry of grief, and that when I found myself alone my limbs were shaking under me like those of one stricken with ague. At last there came a day when father was no longer to be seen at the table. He ordered his meals brought to the laboratory, but denied being sick. I stared at Emma, who delivered this message, and asked her what she thought of it.

"'That he is ill,' she declared.

"Two weeks later my father called me into his presence. I went in fear and trembling. He was standing by his desk in the laboratory, and I could not repress a start of surprise when I saw the change which had taken place in him. But I said nothing, only stood near the doorway and waited for what he had to say.

"'Look at me,' he commanded. 'I am standing today; to-morrow I shall be sitting. I wish you to watch your work; now go.'

"I turned, so shaken by his look and terrible wanness that I could hardly stand. But at the door I paused and cried in irrepressible terror:

"'You are ill; let me send for a doctor, I cannot see you dying thus before my eyes.'

"'You cannot?' With what a grim chuckle he uttered the words. 'We will see what you can bear.' Then as my eyes opened in terror, and I seemed about to flee, he cried, 'No doctor, do you hear? I will see none. And mark me, no talking about what goes on in this room, if you do not wish my curse.'

"Aghast, I rushed from that unhallowed door. What did his words mean? What was his purpose? Upon what precipice of horror was I stumbling?

"The next day he summoned me again. I felt too weak to go, but I dared not disobey. I opened his door with a shaking hand, and found him sitting, as he had promised, in an old arm-chair that had been his mother's.

"'Do I look any better?' he asked.

"I shook my head. He was evidently much worse.

"'The poison of disobedience works slowly, but it works sure,' he cried.

"I threw up my arms with a shriek.

"He seemed to love the sound.

"'You do not enjoy the fruits of your actions,' said he. 'You love your old father so dearly.'

"I held out my hands; I entreated; I implored.

"'Do not-do not look on me like this. Some dreadful thought is in your mind-some dreadful revenge. Do not cherish it; do not make my already ruined life a worse torture to me. Let me have help, let me send for a doctor-'

"But his sternly lifted finger was already pointing at the door.

"'You have stayed too long,' he muttered. 'Next time you will barely look in, and leave without a word.'

"I crouched, he cowed me so, and then fled, this time to find Emma, Doris, some one.

"They were both huddled in the hall below. They had heard our voices and were terrified at the sound.

"'Don't you think he is very ill?' asked Emma. 'Don't you think we ought to have the doctor come, in spite of his commands to the contrary?"

"'Yes,' I gasped, 'and quickly, or we will feel like murderers.'

"'Dr. Dudgeon is a big know-nothing,' cried Doris.

"'But he is a doctor,' I said. And Doris went for him at once.

"When he came Emma undertook to take him to the laboratory; I did not dare. I sat on the stairs and listened, shaking in every limb. What was going on in that room? What was my father saying? What was the doctor deciding? When the door opened at last I was almost unconscious. The sound of the doctor's voice, always loud, struck upon my ears like thunder, but I could not distinguish his words. Not till he had come half-way down the stairs did I begin to understand them, and then I heard:

"'A case of overwork! He will be better in a day or two. Send for me if he seems any worse.'

"Overwork! that clay-white cheek! those dry and burning lips! the eyes hollowed out as if death were already making a skeleton of him! I seized the doctor's hand as he went by.

"'Are you sure that is all?' I cried.

"He gave me a pompous stare. 'I do not often repeat myself,' said he, and went haughtily out without another word.

"Emma, standing at the top of the stairs, came down as the door closed behind him.

"'Father was not so angry as I feared he would be. He smiled at the doctor and seemed glad to see him. He even roused himself up to talk, and for a few minutes did not look so ill as he really is.'

"'Did the doctor leave medicine?' I asked.

"'Oh, yes, plenty; powder and pills.'

"'Where is it?'

"'On father's desk. He says he will take it regularly. He would not let me give it to him.'

"I reeled; everything seemed turning round with me.

"'Watch him,' I cried, 'watch-' and could say no more. Unconsciousness had come to relieve me.

"It was dark when I came to myself. I was lying on my own bed, and by the dim light burning on a small table near by I saw the form of Doris bending over me. Starting up, I caught her by the arm.

"'What is going on?' I cried.

"Rude noises were in the house. A sound of breaking glass.

"'It comes from the laboratory,' she exclaimed, and rushed from the room.

"I rose and had barely strength enough to follow her. When we reached the laboratory door Emma was already there. A light was burning at one end of the long and dismal room, and amid the weird shadows that it cast we saw our father in a loose gown he often wore when at work, standing over his table with lifted fist. It was bleeding; he had just brought it down upon a favorite collection of tubes.

"'Ah!' he cried, tottering and seizing the table to steady himself; 'you have come to see the end of my famous discovery. Here it is; look!' And his fist came down again upon a jar containing the work of months.

"The smash that followed seemed to echo in my brain. I rushed forward, but was stopped by his look.

"'Another result of your obduracy,' he cried, and sank back fainting upon the hard floor.

"I let Emma and Doris lift him. What place had I at his side?

"'Shall I go for the doctor again?' inquired Doris as she came to my room a half-hour later.

"'Does he seem worse?' I asked.

"'No; but he looks dreadfully. Ever since we got him on the lounge-he would not leave the laboratory-he has lain in one position, his eye upon those broken pieces of glass. He would not even let me wipe up the red liquid that was in them, and it drips from table to floor in a way to make your blood run cold.'

"'Can I see him,' I asked, 'without his seeing me?'

"'Yes,' said she, 'if you come very carefully; his head is towards the door.'

"I did as she bade, and crept towards the open door. As I reached it he was speaking low to himself.

"'Drop by drop,' he was saying, 'just as if it were my life-blood that was dripping from the table to the floor.'

"It was a terrible thing to hear, for me to hear, and I shrank back. But soon a certain sense of duty drove me forward again, and I leaned across the threshold, peering at his rigid and attenuated figure lying just where he could watch the destruction of all his hopes. I could not see his face, but his attitude was eloquent, and I felt a pang strike through all my horror at the sight of a grief the death of both his children could not have occasioned him.

"Suddenly he bounded up.

"'Curse her!' he began, in a frenzy; but instantly seemed to bethink himself, for he sank back very meekly as Emma stooped over him and Doris rushed to his side. 'Excuse me,' said he; 'I fear I am not just in my right mind-'

"They thought so too, and in a few minutes Doris stole out after the doctor, but I knew whatever delirium he had sprang from his hate of me, and was awed into a shrinking inactivity which Emma excused while only partially understanding.

"The doctor came and this time I stood watching. My father, who had not expected this interference, showed anger at first, but soon settled back into a half-jocular, half-indifferent endurance of the interloper, which tended to impress the latter, and did succeed in doing so, with the folly of those who thought he was sick enough to rouse a doctor up at midnight. Few questions brought few replies, and the irritated physician left us with something like a rebuke. He however said he would come again in the morning, as there was a fitfulness in my father's pulse which he did not like.

"But before the doctor appeared that morning father had called me for the third and last time to his side.

"'I wish to see my eldest daughter alone,' he declared, as Emma lingered and Doris hovered about the open door. They at once went out 'Now shut the door,' said he, as their footsteps were heard descending the stairs.

"I did as I was bid, though I felt as if I were shutting myself in with some horrid doom.

"'Now come in front of me,' he commanded, 'I want to look at you. I have just five minutes left in which to do it.'

"'Five minutes!' I repeated hoarsely, creeping round with tottering and yet more tottering steps to where he pointed.

"'Yes; the poison has done its work at last. At eight o'clock I shall be dead.'

"'Poison!' I shrieked, but in so choked a tone the word sounded like a smothered whisper.

"But he was alarmed by it for all that.

"'Do not tell the world,' he cried. 'it is enough that you know it. Are you pleased that you have driven your father to self-destruction? Will it make your life in this house, in which you have vowed to remain, any happier? I told you that your sin should be on your head; and it will be. For, listen to me: now in this last dreadful hour, I command you, heartless and disobedient one, to keep that vow. By this awful death, by the despair which has driven me to it, beware of leaving these doors. In your anger you swore to remain within these walls; in your remorse see that you keep that oath. Not for love, not for hatred, dare to cross the threshold, or I will denounce you in the grave where I shall be gone, and my curse shall be upon you.'

"He had risen in his passion as he uttered these words, but he sank back as he finished, and I thought he was dead. Terrified, crushed, I sank upon my knees, having no words with which to plead for the mercy for which I now longed. The next minute a horrible groan burst upon my ear.

"'It eats-it burns into my vitals. The suffering has come,-the suffering which I have often noted with unconcern in the animals upon which I tested it. I cannot bear it; I had rather live. Get me the antidote; there, there, in the long narrow drawer in the cabinet by the wall. Not there, not there!' he shrieked, as I stumbled over the floor, which seemed to rise in waves beneath my feet. 'The other cabinet, the other drawer; you are where the poison is.'

"I halted; weights seemed to be upon my feet; I could not move. He was writhing in agony on the floor; he no longer seemed to know where I stood.

"'Open it-the drawer,' he cried. 'Bring me what is in it.'

"I reached out my hand; heaven and earth seemed to stand still; red lights danced before my eyes; I drew out the drawer.

"'Quick, quick, the powder!' he moaned; 'fetch it!'

"I was staring at him, but my hand groped in the drawer. I felt a little packet of powder; I took it and crossed the room. As soon as I was near him he stretched out his hand and grasped it. I saw him empty it into his mouth; at the same instant his eyes fixed themselves in horror on the drawer I had left open behind me, the drawer in which the poison was kept.

"'Curse you for a-" He never said what. With this broken imprecation upon his lips, he sank back upon the floor-dead.'

XXV. Edgar and Frank

Frank, who had been reading these words as if swept along by a torrent, started to his feet with a hoarse cry, as he reached this point. He could not believe his eyes, he could not believe his understanding. He shrank from the paper that contained the deadly revelation, as though a snake had suddenly uncoiled itself from amid the sheets. With hair slowly rising on his forehead, he stared and stared, hoping wildly, hoping against hope, to see other words start from the sheet, and blot out of existence the ones that had in an instant made his love a horror, his life a desert.

But no. Heaven works no such miracle, even in sight of such an agony as his; and the words met his gaze relentlessly till his misery was more than he could endure, and he rushed from the room like a madman.

Edgar, who was busy over some medical treatise, rose rapidly as he heard the unsteady footsteps of his friend.

"What is the matter?" he cried, as Frank came stumbling into his presence. "You look-"

"Never mind how I look; comfort me, Edgar, comfort me!" and in his anguish he burst into irrepressible sobs. "Hermione is-" He could not say what, but drew his friend after him to the room where the letter lay, and pointed to the few ghastly lines which had undone him. "Read those," he panted. "She had suffered; she was not herself, but, oh-" He broke down again, and did not try to speak further till Edgar had read the hideous confession contained in those closing lines, and some of the revelations which had led up to it. Then he said: "Do not speak to me yet; let me bear the horror alone. I loved her so; ah, I did love her!"

