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diff --git a/old/cnfsn10.txt b/old/cnfsn10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1049bcf --- /dev/null +++ b/old/cnfsn10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3714 @@ +Project Gutenberg Etext The Confession, by Mary Roberts Rinehart +#11 in our series by Mary Roberts Rinehart + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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I am objective rather than subjective, +and a fairly full experience of life has taught me that most of my +impressions are from within out rather than the other way about. +For instance, obsession at one time a few years ago of a shadowy +figure on my right, just beyond the field of vision, was later +exposed as the result of a defect in my glasses. In the same way +Maggie, my old servant, was during one entire summer haunted by +church-bells and considered it a personal summons to eternity until +it was shown to be in her inner ear. + +Yet the Benton house undeniably made me uncomfortable. Perhaps +it was because it had remained unchanged for so long. The old +horsehair chairs, with their shiny mahogany frames, showed by the +slightly worn places in the carpet before them that they had not +deviated an inch from their position for many years. The carpets +--carpets that reached to the very baseboards and gave under one's +feet with the yielding of heavy padding beneath--were bright under +beds and wardrobes, while in the centers of the rooms they had +faded into the softness of old tapestry. + +Maggie, I remember, on our arrival moved a chair from the wall +in the library, and immediately put it back again, with a glance +to see if I had observed her. + +"It's nice and clean, Miss Agnes," she said. "A--I kind of feel +that a little dirt would make it more homelike." + +"I'm sure I don't see why," I replied, rather sharply, "I've lived +in a tolerably clean house most of my life." + +Maggie, however, was digging a heel into the padded carpet. She +had chosen a sunny place for the experiment, and a small cloud of +dust rose like smoke. + +"Germs!" she said. "Just what I expected. We'd better bring the +vacuum cleaner out from the city, Miss Agnes. Them carpets haven't +been lifted for years." + +But I paid little attention to her. To Maggie any particle of +matter not otherwise classified is a germ, and the prospect of +finding dust in that immaculate house was sufficiently thrilling to +tide over the strangeness of our first few hours in it. + +Once a year I rent a house in the country. When my nephew and niece +were children, I did it to take them out of the city during school +vacations. Later, when they grew up, it was to be near the country +club. But now, with the children married and new families coming +along, we were more concerned with dairies than with clubs, and I +inquired more carefully about the neighborhood cows than about the +neighborhood golf-links. I had really selected the house at Benton +Station because there was a most alluring pasture, with a brook +running through it, and violets over the banks. It seemed to me +that no cow with a conscience could live in those surroundings and +give colicky milk. + +Then, the house was cheap. Unbelievably cheap. I suspected +sewerage at once, but it seemed to be in the best possible order. +Indeed, new plumbing had been put in, and extra bathrooms installed. +As old Miss Emily Benton lived there alone, with only an old couple +to look after her, it looked odd to see three bathrooms, two of +them new, on the second floor. Big tubs and showers, although +little old Miss Emily could have bathed in the washbowl and have +had room to spare. + +I faced the agent downstairs in the parlor, after I had gone over +the house. Miss Emily Benton had not appeared and I took it she +was away. + +"Why all those bathrooms?" I demanded. "Does she use them in +rotation?" + +He shrugged his shoulders. + +"She wished to rent the house, Miss Blakiston. The old-fashioned +plumbing--" + +"But she is giving the house away," I exclaimed. "Those bathrooms +have cost much more than she will get out of it. You and I know +that the price is absurd." + +He smiled at that. "If you wish to pay more, you may, of course. +She is a fine woman, Miss Blakiston, but you can never measure a +Benton with any yard-stick but their own. The truth is that she +wants the house off her hands this summer. I don't know why. It's +a good house, and she has lived here all her life. But my +instructions, I'll tell you frankly, are to rent it, if I have to +give it away." + +With which absurd sentence we went out the front door, and I saw +the pasture, which decided me. + +In view of the fact that I had taken the house for my grandnieces +and nephews, it was annoying to find, by the end of June, that I +should have to live in it by myself. Willie's boy was having his +teeth straightened, and must make daily visits to the dentist, and +Jack went to California and took Gertrude and the boys with him. + +The first curious thing happened then. I wrote to the agent, saying +that I would not use the house, but enclosing a check for its rental, +as I had signed the lease. To my surprise, I received in reply a +note from Miss Emily herself, very carefully written on thin +note-paper. + +Although it was years since I had seen her, the exquisite neatness +of the letter, its careful paragraphing, its margins so accurate +as to give the impression that she had drawn a faint margin line +with a lead pencil and then erased it--all these were as indicative +of Emily Benton as--well, as the letter was not. + +As well as I can explain it, the letter was impulsive, almost urgent. +Yet the little old lady I remembered was neither of these things. +"My dear Miss Blakiston," she wrote. "But I do hope you will use the +house. It was because I wanted to be certain that it would be +occupied this summer that I asked so low a rent for it. + +"You may call it a whim if you like, but there are reasons why I +wish the house to have a summer tenant. It has, for one thing, never +been empty since it was built. It was my father's pride, and his +father's before him, that the doors were never locked, even at night. +Of course I can not ask a tenant to continue this old custom, +but I can ask you to reconsider your decision. + +"Will you forgive me for saying that you are so exactly the person I +should like to see in the house that I feel I can not give you up? +So strongly do I feel this that I would, if I dared, enclose your +check and beg you to use the house rent free. Faithfully yours, +Emily Benton." + +Gracefully worded and carefully written as the letter was, I seemed +to feel behind it some stress of feeling, an excitement perhaps, +totally out of proportion to its contents. Years before I had met +Miss Emily, even then a frail little old lady, her small figure +stiffly erect, her eyes cold, her whole bearing one of reserve. The +Bentons, for all their open doors, were known in that part of the +country as "proud." I can remember, too, how when I was a young +girl my mother had regarded the rare invitations to have tea and tiny +cakes in the Benton parlor as commands, no less, and had taken the +long carriage-ride from the city with complacency. And now Miss +Emily, last of the family, had begged me to take the house. + +In the end, as has been shown, I agreed. The glamor of the past +had perhaps something to do with it. But I have come to a time of +life when, failing intimate interests of my own, my neighbors' +interests are mine by adoption. To be frank, I came because I was +curious. Why, aside from a money consideration, was the Benton +house to be occupied by an alien household? It was opposed to every +tradition of the family as I had heard of it. + +I knew something of the family history: the Reverend Thaddeus Benton, +rector of Saint Bartholomew, who had forsaken the frame rectory near +the church to build himself the substantial home now being offered +me; Miss Emily, his daughter, who must now, I computed, be nearly +seventy; and a son whom I recalled faintly as hardly bearing out the +Benton traditions of solidity and rectitude. + +The Reverend Mr. Benton, I recalled, had taken the stand that his +house was his own, and having moved his family into it, had +thereafter, save on great occasions, received the congregation +individually or en masse, in his study at the church. A patriarchal +old man, benevolent yet austere, who once, according to a story I +had heard in my girlhood, had horsewhipped one of his vestrymen for +trifling with the affections of a young married woman in the village! + +There was a gap of thirty years in my knowledge of the family. I +had, indeed, forgotten its very existence, when by the chance of a +newspaper advertisement I found myself involved vitally in its +affairs, playing providence, indeed, and both fearing and hating my +role. Looking back, there are a number of things that appear rather +curious. Why, for instance, did Maggie, my old servant, develop +such a dislike for the place? It had nothing to do with the house. +She had not seen it when she first refused to go. But her +reluctance was evident from the beginning. + +"I've just got a feeling about it, Miss Agnes," she said. "I can't +explain it, any more than I can explain a cold in the head. But +it's there." + +At first I was inclined to blame Maggie's "feeling" on her knowledge +that the house was cheap. She knew it, as she has, I am sure, read +all my letters for years. She has a distrust of a bargain. But later +I came to believe that there was something more to Maggie's distrust +--as though perhaps a wave of uneasiness, spreading from some +unknown source, had engulfed her. + +Indeed, looking back over the two months I spent in the Benton house, +I am inclined to go even further. If thoughts carry, as I am sure +they do, then emotions carry. Fear, hope, courage, despair--if the +intention of writing a letter to an absent friend can spread itself +half-way across the earth, so that as you write the friend writes also, +and your letters cross, how much more should big emotions carry? I +have had sweep over me such waves of gladness, such gusts of despair, +as have shaken me. Yet with no cause for either. They are gone in a +moment. Just for an instant, I have caught and made my own another's +joy or grief. + +The only inexplicable part of this narrative is that Maggie, neither +a psychic nor a sensitive type, caught the terror, as I came to call +it, before I did. Perhaps it may be explainable by the fact that +her mental processes are comparatively simple, her mind an empty +slate that shows every mark made on it. + +In a way, this is a study in fear. + +Maggie's resentment continued through my decision to use the house, +through the packing, through the very moving itself. It took the +form of a sort of watchful waiting, although at the time we neither +of us realized it, and of dislike of the house and its surroundings. +It extended itself to the very garden, where she gathered flowers +for the table with a ruthlessness that was almost vicious. And, as +July went on, and Miss Emily made her occasional visits, as tiny, +as delicate as herself, I had a curious conclusion forced on me. +Miss Emily returned her antagonism. I was slow to credit it. What +secret and even unacknowledged opposition could there be between my +downright Maggie and this little old aristocrat with her frail hands +and the soft rustle of silk about her? + +In Miss Emily, it took the form of--how strange a word to use in +connection with her!--of furtive watchfulness. I felt that Maggie's +entrance, with nothing more momentous than the tea-tray, set her +upright in her chair, put an edge to her soft voice, and absorbed +her. She was still attentive to what I said. She agreed or +dissented. But back of it all, with her eyes on me, she was watching +Maggie. + +With Maggie the antagonism took no such subtle form. It showed +itself in the second best instead of the best china, and a tendency +to weak tea, when Miss Emily took hers very strong. And such was +the effect of their mutual watchfulness and suspicion, such perhaps +was the influence of the staid old house on me, after a time even +that fact, of the strong tea, began to strike me as incongruous. +Miss Emily was so consistent, so consistently frail and dainty and +so--well, unspotted seems to be the word--and so gentle, yet as +time went on I began to feel that she hated Maggie with a real +hatred. And there was the strong tea! + +Indeed, it was not quite normal, nor was I. For by that time--the +middle of July it was before I figured out as much as I have set +down in five minutes--by that time I was not certain about the +house. It was difficult to say just what I felt about the house. +Willie, who came down over a Sunday early in the summer, possibly +voiced it when he came down to his breakfast there. + +"How did you sleep?" I asked. + +"Not very well." He picked up his coffee-cup, and smiled over it +rather sheepishly. "To tell the truth, I got to thinking about +things--the furniture and all that," he said vaguely. "How many +people have sat in the chairs and seen themselves in the mirror and +died in the bed, and so on." + +Maggie, who was bringing in the toast, gave a sort of low moan, +which she turned into a cough. + +"There have been twenty-three deaths in it in the last forty years, +Mr. Willie," she volunteered. "That's according to the gardener. +And more than half died in that room of yours." + +"Put down that toast before you drop it, Maggie," I said. "You're +shaking all over. And go out and shut the door." + +"Very well," she said, with a meekness behind which she was both +indignant and frightened. "But there is one word I might mention +before I go, and that is--cats!" + +"Cats!" said Willie, as she slammed the door. + +"I think it is only one cat," I observed mildly. "It belongs to +Miss Emily, I fancy. It manages to be in a lot of places nearly +simultaneously, and Maggie swears it is a dozen." + +Willie is not subtle. He is a practical young man with a growing +family, and a tendency the last year or two to flesh. But he ate +his breakfast thoughtfully. + +"Don't you think it's rather isolated?" he asked finally. "Just you +three women here?" I had taken Delia, the cook, along. + +"We have a telephone," I said, rather loftily. "Although--" I +checked myself. Maggie, I felt sure, was listening in the pantry, +and I intended to give her wild fancies no encouragement. To utter +a thing is, to Maggie, to give it life. By the mere use of the +spoken word it ceases to be supposition and becomes fact. + +As a matter of fact, my uneasiness about the house resolved itself +into an uneasiness about the telephone. It seems less absurd now +than it did then. But I remember what Willie said about it that +morning on our way to the church. + +"It rings at night, Willie," I said. "And when I go there is no one +there." + +"So do all telephones," he replied briskly. "It's their greatest +weakness." + +"Once or twice we have found the thing on the floor in the morning. +It couldn't blow over or knock itself down." + +"Probably the cat," he said, with the patient air of a man arguing +with an unreasonable woman. "Of course," he added--we were passing +the churchyard then, dominated by what the village called the Benton +"mosolem"--"there's a chance that those dead-and-gone Bentons resent +anything as modern as a telephone. It might be interesting to see +what they would do to a victrola." + +"I'm going to tell you something, Willie," I said. "I am afraid of +the telephone." + +He was completely incredulous. I felt rather ridiculous, standing +there in the sunlight of that summer Sabbath and making my confession. +But I did it. + +"I am afraid of it," I repeated. "I'm desperately sure you will +never understand. Because I don't. I can hardly force myself to +go to it. I hate the very back corner of the hall where it stands, +I--" + +I saw his expression then, and I stopped, furious with myself. Why +had I said it? But more important still, why did I feel it? I had +not put it into words before, I had not expected to say it then. +But the moment I said it I knew it was true. I had developed an +idee fixe. + +"I have to go downstairs at night and answer it," I added, rather +feebly. "It's on my nerves, I think." + +"I should think it is," he said, with a note of wonder in his voice. +"It doesn't sound like you. A telephone!" But just at the church +door he stopped me, a hand on my arm. + +"Look here," he said, "don't you suppose it's because you're so +dependent on the telephone? You know that if anything goes wrong +with it, you're cut off, in a way. And there's another point--you +get all your news over it, good and bad." He had difficulty, I +think, in finding the words he wanted. "It's--it's vital," he +said. "So you attach too much importance to it, and it gets to be +an obsession." + +"Very likely," I assented. "The whole thing is idiotic, anyhow." + +But--was it idiotic? + +I am endeavoring to set things down as they seemed to me at the time, +not in the light of subsequent events. For, if this narrative has +any interest at all, it is a psychological one. I have said that +it is a study in fear, but perhaps it would be more accurate to say +that it is a study of the mental reaction of crime, of its effects +on different minds, more or less remotely connected with it. + +That my analysis of my impressions in the church that morning are +not colored by subsequent events is proved by the fact that under +cover of that date, July 16th, I made the following entry: + +"Why do Maggie and Miss Benton distrust each other?" + +I realized it even then, although I did not consider it serious, as +is evidenced by the fact that I follow it with a recipe for fruit +gelatin, copied from the newspaper. + +It was a calm and sunny Sunday morning. The church windows were +wide open, and a butterfly came in and set the choir boys to +giggling. At the end of my pew a stained-glass window to Carlo +Benton--the name came like an echo from the forgotten past--sent +a shower of colored light over Willie, turned my blue silk to most +unspinsterly hues, and threw a sort of summer radiance over Miss +Emily herself, in the seat ahead. + +She sat quite alone, impeccably neat, even to her profile. She was +so orderly, so well balanced, one stitch of her hand-sewed organdy +collar was so clearly identical with every other, her very seams, +if you can understand it, ran so exactly where they should, that she +set me to pulling myself straight. I am rather casual as to seams. + +After a time I began to have a curious feeling about her. Her head +was toward the rector, standing in a sort of white nimbus of +sunlight, but I felt that Miss Emily's entire attention was on our +pew, immediately behind her. I find I can not put it into words, +unless it was that her back settled into more rigid lines. I +glanced along the pew. Willie's face wore a calm and slightly +somnolent expression. But Maggie, in her far end--she is very high +church and always attends--Maggie's eyes were glued almost fiercely +to Miss Emily's back. And just then Miss Emily herself stirred, +glanced up at the window, and turning slightly, returned Maggie's +glance with one almost as malevolent. I have hesitated over that +word. It seems strong now, but at the time it was the one that came +into my mind. + +When it was over, it was hard to believe that it had happened. And +even now, with everything else clear, I do not pretend to explain +Maggie's attitude. She knew, in some strange way. But she did not +know that she knew--which sounds like nonsense and is as near as I +can come to getting it down in words. + +Willie left that night, the 16th, and we settled down to quiet days, +and, for a time, to undisturbed nights. But on the following +Wednesday, by my journal, the