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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The House in the Mist, by Anna Katharine Green
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The House in the Mist
+
+Author: Anna Katharine Green
+
+Release Date: August 30, 2006 [EBook #19147]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOUSE IN THE MIST ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sam Whitehead, Suzanne Shell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE
+HOUSE IN THE MIST
+
+_By_
+
+ANNA KATHARINE GREEN
+
+Author of
+The Millionaire Baby
+The Amethyst Box
+The Filigree Ball, etc., etc.
+
+NEW YORK
+THE NEW YORK BOOK CO.
+1913
+
+COPYRIGHT 1905
+THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+APRIL
+
+
+
+
+THE HOUSE IN THE MIST
+
+I
+
+AN OPEN DOOR
+
+
+It was a night to drive any man indoors. Not only was the darkness
+impenetrable, but the raw mist enveloping hill and valley made the open
+road anything but desirable to a belated wayfarer like myself.
+
+Being young, untrammeled, and naturally indifferent to danger, I was not
+averse to adventure; and having my fortune to make, was always on the
+lookout for El Dorado, which, to ardent souls, lies ever beyond the next
+turning. Consequently, when I saw a light shimmering through the mist at
+my right, I resolved to make for it and the shelter it so opportunely
+offered.
+
+But I did not realize then, as I do now, that shelter does not necessarily
+imply refuge, or I might not have undertaken this adventure with so light
+a heart. Yet, who knows? The impulses of an unfettered spirit lean toward
+daring, and youth, as I have said, seeks the strange, the unknown and,
+sometimes, the terrible.
+
+My path toward this light was by no means an easy one. After confused
+wanderings through tangled hedges, and a struggle with obstacles of
+whose nature I received the most curious impression in the surrounding
+murk, I arrived in front of a long, low building which, to my
+astonishment, I found standing with doors and windows open to the
+pervading mist, save for one square casement through which the light
+shone from a row of candles placed on a long mahogany table.
+
+The quiet and seeming emptiness of this odd and picturesque building
+made me pause. I am not much affected by visible danger, but this silent
+room, with its air of sinister expectancy, struck me most unpleasantly,
+and I was about to reconsider my first impulse and withdraw again to the
+road, when a second look, thrown back upon the comfortable interior I
+was leaving, convinced me of my folly and sent me straight toward the
+door which stood so invitingly open.
+
+But half-way up the path, my progress was again stayed by the sight of a
+man issuing from the house I had so rashly looked upon as devoid of all
+human presence. He seemed in haste and, at the moment my eye first fell
+on him, was engaged in replacing his watch in his pocket.
+
+But he did not shut the door behind him, which I thought odd, especially
+as his final glance had been a backward one, and seemed to take in all
+the appointments of the place he was so hurriedly leaving.
+
+As we met, he raised his hat. This likewise struck me as peculiar, for
+the deference he displayed was more marked than that usually bestowed on
+strangers, while his lack of surprise at an encounter more or less
+startling in such a mist was calculated to puzzle an ordinary man like
+myself. Indeed, he was so little impressed by my presence there that he
+was for passing me without a word or any other hint of good fellowship,
+save the bow of which I have spoken. But this did not suit me. I was
+hungry, cold, and eager for creature comforts, and the house before me
+gave forth not only heat, but a savory odor which in itself was an
+invitation hard to ignore. I therefore accosted the man.
+
+"Will bed and supper be provided me here?" I asked. "I am tired out with
+a long tramp over the hills, and hungry enough to pay anything in
+reason--"
+
+I stopped, for the man had disappeared. He had not paused at my appeal
+and the mist had swallowed him. But at the break in my sentence, his
+voice came back in good-natured tones and I heard:
+
+"Supper will be ready at nine, and there are beds for all. Enter, sir;
+you are the first to arrive, but the others can not be far behind."
+
+A queer greeting, certainly. But when I strove to question him as to its
+meaning, his voice returned to me from such a distance that I doubted if
+my words had reached him with any more distinctness than his answer
+reached me.
+
+"Well!" thought I, "it isn't as if a lodging had been denied me. He
+invited me to enter, and enter I will."
+
+The house, to which I now naturally directed a glance of much more
+careful scrutiny than before, was no ordinary farm-building, but a
+rambling old mansion, made conspicuously larger here and there by
+jutting porches and more than one convenient lean-to. Though furnished,
+warmed and lighted with candles, as I have previously described, it had
+about it an air of disuse which made me feel myself an intruder, in
+spite of the welcome I had received. But I was not in a position to
+stand upon ceremony, and ere long I found myself inside the great room
+and before the blazing logs whose glow had lighted up the doorway and
+added its own attraction to the other allurements of the inviting place.
+
+Though the open door made a draft which was anything but pleasant, I did
+not feel like closing it, and was astonished to observe the effect of
+the mist through the square thus left open to the night. It was not an
+agreeable one, and, instinctively turning my back upon that quarter of
+the room, I let my eyes roam over the wainscoted walls and the odd
+pieces of furniture which gave such an air of old-fashioned richness to
+the place. As nothing of the kind had ever fallen under my eyes before,
+I should have thoroughly enjoyed this opportunity of gratifying my taste
+for the curious and the beautiful, if the quaint old chairs I saw
+standing about me on every side had not all been empty. But the solitude
+of the place, so much more oppressive than the solitude of the road I
+had left, struck cold to my heart, and I missed the cheer rightfully
+belonging to such attractive surroundings. Suddenly I bethought me of
+the many other apartments likely to be found in so spacious a dwelling,
+and, going to the nearest door, I opened it and called out for the
+master of the house. But only an echo came back, and, returning to the
+fire, I sat down before the cheering blaze, in quiet acceptance of a
+situation too lonely for comfort, yet not without a certain piquant
+interest for a man of free mind and adventurous disposition like myself.
+
+After all, if supper was to be served at nine, someone must be expected
+to eat it: I should surely not be left much longer without companions.
+
+Meanwhile ample amusement awaited me in the contemplation of a picture
+which, next to the large fireplace, was the most prominent object in the
+room. This picture was a portrait, and a remarkable one. The countenance
+it portrayed was both characteristic and forcible, and so interested me
+that in studying it I quite forgot both hunger and weariness. Indeed its
+effect upon me was such that, after gazing at it uninterruptedly for a
+few minutes, I discovered that its various features--the narrow eyes in
+which a hint of craft gave a strange gleam to their native intelligence;
+the steadfast chin, strong as the rock of the hills I had wearily
+tramped all day; the cunning wrinkles which yet did not interfere with
+a latent great-heartedness that made the face as attractive as it was
+puzzling--had so established themselves in my mind that I continued to
+see them before me whichever way I turned, and found it impossible to
+shake off their influence even after I had resolutely set my mind in
+another direction by endeavoring to recall what I knew of the town into
+which I had strayed.
+
+I had come from Scranton and was now, according to my best judgment, in
+one of those rural districts of western Pennsylvania which breed such
+strange and sturdy characters. But of this special neighborhood, its
+inhabitants and its industries, I knew nothing nor was likely to, so
+long as I remained in the solitude I have endeavored to describe.
+
+But these impressions and these thoughts--if thoughts they were--presently
+received a check. A loud "Halloo" rose from somewhere in the mist, followed
+by a string of muttered imprecations, which convinced me that the person
+now attempting to approach the house was encountering some of the many
+difficulties which had beset me in the same undertaking a few minutes
+before.
+
+I therefore raised my voice and shouted out, "Here! this way!" after
+which I sat still and awaited developments.
+
+There was a huge clock in one of the corners, whose loud tick filled up
+every interval of silence. By this clock it was just ten minutes to
+eight when two gentlemen (I should say men, and coarse men at that)
+crossed the open threshold and entered the house.
+
+Their appearance was more or less noteworthy--unpleasantly so, I am
+obliged to add. One was red-faced and obese, the other was tall, thin
+and wiry and showed as many seams in his face as a blighted apple.
+Neither of the two had anything to recommend him either in appearance or
+address, save a certain veneer of polite assumption as transparent as it
+was offensive. As I listened to the forced sallies of the one and the
+hollow laugh of the other, I was glad that I was large of frame and
+strong of arm and used to all kinds of men and--brutes.
+
+As these two new-comers seemed no more astonished at my presence than
+the man I had met at the gate, I checked the question which
+instinctively rose to my lips and with a simple bow,--responded to by a
+more or less familiar nod from either,--accepted the situation with all
+the _sang-froid_ the occasion seemed to demand. Perhaps this was wise,
+perhaps it was not; there was little opportunity to judge, for the start
+they both gave as they encountered the eyes of the picture before
+mentioned drew my attention to a consideration of the different ways in
+which men, however similar in other respects, express sudden and
+unlooked-for emotion. The big man simply allowed his astonishment,
+dread, or whatever the feeling was which moved him, to ooze forth in a
+cold and deathly perspiration which robbed his cheeks of color and cast
+a bluish shadow over his narrow and retreating temples; while the thin
+and waspish man, caught in the same trap (for trap I saw it was),
+shouted aloud in his ill-timed mirth, the false and cruel character of
+which would have made me shudder, if all expression of feeling on my
+part had not been held in check by the interest I immediately
+experienced in the display of open bravado with which, in another
+moment, these two tried to carry off their mutual embarrassment.
+
+"Good likeness, eh?" laughed the seamy-faced man. "Quite an idea, that!
+Makes him one of us again! Well, he's welcome--in oils. Can't say much
+to us from canvas, eh?" And the rafters above him vibrated, as his
+violent efforts at joviality went up in loud and louder assertion from
+his thin throat.
+
+A nudge from the other's elbow stopped him and I saw them both cast
+half-lowering, half-inquisitive glances in my direction.
+
+"One of the Witherspoon boys?" queried one.
+
+"Perhaps," snarled the other. "I never saw but one of them. There are
+five, aren't there? Eustace believed in marrying off his gals young."
+
+"Damn him, yes. And he'd have married them off younger if he had known
+how numbers were going to count some day among the Westonhaughs." And
+he laughed again in a way I should certainly have felt it my business to
+resent, if my indignation as well as the ill-timed allusions which had
+called it forth had not been put to an end by a fresh arrival through
+the veiling mist which hung like a shroud at the doorway.
+
+This time it was for me to experience a shock of something like fear.
+Yet the personage who called up this unlooked-for sensation in my
+naturally hardy nature was old and, to all appearance, harmless from
+disability, if not from good will. His form was bent over upon itself
+like a bow; and only from the glances he shot from his upturned eyes was
+the fact made evident that a redoubtable nature, full of force and
+malignity, had just brought its quota of evil into a room already
+overflowing with dangerous and menacing passions.
+
+As this old wretch, either from the feebleness of age or from the
+infirmity I have mentioned, had great difficulty in walking, he had
+brought with him a small boy, whose business it was to direct his
+tottering steps as best he could.
+
+But once settled in his chair, he drove away this boy with his pointed
+oak stick, and with some harsh words about caring for the horse and
+being on time in the morning, he sent him out into the mist. As this
+little shivering and pathetic figure vanished, the old man drew, with
+gasp and haw, a number of deep breaths which shook his bent back and did
+their share, no doubt, in restoring his own disturbed circulation. Then,
+with a sinister twist which brought his pointed chin and twinkling eyes
+again into view, he remarked:
+
+"Haven't ye a word for kinsman Luke, you two? It isn't often I get out
+among ye. Shakee, nephew! Shakee, Hector! And now who's the boy in the
+window? My eyes aren't what they used to be, but he don't seem to favor
+the Westonhaughs over-much. One of Salmon's four grandchildren, think
+'e? Or a shoot from Eustace's gnarled old trunk? His gals all married
+Americans, and one of them, I've been told, was a yellow-haired giant
+like this fellow."
+
+As this description pointed directly toward me, I was about to venture a
+response on my own account, when my attention, as well as theirs, was
+freshly attracted by a loud "Whoa!" at the gate, followed by the hasty
+but assured entrance of a dapper, wizen, but perfectly preserved little
+old gentleman with a bag in his hand. Looking askance with eyes that
+were like two beads, first at the two men who were now elbowing each
+other for the best place before the fire, and then at the revolting
+figure in the chair, he bestowed his greeting, which consisted of an
+elaborate bow, not on them, but upon the picture hanging so
+conspicuously on the open wall before him; and then, taking me within
+the scope of his quick, circling glance, cried out with an assumption of
+great cordiality:
+
+"Good evening, gentlemen; good evening one, good evening all. Nothing
+like being on the tick. I'm sorry the night has turned out so badly.
+Some may find it too thick for travel. That would be bad, eh? very
+bad--for _them_."
+
+As none of the men he openly addressed saw fit to answer, save by the
+hitch of a shoulder or a leer quickly suppressed, I kept silent also.
+But this reticence, marked as it was, did not seem to offend the
+new-comer. Shaking the wet from the umbrella he held, he stood the
+dripping article up in a corner and then came and placed his feet on the
+fender. To do this he had to crowd between the two men already occupying
+the best part of the hearth. But he showed no concern at incommoding
+them, and bore their cross looks and threatening gestures with
+professional equanimity.
+
+"You know me?" he now unexpectedly snapped, bestowing another look over
+his shoulder at that oppressive figure in the chair. (Did I say that I
+had risen when the latter sat?) "I'm no Westonhaugh, I; nor yet a
+Witherspoon nor a Clapsaddle. I'm only Smead, the lawyer. Mr. Anthony
+Westonhaugh's lawyer," he repeated, with another glance of recognition
+in the direction of the picture. "I drew up his last will and testament,
+and, until all of his wishes have been duly carried out, am entitled by
+the terms of that will to be regarded both legally and socially as his
+representative. This you all know, but it is my way to make everything
+clear as I proceed. A lawyer's trick, no doubt. I do not pretend to be
+entirely exempt from such."
+
+A grumble from the large man, who seemed to have been disturbed in some
+absorbing calculation he was carrying on, mingled with a few muttered
+words of forced acknowledgment from the restless old sinner in the
+chair, made it unnecessary for me to reply, even if the last comer had
+given me the opportunity.
+
+"It's getting late!" he cried, with an easy garrulity rather amusing,
+under the circumstances. "Two more trains came in as I left the depot.
+If old Phil was on hand with his wagon, several more members of this
+interesting family may be here before the clock strikes; if not, the
+assemblage is like to be small. Too small," I heard him grumble a minute
+after, under his breath.
+
+"I wish it were a matter of one," spoke up the big man, striking his
+breast in a way to make it perfectly apparent whom he meant by that word
+_one_. And having (if I may judge by the mingled laugh and growl of his
+companions) thus shown his hand both figuratively and literally, he
+relapsed into the calculation which seemed to absorb all of his
+unoccupied moments.
+
+"Generous, very!" commented the lawyer in a murmur which was more than
+audible. "Pity that sentiments of such broad benevolence should go
+unrewarded."
+
+This, because at that very instant wheels were heard in front, also a
+jangle of voices, in some controversy about fares, which promised
+anything but a pleasing addition to the already none too desirable
+company.
+
+"I suppose that's sister Janet," snarled out the one addressed as
+Hector. There was no love in his voice, despite the relationship hinted
+at, and I awaited the entrance of this woman with some curiosity.
+
+But her appearance, heralded by many a puff and pant which the damp air
+exaggerated in a prodigious way, did not seem to warrant the interest I
+had shown in it. As she stepped into the room, I saw only a big frowsy
+woman, who had attempted to make a show with a new silk dress and a hat
+in the latest fashion, but who had lamentably failed, owing to the
+slouchiness of her figure and some misadventure by which her hat had
+been set awry on her head and her usual complacency destroyed. Later, I
+noted that her down-looking eyes had a false twinkle in them, and that,
+commonplace as she looked, she was one to steer clear of in times of
+necessity and distress.
+
+She, too, evidently expected to find the door open and people assembled,
+but she had not anticipated being confronted by the portrait on the
+wall, and cringed in an unpleasant way as she stumbled by it into one of
+the ill-lighted corners.
+
+The old man, who had doubtless caught the rustle of her dress as she
+passed him, emitted one short sentence.
+
+"Almost late," said he.
+
+Her answer was a sputter of words.
+
+"It's the fault of that driver," she complained. "If he had taken one
+drop more at the half-way house, I might really not have got here at
+all. That would not have inconvenienced _you_. But oh! what a grudge I
+would have owed that skinflint brother of ours"--here she shook her fist
+at the picture--"for making our good luck depend upon our arrival within
+two short strokes of the clock!"
+
+"There are several to come yet," blandly observed the lawyer. But before
+the words were well out of his mouth, we all became aware of a new
+presence--a woman, whose somber grace and quiet bearing gave distinction
+to her unobtrusive entrance, and caused a feeling of something like awe
+to follow the first sight of her cold features and deep, heavily-fringed
+eyes. But this soon passed in the more human sentiment awakened by the
+soft pleading which infused her gaze with a touching femininity. She
+wore a long loose garment which fell without a fold from chin to foot,
+and in her arms she seemed to carry something.
+
+Never before had I seen so beautiful a woman. As I was contemplating
+her, with respect but yet with a masculine intentness I could not quite
+suppress, two or three other persons came in. And now I began to notice
+that the eyes of all these people turned mainly one way, and that was
+toward the clock. Another small circumstance likewise drew my attention.
+Whenever any one entered,--and there were one or two additional arrivals
+during the five minutes preceding the striking of the hour,--a frown
+settled for an instant on every brow, giving to each and all a similar
+look, for the interpretation of which I lacked the key. Yet not on every
+brow either. There was one which remained undisturbed and showed only a
+grand patience.
+
+As the hands of the big clock neared the point of eight, a furtive
+smile appeared on more than one face; and when the hour rang out, a sigh
+of satisfaction swept through the room, to which the little old lawyer
+responded with a worldly-wise grunt, as he moved from his place and
+proceeded to the door.
+
+This he had scarcely shut when a chorus of voices rose from without.
+Three or four lingerers had pushed their way as far as the gate, only to
+see the door of the house shut in their faces.
+
+"Too late!" growled old man Luke from between the locks of his long
+beard.
+
+"Too late!" shrieked the woman who had come so near being late herself.
+
+"Too late!" smoothly acquiesced the lawyer, locking and bolting the door
+with a deft and assured hand.
+
+But the four or five persons who thus found themselves barred out did
+not accept without a struggle the decision of the more fortunate ones
+assembled within. More than one hand began pounding on the door, and we
+could hear cries of, "The train was behind time!" "Your clock is fast!"
+"You are cheating us; you want it all for yourselves!" "We will have the
+law on you!" and other bitter adjurations unintelligible to me from my
+ignorance of the circumstances which called them forth.
+
+But the wary old lawyer simply shook his head and answered nothing;
+whereat a murmur of gratification rose from within, and a howl of almost
+frenzied dismay from without, which latter presently received point from
+a startling vision which now appeared at the casement where the lights
+burned. A man's face looked in, and behind it, that of a woman, so wild
+and maddened by some sort of heart-break that I found my sympathies
+aroused in spite of the glare of evil passions which made both of these
+countenances something less than human.
+
+But the lawyer met the stare of these four eyes with a quiet chuckle,
+which found its echo in the ill-advised mirth of those about him; and
+moving over to the window where they still peered in, he drew together
+the two heavy shutters which hitherto had stood back against the wall,
+and, fastening them with a bar, shut out the sight of this despair, if
+he could not shut out the protests which ever and anon were shouted
+through the key-hole.
+
+Meanwhile, one form had sat through this whole incident without a
+gesture; and on the quiet brow, from which I could not keep my eyes, no
+shadows appeared save the perpetual one of native melancholy, which was
+at once the source of its attraction and the secret of its power.
+
+Into what sort of gathering had I stumbled? And why did I prefer to
+await developments rather than ask the simplest question of any one
+about me?
+
+Meantime the lawyer had proceeded to make certain preparations. With the
+help of one or two willing hands, he had drawn the great table into the
+middle of the room and, having seen the candles restored to their
+places, began to open his small bag and take from it a roll of paper and
+several flat documents. Laying the latter in the center of the table
+and slowly unrolling the former, he consulted, with his foxy eyes, the
+faces surrounding him, and smiled with secret malevolence, as he noted
+that every chair and every form were turned away from the picture before
+which he had bent with such obvious courtesy, on entering. I alone stood
+erect, and this possibly was why a gleam of curiosity was noticeable in
+his glance, as he ended his scrutiny of my countenance and bent his gaze
+again upon the paper he held.
+
+"Heavens!" thought I. "What shall I answer this man if he asks me why I
+continued to remain in a spot where I have so little business." The
+impulse came to go. But such was the effect of this strange convocation
+of persons, at night and in a mist which was itself a nightmare, that I
+failed to take action and remained riveted to my place, while Mr. Smead
+consulted his roll and finally asked in a business-like tone, quite
+unlike his previous sarcastic speech, the names of those whom he had the
+pleasure of seeing before him.
+
+The old man in the chair spoke up first.
+
+"Luke Westonhaugh," he announced.
+
+"Very good!" responded the lawyer.
+
+"Hector Westonhaugh," came from the thin man.
+
+A nod and a look toward the next.
+
+"John Westonhaugh."
+
+"Nephew?" asked the lawyer.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Go on, and be quick; supper will be ready at nine."
+
+"Eunice Westonhaugh," spoke up a soft voice.
+
+I felt my heart bound as if some inner echo responded to that name.
+
+"Daughter of whom?"
+
+"Hudson Westonhaugh," she gently faltered. "My father is dead--died last
+night;--I am his only heir."
+
+A grumble of dissatisfaction and a glint of unrelieved hate came from
+the doubled-up figure, whose malevolence had so revolted me.
+
+But the lawyer was not to be shaken.
+
+"Very good! It is fortunate you trusted your feet rather than the
+train. And now you! What is your name?"
+
+He was looking, not at me as I had at first feared, but at the man next
+to me, a slim but slippery youth, whose small red eyes made me shudder.
+
+"William Witherspoon."
+
+"Barbara's son?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Where are your brothers?"
+
+"One of them, I think, is outside"--here he laughed;--"the other
+is--_sick_."
+
+The way he uttered this word made me set him down as one to be
+especially wary of when he smiled. But then I had already passed
+judgment on him at my first view.
+
+"And you, madam?"--this to the large, dowdy woman with the uncertain
+eye, a contrast to the young and melancholy Eunice.
+
+"Janet Clapsaddle," she replied, waddling hungrily forward and getting
+unpleasantly near the speaker, for he moved off as she approached, and
+took his stand in the clear place at the head of the table.
+
+"Very good, Mistress Clapsaddle. You were a Westonhaugh, I believe?"
+
+"You _believe_, sneak-faced hypocrite that you are!" she blurted out. "I
+don't understand your lawyer ways. I like plain speaking myself. Don't
+you know me, and Luke and Hector, and--and most of us indeed, except
+that puny, white-faced girl yonder, whom, having been brought up on the
+other side of the Ridge, we have none of us seen since she was a
+screaming baby in Hildegarde's arms. And the young gentleman over
+there,"--here she indicated me--"who shows so little likeness to the
+rest of the family. He will have to make it pretty plain who his father
+was before we shall feel like acknowledging him, either as the son of
+one of Eustace's girls, or a chip from brother Salmon's hard old block."
+
+As this caused all eyes to turn upon me, even _hers_, I smiled as I
+stepped forward. The lawyer did not return that smile.
+
+"What is your name?" he asked shortly and sharply, as if he distrusted
+me.
+
+"Hugh Austin," was my quiet reply.
+
+"There is no such name on the list," snapped old Smead, with an
+authoritative gesture toward those who seemed anxious to enter a
+protest.
+
+"Probably not," I returned, "for I am neither a Witherspoon, a
+Westonhaugh nor a Clapsaddle. I am merely a chance wayfarer passing
+through the town on my way west. I thought this house was a tavern, or
+at least a place I could lodge in. The man I met in the doorway told me
+as much, and so I am here. If my company is not agreeable, or if you
+wish this room to yourselves, let me go into the kitchen. I promise not
+to meddle with the supper, hungry as I am. Or perhaps you wish me to
+join the crowd outside; it seems to be increasing."
+
+"No, no," came from all parts of the room. "Don't let the door be
+opened. Nothing could keep Lemuel and his crowd out if they once got
+foot over the threshold."
+
+The lawyer rubbed his chin. He seemed to be in some sort of quandary.
+First he scrutinized me from under his shaggy brows with a sharp gleam
+of suspicion; then his features softened and, with a side glance at the
+young woman who called herself Eunice, (perhaps, because she was worth
+looking at, perhaps because she had partly risen at my words), he
+slipped toward a door I had before observed in the wainscoting on the
+left of the mantelpiece, and softly opened it upon what looked like a
+narrow staircase.
+
+"We can not let you go out," said he; "and we can not let you have a
+finger in our viands before the hour comes for serving them; so if you
+will be so good as to follow this staircase to the top, you will find it
+ends in a room comfortable enough for the wayfarer you call yourself. In
+that room you can rest till the way is clear for you to continue your
+travels. Better, we can not do for you. This house is not a tavern, but
+the somewhat valuable property of--" He turned with a bow and smile, as
+every one there drew a deep breath; but no one ventured to end that
+sentence.
+
+I would have given all my future prospects (which, by the way, were not
+very great) to remain in that room. The oddity of the situation; the
+mystery of the occurrence; the suspense I saw in every face; the
+eagerness of the cries I heard redoubled from time to time outside; the
+malevolence but poorly disguised in the old lawyer's countenance; and,
+above all, the presence of that noble-looking woman, which was the one
+off-set to the general tone of villainy with which the room was charged,
+filled me with curiosity, if I might call it by no other name, that made
+my acquiescence in the demand thus made upon me positively heroic. But
+there seemed no other course for me to follow, and with a last lingering
+glance at the genial fire and a quick look about me, which happily
+encountered hers, I stooped my head to suit the low and narrow doorway
+opened for my accommodation, and instantly found myself in darkness. The
+door had been immediately closed by the lawyer's impatient hand.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+WITH MY EAR TO THE WAINSCOTING
+
+
+No move more unwise could have been made by the old lawyer,--that is, if
+his intention had been to rid himself of an unwelcome witness. For,
+finding myself thrust thus suddenly from the scene, I naturally stood
+still instead of mounting the stairs, and, by standing still, discovered
+that though shut from sight I was not from sound. Distinctly through the
+panel of the door, which was much thinner, no doubt, than the old fox
+imagined, I heard one of the men present shout out:
+
+"Well, that makes the number less by _one_!"
+
+The murmur which followed this remark came plainly to my ears, and,
+greatly rejoicing over what I considered my good luck, I settled myself
+on the lowest step of the stairs in the hope of catching some word
+which would reveal to me the mystery of this scene.
+
+It was not long in coming. Old Smead had now his audience before him in
+good shape, and his next words were of a character to make evident the
+purpose of this meeting.
+
+"Heirs of Anthony Westonhaugh, deceased," he began in a sing-song voice
+strangely unmusical, "I congratulate you upon your good fortune at being
+at this especial moment on the inner rather than outer side of your
+amiable relative's front door. His will, which you have assembled to
+hear read, is well known to you. By it his whole property--(not so large
+as some of you might wish, but yet a goodly property for farmers like
+yourselves)--is to be divided this night, share and share alike, among
+such of his relatives as have found it convenient to be present here
+between the strokes of half-past seven and eight. If some of our friends
+have failed us through sloth, sickness or the misfortune of mistaking
+the road, they have our sympathy, but they can not have _his dollars_."
+
+"Can not have his dollars!" echoed a rasping voice which, from its
+smothered sound, probably came from the bearded lips of the old
+reprobate in the chair.
+
+The lawyer waited for one or two other repetitions of this phrase (a
+phrase which, for some unimaginable reason, seemed to give him an odd
+sort of pleasure), then he went on with greater distinctness and a
+certain sly emphasis, chilling in effect but very professional:
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen: Shall I read this will?"
+
+"No, no! The division! the division! Tell us what we are to have!" rose
+in a shout about him.
+
+There was a pause. I could imagine the sharp eyes of the lawyer
+traveling from face to face as each thus gave voice to his cupidity, and
+the thin curl of his lips as he remarked in a slow tantalizing way:
+
+"There was more in the old man's clutches than you think."
+
+A gasp of greed shook the partition against which my ear was pressed.
+Some one must have drawn up against the wainscoting since my departure
+from the room. I found myself wondering which of them it was. Meantime
+old Smead was having his say, with the smoothness of a man who perfectly
+understands what is required of him.
+
+"Mr. Westonhaugh would not have put you to so much trouble or had you
+wait so long if he had not expected to reward you amply. There are
+shares in this bag which are worth thousands instead of hundreds. Now,
+now! stop that! hands off! hands off! there are calculations to make
+first. How many of you are there? Count up, some of you."
+
+"Nine!" called out a voice with such rapacious eagerness that the word
+was almost unintelligible.
+
+"Nine." How slowly the old knave spoke! What pleasure he seemed to take
+in the suspense he purposely made as exasperating as possible!
+
+"Well, if each one gets his share, he may count himself richer by two
+hundred thousand dollars than when he came in here to-night."
+
+Two hundred thousand dollars! They had expected no more than thirty.
+Surprise made them speechless,--that is, for a moment; then a
+pandemonium of hurrahs, shrieks and loud-voiced enthusiasm made the room
+ring, till wonder seized them again, and a sudden silence fell, through
+which I caught a far-off wail of grief from the disappointed ones
+without, which, heard in the dark and narrow place in which I was
+confined, had a peculiarly weird and desolate effect.
+
+Perhaps it likewise was heard by some of the fortunate ones within!
+Perhaps one head, to mark which, in this moment of universal elation, I
+would have given a year from my life, turned toward the dark without, in
+recognition of the despair thus piteously voiced; but if so, no token of
+the same came to me, and I could but hope that she had shown, by some
+such movement, the natural sympathy of her sex.
+
+Meanwhile the lawyer was addressing the company in his smoothest and
+most sarcastic tones.
+
+"Mr. Westonhaugh was a wise man, a very wise man," he droned. "He
+foresaw what your pleasure would be, and left a letter for you. But
+before I read it, before I invite you to the board he ordered to be
+spread for you in honor of this happy occasion, there is one appeal he
+bade me make to those I should find assembled here. As you know, he was
+not personally acquainted with all the children and grandchildren of his
+many brothers and sisters. Salmon's sons, for instance, were perfect
+strangers to him, and all those boys and girls of the Evans' branch have
+never been long enough this side of the mountains for him to know their
+names, much less their temper or their lives. Yet his heirs--or such was
+his wish, his great wish--must be honest men, righteous in their
+dealings, and of stainless lives. If therefore, any one among you feels
+that for reasons he need not state, he has no right to accept his share
+of Anthony Westonhaugh's bounty, then that person is requested to
+withdraw before this letter to his heirs is read."
+
+Withdraw? Was the man a fool? _Withdraw?_--these cormorants! these
+suckers of blood! these harpies and vultures! I laughed as I imagined
+sneaking Hector, malicious Luke or brutal John responding to this naïve
+appeal, and then found myself wondering why no echo of my mirth came
+from the men themselves. They must have seen much more plainly than I
+did the ludicrousness of their weak old kinsman's demand; yet Luke was
+still; Hector was still; and even John, and the three or four others I
+have mentioned gave forth no audible token of disdain or surprise. I was
+asking myself what sentiment of awe or fear restrained these selfish
+souls, when I became conscious of a movement within, which presently
+resolved itself into a departing foot-step.
+
+Some conscience there had been awakened. Some one was crossing the floor
+toward the door. Who? I waited in anxious expectancy for the word which
+was to enlighten me. Happily it came soon, and from the old lawyer's
+lips.
+
+"You do not feel yourself worthy?" he queried, in tones I had not heard
+from him before. "Why? What have you done that you should forego an
+inheritance to which these others feel themselves honestly entitled?"
+
+The voice which answered gave both my mind and heart a shock. It was
+_she_ who had risen at this call. _She_, the only true-faced person
+there!
+
+Anxiously I listened for her reply. Alas! it was one of action rather
+than speech. As I afterward heard, she simply opened her long cloak and
+showed a little infant slumbering in her arms.
+
+"This is my reason," said she. "I have sinned in the eyes of the world,
+therefore I can not take my share of Uncle Anthony's money. I did not
+know he exacted an unblemished record from those he expected to enrich,
+or I would not have come."
+
+The sob which followed these last words showed at what a cost she thus
+renounced a fortune of which she, of all present, perhaps, stood in the
+greatest need; but there was no lingering in her step; and to me, who
+understood her fault only through the faint sound of infantile wailing
+which accompanied her departure, there was a nobility in her action
+which raised her in an instant to an almost ideal height of unselfish
+virtue.
+
+Perhaps they felt this, too. Perhaps even these hardened men and the
+more than hardened woman whose presence was in itself a blight,
+recognized heroism when they saw it; for when the lawyer, with a certain
+obvious reluctance, laid his hand on the bolts of the door with the
+remark: "This is not my work, you know; I am but following out
+instructions very minutely given me," the smothered growls and grunts
+which rose in reply lacked the venom which had been infused into all
+their previous comments.
+
+"I think our friends out there are far enough withdrawn, by this time,
+for us to hazard the opening of the door," the lawyer now remarked.
+"Madam, I hope you will speedily find your way to some comfortable
+shelter."
+
+Then the door opened, and after a moment, closed again in a silence
+which at least was respectful. Yet I warrant there was not a soul
+remaining who had not already figured in his mind to what extent his own
+fortune had been increased by the failure of one of their number to
+inherit.
+
+As for me, my whole interest in the affair was at an end, and I was only
+anxious to find my way to where this desolate woman faced the mist with
+her unfed baby in her arms.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+A LIFE DRAMA
+
+
+But to reach this wanderer, it was first necessary for me to escape from
+the house. This proved simple enough. The up-stairs room toward which I
+rushed had a window overlooking one of the many lean-tos already
+mentioned. This window was fastened, but I had no difficulty in
+unlocking it or in finding my way to the ground from the top of the
+lean-to. But once again on terra-firma, I discovered that the mist was
+now so thick that it had all the effect of a fog at sea. It was icy cold
+as well, and clung about me so that I presently began to shudder most
+violently, and, strong man though I was, wish myself back in the little
+attic bedroom from which I had climbed in search of one in more unhappy
+case than myself.
+
+But these feelings did not cause me to return. If I found the night
+cold, she must find it bitter. If desolation oppressed my naturally
+hopeful spirit, must it not be more overwhelming yet to one whose
+memories were sad and whose future was doubtful? And the child! What
+infant could live in an air like this! Edging away from the house, I
+called out her name, but no answer came back. The persons whom we had
+heard flitting in restless longing about the house a few moments before
+had left in rage and she, possibly, with them. Yet I could not imagine
+her joining herself to people of their stamp. There had been a
+solitariness in her aspect which seemed to forbid any such
+companionship. Whatever her story, at least she had nothing in common
+with the two ill-favored persons whose faces I had seen looking in at
+the casement. No; I should find her alone, but where? Certainly the ring
+of mist, surrounding me at that moment, offered me little prospect of
+finding her anywhere, either easily or soon.
+
+Again I raised my voice, and again I failed to meet with response.
+Then, fearing to leave the house lest I should be quite lost amid the
+fences and brush lying between it and the road, I began to feel my way
+along the walls, calling softly now, instead of loudly, so anxious was I
+not to miss any chance of carrying comfort, if not succor, to the woman
+I was seeking. But the night gave back no sound, and when I came to the
+open door of a shed, I welcomed the refuge it offered and stepped in. I
+was, of course, confronted by darkness,--a different darkness from that
+without, blanket-like and impenetrable. But when after a moment of
+intense listening I heard a soft sound as of weariful breathing, I was
+seized anew by hope, and, feeling in my pocket for my match-box, I made
+a light and looked around.
+
+My intuitions had not deceived me; she was there. Sitting on the floor
+with her cheek pressed against the wall, she revealed to my eager
+scrutiny only the outlines of her pure, pale profile; but in those
+outlines and on those pure, pale features, I saw such an abandonment of
+hope, mingled with such quiet endurance, that my whole soul melted
+before it, and it was with difficulty I managed to say:
+
+"Pardon! I do not wish to intrude; but I am shut out of the house also;
+and the night is raw and cold. Can I do nothing for your comfort or
+for--for the child's?"
+
+She turned toward me and I saw a tremulous gleam of pleasure disturb the
+somber stillness of her face; then the match went out in my hand, and we
+were again in complete darkness. But the little wail, which at the same
+instant rose from between her arms, filled up the pause, as her sweet
+"Hush!" filled my heart.
+
+"I am used to the cold," came in another moment from the place where she
+crouched. "It is the child--she is hungry; and I--I walked
+here--feeling, hoping that, as my father's heir, I might partake in some
+slight measure of Uncle Anthony's money. Though my father cast me out
+before he died, and I have neither home nor money, I do not complain. I
+forfeited all when--" another wail, another gentle "hush!"--then
+silence.
+
+I lit another match. "Look in my face!" I prayed. "I am a stranger, and
+you would be showing only proper prudence not to trust me. But I
+overheard your words when you withdrew from the room where your fortune
+lay; and I honor you, madam. If food can be got for your little one, I
+will get it."
+
+I caught sight of the convulsive clasp with which she drew to her breast
+the tiny bundle she held, then darkness fell again.
+
+"A little bread," she entreated; "a little milk--ah, baby, baby, hush!"
+
+"But where can I get it?" I cried. "They are at table inside. I hear
+them shouting over their good cheer. But perhaps there are neighbors
+near by; do you know?"
+
+"There are no neighbors," she replied. "What is got must be got here. I
+know a way to the kitchen; I used to visit Uncle Anthony when a little
+child; if you have the courage--"
+
+I laughed. This token of confidence seemed to reassure her. I heard her
+move; possibly she stood up.
+
+"In the further corner of this shed," said she, "there used to be a
+trap, connecting this floor with an underground passage-way. A ladder
+stood against the trap, and the small cellar at the foot communicated by
+means of an iron-bound door with the large one under the house. Eighteen
+years ago the wood of that door was old; now it should be rotten. If you
+have the strength--"
+
+"I will make the effort and see," said I. "But when I am in the cellar,
+what then?"
+
+"Follow the wall to the right; you will come to a stone staircase. As
+this staircase has no railing, be careful in ascending it. At the top
+you will find a door; it leads into a pantry adjoining the kitchen. Some
+one will be in that pantry. Some one will give you a bite for the child;
+and when she is quieted and the sun has risen, I will go away. It is my
+duty to do so. My uncle was always upright, if cold. He was perfectly
+justified in exacting rectitude in his heirs."
+
+I might have rejoined by asking if she detected rectitude in the faces
+of the greedy throng she had left behind her with the guardian of this
+estate; but I did not. I was too intent upon following out her
+directions. Lighting another match, I sought the trap. Alas! it was
+burdened with a pile of sticks and rubbish which looked as if they had
+lain there for years. As these had to be removed in total darkness, it
+took me some time. But once this debris had been scattered and thrown
+aside, I had no difficulty in finding the trap and, as the ladder was
+still there, I was soon on the cellar-bottom. When, by the reassuring
+shout I gave, she knew that I had advanced thus far, she spoke, and her
+voice had a soft and thrilling sound.
+
+"Do not forget your own needs," she said. "We two are not so hungry that
+we can not wait for you to take a mouthful. I will sing to the baby.
+Good-by."
+
+These ten minutes we had spent together had made us friends. The warmth,
+the strength which this discovery brought, gave to my arm a force that
+made that old oak door go down before me in three vigorous pushes.
+
+Had the eight fortunate ones above not been indulging in a noisy
+celebration of their good luck, they must have heard the clatter of this
+door when it fell. But good eating, good drink, and the prospect of an
+immediate fortune far beyond their wildest dreams, made all ears deaf;
+and no pause occurred in the shouts of laughter and the hum of
+good-fellowship which sifted down between the beams supporting the house
+above my head. Consequently little or no courage was required for the
+completion of my adventure; and before long I came upon the staircase
+and the door leading from its top into the pantry. The next minute I was
+in front of that door.
+
+But here a surprise awaited me. The noise which had hitherto been loud
+now became deafening, and I realized that, contrary to Eunice
+Westonhaugh's expectation, the supper had been spread in the kitchen and
+that I was likely to run amuck of the whole despicable crowd in any
+effort I might make to get a bite for the famished baby.
+
+I therefore naturally hesitated to push open the door, fearing to draw
+attention to myself; and when I did succeed in lifting the latch and
+making a small crack, I was so astonished by the sudden lull in the
+general babble, that I drew hastily back and was for descending the
+stairs in sudden retreat.
+
+But I was prevented from carrying out this cowardly impulse, by catching
+the sound of the lawyer's voice, addressing the assembled guests.
+
+"You have eaten and you have drunk," he was saying; "you are therefore
+ready for the final toast. Brothers, nephews--heirs all of Anthony
+Westonhaugh, I rise to propose the name of your generous benefactor,
+who, if spirits walk this earth, must certainly be with us to-night."
+
+A grumble from more than one throat and an uneasy hitch from such
+shoulders as I could see through my narrow vantage-hole testified to the
+rather doubtful pleasure with which this suggestion was received. But
+the lawyer's tones lost none of their animation as he went on to say:
+
+"The bottle, from which your glasses are to be replenished for this
+final draft, he has himself provided. So anxious was he that it should
+be of the very best and altogether worthy of the occasion it is to
+celebrate, that he gave into my charge, almost with his dying breath,
+this key, telling me that it would unlock a cupboard here in which he
+had placed a bottle of wine of the very rarest vintage. This is the key,
+and yonder, if I do not mistake, is the cupboard."
+
+They had already quaffed a dozen toasts. Perhaps this was why they
+accepted this proposition in a sort of panting silence, which remained
+unbroken while the lawyer crossed the floor, unlocked the cupboard and
+brought out before them a bottle which he held up before their eyes with
+a simulated glee almost saturnine.
+
+"Isn't that a bottle to make your eyes dance? The very cobwebs on it are
+eloquent. And see! look at this label. Tokay, friends, real Tokay! How
+many of you ever had the opportunity of drinking real Tokay before?"
+
+A long deep sigh from a half-dozen throats in which some strong but
+hitherto repressed passion, totally incomprehensible to me, found sudden
+vent, rose in one simultaneous sound from about that table, and I heard
+one jocular voice sing out:
+
+"Pass it around, Smead. I'll drink to Uncle Anthony out of that bottle
+till there isn't a drop left to tell what was in it!"
+
+But the lawyer was in no hurry.
+
+"You have forgotten the letter, for the hearing of which you are called
+together. Mr. Anthony Westonhaugh left behind him a letter. The time is
+now come for reading it."
+
+As I heard these words and realized that the final toast was to be
+delayed and that some few moments must yet elapse before the room would
+be cleared and an opportunity given me for obtaining what I needed for
+the famishing mother and child, I felt such impatience with the fact
+and so much anxiety as to the condition of those I had left behind me
+that I questioned whether it would not be better for me to return to
+them empty-handed than to leave them so long without the comfort of my
+presence, when the fascination of the scene again seized me and I found
+myself lingering to mark its conclusion with an avidity which can only
+be explained by my sudden and intense consciousness of what it all might
+mean to her whose witness I had thus inadvertently become.
+
+The careful lawyer began by quoting the injunction with which this
+letter had been put in his hands. "'When they are warm with food and
+wine, but not too warm,'--thus his adjuration ran, 'then let them hear
+my first and only words to them.' I know you are eager for these words.
+Folk so honest, so convinced of their own purity and uprightness that
+they can stand unmoved while the youngest and most helpless among them
+withdraws her claim to wealth and independence rather than share an
+unmerited bounty, such folk, I say, must be eager, must be anxious to
+know why they have been made the legatees of so great a fortune, under
+the easy conditions and amid such slight restrictions as have been
+imposed upon them by their munificent kinsman."
+
+"I had rather go on drinking toasts," babbled one thick voice.
+
+"I had rather finish my figuring," growled another, in whose grating
+tones no echo remained of Hector Westonhaugh's formerly honeyed voice.
+"I am making out a list of stock--"
+
+"Blast your stock! that is, if you mean horses and cows!" screamed a
+third. "I'm going in for city life. With less money than we have got,
+Andreas Amsberger got to be alderman--"
+
+"Alderman!" sneered the whole pack; and the tumult became general. "If
+more of us had been sick," called out one; "or if Uncle Luke, say, had
+tripped into the ditch instead of on the edge of it, the fellows who
+came safe through might have had anything they wanted, even to the
+governorship of the state or--or--"
+
+"Silence!" came in commanding tones from the lawyer, who had begun to
+let his disgust appear, perhaps because he held under his thumb the
+bottle upon which all eyes were now lovingly centered; so lovingly,
+indeed, that I ventured to increase, in the smallest perceptible degree,
+the crack by means of which I was myself an interested, if unseen,
+participator in this scene.
+
+A sight of Smead, and a partial glimpse of old Luke's covetous profile,
+rewarded this small act of daring on my part. The lawyer was standing;
+all the rest were sitting. Perhaps he alone retained sufficient
+steadiness to stand; for I observed by the control he exercised over
+this herd of self-seekers, that he alone had not touched the cup which
+had so freely gone about among the others. The woman was hidden from me,
+but the change in her voice, when by any chance I heard it, convinced me
+that she had not disdained the toasts drunk by her brothers and
+nephews.
+
+"Silence!" the lawyer reiterated, "or I will smash this bottle on the
+hearth." He raised it in one threatening hand and every man there seemed
+to tremble, while old Luke put out his long fingers with an entreaty
+that ill became them. "You want to hear the letter?" old Smead called
+out. "I thought so."
+
+Putting the bottle down again, but still keeping one hand upon it, he
+drew a folded paper from his breast. "This," said he, "contains the
+final injunctions of Anthony Westonhaugh. You will listen, all of you;
+listen till I am done; or I will not only smash this bottle before your
+eyes, but I will keep for ever buried in my breast the whereabouts of
+certain drafts and bonds in which, as his heirs, you possess the
+greatest interest. Nobody but myself knows where these papers can be
+found."
+
+Whether this was so, or whether the threat was an empty one thrown out
+by this subtile old schemer for the purpose of safeguarding his life
+from their possible hate and impatience, it answered his end with these
+semi-intoxicated men, and secured him the silence he demanded. Breaking
+open the seal of the envelope he held, he showed them the folded sheet
+which it contained, with the remark:
+
+"I have had nothing to do with the writing of this letter. It is in Mr.
+Westonhaugh's own hand, and he was not even so good as to communicate to
+me the nature of its contents. I was bidden to read it to such as should
+be here assembled under the provisos mentioned in his will; and as you
+are now in a condition to listen, I will proceed with my task as
+required."
+
+This was my time for leaving, but a certain brooding terror, latent in
+the air, held me chained to the spot, listening with my ears, but
+receiving the full sense of what was read from the expression of old
+Luke's face, which was probably more plainly visible to me than to those
+who sat beside him. For, being bent almost into a bow, as I have said,
+his forehead came within an inch of touching his plate, and one had to
+look under his arms, as I did, to catch the workings of his evil mouth,
+as old Smead gave forth, in his professional sing-song, the following
+words from his departed client:
+
+"Brothers, nephews and heirs! Though the earth has lain upon my breast a
+month, I am with you here to-night."
+
+A snort from old Luke's snarling lips; and a stir--not a comfortable
+one--in the jostling crowd, whose shaking arms and clawing hands I could
+see projecting here and there over the board.
+
+"My presence at this feast--a presence which, if unseen, can not be
+unfelt, may bring you more pain than pleasure. But if so, it matters
+little. You are my natural heirs and I have left you my money; why, when
+so little love has characterized our intercourse, must be evident to
+such of my brothers as can recall their youth and the promise our father
+exacted from us on the day we set foot in this new land.
+
+"There were nine of us in those days: Luke, Salmon, Barbara, Hector,
+Eustace, Janet, Hudson, William and myself; and all save one were
+promising, in appearance at least. But our father knew his offspring,
+and when we stood, an alien and miserable band in front of Castle
+Garden, at the foot of the great city whose immensity struck terror to
+our hearts, he drew all our hands together and made us swear by the soul
+of our mother, whose body we had left in the sea, that we would keep the
+bond of brotherhood intact, and share with mutual confidence whatever
+good fortune this untried country might hold in store for us. You were
+strong and your voices rang out loudly. Mine was faint, for I was
+weak--so weak that my hand had to be held in place by my sister Barbara.
+But my oath has never lost its hold upon my heart, while yours--answer
+how you have kept it, Luke; or you, Janet; or you Hector, of the smooth
+tongue and vicious heart; or you, or you, who, from one stock, recognize
+but one law: the law of cold-blooded selfishness which seeks its own in
+face of all oaths and at the cost of another man's heart-break.
+
+"This I say to such as know my story. But lest there be one amongst you
+who has not heard from parent or uncle the true tale of him who has
+brought you all under one roof to-night, I will repeat it here in words,
+that no man may fail to understand why I remembered my oath through life
+and beyond death, yet stand above you an accusing spirit while you quaff
+me toasts and count the gains my justice divides among you.
+
+"I, as you all remember, was the weak one--the ne'er-do-weel. When all
+of you were grown and had homes of your own, I still remained under the
+family roof-tree, fed by our father's bounty and looking to our father's
+justice for that share of his savings which he had promised to all
+alike. When he died it came to me as it came to you; but I had married
+before that day; married, not, like the rest of you, for what a wife
+could bring, but for sentiment and true passion. This, in my case, meant
+a loving wife, but a frail one; and while we lived a little while on the
+patrimony left us, it was far too small to support us long without some
+aid from our own hands; and our hands were feeble and could not work.
+And so we fell into debt for rent and, ere long, for the commonest
+necessities of life. In vain I struggled to redeem myself; the time of
+my prosperity had not come and I only sank deeper and deeper into debt
+and finally into indigence. A baby came. Our landlord was kind and
+allowed us to stay for two weeks under the roof for whose protection we
+could not pay; but at the end of that time we were asked to leave; and I
+found myself on the road with a dying wife, a wailing infant, no money
+in my purse and no power in my arm to earn any. Then when heart and hope
+were both failing, I recalled that ancient oath and the six prosperous
+homes scattered up and down the very highway on which I stood. I could
+not leave my wife; the fever was in her veins and she could not bear me
+out of her sight; so I put her on a horse, which a kind old neighbor was
+willing to lend me, and holding her up with one hand, guided the horse
+with the other, to the home of my brother Luke. He was a straight
+enough fellow in those days--physically, I mean--and he looked able and
+strong that morning, as he stood in the open doorway of his house,
+gazing down at us as we halted before him in the roadway. But his temper
+had grown greedy with the accumulation of a few dollars, and he shook
+his head as he closed his door, saying he remembered no oath and that
+spenders must expect to be beggars.
+
+"Struck to the heart by a rebuff which meant prolongation of the
+suffering I saw in my dear wife's eyes, I stretched up and kissed her
+where she sat half-fainting on the horse; then I moved on. I came to
+Barbara's home next. She had been a little mother to me once; that is,
+she had fed and dressed me, and doled out blows and caresses, and taught
+me to read and sing. But Barbara in her father's home and without
+fortune was not the Barbara I saw on the threshold of the little cottage
+she called her own. She heard my story; looked in the face of my wife
+and turned her back. She had no place for idle folk in her little house;
+if we would work she would feed us; but we must earn our supper or go
+hungry to bed. I felt the trembling of my wife's frame where she leaned
+against my arm, and kissing her again, led her on to Salmon's. Luke,
+Hector, Janet, have you heard him tell of that vision at his gateway,
+twenty-five years ago? He is not amongst you. For twelve years he has
+lain beside our father in the churchyard, but his sons may be here, for
+they were ever alert when gold was in sight or a full glass to be
+drained. Ask _them_, ask John, whom I saw skulking behind his cousins at
+the garden fence that day, what it was they saw as I drew rein under the
+great tree which shadowed their father's doorstep.
+
+"The sunshine had been pitiless that morning, and the head, for whose
+rest in some loving shelter I would have bartered soul and body, had
+fallen sidewise till it lay on my arm. Pressed to her breast was our
+infant, whose little wail struck in pitifully as Salmon called out:
+'What's to do here to-day!' Do you remember it, lads? or how you all
+laughed, little and great, when I asked for a few weeks' stay under my
+brother's roof till we could all get well and go about our tasks again?
+_I_ remember. I, who am writing these words from the very mouth of the
+tomb, _I_ remember; but I did not curse you. I only rode on to the next.
+The way ran uphill now; and the sun which, since our last stop, had been
+under a cloud, came out and blistered my wife's cheeks, already burning
+red with fever. But I pressed my lips upon them, and led her on. With
+each rebuff I gave her a kiss; and her smile, as her head pressed harder
+and harder upon my arm now exerting all its strength to support her,
+grew almost divine. But it vanished at my nephew Lemuel's.
+
+"He was shearing sheep, and could give no time to company; and when,
+late in the day, I drew rein at Janet's, and she said she was going to
+have a dance and could not look after sick folk, the pallid lips failed
+to return my despairing embrace; and in the terror which this brought me
+I went down, in the gathering twilight, into the deep valley where
+William raised his sheep and reckoned, day by day, the increase among
+his pigs. Oh, the chill of that descent! Oh, the gloom of the gathering
+shadows! As we neared the bottom and I heard a far-off voice shout out a
+hoarse command, some instinct made me reach up for the last time and
+bestow that faithful kiss, which was at once her consolation and my
+prayer. My lips were cold with the terror of my soul, but they were not
+so cold as the cheek they touched, and, shrieking in my misery and need,
+I fell before William where he halted by the horse-trough and--He was
+always a hard man, was William, and it was a shock to him, no doubt, to
+see us standing in our anguish and necessity before him; but he raised
+the whip in his hand and, when it fell, my arm fell with it and she
+slipped from my grasp to the ground, and lay in a heap in the roadway.
+
+"He was ashamed next minute and pointed to the house near-by. But I did
+not carry her in, and she died in the roadway. Do you remember it,
+Luke? Do you remember it, Lemuel?
+
+"But it is not of this I complain at this hour, nor is it for this I ask
+you to drink the toast I have prepared for you."
+
+The looks, the writhings of old Luke and such others as I could now see
+through the widening crack my hands unconsciously made in the doorway,
+told me that the rack was at work in this room so lately given up to
+revelry. Yet the mutterings, which from time to time came to my ears
+from one sullen lip or another, did not rise into frightened imprecation
+or even into any assertion of sorrow or contrition. It seemed as if some
+suspense, common to all, held them speechless if not dumbly
+apprehensive; and while the lawyer said nothing in recognition of this,
+he could not have been quite blind to it, for he bestowed one curious
+glance around the table before he proceeded with old Anthony's words.
+
+Those words had now become short, sharp, and accusatory.
+
+"My child lived; and what remained to me of human passion and longing
+centered in his frail existence. I managed to earn enough for his eating
+and housing, and in time I was almost happy again. This was while our
+existence was a struggle; but when, with the discovery of latent powers
+in my own mind, I began to find my place in the world and to earn money,
+then your sudden interest in my boy taught me a new lesson in human
+selfishness; but not, as yet, new fears. My nature was not one to grasp
+ideas of evil, and the remembrance of that oath still remained to make
+me lenient toward you.
+
+"I let him see you; not much, not often, but yet often enough for him to
+realize that he had uncles and cousins, or, if you like it better,
+kindred. And how did you repay this confidence on my part? What hand had
+ye in the removal of this small barrier to the fortune my own poor
+health warranted you in looking upon, even in those early days, as your
+own? To others' eyes it may appear, none; to mine, ye are one and all
+his murderers, as certainly as all of you were the murderers of the
+good physician hastening to his aid. For his illness was not a mortal
+one. He would have been saved if the doctor had reached him; but a
+precipice swallowed that good Samaritan, and only I, of all who looked
+upon the footprints which harrowed up the road at this dangerous point,
+knew whose shoes would fit those marks. God's providence, it was called,
+and I let it pass for such; but it was a providence which cost me my boy
+and made _you_ my heirs."
+
+Silence as sullen in character as the men who found themselves thus
+openly impeached had, for some minutes now, replaced the muttered
+complaints which had accompanied the first portion of this denunciatory
+letter. As the lawyer stopped to cast them another of those strange
+looks, a gleam from old Luke's sidewise eyes startled the man next him,
+who, shrugging a shoulder, passed the underhanded look on, till it had
+circled the board and stopped with the man sitting opposite the crooked
+sinner who had started it.
+
+I began to have a wholesome dread of them all and was astonished to see
+the lawyer drop his hand from the bottle, which to some degree offered
+itself as a possible weapon. But he knew his audience better than I did.
+Though the bottle was now free for any man's taking, not a hand trembled
+toward it, nor was a single glass held out.
+
+The lawyer, with an evil smile, went on with his relentless client's
+story.
+
+"Ye had killed my wife; ye had killed my son; but this was not enough.
+Being lonesome in my great house, which was as much too large for me as
+my fortune was, I had taken a child to replace the boy I had lost.
+Remembering the cold blood running in the veins of those nearest me, I
+chose a boy from alien stock and, for a while, knew contentment again.
+But, as he developed and my affections strengthened, the possibility of
+all my money going his way roused my brothers and sisters from the
+complacency they had enjoyed since their road to fortune had been
+secured by my son's death, and one day--can you recall it, Hudson? can
+you recall it, Lemuel?--the boy was brought in from the mill and laid at
+my feet, dead! He had stumbled amongst the great belts, but whose was
+the voice which had startled him with a sudden 'Halloo!' Can you say,
+Luke? Can you say, John? I can say in whose ear it was whispered that
+three, if not more of you, were seen moving among the machinery that
+fatal morning.
+
+"Again, God's providence was said to have visited my house; and again
+_ye_ were my heirs."
+
+"Stop there!" broke in the harsh voice of Luke, who was gradually
+growing livid under his long gray locks.
+
+"Lies! lies!" shrieked Hector, gathering courage from his brother.
+
+"Cut it all and give us the drink!" snarled one of the younger men, who
+was less under the effect of liquor than the rest.
+
+But a trembling voice muttered "Hush!" and the lawyer, whose eye had
+grown steely under these comments, took advantage of the sudden silence
+which had followed this last objurgation and went steadily on.
+
+"Some men would have made a will and denounced you. I made a will, but
+did not denounce you. _I_ am no breaker of oaths. More than this, I
+learned a new trick. I, who hated all subtlety and looked upon craft as
+the favorite weapon of the devil, learned to smile with my lips while my
+heart was burning with hatred. Perhaps this was why you all began to
+smile too, and joke me about certain losses I had sustained, by which
+you meant the gains which had come to me. That these gains were many
+times greater than you realized added to the sting of this good
+fellowship, but I held my peace; and you began to have confidence in a
+good-nature which nothing could shake. You even gave me a supper."
+
+_A supper!_
+
+What was there in these words to cause every man there to stop in
+whatever movement he was making and stare, with wide-open eyes, intently
+at the reader. He had spoken quietly; he had not even looked up, but
+the silence which, for some minutes back, had begun to reign over that
+tumultuous gathering, now became breathless, and the seams in Hector's
+cheeks deepened to a bluish criss-cross.