Edgar, who had turned very pale, was considerate enough to respect this grief, and silently wait for Frank to regain sufficient composure to talk with him. This was not soon, but when the moment came, Edgar showed that his heart beat truly under all his apparent indifference. He did not say, "I bade you beware "; he merely took his friend's hand and wrung it. Frank, who was almost overwhelmed with shame and sorrow, muttered some words of acknowledgment.

"I must get out of the town," said he. "I feel as if the very atmosphere here would choke me."

Here came again the long, doleful drone of the foghorn. "How like a groan that is," said he. "An evil day it was for me when I first came within its foreboding sound."

"We will say that when all is over," ventured Edgar, but in no very hopeful tones. "You should not have shown me these words, Frank; the wonder is that she was willing to show them to you."

"She could not otherwise get rid of my importunities. I would take no hint, and so she tells me the truth."

"That shows nobleness," remarked Edgar. "She has some virtues which may excuse you to yourself for the weakness you have shown in her regard."

"I dare not think of it," said Frank. "I dare not think of her again. Yet to leave her when she is suffering so! Is not that almost as cruel a fate as to learn that she is so unworthy?"

"I would you had never come here!" exclaimed Edgar, with unwonted fervency.

"There are more words," observed Frank, "but I cannot read them. Words of sorrow and remorse, no doubt, but what do they avail? The fact remains that she gave her father in his agony another dose of the poison that was killing him, instead of the antidote for which he prayed."

"Yes," said Edgar, "only I feel bound to say that no antidote would have saved him then. I know the poison and I know the antidote; we have tested them together often."

Frank shuddered.

"He had the heart of a demon," declared Edgar, "to plan and carry out such a revenge, even upon a daughter who had so grievously disappointed him. I can hardly believe the tale, only that I have learned that one may believe anything of human nature."

"She-she did not kill him, then?"

"No, but her guilt is as great as if she had, for she must have had the momentary instinct of murder."

"O Hermione, Hermione! so beautiful and so unhappy!"

"A momentary instinct, which she is expiating fearfully. No wonder she does not leave the house. No wonder that her face looks like a tragic mask!"

"No one seems to have suspected her guilt, or even his. We have never heard any whispers about poison."

"Dudgeon is a conceited fool. Having once said overwork, he would stick to overwork. Besides that poison is very subtle; I would have difficulty in detecting its workings myself."

"And this is the tragedy of that home! Oh, how much worse, how much more fearful than any I have attributed to it!"

The Doctor sighed.

"What has not Emma had to bear," he said.

"Emma!" Frank unconsciously roused himself. "If I remember rightly, Hermione has said that Emma did not know all her trouble."

"Thank God! May she never be enlightened."

"Edgar," whispered Frank, "I do not think I can let you read all that letter, though it tells much you ought to know. I have yet some consideration-for-for Hermione-" (How hard the word came from lips which once uttered it with so much pride!)-"and she never expected any other eyes than mine to rest upon these revelations of her heart of hearts. But one thing I must tell you in justice to yourself and the girl upon whom no shadow rests but that of a most loyal devotion to a most wretched sister. Not from her heart did the refusal come which blighted your hopes and made you cynical towards women. There were reasons she could not communicate, reasons she could not even dwell upon herself, why she felt forced to dismiss you, and in the seemingly heartless way she did."

"I am willing to believe it," said Edgar.

"Emma is a pure and beautiful spirit," observed Frank, and gave himself up to grief for her who was not, and yet who commanded his pity for her sufferings and possibly for her provocations.

Edgar now had enough of his own to think of, and if Frank had been less absorbed in his own trouble he might have observed with what longing eyes his friend turned every now and then towards the sheets which contained so much of Emma's history as well as her sister's. Finally he spoke:

"Why does Emma remain in the house to which the father only condemned her sister?"

"Because she once vowed to share that sister's fate, whatever it might be."

"Her love for her sister is then greater than any other passion she may have had."

"I don't know; there were other motives beside love to influence her," explained Frank, and said no more.

Edgar sank again into silence. It was Frank who spoke next.

"Do you think"-He paused and moistened his lips-"Have you doubted what our duty is about this matter?"

"To leave the girl-you said it yourself. Have you any other idea, Frank?"

"No, no; that is not what I mean," stammered Etheridge. "I mean about-about-the father's death. Should the world know? Is it a matter for the-for the police?"

"No," cried Edgar, aghast "Mr. Cavanagh evidently killed himself. It is a dreadful thing to know, but I do not see why we need make it public."

Frank drew a long breath.

"I feared," he said,-"I did not know but you would think my duty would lie in-in-"

"Don't speak of it," exclaimed Edgar. "If you do not wish to finish reading her confession, put it up. Here is a drawer, in which you can safely lock it."

Frank, recoiling from the touch of those papers which had made such a havoc with his life, motioned to Edgar to do what he would with them.

"Are you not going to write-to answer this in some way?" asked Edgar.

"Thank God she has not made that necessary. She wrote somewhere, in the beginning, I think, that, if I felt the terror of her words too deeply, I was to pass by her house on the other side of the street at an early hour in the morning. Did she dream that I could do anything else?"

Edgar closed the drawer in which he had hidden her letter, locked it, and laid the key down on the table beside Frank.

Frank did not observe the action; he had risen to his feet, and in another moment had left the room. He had reached the point of feeling the need of air and a wider space in which to breathe. As he stepped into the street, he turned in a contrary direction to that in which he had been wont to walk. Had he not done this; had he gone southward, as usual, he might have seen the sly and crouching figure which was drawn up on that side of the house, peering into the room he had just left through the narrow opening made by an imperfectly lowered shade.

BOOK III.

UNCLE AND NIECE

XXVI. The White Powder

It was nine o'clock in the morning, and Hermione stood in the laboratory window overlooking the street. Pale from loss of sleep and exhausted with the fever of anxiety which had consumed her ever since she had despatched her letter to Mr. Etheridge, she looked little able to cope with any disappointment which might be in store for her. But as she leaned there watching for Frank, it was evident from her whole bearing that she was moved by a fearful hope rather than by an overmastering dread; perhaps because she had such confidence in his devotion; perhaps because there was such vitality in her own love.

Her manner was that of one who thinks himself alone, and yet she was not alone. At the other end of the long and dismal apartment glided the sly figure of Huckins. No longer shabby and unkempt, but dressed with a neatness which would have made his sister Cynthia stare in amazement if she could have risen from her grave to see him, he flitted about with noiseless tread, listening to every sigh that escaped from his niece's lips, and marking, though he scarcely glanced her way, each turn of her head and each bend of her body, as if he were fully aware of her reasons for standing there, and the importance of the issues hanging upon the occurrences of the next fifteen minutes.

She may have known of his presence, and she may not. Her preoccupation was great, and her attention fixed not upon anything in the room, but upon the street without. Yet she may have felt the influence of that gliding Evil, moving, snake-like, at her back. If she did she gave no sign, and the moments came and went without any change in her eager attitude or any cessation in the ceaseless movements with which he beguiled his own anxiety and the devilish purposes which were slowly forming themselves in his selfish and wicked mind.

At length she gave a start, and leaned heavily forward. Huckins, who was expecting this proof of sudden interest, paused where he was, and surveyed her with undisguised eagerness in his baleful eyes, while the words "She sees him; he is coming-" formed themselves upon his thin and quivering lips, though no sound disturbed the silence, and neither he nor she seemed to breathe.

And he was right Frank was coming down the street, not gayly and with the buoyant step of a happy lover, but with head sunk upon his breast and eyes lowered to the ground. Will he lift them as he approaches the gate? Will he smile, as in the olden time-the olden time that was yesterday-and raise his hand towards the gate and swing it back and enter with that lightsome air of his at once protecting and joy-inspiring? He looks very serious now, and his steps falter; but surely, surely, his love is not going to fail him at the crisis; surely, surely, he who has overlooked so much will not be daunted by the little more with which she has tried his devotion; surely, surely But his eyes do not lift themselves. He is at the gate, but his hand is not raised to it, and the smile does not come. He is going by, not on the other side of the street, but going by, going by, which means—

As the consciousness of what it did mean pierced her heart and soul, Hermione gave a great cry-she never knew how great a cry-and, staring like one demented after the beloved figure that in her disordered sight seemed to shrink and waver as it vanished, sank helpless upon the window sill, with her head falling forward, in a deadly faint.

Huckins, hearing that cry, slowly rubbed his hands together and smiled as the Dark One might smile at the sudden downfall of some doubtful soul. Then he passed softly to the door, and, shutting it carefully, came back and recommenced his restless pacings, but this time with an apparent purpose of investigation, for he opened and shut drawers, not quietly, but with a decided clatter, and peered here and there into bottles and jars, casting, as he did so, ready side-glances at the drooping figure from which the moans of a fatal despair were now slowly breaking.

When those moans became words, he stopped and listened, and this was what he heard come faltering from her lips:

"Twice! twice! Once when I felt myself strong and now when I feel myself weak. It is too much for a proud woman. I cannot bear it."

At this evidence of revolt and discouragement, Huckins' smile grew in its triumph. He seemed to glide nearer to her; yet he did not stir.

She saw nothing. If she had once recognized his presence, he was to her now as one blotted from existence. She was saying over and over to herself: "No hope! no hope! I am cursed! My father's hate reaches higher than my prayers. There is no escape; no love, no light. Solitude is before me; solitude forever. Believing this, I cannot live; indeed I cannot!"

As if this had been the word for which he was waiting, Huckins suddenly straightened up his lean figure and began himself to talk, not as she did, in wild and passionate tones, but in low, abstracted murmurs, as if he were too intent upon a certain discovery he had made to know or care whether there was or was not any one present to overhear his words.

And what did he say? what could he say at a moment like this? Listen and gauge the evil in the man, for it is deep as his avarice and relentless as his purpose to enjoy the riches which he considers his due. He is standing by a cabinet, the cabinet on the left of the room, and his hand is in a long and narrow drawer.

"What is this?" (Mark the surprise in his tone.) "A packet labelled Poison? This is a strange thing to find lying about in an open drawer. Poison! I wonder what use brother Cavanagh had for poison?"

He pauses; was it because he had heard a moan or cry break from the spot where Hermione crouched against the wall? No, there was silence there, a deep and awful silence, which ought to have made the flesh creep upon his bones, but which, instead, seemed to add a greater innocence to his musing tones.

"I suppose it was what was left after some old experiment. It is very dangerous stuff. I should not like to drop these few grains of white powder upon my tongue, unless I wanted to be rid of all my troubles. Guess I had better shake the paper out of the window, or those girls will come across it some day, and may see that word Poison and be moved by it. Life in this house hasn't many attractions."

Any sound now from that dim, distant corner? No, silence is there still; deadly silence. He smiles darkly, and speaks again; very low now, but oh, how clearly!