telephone commenced to bother me again. +Generally speaking, it rang rather early, between eleven o'clock and +midnight. But on the following Saturday night I find I have recorded +the hour as 2 a. m. + +In every instance the experience was identical. The telephone never +rang the second time. When I went downstairs to answer it--I did +not always go--there was the buzzing of the wire, and there was +nothing else. It was on the twenty-fourth that I had the telephone +inspected and reported in normal condition, and it is possibly +significant that for three days afterward my record shows not a +single disturbance. + +But I do not regard the strange calls over the telephone as so +important as my attitude to them. The plain truth is that my fear +of the calls extended itself in a few days to cover the instrument, +and more than that, to the part of the house it stood in. Maggie +never had this, nor did she recognize it in me. Her fear was a +perfectly simple although uncomfortable one, centering around the +bedrooms where, in each bed, she nightly saw dead and gone Bentons +laid out in all the decorum of the best linen. + +On more than one evening she came to the library door, with an +expression of mentally looking over her shoulder, and some such +dialogue would follow: + +"D'you mind if I turn the bed down now, Miss Agnes?" + +"It's very early." + +"S'almost eight." When she is nervous she cuts verbal corners. + +"You know perfectly well that I dislike having the beds disturbed +until nine o'clock, Maggie." + +"I'm going out." + +"You said that last night, but you didn't go." + +Silence. + +"Now, see here, Maggie, I want you to overcome this feeling of--" +I hesitated--"of fear. When you have really seen or heard +something, it will be time enough to be nervous." + +"Humph!" said Maggie on one of these occasions, and edged into the +room. It was growing dusk. "It will be too late then, Miss Agnes. +And another thing. You're a brave woman. I don't know as I've +seen a braver. But I notice you keep away from the telephone after +dark." + +The general outcome of these conversations was that, to avoid +argument, I permitted the preparation of my room for the night at +an earlier and yet earlier hour, until at last it was done the +moment I was dressed for dinner. + +It is clear to me now that two entirely different sorts of fear +actuated us. For by that time I had to acknowledge that there was +fear in the house. Even Delia, the cook, had absorbed some of +Maggie's terror; possibly traceable to some early impressions of +death which connected them-selves with a four-post bedstead. + +Of the two sorts of fear, Delia's and Maggie's symptoms were +subjective. Mine, I still feel, were objective. + +It was not long before the beginning of August, and during a lull +in the telephone matter, that I began to suspect that the house +was being visited at night. + +There was nothing I could point to with any certainty as having been +disturbed at first. It was a matter of a book misplaced on the +table, of my sewing-basket open when I always leave it closed, of a +burnt match on the floor, whereas it is one of my orderly habits +never to leave burnt matches around. And at last the burnt match +became a sort of clue, for I suspected that it had been used to +light one of the candles that sat in holders of every sort, on the +top of the library shelves. + +I tried getting up at night and peering over the banisters, but +without result. And I was never sure as to articles that they had +been moved. I remained in that doubting and suspicious halfway +ground that is worse than certainty. And there was the matter of +motive. I could not get away from that. What possible purpose +could an intruder have, for instance, in opening my sewing-basket +or moving the dictionary two inches on the center table? + +Yet the feeling persisted, and on the second of August I find this +entry in my journal: + +Right-hand brass, eight inches; left-hand brass, seven inches; +carved-wood--Italian--five and three quarter inches each; old +glass on mantelpiece--seven inches. And below this, dated the +third: Last night, between midnight and daylight, the candle in +the glass holder on the right side of the mantel was burned down +one and one-half inches. + +I should, no doubt, have set a watch on my nightly visitor after +making this discovery--and one that was apparently connected with it +--nothing less than Delia's report that there were candle-droppings +over the border of the library carpet. But I have admitted that this +is a study in fear, and a part of it is my own. + +I was afraid. I was afraid of the night visitor, but, more than +that, I was afraid of the fear. It had become a real thing by that +time, something that lurked in the lower back hall waiting to catch +me by the throat, to stop my breath, to paralyze me so I could not +escape. I never went beyond that point. + +Yet I am not a cowardly woman. I have lived alone too long for +that. I have closed too many houses at night and gone upstairs in +the dark to be afraid of darkness. And even now I can not, looking +back, admit that I was afraid of the darkness there, although I +resorted to the weak expedient of leaving a short length of candle +to burn itself out in the hall when I went up to bed. + +I have seen one of Willie's boys waken up at night screaming with a +terror he could not describe. Well, it was much like that with me, +except that I was awake and horribly ashamed of myself. + +On the fourth of August I find in my journal the single word "flour." +It recalls both my own cowardice at that time, and an experiment I +made. The telephone had not bothered us for several nights, and I +began to suspect a connection of this sort: when the telephone rang, +there was no night visitor, and vice versa. I was not certain. + +Delia was setting bread that night in the kitchen, and Maggie was +reading a ghost story from the evening paper. There was a fine +sifting of flour over the table, and it gave me my idea. When I +went up to bed that night, I left a powdering of flour here and +there on the lower floor, at the door into the library, a patch +by the table, and--going back rather uneasily--one near the +telephone. + +I was up and downstairs before Maggie the next morning. The patches +showed trampling. In the doorway they were almost obliterated, as +by the trailing of a garment over them, but by the fireplace there +were two prints quite distinct. I knew when I saw them that I had +expected the marks of Miss Emily's tiny foot, although I had not +admitted it before. But these were not Miss Emily's. They were +large, flat, substantial, and one showed a curious marking around +the edge that--It was my own! The marking was the knitted side of +my bedroom slipper. I had, so far as I could tell, gone downstairs, +in the night, investigated the candles, possibly in darkness, and +gone back to bed again. + +The effect of the discovery on me was--well undermining. In all +the uneasiness of the past few weeks I had at least had full +confidence in myself. And now that was gone. I began to wonder +how much of the things that had troubled me were real, and how many +I had made for myself. + +To tell the truth, by that time the tension was almost unbearable. +My nerves were going, and there was no reason for it. I kept telling +myself that. In the mirror I looked white and anxious, and I had a +sense of approaching trouble. I caught Maggie watching me, too, and +on the seventh I find in my journal the words: "Insanity is often +only a formless terror." + +On the Sunday morning following that I found three burnt matches in +the library fireplace, and one of the candles in the brass holders +was almost gone. I sat most of the day in that room, wondering what +would happen to me if I lost my mind. I knew that Maggie was +watching me, and I made one of those absurd hypotheses to myself that +we all do at times. If any of the family came, I would know that she +had sent for them, and that I was really deranged! It had been a +long day, with a steady summer rain that had not cooled the earth, but +only set it steaming. The air was like hot vapor, and my hair clung +to my moist forehead. At about four o'clock Maggie started chasing +a fly with a folded newspaper. She followed it about the lower floor +from room to room, making little harsh noises in her throat when she +missed it. The sound of the soft thud of the paper on walls and +furniture seemed suddenly more than I could bear. + +"For heaven's sake!" I cried. "Stop that noise, Maggie." I felt as +though my eyes were starting from my head. + +"It's a fly," she said doggedly, and aimed another blow at it. "If +I don't kill it, we'll have a million. There, it's on the mantel +now. I never--" + +I felt that if she raised the paper club once more I should scream. +So I got up quickly and caught her wrist. She was so astonished +that she let the paper drop, and there we stood, staring at each +other. I can still see the way her mouth hung open. + +"Don't!" I said. And my voice sounded thick even to my own ears. +"Maggie--I can't stand it!" + +"My God, Miss Agnes!" + +Her tone brought me up sharply. I released her arm. + +"I--I'm just nervous, Maggie," I said, and sat down. I was +trembling violently. + +I was sane. I knew it then as I know it now. But I was not +rational. Perhaps to most of us come now and then times when they +realize that some act, or some thought, is not balanced, as though, +for a moment or an hour, the control was gone from the brain. Or +--and I think this was the feeling I had--that some other control +was in charge. Not the Agnes Blakiston I knew, but another Agnes +Blakiston, perhaps, was exerting a temporary dominance, a hectic, +craven, and hateful control. + +That is the only outburst I recall. Possibly Maggie may have +others stored away. She has a tenacious memory. Certainly it was +my nearest approach to violence. But it had the effect of making +me set a watch on myself. + +Possibly it was coincidence. Probably, however, Maggie had +communicated with Willie. But two days later young Martin Sprague, +Freda Sprague's son, stopped his car in the drive and came in. He +is a nerve specialist, and very good, although I can remember when +he came down in his night drawers to one of his mother's +dinner-parties. + +"Thought I would just run in and see you," he said. "Mother told me +you were here. By George, Miss Agnes, you look younger than ever." + +"Who told you to come, Martie?" I asked. + +"Told me? I don't have to be told to visit an old friend." + +Well, he asked himself to lunch, and looked over the house, and +decided to ask Miss Emily if she would sell an old Japanese cabinet +inlaid with mother of pearl that I would not have had as a gift. +And, in the end, I told him my trouble, of the fear that seemed to +center around the telephone, and the sleep-walking. + +He listened carefully. + +"Ever get any bad news over the telephone?" he asked. + +One way and another, I said I had had plenty of it. He went over +me thoroughly, and was inclined to find my experience with the +flour rather amusing than otherwise. "It's rather good, that," +he said. "Setting a trap to catch yourself. You'd better have +Maggie sleep in your room for a while. Well, it's all pretty +plain, Miss Agnes. We bury some things as deep as possible, +especially if we don't want to remember that they ever happened. +But the mind's a queer thing. It holds on pretty hard, and burying +is not destroying. Then we get tired or nervous--maybe just +holding the thing down and pretending it is not there makes us +nervous--and up it pops, like the ghost of a buried body, and +raises hell. You don't mind that, do you?" he added anxiously. +"It's exactly what those things do raise." + +"But," I demanded irritably, "who rings the telephone at night? +I daresay you don't contend that I go out at night and call the +house, and then come back and answer the call, do you?" + +He looked at me with a maddening smile. + +"Are you sure it really rings?" he asked. + +And so bad was my nervous condition by that time, so undermined was +my self-confidence, that I was not certain! And this in face of +the fact that it invariably roused Maggie as well as myself. + +On the eleventh of August Miss Emily came to tea. The date does +not matter, but by following the chronology of my journal I find I +can keep my narrative in proper sequence. + +I had felt better that day. So far as I could determine, I had not +walked in my sleep again, and there was about Maggie an air of +cheerfulness and relief which showed that my condition was more +nearly normal than it had been for some time. The fear of the +telephone and of the back hall was leaving me, too. Perhaps Martin +Sprague's matter-of-fact explanation had helped me. But my own +theory had always been the one I recorded at the beginning of this +narrative--that I caught and--well, registered is a good word-- +that I registered an overwhelming fear from some unknown source. + +I spied Miss Emily as she got out of the hack that day, a cool +little figure clad in a thin black silk dress, with the sheerest +possible white collars and cuffs. Her small bonnet with its crepe +veil was faced with white, and her carefully crimped gray hair +showed a wavy border beneath it. Mr. Staley, the station hackman, +helped her out of the surrey, and handed her the knitting-bag +without which she was seldom seen. It was two weeks since she had +been there, and she came slowly up the walk, looking from side to +side at the perennial borders, then in full August bloom. + +She smiled when she saw me in the doorway, and said, with the little +anxious pucker between her eyes that was so childish, "Don't you +think peonies are better cut down at this time of year?" She took a +folded handkerchief from her bag and dabbed at her face, where there +was no sign of dust to mar its old freshness. "It gives the lilies +a better chance, my dear." + +I led her into the house, and she produced a gay bit of knitting, a +baby afghan, by the signs. She smiled at me over it. + +"I am always one baby behind," she explained and fell to work +rapidly. She had lovely hands, and I suspected them of being her one +vanity. + +Maggie was serving tea with her usual grudging reluctance, and I +noticed then that when she was in the room Miss Emily said little +or nothing. I thought it probable that she did not approve of +conversing before servants, and would have let it go at that, had +I not, as I held out Miss Emily's cup, caught her looking at Maggie. +I had a swift impression of antagonism again, of alertness and +something more. When Maggie went out, Miss Emily turned to me. + +"She is very capable, I fancy." + +"Very. Entirely too capable." + +"She looks sharp," said Miss Emily. It was a long time since I had +heard the word so used, but it was very apt. Maggie was indeed sharp. +But Miss Emily launched into a general dissertation on servants, and +Maggie's sharpness was forgotten. + +It was, I think, when she was about to go that I asked her about +the telephone. + +"Telephone?" she inquired. "Why, no. It has always done very well. +Of course, after a heavy snow in the winter, sometimes--" + +She had a fashion of leaving her sentences unfinished. They trailed +off, without any abrupt break. + +"It rings at night." + +"Rings?" + +"I am called frequently and when I get to the phone, there is no +one there." + +Some of my irritation doubtless got into my voice, for Miss Emily +suddenly drew away and stared at me. + +"But--that is very strange. I--" + +She had gone pale. I saw that now. And quite suddenly she dropped +her knitting-bag. When I restored it to her, she was very calm and +poised, but her color had not come back. + +"It has always been very satisfactory," she said. "I don't know +that it ever--" + +She considered, and began again. "Why not just ignore it? If some +one is playing a malicious trick on you, the only thing is to +ignore it." + +Her hands were shaking, although her voice was quiet. I saw that +when she tried to tie the ribbons of the bag. And--I wondered at +this, in so gentle a soul--there was a hint of anger in her tones. +There was an edge to her voice. + +That she could be angry was a surprise. And I found that she could +also be obstinate. For we came to an impasse over the telephone in +the next few minutes, and over something so absurd that I was +non-plussed. It was over her unqualified refusal to allow me to +install a branch wire to my bedroom. + +"But," I expostulated, "when one thinks of the convenience, and--" + +"I am sorry." Her voice had a note of finality. "I daresay I am +old-fashioned, but--I do not like changes. I shall have to ask you +not to interfere with the telephone." + +I could hardly credit my senses. Her tone was one of reproof, plus +decision. It convicted me of an indiscretion. If I had asked to +take the roof off and replace it with silk umbrellas, it might have +been justified. But to a request to move the telephone! + +"Of course, if you feel that way about it," I said, "I shall not +touch it." + +I dropped the subject, a trifle ruffled, I confess, and went +upstairs to fetch a box in which Miss Emily was to carry away some +flowers from the garden. + +It was when I was coming down the staircase that I saw Maggie. She +had carried the hall candlesticks, newly polished, to their places +on the table, and was standing, a hand on each one, staring into +the old Washington mirror in front of her. From where she was she +must have had a full view of Miss Emily in the library. And Maggie +was bristling. It was the only word for it. + +She was still there when Miss Emily had gone, blowing on the mirror +and polishing it. And I took her to task for her unfriendly +attitude to the little old lady. + +"You practically threw her muffins at her," I said. "And I must +speak again about the cups--" + +"What does she come snooping around for, anyhow?" she broke in. +"Aren't we paying for her house? Didn't she get down on her bended +knees and beg us to take it?" + +"Is that any reason why we should be uncivil?" + +"What I want to know is this," Maggie said truculently. "What right +has she to come back, and spy on us? For that's what she's doing, +Miss Agnes. Do you know what she was at when I looked in at her? +She was running a finger along the baseboard to see if it was clean! +And what's more, I caught her at it once before, in the back hall, +when she was pretending to telephone for the station hack." + +It was that day, I think, that I put fresh candles in all the +holders downstairs. I had made a resolution like this,--to renew +the candles, and to lock myself in my room and throw the key over +the transom to Maggie. If, in the mornings that followed, the +candles had been used, it would prove that Martin Sprague was wrong, +that even foot-prints could lie, and that some one was investigating +the lower floor at night. For while my reason told me that I had +been the intruder, my intuition continued to insist that my +sleepwalking was a result, not a cause. In a word, I had gone +downstairs, because I knew that there had been and might be again, +a night visitor. + +Yet, there was something of comedy in that night's precautions, +after all. + +At ten-thirty I was undressed, and Maggie had, with rebellion in +every line of her, locked me in. I could hear her, afterwards +running along the hall to her own room and slamming the door. +Then, a moment later, the telephone rang. + +It was too early, I reasoned, for the night calls. It might be +anything, a telegram at the station, Willie's boy run over by an +automobile, Gertrude's children ill. A dozen possibilities ran +through my mind. + +And Maggie would not let me out! + +"You're not going downstairs," she called, from a safe distance. + +"Maggie!" I cried, sharply. And banged at the door. The +telephone was ringing steadily. "Come here at