BOOK IV. THE PROBLEM SOLVED

XXXIV. MR. GRYCE RESUMES CONTROL

“It out-herods Herod.”

Hamlet.

“A thing devised by the enemy.”

Richard III.

A half-hour had passed. The train upon which I had every reason to

expect Mr. Gryce had arrived, and I stood in the doorway awaiting

with indescribable agitation the slow and labored approach of the

motley group of men and women whom I had observed leave the depot

at the departure of the cars. Would he be among them? Was the

telegram of a nature peremptory enough to make his presence here,

sick as he was, an absolute certainty? The written confession of

Hannah throbbing against my heart, a heart all elation now, as but

a short half-hour before it had been all doubt and struggle, seemed

to rustle distrust, and the prospect of a long afternoon spent in

impatience was rising before me, when a portion of the advancing

crowd turned off into a side street, and I saw the form of Mr.

Gryce hobbling, not on two sticks, but very painfully on one,

coming slowly down the street.

His face, as he approached, was a study.

“Well, well, well,” he exclaimed, as we met at the gate; “this is

a pretty how-dye-do, I must say. Hannah dead, eh? and everything

turned topsy-turvy! Humph, and what do you think of Mary

Leavenworth now?”

It would therefore seem natural, in the conversation which followed

his introduction into the house and installment in Mrs. Belden’s

parlor, that I should begin my narration by showing him Hannah’s

confession; but it was not so. Whether it was that I felt anxious

to have him go through the same alternations of hope and fear it

had been my lot to experience since I came to R----; or whether, in

the depravity of human nature, there lingered within me sufficient

resentment for the persistent disregard he had always paid to my

suspicions of Henry Clavering to make it a matter of moment to

me to spring this knowledge upon him just at the instant his own

convictions seemed to have reached the point of absolute certainty,

I cannot say. Enough that it was not till I had given him a full

account of every other matter connected with my stay in this house;

not till I saw his eye beaming, and his lip quivering with the

excitement incident upon the perusal of the letter from Mary, found

in Mrs. Belden’s pocket; not, indeed, until I became assured from

such expressions as “Tremendous! The deepest game of the season!

Nothing like it since the Lafarge affair!” that in another moment

he would be uttering some theory or belief that once heard would

forever stand like a barrier between us, did I allow myself to hand

him the letter I had taken from under the dead body of Hannah.

I shall never forget his expression as he received it; “Good

heavens!” cried he, “what’s this?”

“A dying confession of the girl Hannah. I found it lying in her bed

when I went up, a half-hour ago, to take a second look at her.”

Opening it, he glanced over it with an incredulous air that

speedily, however, turned to one of the utmost astonishment, as he

hastily perused it, and then stood turning it over and over in his

hand, examining it.

“A remarkable piece of evidence,” I observed, not without a certain

feeling of triumph; “quite changes the aspect of affairs!”

“Think so?” he sharply retorted; then, whilst I stood staring at

him in amazement, his manner was so different from what I expected,

looked up and said: “You tell me that you found this in her bed.

Whereabouts in her bed?”

“Under the body of the girl herself,” I returned. “I saw one corner

of it protruding from beneath her shoulders, and drew it out.”

He came and stood before me. “Was it folded or open, when you first

looked at it?”

“Folded; fastened up in this envelope,” showing it to him.

He took it, looked at it for a moment, and went on with his

questions.

“This envelope has a very crumpled appearance, as well as the

letter itself. Were they so when you found them?”

“Yes, not only so, but doubled up as you see.”

“Doubled up? You are sure of that? Folded, sealed, and then doubled

up as if her body had rolled across it while alive?”

“Yes.”

“No trickery about it? No look as if the thing had been insinuated

there since her death?”

“Not at all. I should rather say that to every appearance she held

it in her hand when she lay down, but turning over, dropped it and

then laid upon it.”

Mr. Gryce’s eyes, which had been very bright, ominously clouded;

evidently he had been disappointed in my answers. Laying the letter

down, he stood musing, but suddenly lifted it again, scrutinized

the edges of the paper on which it was written, and, darting me a

quick look, vanished with it into the shade of the window curtain.

His manner was so peculiar, I involuntarily rose to follow; but he

waved me back, saying:

“Amuse yourself with that box on the table, which you had such an

ado over; see if it contains all we have a right to expect to find

in it. I want to be by myself for a moment.”

Subduing my astonishment, I proceeded to comply with his request,

but scarcely had I lifted the lid of the box before me when he came

hurrying back, flung the letter down on the table with an air of

the greatest excitement, and cried:

“Did I say there had never been anything like it since the Lafarge

affair? I tell you there has never been anything like it in any

affair. It is the rummest case on record! Mr. Raymond,” and his

eyes, in his excitement, actually met mine for the first time in

my experience of him, “prepare yourself for a disappointment. This

pretended confession of Hannah’s is a fraud!”

“A fraud?”

“Yes; fraud, forgery, what you will; the girl never wrote it.”

Amazed, outraged almost, I bounded from my chair. “How do you know

that?” I cried.

Bending forward, he put the letter into my hand. “Look at it,” said

he; “examine it closely. Now tell me what is the first thing you

notice in regard to it?”

“Why, the first thing that strikes me, is that the words are

printed, instead of written; something which might be expected from

this girl, according to all accounts.”

“Well?”

“That they are printed on the inside of a sheet of ordinary

paper----”

“Ordinary paper?”

“Yes.”

“That is, a sheet of commercial note of the ordinary quality.”

“Of course.”

“But is it?”

“Why, yes; I should say so.”

“Look at the lines.”

“What of them? Oh, I see, they run up close to the top of the page;

evidently the scissors have been used here.”

“In short, it is a large sheet, trimmed down to the size of

commercial note?”

“Yes.”

“And is that all you see?”

“All but the words.”

“Don’t you perceive what has been lost by means of this trimming

down?”

“No, unless you mean the manufacturer’s stamp in the corner.” Mr.

Gryce’s glance took meaning. “But I don’t see why the loss of that

should be deemed a matter of any importance.”

“Don’t you? Not when you consider that by it we seem to be deprived

of all opportunity of tracing this sheet back to the quire of paper

from which it was taken?”

“No.”

“Humph! then you are more of an amateur than I thought you. Don’t

you see that, as Hannah could have had no motive for concealing

where the paper came from on which she wrote her dying words, this

sheet must have been prepared by some one else?”

“No,” said I; “I cannot say that I see all that.”

“Can’t! Well then, answer me this. Why should Hannah, a girl about

to commit suicide, care whether any clue was furnished, in her

confession, to the actual desk, drawer, or quire of paper from

which the sheet was taken, on which she wrote it?”

“She wouldn’t.”

“Yet especial pains have been taken to destroy that clue.”

“But----”

“Then there is another thing. Read the confession itself, Mr.

Raymond, and tell me what you gather from it.”

“Why,” said I, after complying, “that the girl, worn out with

constant apprehension, has made up her mind to do away with

herself, and that Henry Clavering----”

“Henry Clavering?”

The interrogation was put with so much meaning, I looked up. “Yes,”

said I.

“Ah, I didn’t know that Mr. Clavering’s name was mentioned there;

excuse me.”

“His name is not mentioned, but a description is given so

strikingly in accordance----”

Here Mr. Gryce interrupted me. “Does it not seem a little

surprising to you that a girl like Hannah should have stopped to

describe a man she knew by name?”

I started; it was unnatural surely.

“You believe Mrs. Belden’s story, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Consider her accurate in her relation of what took place here a

year ago?”

“I do.”

“Must believe, then, that Hannah, the go-between, was acquainted

with Mr. Clavering and with his name?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“Then why didn’t she use it? If her intention was, as she here

professes, to save Eleanore Leavenworth from the false imputation

which had fallen upon her, she would naturally take the most direct

method of doing it. This description of a man whose identity she

could have at once put beyond a doubt by the mention of his name is

the work, not of a poor, ignorant girl, but of some person who, in

attempting to play the _role_ of one, has signally failed. But that

is not all. Mrs. Belden, according to you, maintains that Hannah

told her, upon entering the house, that Mary Leavenworth sent her

here. But in this document, she declares it to have been the work

of Black Mustache.”

“I know; but could they not have both been parties to the

transaction?”

“Yes,” said he; “yet it is always a suspicious circumstance, when

there is a discrepancy between the written and spoken declaration

of a person. But why do we stand here fooling, when a few words

from this Mrs. Belden, you talk so much about, will probably settle

the whole matter!”

“A few words from Mrs. Belden,” I repeated. “I have had thousands

from her to-day, and find the matter no nearer settled than in the

beginning.”

“_You_ have had,” said he, “but I have not. Fetch her in, Mr.

Raymond.”

I rose. “One thing,” said I, “before I go. What if Hannah had found

the sheet of paper, trimmed just as it is, and used it without any

thought of the suspicions it would occasion!”

“Ah!” said he, “that is just what we are going to find out.”

Mrs. Belden was in a flutter of impatience when I entered the

sitting-room. When did I think the coroner would come? and what did

I imagine this detective would do for us? It was dreadful waiting

there alone for something, she knew not what.

I calmed her as well as I could, telling her the detective had not

yet informed me what he could do, having some questions to ask

her first. Would she come in to see him? She rose with alacrity.

Anything was better than suspense.

Mr. Gryce, who in the short interim of my absence had altered his

mood from the severe to the beneficent, received Mrs. Belden with

just that show of respectful courtesy likely to impress a woman as

dependent as she upon the good opinion of others.

“Ah! and this is the lady in whose house this very disagreeable

event has occurred,” he exclaimed, partly rising in his enthusiasm

to greet her. “May I request you to sit,” he asked; “if a stranger

may be allowed to take the liberty of inviting a lady to sit in her

own house.”

“It does not seem like my own house any longer,” said she, but in

a sad, rather than an aggressive tone; so much had his genial way

imposed upon her. “Little better than a prisoner here, go and come,

keep silence or speak, just as I am bidden; and all because an

unhappy creature, whom I took in for the most unselfish of motives,

has chanced to die in my house!”

“Just so!” exclaimed Mr. Gryce; “it is very unjust. But perhaps

we can right matters. I have every reason to believe we can. This

sudden death ought to be easily explained. You say you had no

poison in the house?”

“No, sir.”

“And that the girl never went out?”

“Never, sir.”

“And that no one has ever been here to see her?”

“No one, sir.”

“So that she could not have procured any such thing if she had

wished?”

“No, sir.”

“Unless,” he added suavely, “she had it with her when she came

here?”

“That couldn’t have been, sir. She brought no baggage; and as for

her pocket, I know everything there was in it, for I looked.”

“And what did you find there?”

“Some money in bills, more than you would have expected such a girl

to have, some loose pennies, and a common handkerchief.”

“Well, then, it is proved the girl didn’t die of poison, there

being none in the house.”

He said this in so convinced a tone she was deceived.

“That is just what I have been telling Mr. Raymond,” giving me a

triumphant look.

“Must have been heart disease,” he went on, “You say she was well

yesterday?”

“Yes, sir; or seemed so.”

“Though not cheerful?”

“I did not say that; she was, sir, very.”

“What, ma’am, this girl?” giving me a look. “I don’t understand

that. I should think her anxiety about those she had left behind

her in the city would have been enough to keep her from being very

cheerful.”

“So you would,” returned Mrs. Belden; “but it wasn’t so. On the

contrary, she never seemed to worry about them at all.”

“What! not about Miss Eleanore, who, according to the papers,

stands in so cruel a position before the world? But perhaps she

didn’t know anything about that--Miss Leavenworth’s position, I

mean?”

“Yes, she did, for I told her. I was so astonished I could not keep

it to myself. You see, I had always considered Eleanore as one

above reproach, and it so shocked me to see her name mentioned in

the newspaper in such a connection, that I went to Hannah and read

the article aloud, and watched her face to see how she took it.”

“And how did she?”

“I can’t say. She looked as if she didn’t understand; asked me why

I read such things to her, and told me she didn’t want to hear any

more; that I had promised not to trouble her about this murder, and

that if I continued to do so she wouldn’t listen.”

“Humph! and what else?”

“Nothing else. She put her hand over her ears and frowned in such a

sullen way I left the room.”

“That was when?”

“About three weeks ago.”

“She has, however, mentioned the subject since?”

“No, sir; not once.”

“What! not asked what they were going to do with her mistress?”

“No, sir.”

“She has shown, however, that something was preying on her

mind--fear, remorse, or anxiety?”

“No, sir; on the contrary, she has oftener appeared like one

secretly elated.”

“But,” exclaimed Mr. Gryce, with another sidelong look at me, “that

was very strange and unnatural. I cannot account for it.”