"But what business is it of mine? I find poison in this drawer, and I leave it where I find it, and shut the drawer. It may be wanted for rats, and it is always a mistake for old folks to meddle. But I should like to; I'd like to throw this same innocent-looking white powder out of the window; it makes me afraid to think of it lying shut up here in a drawer so easily opened-My child! Hermione!" he suddenly shrieked, "what do you want?"

She was standing before him, a white and terrible figure.

"Nothing," came from her set lips, in a low and even tone; but she laid one hand upon the drawer he had half shut and with the other pointed to the door.

He shrank from her, appalled perhaps at his work-perhaps at her recognition of it

"Don't," he feebly protested, shaking with terror, or was it with a hideous anxiety? "There is poison in that drawer; do not open it."

"Go for my sister," was the imperious command. "I have no use for you here, but for her I have."

"You won't open that drawer," he prayed, as he retreated before her eyes in frightened jerks and breathless pauses.

"I tell you I do not need you," she repeated, her hand still on the drawer, her form rigid, her face blue-white and drawn.

"I-I will bring Emma," he faltered, and shambled across the threshold, throwing back upon her a look she may have noted and may not, but which if she had understood, would certainly have made her pause. "I will go for Emma," he said again, closing the door behind him with a touch which seemed to make even that senseless wood fall away from him. Then he listened-listened instead of going for the gentle sister whose presence might have calmed the turbulent spirit he had just left. And as he listened his face gradually took on a satisfied look, till, at a certain sound from within, he allowed his hands the luxury of a final congratulatory rub, and then gliding from the place, went below.

Emma was standing in the parlor window, fixed in dismay at the sight of Frank's going by without word or look; but Huckins did not stop to give her the message with which he had been entrusted. Instead of that he passed into the kitchen, and not till he had crossed the floor and shambled out into the open air of the garden did he venture to turn and say to the watching Doris:

"I am afraid Miss Hermione is not quite well-"

XXVII. The Hand of Huckins

Frank exhausted his courage in passing Hermione's door. When he heard the cry she gave, he stopped for a moment, then rushed hastily on, not knowing whither, and not caring, so long as he never saw the street or the house or the poplars again.

He intended, as much as he intended anything, to take the train for New York, but when he came sufficiently to himself to think of the hour, he found that he was in a wood quite remote from the station, and that both the morning and noon trains had long since passed.

It was not much of a disappointment. He was in that stage of misery in which everything seems blurred, and life and its duties too unreal for contemplation. He did not wish to act or even to think. The great solitude about him was more endurable than the sight of human faces, but I doubt if he would have been other than solitary anywhere, or seen aught but her countenance in any place where he might have been.

And what made this the more torturing to him was the fact that he always saw her with an accusing look on her face. Never with bowed forehead or in an attitude of shame, but with the straightforward aspect of one utterly grieved where she had expected consideration and forbearance. This he knew to be a freak of his fancy, for had he not her words to prove she had merited his condemnation? But fancy or not, it followed him, softening unconsciously his thought of her, though it never for an instant weakened his resolve not to see her again or exchange another word with one whose conscience was laden with so heavy a crime.

The wood in which he found himself wandering skirted the town towards the west, so that when, in the afternoon, hunger and weariness drove him back to the abodes of men, he had but to follow the beaten track which ran through it, to come out at the other end of the village from that by which he had entered.

The place where he emerged was near a dark pool at the base of the hill on which was perched the Baptist church.

As he saw this pool and caught a sight of the steeple towering above him in the summer sky, he felt himself grow suddenly frantic. Here she had stood with Emma, halting between life and death. Here she had been seized by her first temptation, and had been saved from it only to fall into another one immeasurably greater and more damning. Horrible, loathsome pool! why had it not swallowed her? Would it not have been better that it had? He dared to think so, and bent above its dismal depths with a fascination which in another moment made him recoil and dash away in horror towards the open spaces of the high-road.

Edgar had just come in from his round of visits when Frank appeared before him. Having supposed him to be in New York, he uttered a loud exclamation. Whereupon Frank exclaimed:

"I could not go. I seemed to be chained to this place. I have been wandering all day in the woods." And he sank into a chair exhausted, caring little whether Edgar noted or not his weary and dishevelled appearance.

"You look ill," observed the Doctor; "or perhaps you have not eaten; let me get you a cup of coffee."

Frank looked up but made no further sign.

"You will stay with me to-night," suggested Edgar.

"I am chained," repeated Frank, and that was all.

With a look of sincerest compassion the Doctor quietly left the room. He had his own griefs, but he could master them; beside, the angel of hope was already whispering sweet messages to his secret soul. But Frank's trouble was beyond alleviation, and it crushed him as his own had never done, possibly because in this case his pride was powerless to sustain him. When he came back, he found Frank seated at the desk poring over the fatal letter. He had found the key of the drawer lying where he had left it, and, using it under a sudden impulse, had opened the drawer and taken out the sheets he had vowed never to touch again.

Edgar paused when he saw the other's bended head and absorbed air, and though he was both annoyed and perplexed he said nothing, but set down the tray he had brought very near to Frank's elbow.

The young lawyer neither turned nor gave it any attention.

Edgar, with the wonted patience of a physician, sat down and waited for his friend to move. He would not interrupt him, but would simply be in readiness to hand the coffee when Frank turned. But he never handed him that cup of coffee, for suddenly, Frank, with a wild air and eyes fixed in a dazed stare upon the paper, started to his feet, and uttering a cry, began turning over the two or three sheets he was reading, as if he had made some almost incomprehensible discovery.

"Edgar, Edgar," he hurriedly gasped, "read these over for me; I cannot see the words; there is something different here; we have made a mistake! Oh, what has happened! my head is all in a whirl."

He sank back in his chair. Edgar, rushing forward, seized the half dozen sheets offered him and glanced eagerly over them.

"I see no difference," he cried; but as he went on, driven by Frank's expectant eye, he gave a surprised start also, and turning back the pages, read them again and again, crying at last:

"We must have overlooked one of these sheets. We read her letter without this page. What a mischance! for with these words left in it is no longer a confession we have before us, but a narrative. Frank, Frank, we have wronged the girl. She has no crime to bemoan, only a misery to relate."

"Read it aloud," broke from Frank's lips. "Let me hear it from your mouth. How could we have overlooked such a page? Oh, my poor girl! my poor girl!"

Edgar, beginning back a page or two from the one which had before escaped their attention, read as follows. The portion marked by brackets is the one that was new to both their eyes:

"But before the doctor appeared that morning father had called me for the third and last time to his side.

"'I wish to see my eldest daughter alone,' he declared, as Emma lingered and Doris hovered about the open door. They at once went out. 'Now shut the door,' said he, as their footsteps were heard descending the stairs.

"I did as I was bid, though I felt as if I were shutting myself in with some horrid doom.

"'Now come in front of me,' he commanded. 'I want to look at you; I have just five minutes left in which to do it'

"'Five minutes!' I repeated hoarsely, creeping round with tottering and yet more tottering steps to where he pointed.

"'Yes; the poison has done its work at last. At eight o'clock I shall be dead.'"

"'Poison!' I shrieked, but in so choked a tone the word sounded like a smothered whisper.

"But he was alarmed by it for all that.

"'Do not tell the world,' he cried. 'It is enough that you know it. Are you pleased that you have driven your father to self-destruction? Will it make your life in this house, in which you have vowed to remain, any happier? I told you that your sin should be on your head, and it will be. For, listen to me: now in this last dreadful hour, I command you, heartless and disobedient one, to keep that vow. By this awful death, by the despair which has driven me to it, beware of leaving these doors. In your anger you swore to remain within these walls; in your remorse see that you keep that oath. Not for love, not for hatred, dare to cross the threshold, or I will denounce you in the grave where I shall be gone, and my curse shall be upon you.'

"He had risen in his passion as he uttered these words, but he sank back as he finished, and I thought he was dead.

"Terrified, crushed, I sank upon my knees, having no words with which to plead for the mercy for which I now longed. The next minute a horrible groan burst upon my ear.

"'It eats-it burns into my vitals. The suffering has come,-the suffering which I have often noted with unconcern in the animals upon which I had tested it. I cannot bear it; I had rather live. Get me the antidote; there, there in the long, narrow drawer in the cabinet by the wall! Not there, not there!' he shrieked, as I stumbled over the floor, which seemed to rise in waves beneath my feet. 'The other cabinet, the other drawer; you are where the poison is.'

"I halted; weights seemed to be upon my feet; I could not move. He was writhing in agony on the floor; he no longer seemed to know where I stood.

["'The antidote!' he moaned, 'the antidote!' I burst the bonds which held me, and leaving open the drawer which I had half pulled out in my eagerness to relieve him, I rushed across the room to the cabinet he had pointed out.

"'The long drawer," he murmured, 'the one like the other. Pull it hard; it is not locked!'

"I tried to do as he commanded, but my hand slid helplessly from drawer to drawer. I could hardly see. He moaned and shrieked again.

"'The long one, I say, the long one!'

"As he spoke my hand touched it.

"'I have it,' I panted forth.]

"'Open it-the drawer,' he cried. 'Bring me what is in it.'

"I reached out my hand; heaven and earth seemed to stand still; red lights danced before my eyes; I drew out the drawer.

"'Quick, quick, the powder!' he moaned; 'fetch it!'

"I was staring at him, but my hand groped in the drawer. I felt a little packet of powder; I took it and crossed the room. As soon as I was near him he stretched out his hand and grasped it. I saw him empty it into his mouth; at the same instant his eyes fixed themselves in horror on the drawer I had left open behind me, the drawer in which the poison was kept.

"'Curse you for a-" He never said what. With this broken imprecation upon his lips, he sank back upon the floor-dead.'

"God, what a difference!" cried Edgar. But Frank, trembling from head to foot, reached out and took the sheets, and laying them on the desk before him, buried his face in them. When he looked up again, Edgar, for all his own relief, was startled by the change in him.

"Her vindication comes late," said he, "but I will go at once and explain-"

"Wait; let us first understand how we both were led to make such a mistake. Could the leaves have stuck together?"

There were no signs of this having happened. Yet who could say that this was not the real explanation of the whole matter? The most curious feature of the occurrence was that just the missing of that one sheet should have so altered the sense of what they read. They did not know then or ever that this very fact had struck Huckins also in his stolen reading of the same, and that it had been his hand which had abstracted it and then again restored it when he thought the mutilated manuscript had done its work. They never knew this, as I say, but they thought the chance which had occurred to them a very strange one, and tried to lay it to their agitation at the time, or to any cause but the real one.

The riddle proving insolvable, they abandoned it, and Frank again rose. But Edgar drawing his attention to the few additional sheets which he had never read, he sat down again in eagerness to peruse them. Let us read them with him, for in them we shall find the Hermione of to-day, not the angry and imperious woman upon whom her father revenged himself by a death calculated to blot the sun from her skies and happiness from her heart forever.

