A HOUND ON THE SCENT
It was that season in the summer when, in regions remote from fields of
harvest, time itself stands still. Nothing is doing in the wild wood.
Each young thing is fledged and flown, or, strong in its coat of fur, is
off and away; the flower of the season is passed, the berry hangs green
on the bush. The panting trees of the valleys speak to the trees of the
mountains, telling them, in hot, dry whispers, to look out for the
autumn that comes from afar. Only sometimes, in the morning on the
hilltops, a courier comes from the season that tarries. With feet that
trip on the nodding weeds, and a voice singing in the fluttering trees,
and a smile that speaks in a bluer sky, the unseen courier of autumn
comes and goes. The hearts of men and beasts are excited, they know not
why, and the berry and the grape and the tender leaf turn red.
Such was the weather in which the time of waiting passed.
Within two days Bertha passed down the road twice on village errands.
Her horse each time loitered as it passed the mine until Durgan at last
went out and walked a few steps by her bridle. He was afraid to talk
with her lest he should say more, or less, or something quite different
from what he would wish to say. But Bertha would speak.
"Mr. Durgan, are you still quite sure? I cannot tell you how you have
lightened my heart, but I must hear it again. It came to you freshly the
other night; after thinking it over, are you still quite sure?"
"Of what?" he asked. He could not think of anything connected with
Bertha's misfortunes of which he was sure at all.
"That it could not have been as I thought--that my dear sister----"
"Your sister has no mental weakness; and she did not commit that crime,"
he said almost sharply. "If that is what you mean, I am as sure of it as
that I stand here."
"Don't be angry with me. You speak so severely. But I can't tell you how
I like to hear you say it."
"It was a bugbear of your own imagination, and I feel angry with you
when I think of it. And if you take my advice you will never, never,
under any circumstances, let her, or anyone else, know that you thought
such a thing."
"I would rather tell her all about it sometime. She would forgive it."
"I dare say she would." Durgan spoke bitterly. "I don't know what
forgiveness in such a case is; but no doubt, whatever it is, it would
cost her more than you can conceive. She would give it to you; but you
are a child if you think that she would ever recover from the wound of
such knowledge. God may put such things right in the next life, but
never in this. That, at least, is my opinion."
"I am offended with you," she said. She was looking very well that day.
Her blue cotton riding-dress and blue sun-bonnet well displayed the warm
color and youthful contour of her face. There was a peace in her eyes,
too, that he had never seen there before. "I wanted to tell you
something else, but you have made me angry."
"Forgive me, then. It is so easy." There was sarcasm in his voice.
She thought for a few minutes, and seemed to forget her quarrel.
"Mr. Alden went to Hilyard, and he has come back without finding out
anything about 'Dolphus. I was so much afraid. I have asked Hermie if we
might not tell him just about 'Dolphus; but she spoke to me so
solemnly, so sadly, that now I only regret that I told _you_. I want to
beg you never to repeat it. I don't understand Hermie's motives, but I
can't side against her."
"What has Alden been doing?"
"He has been attending to business letters and papers. He is making this
his holiday, but of course he has always a great deal of business on
hand. He thinks a great deal over his writing. This morning he spent
hours pacing in the pasture and sitting on the stile."
"Ah!" said Durgan.
"He actually came in with his necktie crooked, he was thinking so hard,"
continued Bertha. "He is good, but I can't think why Hermie cares for
him so; he usually looks so like a doll."
In a few minutes Durgan dropped the bridle and turned back. His mind was
uneasy.
But the next afternoon Bertha descended in a different mood. She had
evidently been watching to see his negro laborers depart, for she stood
on the rock ledge before they were out of sight.
"You told him my secret. How could you? You promised at least not to
tell until you had spoken to me. You never explained yesterday that you
had told. Oh, how he has turned against us! And you! There is no one in
the world we can trust."
Durgan stood in awkward distress before her. His intention not to tell
could not balance his stupidity in having betrayed anything.
"I told you because you said you must know my story on Adam's account,
but you found Adam's safety provided for; you said you must know lest
you should do injustice to 'Dolphus, but he will likely die before the
trial comes on; and yet you have babbled to Mr. Alden, not being able to
keep faith with a most unhappy woman for a few days. I was foolish, I
was wrong, to tell you our secret; but you forced me to speak. Oh, how
could you call yourself a gentleman and betray me so?"