+
+"_You remember that supper?_"
+
+As the words rang out again, I threw wide the door; I might have stalked
+openly into their circle; not a man there would have noticed me.
+
+"It was a memorable occasion," the lawyer read on with stoical
+impassiveness. "There was not a brother lacking. Luke and Hudson and
+William and Hector and Eustace's boys, as well as Eustace himself; Janet
+too, and Salmon's Lemuel, and Barbara's son, who, even if his mother had
+gone the way of all flesh, had so trained her black brood in the love of
+the things of this world that I scarcely missed her when I looked about
+among you all for the eight sturdy brothers and sisters who had joined
+in one clasp and one oath, under the eye of the true-hearted immigrant,
+our father. What I did miss was one true eye lifted to my glance; but I
+did not show that I missed it; and so our peace was made and we
+separated, you to wait for your inheritance, and I for the death which
+was to secure it to you. For, when the cup passed round that night, you
+each dropped into it a tear of repentance, and tears make bitter
+drinking. I sickened as I quaffed and was never myself again, as you
+know. Do you understand me, you cruel, crafty ones?"
+
+Did they not! Heads quaking, throats gasping, teeth chattering--no
+longer sitting--all risen, all looking with wild eyes for the door--was
+it not apparent that they understood and only waited for one more word
+to break away and flee the accursed house?
+
+But that word lingered. Old Smead had now grown pale himself and read
+with difficulty the lines which were to end this frightful scene. As I
+saw the red gleam of terror shine out from his small eyes, I wondered if
+he had been but the blind tool of his implacable client and was as
+ignorant as those before him of what was to follow this heavy
+arraignment. The dread with which he finally proceeded was too marked
+for me to doubt the truth of this surmise. This is what he found himself
+forced to read:
+
+"There was a bottle reserved for me. It had a green label on it,--"
+
+A shriek from every one there and a hurried look up and down at the
+bottles standing on the table.
+
+"A green label," the lawyer repeated, "and it made a goodly appearance
+as it was set down before me. But you had no liking for wine with a
+green label on the bottle. One by one you refused it, and when I rose to
+quaff my final glass alone, every eye before me fell and did not lift
+again until the glass was drained. I did not notice this then, but I see
+it all now, just as I hear again the excuses you gave for not filling
+your glasses as the bottle went round. One had drunk enough; one
+suffered from qualms brought on by an unaccustomed indulgence in
+oysters; one felt that wine good enough for me was too good for him,
+and so on and so on. Not one to show frank eyes and drink with me as I
+was ready to drink with him! Why? Because one and all of you knew what
+was in that cup, and would not risk an inheritance so nearly within your
+grasp."
+
+"Lies! lies!" again shrieked the raucous voice of Luke, smothered by
+terror; while oaths, shouts, imprecations, rang out in horrid tumult
+from one end of the table to the other, till the lawyer's face, over
+which a startling change was rapidly passing, drew the whole crowd
+forward again in awful fascination, till they clung, speechless, arm in
+arm, shoulder propping shoulder, while he gasped out in dismay equal to
+their own, these last fatal words:
+
+"That was at your board, my brothers; now you are at mine. You have
+eaten my viands, drunk of my cup; and now, through the mouth of the one
+man who has been true to me because therein lies his advantage, I offer
+you a final glass. Will you drink it? I drank yours. By that old-time
+oath which binds us to share each other's fortune, I ask you to share
+this cup with me. _You will not?_"
+
+"No, no, no!" shouted one after another.
+
+"Then," the inexorable voice went on, a voice which to these miserable
+souls was no longer that of the lawyer, but an issue from the grave they
+had themselves dug for Anthony Westonhaugh, "know that your abstinence
+comes too late; that you have already drunk the toast destined to end
+your lives. The bottle which you must have missed from that board of
+yours has been offered you again. A label is easily changed and--Luke,
+John, Hector, I know you all so well--that bottle has been greedily
+emptied by you; and while I, who sipped sparingly, lived three weeks,
+you, who have drunk deep, _have not three hours before you, possibly not
+three minutes_."
+
+O, the wail of those lost souls as this last sentence issued in a final
+pant of horror from the lawyer's quaking lips! Shrieks--howls--prayers
+for mercy--groans to make the hair rise--and curses, at sound of which
+I shut my ears in horror, only to open them again in dread as, with one
+simultaneous impulse, they flung themselves upon the lawyer who,
+foreseeing this rush, had backed up against the wall.
+
+He tried to stem the tide.
+
+"I knew nothing of the poisoning," he protested. "That was not my reason
+for declining the drink. I wished to preserve my senses--to carry out my
+client's wishes. As God lives, I did not know he meant to carry his
+revenge so far. Mercy! Mer--"
+
+But the hands which clutched him were the hands of murderers, and the
+lawyer's puny figure could not stand up against the avalanche of human
+terror, relentless fury and mad vengeance which now rolled in upon it.
+As I bounded to his relief he turned his ghastly face upon me. But the
+way between us was blocked, and I was preparing myself to see him sink
+before my eyes, when an unearthly shriek rose from behind us, and every
+living soul in that mass of struggling humanity paused, set and
+staring, with stiffened limbs and eyes fixed, not on him, not on me, but
+on one of their own number, the only woman amongst them, Janet
+Clapsaddle, who, with clutching hands clawing her breast, was reeling in
+solitary agony in her place beside the board. As they looked she fell,
+and lay with upturned face and staring eyes, in whose glassy depths the
+ill-fated ones who watched her could see mirrored their own impending
+doom.
+
+It was an awful moment. A groan, in which was concentrated the despair
+of seven miserable souls, rose from that petrified band; then, man by
+man, they separated and fell back, showing on each weak or wicked face
+the particular passion which had driven them into crime and made them
+the victims of this wholesale revenge. There had been some sort of bond
+between them till the vision of death rose before each shrinking soul.
+Shoulder to shoulder in crime, they fell apart as their doom approached;
+and rushing, shrieking, each man for himself, they one and all sought
+to escape by doors, windows or any outlet which promised release from
+this fatal spot. One rushed by me--I do not know which one--and I felt
+as if a flame from hell had licked me, his breath was so hot and the
+moans he uttered so like the curses we imagine to blister the lips of
+the lost. None of them saw me; they did not even detect the sliding form
+of the lawyer crawling away before them to some place of egress of which
+they had no knowledge; and, convinced that in this scene of death I
+could play no part worthy of her who awaited me, I too rushed away and,
+groping my way back through the cellar, sought the side of her who still
+crouched in patient waiting against the dismal wall.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE FINAL SHOCK
+
+
+Her baby had fallen asleep. I knew this by the faint, low sweetness of
+her croon; and, shuddering with the horrors I had witnessed, horrors
+which acquired a double force from the contrast presented by the peace
+of this quiet spot and the hallowing influence of the sleeping
+infant,--I threw myself down in the darkness at her feet, gasping out:
+
+"Oh, thank God and your uncle's seeming harshness, that you have escaped
+the doom which has overtaken those others! You and your babe are still
+alive; while they--"
+
+"What of them? What has happened to them? You are breathless, trembling;
+you have brought no bread--"
+
+"No, no. Food in this house means death. Your relatives gave food and
+wine to your uncle at a supper; he, though now in his grave, has
+returned the same to them. There was a bottle--"
+
+I stopped, appalled. A shriek, muffled by distance but quivering with
+the same note of death I had heard before, had gone up again from the
+other side of the wall against which we were leaning.
+
+"Oh!" she gasped; "and my father was at that supper! my father, who died
+last night cursing the day he was born! We are an accursed race. I have
+known it all my life; perhaps that was why I mistook passion for love;
+and my baby--O God, have mercy! God have mercy!"
+
+The plaintiveness of that cry, the awesomeness of what I had seen--of
+what was going on at that moment almost within the reach of our
+arms--the darkness, the desolation of our two souls, affected me as I
+had never been affected in my whole life before. In the concentrated
+experience of the last two hours I seemed to live years under this
+woman's eyes; to know her as I did my own heart; to love her as I did my
+own soul. No growth of feeling ever brought the ecstasy of that
+moment's inspiration. With no sense of doing anything strange, with no
+fear of being misunderstood, I reached out my hand and, touching hers
+where it lay clasped about her infant, I said:
+
+"We are two poor wayfarers. A rough road loses half its difficulties
+when trodden by two. Shall we, then, fare on together--we and the little
+child?"
+
+She gave a sob; there was sorrow, longing, grief, hope, in its thrilling
+low sound. As I recognized the latter emotion I drew her to my breast.
+The child did not separate us.
+
+"We shall be happy," I murmured, and her sigh seemed to answer a
+delicious "Yes," when suddenly there came a shock to the partition
+against which we leaned and, starting from my clasp, she cried:
+
+"Our duty is in there. Shall we think of ourselves or even of each other
+while these men, all relatives of mine, are dying on the other side of
+this wall?"
+
+Seizing my hand, she dragged me to the trap; but here I took the lead,
+and helped her down the ladder. When I had her safely on the floor at
+the foot, she passed in front of me again; but once up the steps and in
+front of the kitchen door, I thrust her behind me, for one glance into
+the room beyond had convinced me it was no place for her.
+
+But she would not be held back. She crowded forward beside me, and
+together we looked upon the wreck within. It was a never-to-be-forgotten
+scene. The demon that was in those men had driven them to demolish
+furniture, dishes, everything. In one heap lay what, an hour before, had
+been an inviting board surrounded by rollicking and greedy guests. But
+it was not upon this overthrow we stopped to look. It was upon something
+that mingled with it, dominated it and made of this chaos only a setting
+to awful death. Janet's face, in all its natural hideousness and
+depravity, looked up from the floor beside this heap; and farther on,
+the twisted figure of him they called Hector, with something more than
+the seams of greedy longing round his wide, staring eyes and icy
+temples. Two in this room! and on the threshold of the one beyond a
+moaning third, who sank into eternal silence as we approached; and
+before the fireplace in the great room, a horrible crescent that had
+once been aged Luke, upon whom we had no sooner turned our backs than we
+caught glimpses here and there of other prostrate forms which moved once
+under our eyes and then moved no more.
+
+One only still stood upright, and he was the man whose obtrusive figure
+and sordid expression had so revolted me in the beginning. There was no
+color now in his flabby and heavily fallen cheeks. The eyes, in whose
+false sheen I had seen so much of evil, were glazed now, and his big and
+burly frame shook the door it pressed against. He was staring at a small
+slip of paper he held, and, from his anxious looks, appeared to miss
+something which neither of us had power to supply. It was a spectacle to
+make devils rejoice, and mortals fly aghast. But Eunice had a spirit
+like an angel and drawing near him, she said:
+
+"Is there anything I can do for you, Cousin John?"
+
+He started, looked at her with the same blank gaze he had hitherto cast
+at the wall; then some words formed on his working lips and we heard:
+
+"I can not reckon; I was never good at figures; but if Luke is gone, and
+William, and Hector, and Barbara's boy, and Janet,--_how much does that
+leave for me?_"
+
+He was answered almost the moment he spoke; but it was by other tongues
+and in another world than this. As his body fell forward, I tore open
+the door before which he had been standing, and, lifting the almost
+fainting Eunice in my arms, I carried her out into the night. As I did
+so, I caught a final glimpse of the pictured face I had found it so hard
+to understand a couple of hours before. I understood it now.
+
+A surprise awaited us as we turned toward the gate. The mist had lifted
+and a keen but not unpleasant wind was driving from the north. Borne on
+it, we heard voices. The village had emptied itself, probably at the
+alarm given by the lawyer, and it was these good men and women whose
+approach we heard. As we had nothing to fear from them, we went forward
+to meet them. As we did so, three crouching figures rose from some
+bushes we passed and ran scurrying before us through the gateway. They
+were the late comers who had shown such despair at being shut out from
+this fatal house, and who probably did not yet know the doom they had
+escaped.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+There were lanterns in the hands of some of the men who now approached.
+As we stopped before them, these lanterns were held up, and by the light
+they gave we saw, first, the lawyer's frightened face, then the visages
+of two men who seemed to be persons of some authority.
+
+"What news?" faltered the lawyer, seeing by our faces that we knew the
+worst.
+
+"Bad," I returned; "the poison had lost none of its virulence by being
+mixed so long with the wine."
+
+"How many?" asked the man on his right anxiously.
+
+"Eight," was my solemn reply.
+
+"There were but eight," faltered the lawyer; "that means, then, all?"
+
+"All," I repeated.
+
+A murmur of horror rose, swelled, then died out in tumult as the crowd
+swept on past us.
+
+For a moment we stood watching these people; saw them pause before the
+door we had left open behind us, then rush in, leaving a wail of terror
+on the shuddering midnight air. When all was quiet again, Eunice laid
+her hand upon my arm.
+
+"Where shall we go?" she asked despairingly. "I do not know a house that
+will open to me."
+
+The answer to her question came from other lips than mine.
+
+"I do not know one that will _not_," spoke up a voice behind our backs.
+"Your withdrawal from the circle of heirs did not take from you your
+rightful claim to an inheritance which, according to your uncle's will,
+could be forfeited only by a failure to arrive at the place of
+distribution within the hour set by the testator. As I see the matter
+now, this appeal to the honesty of the persons so collected was a test
+by which my unhappy client strove to save from the general fate such
+members of his miserable family as fully recognized their sin and were
+truly repentant."
+
+It was Lawyer Smead. He had lingered behind the others to tell her this.
+She was, then, no outcast, but rich, very rich; how rich I dared not
+acknowledge to myself, lest a remembrance of the man who was the last to
+perish in that house of death should return to make this calculation
+hateful. It was a blow which struck deep, deeper than any either of us
+had sustained that night. As we came to realize it, I stepped slowly
+back, leaving her standing erect and tall in the middle of the roadway,
+with her baby in her arms. But not for long; soon she was close at my
+side murmuring softly:
+
+"Two wayfarers still! Only, the road will be more difficult and the need
+of companionship greater. Shall we fare on together, you, I--and the
+little one?"
+
+
+
+
+THE RUBY AND THE CALDRON
+
+
+As there were two good men on duty that night, I did not see why I
+should remain at my desk, even though there was an unusual stir created
+in our small town by the grand ball given at The Evergreens.
+
+But just as I was preparing to start for home, an imperative ring called
+me to the telephone and I heard:
+
+"Halloo! Is this the police-station?"
+
+"It is."
+
+"Well, then, a detective is wanted at once at The Evergreens. He can not
+be too clever or too discreet. A valuable jewel has been lost, which
+must be found before the guests disperse for home. Large reward if the
+matter ends successfully and without too great publicity."
+
+"May I ask who is speaking to me?"
+
+"Mrs. Ashley."
+
+It was the mistress of The Evergreens and giver of the ball.
+
+"Madam, a man shall be sent at once. Where will you see him?"
+
+"In the butler's pantry at the rear. Let him give his name as Jennings."
+
+"Very good. Good-by."
+
+"Good-by."
+
+A pretty piece of work! Should I send Hendricks or should I send Hicks?
+Hendricks was clever and Hicks discreet, but neither united both
+qualifications in the measure demanded by the sensible and
+quietly-resolved woman with whom I had just been talking. What
+alternative remained? But one; I must go myself.
+
+It was not late--not for a ball night, at least--and as half the town
+had been invited to the dance, the streets were alive with carriages. I
+was watching the blink of their lights through the fast falling snow
+when my attention was drawn to a fact which struck me as peculiar. These
+carriages were all coming my way instead of rolling in the direction of
+The Evergreens. Had they been empty this would have needed no
+explanation, but, as far as I could see, most of them were full, and
+that, too, with loudly talking women and gesticulating men.
+
+Something of a serious nature must have occurred at The Evergreens.
+Rapidly I paced on and soon found myself before the great gates.
+
+A crowd of vehicles of all descriptions blocked the entrance. None
+seemed to be passing up the driveway; all stood clustered at the gates,
+and as I drew nearer I perceived many an anxious head thrust forth from
+their quickly opened doors and heard many an ejaculation of
+disappointment as the short interchange of words went on between the
+drivers of these various turnouts and a man drawn up in quiet resolution
+before the unexpectedly barred entrance.
+
+Slipping round to this man's side, I listened to what he was saying. It
+was simple but very explicit.
+
+"Mrs. Ashley asks everybody's pardon, but the ball can't go on
+to-night. Something has happened which makes the reception of further
+guests impossible. To-morrow evening she will be happy to see you all.
+The dance is simply postponed."
+
+This he had probably repeated forty times, and each time it had probably
+been received with the same mixture of doubt and curiosity which now
+held the lengthy procession in check.
+
+Not wishing to attract attention, yet anxious to lose no time, I pressed
+up still nearer, and, bending toward him from the shadow cast by a
+convenient post, uttered the one word:
+
+"Jennings."
+
+Instantly he unlocked a small gate at his right. I passed in and, with
+professional _sang-froid_, proceeded to take my way to the house through
+the double row of evergreens bordering the semicircular approach.
+
+As these trees stood very close together and were, besides, heavily
+laden with fresh-fallen snow, I failed to catch a glimpse of the
+building itself until I stood in front of it. Then I saw that it was
+brilliantly lighted and gave evidence here and there of some festivity;
+but the guests were too few for the effect to be very exhilarating and,
+passing around to the rear, I sought the special entrance to which I had
+been directed.
+
+A heavy-browed porch, before which stood a caterer's wagon, led me to a
+door which had every appearance of being the one I sought. Pushing it
+open, I entered without ceremony, and speedily found myself in the midst
+of twenty or more colored waiters and chattering housemaids. To one of
+the former I addressed the question:
+
+"Where is the butler's pantry? I am told that I shall find the lady of
+the house there."
+
+"Your name?" was the curt demand.
+
+"Jennings."
+
+"Follow me."
+
+I was taken through narrow passages and across one or two store-rooms to
+a small but well-lighted closet, where I was left, with the assurance
+that Mrs. Ashley would presently join me. I had never seen this lady,
+but I had often heard her spoken of as a woman of superior character and
+admirable discretion.
+
+She did not keep me waiting. In two minutes the door opened and this
+fine, well-poised woman was telling her story in the straightforward
+manner I so much admire and so seldom meet with.
+
+The article lost was a large ruby of singular beauty and great
+value--the property of Mrs. Burton, the senator's wife, in whose honor
+this ball was given. It had not been lost in the house nor had it been
+originally missed that evening. Mrs. Burton and herself had attended the
+great foot-ball game in the afternoon, and it was on the college campus
+that Mrs. Burton had first dropped her invaluable jewel. But a reward of
+five hundred dollars having been at once offered to whoever should find
+and restore it, a great search had followed, which ended in its being
+picked up by one of the students and brought back as far as the great
+step leading up to the front door, when it had again disappeared, and
+in a way to rouse conjecture of the strangest and most puzzling
+character.
+
+The young man who had brought it thus far bore the name of John Deane,
+and was a member of the senior class. He had been the first to detect
+its sparkle in the grass, and those who were near enough to see his face
+at that happy moment say that it expressed the utmost satisfaction at
+his good luck.
+
+"You see," said Mrs. Ashley, "he has a sweetheart, and five hundred
+dollars looks like a fortune to a young man just starting life. But he
+was weak enough to take this girl into his confidence; and on their way
+here--for both were invited to the ball--he went so far as to pull it
+out of his pocket and show it to her.
+
+"They were admiring it together and vaunting its beauties to the young
+lady friend who had accompanied them, when their carriage turned into
+the driveway and they saw the lights of the house flashing before them.
+Hastily restoring the jewel to the little bag he had made for it out of
+the finger-end of an old glove,--a bag in which he assured me he had
+been careful to keep it safely tied ever since picking it up on the
+college green,--he thrust it back into his pocket and prepared to help
+the ladies out. But just then a disturbance arose in front. A horse
+which had been driven up was rearing in a way that threatened to
+overturn the light buggy to which he was attached. As the occupants of
+this buggy were ladies, and seemed to have no control over the plunging
+beast, young Deane naturally sprang to the rescue. Bidding his own
+ladies alight and make for the porch, he hurriedly ran forward and,
+pausing in front of the maddened animal, waited for an opportunity to
+seize him by the rein. He says that as he stood there facing the beast
+with fixed eye and raised hand, he distinctly felt something strike or
+touch his breast. But the sensation conveyed no meaning to him in his
+excitement, and he did not think of it again till, the horse well in
+hand and the two alarmed occupants of the buggy rescued, he turned to
+see where his own ladies were, and beheld them looking down at him from
+the midst of a circle of young people, drawn from the house by the
+screaming of the women. Instantly a thought of the treasure he carried
+recurred to his mind, and dropping the rein of the now quieted horse, he
+put his hand to his pocket. The jewel was gone. He declares that for a
+moment he felt as if he had been struck on the head by one of the hoofs
+of the frantic horse he had just handled. But immediately the importance
+of his loss and the necessity he felt for instant action restored him to
+himself, and shouting aloud, 'I have dropped Mrs. Burton's ruby!' begged
+every one to stand still while he made a search for it.
+
+"This all occurred, as you must know, more than an hour and a half ago,
+consequently before many of my guests had arrived. My son, who was one
+of the few spectators gathered on the porch, tells me that there was
+only one other carriage behind the one in which Mr. Deane had brought
+his ladies. Both of these had stopped short of the stepping-stone, and
+as the horse and buggy which had made all this trouble had by this time
+been driven to the stable, nothing stood in the way of his search but
+the rapidly accumulating snow which, if you remember, was falling very
+thick and fast at the time.
+
+"My son, who had rushed in for his overcoat, came running down with
+offers to help him. So did some others. But, with an imploring gesture,
+he begged to be allowed to conduct the search alone, the ground being in
+such a state that the delicately-mounted jewel ran great risk of being
+trodden into the snow and thus injured or lost. They humored him for a
+moment, then, seeing that his efforts bade fair to be fruitless, my son
+insisted upon joining him, and the two looked the ground over, inch by
+inch, from the place where Mr. Deane had set foot to ground in alighting
+from his carriage to the exact spot where he had stood when he had
+finally seized hold of the horse. But no ruby. Then Harrison (that is
+my son's name) sent for a broom and went over the place again, sweeping
+aside the surface snow and examining carefully the ground beneath,--but
+with no better results than before. No ruby could be found. My son came
+to me panting. Mrs. Burton and myself stood awaiting him in a state of
+suspense. Guests and fête were alike forgotten. We had heard that the
+jewel had been found on the campus by one of the students and had been
+brought back as far as the step in front and then lost again in some
+unaccountable manner in the snow, and we hoped, nay expected from moment
+to moment, that it would be brought in.
+
+"When Harrison entered, then, pale, disheveled and shaking his head,
+Mrs. Burton caught me by the hand, and I thought she would faint. For
+this jewel is of far greater value to her than its mere worth in money,
+though that is by no means small.
+
+"It is a family jewel and was given to her by her husband under special
+circumstances. He prizes it even more than she does, and he is not here
+to counsel or assist her in this extremity. Besides, she was wearing it
+in direct opposition to his expressed wishes. This I must tell you, to
+show how imperative it is for us to recover it; also to account for the
+large reward she is willing to pay. When he last looked at it he noticed
+that the fastening was a trifle slack and, though he handed the trinket
+back, he told her distinctly that she was not to wear it till it had
+been either to Tiffany's or Starr's. But she considered it safe enough,
+and put it on to please the boys, and lost it. Senator Burton is a hard
+man and,--in short, the jewel must be found. I give you just one hour in
+which to do it."
+
+"But, madam--" I protested.
+
+"I know," she put in, with a quick nod and a glance over her shoulder to
+see if the door was shut. "I have not finished my story. Hearing what
+Harrison had to say, I took action at once. I bade him call in the
+guests, whom curiosity or interest still detained on the porch, and seat
+them in a certain room which I designated to him. Then, after telling
+him to send two men to the gates with orders to hold back all further
+carriages from entering, and two others to shovel up and cart away to
+the stable every particle of snow for ten feet each side of the front
+step, I asked to see Mr. Deane. But here my son whispered something into
+my ear, which it is my duty to repeat. It was to the effect that Mr.
+Deane believed that the jewel had been taken from him; that he insisted,
+in fact, that he had felt a hand touch his breast while he stood
+awaiting an opportunity to seize the horse. 'Very good,' said I, 'we'll
+remember that, too; but first see that my orders are carried out and
+that all approaches to the grounds are guarded and no one allowed to
+come in or go out without permission from me.'
+
+"He left us, and I was turning to encourage Mrs. Burton when my
+attention was caught by the eager face of a little friend of mine, who,
+quite unknown to me, was sitting in one of the corners of the room. She
+was studying my countenance in a sort of subdued anxiety, hardly
+natural in one so young, and I was about to call her to my side and
+question her when she made a sudden dive and vanished from the room.
+Some impulse made me follow her. She is a conscientious little thing,
+but timid as a hare, and though I saw she had something to say, it was
+with difficulty I could make her speak. Only after the most solemn
+assurances that her name should not be mentioned in the matter, would
+she give me the following bit of information, which you may possibly
+think throws another light upon the affair. It seems that she was
+looking out of one of the front windows when Mr. Deane's carriage drove
+up. She had been watching the antics of the horse attached to the buggy,
+but as soon as she saw Mr. Deane going to the assistance of those in
+danger, she let her eyes stray back to the ladies whom he had left
+behind him in the carriage.
+
+"She did not know these ladies, but their looks and gestures interested
+her, and she watched them quite intently as they leaped to the ground
+and made their way toward the porch. One went on quickly, and without
+pause, to the step, but the other,--the one who came last,--did not do
+this. She stopped a moment, perhaps to watch the horse in front, perhaps
+to draw her cloak more closely about her, and when she again moved on,
+it was with a start and a hurried glance at her feet, terminating in a
+quick turn and a sudden stooping to the ground. When she again stood
+upright, she had something in her hand which she thrust furtively into
+her breast."
+
+"How was this lady dressed?" I inquired.
+
+"In a white cloak, with an edging of fur. I took pains to learn that,
+too, and it was with some curiosity, I assure you, that I examined the
+few guests who had now been admitted to the room I had so carefully
+pointed out to my son. Two of them wore white cloaks, but one of these
+was Mrs. Dalrymple, and I did not give her or her cloak a second
+thought. The other was a tall, fine-looking girl, with an air and
+bearing calculated to rouse admiration if she had not shown so very
+plainly that she was in a state of inner perturbation. Though she tried
+to look amiable and pleased, I saw that she had some care on her mind,
+which, had she been Mr. Deane's _fiancée_, would have needed no
+explanation; but as she was only Mr. Deane's _fiancée's_ friend, its
+cause was not so apparent.
+
+"The floor of the room, as I had happily remembered, was covered with
+crash, and as I lifted each garment off--I allowed no maid to assist me
+in this--I shook it well; ostensibly, because of the few flakes clinging
+to it, really to see if anything could be shaken out of it. Of course, I
+met with no success. I had not expected to, but it is my disposition to
+be thorough. These wraps I saw all hung in an adjoining closet, the door
+of which I locked,--here is the key,--after which I handed my guests
+over to my son who led them into the drawing-room where they joined the
+few others who had previously arrived, and went myself to telephone to
+_you_."
+
+I bowed and asked where the young people were now.
+
+"Still in the drawing-room. I have ordered the musicians to play, and
+consequently there is more or less dancing. But, of course, nothing can
+remove the wet blanket which has fallen over us all,--nothing but the
+finding of this jewel. Do you see your way to accomplishing this? We
+are, from this very moment, at your disposal; only I pray that you will
+make no more disturbance than is necessary, and, if possible, arouse no
+suspicions you can not back up by facts. I dread a scandal almost as
+much as I do sickness and death, and these young people--well, their
+lives are all before them, and neither Mrs. Burton nor myself would wish
+to throw the shadow of a false suspicion over the least of them."
+
+I assured her that I sympathized with her scruples and would do my best
+to recover the ruby without inflicting undue annoyance upon the
+innocent. Then I inquired whether it was known that a detective had been
+called in. She seemed to think it was suspected by some, if not by all.
+At which my way seemed a trifle complicated.
+
+We were about to proceed when another thought struck me.
+
+"Madam, you have not said whether the carriage itself was searched."
+
+"I forgot. Yes, the carriage was thoroughly overhauled, and before the
+coachman left the box."
+
+"Who did this overhauling?"
+
+"My son. He would not trust any other hand than his own in a business of
+this kind."
+
+"One more question, madam. Was any one seen to approach Mr. Deane on the
+carriage-drive prior to his assertion that the jewel was lost?"
+
+"No. _And there were no tracks in the snow of any such person._ My son
+looked."
+
+And I would look, or so I decided within myself, but I said nothing; and
+in silence we proceeded toward the drawing-room.
+
+I had left my overcoat behind me, and always being well-dressed, I did
+not present so bad an appearance. Still I was not in party attire and
+naturally could not pass for a guest if I had wanted to, which I did
+not. I felt that I must rely on insight in this case and on a certain
+power I had always possessed of reading faces. That the case called for
+just this species of intuition I was positive. Mrs. Burton's ruby was
+within a hundred yards of us at this very moment, probably within a
+hundred feet; but to lay hands on it and without scandal--well, that was
+a problem calculated to rouse the interest of even an old police-officer
+like myself.
+
+A strain of music, desultory, however, and spiritless, like everything
+else about the place that night, greeted us as Mrs. Ashley opened the
+door leading directly into the large front hall.
+
+Immediately a scene meant to be festive, but which was, in fact,
+desolate, burst upon us. The lights, the flowers and the brilliant
+appearance of such ladies as flitted into sight from the almost empty
+parlors, were all suggestive of the cheer suitable to a great occasion;
+but in spite of this, the effect was altogether melancholy, for the
+hundreds who should have graced this scene, and for whom this
+illumination had been made and these festoons hung, had been turned away
+from the gates, and the few who felt they must remain, because their
+hostess showed no disposition to let them go, wore any but holiday
+faces, for all their forced smiles and pitiful attempts at nonchalance
+and gaiety.
+
+I scrutinized these faces carefully. I detected nothing in them but
+annoyance at a situation which certainly was anything but pleasant.
+
+Turning to Mrs. Ashley, I requested her to be kind enough to point out
+her son, adding that I should be glad to have a moment's conversation
+with him, also with Mr. Deane.
+
+"Mr. Deane is in one of those small rooms over there. He is quite upset.
+Not even Mrs. Burton can comfort him. My son--Oh, there is Harrison!"
+
+A tall, fine-looking young man was crossing the hall. Mrs. Ashley called
+him to her, and in another moment we were standing together in one of
+the empty parlors.
+
+I gave him my name and told him my business. Then I said:
+
+"Your mother has allotted me an hour in which to find the valuable jewel
+which has just been lost on these premises." Here I smiled. "She
+evidently has great confidence in my ability. I must see that I do not
+disappoint her."
+
+All this time I was examining his face. It was a handsome one, as I have
+said, but it had also a very candid expression; the eyes looked straight
+into mine, and, while showing anxiety, betrayed no deeper emotion than
+the occasion naturally called for.
+
+"Have you any suggestions to offer? I understand that you were on the
+ground almost as soon as Mr. Deane discovered his loss."
+
+His eyes changed a trifle but did not swerve. Of course he had been
+informed by his mother of the suspicious action of the young lady who
+had been a member of that gentleman's party, and shrank, as any one in
+his position would, from the responsibilities entailed by this
+knowledge.
+
+"No," said he. "We have done all we can. The next move must come from
+you."
+
+"There is one that will settle the matter in a moment," I assured him,
+still with my eyes fixed scrutinizingly on his face,--"a universal
+search, not of places, but of persons. But it is a harsh measure."
+
+"A most disagreeable one," he emphasized, flushing. "Such an indignity
+offered to guests would never be forgotten or forgiven."
+
+"True, but if they offered to submit to this themselves?"
+
+"They? How?"
+
+"If _you_, the son of the house,--their host we may say,--should call
+them together and, for your own satisfaction, empty out your pockets in
+the sight of every one, don't you think that all the men, and possibly
+all the women too--" (here I let my voice fall suggestively) "would be
+glad to follow suit? It could be done in apparent joke."
+
+He shook his head with a straightforward air, which raised him high in
+my estimation.
+
+"That would call for little but effrontery on my part," said he; "but
+think what it would demand from these boys who came here for the sole
+purpose of enjoying themselves. I will not so much as mention the
+ladies."
+
+"Yet one of the latter--"
+
+"I know," he quietly acknowledged, growing restless for the first time.
+
+I withdrew my eyes from his face. I had learned what I wished.
+Personally he did not shrink from search, therefore the jewel was not in
+his pockets. This left but two persons for suspicion to halt between.
+But I disclosed nothing of my thoughts; I merely asked pardon for a
+suggestion that, while pardonable in a man accustomed to handle crime
+with ungloved hands, could not fail to prove offensive to a gentleman
+like himself.
+
+"We must move by means less open," I concluded. "It adds to our
+difficulties, but that can not be helped. I should now like a glimpse of
+Mr. Deane."
+
+"Do you not wish to speak to him?"
+
+"I should prefer a sight of his face first."
+
+He led me across the hall and pointed through an open door. In the
+center of a small room containing a table and some chairs, I perceived a
+young man sitting, with fallen head and dejected air, staring at
+vacancy. By his side, with hand laid on his, knelt a young girl,
+striving in this gentle but speechless way to comfort him. It made a
+pathetic picture. I drew Ashley away.
+
+"I am disposed to believe in that young man," said I. "If he still has
+the jewel, he would not try to carry off the situation in just this way.
+He really looks broken-hearted."
+
+"Oh, he is dreadfully cut up. If you could have seen how frantically he
+searched for the stone, and the depression into which he fell when he
+realized that it was not to be found, you would not doubt him for an
+instant. What made you think he might still have the ruby?"
+
+"Oh, we police officers think of everything. Then the fact that he
+insists that something or some one touched his breast on the driveway
+strikes me as a trifle suspicious. Your mother says that no second
+person could have been there, or the snow would have given evidence of
+it."
+
+"Yes; I looked expressly. Of course, the drive itself was full of
+hoof-marks and wheel-tracks, for several carriages had already passed
+over it. Then there were all of Deane's footsteps, but no other man's,
+as far as I could see."
+
+"Yet he insists that he was touched or struck."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"With no one there to touch or strike him."
+
+Mr. Ashley was silent.
+
+"Let us step out and take a view of the place," I suggested. "I should
+prefer doing this to questioning the young man in his present state of
+mind." Then, as we turned to put on our coats, I asked with suitable
+precaution: "Do you suppose that he has the same secret suspicions as
+ourselves, and that it is to hide these he insists upon the jewel's
+having been taken away from him at a point the ladies are known not to
+have approached?"
+
+Young Ashley bent somewhat startled eyes on mine.
+
+"Nothing has been said to him of what Miss Peters saw Miss Glover do. I
+could not bring myself to mention it. I have not even allowed myself to
+believe--"
+
+Here a fierce gust, blowing in from the door he had just opened, cut
+short his words, and neither of us spoke again till we stood on the
+exact spot in the driveway where the episode we were endeavoring to
+understand had taken place.
+
+"Oh," I cried as soon as I could look about me; "the mystery is
+explained. Look at that bush, or perhaps you call it a shrub. If the
+wind were blowing as freshly as it is now, and very probably it was, one
+of those slender branches might easily be switched against his breast,
+especially if he stood, as you say he did, close against this border."
+
+"Well, I'm a fool. Only the other day I told the gardener that these
+branches would need trimming in the spring, and yet I never so much as
+thought of them when Mr. Deane spoke of something striking his breast."
+
+As we turned back I made this remark:
+
+"With this explanation of the one doubtful point in his otherwise
+plausible account, we can credit his story as being in the main true,
+which," I calmly added, "places him above suspicion and narrows our
+inquiry down to _one_."
+
+We had moved quickly and were now at the threshold of the door by which
+we had come out.
+
+"Mr. Ashley," I continued, "I shall have to ask you to add to your
+former favors that of showing me the young lady in whom, from this
+moment on, we are especially interested. If you can manage to let me see
+her first without her seeing me, I shall be infinitely obliged to you."
+
+"I do not know where she is. I shall have to search for her."
+
+"I will wait by the hall door."
+
+In a few minutes he returned to me. "Come," said he, and led me into
+what I judged to be the library.
+
+With a gesture toward one of the windows, he backed quickly out, leaving
+me to face the situation alone. I was rather glad of this. Glancing in
+the direction he had indicated, and perceiving the figure of a young
+lady standing with her back to me on the farther side of a flowing lace
+curtain, I took a few steps toward her, hoping that the movement would
+cause her to turn. But it entirely failed to produce this effect, nor
+did she give any sign that she noted the intrusion. This prevented me
+from catching the glimpse of her face which I so desired, and obliged me
+to confine myself to a study of her dress and attitude.
+
+The former was very elegant, more elegant than the appearance of her two
+friends had led me to expect. Though I am far from being an authority on
+feminine toilets, I yet had experience enough to know that those
+sweeping folds of spotless satin, with their festoons of lace and loops
+of shiny trimming, which it would be folly for me to attempt to
+describe, represented not only the best efforts of the dressmaker's art,
+but very considerable means on the part of the woman wearing such a
+gown. This was a discovery which altered the complexion of my thoughts
+for a moment; for I had presupposed her a girl of humble means, willing
+to sacrifice certain scruples to obtain a little extra money. This
+imposing figure might be that of a millionaire's daughter; how then
+could I associate her, even in my own mind, with theft? I decided that I
+must see her face before giving answer to these doubts.
+
+She did not seem inclined to turn. She had raised the shade from before
+the wintry panes and was engaged in looking out. Her attitude was not
+that of one simply enjoying a moment's respite from the dance. It was
+rather that of an absorbed mind brooding upon what gave little or no
+pleasure; and as I further gazed and noted the droop of her lovely
+shoulders and the languor visible in her whole bearing, I began to
+regard a glimpse of her features as imperative. Moving forward, I came
+upon her suddenly.
+
+"Excuse me, Miss Smith," I boldly exclaimed; then paused, for she had
+turned instinctively and I had seen that for which I had risked this
+daring move. "Your pardon," I hastily apologized. "I mistook you for
+another young lady," and drew back with a low bow to let her pass, for I
+saw that she thought only of escaping both me and the room.
+
+And I did not wonder at this, for her eyes were streaming with tears,
+and her face, which was doubtless a pretty one under ordinary
+conditions, looked so distorted with distracting emotions that she was
+no fit subject for any man's eye, let alone that of a hard-hearted
+officer of the law on the look-out for the guilty hand which had just
+appropriated a jewel worth anywhere from eight to ten thousand dollars.
+
+Yet I was glad to see her weep, for only first offenders weep, and first
+offenders are amenable to influence, especially if they have been led
+into wrong by impulse and are weak rather than wicked.
+
+Anxious to make no blunder, I resolved, before proceeding further, to
+learn what I could of the character and antecedents of the suspected
+one, and this from the only source which offered--Mr. Deane's affianced.
+
+This young lady was a delicate girl, with a face like a flower.
+Recognizing her sensitive nature, I approached her with the utmost
+gentleness. Not seeking to disguise either the nature of my business or
+my reasons for being in the house, since all this gave me authority, I
+modulated my tone to suit her gentle spirit, and, above all, I showed
+the utmost sympathy for her lover, whose rights in the reward had been
+taken from him as certainly as the jewel had been taken from Mrs.
+Burton. In this way I gained her confidence, and she was quite ready to
+listen when I observed:
+
+"There is a young lady here who seems to be in a state of even greater
+trouble than Mr. Deane. Why is this? You brought her here. Is her
+sympathy with Mr. Deane so great as to cause her to weep over his loss?"
+
+"Frances? Oh, no. She likes Mr. Deane and she likes me, but not well
+enough to cry over our misfortunes. I think she has some trouble of her
+own."
+
+"One that you can tell me?"
+
+Her surprise was manifest.
+
+"Why do you ask that? What interest have you (called in, as I
+understand, to recover a stolen jewel) in Frances Glover's personal
+difficulties?"
+
+I saw that I must make my position perfectly plain.
+
+"Only this. She was seen to pick up something from the driveway, where
+no one else had succeeded in finding anything."
+
+"She? When? Who saw her?"
+
+"I can not answer all these questions at once," I smiled. "She was seen
+to do this--no matter by whom,--during your passage from the carriage to
+the stoop. As you preceded her, you naturally did not observe this
+action, which was fortunate, perhaps, as you would scarcely have known
+what to do or say about it."
+
+"Yes I should," she retorted, with a most unexpected display of spirit.
+"I should have asked her what she had found and I should have insisted
+upon an answer. I love my friends, but I love the man I am to marry,
+better." Here her voice fell and a most becoming blush suffused her
+cheek.
+
+"Quite right," I assented. "Now will you answer my former question? What
+troubles Miss Glover? Can you tell me?"
+
+"That I can not. I only know that she has been very silent ever since
+she left the house. I thought her beautiful new dress would please her,
+but it does not seem to. She has been unhappy and preoccupied all the
+evening. She only roused a bit when Mr. Deane showed us the ruby and
+said--Oh, I forgot!"
+
+"What's that? What have you forgot?"
+
+"What you said just now. I wouldn't add a word--"
+
+"Pardon me!" I smilingly interrupted, looking as fatherly as I could,
+"but you _have_ added this word and now you must tell me what it means.
+You were going to say she showed interest in the extraordinary jewel
+which Mr. Deane took from his pocket and--"
+
+"In what he let fall about the expected reward. That is, she looked
+eagerly at the ruby and sighed when he acknowledged that he expected it
+to bring him five hundred dollars before midnight. But any girl of no
+more means than she might do that. It would not be fair to lay too much
+stress on a sigh."
+
+"Is not Miss Glover wealthy? She wears a very expensive dress, I
+observe."
+
+"I know it and I have wondered a little at it, for her father is not
+called very well off. But perhaps she bought it with her own money; I
+know she has some; she is an artist in burnt wood."
+
+I let the subject of Miss Glover's dress drop. I had heard enough to
+satisfy me that my first theory was correct. This young woman,
+beautifully dressed, and with a face from which the rounded lines of
+early girlhood had not yet departed, held in her possession, probably
+at this very moment, Mrs. Burton's magnificent jewel. But where? On her
+person or hidden in some of her belongings? I remembered the cloak in
+the closet and thought it wise to assure myself that the jewel was not
+secreted in this garment, before I proceeded to extreme measures. Mrs.
+Ashley, upon being consulted, agreed with me as to the desirability of
+this, and presently I had this poor girl's cloak in my hands.
+
+Did I find the ruby? No; but I found something else tucked away in an
+inner pocket which struck me as bearing quite pointedly upon this case.
+It was the bill--crumpled, soiled and tear-stained--of the dress whose
+elegance had so surprised her friends and made me, for a short time,
+regard her as the daughter of wealthy parents. An enormous bill, which
+must have struck dismay to the soul of this self-supporting girl, who
+probably had no idea of how a French dressmaker can foot up items. Four
+hundred and fifty dollars! and for one gown! I declare I felt indignant
+myself and could quite understand why she heaved that little sigh when
+Mr. Deane spoke of the five hundred dollars he expected from Mrs.
+Burton, and later, how she came to succumb to the temptation of making
+the effort to secure this sum for herself when, in following the
+latter's footsteps up the driveway, she stumbled upon this same jewel
+fallen, as it were, from his pocket into her very hands. The impulse of
+the moment was so strong and the consequences so little anticipated!
+
+It is not at all probable that she foresaw he would shout aloud his loss
+and draw the whole household out on the porch. Of course when he did
+this, the feasibility of her project was gone, and I only wished that I
+had been present and able to note her countenance, as, crowded in with
+others on that windy porch, she watched the progress of the search,
+which every moment made it not only less impossible for her to attempt
+the restoration upon which the reward depended, but must have caused her
+to feel, if she had been as well brought up as all indications showed,
+that it was a dishonest act of which she had been guilty and that,
+willing or not, she must look upon herself as a thief so long as she
+held the jewel back from Mr. Deane or its rightful owner. But how face
+the publicity of restoring it now, after this elaborate and painful
+search, in which even the son of her hostess had taken part?
+
+That would be to proclaim her guilt and thus effectually ruin her in the
+eyes of everybody concerned. No, she would keep the compromising article
+a little longer, in the hope of finding some opportunity of returning it
+without risk to her good name. And so she allowed the search to proceed.
+
+I have entered thus elaborately into the supposed condition of this
+girl's mind on this critical evening, that you may understand why I felt
+a certain sympathy for her, which forbade harsh measures. I was sure,
+from the glimpse I had caught of her face, that she longed to be
+relieved from the tension she was under, and that she would gladly rid
+herself of this valuable jewel if she only knew how. This opportunity I
+proposed to give her; and this is why, on returning the bill to its
+place, I assumed such an air of relief on rejoining Mrs. Ashley.
+
+She saw, and drew me aside.
+
+"You have not found it!" she said.
+
+"No," I returned, "but I am positive where it is."
+
+"And where is that?"
+
+"Over Miss Glover's uneasy heart."
+
+Mrs. Ashley turned pale.
+
+"Wait," said I; "I have a scheme for getting it hence without making her
+shame public. Listen!" and I whispered a few words in her ear.
+
+She surveyed me in amazement for a moment, then nodded, and her face
+lighted up.
+
+"You are certainly earning your reward," she declared; and summoning her
+son, who was never far away from her side, she whispered her wishes. He
+started, bowed and hurried from the room.
+
+By this time my business in the house was well-known to all, and I could
+not appear in hall or parlor without a great silence falling upon every
+one present, followed by a breaking up of the only too small circle of
+unhappy guests into agitated groups. But I appeared to see nothing of
+all this till the proper moment, when, turning suddenly upon them all, I
+cried out cheerfully, but with a certain deference I thought would
+please them:
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen: I have an interesting fact to announce. The snow
+which was taken up from the driveway has been put to melt in the great
+feed caldron over the stable fire. We expect to find the ruby at the
+bottom, and Mrs. Ashley invites you to be present at its recovery. It
+has now stopped snowing and she thought you might enjoy the excitement
+of watching the water ladled out."
+
+A dozen girls bounded forward.
+
+"Oh, yes, what fun! where are our cloaks--our rubbers?"
+
+Two only stood hesitating. One of these was Mr. Deane's lady love and
+the other her friend, Miss Glover. The former, perhaps, secretly
+wondered. The latter--but I dared not look long enough or closely enough
+in her direction to judge just what her emotions were. Presently these,
+too, stepped forward into the excited circle of young people, and were
+met by the two maids who were bringing in their wraps. Amid the bustle
+which now ensued, I caught sight of Mr. Deane's face peering from an
+open doorway. It was all alive with hope. I also perceived a lady
+looking down from the second story, who, I felt sure, was Mrs. Burton
+herself. Evidently my confident tone had produced more effect than the
+words themselves. Every one looked upon the jewel as already recovered
+and regarded my invitation to the stable as a ruse by which I hoped to
+restore universal good feeling by giving them all a share in my triumph.
+
+All but one! Nothing could make Miss Glover look otherwise than anxious,
+restless and unsettled, and though she followed in the wake of the
+rest, it was with hidden face and lagging step, as if she recognized the
+whole thing as a farce and doubted her own power to go through it
+calmly.
+
+"Ah, ha! my lady," thought I, "only be patient and you will see what I
+shall do for you." And indeed I thought her eye brightened as we all
+drew up around the huge caldron standing full of water over the stable
+stove. As pains had already been taken to put out the fire in this
+stove, the ladies were not afraid of injuring their dresses and
+consequently crowded as close as their numbers would permit. Miss Glover
+especially stood within reach of the brim, and as soon as I noted this,
+I gave the signal which had been agreed upon between Mr. Ashley and
+myself. Instantly the electric lights went out, leaving the place in
+total darkness.
+
+A scream from the girls, a burst of hilarious laughter from their
+escorts, mingled with loud apologies from their seemingly mischievous
+host, filled up the interval of darkness which I had insisted should not
+be too soon curtailed; then the lights glowed as suddenly as they had
+gone out, and while the glare was fresh on every face, I stole a glance
+at Miss Glover to see if she had made good use of the opportunity just
+accorded for ridding herself of the jewel by dropping it into the
+caldron. If she had, both her troubles and mine were at an end; if she
+had not, then I need feel no further scruple in approaching her with the
+direct question I had hitherto found it so difficult to put.
+
+She stood with both hands grasping her cloak which she had drawn tightly
+about the rich folds of her new and expensive dress; but her eyes were
+fixed straight before her with a soft light in their depths which made
+her positively beautiful.
+
+The jewel is in the pot, I inwardly decided, and ordered the two waiting
+stablemen to step forward with their ladles. Quickly those ladles went
+in, but before they could be lifted out dripping, half the ladies had
+scurried back, afraid of injury to their pretty dresses. But they soon
+sidled forward again, and watched with beaming eyes the slow but sure
+emptying of the great caldron at whose bottom they anticipated finding
+the lost jewel.
+
+As the ladles were plunged deeper and deeper, the heads drew closer and
+so great was the interest shown, that the busiest lips forgot to
+chatter, and eyes, whose only business up till now had been to follow
+with shy curiosity every motion made by their handsome young host, now
+settled on the murky depths of the great pot whose bottom was almost in
+sight.
+
+As I heard the ladles strike this bottom, I instinctively withdrew a
+step in anticipation of the loud hurrah which would naturally hail the
+first sight of the lost ruby. Conceive, then, my chagrin, my bitter and
+mortified disappointment, when, after one look at the broad surface of
+the now exposed bottom, the one shout which rose was:
+
+"_Nothing!_"
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+I was so thoroughly put out that I did not wait to hear the loud
+complaints which burst from every lip. Drawing Mr. Ashley aside (who,
+by the way, seemed as much affected as myself by the turn affairs had
+taken) I remarked to him that there was only one course left open to us.
+
+"And what is that?"
+
+"To ask Miss Glover to show me what she picked up from your driveway."
+
+"And if she refuses?"
+
+"To take her quietly with me to the station, where we have women who can
+make sure that the ruby is not on her person."
+
+Mr. Ashley made an involuntary gesture of strong repugnance.
+
+"Let us pray that it will not come to that," he objected hoarsely. "Such
+a fine figure of a girl! Did you notice how bright and happy she looked
+when the lights sprang up? I declare she struck me as lovely."
+
+"So she did me, and caused me to draw some erroneous conclusions. I
+shall have to ask you to procure me an interview with her as soon as we
+return to the house."
+
+"She shall meet you in the library."
+
+But when, a few minutes later, she joined me in the room just designated
+and I had full opportunity for reading her countenance, I own that my
+task became suddenly hateful to me. She was not far from my own
+daughter's age and, had it not been for her furtive look of care,
+appeared almost as blooming and bright. Would it ever come to pass that
+a harsh man of the law would feel it his duty to speak to my Flora as I
+must now speak to the young girl before me? The thought made me inwardly
+recoil and it was in as gentle a manner as possible that I made my bow
+and began with the following remark:
+
+"I hope you will pardon me, Miss Glover--I am told that is your name. I
+hate to disturb your pleasure--" (this with the tears of alarm and grief
+rising in her eyes) "but you can tell me something which will greatly
+simplify my task and possibly put matters in such shape that you and
+your friends can be released to your homes."
+
+"I?"
+
+She stood before me with amazed eyes, the color rising in her cheeks. I
+had to force my next words, which, out of consideration for her, I made
+as direct as possible.
+
+"Yes, miss. What was the article you were seen to pick up from the
+driveway soon after leaving your carriage?"
+
+She started, then stumbled backward, tripping in her long train.
+
+"I pick up?" she murmured. Then with a blush, whether of anger or pride
+I could not tell, she coldly answered: "Oh, that was something of my
+own,--something I had just dropped. I had rather not tell you what it
+was."
+
+I scrutinized her closely. She met my eyes squarely, yet not with just
+the clear light I should, remembering Flora, have been glad to see
+there.
+
+"I think it would be better for you to be entirely frank," said I. "It
+was the only article known to have been picked up from the driveway
+after Mr. Deane's loss of the ruby; and though we do not presume to say
+that it was the ruby, yet the matter would look clearer to us all if
+you would frankly state what this object was."
+
+Her whole body seemed to collapse and she looked as if about to sink.
+
+"Oh, where is Minnie? Where is Mr. Deane?" she moaned, turning and
+staring at the door, as if she hoped they would fly to her aid. Then, in
+a burst of indignation which I was fain to believe real, she turned on
+me with the cry: "It was a bit of paper which I had thrust into the
+bosom of my gown. It fell out--"
+
+"Your dressmaker's bill?" I intimated.
+
+She stared, laughed hysterically for a moment, then sank upon a near-by
+sofa, sobbing spasmodically.
+
+"Yes," she cried, after a moment; "my dressmaker's bill. You seem to
+know all my affairs." Then suddenly, and with a startling impetuosity,
+which drew her to her feet: "Are you going to tell everybody that? Are
+you going to state publicly that Miss Glover brought an unpaid bill to
+the party and that because Mr. Deane was unfortunate enough or careless
+enough to drop and lose the jewel he was bringing to Mrs. Burton, she is
+to be looked upon as a thief, because she stooped to pick up this bill
+which had slipped inadvertently from its hiding-place? I shall die if
+you do," she cried. "I shall die if it is already known," she pursued,
+with increasing emotion. "Is it? Is it?"
+
+Her passion was so great, so much greater than any likely to rise in a
+breast wholly innocent, that I began to feel very sober.
+
+"No one but Mrs. Ashley and possibly her son know about the bill," said
+I, "and no one shall, if you will go with that lady to her room, and
+make plain to her, in the only way you can, that the extremely valuable
+article which has been lost to-night is not in your possession."
+
+She threw up her arms with a scream. "Oh, what a horror! I can not! I
+can not! Oh, I shall die of shame! My father! My mother!" And she burst
+from the room like one distraught.
+
+But in another moment she came cringing back. "I can not face them,"
+she said. "They all believe it; they will always believe it unless I
+submit--Oh, why did I ever come to this dreadful place? Why did I order
+this hateful dress which I can never pay for and which, in spite of the
+misery it has caused me, has failed to bring me the--" She did not
+continue. She had caught my eye and seen there, perhaps, some evidence
+of the pity I could not but experience for her. With a sudden change of
+tone she advanced upon me with the appeal: "Save me from this
+humiliation. I have not seen the ruby. I am as ignorant of its
+whereabouts as--as Mr. Ashley himself. Won't you believe me? Won't they
+be satisfied if I swear--"
+
+I was really sorry for her. I began to think too that some dreadful
+mistake had been made. Her manner seemed too ingenuous for guilt. Yet
+where could that ruby be, if not with this young girl? Certainly, all
+other possibilities had been exhausted, and her story of the bill, even
+if accepted, would never quite exonerate her from secret suspicion
+while that elusive jewel remained unfound.
+
+"You give me no hope," she moaned. "I must go out before them all and
+ask to have it proved that I am no thief. Oh, if God would have pity--"
+
+"Or some one would find--Halloo! What's that?"
+
+A shout had risen from the hall beyond.
+
+She gasped and we both plunged forward. Mr. Ashley, still in his
+overcoat, stood at the other end of the hall, and facing him were ranged
+the whole line of young people whom I had left scattered about in the
+various parlors. I thought he looked peculiar; certainly his appearance
+differed from that of a quarter of an hour before, and when he glanced
+our way and saw who was standing with me in the library doorway, his
+voice took on a tone which made me doubt whether he was about to
+announce good news or bad.
+
+But his first word settled that question.
+
+"Rejoice with me!" he cried. "_The ruby has been found!_ Do you want to
+see the culprit?--for there is a culprit. We have him at the door;
+shall we bring him in?"
+
+"Yes, yes," cried several voices, among them that of Mr. Deane, who now
+strode forward with beaming eyes and instinctively lifted hand. But some
+of the ladies looked frightened, and Mr. Ashley, noting this, glanced
+for encouragement toward us.
+
+He seemed to find it in Miss Glover's eyes. She had quivered and nearly
+fallen at that word _found_, but had drawn herself up by this time and
+was awaiting his further action in a fever of relief and hope which
+perhaps no one but myself could fully appreciate.
+
+"A vile thief! A most unconscionable rascal!" vociferated Mr. Ashley.
+"You must see him, mother; you must see him, ladies, else you will not
+realize our good fortune. Open the door there and bring in the robber!"
+
+At this command, uttered in ringing tones, the huge leaves of the great
+front door swung slowly forward, revealing the sturdy forms of the two
+stablemen holding down by main force the towering figure of--_a horse_!
+
+The scream of astonishment which went up from all sides, united to Mr.
+Ashley's shout of hilarity, caused the animal, unused, no doubt, to
+drawing-rooms, to rear to the length of his bridle. At which Mr. Ashley
+laughed again and gaily cried:
+
+"Confound the fellow! Look at him, mother; look at him, ladies! Do you
+not see guilt written on his brow? It is he who has made us all this
+trouble. First, he must needs take umbrage at the two lights with which
+we presumed to illuminate our porch; then, envying Mrs. Burton her ruby
+and Mr. Deane his reward, seek to rob them both by grinding his hoofs
+all over the snow of the driveway till he came upon the jewel which Mr.
+Deane had dropped from his pocket, and taking it up in a ball of snow,
+secrete it in his left hind shoe,--where it might be yet, if Mr.
+Spencer--" here he bowed to a strange gentleman who at that moment
+entered--"had not come himself for his daughters, and, going first to
+the stable, found his horse so restless and seemingly lame--(there,
+boys, you may take the wretch away now and harness him, but first hold
+up that guilty left hind hoof for the ladies to see)--that he stooped to
+examine him, and so came upon _this_."
+
+Here the young gentleman brought forward his hand. In it was a
+nondescript little wad, well soaked and shapeless; but, once he had
+untied the kid, such a ray of rosy light burst from his outstretched
+palm that I doubt if a single woman there noted the clatter of the
+retiring beast or the heavy clang made by the two front doors as they
+shut upon the _robber_. Eyes and tongues were too busy, and Mr. Ashley,
+realizing, probably, that the interest of all present would remain, for
+a few minutes at least, with this marvelous jewel so astonishingly
+recovered, laid it, with many expressions of thankfulness, in Mrs.
+Burton's now eagerly outstretched palm, and advancing toward us, paused
+in front of Miss Glover and eagerly held out his hand.
+
+"Congratulate me," he prayed. "All our troubles are over--Oh, what now!"
+
+The poor young thing, in trying to smile, had turned as white as a
+sheet. Before either of us could interpose an arm, she had slipped to
+the floor in a dead faint. With a murmur of pity and possibly of inward
+contrition, he stooped over her and together we carried her into the
+library, where I left her in his care, confident, from certain
+indications, that my presence would not be greatly missed by either of
+them.
+
+Whatever hope I may have had of reaping the reward offered by Mrs.
+Ashley was now lost, but, in the satisfaction I experienced at finding
+this young girl as innocent as my Flora, I did not greatly care.