once." + +"Miss Agnes," she beseeched, "you go to bed and don't listen. +There'll be nothing there, for all your trouble," she said, in a +quavering voice. "It's nothing human that rings that bell." + +Finally, however, she freed me, and I went down the stairs. I had +carried down a lamp, and my nerves were vibrating to the rhythm of +the bell's shrill summons. But, strangely enough, the fear had +left me. I find, as always, that it is difficult to put into words. +I did not relish the excursion to the lower floor. I resented the +jarring sound of the bell. But the terror was gone. + +I went back to the telephone. Something that was living and moving +was there. I saw its eyes, lower than mine, reflecting the lamp +like twin lights. I was frightened, but still it was not the fear. +The twin lights leaped forward--and proved to be the eyes of Miss +Emily's cat, which had been sleeping on the stand! + +I answered the telephone. To my surprise it was Miss Emily herself, +a quiet and very dignified voice which apologized for disturbing me +at that hour, and went on: + +"I feel that I was very abrupt this afternoon, Miss Blakiston. My +excuse is that I have always feared change. I have lived in a rut +too long, I'm afraid. But of course, if you feel you would like to +move the telephone, or put in an upstairs instrument, you may do +as you like." + +She seemed, having got me there, unwilling to ring off. I got a +curious effect of reluctance over the telephone, and there was one +phrase that she repeated several times. + +"I do not want to influence you. I want you to do just what you +think best." + +The fear was entirely gone by the time she rang off. I felt, +instead, a sort of relaxation that was most comforting. The rear +hall, a cul-de-sac of nervousness in the daytime and of horror at +night, was suddenly transformed by the light of my lamp into a warm +and cheerful refuge from the darkness of the lower floor. The +purring of the cat, comfortably settled on the telephone-stand, was +as cheering as the singing of a kettle on a stove. On the rack +near me my garden hat and an old Paisley shawl made a grotesque +human effigy. + +I sat back in the low wicker chair and surveyed the hallway. Why +not, I considered, do away now with the fear of it? If I could +conquer it like this at midnight, I need never succumb again to it +in the light. + +The cat leaped to the stand beside me and stood there, waiting. He +was an intelligent animal, and I am like a good many spinsters. I +am not more fond of cats than other people, but I understand them +better. And it seemed to me that he and I were going through some +familiar program, of which a part had been neglected. The cat +neither sat nor lay, but stood there, waiting. + +So at last I fetched the shawl from the rack and made him a bed on +the stand. It was what he had been waiting for. I saw that at +once. He walked onto it, turned around once, lay down, and closed +his eyes. + +I took up my vigil. I had been the victim of a fear I was +determined to conquer. The house was quiet. Maggie had retired +shriveled to bed. The cat slept on the shawl. + +And then--I felt the fear returning. It welled up through my +tranquillity like a flood, and swept me with it. I wanted to shriek. +I was afraid to shriek. I longed to escape. I dared not move. +There had been no sound, no motion. Things were as they had been. + +It may have been one minute or five that I sat there. I do not +know. I only know that I sat with fixed eyes, not even blinking, +for fear of even for a second shutting out the sane and visible +world about me. A sense of deadness commenced in my hands and +worked up my arms. My chest seemed flattened. + +Then the telephone bell rang. + +The cat leaped to his feet. Somehow I reached forward and took +down the receiver. + +"Who is it?" I cried, in a voice that was thin, I knew, and +unnatural. + +The telephone is not a perfect medium. It loses much that we wish +to register but, also, it registers much that we may wish to lose. +Therefore when I say that I distinctly heard a gasp, followed by +heavy difficult breathing, over the telephone, I must beg for +credence. It is true. Some one at the other end of the line was +struggling for breath. + +Then there was complete silence. I realized, after a moment, that +the circuit had been stealthily cut, and that my conviction was +verified by Central's demand, a moment later, of what number I +wanted. I was, at first, unable to answer her. When I did speak, +my voice was shaken. + +"What number, please?" she repeated, in a bored tone. There is +nothing in all the world so bored as the voice of a small town +telephone-operator. + +"You called," I said. + +"Beg y'pardon. Must have been a mistake," she replied glibly, +and cut me off. + + + +II + + +It may be said, and with truth, that so far I have recorded little +but subjective terror, possibly easily explained by my occupancy of +an isolated house, plus a few unimportant incidents, capable of +various interpretations. But the fear was, and is today as I look +back, a real thing. As real--and as difficult to describe--as a +chill, for instance. A severe mental chill it was, indeed. + +I went upstairs finally to a restless night, and rose early, after +only an hour or so of sleep. One thing I was determined on--to find +out, if possible, the connection between the terror and the telephone. +I breakfasted early, and was dressing to go to the village when I had +a visitor, no other than Miss Emily herself. She looked fluttered +and perturbed at the unceremonious hour of her visit--she was the +soul of convention--and explained, between breaths as it were, that +she had come to apologize for the day before. She had hardly slept. +I must forgive her. She had been very nervous since her brother's +death, and small things upset her. + +How much of what I say of Miss Emily depends on my later knowledge, +I wonder? Did I notice then that she was watching me furtively, or +is it only on looking back that I recall it? I do recall it--the +hall door open and a vista of smiling garden beyond, and silhouetted +against the sunshine, Miss Emily's frail figure and searching, +slightly uplifted face. There was something in her eyes that I had +not seen before--a sort of exaltation. She was not, that morning, +the Miss Emily who ran a finger along her baseboards to see if we +dusted them. + +She had walked out, and it had exhausted her. She breathed in +little gasps. + +"I think," she said at last, "that I must telephone for Mr. Staley, +I am never very strong in hot weather." + +"Please let me call him, for you, Miss Emily." I am not a young +woman, and she was at least sixty-five. But, because she was so +small and frail, I felt almost a motherly anxiety for her that +morning. + +"I think I should like to do it, if you don't mind. We are old +friends. He always comes promptly when I call him." + +She went back alone, and I waited in the doorway. When she came +out, she was smiling, and there was more color in her face. + +"He is coming at once. He is always very thoughtful for me." + +Now, without any warning, something that had been seething since +her breathless arrival took shape in my mind, and became--suspicion. +What if it had been Miss Emily who had called me the second time to +the telephone, and having established the connection, had waited, +breathing hard for--what? + +It was fantastic, incredible in the light of that brilliant summer +day. I looked at her, dainty and exquisite as ever, her ruchings +fresh and white, her very face indicative of decorum and order, +her wistful old mouth still rather like a child's, her eyes, always +slightly upturned because of her diminutive height, so that she had +habitually a look of adoration. + +"One of earth's saints," the rector had said to me on Sunday morning. +"A good woman, Miss Blakiston, and a sacrifice to an unworthy family." + +Suspicion is like the rain. It falls on the just and on the unjust. +And that morning I began to suspect Miss Emily. I had no idea of +what. + +On my mentioning an errand in the village she promptly offered to +take me with her in the Staley hack. She had completely altered in +manner. The strain was gone. In her soft low voice, as we made our +way to the road, she told me the stories of some of the garden +flowers. + +"The climbing rose over the arch, my dear," she said, "my mother +brought from England on her wedding journey. People have taken +cuttings from it again and again, but the cuttings never thrive. A +bad winter, and they are gone. But this one has lived. Of course +now and then it freezes down." + +She chattered on, and my suspicions grew more and more shadowy. +They would have gone, I think, had not Maggie called me back with +a grocery list. + +"A sack of flour," she said, "and some green vegetables, and--Miss +Agnes, that woman was down on her knees beside the telephone!--and +bluing for the laundry, and I guess that's all." + +The telephone! It was always the telephone. We drove on down the +lane, eyed somnolently by spotted cows and incurious sheep, and all +the way Miss Emily talked. She was almost garrulous. She asked the +hackman about his family and stopped the vehicle to pick up a peddler, +overburdened with his pack. I watched her with amazement. Evidently +this was Mr. Staley's Miss Emily. But it was not mine. + +But I saw mine, too, that morning. It was when I asked the hackman +to put me down at the little telephone building. I thought she put +her hand to her throat, although the next moment she was only +adjusting the ruching at her neck. + +"You--you have decided to have the second telephone put in, then?" + +I hesitated. She so obviously did not want it installed. And was +I to submit meekly to the fear again, without another effort to +vanquish it? + +"I think not, dear Miss Emily," I said at last, smiling at her drawn +face. "Why should I disturb your lovely old house and its +established order?" + +"But I want you to do just what you think best," she protested. She +had put her hands together. It was almost a supplication. + +As to the strange night calls, there was little to be learned. The +night operator was in bed. The manager made a note of my complaint, +and promised an investigation, which, having had experience with +telephone investigations, I felt would lead nowhere. I left the +building, with my grocery list in my hand. + +The hack was gone, of course. But--I may have imagined it--I +thought I saw Miss Emily peering at me from behind the bonnets and +hats in the milliner's window. + +I did not investigate. The thing was enough on my nerves as it was. + +Maggie served me my luncheon in a sort of strained silence. She +observed once, as she brought me my tea, that she was giving me +notice and intended leaving on the afternoon train. She had, she +stated, holding out the sugar-bowl to me at arm's length, stood a +great deal in the way of irregular hours from me, seeing as I +would read myself to sleep, and let the light burn all night, +although very fussy about the gas-bills. But she had reached the +end of her tether, and you could grate a lemon on her most +anywhere, she was that covered with goose-flesh. + +"Goose-flesh about what?" I demanded. "And either throw the sugar +to me or come closer." + +"I don't know about what," she said sullenly. "I'm just scared." + +And for once Maggie and I were in complete harmony. I, too, was +"just scared." + +We were, however, both of us much nearer a solution of our +troubles than we had any idea of. I say solution, although it but +substituted one mystery for another. It gave tangibility to the +intangible, indeed, but I can not see that our situation was any +better. I, for one, found myself in the position of having a +problem to solve, and no formula to solve it with. + +The afternoon was quiet. Maggie and the cook were in the throes +of jelly-making, and I had picked up a narrative history of the +county, written most pedantically, although with here and there a +touch of heavy lightness, by Miss Emily's father, the Reverend +Samuel Thaddeus Benton. + +On the fly-leaf she had inscribed, "Written by my dear father during +the last year of his life, and published after his death by the +parish to which he had given so much of his noble life." + +The book left me cold, but the inscription warmed me. Whatever +feeling I might have had about Miss Emily died of that inscription. +A devoted and self-sacrificing daughter, a woman both loving and +beloved, that was the Miss Emily of the dedication to "Fifty years +in Bolivar County." + +In the middle of the afternoon Maggie appeared, with a saucer and +a teaspoon. In the saucer she had poured a little of the jelly to +test it, and she was blowing on it when she entered. I put down +my book. + +"Well!" I said. "Don't tell me you're not dressed yet. You've +just got about time for the afternoon train." + +She gave me an imploring glance over the saucer. + +"You might just take a look at this, Miss Agnes," she said. "It +jells around the edges, but in the middle--" + +"I'll send your trunk tomorrow," I said, "and you'd better let +Delia make the jelly alone. You haven't much time, and she says +she makes good jelly." + +She raised anguished eyes to mine. + +"Miss Agnes," she said, "that woman's never made a glass of jelly +in her life before. She didn't even know about putting a silver +spoon in the tumblers to keep 'em from breaking." + +I picked up "Bolivar County" and opened it, but I could see that +the hands holding the saucer were shaking. + +"I'm not going, Miss Agnes," said Maggie. (I had, of course, known +she would not. The surprising thing to me is that she never learns +this fact, although she gives me notice quite regularly. She always +thinks that she is really going, until the last.) "Of course you +can let that woman make the jelly, if you want. It's your fruit +and sugar. But I'm not going to desert you in your hour of need." + +"What do I need?" I demanded. "Jelly?" + +But she was past sarcasm. She placed the saucer on a table and +rolled her stained hands in her apron. + +"That woman," she said, "what was she doing under the telephone +stand?" + +She almost immediately burst into tears, and it was some time +before I caught what she feared. For she was more concrete than I. +And she knew now what she was afraid of. It was either a bomb or +fire. + +"Mark my words, Miss Agnes," she said, "she's going to destroy the +place. What made her set out and rent it for almost nothing if she +isn't? And I know who rings the telephone at night. It's her." + +"What on earth for?" I demanded as ungrammatical and hardly less +uneasy than Maggie. + +"She wakes us up, so we can get out in time. She's a preacher's +daughter. More than likely she draws the line at bloodshed. That's +one reason. Maybe there's another. What if by pressing a button +somewhere and ringing that bell, it sets off a bomb somewhere?" + +"It never has," I observed dryly. + +But however absurd Maggie's logic might be, she was firm in her +major premise. Miss Emily had been on her hands and knees by the +telephone-stand, and had, on seeing Maggie, observed that she had +dropped the money for the hackman out of her glove. + +"Which I don't believe. Her gloves were on the stand. If you'll +come back, Miss Agnes, I'll show you how she was." + +We made rather an absurd procession, Maggie leading with the saucer, +I following, and the cat, appearing from nowhere as usual, bringing +up the rear. Maggie placed the jelly on the stand, and dropped on +her hands and knees, crawling under the stand, a confused huddle of +gingham apron, jelly-stains, and suspicion. + +"She had her head down like this," she said, in rather a smothered +voice. "I'm her, and you're me. And I says: 'If it's rolled off +somewhere I'll find it next time I sweep, and give it back to you.' +Well, what d'you think of that! Here it is!" + +My attention had by this time been caught by the jelly, now +unmistakably solidifying in the center. I moved to the kitchen door +to tell Delia to take it off the fire. When I returned, Maggie was +digging under the telephone battery-box with a hair-pin and muttering +to herself. + +"Darnation!" she said, "it's gone under!" + +"If you do get it," I reminded her, "it belongs to Miss Emily." + +There is a curious strain of cupidity in Maggie. I have never been +able to understand it. With her own money she is as free as air. +But let her see a chance for illegitimate gain, of finding a penny +on the street, of not paying her fare on the cars, of passing a bad +quarter, and she is filled with an unholy joy. And so today. The +jelly was forgotten. Terror was gone. All that existed for Maggie +was a twenty-five cent piece under a battery-box. + +Suddenly she wailed: "It's gone, Miss Agnes. It's clear under!" + +"Good heavens, Maggie! What difference does it make?" + +"W'you mind if I got the ice-pick and unscrewed the box?" + +My menage is always notoriously short of tools. + +I forbade it at once, and ordered her back to the kitchen, and after +a final squint along the carpet, head flat, she dragged herself out +and to her feet. + +"I'll get the jelly off," she said, "and then maybe a hat pin'll +reach it. I can see the edge of it." + +A loud crack from the kitchen announced that cook had forgotten the +silver spoon, and took Maggie off on a jump. I went back to the +library and "Bolivar County," and, I must confess, to a nap in my +chair. + +I was roused by the feeling that some one was staring at me. My +eyes focused first on the icepick, then, as I slowly raised them, +on Maggie's face, set in hard and uncompromising lines. + +"I'd thank you to come with me," she said stiffly. + +"Come where?" + +"To the telephone." + +I groaned inwardly. But, because submission to Maggie's tyranny +has become a firm habit with me, I rose. I saw then that she held +a dingy quarter in one hand. + +Without a word she turned and stalked ahead of me into the hall. +It is curious, looking back and remembering that she had then no +knowledge of the significance of things, to remember how hard and +inexorable her back was. Viewed through the light of what followed, +I have never been able to visualize Maggie moving down the hall. +It has always been a menacing figure, rather shadowy than real. And +the hail itself takes on grotesque proportions, becomes inordinately +long, an infinity of hall, fading away into time and distance. + +Yet it was only a moment, of course, until I stood by the telephone. +Maggie had been at work. The wooden box which covered the +battery-jars had been removed, and lay on its side. The battery-jars +were uncovered, giving an effect of mystery unveiled, a sort of +shamelessness, of destroyed illusion. + +Maggie pointed. "There's a paper under one of the jars," she said. +"I haven't touched it, but I know well enough what it is." + +I have not questioned Maggie on this point, but I am convinced that +she expected to find a sort of final summons, of death's +visiting-card, for one or the other of us. + +The paper was there, a small folded scrap, partially concealed under +a jar. + +"Them prints was there, too," Maggie said, non-committally. + +The box had accumulated the flocculent floating particles of months, +possibly years--lint from the hall carpet giving it a reddish tinge. +And in this light and evanescent deposit, fluttered by a breath, +fingers had moved, searched, I am tempted to say groped, although +the word seems absurd for anything so small. The imprint of Maggie's +coin and of her attempts at salvage were at the edge and quite +distinct from the others. + +I lifted the jar and picked up the paper. It was folded and refolded +until it was not much larger than a thumb-nail, a rather stiff paper +crossed with faint blue lines. I am not sure that I would have +opened it--it had been so plainly in hiding, and was so obviously +not my affair--had not Maggie suddenly gasped and implored