"When Emma came to the room she discovered me kneeling, rigid and horror-stricken, above my father's outstretched form. She says that I met her eyes with mine, but that there was no look of life within them. Indeed, I was hardly alive, and have no remembrance of how I was taken from that room or what happened in the house for hours. When I did rouse, Emma was beside me. Her look was one of grief but not of horror, and I saw she had no idea of what had passed between my father and myself during the last few days. Dr. Dudgeon had told her that our father had died of heart-disease, and she believed him, and thought my terror was due to the suddenness of his end and the fact that I was alone with him at the time.

"She therefore smiled with a certain faint encouragement when I opened my eyes upon her face, but pushed me back with gentle hand when I tried to rise, saying:

"'All is well with father, Hermione,-so think only of yourself just now; I do not think you are able to get up."

"I was only too happy not to make the effort. If only my eyes had never opened! If only I had sunk from unconsciousness into the perfect peace of death! But even that idea made me quake. He was there, and I had such a horror of him, that it seemed for a moment that I would rather live forever than to encounter him again, even in a world where the secrets of all hearts lie open.

"'Did not father forgive you?' murmured Emma, marking perhaps the expression of my face.

"I smiled a bitter smile.

"'Do not ever let us talk about father,' I prayed. 'He has condemned me to this house, and that will make me remember him sufficiently without words.'

"She rose horror-stricken.

"'O Hermione!' she murmured; 'O Hermione!' and hid her face in her hands and wept.

"But I lay silent, tearless.

"When the funeral procession passed out of the house without us, the people stared. But no thought of there being anything back of this seeming disrespect, save the caprice of two very whimsical girls, seemed to strike the mind of any one. The paper which had held the antidote I had long ago picked up from the laboratory floor; while the open drawer with the packet in it marked Poison had doubtless been shut by Doris on her first entrance into the room after his death. For I not only found it closed, but I never heard any one speak of it, or of any peculiar symptoms attending my father's death.

"But the arrow was in my heart for all that, and for weeks my life was little more than a nightmare. All the pride which had upheld me was gone. I felt myself a crushed woman. The pall which my father had thrown over me in his self-inflicted death, hung heavy and stifling about me. I breathed, but it seemed to be in gasps, and when exhausted nature gave way and I slept, it was to live over again in dreams those last fearful moments of his life, and hear, with even more distinctness than in my waking hours, the words of the final curse with which he sank to the floor.

"I had not deserved it-that I felt; but I suffered all the same, and suffered all the more that I could take no confidant into my troubles. Emma, with her broken life, had had disappointments enough without this revelation of a father's vindictiveness, and though it might have eased me for the moment to hear her words of sympathy, I knew that I should find it harder to face her day by day, if this ghost of horror once rose between us. No; the anguish was mine, and must be borne by me alone. So I crushed it down into my heart and was silent.

"Meantime the command which had been laid upon me by my father, never to leave the house, was weaving a chain about me I soon found it impossible to break. Had I immediately upon his death defied his will and rushed frenziedly out of the gate, I might have grown to feel it easy to walk the streets again in the face of a curse which should never have been laid upon me. But the custom of obeying his dying mandate soon got its hold upon me, and I could not overcome it. At the very thought of crossing the threshold I would tremble; and though when I looked at Emma heroically sharing my fate without knowing the reasons for my persistency, I would dream for a moment of breaking the spell those dying lips had laid upon me, I always found myself drawing back in terror, almost as if I had been caught by fleshless fingers.

"And so the weeks passed and we settled into the monotonous existence of an uninterrupted seclusion. What had been the expression of my self-will, became now a species of expiation. For though I had not deserved the awful burden which had been imposed upon me of a father's death and curse, I had deserved punishment, and this I now saw, and this I now endeavored to meet, with something like the meekness of repentance. I accepted my doom, and tried not to dwell so much upon my provocations as upon the temper with which I met them, and the hardness with which I strove to triumph over my disappointments. And in doing this I became less hard, preparing my heart, though I did not know it, for that new seed of love which fate was about to drop into it.

"Mr. Etheridge, I have told you all my story. If it strikes you with dismay and you shrink in your noble manhood from a woman whom, rightfully or wrongfully, is burdened with the weight of a father's death, do not try to overcome that shrinking or defy that dismay. We could never be happy if you did. Nothing but whole-souled love will satisfy me or help me to forget the shadows that bear so heavily upon my head. You say you love me, but your emotions upon reading this letter will prove to yourself what is the true strength and nature of your feelings. Let them, then, have their honest way. If they are in my favor I shall be the happiest girl alive, but if they lead you to go by on the other side of the street, then will I strive to bear this sorrow also, as one who has been much to blame for the evils which have befallen her."

That was all. As Frank folded the last sheet and put it and the rest quietly away in his pocket, Edgar saw, or thought he saw, that happier hours were about to dawn for Hermione Cavanagh. It made him think of his own love and of the claims of the gentle Emma.

"Frank," said he, with the effort of a reticent man compelled at last to make an admission, "if you are going to the Cavanaghs, I think-I-will-go-with you."

Frank started and leaped forward warmly with outstretched hand. But before their two palms could meet, the door was violently opened and a messenger came panting in with the announcement:

"Dr. Sellick's wanted. Hermione Cavanagh is at the point of death."

XXVIII. In Extremity

Frank and Edgar were equally pale as they reached the Cavanagh house. No time had been lost on the way, and yet the moments had been long enough for them both to be the prey of the wildest conjectures. The messenger who had brought the startling news of Hermione's illness knew nothing concerning the matter beyond the fact that Doris, their servant, had called to him, as he was passing their house, to run for Dr. Sellick, as Miss Hermione was dying. They were therefore entirely in the dark as to what had happened, and entered the house, upon their arrival, like men for whom some terrible doom might be preparing.

The first person they encountered was Huckins. He was standing in the parlor window, rubbing his hands slowly together and smiling very softly to himself. But when he saw the two young men, he came forward with a cringing bow and an expression of hypocritical grief, which revived all Frank's distrust and antipathy.

"Oh, sir," he exclaimed to Frank, "you here? You should not have come; indeed you should not. Sad case," he added, turning to the Doctor; "very sad case, this which we have upstairs. I fear we are going to lose the dear young lady." And he wiped his half-shut eyes with his fine white handkerchief.

"Let me see her; where is she?" cried the Doctor, not stopping to look around him, though the place must have been full of the most suggestive associations.

"Doris will show you. She was in the laboratory when I saw her last. A dangerous place for a young lady who has been jilted by her lover!" And he turned a very twinkling eye on Frank.

"What do you mean?" cried Frank. "The laboratory! The place where-O Edgar, go to her, go at once."

But Edgar was already half-way upstairs, at the top of which he was met by Doris.

"What is this?" he cried. "What has happened to Miss Cavanagh?"

"Come and see," she said. "O that she should go out of the house first in this way!"

Alarmed more by the woman's manner than her words, Dr. Sellick hurried forward and entered the open laboratory door almost without realizing that in another instant he would be in the presence of Emma. And when he did see her, and met the eyes he had not looked into since that night a year before when she listened to his vows with such a sweet and bashful timidity, he hardly felt the shock of the change observable in her, for the greater shock her sister's appearance inspired. For Hermione lay on that same old couch which had once held her father, ill to speechlessness, and though the Doctor did not know what had brought her to this condition, he began to suspect and doubt if he were in time to revive her.

"What has she taken?" he demanded. "Something, or she would not be as low as this without more warning."

Emma, quaking, put a little piece of paper in his hand.

"I found this in her pocket," she whispered. "It was only a little while ago. It is quite empty," said she, "or you would have had two patients."

He stared at her, hardly taking in her words. Then he leaped to the door.

"Frank," he cried, tossing down a slip of paper on which he had hastily written a word, "go with this to the druggist at once! Run, for moments are precious!"

They heard a shout in answer; then the noise of the front door opening and shutting, and the sound of rapidly departing steps.

"Thank God!" the young physician murmured, as he came back into the laboratory, "that I studied chemistry with Mr. Cavanagh, or I might not know just what antidote was required here."

"Look!" Emma whispered; "she moved, when you said the word Frank."

The Doctor leaned forward and took Emma's hand.

"If we can rouse her enough to make her speak, she will be saved. When did she take that powder?"

"I fear she took it this morning, shortly after-after nine o'clock; but she did not begin to grow seriously ill till an hour ago, when she suddenly threw up her arms and shrieked."

"And didn't you know; didn't you suspect-"

"No, for she said nothing. She only looked haggard and clung to me; clung as if she could not bear to have me move an inch away from her side."

"And how long has she been unconscious and in that clammy, cold sweat?"

"A little while; just before we sent for you. I-I hated to disturb you at first, but life is everything, and-"

He gave her one deep, reassuring look.

"Emma," he softly murmured, "if we save your sister, four hearts shall be happy. See if you can make her stir. Tell her that Frank is here, and wants to see her."

Emma, with a brightening countenance, leaned over and kissed Hermione's marble-like brow.

"Hermione," she cried, "Hermione! Frank wants you; he is tired of waiting. Come, dear; shall I not tell him you will come?"

A quiver at the word Frank, but that was all.

"It is Frank, dear; Frank!" Emma persisted. "Rouse up long enough just to see him. He loves you, Hermione."

Not even a quiver now. Dr. Sellick began to turn pale.

"Hermione, will you leave us now, just as you are going to be happy? Listen, listen to Emma. You know I have always told you the truth. Frank is here, ready to love you. Wake, darling; wake, dearest-"

There was no use. No marble could be more unresponsive. Dr. Sellick rushed in anguish to the door. But the step he heard there was that of Huckins, and it was Huckins' face he encountered at the head of the stairs.

"Is she dead?" cried that worthy, bending forward to look into the room. "I was afraid, very much afraid, you could not do any good, when I saw how cold she was, poor dear."

The Doctor, not hearing him, shouted out: "The antidote! the antidote! Why does not Frank come!"

At that instant Frank was heard below: "Am I in time?" he gasped. "Here it is; I ran all the way"; and he came rushing up the stairs just as Huckins slipped from the step where he was and fell against him.

"Oh," whimpered that old hypocrite, "I beg your pardon; I am so agitated!" But his agitation seemed to spring mainly from the fact that the antidote Frank brought was in powder and not in a bottle, which might have been broken in their encounter.

Dr. Sellick, who saw nothing but the packet Frank held, grasped the remedy and dashed back into the room. Frank followed and stood in anguished suspense within the open doorway. Huckins crouched and murmured to himself on the stair.

"Can we get her to take it? Is there hope?" murmured Emma.

No word came in reply; the Doctor was looking fixedly at his patient.

"Frank," he said solemnly, "come and take her hand in yours. Nothing else will ever make her unlock her lips."

Frank, reeling in his misery, entered and fell at her feet.

"Hermione," he endeavored to say, but the word would not come. Breaking into sobs he took her hand and laid his forehead upon it. Would that anguish of the beloved one arouse her? Dr. Sellick and Emma drew near together in their anxiety and watched. Suddenly a murmur escaped from the former, and he bent rapidly forward. The close-locked lips were parting, parting so slowly, so imperceptibly, that only a physician's eye could see it. Waiting till they were opened enough to show the pearly teeth, he stooped and whispered in Frank's ear. Instantly the almost overwhelmed lover, roused, saw this evidence of existing life, and in his frenzied relief imprinted one wild kiss upon the hand he held. It seemed to move her, to reach her heart, to stay the soul just hovering on the confines of life, for the lips parted further, the lids of the eyes trembled, and before the reaction came. Dr. Sellick had succeeded in giving her a few grains of the impalpable powder he was holding.