+
+Well, it all ended even more happily than may here appear. The horse not
+putting in his claim to the reward, and Mr. Spencer repudiating all
+right to it, it was paid in full to Mr. Deane, who went home in as
+buoyant a state of mind as was possible to him after the great anxieties
+of the preceding two hours. Miss Glover was sent back by the Ashleys in
+their own carriage and I was told that Mr. Ashley declined to close the
+carriage door upon her till she had promised to come again the
+following night.
+
+Anxious to make such amends as I personally could for my share in the
+mortification to which she had been subjected, I visited her in the
+morning, with the intention of offering a suggestion or two in regard to
+that little bill. But she met my first advance with a radiant smile and
+the glad exclamation:
+
+"Oh, I have settled all that! I have just come from Madame Duprè's. I
+told her that I had never imagined the dress could possibly cost more
+than a hundred dollars, and I offered her that sum if she would take the
+garment back. And she did, she did, and I shall never have to wear that
+dreadful satin again."
+
+I made a note of this dressmaker's name. She and I may have a bone to
+pick some day. But I said nothing to Miss Glover. I merely exclaimed:
+
+"And to-night?"
+
+"Oh, I have an old spotted muslin which, with a few natural flowers,
+will make me look festive enough. One does not need fine clothes when
+one is--happy."
+
+The dreamy far-off smile with which she finished the sentence was more
+eloquent than words, and I was not surprised when some time later I read
+of her engagement to Mr. Ashley.
+
+But it was not till she could sign herself with his name that she told
+me just what underlay the misery of that night. She had met Harrison
+Ashley more than once before, and, though she did not say so, had
+evidently conceived an admiration for him which made her especially
+desirous of attracting and pleasing him. Not understanding the world
+very well, certainly having very little knowledge of the tastes and
+feelings of wealthy people, she conceived that the more brilliantly she
+was attired the more likely she would be to please this rich young man.
+So in a moment of weakness she decided to devote all her small savings
+(a hundred dollars, as we know) to buying a gown such as she felt she
+could appear in at his house without shame.
+
+It came home, as dresses from French dressmakers are very apt to do,
+just in time for her to put it on for the party. The bill came with it
+and when she saw the amount--it was all itemized and she could find no
+fault with anything but the summing up--she was so overwhelmed that she
+nearly fainted. But she could not give up her ball; so she dressed
+herself, and, being urged all the time to hurry, hardly stopped to give
+one look at the new and splendid gown which had cost so much. The
+bill--the incredible, the enormous bill--was all she could think of, and
+the figures, which represented nearly her whole year's earnings, danced
+constantly before her eyes. How to pay it--but she could not pay it, nor
+could she ask her father to do so. She was ruined; but the ball, and Mr.
+Ashley--these still awaited her; so presently she worked herself up to
+some anticipation of enjoyment, and, having thrown on her cloak, was
+turning down her light preparatory to departure, when her eye fell on
+the bill lying open on her dresser.
+
+It would never do to leave it there--never do to leave it anywhere in
+her room. There were prying eyes in the house, and she was as ashamed of
+that bill as she might have been of a contemplated theft. So she tucked
+it in her corsage and went down to join her friends in the carriage.
+
+The rest we know, all but one small detail which turned to gall whatever
+enjoyment she was able to get out of the early evening. There was a
+young girl present, dressed in a simple muslin gown. While looking at it
+and inwardly contrasting it with her own splendor, Mr. Ashley passed by
+with another gentleman and she heard him say:
+
+"How much better young girls look in simple white than in the elaborate
+silks only suitable for their mothers!"
+
+Thoughtless words, possibly forgotten as soon as uttered, but they
+sharply pierced this already sufficiently stricken and uneasy breast and
+were the cause of the tears which had aroused my suspicion when I came
+upon her in the library, standing with her face to the night.
+
+But who can say whether, if the evening had been devoid of these
+occurrences and no emotions of contrition and pity had been awakened in
+her behalf in the breast of her chivalrous host, she would ever have
+become Mrs. Ashley?
+
+
+
+
+THE HERMIT OF ---- STREET
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+I COMMIT AN INDISCRETION
+
+
+I should have kept my eyes for the many brilliant and interesting sights
+constantly offered me. I might have done so, had I been ever eighteen,
+or had I not come from the country.
+
+I was visiting in a house where fashionable people made life a perpetual
+holiday. Yet of all the pleasures which followed so rapidly, one upon
+another, the greatest was the hour I spent in my window after the day's
+dissipations were all over, watching a man's face, bending night after
+night over a study-table in the lower room of the great house in our
+rear.
+
+Why did it affect me so? It was not a young face, but it was very
+handsome, and it was enigmatic.
+
+The day following my arrival in the city I had noticed the large house
+in our rear, and had asked some questions about it. It had a peculiarly
+secluded and secretive look. The windows were all shuttered and closed,
+with the exception of the three on the lower floor and two others
+directly over these. On the top story they were even boarded up, giving
+to that portion of the house a blank and desolate air.
+
+The grounds were separated from the street by a brick wall in our
+direction; the line of separation was marked by a high iron fence, in
+which I saw a gate.
+
+The Vandykes, whom I had questioned on the matter, were very short in
+their replies. But I learned this much. That the house belonged to one
+of New York's oldest families. That its present owner was a widow of
+great eccentricity of character, who, with her one child, a daughter,
+unfortunately blind from birth, had taken up her abode in some foreign
+country, where she thought her child's affliction would attract less
+attention than in her native city.
+
+The house had been closed to the extent I have mentioned, immediately
+upon her departure, but had not been left entirely empty. Mr. Allison,
+her man of business, had moved into it, and, being fully as eccentric as
+herself, had contented himself for five years with a solitary life in
+this dismal mansion, without friends, almost without acquaintances,
+though he might have had unlimited society and any amount of attention,
+his personal attractions being of a very uncommon order, and his talent
+for business so pronounced, that he was already recognized at
+thirty-five as one of the men to be afraid of in Wall Street. Of his
+birth and connections little was known; he was called the Hermit of ----
+Street.
+
+I was not very well one day, and I had been left alone in the house.
+
+At seven o'clock--how well I remember the hour!--I was sitting in my
+window, waiting for the return of the Vandykes, and watching the face
+which had now appeared at its usual place in the study. Suddenly my
+attention was drawn from him to a window in the story over his head, by
+the rapid blowing in and out of a curtain. As there was a lighted
+gas-jet near by, I watched the gyrating muslin with apprehension, and
+was shocked when, in another moment, I saw the flimsy folds give one
+wild flap and flare up into a dangerous flame.
+
+I dashed out of my room down-stairs, calling for the servants. But Lucy
+was in the front area and Ellen above, and I was on the back porch and
+in the garden before either of them responded.
+
+Meanwhile, no movement was observable in the brooding figure of Mr.
+Allison. I sprang through the gate and knocked with all my might on a
+door which opened upon a side porch.
+
+Confronting me with dilating eyes, he faltered slowly back till his
+natural instincts of courtesy recalled him to himself, and he bowed,
+when I found courage to cry:
+
+"Fire! Your house is on fire! Up there, overhead!"
+
+So intense were the feelings I saw aroused in him that I expected to see
+him rush into the open air with loud cries for help. But instead, he
+pushed the door to behind me, and locking me in, said, in a strange
+tone:
+
+"Don't call out, don't make any sound or outcry, and above all, don't
+let any one in; I will fight the flames alone!" and seizing a lamp from
+the study-table, he dashed from me toward a staircase I could see in the
+distance.
+
+Alas! it was a thrilling look--a look which no girl could sustain
+without emotion; and spellbound under it, I stood in a maze, alone and
+in utter darkness.
+
+While my emotions were at their height a bell rang. It was the front
+door-bell, and it meant the arrival of the engines.
+
+As the bell rang a second time, a light broke on the staircase I was so
+painfully watching, and Mr. Allison descended, lamp in hand, as he had
+gone up.
+
+What passed between him and the policeman whose voice I heard in the
+hall, I do not know. I finally heard the front door close.
+
+I must have met him with a pleading aspect, very much like that of a
+frightened child, for his countenance changed as he approached me.
+
+"My dear young lady, how can I thank you enough and how can I
+sufficiently express my regret at having kept you a prisoner in this
+blazing house?"
+
+Had he stopped again? I was in such a state of inner perturbation that I
+hardly knew whether he had ceased to speak or I to hear.
+
+"May I ask whom I have the honor of addressing?" he asked, in a tone I
+might better never have heard from his lips.
+
+"I am Delight Hunter, a country girl, sir, visiting the Vandykes."
+
+Then as my lips settled into a determined curve, he himself opened the
+door, and bowing low, asked if I would accept his protection to the
+gate.
+
+Declining his offer with a wild shake of the head, I dashed from the
+house and fled with an incomprehensible sense of relief back to that of
+the Vandykes.
+
+The servants, who had seen me rush toward Mr. Allison's, were still in
+the yard watching for me. I did not vouchsafe them a word. I could
+hardly formulate words in my own mind. A great love and a great dread
+had seized upon me at once.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+A STRANGE WEDDING BREAKFAST
+
+
+Mr. Allison, who had never before been known to leave his books and
+papers, not only called the next day to express his gratitude for what
+he was pleased to style my invaluable warning, but came every day after.
+
+After he became an habitué of the house, Mrs. Vandyke grew more
+communicative in regard to him. Mrs. Ransome, the lady in whose house he
+lived, had left her home very suddenly. He anticipated a like return;
+so, ever since her departure, it had been his invariable custom to have
+the table set for three, so that he might never be surprised by her
+arrival. It had become a monomania with him. Never did he sit down
+without there being enough before him for a small family, and as his
+food was all brought in cooked from a neighboring restaurant, this
+eccentricity of his was well known, and gave an added éclat to his
+otherwise hermit-like habits. To my mind, it added an element of pathos
+to his seclusion, and so affected me that one day I dared to remark to
+him:
+
+"You must have liked Mrs. Ransome very much, you are so faithful in your
+remembrance of her."
+
+I never presumed again to attack any of his foibles. He gave me first a
+hard look, then an indulgent one, and finally managed to say, after a
+moment of quiet hesitation:
+
+"You allude to my custom of setting two chairs at the table to which
+they may return at any minute? Miss Hunter, what I do in the loneliness
+of that great house is not worth the gossip of those who surround you."
+
+Flushing till I wished my curls would fall down and hide my cheeks, I
+tried to stammer out some apology. But he drove it back with a
+passionate word:
+
+"You love me, Delight" (he was already pressing me in his arms), "you
+love me or you would never have rushed so impetuously to warn me of my
+danger that night. Make me the maddest, happiest man in all the world."
+
+I hardly realized what I had done till I stood abashed before Mrs.
+Vandyke, and told her I had engaged myself to marry Mr. Allison before
+he went to Europe. Then it seemed I had done a very good thing. She
+congratulated me heartily, and, seeing I had certain fear of taking my
+aunt into my confidence, promised to sit down and write to her herself,
+using every encomium she could think of to make this sudden marriage, on
+my part, seem like the result of reason and wise forethought.
+
+I had not, what every one else seemed to have, full confidence in this
+man, and yet the thrall in which I was held by the dominating power of
+his passion kept me from seeking that advice even from my own
+intuitions, which might have led to my preservation. I was blind and
+knew I was blind, yet rushed on headlong. I asked him no questions till
+our wedding day.
+
+We were married simply, but to the sound of wonderful music, in a
+certain little church not far from ---- Street.
+
+Mr. Allison had told me that it would be impossible for him to take me
+out of the city at present. It was therefore to the house on ---- Street
+we were driven.
+
+In the hall stood the old serving man with whose appearance I was
+already so familiar.
+
+"Luncheon is served," he announced, with great formality; and then I saw
+through an open door the glitter of china and glass, and realized I was
+about to take my first meal with my husband.
+
+The next moment I was before the board, which had been made as beautiful
+as possible with flowers and the finest of dinner services. But the
+table was set for four, two of whom could only be present in spirit.
+
+I wondered if I were glad or sorry to see it--if I were pleased with his
+loyalty to his absent employer, or disappointed that my presence had
+not made everybody else forgotten. To be consistent, I should have
+rejoiced at this evidence of sterling worth on his part; but girls are
+not consistent--at least, brides of an hour are not--and I may have
+pouted the least bit in the world as I pointed to the two places set as
+elaborately as our own, and said with the daring which comes with the
+rights of a wife:
+
+"It would be a startling coincidence if Mrs. Ransome and her daughter
+should return to-day. I fear I would not like it."
+
+I was looking directly at him as I spoke, with a smile on my lips and my
+hand on the back of my chair. But the jest I had expected in reply did
+not come. Something in my tone or choice of topic jarred upon him, and
+his answer was a simple wave of his hand toward Ambrose, who at once
+relieved me of my bouquet, placing it in a tall glass at the side of my
+plate.
+
+"Now we will sit," said he.
+
+I do not know how the meal would have passed had Ambrose not been
+present. As it was, it was a rather formal affair, and would have been
+slightly depressing, if I had not caught, now and then, flashing glances
+from my husband's eye which assured me that he found as much to enchain
+him in my presence as I did in his.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+ONE BEAD FROM A NECKLACE
+
+
+After supper Mr. Allison put before me a large book. "Amuse yourself
+with these pictures," said he; "I have a little task to perform. After
+it is done I will come again and sit with you."
+
+"You are not going out," I cried, starting up.
+
+"No," he smiled, "I am not going out."
+
+I sank back and opened the book, but I did not look at the pictures.
+Instead of that I listened to his steps moving about the house, rear and
+front, and finally going up what seemed to be a servant's staircase, for
+I could see the great front stairs from where I sat, and there was no
+one on them.
+
+But when he returned and sat down I said nothing. There was a little
+thing I noted, however. His hands were trembling, and it was five
+minutes before he met my inquiring look.
+
+"I will not displease him with questions," I decided: "but I will find
+my own way into those lofts above. I shall never be at rest till I do."
+
+I had found a candle in my bedroom, and this I took to light me. But it
+revealed nothing to me except a double row of unused rooms, with dust on
+the handles of all the doors. I scrutinized them all; for, young as I
+was, I had wit enough to see that if I could find one knob on which no
+dust lay that would be the one my husband was accustomed to turn.
+
+But every one showed tokens of not having been touched in years, and,
+baffled in my search, I was about to retreat, when I remembered that the
+house had four stories, and that I had not yet come upon the staircase
+leading to the one above. A hurried search (for I was mortally afraid of
+being surprised by my husband), revealed to me at last a distant door,
+which had no dust on its knob. It lay at the bottom of a shut-in
+staircase, and convinced that here was the place my husband was in the
+habit of visiting, I carefully fingered the knob, which turned very
+softly in my hand. But it did not open the door. There was a lock
+visible just below, and that lock was fastened.
+
+My first escapade was without visible results, but I was uneasy from
+that hour. I imagined all sorts of things hidden beyond that closed
+door.
+
+I was walking one morning in the grounds that lay about the house, when
+suddenly I felt something small but perceptibly hard strike my hat and
+bound quickly off.
+
+In another instant I started up. I had found a little thing like a
+bullet wrapped up in paper; but it was no bullet; it was a bead, a large
+gold bead, and on the paper which surrounded it were written these
+words:
+
+"Help from the passing stranger! I am Elizabeth Ransome, owner of the
+house in which I have been imprisoned five years. Search for me in the
+upper story. You will find me there with my blind daughter. He who
+placed us here is below; beware his cunning."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+I LEARN HYPOCRISY
+
+
+Even in that rush of confusing emotions I recognized one fact; that I
+must not betray by look or word that I knew this dreadful secret.
+
+So I went in, but went in slowly and with downcast eyes. The bead and
+the paper I had dropped into my vinaigrette, which fortunately hung at
+my side.
+
+"Humphrey," I said, "when are we going to leave this house? I begin to
+find it lonesome."
+
+He was preparing to gather up his papers for his accustomed trip
+down-town, but he stopped as I spoke, and looked at me curiously.
+
+"You are pale," he remarked, "change and travel will benefit you.
+Dearest, we will try to sail for Europe in a week."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE STOLEN KEY
+
+
+It became apparent even to my girlish mind, that, as the wife of the man
+who had committed this great and inconceivable wrong, I was bound, not
+only to make an immediate attempt to release the women he so
+outrageously held imprisoned in their own house, but to release them so
+that he should escape the opprobrium of his own act.
+
+That I might have time to think, and that I might be saved, if but for
+one day, contact with one it was almost my duty to hate, I came back to
+him with the plea that I might spend the day with the Vandykes instead
+of accompanying him down-town as usual. I think he was glad of the
+freedom my absence offered him, for he gave me the permission I asked,
+and in ten minutes I was in my old home. Mrs. Vandyke received me with
+effusion. It was not the first time she had seen me since my marriage,
+but it was the first time she had seen me alone.
+
+"My dear!" she exclaimed, turning me about till my unwilling face met
+the light, "is this the wild-wood lassie I gave into Mr. Allison's
+keeping a week ago!"
+
+"It is the house!" I excitedly gasped, "the empty, lonely, echoing
+house! I am afraid in it, even with my husband. It gives me creepy
+feelings, as if a murder had been committed in it."
+
+She broke into a laugh; I hear the sound now, an honest, amused and
+entirely reassuring laugh, that relieved me in one way and depressed me
+in another.
+
+I ventured on another attempt to clear up the mystery that was fast
+stifling out my youth, love and hope. I professed to have an
+extraordinary desire to see the city from the house-top. I had never
+been any higher up than the third story of any house I had been in, and
+could not, I told her, go any higher in the house in which I was then
+living. Might I go up on her roof? Her eyes opened, but she was of an
+amiable, inconsequent disposition and let me have my way without too
+much opposition.
+
+One glance at the spot I was most interested in, and I found myself too
+dizzy to look further.
+
+In the center of Mrs. Ransome's roof there was to be seen what I can
+best describe as an extended cupola without windows. As there was no
+other break visible in the roof, the top of this must have held the
+skylight, which, being thus lifted many feet above the level of the
+garret floor, would admit air and light enough to the boarded-up space
+below, but would make any effort to be heard or seen, on the part of any
+one secreted there, quite ineffectual.
+
+The resolution I took was worthy of an older head and a more disciplined
+heart. By means that were fair, or by means that were foul, I meant to
+win my way into that boarded-up attic and see for myself if the words
+hidden away in my vinaigrette were true. To do this openly would cause
+a scandal I was yet too much under my husband's influence to risk;
+while to do it secretly meant the obtaining of keys which I had every
+reason to believe he kept hidden about his person. How was I to obtain
+them? I saw no way, but that did not deter me from starting at once
+down-town in the hope of being struck by some brilliant idea while
+waiting for him in his office.
+
+Was it instinct that suggested this, or was the hand of Providence in
+all that I did at this time? I had no sooner seated myself in the little
+room, where I had been accustomed to wait for him, than I saw what sent
+the blood tinkling to my finger-tips in sudden hope. It was my husband's
+vest hanging in one corner, the vest he had worn down-town that morning.
+The day was warm and he had taken it off. If the key should be in it!
+
+I had never done a mean or underhanded thing before in my life, but I
+sprang at that vest without the least hesitation, and fingering it was
+the lightest of touches, found in the smallest of inside pockets a key,
+which instinct immediately told me was that of the door I had once
+endeavored to pass.
+
+Dropping the key into my pocket, I went back into the outer room, and
+leaving word that I had remembered a little shopping which would take me
+again up-town, I left the building and returned to ---- Street.
+
+I was out of breath with suspense, as well as with my rapid movements,
+when I reached the shut-in staircase and carefully unlocked its narrow
+door. But by the time I had reached the fourth floor, and unlocked, with
+the same key, the only other door that had a streak of light under it, I
+had gained a certain degree of tense composure born of the desperate
+nature of the occasion. The calmness with which I pushed open the door
+proved this--a calmness which made the movement noiseless, which was the
+reason, I suppose, why I was enabled to suppress the shriek that rose to
+my lips as I saw that the room had occupants, and that my worst fears
+were thus realized.
+
+A woman was sitting, with her back to me, at a table, and before her,
+with her face turned my way, was a young girl in whom, even at first
+glance, I detected some likeness to myself. Was this why Mr. Allison's
+countenance expressed so much agitation when he first saw me? The next
+moment this latter lifted her head and looked directly at me, but with
+no change in her mobile features; at which token of blindness I almost
+fell on my knees, so conclusively did it prove that I was really looking
+upon Mrs. Ransome and her daughter.
+
+The mother, who had been directing her daughter's hands in some
+needlework, felt that the latter's attention had been diverted.
+
+"What is it, dear?" she asked, with an indescribable mellowness of
+voice, whose tone thrilled me with a fresh and passionate pity.
+
+"I thought I heard Mr. Allison come in, but he always knocks; besides,
+it is not time for him yet." And she sighed.
+
+That sigh went through my heart, rousing new feelings and deeper
+terrors; but I had no time to indulge in them, for the mother turned at
+the gasp which left my lips, and rising up, confronted me with an
+amazement which left her without any ability to speak.
+
+"Who is it, mother?" inquired the blind girl, herself rising and beaming
+upon me with the sweetest of looks.
+
+"Let me answer," I ventured softly. "I am Mr. Allison's wife. I have
+come to see if there is anything I can do to make your stay here more
+comfortable."
+
+The look that passed over the mother's face warned me to venture no
+further in the daughter's presence. Whatever that mother had suffered,
+the daughter had experienced nothing but satisfied love and
+companionship in these narrow precincts. Her rounded cheeks showed this,
+and the indescribable atmosphere of peace and gladness which surrounded
+her.
+
+As I saw this, and realized the mother's life and the self-restraint
+which had enabled her to accept the inevitable without raising a
+complaint calculated to betray to the daughter that all was not as it
+should be with them, I felt such a rush of awe sweep over me that some
+of my fathomless emotion showed in my face; for Mrs. Ransome's own
+countenance assumed a milder look, and advancing nearer, she pointed out
+a room where we could speak apart. As I moved toward it she whispered a
+few words in her daughter's ear, then she rejoined me.
+
+"Oh, madame!" I murmured, "oh, madame! Show a poor girl what she can do
+to restore you to your rights. The door is open and you can descend; but
+that means----Oh, madame, I am filled with terror when I think what. He
+may be in the hall now. He may have missed the key and returned. If only
+you were out of the house!"
+
+"My dear girl," she quietly replied, "we will be some day. You will see
+to that, I know. I do not think I could stay here, now that I have seen
+another face than his. But I do not want to go now, to-day. I want to
+prepare Theresa for freedom; she has lived so long quietly with me that
+I dread the shock and excitement of other voices and the pressure of
+city sounds upon her delicate ears. I must train her for contact with
+the world.
+
+"But you won't forget me if I allow you to lock us in again? You will
+come back and open the doors, and let me go down again through my old
+halls into the room where my husband died; and if Mr. Allison
+objects----My dear girl, you know now that he is an unscrupulous man,
+that it is my money he begrudged me, and that he has used it and made
+himself a rich man."
+
+"I can not," I murmured, "I can not find courage to present the subject
+to him so. I do not know my husband's mind. It is a fathomless abyss to
+me. Let me think of some other way. Oh, madam! if you were out of the
+house, and could then come----"
+
+Suddenly, a thought struck me. "I can do it; I see the way to do it--a
+way that will place you in a triumphant position and yet save him from
+suspicion. He is weary of this care. He wants to be relieved of the
+dreadful secret which anchors him to this house, and makes a hell of the
+very spot in which he has fixed his love. Shall we under-take to do this
+for him? Can you trust me if I promise to take an immediate impression
+of this key, and have one made for myself, which shall insure my return
+here?"
+
+"My dear," she said, taking my head between her two trembling hands, "I
+have never looked upon a sweeter face than my daughter's till I looked
+upon yours to-day. If you bid me hope, I will hope, and if you bid me
+trust, I will trust. The remembrance of this kiss will not let you
+forget." And she embraced me in a warm and tender manner.
+
+"I will write you," I murmured. "Some day look for a billet under the
+door. It will tell you what to do; now I must go back to my husband."
+
+When I reached the office, I was in a fainting condition, but all my
+hopes revived again when I saw the vest still hanging where I had left
+it, and heard my husband's voice singing cheerfully in the adjoining
+room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+WHILE OTHERS DANCED
+
+
+A crowd in the ---- Street house was necessary to the quiet escape of
+Mrs. Ransome and her daughter; so a crowd we must have, and how have a
+crowd without giving a grand party?
+
+I knew that this would be a shocking proposition to him; but I was
+prepared to meet all objections; and when, with every nerve alert and
+every charm exerted to its utmost, I sat down at his side that evening
+to plead my cause, I knew by the sparkle of his eye and the softening of
+the bitter lines that sometimes hardened his mouth, that the battle was
+half won before I spoke, and that I should have my party whatever it
+might cost him in mental stress and worry.
+
+The next thing I did was to procure a facsimile of his key from the wax
+impression I had taken of it in accordance with my promise to Mrs.
+Ransome. Then I wrote her a letter, in which I gave her the minutest
+directions as to her own movements on that important evening. After
+which I gave myself up entirely to the business of the party.
+
+Certain things I had insisted on. All the rooms were to be opened, even
+those on the third floor; and I was to have a band to play in the hall.
+He did not deny me anything. I think his judgment was asleep, or else he
+was so taken up with the horrible problem presented by his desire to
+leave the city and the existence of those obligations which made
+departure an impossibility, that he failed to place due stress on
+matters which, at another time, might very well seem to threaten the
+disclosure of his dangerous secret.
+
+At last the night came.
+
+An entertainment given in this great house had aroused much interest.
+Most of our invitations had been accepted, and the affair promised to
+be brilliant. As a bride, I wore white, and when, at the moment of going
+down-stairs, my husband suddenly clasped about my neck a rich necklace
+of diamonds, I was seized by such a bitter sense of the contrast between
+appearances and the awful reality underlying these festivities, that I
+reeled in his arms, and had to employ all the arts which my dangerous
+position had taught me, to quiet his alarm, and convince him that my
+emotion sprang entirely from pleasure.
+
+Meantime the orchestra was playing and the equipages were rolling up in
+front. What he thought as the music filled the house and rose in
+piercing melody to the very roof, I can not say. I thought how it was a
+message of release to those weary and abused ones above; and, filled
+with the sense of support which the presence of so many people in the
+house gave me, I drew up my girlish figure in glad excitement and
+prepared myself for the ordeal, visible and invisible, which awaited
+me.
+
+The next two hours form a blank in my memory. Standing under Mrs.
+Ransome's picture (I would stand there), I received the congratulations
+of the hundred or more people who were anxious to see Mr. Allison's
+bride, and of the whole glittering pageant I remember only the whispered
+words of Mrs. Vandyke as she passed with the rest:
+
+"My dear, I take back what I said the other day about the effect of
+marriage upon you. You are the most brilliant woman here, and Mr.
+Allison the happiest of men."
+
+This was an indication that all was going well. But what of the awful
+morning hour that awaited us! Would that show him a happy man?
+
+At last our guests were assembled, and I had an instant to myself.
+Murmuring a prayer for courage, I slid from the room and ran up-stairs.
+Here all was bustle also--a bustle I delighted in, for, with so many
+people moving about, Mrs. Ransome and her daughter could pass out
+without attracting more than a momentary attention.
+
+Securing a bundle I had myself prepared, I glided up the second
+staircase, and, after a moment's delay, succeeded in unlocking the door
+and disappearing with my bundle into the fourth story. When I came down,
+the key I had carried up was left behind me. The way for Mrs. Ransome's
+escape lay open.
+
+I do not think I had been gone ten minutes from the drawing-room. When I
+returned there, it was to find the festivities at their height, and my
+husband just on the point of missing me. The look which he directed
+toward me pierced me to the heart; not that I was playing him false, for
+I was risking life, love and the loss of everything I prized, to save
+him from himself; but that his love for me should be so strong he could
+forget the two tortured hearts above, in the admiration I had awakened
+in the shallow people about us. But I smiled, as a woman on the rack
+might smile if the safety of her loved ones depended on her courage,
+and, nerving myself for the suspense of such a waiting as few of my
+inexperience have ever been called upon to endure, I turned to a group
+of ladies I saw near me and began to talk.
+
+Happily, I did not have to chatter long; happily, Mrs. Ransome was quick
+in her movements and exact in all she did, and, sooner than I expected,
+sooner perhaps, than I was prepared for it, the man who attended the
+front door came to my side and informed me that a lady wished to see
+me--a lady who had just arrived from the steamer, and who said she was
+the mistress of the house, Mrs. Ransome.
+
+Mrs. Ransome! The name spread like wild-fire, but before any movement
+was made, I had bounded, in laughing confusion, to my husband's side,
+and, grasping him merrily by the arm, cried:
+
+"Your expectations have come true. Mrs. Ransome has returned without
+warning, and to-night she will partake of the supper you have always had
+served for her."
+
+The shock was as great, perhaps, as ever man received. I knew what it
+was likely to be, and held him upright, with the seeming merriment in my
+eyes which I did not allow to stray from his. He thought I was mad, then
+he thought he was--then I recalled him to the dangers and exigencies of
+the moment by saying, with forced naiveté:
+
+"Shall I go and welcome her to this gathering in her own house, or will
+you do the honors? She may not know me."
+
+He moved, but as a statue might move, shot through and through with an
+electric spark. I saw that I must act, rather than he, so uttering some
+girlish sentence about the mice and cat, I glided away into the hall,
+where Mrs. Ransome stood in the nondescript black coat and bonnet I had
+provided her from her own wardrobe. She had slipped a few moments before
+from the house with her daughter, whom she had placed in a carriage,
+which I had ordered to wait for them directly in front of the lamp-post,
+and had now re-entered as the mistress returning unexpectedly after a
+departure of five years. All had been done as I had planned, and it
+only remained to carry on the farce and prevent its developing into a
+tragedy.
+
+Rushing up to her, I told her who I was, and, as we were literally
+surrounded in a moment, added such apologies for the merrymaking in
+which she found us indulging as my wit suggested and the occasion seemed
+to demand. Then I allowed her to speak.
+
+Instantly she was the mistress of the house. Old-fashioned as her dress
+was and changed as her figure must have been, she had that imposing
+bearing which great misfortune, nobly borne, gives to some natures, and
+feeling the eyes of many of her old friends upon her, she graciously
+smiled and said that she was delighted to receive so public a welcome.
+Then she took me by the hand.
+
+"Do not worry, child," she said, "I have a daughter about your age,
+which in itself would make me lenient toward one so young and pretty.
+Where is your husband, dear? He has served me well in my absence, and I
+should like to shake hands with him before I withdraw with my daughter,
+to a hotel for the night."
+
+I looked up; he was standing in the open doorway leading into the
+drawing-room. He had recovered a semblance of composure, but the hand
+fingering the inner pocket, where he kept his keys, showed in what a
+tumult of surprise and doubt he had been thrown by this unaccountable
+appearance of his prisoner in the open hall; and if to other eyes he
+showed no more than the natural confusion of the moment, to me he had
+the look of a secretly desperate man, alive to his danger, and only
+holding himself in check in order to measure it.
+
+At the mention she made of his name, he came mechanically forward, and,
+taking her proffered hand, bowed over it. "Welcome," he murmured, in
+strained tones; then, startled by the pressure of her fingers in his, he
+glanced doubtfully up while she said:
+
+"We will have no talk to-night, my faithful and careful friend, but
+to-morrow you may come and see me at the ---- Hotel. You will find that
+my return will not lessen your manifest happiness."
+
+Then, as he began to tremble, she laid her hand on his arm, and I heard
+her smilingly whisper: "You have too pretty a wife for me not to wish my
+return to be a benefaction to her." And, with a smile to the crowd and
+an admonition to those about her not to let the bride suffer from this
+interruption, she disappeared through the great front door on the arm of
+the man who for five years had held her prisoner in her own house. I
+went back into the drawing-room, and the five minutes which elapsed
+between that moment and that of his return were the most awful of my
+life. When he came back I had aged ten years, yet all that time I was
+laughing and talking.
+
+He did not rejoin me immediately; he went up-stairs. I knew why; he had
+gone to see if the door to the fourth floor had been unlocked or simply
+broken down. When he came back he gave me one look. Did he suspect me? I
+could not tell. After that, there was another blank in my memory to the
+hour when the guests were all gone, the house all silent, and we stood
+together in a little room, where I had at last discovered him, withdrawn
+by himself, writing. There was a loaded pistol on the table. The paper
+he had been writing was his will.
+
+"Humphrey," said I, placing a finger on the pistol, "why is this?"
+
+He gave me a look, a hungry, passionate look, then he grew as white as
+the paper he had just subscribed with his name.
+
+"I am ruined," he murmured. "I have made unwarrantable use of Mrs.
+Ransome's money; her return has undone me. Delight, I love you, but I
+can not face the future. You will be provided for--"
+
+"Will I?" I put in softly, very softly, for my way was strewn with
+pitfalls and precipices. "I do not think so, Humphrey. If the money you
+have put away is not yours, my first care would be to restore it. Then
+what would I have left? A dowry of odium and despair, and I am scarcely
+eighteen."
+
+"But--but--you do not understand, Delight. I have been a villain, a
+worse villain than you think. The only thing in my life I have not to
+blush for is my love for you. This is pure, even if it has been selfish.
+I know it is pure, because I have begun to suffer. If I could tell
+you--"
+
+"Mrs. Ransome has already told me," said I. "Who do you think unlocked
+the door of her retreat? I, Humphrey. I wanted to save you from
+yourself, and she understands me. She will never reveal the secret of
+the years she has passed overhead."
+
+Would he hate me? Would he love me? Would he turn that fatal weapon on
+me, or level it again toward his own breast? For a moment I could not
+tell; then the white horror in his face broke up, and, giving me a look
+I shall never forget till I die, he fell prostrate on his knees and
+lowered his proud head before me.
+
+I did not touch it, but from that moment the schooling of our two hearts
+began, and, though I can never look upon my husband with the frank joy I
+see in other women's faces, I have learned not to look upon him with
+distrust, and to thank God I did not forsake him when desertion might
+have meant the destruction of the one small seed of goodness which had
+developed in his heart with the advent of a love for which nothing in
+his whole previous life had prepared him.
+
+
+
+
+=FAMOUS AUTHORS AND THEIR BOOKS INCLUDED IN THIS SERIES=
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+=ECCENTRIC MR. CLARK=
+      =By JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY=
+      _Author of "An Old Sweetheart of Mine," etc._
+
+=THE PRINCESS ELOPES=
+      =By HAROLD MacGRATH=
+      _Author of "The Man on the Box," etc._
+
+=AS THE HEART PANTETH=
+      =By HALLIE ERMINIE RIVES=
+      _Author of "The Valiants of Virginia," etc._
+
+=ROSALYNDE'S LOVERS=
+      =By MAURICE THOMPSON=
+      _Author of "Alice of Old Vincennes," etc._
+
+=THE HOUSE IN THE MIST=
+      =By ANNA KATHARINE GREEN=
+      _Author of "The Leavenworth Case," etc._
+
+=TROLLEY FOLLY=
+      =By HENRY WALLACE PHILLIPS=
+      _Author of "Red Saunders," etc._
+
+=MOTORMANIACS=
+      =By LLOYD OSBOURNE=
+      _Author of "A Person of Some Importance," etc._
+
+=THE FIFTH STRING=
+      =By JOHN PHILIP SOUSA=
+      _Author of "Pipetown Sandy," etc._
+
+=CHIMES FROM A JESTER'S BELLS=
+      =By ROBERT J. BURDETTE=
+      _Author of "Old Time and Young Tom," etc._
+
+=A GUEST AT THE LUDLOW=
+      =By BILL NYE=
+      _Author of "Baled Hay," etc._
+
+=FOUR IN FAMILY=
+      =By FLORIDA POPE SUMERWELL=
+
+=A FOOL FOR LOVE=
+      =By FRANCIS LYNDE=
+      _Author of "The Grafters," etc._
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Page 150 "ever eighteen" left as in source ("had I been ever
+eighteen, ...")
+
+Page 158 "seculsion" changed to "seclusion"
+("To my mind, it added an element of pathos to his seclusion, ...")
+
+Page 168 "Vandkye" changed to "Vandyke"
+("Mrs. Vandyke received me with effusion.")
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The House in the Mist, by Anna Katharine Green
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The House in the Mist, by Anna Katharine Green
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
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+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
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+Title: The House in the Mist
+
+Author: Anna Katharine Green
+
+Release Date: August 30, 2006 [EBook #19147]
+
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+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 263px;">
+<a href="images/hitm1-1.jpg"><img src="images/hitm1-1th.jpg" width="263" height="400" alt="Book cover" title="" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. -->
+<p>
+<a href="#THE_HOUSE_IN_THE_MIST"><b>THE HOUSE IN THE MIST</b></a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#I"><b>I</b></a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#II"><b>II</b></a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#III"><b>III</b></a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#IV"><b>IV</b></a><br />
+<a href="#THE_RUBY_AND_THE_CALDRON"><b>THE RUBY AND THE CALDRON</b></a><br />
+<a href="#THE_HERMIT_OF_mdash_STREET"><b>THE HERMIT OF &mdash;&mdash; STREET</b></a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_I"><b>CHAPTER I</b></a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_II"><b>CHAPTER II</b></a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_III"><b>CHAPTER III</b></a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><b>CHAPTER IV</b></a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_V"><b>CHAPTER V</b></a><br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><b>CHAPTER VI</b></a><br />
+<a href="#FAMOUS_AUTHORS_AND_THEIR_BOOKS_INCLUDED_IN_THIS_SERIES"><b>FAMOUS AUTHORS AND THEIR BOOKS INCLUDED IN THIS SERIES</b></a><br />
+</p>
+<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. -->
+
+
+
+<h1>THE<br /> HOUSE IN THE MIST</h1>
+
+<h4><i>By</i></h4>
+
+<h2>ANNA KATHARINE GREEN</h2>
+
+<p class="center">
+Author of<br />
+The Millionaire Baby<br />
+The Amethyst Box<br />
+The Filigree Ball, etc., etc.<br />
+</p>
+
+<div class="padding">
+<p class="center">
+NEW YORK<br />
+THE NEW YORK BOOK CO.<br />
+1913<br />
+</p></div>
+
+<p class="center">
+<span class="smcap">Copyright 1905</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">The Bobbs-Merrill Company</span></p>
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<p class="center">
+<span class="smcap">April</span></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_HOUSE_IN_THE_MIST" id="THE_HOUSE_IN_THE_MIST"></a>THE HOUSE IN THE MIST</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="I" id="I"></a>I</h2>
+
+<h5>AN OPEN DOOR</h5>
+
+
+<p>It was a night to drive any man indoors. Not only was the darkness
+impenetrable, but the raw mist enveloping hill and valley made the open
+road anything but desirable to a belated wayfarer like myself.</p>
+
+<p>Being young, untrammeled, and naturally indifferent to danger, I was not
+averse to adventure; and having my fortune to make, was always on the
+lookout for El Dorado, which, to ardent souls, lies ever beyond the next
+turning. Consequently, when I saw a light shimmering through the mist at
+my right, I resolved to make for it and the shelter it so opportunely
+offered.</p>
+
+<p>But I did not realize then, as I do now, that shelter does not
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>necessarily imply refuge, or I might not have undertaken this adventure
+with so light a heart. Yet, who knows? The impulses of an unfettered
+spirit lean toward daring, and youth, as I have said, seeks the strange,
+the unknown and, sometimes, the terrible.</p>
+
+<p>My path toward this light was by no means an easy one. After confused
+wanderings through tangled hedges, and a struggle with obstacles of
+whose nature I received the most curious impression in the surrounding
+murk, I arrived in front of a long, low building which, to my
+astonishment, I found standing with doors and windows open to the
+pervading mist, save for one square casement through which the light
+shone from a row of candles placed on a long mahogany table.</p>
+
+<p>The quiet and seeming emptiness of this odd and picturesque building
+made me pause. I am not much affected by visible danger, but this silent
+room, with its air of sinister expectancy, struck me most unpleasantly,
+and I was about to reconsider my first impulse and withdraw again to the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>road, when a second look, thrown back upon the comfortable interior I
+was leaving, convinced me of my folly and sent me straight toward the
+door which stood so invitingly open.</p>
+
+<p>But half-way up the path, my progress was again stayed by the sight of a
+man issuing from the house I had so rashly looked upon as devoid of all
+human presence. He seemed in haste and, at the moment my eye first fell
+on him, was engaged in replacing his watch in his pocket.</p>
+
+<p>But he did not shut the door behind him, which I thought odd, especially
+as his final glance had been a backward one, and seemed to take in all
+the appointments of the place he was so hurriedly leaving.</p>
+
+<p>As we met, he raised his hat. This likewise struck me as peculiar, for
+the deference he displayed was more marked than that usually bestowed on
+strangers, while his lack of surprise at an encounter more or less
+startling in such a mist was calculated to puzzle an ordinary man like
+myself. Indeed, he was so little impressed by my presence there that he
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>was for passing me without a word or any other hint of good fellowship,
+save the bow of which I have spoken. But this did not suit me. I was
+hungry, cold, and eager for creature comforts, and the house before me
+gave forth not only heat, but a savory odor which in itself was an
+invitation hard to ignore. I therefore accosted the man.</p>
+
+<p>"Will bed and supper be provided me here?" I asked. "I am tired out with
+a long tramp over the hills, and hungry enough to pay anything in
+reason&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>I stopped, for the man had disappeared. He had not paused at my appeal
+and the mist had swallowed him. But at the break in my sentence, his
+voice came back in good-natured tones and I heard:</p>
+
+<p>"Supper will be ready at nine, and there are beds for all. Enter, sir;
+you are the first to arrive, but the others can not be far behind."</p>
+
+<p>A queer greeting, certainly. But when I strove to question him as to its
+meaning, his voice returned to me from such a distance that I doubted if
+my words had reached him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> with any more distinctness than his answer
+reached me.</p>
+
+<p>"Well!" thought I, "it isn't as if a lodging had been denied me. He
+invited me to enter, and enter I will."</p>
+
+<p>The house, to which I now naturally directed a glance of much more
+careful scrutiny than before, was no ordinary farm-building, but a
+rambling old mansion, made conspicuously larger here and there by
+jutting porches and more than one convenient lean-to. Though furnished,
+warmed and lighted with candles, as I have previously described, it had
+about it an air of disuse which made me feel myself an intruder, in
+spite of the welcome I had received. But I was not in a position to
+stand upon ceremony, and ere long I found myself inside the great room
+and before the blazing logs whose glow had lighted up the doorway and
+added its own attraction to the other allurements of the inviting place.</p>
+
+<p>Though the open door made a draft which was anything but pleasant, I did
+not feel like closing it, and was astonished to observe the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> effect of
+the mist through the square thus left open to the night. It was not an
+agreeable one, and, instinctively turning my back upon that quarter of
+the room, I let my eyes roam over the wainscoted walls and the odd
+pieces of furniture which gave such an air of old-fashioned richness to
+the place. As nothing of the kind had ever fallen under my eyes before,
+I should have thoroughly enjoyed this opportunity of gratifying my taste
+for the curious and the beautiful, if the quaint old chairs I saw
+standing about me on every side had not all been empty. But the solitude
+of the place, so much more oppressive than the solitude of the road I
+had left, struck cold to my heart, and I missed the cheer rightfully
+belonging to such attractive surroundings. Suddenly I bethought me of
+the many other apartments likely to be found in so spacious a dwelling,
+and, going to the nearest door, I opened it and called out for the
+master of the house. But only an echo came back, and, returning to the
+fire, I sat down before the cheering blaze, in quiet acceptance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> of a
+situation too lonely for comfort, yet not without a certain piquant
+interest for a man of free mind and adventurous disposition like myself.</p>
+
+<p>After all, if supper was to be served at nine, someone must be expected
+to eat it: I should surely not be left much longer without companions.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile ample amusement awaited me in the contemplation of a picture
+which, next to the large fireplace, was the most prominent object in the
+room. This picture was a portrait, and a remarkable one. The countenance
+it portrayed was both characteristic and forcible, and so interested me
+that in studying it I quite forgot both hunger and weariness. Indeed its
+effect upon me was such that, after gazing at it uninterruptedly for a
+few minutes, I discovered that its various features&mdash;the narrow eyes in
+which a hint of craft gave a strange gleam to their native intelligence;
+the steadfast chin, strong as the rock of the hills I had wearily
+tramped all day; the cunning wrinkles which yet did not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> interfere with
+a latent great-heartedness that made the face as attractive as it was
+puzzling&mdash;had so established themselves in my mind that I continued to
+see them before me whichever way I turned, and found it impossible to
+shake off their influence even after I had resolutely set my mind in
+another direction by endeavoring to recall what I knew of the town into
+which I had strayed.</p>
+
+<p>I had come from Scranton and was now, according to my best judgment, in
+one of those rural districts of western Pennsylvania which breed such
+strange and sturdy characters. But of this special neighborhood, its
+inhabitants and its industries, I knew nothing nor was likely to, so
+long as I remained in the solitude I have endeavored to describe.</p>
+
+<p>But these impressions and these thoughts&mdash;if thoughts they
+were&mdash;presently received a check. A loud "Halloo" rose from somewhere in
+the mist, followed by a string of muttered imprecations, which convinced
+me that the person now attempting to approach the house was encountering
+some of the many<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> difficulties which had beset me in the same
+undertaking a few minutes before.</p>
+
+<p>I therefore raised my voice and shouted out, "Here! this way!" after
+which I sat still and awaited developments.</p>
+
+<p>There was a huge clock in one of the corners, whose loud tick filled up
+every interval of silence. By this clock it was just ten minutes to
+eight when two gentlemen (I should say men, and coarse men at that)
+crossed the open threshold and entered the house.</p>
+
+<p>Their appearance was more or less noteworthy&mdash;unpleasantly so, I am
+obliged to add. One was red-faced and obese, the other was tall, thin
+and wiry and showed as many seams in his face as a blighted apple.
+Neither of the two had anything to recommend him either in appearance or
+address, save a certain veneer of polite assumption as transparent as it
+was offensive. As I listened to the forced sallies of the one and the
+hollow laugh of the other, I was glad that I was large of frame and
+strong of arm and used to all kinds of men and&mdash;brutes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As these two new-comers seemed no more astonished at my presence than
+the man I had met at the gate, I checked the question which
+instinctively rose to my lips and with a simple bow,&mdash;responded to by a
+more or less familiar nod from either,&mdash;accepted the situation with all
+the <i>sang-froid</i> the occasion seemed to demand. Perhaps this was wise,
+perhaps it was not; there was little opportunity to judge, for the start
+they both gave as they encountered the eyes of the picture before
+mentioned drew my attention to a consideration of the different ways in
+which men, however similar in other respects, express sudden and
+unlooked-for emotion. The big man simply allowed his astonishment,
+dread, or whatever the feeling was which moved him, to ooze forth in a
+cold and deathly perspiration which robbed his cheeks of color and cast
+a bluish shadow over his narrow and retreating temples; while the thin
+and waspish man, caught in the same trap (for trap I saw it was),
+shouted aloud in his ill-timed mirth, the false and cruel character of
+which would have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> made me shudder, if all expression of feeling on my
+part had not been held in check by the interest I immediately
+experienced in the display of open bravado with which, in another
+moment, these two tried to carry off their mutual embarrassment.</p>
+
+<p>"Good likeness, eh?" laughed the seamy-faced man. "Quite an idea, that!
+Makes him one of us again! Well, he's welcome&mdash;in oils. Can't say much
+to us from canvas, eh?" And the rafters above him vibrated, as his
+violent efforts at joviality went up in loud and louder assertion from
+his thin throat.</p>
+
+<p>A nudge from the other's elbow stopped him and I saw them both cast
+half-lowering, half-inquisitive glances in my direction.</p>
+
+<p>"One of the Witherspoon boys?" queried one.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," snarled the other. "I never saw but one of them. There are
+five, aren't there? Eustace believed in marrying off his gals young."</p>
+
+<p>"Damn him, yes. And he'd have married them off younger if he had known
+how numbers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> were going to count some day among the Westonhaughs." And
+he laughed again in a way I should certainly have felt it my business to
+resent, if my indignation as well as the ill-timed allusions which had
+called it forth had not been put to an end by a fresh arrival through
+the veiling mist which hung like a shroud at the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>This time it was for me to experience a shock of something like fear.
+Yet the personage who called up this unlooked-for sensation in my
+naturally hardy nature was old and, to all appearance, harmless from
+disability, if not from good will. His form was bent over upon itself
+like a bow; and only from the glances he shot from his upturned eyes was
+the fact made evident that a redoubtable nature, full of force and
+malignity, had just brought its quota of evil into a room already
+overflowing with dangerous and menacing passions.</p>
+
+<p>As this old wretch, either from the feebleness of age or from the
+infirmity I have mentioned, had great difficulty in walking, he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> had
+brought with him a small boy, whose business it was to direct his
+tottering steps as best he could.</p>
+
+<p>But once settled in his chair, he drove away this boy with his pointed
+oak stick, and with some harsh words about caring for the horse and
+being on time in the morning, he sent him out into the mist. As this
+little shivering and pathetic figure vanished, the old man drew, with
+gasp and haw, a number of deep breaths which shook his bent back and did
+their share, no doubt, in restoring his own disturbed circulation. Then,
+with a sinister twist which brought his pointed chin and twinkling eyes
+again into view, he remarked:</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't ye a word for kinsman Luke, you two? It isn't often I get out
+among ye. Shakee, nephew! Shakee, Hector! And now who's the boy in the
+window? My eyes aren't what they used to be, but he don't seem to favor
+the Westonhaughs over-much. One of Salmon's four grandchildren, think
+'e? Or a shoot from Eustace's gnarled old trunk? His gals all married
+Americans, and one of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> them, I've been told, was a yellow-haired giant
+like this fellow."</p>
+
+<p>As this description pointed directly toward me, I was about to venture a
+response on my own account, when my attention, as well as theirs, was
+freshly attracted by a loud "Whoa!" at the gate, followed by the hasty
+but assured entrance of a dapper, wizen, but perfectly preserved little
+old gentleman with a bag in his hand. Looking askance with eyes that
+were like two beads, first at the two men who were now elbowing each
+other for the best place before the fire, and then at the revolting
+figure in the chair, he bestowed his greeting, which consisted of an
+elaborate bow, not on them, but upon the picture hanging so
+conspicuously on the open wall before him; and then, taking me within
+the scope of his quick, circling glance, cried out with an assumption of
+great cordiality:</p>
+
+<p>"Good evening, gentlemen; good evening one, good evening all. Nothing
+like being on the tick. I'm sorry the night has turned out so badly.
+Some may find it too thick for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> travel. That would be bad, eh? very
+bad&mdash;for <i>them</i>."</p>
+
+<p>As none of the men he openly addressed saw fit to answer, save by the
+hitch of a shoulder or a leer quickly suppressed, I kept silent also.
+But this reticence, marked as it was, did not seem to offend the
+new-comer. Shaking the wet from the umbrella he held, he stood the
+dripping article up in a corner and then came and placed his feet on the
+fender. To do this he had to crowd between the two men already occupying
+the best part of the hearth. But he showed no concern at incommoding
+them, and bore their cross looks and threatening gestures with
+professional equanimity.</p>
+
+<p>"You know me?" he now unexpectedly snapped, bestowing another look over
+his shoulder at that oppressive figure in the chair. (Did I say that I
+had risen when the latter sat?) "I'm no Westonhaugh, I; nor yet a
+Witherspoon nor a Clapsaddle. I'm only Smead, the lawyer. Mr. Anthony
+Westonhaugh's lawyer," he repeated, with another<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> glance of recognition
+in the direction of the picture. "I drew up his last will and testament,
+and, until all of his wishes have been duly carried out, am entitled by
+the terms of that will to be regarded both legally and socially as his
+representative. This you all know, but it is my way to make everything
+clear as I proceed. A lawyer's trick, no doubt. I do not pretend to be
+entirely exempt from such."</p>
+
+<p>A grumble from the large man, who seemed to have been disturbed in some
+absorbing calculation he was carrying on, mingled with a few muttered
+words of forced acknowledgment from the restless old sinner in the
+chair, made it unnecessary for me to reply, even if the last comer had
+given me the opportunity.</p>
+
+<p>"It's getting late!" he cried, with an easy garrulity rather amusing,
+under the circumstances. "Two more trains came in as I left the depot.
+If old Phil was on hand with his wagon, several more members of this
+interesting family may be here before the clock<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> strikes; if not, the
+assemblage is like to be small. Too small," I heard him grumble a minute
+after, under his breath.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish it were a matter of one," spoke up the big man, striking his
+breast in a way to make it perfectly apparent whom he meant by that word
+<i>one</i>. And having (if I may judge by the mingled laugh and growl of his
+companions) thus shown his hand both figuratively and literally, he
+relapsed into the calculation which seemed to absorb all of his
+unoccupied moments.</p>
+
+<p>"Generous, very!" commented the lawyer in a murmur which was more than
+audible. "Pity that sentiments of such broad benevolence should go
+unrewarded."</p>
+
+<p>This, because at that very instant wheels were heard in front, also a
+jangle of voices, in some controversy about fares, which promised
+anything but a pleasing addition to the already none too desirable
+company.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose that's sister Janet," snarled out the one addressed as
+Hector. There was no love in his voice, despite the relationship<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> hinted
+at, and I awaited the entrance of this woman with some curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>But her appearance, heralded by many a puff and pant which the damp air
+exaggerated in a prodigious way, did not seem to warrant the interest I
+had shown in it. As she stepped into the room, I saw only a big frowsy
+woman, who had attempted to make a show with a new silk dress and a hat
+in the latest fashion, but who had lamentably failed, owing to the
+slouchiness of her figure and some misadventure by which her hat had
+been set awry on her head and her usual complacency destroyed. Later, I
+noted that her down-looking eyes had a false twinkle in them, and that,
+commonplace as she looked, she was one to steer clear of in times of
+necessity and distress.</p>
+
+<p>She, too, evidently expected to find the door open and people assembled,
+but she had not anticipated being confronted by the portrait on the
+wall, and cringed in an unpleasant way as she stumbled by it into one of
+the ill-lighted corners.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The old man, who had doubtless caught the rustle of her dress as she
+passed him, emitted one short sentence.</p>
+
+<p>"Almost late," said he.</p>
+
+<p>Her answer was a sputter of words.</p>
+
+<p>"It's the fault of that driver," she complained. "If he had taken one
+drop more at the half-way house, I might really not have got here at
+all. That would not have inconvenienced <i>you</i>. But oh! what a grudge I
+would have owed that skinflint brother of ours"&mdash;here she shook her fist
+at the picture&mdash;"for making our good luck depend upon our arrival within
+two short strokes of the clock!"</p>
+
+<p>"There are several to come yet," blandly observed the lawyer. But before
+the words were well out of his mouth, we all became aware of a new
+presence&mdash;a woman, whose somber grace and quiet bearing gave distinction
+to her unobtrusive entrance, and caused a feeling of something like awe
+to follow the first sight of her cold features and deep, heavily-fringed
+eyes. But this soon passed in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> the more human sentiment awakened by the
+soft pleading which infused her gaze with a touching femininity. She
+wore a long loose garment which fell without a fold from chin to foot,
+and in her arms she seemed to carry something.</p>
+
+<p>Never before had I seen so beautiful a woman. As I was contemplating
+her, with respect but yet with a masculine intentness I could not quite
+suppress, two or three other persons came in. And now I began to notice
+that the eyes of all these people turned mainly one way, and that was
+toward the clock. Another small circumstance likewise drew my attention.
+Whenever any one entered,&mdash;and there were one or two additional arrivals
+during the five minutes preceding the striking of the hour,&mdash;a frown
+settled for an instant on every brow, giving to each and all a similar
+look, for the interpretation of which I lacked the key. Yet not on every
+brow either. There was one which remained undisturbed and showed only a
+grand patience.</p>
+
+<p>As the hands of the big clock neared the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> point of eight, a furtive
+smile appeared on more than one face; and when the hour rang out, a sigh
+of satisfaction swept through the room, to which the little old lawyer
+responded with a worldly-wise grunt, as he moved from his place and
+proceeded to the door.</p>
+
+<p>This he had scarcely shut when a chorus of voices rose from without.
+Three or four lingerers had pushed their way as far as the gate, only to
+see the door of the house shut in their faces.</p>
+
+<p>"Too late!" growled old man Luke from between the locks of his long
+beard.</p>
+
+<p>"Too late!" shrieked the woman who had come so near being late herself.</p>
+
+<p>"Too late!" smoothly acquiesced the lawyer, locking and bolting the door
+with a deft and assured hand.</p>
+
+<p>But the four or five persons who thus found themselves barred out did
+not accept without a struggle the decision of the more fortunate ones
+assembled within. More than one hand began pounding on the door, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> we
+could hear cries of, "The train was behind time!" "Your clock is fast!"