me not +to look at it. I immediately determined to examine it. + +Yet, after I had read it twice, it had hardly made an impression on +my mind. There are some things so incredible that the brain +automatically rejects them. I looked at the paper. I read it with +my eyes. But I did not grasp it. + +It was not note paper. It was apparently torn from a tablet of +glazed and ruled paper--just such paper, for instance, as Maggie +soaks in brandy and places on top of her jelly before tying it up. +It had been raggedly torn. The scrap was the full width of the +sheet, but only three inches or so deep. It was undated, and this +is what it said: + +"To Whom it may concern: On the 30th day of May, 1911, I killed a +woman (here) in this house. I hope you will not find this until +I am dead. + (Signed) EMILY BENTON." + +Maggie had read the confession over my shoulder, and I felt her body +grow rigid. As for myself, my first sensation was one of acute +discomfort--that we should have exposed the confession to the light +of day. Neither of us, I am sure, had really grasped it. Maggie +put a trembling hand on my arm. + +"The brass of her," she said, in a thin, terrified voice. "And +sitting in church like the rest of us. Oh, my God, Miss Agnes, put +it back!" + +I whirled on her, in a fury that was only an outlet for my own shock. + +"Once for all, Maggie," I said, "I'll ask you to wait until you are +spoken to. And if I hear that you have so much as mentioned this +--piece of paper, out you go and never come back." + +But she was beyond apprehension. She was literal, too. She saw, +not Miss Emily unbelievably associated with a crime, but the crime +itself. "Who d'you suppose it was, Miss Agnes?" + +"I don't believe it at all. Some one has placed it there to hurt +Miss Emily." + +"It's her writing," said Maggie doggedly. + +After a time I got rid of her, and sat down to think in the library. +Rather I sat down to reason with myself. + +For every atom of my brain was clamoring that this thing was true, +that my little Miss Emily, exquisite and fine as she was, had done +the thing she claimed to have done. It was her own writing, thin, +faintly shaded, as neat and as erect as herself. But even that I +would not accept, until I had compared it with such bits of hers as +I possessed, the note begging me to take the house, the inscription +on the fly-leaf of "Fifty Years in Bolivar County." + +And here was something I could not quite understand. The writing +was all of the same order, but while the confession and the +inscription in the book were similar, letter for letter, in the +note to me there were differences, a change in the "t" in Benton, +a fuller and blacker stroke, a variation in the terminals of the +letters--it is hard to particularize. + +I spent the remainder of the day in the library, going out for +dinner, of course, but returning to my refuge again immediately +after. Only in the library am I safe from Maggie. By virtue of +her responsibility for my wardrobe, she virtually shares my bedroom, +but her respect for books she never reads makes her regard a +library as at least semi-holy ground. She dusts books with more +caution than china, and her respect for a family Bible is greater +than her respect for me. + +I spent the evening there, Miss Emily's cat on the divan, and the +mysterious confession lying before me under the lamp. At night +the variation between it and her note to me concerning the house +seemed more pronounced. The note looked more like a clumsy +imitation of Miss Emily's own hand. Or--perhaps this is nearer +--as if, after writing in a certain way for sixty years, she had +tried to change her style. + +All my logic ended in one conclusion. She must have known the +confession was there. Therefore the chances were that she had +placed it there. But it was not so simple as that. + +Both crime and confession indicated a degree of impulse that Miss +Emily did not possess. I have entirely failed with my picture of +Miss Emily if the word violence can be associated with her in any +way. Miss Emily was a temple, clean swept, cold, and empty. She +never acted on impulse. Every action, almost every word, seemed +the result of thought and deliberation. + +Yet, if I could believe my eyes, five years before she had killed +a woman in this very house. Possibly in the very room in which I +was then sitting. + +I find, on looking back, that the terror must have left me that day. +It had, for so many weeks, been so much a part of my daily life that +I would have missed it had it not been for this new and engrossing +interest. I remember that the long French windows of the library +reflected the room like mirrors against the darkness outside, and +that once I thought I saw a shadowy movement in one of them, as +though a figure moved behind me. But when I turned sharply there +was no one there, and Maggie proved to be, as usual after nine +o'clock, shut away upstairs. + +I was not terrified. And indeed the fear never returned. In all +the course of my investigations, I was never again a victim of the +unreasoning fright of those earlier days. + +My difficulty was that I was asked to believe the unbelievable. It +was impossible to reconstruct in that quiet house a scene of +violence. It was equally impossible, in view, for instance, of +that calm and filial inscription in the history of Bolivar County, +to connect Miss Emily with it. She had killed a woman, forsooth! +Miss Emily, of the baby afghans, of the weary peddler, of that quiet +seat in the church. + +Yet I knew now that Miss Emily knew of the confession; knew, at +least, of something concealed in that corner of the rear hall which +housed the telephone. Had she by chance an enemy who would have +done this thing? But to suspect Miss Emily of an enemy was as +absurd as to suspect her of a crime. + +I was completely at a loss when I put out the lights and prepared +to close the house. As I glanced back along the hall, I could not +help wondering if the telephone, having given up its secret, would +continue its nocturnal alarms. As I stood there, I heard the low +growl of thunder and the patter of rain against the windows. Partly +out of loneliness, partly out of bravado, I went back to the +telephone and tried to call Willie. But the line was out of order. + +I slept badly. Shortly after I returned I heard a door slamming +repeatedly, which I knew meant an open window somewhere. I got up +and went into the hall. There was a cold air coming from somewhere +below. But as I stood there it ceased. The door above stopped +slamming, and silence reigned again. + +Maggie roused me early. The morning sunlight was just creeping +into the room, and the air was still cool with the night and +fresh-washed by the storm. + +"Miss Agnes," she demanded, standing over me, "did you let the cat +out last night?" + +"I brought him in before I went to bed." + +"Humph!" said Maggie. "And did I or did I not wash the doorstep +yesterday?" + +"You ought to know. You said you did." + +"Miss Agnes," Maggie said, "that woman was in this house last night. +You can see her footprints as plain as day on the doorstep. And +what's more, she stole the cat and let out your mother's Paisley +shawl." + +Which statements, corrected, proved to be true. My old Paisley +shawl was gone from the hallrack, and unquestionably the cat had +been on the back doorstep that morning along with the milk bottles. +Moreover, one of my fresh candles had been lighted, but had burned +for only a moment or two. + +That day I had a second visit from young Martin Sprague. The +telephone was in working order again, having unaccountably recovered, +and I was using it when he came. He watched me quizzically from a +position by the newelpost, as I rang off. + +"I was calling Miss Emily Benton," I explained, "but she is ill." + +"Still troubled with telephobia?" + +"I have other things to worry me, Martin," I said gravely, and let +him into the library. + +There I made a clean breast of everything I omitted nothing. The +fear, the strange ringing of the telephone bell; the gasping +breathing over it the night before; Miss Emily's visit to it. And, +at last, the discovery. + +He took the paper when I offered it to him, and examined it carefully +by a window. Then he stood looking out and whistling reflectively. +At last he turned back to the room. + +"It's an unusual story," he said. "But if you'll give me a little +time I'll explain it to you. In the first place, let go of the +material things for a moment, and let's deal with minds and emotions. +You're a sensitive person, Miss Agnes. You catch a lot of impressions +that pass most people by. And, first of all, you've been catching +fright from two sources." + +"Two sources?" + +"Two. Maggie is one. She hates the country. She is afraid of old +houses. And she sees in this house only the ghosts of people who +have died here." + +"I pay no attention to Maggie's fears." + +"You only think that. But to go further--you have been receiving +waves of apprehension from another source--from the little lady, +Miss Emily." + +"Then you think--" + +"Hold on," he said smiling. "I think she wrote that confession. +Yes. As a matter of fact, I'm quite sure she did. And she has +established a system of espionage on you by means of the telephone. +If you had discovered the confession, she knew that there would be +a change in your voice, in your manner. If you answered very +quickly, as though you had been near the instrument, perhaps in +the very act of discovering the paper--don't you get it? And +can't you see how her terror affected you even over the wire? +Don't you think that, if thought can travel untold distances, fear +can? Of course." + +"But, Martin!" I exclaimed. "Little Miss Emily a murderess." + +He threw up his hands. + +"Certainly not," he said. "You're a shrewd woman, Miss Agnes. Do +you know that a certain type of woman frequently confesses to a +crime she never committed, or had any chance of committing? Look +at the police records--confessions of women as to crimes they could +only have heard of through the newspapers! I would like to wager +that if we had the newspapers of that date that came into this +house, we would find a particularly atrocious and mysterious murder +being featured--the murder of a woman." + +"You do not know her," I maintained doggedly. And drew, as best I +could, a sketch of Miss Emily, while he listened attentively. + +"A pure neurasthenic type," was his comment. "Older than usual, but +that is accountable by the sheltered life she has led. The little +Miss Emily is still at heart a girl. And a hysterical girl." + +"She has had enough trouble to develop her." + +"Trouble! Has she ever had a genuine emotion? Look at this house. +She nursed an old father in it, a bedridden mother, a paretic +brother, when she should have been having children. Don't you see +it, Miss Agnes? All her emotions have had to be mental. Failing +them outside, she provided them for herself. This--" he tapped the +paper in his hand--"this is one." + +I had heard of people confessing to crimes they had never committed, +and at the time Martin Sprague at least partly convinced me. He was +so sure of himself. And when, that afternoon, he telephoned me from +the city to say that he was mailing out some old newspapers, I knew +quite well what he had found. + +"I've thought of something else, Miss Agnes," he said. "If you'll +look it up you will probably find that the little lady had had +either a shock sometime before that, or a long pull of nursing. +Something, anyhow, to set her nervous system to going in the wrong +direction." + +Late that afternoon, as it happened, I was enabled to learn +something of this from a visiting neighbor, and once again I was +forced to acknowledge that he might be right. + +The neighbors had not been over cordial. I had gathered, from the +first, the impression that the members of the Reverend Samuel +Thaddeus Benton's congregation did not fancy an interloper among +the sacred relics of the historian of Bolivar County. And I had +a corroboration of that impression from my visitor of that afternoon, +a Mrs. Graves. + +"I've been slow in coming, Miss Blakiston," she said, seating herself +primly. "I don't suppose you can understand, but this has always been +the Benton place, and it seems strange to us to see new faces here." + +I replied, with some asperity, that I had not been anxious to take +the house, but that Miss Emily had been so insistent that I had +finally done so. + +It seemed to me that she flashed a quick glance at me. + +"She is quite the most loved person in the valley," she said. "And +she loves the place. It is--I cannot imagine why she rented the +house. She is far from comfortable where she is." + +After a time I gathered that she suspected financial stringency as +the cause, and I tried to set her mind at rest. + +"It cannot be money," I said. "The rent is absurdly low. The agent +wished her to ask more, but she refused." + +She sat silent for a time, pulling at the fingers of her white silk +gloves. And when she spoke again it was of the garden. But before +she left she returned to Miss Emily. + +"She has had a hard life, in a way," she said. "It is only five +years since she buried her brother, and her father not long before +that. She has broken a great deal since then. Not that the +brother--" + +"I understand he was a great care." + +Mrs. Graves looked about the room, its shelves piled high with the +ecclesiastical library of the late clergyman. + +"It was not only that," she said. "When he was--all right, he was +an atheist. Imagine, in this house! He had the most terrible +books, Miss Blakiston. And, of course, when a man believes there +is no hereafter, he is apt to lead a wicked life. There is nothing +to hold him back." + +Her mind was on Miss Emily and her problems. She moved abstractedly +toward the door. + +"In this very hall," she said, "I helped Miss Emily to pack all his +books into a box, and we sent for Mr. Staley--the hackman at the +station, you know--and he dumped the whole thing into the river. +We went away with him, and how she cheered up when it was done!" + +Martin Sprague's newspapers arrived the next morning. They bore a +date of two days before the date of the confession, and contained, +rather triumphantly outlined in blue pencil, full details of the +murder of a young woman by some unknown assassin. It had been a +grisly crime, and the paper was filled with details of a most +sensational sort. + +Had I been asked, I would have said that Miss Emily's clear, slightly +upturned eyes had never glanced beyond the merest headlines of such +journalistic reports. But in a letter Martin Sprague set forth a +precisely opposite view. + +"You will probably find," he wrote, "that the little lady is pretty +well fed up on such stuff. The calmer and more placid the daily +life, the more apt is the secret inner one, in such a circumscribed +existence, to be a thriller! You might look over the books in the +house. There is a historic case where a young girl swore she had +tossed her little brother to a den of lions (although there were no +lions near, and little brother was subsequently found asleep in the +attic) after reading Fox's Book of Martyrs. Probably the old +gentleman has this joke book in his library." + +I put down his letter and glanced around the room. Was he right, +after all? Did women, rational, truthful, devout women, ever act +in this strange manner? And if it was true, was it not in its own +way as mysterious as everything else? + +I was, for a time that day, strongly influenced by Martin Sprague's +conviction. It was, for one thing, easier to believe than that +Emily Benton had committed a crime. And, as if to lend color to +his assertion, the sunlight, falling onto the dreary bookshelves, +picked out and illuminated dull gilt letters on the brown back of +a volume. It was Fox's Book of Martyrs! + +If I may analyze my sensations at that time, they divided themselves +into three parts. The first was fear. That seems to have given +away to curiosity, and that at a later period, to an intense anxiety. +Of the three, I have no excuse for the second, save the one I gave +myself at the time--that Miss Emily could not possibly have done the +thing she claimed to have done, and that I must prove her innocence +to myself. + +With regard to Martin Sprague's theory, I was divided. I wanted +him to be right. I wanted him to be wrong. No picture I could +visualize of little old Miss Emily conceivably fitted the type he +had drawn. On the other hand, nothing about her could possibly +confirm the confession as an actual one. + +The scrap of paper became, for the time, my universe. Did I close +my eyes, I saw it side by side with the inscription in "Fifty years +of my Bolivar County," and letter for letter, in the same hand. +Did the sun shine, I had it in the light, examining it, reading it. +To such a point did it obsess me that I refused to allow Maggie to +use a tablet of glazed paper she had found in the kitchen table +drawer to tie up the jelly-glasses. It seemed, somehow, horrible +to me. + +At that time I had no thought of going back five years and trying +to trace the accuracy or falsehood of the confession. I should not +have known how to go about it. Had such a crime been committed, +how to discover it at this late day? Whom in all her sheltered +life, could Miss Emily have murdered? In her small world, who could +have fallen out and left no sign? + +It was impossible, and I knew it. And yet-- + +Miss Emily was ill. The news came through the grocery boy, who +came out every day on a bicycle, and teased the cat and carried +away all the pears as fast as they ripened. Maggie brought me the +information at luncheon. + +"She's sick," she said. + +There was only one person in both our minds those days. + +"Do you mean really ill, or only--" + +"The boy says she's breaking up. If you ask me, she caught cold the +night she broke in here and took your Paisley shawl. And if you ask +my advice, Miss Agnes, you'll get it back again before the heirs +step in and claim it. They don't make them shawls nowadays, and +she's as like as not to will it to somebody if you don't go after +it." + +"Maggie," I said quietly, "how do you know she has that shawl?" + +"How did I know that paper was in the telephone-box?" she countered. + +And, indeed, by that time Maggie had convinced herself that she had +known all along there was something in the telephone battery-box. + +"I've a sort of second sight, Miss Agnes," she added. And, with a +shrewdness I found later was partially correct: "She was snooping +around to see if you'd found that paper, and it came on to rain; +so she took the shawl. I should say," said Maggie, lowering her +voice, "that as like as not she's been in this house every night +since we came." + +Late that afternoon I cut some of the roses from the arch for Miss +Emily, and wrapping them against the sun, carried them to the +village. At the last I hesitated. It was so much like prying. I +turned aside at the church intending to leave them there for the +altar. But I could find no one in the parish house, and no vessel +to hold them. + +It was late afternoon. I opened a door and stepped into the old +church. I knelt for a moment, and then sat back and surveyed the +quiet building. It occurred to me that here one could obtain a +real conception of the Benton family, and of Miss Emily. The +church had been the realest thing in their lives. It had dominated +them, obsessed them. When the Reverend Samuel Thaddeus died, they +had built him, not a monument, but a parish house. When Carlo +Benton died (however did such an ungodly name come to belong to a +Benton?) Miss Emily according to the story, had done without fresh +mourning and built him a window. + +I looked at the window. It was extremely ugly, and very devout. +And under it was the dead man's name and two dates, 1860 and 