“Nor I, sir. I used to try to explain it by thinking her

sensibilities had been blunted, or that she was too ignorant to

comprehend the seriousness of what had happened; but as I learned

to know her better, I gradually changed my mind. There was too much

method in her gayety for that. I could not help seeing she had

some future before her for which she was preparing herself. As,

for instance, she asked me one day if I thought she could learn

to play on the piano. And I finally came to the conclusion she

had been promised money if she kept the secret intrusted to her,

and was so pleased with the prospect that she forgot the dreadful

past, and all connected with it. At all events, that was the only

explanation I could find for her general industry and desire to

improve herself, or for the complacent smiles I detected now and

then stealing over her face when she didn’t know I was looking.”

Not such a smile as crept over the countenance of Mr. Gryce at that

moment, I warrant.

“It was all this,” continued Mrs. Belden, “which made her death

such a shock to me. I couldn’t believe that so cheerful and healthy

a creature could die like that, all in one night, without anybody

knowing anything about it. But----”

“Wait one moment,” Mr. Gryce here broke in. “You speak of her

endeavors to improve herself. What do you mean by that?”

“Her desire to learn things she didn’t know; as, for instance, to

write and read writing. She could only clumsily print when she came

here.”

I thought Mr. Gryce would take a piece out of my arm, he griped it

so.

“When she came here! Do you mean to say that since she has been

with you she has learned to write?”

“Yes, sir; I used to set her copies and----”

“Where are these copies?” broke in Mr. Gryce, subduing his voice to

its most professional tone. “And where are her attempts at writing?

I’d like to see some of them. Can’t you get them for us?”

“I don’t know, sir. I always made it a point to destroy them as

soon as they had answered their purpose. I didn’t like to have such

things lying around. But I will go see.”

“Do,” said he; “and I will go with you. I want to take a look at

things up-stairs, any way.” And, heedless of his rheumatic feet, he

rose and prepared to accompany her.

“This is getting very intense,” I whispered, as he passed me.

The smile he gave me in reply would have made the fortune of a

Thespian Mephistopheles.

Of the ten minutes of suspense which I endured in their absence, I

say nothing. At the end of that time they returned with their hands

full of paper boxes, which they flung down on the table.

“The writing-paper of the household,” observed Mr. Gryce; “every

scrap and half-sheet which could be found. But, before you examine

it, look at this.” And he held out a sheet of bluish foolscap, on

which were written some dozen imitations of that time-worn copy,

“BE GOOD AND YOU WILL BE HAPPY”; with an occasional “_Beauty soon

fades_,” and “_Evil communications corrupt good manners_.”

“What do you think of that?”

“Very neat and very legible.”

“That is Hannah’s latest. The only specimens of her writing to be

found. Not much like some scrawls we have seen, eh?”

“No.”

“Mrs. Belden says this girl has known how to write as good as this

for more than a week. Took great pride in it, and was continually

talking about how smart she was.” Leaning over, he whispered in my

ear, “This thing you have in your hand must have been scrawled some

time ago, if she did it.” Then aloud: “But let us look at the paper

she used to write on.”

Dashing open the covers of the boxes on the table, he took out the

loose sheets lying inside, and scattered them out before me. One

glance showed they were all of an utterly different quality from

that used in the confession. “This is all the paper in the house,”

said he.

“Are you sure of that?” I asked, looking at Mrs. Belden, who stood

in a sort of maze before us. “Wasn’t there one stray sheet lying

around somewhere, foolscap or something like that, which she might

have got hold of and used without your knowing it?”

“No, sir; I don’t think so. I had only these kinds; besides, Hannah

had a whole pile of paper like this in her room, and wouldn’t have

been apt to go hunting round after any stray sheets.”

“But you don’t know what a girl like that might do. Look at this

one,” said I, showing her the blank side of the confession.

“Couldn’t a sheet like this have come from somewhere about the

house? Examine it well; the matter is important.”

“I have, and I say, no, I never had a sheet of paper like that in

my house.”

Mr. Gryce advanced and took the confession from my hand. As he did

so, he whispered: “What do you think now? Many chances that Hannah

got up this precious document?”

I shook my head, convinced at last; but in another moment turned to

him and whispered back: “But, if Hannah didn’t write it, who did?

And how came it to be found where it was?”

“That,” said he, “is just what is left for us to learn.” And,

beginning again, he put question after question concerning the

girl’s life in the house, receiving answers which only tended to

show that she could not have brought the confession with her, much

less received it from a secret messenger. Unless we doubted Mrs.

Belden’s word, the mystery seemed impenetrable, and I was beginning

to despair of success, when Mr. Gryce, with an askance look at me,

leaned towards Mrs. Belden and said:

“You received a letter from Miss Mary Leavenworth yesterday, I

hear.”

“Yes, sir.”

“_This_ letter?” he continued, showing it to her.

“Yes, sir.”

“Now I want to ask you a question. Was the letter, as you see it,

the only contents of the envelope in which it came? Wasn’t there

one for Hannah enclosed with it?”

“No, sir. There was nothing in my letter for her; but she had a

letter herself yesterday. It came in the same mail with mine.”

“Hannah had a letter!” we both exclaimed; “and in the mail?”

“Yes; but it was not directed to her. It was”--casting me a look

full of despair, “directed to me. It was only by a certain mark in

the corner of the envelope that I knew----”

“Good heaven!” I interrupted; “where is this letter? Why didn’t you

speak of it before? What do you mean by allowing us to flounder

about here in the dark, when a glimpse at this letter might have

set us right at once?”

“I didn’t think anything about it till this minute. I didn’t know

it was of importance. I----”

But I couldn’t restrain myself. “Mrs. Belden, where is this

letter?” I demanded. “Have you got it?”

“No,” said she; “I gave it to the girl yesterday; I haven’t seen it

since.”

“It must be up-stairs, then. Let us take another look.” and I

hastened towards the door.

“You won’t find it,” said Mr. Gryce at my elbow. “I have looked.

There is nothing but a pile of burned paper in the corner. By the

way, what could that have been?” he asked of Mrs. Belden.

“I don’t know, sir. She hadn’t anything to burn unless it was the

letter.”

“We will see about that,” I muttered, hurrying up-stairs and

bringing down the wash-bowl with its contents. “If the letter was

the one I saw in your hand at the post-office, it was in a yellow

envelope.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Yellow envelopes burn differently from white paper. I ought to

be able to tell the tinder made by a yellow envelope when I see

it. Ah, the letter has been destroyed; here is a piece of the

envelope,” and I drew out of the heap of charred scraps a small bit

less burnt than the rest, and held it up.

“Then there is no use looking here for what the letter contained,”

said Mr. Gryce, putting the wash-bowl aside. “We will have to ask

you, Mrs. Belden.”

“But I don’t know. It was directed to me, to be sure; but Hannah

told me, when she first requested me to teach her how to write,

that she expected such a letter, so I didn’t open it when it came,

but gave it to her just as it was.”

“You, however, stayed by to see her read it?”

“No, sir; I was in too much of a flurry. Mr. Raymond had just

come and I had no time to think of her. My own letter, too, was

troubling me.”

“But you surely asked her some questions about it before the day

was out?”

“Yes, sir, when I went up with her tea things; but she had nothing

to say. Hannah could be as reticent as any one I ever knew, when

she pleased. She didn’t even admit it was from her mistress.”

“Ah! then you thought it was from Miss Leavenworth?”

“Why, yes, sir; what else was I to think, seeing that mark in the

corner? Though, to be sure, it might have been put there by Mr.

Clavering,” she thoughtfully added.

“You say she was cheerful yesterday; was she so after receiving

this letter?”

“Yes, sir; as far as I could see. I wasn’t with her long; the

necessity I felt of doing something with the box in my charge--but

perhaps Mr. Raymond has told you?”

Mr. Gryce nodded.

“It was an exhausting evening, and quite put Hannah out of my head,

but----”

“Wait!” cried Mr. Gryce, and beckoning me into a corner, he

whispered, “Now comes in that experience of Q’s. While you are

gone from the house, and before Mrs. Belden sees Hannah again, he

has a glimpse of the girl bending over something in the corner of

her room which may very fairly be the wash-bowl we found there.

After which, he sees her swallow, in the most lively way, a dose of

something from a bit of paper. Was there anything more?”

“No,” said I.

“Very well, then,” he cried, going back to Mrs. Belden. “But----”

“But when I went up-stairs to bed, I thought of the girl, and going

to her door opened it. The light was extinguished, and she seemed

asleep, so I closed it again and came out.”

“Without speaking?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you notice how she was lying?”

“Not particularly. I think on her back.”

“In something of the same position in which she was found this

morning?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And that is all you can tell us, either of her letter or her

mysterious death?”

“All, sir.”

Mr. Gryce straightened himself up.

“Mrs. Belden,” said he, “you know Mr. Clavering’s handwriting when

_you_ see it?”

“I do.”

“And Miss Leavenworth’s?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now, which of the two was upon the envelope of the letter you gave

Hannah?”

“I couldn’t say. It was a disguised handwriting and might have been

that of either; but I think----”

“Well?”

“That it was more like hers than his, though it wasn’t like hers

either.”

With a smile, Mr. Gryce enclosed the confession in his hand in the

envelope in which it had been found. “You remember how large the

letter was which you gave her?”

“Oh, it was large, very large; one of the largest sort.”

“And thick?”

“O yes; thick enough for two letters.”

“Large enough and thick enough to contain this?” laying the

confession, folded and enveloped as it was, before her.

“Yes, sir,” giving it a look of startled amazement, “large enough

and thick enough to contain that.”

Mr. Gryce’s eyes, bright as diamonds, flashed around the room, and

finally settled upon a fly traversing my coat-sleeve. “Do you need

to ask now,” he whispered, in a low voice, “where, and from whom,

this so-called confession comes?”

He allowed himself one moment of silent triumph, then rising, began

folding the papers on the table and putting them in his pocket.

“What are you going to do?” I asked, hurriedly approaching.

He took me by the arm and led me across the hall into the

sitting-room. “I am going back to New York, I am going to pursue

this matter. I am going to find out from whom came the poison

which killed this girl, and by whose hand this vile forgery of a

confession was written.”

“But,” said I, rather thrown off my balance by all this, “Q and the

coroner will be here presently, won’t you wait to see them?”

“No; clues such as are given here must be followed while the trail

is hot; I can’t afford to wait.”

“If I am not mistaken, they have already come,” I remarked, as a

tramping of feet without announced that some one stood at the door.

“That is so,” he assented, hastening to let them in.

Judging from common experience, we had every reason to fear that

an immediate stop would be put to all proceedings on our part, as

soon as the coroner was introduced upon the scene. But happily

for us and the interest at stake, Dr. Fink, of R ----, proved to

be a very sensible man. He had only to hear a true story of the

affair to recognize at once its importance and the necessity of

the most cautious action in the matter. Further, by a sort of

sympathy with Mr. Gryce, all the more remarkable that he had never

seen him before, he expressed himself as willing to enter into our

plans, offering not only to allow us the temporary use of such

papers as we desired, but even undertaking to conduct the necessary

formalities of calling a jury and instituting an inquest in such a

way as to give us time for the investigations we proposed to make.

The delay was therefore short. Mr. Gryce was enabled to take the

6:30 train for New York, and I to follow on the 10 P.M.,--the

calling of a jury, ordering of an autopsy, and final adjournment of

the inquiry till the following Tuesday, having all taken place in

the interim.

XXXV. FINE WORK

“No hinge nor loop

To hang a doubt on!”

“But yet the pity of it, Iago! Oh, Iago, the pity of it, Iago.”

Othello.

One sentence dropped by Mr. Gryce before leaving R---- prepared me

for his next move.

“The clue to this murder is supplied by the paper on which the

confession is written. Find from whose desk or portfolio this

especial sheet was taken, and you find the double murderer,” he had

said.

Consequently, I was not surprised when, upon visiting his house,

early the next morning, I beheld him seated before a table on which

lay a lady’s writing-desk and a pile of paper, till told the desk

was Eleanore’s. Then I did show astonishment. “What,” said I, “are

you not satisfied yet of her innocence?”

“O yes; but one must be thorough. No conclusion is valuable which

is not preceded by a full and complete investigation. Why,” he

cried, casting his eyes complacently towards the fire-tongs, “I

have even been rummaging through Mr. Clavering’s effects, though

the confession bears the proof upon its face that it could not

have been written by him. It is not enough to look for evidence

where you expect to find it. You must sometimes search for it where

you don’t. Now,” said he, drawing the desk before him, “I don’t

anticipate finding anything here of a criminating character; but

it is among the possibilities that I may; and that is enough for a

detective.”

“Did you see Miss Leavenworth this morning?” I asked, as he

proceeded to fulfil his intention by emptying the contents of the

desk upon the table.