+"You are cheating us; you want it all for yourselves!" "We will have the
+law on you!" and other bitter adjurations unintelligible to me from my
+ignorance of the circumstances which called them forth.</p>
+
+<p>But the wary old lawyer simply shook his head and answered nothing;
+whereat a murmur of gratification rose from within, and a howl of almost
+frenzied dismay from without, which latter presently received point from
+a startling vision which now appeared at the casement where the lights
+burned. A man's face looked in, and behind it, that of a woman, so wild
+and maddened by some sort of heart-break that I found my sympathies
+aroused in spite of the glare of evil passions which made both of these
+countenances something less than human.</p>
+
+<p>But the lawyer met the stare of these four eyes with a quiet chuckle,
+which found its echo in the ill-advised mirth of those about him; and
+moving over to the window where<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> they still peered in, he drew together
+the two heavy shutters which hitherto had stood back against the wall,
+and, fastening them with a bar, shut out the sight of this despair, if
+he could not shut out the protests which ever and anon were shouted
+through the key-hole.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, one form had sat through this whole incident without a
+gesture; and on the quiet brow, from which I could not keep my eyes, no
+shadows appeared save the perpetual one of native melancholy, which was
+at once the source of its attraction and the secret of its power.</p>
+
+<p>Into what sort of gathering had I stumbled? And why did I prefer to
+await developments rather than ask the simplest question of any one
+about me?</p>
+
+<p>Meantime the lawyer had proceeded to make certain preparations. With the
+help of one or two willing hands, he had drawn the great table into the
+middle of the room and, having seen the candles restored to their
+places, began to open his small bag and take from it a roll of paper and
+several flat documents.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> Laying the latter in the center of the table
+and slowly unrolling the former, he consulted, with his foxy eyes, the
+faces surrounding him, and smiled with secret malevolence, as he noted
+that every chair and every form were turned away from the picture before
+which he had bent with such obvious courtesy, on entering. I alone stood
+erect, and this possibly was why a gleam of curiosity was noticeable in
+his glance, as he ended his scrutiny of my countenance and bent his gaze
+again upon the paper he held.</p>
+
+<p>"Heavens!" thought I. "What shall I answer this man if he asks me why I
+continued to remain in a spot where I have so little business." The
+impulse came to go. But such was the effect of this strange convocation
+of persons, at night and in a mist which was itself a nightmare, that I
+failed to take action and remained riveted to my place, while Mr. Smead
+consulted his roll and finally asked in a business-like tone, quite
+unlike his previous sarcastic speech, the names of those whom he had the
+pleasure of seeing before him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The old man in the chair spoke up first.</p>
+
+<p>"Luke Westonhaugh," he announced.</p>
+
+<p>"Very good!" responded the lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>"Hector Westonhaugh," came from the thin man.</p>
+
+<p>A nod and a look toward the next.</p>
+
+<p>"John Westonhaugh."</p>
+
+<p>"Nephew?" asked the lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Go on, and be quick; supper will be ready at nine."</p>
+
+<p>"Eunice Westonhaugh," spoke up a soft voice.</p>
+
+<p>I felt my heart bound as if some inner echo responded to that name.</p>
+
+<p>"Daughter of whom?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hudson Westonhaugh," she gently faltered. "My father is dead&mdash;died last
+night;&mdash;I am his only heir."</p>
+
+<p>A grumble of dissatisfaction and a glint of unrelieved hate came from
+the doubled-up figure, whose malevolence had so revolted me.</p>
+
+<p>But the lawyer was not to be shaken.</p>
+
+<p>"Very good! It is fortunate you trusted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> your feet rather than the
+train. And now you! What is your name?"</p>
+
+<p>He was looking, not at me as I had at first feared, but at the man next
+to me, a slim but slippery youth, whose small red eyes made me shudder.</p>
+
+<p>"William Witherspoon."</p>
+
+<p>"Barbara's son?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Where are your brothers?"</p>
+
+<p>"One of them, I think, is outside"&mdash;here he laughed;&mdash;"the other
+is&mdash;<i>sick</i>."</p>
+
+<p>The way he uttered this word made me set him down as one to be
+especially wary of when he smiled. But then I had already passed
+judgment on him at my first view.</p>
+
+<p>"And you, madam?"&mdash;this to the large, dowdy woman with the uncertain
+eye, a contrast to the young and melancholy Eunice.</p>
+
+<p>"Janet Clapsaddle," she replied, waddling hungrily forward and getting
+unpleasantly near the speaker, for he moved off as she approached, and
+took his stand in the clear place at the head of the table.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Very good, Mistress Clapsaddle. You were a Westonhaugh, I believe?"</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>believe</i>, sneak-faced hypocrite that you are!" she blurted out. "I
+don't understand your lawyer ways. I like plain speaking myself. Don't
+you know me, and Luke and Hector, and&mdash;and most of us indeed, except
+that puny, white-faced girl yonder, whom, having been brought up on the
+other side of the Ridge, we have none of us seen since she was a
+screaming baby in Hildegarde's arms. And the young gentleman over
+there,"&mdash;here she indicated me&mdash;"who shows so little likeness to the
+rest of the family. He will have to make it pretty plain who his father
+was before we shall feel like acknowledging him, either as the son of
+one of Eustace's girls, or a chip from brother Salmon's hard old block."</p>
+
+<p>As this caused all eyes to turn upon me, even <i>hers</i>, I smiled as I
+stepped forward. The lawyer did not return that smile.</p>
+
+<p>"What is your name?" he asked shortly and sharply, as if he distrusted
+me.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Hugh Austin," was my quiet reply.</p>
+
+<p>"There is no such name on the list," snapped old Smead, with an
+authoritative gesture toward those who seemed anxious to enter a
+protest.</p>
+
+<p>"Probably not," I returned, "for I am neither a Witherspoon, a
+Westonhaugh nor a Clapsaddle. I am merely a chance wayfarer passing
+through the town on my way west. I thought this house was a tavern, or
+at least a place I could lodge in. The man I met in the doorway told me
+as much, and so I am here. If my company is not agreeable, or if you
+wish this room to yourselves, let me go into the kitchen. I promise not
+to meddle with the supper, hungry as I am. Or perhaps you wish me to
+join the crowd outside; it seems to be increasing."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no," came from all parts of the room. "Don't let the door be
+opened. Nothing could keep Lemuel and his crowd out if they once got
+foot over the threshold."</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer rubbed his chin. He seemed to be in some sort of quandary.
+First he scrutinized<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> me from under his shaggy brows with a sharp gleam
+of suspicion; then his features softened and, with a side glance at the
+young woman who called herself Eunice, (perhaps, because she was worth
+looking at, perhaps because she had partly risen at my words), he
+slipped toward a door I had before observed in the wainscoting on the
+left of the mantelpiece, and softly opened it upon what looked like a
+narrow staircase.</p>
+
+<p>"We can not let you go out," said he; "and we can not let you have a
+finger in our viands before the hour comes for serving them; so if you
+will be so good as to follow this staircase to the top, you will find it
+ends in a room comfortable enough for the wayfarer you call yourself. In
+that room you can rest till the way is clear for you to continue your
+travels. Better, we can not do for you. This house is not a tavern, but
+the somewhat valuable property of&mdash;" He turned with a bow and smile, as
+every one there drew a deep breath; but no one ventured to end that
+sentence.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I would have given all my future prospects (which, by the way, were not
+very great) to remain in that room. The oddity of the situation; the
+mystery of the occurrence; the suspense I saw in every face; the
+eagerness of the cries I heard redoubled from time to time outside; the
+malevolence but poorly disguised in the old lawyer's countenance; and,
+above all, the presence of that noble-looking woman, which was the one
+off-set to the general tone of villainy with which the room was charged,
+filled me with curiosity, if I might call it by no other name, that made
+my acquiescence in the demand thus made upon me positively heroic. But
+there seemed no other course for me to follow, and with a last lingering
+glance at the genial fire and a quick look about me, which happily
+encountered hers, I stooped my head to suit the low and narrow doorway
+opened for my accommodation, and instantly found myself in darkness. The
+door had been immediately closed by the lawyer's impatient hand.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II</h2>
+
+<h5>WITH MY EAR TO THE WAINSCOTING</h5>
+
+
+<p>No move more unwise could have been made by the old lawyer,&mdash;that is, if
+his intention had been to rid himself of an unwelcome witness. For,
+finding myself thrust thus suddenly from the scene, I naturally stood
+still instead of mounting the stairs, and, by standing still, discovered
+that though shut from sight I was not from sound. Distinctly through the
+panel of the door, which was much thinner, no doubt, than the old fox
+imagined, I heard one of the men present shout out:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that makes the number less by <i>one</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>The murmur which followed this remark came plainly to my ears, and,
+greatly rejoicing over what I considered my good luck, I settled myself
+on the lowest step of the stairs in the hope of catching some word<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>
+which would reveal to me the mystery of this scene.</p>
+
+<p>It was not long in coming. Old Smead had now his audience before him in
+good shape, and his next words were of a character to make evident the
+purpose of this meeting.</p>
+
+<p>"Heirs of Anthony Westonhaugh, deceased," he began in a sing-song voice
+strangely unmusical, "I congratulate you upon your good fortune at being
+at this especial moment on the inner rather than outer side of your
+amiable relative's front door. His will, which you have assembled to
+hear read, is well known to you. By it his whole property&mdash;(not so large
+as some of you might wish, but yet a goodly property for farmers like
+yourselves)&mdash;is to be divided this night, share and share alike, among
+such of his relatives as have found it convenient to be present here
+between the strokes of half-past seven and eight. If some of our friends
+have failed us through sloth, sickness or the misfortune of mistaking
+the road, they have our sympathy, but they can not have <i>his dollars</i>."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Can not have his dollars!" echoed a rasping voice which, from its
+smothered sound, probably came from the bearded lips of the old
+reprobate in the chair.</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer waited for one or two other repetitions of this phrase (a
+phrase which, for some unimaginable reason, seemed to give him an odd
+sort of pleasure), then he went on with greater distinctness and a
+certain sly emphasis, chilling in effect but very professional:</p>
+
+<p>"Ladies and gentlemen: Shall I read this will?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no! The division! the division! Tell us what we are to have!" rose
+in a shout about him.</p>
+
+<p>There was a pause. I could imagine the sharp eyes of the lawyer
+traveling from face to face as each thus gave voice to his cupidity, and
+the thin curl of his lips as he remarked in a slow tantalizing way:</p>
+
+<p>"There was more in the old man's clutches than you think."</p>
+
+<p>A gasp of greed shook the partition<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> against which my ear was pressed.
+Some one must have drawn up against the wainscoting since my departure
+from the room. I found myself wondering which of them it was. Meantime
+old Smead was having his say, with the smoothness of a man who perfectly
+understands what is required of him.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Westonhaugh would not have put you to so much trouble or had you
+wait so long if he had not expected to reward you amply. There are
+shares in this bag which are worth thousands instead of hundreds. Now,
+now! stop that! hands off! hands off! there are calculations to make
+first. How many of you are there? Count up, some of you."</p>
+
+<p>"Nine!" called out a voice with such rapacious eagerness that the word
+was almost unintelligible.</p>
+
+<p>"Nine." How slowly the old knave spoke! What pleasure he seemed to take
+in the suspense he purposely made as exasperating as possible!</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if each one gets his share, he may count himself richer by two
+hundred thousand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> dollars than when he came in here to-night."</p>
+
+<p>Two hundred thousand dollars! They had expected no more than thirty.
+Surprise made them speechless,&mdash;that is, for a moment; then a
+pandemonium of hurrahs, shrieks and loud-voiced enthusiasm made the room
+ring, till wonder seized them again, and a sudden silence fell, through
+which I caught a far-off wail of grief from the disappointed ones
+without, which, heard in the dark and narrow place in which I was
+confined, had a peculiarly weird and desolate effect.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps it likewise was heard by some of the fortunate ones within!
+Perhaps one head, to mark which, in this moment of universal elation, I
+would have given a year from my life, turned toward the dark without, in
+recognition of the despair thus piteously voiced; but if so, no token of
+the same came to me, and I could but hope that she had shown, by some
+such movement, the natural sympathy of her sex.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the lawyer was addressing the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> company in his smoothest and
+most sarcastic tones.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Westonhaugh was a wise man, a very wise man," he droned. "He
+foresaw what your pleasure would be, and left a letter for you. But
+before I read it, before I invite you to the board he ordered to be
+spread for you in honor of this happy occasion, there is one appeal he
+bade me make to those I should find assembled here. As you know, he was
+not personally acquainted with all the children and grandchildren of his
+many brothers and sisters. Salmon's sons, for instance, were perfect
+strangers to him, and all those boys and girls of the Evans' branch have
+never been long enough this side of the mountains for him to know their
+names, much less their temper or their lives. Yet his heirs&mdash;or such was
+his wish, his great wish&mdash;must be honest men, righteous in their
+dealings, and of stainless lives. If therefore, any one among you feels
+that for reasons he need not state, he has no right to accept his share
+of Anthony Westonhaugh's bounty, then<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> that person is requested to
+withdraw before this letter to his heirs is read."</p>
+
+<p>Withdraw? Was the man a fool? <i>Withdraw?</i>&mdash;these cormorants! these
+suckers of blood! these harpies and vultures! I laughed as I imagined
+sneaking Hector, malicious Luke or brutal John responding to this na&iuml;ve
+appeal, and then found myself wondering why no echo of my mirth came
+from the men themselves. They must have seen much more plainly than I
+did the ludicrousness of their weak old kinsman's demand; yet Luke was
+still; Hector was still; and even John, and the three or four others I
+have mentioned gave forth no audible token of disdain or surprise. I was
+asking myself what sentiment of awe or fear restrained these selfish
+souls, when I became conscious of a movement within, which presently
+resolved itself into a departing foot-step.</p>
+
+<p>Some conscience there had been awakened. Some one was crossing the floor
+toward the door. Who? I waited in anxious expectancy for the word which
+was to enlighten me.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> Happily it came soon, and from the old lawyer's
+lips.</p>
+
+<p>"You do not feel yourself worthy?" he queried, in tones I had not heard
+from him before. "Why? What have you done that you should forego an
+inheritance to which these others feel themselves honestly entitled?"</p>
+
+<p>The voice which answered gave both my mind and heart a shock. It was
+<i>she</i> who had risen at this call. <i>She</i>, the only true-faced person
+there!</p>
+
+<p>Anxiously I listened for her reply. Alas! it was one of action rather
+than speech. As I afterward heard, she simply opened her long cloak and
+showed a little infant slumbering in her arms.</p>
+
+<p>"This is my reason," said she. "I have sinned in the eyes of the world,
+therefore I can not take my share of Uncle Anthony's money. I did not
+know he exacted an unblemished record from those he expected to enrich,
+or I would not have come."</p>
+
+<p>The sob which followed these last words showed at what a cost she thus
+renounced a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> fortune of which she, of all present, perhaps, stood in the
+greatest need; but there was no lingering in her step; and to me, who
+understood her fault only through the faint sound of infantile wailing
+which accompanied her departure, there was a nobility in her action
+which raised her in an instant to an almost ideal height of unselfish
+virtue.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps they felt this, too. Perhaps even these hardened men and the
+more than hardened woman whose presence was in itself a blight,
+recognized heroism when they saw it; for when the lawyer, with a certain
+obvious reluctance, laid his hand on the bolts of the door with the
+remark: "This is not my work, you know; I am but following out
+instructions very minutely given me," the smothered growls and grunts
+which rose in reply lacked the venom which had been infused into all
+their previous comments.</p>
+
+<p>"I think our friends out there are far enough withdrawn, by this time,
+for us to hazard the opening of the door," the lawyer now remarked.
+"Madam, I hope you will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> speedily find your way to some comfortable
+shelter."</p>
+
+<p>Then the door opened, and after a moment, closed again in a silence
+which at least was respectful. Yet I warrant there was not a soul
+remaining who had not already figured in his mind to what extent his own
+fortune had been increased by the failure of one of their number to
+inherit.</p>
+
+<p>As for me, my whole interest in the affair was at an end, and I was only
+anxious to find my way to where this desolate woman faced the mist with
+her unfed baby in her arms.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III</h2>
+
+<h5>A LIFE DRAMA</h5>
+
+
+<p>But to reach this wanderer, it was first necessary for me to escape from
+the house. This proved simple enough. The up-stairs room toward which I
+rushed had a window overlooking one of the many lean-tos already
+mentioned. This window was fastened, but I had no difficulty in
+unlocking it or in finding my way to the ground from the top of the
+lean-to. But once again on terra-firma, I discovered that the mist was
+now so thick that it had all the effect of a fog at sea. It was icy cold
+as well, and clung about me so that I presently began to shudder most
+violently, and, strong man though I was, wish myself back in the little
+attic bedroom from which I had climbed in search of one in more unhappy
+case than myself.</p>
+
+<p>But these feelings did not cause me to return.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> If I found the night
+cold, she must find it bitter. If desolation oppressed my naturally
+hopeful spirit, must it not be more overwhelming yet to one whose
+memories were sad and whose future was doubtful? And the child! What
+infant could live in an air like this! Edging away from the house, I
+called out her name, but no answer came back. The persons whom we had
+heard flitting in restless longing about the house a few moments before
+had left in rage and she, possibly, with them. Yet I could not imagine
+her joining herself to people of their stamp. There had been a
+solitariness in her aspect which seemed to forbid any such
+companionship. Whatever her story, at least she had nothing in common
+with the two ill-favored persons whose faces I had seen looking in at
+the casement. No; I should find her alone, but where? Certainly the ring
+of mist, surrounding me at that moment, offered me little prospect of
+finding her anywhere, either easily or soon.</p>
+
+<p>Again I raised my voice, and again I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> failed to meet with response.
+Then, fearing to leave the house lest I should be quite lost amid the
+fences and brush lying between it and the road, I began to feel my way
+along the walls, calling softly now, instead of loudly, so anxious was I
+not to miss any chance of carrying comfort, if not succor, to the woman
+I was seeking. But the night gave back no sound, and when I came to the
+open door of a shed, I welcomed the refuge it offered and stepped in. I
+was, of course, confronted by darkness,&mdash;a different darkness from that
+without, blanket-like and impenetrable. But when after a moment of
+intense listening I heard a soft sound as of weariful breathing, I was
+seized anew by hope, and, feeling in my pocket for my match-box, I made
+a light and looked around.</p>
+
+<p>My intuitions had not deceived me; she was there. Sitting on the floor
+with her cheek pressed against the wall, she revealed to my eager
+scrutiny only the outlines of her pure, pale profile; but in those
+outlines and on those pure, pale features, I saw such an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> abandonment of
+hope, mingled with such quiet endurance, that my whole soul melted
+before it, and it was with difficulty I managed to say:</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon! I do not wish to intrude; but I am shut out of the house also;
+and the night is raw and cold. Can I do nothing for your comfort or
+for&mdash;for the child's?"</p>
+
+<p>She turned toward me and I saw a tremulous gleam of pleasure disturb the
+somber stillness of her face; then the match went out in my hand, and we
+were again in complete darkness. But the little wail, which at the same
+instant rose from between her arms, filled up the pause, as her sweet
+"Hush!" filled my heart.</p>
+
+<p>"I am used to the cold," came in another moment from the place where she
+crouched. "It is the child&mdash;she is hungry; and I&mdash;I walked
+here&mdash;feeling, hoping that, as my father's heir, I might partake in some
+slight measure of Uncle Anthony's money. Though my father cast me out
+before he died, and I have neither home nor money, I do not complain.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> I
+forfeited all when&mdash;" another wail, another gentle "hush!"&mdash;then
+silence.</p>
+
+<p>I lit another match. "Look in my face!" I prayed. "I am a stranger, and
+you would be showing only proper prudence not to trust me. But I
+overheard your words when you withdrew from the room where your fortune
+lay; and I honor you, madam. If food can be got for your little one, I
+will get it."</p>
+
+<p>I caught sight of the convulsive clasp with which she drew to her breast
+the tiny bundle she held, then darkness fell again.</p>
+
+<p>"A little bread," she entreated; "a little milk&mdash;ah, baby, baby, hush!"</p>
+
+<p>"But where can I get it?" I cried. "They are at table inside. I hear
+them shouting over their good cheer. But perhaps there are neighbors
+near by; do you know?"</p>
+
+<p>"There are no neighbors," she replied. "What is got must be got here. I
+know a way to the kitchen; I used to visit Uncle Anthony when a little
+child; if you have the courage&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>I laughed. This token of confidence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> seemed to reassure her. I heard her
+move; possibly she stood up.</p>
+
+<p>"In the further corner of this shed," said she, "there used to be a
+trap, connecting this floor with an underground passage-way. A ladder
+stood against the trap, and the small cellar at the foot communicated by
+means of an iron-bound door with the large one under the house. Eighteen
+years ago the wood of that door was old; now it should be rotten. If you
+have the strength&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I will make the effort and see," said I. "But when I am in the cellar,
+what then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Follow the wall to the right; you will come to a stone staircase. As
+this staircase has no railing, be careful in ascending it. At the top
+you will find a door; it leads into a pantry adjoining the kitchen. Some
+one will be in that pantry. Some one will give you a bite for the child;
+and when she is quieted and the sun has risen, I will go away. It is my
+duty to do so. My uncle was always upright, if cold. He was perfectly
+justified in exacting rectitude in his heirs."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I might have rejoined by asking if she detected rectitude in the faces
+of the greedy throng she had left behind her with the guardian of this
+estate; but I did not. I was too intent upon following out her
+directions. Lighting another match, I sought the trap. Alas! it was
+burdened with a pile of sticks and rubbish which looked as if they had
+lain there for years. As these had to be removed in total darkness, it
+took me some time. But once this debris had been scattered and thrown
+aside, I had no difficulty in finding the trap and, as the ladder was
+still there, I was soon on the cellar-bottom. When, by the reassuring
+shout I gave, she knew that I had advanced thus far, she spoke, and her
+voice had a soft and thrilling sound.</p>
+
+<p>"Do not forget your own needs," she said. "We two are not so hungry that
+we can not wait for you to take a mouthful. I will sing to the baby.
+Good-by."</p>
+
+<p>These ten minutes we had spent together had made us friends. The warmth,
+the strength which this discovery brought, gave<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> to my arm a force that
+made that old oak door go down before me in three vigorous pushes.</p>
+
+<p>Had the eight fortunate ones above not been indulging in a noisy
+celebration of their good luck, they must have heard the clatter of this
+door when it fell. But good eating, good drink, and the prospect of an
+immediate fortune far beyond their wildest dreams, made all ears deaf;
+and no pause occurred in the shouts of laughter and the hum of
+good-fellowship which sifted down between the beams supporting the house
+above my head. Consequently little or no courage was required for the
+completion of my adventure; and before long I came upon the staircase
+and the door leading from its top into the pantry. The next minute I was
+in front of that door.</p>
+
+<p>But here a surprise awaited me. The noise which had hitherto been loud
+now became deafening, and I realized that, contrary to Eunice
+Westonhaugh's expectation, the supper had been spread in the kitchen and
+that I was likely to run amuck of the whole despicable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> crowd in any
+effort I might make to get a bite for the famished baby.</p>
+
+<p>I therefore naturally hesitated to push open the door, fearing to draw
+attention to myself; and when I did succeed in lifting the latch and
+making a small crack, I was so astonished by the sudden lull in the
+general babble, that I drew hastily back and was for descending the
+stairs in sudden retreat.</p>
+
+<p>But I was prevented from carrying out this cowardly impulse, by catching
+the sound of the lawyer's voice, addressing the assembled guests.</p>
+
+<p>"You have eaten and you have drunk," he was saying; "you are therefore
+ready for the final toast. Brothers, nephews&mdash;heirs all of Anthony
+Westonhaugh, I rise to propose the name of your generous benefactor,
+who, if spirits walk this earth, must certainly be with us to-night."</p>
+
+<p>A grumble from more than one throat and an uneasy hitch from such
+shoulders as I could see through my narrow vantage-hole testified to the
+rather doubtful pleasure with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> which this suggestion was received. But
+the lawyer's tones lost none of their animation as he went on to say:</p>
+
+<p>"The bottle, from which your glasses are to be replenished for this
+final draft, he has himself provided. So anxious was he that it should
+be of the very best and altogether worthy of the occasion it is to
+celebrate, that he gave into my charge, almost with his dying breath,
+this key, telling me that it would unlock a cupboard here in which he
+had placed a bottle of wine of the very rarest vintage. This is the key,
+and yonder, if I do not mistake, is the cupboard."</p>
+
+<p>They had already quaffed a dozen toasts. Perhaps this was why they
+accepted this proposition in a sort of panting silence, which remained
+unbroken while the lawyer crossed the floor, unlocked the cupboard and
+brought out before them a bottle which he held up before their eyes with
+a simulated glee almost saturnine.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't that a bottle to make your eyes dance? The very cobwebs on it are
+eloquent.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> And see! look at this label. Tokay, friends, real Tokay! How
+many of you ever had the opportunity of drinking real Tokay before?"</p>
+
+<p>A long deep sigh from a half-dozen throats in which some strong but
+hitherto repressed passion, totally incomprehensible to me, found sudden
+vent, rose in one simultaneous sound from about that table, and I heard
+one jocular voice sing out:</p>
+
+<p>"Pass it around, Smead. I'll drink to Uncle Anthony out of that bottle
+till there isn't a drop left to tell what was in it!"</p>
+
+<p>But the lawyer was in no hurry.</p>
+
+<p>"You have forgotten the letter, for the hearing of which you are called
+together. Mr. Anthony Westonhaugh left behind him a letter. The time is
+now come for reading it."</p>
+
+<p>As I heard these words and realized that the final toast was to be
+delayed and that some few moments must yet elapse before the room would
+be cleared and an opportunity given me for obtaining what I needed for
+the famishing mother and child, I felt such impatience<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> with the fact
+and so much anxiety as to the condition of those I had left behind me
+that I questioned whether it would not be better for me to return to
+them empty-handed than to leave them so long without the comfort of my
+presence, when the fascination of the scene again seized me and I found
+myself lingering to mark its conclusion with an avidity which can only
+be explained by my sudden and intense consciousness of what it all might
+mean to her whose witness I had thus inadvertently become.</p>
+
+<p>The careful lawyer began by quoting the injunction with which this
+letter had been put in his hands. "'When they are warm with food and
+wine, but not too warm,'&mdash;thus his adjuration ran, 'then let them hear
+my first and only words to them.' I know you are eager for these words.
+Folk so honest, so convinced of their own purity and uprightness that
+they can stand unmoved while the youngest and most helpless among them
+withdraws her claim to wealth and independence rather than share an
+unmerited bounty, such folk, I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> say, must be eager, must be anxious to
+know why they have been made the legatees of so great a fortune, under
+the easy conditions and amid such slight restrictions as have been
+imposed upon them by their munificent kinsman."</p>
+
+<p>"I had rather go on drinking toasts," babbled one thick voice.</p>
+
+<p>"I had rather finish my figuring," growled another, in whose grating
+tones no echo remained of Hector Westonhaugh's formerly honeyed voice.
+"I am making out a list of stock&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Blast your stock! that is, if you mean horses and cows!" screamed a
+third. "I'm going in for city life. With less money than we have got,
+Andreas Amsberger got to be alderman&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Alderman!" sneered the whole pack; and the tumult became general. "If
+more of us had been sick," called out one; "or if Uncle Luke, say, had
+tripped into the ditch instead of on the edge of it, the fellows who
+came safe through might have had anything they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> wanted, even to the
+governorship of the state or&mdash;or&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Silence!" came in commanding tones from the lawyer, who had begun to
+let his disgust appear, perhaps because he held under his thumb the
+bottle upon which all eyes were now lovingly centered; so lovingly,
+indeed, that I ventured to increase, in the smallest perceptible degree,
+the crack by means of which I was myself an interested, if unseen,
+participator in this scene.</p>
+
+<p>A sight of Smead, and a partial glimpse of old Luke's covetous profile,
+rewarded this small act of daring on my part. The lawyer was standing;
+all the rest were sitting. Perhaps he alone retained sufficient
+steadiness to stand; for I observed by the control he exercised over
+this herd of self-seekers, that he alone had not touched the cup which
+had so freely gone about among the others. The woman was hidden from me,
+but the change in her voice, when by any chance I heard it, convinced me
+that she had not disdained the toasts drunk by her brothers and
+nephews.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Silence!" the lawyer reiterated, "or I will smash this bottle on the
+hearth." He raised it in one threatening hand and every man there seemed
+to tremble, while old Luke put out his long fingers with an entreaty
+that ill became them. "You want to hear the letter?" old Smead called
+out. "I thought so."</p>
+
+<p>Putting the bottle down again, but still keeping one hand upon it, he
+drew a folded paper from his breast. "This," said he, "contains the
+final injunctions of Anthony Westonhaugh. You will listen, all of you;
+listen till I am done; or I will not only smash this bottle before your
+eyes, but I will keep for ever buried in my breast the whereabouts of
+certain drafts and bonds in which, as his heirs, you possess the
+greatest interest. Nobody but myself knows where these papers can be
+found."</p>
+
+<p>Whether this was so, or whether the threat was an empty one thrown out
+by this subtile old schemer for the purpose of safeguarding his life
+from their possible hate and impatience, it answered his end with these
+semi-intoxicated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> men, and secured him the silence he demanded. Breaking
+open the seal of the envelope he held, he showed them the folded sheet
+which it contained, with the remark:</p>
+
+<p>"I have had nothing to do with the writing of this letter. It is in Mr.
+Westonhaugh's own hand, and he was not even so good as to communicate to
+me the nature of its contents. I was bidden to read it to such as should
+be here assembled under the provisos mentioned in his will; and as you
+are now in a condition to listen, I will proceed with my task as
+required."</p>
+
+<p>This was my time for leaving, but a certain brooding terror, latent in
+the air, held me chained to the spot, listening with my ears, but
+receiving the full sense of what was read from the expression of old
+Luke's face, which was probably more plainly visible to me than to those
+who sat beside him. For, being bent almost into a bow, as I have said,
+his forehead came within an inch of touching his plate, and one had to
+look under his arms, as I did, to catch the workings of his evil<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> mouth,
+as old Smead gave forth, in his professional sing-song, the following
+words from his departed client:</p>
+
+<p>"Brothers, nephews and heirs! Though the earth has lain upon my breast a
+month, I am with you here to-night."</p>
+
+<p>A snort from old Luke's snarling lips; and a stir&mdash;not a comfortable
+one&mdash;in the jostling crowd, whose shaking arms and clawing hands I could
+see projecting here and there over the board.</p>
+
+<p>"My presence at this feast&mdash;a presence which, if unseen, can not be
+unfelt, may bring you more pain than pleasure. But if so, it matters
+little. You are my natural heirs and I have left you my money; why, when
+so little love has characterized our intercourse, must be evident to
+such of my brothers as can recall their youth and the promise our father
+exacted from us on the day we set foot in this new land.</p>
+
+<p>"There were nine of us in those days: Luke, Salmon, Barbara, Hector,
+Eustace, Janet, Hudson, William and myself; and all save<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> one were
+promising, in appearance at least. But our father knew his offspring,
+and when we stood, an alien and miserable band in front of Castle
+Garden, at the foot of the great city whose immensity struck terror to
+our hearts, he drew all our hands together and made us swear by the soul
+of our mother, whose body we had left in the sea, that we would keep the
+bond of brotherhood intact, and share with mutual confidence whatever
+good fortune this untried country might hold in store for us. You were
+strong and your voices rang out loudly. Mine was faint, for I was
+weak&mdash;so weak that my hand had to be held in place by my sister Barbara.
+But my oath has never lost its hold upon my heart, while yours&mdash;answer
+how you have kept it, Luke; or you, Janet; or you Hector, of the smooth
+tongue and vicious heart; or you, or you, who, from one stock, recognize
+but one law: the law of cold-blooded selfishness which seeks its own in
+face of all oaths and at the cost of another man's heart-break.</p>
+
+<p>"This I say to such as know my story. But<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> lest there be one amongst you
+who has not heard from parent or uncle the true tale of him who has
+brought you all under one roof to-night, I will repeat it here in words,
+that no man may fail to understand why I remembered my oath through life
+and beyond death, yet stand above you an accusing spirit while you quaff
+me toasts and count the gains my justice divides among you.</p>
+
+<p>"I, as you all remember, was the weak one&mdash;the ne'er-do-weel. When all
+of you were grown and had homes of your own, I still remained under the
+family roof-tree, fed by our father's bounty and looking to our father's
+justice for that share of his savings which he had promised to all
+alike. When he died it came to me as it came to you; but I had married
+before that day; married, not, like the rest of you, for what a wife
+could bring, but for sentiment and true passion. This, in my case, meant
+a loving wife, but a frail one; and while we lived a little while on the
+patrimony left us, it was far too small to support us long without some
+aid from our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> own hands; and our hands were feeble and could not work.
+And so we fell into debt for rent and, ere long, for the commonest
+necessities of life. In vain I struggled to redeem myself; the time of
+my prosperity had not come and I only sank deeper and deeper into debt
+and finally into indigence. A baby came. Our landlord was kind and
+allowed us to stay for two weeks under the roof for whose protection we
+could not pay; but at the end of that time we were asked to leave; and I
+found myself on the road with a dying wife, a wailing infant, no money
+in my purse and no power in my arm to earn any. Then when heart and hope
+were both failing, I recalled that ancient oath and the six prosperous
+homes scattered up and down the very highway on which I stood. I could
+not leave my wife; the fever was in her veins and she could not bear me
+out of her sight; so I put her on a horse, which a kind old neighbor was
+willing to lend me, and holding her up with one hand, guided the horse
+with the other, to the home of my brother Luke. He was a straight<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>
+enough fellow in those days&mdash;physically, I mean&mdash;and he looked able and
+strong that morning, as he stood in the open doorway of his house,
+gazing down at us as we halted before him in the roadway. But his temper
+had grown greedy with the accumulation of a few dollars, and he shook
+his head as he closed his door, saying he remembered no oath and that
+spenders must expect to be beggars.</p>
+
+<p>"Struck to the heart by a rebuff which meant prolongation of the
+suffering I saw in my dear wife's eyes, I stretched up and kissed her
+where she sat half-fainting on the horse; then I moved on. I came to
+Barbara's home next. She had been a little mother to me once; that is,
+she had fed and dressed me, and doled out blows and caresses, and taught
+me to read and sing. But Barbara in her father's home and without
+fortune was not the Barbara I saw on the threshold of the little cottage
+she called her own. She heard my story; looked in the face of my wife
+and turned her back. She had no place for idle folk in her little house;
+if we would work<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> she would feed us; but we must earn our supper or go
+hungry to bed. I felt the trembling of my wife's frame where she leaned
+against my arm, and kissing her again, led her on to Salmon's. Luke,
+Hector, Janet, have you heard him tell of that vision at his gateway,
+twenty-five years ago? He is not amongst you. For twelve years he has
+lain beside our father in the churchyard, but his sons may be here, for
+they were ever alert when gold was in sight or a full glass to be
+drained. Ask <i>them</i>, ask John, whom I saw skulking behind his cousins at
+the garden fence that day, what it was they saw as I drew rein under the
+great tree which shadowed their father's doorstep.</p>
+
+<p>"The sunshine had been pitiless that morning, and the head, for whose
+rest in some loving shelter I would have bartered soul and body, had
+fallen sidewise till it lay on my arm. Pressed to her breast was our
+infant, whose little wail struck in pitifully as Salmon called out:
+'What's to do here to-day!' Do you remember it, lads? or how you all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>
+laughed, little and great, when I asked for a few weeks' stay under my
+brother's roof till we could all get well and go about our tasks again?
+<i>I</i> remember. I, who am writing these words from the very mouth of the
+tomb, <i>I</i> remember; but I did not curse you. I only rode on to the next.
+The way ran uphill now; and the sun which, since our last stop, had been
+under a cloud, came out and blistered my wife's cheeks, already burning
+red with fever. But I pressed my lips upon them, and led her on. With
+each rebuff I gave her a kiss; and her smile, as her head pressed harder
+and harder upon my arm now exerting all its strength to support her,
+grew almost divine. But it vanished at my nephew Lemuel's.</p>
+
+<p>"He was shearing sheep, and could give no time to company; and when,
+late in the day, I drew rein at Janet's, and she said she was going to
+have a dance and could not look after sick folk, the pallid lips failed
+to return my despairing embrace; and in the terror which this brought me
+I went down, in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> gathering twilight, into the deep valley where
+William raised his sheep and reckoned, day by day, the increase among
+his pigs. Oh, the chill of that descent! Oh, the gloom of the gathering
+shadows! As we neared the bottom and I heard a far-off voice shout out a
+hoarse command, some instinct made me reach up for the last time and
+bestow that faithful kiss, which was at once her consolation and my
+prayer. My lips were cold with the terror of my soul, but they were not
+so cold as the cheek they touched, and, shrieking in my misery and need,
+I fell before William where he halted by the horse-trough and&mdash;He was
+always a hard man, was William, and it was a shock to him, no doubt, to
+see us standing in our anguish and necessity before him; but he raised
+the whip in his hand and, when it fell, my arm fell with it and she
+slipped from my grasp to the ground, and lay in a heap in the roadway.</p>
+
+<p>"He was ashamed next minute and pointed to the house near-by. But I did
+not carry her in, and she died in the roadway. Do<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> you remember it,
+Luke? Do you remember it, Lemuel?</p>
+
+<p>"But it is not of this I complain at this hour, nor is it for this I ask
+you to drink the toast I have prepared for you."</p>
+
+<p>The looks, the writhings of old Luke and such others as I could now see
+through the widening crack my hands unconsciously made in the doorway,
+told me that the rack was at work in this room so lately given up to
+revelry. Yet the mutterings, which from time to time came to my ears
+from one sullen lip or another, did not rise into frightened imprecation
+or even into any assertion of sorrow or contrition. It seemed as if some
+suspense, common to all, held them speechless if not dumbly
+apprehensive; and while the lawyer said nothing in recognition of this,
+he could not have been quite blind to it, for he bestowed one curious
+glance around the table before he proceeded with old Anthony's words.</p>
+
+<p>Those words had now become short, sharp, and accusatory.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"My child lived; and what remained to me of human passion and longing
+centered in his frail existence. I managed to earn enough for his eating
+and housing, and in time I was almost happy again. This was while our
+existence was a struggle; but when, with the discovery of latent powers
+in my own mind, I began to find my place in the world and to earn money,
+then your sudden interest in my boy taught me a new lesson in human
+selfishness; but not, as yet, new fears. My nature was not one to grasp
+ideas of evil, and the remembrance of that oath still remained to make
+me lenient toward you.</p>
+
+<p>"I let him see you; not much, not often, but yet often enough for him to
+realize that he had uncles and cousins, or, if you like it better,
+kindred. And how did you repay this confidence on my part? What hand had
+ye in the removal of this small barrier to the fortune my own poor
+health warranted you in looking upon, even in those early days, as your
+own? To others' eyes it may appear, none; to mine, ye are one and all
+his murderers,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> as certainly as all of you were the murderers of the
+good physician hastening to his aid. For his illness was not a mortal
+one. He would have been saved if the doctor had reached him; but a
+precipice swallowed that good Samaritan, and only I, of all who looked
+upon the footprints which harrowed up the road at this dangerous point,
+knew whose shoes would fit those marks. God's providence, it was called,
+and I let it pass for such; but it was a providence which cost me my boy
+and made <i>you</i> my heirs."</p>
+
+<p>Silence as sullen in character as the men who found themselves thus
+openly impeached had, for some minutes now, replaced the muttered
+complaints which had accompanied the first portion of this denunciatory
+letter. As the lawyer stopped to cast them another of those strange
+looks, a gleam from old Luke's sidewise eyes startled the man next him,
+who, shrugging a shoulder, passed the underhanded look on, till it had
+circled the board and stopped with the man sitting opposite the crooked
+sinner who had started it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I began to have a wholesome dread of them all and was astonished to see
+the lawyer drop his hand from the bottle, which to some degree offered
+itself as a possible weapon. But he knew his audience better than I did.
+Though the bottle was now free for any man's taking, not a hand trembled
+toward it, nor was a single glass held out.</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer, with an evil smile, went on with his relentless client's
+story.</p>
+
+<p>"Ye had killed my wife; ye had killed my son; but this was not enough.
+Being lonesome in my great house, which was as much too large for me as
+my fortune was, I had taken a child to replace the boy I had lost.
+Remembering the cold blood running in the veins of those nearest me, I
+chose a boy from alien stock and, for a while, knew contentment again.
+But, as he developed and my affections strengthened, the possibility of
+all my money going his way roused my brothers and sisters from the
+complacency they had enjoyed since their road to fortune had been
+secured by my son's death, and one day&mdash;can<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> you recall it, Hudson? can
+you recall it, Lemuel?&mdash;the boy was brought in from the mill and laid at
+my feet, dead! He had stumbled amongst the great belts, but whose was
+the voice which had startled him with a sudden 'Halloo!' Can you say,
+Luke? Can you say, John? I can say in whose ear it was whispered that
+three, if not more of you, were seen moving among the machinery that
+fatal morning.</p>
+
+<p>"Again, God's providence was said to have visited my house; and again
+<i>ye</i> were my heirs."</p>
+
+<p>"Stop there!" broke in the harsh voice of Luke, who was gradually
+growing livid under his long gray locks.</p>
+
+<p>"Lies! lies!" shrieked Hector, gathering courage from his brother.</p>
+
+<p>"Cut it all and give us the drink!" snarled one of the younger men, who
+was less under the effect of liquor than the rest.</p>
+
+<p>But a trembling voice muttered "Hush!" and the lawyer, whose eye had
+grown steely under these comments, took advantage of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> sudden silence
+which had followed this last objurgation and went steadily on.</p>
+
+<p>"Some men would have made a will and denounced you. I made a will, but
+did not denounce you. <i>I</i> am no breaker of oaths. More than this, I
+learned a new trick. I, who hated all subtlety and looked upon craft as
+the favorite weapon of the devil, learned to smile with my lips while my
+heart was burning with hatred. Perhaps this was why you all began to
+smile too, and joke me about certain losses I had sustained, by which
+you meant the gains which had come to me. That these gains were many
+times greater than you realized added to the sting of this good
+fellowship, but I held my peace; and you began to have confidence in a
+good-nature which nothing could shake. You even gave me a supper."</p>
+
+<p><i>A supper!</i></p>
+
+<p>What was there in these words to cause every man there to stop in
+whatever movement he was making and stare, with wide-open eyes, intently
+at the reader. He had spoken<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> quietly; he had not even looked up, but
+the silence which, for some minutes back, had begun to reign over that
+tumultuous gathering, now became breathless, and the seams in Hector's
+cheeks deepened to a bluish criss-cross.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You remember that supper?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>As the words rang out again, I threw wide the door; I might have stalked
+openly into their circle; not a man there would have noticed me.</p>
+
+<p>"It was a memorable occasion," the lawyer read on with stoical
+impassiveness. "There was not a brother lacking. Luke and Hudson and
+William and Hector and Eustace's boys, as well as Eustace himself; Janet
+too, and Salmon's Lemuel, and Barbara's son, who, even if his mother had
+gone the way of all flesh, had so trained her black brood in the love of
+the things of this world that I scarcely missed her when I looked about
+among you all for the eight sturdy brothers and sisters who had joined
+in one clasp and one oath, under the eye of the true-hearted immigrant,
+our father. What I did miss was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> one true eye lifted to my glance; but I
+did not show that I missed it; and so our peace was made and we
+separated, you to wait for your inheritance, and I for the death which
+was to secure it to you. For, when the cup passed round that night, you
+each dropped into it a tear of repentance, and tears make bitter
+drinking. I sickened as I quaffed and was never myself again, as you
+know. Do you understand me, you cruel, crafty ones?"</p>
+
+<p>Did they not! Heads quaking, throats gasping, teeth chattering&mdash;no
+longer sitting&mdash;all risen, all looking with wild eyes for the door&mdash;was
+it not apparent that they understood and only waited for one more word
+to break away and flee the accursed house?</p>
+
+<p>But that word lingered. Old Smead had now grown pale himself and read
+with difficulty the lines which were to end this frightful scene. As I
+saw the red gleam of terror shine out from his small eyes, I wondered if
+he had been but the blind tool of his implacable client and was as
+ignorant as those<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> before him of what was to follow this heavy
+arraignment. The dread with which he finally proceeded was too marked
+for me to doubt the truth of this surmise. This is what he found himself
+forced to read:</p>
+
+<p>"There was a bottle reserved for me. It had a green label on it,&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>A shriek from every one there and a hurried look up and down at the
+bottles standing on the table.</p>
+
+<p>"A green label," the lawyer repeated, "and it made a goodly appearance
+as it was set down before me. But you had no liking for wine with a
+green label on the bottle. One by one you refused it, and when I rose to
+quaff my final glass alone, every eye before me fell and did not lift
+again until the glass was drained. I did not notice this then, but I see
+it all now, just as I hear again the excuses you gave for not filling
+your glasses as the bottle went round. One had drunk enough; one
+suffered from qualms brought on by an unaccustomed indulgence in
+oysters; one felt that wine good enough for me was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> too good for him,
+and so on and so on. Not one to show frank eyes and drink with me as I
+was ready to drink with him! Why? Because one and all of you knew what
+was in that cup, and would not risk an inheritance so nearly within your
+grasp."</p>
+
+<p>"Lies! lies!" again shrieked the raucous voice of Luke, smothered by
+terror; while oaths, shouts, imprecations, rang out in horrid tumult
+from one end of the table to the other, till the lawyer's face, over
+which a startling change was rapidly passing, drew the whole crowd
+forward again in awful fascination, till they clung, speechless, arm in
+arm, shoulder propping shoulder, while he gasped out in dismay equal to
+their own, these last fatal words:</p>
+
+<p>"That was at your board, my brothers; now you are at mine. You have
+eaten my viands, drunk of my cup; and now, through the mouth of the one
+man who has been true to me because therein lies his advantage, I offer
+you a final glass. Will you drink it? I drank yours. By that old-time
+oath which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> binds us to share each other's fortune, I ask you to share
+this cup with me. <i>You will not?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, no!" shouted one after another.</p>
+
+<p>"Then," the inexorable voice went on, a voice which to these miserable
+souls was no longer that of the lawyer, but an issue from the grave they
+had themselves dug for Anthony Westonhaugh, "know that your abstinence
+comes too late; that you have already drunk the toast destined to end
+your lives. The bottle which you must have missed from that board of
+yours has been offered you again. A label is easily changed and&mdash;Luke,
+John, Hector, I know you all so well&mdash;that bottle has been greedily
+emptied by you; and while I, who sipped sparingly, lived three weeks,
+you, who have drunk deep, <i>have not three hours before you, possibly not
+three minutes</i>."</p>
+
+<p>O, the wail of those lost souls as this last sentence issued in a final
+pant of horror from the lawyer's quaking lips! Shrieks&mdash;howls&mdash;prayers
+for mercy&mdash;groans to make the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> hair rise&mdash;and curses, at sound of which
+I shut my ears in horror, only to open them again in dread as, with one
+simultaneous impulse, they flung themselves upon the lawyer who,
+foreseeing this rush, had backed up against the wall.</p>
+
+<p>He tried to stem the tide.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew nothing of the poisoning," he protested. "That was not my reason
+for declining the drink. I wished to preserve my senses&mdash;to carry out my
+client's wishes. As God lives, I did not know he meant to carry his
+revenge so far. Mercy! Mer&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But the hands which clutched him were the hands of murderers, and the
+lawyer's puny figure could not stand up against the avalanche of human
+terror, relentless fury and mad vengeance which now rolled in upon it.
+As I bounded to his relief he turned his ghastly face upon me. But the
+way between us was blocked, and I was preparing myself to see him sink
+before my eyes, when an unearthly shriek rose from behind us, and every
+living soul in that mass<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> of struggling humanity paused, set and
+staring, with stiffened limbs and eyes fixed, not on him, not on me, but
+on one of their own number, the only woman amongst them, Janet
+Clapsaddle, who, with clutching hands clawing her breast, was reeling in
+solitary agony in her place beside the board. As they looked she fell,
+and lay with upturned face and staring eyes, in whose glassy depths the
+ill-fated ones who watched her could see mirrored their own impending
+doom.</p>
+
+<p>It was an awful moment. A groan, in which was concentrated the despair
+of seven miserable souls, rose from that petrified band; then, man by
+man, they separated and fell back, showing on each weak or wicked face
+the particular passion which had driven them into crime and made them
+the victims of this wholesale revenge. There had been some sort of bond
+between them till the vision of death rose before each shrinking soul.
+Shoulder to shoulder in crime, they fell apart as their doom approached;
+and rushing, shrieking, each man for himself, they one and all sought<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>
+to escape by doors, windows or any outlet which promised release from
+this fatal spot. One rushed by me&mdash;I do not know which one&mdash;and I felt
+as if a flame from hell had licked me, his breath was so hot and the
+moans he uttered so like the curses we imagine to blister the lips of
+the lost. None of them saw me; they did not even detect the sliding form
+of the lawyer crawling away before them to some place of egress of which
+they had no knowledge; and, convinced that in this scene of death I
+could play no part worthy of her who awaited me, I too rushed away and,
+groping my way back through the cellar, sought the side of her who still
+crouched in patient waiting against the dismal wall.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV</h2>
+
+<h5>THE FINAL SHOCK</h5>
+
+
+<p>Her baby had fallen asleep. I knew this by the faint, low sweetness of
+her croon; and, shuddering with the horrors I had witnessed, horrors
+which acquired a double force from the contrast presented by the peace
+of this quiet spot and the hallowing influence of the sleeping
+infant,&mdash;I threw myself down in the darkness at her feet, gasping out:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, thank God and your uncle's seeming harshness, that you have escaped
+the doom which has overtaken those others! You and your babe are still
+alive; while they&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What of them? What has happened to them? You are breathless, trembling;
+you have brought no bread&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no. Food in this house means death. Your relatives gave food and
+wine to your uncle at a supper; he, though now in his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> grave, has
+returned the same to them. There was a bottle&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>I stopped, appalled. A shriek, muffled by distance but quivering with
+the same note of death I had heard before, had gone up again from the
+other side of the wall against which we were leaning.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" she gasped; "and my father was at that supper! my father, who died
+last night cursing the day he was born! We are an accursed race. I have
+known it all my life; perhaps that was why I mistook passion for love;
+and my baby&mdash;O God, have mercy! God have mercy!"</p>
+
+<p>The plaintiveness of that cry, the awesomeness of what I had seen&mdash;of
+what was going on at that moment almost within the reach of our
+arms&mdash;the darkness, the desolation of our two souls, affected me as I
+had never been affected in my whole life before. In the concentrated
+experience of the last two hours I seemed to live years under this
+woman's eyes; to know her as I did my own heart; to love her as I did my
+own soul. No growth of feeling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> ever brought the ecstasy of that
+moment's inspiration. With no sense of doing anything strange, with no
+fear of being misunderstood, I reached out my hand and, touching hers
+where it lay clasped about her infant, I said:</p>
+
+<p>"We are two poor wayfarers. A rough road loses half its difficulties
+when trodden by two. Shall we, then, fare on together&mdash;we and the little
+child?"</p>
+
+<p>She gave a sob; there was sorrow, longing, grief, hope, in its thrilling
+low sound. As I recognized the latter emotion I drew her to my breast.
+The child did not separate us.</p>
+
+<p>"We shall be happy," I murmured, and her sigh seemed to answer a
+delicious "Yes," when suddenly there came a shock to the partition
+against which we leaned and, starting from my clasp, she cried:</p>
+
+<p>"Our duty is in there. Shall we think of ourselves or even of each other
+while these men, all relatives of mine, are dying on the other side of
+this wall?"</p>
+
+<p>Seizing my hand, she dragged me to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> trap; but here I took the lead,
+and helped her down the ladder. When I had her safely on the floor at
+the foot, she passed in front of me again; but once up the steps and in
+front of the kitchen door, I thrust her behind me, for one glance into
+the room beyond had convinced me it was no place for her.</p>
+
+<p>But she would not be held back. She crowded forward beside me, and
+together we looked upon the wreck within. It was a never-to-be-forgotten
+scene. The demon that was in those men had driven them to demolish
+furniture, dishes, everything. In one heap lay what, an hour before, had
+been an inviting board surrounded by rollicking and greedy guests. But
+it was not upon this overthrow we stopped to look. It was upon something
+that mingled with it, dominated it and made of this chaos only a setting
+to awful death. Janet's face, in all its natural hideousness and
+depravity, looked up from the floor beside this heap; and farther on,
+the twisted figure of him they called Hector, with something<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> more than
+the seams of greedy longing round his wide, staring eyes and icy
+temples. Two in this room! and on the threshold of the one beyond a
+moaning third, who sank into eternal silence as we approached; and
+before the fireplace in the great room, a horrible crescent that had
+once been aged Luke, upon whom we had no sooner turned our backs than we
+caught glimpses here and there of other prostrate forms which moved once
+under our eyes and then moved no more.</p>
+
+<p>One only still stood upright, and he was the man whose obtrusive figure
+and sordid expression had so revolted me in the beginning. There was no
+color now in his flabby and heavily fallen cheeks. The eyes, in whose
+false sheen I had seen so much of evil, were glazed now, and his big and
+burly frame shook the door it pressed against. He was staring at a small
+slip of paper he held, and, from his anxious looks, appeared to miss
+something which neither of us had power to supply. It was a spectacle to
+make devils rejoice, and mortals fly aghast. But Eunice<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> had a spirit
+like an angel and drawing near him, she said:</p>
+
+<p>"Is there anything I can do for you, Cousin John?"</p>
+
+<p>He started, looked at her with the same blank gaze he had hitherto cast
+at the wall; then some words formed on his working lips and we heard:</p>
+
+<p>"I can not reckon; I was never good at figures; but if Luke is gone, and
+William, and Hector, and Barbara's boy, and Janet,&mdash;<i>how much does that
+leave for me?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>He was answered almost the moment he spoke; but it was by other tongues
+and in another world than this. As his body fell forward, I tore open
+the door before which he had been standing, and, lifting the almost
+fainting Eunice in my arms, I carried her out into the night. As I did
+so, I caught a final glimpse of the pictured face I had found it so hard
+to understand a couple of hours before. I understood it now.</p>
+
+<p>A surprise awaited us as we turned toward the gate. The mist had lifted
+and a keen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> but not unpleasant wind was driving from the north. Borne on
+it, we heard voices. The village had emptied itself, probably at the
+alarm given by the lawyer, and it was these good men and women whose
+approach we heard. As we had nothing to fear from them, we went forward
+to meet them. As we did so, three crouching figures rose from some
+bushes we passed and ran scurrying before us through the gateway. They
+were the late comers who had shown such despair at being shut out from
+this fatal house, and who probably did not yet know the doom they had
+escaped.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+
+<p>There were lanterns in the hands of some of the men who now approached.
+As we stopped before them, these lanterns were held up, and by the light
+they gave we saw, first, the lawyer's frightened face, then the visages
+of two men who seemed to be persons of some authority.</p>
+
+<p>"What news?" faltered the lawyer, seeing by our faces that we knew the
+worst.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Bad," I returned; "the poison had lost none of its virulence by being
+mixed so long with the wine."</p>
+
+<p>"How many?" asked the man on his right anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Eight," was my solemn reply.</p>
+
+<p>"There were but eight," faltered the lawyer; "that means, then, all?"</p>
+
+<p>"All," I repeated.</p>
+
+<p>A murmur of horror rose, swelled, then died out in tumult as the crowd
+swept on past us.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment we stood watching these people; saw them pause before the
+door we had left open behind us, then rush in, leaving a wail of terror
+on the shuddering midnight air. When all was quiet again, Eunice laid
+her hand upon my arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Where shall we go?" she asked despairingly. "I do not know a house that
+will open to me."</p>
+
+<p>The answer to her question came from other lips than mine.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know one that will <i>not</i>," spoke<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> up a voice behind our backs.
+"Your withdrawal from the circle of heirs did not take from you your
+rightful claim to an inheritance which, according to your uncle's will,
+could be forfeited only by a failure to arrive at the place of
+distribution within the hour set by the testator. As I see the matter
+now, this appeal to the honesty of the persons so collected was a test
+by which my unhappy client strove to save from the general fate such
+members of his miserable family as fully recognized their sin and were
+truly repentant."</p>
+
+<p>It was Lawyer Smead. He had lingered behind the others to tell her this.
+She was, then, no outcast, but rich, very rich; how rich I dared not
+acknowledge to myself, lest a remembrance of the man who was the last to
+perish in that house of death should return to make this calculation
+hateful. It was a blow which struck deep, deeper than any either of us
+had sustained that night. As we came to realize it, I stepped slowly
+back, leaving her standing erect and tall in the middle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> of the roadway,
+with her baby in her arms. But not for long; soon she was close at my
+side murmuring softly:</p>
+
+<p>"Two wayfarers still! Only, the road will be more difficult and the need
+of companionship greater. Shall we fare on together, you, I&mdash;and the
+little one?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_RUBY_AND_THE_CALDRON" id="THE_RUBY_AND_THE_CALDRON"></a>THE RUBY AND THE CALDRON</h2>
+
+
+<p>As there were two good men on duty that night, I did not see why I
+should remain at my desk, even though there was an unusual stir created
+in our small town by the grand ball given at The Evergreens.</p>
+
+<p>But just as I was preparing to start for home, an imperative ring called
+me to the telephone and I heard:</p>
+
+<p>"Halloo! Is this the police-station?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, a detective is wanted at once at The Evergreens. He can not
+be too clever or too discreet. A valuable jewel has been lost, which
+must be found before the guests disperse for home. Large reward if the
+matter ends successfully and without too great publicity."</p>
+
+<p>"May I ask who is speaking to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Ashley."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was the mistress of The Evergreens and giver of the ball.</p>
+
+<p>"Madam, a man shall be sent at once. Where will you see him?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the butler's pantry at the rear. Let him give his name as Jennings."</p>
+
+<p>"Very good. Good-by."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-by."</p>
+
+<p>A pretty piece of work! Should I send Hendricks or should I send Hicks?
+Hendricks was clever and Hicks discreet, but neither united both
+qualifications in the measure demanded by the sensible and
+quietly-resolved woman with whom I had just been talking. What
+alternative remained? But one; I must go myself.</p>
+
+<p>It was not late&mdash;not for a ball night, at least&mdash;and as half the town
+had been invited to the dance, the streets were alive with carriages. I
+was watching the blink of their lights through the fast falling snow
+when my attention was drawn to a fact which struck me as peculiar. These
+carriages were all coming my way instead of rolling in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> direction of
+The Evergreens. Had they been empty this would have needed no
+explanation, but, as far as I could see, most of them were full, and
+that, too, with loudly talking women and gesticulating men.</p>
+
+<p>Something of a serious nature must have occurred at The Evergreens.
+Rapidly I paced on and soon found myself before the great gates.</p>
+
+<p>A crowd of vehicles of all descriptions blocked the entrance. None
+seemed to be passing up the driveway; all stood clustered at the gates,
+and as I drew nearer I perceived many an anxious head thrust forth from
+their quickly opened doors and heard many an ejaculation of
+disappointment as the short interchange of words went on between the
+drivers of these various turnouts and a man drawn up in quiet resolution
+before the unexpectedly barred entrance.</p>
+
+<p>Slipping round to this man's side, I listened to what he was saying. It
+was simple but very explicit.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Ashley asks everybody's pardon, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> the ball can't go on
+to-night. Something has happened which makes the reception of further
+guests impossible. To-morrow evening she will be happy to see you all.