"It will either kill or restore her," said he. "In five minutes we shall know the result."

And when at the end of those five minutes they heard a soft sigh, they never thought, in their sudden joy and relief, to look for the sneaking figure trembling on the staircase, who, at this first sign of reviving life in one he thought dead, slid from his station and went creeping down the stairs, with baffled looks that would have frightened even Doris had she seen them.

XXIX. In the Poplar Walk

Two days had passed. Hermione was sitting in the cheerful sitting-room with the choicest of flowers about her and the breeze from the open window fluttering gayly in her locks. She was weak yet, but there was promise of life in her slowly brightening eye, and from the language of the smile which now and then disturbed the lines of her proud lips, there was hope of happiness in the heart which but two short days before had turned from life in despair.

Yet it was not a perfect hope, or the smiles would have been deeper and more frequent. She had held a long talk with Frank, but he had not touched upon a certain vital question, perhaps because he felt she had not yet the strength to argue it. He was her lover and anticipated marrying her, but he had not said whether he expected her to disobey her father and leave her home. She felt that he must expect this; she also felt that he had the right to do so; but when she thought of yielding to his wishes, the old horror returned to her, and a suffocating feeling of fear, as if it would never be allowed. The dead have such a hold upon us. As the pleasure of living, and the ecstasy of love began to make themselves felt again in her weakened frame, she could not refrain from asking herself by what right she contemplated taking up the joys of life, who had not only forfeited them by her attempt at suicide, but who had been cursed by a father and doomed by his will to perpetual imprisonment. Had he not said, "Let not hatred, let not love, lead you to leave these, doors"? How then presume to think of it or dream that she could be happy with such remembrances as hers ever springing up to blight her life? She wished, oh! how she wished, that Frank would not ask her to leave her home. Yet she knew this was weakness, and that soon, at the next interview, perhaps, she would have to dash his hopes by speaking of her fears. And so Hermione was not perfectly happy.

Emma, on the contrary, was like a bird loosed from a cage. She sang, yes, sang as she flitted up and down the stairs, and once Hermione started and blushed with surprise as her voice in a merry peal of laughter came from the garden. Such a sound had not been heard in that house for a year; such a sound seemed an anomaly there. Yet how sweet it was, and how it seemed to lift the shadows.

There was another person who started as this unusual note of merriment disturbed the silence of the garden. It was Huckins, who was slowly walking up and down beneath the poplars. He was waiting for Doris, and this sound went through him like an arrow.

"Laughter," he muttered, shaking his trembling hands in menace towards her. "That is a sound I must crush. It speaks too much of hope, and hope means the loss to me of all for which I have schemed for years. Why didn't that poison work? Why did I let that doctor come? I might have locked the door against him and left them to hunt for the key. But I was afraid; that Etheridge is so ready to suspect me."

He turned and walked away from the house. He dreaded to hear that silvery sound again.

"If she had died, as I had every reason to suspect after such a dose, Emma would have followed her in a day. And then who could have kept me out of my property? Not Etheridge, for all his hatred and suspicion of me." He shook his hand again in menace and moved farther down the path.

As his small black figure disappeared up the walk Doris appeared at the kitchen door. She also looked cheerful, yet there was a shade of anxiety in her expression as she glanced up the walk.

"He says he is going away," she murmured. "The shock of Miss Hermione's illness was too much for him, poor man! and he does not seem to consider how lonesome I will be. If only he had asked me to go with him! But then I could not have left the young ladies; not while they stick to this old horror of a house. What is it, Miss Emma?"

"A four-leaved clover! one, two, three of them," cried her young mistress from the lawn at the side of the house. "We are in luck! Times are going to change for us all, I think."

"The best luck we can have is to quit this house forever," answered Doris, with a boldness unusual on her lips.

"Ah," returned Emma, with her spirits a little dashed, "I cannot say about that, but we will try and be happy in it."

"Happy in it!" repeated Doris, but this time to herself. "I can never be happy in it, now I have had my dreams of pleasure abroad." And she left the kitchen door and began her slow walk towards the end of the garden.

Arrived at the place where Huckins waited for her, she stopped.

"Good afternoon," said she. "Pleasant strolling under these poplars."

He grunted and shook his head slowly to and fro.

"Nothing is very pleasant here," said he. "I have stood it as long as I can. My nieces are good girls, but I have failed to make them see reason, and I must leave it now to these two lovers of theirs to do what they can."

"And do you think they will succeed? That the young ladies will be influenced by them to break up their old habits?"

This was what Huckins did think, and what was driving him to extremity, but he veiled his real feelings very successfully under a doleful shake of the head.

"I do not know," said he. "I fear not. The Cavanagh blood is very obstinate, very obstinate indeed."

"Do you mean," cried Doris, "that they won't leave the house to be married? That they will go on living here in spite of these two young gentlemen who seem to be so fond of them?"

"I do," said he, with every appearance of truth. "I don't think anything but fire will ever drive them out of this house."

It was quietly said, almost mournfully, but it caused Doris to give a sudden start. Looking at him intently, she repeated "Fire?" and seemed to quake at the word, even while she rolled it like a sweet morsel under her tongue.

He nodded, but did not further press the subject. He had caught her look from the corner of his eye, and did not think it worth while to change his attitude of innocence.

"I wish," he insinuated, "there was another marriage which could take place."

"Another marriage?" she simpered.

"I have too much money for one to spend," said he. "I wish I knew of a good woman to share it."

Doris, before whose eyes the most dazzling dreams of wealth and consequence at once flashed, drooped her stout figure and endeavored to look languishing.

"If it were not for my duty to the young ladies," sighed she.

"Yes, yes," said he, "you must never leave them."

She turned, she twisted, she tortured her hands in her endeavor to keep down the evidences of her desire and her anxiety.

"If-if this house should be blown down in a storm or-or a fire should consume it as you say, they would have to go elsewhere, have to marry these young men, have to be happy in spite of themselves."

"But what cyclones ever come here?" he asked, with his mockery of a smile. "Or where could a fire spring from in a house guarded by a Doris?"

She was trembling so she could not answer. "Come out here again at six o'clock," said she; "they will miss me if I stay too long now. Oh, sir, how I wish I could see those two poor loves happy again!"

"How I wish you could!" said he, and there was nothing in his tone for her ears but benevolence.

As Huckins crept from the garden-gate he ran against Frank, who was on his way to the station."

"Oh, sir," he exclaimed, cringing, "I am sure I beg your pardon. Going up to town, eh?"

"Yes, and I advise you to do the same," quoth the other, turning upon him sharply. "The Misses Cavanagh are not well enough at present to entertain visitors."

"You are no doubt right," returned Huckins with his meekest and most treacherous aspect. "It is odd now, isn't it, but I was just going to say that it was time I left them, much as I love the poor dears. They seem so happy now, and their prospects are so bright, eh?"

"I hope so; they have had trouble enough."

"Um, um, they will go to Flatbush, I suppose, and I-poor old outcast that I am-may rub my hands in poverty."

He looked so cringing, and yet so saturnine, that Frank was tempted to turn on his heel and leave him with his innuendoes unanswered. But his better spirit prevailing, he said, after a moment's pregnant silence:

"Yes; the young ladies will go to Flatbush, and the extent of the poverty you endure will depend upon your good behavior. I do not think either of your nieces would wish to see you starve."

"No, no, poor dears, they are very kind, and the least I can do is to leave them. Old age and misery are not fit companions for youth and hope, are they, Mr. Etheridge?"

"I have already intimated what I thought about that."

"So you have, so you have. You are such a lawyer, Mr. Etheridge, such an admirable lawyer!"

Frank, disgusted, attempted to walk on, but Huckins followed close after him.

"You do not like me," he said. "You think because I was violent once that I envy these sweet girls their rights. But you don't know me, Mr. Etheridge; you don't know my good heart. Since I have seen them I have felt very willing to give up my claims, they are such nice girls, and will be so kind to their poor old uncle."

Frank gave him a look as much as to say he would see about that, but he said nothing beyond a short "What train do you take?"

As Huckins had not thought seriously of taking any, he faltered for a moment and then blurted out:

"I shall get off at eight. I must say good-by to the young ladies, you know."

Frank, who did not recognize this must, looked at his watch and said:

"You have just a half hour to get the train with me; you had better take it."

Huckins, a little startled, looked doubtfully at the lawyer and hesitated. He did not wish to arouse his antagonism or to add to his suspicion; indeed it was necessary to allay both. He therefore, after a moment of silent contemplation of the severe and inscrutable face before him, broke into a short wheedling laugh, and saying, "I had no idea my company was so agreeable," promised to make what haste he could and catch the six o'clock train if possible.

But of course it was not possible. He had his second interview with Doris to hold, and after that was over there were the young ladies to see and impress with the disinterested state of his feelings. So that it was eight o'clock before he was ready to leave the town. But he did leave it at that hour, though it must have been with some intention of returning, or why did he carry away with him the key of the side-door of the old Cavanagh mansion?

XXX. The Final Terror

A week went by and Frank returned to Marston full of hope and definite intention. He had notified the Surrogate of the discovery of the real heirs to the Wakeham estate, and he had engaged workmen to put in order the old house in Flatbush against the arrival of the youthful claimants. All that there now remained to do was to induce the young ladies to leave the accursed walls within which they had so long immured themselves.

Edgar was awaiting him at the station, and together they walked up the street.

"Is it all right?" asked Frank. "Have you seen them daily?"

"Every day but to-day. You would hardly know Emma."

"And-and Hermione?"

"She shows her feelings less, but she is evidently happier than she has been for a year.

"And her health?"

"Is completely re-established."

"Have you kept your word? Have you talked of everything but what we propose to do?"

"I never break my word."

"And they? Have they said anything about leaving the house, or of going to Flatbush, or-or-"

"No; they have preserved as close a silence as ourselves. I imagine they do not think it proper to speak till we have spoken first."

"It may be; but I should have been pleased if you could have told me that Hermione had been seen walking outside the gate."

"You would?"

"Yes. I dread the struggle which I now see before me. It is the first step which costs, and I was in hopes she would have taken this in my absence."

"Yes, it would have prevented argument. But perhaps you will not have to argue. She may be merely waiting for the support of your arm."

"Whatever she is waiting for, she takes her first step down the street to-night. What a new world it will open before her!" And Frank unconsciously quickened his pace.

Edgar followed with a less impatient step but with fully as much determination. Pride was mingled with his love, and pride demanded that his future wife should not be held in any bonds forged by the obstinacy or the superstitious fears of a wayward sister.

They expected to see the girls at the windows, but they found the shutters closed and the curtains drawn. Indeed, the whole house had a funereal look which staggered Frank and made even Edgar stare in astonishment. "It was not like this yesterday," he declared. "Do they not expect you?"