“Yes; I was unable to procure what I desired without it. And she

behaved very handsomely, gave me the desk with her own hands, and

never raised an objection. To be sure, she had little idea what I

was looking for; thought, perhaps, I wanted to make sure it did not

contain the letter about which so much has been said. But it would

have made but little difference if she had known the truth. This

desk contains nothing _we_ want.”

“Was she well; and had she heard of Hannah’s sudden death?” I

asked, in my irrepressible anxiety.

“Yes, and feels it, as you might expect her to. But let us see what

we have here,” said he, pushing aside the desk, and drawing towards

him the stack of paper I have already referred to. “I found this

pile, just as you see it, in a drawer of the library table at Miss

Mary Leavenworth’s house in Fifth Avenue. If I am not mistaken, it

will supply us with the clue we want.”

“But----”

“But this paper is square, while that of the confession is of the

size and shape of commercial note? I know; but you remember the

sheet used in the confession was trimmed down. Let us compare the

quality.”

Taking the confession from his pocket and the sheet from the pile

before him, he carefully compared them, then held them out for my

inspection. A glance showed them to be alike in color.

“Hold them up to the light,” said he.

I did so; the appearance presented by both was precisely alike.

“Now let us compare the ruling.” And, laying them both down on the

table, he placed the edges of the two sheets together. The lines on

the one accommodated themselves to the lines on the other; and that

question was decided.

His triumph was assured. “I was convinced of it,” said he. “From

the moment I pulled open that drawer and saw this mass of paper, I

knew the end was come.”

“But,” I objected, in my old spirit of combativeness, “isn’t there

any room for doubt? This paper is of the commonest kind. Every

family on the block might easily have specimens of it in their

library.”

“That isn’t so,” he said. “It is letter size, and that has gone

out. Mr. Leavenworth used it for his manuscript, or I doubt if

it would have been found in his library. But, if you are still

incredulous, let us see what can be done,” and jumping up, he

carried the confession to the window, looked at it this way and

that, and, finally discovering what he wanted, came back and,

laying it before me, pointed out one of the lines of ruling which

was markedly heavier than the rest, and another which was so faint

as to be almost undistinguishable. “Defects like these often run

through a number of consecutive sheets,” said he. “If we could

find the identical half-quire from which this was taken, I might

show you proof that would dispel every doubt,” and taking up the

one that lay on top, he rapidly counted the sheets. There were but

eight. “It might have been taken from this one,” said he; but,

upon looking closely at the ruling, he found it to be uniformly

distinct. “Humph! that won’t do!” came from his lips.

The remainder of the paper, some dozen or so half-quires, looked

undisturbed. Mr. Gryce tapped his fingers on the table and a

frown crossed his face. “Such a pretty thing, if it could have

been done!” he longingly exclaimed. Suddenly he took up the next

half-quire. “Count the sheets,” said he, thrusting it towards me,

and himself lifting another.

I did as I was bid. “Twelve.”

He counted his and laid it down. “Go on with the rest,” he cried.

I counted the sheets in the next; twelve. He counted those in the

one following, and paused. “Eleven!”

“Count again,” I suggested.

He counted again, and quietly put them aside. “I made a mistake,”

said he.

But he was not to be discouraged. Taking another half-quire, he

went through with the same operation;--in vain. With a sigh of

impatience he flung it down on the table and looked up. “Halloo!”

he cried, “what is the matter?”

“There are but eleven sheets in this package,” I said, placing it

in his hand.

The excitement he immediately evinced was contagious. Oppressed

as I was, I could not resist his eagerness. “Oh, beautiful!” he

exclaimed. “Oh, beautiful! See! the light on the inside, the heavy

one on the outside, and both in positions precisely corresponding

to those on this sheet of Hannah’s. What do you think now? Is any

further proof necessary?”

“The veriest doubter must succumb before this,” returned I.

With something like a considerate regard for my emotion, he turned

away. “I am obliged to congratulate myself, notwithstanding the

gravity of the discovery that has been made,” said he. “It is

so neat, so very neat, and so conclusive. I declare I am myself

astonished at the perfection of the thing. But what a woman that

is!” he suddenly cried, in a tone of the greatest admiration. “What

an intellect she has! what shrewdness! what skill! I declare it is

almost a pity to entrap a woman who has done as well as this--taken

a sheet from the very bottom of the pile, trimmed it into another

shape, and then, remembering the girl couldn’t write, put what she

had to say into coarse, awkward printing, Hannah-like. _Splendid_!

or would have been, if any other man than myself had had this thing

in charge.” And, all animated and glowing with his enthusiasm, he

eyed the chandelier above him as if it were the embodiment of his

own sagacity.

Sunk in despair, I let him go on.

“Could she have done any better?” he now asked. “Watched,

circumscribed as she was, could she have done any better? I hardly

think so; the fact of Hannah’s having learned to write after she

left here was fatal. No, she could not have provided against that

contingency.”

“Mr. Gryce,” I here interposed, unable to endure this any longer;

“did you have an interview with Miss Mary Leavenworth this morning?”

“No,” said he; “it was not in the line of my present purpose to do

so. I doubt, indeed, if she knew I was in her house. A servant maid

who has a grievance is a very valuable assistant to a detective.

With Molly at my side, I didn’t need to pay my respects to the

mistress.”

“Mr. Gryce,” I asked, after another moment of silent

self-congratulation on his part, and of desperate self-control

on mine, “what do you propose to do now? You have followed your

clue to the end and are satisfied. Such knowledge as this is the

precursor of action.”

“Humph! we will see,” he returned, going to his private desk and

bringing out the box of papers which we had no opportunity of

looking at while in R----. “First let us examine these documents,

and see if they do not contain some hint which may be of service

to us.” And taking out the dozen or so loose sheets which had been

torn from Eleanore’s Diary, he began turning them over.

While he was doing this, I took occasion to examine the contents

of the box. I found them to be precisely what Mrs. Belden had led

me to expect,--a certificate of marriage between Mary and Mr.

Clavering and a half-dozen or more letters. While glancing over the

former, a short exclamation from Mr. Gryce startled me into looking

up.

“What is it?” I cried.

He thrust into my hand the leaves of Eleanore’s Diary. “Read,” said

he. “Most of it is a repetition of what you have already heard from

Mrs. Belden, though given from a different standpoint; but there is

one passage in it which, if I am not mistaken, opens up the way to

an explanation of this murder such as we have not had yet. Begin at

the beginning; you won’t find it dull.”

Dull! Eleanore’s feelings and thoughts during that anxious time,

dull!

Mustering up my self-possession, I spread out the leaves in their

order and commenced:

“R----, July 6,----”

“Two days after they got there, you perceive,” Mr. Gryce explained.

“--A gentleman was introduced to us to-day upon the _piazza_ whom

I cannot forbear mentioning; first, because he is the most perfect

specimen of manly beauty I ever beheld, and secondly, because

Mary, who is usually so voluble where gentlemen are concerned,

had nothing to say when, in the privacy of our own apartment, I

questioned her as to the effect his appearance and conversation had

made upon her. The fact that he is an Englishman may have something

to do with this; Uncle’s antipathy to every one of that nation

being as well-known to her as to me. But somehow I cannot feel

satisfied of this. Her experience with Charlie Somerville has made

me suspicious. What if the story of last summer were to be repeated

here, with an Englishman for the hero! But I will not allow myself

to contemplate such a possibility. Uncle will return in a few days,

and then all communication with one who, however prepossessing, is

of a family and race with whom it is impossible for us to unite

ourselves, must of necessity cease. I doubt if I should have

thought twice of all this if Mr. Clavering had not betrayed, upon

his introduction to Mary, such intense and unrestrained admiration.

“July 8. The old story is to be repeated. Mary not only submits to

the attentions of Mr. Clavering, but encourages them. To-day she

sat two hours at the piano singing over to him her favorite songs,

and to-night--But I will not put down every trivial circumstance

that comes under my observation; it is unworthy of me. And yet, how

can I shut my eyes when the happiness of so many I love is at stake!

“July 11. If Mr. Clavering is not absolutely in love with Mary,

he is on the verge of it. He is a very fine-looking man, and too

honorable to be trifled with in this reckless fashion.

“July 13. Mary’s beauty blossoms like the rose. She was absolutely

wonderful to-night in scarlet and silver. I think her smile the

sweetest I ever beheld, and in this I am sure Mr. Clavering

passionately agrees with me; he never looked away from her

to-night. But it is not so easy to read _her_ heart. To be sure,

she appears anything but indifferent to his fine appearance,

strong sense, and devoted affection. But did she not deceive us

into believing she loved Charlie Somerville? In her case, blush

and smile go for little, I fear. Would it not be wiser under the

circumstances to say, I hope?

“July 17. Oh, my heart! Mary came into my room this evening, and

absolutely startled me by falling at my side and burying her face

in my lap. ‘Oh, Eleanore, Eleanore!’ she murmured, quivering with

what seemed to me very happy sobs. But when I strove to lift her

head to my breast, she slid from my arms, and drawing herself up

into her old attitude of reserved pride, raised her hand as if

to impose silence, and haughtily left the room. There is but one

interpretation to put upon this. Mr. Clavering has expressed his

sentiments, and she is filled with that reckless delight which in

its first flush makes one insensible to the existence of barriers

which have hitherto been deemed impassable. When will Uncle come?

“July 18. Little did I think when I wrote the above that Uncle was

already in the house. He arrived unexpectedly on the last train,

and came into my room just as I was putting away my diary. Looking

a little care-worn, he took me in his arms and then asked for Mary.

I dropped my head, and could not help stammering as I replied that

she was in her own room. Instantly his love took alarm, and leaving

me, he hastened to her apartment, where I afterwards learned he

came upon her sitting abstractedly before her dressing-table with

Mr. Clavering’s family ring on her finger. I do not know what

followed. An unhappy scene, I fear, for Mary is ill this morning,

and Uncle exceedingly melancholy and stern.

“Afternoon. We are an unhappy family! Uncle not only refuses to

consider for a moment the question of Mary’s alliance with Mr.

Clavering, but even goes so far as to demand his instant and

unconditional dismissal. The knowledge of this came to me in

the most distressing way. Recognizing the state of affairs, but

secretly rebelling against a prejudice which seemed destined to

separate two persons otherwise fitted for each other, I sought

Uncle’s presence this morning after breakfast, and attempted to

plead their cause. But he almost instantly stopped me with the

remark, ‘You are the last one, Eleanore, who should seek to promote

this marriage.’ Trembling with apprehension, I asked him why.

‘For the reason that by so doing you work entirely for your own

interest.’ More and more troubled, I begged him to explain himself.

‘I mean,’ said he, ‘that if Mary disobeys me by marrying this

Englishman, I shall disinherit her, and substitute your name for

hers in my will as well as in my affection.’

“For a moment everything swam before my eyes. ‘You will never make

me so wretched!’ I entreated. ‘I will make you my heiress, if Mary

persists in her present determination,’ he declared, and without

further word sternly left the room. What could I do but fall on

my knees and pray! Of all in this miserable house, I am the most

wretched. To supplant her! But I shall not be called upon to do it;

Mary will give up Mr. Clavering.”

“There!” exclaimed Mr. Gryce. “What do you think of that? Isn’t it

becoming plain enough what was Mary’s motive for this murder? But

go on; let us hear what followed.”

With sinking heart, I continued. The next entry is dated July 19,

and runs thus:

“I was right. After a long struggle with Uncle’s invincible will,

Mary has consented to dismiss Mr. Clavering. I was in the room when

she made known her decision, and I shall never forget our Uncle’s

look of gratified pride as he clasped her in his arms and called

her his own True Heart. He has evidently been very much exercised

over this matter, and I cannot but feel greatly relieved that

affairs have terminated so satisfactorily. But Mary? What is there

in her manner that vaguely disappoints me? I cannot say. I only

know that I felt a powerful shrinking overwhelm me when she turned

her face to me and asked if I were satisfied now. But I conquered

my feelings and held out my hand. She did not take it.

“July 26. How long the days are! The shadow of our late trial is

upon me yet; I cannot shake it off. I seem to see Mr. Clavering’s

despairing face wherever I go. How is it that Mary preserves her

cheerfulness? If she does not love him, I should think the respect

which she must feel for his disappointment would keep her from

levity at least.

“Uncle has gone away again. Nothing I could say sufficed to keep

him.

“July 28. It has all come out. Mary has only nominally separated

from Mr. Clavering; she still cherishes the idea of one day

uniting herself to him in marriage. The fact was revealed to me in

a strange way not necessary to mention here; and has since been

confirmed by Mary herself. ‘I admire the man,’ she declares, ‘and

have no intention of giving him up.’ ‘Then why not tell Uncle so?’

I asked. Her only answer was a bitter smile and a short,--‘I leave

that for you to do.’