+The dance is simply postponed."</p>
+
+<p>This he had probably repeated forty times, and each time it had probably
+been received with the same mixture of doubt and curiosity which now
+held the lengthy procession in check.</p>
+
+<p>Not wishing to attract attention, yet anxious to lose no time, I pressed
+up still nearer, and, bending toward him from the shadow cast by a
+convenient post, uttered the one word:</p>
+
+<p>"Jennings."</p>
+
+<p>Instantly he unlocked a small gate at his right. I passed in and, with
+professional <i>sang-froid</i>, proceeded to take my way to the house through
+the double row of evergreens bordering the semicircular approach.</p>
+
+<p>As these trees stood very close together and were, besides, heavily
+laden with fresh-fallen snow, I failed to catch a glimpse of the
+building<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> itself until I stood in front of it. Then I saw that it was
+brilliantly lighted and gave evidence here and there of some festivity;
+but the guests were too few for the effect to be very exhilarating and,
+passing around to the rear, I sought the special entrance to which I had
+been directed.</p>
+
+<p>A heavy-browed porch, before which stood a caterer's wagon, led me to a
+door which had every appearance of being the one I sought. Pushing it
+open, I entered without ceremony, and speedily found myself in the midst
+of twenty or more colored waiters and chattering housemaids. To one of
+the former I addressed the question:</p>
+
+<p>"Where is the butler's pantry? I am told that I shall find the lady of
+the house there."</p>
+
+<p>"Your name?" was the curt demand.</p>
+
+<p>"Jennings."</p>
+
+<p>"Follow me."</p>
+
+<p>I was taken through narrow passages and across one or two store-rooms to
+a small but well-lighted closet, where I was left, with the assurance
+that Mrs. Ashley would presently<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> join me. I had never seen this lady,
+but I had often heard her spoken of as a woman of superior character and
+admirable discretion.</p>
+
+<p>She did not keep me waiting. In two minutes the door opened and this
+fine, well-poised woman was telling her story in the straightforward
+manner I so much admire and so seldom meet with.</p>
+
+<p>The article lost was a large ruby of singular beauty and great
+value&mdash;the property of Mrs. Burton, the senator's wife, in whose honor
+this ball was given. It had not been lost in the house nor had it been
+originally missed that evening. Mrs. Burton and herself had attended the
+great foot-ball game in the afternoon, and it was on the college campus
+that Mrs. Burton had first dropped her invaluable jewel. But a reward of
+five hundred dollars having been at once offered to whoever should find
+and restore it, a great search had followed, which ended in its being
+picked up by one of the students and brought back as far as the great
+step leading up to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> the front door, when it had again disappeared, and
+in a way to rouse conjecture of the strangest and most puzzling
+character.</p>
+
+<p>The young man who had brought it thus far bore the name of John Deane,
+and was a member of the senior class. He had been the first to detect
+its sparkle in the grass, and those who were near enough to see his face
+at that happy moment say that it expressed the utmost satisfaction at
+his good luck.</p>
+
+<p>"You see," said Mrs. Ashley, "he has a sweetheart, and five hundred
+dollars looks like a fortune to a young man just starting life. But he
+was weak enough to take this girl into his confidence; and on their way
+here&mdash;for both were invited to the ball&mdash;he went so far as to pull it
+out of his pocket and show it to her.</p>
+
+<p>"They were admiring it together and vaunting its beauties to the young
+lady friend who had accompanied them, when their carriage turned into
+the driveway and they saw the lights of the house flashing before them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>
+Hastily restoring the jewel to the little bag he had made for it out of
+the finger-end of an old glove,&mdash;a bag in which he assured me he had
+been careful to keep it safely tied ever since picking it up on the
+college green,&mdash;he thrust it back into his pocket and prepared to help
+the ladies out. But just then a disturbance arose in front. A horse
+which had been driven up was rearing in a way that threatened to
+overturn the light buggy to which he was attached. As the occupants of
+this buggy were ladies, and seemed to have no control over the plunging
+beast, young Deane naturally sprang to the rescue. Bidding his own
+ladies alight and make for the porch, he hurriedly ran forward and,
+pausing in front of the maddened animal, waited for an opportunity to
+seize him by the rein. He says that as he stood there facing the beast
+with fixed eye and raised hand, he distinctly felt something strike or
+touch his breast. But the sensation conveyed no meaning to him in his
+excitement, and he did not think of it again till, the horse well in
+hand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> and the two alarmed occupants of the buggy rescued, he turned to
+see where his own ladies were, and beheld them looking down at him from
+the midst of a circle of young people, drawn from the house by the
+screaming of the women. Instantly a thought of the treasure he carried
+recurred to his mind, and dropping the rein of the now quieted horse, he
+put his hand to his pocket. The jewel was gone. He declares that for a
+moment he felt as if he had been struck on the head by one of the hoofs
+of the frantic horse he had just handled. But immediately the importance
+of his loss and the necessity he felt for instant action restored him to
+himself, and shouting aloud, 'I have dropped Mrs. Burton's ruby!' begged
+every one to stand still while he made a search for it.</p>
+
+<p>"This all occurred, as you must know, more than an hour and a half ago,
+consequently before many of my guests had arrived. My son, who was one
+of the few spectators gathered on the porch, tells me that there was
+only one other carriage behind the one in which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> Mr. Deane had brought
+his ladies. Both of these had stopped short of the stepping-stone, and
+as the horse and buggy which had made all this trouble had by this time
+been driven to the stable, nothing stood in the way of his search but
+the rapidly accumulating snow which, if you remember, was falling very
+thick and fast at the time.</p>
+
+<p>"My son, who had rushed in for his overcoat, came running down with
+offers to help him. So did some others. But, with an imploring gesture,
+he begged to be allowed to conduct the search alone, the ground being in
+such a state that the delicately-mounted jewel ran great risk of being
+trodden into the snow and thus injured or lost. They humored him for a
+moment, then, seeing that his efforts bade fair to be fruitless, my son
+insisted upon joining him, and the two looked the ground over, inch by
+inch, from the place where Mr. Deane had set foot to ground in alighting
+from his carriage to the exact spot where he had stood when he had
+finally seized hold of the horse. But no ruby. Then Harrison<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> (that is
+my son's name) sent for a broom and went over the place again, sweeping
+aside the surface snow and examining carefully the ground beneath,&mdash;but
+with no better results than before. No ruby could be found. My son came
+to me panting. Mrs. Burton and myself stood awaiting him in a state of
+suspense. Guests and f&ecirc;te were alike forgotten. We had heard that the
+jewel had been found on the campus by one of the students and had been
+brought back as far as the step in front and then lost again in some
+unaccountable manner in the snow, and we hoped, nay expected from moment
+to moment, that it would be brought in.</p>
+
+<p>"When Harrison entered, then, pale, disheveled and shaking his head,
+Mrs. Burton caught me by the hand, and I thought she would faint. For
+this jewel is of far greater value to her than its mere worth in money,
+though that is by no means small.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a family jewel and was given to her by her husband under special
+circumstances. He prizes it even more than she does, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> he is not here
+to counsel or assist her in this extremity. Besides, she was wearing it
+in direct opposition to his expressed wishes. This I must tell you, to
+show how imperative it is for us to recover it; also to account for the
+large reward she is willing to pay. When he last looked at it he noticed
+that the fastening was a trifle slack and, though he handed the trinket
+back, he told her distinctly that she was not to wear it till it had
+been either to Tiffany's or Starr's. But she considered it safe enough,
+and put it on to please the boys, and lost it. Senator Burton is a hard
+man and,&mdash;in short, the jewel must be found. I give you just one hour in
+which to do it."</p>
+
+<p>"But, madam&mdash;" I protested.</p>
+
+<p>"I know," she put in, with a quick nod and a glance over her shoulder to
+see if the door was shut. "I have not finished my story. Hearing what
+Harrison had to say, I took action at once. I bade him call in the
+guests, whom curiosity or interest still detained on the porch, and seat
+them in a certain room<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> which I designated to him. Then, after telling
+him to send two men to the gates with orders to hold back all further
+carriages from entering, and two others to shovel up and cart away to
+the stable every particle of snow for ten feet each side of the front
+step, I asked to see Mr. Deane. But here my son whispered something into
+my ear, which it is my duty to repeat. It was to the effect that Mr.
+Deane believed that the jewel had been taken from him; that he insisted,
+in fact, that he had felt a hand touch his breast while he stood
+awaiting an opportunity to seize the horse. 'Very good,' said I, 'we'll
+remember that, too; but first see that my orders are carried out and
+that all approaches to the grounds are guarded and no one allowed to
+come in or go out without permission from me.'</p>
+
+<p>"He left us, and I was turning to encourage Mrs. Burton when my
+attention was caught by the eager face of a little friend of mine, who,
+quite unknown to me, was sitting in one of the corners of the room. She
+was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> studying my countenance in a sort of subdued anxiety, hardly
+natural in one so young, and I was about to call her to my side and
+question her when she made a sudden dive and vanished from the room.
+Some impulse made me follow her. She is a conscientious little thing,
+but timid as a hare, and though I saw she had something to say, it was
+with difficulty I could make her speak. Only after the most solemn
+assurances that her name should not be mentioned in the matter, would
+she give me the following bit of information, which you may possibly
+think throws another light upon the affair. It seems that she was
+looking out of one of the front windows when Mr. Deane's carriage drove
+up. She had been watching the antics of the horse attached to the buggy,
+but as soon as she saw Mr. Deane going to the assistance of those in
+danger, she let her eyes stray back to the ladies whom he had left
+behind him in the carriage.</p>
+
+<p>"She did not know these ladies, but their looks and gestures interested
+her, and she watched them quite intently as they leaped<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> to the ground
+and made their way toward the porch. One went on quickly, and without
+pause, to the step, but the other,&mdash;the one who came last,&mdash;did not do
+this. She stopped a moment, perhaps to watch the horse in front, perhaps
+to draw her cloak more closely about her, and when she again moved on,
+it was with a start and a hurried glance at her feet, terminating in a
+quick turn and a sudden stooping to the ground. When she again stood
+upright, she had something in her hand which she thrust furtively into
+her breast."</p>
+
+<p>"How was this lady dressed?" I inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"In a white cloak, with an edging of fur. I took pains to learn that,
+too, and it was with some curiosity, I assure you, that I examined the
+few guests who had now been admitted to the room I had so carefully
+pointed out to my son. Two of them wore white cloaks, but one of these
+was Mrs. Dalrymple, and I did not give her or her cloak a second
+thought. The other was a tall, fine-looking girl, with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> an air and
+bearing calculated to rouse admiration if she had not shown so very
+plainly that she was in a state of inner perturbation. Though she tried
+to look amiable and pleased, I saw that she had some care on her mind,
+which, had she been Mr. Deane's <i>fianc&eacute;e</i>, would have needed no
+explanation; but as she was only Mr. Deane's <i>fianc&eacute;e's</i> friend, its
+cause was not so apparent.</p>
+
+<p>"The floor of the room, as I had happily remembered, was covered with
+crash, and as I lifted each garment off&mdash;I allowed no maid to assist me
+in this&mdash;I shook it well; ostensibly, because of the few flakes clinging
+to it, really to see if anything could be shaken out of it. Of course, I
+met with no success. I had not expected to, but it is my disposition to
+be thorough. These wraps I saw all hung in an adjoining closet, the door
+of which I locked,&mdash;here is the key,&mdash;after which I handed my guests
+over to my son who led them into the drawing-room where they joined the
+few others who had previously arrived, and went myself to telephone to
+<i>you</i>."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I bowed and asked where the young people were now.</p>
+
+<p>"Still in the drawing-room. I have ordered the musicians to play, and
+consequently there is more or less dancing. But, of course, nothing can
+remove the wet blanket which has fallen over us all,&mdash;nothing but the
+finding of this jewel. Do you see your way to accomplishing this? We
+are, from this very moment, at your disposal; only I pray that you will
+make no more disturbance than is necessary, and, if possible, arouse no
+suspicions you can not back up by facts. I dread a scandal almost as
+much as I do sickness and death, and these young people&mdash;well, their
+lives are all before them, and neither Mrs. Burton nor myself would wish
+to throw the shadow of a false suspicion over the least of them."</p>
+
+<p>I assured her that I sympathized with her scruples and would do my best
+to recover the ruby without inflicting undue annoyance upon the
+innocent. Then I inquired whether it was known that a detective had been
+called in.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> She seemed to think it was suspected by some, if not by all.
+At which my way seemed a trifle complicated.</p>
+
+<p>We were about to proceed when another thought struck me.</p>
+
+<p>"Madam, you have not said whether the carriage itself was searched."</p>
+
+<p>"I forgot. Yes, the carriage was thoroughly overhauled, and before the
+coachman left the box."</p>
+
+<p>"Who did this overhauling?"</p>
+
+<p>"My son. He would not trust any other hand than his own in a business of
+this kind."</p>
+
+<p>"One more question, madam. Was any one seen to approach Mr. Deane on the
+carriage-drive prior to his assertion that the jewel was lost?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. <i>And there were no tracks in the snow of any such person.</i> My son
+looked."</p>
+
+<p>And I would look, or so I decided within myself, but I said nothing; and
+in silence we proceeded toward the drawing-room.</p>
+
+<p>I had left my overcoat behind me, and always being well-dressed, I did
+not present so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> bad an appearance. Still I was not in party attire and
+naturally could not pass for a guest if I had wanted to, which I did
+not. I felt that I must rely on insight in this case and on a certain
+power I had always possessed of reading faces. That the case called for
+just this species of intuition I was positive. Mrs. Burton's ruby was
+within a hundred yards of us at this very moment, probably within a
+hundred feet; but to lay hands on it and without scandal&mdash;well, that was
+a problem calculated to rouse the interest of even an old police-officer
+like myself.</p>
+
+<p>A strain of music, desultory, however, and spiritless, like everything
+else about the place that night, greeted us as Mrs. Ashley opened the
+door leading directly into the large front hall.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately a scene meant to be festive, but which was, in fact,
+desolate, burst upon us. The lights, the flowers and the brilliant
+appearance of such ladies as flitted into sight from the almost empty
+parlors, were all suggestive of the cheer suitable to a great occasion;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>
+but in spite of this, the effect was altogether melancholy, for the
+hundreds who should have graced this scene, and for whom this
+illumination had been made and these festoons hung, had been turned away
+from the gates, and the few who felt they must remain, because their
+hostess showed no disposition to let them go, wore any but holiday
+faces, for all their forced smiles and pitiful attempts at nonchalance
+and gaiety.</p>
+
+<p>I scrutinized these faces carefully. I detected nothing in them but
+annoyance at a situation which certainly was anything but pleasant.</p>
+
+<p>Turning to Mrs. Ashley, I requested her to be kind enough to point out
+her son, adding that I should be glad to have a moment's conversation
+with him, also with Mr. Deane.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Deane is in one of those small rooms over there. He is quite upset.
+Not even Mrs. Burton can comfort him. My son&mdash;Oh, there is Harrison!"</p>
+
+<p>A tall, fine-looking young man was crossing the hall. Mrs. Ashley called
+him to her,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> and in another moment we were standing together in one of
+the empty parlors.</p>
+
+<p>I gave him my name and told him my business. Then I said:</p>
+
+<p>"Your mother has allotted me an hour in which to find the valuable jewel
+which has just been lost on these premises." Here I smiled. "She
+evidently has great confidence in my ability. I must see that I do not
+disappoint her."</p>
+
+<p>All this time I was examining his face. It was a handsome one, as I have
+said, but it had also a very candid expression; the eyes looked straight
+into mine, and, while showing anxiety, betrayed no deeper emotion than
+the occasion naturally called for.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you any suggestions to offer? I understand that you were on the
+ground almost as soon as Mr. Deane discovered his loss."</p>
+
+<p>His eyes changed a trifle but did not swerve. Of course he had been
+informed by his mother of the suspicious action of the young lady who
+had been a member of that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> gentleman's party, and shrank, as any one in
+his position would, from the responsibilities entailed by this
+knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said he. "We have done all we can. The next move must come from
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"There is one that will settle the matter in a moment," I assured him,
+still with my eyes fixed scrutinizingly on his face,&mdash;"a universal
+search, not of places, but of persons. But it is a harsh measure."</p>
+
+<p>"A most disagreeable one," he emphasized, flushing. "Such an indignity
+offered to guests would never be forgotten or forgiven."</p>
+
+<p>"True, but if they offered to submit to this themselves?"</p>
+
+<p>"They? How?"</p>
+
+<p>"If <i>you</i>, the son of the house,&mdash;their host we may say,&mdash;should call
+them together and, for your own satisfaction, empty out your pockets in
+the sight of every one, don't you think that all the men, and possibly
+all the women too&mdash;" (here I let my voice fall suggestively) "would be
+glad to follow suit? It could be done in apparent joke."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He shook his head with a straightforward air, which raised him high in
+my estimation.</p>
+
+<p>"That would call for little but effrontery on my part," said he; "but
+think what it would demand from these boys who came here for the sole
+purpose of enjoying themselves. I will not so much as mention the
+ladies."</p>
+
+<p>"Yet one of the latter&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I know," he quietly acknowledged, growing restless for the first time.</p>
+
+<p>I withdrew my eyes from his face. I had learned what I wished.
+Personally he did not shrink from search, therefore the jewel was not in
+his pockets. This left but two persons for suspicion to halt between.
+But I disclosed nothing of my thoughts; I merely asked pardon for a
+suggestion that, while pardonable in a man accustomed to handle crime
+with ungloved hands, could not fail to prove offensive to a gentleman
+like himself.</p>
+
+<p>"We must move by means less open," I concluded. "It adds to our
+difficulties, but that can not be helped. I should now like a glimpse of
+Mr. Deane."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Do you not wish to speak to him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should prefer a sight of his face first."</p>
+
+<p>He led me across the hall and pointed through an open door. In the
+center of a small room containing a table and some chairs, I perceived a
+young man sitting, with fallen head and dejected air, staring at
+vacancy. By his side, with hand laid on his, knelt a young girl,
+striving in this gentle but speechless way to comfort him. It made a
+pathetic picture. I drew Ashley away.</p>
+
+<p>"I am disposed to believe in that young man," said I. "If he still has
+the jewel, he would not try to carry off the situation in just this way.
+He really looks broken-hearted."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he is dreadfully cut up. If you could have seen how frantically he
+searched for the stone, and the depression into which he fell when he
+realized that it was not to be found, you would not doubt him for an
+instant. What made you think he might still have the ruby?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, we police officers think of everything. Then the fact that he
+insists that something<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> or some one touched his breast on the driveway
+strikes me as a trifle suspicious. Your mother says that no second
+person could have been there, or the snow would have given evidence of
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I looked expressly. Of course, the drive itself was full of
+hoof-marks and wheel-tracks, for several carriages had already passed
+over it. Then there were all of Deane's footsteps, but no other man's,
+as far as I could see."</p>
+
+<p>"Yet he insists that he was touched or struck."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"With no one there to touch or strike him."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ashley was silent.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us step out and take a view of the place," I suggested. "I should
+prefer doing this to questioning the young man in his present state of
+mind." Then, as we turned to put on our coats, I asked with suitable
+precaution: "Do you suppose that he has the same secret suspicions as
+ourselves, and that it is to hide these he insists upon the jewel's
+having<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> been taken away from him at a point the ladies are known not to
+have approached?"</p>
+
+<p>Young Ashley bent somewhat startled eyes on mine.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing has been said to him of what Miss Peters saw Miss Glover do. I
+could not bring myself to mention it. I have not even allowed myself to
+believe&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Here a fierce gust, blowing in from the door he had just opened, cut
+short his words, and neither of us spoke again till we stood on the
+exact spot in the driveway where the episode we were endeavoring to
+understand had taken place.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," I cried as soon as I could look about me; "the mystery is
+explained. Look at that bush, or perhaps you call it a shrub. If the
+wind were blowing as freshly as it is now, and very probably it was, one
+of those slender branches might easily be switched against his breast,
+especially if he stood, as you say he did, close against this border."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'm a fool. Only the other day I told the gardener that these
+branches would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> need trimming in the spring, and yet I never so much as
+thought of them when Mr. Deane spoke of something striking his breast."</p>
+
+<p>As we turned back I made this remark:</p>
+
+<p>"With this explanation of the one doubtful point in his otherwise
+plausible account, we can credit his story as being in the main true,
+which," I calmly added, "places him above suspicion and narrows our
+inquiry down to <i>one</i>."</p>
+
+<p>We had moved quickly and were now at the threshold of the door by which
+we had come out.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Ashley," I continued, "I shall have to ask you to add to your
+former favors that of showing me the young lady in whom, from this
+moment on, we are especially interested. If you can manage to let me see
+her first without her seeing me, I shall be infinitely obliged to you."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know where she is. I shall have to search for her."</p>
+
+<p>"I will wait by the hall door."</p>
+
+<p>In a few minutes he returned to me.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> "Come," said he, and led me into
+what I judged to be the library.</p>
+
+<p>With a gesture toward one of the windows, he backed quickly out, leaving
+me to face the situation alone. I was rather glad of this. Glancing in
+the direction he had indicated, and perceiving the figure of a young
+lady standing with her back to me on the farther side of a flowing lace
+curtain, I took a few steps toward her, hoping that the movement would
+cause her to turn. But it entirely failed to produce this effect, nor
+did she give any sign that she noted the intrusion. This prevented me
+from catching the glimpse of her face which I so desired, and obliged me
+to confine myself to a study of her dress and attitude.</p>
+
+<p>The former was very elegant, more elegant than the appearance of her two
+friends had led me to expect. Though I am far from being an authority on
+feminine toilets, I yet had experience enough to know that those
+sweeping folds of spotless satin, with their festoons of lace and loops
+of shiny trimming,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> which it would be folly for me to attempt to
+describe, represented not only the best efforts of the dressmaker's art,
+but very considerable means on the part of the woman wearing such a
+gown. This was a discovery which altered the complexion of my thoughts
+for a moment; for I had presupposed her a girl of humble means, willing
+to sacrifice certain scruples to obtain a little extra money. This
+imposing figure might be that of a millionaire's daughter; how then
+could I associate her, even in my own mind, with theft? I decided that I
+must see her face before giving answer to these doubts.</p>
+
+<p>She did not seem inclined to turn. She had raised the shade from before
+the wintry panes and was engaged in looking out. Her attitude was not
+that of one simply enjoying a moment's respite from the dance. It was
+rather that of an absorbed mind brooding upon what gave little or no
+pleasure; and as I further gazed and noted the droop of her lovely
+shoulders and the languor visible in her whole bearing, I began to
+regard a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> glimpse of her features as imperative. Moving forward, I came
+upon her suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me, Miss Smith," I boldly exclaimed; then paused, for she had
+turned instinctively and I had seen that for which I had risked this
+daring move. "Your pardon," I hastily apologized. "I mistook you for
+another young lady," and drew back with a low bow to let her pass, for I
+saw that she thought only of escaping both me and the room.</p>
+
+<p>And I did not wonder at this, for her eyes were streaming with tears,
+and her face, which was doubtless a pretty one under ordinary
+conditions, looked so distorted with distracting emotions that she was
+no fit subject for any man's eye, let alone that of a hard-hearted
+officer of the law on the look-out for the guilty hand which had just
+appropriated a jewel worth anywhere from eight to ten thousand dollars.</p>
+
+<p>Yet I was glad to see her weep, for only first offenders weep, and first
+offenders are amenable to influence, especially if they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> have been led
+into wrong by impulse and are weak rather than wicked.</p>
+
+<p>Anxious to make no blunder, I resolved, before proceeding further, to
+learn what I could of the character and antecedents of the suspected
+one, and this from the only source which offered&mdash;Mr. Deane's affianced.</p>
+
+<p>This young lady was a delicate girl, with a face like a flower.
+Recognizing her sensitive nature, I approached her with the utmost
+gentleness. Not seeking to disguise either the nature of my business or
+my reasons for being in the house, since all this gave me authority, I
+modulated my tone to suit her gentle spirit, and, above all, I showed
+the utmost sympathy for her lover, whose rights in the reward had been
+taken from him as certainly as the jewel had been taken from Mrs.
+Burton. In this way I gained her confidence, and she was quite ready to
+listen when I observed:</p>
+
+<p>"There is a young lady here who seems to be in a state of even greater
+trouble than Mr. Deane. Why is this? You brought her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> here. Is her
+sympathy with Mr. Deane so great as to cause her to weep over his loss?"</p>
+
+<p>"Frances? Oh, no. She likes Mr. Deane and she likes me, but not well
+enough to cry over our misfortunes. I think she has some trouble of her
+own."</p>
+
+<p>"One that you can tell me?"</p>
+
+<p>Her surprise was manifest.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you ask that? What interest have you (called in, as I
+understand, to recover a stolen jewel) in Frances Glover's personal
+difficulties?"</p>
+
+<p>I saw that I must make my position perfectly plain.</p>
+
+<p>"Only this. She was seen to pick up something from the driveway, where
+no one else had succeeded in finding anything."</p>
+
+<p>"She? When? Who saw her?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can not answer all these questions at once," I smiled. "She was seen
+to do this&mdash;no matter by whom,&mdash;during your passage from the carriage to
+the stoop. As you preceded her, you naturally did not observe this
+action, which was fortunate, perhaps, as you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> would scarcely have known
+what to do or say about it."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes I should," she retorted, with a most unexpected display of spirit.
+"I should have asked her what she had found and I should have insisted
+upon an answer. I love my friends, but I love the man I am to marry,
+better." Here her voice fell and a most becoming blush suffused her
+cheek.</p>
+
+<p>"Quite right," I assented. "Now will you answer my former question? What
+troubles Miss Glover? Can you tell me?"</p>
+
+<p>"That I can not. I only know that she has been very silent ever since
+she left the house. I thought her beautiful new dress would please her,
+but it does not seem to. She has been unhappy and preoccupied all the
+evening. She only roused a bit when Mr. Deane showed us the ruby and
+said&mdash;Oh, I forgot!"</p>
+
+<p>"What's that? What have you forgot?"</p>
+
+<p>"What you said just now. I wouldn't add a word&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me!" I smilingly interrupted, looking as fatherly as I could,
+"but you <i>have</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> added this word and now you must tell me what it means.
+You were going to say she showed interest in the extraordinary jewel
+which Mr. Deane took from his pocket and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"In what he let fall about the expected reward. That is, she looked
+eagerly at the ruby and sighed when he acknowledged that he expected it
+to bring him five hundred dollars before midnight. But any girl of no
+more means than she might do that. It would not be fair to lay too much
+stress on a sigh."</p>
+
+<p>"Is not Miss Glover wealthy? She wears a very expensive dress, I
+observe."</p>
+
+<p>"I know it and I have wondered a little at it, for her father is not
+called very well off. But perhaps she bought it with her own money; I
+know she has some; she is an artist in burnt wood."</p>
+
+<p>I let the subject of Miss Glover's dress drop. I had heard enough to
+satisfy me that my first theory was correct. This young woman,
+beautifully dressed, and with a face from which the rounded lines of
+early girlhood had not yet departed, held in her possession,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> probably
+at this very moment, Mrs. Burton's magnificent jewel. But where? On her
+person or hidden in some of her belongings? I remembered the cloak in
+the closet and thought it wise to assure myself that the jewel was not
+secreted in this garment, before I proceeded to extreme measures. Mrs.
+Ashley, upon being consulted, agreed with me as to the desirability of
+this, and presently I had this poor girl's cloak in my hands.</p>
+
+<p>Did I find the ruby? No; but I found something else tucked away in an
+inner pocket which struck me as bearing quite pointedly upon this case.
+It was the bill&mdash;crumpled, soiled and tear-stained&mdash;of the dress whose
+elegance had so surprised her friends and made me, for a short time,
+regard her as the daughter of wealthy parents. An enormous bill, which
+must have struck dismay to the soul of this self-supporting girl, who
+probably had no idea of how a French dressmaker can foot up items. Four
+hundred and fifty dollars! and for one gown! I declare I felt indignant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>
+myself and could quite understand why she heaved that little sigh when
+Mr. Deane spoke of the five hundred dollars he expected from Mrs.
+Burton, and later, how she came to succumb to the temptation of making
+the effort to secure this sum for herself when, in following the
+latter's footsteps up the driveway, she stumbled upon this same jewel
+fallen, as it were, from his pocket into her very hands. The impulse of
+the moment was so strong and the consequences so little anticipated!</p>
+
+<p>It is not at all probable that she foresaw he would shout aloud his loss
+and draw the whole household out on the porch. Of course when he did
+this, the feasibility of her project was gone, and I only wished that I
+had been present and able to note her countenance, as, crowded in with
+others on that windy porch, she watched the progress of the search,
+which every moment made it not only less impossible for her to attempt
+the restoration upon which the reward depended, but must have caused her
+to feel, if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> she had been as well brought up as all indications showed,
+that it was a dishonest act of which she had been guilty and that,
+willing or not, she must look upon herself as a thief so long as she
+held the jewel back from Mr. Deane or its rightful owner. But how face
+the publicity of restoring it now, after this elaborate and painful
+search, in which even the son of her hostess had taken part?</p>
+
+<p>That would be to proclaim her guilt and thus effectually ruin her in the
+eyes of everybody concerned. No, she would keep the compromising article
+a little longer, in the hope of finding some opportunity of returning it
+without risk to her good name. And so she allowed the search to proceed.</p>
+
+<p>I have entered thus elaborately into the supposed condition of this
+girl's mind on this critical evening, that you may understand why I felt
+a certain sympathy for her, which forbade harsh measures. I was sure,
+from the glimpse I had caught of her face, that she longed to be
+relieved from the tension she was under, and that she would gladly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> rid
+herself of this valuable jewel if she only knew how. This opportunity I
+proposed to give her; and this is why, on returning the bill to its
+place, I assumed such an air of relief on rejoining Mrs. Ashley.</p>
+
+<p>She saw, and drew me aside.</p>
+
+<p>"You have not found it!" she said.</p>
+
+<p>"No," I returned, "but I am positive where it is."</p>
+
+<p>"And where is that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Over Miss Glover's uneasy heart."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Ashley turned pale.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait," said I; "I have a scheme for getting it hence without making her
+shame public. Listen!" and I whispered a few words in her ear.</p>
+
+<p>She surveyed me in amazement for a moment, then nodded, and her face
+lighted up.</p>
+
+<p>"You are certainly earning your reward," she declared; and summoning her
+son, who was never far away from her side, she whispered her wishes. He
+started, bowed and hurried from the room.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>By this time my business in the house was well-known to all, and I could
+not appear in hall or parlor without a great silence falling upon every
+one present, followed by a breaking up of the only too small circle of
+unhappy guests into agitated groups. But I appeared to see nothing of
+all this till the proper moment, when, turning suddenly upon them all, I
+cried out cheerfully, but with a certain deference I thought would
+please them:</p>
+
+<p>"Ladies and gentlemen: I have an interesting fact to announce. The snow
+which was taken up from the driveway has been put to melt in the great
+feed caldron over the stable fire. We expect to find the ruby at the
+bottom, and Mrs. Ashley invites you to be present at its recovery. It
+has now stopped snowing and she thought you might enjoy the excitement
+of watching the water ladled out."</p>
+
+<p>A dozen girls bounded forward.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, what fun! where are our cloaks&mdash;our rubbers?"</p>
+
+<p>Two only stood hesitating. One of these<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> was Mr. Deane's lady love and
+the other her friend, Miss Glover. The former, perhaps, secretly
+wondered. The latter&mdash;but I dared not look long enough or closely enough
+in her direction to judge just what her emotions were. Presently these,
+too, stepped forward into the excited circle of young people, and were
+met by the two maids who were bringing in their wraps. Amid the bustle
+which now ensued, I caught sight of Mr. Deane's face peering from an
+open doorway. It was all alive with hope. I also perceived a lady
+looking down from the second story, who, I felt sure, was Mrs. Burton
+herself. Evidently my confident tone had produced more effect than the
+words themselves. Every one looked upon the jewel as already recovered
+and regarded my invitation to the stable as a ruse by which I hoped to
+restore universal good feeling by giving them all a share in my triumph.</p>
+
+<p>All but one! Nothing could make Miss Glover look otherwise than anxious,
+restless and unsettled, and though she followed in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> wake of the
+rest, it was with hidden face and lagging step, as if she recognized the
+whole thing as a farce and doubted her own power to go through it
+calmly.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, ha! my lady," thought I, "only be patient and you will see what I
+shall do for you." And indeed I thought her eye brightened as we all
+drew up around the huge caldron standing full of water over the stable
+stove. As pains had already been taken to put out the fire in this
+stove, the ladies were not afraid of injuring their dresses and
+consequently crowded as close as their numbers would permit. Miss Glover
+especially stood within reach of the brim, and as soon as I noted this,
+I gave the signal which had been agreed upon between Mr. Ashley and
+myself. Instantly the electric lights went out, leaving the place in
+total darkness.</p>
+
+<p>A scream from the girls, a burst of hilarious laughter from their
+escorts, mingled with loud apologies from their seemingly mischievous
+host, filled up the interval of darkness which I had insisted should not
+be too<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> soon curtailed; then the lights glowed as suddenly as they had
+gone out, and while the glare was fresh on every face, I stole a glance
+at Miss Glover to see if she had made good use of the opportunity just
+accorded for ridding herself of the jewel by dropping it into the
+caldron. If she had, both her troubles and mine were at an end; if she
+had not, then I need feel no further scruple in approaching her with the
+direct question I had hitherto found it so difficult to put.</p>
+
+<p>She stood with both hands grasping her cloak which she had drawn tightly
+about the rich folds of her new and expensive dress; but her eyes were
+fixed straight before her with a soft light in their depths which made
+her positively beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>The jewel is in the pot, I inwardly decided, and ordered the two waiting
+stablemen to step forward with their ladles. Quickly those ladles went
+in, but before they could be lifted out dripping, half the ladies had
+scurried back, afraid of injury to their pretty dresses. But they soon
+sidled forward again, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> watched with beaming eyes the slow but sure
+emptying of the great caldron at whose bottom they anticipated finding
+the lost jewel.</p>
+
+<p>As the ladles were plunged deeper and deeper, the heads drew closer and
+so great was the interest shown, that the busiest lips forgot to
+chatter, and eyes, whose only business up till now had been to follow
+with shy curiosity every motion made by their handsome young host, now
+settled on the murky depths of the great pot whose bottom was almost in
+sight.</p>
+
+<p>As I heard the ladles strike this bottom, I instinctively withdrew a
+step in anticipation of the loud hurrah which would naturally hail the
+first sight of the lost ruby. Conceive, then, my chagrin, my bitter and
+mortified disappointment, when, after one look at the broad surface of
+the now exposed bottom, the one shout which rose was:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Nothing!</i>"</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+
+<p>I was so thoroughly put out that I did not wait to hear the loud
+complaints which burst<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> from every lip. Drawing Mr. Ashley aside (who,
+by the way, seemed as much affected as myself by the turn affairs had
+taken) I remarked to him that there was only one course left open to us.</p>
+
+<p>"And what is that?"</p>
+
+<p>"To ask Miss Glover to show me what she picked up from your driveway."</p>
+
+<p>"And if she refuses?"</p>
+
+<p>"To take her quietly with me to the station, where we have women who can
+make sure that the ruby is not on her person."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ashley made an involuntary gesture of strong repugnance.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us pray that it will not come to that," he objected hoarsely. "Such
+a fine figure of a girl! Did you notice how bright and happy she looked
+when the lights sprang up? I declare she struck me as lovely."</p>
+
+<p>"So she did me, and caused me to draw some erroneous conclusions. I
+shall have to ask you to procure me an interview with her as soon as we
+return to the house."</p>
+
+<p>"She shall meet you in the library."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But when, a few minutes later, she joined me in the room just designated
+and I had full opportunity for reading her countenance, I own that my
+task became suddenly hateful to me. She was not far from my own
+daughter's age and, had it not been for her furtive look of care,
+appeared almost as blooming and bright. Would it ever come to pass that
+a harsh man of the law would feel it his duty to speak to my Flora as I
+must now speak to the young girl before me? The thought made me inwardly
+recoil and it was in as gentle a manner as possible that I made my bow
+and began with the following remark:</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you will pardon me, Miss Glover&mdash;I am told that is your name. I
+hate to disturb your pleasure&mdash;" (this with the tears of alarm and grief
+rising in her eyes) "but you can tell me something which will greatly
+simplify my task and possibly put matters in such shape that you and
+your friends can be released to your homes."</p>
+
+<p>"I?"</p>
+
+<p>She stood before me with amazed eyes, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> color rising in her cheeks. I
+had to force my next words, which, out of consideration for her, I made
+as direct as possible.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, miss. What was the article you were seen to pick up from the
+driveway soon after leaving your carriage?"</p>
+
+<p>She started, then stumbled backward, tripping in her long train.</p>
+
+<p>"I pick up?" she murmured. Then with a blush, whether of anger or pride
+I could not tell, she coldly answered: "Oh, that was something of my
+own,&mdash;something I had just dropped. I had rather not tell you what it
+was."</p>
+
+<p>I scrutinized her closely. She met my eyes squarely, yet not with just
+the clear light I should, remembering Flora, have been glad to see
+there.</p>
+
+<p>"I think it would be better for you to be entirely frank," said I. "It
+was the only article known to have been picked up from the driveway
+after Mr. Deane's loss of the ruby; and though we do not presume to say
+that it was the ruby, yet the matter would look clearer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> to us all if
+you would frankly state what this object was."</p>
+
+<p>Her whole body seemed to collapse and she looked as if about to sink.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, where is Minnie? Where is Mr. Deane?" she moaned, turning and
+staring at the door, as if she hoped they would fly to her aid. Then, in
+a burst of indignation which I was fain to believe real, she turned on
+me with the cry: "It was a bit of paper which I had thrust into the
+bosom of my gown. It fell out&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Your dressmaker's bill?" I intimated.</p>
+
+<p>She stared, laughed hysterically for a moment, then sank upon a near-by
+sofa, sobbing spasmodically.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she cried, after a moment; "my dressmaker's bill. You seem to
+know all my affairs." Then suddenly, and with a startling impetuosity,
+which drew her to her feet: "Are you going to tell everybody that? Are
+you going to state publicly that Miss Glover brought an unpaid bill to
+the party and that because Mr. Deane was unfortunate enough<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> or careless
+enough to drop and lose the jewel he was bringing to Mrs. Burton, she is
+to be looked upon as a thief, because she stooped to pick up this bill
+which had slipped inadvertently from its hiding-place? I shall die if
+you do," she cried. "I shall die if it is already known," she pursued,
+with increasing emotion. "Is it? Is it?"</p>
+
+<p>Her passion was so great, so much greater than any likely to rise in a
+breast wholly innocent, that I began to feel very sober.</p>
+
+<p>"No one but Mrs. Ashley and possibly her son know about the bill," said
+I, "and no one shall, if you will go with that lady to her room, and
+make plain to her, in the only way you can, that the extremely valuable
+article which has been lost to-night is not in your possession."</p>
+
+<p>She threw up her arms with a scream. "Oh, what a horror! I can not! I
+can not! Oh, I shall die of shame! My father! My mother!" And she burst
+from the room like one distraught.</p>
+
+<p>But in another moment she came cringing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> back. "I can not face them,"
+she said. "They all believe it; they will always believe it unless I
+submit&mdash;Oh, why did I ever come to this dreadful place? Why did I order
+this hateful dress which I can never pay for and which, in spite of the
+misery it has caused me, has failed to bring me the&mdash;" She did not
+continue. She had caught my eye and seen there, perhaps, some evidence
+of the pity I could not but experience for her. With a sudden change of
+tone she advanced upon me with the appeal: "Save me from this
+humiliation. I have not seen the ruby. I am as ignorant of its
+whereabouts as&mdash;as Mr. Ashley himself. Won't you believe me? Won't they
+be satisfied if I swear&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>I was really sorry for her. I began to think too that some dreadful
+mistake had been made. Her manner seemed too ingenuous for guilt. Yet
+where could that ruby be, if not with this young girl? Certainly, all
+other possibilities had been exhausted, and her story of the bill, even
+if accepted, would never quite exonerate her from secret suspicion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>
+while that elusive jewel remained unfound.</p>
+
+<p>"You give me no hope," she moaned. "I must go out before them all and
+ask to have it proved that I am no thief. Oh, if God would have pity&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Or some one would find&mdash;Halloo! What's that?"</p>
+
+<p>A shout had risen from the hall beyond.</p>
+
+<p>She gasped and we both plunged forward. Mr. Ashley, still in his
+overcoat, stood at the other end of the hall, and facing him were ranged
+the whole line of young people whom I had left scattered about in the
+various parlors. I thought he looked peculiar; certainly his appearance
+differed from that of a quarter of an hour before, and when he glanced
+our way and saw who was standing with me in the library doorway, his
+voice took on a tone which made me doubt whether he was about to
+announce good news or bad.</p>
+
+<p>But his first word settled that question.</p>
+
+<p>"Rejoice with me!" he cried. "<i>The ruby has been found!</i> Do you want to
+see the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> culprit?&mdash;for there is a culprit. We have him at the door;
+shall we bring him in?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes," cried several voices, among them that of Mr. Deane, who now
+strode forward with beaming eyes and instinctively lifted hand. But some
+of the ladies looked frightened, and Mr. Ashley, noting this, glanced
+for encouragement toward us.</p>
+
+<p>He seemed to find it in Miss Glover's eyes. She had quivered and nearly
+fallen at that word <i>found</i>, but had drawn herself up by this time and
+was awaiting his further action in a fever of relief and hope which
+perhaps no one but myself could fully appreciate.</p>
+
+<p>"A vile thief! A most unconscionable rascal!" vociferated Mr. Ashley.
+"You must see him, mother; you must see him, ladies, else you will not
+realize our good fortune. Open the door there and bring in the robber!"</p>
+
+<p>At this command, uttered in ringing tones, the huge leaves of the great
+front door swung slowly forward, revealing the sturdy forms of the two
+stablemen holding down by main force the towering figure of&mdash;<i>a horse</i>!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The scream of astonishment which went up from all sides, united to Mr.
+Ashley's shout of hilarity, caused the animal, unused, no doubt, to
+drawing-rooms, to rear to the length of his bridle. At which Mr. Ashley
+laughed again and gaily cried:</p>
+
+<p>"Confound the fellow! Look at him, mother; look at him, ladies! Do you
+not see guilt written on his brow? It is he who has made us all this
+trouble. First, he must needs take umbrage at the two lights with which
+we presumed to illuminate our porch; then, envying Mrs. Burton her ruby
+and Mr. Deane his reward, seek to rob them both by grinding his hoofs
+all over the snow of the driveway till he came upon the jewel which Mr.
+Deane had dropped from his pocket, and taking it up in a ball of snow,
+secrete it in his left hind shoe,&mdash;where it might be yet, if Mr.
+Spencer&mdash;" here he bowed to a strange gentleman who at that moment
+entered&mdash;"had not come himself for his daughters, and, going first to
+the stable, found his horse so restless and seemingly lame&mdash;(there,
+boys, you may<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> take the wretch away now and harness him, but first hold
+up that guilty left hind hoof for the ladies to see)&mdash;that he stooped to
+examine him, and so came upon <i>this</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Here the young gentleman brought forward his hand. In it was a
+nondescript little wad, well soaked and shapeless; but, once he had
+untied the kid, such a ray of rosy light burst from his outstretched
+palm that I doubt if a single woman there noted the clatter of the
+retiring beast or the heavy clang made by the two front doors as they
+shut upon the <i>robber</i>. Eyes and tongues were too busy, and Mr. Ashley,
+realizing, probably, that the interest of all present would remain, for
+a few minutes at least, with this marvelous jewel so astonishingly
+recovered, laid it, with many expressions of thankfulness, in Mrs.
+Burton's now eagerly outstretched palm, and advancing toward us, paused
+in front of Miss Glover and eagerly held out his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Congratulate me," he prayed. "All our troubles are over&mdash;Oh, what now!"</p>
+
+<p>The poor young thing, in trying to smile,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> had turned as white as a
+sheet. Before either of us could interpose an arm, she had slipped to
+the floor in a dead faint. With a murmur of pity and possibly of inward
+contrition, he stooped over her and together we carried her into the
+library, where I left her in his care, confident, from certain
+indications, that my presence would not be greatly missed by either of
+them.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever hope I may have had of reaping the reward offered by Mrs.
+Ashley was now lost, but, in the satisfaction I experienced at finding
+this young girl as innocent as my Flora, I did not greatly care.</p>
+
+<p>Well, it all ended even more happily than may here appear. The horse not
+putting in his claim to the reward, and Mr. Spencer repudiating all
+right to it, it was paid in full to Mr. Deane, who went home in as
+buoyant a state of mind as was possible to him after the great anxieties
+of the preceding two hours. Miss Glover was sent back by the Ashleys in
+their own carriage and I was told that Mr. Ashley declined to close the
+carriage door<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> upon her till she had promised to come again the
+following night.</p>
+
+<p>Anxious to make such amends as I personally could for my share in the
+mortification to which she had been subjected, I visited her in the
+morning, with the intention of offering a suggestion or two in regard to
+that little bill. But she met my first advance with a radiant smile and
+the glad exclamation:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I have settled all that! I have just come from Madame Dupr&egrave;'s. I
+told her that I had never imagined the dress could possibly cost more
+than a hundred dollars, and I offered her that sum if she would take the
+garment back. And she did, she did, and I shall never have to wear that
+dreadful satin again."</p>
+
+<p>I made a note of this dressmaker's name. She and I may have a bone to
+pick some day. But I said nothing to Miss Glover. I merely exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>"And to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I have an old spotted muslin which, with a few natural flowers,
+will make me look<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> festive enough. One does not need fine clothes when
+one is&mdash;happy."</p>
+
+<p>The dreamy far-off smile with which she finished the sentence was more
+eloquent than words, and I was not surprised when some time later I read
+of her engagement to Mr. Ashley.</p>
+
+<p>But it was not till she could sign herself with his name that she told
+me just what underlay the misery of that night. She had met Harrison
+Ashley more than once before, and, though she did not say so, had
+evidently conceived an admiration for him which made her especially
+desirous of attracting and pleasing him. Not understanding the world
+very well, certainly having very little knowledge of the tastes and
+feelings of wealthy people, she conceived that the more brilliantly she
+was attired the more likely she would be to please this rich young man.
+So in a moment of weakness she decided to devote all her small savings
+(a hundred dollars, as we know) to buying a gown such as she felt she
+could appear in at his house without shame.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It came home, as dresses from French dressmakers are very apt to do,
+just in time for her to put it on for the party. The bill came with it
+and when she saw the amount&mdash;it was all itemized and she could find no
+fault with anything but the summing up&mdash;she was so overwhelmed that she
+nearly fainted. But she could not give up her ball; so she dressed
+herself, and, being urged all the time to hurry, hardly stopped to give
+one look at the new and splendid gown which had cost so much. The
+bill&mdash;the incredible, the enormous bill&mdash;was all she could think of, and
+the figures, which represented nearly her whole year's earnings, danced
+constantly before her eyes. How to pay it&mdash;but she could not pay it, nor
+could she ask her father to do so. She was ruined; but the ball, and Mr.
+Ashley&mdash;these still awaited her; so presently she worked herself up to
+some anticipation of enjoyment, and, having thrown on her cloak, was
+turning down her light preparatory to departure, when her eye fell on
+the bill lying open on her dresser.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It would never do to leave it there&mdash;never do to leave it anywhere in
+her room. There were prying eyes in the house, and she was as ashamed of
+that bill as she might have been of a contemplated theft. So she tucked
+it in her corsage and went down to join her friends in the carriage.</p>
+
+<p>The rest we know, all but one small detail which turned to gall whatever
+enjoyment she was able to get out of the early evening. There was a
+young girl present, dressed in a simple muslin gown. While looking at it
+and inwardly contrasting it with her own splendor, Mr. Ashley passed by
+with another gentleman and she heard him say:</p>
+
+<p>"How much better young girls look in simple white than in the elaborate
+silks only suitable for their mothers!"</p>
+
+<p>Thoughtless words, possibly forgotten as soon as uttered, but they
+sharply pierced this already sufficiently stricken and uneasy breast and
+were the cause of the tears which had aroused my suspicion when I came
+upon her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> in the library, standing with her face to the night.</p>
+
+<p>But who can say whether, if the evening had been devoid of these
+occurrences and no emotions of contrition and pity had been awakened in
+her behalf in the breast of her chivalrous host, she would ever have
+become Mrs. Ashley?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_HERMIT_OF_mdash_STREET" id="THE_HERMIT_OF_mdash_STREET"></a>THE HERMIT OF &mdash;&mdash; STREET</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<h5>I COMMIT AN INDISCRETION</h5>
+
+
+<p>I should have kept my eyes for the many brilliant and interesting sights
+constantly offered me. I might have done so, had I been ever eighteen,
+or had I not come from the country.</p>
+
+<p>I was visiting in a house where fashionable people made life a perpetual
+holiday. Yet of all the pleasures which followed so rapidly, one upon
+another, the greatest was the hour I spent in my window after the day's
+dissipations were all over, watching a man's face, bending night after
+night over a study-table in the lower room of the great house in our
+rear.</p>
+
+<p>Why did it affect me so? It was not a young face, but it was very
+handsome, and it was enigmatic.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The day following my arrival in the city I had noticed the large house
+in our rear, and had asked some questions about it. It had a peculiarly
+secluded and secretive look. The windows were all shuttered and closed,
+with the exception of the three on the lower floor and two others
+directly over these. On the top story they were even boarded up, giving
+to that portion of the house a blank and desolate air.</p>
+
+<p>The grounds were separated from the street by a brick wall in our
+direction; the line of separation was marked by a high iron fence, in
+which I saw a gate.</p>
+
+<p>The Vandykes, whom I had questioned on the matter, were very short in
+their replies. But I learned this much. That the house belonged to one
+of New York's oldest families. That its present owner was a widow of
+great eccentricity of character, who, with her one child, a daughter,
+unfortunately blind from birth, had taken up her abode in some foreign
+country, where she thought her child's affliction would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> attract less
+attention than in her native city.</p>
+
+<p>The house had been closed to the extent I have mentioned, immediately
+upon her departure, but had not been left entirely empty. Mr. Allison,
+her man of business, had moved into it, and, being fully as eccentric as
+herself, had contented himself for five years with a solitary life in
+this dismal mansion, without friends, almost without acquaintances,
+though he might have had unlimited society and any amount of attention,
+his personal attractions being of a very uncommon order, and his talent
+for business so pronounced, that he was already recognized at
+thirty-five as one of the men to be afraid of in Wall Street. Of his
+birth and connections little was known; he was called the Hermit of &mdash;&mdash;
+Street.</p>
+
+<p>I was not very well one day, and I had been left alone in the house.</p>
+
+<p>At seven o'clock&mdash;how well I remember the hour!&mdash;I was sitting in my
+window, waiting for the return of the Vandykes, and watching<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> the face
+which had now appeared at its usual place in the study. Suddenly my
+attention was drawn from him to a window in the story over his head, by
+the rapid blowing in and out of a curtain. As there was a lighted
+gas-jet near by, I watched the gyrating muslin with apprehension, and
+was shocked when, in another moment, I saw the flimsy folds give one
+wild flap and flare up into a dangerous flame.</p>
+
+<p>I dashed out of my room down-stairs, calling for the servants. But Lucy
+was in the front area and Ellen above, and I was on the back porch and
+in the garden before either of them responded.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, no movement was observable in the brooding figure of Mr.
+Allison. I sprang through the gate and knocked with all my might on a
+door which opened upon a side porch.</p>
+
+<p>Confronting me with dilating eyes, he faltered slowly back till his
+natural instincts of courtesy recalled him to himself, and he bowed,
+when I found courage to cry:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Fire! Your house is on fire! Up there, overhead!"</p>
+
+<p>So intense were the feelings I saw aroused in him that I expected to see
+him rush into the open air with loud cries for help. But instead, he
+pushed the door to behind me, and locking me in, said, in a strange
+tone:</p>
+
+<p>"Don't call out, don't make any sound or outcry, and above all, don't
+let any one in; I will fight the flames alone!" and seizing a lamp from
+the study-table, he dashed from me toward a staircase I could see in the
+distance.</p>
+
+<p>Alas! it was a thrilling look&mdash;a look which no girl could sustain
+without emotion; and spellbound under it, I stood in a maze, alone and
+in utter darkness.</p>
+
+<p>While my emotions were at their height a bell rang. It was the front
+door-bell, and it meant the arrival of the engines.</p>
+
+<p>As the bell rang a second time, a light broke on the staircase I was so
+painfully watching, and Mr. Allison descended, lamp in hand, as he had
+gone up.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>What passed between him and the policeman whose voice I heard in the
+hall, I do not know. I finally heard the front door close.</p>
+
+<p>I must have met him with a pleading aspect, very much like that of a
+frightened child, for his countenance changed as he approached me.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear young lady, how can I thank you enough and how can I
+sufficiently express my regret at having kept you a prisoner in this
+blazing house?"</p>
+
+<p>Had he stopped again? I was in such a state of inner perturbation that I
+hardly knew whether he had ceased to speak or I to hear.</p>
+
+<p>"May I ask whom I have the honor of addressing?" he asked, in a tone I
+might better never have heard from his lips.</p>
+
+<p>"I am Delight Hunter, a country girl, sir, visiting the Vandykes."</p>
+
+<p>Then as my lips settled into a determined curve, he himself opened the
+door, and bowing low, asked if I would accept his protection to the
+gate.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Declining his offer with a wild shake of the head, I dashed from the
+house and fled with an incomprehensible sense of relief back to that of
+the Vandykes.</p>
+
+<p>The servants, who had seen me rush toward Mr. Allison's, were still in
+the yard watching for me. I did not vouchsafe them a word. I could
+hardly formulate words in my own mind. A great love and a great dread
+had seized upon me at once.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<h5>A STRANGE WEDDING BREAKFAST</h5>
+
+
+<p>Mr. Allison, who had never before been known to leave his books and
+papers, not only called the next day to express his gratitude for what
+he was pleased to style my invaluable warning, but came every day after.</p>
+
+<p>After he became an habitu&eacute; of the house, Mrs. Vandyke grew more
+communicative in regard to him. Mrs. Ransome, the lady in whose house he
+lived, had left her home very suddenly. He anticipated a like return;
+so, ever since her departure, it had been his invariable custom to have
+the table set for three, so that he might never be surprised by her
+arrival. It had become a monomania with him. Never did he sit down
+without there being enough before him for a small family, and as his
+food was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> all brought in cooked from a neighboring restaurant, this
+eccentricity of his was well known, and gave an added &eacute;clat to his
+otherwise hermit-like habits. To my mind, it added an element of pathos
+to his seclusion, and so affected me that one day I dared to remark to
+him:</p>
+
+<p>"You must have liked Mrs. Ransome very much, you are so faithful in your
+remembrance of her."</p>
+
+<p>I never presumed again to attack any of his foibles. He gave me first a
+hard look, then an indulgent one, and finally managed to say, after a
+moment of quiet hesitation:</p>
+
+<p>"You allude to my custom of setting two chairs at the table to which
+they may return at any minute? Miss Hunter, what I do in the loneliness
+of that great house is not worth the gossip of those who surround you."</p>
+
+<p>Flushing till I wished my curls would fall down and hide my cheeks, I
+tried to stammer out some apology. But he drove it back with a
+passionate word:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You love me, Delight" (he was already pressing me in his arms), "you
+love me or you would never have rushed so impetuously to warn me of my
+danger that night. Make me the maddest, happiest man in all the world."</p>
+
+<p>I hardly realized what I had done till I stood abashed before Mrs.
+Vandyke, and told her I had engaged myself to marry Mr. Allison before
+he went to Europe. Then it seemed I had done a very good thing. She
+congratulated me heartily, and, seeing I had certain fear of taking my
+aunt into my confidence, promised to sit down and write to her herself,
+using every encomium she could think of to make this sudden marriage, on
+my part, seem like the result of reason and wise forethought.</p>
+
+<p>I had not, what every one else seemed to have, full confidence in this
+man, and yet the thrall in which I was held by the dominating power of
+his passion kept me from seeking that advice even from my own
+intuitions, which might have led to my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> preservation. I was blind and
+knew I was blind, yet rushed on headlong. I asked him no questions till
+our wedding day.</p>
+
+<p>We were married simply, but to the sound of wonderful music, in a
+certain little church not far from &mdash;&mdash; Street.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Allison had told me that it would be impossible for him to take me
+out of the city at present. It was therefore to the house on &mdash;&mdash; Street
+we were driven.</p>
+
+<p>In the hall stood the old serving man with whose appearance I was
+already so familiar.</p>
+
+<p>"Luncheon is served," he announced, with great formality; and then I saw
+through an open door the glitter of china and glass, and realized I was
+about to take my first meal with my husband.</p>
+
+<p>The next moment I was before the board, which had been made as beautiful
+as possible with flowers and the finest of dinner services. But the
+table was set for four, two of whom could only be present in spirit.</p>
+
+<p>I wondered if I were glad or sorry to see it&mdash;if I were pleased with his
+loyalty to his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> absent employer, or disappointed that my presence had
+not made everybody else forgotten. To be consistent, I should have
+rejoiced at this evidence of sterling worth on his part; but girls are
+not consistent&mdash;at least, brides of an hour are not&mdash;and I may have
+pouted the least bit in the world as I pointed to the two places set as
+elaborately as our own, and said with the daring which comes with the
+rights of a wife:</p>
+
+<p>"It would be a startling coincidence if Mrs. Ransome and her daughter
+should return to-day. I fear I would not like it."</p>
+
+<p>I was looking directly at him as I spoke, with a smile on my lips and my
+hand on the back of my chair. But the jest I had expected in reply did
+not come. Something in my tone or choice of topic jarred upon him, and
+his answer was a simple wave of his hand toward Ambrose, who at once
+relieved me of my bouquet, placing it in a tall glass at the side of my
+plate.</p>
+
+<p>"Now we will sit," said he.</p>
+
+<p>I do not know how the meal would have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> passed had Ambrose not been
+present. As it was, it was a rather formal affair, and would have been
+slightly depressing, if I had not caught, now and then, flashing glances
+from my husband's eye which assured me that he found as much to enchain
+him in my presence as I did in his.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<h5>ONE BEAD FROM A NECKLACE</h5>
+
+
+<p>After supper Mr. Allison put before me a large book. "Amuse yourself
+with these pictures," said he; "I have a little task to perform. After
+it is done I will come again and sit with you."</p>
+
+<p>"You are not going out," I cried, starting up.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he smiled, "I am not going out."</p>
+
+<p>I sank back and opened the book, but I did not look at the pictures.
+Instead of that I listened to his steps moving about the house, rear and
+front, and finally going up what seemed to be a servant's staircase, for
+I could see the great front stairs from where I sat, and there was no
+one on them.</p>
+
+<p>But when he returned and sat down I said nothing. There was a little
+thing I noted,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> however. His hands were trembling, and it was five
+minutes before he met my inquiring look.</p>
+
+<p>"I will not displease him with questions," I decided: "but I will find
+my own way into those lofts above. I shall never be at rest till I do."</p>
+
+<p>I had found a candle in my bedroom, and this I took to light me. But it
+revealed nothing to me except a double row of unused rooms, with dust on
+the handles of all the doors. I scrutinized them all; for, young as I
+was, I had wit enough to see that if I could find one knob on which no
+dust lay that would be the one my husband was accustomed to turn.</p>
+
+<p>But every one showed tokens of not having been touched in years, and,
+baffled in my search, I was about to retreat, when I remembered that the
+house had four stories, and that I had not yet come upon the staircase
+leading to the one above. A hurried search (for I was mortally afraid of
+being surprised by my husband), revealed to me<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> at last a distant door,
+which had no dust on its knob. It lay at the bottom of a shut-in
+staircase, and convinced that here was the place my husband was in the
+habit of visiting, I carefully fingered the knob, which turned very
+softly in my hand. But it did not open the door. There was a lock
+visible just below, and that lock was fastened.</p>
+
+<p>My first escapade was without visible results, but I was uneasy from
+that hour. I imagined all sorts of things hidden beyond that closed
+door.</p>
+
+<p>I was walking one morning in the grounds that lay about the house, when
+suddenly I felt something small but perceptibly hard strike my hat and
+bound quickly off.</p>
+
+<p>In another instant I started up. I had found a little thing like a
+bullet wrapped up in paper; but it was no bullet; it was a bead, a large
+gold bead, and on the paper which surrounded it were written these
+words:</p>
+
+<p>"Help from the passing stranger! I am Elizabeth Ransome, owner of the
+house in which I have been imprisoned five years.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> Search for me in the
+upper story. You will find me there with my blind daughter. He who
+placed us here is below; beware his cunning."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<h5>I LEARN HYPOCRISY</h5>
+
+
+<p>Even in that rush of confusing emotions I recognized one fact; that I
+must not betray by look or word that I knew this dreadful secret.</p>
+
+<p>So I went in, but went in slowly and with downcast eyes. The bead and
+the paper I had dropped into my vinaigrette, which fortunately hung at
+my side.</p>
+
+<p>"Humphrey," I said, "when are we going to leave this house? I begin to
+find it lonesome."</p>
+
+<p>He was preparing to gather up his papers for his accustomed trip
+down-town, but he stopped as I spoke, and looked at me curiously.</p>
+
+<p>"You are pale," he remarked, "change and travel will benefit you.