She was very imperious, very handsome; but she was far too sad and
frightened to be really angry.
As he stood before her without a word, contrition written on his face,
she took shelter in the threshold of his hut and, sitting by the open
door, began to cry piteously, not with abandonment, but with the
quietude of a real sorrow.
She spoke again. "Mr. Alden is a hound, with his keen nose on a scent.
He will not lift it off till his victim is at bay. When I said to
Hermie that Mr. Alden would not rest now till whoever did it was
hanged, she fainted. She was so ill upstairs in our room that I was
terrified, but she would not let Mr. Alden know."
"Yes, but _who_ is the victim?"
She looked up suddenly. "He said you told him who it is; and that I had
told you. Hermie never betrayed any feeling when he told her--it was
afterwards--but I know her heart is breaking."
"I am at my wit's end," said Durgan sadly.
"He says Hermie, my own Hermie, has made every sacrifice to protect this
Charlton Beardsley. It is not true. There was no one she despised and
disliked so much. Whatever else is or is not true, that is. Do I not
know? Did I not see her even quarrel with our dear father about this man
because he had pretended to give messages from mother?" At this
recollection she wept again, her head in her hands. "My dear, dear
father," she whispered. "Oh, if he could come back to us! If he could
only come back!"
Durgan stood helpless. That faculty by which words arise unbidden in the
mind kept obstinately repeating in Durgan's the name Charlton Beardsley,
in that tone of almost tender compassion given to it by Miss Claxton
when he last spoke to her.
At last Bertha rose to go. "There is no such thing as truth," she
cried. "I was false to Hermie in telling you what I did; you were false
to me. Mr. Alden is a false friend to us all. There is no truth."
Durgan laid a detaining hand on her arm. "Look up," he said.
She looked up at the dogwood tree whose spring blossom had first cheered
that rocky spot for Durgan. Across the unutterable brightness of the sky
the tree held its horizontal sprays of golden leaves. The bluebird of
the South, dashed with gloss of crimson and green, pecked at the scarlet
berries. The tree glistened in the light of evening. Above and beyond it
the sky was radiant with the level light.
"Very probably there is no such thing as the truth you seek in this
world," he said; "but there must be truth somewhere, or why should we
all try to approximate to it, and feel so like whipped dogs when we have
failed?"
For two or three days after that Durgan heard nothing, but Alden came
and went on the mountain road, and once again made the journey to
Hilyard.
At last, one evening after dark, Durgan received a message demanding his
presence at the summit house. He went, and found the little family in
some formal condition of distress--the elder lady sitting calm, but very
sad, her usually busy hands idle in her lap; Bertha, her face swollen
with tears, sitting beside her sister in an attitude of defiant
protection; Alden moving restlessly about, his face blanched and
haggard. The weather over all the mountain was still tense and dry. The
cold had come without rain--a highly nervous condition for the human
frame.
It was only Miss Claxton who tried to make Durgan's arrival more
agreeable to him by a few words of ordinary conversation.
Then Alden spoke. "I believe now that yours was the right suspicion, Mr.
Durgan. Miss Claxton having declined to help me at all, I resolved to
ask you to be present while I tell her exactly what I suspect with
regard to Charlton Beardsley. I would not have Miss Claxton without a
protector while I am obliged to say and do what she tells me will make
me her worst enemy. If so, it must be so. I cannot be silent. I cannot
be inactive. I cannot be responsible for a murderer's freedom. But I
will do no more without giving you all fair warning. I believe your wife
to be implicated. We are here agreed in desiring your presence."
Durgan looked at the women. How often had he seen them here in the
mellow lamplight, at peace in this beautiful retreat.
Bertha looked up at him. "Stay with us," said she. "You have done us an
injury by betraying my confidence; now ward off the consequences if you
can."
Miss Claxton's gentle face was also upturned. "It is right that you
should stay to know what accusation will be brought against your wife;
but I do not need your protection."
She looked towards Alden when she had spoken, and Durgan saw the little
man quiver with distress.
Durgan sat down beside the sisters.