1911. + +So Carlo Benton had died the year Miss Emily claimed to have done +a murder! Another proof, I reflected that Martin Sprague would +say. He had been on her hands for a long time, both well and ill. +Small wonder if little Miss Emily had fallen to imagining things, +or to confessing them. + +I looked at the memorial window once more, and I could almost +visualize her gathering up the dead man's hateful books, and getting +them as quickly as possible out of the house. Quite possibly there +were unmentionable volumes among them--de Maupassant, perhaps +Boccaccio. I had a distinct picture, too, of Mrs. Graves, lips +primly set, assisting her with hands that fairly itched with the +righteousness of her actions. + +I still held the roses, and as I left the church I decided to lay +them on some grave in the churchyard. I thought it quite likely +that roses from the same arch had been frequently used for that +purpose. Some very young grave, I said to myself, and found one +soon enough, a bit of a rectangle of fresh earth, and a jarful of +pansies on it. It lay in the shadow of the Benton mausoleum. + +That was how I found that Carlo Benton had died on the 27th of May, +1911. + +I cannot claim that the fact at the time had any significance for +me, or that I saw in it anything more than another verification of +Martin Sprague's solution. But it enabled me to reconstruct the +Benton household at the date that had grown so significant. The +30th would have probably been the day after the funeral. Perhaps +the nurse was still there. He had had a nurse for months, according +to Mrs. Graves. And there would have been the airing that follows +long illness and death, the opened windows, the packing up or +giving away of clothing, the pauses and silences, the sense of +strangeness and quiet, the lowered voices. And there would have +been, too, that remorseless packing for destruction of the dead +atheist's books. + +And some time, during that day or the night that followed, little +Miss Emily claimed to have committed her crime. + +I went home thoughtfully. At the gate I turned and looked back. +The Benton Mausoleum was warm in the sunset, and the rose sprays lay, +like outstretched arms, across the tiny grave. + +Maggie is amazingly efficient. I am efficient myself, I trust, but +I modify it with intelligence. It is not to me a vital matter, for +instance, if three dozen glasses of jelly sit on a kitchen table a +day or two after they are prepared for retirement to the fruit +cellar. I rather like to see them, marshaled in their neat rows, +capped with sealing wax and paper, and armed with labels. But +Maggie has neither sentiment nor imagination. Jelly to her is an +institution, not an inspiration. It is subject to certain rules and +rites, of which not the least is the formal interment in the fruit +closet. + +Therefore, after much protesting that night, I agreed to visit the +fruit cellar, and select a spot for the temporary entombing of +thirty-six jelly tumblers, which would have been thirty-seven had +Delia known the efficacy of a silver spoon. I can recall vividly +the mental shift from the confession to that domestic excursion, my +own impatience, Maggie's grim determination, and the curious +denouement of that visit. + + +III + + +I had the very slightest acquaintance with the basement of the +Benton house. I knew it was dry and orderly, and with that my +interest in it ceased. It was not cemented, but its hard clay +floor was almost as solid as macadam. In one end was built a high +potato-bin. In another corner two or three old pews from the church, +evidently long discarded and showing weather-stains, as though they +had once served as garden benches, were up-ended against the +whitewashed wall. The fruit-closet, built in of lumber, occupied +one entire end, and was virtually a room, with a door and no windows. + +Maggie had, she said, found it locked and had had an itinerant +locksmith fit a key to it. + +"It's all scrubbed and ready," she said. "I found that preserved +melon-rind you had for lunch in a corner. 'Twouldn't of kept much +longer, so I took it up and opened it. She's probably got all +sorts of stuff spoiling in the locked part. Some folks're like +that." + +Most of the shelves were open, but now, holding the lamp high, I +saw that a closet with a door occupied one end. The door was +padlocked. At the time I was interested, but I was, as I remember, +much more occupied with Maggie's sense of meum and tuum, which I +considered deficient, and of a small lecture on other people's +melon rinds, which I delivered as she sullenly put away the jelly. + +But that night, after I had gone to bed, the memory of that +padlock became strangely insistent. There was nothing psychic +about the feeling I had. It was perfectly obvious and simple. +The house held, or had held, a secret. Yet it was, above stairs, +as open as the day. There was no corner into which I might not +peer, except--Why was that portion of the fruit-closet locked? + +At two o'clock, finding myself unable to sleep, I got up and put +on my dressing-gown and slippers. I had refused to repeat the +experiment of being locked in. Then, with a candle and a box of +matches, I went downstairs. I had, as I have said, no longer any +terror of the lower floor. The cat lay as usual on the table in +the back hall. I saw his eyes watching me with their curious +unblinking stare, as intelligent as two brass buttons. He rose +as my light approached, and I made a bed for him of a cushion from +a chair, failing my Paisley shawl. + +It was after that that I had the curious sense of being led. It +was as though I knew that something awaited my discovery, and that +my sole volition was whether I should make that discovery or not. +It was there, waiting. + +I have no explanation for this. And it is quite possible that I +might have had it, to find at the end nothing more significant +than root-beer, for instance, or bulbs for the winter garden. + +And indeed, at first sight, what awaited me in the locked closet +amounted to anti-climax. For when I had broken the rusty padlock +open with a hatchet, and had opened doors with nervous fingers, +nothing more startling appeared than a number of books. The +shelves were piled high with them, a motley crew of all colors, +but dark shades predominating. + +I went back to bed, sheepishly enough, and wrapped my chilled +feet in an extra blanket. Maggie came to the door about the +time I was dozing off and said she had heard hammering downstairs +in the cellar some time ago, but she had refused to waken me +until the burglars had gone. + +"If it was burglars," she added, "you're that up-and-ready, Miss +Agnes, that I knew if I waked you you'd be downstairs after them. +What's a bit of silver to a human life?" + +I got her away at last, and she went, muttering something about +digging up the cellar floor and finding an uneasy spirit. Then I +fell asleep. + +I had taken cold that night, and the following morning I spent in +bed. At noon Maggie came upstairs, holding at arm's length a book. +She kept her face averted, and gave me a slanting and outraged +glance. + +"This is a nice place we've come to," she said, acidly. "Murder +in the telephone and anti-Christ in the fruit cellar!" + +"Why, Maggie," I expostulated. + +"If these books stay, I go, and that's flat, Miss Agnes," was her +ipse dixit. She dropped the book on the bed and stalked out, +pausing at the door only to throw back, "If this is a clergyman's +house, I guess I'd be better out of the church." + +I took up the book. It was well-worn, and in the front, in a heavy +masculine hand, the owner had written his name--written it large, +a bit defiantly, perhaps. It had taken both courage and conviction +to bring such a book into that devout household. + +I am not quick, mentally, especially when it comes to logical +thought. I daresay I am intuitive rather than logical. It was not +by any process of reasoning at all, I fancy, that it suddenly seemed +strange that there should be books locked away in the cellar. Yet +it was strange. For that had been a bookish household. Books were +its stock in trade, one may say. Such as I had borrowed from the +library had been carefully tended. Torn leaves were neatly repaired. +The reference books were alphabetically arranged. And, looking back +on my visit to the cellar, I recalled now as inconsistent the +disorder of those basement shelves. + +I did not reach the truth until, that afternoon, I made a second +visit to the cellar. Mrs. Graves had been mistaken. If not all +Carlo Benton's proscribed books were hidden there, at least a +large portion of his library was piled, in something like confusion, +on the shelves. Yet she maintained that they had searched the house, +and she herself had been present when the books were packed and +taken away to the river. + +That afternoon I returned Mrs. Graves's visit. She was at home, +and in a sort of flurried neatness that convinced me she had seen +me from far up the road. That conviction was increased by the +amazing promptness with which a tea-tray followed my entrance. I +had given her tea the day she came to see me, and she was not to +be outdone. Indeed, I somehow gained the impression that tray and +teapot, and even little cakes, had been waiting, day by day, for +my anticipated visit. + +It was not hard to set her talking of Carlo Benton and his +wickedness. She rose to the bait like a hungry fish. Yet I +gathered that, beyond his religious views or lack of them, she knew +nothing. But on the matter of the books she was firm. + +"After the box was ready," she said, "we went to every room and +searched it. Miss Emily was set on clearing out every trace. At +the last minute I found one called 'The Fallacy of Christianity' +slipped down behind the dresser in his room, and we put that in." + +It was "The Fallacy of Christianity" that Maggie had brought me +that morning. + +"It is a most interesting story," I observed. "What delicious tea, +Mrs. Graves! And then you fastened up the box and saw it thrown +into the river. It was quite a ceremony." + +"My dear," Mrs. Graves said solemnly, "it was not a ceremony. It +was a rite--a significant rite." + +How can I reconcile the thoughts I had that afternoon with my later +visit to Miss Emily? The little upper room in the village, dominated +and almost filled by an old-fashioned bed, and Miss Emily, frail and +delicate and beautifully neat, propped with pillows and holding a +fine handkerchief, as fresh as the flutings of her small cap, in her +hand. On a small stand beside the bed were her Bible, her spectacles, +and her quaint old-fashioned gold watch. + +And Miss Emily herself? She was altered, shockingly altered. A +certain tenseness had gone, a tenseness that had seemed to uphold +her frail body and carry her about. Only her eyes seemed greatly +alive, and before I left they, too, had ceased their searching of +mine and looked weary and old. + +And, at the end of my short visit, I had reluctantly reached this +conclusion: either Miss Emily had done the thing she confessed to +doing, incredible as it might appear, or she thought she had done +it; and the thing was killing her. + +She knew I had found the confession. I knew that. It was written +large over her. What she had expected me to do God only knows. To +stand up and denounce her? To summon the law? I do not know. + +She said an extraordinary thing, when at last I rose to go. I +believe now that it was to give me my chance to speak. Probably she +found the suspense intolerable. But I could not do it. I was too +surprised, too perplexed, too--well, afraid of hurting her. I had +the feeling, I know, that I must protect her. And that feeling +never left me until the end. + +"I think you must know, my dear," she said, from her pillows, "that +I have your Paisley shawl." + +I was breathless. "I thought that, perhaps"--I stumbled. + +"It was raining that night," she said in her soft, delicate voice. +"I have had it dried and pressed. It is not hurt. I thought you +would not mind," she concluded. + +"It does not matter at all--not in the least," I said unhappily. + +I am quite sure now that she meant me to speak then. I can recall +the way she fixed her eyes on me, serene and expectant. She was +waiting. But to save my life I could not. And she did not. Had +she gone as far as she had the strength to go? Or was this again +one of those curious pacts of hers--if I spoke or was silent, it +was to be? + +I do not know. + +I do know that we were both silent and that at last, with a quick +breath, she reached out and thumped on the floor with a cane that +stood beside the bed until a girl came running up from below stairs. + +"Get the shawl, Fanny, dear," said Miss Emily, "and wrap it up for +Miss Blakiston." + +I wanted desperately, while the girl left the room to obey, to say +something helpful, something reassuring. But I could not. My voice +failed me. And Miss Emily did not give me another opportunity. She +thanked me rather formally for the flowers I had brought from her +garden, and let me go at last with the parcel under my arm, without +further reference to it. The situation was incredible. + +Somehow I had the feeling that Miss Emily would never reopen the +subject again. She had given me my chance, at who knows what cost, +and I had not taken it. There had been something in her good-by--I +can not find words for it, but it was perhaps a finality, an effect +of a closed door--that I felt without being able to analyze. + +I walked back to the house, refusing the offices of Mr. Staley, who +met me on the road. I needed to think. But thinking took me +nowhere. Only one conclusion stood out as a result of a mile and a +half of mental struggle. Something must be done. Miss Emily ought +to be helped. She was under a strain that was killing her. + +But to help I should know the facts. Only, were there any facts to +know? Suppose--just by way of argument, for I did not believe it-- +that the confession was true; how could I find out anything about it? +Five years was a long time. I could not go to the neighbors. They +were none too friendly as it was. Besides, the secret, if there was +one, was not mine, but was Miss Emily's. + +I reached home at last, and smuggled the shawl into the house. I +had no intention of explaining its return to Maggie. Yet, small +as it was in its way, it offered a problem at once. For Maggie +has a penetrating eye and an inquiring nature. I finally decided +to take the bull by the horns and hang it in its accustomed place +in the hall, where Maggie, finding it at nine o'clock that evening, +set up such a series of shrieks and exclamations as surpassed even +her own record. + +I knitted that evening. It has been my custom for years to knit +bedroom-slippers for an old ladies' home in which I am interested. +Because I can work at them with my eyes shut, through long practise, +I find the work soothing. So that evening I knitted at Eliza +Klinordlinger's fifth annual right slipper, and tried to develop a +course of action. + +I began with a major premise--to regard the confession as a real +one, until it was proved otherwise. Granted, then, that my little +old Miss Emily had killed a woman. + +1st--Who was the woman? + +2nd--Where is the body? + +3rd--What was the reason for the crime? + +Question two I had a tentative answer for. However horrible and +incredible it seemed, it was at least possible that Miss Emily had +substituted the body for the books, and that what Mrs. Graves +described as a rite had indeed been one. But that brought up a +picture I could not face. And yet-- + +I called up the local physician, a Doctor Lingard, that night and +asked him about Miss Emily's condition. He was quite frank with me. + +"It's just a breaking up," he said. "It has come early, because she +has had a trying life, and more responsibility than she should have +had." + +"I have been wondering if a change of scene would not be a good +thing," I suggested. But he was almost scornful. + +"Change!" he said. "I've been after her to get away for years. She +won't leave. I don't believe she has been twelve miles away in +thirty years." + +"I suppose her brother was a great care," I observed. + +It seemed to me that the doctor's hearty voice was a trifle less +frank when he replied. But when I rang off I told myself that I, +too, was becoming neurasthenic and suspicious. I had, however, +learned what I had wanted to know. Miss Emily had had no life +outside Bolivar County. The place to look for her story was here, +in the immediate vicinity. + +That night I made a second visit to the basement. It seemed to me, +with those chaotic shelves before me, that something of the haste +and terror of a night five years before came back to me, a night +when, confronted by the necessity for concealing a crime, the box +upstairs had been hurriedly unpacked, its contents hidden here and +locked away, and some other content, inert and heavy, had taken the +place of the books. + +Miss Emily in her high bed, her Bible and spectacles on the stand +beside her, her starched pillows, her soft and highbred voice? Or +another Miss Emily, panting and terror-stricken, carrying down her +armfuls of forbidden books, her slight figure bent under their +weight, her ears open for sounds from the silent house? Or that +third Miss Emily, Martin Sprague's, a strange wild creature, neither +sane nor insane, building a crime out of the fabric of a nightmare? +Which was the real Emily Benton? + +Or was there another contingency that I had not thought of? Had +some secret enemy of Miss Emily's, some hysterical girl from the +parish, suffering under a fancied slight, or some dismissed and +revengeful servant, taken this strange method of retaliation, done +it and then warned the little old lady that her house contained such +a paper? I confess that this last thought took hold on me. It +offered a way out that I clutched at. + +I had an almost frantic feeling by that time that I must know the +truth. Suspense was weighing on me. And Maggie, never slow to +voice an unpleasant truth, said that night, as she brought the +carafe of ice-water to the library, "You're going off the last few +days, Miss Agnes." And when I made no reply: "You're sagging around +the chin. There's nothing shows age like the chin. If you'd rub a +little lemon-juice on at night you'd tighten up some." + +I ignored her elaborately, but I knew she was right. Heat and +sleepless nights and those early days of fear had told on me. And +although I usually disregard Maggie's cosmetic suggestions, culled +from the beauty columns of the evening paper, a look in the mirror +decided me. I went downstairs for the lemon. At least, I thought +it was for the lemon. I am not sure. I have come to be uncertain +of my motives. It is distinctly possible that, sub-consciously, +I was making for the cellar all the time. I only know that I landed +there, with a lemon in my hand, at something after eleven o'clock. + +The books were piled in disorder on the shelves. Their five years +of burial had not hurt them beyond a slight dampness of the leaves. +No hand, I believe, had touched them since they were taken from the +box where Mrs. Graves had helped to pack them. Then, if I were +shrewd, I should perhaps gather something from their very disorder, +But, as a matter of fact, I did not. + +I would, quite certainly, have gone away as I came, clueless, had I +not attempted to straighten a pile of books, dangerously sagging-- +like my chin!