+Dearest, we will try to sail for Europe in a week."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<h5>THE STOLEN KEY</h5>
+
+
+<p>It became apparent even to my girlish mind, that, as the wife of the man
+who had committed this great and inconceivable wrong, I was bound, not
+only to make an immediate attempt to release the women he so
+outrageously held imprisoned in their own house, but to release them so
+that he should escape the opprobrium of his own act.</p>
+
+<p>That I might have time to think, and that I might be saved, if but for
+one day, contact with one it was almost my duty to hate, I came back to
+him with the plea that I might spend the day with the Vandykes instead
+of accompanying him down-town as usual. I think he was glad of the
+freedom my absence offered him, for he gave me the permission I asked,
+and in ten minutes I was in my old home. Mrs. Vandyke received me with
+effusion. It was not the first time she had seen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> me since my marriage,
+but it was the first time she had seen me alone.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear!" she exclaimed, turning me about till my unwilling face met
+the light, "is this the wild-wood lassie I gave into Mr. Allison's
+keeping a week ago!"</p>
+
+<p>"It is the house!" I excitedly gasped, "the empty, lonely, echoing
+house! I am afraid in it, even with my husband. It gives me creepy
+feelings, as if a murder had been committed in it."</p>
+
+<p>She broke into a laugh; I hear the sound now, an honest, amused and
+entirely reassuring laugh, that relieved me in one way and depressed me
+in another.</p>
+
+<p>I ventured on another attempt to clear up the mystery that was fast
+stifling out my youth, love and hope. I professed to have an
+extraordinary desire to see the city from the house-top. I had never
+been any higher up than the third story of any house I had been in, and
+could not, I told her, go any higher in the house in which I was then
+living. Might I go up on her roof? Her eyes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> opened, but she was of an
+amiable, inconsequent disposition and let me have my way without too
+much opposition.</p>
+
+<p>One glance at the spot I was most interested in, and I found myself too
+dizzy to look further.</p>
+
+<p>In the center of Mrs. Ransome's roof there was to be seen what I can
+best describe as an extended cupola without windows. As there was no
+other break visible in the roof, the top of this must have held the
+skylight, which, being thus lifted many feet above the level of the
+garret floor, would admit air and light enough to the boarded-up space
+below, but would make any effort to be heard or seen, on the part of any
+one secreted there, quite ineffectual.</p>
+
+<p>The resolution I took was worthy of an older head and a more disciplined
+heart. By means that were fair, or by means that were foul, I meant to
+win my way into that boarded-up attic and see for myself if the words
+hidden away in my vinaigrette were true. To do this openly would cause
+a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> scandal I was yet too much under my husband's influence to risk;
+while to do it secretly meant the obtaining of keys which I had every
+reason to believe he kept hidden about his person. How was I to obtain
+them? I saw no way, but that did not deter me from starting at once
+down-town in the hope of being struck by some brilliant idea while
+waiting for him in his office.</p>
+
+<p>Was it instinct that suggested this, or was the hand of Providence in
+all that I did at this time? I had no sooner seated myself in the little
+room, where I had been accustomed to wait for him, than I saw what sent
+the blood tinkling to my finger-tips in sudden hope. It was my husband's
+vest hanging in one corner, the vest he had worn down-town that morning.
+The day was warm and he had taken it off. If the key should be in it!</p>
+
+<p>I had never done a mean or underhanded thing before in my life, but I
+sprang at that vest without the least hesitation, and fingering it was
+the lightest of touches, found in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> the smallest of inside pockets a key,
+which instinct immediately told me was that of the door I had once
+endeavored to pass.</p>
+
+<p>Dropping the key into my pocket, I went back into the outer room, and
+leaving word that I had remembered a little shopping which would take me
+again up-town, I left the building and returned to &mdash;&mdash; Street.</p>
+
+<p>I was out of breath with suspense, as well as with my rapid movements,
+when I reached the shut-in staircase and carefully unlocked its narrow
+door. But by the time I had reached the fourth floor, and unlocked, with
+the same key, the only other door that had a streak of light under it, I
+had gained a certain degree of tense composure born of the desperate
+nature of the occasion. The calmness with which I pushed open the door
+proved this&mdash;a calmness which made the movement noiseless, which was the
+reason, I suppose, why I was enabled to suppress the shriek that rose to
+my lips as I saw that the room had occupants, and that my worst fears
+were thus realized.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A woman was sitting, with her back to me, at a table, and before her,
+with her face turned my way, was a young girl in whom, even at first
+glance, I detected some likeness to myself. Was this why Mr. Allison's
+countenance expressed so much agitation when he first saw me? The next
+moment this latter lifted her head and looked directly at me, but with
+no change in her mobile features; at which token of blindness I almost
+fell on my knees, so conclusively did it prove that I was really looking
+upon Mrs. Ransome and her daughter.</p>
+
+<p>The mother, who had been directing her daughter's hands in some
+needlework, felt that the latter's attention had been diverted.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, dear?" she asked, with an indescribable mellowness of
+voice, whose tone thrilled me with a fresh and passionate pity.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought I heard Mr. Allison come in, but he always knocks; besides,
+it is not time for him yet." And she sighed.</p>
+
+<p>That sigh went through my heart, rousing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> new feelings and deeper
+terrors; but I had no time to indulge in them, for the mother turned at
+the gasp which left my lips, and rising up, confronted me with an
+amazement which left her without any ability to speak.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is it, mother?" inquired the blind girl, herself rising and beaming
+upon me with the sweetest of looks.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me answer," I ventured softly. "I am Mr. Allison's wife. I have
+come to see if there is anything I can do to make your stay here more
+comfortable."</p>
+
+<p>The look that passed over the mother's face warned me to venture no
+further in the daughter's presence. Whatever that mother had suffered,
+the daughter had experienced nothing but satisfied love and
+companionship in these narrow precincts. Her rounded cheeks showed this,
+and the indescribable atmosphere of peace and gladness which surrounded
+her.</p>
+
+<p>As I saw this, and realized the mother's life and the self-restraint
+which had enabled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> her to accept the inevitable without raising a
+complaint calculated to betray to the daughter that all was not as it
+should be with them, I felt such a rush of awe sweep over me that some
+of my fathomless emotion showed in my face; for Mrs. Ransome's own
+countenance assumed a milder look, and advancing nearer, she pointed out
+a room where we could speak apart. As I moved toward it she whispered a
+few words in her daughter's ear, then she rejoined me.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, madame!" I murmured, "oh, madame! Show a poor girl what she can do
+to restore you to your rights. The door is open and you can descend; but
+that means&mdash;&mdash;Oh, madame, I am filled with terror when I think what. He
+may be in the hall now. He may have missed the key and returned. If only
+you were out of the house!"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear girl," she quietly replied, "we will be some day. You will see
+to that, I know. I do not think I could stay here, now that I have seen
+another face than his. But<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> I do not want to go now, to-day. I want to
+prepare Theresa for freedom; she has lived so long quietly with me that
+I dread the shock and excitement of other voices and the pressure of
+city sounds upon her delicate ears. I must train her for contact with
+the world.</p>
+
+<p>"But you won't forget me if I allow you to lock us in again? You will
+come back and open the doors, and let me go down again through my old
+halls into the room where my husband died; and if Mr. Allison
+objects&mdash;&mdash;My dear girl, you know now that he is an unscrupulous man,
+that it is my money he begrudged me, and that he has used it and made
+himself a rich man."</p>
+
+<p>"I can not," I murmured, "I can not find courage to present the subject
+to him so. I do not know my husband's mind. It is a fathomless abyss to
+me. Let me think of some other way. Oh, madam! if you were out of the
+house, and could then come&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, a thought struck me. "I can<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> do it; I see the way to do it&mdash;a
+way that will place you in a triumphant position and yet save him from
+suspicion. He is weary of this care. He wants to be relieved of the
+dreadful secret which anchors him to this house, and makes a hell of the
+very spot in which he has fixed his love. Shall we under-take to do this
+for him? Can you trust me if I promise to take an immediate impression
+of this key, and have one made for myself, which shall insure my return
+here?"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear," she said, taking my head between her two trembling hands, "I
+have never looked upon a sweeter face than my daughter's till I looked
+upon yours to-day. If you bid me hope, I will hope, and if you bid me
+trust, I will trust. The remembrance of this kiss will not let you
+forget." And she embraced me in a warm and tender manner.</p>
+
+<p>"I will write you," I murmured. "Some day look for a billet under the
+door. It will tell you what to do; now I must go back to my husband."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When I reached the office, I was in a fainting condition, but all my
+hopes revived again when I saw the vest still hanging where I had left
+it, and heard my husband's voice singing cheerfully in the adjoining
+room.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<h5>WHILE OTHERS DANCED</h5>
+
+
+<p>A crowd in the &mdash;&mdash; Street house was necessary to the quiet escape of
+Mrs. Ransome and her daughter; so a crowd we must have, and how have a
+crowd without giving a grand party?</p>
+
+<p>I knew that this would be a shocking proposition to him; but I was
+prepared to meet all objections; and when, with every nerve alert and
+every charm exerted to its utmost, I sat down at his side that evening
+to plead my cause, I knew by the sparkle of his eye and the softening of
+the bitter lines that sometimes hardened his mouth, that the battle was
+half won before I spoke, and that I should have my party whatever it
+might cost him in mental stress and worry.</p>
+
+<p>The next thing I did was to procure a facsimile of his key from the wax
+impression<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> I had taken of it in accordance with my promise to Mrs.
+Ransome. Then I wrote her a letter, in which I gave her the minutest
+directions as to her own movements on that important evening. After
+which I gave myself up entirely to the business of the party.</p>
+
+<p>Certain things I had insisted on. All the rooms were to be opened, even
+those on the third floor; and I was to have a band to play in the hall.
+He did not deny me anything. I think his judgment was asleep, or else he
+was so taken up with the horrible problem presented by his desire to
+leave the city and the existence of those obligations which made
+departure an impossibility, that he failed to place due stress on
+matters which, at another time, might very well seem to threaten the
+disclosure of his dangerous secret.</p>
+
+<p>At last the night came.</p>
+
+<p>An entertainment given in this great house had aroused much interest.
+Most of our invitations had been accepted, and the affair<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> promised to
+be brilliant. As a bride, I wore white, and when, at the moment of going
+down-stairs, my husband suddenly clasped about my neck a rich necklace
+of diamonds, I was seized by such a bitter sense of the contrast between
+appearances and the awful reality underlying these festivities, that I
+reeled in his arms, and had to employ all the arts which my dangerous
+position had taught me, to quiet his alarm, and convince him that my
+emotion sprang entirely from pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime the orchestra was playing and the equipages were rolling up in
+front. What he thought as the music filled the house and rose in
+piercing melody to the very roof, I can not say. I thought how it was a
+message of release to those weary and abused ones above; and, filled
+with the sense of support which the presence of so many people in the
+house gave me, I drew up my girlish figure in glad excitement and
+prepared myself for the ordeal, visible and invisible, which awaited
+me.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The next two hours form a blank in my memory. Standing under Mrs.
+Ransome's picture (I would stand there), I received the congratulations
+of the hundred or more people who were anxious to see Mr. Allison's
+bride, and of the whole glittering pageant I remember only the whispered
+words of Mrs. Vandyke as she passed with the rest:</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, I take back what I said the other day about the effect of
+marriage upon you. You are the most brilliant woman here, and Mr.
+Allison the happiest of men."</p>
+
+<p>This was an indication that all was going well. But what of the awful
+morning hour that awaited us! Would that show him a happy man?</p>
+
+<p>At last our guests were assembled, and I had an instant to myself.
+Murmuring a prayer for courage, I slid from the room and ran up-stairs.
+Here all was bustle also&mdash;a bustle I delighted in, for, with so many
+people moving about, Mrs. Ransome and her daughter could pass out
+without attracting more than a momentary attention.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Securing a bundle I had myself prepared, I glided up the second
+staircase, and, after a moment's delay, succeeded in unlocking the door
+and disappearing with my bundle into the fourth story. When I came down,
+the key I had carried up was left behind me. The way for Mrs. Ransome's
+escape lay open.</p>
+
+<p>I do not think I had been gone ten minutes from the drawing-room. When I
+returned there, it was to find the festivities at their height, and my
+husband just on the point of missing me. The look which he directed
+toward me pierced me to the heart; not that I was playing him false, for
+I was risking life, love and the loss of everything I prized, to save
+him from himself; but that his love for me should be so strong he could
+forget the two tortured hearts above, in the admiration I had awakened
+in the shallow people about us. But I smiled, as a woman on the rack
+might smile if the safety of her loved ones depended on her courage,
+and, nerving myself for the suspense<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> of such a waiting as few of my
+inexperience have ever been called upon to endure, I turned to a group
+of ladies I saw near me and began to talk.</p>
+
+<p>Happily, I did not have to chatter long; happily, Mrs. Ransome was quick
+in her movements and exact in all she did, and, sooner than I expected,
+sooner perhaps, than I was prepared for it, the man who attended the
+front door came to my side and informed me that a lady wished to see
+me&mdash;a lady who had just arrived from the steamer, and who said she was
+the mistress of the house, Mrs. Ransome.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Ransome! The name spread like wild-fire, but before any movement
+was made, I had bounded, in laughing confusion, to my husband's side,
+and, grasping him merrily by the arm, cried:</p>
+
+<p>"Your expectations have come true. Mrs. Ransome has returned without
+warning, and to-night she will partake of the supper you have always had
+served for her."</p>
+
+<p>The shock was as great, perhaps, as ever<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> man received. I knew what it
+was likely to be, and held him upright, with the seeming merriment in my
+eyes which I did not allow to stray from his. He thought I was mad, then
+he thought he was&mdash;then I recalled him to the dangers and exigencies of
+the moment by saying, with forced naivet&eacute;:</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I go and welcome her to this gathering in her own house, or will
+you do the honors? She may not know me."</p>
+
+<p>He moved, but as a statue might move, shot through and through with an
+electric spark. I saw that I must act, rather than he, so uttering some
+girlish sentence about the mice and cat, I glided away into the hall,
+where Mrs. Ransome stood in the nondescript black coat and bonnet I had
+provided her from her own wardrobe. She had slipped a few moments before
+from the house with her daughter, whom she had placed in a carriage,
+which I had ordered to wait for them directly in front of the lamp-post,
+and had now re-entered as the mistress returning unexpectedly after a
+departure of five years. All had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> been done as I had planned, and it
+only remained to carry on the farce and prevent its developing into a
+tragedy.</p>
+
+<p>Rushing up to her, I told her who I was, and, as we were literally
+surrounded in a moment, added such apologies for the merrymaking in
+which she found us indulging as my wit suggested and the occasion seemed
+to demand. Then I allowed her to speak.</p>
+
+<p>Instantly she was the mistress of the house. Old-fashioned as her dress
+was and changed as her figure must have been, she had that imposing
+bearing which great misfortune, nobly borne, gives to some natures, and
+feeling the eyes of many of her old friends upon her, she graciously
+smiled and said that she was delighted to receive so public a welcome.
+Then she took me by the hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Do not worry, child," she said, "I have a daughter about your age,
+which in itself would make me lenient toward one so young and pretty.
+Where is your husband, dear? He has served me well in my absence, and I
+should like to shake hands with him before<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> I withdraw with my daughter,
+to a hotel for the night."</p>
+
+<p>I looked up; he was standing in the open doorway leading into the
+drawing-room. He had recovered a semblance of composure, but the hand
+fingering the inner pocket, where he kept his keys, showed in what a
+tumult of surprise and doubt he had been thrown by this unaccountable
+appearance of his prisoner in the open hall; and if to other eyes he
+showed no more than the natural confusion of the moment, to me he had
+the look of a secretly desperate man, alive to his danger, and only
+holding himself in check in order to measure it.</p>
+
+<p>At the mention she made of his name, he came mechanically forward, and,
+taking her proffered hand, bowed over it. "Welcome," he murmured, in
+strained tones; then, startled by the pressure of her fingers in his, he
+glanced doubtfully up while she said:</p>
+
+<p>"We will have no talk to-night, my faithful and careful friend, but
+to-morrow you may come and see me at the &mdash;&mdash; Hotel.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> You will find that
+my return will not lessen your manifest happiness."</p>
+
+<p>Then, as he began to tremble, she laid her hand on his arm, and I heard
+her smilingly whisper: "You have too pretty a wife for me not to wish my
+return to be a benefaction to her." And, with a smile to the crowd and
+an admonition to those about her not to let the bride suffer from this
+interruption, she disappeared through the great front door on the arm of
+the man who for five years had held her prisoner in her own house. I
+went back into the drawing-room, and the five minutes which elapsed
+between that moment and that of his return were the most awful of my
+life. When he came back I had aged ten years, yet all that time I was
+laughing and talking.</p>
+
+<p>He did not rejoin me immediately; he went up-stairs. I knew why; he had
+gone to see if the door to the fourth floor had been unlocked or simply
+broken down. When he came back he gave me one look. Did he suspect me? I
+could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> not tell. After that, there was another blank in my memory to the
+hour when the guests were all gone, the house all silent, and we stood
+together in a little room, where I had at last discovered him, withdrawn
+by himself, writing. There was a loaded pistol on the table. The paper
+he had been writing was his will.</p>
+
+<p>"Humphrey," said I, placing a finger on the pistol, "why is this?"</p>
+
+<p>He gave me a look, a hungry, passionate look, then he grew as white as
+the paper he had just subscribed with his name.</p>
+
+<p>"I am ruined," he murmured. "I have made unwarrantable use of Mrs.
+Ransome's money; her return has undone me. Delight, I love you, but I
+can not face the future. You will be provided for&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Will I?" I put in softly, very softly, for my way was strewn with
+pitfalls and precipices. "I do not think so, Humphrey. If the money you
+have put away is not yours, my first care would be to restore it. Then
+what would I have left? A dowry<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> of odium and despair, and I am scarcely
+eighteen."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;but&mdash;you do not understand, Delight. I have been a villain, a
+worse villain than you think. The only thing in my life I have not to
+blush for is my love for you. This is pure, even if it has been selfish.
+I know it is pure, because I have begun to suffer. If I could tell
+you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Ransome has already told me," said I. "Who do you think unlocked
+the door of her retreat? I, Humphrey. I wanted to save you from
+yourself, and she understands me. She will never reveal the secret of
+the years she has passed overhead."</p>
+
+<p>Would he hate me? Would he love me? Would he turn that fatal weapon on
+me, or level it again toward his own breast? For a moment I could not
+tell; then the white horror in his face broke up, and, giving me a look
+I shall never forget till I die, he fell prostrate on his knees and
+lowered his proud head before me.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I did not touch it, but from that moment the schooling of our two hearts
+began, and, though I can never look upon my husband with the frank joy I
+see in other women's faces, I have learned not to look upon him with
+distrust, and to thank God I did not forsake him when desertion might
+have meant the destruction of the one small seed of goodness which had
+developed in his heart with the advent of a love for which nothing in
+his whole previous life had prepared him.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="FAMOUS_AUTHORS_AND_THEIR_BOOKS_INCLUDED_IN_THIS_SERIES" id="FAMOUS_AUTHORS_AND_THEIR_BOOKS_INCLUDED_IN_THIS_SERIES"></a><b>FAMOUS AUTHORS AND THEIR BOOKS INCLUDED IN THIS SERIES</b></h3>
+
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+
+<p>
+<b>ECCENTRIC MR. CLARK</b><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><b>By JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY</b></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><i>Author of "An Old Sweetheart of Mine," etc.</i></span><br />
+<br />
+<b>THE PRINCESS ELOPES</b><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><b>By HAROLD MacGRATH</b></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><i>Author of "The Man on the Box," etc.</i></span><br />
+<br />
+<b>AS THE HEART PANTETH</b><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><b>By HALLIE ERMINIE RIVES</b></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><i>Author of "The Valiants of Virginia," etc.</i></span><br />
+<br />
+<b>ROSALYNDE'S LOVERS</b><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><b>By MAURICE THOMPSON</b></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><i>Author of "Alice of Old Vincennes," etc.</i></span><br />
+<br />
+<b>THE HOUSE IN THE MIST</b><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><b>By ANNA KATHARINE GREEN</b></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><i>Author of "The Leavenworth Case," etc.</i></span><br />
+<br />
+<b>TROLLEY FOLLY</b><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><b>By HENRY WALLACE PHILLIPS</b></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><i>Author of "Red Saunders," etc.</i></span><br />
+<br />
+<b>MOTORMANIACS</b><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><b>By LLOYD OSBOURNE</b></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><i>Author of "A Person of Some Importance," etc.</i></span><br />
+<br />
+<b>THE FIFTH STRING</b><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><b>By JOHN PHILIP SOUSA</b></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><i>Author of "Pipetown Sandy," etc.</i></span><br />
+<br />
+<b>CHIMES FROM A JESTER'S BELLS</b><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><b>By ROBERT J. BURDETTE</b></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><i>Author of "Old Time and Young Tom," etc.</i></span><br />
+<br />
+<b>A GUEST AT THE LUDLOW</b><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><b>By BILL NYE</b></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><i>Author of "Baled Hay," etc.</i></span><br />
+<br />
+<b>FOUR IN FAMILY</b><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><b>By FLORIDA POPE SUMERWELL</b></span><br />
+<br />
+<b>A FOOL FOR LOVE</b><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><b>By FRANCIS LYNDE</b></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><i>Author of "The Grafters," etc.</i></span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p class="bbox">Transcriber's Notes:<br />
+Added table of contents for ease of navigation<br />
+Page 150: "ever eighteen" left as in source ("had I been ever eighteen, ...")<br />
+Page 158: "seculsion" changed to "seclusion" ("To my mind, it added an element of pathos to his seclusion, ...")<br />
+Page 168: "Vandkye" changed to "Vandyke" ("Mrs. Vandyke received me with effusion.")</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The House in the Mist, by Anna Katharine Green
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The House in the Mist, by Anna Katharine Green
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The House in the Mist
+
+Author: Anna Katharine Green
+
+Release Date: August 30, 2006 [EBook #19147]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOUSE IN THE MIST ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sam Whitehead, Suzanne Shell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE
+HOUSE IN THE MIST
+
+_By_
+
+ANNA KATHARINE GREEN
+
+Author of
+The Millionaire Baby
+The Amethyst Box
+The Filigree Ball, etc., etc.
+
+NEW YORK
+THE NEW YORK BOOK CO.
+1913
+
+COPYRIGHT 1905
+THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+APRIL
+
+
+
+
+THE HOUSE IN THE MIST
+
+I
+
+AN OPEN DOOR
+
+
+It was a night to drive any man indoors. Not only was the darkness
+impenetrable, but the raw mist enveloping hill and valley made the open
+road anything but desirable to a belated wayfarer like myself.
+
+Being young, untrammeled, and naturally indifferent to danger, I was not
+averse to adventure; and having my fortune to make, was always on the
+lookout for El Dorado, which, to ardent souls, lies ever beyond the next
+turning. Consequently, when I saw a light shimmering through the mist at
+my right, I resolved to make for it and the shelter it so opportunely
+offered.
+
+But I did not realize then, as I do now, that shelter does not necessarily
+imply refuge, or I might not have undertaken this adventure with so light
+a heart. Yet, who knows? The impulses of an unfettered spirit lean toward
+daring, and youth, as I have said, seeks the strange, the unknown and,
+sometimes, the terrible.
+
+My path toward this light was by no means an easy one. After confused
+wanderings through tangled hedges, and a struggle with obstacles of
+whose nature I received the most curious impression in the surrounding
+murk, I arrived in front of a long, low building which, to my
+astonishment, I found standing with doors and windows open to the
+pervading mist, save for one square casement through which the light
+shone from a row of candles placed on a long mahogany table.
+
+The quiet and seeming emptiness of this odd and picturesque building
+made me pause. I am not much affected by visible danger, but this silent
+room, with its air of sinister expectancy, struck me most unpleasantly,
+and I was about to reconsider my first impulse and withdraw again to the
+road, when a second look, thrown back upon the comfortable interior I
+was leaving, convinced me of my folly and sent me straight toward the
+door which stood so invitingly open.
+
+But half-way up the path, my progress was again stayed by the sight of a
+man issuing from the house I had so rashly looked upon as devoid of all
+human presence. He seemed in haste and, at the moment my eye first fell
+on him, was engaged in replacing his watch in his pocket.
+
+But he did not shut the door behind him, which I thought odd, especially
+as his final glance had been a backward one, and seemed to take in all
+the appointments of the place he was so hurriedly leaving.
+
+As we met, he raised his hat. This likewise struck me as peculiar, for
+the deference he displayed was more marked than that usually bestowed on
+strangers, while his lack of surprise at an encounter more or less
+startling in such a mist was calculated to puzzle an ordinary man like
+myself. Indeed, he was so little impressed by my presence there that he
+was for passing me without a word or any other hint of good fellowship,
+save the bow of which I have spoken. But this did not suit me. I was
+hungry, cold, and eager for creature comforts, and the house before me
+gave forth not only heat, but a savory odor which in itself was an
+invitation hard to ignore. I therefore accosted the man.
+
+"Will bed and supper be provided me here?" I asked. "I am tired out with
+a long tramp over the hills, and hungry enough to pay anything in
+reason--"
+
+I stopped, for the man had disappeared. He had not paused at my appeal
+and the mist had swallowed him. But at the break in my sentence, his
+voice came back in good-natured tones and I heard:
+
+"Supper will be ready at nine, and there are beds for all. Enter, sir;
+you are the first to arrive, but the others can not be far behind."
+
+A queer greeting, certainly. But when I strove to question him as to its
+meaning, his voice returned to me from such a distance that I doubted if
+my words had reached him with any more distinctness than his answer
+reached me.
+
+"Well!" thought I, "it isn't as if a lodging had been denied me. He
+invited me to enter, and enter I will."
+
+The house, to which I now naturally directed a glance of much more
+careful scrutiny than before, was no ordinary farm-building, but a
+rambling old mansion, made conspicuously larger here and there by
+jutting porches and more than one convenient lean-to. Though furnished,
+warmed and lighted with candles, as I have previously described, it had
+about it an air of disuse which made me feel myself an intruder, in
+spite of the welcome I had received. But I was not in a position to
+stand upon ceremony, and ere long I found myself inside the great room
+and before the blazing logs whose glow had lighted up the doorway and
+added its own attraction to the other allurements of the inviting place.
+
+Though the open door made a draft which was anything but pleasant, I did
+not feel like closing it, and was astonished to observe the effect of
+the mist through the square thus left open to the night. It was not an
+agreeable one, and, instinctively turning my back upon that quarter of
+the room, I let my eyes roam over the wainscoted walls and the odd
+pieces of furniture which gave such an air of old-fashioned richness to
+the place. As nothing of the kind had ever fallen under my eyes before,
+I should have thoroughly enjoyed this opportunity of gratifying my taste
+for the curious and the beautiful, if the quaint old chairs I saw
+standing about me on every side had not all been empty. But the solitude
+of the place, so much more oppressive than the solitude of the road I
+had left, struck cold to my heart, and I missed the cheer rightfully
+belonging to such attractive surroundings. Suddenly I bethought me of
+the many other apartments likely to be found in so spacious a dwelling,
+and, going to the nearest door, I opened it and called out for the
+master of the house. But only an echo came back, and, returning to the
+fire, I sat down before the cheering blaze, in quiet acceptance of a
+situation too lonely for comfort, yet not without a certain piquant
+interest for a man of free mind and adventurous disposition like myself.
+
+After all, if supper was to be served at nine, someone must be expected
+to eat it: I should surely not be left much longer without companions.
+
+Meanwhile ample amusement awaited me in the contemplation of a picture
+which, next to the large fireplace, was the most prominent object in the
+room. This picture was a portrait, and a remarkable one. The countenance
+it portrayed was both characteristic and forcible, and so interested me
+that in studying it I quite forgot both hunger and weariness. Indeed its
+effect upon me was such that, after gazing at it uninterruptedly for a
+few minutes, I discovered that its various features--the narrow eyes in
+which a hint of craft gave a strange gleam to their native intelligence;
+the steadfast chin, strong as the rock of the hills I had wearily
+tramped all day; the cunning wrinkles which yet did not interfere with
+a latent great-heartedness that made the face as attractive as it was
+puzzling--had so established themselves in my mind that I continued to
+see them before me whichever way I turned, and found it impossible to
+shake off their influence even after I had resolutely set my mind in
+another direction by endeavoring to recall what I knew of the town into
+which I had strayed.
+
+I had come from Scranton and was now, according to my best judgment, in
+one of those rural districts of western Pennsylvania which breed such
+strange and sturdy characters. But of this special neighborhood, its
+inhabitants and its industries, I knew nothing nor was likely to, so
+long as I remained in the solitude I have endeavored to describe.
+
+But these impressions and these thoughts--if thoughts they were--presently
+received a check. A loud "Halloo" rose from somewhere in the mist, followed
+by a string of muttered imprecations, which convinced me that the person
+now attempting to approach the house was encountering some of the many
+difficulties which had beset me in the same undertaking a few minutes
+before.
+
+I therefore raised my voice and shouted out, "Here! this way!" after
+which I sat still and awaited developments.
+
+There was a huge clock in one of the corners, whose loud tick filled up
+every interval of silence. By this clock it was just ten minutes to
+eight when two gentlemen (I should say men, and coarse men at that)
+crossed the open threshold and entered the house.
+
+Their appearance was more or less noteworthy--unpleasantly so, I am
+obliged to add. One was red-faced and obese, the other was tall, thin
+and wiry and showed as many seams in his face as a blighted apple.
+Neither of the two had anything to recommend him either in appearance or
+address, save a certain veneer of polite assumption as transparent as it
+was offensive. As I listened to the forced sallies of the one and the
+hollow laugh of the other, I was glad that I was large of frame and
+strong of arm and used to all kinds of men and--brutes.
+
+As these two new-comers seemed no more astonished at my presence than
+the man I had met at the gate, I checked the question which
+instinctively rose to my lips and with a simple bow,--responded to by a
+more or less familiar nod from either,--accepted the situation with all
+the _sang-froid_ the occasion seemed to demand. Perhaps this was wise,
+perhaps it was not; there was little opportunity to judge, for the start
+they both gave as they encountered the eyes of the picture before
+mentioned drew my attention to a consideration of the different ways in
+which men, however similar in other respects, express sudden and
+unlooked-for emotion. The big man simply allowed his astonishment,
+dread, or whatever the feeling was which moved him, to ooze forth in a
+cold and deathly perspiration which robbed his cheeks of color and cast
+a bluish shadow over his narrow and retreating temples; while the thin
+and waspish man, caught in the same trap (for trap I saw it was),
+shouted aloud in his ill-timed mirth, the false and cruel character of
+which would have made me shudder, if all expression of feeling on my
+part had not been held in check by the interest I immediately
+experienced in the display of open bravado with which, in another
+moment, these two tried to carry off their mutual embarrassment.
+
+"Good likeness, eh?" laughed the seamy-faced man. "Quite an idea, that!
+Makes him one of us again! Well, he's welcome--in oils. Can't say much
+to us from canvas, eh?" And the rafters above him vibrated, as his
+violent efforts at joviality went up in loud and louder assertion from
+his thin throat.
+
+A nudge from the other's elbow stopped him and I saw them both cast
+half-lowering, half-inquisitive glances in my direction.
+
+"One of the Witherspoon boys?" queried one.
+
+"Perhaps," snarled the other. "I never saw but one of them. There are
+five, aren't there? Eustace believed in marrying off his gals young."
+
+"Damn him, yes. And he'd have married them off younger if he had known
+how numbers were going to count some day among the Westonhaughs." And
+he laughed again in a way I should certainly have felt it my business to
+resent, if my indignation as well as the ill-timed allusions which had
+called it forth had not been put to an end by a fresh arrival through
+the veiling mist which hung like a shroud at the doorway.
+
+This time it was for me to experience a shock of something like fear.
+Yet the personage who called up this unlooked-for sensation in my
+naturally hardy nature was old and, to all appearance, harmless from
+disability, if not from good will. His form was bent over upon itself
+like a bow; and only from the glances he shot from his upturned eyes was
+the fact made evident that a redoubtable nature, full of force and
+malignity, had just brought its quota of evil into a room already
+overflowing with dangerous and menacing passions.
+
+As this old wretch, either from the feebleness of age or from the
+infirmity I have mentioned, had great difficulty in walking, he had
+brought with him a small boy, whose business it was to direct his
+tottering steps as best he could.
+
+But once settled in his chair, he drove away this boy with his pointed
+oak stick, and with some harsh words about caring for the horse and
+being on time in the morning, he sent him out into the mist. As this
+little shivering and pathetic figure vanished, the old man drew, with
+gasp and haw, a number of deep breaths which shook his bent back and did
+their share, no doubt, in restoring his own disturbed circulation. Then,
+with a sinister twist which brought his pointed chin and twinkling eyes
+again into view, he remarked:
+
+"Haven't ye a word for kinsman Luke, you two? It isn't often I get out
+among ye. Shakee, nephew! Shakee, Hector! And now who's the boy in the
+window? My eyes aren't what they used to be, but he don't seem to favor
+the Westonhaughs over-much. One of Salmon's four grandchildren, think
+'e? Or a shoot from Eustace's gnarled old trunk? His gals all married
+Americans, and one of them, I've been told, was a yellow-haired giant
+like this fellow."
+
+As this description pointed directly toward me, I was about to venture a
+response on my own account, when my attention, as well as theirs, was
+freshly attracted by a loud "Whoa!" at the gate, followed by the hasty
+but assured entrance of a dapper, wizen, but perfectly preserved little
+old gentleman with a bag in his hand. Looking askance with eyes that
+were like two beads, first at the two men who were now elbowing each
+other for the best place before the fire, and then at the revolting
+figure in the chair, he bestowed his greeting, which consisted of an
+elaborate bow, not on them, but upon the picture hanging so
+conspicuously on the open wall before him; and then, taking me within
+the scope of his quick, circling glance, cried out with an assumption of
+great cordiality:
+
+"Good evening, gentlemen; good evening one, good evening all. Nothing
+like being on the tick. I'm sorry the night has turned out so badly.
+Some may find it too thick for travel. That would be bad, eh? very
+bad--for _them_."
+
+As none of the men he openly addressed saw fit to answer, save by the
+hitch of a shoulder or a leer quickly suppressed, I kept silent also.
+But this reticence, marked as it was, did not seem to offend the
+new-comer. Shaking the wet from the umbrella he held, he stood the
+dripping article up in a corner and then came and placed his feet on the
+fender. To do this he had to crowd between the two men already occupying
+the best part of the hearth. But he showed no concern at incommoding
+them, and bore their cross looks and threatening gestures with
+professional equanimity.
+
+"You know me?" he now unexpectedly snapped, bestowing another look over
+his shoulder at that oppressive figure in the chair. (Did I say that I
+had risen when the latter sat?) "I'm no Westonhaugh, I; nor yet a
+Witherspoon nor a Clapsaddle. I'm only Smead, the lawyer. Mr. Anthony
+Westonhaugh's lawyer," he repeated, with another glance of recognition
+in the direction of the picture. "I drew up his last will and testament,
+and, until all of his wishes have been duly carried out, am entitled by
+the terms of that will to be regarded both legally and socially as his
+representative. This you all know, but it is my way to make everything
+clear as I proceed. A lawyer's trick, no doubt. I do not pretend to be
+entirely exempt from such."
+
+A grumble from the large man, who seemed to have been disturbed in some
+absorbing calculation he was carrying on, mingled with a few muttered
+words of forced acknowledgment from the restless old sinner in the
+chair, made it unnecessary for me to reply, even if the last comer had
+given me the opportunity.
+
+"It's getting late!" he cried, with an easy garrulity rather amusing,
+under the circumstances. "Two more trains came in as I left the depot.
+If old Phil was on hand with his wagon, several more members of this
+interesting family may be here before the clock strikes; if not, the
+assemblage is like to be small. Too small," I heard him grumble a minute
+after, under his breath.
+
+"I wish it were a matter of one," spoke up the big man, striking his
+breast in a way to make it perfectly apparent whom he meant by that word
+_one_. And having (if I may judge by the mingled laugh and growl of his
+companions) thus shown his hand both figuratively and literally, he
+relapsed into the calculation which seemed to absorb all of his
+unoccupied moments.
+
+"Generous, very!" commented the lawyer in a murmur which was more than
+audible. "Pity that sentiments of such broad benevolence should go
+unrewarded."
+
+This, because at that very instant wheels were heard in front, also a
+jangle of voices, in some controversy about fares, which promised
+anything but a pleasing addition to the already none too desirable
+company.
+
+"I suppose that's sister Janet," snarled out the one addressed as
+Hector. There was no love in his voice, despite the relationship hinted
+at, and I awaited the entrance of this woman with some curiosity.
+
+But her appearance, heralded by many a puff and pant which the damp air
+exaggerated in a prodigious way, did not seem to warrant the interest I
+had shown in it. As she stepped into the room, I saw only a big frowsy
+woman, who had attempted to make a show with a new silk dress and a hat
+in the latest fashion, but who had lamentably failed, owing to the
+slouchiness of her figure and some misadventure by which her hat had
+been set awry on her head and her usual complacency destroyed. Later, I
+noted that her down-looking eyes had a false twinkle in them, and that,
+commonplace as she looked, she was one to steer clear of in times of
+necessity and distress.
+
+She, too, evidently expected to find the door open and people assembled,
+but she had not anticipated being confronted by the portrait on the
+wall, and cringed in an unpleasant way as she stumbled by it into one of
+the ill-lighted corners.
+
+The old man, who had doubtless caught the rustle of her dress as she
+passed him, emitted one short sentence.
+
+"Almost late," said he.
+
+Her answer was a sputter of words.
+
+"It's the fault of that driver," she complained. "If he had taken one
+drop more at the half-way house, I might really not have got here at
+all. That would not have inconvenienced _you_. But oh! what a grudge I
+would have owed that skinflint brother of ours"--here she shook her fist
+at the picture--"for making our good luck depend upon our arrival within
+two short strokes of the clock!"
+
+"There are several to come yet," blandly observed the lawyer. But before
+the words were well out of his mouth, we all became aware of a new
+presence--a woman, whose somber grace and quiet bearing gave distinction
+to her unobtrusive entrance, and caused a feeling of something like awe
+to follow the first sight of her cold features and deep, heavily-fringed
+eyes. But this soon passed in the more human sentiment awakened by the
+soft pleading which infused her gaze with a touching femininity. She
+wore a long loose garment which fell without a fold from chin to foot,
+and in her arms she seemed to carry something.
+
+Never before had I seen so beautiful a woman. As I was contemplating
+her, with respect but yet with a masculine intentness I could not quite
+suppress, two or three other persons came in. And now I began to notice
+that the eyes of all these people turned mainly one way, and that was
+toward the clock. Another small circumstance likewise drew my attention.
+Whenever any one entered,--and there were one or two additional arrivals
+during the five minutes preceding the striking of the hour,--a frown
+settled for an instant on every brow, giving to each and all a similar
+look, for the interpretation of which I lacked the key. Yet not on every
+brow either. There was one which remained undisturbed and showed only a
+grand patience.
+
+As the hands of the big clock neared the point of eight, a furtive
+smile appeared on more than one face; and when the hour rang out, a sigh
+of satisfaction swept through the room, to which the little old lawyer
+responded with a worldly-wise grunt, as he moved from his place and
+proceeded to the door.
+
+This he had scarcely shut when a chorus of voices rose from without.
+Three or four lingerers had pushed their way as far as the gate, only to
+see the door of the house shut in their faces.
+
+"Too late!" growled old man Luke from between the locks of his long
+beard.
+
+"Too late!" shrieked the woman who had come so near being late herself.
+
+"Too late!" smoothly acquiesced the lawyer, locking and bolting the door
+with a deft and assured hand.
+
+But the four or five persons who thus found themselves barred out did
+not accept without a struggle the decision of the more fortunate ones
+assembled within. More than one hand began pounding on the door, and we
+could hear cries of, "The train was behind time!" "Your clock is fast!"
+"You are cheating us; you want it all for yourselves!" "We will have the
+law on you!" and other bitter adjurations unintelligible to me from my
+ignorance of the circumstances which called them forth.
+
+But the wary old lawyer simply shook his head and answered nothing;
+whereat a murmur of gratification rose from within, and a howl of almost
+frenzied dismay from without, which latter presently received point from
+a startling vision which now appeared at the casement where the lights
+burned. A man's face looked in, and behind it, that of a woman, so wild
+and maddened by some sort of heart-break that I found my sympathies
+aroused in spite of the glare of evil passions which made both of these
+countenances something less than human.
+
+But the lawyer met the stare of these four eyes with a quiet chuckle,
+which found its echo in the ill-advised mirth of those about him; and
+moving over to the window where they still peered in, he drew together
+the two heavy shutters which hitherto had stood back against the wall,
+and, fastening them with a bar, shut out the sight of this despair, if
+he could not shut out the protests which ever and anon were shouted
+through the key-hole.
+
+Meanwhile, one form had sat through this whole incident without a
+gesture; and on the quiet brow, from which I could not keep my eyes, no
+shadows appeared save the perpetual one of native melancholy, which was
+at once the source of its attraction and the secret of its power.
+
+Into what sort of gathering had I stumbled? And why did I prefer to
+await developments rather than ask the simplest question of any one
+about me?
+
+Meantime the lawyer had proceeded to make certain preparations. With the
+help of one or two willing hands, he had drawn the great table into the
+middle of the room and, having seen the candles restored to their
+places, began to open his small bag and take from it a roll of paper and
+several flat documents. Laying the latter in the center of the table
+and slowly unrolling the former, he consulted, with his foxy eyes, the
+faces surrounding him, and smiled with secret malevolence, as he noted
+that every chair and every form were turned away from the picture before
+which he had bent with such obvious courtesy, on entering. I alone stood
+erect, and this possibly was why a gleam of curiosity was noticeable in
+his glance, as he ended his scrutiny of my countenance and bent his gaze
+again upon the paper he held.
+
+"Heavens!" thought I. "What shall I answer this man if he asks me why I
+continued to remain in a spot where I have so little business." The
+impulse came to go. But such was the effect of this strange convocation
+of persons, at night and in a mist which was itself a nightmare, that I
+failed to take action and remained riveted to my place, while Mr. Smead
+consulted his roll and finally asked in a business-like tone, quite
+unlike his previous sarcastic speech, the names of those whom he had the
+pleasure of seeing before him.
+
+The old man in the chair spoke up first.
+
+"Luke Westonhaugh," he announced.
+
+"Very good!" responded the lawyer.
+
+"Hector Westonhaugh," came from the thin man.
+
+A nod and a look toward the next.
+
+"John Westonhaugh."
+
+"Nephew?" asked the lawyer.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Go on, and be quick; supper will be ready at nine."
+
+"Eunice Westonhaugh," spoke up a soft voice.
+
+I felt my heart bound as if some inner echo responded to that name.
+
+"Daughter of whom?"
+
+"Hudson Westonhaugh," she gently faltered. "My father is dead--died last
+night;--I am his only heir."
+
+A grumble of dissatisfaction and a glint of unrelieved hate came from
+the doubled-up figure, whose malevolence had so revolted me.
+
+But the lawyer was not to be shaken.
+
+"Very good! It is fortunate you trusted your feet rather than the
+train. And now you! What is your name?"
+
+He was looking, not at me as I had at first feared, but at the man next
+to me, a slim but slippery youth, whose small red eyes made me shudder.
+
+"William Witherspoon."
+
+"Barbara's son?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Where are your brothers?"
+
+"One of them, I think, is outside"--here he laughed;--"the other
+is--_sick_."
+
+The way he uttered this word made me set him down as one to be
+especially wary of when he smiled. But then I had already passed
+judgment on him at my first view.
+
+"And you, madam?"--this to the large, dowdy woman with the uncertain
+eye, a contrast to the young and melancholy Eunice.
+
+"Janet Clapsaddle," she replied, waddling hungrily forward and getting
+unpleasantly near the speaker, for he moved off as she approached, and
+took his stand in the clear place at the head of the table.
+
+"Very good, Mistress Clapsaddle. You were a Westonhaugh, I believe?"
+
+"You _believe_, sneak-faced hypocrite that you are!" she blurted out. "I
+don't understand your lawyer ways. I like plain speaking myself. Don't
+you know me, and Luke and Hector, and--and most of us indeed, except
+that puny, white-faced girl yonder, whom, having been brought up on the
+other side of the Ridge, we have none of us seen since she was a
+screaming baby in Hildegarde's arms. And the young gentleman over
+there,"--here she indicated me--"who shows so little likeness to the
+rest of the family. He will have to make it pretty plain who his father
+was before we shall feel like acknowledging him, either as the son of
+one of Eustace's girls, or a chip from brother Salmon's hard old block."
+
+As this caused all eyes to turn upon me, even _hers_, I smiled as I
+stepped forward. The lawyer did not return that smile.
+
+"What is your name?" he asked shortly and sharply, as if he distrusted
+me.
+
+"Hugh Austin," was my quiet reply.
+
+"There is no such name on the list," snapped old Smead, with an
+authoritative gesture toward those who seemed anxious to enter a
+protest.
+
+"Probably not," I returned, "for I am neither a Witherspoon, a
+Westonhaugh nor a Clapsaddle. I am merely a chance wayfarer passing
+through the town on my way west. I thought this house was a tavern, or
+at least a place I could lodge in. The man I met in the doorway told me
+as much, and so I am here. If my company is not agreeable, or if you
+wish this room to yourselves, let me go into the kitchen. I promise not
+to meddle with the supper, hungry as I am. Or perhaps you wish me to
+join the crowd outside; it seems to be increasing."
+
+"No, no," came from all parts of the room. "Don't let the door be
+opened. Nothing could keep Lemuel and his crowd out if they once got
+foot over the threshold."
+
+The lawyer rubbed his chin. He seemed to be in some sort of quandary.
+First he scrutinized me from under his shaggy brows with a sharp gleam
+of suspicion; then his features softened and, with a side glance at the
+young woman who called herself Eunice, (perhaps, because she was worth
+looking at, perhaps because she had partly risen at my words), he
+slipped toward a door I had before observed in the wainscoting on the
+left of the mantelpiece, and softly opened it upon what looked like a
+narrow staircase.
+
+"We can not let you go out," said he; "and we can not let you have a
+finger in our viands before the hour comes for serving them; so if you
+will be so good as to follow this staircase to the top, you will find it
+ends in a room comfortable enough for the wayfarer you call yourself. In
+that room you can rest till the way is clear for you to continue your
+travels. Better, we can not do for you. This house is not a tavern, but
+the somewhat valuable property of--" He turned with a bow and smile, as
+every one there drew a deep breath; but no one ventured to end that
+sentence.
+
+I would have given all my future prospects (which, by the way, were not
+very great) to remain in that room. The oddity of the situation; the
+mystery of the occurrence; the suspense I saw in every face; the
+eagerness of the cries I heard redoubled from time to time outside; the
+malevolence but poorly disguised in the old lawyer's countenance; and,
+above all, the presence of that noble-looking woman, which was the one
+off-set to the general tone of villainy with which the room was charged,
+filled me with curiosity, if I might call it by no other name, that made
+my acquiescence in the demand thus made upon me positively heroic. But
+there seemed no other course for me to follow, and with a last lingering
+glance at the genial fire and a quick look about me, which happily
+encountered hers, I stooped my head to suit the low and narrow doorway
+opened for my accommodation, and instantly found myself in darkness. The
+door had been immediately closed by the lawyer's impatient hand.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+WITH MY EAR TO THE WAINSCOTING
+
+
+No move more unwise could have been made by the old lawyer,--that is, if
+his intention had been to rid himself of an unwelcome witness. For,
+finding myself thrust thus suddenly from the scene, I naturally stood
+still instead of mounting the stairs, and, by standing still, discovered
+that though shut from sight I was not from sound. Distinctly through the
+panel of the door, which was much thinner, no doubt, than the old fox
+imagined, I heard one of the men present shout out:
+
+"Well, that makes the number less by _one_!"
+
+The murmur which followed this remark came plainly to my ears, and,
+greatly rejoicing over what I considered my good luck, I settled myself
+on the lowest step of the stairs in the hope of catching some word
+which would reveal to me the mystery of this scene.
+
+It was not long in coming. Old Smead had now his audience before him in
+good shape, and his next words were of a character to make evident the
+purpose of this meeting.
+
+"Heirs of Anthony Westonhaugh, deceased," he began in a sing-song voice
+strangely unmusical, "I congratulate you upon your good fortune at being
+at this especial moment on the inner rather than outer side of your
+amiable relative's front door. His will, which you have assembled to
+hear read, is well known to you. By it his whole property--(not so large
+as some of you might wish, but yet a goodly property for farmers like
+yourselves)--is to be divided this night, share and share alike, among
+such of his relatives as have found it convenient to be present here
+between the strokes of half-past seven and eight. If some of our friends
+have failed us through sloth, sickness or the misfortune of mistaking
+the road, they have our sympathy, but they can not have _his dollars_."
+
+"Can not have his dollars!" echoed a rasping voice which, from its
+smothered sound, probably came from the bearded lips of the old
+reprobate in the chair.
+
+The lawyer waited for one or two other repetitions of this phrase (a
+phrase which, for some unimaginable reason, seemed to give him an odd
+sort of pleasure), then he went on with greater distinctness and a
+certain sly emphasis, chilling in effect but very professional:
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen: Shall I read this will?"
+
+"No, no! The division! the division! Tell us what we are to have!" rose
+in a shout about him.
+
+There was a pause. I could imagine the sharp eyes of the lawyer
+traveling from face to face as each thus gave voice to his cupidity, and
+the thin curl of his lips as he remarked in a slow tantalizing way:
+
+"There was more in the old man's clutches than you think."
+
+A gasp of greed shook the partition against which my ear was pressed.
+Some one must have drawn up against the wainscoting since my departure
+from the room. I found myself wondering which of them it was. Meantime
+old Smead was having his say, with the smoothness of a man who perfectly
+understands what is required of him.
+
+"Mr. Westonhaugh would not have put you to so much trouble or had you
+wait so long if he had not expected to reward you amply. There are
+shares in this bag which are worth thousands instead of hundreds. Now,
+now! stop that! hands off! hands off! there are calculations to make
+first. How many of you are there? Count up, some of you."
+
+"Nine!" called out a voice with such rapacious eagerness that the word
+was almost unintelligible.
+
+"Nine." How slowly the old knave spoke! What pleasure he seemed to take
+in the suspense he purposely made as exasperating as possible!
+
+"Well, if each one gets his share, he may count himself richer by two
+hundred thousand dollars than when he came in here to-night."
+
+Two hundred thousand dollars! They had expected no more than thirty.
+Surprise made them speechless,--that is, for a moment; then a
+pandemonium of hurrahs, shrieks and loud-voiced enthusiasm made the room
+ring, till wonder seized them again, and a sudden silence fell, through
+which I caught a far-off wail of grief from the disappointed ones
+without, which, heard in the dark and narrow place in which I was
+confined, had a peculiarly weird and desolate effect.
+
+Perhaps it likewise was heard by some of the fortunate ones within!
+Perhaps one head, to mark which, in this moment of universal elation, I
+would have given a year from my life, turned toward the dark without, in
+recognition of the despair thus piteously voiced; but if so, no token of
+the same came to me, and I could but hope that she had shown, by some
+such movement, the natural sympathy of her sex.
+
+Meanwhile the lawyer was addressing the company in his smoothest and
+most sarcastic tones.
+
+"Mr. Westonhaugh was a wise man, a very wise man," he droned. "He
+foresaw what your pleasure would be, and left a letter for you. But
+before I read it, before I invite you to the board he ordered to be
+spread for you in honor of this happy occasion, there is one appeal he
+bade me make to those I should find assembled here. As you know, he was
+not personally acquainted with all the children and grandchildren of his
+many brothers and sisters. Salmon's sons, for instance, were perfect
+strangers to him, and all those boys and girls of the Evans' branch have
+never been long enough this side of the mountains for him to know their
+names, much less their temper or their lives. Yet his heirs--or such was
+his wish, his great wish--must be honest men, righteous in their
+dealings, and of stainless lives. If therefore, any one among you feels
+that for reasons he need not state, he has no right to accept his share
+of Anthony Westonhaugh's bounty, then that person is requested to
+withdraw before this letter to his heirs is read."
+
+Withdraw? Was the man a fool? _Withdraw?_--these cormorants! these
+suckers of blood! these harpies and vultures! I laughed as I imagined
+sneaking Hector, malicious Luke or brutal John responding to this naive
+appeal, and then found myself wondering why no echo of my mirth came
+from the men themselves. They must have seen much more plainly than I
+did the ludicrousness of their weak old kinsman's demand; yet Luke was
+still; Hector was still; and even John, and the three or four others I
+have mentioned gave forth no audible token of disdain or surprise. I was
+asking myself what sentiment of awe or fear restrained these selfish
+souls, when I became conscious of a movement within, which presently
+resolved itself into a departing foot-step.
+
+Some conscience there had been awakened. Some one was crossing the floor
+toward the door. Who? I waited in anxious expectancy for the word which
+was to enlighten me. Happily it came soon, and from the old lawyer's
+lips.
+
+"You do not feel yourself worthy?" he queried, in tones I had not heard
+from him before. "Why? What have you done that you should forego an
+inheritance to which these others feel themselves honestly entitled?"
+
+The voice which answered gave both my mind and heart a shock. It was
+_she_ who had risen at this call. _She_, the only true-faced person
+there!
+
+Anxiously I listened for her reply. Alas! it was one of action rather
+than speech. As I afterward heard, she simply opened her long cloak and
+showed a little infant slumbering in her arms.
+
+"This is my reason," said she. "I have sinned in the eyes of the world,
+therefore I can not take my share of Uncle Anthony's money. I did not
+know he exacted an unblemished record from those he expected to enrich,
+or I would not have come."
+
+The sob which followed these last words showed at what a cost she thus
+renounced a fortune of which she, of all present, perhaps, stood in the
+greatest need; but there was no lingering in her step; and to me, who
+understood her fault only through the faint sound of infantile wailing
+which accompanied her departure, there was a nobility in her action
+which raised her in an instant to an almost ideal height of unselfish
+virtue.
+
+Perhaps they felt this, too. Perhaps even these hardened men and the
+more than hardened woman whose presence was in itself a blight,
+recognized heroism when they saw it; for when the lawyer, with a certain
+obvious reluctance, laid his hand on the bolts of the door with the
+remark: "This is not my work, you know; I am but following out
+instructions very minutely given me," the smothered growls and grunts
+which rose in reply lacked the venom which had been infused into all
+their previous comments.
+
+"I think our friends out there are far enough withdrawn, by this time,
+for us to hazard the opening of the door," the lawyer now remarked.
+"Madam, I hope you will speedily find your way to some comfortable
+shelter."
+
+Then the door opened, and after a moment, closed again in a silence
+which at least was respectful. Yet I warrant there was not a soul
+remaining who had not already figured in his mind to what extent his own
+fortune had been increased by the failure of one of their number to
+inherit.
+
+As for me, my whole interest in the affair was at an end, and I was only
+anxious to find my way to where this desolate woman faced the mist with
+her unfed baby in her arms.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+A LIFE DRAMA
+
+
+But to reach this wanderer, it was first necessary for me to escape from
+the house. This proved simple enough. The up-stairs room toward which I
+rushed had a window overlooking one of the many lean-tos already
+mentioned. This window was fastened, but I had no difficulty in
+unlocking it or in finding my way to the ground from the top of the
+lean-to. But once again on terra-firma, I discovered that the mist was
+now so thick that it had all the effect of a fog at sea. It was icy cold
+as well, and clung about me so that I presently began to shudder most
+violently, and, strong man though I was, wish myself back in the little
+attic bedroom from which I had climbed in search of one in more unhappy
+case than myself.
+
+But these feelings did not cause me to return. If I found the night
+cold, she must find it bitter. If desolation oppressed my naturally
+hopeful spirit, must it not be more overwhelming yet to one whose
+memories were sad and whose future was doubtful? And the child! What
+infant could live in an air like this! Edging away from the house, I
+called out her name, but no answer came back. The persons whom we had
+heard flitting in restless longing about the house a few moments before
+had left in rage and she, possibly, with them. Yet I could not imagine
+her joining herself to people of their stamp. There had been a
+solitariness in her aspect which seemed to forbid any such
+companionship. Whatever her story, at least she had nothing in common
+with the two ill-favored persons whose faces I had seen looking in at
+the casement. No; I should find her alone, but where? Certainly the ring
+of mist, surrounding me at that moment, offered me little prospect of
+finding her anywhere, either easily or soon.
+
+Again I raised my voice, and again I failed to meet with response.
+Then, fearing to leave the house lest I should be quite lost amid the
+fences and brush lying between it and the road, I began to feel my way
+along the walls, calling softly now, instead of loudly, so anxious was I
+not to miss any chance of carrying comfort, if not succor, to the woman
+I was seeking. But the night gave back no sound, and when I came to the
+open door of a shed, I welcomed the refuge it offered and stepped in. I
+was, of course, confronted by darkness,--a different darkness from that
+without, blanket-like and impenetrable. But when after a moment of
+intense listening I heard a soft sound as of weariful breathing, I was
+seized anew by hope, and, feeling in my pocket for my match-box, I made
+a light and looked around.
+
+My intuitions had not deceived me; she was there. Sitting on the floor
+with her cheek pressed against the wall, she revealed to my eager
+scrutiny only the outlines of her pure, pale profile; but in those
+outlines and on those pure, pale features, I saw such an abandonment of
+hope, mingled with such quiet endurance, that my whole soul melted
+before it, and it was with difficulty I managed to say:
+
+"Pardon! I do not wish to intrude; but I am shut out of the house also;
+and the night is raw and cold. Can I do nothing for your comfort or
+for--for the child's?"