"Yes, if my telegram was delivered."

"Let us see at once what is the matter."

It was Doris who came to the door. When her eyes fell upon the two young men, especially upon Frank, her whole countenance changed.

"Oh, Mr. Etheridge, is it you?" she cried. "I thought-I understood-" She did not say what, but her relieved manner made quite an impression on Frank, although it was, of course, impossible for him to suspect what a dangerous deed she had been contemplating at that very moment.

"Are the young ladies well?" he asked, in his haste to be relieved from his anxiety.

"Oh, yes, quite well," she admitted, somewhat mysteriously. "They are in there," she added, pointing to the parlor on the left.

Frank and Edgar looked at each other. They had always before this been received in the cheerful sitting-room.

"If something is not soon done to make Miss Hermione leave the house," Doris whispered passionately to Frank as she passed him, "there will be worse trouble here than there has ever been before."

"What do you mean?" he demanded, gliding swiftly after her and catching her by the arm just as she reached the back hall.

"Go in and see," said she, "and when you come out tell me what success you have had. For if you fail, then-"

"Then what-"

"Providence must interpose to help you."

She was looking straight at him, but that glance told him nothing. He thought her words strange and her conduct strange, but everything was strange in this house, and not having the key to her thoughts, the word Providence did not greatly startle him.

"I will see what I can do," said he, and returning to Edgar, who had remained standing by the parlor-door, he preceded him into that gloomy apartment.

The girls were both there, seated, as Frank perceived with a certain sinking of the heart, in the farthest and dimmest corner of this most forbidding place. Emma was looking towards them, but Hermione sat with downcast eyes and an air of discouragement about her Frank found it hard to behold unmoved.

"Hermione," said he, advancing into the middle of the room, "have you no welcome for me?"

Trembling with sudden feeling, she rose slowly to her feet; and her eyes lifted themselves painfully to his.

"Forgive me," she entreated, "I have had such a shock."

"Shock?"

"Yes. Look at my head! look at my hair!"

She bent forward; he hastened to her side and glanced at the rich locks towards which she pointed. As he did so, he recoiled in sudden awe and confusion. "What does it mean?" he asked. There were gray spots in those dusky tresses, spots which had never been there before.

"The fingers of a ghost have touched me," she whispered. "Wherever they fell, a mark has been left, and those marks sear my brain."

And then Frank noticed, with inward horror, that the spots were regular and ran in a distinct circle about her head.

"Hermione," he cried, "has your imagination carried you so far? Ghost? Do you believe in ghosts?"

"I believe in anything now," she murmured.

Frightened by her shudders and dazed by words he found it impossible to treat lightly with those mysterious marks before him, Frank turned for relief to Emma, who had risen also and stood a few steps behind them, with her face bent downward though the Doctor pressed close at her side.

"Do you understand her?" said Frank.

With an effort Emma moved forward. "It has frightened me," she whispered.

"What has? Let us hear all about it," demanded the Doctor, speaking for the first time.

Hermione gave him a wistful glance. "We are wretched girls," said she. "If you expected to relieve us from the curse, it is impossible; my father will not have it so."

"Your father!" quoth both of the young men, appalled not at the superstition thus evinced, but at the effect they saw it was likely to have upon her mind.

"Did you think you saw him?" added Frank. "When? Where?"

"In the laboratory-last night. I did not see him but I felt him; felt him strike my head with his fingers and drag me back. It was worse than death! I shall never get over it."

"Tell me the particulars; explain the whole matter to me. Imagination plays us ghastly tricks sometimes. Were you alone? Was it late?"

"Why didn't I come here this morning?" cried Edgar.

"It was long after midnight. I had received your letter and could not sleep, so I went into the laboratory, as we often do to walk. It was the first time I had been there since I was ill, and it made me tremble to cross its hated threshold, but I had a question to decide, and I thought I ought to decide it there. But I trembled, as I say, and my hand shook so as I opened the door that I was more disturbed than astonished when my light went suddenly out, leaving me in total darkness. As I was by this time inside the laboratory I did not turn back to relight my candle, for the breeze I presently felt blowing through the room convinced me that this would be idle, and that till the window was shut, which let in such a stream of air, any attempt to bring a light into the room would be attended by the same results. I therefore moved rapidly across the room to the window, and was about to close it when I was suddenly arrested, and my arms were paralyzed by the feeling of a presence in the room behind my back. It was so vivid, so clear to my thoughts, that I seemed to see it, though I did not turn from the window. It was that of an old man-my father's,-and the menace with which the arms were lifted froze the blood in my veins.

"I had merited it; I had been near to breaking his command. I had meditated, if I had not decided, upon a sudden breaking away from the bondage he had imposed upon me; I had been on the point of daring his curse, and now it was to fall upon me. I felt the justice of his presence and fell, as if stricken, on my knees.

"The silence that followed may have been short, and it may have been long. I was almost unconscious from fright, remorse, and apprehension. But when I did rouse and did summon courage to turn and crawl from the room, I was conscious of the thing following me, and would have screamed, but that I had no voice. Suddenly I gave a rush; but the moment I started forward I felt those fingers fall upon my head and draw me back, and when I did escape it was with a force that carried me beyond the door and then laid me senseless on the floor; for I am no longer strong, Mr. Etheridge, and the hatred of the dead is worse than that of the living."

"You had a dream, a fearful dream, and these marks prove its vividness," declared Edgar. "You must not let your life be ruined by any such fantasies."

"Oh, that it had been a dream," moaned Hermione, "but it was more than that, as we can prove."

"Prove?"

"Come to the laboratory," cried Emma, suddenly. "There is something we want to show you there; something which I saw early this morning when I went in to close the window Hermione did not shut."

The young men, startled, did not wait for a second bidding; they followed the two girls immediately upstairs.

"No one has been up these stairs but Doris and ourselves since you went down them a week ago," declared Hermione, as they entered the laboratory. "Now look at the lid of the mahogany desk-my father's desk."

They all went over to it, and Emma, pointing, seemed to ask what they thought of it. They did not know what to think, for there on its even surface they beheld words written with the point of a finger in the thick dust which covered it; and the words were legible and ran thus:

"In your anger you swore to remain within these walls; in your remorse see that you keep that oath. Not for love, not for hatred, dare to cross the threshold, or I will denounce you in the grave where I shall be gone, and my curse shall be upon you."

"My father's words to me in the dreadful hour of his death," whispered Hermione. "You may remember them, Mr. Etheridge; they were in the letter I wrote you."

Frank did remember them quite well, and for a moment he, like Edgar, stood a little dazed and shaken by a mystery he could not immediately fathom. But only for a moment. He was too vigorous, and his determination was too great, for him to be daunted long by even an appearance of the supernatural. So leaping forward, with a bright laugh, he drew his hand across the menacing words, and, effacing them at once, cried with a confident: look at Hermione:

"So will I erase them from your heart if you only will let me, Hermione."

But she pointed with an awful look at her hair.

"Can you take these spots out also? Till you can, do not expect me to follow the beck of any hand which would lead me to defy my father's curse by leaving this house."

At this declaration both men turned pale, and unconsciously moved towards each other with a single thought. Had they looked at the door, they would have seen the inquisitive face of Doris disappear towards the staircase, with that air of determination which only ends in action. But they only saw each other and the purpose which was slowly developing in each of their minds.

"Come, Hermione," urged Frank, "this is no place for you. If you are going to stay in this house, I am going to stay with you; but this room is prohibited; you shall never enter it again."

He did not know how truly he spoke.

"Come," said Edgar, in his turn, to Emma, "we have had all the horrors we want; now let us go down-stairs and have a little cheerful talk in the sitting-room."

And Emma yielded; but Hermione hung back.

"I dread to go down," said she; "this seems the only place in which I can say farewell."

But Frank was holding out his hand, and she gradually gave in to its seduction and followed him down-stairs into the sitting-room, which was fast growing dusky.

"Now," said he, without heeding Emma and the Doctor, who had retreated to one of the farther windows, "if you wish to say farewell, I will listen to you; but before you speak, hear what I have to say. In a certain box which came with me this day from New York, and which is now at Mr. Lothrop's, there lies a gown of snowy satin made with enough lace to hide any deficiencies it may have in size or fit. With this gown is a veil snowy as itself, and on the veil there lies a wreath of orange blossoms, while under the whole are piled garments after garments, chosen with loving care by the only sister I have in the world, for the one woman in that world I wish to make my wife. If you love me, Hermione, if you think my devotion a true one, fly from this nest of hideous memories and superstitious fears, and in that place where you are already expected, put on these garments I have brought you, and with them a crown of love, joy, and hope, which will mean a farewell, not to me, but to the old life forever."

But Hermione, swaying aside from him, cried: "I cannot, I cannot; the rafters would fall if I tried to pass the door."

"Then," said Frank, growing in height and glowing with purpose, "they shall fall first on me." And seizing her in his arms, he raised her to his breast and fled with her out of the room and out of the house, her wild shriek of mingled terror and love trailing faintly after them till he stopped on the farther side of the gate, which softly closed behind them.

Emma, who was taken as much by surprise as her sister had been, looked at the empty place where Hermione had so lately stood, and cowered low, as if the terrible loneliness of the house, now she was gone, crushed upon her like a weight. Then she seized Edgar by the hand and ran out also; and Edgar pulled the great door to behind them, and the Cavanagh mansion, for the first time in a year, was a shell without inmates, a body without soul.

They found Hermione standing in the dark shadows cast here in the street by the overhanging trees. Frank's arm was about her and she looked both dazed and pleased.

When she saw Emma she started.

"Oh, it releases you too," she cried; "that is happiness. I did not like to see you suffer for my sins." Then she drooped a little, then she looked up, and a burden seemed to roll away from her heart. "The rafters did not fall," she murmured, "and you, Frank, will keep all spectres away from me, won't you? He can never reach me when I am by your side."

"Never, never," was the glad reply. And Frank began to draw her gently up the street "It is but a step," said he, "to Mr. Lothrop's; no one will ever notice that you are without a hat."

"But-"

"You are expected," he whispered. "You are never to go back into your old home again."

Again he did not know how truly he spoke.

"Emma, Emma," appealed Hermione, "shall I do this thing, without any preparation, any thought, anything but my love and gratitude to make it a true bridal?"

"Ah, Hermione, in making yourself happy, you make me so; therefore I am but a poor adviser."

"What, will you be married too, to-night, at the minister's house with me?"

"No, dear, but soon, very soon, as soon as you can give me a home to be married in."

"Then let us make her happy," cried Hermione. "It is the only reparation I can offer for all I have made her suffer."

XXXI. An Eventful Quarter of an Hour

When Edgar closed the front door of the Cavanagh mansion behind himself and Emma, the noise he made was slight, and yet it was heard by ears that were listening for it in the remote recesses of the kitchen.

"The gentlemen are gone," decided Doris, without any hesitation. "They could not move Miss Hermione from her resolves, and I did not think they could. Nothing can move her but fire, and fire there shall be, and that to-night."