--and threatening a fall. My effort was rewarded by +a veritable Niagara of books. They poured over the edge, a few +first, then more, until I stood, it seemed, knee-deep in a raging +sea of atheism. + +Somewhat grimly I set to work to repair the damage, and one by one +I picked them up and restored them. I put them in methodically this +time, glancing at each title to place the volume upright. Suddenly, +out of the darkness of unbelief, a title caught my eye and held it, +"The Handwriting of God." I knew the book. It had fallen into bad +company, but its theology was unimpeachable. It did not belong. +It-- + +I opened it. The Reverend Samuel Thaddeus had written his own name +in it, in the cramped hand I had grown to know. Evidently its +presence there was accidental. I turned it over in my hands, and +saw that it was closed down on something, on several things, indeed. +They proved to be a small black note-book, a pair of spectacles, a +woman's handkerchief. + +I stood there looking at them. They might mean nothing but the +accidental closing of a book, which was mistakenly placed in bad +company, perhaps by Mrs. Graves. I was inclined to doubt her +knowledge of religious literature. Or they might mean something +more, something I had feared to find. + +Armed with the volume, and the lemon forgotten--where the cook +found it the next day and made much of the mystery--I went upstairs +again. + +Viewed in a strong light, the three articles took on real +significance. The spectacles I fancied were Miss Emily's. They +were, to all appearances, the duplicates of those on her tidy +bedside stand. But the handkerchief was not hers. Even without +the scent, which had left it, but clung obstinately to the pages +of the book, I knew it was not hers. It was florid, embroidered, +and cheap. And held close to the light, I made out a laundry-mark +in ink on the border. The name was either Wright or Knight. + +The note-book was an old one, and covered a period of almost twenty +years. It contained dates and cash entries. The entries were +nearly all in the Reverend Samuel Thaddeus's hand, but after the +date of his death they had been continued in Miss Emily's writing. +They varied little, save that the amounts gradually increased toward +the end, and the dates were further apart. Thus, in 1898 there were +six entries, aggregating five hundred dollars. In 1902-1903 there +were no entries at all, but in 1904 there was a single memorandum of +a thousand dollars. The entire amount must have been close to +twenty-five thousand dollars. There was nothing to show whether +it was money saved or money spent, money paid out or come in. + +But across the years 1902 and 1903, the Reverend Thaddeus had written +diagonally the word "Australia." There was a certain amount of +enlightenment there. Carlo Benton had been in Australia during those +years. In his "Fifty Years in Bolivar County," the father had rather +naively quoted a letter from Carlo Benton in Melbourne. A record, +then, in all probability, of sums paid by this harassed old man to a +worthless son. + +Only the handkerchief refused to be accounted for. + +I did not sleep that night. More and more, as I lay wide-eyed +through the night, it seemed to me that Miss Emily must be helped, +that she was drifting miserably out of life for need of a helping +hand. + +Once, toward morning, I dozed off, to waken in a state of terror +that I recognized as a return of the old fear. But it left me soon, +although I lay awake until morning. + +That day I made two resolves--to send for Willie and to make a +determined effort to see the night telephone-operator. My letter +to Willie off, I tried to fill the day until the hour when the +night telephone-operator was up and about, late in the afternoon. + +The delay was simplified by the arrival of Mrs. Graves, in white +silk gloves and a black cotton umbrella as a sunshade. She had +lost her air of being afraid I might patronize her, and explained +pantingly that she had come on an errand, not to call. + +"I'm at my Christmas presents now," she said, "and I've fixed on +a bedroom set for Miss Emily. I suppose you won't care if I go +right up and measure the dresser-top, will you?" + +I took her up, and her sharp eyes roved over the stairs and the +upper hall. + +"That's where Carlo died," she said. "It's never been used since, +unless you--" she had paused, staring into Miss Emily's deserted +bedroom. "It's a good thing I came," she said. "The eye's no use +to trust to, especially for bureaus." + +She looked around the room. There was, at that moment, something +tender about her. She even lowered her voice and softened it. It +took on, almost comically, the refinements of Miss Emily's own speech. + +"Whose photograph is that?" she asked suddenly. "I don't know that +I ever saw it before. But it looks familiar, too." + +She reflected before it. It was clear that she felt a sort of +resentment at not recognizing the young and smiling woman in the old +walnut frame, but a moment later she was measuring the dresser-top, +her mind set on Christmas benevolence. + +However, before she went out, she paused near the photograph. + +"It's queer," she said. "I've been in this room about a thousand +times, and I've never noticed it before. I suppose you can get so +accustomed to a thing that you don't notice it." + +As she went out, she turned to me, and I gathered that not only the +measurement for a gift had brought her that afternoon. + +"About those books," she said. "I run on a lot when I get to +talking. I suppose I shouldn't have mentioned them. But I'm sure +you'll keep the story to yourself. I've never even told Mr. Graves." + +"Of course I shall," I assured her. "But--didn't the hackman see +you packing the books?" + +"No, indeed. We packed them the afternoon after the funeral, and it +was the next day that Staley took them off. He thought it was old +bedding and so on, and he hinted to have it given to him. So Miss +Emily and I went along to see it was done right." + +So I discovered that the box had sat overnight in the Benton house. +There remained, if I was to help Miss Emily, to discover what had +occurred in those dark hours when the books were taken out and +something else substituted. + +The total result of my conversation that afternoon on the front +porch of the small frame house on a side street with the night +telephone-operator was additional mystery. + +I was not prepared for it. I had anticipated resentment and possibly +insolence. But I had not expected to find fright. Yet the girl was +undeniably frightened. I had hardly told her the object of my visit +before I realized that she was in a state of almost panic. + +"You can understand how I feel," I said. "I have no desire to +report the matter, of course. But some one has been calling the +house repeatedly at night, listening until I reply, and then +hanging up the receiver. It is not accidental. It has happened +too often." + +"I'm not supposed to give out information about calls." + +"But--just think a moment," I went on. "Suppose some one is +planning to rob the house, and using this method of finding out if +we are there or not?" + +"I don't remember anything about the calls you are talking about," +she parried, without looking at me. "As busy as I am--" + +"Nonsense," I put in, "you know perfectly well what I am talking +about. How do I know but that it is the intention of some one to +lure me downstairs to the telephone and then murder me?" + +"I am sure it is not that," she said. For almost the first time +she looked directly at me, and I caught a flash of something--not +defiance. It was, indeed, rather like reassurance. + +"You see, you know it is not that." I felt all at once that she +did know who was calling me at night, and why. And, moreover, that +she would not tell. If, as I suspected, it was Miss Emily, this +girl must be to some extent in her confidence. + +"But--suppose for a moment that I think I know who is calling me?" +I hesitated. She was a pretty girl, with an amiable face, and more +than a suggestion of good breeding and intelligence about her. I +made a quick resolve to appeal to her. "My dear child," I said, "I +want so very much, if I can, to help some one who is in trouble. +But before I can help, I must know that I can help, and I must be +sure it is necessary. I wonder if you know what I am talking about?" + +"Why don't you go back to the city?" she said suddenly. "Go away +and forget all about us here. That would help more than anything." + +"But--would it?" I asked gently. "Would my going away help--her?" + +To my absolute amazement she began to cry. We had been sitting on +a cheap porch seat, side by side, and she turned her back to me and +put her head against the arm of the bench. + +"She's going to die!" she said shakily. "She's weaker every day. +She is slipping away, and no one does anything." + +But I got nothing more from her. She had understood me, it was +clear, and when at last she stopped crying, she knew well enough +that she had betrayed her understanding. But she would not talk. +I felt that she was not unfriendly, and that she was uncertain +rather than stubborn. In the end I got up, little better off +than when I came. + +"I'll give you time to think it over," I said. "Not so much about +the telephone calls, because you've really answered that. But +about Miss Emily. She needs help, and I want to help her. But +you tie my hands." + +She had a sort of gift for silence. As I grew later on to know +Anne Bullard better, I realized that even more. So now she sat +silent, and let me talk. + +"What I want," I said, "is to have Miss Emily know that I am +friendly--that I am willing to do anything to--to show my +friendliness. Anything." + +"You see," she said, with a kind of dogged patience, "it isn't +really up to you, or to me either. It's something else." She +hesitated. "She's very obstinate," she added. + +When I went away I was aware that her eyes followed me, anxious +and thoughtful eyes, with something of Miss Emily's own wide-eyed +gaze. + +Willie came late the next evening. I had indeed gone up-stairs to +retire when I heard his car in the drive. When I admitted him, he +drew me into the library and gave me a good looking over. + +"As I thought!" he said. "Nerves gone, looks gone. I told you +Maggie would put a curse on you. What is it?" + +So I told him. The telephone he already knew about. The confession +he read over twice, and then observed, characteristically, that he +would be eternally--I think the word is "hornswoggled." + +When I brought out "The Handwriting of God," following Mrs. Graves's +story of the books, he looked thoughtful. And indeed by the end of +the recital he was very grave. + +"Sprague is a lunatic," he said, with conviction. "There was a body, +and it went into the river in the packing-case. It is distinctly +possible that this Knight--or Wright--woman, who owned the +handkerchief, was the victim. However, that's for later on. The +plain truth is, that there was a murder, and that Miss Emily is +shielding some one else." + +And, after all, that was the only immediate result of Willie's visit +--a new theory! So that now it stood: there was a crime. There was +no crime. Miss Emily had committed it. Miss Emily had not committed +it. Miss Emily had confessed it, but some one else had committed it. + +For a few hours, however, our attention was distracted from Miss +Emily and her concerns by the attempted robbery of the house that +night. I knew nothing of it until I heard Willie shouting downstairs. +I was deeply asleep, relaxed no doubt by the consciousness that at +last there was a man in the house. And, indeed, Maggie slept for +the same reason through the entire occurrence. + +"Stop, or I'll fire!" Willie repeated, as I sat up in bed. + +I knew quite well that he had no weapon. There was not one in the +house. But the next moment there was a loud report, either a door +slamming or a pistol-shot, and I ran to the head of the stairs. + +There was no light below, but a current of cool night air came up +the staircase. And suddenly I realized that there was complete +silence in the house. + +"Willie!" I cried out, in an agony of fright. But he did not reply. +And then, suddenly, the telephone rang. + +I did not answer it. I know now why it rang, that there was real +anxiety behind its summons. But I hardly heard it then. I was +convinced that Willie had been shot. + +I must have gone noiselessly down the stairs, and at the foot I +ran directly into Willie. He was standing there, only a deeper +shadow in the blackness, and I had placed my hand over his, as +it lay on the newel-post, before he knew I was on the staircase. +He wheeled sharply, and I felt, to my surprise, that he held a +revolver in his hand. + +"Willie! What is it?" I said in a low tone. + +"'Sh," he whispered. "Don't move--or speak." + +We listened, standing together. There were undoubtedly sounds +outside, some one moving about, a hand on a window-catch, and +finally not particularly cautious steps at the front door. It +swung open. I could hear it creak as it moved slowly on its +hinges. + +I put a hand out to steady myself by the comfort of Willie's presence +before me, between me and that softly-opening door. But Willie was +moving forward, crouched down, I fancied, and the memory of that +revolver terrified me. + +"Don't shoot him, Willie!" I almost shrieked. + +"Shoot whom?" said Willie's cool voice, just inside the door. + +I knew then, and I went sick all over. Somewhere in the hall +between us crouched the man I had taken for Willie, crouched with +a revolver in his right hand. The door was still open, I knew, +and I could hear Willie fumbling on the hall-stand for matches. +I called out something incoherent about not striking a light; but +Willie, whistling softly to show how cool he was, struck a match. +It was followed instantly by a report, and I closed my eyes. + +When I opened them, Willie was standing unhurt, staring over the +burning match at the door, which was closed, and I knew that the +report had been but the bang of the heavy door. + +"What in blazes slammed that door?" he said. + +"The burglar, or whatever he is," I said, my voice trembling in +spite of me. "He was here, in front of me. I laid my hand on his. +He had a revolver in it. When you opened the door, he slipped out +past you." + +Willie muttered something, and went toward the door. A moment +later I was alone again, and the telephone was ringing. I felt my +way back along the hall. I touched the cat, which had been sleeping +on the telephone-stand. He merely turned over. + +I have tried, in living that night over again, to record things as +they impressed me. For, after all, this is a narrative of motive +rather than of incidents, of emotions as against deeds. But at +the time, the brief conversation over the telephone seemed to me +both horrible and unnatural. + +From a great distance a woman's voice said, "Is anything wrong +there?" + +That was the first question, and I felt quite sure that it was the +Bullard girl's voice. That is, looking back from the safety of +the next day, I so decided. At the time I had no thought whatever. + +"There is nothing wrong," I replied. I do not know why I said it. +Surely there was enough wrong, with Willie chasing an armed intruder +through the garden. + +I thought the connection had been cut, for there was a buzzing on +the wire. But a second or so later there came an entirely different +voice, one I had never heard before, a plaintive voice, full, I +thought, of tears. + +"Oh, please," said this voice, "go out and look in your garden, or +along the road. Please--quickly!" + +"You will have to explain," I said impatiently. "Of course we will +go and look, but who is it, and why--" + +I was cut off there, definitely, and I could not get "central's" +attention again. + +Willie's voice from the veranda boomed through the lower floor. +"This is I," he called, "No boiling water, please. I am coming in." + +He went into the library and lighted a lamp. He was smiling when I +entered, a reassuring smile, but rather a sheepish one, too. + +"To think of letting him get by like that!" he said. "The cheapest +kind of a trick. He had slammed the door before to make me think +he had gone out, and all the time he was inside. And you--why +didn't you scream?" + +"I thought it was you," I told him. + +The library was in chaos. Letters were lying about, papers, books. +The drawer of the large desk-table in the center of the room had +been drawn out and searched. "The History of Bolivar County," for +instance, was lying on the floor, face down, in a most ignoble +position. In one place books had been taken from a recess by the +fireplace, revealing a small wall cupboard behind. I had never +known of the hiding-place, but a glance into it revealed only +a bottle of red ink and the manuscript of a sermon on missions. + +Standing in the disorder of the room, I told Willie about the +telephone-message. He listened attentively, and at first +skeptically. + +"Probably a ruse to get us out of the house, but coming a trifle +late to be useful," was his comment. But I had read distress in +the second voice, and said so. At last he went to the telephone. + +"I'll verify it," he explained. "If some one is really anxious, +I'll get the car and take a scout around." + +But he received no satisfaction from the Bullard girl, who, he +reported, listened stoically and then said she was sorry, but she +did not remember who had called. On his reminding her that she +must have a record, she countered with the flat statement that +there had been no call for us that night. + +Willie looked thoughtful when he returned to the library. "There's +a queer story back of all this," he said. "I think I'll get the car +and scout around." + +"He is armed, Willie," I protested. + +"He doesn't want to shoot me, or he could have done it," was his +answer. "I'll just take a look around, and come back to report." + +It was half-past three by the time he was ready to go. He was, as +he observed, rather sketchily clad, but the night was warm. I saw +him off, and locked the door behind him. Then I went into the +library to wait and to put things to rights while I waited. + +The dawn is early in August, and although it was not more than +half-past four when Willie came back, it was about daylight by that +time. I went to the door and watched him bring the car to a +standstill. He shook his head when he saw me. + +"Absolutely nothing," he said. "It was a ruse to get me out of the +house, of course. I've run the whole way between here and town +twice." + +"But that could not have taken an hour," I protested. + +"No," he said. "I met the doctor--what's his name?