+
+She turned toward me and I saw a tremulous gleam of pleasure disturb the
+somber stillness of her face; then the match went out in my hand, and we
+were again in complete darkness. But the little wail, which at the same
+instant rose from between her arms, filled up the pause, as her sweet
+"Hush!" filled my heart.
+
+"I am used to the cold," came in another moment from the place where she
+crouched. "It is the child--she is hungry; and I--I walked
+here--feeling, hoping that, as my father's heir, I might partake in some
+slight measure of Uncle Anthony's money. Though my father cast me out
+before he died, and I have neither home nor money, I do not complain. I
+forfeited all when--" another wail, another gentle "hush!"--then
+silence.
+
+I lit another match. "Look in my face!" I prayed. "I am a stranger, and
+you would be showing only proper prudence not to trust me. But I
+overheard your words when you withdrew from the room where your fortune
+lay; and I honor you, madam. If food can be got for your little one, I
+will get it."
+
+I caught sight of the convulsive clasp with which she drew to her breast
+the tiny bundle she held, then darkness fell again.
+
+"A little bread," she entreated; "a little milk--ah, baby, baby, hush!"
+
+"But where can I get it?" I cried. "They are at table inside. I hear
+them shouting over their good cheer. But perhaps there are neighbors
+near by; do you know?"
+
+"There are no neighbors," she replied. "What is got must be got here. I
+know a way to the kitchen; I used to visit Uncle Anthony when a little
+child; if you have the courage--"
+
+I laughed. This token of confidence seemed to reassure her. I heard her
+move; possibly she stood up.
+
+"In the further corner of this shed," said she, "there used to be a
+trap, connecting this floor with an underground passage-way. A ladder
+stood against the trap, and the small cellar at the foot communicated by
+means of an iron-bound door with the large one under the house. Eighteen
+years ago the wood of that door was old; now it should be rotten. If you
+have the strength--"
+
+"I will make the effort and see," said I. "But when I am in the cellar,
+what then?"
+
+"Follow the wall to the right; you will come to a stone staircase. As
+this staircase has no railing, be careful in ascending it. At the top
+you will find a door; it leads into a pantry adjoining the kitchen. Some
+one will be in that pantry. Some one will give you a bite for the child;
+and when she is quieted and the sun has risen, I will go away. It is my
+duty to do so. My uncle was always upright, if cold. He was perfectly
+justified in exacting rectitude in his heirs."
+
+I might have rejoined by asking if she detected rectitude in the faces
+of the greedy throng she had left behind her with the guardian of this
+estate; but I did not. I was too intent upon following out her
+directions. Lighting another match, I sought the trap. Alas! it was
+burdened with a pile of sticks and rubbish which looked as if they had
+lain there for years. As these had to be removed in total darkness, it
+took me some time. But once this debris had been scattered and thrown
+aside, I had no difficulty in finding the trap and, as the ladder was
+still there, I was soon on the cellar-bottom. When, by the reassuring
+shout I gave, she knew that I had advanced thus far, she spoke, and her
+voice had a soft and thrilling sound.
+
+"Do not forget your own needs," she said. "We two are not so hungry that
+we can not wait for you to take a mouthful. I will sing to the baby.
+Good-by."
+
+These ten minutes we had spent together had made us friends. The warmth,
+the strength which this discovery brought, gave to my arm a force that
+made that old oak door go down before me in three vigorous pushes.
+
+Had the eight fortunate ones above not been indulging in a noisy
+celebration of their good luck, they must have heard the clatter of this
+door when it fell. But good eating, good drink, and the prospect of an
+immediate fortune far beyond their wildest dreams, made all ears deaf;
+and no pause occurred in the shouts of laughter and the hum of
+good-fellowship which sifted down between the beams supporting the house
+above my head. Consequently little or no courage was required for the
+completion of my adventure; and before long I came upon the staircase
+and the door leading from its top into the pantry. The next minute I was
+in front of that door.
+
+But here a surprise awaited me. The noise which had hitherto been loud
+now became deafening, and I realized that, contrary to Eunice
+Westonhaugh's expectation, the supper had been spread in the kitchen and
+that I was likely to run amuck of the whole despicable crowd in any
+effort I might make to get a bite for the famished baby.
+
+I therefore naturally hesitated to push open the door, fearing to draw
+attention to myself; and when I did succeed in lifting the latch and
+making a small crack, I was so astonished by the sudden lull in the
+general babble, that I drew hastily back and was for descending the
+stairs in sudden retreat.
+
+But I was prevented from carrying out this cowardly impulse, by catching
+the sound of the lawyer's voice, addressing the assembled guests.
+
+"You have eaten and you have drunk," he was saying; "you are therefore
+ready for the final toast. Brothers, nephews--heirs all of Anthony
+Westonhaugh, I rise to propose the name of your generous benefactor,
+who, if spirits walk this earth, must certainly be with us to-night."
+
+A grumble from more than one throat and an uneasy hitch from such
+shoulders as I could see through my narrow vantage-hole testified to the
+rather doubtful pleasure with which this suggestion was received. But
+the lawyer's tones lost none of their animation as he went on to say:
+
+"The bottle, from which your glasses are to be replenished for this
+final draft, he has himself provided. So anxious was he that it should
+be of the very best and altogether worthy of the occasion it is to
+celebrate, that he gave into my charge, almost with his dying breath,
+this key, telling me that it would unlock a cupboard here in which he
+had placed a bottle of wine of the very rarest vintage. This is the key,
+and yonder, if I do not mistake, is the cupboard."
+
+They had already quaffed a dozen toasts. Perhaps this was why they
+accepted this proposition in a sort of panting silence, which remained
+unbroken while the lawyer crossed the floor, unlocked the cupboard and
+brought out before them a bottle which he held up before their eyes with
+a simulated glee almost saturnine.
+
+"Isn't that a bottle to make your eyes dance? The very cobwebs on it are
+eloquent. And see! look at this label. Tokay, friends, real Tokay! How
+many of you ever had the opportunity of drinking real Tokay before?"
+
+A long deep sigh from a half-dozen throats in which some strong but
+hitherto repressed passion, totally incomprehensible to me, found sudden
+vent, rose in one simultaneous sound from about that table, and I heard
+one jocular voice sing out:
+
+"Pass it around, Smead. I'll drink to Uncle Anthony out of that bottle
+till there isn't a drop left to tell what was in it!"
+
+But the lawyer was in no hurry.
+
+"You have forgotten the letter, for the hearing of which you are called
+together. Mr. Anthony Westonhaugh left behind him a letter. The time is
+now come for reading it."
+
+As I heard these words and realized that the final toast was to be
+delayed and that some few moments must yet elapse before the room would
+be cleared and an opportunity given me for obtaining what I needed for
+the famishing mother and child, I felt such impatience with the fact
+and so much anxiety as to the condition of those I had left behind me
+that I questioned whether it would not be better for me to return to
+them empty-handed than to leave them so long without the comfort of my
+presence, when the fascination of the scene again seized me and I found
+myself lingering to mark its conclusion with an avidity which can only
+be explained by my sudden and intense consciousness of what it all might
+mean to her whose witness I had thus inadvertently become.
+
+The careful lawyer began by quoting the injunction with which this
+letter had been put in his hands. "'When they are warm with food and
+wine, but not too warm,'--thus his adjuration ran, 'then let them hear
+my first and only words to them.' I know you are eager for these words.
+Folk so honest, so convinced of their own purity and uprightness that
+they can stand unmoved while the youngest and most helpless among them
+withdraws her claim to wealth and independence rather than share an
+unmerited bounty, such folk, I say, must be eager, must be anxious to
+know why they have been made the legatees of so great a fortune, under
+the easy conditions and amid such slight restrictions as have been
+imposed upon them by their munificent kinsman."
+
+"I had rather go on drinking toasts," babbled one thick voice.
+
+"I had rather finish my figuring," growled another, in whose grating
+tones no echo remained of Hector Westonhaugh's formerly honeyed voice.
+"I am making out a list of stock--"
+
+"Blast your stock! that is, if you mean horses and cows!" screamed a
+third. "I'm going in for city life. With less money than we have got,
+Andreas Amsberger got to be alderman--"
+
+"Alderman!" sneered the whole pack; and the tumult became general. "If
+more of us had been sick," called out one; "or if Uncle Luke, say, had
+tripped into the ditch instead of on the edge of it, the fellows who
+came safe through might have had anything they wanted, even to the
+governorship of the state or--or--"
+
+"Silence!" came in commanding tones from the lawyer, who had begun to
+let his disgust appear, perhaps because he held under his thumb the
+bottle upon which all eyes were now lovingly centered; so lovingly,
+indeed, that I ventured to increase, in the smallest perceptible degree,
+the crack by means of which I was myself an interested, if unseen,
+participator in this scene.
+
+A sight of Smead, and a partial glimpse of old Luke's covetous profile,
+rewarded this small act of daring on my part. The lawyer was standing;
+all the rest were sitting. Perhaps he alone retained sufficient
+steadiness to stand; for I observed by the control he exercised over
+this herd of self-seekers, that he alone had not touched the cup which
+had so freely gone about among the others. The woman was hidden from me,
+but the change in her voice, when by any chance I heard it, convinced me
+that she had not disdained the toasts drunk by her brothers and
+nephews.
+
+"Silence!" the lawyer reiterated, "or I will smash this bottle on the
+hearth." He raised it in one threatening hand and every man there seemed
+to tremble, while old Luke put out his long fingers with an entreaty
+that ill became them. "You want to hear the letter?" old Smead called
+out. "I thought so."
+
+Putting the bottle down again, but still keeping one hand upon it, he
+drew a folded paper from his breast. "This," said he, "contains the
+final injunctions of Anthony Westonhaugh. You will listen, all of you;
+listen till I am done; or I will not only smash this bottle before your
+eyes, but I will keep for ever buried in my breast the whereabouts of
+certain drafts and bonds in which, as his heirs, you possess the
+greatest interest. Nobody but myself knows where these papers can be
+found."
+
+Whether this was so, or whether the threat was an empty one thrown out
+by this subtile old schemer for the purpose of safeguarding his life
+from their possible hate and impatience, it answered his end with these
+semi-intoxicated men, and secured him the silence he demanded. Breaking
+open the seal of the envelope he held, he showed them the folded sheet
+which it contained, with the remark:
+
+"I have had nothing to do with the writing of this letter. It is in Mr.
+Westonhaugh's own hand, and he was not even so good as to communicate to
+me the nature of its contents. I was bidden to read it to such as should
+be here assembled under the provisos mentioned in his will; and as you
+are now in a condition to listen, I will proceed with my task as
+required."
+
+This was my time for leaving, but a certain brooding terror, latent in
+the air, held me chained to the spot, listening with my ears, but
+receiving the full sense of what was read from the expression of old
+Luke's face, which was probably more plainly visible to me than to those
+who sat beside him. For, being bent almost into a bow, as I have said,
+his forehead came within an inch of touching his plate, and one had to
+look under his arms, as I did, to catch the workings of his evil mouth,
+as old Smead gave forth, in his professional sing-song, the following
+words from his departed client:
+
+"Brothers, nephews and heirs! Though the earth has lain upon my breast a
+month, I am with you here to-night."
+
+A snort from old Luke's snarling lips; and a stir--not a comfortable
+one--in the jostling crowd, whose shaking arms and clawing hands I could
+see projecting here and there over the board.
+
+"My presence at this feast--a presence which, if unseen, can not be
+unfelt, may bring you more pain than pleasure. But if so, it matters
+little. You are my natural heirs and I have left you my money; why, when
+so little love has characterized our intercourse, must be evident to
+such of my brothers as can recall their youth and the promise our father
+exacted from us on the day we set foot in this new land.
+
+"There were nine of us in those days: Luke, Salmon, Barbara, Hector,
+Eustace, Janet, Hudson, William and myself; and all save one were
+promising, in appearance at least. But our father knew his offspring,
+and when we stood, an alien and miserable band in front of Castle
+Garden, at the foot of the great city whose immensity struck terror to
+our hearts, he drew all our hands together and made us swear by the soul
+of our mother, whose body we had left in the sea, that we would keep the
+bond of brotherhood intact, and share with mutual confidence whatever
+good fortune this untried country might hold in store for us. You were
+strong and your voices rang out loudly. Mine was faint, for I was
+weak--so weak that my hand had to be held in place by my sister Barbara.
+But my oath has never lost its hold upon my heart, while yours--answer
+how you have kept it, Luke; or you, Janet; or you Hector, of the smooth
+tongue and vicious heart; or you, or you, who, from one stock, recognize
+but one law: the law of cold-blooded selfishness which seeks its own in
+face of all oaths and at the cost of another man's heart-break.
+
+"This I say to such as know my story. But lest there be one amongst you
+who has not heard from parent or uncle the true tale of him who has
+brought you all under one roof to-night, I will repeat it here in words,
+that no man may fail to understand why I remembered my oath through life
+and beyond death, yet stand above you an accusing spirit while you quaff
+me toasts and count the gains my justice divides among you.
+
+"I, as you all remember, was the weak one--the ne'er-do-weel. When all
+of you were grown and had homes of your own, I still remained under the
+family roof-tree, fed by our father's bounty and looking to our father's
+justice for that share of his savings which he had promised to all
+alike. When he died it came to me as it came to you; but I had married
+before that day; married, not, like the rest of you, for what a wife
+could bring, but for sentiment and true passion. This, in my case, meant
+a loving wife, but a frail one; and while we lived a little while on the
+patrimony left us, it was far too small to support us long without some
+aid from our own hands; and our hands were feeble and could not work.
+And so we fell into debt for rent and, ere long, for the commonest
+necessities of life. In vain I struggled to redeem myself; the time of
+my prosperity had not come and I only sank deeper and deeper into debt
+and finally into indigence. A baby came. Our landlord was kind and
+allowed us to stay for two weeks under the roof for whose protection we
+could not pay; but at the end of that time we were asked to leave; and I
+found myself on the road with a dying wife, a wailing infant, no money
+in my purse and no power in my arm to earn any. Then when heart and hope
+were both failing, I recalled that ancient oath and the six prosperous
+homes scattered up and down the very highway on which I stood. I could
+not leave my wife; the fever was in her veins and she could not bear me
+out of her sight; so I put her on a horse, which a kind old neighbor was
+willing to lend me, and holding her up with one hand, guided the horse
+with the other, to the home of my brother Luke. He was a straight
+enough fellow in those days--physically, I mean--and he looked able and
+strong that morning, as he stood in the open doorway of his house,
+gazing down at us as we halted before him in the roadway. But his temper
+had grown greedy with the accumulation of a few dollars, and he shook
+his head as he closed his door, saying he remembered no oath and that
+spenders must expect to be beggars.
+
+"Struck to the heart by a rebuff which meant prolongation of the
+suffering I saw in my dear wife's eyes, I stretched up and kissed her
+where she sat half-fainting on the horse; then I moved on. I came to
+Barbara's home next. She had been a little mother to me once; that is,
+she had fed and dressed me, and doled out blows and caresses, and taught
+me to read and sing. But Barbara in her father's home and without
+fortune was not the Barbara I saw on the threshold of the little cottage
+she called her own. She heard my story; looked in the face of my wife
+and turned her back. She had no place for idle folk in her little house;
+if we would work she would feed us; but we must earn our supper or go
+hungry to bed. I felt the trembling of my wife's frame where she leaned
+against my arm, and kissing her again, led her on to Salmon's. Luke,
+Hector, Janet, have you heard him tell of that vision at his gateway,
+twenty-five years ago? He is not amongst you. For twelve years he has
+lain beside our father in the churchyard, but his sons may be here, for
+they were ever alert when gold was in sight or a full glass to be
+drained. Ask _them_, ask John, whom I saw skulking behind his cousins at
+the garden fence that day, what it was they saw as I drew rein under the
+great tree which shadowed their father's doorstep.
+
+"The sunshine had been pitiless that morning, and the head, for whose
+rest in some loving shelter I would have bartered soul and body, had
+fallen sidewise till it lay on my arm. Pressed to her breast was our
+infant, whose little wail struck in pitifully as Salmon called out:
+'What's to do here to-day!' Do you remember it, lads? or how you all
+laughed, little and great, when I asked for a few weeks' stay under my
+brother's roof till we could all get well and go about our tasks again?
+_I_ remember. I, who am writing these words from the very mouth of the
+tomb, _I_ remember; but I did not curse you. I only rode on to the next.
+The way ran uphill now; and the sun which, since our last stop, had been
+under a cloud, came out and blistered my wife's cheeks, already burning
+red with fever. But I pressed my lips upon them, and led her on. With
+each rebuff I gave her a kiss; and her smile, as her head pressed harder
+and harder upon my arm now exerting all its strength to support her,
+grew almost divine. But it vanished at my nephew Lemuel's.
+
+"He was shearing sheep, and could give no time to company; and when,
+late in the day, I drew rein at Janet's, and she said she was going to
+have a dance and could not look after sick folk, the pallid lips failed
+to return my despairing embrace; and in the terror which this brought me
+I went down, in the gathering twilight, into the deep valley where
+William raised his sheep and reckoned, day by day, the increase among
+his pigs. Oh, the chill of that descent! Oh, the gloom of the gathering
+shadows! As we neared the bottom and I heard a far-off voice shout out a
+hoarse command, some instinct made me reach up for the last time and
+bestow that faithful kiss, which was at once her consolation and my
+prayer. My lips were cold with the terror of my soul, but they were not
+so cold as the cheek they touched, and, shrieking in my misery and need,
+I fell before William where he halted by the horse-trough and--He was
+always a hard man, was William, and it was a shock to him, no doubt, to
+see us standing in our anguish and necessity before him; but he raised
+the whip in his hand and, when it fell, my arm fell with it and she
+slipped from my grasp to the ground, and lay in a heap in the roadway.
+
+"He was ashamed next minute and pointed to the house near-by. But I did
+not carry her in, and she died in the roadway. Do you remember it,
+Luke? Do you remember it, Lemuel?
+
+"But it is not of this I complain at this hour, nor is it for this I ask
+you to drink the toast I have prepared for you."
+
+The looks, the writhings of old Luke and such others as I could now see
+through the widening crack my hands unconsciously made in the doorway,
+told me that the rack was at work in this room so lately given up to
+revelry. Yet the mutterings, which from time to time came to my ears
+from one sullen lip or another, did not rise into frightened imprecation
+or even into any assertion of sorrow or contrition. It seemed as if some
+suspense, common to all, held them speechless if not dumbly
+apprehensive; and while the lawyer said nothing in recognition of this,
+he could not have been quite blind to it, for he bestowed one curious
+glance around the table before he proceeded with old Anthony's words.
+
+Those words had now become short, sharp, and accusatory.
+
+"My child lived; and what remained to me of human passion and longing
+centered in his frail existence. I managed to earn enough for his eating
+and housing, and in time I was almost happy again. This was while our
+existence was a struggle; but when, with the discovery of latent powers
+in my own mind, I began to find my place in the world and to earn money,
+then your sudden interest in my boy taught me a new lesson in human
+selfishness; but not, as yet, new fears. My nature was not one to grasp
+ideas of evil, and the remembrance of that oath still remained to make
+me lenient toward you.
+
+"I let him see you; not much, not often, but yet often enough for him to
+realize that he had uncles and cousins, or, if you like it better,
+kindred. And how did you repay this confidence on my part? What hand had
+ye in the removal of this small barrier to the fortune my own poor
+health warranted you in looking upon, even in those early days, as your
+own? To others' eyes it may appear, none; to mine, ye are one and all
+his murderers, as certainly as all of you were the murderers of the
+good physician hastening to his aid. For his illness was not a mortal
+one. He would have been saved if the doctor had reached him; but a
+precipice swallowed that good Samaritan, and only I, of all who looked
+upon the footprints which harrowed up the road at this dangerous point,
+knew whose shoes would fit those marks. God's providence, it was called,
+and I let it pass for such; but it was a providence which cost me my boy
+and made _you_ my heirs."
+
+Silence as sullen in character as the men who found themselves thus
+openly impeached had, for some minutes now, replaced the muttered
+complaints which had accompanied the first portion of this denunciatory
+letter. As the lawyer stopped to cast them another of those strange
+looks, a gleam from old Luke's sidewise eyes startled the man next him,
+who, shrugging a shoulder, passed the underhanded look on, till it had
+circled the board and stopped with the man sitting opposite the crooked
+sinner who had started it.
+
+I began to have a wholesome dread of them all and was astonished to see
+the lawyer drop his hand from the bottle, which to some degree offered
+itself as a possible weapon. But he knew his audience better than I did.
+Though the bottle was now free for any man's taking, not a hand trembled
+toward it, nor was a single glass held out.
+
+The lawyer, with an evil smile, went on with his relentless client's
+story.
+
+"Ye had killed my wife; ye had killed my son; but this was not enough.
+Being lonesome in my great house, which was as much too large for me as
+my fortune was, I had taken a child to replace the boy I had lost.
+Remembering the cold blood running in the veins of those nearest me, I
+chose a boy from alien stock and, for a while, knew contentment again.
+But, as he developed and my affections strengthened, the possibility of
+all my money going his way roused my brothers and sisters from the
+complacency they had enjoyed since their road to fortune had been
+secured by my son's death, and one day--can you recall it, Hudson? can
+you recall it, Lemuel?--the boy was brought in from the mill and laid at
+my feet, dead! He had stumbled amongst the great belts, but whose was
+the voice which had startled him with a sudden 'Halloo!' Can you say,
+Luke? Can you say, John? I can say in whose ear it was whispered that
+three, if not more of you, were seen moving among the machinery that
+fatal morning.
+
+"Again, God's providence was said to have visited my house; and again
+_ye_ were my heirs."
+
+"Stop there!" broke in the harsh voice of Luke, who was gradually
+growing livid under his long gray locks.
+
+"Lies! lies!" shrieked Hector, gathering courage from his brother.
+
+"Cut it all and give us the drink!" snarled one of the younger men, who
+was less under the effect of liquor than the rest.
+
+But a trembling voice muttered "Hush!" and the lawyer, whose eye had
+grown steely under these comments, took advantage of the sudden silence
+which had followed this last objurgation and went steadily on.
+
+"Some men would have made a will and denounced you. I made a will, but
+did not denounce you. _I_ am no breaker of oaths. More than this, I
+learned a new trick. I, who hated all subtlety and looked upon craft as
+the favorite weapon of the devil, learned to smile with my lips while my
+heart was burning with hatred. Perhaps this was why you all began to
+smile too, and joke me about certain losses I had sustained, by which
+you meant the gains which had come to me. That these gains were many
+times greater than you realized added to the sting of this good
+fellowship, but I held my peace; and you began to have confidence in a
+good-nature which nothing could shake. You even gave me a supper."
+
+_A supper!_
+
+What was there in these words to cause every man there to stop in
+whatever movement he was making and stare, with wide-open eyes, intently
+at the reader. He had spoken quietly; he had not even looked up, but
+the silence which, for some minutes back, had begun to reign over that
+tumultuous gathering, now became breathless, and the seams in Hector's
+cheeks deepened to a bluish criss-cross.
+
+"_You remember that supper?_"
+
+As the words rang out again, I threw wide the door; I might have stalked
+openly into their circle; not a man there would have noticed me.
+
+"It was a memorable occasion," the lawyer read on with stoical
+impassiveness. "There was not a brother lacking. Luke and Hudson and
+William and Hector and Eustace's boys, as well as Eustace himself; Janet
+too, and Salmon's Lemuel, and Barbara's son, who, even if his mother had
+gone the way of all flesh, had so trained her black brood in the love of
+the things of this world that I scarcely missed her when I looked about
+among you all for the eight sturdy brothers and sisters who had joined
+in one clasp and one oath, under the eye of the true-hearted immigrant,
+our father. What I did miss was one true eye lifted to my glance; but I
+did not show that I missed it; and so our peace was made and we
+separated, you to wait for your inheritance, and I for the death which
+was to secure it to you. For, when the cup passed round that night, you
+each dropped into it a tear of repentance, and tears make bitter
+drinking. I sickened as I quaffed and was never myself again, as you
+know. Do you understand me, you cruel, crafty ones?"
+
+Did they not! Heads quaking, throats gasping, teeth chattering--no
+longer sitting--all risen, all looking with wild eyes for the door--was
+it not apparent that they understood and only waited for one more word
+to break away and flee the accursed house?
+
+But that word lingered. Old Smead had now grown pale himself and read
+with difficulty the lines which were to end this frightful scene. As I
+saw the red gleam of terror shine out from his small eyes, I wondered if
+he had been but the blind tool of his implacable client and was as
+ignorant as those before him of what was to follow this heavy
+arraignment. The dread with which he finally proceeded was too marked
+for me to doubt the truth of this surmise. This is what he found himself
+forced to read:
+
+"There was a bottle reserved for me. It had a green label on it,--"
+
+A shriek from every one there and a hurried look up and down at the
+bottles standing on the table.
+
+"A green label," the lawyer repeated, "and it made a goodly appearance
+as it was set down before me. But you had no liking for wine with a
+green label on the bottle. One by one you refused it, and when I rose to
+quaff my final glass alone, every eye before me fell and did not lift
+again until the glass was drained. I did not notice this then, but I see
+it all now, just as I hear again the excuses you gave for not filling
+your glasses as the bottle went round. One had drunk enough; one
+suffered from qualms brought on by an unaccustomed indulgence in
+oysters; one felt that wine good enough for me was too good for him,
+and so on and so on. Not one to show frank eyes and drink with me as I
+was ready to drink with him! Why? Because one and all of you knew what
+was in that cup, and would not risk an inheritance so nearly within your
+grasp."
+
+"Lies! lies!" again shrieked the raucous voice of Luke, smothered by
+terror; while oaths, shouts, imprecations, rang out in horrid tumult
+from one end of the table to the other, till the lawyer's face, over
+which a startling change was rapidly passing, drew the whole crowd
+forward again in awful fascination, till they clung, speechless, arm in
+arm, shoulder propping shoulder, while he gasped out in dismay equal to
+their own, these last fatal words:
+
+"That was at your board, my brothers; now you are at mine. You have
+eaten my viands, drunk of my cup; and now, through the mouth of the one
+man who has been true to me because therein lies his advantage, I offer
+you a final glass. Will you drink it? I drank yours. By that old-time
+oath which binds us to share each other's fortune, I ask you to share
+this cup with me. _You will not?_"
+
+"No, no, no!" shouted one after another.
+
+"Then," the inexorable voice went on, a voice which to these miserable
+souls was no longer that of the lawyer, but an issue from the grave they
+had themselves dug for Anthony Westonhaugh, "know that your abstinence
+comes too late; that you have already drunk the toast destined to end
+your lives. The bottle which you must have missed from that board of
+yours has been offered you again. A label is easily changed and--Luke,
+John, Hector, I know you all so well--that bottle has been greedily
+emptied by you; and while I, who sipped sparingly, lived three weeks,
+you, who have drunk deep, _have not three hours before you, possibly not
+three minutes_."
+
+O, the wail of those lost souls as this last sentence issued in a final
+pant of horror from the lawyer's quaking lips! Shrieks--howls--prayers
+for mercy--groans to make the hair rise--and curses, at sound of which
+I shut my ears in horror, only to open them again in dread as, with one
+simultaneous impulse, they flung themselves upon the lawyer who,
+foreseeing this rush, had backed up against the wall.
+
+He tried to stem the tide.
+
+"I knew nothing of the poisoning," he protested. "That was not my reason
+for declining the drink. I wished to preserve my senses--to carry out my
+client's wishes. As God lives, I did not know he meant to carry his
+revenge so far. Mercy! Mer--"
+
+But the hands which clutched him were the hands of murderers, and the
+lawyer's puny figure could not stand up against the avalanche of human
+terror, relentless fury and mad vengeance which now rolled in upon it.
+As I bounded to his relief he turned his ghastly face upon me. But the
+way between us was blocked, and I was preparing myself to see him sink
+before my eyes, when an unearthly shriek rose from behind us, and every
+living soul in that mass of struggling humanity paused, set and
+staring, with stiffened limbs and eyes fixed, not on him, not on me, but
+on one of their own number, the only woman amongst them, Janet
+Clapsaddle, who, with clutching hands clawing her breast, was reeling in
+solitary agony in her place beside the board. As they looked she fell,
+and lay with upturned face and staring eyes, in whose glassy depths the
+ill-fated ones who watched her could see mirrored their own impending
+doom.
+
+It was an awful moment. A groan, in which was concentrated the despair
+of seven miserable souls, rose from that petrified band; then, man by
+man, they separated and fell back, showing on each weak or wicked face
+the particular passion which had driven them into crime and made them
+the victims of this wholesale revenge. There had been some sort of bond
+between them till the vision of death rose before each shrinking soul.
+Shoulder to shoulder in crime, they fell apart as their doom approached;
+and rushing, shrieking, each man for himself, they one and all sought
+to escape by doors, windows or any outlet which promised release from
+this fatal spot. One rushed by me--I do not know which one--and I felt
+as if a flame from hell had licked me, his breath was so hot and the
+moans he uttered so like the curses we imagine to blister the lips of
+the lost. None of them saw me; they did not even detect the sliding form
+of the lawyer crawling away before them to some place of egress of which
+they had no knowledge; and, convinced that in this scene of death I
+could play no part worthy of her who awaited me, I too rushed away and,
+groping my way back through the cellar, sought the side of her who still
+crouched in patient waiting against the dismal wall.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE FINAL SHOCK
+
+
+Her baby had fallen asleep. I knew this by the faint, low sweetness of
+her croon; and, shuddering with the horrors I had witnessed, horrors
+which acquired a double force from the contrast presented by the peace
+of this quiet spot and the hallowing influence of the sleeping
+infant,--I threw myself down in the darkness at her feet, gasping out:
+
+"Oh, thank God and your uncle's seeming harshness, that you have escaped
+the doom which has overtaken those others! You and your babe are still
+alive; while they--"
+
+"What of them? What has happened to them? You are breathless, trembling;
+you have brought no bread--"
+
+"No, no. Food in this house means death. Your relatives gave food and
+wine to your uncle at a supper; he, though now in his grave, has
+returned the same to them. There was a bottle--"
+
+I stopped, appalled. A shriek, muffled by distance but quivering with
+the same note of death I had heard before, had gone up again from the
+other side of the wall against which we were leaning.
+
+"Oh!" she gasped; "and my father was at that supper! my father, who died
+last night cursing the day he was born! We are an accursed race. I have
+known it all my life; perhaps that was why I mistook passion for love;
+and my baby--O God, have mercy! God have mercy!"
+
+The plaintiveness of that cry, the awesomeness of what I had seen--of
+what was going on at that moment almost within the reach of our
+arms--the darkness, the desolation of our two souls, affected me as I
+had never been affected in my whole life before. In the concentrated
+experience of the last two hours I seemed to live years under this
+woman's eyes; to know her as I did my own heart; to love her as I did my
+own soul. No growth of feeling ever brought the ecstasy of that
+moment's inspiration. With no sense of doing anything strange, with no
+fear of being misunderstood, I reached out my hand and, touching hers
+where it lay clasped about her infant, I said:
+
+"We are two poor wayfarers. A rough road loses half its difficulties
+when trodden by two. Shall we, then, fare on together--we and the little
+child?"
+
+She gave a sob; there was sorrow, longing, grief, hope, in its thrilling
+low sound. As I recognized the latter emotion I drew her to my breast.
+The child did not separate us.
+
+"We shall be happy," I murmured, and her sigh seemed to answer a
+delicious "Yes," when suddenly there came a shock to the partition
+against which we leaned and, starting from my clasp, she cried:
+
+"Our duty is in there. Shall we think of ourselves or even of each other
+while these men, all relatives of mine, are dying on the other side of
+this wall?"
+
+Seizing my hand, she dragged me to the trap; but here I took the lead,
+and helped her down the ladder. When I had her safely on the floor at
+the foot, she passed in front of me again; but once up the steps and in
+front of the kitchen door, I thrust her behind me, for one glance into
+the room beyond had convinced me it was no place for her.
+
+But she would not be held back. She crowded forward beside me, and
+together we looked upon the wreck within. It was a never-to-be-forgotten
+scene. The demon that was in those men had driven them to demolish
+furniture, dishes, everything. In one heap lay what, an hour before, had
+been an inviting board surrounded by rollicking and greedy guests. But
+it was not upon this overthrow we stopped to look. It was upon something
+that mingled with it, dominated it and made of this chaos only a setting
+to awful death. Janet's face, in all its natural hideousness and
+depravity, looked up from the floor beside this heap; and farther on,
+the twisted figure of him they called Hector, with something more than
+the seams of greedy longing round his wide, staring eyes and icy
+temples. Two in this room! and on the threshold of the one beyond a
+moaning third, who sank into eternal silence as we approached; and
+before the fireplace in the great room, a horrible crescent that had
+once been aged Luke, upon whom we had no sooner turned our backs than we
+caught glimpses here and there of other prostrate forms which moved once
+under our eyes and then moved no more.
+
+One only still stood upright, and he was the man whose obtrusive figure
+and sordid expression had so revolted me in the beginning. There was no
+color now in his flabby and heavily fallen cheeks. The eyes, in whose
+false sheen I had seen so much of evil, were glazed now, and his big and
+burly frame shook the door it pressed against. He was staring at a small
+slip of paper he held, and, from his anxious looks, appeared to miss
+something which neither of us had power to supply. It was a spectacle to
+make devils rejoice, and mortals fly aghast. But Eunice had a spirit
+like an angel and drawing near him, she said:
+
+"Is there anything I can do for you, Cousin John?"
+
+He started, looked at her with the same blank gaze he had hitherto cast
+at the wall; then some words formed on his working lips and we heard:
+
+"I can not reckon; I was never good at figures; but if Luke is gone, and
+William, and Hector, and Barbara's boy, and Janet,--_how much does that
+leave for me?_"
+
+He was answered almost the moment he spoke; but it was by other tongues
+and in another world than this. As his body fell forward, I tore open
+the door before which he had been standing, and, lifting the almost
+fainting Eunice in my arms, I carried her out into the night. As I did
+so, I caught a final glimpse of the pictured face I had found it so hard
+to understand a couple of hours before. I understood it now.
+
+A surprise awaited us as we turned toward the gate. The mist had lifted
+and a keen but not unpleasant wind was driving from the north. Borne on
+it, we heard voices. The village had emptied itself, probably at the
+alarm given by the lawyer, and it was these good men and women whose
+approach we heard. As we had nothing to fear from them, we went forward
+to meet them. As we did so, three crouching figures rose from some
+bushes we passed and ran scurrying before us through the gateway. They
+were the late comers who had shown such despair at being shut out from
+this fatal house, and who probably did not yet know the doom they had
+escaped.
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+There were lanterns in the hands of some of the men who now approached.
+As we stopped before them, these lanterns were held up, and by the light
+they gave we saw, first, the lawyer's frightened face, then the visages
+of two men who seemed to be persons of some authority.
+
+"What news?" faltered the lawyer, seeing by our faces that we knew the
+worst.
+
+"Bad," I returned; "the poison had lost none of its virulence by being
+mixed so long with the wine."
+
+"How many?" asked the man on his right anxiously.
+
+"Eight," was my solemn reply.
+
+"There were but eight," faltered the lawyer; "that means, then, all?"
+
+"All," I repeated.
+
+A murmur of horror rose, swelled, then died out in tumult as the crowd
+swept on past us.
+
+For a moment we stood watching these people; saw them pause before the
+door we had left open behind us, then rush in, leaving a wail of terror
+on the shuddering midnight air. When all was quiet again, Eunice laid
+her hand upon my arm.
+
+"Where shall we go?" she asked despairingly. "I do not know a house that
+will open to me."
+
+The answer to her question came from other lips than mine.
+
+"I do not know one that will _not_," spoke up a voice behind our backs.
+"Your withdrawal from the circle of heirs did not take from you your
+rightful claim to an inheritance which, according to your uncle's will,
+could be forfeited only by a failure to arrive at the place of
+distribution within the hour set by the testator. As I see the matter
+now, this appeal to the honesty of the persons so collected was a test
+by which my unhappy client strove to save from the general fate such
+members of his miserable family as fully recognized their sin and were
+truly repentant."
+
+It was Lawyer Smead. He had lingered behind the others to tell her this.
+She was, then, no outcast, but rich, very rich; how rich I dared not
+acknowledge to myself, lest a remembrance of the man who was the last to
+perish in that house of death should return to make this calculation
+hateful. It was a blow which struck deep, deeper than any either of us
+had sustained that night. As we came to realize it, I stepped slowly
+back, leaving her standing erect and tall in the middle of the roadway,
+with her baby in her arms. But not for long; soon she was close at my
+side murmuring softly:
+
+"Two wayfarers still! Only, the road will be more difficult and the need
+of companionship greater. Shall we fare on together, you, I--and the
+little one?"
+
+
+
+
+THE RUBY AND THE CALDRON
+
+
+As there were two good men on duty that night, I did not see why I
+should remain at my desk, even though there was an unusual stir created
+in our small town by the grand ball given at The Evergreens.
+
+But just as I was preparing to start for home, an imperative ring called
+me to the telephone and I heard:
+
+"Halloo! Is this the police-station?"
+
+"It is."
+
+"Well, then, a detective is wanted at once at The Evergreens. He can not
+be too clever or too discreet. A valuable jewel has been lost, which
+must be found before the guests disperse for home. Large reward if the
+matter ends successfully and without too great publicity."
+
+"May I ask who is speaking to me?"
+
+"Mrs. Ashley."
+
+It was the mistress of The Evergreens and giver of the ball.
+
+"Madam, a man shall be sent at once. Where will you see him?"
+
+"In the butler's pantry at the rear. Let him give his name as Jennings."
+
+"Very good. Good-by."
+
+"Good-by."
+
+A pretty piece of work! Should I send Hendricks or should I send Hicks?
+Hendricks was clever and Hicks discreet, but neither united both
+qualifications in the measure demanded by the sensible and
+quietly-resolved woman with whom I had just been talking. What
+alternative remained? But one; I must go myself.
+
+It was not late--not for a ball night, at least--and as half the town
+had been invited to the dance, the streets were alive with carriages. I
+was watching the blink of their lights through the fast falling snow
+when my attention was drawn to a fact which struck me as peculiar. These
+carriages were all coming my way instead of rolling in the direction of
+The Evergreens. Had they been empty this would have needed no
+explanation, but, as far as I could see, most of them were full, and
+that, too, with loudly talking women and gesticulating men.
+
+Something of a serious nature must have occurred at The Evergreens.
+Rapidly I paced on and soon found myself before the great gates.
+
+A crowd of vehicles of all descriptions blocked the entrance. None
+seemed to be passing up the driveway; all stood clustered at the gates,
+and as I drew nearer I perceived many an anxious head thrust forth from
+their quickly opened doors and heard many an ejaculation of
+disappointment as the short interchange of words went on between the
+drivers of these various turnouts and a man drawn up in quiet resolution
+before the unexpectedly barred entrance.
+
+Slipping round to this man's side, I listened to what he was saying. It
+was simple but very explicit.
+
+"Mrs. Ashley asks everybody's pardon, but the ball can't go on
+to-night. Something has happened which makes the reception of further
+guests impossible. To-morrow evening she will be happy to see you all.
+The dance is simply postponed."
+
+This he had probably repeated forty times, and each time it had probably
+been received with the same mixture of doubt and curiosity which now
+held the lengthy procession in check.
+
+Not wishing to attract attention, yet anxious to lose no time, I pressed
+up still nearer, and, bending toward him from the shadow cast by a
+convenient post, uttered the one word:
+
+"Jennings."
+
+Instantly he unlocked a small gate at his right. I passed in and, with
+professional _sang-froid_, proceeded to take my way to the house through
+the double row of evergreens bordering the semicircular approach.
+
+As these trees stood very close together and were, besides, heavily
+laden with fresh-fallen snow, I failed to catch a glimpse of the
+building itself until I stood in front of it. Then I saw that it was
+brilliantly lighted and gave evidence here and there of some festivity;
+but the guests were too few for the effect to be very exhilarating and,
+passing around to the rear, I sought the special entrance to which I had
+been directed.
+
+A heavy-browed porch, before which stood a caterer's wagon, led me to a
+door which had every appearance of being the one I sought. Pushing it
+open, I entered without ceremony, and speedily found myself in the midst
+of twenty or more colored waiters and chattering housemaids. To one of
+the former I addressed the question:
+
+"Where is the butler's pantry? I am told that I shall find the lady of
+the house there."
+
+"Your name?" was the curt demand.
+
+"Jennings."
+
+"Follow me."
+
+I was taken through narrow passages and across one or two store-rooms to
+a small but well-lighted closet, where I was left, with the assurance
+that Mrs. Ashley would presently join me. I had never seen this lady,
+but I had often heard her spoken of as a woman of superior character and
+admirable discretion.
+
+She did not keep me waiting. In two minutes the door opened and this
+fine, well-poised woman was telling her story in the straightforward
+manner I so much admire and so seldom meet with.
+
+The article lost was a large ruby of singular beauty and great
+value--the property of Mrs. Burton, the senator's wife, in whose honor
+this ball was given. It had not been lost in the house nor had it been
+originally missed that evening. Mrs. Burton and herself had attended the
+great foot-ball game in the afternoon, and it was on the college campus
+that Mrs. Burton had first dropped her invaluable jewel. But a reward of
+five hundred dollars having been at once offered to whoever should find
+and restore it, a great search had followed, which ended in its being
+picked up by one of the students and brought back as far as the great
+step leading up to the front door, when it had again disappeared, and
+in a way to rouse conjecture of the strangest and most puzzling
+character.
+
+The young man who had brought it thus far bore the name of John Deane,
+and was a member of the senior class. He had been the first to detect
+its sparkle in the grass, and those who were near enough to see his face
+at that happy moment say that it expressed the utmost satisfaction at
+his good luck.
+
+"You see," said Mrs. Ashley, "he has a sweetheart, and five hundred
+dollars looks like a fortune to a young man just starting life. But he
+was weak enough to take this girl into his confidence; and on their way
+here--for both were invited to the ball--he went so far as to pull it
+out of his pocket and show it to her.
+
+"They were admiring it together and vaunting its beauties to the young
+lady friend who had accompanied them, when their carriage turned into
+the driveway and they saw the lights of the house flashing before them.
+Hastily restoring the jewel to the little bag he had made for it out of
+the finger-end of an old glove,--a bag in which he assured me he had
+been careful to keep it safely tied ever since picking it up on the
+college green,--he thrust it back into his pocket and prepared to help
+the ladies out. But just then a disturbance arose in front. A horse
+which had been driven up was rearing in a way that threatened to
+overturn the light buggy to which he was attached. As the occupants of
+this buggy were ladies, and seemed to have no control over the plunging
+beast, young Deane naturally sprang to the rescue. Bidding his own
+ladies alight and make for the porch, he hurriedly ran forward and,
+pausing in front of the maddened animal, waited for an opportunity to
+seize him by the rein. He says that as he stood there facing the beast
+with fixed eye and raised hand, he distinctly felt something strike or
+touch his breast. But the sensation conveyed no meaning to him in his
+excitement, and he did not think of it again till, the horse well in
+hand and the two alarmed occupants of the buggy rescued, he turned to
+see where his own ladies were, and beheld them looking down at him from
+the midst of a circle of young people, drawn from the house by the
+screaming of the women. Instantly a thought of the treasure he carried
+recurred to his mind, and dropping the rein of the now quieted horse, he
+put his hand to his pocket. The jewel was gone. He declares that for a
+moment he felt as if he had been struck on the head by one of the hoofs
+of the frantic horse he had just handled. But immediately the importance
+of his loss and the necessity he felt for instant action restored him to
+himself, and shouting aloud, 'I have dropped Mrs. Burton's ruby!' begged
+every one to stand still while he made a search for it.
+
+"This all occurred, as you must know, more than an hour and a half ago,
+consequently before many of my guests had arrived. My son, who was one
+of the few spectators gathered on the porch, tells me that there was
+only one other carriage behind the one in which Mr. Deane had brought
+his ladies. Both of these had stopped short of the stepping-stone, and
+as the horse and buggy which had made all this trouble had by this time
+been driven to the stable, nothing stood in the way of his search but
+the rapidly accumulating snow which, if you remember, was falling very
+thick and fast at the time.
+
+"My son, who had rushed in for his overcoat, came running down with
+offers to help him. So did some others. But, with an imploring gesture,
+he begged to be allowed to conduct the search alone, the ground being in
+such a state that the delicately-mounted jewel ran great risk of being
+trodden into the snow and thus injured or lost. They humored him for a
+moment, then, seeing that his efforts bade fair to be fruitless, my son
+insisted upon joining him, and the two looked the ground over, inch by
+inch, from the place where Mr. Deane had set foot to ground in alighting
+from his carriage to the exact spot where he had stood when he had
+finally seized hold of the horse. But no ruby. Then Harrison (that is
+my son's name) sent for a broom and went over the place again, sweeping
+aside the surface snow and examining carefully the ground beneath,--but
+with no better results than before. No ruby could be found. My son came
+to me panting. Mrs. Burton and myself stood awaiting him in a state of
+suspense. Guests and fete were alike forgotten. We had heard that the
+jewel had been found on the campus by one of the students and had been
+brought back as far as the step in front and then lost again in some
+unaccountable manner in the snow, and we hoped, nay expected from moment
+to moment, that it would be brought in.
+
+"When Harrison entered, then, pale, disheveled and shaking his head,
+Mrs. Burton caught me by the hand, and I thought she would faint. For
+this jewel is of far greater value to her than its mere worth in money,
+though that is by no means small.
+
+"It is a family jewel and was given to her by her husband under special
+circumstances. He prizes it even more than she does, and he is not here
+to counsel or assist her in this extremity. Besides, she was wearing it
+in direct opposition to his expressed wishes. This I must tell you, to
+show how imperative it is for us to recover it; also to account for the
+large reward she is willing to pay. When he last looked at it he noticed
+that the fastening was a trifle slack and, though he handed the trinket
+back, he told her distinctly that she was not to wear it till it had
+been either to Tiffany's or Starr's. But she considered it safe enough,
+and put it on to please the boys, and lost it. Senator Burton is a hard
+man and,--in short, the jewel must be found. I give you just one hour in
+which to do it."
+
+"But, madam--" I protested.
+
+"I know," she put in, with a quick nod and a glance over her shoulder to
+see if the door was shut. "I have not finished my story. Hearing what
+Harrison had to say, I took action at once. I bade him call in the
+guests, whom curiosity or interest still detained on the porch, and seat
+them in a certain room which I designated to him. Then, after telling
+him to send two men to the gates with orders to hold back all further
+carriages from entering, and two others to shovel up and cart away to
+the stable every particle of snow for ten feet each side of the front
+step, I asked to see Mr. Deane. But here my son whispered something into
+my ear, which it is my duty to repeat. It was to the effect that Mr.
+Deane believed that the jewel had been taken from him; that he insisted,
+in fact, that he had felt a hand touch his breast while he stood
+awaiting an opportunity to seize the horse. 'Very good,' said I, 'we'll
+remember that, too; but first see that my orders are carried out and
+that all approaches to the grounds are guarded and no one allowed to
+come in or go out without permission from me.'
+
+"He left us, and I was turning to encourage Mrs. Burton when my
+attention was caught by the eager face of a little friend of mine, who,
+quite unknown to me, was sitting in one of the corners of the room. She
+was studying my countenance in a sort of subdued anxiety, hardly
+natural in one so young, and I was about to call her to my side and
+question her when she made a sudden dive and vanished from the room.
+Some impulse made me follow her. She is a conscientious little thing,
+but timid as a hare, and though I saw she had something to say, it was
+with difficulty I could make her speak. Only after the most solemn
+assurances that her name should not be mentioned in the matter, would
+she give me the following bit of information, which you may possibly
+think throws another light upon the affair. It seems that she was
+looking out of one of the front windows when Mr. Deane's carriage drove
+up. She had been watching the antics of the horse attached to the buggy,
+but as soon as she saw Mr. Deane going to the assistance of those in
+danger, she let her eyes stray back to the ladies whom he had left
+behind him in the carriage.
+
+"She did not know these ladies, but their looks and gestures interested
+her, and she watched them quite intently as they leaped to the ground
+and made their way toward the porch. One went on quickly, and without
+pause, to the step, but the other,--the one who came last,--did not do
+this. She stopped a moment, perhaps to watch the horse in front, perhaps
+to draw her cloak more closely about her, and when she again moved on,
+it was with a start and a hurried glance at her feet, terminating in a
+quick turn and a sudden stooping to the ground. When she again stood
+upright, she had something in her hand which she thrust furtively into
+her breast."
+
+"How was this lady dressed?" I inquired.
+
+"In a white cloak, with an edging of fur. I took pains to learn that,
+too, and it was with some curiosity, I assure you, that I examined the
+few guests who had now been admitted to the room I had so carefully
+pointed out to my son. Two of them wore white cloaks, but one of these
+was Mrs. Dalrymple, and I did not give her or her cloak a second
+thought. The other was a tall, fine-looking girl, with an air and
+bearing calculated to rouse admiration if she had not shown so very
+plainly that she was in a state of inner perturbation. Though she tried
+to look amiable and pleased, I saw that she had some care on her mind,
+which, had she been Mr. Deane's _fiancee_, would have needed no
+explanation; but as she was only Mr. Deane's _fiancee's_ friend, its
+cause was not so apparent.
+
+"The floor of the room, as I had happily remembered, was covered with
+crash, and as I lifted each garment off--I allowed no maid to assist me
+in this--I shook it well; ostensibly, because of the few flakes clinging
+to it, really to see if anything could be shaken out of it. Of course, I
+met with no success. I had not expected to, but it is my disposition to
+be thorough. These wraps I saw all hung in an adjoining closet, the door
+of which I locked,--here is the key,--after which I handed my guests
+over to my son who led them into the drawing-room where they joined the
+few others who had previously arrived, and went myself to telephone to
+_you_."
+
+I bowed and asked where the young people were now.
+
+"Still in the drawing-room. I have ordered the musicians to play, and
+consequently there is more or less dancing. But, of course, nothing can
+remove the wet blanket which has fallen over us all,--nothing but the
+finding of this jewel. Do you see your way to accomplishing this? We
+are, from this very moment, at your disposal; only I pray that you will
+make no more disturbance than is necessary, and, if possible, arouse no
+suspicions you can not back up by facts. I dread a scandal almost as
+much as I do sickness and death, and these young people--well, their
+lives are all before them, and neither Mrs. Burton nor myself would wish
+to throw the shadow of a false suspicion over the least of them."
+
+I assured her that I sympathized with her scruples and would do my best
+to recover the ruby without inflicting undue annoyance upon the
+innocent. Then I inquired whether it was known that a detective had been
+called in. She seemed to think it was suspected by some, if not by all.
+At which my way seemed a trifle complicated.
+
+We were about to proceed when another thought struck me.
+
+"Madam, you have not said whether the carriage itself was searched."
+
+"I forgot. Yes, the carriage was thoroughly overhauled, and before the
+coachman left the box."
+
+"Who did this overhauling?"
+
+"My son. He would not trust any other hand than his own in a business of
+this kind."
+
+"One more question, madam. Was any one seen to approach Mr. Deane on the
+carriage-drive prior to his assertion that the jewel was lost?"
+
+"No. _And there were no tracks in the snow of any such person._ My son
+looked."
+
+And I would look, or so I decided within myself, but I said nothing; and
+in silence we proceeded toward the drawing-room.
+
+I had left my overcoat behind me, and always being well-dressed, I did
+not present so bad an appearance. Still I was not in party attire and
+naturally could not pass for a guest if I had wanted to, which I did
+not. I felt that I must rely on insight in this case and on a certain
+power I had always possessed of reading faces. That the case called for
+just this species of intuition I was positive. Mrs. Burton's ruby was
+within a hundred yards of us at this very moment, probably within a
+hundred feet; but to lay hands on it and without scandal--well, that was
+a problem calculated to rouse the interest of even an old police-officer
+like myself.
+
+A strain of music, desultory, however, and spiritless, like everything
+else about the place that night, greeted us as Mrs. Ashley opened the
+door leading directly into the large front hall.
+
+Immediately a scene meant to be festive, but which was, in fact,
+desolate, burst upon us. The lights, the flowers and the brilliant
+appearance of such ladies as flitted into sight from the almost empty
+parlors, were all suggestive of the cheer suitable to a great occasion;
+but in spite of this, the effect was altogether melancholy, for the
+hundreds who should have graced this scene, and for whom this
+illumination had been made and these festoons hung, had been turned away
+from the gates, and the few who felt they must remain, because their
+hostess showed no disposition to let them go, wore any but holiday
+faces, for all their forced smiles and pitiful attempts at nonchalance
+and gaiety.
+
+I scrutinized these faces carefully. I detected nothing in them but
+annoyance at a situation which certainly was anything but pleasant.
+
+Turning to Mrs. Ashley, I requested her to be kind enough to point out
+her son, adding that I should be glad to have a moment's conversation
+with him, also with Mr. Deane.
+
+"Mr. Deane is in one of those small rooms over there. He is quite upset.
+Not even Mrs. Burton can comfort him. My son--Oh, there is Harrison!"
+
+A tall, fine-looking young man was crossing the hall. Mrs. Ashley called
+him to her, and in another moment we were standing together in one of
+the empty parlors.
+
+I gave him my name and told him my business. Then I said:
+
+"Your mother has allotted me an hour in which to find the valuable jewel
+which has just been lost on these premises." Here I smiled. "She
+evidently has great confidence in my ability. I must see that I do not
+disappoint her."
+
+All this time I was examining his face. It was a handsome one, as I have
+said, but it had also a very candid expression; the eyes looked straight
+into mine, and, while showing anxiety, betrayed no deeper emotion than
+the occasion naturally called for.
+
+"Have you any suggestions to offer? I understand that you were on the
+ground almost as soon as Mr. Deane discovered his loss."
+
+His eyes changed a trifle but did not swerve. Of course he had been
+informed by his mother of the suspicious action of the young lady who
+had been a member of that gentleman's party, and shrank, as any one in
+his position would, from the responsibilities entailed by this
+knowledge.
+
+"No," said he. "We have done all we can. The next move must come from
+you."
+
+"There is one that will settle the matter in a moment," I assured him,
+still with my eyes fixed scrutinizingly on his face,--"a universal
+search, not of places, but of persons. But it is a harsh measure."
+
+"A most disagreeable one," he emphasized, flushing. "Such an indignity
+offered to guests would never be forgotten or forgiven."
+
+"True, but if they offered to submit to this themselves?"
+
+"They? How?"
+
+"If _you_, the son of the house,--their host we may say,--should call
+them together and, for your own satisfaction, empty out your pockets in
+the sight of every one, don't you think that all the men, and possibly
+all the women too--" (here I let my voice fall suggestively) "would be
+glad to follow suit? It could be done in apparent joke."
+
+He shook his head with a straightforward air, which raised him high in
+my estimation.
+
+"That would call for little but effrontery on my part," said he; "but
+think what it would demand from these boys who came here for the sole
+purpose of enjoying themselves. I will not so much as mention the
+ladies."
+
+"Yet one of the latter--"
+
+"I know," he quietly acknowledged, growing restless for the first time.
+
+I withdrew my eyes from his face. I had learned what I wished.
+Personally he did not shrink from search, therefore the jewel was not in
+his pockets. This left but two persons for suspicion to halt between.
+But I disclosed nothing of my thoughts; I merely asked pardon for a
+suggestion that, while pardonable in a man accustomed to handle crime
+with ungloved hands, could not fail to prove offensive to a gentleman
+like himself.
+
+"We must move by means less open," I concluded. "It adds to our
+difficulties, but that can not be helped. I should now like a glimpse of
+Mr. Deane."
+
+"Do you not wish to speak to him?"
+
+"I should prefer a sight of his face first."
+
+He led me across the hall and pointed through an open door. In the
+center of a small room containing a table and some chairs, I perceived a
+young man sitting, with fallen head and dejected air, staring at
+vacancy. By his side, with hand laid on his, knelt a young girl,
+striving in this gentle but speechless way to comfort him. It made a
+pathetic picture. I drew Ashley away.
+
+"I am disposed to believe in that young man," said I. "If he still has
+the jewel, he would not try to carry off the situation in just this way.
+He really looks broken-hearted."
+
+"Oh, he is dreadfully cut up. If you could have seen how frantically he
+searched for the stone, and the depression into which he fell when he
+realized that it was not to be found, you would not doubt him for an
+instant. What made you think he might still have the ruby?"
+
+"Oh, we police officers think of everything. Then the fact that he
+insists that something or some one touched his breast on the driveway
+strikes me as a trifle suspicious. Your mother says that no second
+person could have been there, or the snow would have given evidence of
+it."
+
+"Yes; I looked expressly. Of course, the drive itself was full of
+hoof-marks and wheel-tracks, for several carriages had already passed
+over it. Then there were all of Deane's footsteps, but no other man's,
+as far as I could see."
+
+"Yet he insists that he was touched or struck."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"With no one there to touch or strike him."
+
+Mr. Ashley was silent.
+
+"Let us step out and take a view of the place," I suggested. "I should
+prefer doing this to questioning the young man in his present state of
+mind." Then, as we turned to put on our coats, I asked with suitable
+precaution: "Do you suppose that he has the same secret suspicions as
+ourselves, and that it is to hide these he insists upon the jewel's
+having been taken away from him at a point the ladies are known not to
+have approached?"
+
+Young Ashley bent somewhat startled eyes on mine.
+
+"Nothing has been said to him of what Miss Peters saw Miss Glover do. I
+could not bring myself to mention it. I have not even allowed myself to
+believe--"
+
+Here a fierce gust, blowing in from the door he had just opened, cut
+short his words, and neither of us spoke again till we stood on the
+exact spot in the driveway where the episode we were endeavoring to
+understand had taken place.
+
+"Oh," I cried as soon as I could look about me; "the mystery is
+explained. Look at that bush, or perhaps you call it a shrub. If the
+wind were blowing as freshly as it is now, and very probably it was, one
+of those slender branches might easily be switched against his breast,
+especially if he stood, as you say he did, close against this border."
+
+"Well, I'm a fool. Only the other day I told the gardener that these
+branches would need trimming in the spring, and yet I never so much as
+thought of them when Mr. Deane spoke of something striking his breast."
+
+As we turned back I made this remark:
+
+"With this explanation of the one doubtful point in his otherwise
+plausible account, we can credit his story as being in the main true,
+which," I calmly added, "places him above suspicion and narrows our
+inquiry down to _one_."
+
+We had moved quickly and were now at the threshold of the door by which
+we had come out.
+
+"Mr. Ashley," I continued, "I shall have to ask you to add to your
+former favors that of showing me the young lady in whom, from this
+moment on, we are especially interested. If you can manage to let me see
+her first without her seeing me, I shall be infinitely obliged to you."
+
+"I do not know where she is. I shall have to search for her."
+
+"I will wait by the hall door."
+
+In a few minutes he returned to me. "Come," said he, and led me into
+what I judged to be the library.