“July 30. Midnight. Worn completely out, but before my blood cools

let me write. Mary is a wife. I have just returned from seeing

her give her hand to Henry Clavering. Strange that I can write it

without quivering when my whole soul is one flush of indignation

and revolt. But let me state the facts. Having left my room for a

few minutes this morning, I returned to find on my dressing-table

a note from Mary in which she informed me that she was going to

take Mrs. Belden for a drive and would not be back for some hours.

Convinced, as I had every reason to be, that she was on her way to

meet Mr. Clavering, I only stopped to put on my hat--”

There the Diary ceased.

“She was probably interrupted by Mary at this point,” explained

Mr. Gryce. “But we have come upon the one thing we wanted to know.

Mr. Leavenworth threatened to supplant Mary with Eleanore if she

persisted in marrying contrary to his wishes. She did so marry, and

to avoid the consequences of her act she----”

“Say no more,” I returned, convinced at last. “It is only too

clear.”

Mr. Gryce rose.

“But the writer of these words is saved,” I went on, trying to

grasp the one comfort left me. “No one who reads this Diary will

ever dare to insinuate she is capable of committing a crime.”

“Assuredly not; the Diary settles that matter effectually.”

I tried to be man enough to think of that and nothing else. To

rejoice in her deliverance, and let every other consideration go;

but in this I did not succeed. “But Mary, her cousin, almost her

sister, is lost,” I muttered.

Mr. Gryce thrust his hands into his pockets and, for the first

time, showed some evidence of secret disturbance. “Yes, I am afraid

she is; I really am afraid she is.” Then after a pause, during

which I felt a certain thrill of vague hope: “Such an entrancing

creature too! It is a pity, it positively is a pity! I declare,

now that the thing is worked up, I begin to feel almost sorry we

have succeeded so well. Strange, but true. If there was the least

loophole out of it,” he muttered. “But there isn’t. The thing is

clear as A, B, C.” Suddenly he rose, and began pacing the floor

very thoughtfully, casting his glances here, there, and everywhere,

except at me, though I believe now, as then, my face was all he saw.

“Would it be a very great grief to you, Mr. Raymond, if Miss

Mary Leavenworth should be arrested on this charge of murder?”

he asked, pausing before a sort of tank in which two or three

disconsolate-looking fishes were slowly swimming about.

“Yes,” said I, “it would; a very great grief.”

“Yet it must be done,” said he, though with a strange lack of

his usual decision. “As an honest official, trusted to bring

the murderer of Mr. Leavenworth to the notice of the proper

authorities, I have got to do it.”

Again that strange thrill of hope at my heart induced by his

peculiar manner.

“Then my reputation as a detective! I ought surely to consider

that. I am not so rich or so famous that I can afford to forget

all that a success like this may bring me. No, lovely as she is, I

have got to push it through.” But even as he said this, he became

still more thoughtful, gazing down into the murky depths of the

wretched tank before him with such an intentness I half expected

the fascinated fishes to rise from the water and return his gaze.

What was in his mind?

After a little while he turned, his indecision utterly gone. “Mr.

Raymond, come here again at three. I shall then have my report

ready for the Superintendent. I should like to show it to you

first, so don’t fail me.”

There was something so repressed in his expression, I could not

prevent myself from venturing one question. “Is your mind made up?”

I asked.

“Yes,” he returned, but in a peculiar tone, and with a peculiar

gesture.

“And you are going to make the arrest you speak of?”

“Come at three!”

XXXVI. GATHERED THREADS

“This is the short and the long of it.”

Merry Wives of Windsor.

Promptly at the hour named, I made my appearance at Mr. Gryce’s

door. I found him awaiting me on the threshold.

“I have met you,” said he gravely, “for the purpose of requesting

you not to speak during the coming interview. I am to do the

talking; you the listening. Neither are you to be surprised at

anything I may do or say. I am in a facetious mood”--he did not

look so--“and may take it into my head to address you by another

name than your own. If I do, don’t mind it. Above all, don’t talk:

remember that.” And without waiting to meet my look of doubtful

astonishment, he led me softly up-stairs.

The room in which I had been accustomed to meet him was at the top

of the first flight, but he took me past that into what appeared to

be the garret story, where, after many cautionary signs, he ushered

me into a room of singularly strange and unpromising appearance. In

the first place, it was darkly gloomy, being lighted simply by a

very dim and dirty skylight. Next, it was hideously empty; a pine

table and two hard-backed chairs, set face to face at each end of

it, being the only articles in the room. Lastly, it was surrounded

by several closed doors with blurred and ghostly ventilators over

their tops which, being round, looked like the blank eyes of a row

of staring mummies. Altogether it was a lugubrious spot, and in the

present state of my mind made me feel as if something unearthly

and threatening lay crouched in the very atmosphere. Nor, sitting

there cold and desolate, could I imagine that the sunshine glowed

without, or that life, beauty, and pleasure paraded the streets

below.

Mr. Gryce’s expression, as he took a seat and beckoned me to do the

same, may have had something to do with this strange sensation, it

was so mysteriously and sombrely expectant.

“You’ll not mind the room,” said he, in so muffled a tone I

scarcely heard him. “It’s an awful lonesome spot, I know; but folks

with such matters before them mustn’t be too particular as to the

places in which they hold their consultations, if they don’t want

all the world to know as much as they do. Smith,” and he gave me

an admonitory shake of his finger, while his voice took a more

distinct tone, “I have done the business; the reward is mine; the

assassin of Mr. Leavenworth is found, and in two hours will be in

custody. Do you want to know who it is?” leaning forward with every

appearance of eagerness in tone and expression.

I stared at him in great amazement. Had anything new come to

light? any great change taken place in his conclusions? All this

preparation could not be for the purpose of acquainting me with

what I already knew, yet--

He cut short my conjectures with a low, expressive chuckle. “It was

a long chase, I tell you,” raising his voice still more; “a tight

go; a woman in the business too; but all the women in the world

can’t pull the wool over the eyes of Ebenezer Gryce when he is on

a trail; and the assassin of Mr. Leavenworth and”--here his voice

became actually shrill in his excitement--“and of Hannah Chester is

found.

“Hush!” he went on, though I had neither spoken nor made any move;

“you didn’t know Hannah Chester was murdered. Well, she wasn’t in

one sense of the word, but in another she was, and by the same

hand that killed the old gentleman. How do I know this? look here!

This scrap of paper was found on the floor of her room; it had a

few particles of white powder sticking to it; those particles were

tested last night and found to be poison. But you say the girl

took it herself, that she was a suicide. You are right, she did

take it herself, and it was a suicide; but who terrified her into

this act of self-destruction? Why, the one who had the most reason

to fear her testimony, of course. But the proof, you say. Well,

sir, this girl left a confession behind her, throwing the onus of

the whole crime on a certain party believed to be innocent; this

confession was a forged one, known from three facts; first, that

the paper upon which it was written was unobtainable by the girl

in the place where she was; secondly, that the words used therein

were printed in coarse, awkward characters, whereas Hannah, thanks

to the teaching of the woman under whose care she has been since

the murder, had learned to write very well; thirdly, that the story

told in the confession does not agree with the one related by the

girl herself. Now the fact of a forged confession throwing the

guilt upon an innocent party having been found in the keeping of

this ignorant girl, killed by a dose of poison, taken with the fact

here stated, that on the morning of the day on which she killed

herself the girl received from some one manifestly acquainted

with the customs of the Leavenworth family a letter large enough

and thick enough to contain the confession folded, as it was when

found, makes it almost certain to my mind that the murderer of Mr.

Leavenworth sent this powder and this so-called confession to the

girl, meaning her to use them precisely as she did: for the purpose

of throwing off suspicion from the right track and of destroying

herself at the same time; for, as you know, dead men tell no tales.”

He paused and looked at the dingy skylight above us. Why did the

air seem to grow heavier and heavier? Why did I shudder in vague

apprehension? I knew all this before; why did it strike me, then,

as something new?

“But who was this? you ask. Ah, that is the secret; that is the bit

of knowledge which is to bring me fame and fortune. But, secret

or not, I don’t mind telling you”; lowering his voice and rapidly

raising it again. “The fact is, _I_ can’t keep it to myself; it

burns like a new dollar in my pocket. Smith, my boy, the murderer

of Mr. Leavenworth--but stay, who does the world say it is? Whom do

the papers point at and shake their heads over? A woman! a young,

beautiful, bewitching woman! Ha, ha, ha! The papers are right; it

is a woman; young, beautiful, and bewitching too. But what one?

Ah, that’s the question. There is more than one woman in this

affair. Since Hannah’s death I have heard it openly advanced that

she was the guilty party in the crime: bah! Others cry it is the

niece who was so unequally dealt with by her uncle in his will:

bah! again. But folks are not without some justification for this

latter assertion. Eleanore Leavenworth did know more of this matter

than appeared. Worse than that, Eleanore Leavenworth stands in a

position of positive peril to-day. If you don’t think so, let me

show you what the detectives have against her.

“First, there is the fact that a handkerchief, with her name on it,

was found stained with pistol grease upon the scene of murder; a

place which she explicitly denies having entered for twenty-four

hours previous to the discovery of the dead body.

“Secondly, the fact that she not only evinced terror when

confronted with this bit of circumstantial evidence, but manifested

a decided disposition, both at this time and others, to mislead

inquiry, shirking a direct answer to some questions and refusing

all answer to others.

“Thirdly, that an attempt was made by her to destroy a certain

letter evidently relating to this crime.

“Fourthly, that the key to the library door was seen in her

possession.

“All this, taken with the fact that the fragments of the letter

which this same lady attempted to destroy within an hour after

the inquest were afterwards put together, and were found to

contain a bitter denunciation of one of Mr. Leavenworth’s nieces,

by a gentleman we will call _X_ in other words, an unknown

quantity--makes out a dark case against _you_, especially as

after investigations revealed the fact that a secret underlay the

history of the Leavenworth family. That, unknown to the world at

large, and Mr. Leavenworth in particular, a marriage ceremony

had been performed a year before in a little town called F----

between a Miss Leavenworth and this same _X_. That, in other

words, the unknown gentleman who, in the letter partly destroyed

by Miss Eleanore Leavenworth, complained to Mr. Leavenworth of

the treatment received by him from one of his nieces, was in fact

the secret husband of that niece. And that, moreover, this same

gentleman, under an assumed name, called on the night of the murder

at the house of Mr. Leavenworth and asked for Miss Eleanore.

“Now you see, with all this against her, Eleanore Leavenworth is

lost if it cannot be proved, first that the articles testifying

against her, viz.: the handkerchief, letter, and key, passed after

the murder through other hands, before reaching hers; and secondly,

that some one else had even a stronger reason than she for desiring

Mr. Leavenworth’s death at this time.

“Smith, my boy, both of these hypotheses have been established by

me. By dint of moleing into old secrets, and following unpromising

clues, I have finally come to the conclusion that not Eleanore

Leavenworth, dark as are the appearances against her, but another

woman, beautiful as she, and fully as interesting, is the true

criminal. In short, that her cousin, the exquisite Mary, is the

murderer of Mr. Leavenworth, and by inference of Hannah Chester

also.”

He brought this out with such force, and with such a look of

triumph and appearance of having led up to it, that I was for the

moment dumbfounded, and started as if I had not known what he was

going to say. The stir I made seemed to awake an echo. Something

like a suppressed cry was in the air about me. All the room

appeared to breathe horror and dismay. Yet when, in the excitement

of this fancy, I half turned round to look, I found nothing but the

blank eyes of those dull ventilators staring upon me.

“You are taken aback!” Mr. Gryce went on. “I don’t wonder.

Every one else is engaged in watching the movements of Eleanore

Leavenworth; I only know where to put my hand upon the real

culprit. You shake your head!” (Another fiction.) “You don’t

believe me! Think I am deceived. Ha, ha! Ebenezer Gryce deceived

after a month of hard work! You are as bad as Miss Leavenworth

herself, who has so little faith in my sagacity that she offered

me, of all men, an enormous reward if I would find for her the

assassin of her uncle! But that is neither here nor there; you

have your doubts, and you are waiting for me to solve them.

Well, nothing is easier. Know first that on the morning of the

inquest I made one or two discoveries not to be found in the

records, viz.: that the handkerchief picked up, as I have said,

in Mr. Leavenworth’s library, had notwithstanding its stains of

pistol grease, a decided perfume lingering about it. Going to the

dressing-table of the two ladies, I sought for that perfume, and

found it in Mary’s room, not Eleanore’s. This led me to examine

the pockets of the dresses respectively worn by them the evening

before. In that of Eleanore I found a handkerchief, presumably the

one she had carried at that time. But in Mary’s there was none,

nor did I see any lying about her room as if tossed down on her

retiring. The conclusion I drew from this was, that she, and not

Eleanore, had carried the handkerchief into her uncle’s room, a

conclusion emphasized by the fact privately communicated to me by

one of the servants, that Mary was in Eleanore’s room when the

basket of clean clothes was brought up with this handkerchief lying

on top.