--the local +M.D. anyhow--footing it out of the village to a case, and I took +him to his destination. He has a car, it seems, but it's out of +order. Interesting old chap," he added, as I led the way into the +house. "Didn't know me from Adam, but opened up when he found who +I was." + +I had prepared the coffee machine and carried the tray to the +library. While I lighted the lamp, he stood, whistling softly, and +thoughtfully. At last he said: + +"Look here, Aunt Agnes, I think I'm a good bit of a fool, but--some +time this morning I wish you would call up Thomas Jenkins, on the +Elmburg road, and find out if any one is sick there." + +But when I stared at him, he only laughed sheepishly. "You can see +how your suspicious disposition has undermined and ruined my once +trusting nature," he scoffed. + +He took his coffee, and then, stripping off his ulster, departed for +bed. I stopped to put away the coffee machine, and with Maggie in +mind, to hang up his motor-coat. It was then that the flashlight +fell out. I picked it up. It was shaped like a revolver. + +I stopped in Willie's room on my way to my own, and held it out to +him. + +"Where did you get that?" I asked. + +"Good heavens!" he said, raising himself on his elbow. "It belongs +to the doctor. He gave it to me to examine the fan belt. I must +have dropped it into my pocket." + +And still I was nowhere. Suppose I had touched this flashlight at +the foot of the stairs and mistaken it for a revolver. Suppose that +the doctor, making his way toward the village and finding himself +pursued, had faced about and pretended to be leaving it? Grant, in +a word, that Doctor Lingard himself had been our night visitor--what +then? Why had he done it? What of the telephone-call, urging me to +search the road? Did some one realize what was happening, and take +this method of warning us and sending us after the fugitive? + +I knew the Thomas Jenkins farm on the Elmsburg road. I had, indeed, +bought vegetables and eggs from Mr. Jenkins himself. That morning, +as early as I dared, I called the Jenkins farm. Mr. Jenkins himself +would bring me three dozen eggs that day. They were a little torn up +out there, as Mrs. Jenkins had borne a small daughter at seven A.M. + +When I told Willie, he was evidently relieved. "I'm glad of it," he +said heartily. "The doctor's a fine old chap, and I'd hate to think +he was mixed up in any shady business." + +He was insistent, that day, that I give up the house. He said it +was not safe, and I was inclined to agree with him. But although I +did not tell him of it, I had even more strongly than ever the +impression that something must be done to help Miss Emily, and that +I was the one who must do it. + +Yet, in the broad light of day, with the sunshine pouring into the +rooms, I was compelled to confess that Willie's theory was more +than upheld by the facts. First of all was the character of Miss +Emily as I read it, sternly conscientious, proud, and yet gentle. +Second, there was the connection of the Bullard girl with the case. +And third, there was the invader of the night before, an unknown +quantity where so much seemed known, where a situation involving +Miss Emily alone seemed to call for no one else. + +Willie put the matter flatly to me as he stood in the hall, drawing +on his driving gloves. + +"Do you want to follow it up?" he asked. "Isn't it better to let +it go? After all, you have only rented the house. You haven't +taken over its history, or any responsibility but the rent." + +"I think Miss Emily needs to be helped," I said, rather feebly. + +"Let her friends help her. She has plenty of them. Besides, isn't +it rather a queer way to help her, to try to fasten a murder on her?" + +I could not explain what I felt so strongly--that Miss Emily could +only be helped by being hurt, that whatever she was concealing, the +long concealment was killing her. That I felt in her--it is always +difficult to put what I felt about Miss Emily into words--that she +both hoped for and dreaded desperately the light of the truth. + +But if I was hardly practical when it came to Miss Emily, I was +rational enough in other things. It is with no small pride--but +without exultation, for in the end it cost too much--that I point +to the solution of one issue as my own. + +With Willie gone, Maggie and I settled down to the quiet tenure of +our days. She informed me, on the morning after that eventful night, +that she had not closed an eye after one o'clock! She came into the +library and asked me if I could order her some sleeping-powders. + +"Fiddlesticks!" I said sharply. "You slept all night. I was up +and around the house, and you never knew it." + +"Honest to heaven, Miss Agnes, I never slep' at all. I heard a +horse galloping', like it was runnin' off, and it waked me for good." + +And after a time I felt that, however mistaken Maggie had been about +her night's sleep, she was possibly correct about the horse. + +"He started to run about the stable somewhere," she said. "You can +smile if you want. That's the heaven's truth. And he came down +the drive on the jump and out onto the road." + +"We can go and look for hoof-marks," I said, and rose. But Maggie +only shook her head. + +"It was no real horse, Miss Agnes," she said. "You'll find nothing. +Anyhow, I've been and looked. There's not a mark." + +But Maggie was wrong. I found hoof-prints in plenty in the turf +beside the drive, and a track of them through the lettuce-bed in +the garden. More than that, behind the stable I found where +a horse had been tied and had broken away. A piece of worn strap +still hung there. It was sufficiently clear, then, that whoever +had broken into the house had come on horseback and left afoot. +But many people in the neighborhood used horses. The clue, if +clue it can be called, got me nowhere. + + + +IV + + +For several days things remained in statu quo. Our lives went on +evenly. The telephone was at our service, without any of its past +vagaries. Maggie's eyes ceased to look as if they were being +pushed out from behind, and I ceased to waken at night and listen +for untoward signs. + +Willie telephoned daily. He was frankly uneasy about my remaining +there. "You know something that somebody resents your knowing," +he said, a day or two after the night visitor. "It may become +very uncomfortable for you." + +And, after a day or two, I began to feel that it was being made +uncomfortable for me. I am a social being; I like people. In +the city my neighborly instincts have died of a sort of brick wall +apathy, but in the country it comes to life again. The instinct +of gregariousness is as old as the first hamlets, I daresay, when +prehistoric man ceased to live in trees, and banded together for +protection from the wild beasts that walked the earth. + +The village became unfriendly. It was almost a matter of a night. +One day the postmistress leaned on the shelf at her window and +chatted with me. The next she passed out my letters with hardly +a glance. Mrs. Graves did not see me at early communion on Sunday +morning. The hackman was busy when I called him. It was intangible, +a matter of omission, not commission. The doctor's wife, who had +asked me to tea, called up and regretted that she must go to the +city that day. + +I sat down then and took stock of things. Did the village believe +that Miss Emily must be saved from me? Did the village know the +story I was trying to learn, and was it determined I should never +find out the truth? And, if this were so, was the village right +or was I? They would save Miss Emily by concealment, while I felt +that concealment had failed, and that only the truth would do. +Did the village know, or only suspect? Or was it not the village +at all, but one or two people who were determined to drive me away? + +My theories were rudely disturbed shortly after that by a visit +from Martin Sprague. I fancied that Willie had sent him, but he +evaded my question. + +"I'd like another look at that slip of paper," he said. "Where do +you keep it, by the way?" + +"In a safe place," I replied non-committally, and he laughed. The +truth was that I had taken out the removable inner sole of a slipper +and had placed it underneath, an excellent hiding-place, but one I +did not care to confide to him. When I had brought it downstairs, +he read it over again carefully, and then sat back with it in his +hand. + +"Now tell me about everything," he said. + +I did, while he listened attentively. Afterward we walked back to +the barn, and I showed him the piece of broken halter still tied +there. + +He surveyed it without comment, but on the way back to the house he +said: "If the village is lined up as you say it is, I suppose it is +useless to interview the harness-maker. He has probably repaired +that strap, or sold a new one, to whoever-- It would be a nice clue +to follow up." + +"I am not doing detective work," I said shortly. "I am trying to +help some one who is dying of anxiety and terror." + +He nodded. "I get you," he said. But his tone was not flippant. +"The fact is, of course, that the early theory won't hold. There +has been a crime, and the little old lady did not commit it. But +suppose you find out who did it. How is that going to help her?" + +"I don't know, Martin," I said, in a sort of desperation. "But I +have the most curious feeling that she is depending on me. The way +she spoke the day I saw her, and her eyes and everything; I know +you think it nonsense," I finished lamely. + +"I think you'd better give up the place and go back to town," he +said. But I saw that he watched me carefully, and when, at last he +got up to go, he put a hand on my shoulder. + +"I think you are right, after all," he said. "There are a good +many things that can't be reasoned out with any logic we have, but +that are true, nevertheless. We call it intuition, but it's +really subconscious intelligence. Stay, by all means, if you feel +you should." + +In the doorway he said: "Remember this, Miss Agnes. Both a crime +of violence and a confession like the one in your hand are the +products of impulse. They are not, either of them, premeditated. +They are not the work, then, of a calculating or cautious nature. +Look for a big, emotional type." + +It was a day or two after that that I made my visit to Miss Emily. +I had stopped once before, to be told with an air of finality that +the invalid was asleep. On this occasion I took with me a basket +of fruit. I had half expected a refusal, but I was admitted. + +The Bullard girl was with Miss Emily. She had, I think, been +kneeling beside the bed, and her eyes were red and swollen. But +Miss Emily herself was as cool, as dainty and starched and fragile +as ever. More so, I thought. She was thinner, and although it +was a warm August day, a white silk shawl was wrapped around her +shoulders and fastened with an amethyst brooch. In my clasp her +thin hand felt hot and dry. + +"I have been waiting for you," she said simply. She looked at +Anne Bullard, and the message in her eyes was plain enough. But +the girl ignored it. She stood across the bed from me and eyed +me steadily. + +"My dear," said Miss Emily, in her high-bred voice, "if you have +anything to do, Miss Blakiston will sit with me for a little +while." + +"I have nothing to do," said the girl doggedly. Perhaps this is +not the word. She had more the look of endurance and supreme +patience. There was no sharpness about her, although there was +vigilance. + +Miss Emily sighed, and I saw her eyes seek the Bible beside her. +But she only said gently: "Then sit down, dear. You can work at +my knitting if you like. My hands get very tired." + +She asked me questions about the house and the garden. The +raspberries were usually quite good, and she was rather celebrated +for her lettuces. If I had more than I needed, would I mind +if Mr. Staley took a few in to the doctor, who was fond of them. + +The mention of Doctor Lingard took me back to the night of the +burglary. I wondered if to tell Miss Emily would unduly agitate +her. I think I would not have told her, but I caught the girl's +eye, across the bed, raised from her knitting and fixed on me with +a peculiar intensity. Suddenly it seemed to me that Miss Emily +was surrounded by a conspiracy of silence, and it roused my +antagonism. + +"There are plenty of lettuces," I said, "although a few were +trampled by a runaway horse the other night. It is rather a +curious story." + +So I told her of our night visitor. I told it humorously, lightly, +touching on my own horror at finding I had been standing with my +hand on the burglar's shoulder. But I was sorry for my impulse +immediately, for I saw Miss Emily's body grow rigid, and her hands +twist together. She did not look at me. She stared fixedly at the +girl. Their eyes met. + +It was as if Miss Emily asked a question which the girl refused to +answer. It was as certain as though it had been a matter of words +instead of glances. It was over in a moment. Miss Bullard went +back to her knitting, but Miss Emily lay still. + +"I think I should not have told you," I apologized. "I thought it +might interest you. Of course nothing whatever was taken, and no +damage done--except to the lettuces." + +"Anne," said Miss Emily, "will you bring me some fresh water?" + +The girl rose reluctantly, but she did not go farther than the top +of the staircase, just beyond the door. We heard her calling to +some one below, in her clear young voice, to bring the water, and +the next moment she was back in the room. But Miss Emily had had +the opportunity for one sentence. + +"I know now," she said quietly, "that you have found it." + +Anne Bullard was watching from the doorway, and it seemed to me, +having got so far, I could not retreat. I must go on. + +"Miss Bullard," I said. "I would like to have just a short +conversation with Miss Emily. It is about a private matter. I am +sure you will not mind if I ask you--" + +"I shall not go out." + +"Anne!" said Miss Emily sharply. + +The girl was dogged enough by that time. Both dogged and frightened, +I felt. But she stood her ground. + +"She is not to be worried about anything," she insisted. "And she's +not supposed to have visitors. That's the doctor's orders." + +I felt outraged and indignant, but against the stone wall of the +girl's presence and her distrust I was helpless. I got up, with as +much dignity as I could muster. + +"I should have been told that downstairs." + +"The woman's a fool," said Anne Bullard, with a sort of suppressed +fierceness. She stood aside as, having said good-by to Miss Emily, +I went out, and I felt that she hardly breathed until I had got +safely to the street. + +Looking back, I feel that Emily Benton died at the hands of her +friends. For she died, indeed, died in the act of trying to tell +me what they had determined she should never tell. Died of +kindness and misunderstanding. Died repressed, as she had lived +repressed. Yet, I think, died calmly and bravely. + +I had made no further attempt to see her, and Maggie and I had +taken up again the quiet course of our lives. The telephone did +not ring of nights. The cat came and went, spending as I had +learned, its days with Miss Emily and its nights with us. I have +wondered since how many nights Miss Emily had spent in the low +chair in that back hall, where the confession lay hidden, that +the cat should feel it could sleep nowhere else. + +The days went by, warm days and cooler ones, but rarely rainy ones. +The dust from the road settled thick over flowers and shrubbery. +The lettuces wilted, and those that stood up in the sun were strong +and bitter. By the end of August we were gasping in a hot dryness +that cracked the skin and made any but cold food impossible. + +Miss Emily lay through it all in her hot upper room in the village, +and my attempt, through Doctor Lingard, to coax her back to the house +by offering to leave it brought only a negative. "It would be better +for her, you understand," the doctor said, over the telephone. "But +she is very determined, and she insists on remaining where she is." + +And I believe this was the truth. They would surely have been glad +to get rid of me, these friends of Miss Emily's. + +I have wondered since what they thought of me, Anne Bullard and the +doctor, to have feared me as they did. I look in the mirror, and I +see a middle-aged woman, with a determined nose, slightly +inquisitive, and what I trust is a humorous mouth, for it has no +other virtues. But they feared me. Perhaps long looking for a +danger affects the mental vision. Anyhow, by the doctor's order, I +was not allowed to call and see Miss Emily again. + +Then, one night, the heat suddenly lifted. One moment I was sitting +on the veranda, lifeless and inert, and the next a cool wind, with +a hint of rain, had set the shutters to banging and the curtains to +flowing, like flags of truce, from the windows. The air was life, +energy. I felt revivified. + +And something of the same sort must have happened to Miss Emily. +She must have sat up among her pillows, her face fanned with the +electric breeze, and made her determination to see me. Anne +Bullard was at work, and she was free from observation. + +It must have been nine o'clock when she left the house, a shaken +little figure in black, not as neat as usual, but hooked and +buttoned, for all that, with no one will ever know what agony of +old hands. + +She was two hours and a half getting to the house, and the rain +came at ten o'clock. By half after eleven, when the doorbell rang, +she was a sodden mass of wet garments, and her teeth were chattering +when I led her into the library. + +She could not talk. The thing she had come to say was totally +beyond her. I put her to bed in her own room. And two days later +she died. + +I had made no protest when Anne Bullard presented herself at the +door the morning after Miss Emily arrived, and, walking into the +house, took sleepless charge of the sickroom. And I made no +reference save once to the reason for the tragedy. That was the +night Miss Emily died. Anne Bullard had called to me that she +feared there was a change, and I went into the sickroom. There +was a change, and I could only shake my head. She burst out at +me then. + +"If only you had never taken this house!" she said. "You people +with money, you think there is nothing you can not have. You came, +and now look!" + +"Anne," I said with a bitterness I could not conceal, "Miss Emily +is not young, and I think she is ready to go. But she has been +killed by her friends. I wanted to help, but they would not allow +me to." + +Toward morning there was nothing more to be done, and we sat +together, listening to the stertorous breathing from the bed. +Maggie, who had been up all night, had given me notice at three in +the morning, and was upstairs packing her trunk. + +I went into my room, and brought back Miss Emily's confession. + +"Isn't it time," I said, "to tell me about this? I ought to know, +I think, before she goes. If it is not true, you owe it to her, I +think." But she shook her head. + +I looked at the confession, and from it to Miss Emily's pinched old +face. + +"To whom it may concern: On the 30th day of May, 1911, I killed a +woman here in this house. I hope you will not find this until I am +dead. + (Signed) + EMILY BENTON." + +Anne was watching me. I went to the mantel and got a match, and +then, standing near the bed, I lighted it and touched it to the +paper. It burned slowly, a thin blue semicircle of fire that ate +its way slowly across until there was but the corner I held. I +dropped it into the fireplace and watched it turn to black ash. + +I may have fancied it--I am always fancying things about Miss +Emily--but I will always think that she knew. She drew a longer, +quieter breath, and her eyes, fixed and staring, closed. I think +she died in the first sleep she had had in twenty-four hours. + +I had expected Anne Bullard to show emotion, for no one could doubt +her attachment to Miss Emily. But she only stood stoically by the +bed for a moment and then, turning swiftly, went to the wall +opposite and took down from the wall the walnut-framed photograph +Mrs. Graves had commented on. + +Anne Bullard stood with the picture in her hand, looking at it. +And suddenly she broke into sobs. It was stormy weeping, and I +got the impression that she wept, not for Miss Emily, but for many +other things--as though the piled-up grief of years had broken +out at last. + +She took the photograph away, and I never saw it again. + +Miss Emily was buried from her home. I obliterated myself, and +her friends, who were, I felt, her murderers, came in and took +charge. They paid me the tribute of much politeness, but no +cordiality, and I think they felt toward me as I felt toward them. +They blamed me with the whole affair. + +She left her property all to Anne Bullard, to the astonished rage +of the congregation, which had expected the return of its dimes and +quarters, no doubt, in the shape of a new altar, or perhaps an organ. + +"Not a cent to keep up the mausoleum or anything," Mrs. Graves +confided to me. "And nothing to the church. All to that +telephone-girl, who comes from no one knows where! It's enough to +make her father turn over in his grave. It has set people talking, +I can tell you." + +Maggie's mental state during the days preceding the funeral was +curious. She coupled the most meticulous care as to the +preparations for the ceremony, and a sort of loving gentleness +when she decked Miss Emily's small