+
+With a gesture toward one of the windows, he backed quickly out, leaving
+me to face the situation alone. I was rather glad of this. Glancing in
+the direction he had indicated, and perceiving the figure of a young
+lady standing with her back to me on the farther side of a flowing lace
+curtain, I took a few steps toward her, hoping that the movement would
+cause her to turn. But it entirely failed to produce this effect, nor
+did she give any sign that she noted the intrusion. This prevented me
+from catching the glimpse of her face which I so desired, and obliged me
+to confine myself to a study of her dress and attitude.
+
+The former was very elegant, more elegant than the appearance of her two
+friends had led me to expect. Though I am far from being an authority on
+feminine toilets, I yet had experience enough to know that those
+sweeping folds of spotless satin, with their festoons of lace and loops
+of shiny trimming, which it would be folly for me to attempt to
+describe, represented not only the best efforts of the dressmaker's art,
+but very considerable means on the part of the woman wearing such a
+gown. This was a discovery which altered the complexion of my thoughts
+for a moment; for I had presupposed her a girl of humble means, willing
+to sacrifice certain scruples to obtain a little extra money. This
+imposing figure might be that of a millionaire's daughter; how then
+could I associate her, even in my own mind, with theft? I decided that I
+must see her face before giving answer to these doubts.
+
+She did not seem inclined to turn. She had raised the shade from before
+the wintry panes and was engaged in looking out. Her attitude was not
+that of one simply enjoying a moment's respite from the dance. It was
+rather that of an absorbed mind brooding upon what gave little or no
+pleasure; and as I further gazed and noted the droop of her lovely
+shoulders and the languor visible in her whole bearing, I began to
+regard a glimpse of her features as imperative. Moving forward, I came
+upon her suddenly.
+
+"Excuse me, Miss Smith," I boldly exclaimed; then paused, for she had
+turned instinctively and I had seen that for which I had risked this
+daring move. "Your pardon," I hastily apologized. "I mistook you for
+another young lady," and drew back with a low bow to let her pass, for I
+saw that she thought only of escaping both me and the room.
+
+And I did not wonder at this, for her eyes were streaming with tears,
+and her face, which was doubtless a pretty one under ordinary
+conditions, looked so distorted with distracting emotions that she was
+no fit subject for any man's eye, let alone that of a hard-hearted
+officer of the law on the look-out for the guilty hand which had just
+appropriated a jewel worth anywhere from eight to ten thousand dollars.
+
+Yet I was glad to see her weep, for only first offenders weep, and first
+offenders are amenable to influence, especially if they have been led
+into wrong by impulse and are weak rather than wicked.
+
+Anxious to make no blunder, I resolved, before proceeding further, to
+learn what I could of the character and antecedents of the suspected
+one, and this from the only source which offered--Mr. Deane's affianced.
+
+This young lady was a delicate girl, with a face like a flower.
+Recognizing her sensitive nature, I approached her with the utmost
+gentleness. Not seeking to disguise either the nature of my business or
+my reasons for being in the house, since all this gave me authority, I
+modulated my tone to suit her gentle spirit, and, above all, I showed
+the utmost sympathy for her lover, whose rights in the reward had been
+taken from him as certainly as the jewel had been taken from Mrs.
+Burton. In this way I gained her confidence, and she was quite ready to
+listen when I observed:
+
+"There is a young lady here who seems to be in a state of even greater
+trouble than Mr. Deane. Why is this? You brought her here. Is her
+sympathy with Mr. Deane so great as to cause her to weep over his loss?"
+
+"Frances? Oh, no. She likes Mr. Deane and she likes me, but not well
+enough to cry over our misfortunes. I think she has some trouble of her
+own."
+
+"One that you can tell me?"
+
+Her surprise was manifest.
+
+"Why do you ask that? What interest have you (called in, as I
+understand, to recover a stolen jewel) in Frances Glover's personal
+difficulties?"
+
+I saw that I must make my position perfectly plain.
+
+"Only this. She was seen to pick up something from the driveway, where
+no one else had succeeded in finding anything."
+
+"She? When? Who saw her?"
+
+"I can not answer all these questions at once," I smiled. "She was seen
+to do this--no matter by whom,--during your passage from the carriage to
+the stoop. As you preceded her, you naturally did not observe this
+action, which was fortunate, perhaps, as you would scarcely have known
+what to do or say about it."
+
+"Yes I should," she retorted, with a most unexpected display of spirit.
+"I should have asked her what she had found and I should have insisted
+upon an answer. I love my friends, but I love the man I am to marry,
+better." Here her voice fell and a most becoming blush suffused her
+cheek.
+
+"Quite right," I assented. "Now will you answer my former question? What
+troubles Miss Glover? Can you tell me?"
+
+"That I can not. I only know that she has been very silent ever since
+she left the house. I thought her beautiful new dress would please her,
+but it does not seem to. She has been unhappy and preoccupied all the
+evening. She only roused a bit when Mr. Deane showed us the ruby and
+said--Oh, I forgot!"
+
+"What's that? What have you forgot?"
+
+"What you said just now. I wouldn't add a word--"
+
+"Pardon me!" I smilingly interrupted, looking as fatherly as I could,
+"but you _have_ added this word and now you must tell me what it means.
+You were going to say she showed interest in the extraordinary jewel
+which Mr. Deane took from his pocket and--"
+
+"In what he let fall about the expected reward. That is, she looked
+eagerly at the ruby and sighed when he acknowledged that he expected it
+to bring him five hundred dollars before midnight. But any girl of no
+more means than she might do that. It would not be fair to lay too much
+stress on a sigh."
+
+"Is not Miss Glover wealthy? She wears a very expensive dress, I
+observe."
+
+"I know it and I have wondered a little at it, for her father is not
+called very well off. But perhaps she bought it with her own money; I
+know she has some; she is an artist in burnt wood."
+
+I let the subject of Miss Glover's dress drop. I had heard enough to
+satisfy me that my first theory was correct. This young woman,
+beautifully dressed, and with a face from which the rounded lines of
+early girlhood had not yet departed, held in her possession, probably
+at this very moment, Mrs. Burton's magnificent jewel. But where? On her
+person or hidden in some of her belongings? I remembered the cloak in
+the closet and thought it wise to assure myself that the jewel was not
+secreted in this garment, before I proceeded to extreme measures. Mrs.
+Ashley, upon being consulted, agreed with me as to the desirability of
+this, and presently I had this poor girl's cloak in my hands.
+
+Did I find the ruby? No; but I found something else tucked away in an
+inner pocket which struck me as bearing quite pointedly upon this case.
+It was the bill--crumpled, soiled and tear-stained--of the dress whose
+elegance had so surprised her friends and made me, for a short time,
+regard her as the daughter of wealthy parents. An enormous bill, which
+must have struck dismay to the soul of this self-supporting girl, who
+probably had no idea of how a French dressmaker can foot up items. Four
+hundred and fifty dollars! and for one gown! I declare I felt indignant
+myself and could quite understand why she heaved that little sigh when
+Mr. Deane spoke of the five hundred dollars he expected from Mrs.
+Burton, and later, how she came to succumb to the temptation of making
+the effort to secure this sum for herself when, in following the
+latter's footsteps up the driveway, she stumbled upon this same jewel
+fallen, as it were, from his pocket into her very hands. The impulse of
+the moment was so strong and the consequences so little anticipated!
+
+It is not at all probable that she foresaw he would shout aloud his loss
+and draw the whole household out on the porch. Of course when he did
+this, the feasibility of her project was gone, and I only wished that I
+had been present and able to note her countenance, as, crowded in with
+others on that windy porch, she watched the progress of the search,
+which every moment made it not only less impossible for her to attempt
+the restoration upon which the reward depended, but must have caused her
+to feel, if she had been as well brought up as all indications showed,
+that it was a dishonest act of which she had been guilty and that,
+willing or not, she must look upon herself as a thief so long as she
+held the jewel back from Mr. Deane or its rightful owner. But how face
+the publicity of restoring it now, after this elaborate and painful
+search, in which even the son of her hostess had taken part?
+
+That would be to proclaim her guilt and thus effectually ruin her in the
+eyes of everybody concerned. No, she would keep the compromising article
+a little longer, in the hope of finding some opportunity of returning it
+without risk to her good name. And so she allowed the search to proceed.
+
+I have entered thus elaborately into the supposed condition of this
+girl's mind on this critical evening, that you may understand why I felt
+a certain sympathy for her, which forbade harsh measures. I was sure,
+from the glimpse I had caught of her face, that she longed to be
+relieved from the tension she was under, and that she would gladly rid
+herself of this valuable jewel if she only knew how. This opportunity I
+proposed to give her; and this is why, on returning the bill to its
+place, I assumed such an air of relief on rejoining Mrs. Ashley.
+
+She saw, and drew me aside.
+
+"You have not found it!" she said.
+
+"No," I returned, "but I am positive where it is."
+
+"And where is that?"
+
+"Over Miss Glover's uneasy heart."
+
+Mrs. Ashley turned pale.
+
+"Wait," said I; "I have a scheme for getting it hence without making her
+shame public. Listen!" and I whispered a few words in her ear.
+
+She surveyed me in amazement for a moment, then nodded, and her face
+lighted up.
+
+"You are certainly earning your reward," she declared; and summoning her
+son, who was never far away from her side, she whispered her wishes. He
+started, bowed and hurried from the room.
+
+By this time my business in the house was well-known to all, and I could
+not appear in hall or parlor without a great silence falling upon every
+one present, followed by a breaking up of the only too small circle of
+unhappy guests into agitated groups. But I appeared to see nothing of
+all this till the proper moment, when, turning suddenly upon them all, I
+cried out cheerfully, but with a certain deference I thought would
+please them:
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen: I have an interesting fact to announce. The snow
+which was taken up from the driveway has been put to melt in the great
+feed caldron over the stable fire. We expect to find the ruby at the
+bottom, and Mrs. Ashley invites you to be present at its recovery. It
+has now stopped snowing and she thought you might enjoy the excitement
+of watching the water ladled out."
+
+A dozen girls bounded forward.
+
+"Oh, yes, what fun! where are our cloaks--our rubbers?"
+
+Two only stood hesitating. One of these was Mr. Deane's lady love and
+the other her friend, Miss Glover. The former, perhaps, secretly
+wondered. The latter--but I dared not look long enough or closely enough
+in her direction to judge just what her emotions were. Presently these,
+too, stepped forward into the excited circle of young people, and were
+met by the two maids who were bringing in their wraps. Amid the bustle
+which now ensued, I caught sight of Mr. Deane's face peering from an
+open doorway. It was all alive with hope. I also perceived a lady
+looking down from the second story, who, I felt sure, was Mrs. Burton
+herself. Evidently my confident tone had produced more effect than the
+words themselves. Every one looked upon the jewel as already recovered
+and regarded my invitation to the stable as a ruse by which I hoped to
+restore universal good feeling by giving them all a share in my triumph.
+
+All but one! Nothing could make Miss Glover look otherwise than anxious,
+restless and unsettled, and though she followed in the wake of the
+rest, it was with hidden face and lagging step, as if she recognized the
+whole thing as a farce and doubted her own power to go through it
+calmly.
+
+"Ah, ha! my lady," thought I, "only be patient and you will see what I
+shall do for you." And indeed I thought her eye brightened as we all
+drew up around the huge caldron standing full of water over the stable
+stove. As pains had already been taken to put out the fire in this
+stove, the ladies were not afraid of injuring their dresses and
+consequently crowded as close as their numbers would permit. Miss Glover
+especially stood within reach of the brim, and as soon as I noted this,
+I gave the signal which had been agreed upon between Mr. Ashley and
+myself. Instantly the electric lights went out, leaving the place in
+total darkness.
+
+A scream from the girls, a burst of hilarious laughter from their
+escorts, mingled with loud apologies from their seemingly mischievous
+host, filled up the interval of darkness which I had insisted should not
+be too soon curtailed; then the lights glowed as suddenly as they had
+gone out, and while the glare was fresh on every face, I stole a glance
+at Miss Glover to see if she had made good use of the opportunity just
+accorded for ridding herself of the jewel by dropping it into the
+caldron. If she had, both her troubles and mine were at an end; if she
+had not, then I need feel no further scruple in approaching her with the
+direct question I had hitherto found it so difficult to put.
+
+She stood with both hands grasping her cloak which she had drawn tightly
+about the rich folds of her new and expensive dress; but her eyes were
+fixed straight before her with a soft light in their depths which made
+her positively beautiful.
+
+The jewel is in the pot, I inwardly decided, and ordered the two waiting
+stablemen to step forward with their ladles. Quickly those ladles went
+in, but before they could be lifted out dripping, half the ladies had
+scurried back, afraid of injury to their pretty dresses. But they soon
+sidled forward again, and watched with beaming eyes the slow but sure
+emptying of the great caldron at whose bottom they anticipated finding
+the lost jewel.
+
+As the ladles were plunged deeper and deeper, the heads drew closer and
+so great was the interest shown, that the busiest lips forgot to
+chatter, and eyes, whose only business up till now had been to follow
+with shy curiosity every motion made by their handsome young host, now
+settled on the murky depths of the great pot whose bottom was almost in
+sight.
+
+As I heard the ladles strike this bottom, I instinctively withdrew a
+step in anticipation of the loud hurrah which would naturally hail the
+first sight of the lost ruby. Conceive, then, my chagrin, my bitter and
+mortified disappointment, when, after one look at the broad surface of
+the now exposed bottom, the one shout which rose was:
+
+"_Nothing!_"
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+I was so thoroughly put out that I did not wait to hear the loud
+complaints which burst from every lip. Drawing Mr. Ashley aside (who,
+by the way, seemed as much affected as myself by the turn affairs had
+taken) I remarked to him that there was only one course left open to us.
+
+"And what is that?"
+
+"To ask Miss Glover to show me what she picked up from your driveway."
+
+"And if she refuses?"
+
+"To take her quietly with me to the station, where we have women who can
+make sure that the ruby is not on her person."
+
+Mr. Ashley made an involuntary gesture of strong repugnance.
+
+"Let us pray that it will not come to that," he objected hoarsely. "Such
+a fine figure of a girl! Did you notice how bright and happy she looked
+when the lights sprang up? I declare she struck me as lovely."
+
+"So she did me, and caused me to draw some erroneous conclusions. I
+shall have to ask you to procure me an interview with her as soon as we
+return to the house."
+
+"She shall meet you in the library."
+
+But when, a few minutes later, she joined me in the room just designated
+and I had full opportunity for reading her countenance, I own that my
+task became suddenly hateful to me. She was not far from my own
+daughter's age and, had it not been for her furtive look of care,
+appeared almost as blooming and bright. Would it ever come to pass that
+a harsh man of the law would feel it his duty to speak to my Flora as I
+must now speak to the young girl before me? The thought made me inwardly
+recoil and it was in as gentle a manner as possible that I made my bow
+and began with the following remark:
+
+"I hope you will pardon me, Miss Glover--I am told that is your name. I
+hate to disturb your pleasure--" (this with the tears of alarm and grief
+rising in her eyes) "but you can tell me something which will greatly
+simplify my task and possibly put matters in such shape that you and
+your friends can be released to your homes."
+
+"I?"
+
+She stood before me with amazed eyes, the color rising in her cheeks. I
+had to force my next words, which, out of consideration for her, I made
+as direct as possible.
+
+"Yes, miss. What was the article you were seen to pick up from the
+driveway soon after leaving your carriage?"
+
+She started, then stumbled backward, tripping in her long train.
+
+"I pick up?" she murmured. Then with a blush, whether of anger or pride
+I could not tell, she coldly answered: "Oh, that was something of my
+own,--something I had just dropped. I had rather not tell you what it
+was."
+
+I scrutinized her closely. She met my eyes squarely, yet not with just
+the clear light I should, remembering Flora, have been glad to see
+there.
+
+"I think it would be better for you to be entirely frank," said I. "It
+was the only article known to have been picked up from the driveway
+after Mr. Deane's loss of the ruby; and though we do not presume to say
+that it was the ruby, yet the matter would look clearer to us all if
+you would frankly state what this object was."
+
+Her whole body seemed to collapse and she looked as if about to sink.
+
+"Oh, where is Minnie? Where is Mr. Deane?" she moaned, turning and
+staring at the door, as if she hoped they would fly to her aid. Then, in
+a burst of indignation which I was fain to believe real, she turned on
+me with the cry: "It was a bit of paper which I had thrust into the
+bosom of my gown. It fell out--"
+
+"Your dressmaker's bill?" I intimated.
+
+She stared, laughed hysterically for a moment, then sank upon a near-by
+sofa, sobbing spasmodically.
+
+"Yes," she cried, after a moment; "my dressmaker's bill. You seem to
+know all my affairs." Then suddenly, and with a startling impetuosity,
+which drew her to her feet: "Are you going to tell everybody that? Are
+you going to state publicly that Miss Glover brought an unpaid bill to
+the party and that because Mr. Deane was unfortunate enough or careless
+enough to drop and lose the jewel he was bringing to Mrs. Burton, she is
+to be looked upon as a thief, because she stooped to pick up this bill
+which had slipped inadvertently from its hiding-place? I shall die if
+you do," she cried. "I shall die if it is already known," she pursued,
+with increasing emotion. "Is it? Is it?"
+
+Her passion was so great, so much greater than any likely to rise in a
+breast wholly innocent, that I began to feel very sober.
+
+"No one but Mrs. Ashley and possibly her son know about the bill," said
+I, "and no one shall, if you will go with that lady to her room, and
+make plain to her, in the only way you can, that the extremely valuable
+article which has been lost to-night is not in your possession."
+
+She threw up her arms with a scream. "Oh, what a horror! I can not! I
+can not! Oh, I shall die of shame! My father! My mother!" And she burst
+from the room like one distraught.
+
+But in another moment she came cringing back. "I can not face them,"
+she said. "They all believe it; they will always believe it unless I
+submit--Oh, why did I ever come to this dreadful place? Why did I order
+this hateful dress which I can never pay for and which, in spite of the
+misery it has caused me, has failed to bring me the--" She did not
+continue. She had caught my eye and seen there, perhaps, some evidence
+of the pity I could not but experience for her. With a sudden change of
+tone she advanced upon me with the appeal: "Save me from this
+humiliation. I have not seen the ruby. I am as ignorant of its
+whereabouts as--as Mr. Ashley himself. Won't you believe me? Won't they
+be satisfied if I swear--"
+
+I was really sorry for her. I began to think too that some dreadful
+mistake had been made. Her manner seemed too ingenuous for guilt. Yet
+where could that ruby be, if not with this young girl? Certainly, all
+other possibilities had been exhausted, and her story of the bill, even
+if accepted, would never quite exonerate her from secret suspicion
+while that elusive jewel remained unfound.
+
+"You give me no hope," she moaned. "I must go out before them all and
+ask to have it proved that I am no thief. Oh, if God would have pity--"
+
+"Or some one would find--Halloo! What's that?"
+
+A shout had risen from the hall beyond.
+
+She gasped and we both plunged forward. Mr. Ashley, still in his
+overcoat, stood at the other end of the hall, and facing him were ranged
+the whole line of young people whom I had left scattered about in the
+various parlors. I thought he looked peculiar; certainly his appearance
+differed from that of a quarter of an hour before, and when he glanced
+our way and saw who was standing with me in the library doorway, his
+voice took on a tone which made me doubt whether he was about to
+announce good news or bad.
+
+But his first word settled that question.
+
+"Rejoice with me!" he cried. "_The ruby has been found!_ Do you want to
+see the culprit?--for there is a culprit. We have him at the door;
+shall we bring him in?"
+
+"Yes, yes," cried several voices, among them that of Mr. Deane, who now
+strode forward with beaming eyes and instinctively lifted hand. But some
+of the ladies looked frightened, and Mr. Ashley, noting this, glanced
+for encouragement toward us.
+
+He seemed to find it in Miss Glover's eyes. She had quivered and nearly
+fallen at that word _found_, but had drawn herself up by this time and
+was awaiting his further action in a fever of relief and hope which
+perhaps no one but myself could fully appreciate.
+
+"A vile thief! A most unconscionable rascal!" vociferated Mr. Ashley.
+"You must see him, mother; you must see him, ladies, else you will not
+realize our good fortune. Open the door there and bring in the robber!"
+
+At this command, uttered in ringing tones, the huge leaves of the great
+front door swung slowly forward, revealing the sturdy forms of the two
+stablemen holding down by main force the towering figure of--_a horse_!
+
+The scream of astonishment which went up from all sides, united to Mr.
+Ashley's shout of hilarity, caused the animal, unused, no doubt, to
+drawing-rooms, to rear to the length of his bridle. At which Mr. Ashley
+laughed again and gaily cried:
+
+"Confound the fellow! Look at him, mother; look at him, ladies! Do you
+not see guilt written on his brow? It is he who has made us all this
+trouble. First, he must needs take umbrage at the two lights with which
+we presumed to illuminate our porch; then, envying Mrs. Burton her ruby
+and Mr. Deane his reward, seek to rob them both by grinding his hoofs
+all over the snow of the driveway till he came upon the jewel which Mr.
+Deane had dropped from his pocket, and taking it up in a ball of snow,
+secrete it in his left hind shoe,--where it might be yet, if Mr.
+Spencer--" here he bowed to a strange gentleman who at that moment
+entered--"had not come himself for his daughters, and, going first to
+the stable, found his horse so restless and seemingly lame--(there,
+boys, you may take the wretch away now and harness him, but first hold
+up that guilty left hind hoof for the ladies to see)--that he stooped to
+examine him, and so came upon _this_."
+
+Here the young gentleman brought forward his hand. In it was a
+nondescript little wad, well soaked and shapeless; but, once he had
+untied the kid, such a ray of rosy light burst from his outstretched
+palm that I doubt if a single woman there noted the clatter of the
+retiring beast or the heavy clang made by the two front doors as they
+shut upon the _robber_. Eyes and tongues were too busy, and Mr. Ashley,
+realizing, probably, that the interest of all present would remain, for
+a few minutes at least, with this marvelous jewel so astonishingly
+recovered, laid it, with many expressions of thankfulness, in Mrs.
+Burton's now eagerly outstretched palm, and advancing toward us, paused
+in front of Miss Glover and eagerly held out his hand.
+
+"Congratulate me," he prayed. "All our troubles are over--Oh, what now!"
+
+The poor young thing, in trying to smile, had turned as white as a
+sheet. Before either of us could interpose an arm, she had slipped to
+the floor in a dead faint. With a murmur of pity and possibly of inward
+contrition, he stooped over her and together we carried her into the
+library, where I left her in his care, confident, from certain
+indications, that my presence would not be greatly missed by either of
+them.
+
+Whatever hope I may have had of reaping the reward offered by Mrs.
+Ashley was now lost, but, in the satisfaction I experienced at finding
+this young girl as innocent as my Flora, I did not greatly care.
+
+Well, it all ended even more happily than may here appear. The horse not
+putting in his claim to the reward, and Mr. Spencer repudiating all
+right to it, it was paid in full to Mr. Deane, who went home in as
+buoyant a state of mind as was possible to him after the great anxieties
+of the preceding two hours. Miss Glover was sent back by the Ashleys in
+their own carriage and I was told that Mr. Ashley declined to close the
+carriage door upon her till she had promised to come again the
+following night.
+
+Anxious to make such amends as I personally could for my share in the
+mortification to which she had been subjected, I visited her in the
+morning, with the intention of offering a suggestion or two in regard to
+that little bill. But she met my first advance with a radiant smile and
+the glad exclamation:
+
+"Oh, I have settled all that! I have just come from Madame Dupre's. I
+told her that I had never imagined the dress could possibly cost more
+than a hundred dollars, and I offered her that sum if she would take the
+garment back. And she did, she did, and I shall never have to wear that
+dreadful satin again."
+
+I made a note of this dressmaker's name. She and I may have a bone to
+pick some day. But I said nothing to Miss Glover. I merely exclaimed:
+
+"And to-night?"
+
+"Oh, I have an old spotted muslin which, with a few natural flowers,
+will make me look festive enough. One does not need fine clothes when
+one is--happy."
+
+The dreamy far-off smile with which she finished the sentence was more
+eloquent than words, and I was not surprised when some time later I read
+of her engagement to Mr. Ashley.
+
+But it was not till she could sign herself with his name that she told
+me just what underlay the misery of that night. She had met Harrison
+Ashley more than once before, and, though she did not say so, had
+evidently conceived an admiration for him which made her especially
+desirous of attracting and pleasing him. Not understanding the world
+very well, certainly having very little knowledge of the tastes and
+feelings of wealthy people, she conceived that the more brilliantly she
+was attired the more likely she would be to please this rich young man.
+So in a moment of weakness she decided to devote all her small savings
+(a hundred dollars, as we know) to buying a gown such as she felt she
+could appear in at his house without shame.
+
+It came home, as dresses from French dressmakers are very apt to do,
+just in time for her to put it on for the party. The bill came with it
+and when she saw the amount--it was all itemized and she could find no
+fault with anything but the summing up--she was so overwhelmed that she
+nearly fainted. But she could not give up her ball; so she dressed
+herself, and, being urged all the time to hurry, hardly stopped to give
+one look at the new and splendid gown which had cost so much. The
+bill--the incredible, the enormous bill--was all she could think of, and
+the figures, which represented nearly her whole year's earnings, danced
+constantly before her eyes. How to pay it--but she could not pay it, nor
+could she ask her father to do so. She was ruined; but the ball, and Mr.
+Ashley--these still awaited her; so presently she worked herself up to
+some anticipation of enjoyment, and, having thrown on her cloak, was
+turning down her light preparatory to departure, when her eye fell on
+the bill lying open on her dresser.
+
+It would never do to leave it there--never do to leave it anywhere in
+her room. There were prying eyes in the house, and she was as ashamed of
+that bill as she might have been of a contemplated theft. So she tucked
+it in her corsage and went down to join her friends in the carriage.
+
+The rest we know, all but one small detail which turned to gall whatever
+enjoyment she was able to get out of the early evening. There was a
+young girl present, dressed in a simple muslin gown. While looking at it
+and inwardly contrasting it with her own splendor, Mr. Ashley passed by
+with another gentleman and she heard him say:
+
+"How much better young girls look in simple white than in the elaborate
+silks only suitable for their mothers!"
+
+Thoughtless words, possibly forgotten as soon as uttered, but they
+sharply pierced this already sufficiently stricken and uneasy breast and
+were the cause of the tears which had aroused my suspicion when I came
+upon her in the library, standing with her face to the night.
+
+But who can say whether, if the evening had been devoid of these
+occurrences and no emotions of contrition and pity had been awakened in
+her behalf in the breast of her chivalrous host, she would ever have
+become Mrs. Ashley?
+
+
+
+
+THE HERMIT OF ---- STREET
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+I COMMIT AN INDISCRETION
+
+
+I should have kept my eyes for the many brilliant and interesting sights
+constantly offered me. I might have done so, had I been ever eighteen,
+or had I not come from the country.
+
+I was visiting in a house where fashionable people made life a perpetual
+holiday. Yet of all the pleasures which followed so rapidly, one upon
+another, the greatest was the hour I spent in my window after the day's
+dissipations were all over, watching a man's face, bending night after
+night over a study-table in the lower room of the great house in our
+rear.
+
+Why did it affect me so? It was not a young face, but it was very
+handsome, and it was enigmatic.
+
+The day following my arrival in the city I had noticed the large house
+in our rear, and had asked some questions about it. It had a peculiarly
+secluded and secretive look. The windows were all shuttered and closed,
+with the exception of the three on the lower floor and two others
+directly over these. On the top story they were even boarded up, giving
+to that portion of the house a blank and desolate air.
+
+The grounds were separated from the street by a brick wall in our
+direction; the line of separation was marked by a high iron fence, in
+which I saw a gate.
+
+The Vandykes, whom I had questioned on the matter, were very short in
+their replies. But I learned this much. That the house belonged to one
+of New York's oldest families. That its present owner was a widow of
+great eccentricity of character, who, with her one child, a daughter,
+unfortunately blind from birth, had taken up her abode in some foreign
+country, where she thought her child's affliction would attract less
+attention than in her native city.
+
+The house had been closed to the extent I have mentioned, immediately
+upon her departure, but had not been left entirely empty. Mr. Allison,
+her man of business, had moved into it, and, being fully as eccentric as
+herself, had contented himself for five years with a solitary life in
+this dismal mansion, without friends, almost without acquaintances,
+though he might have had unlimited society and any amount of attention,
+his personal attractions being of a very uncommon order, and his talent
+for business so pronounced, that he was already recognized at
+thirty-five as one of the men to be afraid of in Wall Street. Of his
+birth and connections little was known; he was called the Hermit of ----
+Street.
+
+I was not very well one day, and I had been left alone in the house.
+
+At seven o'clock--how well I remember the hour!--I was sitting in my
+window, waiting for the return of the Vandykes, and watching the face
+which had now appeared at its usual place in the study. Suddenly my
+attention was drawn from him to a window in the story over his head, by
+the rapid blowing in and out of a curtain. As there was a lighted
+gas-jet near by, I watched the gyrating muslin with apprehension, and
+was shocked when, in another moment, I saw the flimsy folds give one
+wild flap and flare up into a dangerous flame.
+
+I dashed out of my room down-stairs, calling for the servants. But Lucy
+was in the front area and Ellen above, and I was on the back porch and
+in the garden before either of them responded.
+
+Meanwhile, no movement was observable in the brooding figure of Mr.
+Allison. I sprang through the gate and knocked with all my might on a
+door which opened upon a side porch.
+
+Confronting me with dilating eyes, he faltered slowly back till his
+natural instincts of courtesy recalled him to himself, and he bowed,
+when I found courage to cry:
+
+"Fire! Your house is on fire! Up there, overhead!"
+
+So intense were the feelings I saw aroused in him that I expected to see
+him rush into the open air with loud cries for help. But instead, he
+pushed the door to behind me, and locking me in, said, in a strange
+tone:
+
+"Don't call out, don't make any sound or outcry, and above all, don't
+let any one in; I will fight the flames alone!" and seizing a lamp from
+the study-table, he dashed from me toward a staircase I could see in the
+distance.
+
+Alas! it was a thrilling look--a look which no girl could sustain
+without emotion; and spellbound under it, I stood in a maze, alone and
+in utter darkness.
+
+While my emotions were at their height a bell rang. It was the front
+door-bell, and it meant the arrival of the engines.
+
+As the bell rang a second time, a light broke on the staircase I was so
+painfully watching, and Mr. Allison descended, lamp in hand, as he had
+gone up.
+
+What passed between him and the policeman whose voice I heard in the
+hall, I do not know. I finally heard the front door close.
+
+I must have met him with a pleading aspect, very much like that of a
+frightened child, for his countenance changed as he approached me.
+
+"My dear young lady, how can I thank you enough and how can I
+sufficiently express my regret at having kept you a prisoner in this
+blazing house?"
+
+Had he stopped again? I was in such a state of inner perturbation that I
+hardly knew whether he had ceased to speak or I to hear.
+
+"May I ask whom I have the honor of addressing?" he asked, in a tone I
+might better never have heard from his lips.
+
+"I am Delight Hunter, a country girl, sir, visiting the Vandykes."
+
+Then as my lips settled into a determined curve, he himself opened the
+door, and bowing low, asked if I would accept his protection to the
+gate.
+
+Declining his offer with a wild shake of the head, I dashed from the
+house and fled with an incomprehensible sense of relief back to that of
+the Vandykes.
+
+The servants, who had seen me rush toward Mr. Allison's, were still in
+the yard watching for me. I did not vouchsafe them a word. I could
+hardly formulate words in my own mind. A great love and a great dread
+had seized upon me at once.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+A STRANGE WEDDING BREAKFAST
+
+
+Mr. Allison, who had never before been known to leave his books and
+papers, not only called the next day to express his gratitude for what
+he was pleased to style my invaluable warning, but came every day after.
+
+After he became an habitue of the house, Mrs. Vandyke grew more
+communicative in regard to him. Mrs. Ransome, the lady in whose house he
+lived, had left her home very suddenly. He anticipated a like return;
+so, ever since her departure, it had been his invariable custom to have
+the table set for three, so that he might never be surprised by her
+arrival. It had become a monomania with him. Never did he sit down
+without there being enough before him for a small family, and as his
+food was all brought in cooked from a neighboring restaurant, this
+eccentricity of his was well known, and gave an added eclat to his
+otherwise hermit-like habits. To my mind, it added an element of pathos
+to his seclusion, and so affected me that one day I dared to remark to
+him:
+
+"You must have liked Mrs. Ransome very much, you are so faithful in your
+remembrance of her."
+
+I never presumed again to attack any of his foibles. He gave me first a
+hard look, then an indulgent one, and finally managed to say, after a
+moment of quiet hesitation:
+
+"You allude to my custom of setting two chairs at the table to which
+they may return at any minute? Miss Hunter, what I do in the loneliness
+of that great house is not worth the gossip of those who surround you."
+
+Flushing till I wished my curls would fall down and hide my cheeks, I
+tried to stammer out some apology. But he drove it back with a
+passionate word:
+
+"You love me, Delight" (he was already pressing me in his arms), "you
+love me or you would never have rushed so impetuously to warn me of my
+danger that night. Make me the maddest, happiest man in all the world."
+
+I hardly realized what I had done till I stood abashed before Mrs.
+Vandyke, and told her I had engaged myself to marry Mr. Allison before
+he went to Europe. Then it seemed I had done a very good thing. She
+congratulated me heartily, and, seeing I had certain fear of taking my
+aunt into my confidence, promised to sit down and write to her herself,
+using every encomium she could think of to make this sudden marriage, on
+my part, seem like the result of reason and wise forethought.
+
+I had not, what every one else seemed to have, full confidence in this
+man, and yet the thrall in which I was held by the dominating power of
+his passion kept me from seeking that advice even from my own
+intuitions, which might have led to my preservation. I was blind and
+knew I was blind, yet rushed on headlong. I asked him no questions till
+our wedding day.
+
+We were married simply, but to the sound of wonderful music, in a
+certain little church not far from ---- Street.
+
+Mr. Allison had told me that it would be impossible for him to take me
+out of the city at present. It was therefore to the house on ---- Street
+we were driven.
+
+In the hall stood the old serving man with whose appearance I was
+already so familiar.
+
+"Luncheon is served," he announced, with great formality; and then I saw
+through an open door the glitter of china and glass, and realized I was
+about to take my first meal with my husband.
+
+The next moment I was before the board, which had been made as beautiful
+as possible with flowers and the finest of dinner services. But the
+table was set for four, two of whom could only be present in spirit.
+
+I wondered if I were glad or sorry to see it--if I were pleased with his
+loyalty to his absent employer, or disappointed that my presence had
+not made everybody else forgotten. To be consistent, I should have
+rejoiced at this evidence of sterling worth on his part; but girls are
+not consistent--at least, brides of an hour are not--and I may have
+pouted the least bit in the world as I pointed to the two places set as
+elaborately as our own, and said with the daring which comes with the
+rights of a wife:
+
+"It would be a startling coincidence if Mrs. Ransome and her daughter
+should return to-day. I fear I would not like it."
+
+I was looking directly at him as I spoke, with a smile on my lips and my
+hand on the back of my chair. But the jest I had expected in reply did
+not come. Something in my tone or choice of topic jarred upon him, and
+his answer was a simple wave of his hand toward Ambrose, who at once
+relieved me of my bouquet, placing it in a tall glass at the side of my
+plate.
+
+"Now we will sit," said he.
+
+I do not know how the meal would have passed had Ambrose not been
+present. As it was, it was a rather formal affair, and would have been
+slightly depressing, if I had not caught, now and then, flashing glances
+from my husband's eye which assured me that he found as much to enchain
+him in my presence as I did in his.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+ONE BEAD FROM A NECKLACE
+
+
+After supper Mr. Allison put before me a large book. "Amuse yourself
+with these pictures," said he; "I have a little task to perform. After
+it is done I will come again and sit with you."
+
+"You are not going out," I cried, starting up.
+
+"No," he smiled, "I am not going out."
+
+I sank back and opened the book, but I did not look at the pictures.
+Instead of that I listened to his steps moving about the house, rear and
+front, and finally going up what seemed to be a servant's staircase, for
+I could see the great front stairs from where I sat, and there was no
+one on them.
+
+But when he returned and sat down I said nothing. There was a little
+thing I noted, however. His hands were trembling, and it was five
+minutes before he met my inquiring look.
+
+"I will not displease him with questions," I decided: "but I will find
+my own way into those lofts above. I shall never be at rest till I do."
+
+I had found a candle in my bedroom, and this I took to light me. But it
+revealed nothing to me except a double row of unused rooms, with dust on
+the handles of all the doors. I scrutinized them all; for, young as I
+was, I had wit enough to see that if I could find one knob on which no
+dust lay that would be the one my husband was accustomed to turn.
+
+But every one showed tokens of not having been touched in years, and,
+baffled in my search, I was about to retreat, when I remembered that the
+house had four stories, and that I had not yet come upon the staircase
+leading to the one above. A hurried search (for I was mortally afraid of
+being surprised by my husband), revealed to me at last a distant door,
+which had no dust on its knob. It lay at the bottom of a shut-in
+staircase, and convinced that here was the place my husband was in the
+habit of visiting, I carefully fingered the knob, which turned very
+softly in my hand. But it did not open the door. There was a lock
+visible just below, and that lock was fastened.
+
+My first escapade was without visible results, but I was uneasy from
+that hour. I imagined all sorts of things hidden beyond that closed
+door.
+
+I was walking one morning in the grounds that lay about the house, when
+suddenly I felt something small but perceptibly hard strike my hat and
+bound quickly off.
+
+In another instant I started up. I had found a little thing like a
+bullet wrapped up in paper; but it was no bullet; it was a bead, a large
+gold bead, and on the paper which surrounded it were written these
+words:
+
+"Help from the passing stranger! I am Elizabeth Ransome, owner of the
+house in which I have been imprisoned five years. Search for me in the
+upper story. You will find me there with my blind daughter. He who
+placed us here is below; beware his cunning."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+I LEARN HYPOCRISY
+
+
+Even in that rush of confusing emotions I recognized one fact; that I
+must not betray by look or word that I knew this dreadful secret.
+
+So I went in, but went in slowly and with downcast eyes. The bead and
+the paper I had dropped into my vinaigrette, which fortunately hung at
+my side.
+
+"Humphrey," I said, "when are we going to leave this house? I begin to
+find it lonesome."
+
+He was preparing to gather up his papers for his accustomed trip
+down-town, but he stopped as I spoke, and looked at me curiously.
+
+"You are pale," he remarked, "change and travel will benefit you.
+Dearest, we will try to sail for Europe in a week."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE STOLEN KEY
+
+
+It became apparent even to my girlish mind, that, as the wife of the man
+who had committed this great and inconceivable wrong, I was bound, not
+only to make an immediate attempt to release the women he so
+outrageously held imprisoned in their own house, but to release them so
+that he should escape the opprobrium of his own act.
+
+That I might have time to think, and that I might be saved, if but for
+one day, contact with one it was almost my duty to hate, I came back to
+him with the plea that I might spend the day with the Vandykes instead
+of accompanying him down-town as usual. I think he was glad of the
+freedom my absence offered him, for he gave me the permission I asked,
+and in ten minutes I was in my old home. Mrs. Vandyke received me with
+effusion. It was not the first time she had seen me since my marriage,
+but it was the first time she had seen me alone.
+
+"My dear!" she exclaimed, turning me about till my unwilling face met
+the light, "is this the wild-wood lassie I gave into Mr. Allison's
+keeping a week ago!"
+
+"It is the house!" I excitedly gasped, "the empty, lonely, echoing
+house! I am afraid in it, even with my husband. It gives me creepy
+feelings, as if a murder had been committed in it."
+
+She broke into a laugh; I hear the sound now, an honest, amused and
+entirely reassuring laugh, that relieved me in one way and depressed me
+in another.
+
+I ventured on another attempt to clear up the mystery that was fast
+stifling out my youth, love and hope. I professed to have an
+extraordinary desire to see the city from the house-top. I had never
+been any higher up than the third story of any house I had been in, and
+could not, I told her, go any higher in the house in which I was then
+living. Might I go up on her roof? Her eyes opened, but she was of an
+amiable, inconsequent disposition and let me have my way without too
+much opposition.
+
+One glance at the spot I was most interested in, and I found myself too
+dizzy to look further.
+
+In the center of Mrs. Ransome's roof there was to be seen what I can
+best describe as an extended cupola without windows. As there was no
+other break visible in the roof, the top of this must have held the
+skylight, which, being thus lifted many feet above the level of the
+garret floor, would admit air and light enough to the boarded-up space
+below, but would make any effort to be heard or seen, on the part of any
+one secreted there, quite ineffectual.
+
+The resolution I took was worthy of an older head and a more disciplined
+heart. By means that were fair, or by means that were foul, I meant to
+win my way into that boarded-up attic and see for myself if the words
+hidden away in my vinaigrette were true. To do this openly would cause
+a scandal I was yet too much under my husband's influence to risk;
+while to do it secretly meant the obtaining of keys which I had every
+reason to believe he kept hidden about his person. How was I to obtain
+them? I saw no way, but that did not deter me from starting at once
+down-town in the hope of being struck by some brilliant idea while
+waiting for him in his office.
+
+Was it instinct that suggested this, or was the hand of Providence in
+all that I did at this time? I had no sooner seated myself in the little
+room, where I had been accustomed to wait for him, than I saw what sent
+the blood tinkling to my finger-tips in sudden hope. It was my husband's
+vest hanging in one corner, the vest he had worn down-town that morning.
+The day was warm and he had taken it off. If the key should be in it!
+
+I had never done a mean or underhanded thing before in my life, but I
+sprang at that vest without the least hesitation, and fingering it was
+the lightest of touches, found in the smallest of inside pockets a key,
+which instinct immediately told me was that of the door I had once
+endeavored to pass.
+
+Dropping the key into my pocket, I went back into the outer room, and
+leaving word that I had remembered a little shopping which would take me
+again up-town, I left the building and returned to ---- Street.
+
+I was out of breath with suspense, as well as with my rapid movements,
+when I reached the shut-in staircase and carefully unlocked its narrow
+door. But by the time I had reached the fourth floor, and unlocked, with
+the same key, the only other door that had a streak of light under it, I
+had gained a certain degree of tense composure born of the desperate
+nature of the occasion. The calmness with which I pushed open the door
+proved this--a calmness which made the movement noiseless, which was the
+reason, I suppose, why I was enabled to suppress the shriek that rose to
+my lips as I saw that the room had occupants, and that my worst fears
+were thus realized.
+
+A woman was sitting, with her back to me, at a table, and before her,
+with her face turned my way, was a young girl in whom, even at first
+glance, I detected some likeness to myself. Was this why Mr. Allison's
+countenance expressed so much agitation when he first saw me? The next
+moment this latter lifted her head and looked directly at me, but with
+no change in her mobile features; at which token of blindness I almost
+fell on my knees, so conclusively did it prove that I was really looking
+upon Mrs. Ransome and her daughter.
+
+The mother, who had been directing her daughter's hands in some
+needlework, felt that the latter's attention had been diverted.
+
+"What is it, dear?" she asked, with an indescribable mellowness of
+voice, whose tone thrilled me with a fresh and passionate pity.
+
+"I thought I heard Mr. Allison come in, but he always knocks; besides,
+it is not time for him yet." And she sighed.
+
+That sigh went through my heart, rousing new feelings and deeper
+terrors; but I had no time to indulge in them, for the mother turned at
+the gasp which left my lips, and rising up, confronted me with an
+amazement which left her without any ability to speak.
+
+"Who is it, mother?" inquired the blind girl, herself rising and beaming
+upon me with the sweetest of looks.
+
+"Let me answer," I ventured softly. "I am Mr. Allison's wife. I have
+come to see if there is anything I can do to make your stay here more
+comfortable."
+
+The look that passed over the mother's face warned me to venture no
+further in the daughter's presence. Whatever that mother had suffered,
+the daughter had experienced nothing but satisfied love and
+companionship in these narrow precincts. Her rounded cheeks showed this,
+and the indescribable atmosphere of peace and gladness which surrounded
+her.
+
+As I saw this, and realized the mother's life and the self-restraint
+which had enabled her to accept the inevitable without raising a
+complaint calculated to betray to the daughter that all was not as it
+should be with them, I felt such a rush of awe sweep over me that some
+of my fathomless emotion showed in my face; for Mrs. Ransome's own
+countenance assumed a milder look, and advancing nearer, she pointed out
+a room where we could speak apart. As I moved toward it she whispered a
+few words in her daughter's ear, then she rejoined me.
+
+"Oh, madame!" I murmured, "oh, madame! Show a poor girl what she can do
+to restore you to your rights. The door is open and you can descend; but
+that means----Oh, madame, I am filled with terror when I think what. He
+may be in the hall now. He may have missed the key and returned. If only
+you were out of the house!"
+
+"My dear girl," she quietly replied, "we will be some day. You will see
+to that, I know. I do not think I could stay here, now that I have seen
+another face than his. But I do not want to go now, to-day. I want to
+prepare Theresa for freedom; she has lived so long quietly with me that
+I dread the shock and excitement of other voices and the pressure of
+city sounds upon her delicate ears. I must train her for contact with
+the world.
+
+"But you won't forget me if I allow you to lock us in again? You will
+come back and open the doors, and let me go down again through my old
+halls into the room where my husband died; and if Mr. Allison
+objects----My dear girl, you know now that he is an unscrupulous man,
+that it is my money he begrudged me, and that he has used it and made
+himself a rich man."
+
+"I can not," I murmured, "I can not find courage to present the subject
+to him so. I do not know my husband's mind. It is a fathomless abyss to
+me. Let me think of some other way. Oh, madam! if you were out of the
+house, and could then come----"
+
+Suddenly, a thought struck me. "I can do it; I see the way to do it--a
+way that will place you in a triumphant position and yet save him from
+suspicion. He is weary of this care. He wants to be relieved of the
+dreadful secret which anchors him to this house, and makes a hell of the
+very spot in which he has fixed his love. Shall we under-take to do this
+for him? Can you trust me if I promise to take an immediate impression
+of this key, and have one made for myself, which shall insure my return
+here?"
+
+"My dear," she said, taking my head between her two trembling hands, "I
+have never looked upon a sweeter face than my daughter's till I looked
+upon yours to-day. If you bid me hope, I will hope, and if you bid me
+trust, I will trust. The remembrance of this kiss will not let you
+forget." And she embraced me in a warm and tender manner.
+
+"I will write you," I murmured. "Some day look for a billet under the
+door. It will tell you what to do; now I must go back to my husband."
+
+When I reached the office, I was in a fainting condition, but all my
+hopes revived again when I saw the vest still hanging where I had left
+it, and heard my husband's voice singing cheerfully in the adjoining
+room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+WHILE OTHERS DANCED
+
+
+A crowd in the ---- Street house was necessary to the quiet escape of
+Mrs. Ransome and her daughter; so a crowd we must have, and how have a
+crowd without giving a grand party?
+
+I knew that this would be a shocking proposition to him; but I was
+prepared to meet all objections; and when, with every nerve alert and
+every charm exerted to its utmost, I sat down at his side that evening
+to plead my cause, I knew by the sparkle of his eye and the softening of
+the bitter lines that sometimes hardened his mouth, that the battle was
+half won before I spoke, and that I should have my party whatever it
+might cost him in mental stress and worry.
+
+The next thing I did was to procure a facsimile of his key from the wax
+impression I had taken of it in accordance with my promise to Mrs.
+Ransome. Then I wrote her a letter, in which I gave her the minutest
+directions as to her own movements on that important evening. After
+which I gave myself up entirely to the business of the party.
+
+Certain things I had insisted on. All the rooms were to be opened, even
+those on the third floor; and I was to have a band to play in the hall.
+He did not deny me anything. I think his judgment was asleep, or else he
+was so taken up with the horrible problem presented by his desire to
+leave the city and the existence of those obligations which made
+departure an impossibility, that he failed to place due stress on
+matters which, at another time, might very well seem to threaten the
+disclosure of his dangerous secret.
+
+At last the night came.
+
+An entertainment given in this great house had aroused much interest.
+Most of our invitations had been accepted, and the affair promised to
+be brilliant. As a bride, I wore white, and when, at the moment of going
+down-stairs, my husband suddenly clasped about my neck a rich necklace
+of diamonds, I was seized by such a bitter sense of the contrast between
+appearances and the awful reality underlying these festivities, that I
+reeled in his arms, and had to employ all the arts which my dangerous
+position had taught me, to quiet his alarm, and convince him that my
+emotion sprang entirely from pleasure.
+
+Meantime the orchestra was playing and the equipages were rolling up in
+front. What he thought as the music filled the house and rose in
+piercing melody to the very roof, I can not say. I thought how it was a
+message of release to those weary and abused ones above; and, filled
+with the sense of support which the presence of so many people in the
+house gave me, I drew up my girlish figure in glad excitement and
+prepared myself for the ordeal, visible and invisible, which awaited
+me.
+
+The next two hours form a blank in my memory. Standing under Mrs.
+Ransome's picture (I would stand there), I received the congratulations
+of the hundred or more people who were anxious to see Mr. Allison's
+bride, and of the whole glittering pageant I remember only the whispered
+words of Mrs. Vandyke as she passed with the rest:
+
+"My dear, I take back what I said the other day about the effect of
+marriage upon you. You are the most brilliant woman here, and Mr.
+Allison the happiest of men."
+
+This was an indication that all was going well. But what of the awful
+morning hour that awaited us! Would that show him a happy man?
+
+At last our guests were assembled, and I had an instant to myself.
+Murmuring a prayer for courage, I slid from the room and ran up-stairs.
+Here all was bustle also--a bustle I delighted in, for, with so many
+people moving about, Mrs. Ransome and her daughter could pass out
+without attracting more than a momentary attention.
+
+Securing a bundle I had myself prepared, I glided up the second
+staircase, and, after a moment's delay, succeeded in unlocking the door
+and disappearing with my bundle into the fourth story. When I came down,
+the key I had carried up was left behind me. The way for Mrs. Ransome's
+escape lay open.
+
+I do not think I had been gone ten minutes from the drawing-room. When I
+returned there, it was to find the festivities at their height, and my
+husband just on the point of missing me. The look which he directed
+toward me pierced me to the heart; not that I was playing him false, for
+I was risking life, love and the loss of everything I prized, to save
+him from himself; but that his love for me should be so strong he could
+forget the two tortured hearts above, in the admiration I had awakened
+in the shallow people about us. But I smiled, as a woman on the rack
+might smile if the safety of her loved ones depended on her courage,
+and, nerving myself for the suspense of such a waiting as few of my
+inexperience have ever been called upon to endure, I turned to a group
+of ladies I saw near me and began to talk.
+
+Happily, I did not have to chatter long; happily, Mrs. Ransome was quick
+in her movements and exact in all she did, and, sooner than I expected,
+sooner perhaps, than I was prepared for it, the man who attended the
+front door came to my side and informed me that a lady wished to see
+me--a lady who had just arrived from the steamer, and who said she was
+the mistress of the house, Mrs. Ransome.
+
+Mrs. Ransome! The name spread like wild-fire, but before any movement
+was made, I had bounded, in laughing confusion, to my husband's side,
+and, grasping him merrily by the arm, cried:
+
+"Your expectations have come true. Mrs. Ransome has returned without
+warning, and to-night she will partake of the supper you have always had
+served for her."
+
+The shock was as great, perhaps, as ever man received. I knew what it
+was likely to be, and held him upright, with the seeming merriment in my
+eyes which I did not allow to stray from his. He thought I was mad, then
+he thought he was--then I recalled him to the dangers and exigencies of
+the moment by saying, with forced naivete:
+
+"Shall I go and welcome her to this gathering in her own house, or will
+you do the honors? She may not know me."
+
+He moved, but as a statue might move, shot through and through with an
+electric spark. I saw that I must act, rather than he, so uttering some
+girlish sentence about the mice and cat, I glided away into the hall,
+where Mrs. Ransome stood in the nondescript black coat and bonnet I had
+provided her from her own wardrobe. She had slipped a few moments before
+from the house with her daughter, whom she had placed in a carriage,
+which I had ordered to wait for them directly in front of the lamp-post,
+and had now re-entered as the mistress returning unexpectedly after a
+departure of five years. All had been done as I had planned, and it
+only remained to carry on the farce and prevent its developing into a
+tragedy.
+
+Rushing up to her, I told her who I was, and, as we were literally
+surrounded in a moment, added such apologies for the merrymaking in
+which she found us indulging as my wit suggested and the occasion seemed
+to demand. Then I allowed her to speak.
+
+Instantly she was the mistress of the house. Old-fashioned as her dress
+was and changed as her figure must have been, she had that imposing
+bearing which great misfortune, nobly borne, gives to some natures, and
+feeling the eyes of many of her old friends upon her, she graciously
+smiled and said that she was delighted to receive so public a welcome.
+Then she took me by the hand.
+
+"Do not worry, child," she said, "I have a daughter about your age,
+which in itself would make me lenient toward one so young and pretty.
+Where is your husband, dear? He has served me well in my absence, and I
+should like to shake hands with him before I withdraw with my daughter,
+to a hotel for the night."
+
+I looked up; he was standing in the open doorway leading into the
+drawing-room. He had recovered a semblance of composure, but the hand
+fingering the inner pocket, where he kept his keys, showed in what a
+tumult of surprise and doubt he had been thrown by this unaccountable
+appearance of his prisoner in the open hall; and if to other eyes he
+showed no more than the natural confusion of the moment, to me he had
+the look of a secretly desperate man, alive to his danger, and only
+holding himself in check in order to measure it.
+
+At the mention she made of his name, he came mechanically forward, and,
+taking her proffered hand, bowed over it. "Welcome," he murmured, in
+strained tones; then, startled by the pressure of her fingers in his, he
+glanced doubtfully up while she said:
+
+"We will have no talk to-night, my faithful and careful friend, but
+to-morrow you may come and see me at the ---- Hotel. You will find that
+my return will not lessen your manifest happiness."
+
+Then, as he began to tremble, she laid her hand on his arm, and I heard
+her smilingly whisper: "You have too pretty a wife for me not to wish my
+return to be a benefaction to her." And, with a smile to the crowd and
+an admonition to those about her not to let the bride suffer from this
+interruption, she disappeared through the great front door on the arm of
+the man who for five years had held her prisoner in her own house. I
+went back into the drawing-room, and the five minutes which elapsed
+between that moment and that of his return were the most awful of my
+life. When he came back I had aged ten years, yet all that time I was
+laughing and talking.
+
+He did not rejoin me immediately; he went up-stairs. I knew why; he had
+gone to see if the door to the fourth floor had been unlocked or simply
+broken down. When he came back he gave me one look. Did he suspect me? I
+could not tell. After that, there was another blank in my memory to the
+hour when the guests were all gone, the house all silent, and we stood
+together in a little room, where I had at last discovered him, withdrawn
+by himself, writing. There was a loaded pistol on the table. The paper
+he had been writing was his will.
+
+"Humphrey," said I, placing a finger on the pistol, "why is this?"
+
+He gave me a look, a hungry, passionate look, then he grew as white as
+the paper he had just subscribed with his name.
+
+"I am ruined," he murmured. "I have made unwarrantable use of Mrs.
+Ransome's money; her return has undone me. Delight, I love you, but I
+can not face the future. You will be provided for--"
+
+"Will I?" I put in softly, very softly, for my way was strewn with
+pitfalls and precipices. "I do not think so, Humphrey. If the money you
+have put away is not yours, my first care would be to restore it. Then
+what would I have left? A dowry of odium and despair, and I am scarcely
+eighteen."
+
+"But--but--you do not understand, Delight. I have been a villain, a
+worse villain than you think. The only thing in my life I have not to
+blush for is my love for you. This is pure, even if it has been selfish.
+I know it is pure, because I have begun to suffer. If I could tell
+you--"
+
+"Mrs. Ransome has already told me," said I. "Who do you think unlocked
+the door of her retreat? I, Humphrey. I wanted to save you from
+yourself, and she understands me. She will never reveal the secret of
+the years she has passed overhead."
+
+Would he hate me? Would he love me? Would he turn that fatal weapon on
+me, or level it again toward his own breast? For a moment I could not
+tell; then the white horror in his face broke up, and, giving me a look
+I shall never forget till I die, he fell prostrate on his knees and
+lowered his proud head before me.
+
+I did not touch it, but from that moment the schooling of our two hearts
+began, and, though I can never look upon my husband with the frank joy I
+see in other women's faces, I have learned not to look upon him with
+distrust, and to thank God I did not forsake him when desertion might
+have meant the destruction of the one small seed of goodness which had
+developed in his heart with the advent of a love for which nothing in
+his whole previous life had prepared him.
+
+
+
+
+=FAMOUS AUTHORS AND THEIR BOOKS INCLUDED IN THIS SERIES=
+
+       *     *     *     *     *
+
+=ECCENTRIC MR. CLARK=
+      =By JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY=
+      _Author of "An Old Sweetheart of Mine," etc._
+
+=THE PRINCESS ELOPES=
+      =By HAROLD MacGRATH=
+      _Author of "The Man on the Box," etc._
+
+=AS THE HEART PANTETH=
+      =By HALLIE ERMINIE RIVES=
+      _Author of "The Valiants of Virginia," etc._
+
+=ROSALYNDE'S LOVERS=
+      =By MAURICE THOMPSON=
+      _Author of "Alice of Old Vincennes," etc._
+
+=THE HOUSE IN THE MIST=
+      =By ANNA KATHARINE GREEN=
+      _Author of "The Leavenworth Case," etc._
+
+=TROLLEY FOLLY=
+      =By HENRY WALLACE PHILLIPS=
+      _Author of "Red Saunders," etc._
+
+=MOTORMANIACS=
+      =By LLOYD OSBOURNE=
+      _Author of "A Person of Some Importance," etc._
+
+=THE FIFTH STRING=
+      =By JOHN PHILIP SOUSA=
+      _Author of "Pipetown Sandy," etc._
+
+=CHIMES FROM A JESTER'S BELLS=
+      =By ROBERT J. BURDETTE=
+      _Author of "Old Time and Young Tom," etc._
+
+=A GUEST AT THE LUDLOW=
+      =By BILL NYE=
+      _Author of "Baled Hay," etc._
+
+=FOUR IN FAMILY=
+      =By FLORIDA POPE SUMERWELL=
+
+=A FOOL FOR LOVE=
+      =By FRANCIS LYNDE=
+      _Author of "The Grafters," etc._
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Page 150 "ever eighteen" left as in source ("had I been ever
+eighteen, ...")
+
+Page 158 "seculsion" changed to "seclusion"
+("To my mind, it added an element of pathos to his seclusion, ...")
+
+Page 168 "Vandkye" changed to "Vandyke"
+("Mrs. Vandyke received me with effusion.")
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The House in the Mist, by Anna Katharine Green
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOUSE IN THE MIST ***
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