“But knowing the liability we are to mistake in such matters as

these, I made another search in the library, and came across a very

curious thing. Lying on the table was a penknife, and scattered

on the floor beneath, in close proximity to the chair, were two

or three minute portions of wood freshly chipped off from the leg

of the table; all of which looked as if some one of a nervous

disposition had been sitting there, whose hand in a moment of

self-forgetfulness had caught up the knife and unconsciously

whittled the table. A little thing, you say; but when the question

is, which of two ladies, one of a calm and self-possessed nature,

the other restless in her ways and excitable in her disposition,

was in a certain spot at a certain time, it is these little things

that become almost deadly in their significance. No one who has

been with these two women an hour can hesitate as to whose delicate

hand made that cut in Mr. Leavenworth’s library table.

“But we are not done. I distinctly overheard Eleanore accuse her

cousin of this deed. Now such a woman as Eleanore Leavenworth has

proved herself to be never would accuse a relative of crime without

the strongest and most substantial reasons. First, she must have

been sure her cousin stood in a position of such emergency that

nothing but the death of her uncle could release her from it;

secondly, that her cousin’s character was of such a nature she

would not hesitate to relieve herself from a desperate emergency

by the most desperate of means; and lastly, been in possession

of some circumstantial evidence against her cousin, seriously

corroborative of her suspicions. Smith, all this was true of

Eleanore Leavenworth. As to the character of her cousin, she has

had ample proof of her ambition, love of money, caprice and deceit,

it having been Mary Leavenworth, and not Eleanore, as was first

supposed, who had contracted the secret marriage already spoken of.

Of the critical position in which she stood, let the threat once

made by Mr. Leavenworth to substitute her cousin’s name for hers in

his will in case she had married this _x_ be remembered, as well as

the tenacity with which Mary clung to her hopes of future fortune;

while for the corroborative testimony of her guilt which Eleanore

is supposed to have had, remember that previous to the key having

been found in Eleanore’s possession, she had spent some time in her

cousin’s room; and that it was at Mary’s fireplace the half-burned

fragments of that letter were found,--and you have the outline of a

report which in an hour’s time from this will lead to the arrest of

Mary Leavenworth as the assassin of her uncle and benefactor.”

A silence ensued which, like the darkness of Egypt, could be felt;

then a great and terrible cry rang through the room, and a man’s

form, rushing from I knew not where, shot by me and fell at Mr.

Gryce’s feet shrieking out:

“It is a lie! a lie! Mary Leavenworth is innocent as a babe unborn.

I am the murderer of Mr. Leavenworth. I! I! I!”

It was Trueman Harwell.

XXXVII. CULMINATION

“Saint seducing gold.”

Romeo and Juliet.

“When our actions do not,

Our fears do make us traitors.”

Macbeth.

I never saw such a look of mortal triumph on the face of a man as

that which crossed the countenance of the detective.

“Well,” said he, “this is unexpected, but not wholly unwelcome. I

am truly glad to learn that Miss Leavenworth is innocent; but I

must hear some few more particulars before I shall be satisfied.

Get up, Mr. Harwell, and explain yourself. If you are the murderer

of Mr. Leavenworth, how comes it that things look so black against

everybody but yourself?”

But in the hot, feverish eyes which sought him from the writhing

form at his feet, there was mad anxiety and pain, but little

explanation. Seeing him making unavailing efforts to speak, I drew

near.

“Lean on me,” said I, lifting him to his feet.

His face, relieved forever from its mask of repression, turned

towards me with the look of a despairing spirit. “Save! save!” he

gasped. “Save her--Mary--they are sending a report--stop it!”

“Yes,” broke in another voice. “If there is a man here who believes

in God and prizes woman’s honor, let him stop the issue of that

report.” And Henry Clavering, dignified as ever, but in a state of

extreme agitation, stepped into our midst through an open door at

our right.

[Illustration: “At the sight of his face, the man in our arms

quivered, shrieked, and gave one bound that would have overturned

Mr. Clavering, . . . had not Mr. Gryce interposed”]

But at the sight of his face, the man in our arms quivered,

shrieked, and gave one bound that would have overturned Mr.

Clavering, herculean of frame as he was, had not Mr. Gryce

interposed.

“Wait!” he cried; and holding back the secretary with one

hand--where was his rheumatism now!--he put the other in his pocket

and drew thence a document which he held up before Mr. Clavering.

“It has not gone yet,” said he; “be easy. And you,” he went on,

turning towards Trueman Harwell, “be quiet, or----”

His sentence was cut short by the man springing from his grasp.

“Let me go!” he shrieked. “Let me have my revenge on him who, in

face of all I have done for Mary Leavenworth, dares to call her his

wife! Let me--” But at this point he paused, his quivering frame

stiffening into stone, and his clutching hands, outstretched for

his rival’s throat, falling heavily back. “Hark!” said he, glaring

over Mr. Clavering’s shoulder: “it is she! I hear her! I feel her!

She is on the stairs! she is at the door! she--” a low, shuddering

sigh of longing and despair finished the sentence: the door opened,

and Mary Leavenworth stood before us!

It was a moment to make young hairs turn gray. To see her face, so

pale, so haggard, so wild in its fixed horror, turned towards Henry

Clavering, to the utter ignoring of the real actor in this most

horrible scene! Trueman Harwell could not stand it.

“Ah, ah!” he cried; “look at her! cold, cold; not one glance for

me, though I have just drawn the halter from her neck and fastened

it about my own!”

And, breaking from the clasp of the man who in his jealous rage

would now have withheld him, he fell on his knees before Mary,

clutching her dress with frenzied hands. “You _shall_ look at me,”

he cried; “you _shall_ listen to me! I will not lose body and soul

for nothing. Mary, they said you were in peril! I could not endure

that thought, so I uttered the truth,--yes, though I knew what the

consequence would be,--and all I want now is for you to say you

believe me, when I swear that I only meant to secure to you the

fortune you so much desired; that I never dreamed it would come to

this; that it was because I loved you, and hoped to win your love

in return that I----”

But she did not seem to see him, did not seem to hear him. Her eyes

were fixed upon Henry Clavering with an awful inquiry in their

depths, and none but he could move her.

“You do not hear me!” shrieked the poor wretch. “Ice that you are,

you would not turn your head if I should call to you from the

depths of hell!”

But even this cry fell unheeded. Pushing her hands down upon his

shoulders as though she would sweep some impediment from her path,

she endeavored to advance. “Why is that man here?” she cried,

indicating her husband with one quivering hand. “What has he done

that he should be brought here to confront me at this awful time?”

“I told her to come here to meet her uncle’s murderer,” whispered

Mr. Gryce into my ear.

But before I could reply to her, before Mr. Clavering himself could

murmur a word, the guilty wretch before her had started to his feet.

“Don’t you know? then I will tell you. It is because these

gentlemen, chivalrous and honorable as they consider themselves,

think that you, the beauty and the Sybarite, committed with your

own white hand the deed of blood which has brought you freedom and

fortune. Yes, yes, this man”--turning and pointing at me--“friend

as he has made himself out to be, kindly and honorable as you have

doubtless believed him, but who in every look he has bestowed upon

you, every word he has uttered in your hearing during all these

four horrible weeks, has been weaving a cord for your neck--thinks

you the assassin of your uncle, unknowing that a man stood at your

side ready to sweep half the world from your path if that same

white hand rose in bidding. That I----”

“You?” Ah! now she could see him: now she could hear him!

“Yes,” clutching her robe again as she hastily recoiled; “didn’t

you know it? When in that dreadful hour of your rejection by

your uncle, you cried aloud for some one to help you, didn’t you

know----”

“Don’t!” she shrieked, bursting from him with a look of unspeakable

horror. “Don’t say that! Oh!” she gasped, “is the mad cry of a

stricken woman for aid and sympathy the call for a murderer?” And

turning away in horror, she moaned: “Who that ever looks at me now

will forget that a man--such a man!--dared to think that, because

I was in mortal perplexity, I would accept the murder of my best

friend as a relief from it!” Her horror was unbounded. “Oh, what a

chastisement for folly!” she murmured. “What a punishment for the

love of money which has always been my curse!”

Henry Clavering could no longer restrain himself, leaping to her

side, he bent over her. “Was it nothing but folly, Mary? Are you

guiltless of any deeper wrong? Is there no link of complicity

between you two? Have you nothing on your soul but an inordinate

desire to preserve your place in your uncle’s will, even at the

risk of breaking my heart and wronging your noble cousin? Are you

innocent in this matter? Tell me!” placing his hand on her head,

he pressed it slowly back and gazed into her eyes; then, without a

word, took her to his breast and looked calmly around him.

“She is innocent!” said he.

It was the uplifting of a stifling pall. No one in the room, unless

it was the wretched criminal shivering before us, but felt a

sudden influx of hope. Even Mary’s own countenance caught a glow.

“Oh!” she whispered, withdrawing from his arms to look better into

his face, “and is this the man I have trifled with, injured, and

tortured, till the very name of Mary Leavenworth might well make

him shudder? Is this he whom I married in a fit of caprice, only

to forsake and deny? Henry, do you declare me innocent in face of

all you have seen and heard; in face of that moaning, chattering

wretch before us, and my own quaking flesh and evident terror;

with the remembrance on your heart and in your mind of the letter

I wrote you the morning after the murder, in which I prayed you to

keep away from me, as I was in such deadly danger the least hint

given to the world that I had a secret to conceal would destroy me?

Do you, can you, will you, declare me innocent before God and the

world?”

“I do,” said he.

A light such as had never visited her face before passed slowly

over it. “Then God forgive me the wrong I have done this noble

heart, for I can never forgive myself! Wait!” said she, as he

opened his lips. “Before I accept any further tokens of your

generous confidence, let me show you what I am. You shall know the

worst of the woman you have taken to your heart. Mr. Raymond,”

she cried, turning towards me for the first time, “in those days

when, with such an earnest desire for my welfare (you see I do not

believe this man’s insinuations), you sought to induce me to speak

out and tell all I knew concerning this dreadful deed, I did not

do it because of my selfish fears. I knew the case looked dark

against me. Eleanore had told me so. Eleanore herself--and it was

the keenest pang I had to endure--believed me guilty. She had her

reasons. She knew first, from the directed envelope she had found

lying underneath my uncle’s dead body on the library table, that

he had been engaged at the moment of death in summoning his lawyer

to make that change in his will which would transfer my claims

to her; secondly, that notwithstanding my denial of the same, I

had been down to his room the night before, for she had heard my

door open and my dress rustle as I passed out. But that was not

all; the key that every one felt to be a positive proof of guilt

wherever found, had been picked up by her from the floor of my

room; the letter written by Mr. Clavering to my uncle was found in

my fire; and the handkerchief which she had seen me take from the

basket of clean clothes, was produced at the inquest stained with

pistol grease. I could not account for these things. A web seemed

tangled about my feet. I could not stir without encountering some

new toil. I knew I was innocent; but if I failed to satisfy my

cousin of this, how could I hope to convince the general public,

if once called upon to do so. Worse still, if Eleanore, with every

apparent motive for desiring long life to our uncle, was held in

such suspicion because of a few circumstantial evidences against

her, what would I not have to fear if these evidences were turned

against me, the heiress! The tone and manner of the juryman at the

inquest that asked who would be most benefited by my uncle’s will

showed but too plainly. When, therefore, Eleanore, true to her

heart’s generous instincts, closed her lips and refused to speak

when speech would have been my ruin, I let her do it, justifying

myself with the thought that she had deemed me capable of crime,

and so must bear the consequences. Nor, when I saw how dreadful

these were likely to prove, did I relent. Fear of the ignominy,

suspense, and danger which confession would entail sealed my lips.

Only once did I hesitate. That was when, in the last conversation

we had, I saw that, notwithstanding appearances, you believed in

Eleanore’s innocence, and the thought crossed me you might be

induced to believe in mine if I threw myself upon your mercy. But

just then Mr. Clavering came; and as in a flash I seemed to realize

what my future life would be, stained by suspicion, and, instead

of yielding to my impulse, went so far in the other direction as

to threaten Mr. Clavering with a denial of our marriage if he

approached me again till all danger was over.

“Yes, he will tell you that was my welcome to him when, with heart

and brain racked by long suspense, he came to my door for one word

of assurance that the peril I was in was not of my own making. That

was the greeting I gave him after a year of silence every moment of

which was torture to him. But he forgives me; I see it in his eyes;

I hear it in his accents; and you--oh, if in the long years to

come you can forget what I have made Eleanore suffer by my selfish

fears; if with the shadow of her wrong before you, you can by the

grace of some sweet hope think a little less hardly of me, do. As

for this man--torture could not be worse to me than this standing

with him in the same room--let him come forward and declare if I

by look or word have given him reason to believe I understood his

passion, much less returned it.”