old frame for its last rites, +with suspicion and hatred of Miss Emily living. And this suspicion +she held also against Anne Bullard. + +Yet she did not want to leave the house. I do not know just what +she expected to find. We were cleaning up preparatory to going back +to the city, and I felt that at least a part of Maggie's enthusiasm +for corners was due to a hope of locating more concealed papers. +She was rather less than polite to the Bullard girl, who was staying +on at my invitation--because the village was now flagrantly +unfriendly and suspicious of her. And for some strange reason, the +fact that Miss Emily's cat followed Anne everywhere convinced +Maggie that her suspicions were justified. + +"It's like this, Miss Agnes," she said one morning, leaning on the +handle of a floor brush. "She had some power over the old lady, and +that's how she got the property. And I am saying nothing, but she's +no Christian, that girl. To see her and that cat going out night +after night, both snooping along on their tiptoes--it ain't normal." + +I had several visits from Martin Sprague since Miss Emily's death, +and after a time I realized that he was interested in Anne. She +was quite attractive in her mourning clothes, and there was +something about her, not in feature, but in neatness and in the +way her things had of, well, staying in place, that reminded me of +Miss Emily herself. It was rather surprising, too, to see the way +she fitted into her new surroundings and circumstances. + +But I did not approve of Martin's attraction to her. She had +volunteered no information about herself, she apparently had no +people. She was a lady, I felt, although, with the exception of +her new mourning, her clothing was shabby and her linen even coarse. + +She held the key to the confession. I knew that. And I had no +more hope of getting it from her than I had from the cat. So I +prepared to go back to the city, with the mystery unsolved. It +seemed a pity, when I had got so far with it. I had reconstructed +a situation out of such bricks as I had, the books in the cellar, +Mrs. Graves's story of the river, the confession, possibly the +note-book and the handkerchief. I had even some material left over +in the form of the night intruder, who may or may not have been +the doctor. And then, having got so far, I had had to stop for +lack of other bricks. + +A day or two before I went back to the city, Maggie came to me +with a folded handkerchief in her hand. + +"Is that yours?" she asked. + +I disclaimed it. It was not very fine, and looked rather yellow. + +"S'got a name on it," Maggie volunteered. "Wright, I think it is. +'Tain't hers, unless she's picked it up somewhere. It's just come +out of the wash." + +Maggie's eyes were snapping with suspicion. "There ain't any Wrights +around here, Miss Agnes," she said. "I sh'd say she's here under a +false name. Wright's likely hers." + +In tracing the mystery of the confession, I find that three +apparently disconnected discoveries paved the way to its solution. +Of these the handkerchief came first. + +I was inclined to think that in some manner the handkerchief I had +found in the book in the cellar had got into the wash. But it was +where I had placed it for safety, in the wall-closet in the library. +I brought it out and compared the two. They were unlike, save in +the one regard. The name "Wright" was clear enough on the one +Maggie had found. With it as a guide, the other name was easily +seen to be the same. Moreover, both had been marked by the same +hand. + +Yet, on Anne Bullard being shown the one Maggie had found, she +disclaimed it. "Don't you think some one dropped it at the funeral?" +she asked. + +But I thought, as I turned away, that she took a step toward me. +When I stopped, however, and faced about, she was intent on +something outside the window. + +And so it went. I got nowhere. And now, by way of complication, I +felt my sympathy for Anne's loneliness turning to genuine interest. +She was so stoical, so repressed, and so lonely. And she was +tremendously proud. Her pride was vaguely reminiscent of Miss +Emily's. She bore her ostracism almost fiercely, yet there were +times when I felt her eyes on me, singularly gentle and appealing. +Yet she volunteered nothing about herself. + +I intended to finish the history of Bolivar County before I left. +I dislike not finishing a book. Besides, this one fascinated me +--the smug complacence and almost loud virtue of the author, his +satisfaction in Bolivar County, and his small hits at the world +outside, his patronage to those not of it. And always, when I +began to read, I turned to the inscription in Miss Emily's hand, +the hand of the confession--and I wondered if she had really +believed it all. + +So on this day I found the name Bullard in the book. It had +belonged to the Reverend Samuel Thaddeus's grandmother, and he +distinctly stated that she was the last of her line. He inferred, +indeed, that since the line was to end, it had chosen a fitting +finish in his immediate progenitor. + +That night, at dinner, I said, "Anne, are there any Bullards in +this neighborhood now?" + +"I have never heard of any. But I have not been here long." + +"It is not a common name," I persisted. + +But she received my statement in silence. She had, as I have said, +rather a gift for silence. + +That afternoon I was wandering about the garden snipping faded roses +with Miss Emily's garden shears, when I saw Maggie coming swiftly +toward me. When she caught my eye, she beckoned to me. "Walk quiet, +Miss Agnes," she said, "and don't say I didn't warn you. She's in +the library." + +So, feeling hatefully like a spy, I went quietly over the lawn +toward the library windows. They were long ones, to the floor, and +at first I made out nothing. Then I saw Anne. She was on her +knees, following the border of the carpet with fingers that examined +it, inch by inch. + +She turned, as if she felt our eyes on her, and saw us. I shall +never forget her face. She looked stricken. I turned away. There +was something in her eyes that made me think of Miss Emily, lying +among her pillows and waiting for me to say the thing she was +dreading to hear. + +I sent Maggie away with a gesture. There was something in her +pursed lips that threatened danger. For I felt then as if I had +always known it and only just realized I knew it, that somewhere +in that room lay the answer to all questions; lay Miss Emily's +secret. And I did not wish to learn it. It was better to go on +wondering, to question and doubt and decide and decide again. I +was, I think, in a state of nervous terror by that time, terror +and apprehension. + +While Miss Emily lived, I had hoped to help. But now it seemed too +hatefully like accusing when she could not defend herself. And +there is another element that I am bound to acknowledge. There was +an element of jealousy of Anne Bullard. Both of us had tried to +help Miss Emily. She had foiled my attempt in her own endeavor, +a mistaken endeavor, I felt. But there was now to be no blemish on +my efforts. I would no longer pry or question or watch. It was +too late. + +In a curious fashion, each of us wished, I think, to prove the +quality of her tenderness for the little old lady who was gone +beyond all human tenderness. + +So that evening, after dinner, I faced Anne in the library. + +"Why not let things be as they are, Anne?" I asked. "It can do no +good. Whatever it is, and I do not know, why not let things rest?" + +"Some one may find it," she replied. "Some one who does not care, +as I--as we care." + +"Are you sure there is something?" + +"She told me, near the last. I only don't know just where it is." + +"And if you find it?" + +"It is a letter. I shall burn it without reading. Although," she +drew a long breath, "I know what it contains." + +"If in any way it comes into my hands," I assured her, "I shall let +you know. And I shall not read it." + +She looked thoughtful rather than grateful. + +"I hardly know," she said. "I think she would want you to read it +if it came to you. It explains so much. And it was a part of her +plan. You know, of course, that she had a plan. It was a sort of +arrangement"--she hesitated--"it was a sort of pact she made with +God, if you know what I mean." + +That night Maggie found the letter. + +I had gone upstairs, and Anne was, I think, already asleep. I +heard what sounded like distant hammering, and I went to the door. +Some one was in the library below. The light was shining out into +the hall, and my discovery of that was followed almost immediately +by the faint splintering of wood. Rather outraged than alarmed, I +went back for my dressing-gown, and as I left the room, I confronted +Maggie in the hallway. She had an envelope in one hand, and a +hatchet in the other. + +"I found it," she said briefly. + +She held it out, and I took it. On the outside, in Miss Emily's +writing, it said, "To whom it may concern." It was sealed. + +I turned it over in my hand, while Maggie talked. + +"When I saw that girl crawling around," she said, "seems to me I +remembered all at once seeing Miss Emily, that day I found her, +running her finger along the baseboard. Says I to myself, there's +something more hidden, and she don't know where it is. But I do. +So I lifted the baseboard, and this was behind it." + +Anne heard her from her room, and she went out soon afterward. I +heard her going down the stairs and called to her. But she did not +answer. I closed the door on Maggie and stood in my room, staring +at the envelope. + +I have wondered since whether Miss Emily, had she lived, would have +put the responsibility on Providence for the discovery of her +pitiful story. So many of us blame the remorseless hand of destiny +for what is so manifestly our own doing. It was her own anxiety, +surely, that led to the discovery in each instance, yet I am certain +that old Emily Benton died, convinced that a higher hand than any +on earth had directed the discovery of the confession. + +Miss Emily has been dead for more than a year now. To publish the +letter can do her no harm. In a way, too, I feel, it may be the +fulfilment of that strange pact she made. For just as discovery +was the thing she most dreaded, so she felt that by paying her +penalty here she would be saved something beyond--that sort of +spiritual book-keeping which most of us call religion. Anne Sprague +--she is married now to Martin has, I think, some of Miss Emily's +feeling about it, although she denies it. But I am sure that in +consenting to the recording of Miss Emily's story, she feels that +she is doing what that gentle fatalist would call following the +hand of Providence. + +I read the letter that night in the library where the light was +good. It was a narrative, not a letter, strictly speaking. It +began abruptly. + +"I must set down this thing as it happened. I shall write it fully, +because I must get it off my mind. I find that I am always +composing it, and that my lips move when I walk along the street +or even when I am sitting in church. How terrible if I should some +day speak it aloud. My great-grandmother was a Catholic. She was a +Bullard. Perhaps it is from her that I have this overwhelming +impulse to confession. And lately I have been terrified. I must +tell it, or I shall shriek it out some day, in the church, during +the Litany. 'From battle and murder, and from sudden death, Good +Lord, deliver us.'" + +(There was a space here. When the writing began again, time had +elapsed. The ink was different, the writing more controlled.) + +"What a terrible thing hate is. It is a poison. It penetrates the +mind and the body and changes everything. I, who once thought I +could hate no one, now find that hate is my daily life, my getting +up and lying down, my sleep, my waking. + +"'From hatred, envy, and malice, and all uncharitableness, Good +Lord, deliver us.' + +"Must one suffer twice for the same thing? Is it not true that we +pay but one penalty? Surely we pay either here or beyond, but not +both. Oh, not both! + +"Will this ever be found? Where shall I hide it? For I have the +feeling that I must hide it, not destroy it--as the Catholic buries +his sin with the priest. My father once said that it is the +healthful humiliation of the confessional that is its reason for +existing. If humiliation be a virtue--" + +I have copied the confession to this point, but I find I can not go +on. She was so merciless to herself, so hideously calm, so exact +as to dates and hours. She had laid her life on the table and +dissected it--for the Almighty! + +I heard the story that night gently told, and somehow I feel that +that is the version by which Miss Emily will be judged. + +"If humiliation be a virtue--" I read and was about to turn the +page, when I heard Anne in the hall. She was not alone. I +recognized Doctor Lingard's voice. + +Five minutes later I was sitting opposite him, almost knee to knee, +and he was telling me how Miss Emily had come to commit her crime. +Anne Bullard was there, standing on the hearth rug. She kept her +eyes on me, and after a time I realized that these two simple people +feared me, feared for Miss Emily's gentle memory, feared that I +--good heaven!--would make the thing public. + +"First of all, Miss Blakiston," said the doctor, "one must have +known the family to realize the situation--its pride in its own +uprightness. The virtue of the name, what it stood for in Bolivar +County. She was raised on that. A Benton could do no wrong, +because a Benton would do no wrong. + +"But there is another side, also. I doubt if any girl was ever +raised as Miss Emily was. She--well, she knew nothing. At fifty +she was as childlike and innocent as she was at ten. She had +practically never heard of vice. The ugly things, for her, did not +exist. + +"And, all the time, there was a deep and strong nature underneath. +She should have married and had children, but there was no one here +for her to marry. I," he smiled faintly, "I asked for her myself, +and was forbidden the house for years as a result. + +"You have heard of the brother? But of course you have. I know +you have found the books. Such an existence as the family life here +was bound to have its reactions. Carlo was a reaction. Twenty-five +years ago he ran away with a girl from the village. He did not +marry her. I believe he was willing at one time, but his father +opposed it violently. It would have been to recognize a thing he +refused to recognize." He turned suddenly to Anne. "Don't you think +this is going to be painful?" he asked. + +"Why? I know it all." + +"Very well. This girl--the one Carlo ran away with--determined +to make the family pay for that refusal. She made them actually +pay, year by year. Emily knew about it. She had to pinch to make +the payments. The father sat in a sort of detached position, in +the center of Bolivar County, and let her bear the brunt of it. +I shall never forget the day she learned there was a child. It +--well, it sickened her. She had not known about those things. +And I imagine, if we could know, that that was the beginning of +things. + +"And all the time there was the necessity for secrecy. She had +never known deceit, and now she was obliged to practice it +constantly. She had no one to talk to. Her father, beyond +making entries of the amounts paid to the woman in the case, had +nothing to do with it. She bore it all, year after year. And it +ate, like a cancer. + +"Remember, I never knew. I, who would have done anything for her +--she never told me. Carlo lived hard and came back to die. The +father went. She nursed them both. I came every day, and I never +suspected. Only, now and then, I wondered about her. She looked +burned. I don't know any other word. + +"Then, the night after Carlo had been buried, she telephoned for me. +It was eleven o'clock, She met me, out there in the hall, and she +said, 'John, I have killed somebody.' + +"I thought she was out of her mind. But she opened the door, and--" + +He turned and glanced at Anne. + +"Please!" she said. + +"It was Anne's mother. You have guessed it about Anne by now, of +course. It seems that the funeral had taken the money for the +payment that was due, and there had been a threat of exposure. +And Emily had reached the breaking-point. I believe what she said +--that she had no intention even of striking her. You can't take +the act itself. You have to take twenty-five years into account. +Anyhow, she picked up a chair and knocked the woman down. And it +killed her." He ran his fingers through his heavy hair. "It +should not have killed her," he reflected. "There must have +been some other weakness, heart or something. I don't know. But +it was a heavy chair. I don't see how Emily--" + +His voice trailed off. + +"There we were," he said, with a long breath. "Poor Emily, and the +other poor soul, neither of them fundamentally at fault, both +victims." + +"I know about the books," I put in hastily. I could not have him +going over that again. + +"You knew that, too!" He gazed at me. + +"Poor Emily," he said. "She tried to atone. She brought Anne here, +and told her the whole story. It was a bad time--all round. But +at last Anne saw the light. The only one who would not see the +light was Emily. And at last she hit on this confession idea. I +suspected it when she rented the house. When I accused her of it, +she said: 'I have given it to Providence to decide. If the +confession is found, I shall know I am to suffer. And I shall not +lift a hand to save myself.'" + +So it went through the hours. Her fear, which I still think was +the terror that communicated itself to me; the various clues, which +she, poor victim, had overlooked; the articles laid carelessly in +the book she had been reading and accidentally hidden with her +brother's forbidden literature; the books themselves, with all of +five years to destroy them, and left untouched; her own anxiety +about the confession in the telephone-box, which led to our finding +it; her espionage of the house by means of the telephone; the +doctor's night visit in search of the confession; the daily penance +for five years of the dead woman's photograph in her room--all of +these--and her occasional weakenings, poor soul, when she tried +to change her handwriting against discovery, and refused to allow +the second telephone to be installed. + +How clear it was! How, in a way, inevitable! And, too, how really +best for her it had turned out. For she had made a pact, and she +died believing that discovery here had come, and would take the +place of punishment beyond. + +Martin Sprague came the next day. I was in the library alone, and +he was with Anne in the garden, when Maggie came into the room with +a saucer of crab-apple jelly. + +"I wish you'd look at this," she said. "If it's cooked too much, it +gets tough and--" She straightened suddenly and stood staring out +through a window. + +"I'd thank you to look out and see the goings-on in our garden," she +said sharply. "In broad daylight, too. I--" + +But I did not hear what else Maggie had to say. I glanced out, and +Martin had raised the girl's face to his and was kissing her, gently +and very tenderly. + +And then--and again, as with fear, it is hard to put into words--I +felt come over me such a wave of contentment and happiness as made +me close my eyes with the sheer relief and joy of it. All was well. +The past was past, and out of its mistakes had come a beautiful +thing. And, like the fear, this joy was not mine. It came to me. +I picked it up--a thought without words. + +Sometimes I think about it, and I wonder--did little Miss Emily know? + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg Etext The Confession, by Mary Roberts Rinehart + diff --git a/old/cnfsn10.zip b/old/cnfsn10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..880d2b6 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/cnfsn10.zip |