Stealing towards the front of the house, she listened. All was quiet. She instantly concluded that the young ladies were in the parlor, and glided back to a certain closet under the stairs, into which she peered with a satisfied air. "Plenty of stuff there," she commented, and shivered slightly as she thought of putting a candle to the combustible pile before her. Shutting the door, she crept to another spot where lay a huge pile of shavings, and again she nodded with satisfaction at the sight. Finally, she went into the shed, and when she came back she walked like one who sees the way clear to her purposes.

"I promised Mr. Huckins I would not start the blaze till after midnight," said she almost audibly, as she passed again towards the front. "He was so afraid if the fire got started early that the neighbors would put it out before any harm was done. But I haven't the nerve to do such a thing with the young ladies upstairs. They might not get down safely, or I might not have the power to wake them. No, I will fire it now, while they are in the parlor, and trust to its going like tinder, as it will. Won't the young gentlemen thank me, and won't the young ladies do the same, when they get over the shock of being suddenly thrown upon the world."

Chuckling softly to herself, she looked upstairs and finally ran quietly up. With a woman's thoughtfulness she remembered certain articles which she felt were precious to the young ladies. To gather these together would be the work of a moment, and it would ease her conscience. Going first to Hermione's room, she threw such objects as she considered valuable into a sheet, and tied them up. Then she tossed the bundle thus made out of one of the side windows. Running to Emma's room, she repeated her operations; and letting her own things go, hastened down-stairs and went again into the kitchen. When she reissued it was with a lighted candle in her hand.

Meantime from the poplar walk two eyes were gazing with restless eagerness upon the house. They belonged to Huckins, who, unknown to Etheridge, unknown to Doris even, had returned to Marston for the purpose of watching the development of his deadly game. He had stolen into the garden and was surveying the place, not so much from any expectation of fire at this hour, as because his whole interest was centred in the house and he could not keep his eyes from it.

But suddenly, as he looks, he detects something amiss, and starting forward, with many muttered exclamations, he draws nearer and nearer to the house, which he presently enters by means of the key he draws from his pocket. As he does so, a faint smell of smoke comes to his nostrils, causing him to mutter: "She is three hours too soon; what does she mean by it?"

The door by which he had entered was at the end of a side hall. He found the house dark, but he was so accustomed to it by this time, that he felt no hesitancy as to his steps. He went at first to the sitting-room and looked in; there was no one there. Then he proceeded to the parlor, which was also empty. "Good," thought he, "they are upstairs"; and he slid with his quiet step to the staircase, up which he went like the ghost or spectre which he had perhaps simulated the night before. There was a door at the top of the first landing, and he had some thoughts of simply locking this, and escaping. But, he said to himself, it would be much more satisfactory to first make sure that the two girls were really above, before he locked them in; so he crept up farther, and finally came to Hermione's room. The door was shut, but from the light which shone through the keyhole (a light which Doris had left there in her haste and trepidation), he judged Hermione to be within, so he softly turned the key that was in the lock, and glided away to Emma's apartment. This was also closed, but there was a light there, also from the same cause, so there being no key visible he drew a heavy piece of furniture across the doorway, and fled back to the stairs. As he reached them, a blinding gust of smoke swept up through the crevices beneath his feet, but he thought he saw his way clearly, and rushed for the landing. But just as he reached it, the door-the door he had intended to close behind him-shut sharply in his face, and he found himself imprisoned. With a shriek, he dashed against it; but it was locked; and just as he staggered upright again from his violent efforts to batter it down, a red-hot flame shot up through a gap in the staircase and played about his feet. He yelled, and dashed up the stairs. If he were to suffer for his own crime, he would at least have companions in his agony. Calling upon Emma and Hermione, he rushed to the piece of furniture with which he had barred the former's apartment, and frantically drew it aside. The door remained shut; there was no agonized one within to force it open the moment the pressure against it was relieved. Stupefied, he staggered away and ran up the twisted staircase to Hermione's room. Perhaps they were here, perhaps they were both here. But all was silent within, and when he had entered and searched the space before him, even beneath and behind the curtains of the bed for its expected occupant, and found no one there, he uttered such a cry as that house had never listened to, not even when it echoed to its master's final yell of rage and despair.

Doris meanwhile was suffering her own punishment below. When she had lighted the three separate piles she had prepared, she fled into the front of the house to spread the alarm and insure the safety of her young mistresses. Passing the staircase she had one quick thought of the likelihood there might be of Hermione or Emma dashing up those stairs in an endeavor to save some of their effects, so she quietly locked the door above in order to prevent them. But when she had done this she heard a shriek, and, startled, she was about to unlock it again when a vivid flame shot up between her and the door making any such attempt impossible. Aghast with terror, fearing that by some error of calculation she had shut her young ladies upstairs after all, she went shrieking their names through the lower rooms and halls, now filling with smoke and lurid with shooting jets of flame. As no response came and she could find no one in any of the rooms, her terror grew to frenzy and she would have dashed upstairs at the risk of her life. But it was too late; the stairs had already fallen, and the place was one volcano of seething flame.

XXXII. The Spectre of the Laboratory

Had Hermione been allowed time to think, she might have drawn back from such a sudden marriage. But Frank, who recognized this possibility, urged her with gentle speed down the street, and never ceased his persuasions till they stood at the minister's door. Mrs. Lothrop, who had a heart for romance, opened it, and seeing the blushing face and somewhat dishevelled appearance of Hermione, she cast one comprehending look at Frank, and drew them in joyfully.

"You are to be married, are you not?" she asked, welcoming the whole four with the gayest of bows. "I congratulate you, dear, and will take you right away to my best room, where you will find your box and everything else you may need. I am so glad you decided to come here instead of having us go to you. It is so pleasant and so friendly and the Doctor does so dread to go out evenings now."

Small chatter is oft-times our salvation. Under this little lady's fire of bright talk Hermione lost the tragic feelings of months and seemed to awake to the genialities of life. Turning her grand head towards the smiling little woman she let her own happiness shine from the corners of her mouth, and then following the other's lead, allowed herself to be taken to a cosy chintz-furnished room whose home-like aspect struck warm upon her heart and completed the work of her rejuvenation.

Emma, who was close behind her, laughed merrily.

"Such a chrysalis of a bride," cried she. "Where are the wings with which to turn her into a butterfly?"

Mrs. Lothrop showed them a great box, and then left them. Emma, lifting the lid, glanced shyly at Hermione, who blushed scarlet. Such a lovely array of satin, lace, and flowers! To these girls, who had denied themselves everything and been denied everything, it was a glimpse of Paradise. As one beautiful garment after another was taken out, Hermione's head drooped lower in her delight and the love it inspired, till at last the tears came and she wept for a few minutes unconstrainedly. When this mood had passed, she gave herself up to Emma's eager fingers, and was dressed in her bridal garments.

The clock was striking ten when Frank's impatience was rewarded by the first glimpse of his bride. She came into the room with Emma and Mrs. Lothrop, and her beauty, heightened by her feelings to the utmost, was such as to fill him with triumph and delight.

To Edgar it was a revelation, for always before, he had seen the scar before he did her; but now he was compelled to see her first, for the scar was hidden under fold upon fold of lace.

"No wonder Frank is daft over her," thought he, "if she always looks like this to him."

As for Frank, he bowed with all his soul to the radiant vision, and then, leading her up to Mr. Lothrop, awaited the sacred words which were to make them one. As they were being uttered, strange noises broke out in the street, and the cry of "Fire! fire!" rang out; but if the bride and bridegroom heard the ominous word they did not betray the fact, and the ceremony proceeded. It was soon over, and Frank turned to kiss his wife; but just as Emma advanced with her congratulations, the front door burst open and a neighbor's voice was heard to cry in great excitement:

"The Cavanagh house is burning, and we are all afraid that the girls have perished in the flames."

It was Emma who gave the one shriek that responded to these words. Hermione seemed like one frozen. Edgar, dashing to the door, looked out, and came slowly back.

"Yes, it is burning," said he. "Emma will have to go with you to New York."

"It is a judgment," moaned Hermione, clinging to Frank, who perhaps felt a touch of superstitious awe himself. "It is a judgment upon me for forgetting; for being happy; for accepting a deliverance I should not have desired."

But at these words Frank regained his composure.

"No," corrected he, "it is your deliverance made complete. Without it you might have had compunctions and ideas of returning to a place to which you felt yourself condemned. Now you never can. It is a merciful Providence."

"Let us go and see the old house burn," she whispered. "If it is a funeral pyre of the past, let us watch the dying embers. Perhaps my fears will vanish with them."

He did not refuse her; so Emma relieved her of her veil and threw about her a long cloak, and together they stepped into the street. The glare that struck their faces made them shrink, but they soon overcame the first shock and hastened on.

The town was in a tumult, but they saw nothing save the flaming skeleton of their home, with the gaunt outlines of the poplars shining vividly in the scarlet glow.

As they drew near to it the front of the house fell in, and Hermione, with a shriek, pointed to the corner where the laboratory had been.

"My father! my father! See! see! he is there! He is denouncing me! Look at his lifted arms! It is a judgment, it is-"

Her words trailed off in choking horror. They all looked, and they all saw the figure of an old man writhing against a background of flame. Was it a spectre? Was it the restless ghost of the old professor showing itself for the last time in the place of his greatest sin and suffering? Even Edgar was silent, and Frank refused to say, while the girls, sinking upon their knees with inarticulate moans and prayers, seemed to beg for mercy and cry against this retribution, when suddenly Hermione felt herself clasped in two vigorous arms, and a voice exclaimed in the husky accents of great joy:

"You are here! You are here! You are not burned! O my dear young mistresses, my dear, dear young mistresses!"

Hermione, pushing the weeping Doris back, pointed again towards the toppling structure, and cried:

"Do you see who is there? My father, Doris, my father! See how he beckons and waves, see-"

Doris, startled, gave a cry in her turn:

"It is Mr. Huckins! O save-"

But the words were lost in the sudden crash of falling walls. The scene of woe was gone, and the dayspring of hope had risen for the two girls.