“Why ask!” he gasped. “Don’t you see it was your indifference which

drove me mad? To stand before you, to agonize after you, to follow

you with thoughts in every move you made; to know my soul was

welded to yours with bands of steel no fire could melt, no force

destroy, no strain dissever; to sleep under the same roof, sit at

the same table, and yet meet not so much as one look to show me you

understood! It was that which made my life a hell. I was determined

you should understand. If I had to leap into a pit of flame, you

should know what I was, and what my passion for you was. And you

do. You comprehend it all now. Shrink as you will from my presence,

cower as you may to the weak man you call husband, you can never

forget the love of Trueman Harwell; never forget that love, love,

love, was the force which led me down into your uncle’s room that

night, and lent me will to pull the trigger which poured all the

wealth you hold this day into your lap. Yes,” he went on, towering

in his preternatural despair till even the noble form of Henry

Clavering looked dwarfed beside him, “every dollar that chinks from

your purse shall talk of me. Every gew-gaw which flashes on that

haughty head, too haughty to bend to me, shall shriek my name into

your ears. Fashion, pomp, luxury,--you will have them all; but

till gold loses its glitter and ease its attraction you will never

forget the hand that gave them to you!”

With a look whose evil triumph I cannot describe, he put his hand

into the arm of the waiting detective, and in another moment would

have been led from the room; when Mary, crushing down the swell of

emotions that was seething in her breast, lifted her head and said:

“No, Trueman Harwell; I cannot give you even that thought for your

comfort. Wealth so laden would bring nothing but torture. I cannot

accept the torture, so must release the wealth. From this day, Mary

Clavering owns nothing but what comes to her from the husband she

has so long and so basely wronged.” And raising her hands to her

ears, she tore out the diamonds which hung there, and flung them at

the feet of the unfortunate man.

It was the final wrench of the rack. With a yell such as I never

thought to listen to from the lips of a man, he flung up his arms,

while all the lurid light of madness glared on his face. “And I

have given my soul to hell for a shadow!” he moaned, “for a shadow!”

* * * * *

“Well, that is the best day’s work I ever did! Your

congratulations, Mr. Raymond, upon the success of the most daring

game ever played in a detective’s office.”

I looked at the triumphant countenance of Mr. Gryce in amazement.

“What do you mean?” I cried; “did you plan all this?”

“Did I plan it?” he repeated. “Could I stand here, seeing how

things have turned out, if I had not? Mr. Raymond, let us be

comfortable. You are a gentleman, but we can well shake hands over

this. I have never known such a satisfactory conclusion to a bad

piece of business in all my professional career.”

We did shake hands, long and fervently, and then I asked him to

explain himself.

“Well,” said he, “there has always been one thing that plagued

me, even in the very moment of my strongest suspicion against

this woman, and that was, the pistol-cleaning business. I could

not reconcile it with what I knew of womankind. I could not make

it seem the act of a woman. Did you ever know a woman who cleaned

a pistol? No. They can fire them, and do; but after firing them,

they do not clean them. Now it is a principle which every detective

recognizes, that if of a hundred leading circumstances connected

with a crime, ninety-nine of these are acts pointing to the

suspected party with unerring certainty, but the hundredth equally

important act one which that person could not have performed, the

whole fabric of suspicion is destroyed. Recognizing this principle,

then, as I have said, I hesitated when it came to the point of

arrest. The chain was complete; the links were fastened; but one

link was of a different size and material from the rest; and in

this argued a break in the chain. I resolved to give her a final

chance. Summoning Mr. Clavering, and Mr. Harwell, two persons whom

I had no reason to suspect, but who were the only persons beside

herself who could have committed this crime, being the only persons

of intellect who were in the house or believed to be, at the time

of the murder, I notified them separately that the assassin of Mr.

Leavenworth was not only found, but was about to be arrested in my

house, and that if they wished to hear the confession which would

be sure to follow, they might have the opportunity of doing so by

coming here at such an hour. They were both too much interested,

though for very different reasons, to refuse; and I succeeded in

inducing them to conceal themselves in the two rooms from which

you saw them issue, knowing that if either of them had committed

this deed, he had done it for the love of Mary Leavenworth, and

consequently could not hear her charged with crime, and threatened

with arrest, without betraying himself. I did not hope much from

the experiment; least of all did I anticipate that Mr. Harwell

would prove to be the guilty man--but live and learn, Mr. Raymond,

live and learn.”

XXXVIII. A FULL CONFESSION

“Between the acting of a dreadful thing,

And the first motion, all the interim is

Like a phantasma or a hideous dream;

The genius and the mortal instruments

Are then in council; and the state of a man,

Like to a little Kingdom, suffers then

The nature of an insurrection.”

Julius Cæsar.

I am not a bad man; I am only an intense one. Ambition, love,

jealousy, hatred, revenge--transitory emotions with some, are

terrific passions with me. To be sure, they are quiet and concealed

ones, coiled serpents that make no stir till aroused; but then,

deadly in their spring and relentless in their action. Those who

have known me best have not known this. My own mother was ignorant

of it. Often and often have I heard her say: “If Trueman only had

more sensibility! If Trueman were not so indifferent to everything!

In short, if Trueman had more power in him!”

It was the same at school. No one understood me. They thought me

meek; called me Dough-face. For three years they called me this,

then I turned upon them. Choosing out their ringleader, I felled

him to the ground, laid him on his back, and stamped upon him. He

was handsome before my foot came down; afterwards--Well, it is

enough he never called me Dough-face again. In the store I entered

soon after, I met with even less appreciation. Regular at my work

and exact in my performance of it, they thought me a good machine

and nothing more. What heart, soul, and feeling could a man have

who never sported, never smoked, and never laughed? I could reckon

up figures correctly, but one scarcely needed heart or soul for

that. I could even write day by day and month by month without

showing a flaw in my copy; but that only argued I was no more than

they intimated, a regular automaton. I let them think so, with the

certainty before me that they would one day change their minds as

others had done. The fact was, I loved nobody well enough, not even

myself, to care for any man’s opinion. Life was well-nigh a blank

to me; a dead level plain that had to be traversed whether I would

or not. And such it might have continued to this day if I had never

met Mary Leavenworth. But when, some nine months since, I left my

desk in the counting-house for a seat in Mr. Leavenworth’s library,

a blazing torch fell into my soul whose flame has never gone out,

and never will, till the doom before me is accomplished.

She was so beautiful! When, on that first evening, I followed my

new employer into the parlor, and saw this woman standing up before

me in her half-alluring, half-appalling charm, I knew, as by a

lightning flash, what my future would be if I remained in that

house. She was in one of her haughty moods, and bestowed upon me

little more than a passing glance. But her indifference made slight

impression upon me then. It was enough that I was allowed to stand

in her presence and look unrebuked upon her loveliness. To be sure,

it was like gazing into the flower-wreathed crater of an awakening

volcano. Fear and fascination were in each moment I lingered there;

but fear and fascination made the moment what it was, and I could

not have withdrawn if I would.

And so it was always. Unspeakable pain as well as pleasure was in

the emotion with which I regarded her. Yet for all that I did not

cease to study her hour by hour and day by day; her smiles, her

movement, her way of turning her head or lifting her eyelids. I had

a purpose in this. I wished to knit her beauty so firmly into the

warp and woof of my being that nothing could ever serve to tear it

away. For I saw then as plainly as now that, coquette though she

was, she would never stoop to me. No; I might lie down at her feet

and let her trample over me; she would not even turn to see what

it was she had stepped upon. I might spend days, months, years,

learning the alphabet of her wishes; she would not thank me for

my pains or even raise the lashes from her cheek to look at me as

I passed. I was nothing to her, could not be anything unless--and

this thought came slowly--I could in some way become her master.

Meantime I wrote at Mr. Leavenworth’s dictation and pleased him.

My methodical ways were just to his taste. As for the other member

of the family, Miss Eleanore Leavenworth--she treated me just as

one of her proud but sympathetic nature might be expected to do.

Not familiarly, but kindly; not as a friend, but as a member of the

household whom she met every day at table, and who, as she or any

one else could see, was none too happy or hopeful.

Six months went by. I had learned two things; first, that Mary

Leavenworth loved her position as prospective heiress to a large

fortune above every other earthly consideration; and secondly,

that she was in the possession of a secret which endangered that

position. What this was, I had for some time no means of knowing.

But when later I became convinced it was one of love, I grew

hopeful, strange as it may seem. For by this time I had learned Mr.

Leavenworth’s disposition almost as perfectly as that of his niece,

and knew that in a matter of this kind he would be uncompromising;

and that in the clashing of these two wills something might occur

which would give me a hold upon her. The only thing that troubled

me was the fact that I did not know the name of the man in whom she

was interested. But chance soon favored me here. One day--a month

ago now--I sat down to open Mr. Leavenworth’s mail as usual. One

letter--shall I ever forget it? ran thus:

“HOFFMAN HOUSE,

“March 1, 1876.”

MR. HORATIO LEAVENWORTH:

“DEAR SIR,--You have a niece whom you love and trust, one,

too, who seems worthy of all the love and trust that you or

any other man can give her; so beautiful, so charming, so

tender is she in face, form, manner, and conversation. But,

dear sir, every rose has its thorn, and your rose is no

exception to this rule. Lovely as she is, charming as she

is, tender as she is, she is not only capable of trampling

on the rights of one who trusted her, but of bruising the

heart and breaking the spirit of him to whom she owes all

duty, honor, and observance.

“If you don’t believe this, ask her to her cruel,

bewitching face, who and what is her humble servant, and

yours.

“Henry Ritchie Clavering.”

If a bombshell had exploded at my feet, or the evil one himself

appeared at my call, I would not have been more astounded. Not

only was the name signed to these remarkable words unknown to me,

but the epistle itself was that of one who felt himself to be her

master: a position which, as you know, I was myself aspiring to

occupy. For a few minutes, then, I stood a prey to feelings of the

bitterest wrath and despair; then I grew calm, realizing that with

this letter in my possession I was virtually the arbitrator of her

destiny. Some men would have sought her there and then and, by

threatening to place it in her uncle’s hand, won from her a look of

entreaty, if no more; but I--well, my plans went deeper than that.

I knew she would have to be in extremity before I could hope to win

her. She must feel herself slipping over the edge of the precipice

before she would clutch at the first thing offering succor. I

decided to allow the letter to pass into my employer’s hands. But

it had been opened! How could I manage to give it to him in this

condition without exciting his suspicion? I knew of but one way; to

let him see me open it for what he would consider the first time.

So, waiting till he came into the room, I approached him with the

letter, tearing off the end of the envelope as I came. Opening it,

I gave a cursory glance at its contents and tossed it down on the

table before him.

“That appears to be of a private character,” said I, “though there

is no sign to that effect on the envelope.”

He took it up while I stood there. At the first word he started,

looked at me, seemed satisfied from my expression that I had not

read far enough to realize its nature, and, whirling slowly around

in his chair, devoured the remainder in silence. I waited a moment,

then withdrew to my own desk. One minute, two minutes passed in

silence; he was evidently rereading the letter; then he hurriedly

rose and left the room. As he passed me I caught a glimpse of his

face in the mirror. The expression I saw there did not tend to

lessen the hope that was rising in my breast.

By following him almost immediately up-stairs I ascertained that

he went directly to Mary’s room, and when in a few hours later

the family collected around the dinner table, I perceived, almost

without looking up, that a great and insurmountable barrier had

been raised between him and his favorite niece.

Two days passed; days that were for me one long and unrelieved

suspense. Had Mr. Leavenworth answered that letter? Would it all

end as it had begun, without the appearance of the mysterious

Clavering on the scene? I could not tell.

Meanwhile my monotonous work went on, grinding my heart beneath its

relentless wheel. I wrote and wrote and wrote, till it seemed as if

my life blood went from me with every drop of ink I used. Always

alert and listening, I dared not lift my head or turn my eyes at

any unusual sound, lest I should seem to be watching. The third

night I had a dream; I have already told Mr. Raymond what it was,

and hence will not repeat it here. One correction, however, I wish

to make in regard to it. In my statement to him I declared that the

face of the man whom I saw lift his hand against my employer was

that of Mr. Clavering. I lied when I said this. The face seen by me

in my dream was my own. It was that fact which made it so horrible

to me. In the crouching figure stealing warily down-stairs, I saw

as in a glass the vision of my own form. Otherwise my account of

the matter was true.

This vision had a tremendous effect upon me. Was it a premonition?

a forewarning of the way in which I was to win this coveted

creature for my own? Was the death of her uncle the bridge by

which the impassable gulf between us might be spanned? I began to

think it might be; to consider the possibilities which could make

this the only path to my elysium; even went so far as to picture

her lovely face bending gratefully towards me through the glare

of a sudden release from some emergency in which she stood. One

thing was sure; if that was the way I must go, I had at least been

taught how to tread it; and all through the dizzy, blurred day that

followed, I saw, as I sat at my work, repeated visions of that

stealthy, purposeful figure stealing down the stairs and entering

with uplifted pistol into the unconscious presence of my employer.

I even found myself a dozen times that day turning my eyes upon

the door through which it was to come, wondering how long it would

be before my actual form would pause there. That the moment was

at hand I did not imagine. Even when I left him that night after

drinking with him the glass of sherry mentioned at the inquest, I

had no idea the hour of action was so near. But when, not three

minutes after going up-stairs, I caught the sound of a lady’s dress

rustling through the hall, and listening, heard Mary Leavenworth

pass my door on her way to the library, I realized that the fatal

hour was come; that something was going to be said or done in that

room which would make this deed necessary. What? I determined to

ascertain. Casting about in my mind for the means of doing so, I

remembered that the ventilator running up through the house opened

first into the passageway connecting Mr. Leavenworth’s bedroom and

library, and, secondly, into the closet of the large spare room

adjoining mine. Hastily unlocking the door of the communication

between the rooms, I took my position in the closet. Instantly

the sound of voices reached my ears; all was open below, and

standing there, I was as much an auditor of what went on between

Mary and her uncle as if I were in the library itself. And what

did I hear? Enough to assure me my suspicions were correct; that

it was a moment of vital interest to her; that Mr. Leavenworth,

in pursuance of a threat evidently made some time since, was in

the act of taking steps to change his will, and that she had come

to make an appeal to be forgiven her fault and restored to his

favor. What that fault was, I did not learn. No mention was made

of Mr. Clavering as her husband. I only heard her declare that her

action had been the result of impulse, rather than love; that she

regretted it, and desired nothing more than to be free from all

obligations to one she would fain forget, and be again to her uncle

what she was before she ever saw this man. I thought, fool that I

was, it was a mere engagement she was alluding to, and took the

insanest hope from these words; and when, in a moment later I heard

her uncle reply, in his sternest tone, that she had irreparably

forfeited her claims to his regard and favor, I did not need her

short and bitter cry of shame and disappointment, or that low moan

for some one to help her, for me to sound his death-knell in my

heart. Creeping back to my own room, I waited till I heard her

reascend, then I stole forth. Calm as I had ever been in my life, I

went down the stairs just as I had seen myself do in my dream, and

knocking lightly at the library door, went in. Mr. Leavenworth was

sitting in his usual place writing.

“Excuse me,” said I as he looked up, “I have lost my

memorandum-book, and think it possible I may have dropped it in the

passageway when I went for the wine.” He bowed, and I hurried past

him into the closet. Once there, I proceeded rapidly into the room

beyond, procured the pistol, returned, and almost before I realized

what I was doing, had taken up my position behind him, aimed, and

fired. The result was what you know. Without a groan his head

fell forward on his hands, and Mary Leavenworth was the virtual

possessor of the thousands she coveted.

My first thought was to procure the letter he was writing.

Approaching the table, I tore it out from under his hands, looked

at it, saw that it was, as I expected, a summons to his lawyer,

and thrust it into my pocket, together with the letter from Mr.

Clavering, which I perceived lying spattered with blood on the

table before me. Not till this was done did I think of myself, or

remember the echo which that low, sharp report must have made in

the house. Dropping the pistol at the side of the murdered man, I

stood ready to shriek to any one who entered that Mr. Leavenworth

had killed himself. But I was saved from committing such a folly.

The report had not been heard, or if so, had evidently failed to

create an alarm. No one came, and I was left to contemplate my work

undisturbed and decide upon the best course to be taken to avoid

detection. A moment’s study of the wound made in his head by the

bullet convinced me of the impossibility of passing the affair off

as a suicide, or even the work of a burglar. To any one versed in

such matters it was manifestly a murder, and a most deliberate

one. My one hope, then, lay in making it as mysterious as it was

deliberate, by destroying all clue to the motive and manner of

the deed. Picking up the pistol, I carried it into the other room

with the intention of cleaning it, but finding nothing there to

do it with, came back for the handkerchief I had seen lying on

the floor at Mr. Leavenworth’s feet. It was Miss Eleanore’s, but

I did not know it till I had used it to clean the barrel; then

the sight of her initials in one corner so shocked me I forgot

to clean the cylinder, and only thought of how I could do away

with this evidence of her handkerchief having been employed for

a purpose so suspicious. Not daring to carry it from the room, I

sought for means to destroy it; but finding none, compromised the

matter by thrusting it deep down behind the cushion of one of the

chairs, in the hope of being able to recover and burn it the next

day. This done, I reloaded the pistol, locked it up, and prepared

to leave the room. But here the horror which usually follows such

deeds struck me like a thunderbolt and made me for the first time

uncertain in my action. I locked the door on going out, something

I should never have done. Not till I reached the top of the stairs

did I realize my folly; and then it was too late, for there before

me, candle in hand, and surprise written on every feature of her

face, stood Hannah, one of the servants, looking at me.

“Lor, sir, where have you been?” she cried, but strange to say, in

a low tone. “You look as if you had seen a ghost.” And her eyes

turned suspiciously to the key which I held in my hand.

I felt as if some one had clutched me round the throat. Thrusting

the key into my pocket, I took a step towards her. “I will tell you

what I have seen if you will come down-stairs,” I whispered; “the

ladies will be disturbed if we talk here,” and smoothing my brow as

best I could, I put out my hand and drew her towards me. What my

motive was I hardly knew; the action was probably instinctive; but

when I saw the look which came into her face as I touched her, and

the alacrity with which she prepared to follow me, I took courage,

remembering the one or two previous tokens I had had of this girl’s

unreasonable susceptibility to my influence; a susceptibility which

I now felt could be utilized and made to serve my purpose.

Taking her down to the parlor floor, I drew her into the depths of

the great drawing-room, and there told her in the least alarming

way possible what had happened to Mr. Leavenworth. She was of

course intensely agitated, but she did not scream;--the novelty of

her position evidently bewildering her--and, greatly relieved, I

went on to say that I did not know who committed the deed, but that

folks would declare it was I if they knew I had been seen by her

on the stairs with the library key in my hand. “But I won’t tell,”

she whispered, trembling violently in her fright and eagerness.

“I will keep it to myself. I will say I didn’t see anybody.” But

I soon convinced her that she could never keep her secret if the

police once began to question her, and, following up my argument

with a little cajolery, succeeded after a long while in winning her

consent to leave the house till the storm should be blown over.

But that given, it was some little time before I could make her

comprehend that she must depart at once and without going back

after her things. Not till I brightened up her wits by a promise to

marry her some day if she only obeyed me now, did she begin to look

the thing in the face and show any evidence of the real mother wit

she evidently possessed. “Mrs. Belden would take me in,” said she,

“if I could only get to R----. She takes everybody in who asks,

her; and she would keep me, too, if I told her Miss Mary sent me.

But I can’t get there to-night.”

I immediately set to work to convince her that she could. The

midnight train did not leave the city for a half-hour yet, and the

distance to the depot could be easily walked by her in fifteen

minutes. But she had no money! I easily supplied that. And she

was afraid she couldn’t find her way! I entered into minutest

directions. She still hesitated, but at length consented to go, and

with some further understanding of the method I was to employ in

communicating with her, we went down-stairs. There we found a hat

and shawl of the cook’s which I put on her, and in another moment

we were in the carriage yard. “Remember, you are to say nothing of

what has occurred, no matter what happens,” I whispered in parting

injunction as she turned to leave me. “Remember, you are to come

and marry me some day,” she murmured in reply, throwing her arms

about my neck. The movement was sudden, and it was probably at this

time she dropped the candle she had unconsciously held clenched in

her hand till now. I promised her, and she glided out of the gate.

Of the dreadful agitation that followed the disappearance of this

girl I can give no better idea than by saying I not only committed

the additional error of locking up the house on my re-entrance,

but omitted to dispose of the key then in my pocket by flinging it

into the street or dropping it in the hall as I went up. The fact

is, I was so absorbed by the thought of the danger I stood in from

this girl, I forgot everything else. Hannah’s pale face, Hannah’s

look of terror, as she turned from my side and flitted down the

street, were continually before me. I could not escape them; the

form of the dead man lying below was less vivid. It was as though

I were tied in fancy to this woman of the white face fluttering

down the midnight streets. That she would fail in something--come

back or be brought back--that I should find her standing white and

horror-stricken on the front steps when I went down in the morning,

was like a nightmare to me. I began to think no other result

possible; that she never would or could win her way unchallenged

to that little cottage in a distant village; that I had but sent

a trailing flag of danger out into the world with this wretched

girl;--danger that would come back to me with the first burst of

morning light!

But even those thoughts faded after a while before the realization

of the peril I was in as long as the key and papers remained in

my possession. How to get rid of them! I dared not leave my room

again, or open my window. Some one might see me and remember it.

Indeed I was afraid to move about in my room. Mr. Leavenworth

might hear me. Yes, my morbid terror had reached that point--I was

fearful of one whose ears I myself had forever closed, imagined him

in his bed beneath and wakeful to the least sound.

But the necessity of doing something with these evidences of guilt

finally overcame this morbid anxiety, and drawing the two letters

from my pocket--I had not yet undressed--I chose out the most

dangerous of the two, that written by Mr. Leavenworth himself, and,

chewing it till it was mere pulp, threw it into a corner; but the

other had blood on it, and nothing, not even the hope of safety,

could induce me to put it to my lips. I was forced to lie with it

clenched in my hand, and the flitting image of Hannah before my

eyes, till the slow morning broke. I have heard it said that a year

in heaven seems like a day; I can easily believe it. I know that an

hour in hell seems an eternity!

But with daylight came hope. Whether it was that the sunshine

glancing on the wall made me think of Mary and all I was ready to

do for her sake, or whether it was the mere return of my natural

stoicism in the presence of actual necessity, I cannot say. I only

know that I arose calm and master of myself. The problem of the

letter and key had solved itself also. Hide them? I would not try

to! Instead of that I would put them in plain sight, trusting to

that very fact for their being overlooked. Making the letter up

into lighters, I carried them into the spare room and placed them

in a vase. Then, taking the key in my hand, went down-stairs,

intending to insert it in the lock of the library door as I went

by. But Miss Eleanore descending almost immediately behind me made

this impossible. I succeeded, however, in thrusting it, without

her knowledge, among the filagree work of the gas-fixture in the

second hall, and thus relieved, went down into the breakfast room

as self-possessed a man as ever crossed its threshold. Mary was

there, looking exceedingly pale and disheartened, and as I met her

eye, which for a wonder turned upon me as I entered, I could almost

have laughed, thinking of the deliverance that had come to her, and

of the time when I should proclaim myself to be the man who had

accomplished it.

Of the alarm that speedily followed, and my action at that time and

afterwards, I need not speak in detail. I behaved just as I would

have done if I had had no hand in the murder. I even forbore to

touch the key or go to the spare room, or make any movement which

I was not willing all the world should see. For as things stood,

there was not a shadow of evidence against me in the house; neither

was I, a hard-working, uncomplaining secretary, whose passion for

one of his employer’s nieces was not even mistrusted by the lady

herself, a person to be suspected of the crime which threw him out

of a fair situation. So I performed all the duties of my position,

summoning the police, and going for Mr. Veeley, just as I would

have done if those hours between me leaving Mr. Leavenworth for

the first time and going down to breakfast in the morning had been

blotted from my consciousness.

And this was the principle upon which I based my action at the

inquest. Leaving that half-hour and its occurrences out of the

question, I resolved to answer such questions as might be put me as

truthfully as I could; the great fault with men situated as I was

usually being that they lied too much, thus committing themselves

on unessential matters. But alas, in thus planning for my own

safety, I forgot one thing, and that was the dangerous position in

which I should thus place Mary Leavenworth as the one benefited by

the crime. Not till the inference was drawn by a juror, from the

amount of wine found in Mr. Leavenworth’s glass in the morning,

that he had come to his death shortly after my leaving him, did I

realize what an opening I had made for suspicion in her direction

by admitting that I had heard a rustle on the stair a few minutes

after going up. That all present believed it to have been made by

Eleanore, did not reassure me. She was so completely disconnected

with the crime I could not imagine suspicion holding to her for

an instant. But Mary--If a curtain had been let down before me,

pictured with the future as it has since developed, I could not

have seen more plainly what her position would be, if attention

were once directed towards her. So, in the vain endeavor to cover

up my blunder, I began to lie. Forced to admit that a shadow of

disagreement had been lately visible between Mr. Leavenworth

and one of his nieces, I threw the burden of it upon Eleanore,

as the one best able to bear it. The consequences were more

serious than I anticipated. Direction had been given to suspicion

which every additional evidence that now came up seemed by some

strange fatality to strengthen. Not only was it proved that Mr.