The End

Table of Contents

WORKS OF ANNA KATHARINE GREEN VOL. I OF IV

THE LEAVENWORTH CASE

BOOK I. THE PROBLEM

I. "A GREAT CASE"

II. THE CORONER'S INQUEST

III. FACTS AND DEDUCTIONS

IV. A CUTS

V. EXPERT TESTIMONY

VI. SIDE-LIGHTS

VII. MARY LEAVENWORTH

VIII. CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE

IX. A DISCOVERY

X. MR. GRYCE RECEIVES NEW IMPETUS

XI. THE SUMMONS

XII. ELEANORES

XIII. THE PROBLEM

BOOK II. HENRY CLAVERING

XIV. MR. GRYCE AT HOME

XV. WAYS OPENING

XVI. THE WILL OF A MILLIONAIRE

XVII. THE BEGINNING OF GREAT SURPRISES

XVIII. ON THE STAIRS

XIX. IN MY OFFICE

XX. "TRUEMAN! TRUEMAN! TRUEMAN!"

XXI. A PREJUDICE

XXII. PATCH-WORK

XXIII. THE STORY OF A CHARMING WOMAN

XXIV. A REPORT FOLLOWED BY SMOKE

XXV. TIMOTHY COOK

XXVI. MR. GRYCE EXPLAINS HIMSELF

BOOK III. HANNAH

XXVII. AMY BELDEN

XXVIII. A WEIRD EXPERIENCE

XXIX. THE MISSING WITNESS

XXX. BURNED PAPER

XXXI. "THEREBY HANGS A TALE."

XXXII MRS. BELDEN'S NARRATIVE

XXXIII. UNEXPECTED TESTIMONY

BOOK IV. THE PROBLEM SOLVED

XXXIV. MR. GRYCE RESUMES CONTROL

XXXV. FINE WORK

XXXVI. GATHERED THREADS

XXXVII. CULMINATION

XXXVIII. A FULL CONFESSION

XXXIX. THE OUTCOME OF A GREAT CRIME

A STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE

CHAPTER I. A NOVEL CASE

CHAPTER II. A FEW POINTS

CHAPTER III. THE CONTENTS OF A BUREAU DRAWER

CHAPTER IV. THOMPSON'S STORY

CHAPTER V. A NEW YORK BELLE

CHAPTER VI. A BIT OF CALICO

CHAPTER VII. THE HOUSE AT THE GRANBY CROSS ROADS

CHAPTER VIII. A WORD OVERHEARD

CHAPTER IX. A FEW GOLDEN HAIRS

CHAPTER X. THE SECRET OF MR. BLAKE'S STUDIO

CHAPTER XI. LUTTRA

CHAPTER XII. A WOMAN'S LOVE

CHAPTER XIII. A MAN'S HEART

CHAPTER XIV. MRS. DANIELS

CHAPTER XV. A CONFAB

CHAPTER XVI. THE MARK OF THE RED CROSS

CHAPTER XVII. THE CAPTURE

CHAPTER XVIII. LOVE AND DUTY

CHAPTER XIX. EXPLANATIONS

CHAPTER XX. THE BOND THAT UNITES

THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES

BOOK I: TWO MEN

I. A WANDERER

III.A MYSTERIOUS SUMMONS

IV. SEARCHINGS

V. THE RUBICON

VI. A HAND CLASP

VII. MRS. SYLVESTER

VIII. SHADOWS OF THE PAST

IX. PAULA

X. THE BARRED DOOR

XI. MISS STUYVESANT

XII. MISS BELINDA MAKES CONDITIONS

XIII. THE END OF MY LADY'S PICTURE

BOOK II. LIFE AND DEATH

XIV. MISS BELINDA HAS A QUESTION TO DECIDE

XV. AN ADVENTURE-OR SOMETHING MORE

XVI. THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES

XVII. GRAVE AND GAY

XVIII. IN THE NIGHT WATCHES

XIX. A DAY AT THE BANK

XX. THE DREGS IN THE CUP

XXI. DEPARTURE

XXII. HOPGOOD

BOOK III. THE JAPHA MYSTERY

XXIII. THE POEM

XXIV. THE JAPHA MANSION

XXV. JACQUELINE

XXVI. A MAN'S JUSTICE AND A WOMAN'S MERCY

XXVII. THE LONE WATCHER

XXVIII. SUNSHINE ON THE HILLS

XXIX. MIST IN THE VALLEY

BOOK IV. FROM A TO Z

XXX. MISS BELINDA PRESENTS MR. SYLVESTER WITH A CHRISTMAS GIFT

XXXI. A QUESTION

XXXII. FULL TIDE

XXXIII. TWO LETTERS

XXXIV. PAULA MAKES HER CHOICE

XXXV. THE FALLING OF THE SWORD

XXXVI. MORNING

XXXVII. THE OPINION OF A CERTAIN NOTED DETECTIVE

XXXVIII. BLUE-BEARD'S CHAMBER

XXXIX. FROM A TO Z

XL. HALF-PAST SEVEN

BOOK V. WOMAN'S LOVE

XLI. THE WORK OF AN HOUR

XLII. PAULA RELATES A STORY SHE HAS HEARD

XLIII. DETERMINATION

XLIV. IN MR. STUYVESTANT'S PARLORS

XLV. "THE HOUR OF SIX IS SACRED"

XLVI. THE MAN CUMMINS

HAND AND RING

BOOK I. THE GENTLEMAN FROM TOLEDO.

I. A STARTLING COINCIDENCE

II. AN APPEAL TO HEAVEN

III. THE UNFINISHED LETTER

IV. IMOGENE

V. HORACE BYRD

VI. THE SKILL OF AN ARTIST

VII. MISS FIRMAN

VIII. THE THICK-SET MAN

IX. CLOSE CALCULATIONS

X. THE FINAL TEST

XI. DECISION

BOOK II. THE WEAVING OF A WEB.

XII. THE SPIDER

XIII. THE FLY

XIV. A LAST ATTEMPT

XV. THE END OF A TORTUOUS PATH

XVI. STORM

XVII. A SURPRISE

XVIII. A BRACE OF DETECTIVES

XIX. MR. FERRIS

XX. A CRISIS

XXI. HEART'S MARTYRDOM

XXII. CRAIK MANSELL

XXIII. MR. ORCUTT

XXIV. A TRUE BILL

XXV. AMONG TELESCOPES AND CHARTS

XXVI. "HE SHALL HEAR ME!"

BOOK III.THE SCALES OF JUSTICE.

XXVII. THE GREAT TRIAL

XXVIII. THE CHIEF WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION

XXIX. THE OPENING OF THE DEFENCE

XXX. BYRD USES HIS PENCIL AGAIN

XXXI. THE CHIEF WITNESS FOR THE DEFENCE

XXXII. HICKORY

XXXIII. A LATE DISCOVERY

XXXIV. WHAT WAS HID BEHIND IMOGENE'S VEIL

XXXV. PRO AND CON

XXXVI. A MISTAKE RECTIFIED

XXXVII. UNDER THE GREAT TREE

XXXVIII. UNEXPECTED WORDS

CHAPTER XXXIX. MR.GRYCE

CHAPTER XL. IN THE PRISON

XLI. A LINK SUPPLIED

XLII. CONSULTATIONS

XLIII. MRS. FIRMAN

XLIV. THE WIDOW CLEMMENS

XLV. MR. GRYCE SAYS GOOD-BYE

X Y Z

I. THE MYSTERIOUS RENDEZVOUS

II. THE BLACK DOMINO

III. AN UNEXPECTED CALAMITY

IV. IN THE LIBRARY

V. THE YELLOW DOMINO

THE MILL MYSTERY

I. THE ALARM

II. A FEARFUL QUESTION

III.

IV. THE POLLARDS

V. DOUBTS AND QUERIES

VI. MRS. POLLARD

VII. ADVANCES

VIII. A FLOWER FROM THE POLLARD CONSERVATORY

IX. AN UNEXPECTED DISCOVERY

X. RHODA COLWELL

XI. UNDER THE MILL FLOOR

XII. DWIGHT POLLARD

XIII. GUY POLLARD

XIV. CORRESPONDENCE

XV. A GOSSIP

XVI. THE GREEN ENVELOPE

XVII. DAVID BARROWS

XVIII. A LAST REQUEST

XIX. A FATAL DELAY

XX. THE OLD MILL

XXI. THE VAT

XXII THE CYPHER

XXIII. TOO LATE

XXIV. CONFRONTED

XXV. THE FINAL BLOW

XXVI. A FELINE TOUCH

XXVII. REPARATION

XXVIII. TWO OR ONE

THE FORSAKEN INN

CHAPTER I. THE OAK PARLOR

CHAPTER II. BURRITT

CHAPTER III. A FEARFUL DISCOVERY

CHAPTER IV. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

CHAPTER V. AN INTERIM OF SUSPENSE

PART II. AN OLD ALBANY ROMANCE

CHAPTER VI. THE RECLUSE

CHAPTER VII. TWO WOMEN

CHAPTER VIII. A SUDDEN BETROTHAL

CHAPTER IX. MARAH

CHAPTER X. AT THE FOOT OF THE STAIRS

CHAPTER XI. HONORA

CHAPTER XII. EDWIN URQUHART

CHAPTER XIII. BEFORE THE WEDDING

CHAPTER XIV. A CASSANDRA AT THE GATE

CHAPTER XV. THE CATASTROPHE

CHAPTER XVI. A DREAM ENDED

PART III. RETRIBUTION

CHAPTER XVII. STRANGE GUESTS

CHAPTER XVIII. MRS. TRUAX TALKS

CHAPTER XIX. IN THE HALLS AT MIDNIGHT

CHAPTER XX. THE STONE IN THE GARDEN

CHAPTER XXI. IN THE OAK PARLOR

CHAPTER XXII. A SURPRISE FOR HONORA

CHAPTER XXIII. IN THE SECRET CHAMBER

CHAPTER XXIV. THE MARQUIS

CHAPTER XXV. MARK FELT

CHAPTER XXVI. FOR THE LAST TIME

CHAPTER XXVII. A LAST WORD

ELEVEN POSSIBLE CASES.

THE ONLY GIRL AT OVERLOOK.

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

A THING THAT GLISTENED.

A LION AND A LIONESS

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

THE CHEATED JULIET.

THE MYSTIC KREWE.

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A MILLION DOLLARS.

A LOST DAY.

A TRAGEDY OF HIGH EXPLOSIVES.

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

THE BUSHWHACKER'S GRATITUDE.

THE END OF ALL.

SHALL HE MARRY HER?

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

THE OLD STONE HOUSE AND OTHER STORIES

THE OLD STONE HOUSE.

A MEMORABLE NIGHT.

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

THE BLACK CROSS.

A MYSTERIOUS CASE.

SHALL HE WED HER?

CYNTHIA WAKEHAM'S MONEY

BOOK I.

I. A Woman's Face

II. A Lawyer's Adventure

III. Continuation of A Lawyer's Adventure

IV. Flint and Steel

V. Difficulties

VI. Young Men's Fancies

VII. The Way Opens

VIII. A Search and Its Results

IX. The Two Sisters

X. Doris

XI. Love

XII. How Much Did It Mean?

XIII. Fresh Doubts

XIV. In The Night Watches

BOOK II.

XV. The Beginning of Changes

XVI. A Strange Visitor

XVII. Two Conversations

XVIII. Suspense

XIX. A Discovery

XX. The Devil's Cauldron

XXI. In the Laboratory

XXII. Steel Meets Steel

XXIII. A Growing Horror

XXIV. Father and Child

XXV. Edgar and Frank

BOOK III.

XXVI. The White Powder

XXVII. The Hand of Huckins

XXVIII. In Extremity

XXIX. In the Poplar Walk

XXX. The Final Terror

XXXI. An Eventful Quarter of an Hour

XXXII. The Spectre of the Laboratory