Leavenworth’s own pistol had been used in the assassination, and

that too by a person then in the house, but I myself was brought to

acknowledge that Eleanore had learned from me, only a little while

before, how to load, aim, and fire this very pistol--a coincidence

mischievous enough to have been of the devil’s own making.

Seeing all this, my fear of what the ladies would admit when

questioned became very great. Let them in their innocence

acknowledge that, upon my ascent, Mary had gone to her uncle’s

room for the purpose of persuading him not to carry into effect

the action he contemplated, and what consequences might not

ensue! I was in a torment of apprehension. But events of which

I had at that time no knowledge had occurred to influence them.

Eleanore, with some show of reason, as it seems, not only suspected

her cousin of the crime, but had informed her of the fact, and

Mary, overcome with terror at finding there was more or less

circumstantial evidence supporting the suspicion, decided to deny

whatever told against herself, trusting to Eleanore’s generosity

not to be contradicted. Nor was her confidence misplaced. Though,

by the course she took, Eleanore was forced to deepen the prejudice

already rife against herself, she not only forbore to contradict

her cousin, but when a true answer would have injured her, actually

refused to return any, a lie being something she could not utter,

even to save one especially endeared to her.

This conduct of hers had one effect upon me. It aroused my

admiration and made me feel that here was a woman worth helping if

assistance could be given without danger to myself. Yet I doubt if

my sympathy would have led me into doing anything, if I had not

perceived, by the stress laid upon certain well-known matters,

that actual danger hovered about us all while the letter and key

remained in the house. Even before the handkerchief was produced,

I had made up my mind to attempt their destruction; but when that

was brought up and shown, I became so alarmed I immediately rose

and, making my way under some pretence or other to the floors

above, snatched the key from the gas-fixture, the lighters from the

vase, and hastening with them down the hall to Mary Leavenworth’s

room, went in under the expectation of finding a fire there in

which to destroy them. But, to my heavy disappointment, there

were only a few smoldering ashes in the grate, and, thwarted in

my design, I stood hesitating what to do, when I heard some one

coming up-stairs. Alive to the consequences of being found in that

room at that time, I cast the lighters into the grate and started

for the door. But in the quick move I made, the key flew from my

hand and slid under a chair. Aghast at the mischance, I paused,

but the sound of approaching steps increasing, I lost all control

over myself and fled from the room. And indeed I had no time to

lose. I had barely reached my own door when Eleanore Leavenworth,

followed by two servants, appeared at the top of the staircase and

proceeded towards the room I had just left. The sight reassured

me; she would see the key, and take some means of disposing of it;

and indeed I always supposed her to have done so, for no further

word of key or letter ever came to my ears. This may explain why

the questionable position in which Eleanore soon found herself

awakened in me no greater anxiety. I thought the suspicions of the

police rested upon nothing more tangible than the peculiarity of

her manner at the inquest and the discovery of her handkerchief on

the scene of the tragedy. I did not know they possessed what might

be called absolute proof of her connection with the crime. But if

I had, I doubt if my course would have been any different. Mary’s

peril was the one thing capable of influencing me, and she did

not appear to be in peril. On the contrary, every one, by common

consent, seemed to ignore all appearance of guilt on her part.

If Mr. Gryce, whom I soon learned to fear, had given one sign of

suspicion, or Mr. Raymond, whom I speedily recognized as my most

persistent though unconscious foe, had betrayed the least distrust

of her, I should have taken warning. But they did not, and, lulled

into a false security by their manner, I let the days go by without

suffering any fears on her account. But not without many anxieties

for myself. Hannah’s existence precluded all sense of personal

security. Knowing the determination of the police to find her, I

trod the verge of an awful suspense continually.

Meantime the wretched certainty was forcing itself upon me that

I had lost, instead of gained, a hold on Mary Leavenworth. Not

only did she evince the utmost horror of the deed which had made

her mistress of her uncle’s wealth, but, owing, as I believed,

to the influence of Mr. Raymond, soon gave evidence that she was

losing, to a certain extent, the characteristics of mind and

heart which had made me hopeful of winning her by this deed of

blood. This revelation drove me almost insane. Under the terrible

restraint forced upon me, I walked my weary round in a state of

mind bordering on frenzy. Many and many a time have I stopped in

my work, wiped my pen and laid it down with the idea that I could

not repress myself another moment, but I have always taken it up

again and gone on with my task. Mr. Raymond has sometimes shown his

wonder at my sitting in my dead employer’s chair. Great heaven!

it was my only safeguard. By keeping the murder constantly before

my mind, I was enabled to restrain myself from any inconsiderate

action.

At last there came a time when my agony could be no longer

suppressed. Going down the stairs one evening with Mr. Raymond, I

saw a strange gentleman standing in the reception room, looking at

Mary Leavenworth in a way that would have made my blood boil, even

if I had not heard him whisper these words: “But you are my wife,

and know it, whatever you may say or do!”

It was the lightning-stroke of my life. After what I had done to

make her mine, to hear another claim her as already his own, was

stunning, maddening! It forced a demonstration from me. I had

either to yell in my fury or deal the man beneath some tremendous

blow in my hatred. I did not dare to shriek, so I struck the blow.

Demanding his name from Mr. Raymond, and hearing that it was, as I

expected, Clavering, I flung caution, reason, common sense, all to

the winds, and in a moment of fury denounced him as the murderer of

Mr. Leavenworth.

The next instant I would have given worlds to recall my words.

What had I done but drawn attention to myself in thus accusing a

man against whom nothing could of course be proved! But recall now

was impossible. So, after a night of thought, I did the next best

thing: gave a superstitious reason for my action, and so restored

myself to my former position without eradicating from the mind

of Mr. Raymond that vague doubt of the man which my own safety

demanded. But I had no intention of going any further, nor should I

have done so if I had not observed that for some reason Mr. Raymond

was willing to suspect Mr. Clavering. But that once seen, revenge

took possession of me, and I asked myself if the burden of this

crime could be thrown on this man. Still I do not believe that any

active results would have followed this self-questioning if I had

not overheard a whispered conversation between two of the servants,

in which I learned that Mr. Clavering had been seen to enter the

house on the night of the murder, but was not seen to leave it.

That determined me. With such a fact for a starting-point, what

might I not hope to accomplish? Hannah alone stood in my way. While

she remained alive I saw nothing but ruin before me. I made up my

mind to destroy her and satisfy my hatred of Mr. Clavering at one

blow. But how? By what means could I reach her without deserting my

post, or make away with her without exciting fresh suspicion? The

problem seemed insolvable; but Trueman Harwell had not played the

part of a machine so long without result. Before I had studied the

question a day, light broke upon it, and I saw that the only way to

accomplish my plans was to inveigle her into destroying herself.

No sooner had this thought matured than I hastened to act upon

it. Knowing the tremendous risk I ran, I took every precaution.

Locking myself up in my room, I wrote her a letter in printed

characters--she having distinctly told me she could not read

writing--in which I played upon her ignorance, foolish fondness,

and Irish superstition, by telling her I dreamed of her every

night and wondered if she did of me; was afraid she didn’t, so

enclosed her a little charm, which, if she would use according

to directions, would give her the most beautiful visions. These

directions were for her first to destroy my letter by burning it,

next to take in her hand the packet I was careful to enclose,

swallow the powder accompanying it, and go to bed. The powder was

a deadly dose of poison and the packet was, as you know, a forged

confession falsely criminating Henry Clavering. Enclosing all these

in an envelope in the corner of which I had marked a cross, I

directed it, according to agreement, to Mrs. Belden, and sent it.

Then followed the greatest period of suspense I had yet endured.

Though I had purposely refrained from putting my name to the

letter, I felt that the chances of detection were very great. Let

her depart in the least particular from the course I had marked

out for her, and fatal results must ensue. If she opened the

enclosed packet, mistrusted the powder, took Mrs. Belden into

her confidence, or even failed to burn my letter, all would be

lost. I could not be sure of her or know the result of my scheme

except through the newspapers. Do you think I kept watch of the

countenances about me? devoured the telegraphic news, or started

when the bell rang? And when, a few days since, I read that short

paragraph in the paper which assured me that my efforts had at

least produced the death of the woman I feared, do you think I

experienced any sense of relief?

But of that why speak? In six hours had come the summons from Mr.

Gryce, and--let these prison walls, this confession itself, tell

the rest. I am no longer capable of speech or action.

XXXIX. THE OUTCOME OF A GREAT CRIME

“Leave her to Heaven

And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge

To prick and sting her.”

Hamlet

“For she is wise, if I can judge of her;

And fair she is, if that mine eyes be true;

And true she is, as she has proved herself;

And therefore like herself, wise, fair, and true,

Shall she be placed in my constant soul.”

Merchant of Venice.

“Oh, Eleanore!” I cried, as I made my way into her presence, “are

you prepared for very good news? News that will brighten these pale

cheeks and give the light back to these eyes, and make life hopeful

and sweet to you once more? Tell me,” I urged, stooping over her

where she sat, for she looked ready to faint.

“I don’t know,” she faltered; “I fear your idea of good news and

mine may differ. No news can be good but----”

“What?” I asked, taking her hands in mine with a smile that ought

to have reassured her, it was one of such profound happiness. “Tell

me; do not be afraid.”

But she was. Her dreadful burden had lain upon her so long it had

become a part of her being. How could she realize it was founded

on a mistake; that she had no cause to fear the past, present, or

future?

But when the truth was made known to her; when, with all the

fervor and gentle tact of which I was capable, I showed her that

her suspicions had been groundless, and that Trueman Harwell, and

not Mary, was accountable for the evidences of crime which had led

her into attributing to her cousin the guilt of her uncle’s death,

her first words were a prayer to be taken to the one she had so

wronged. “Take me to her! Oh, take me to her! I cannot breathe or

think till I have begged pardon of her on my knees. Oh, my unjust

accusation! My unjust accusation!”

Seeing the state she was in, I deemed it wise to humor her. So,

procuring a carriage, I drove with her to her cousin’s home.

“Mary will spurn me; she will not even look at me; and she will be

right!” she cried, as we rolled away up the avenue. “An outrage

like this can never be forgiven. But God knows I thought myself

justified in my suspicions. If you knew--”

“I do know,” I interposed. “Mary acknowledges that the

circumstantial evidence against her was so overwhelming, she was

almost staggered herself, asking if she could be guiltless with

such proofs against her. But----”

“Wait, oh, wait; did Mary say that?”

“Yes.”

“To-day?”

“Yes.”

“Mary must be changed.”

I did not answer; I wanted her to see for herself the extent of

that change. But when, in a few minutes later, the carriage stopped

and I hurried with her into the house which had been the scene of

so much misery, I was hardly prepared for the difference in her own

countenance which the hall light revealed. Her eyes were bright,

her cheeks were brilliant, her brow lifted and free from shadow; so

quickly does the ice of despair melt in the sunshine of hope.

Thomas, who had opened the door, was sombrely glad to see his

mistress again. “Miss Leavenworth is in the drawing-room,” said he.

I nodded, then seeing that Eleanore could scarcely move for

agitation, asked her whether she would go in at once, or wait till

she was more composed.

“I will go in at once; I cannot wait.” And slipping from my grasp,

she crossed the hall and laid her hand upon the drawing-room

curtain, when it was suddenly lifted from within and Mary stepped

out.

“Mary!”

“Eleanore!”

The ring of those voices told everything. I did not need to glance

their way to know that Eleanore had fallen at her cousin’s feet,

and that her cousin had affrightedly lifted her. I did not need

to hear: “My sin against you is too great; you cannot forgive

me!” followed by the low: “My shame is great enough to lead me to

forgive anything!” to know that the lifelong shadow between these

two had dissolved like a cloud, and that, for the future, bright

days of mutual confidence and sympathy were in store.

Yet when, a half-hour or so later, I heard the door of the

reception room, into which I had retired, softly open, and looking

up, saw Mary standing on the threshold, with the light of true

humility on her face, I own that I was surprised at the softening

which had taken place in her haughty beauty. “Blessed is the shame

that purifies,” I inwardly murmured, and advancing, held out my

hand with a respect and sympathy I never thought to feel for her

again.

The action seemed to touch her. Blushing deeply, she came and stood

by my side. “I thank you,” said she. “I have much to be grateful

for; how much I never realized till to-night; but I cannot speak

of it now. What I wish is for you to come in and help me persuade

Eleanore to accept this fortune from my hands. It is hers, you

know; was willed to her, or would have been if--”

“Wait,” said I, in the trepidation which this appeal to me on such

a subject somehow awakened. “Have you weighed this matter well?

Is it your determined purpose to transfer your fortune into your

cousin’s hands?”

Her look was enough without the low, “Ah, how can you ask me?” that

followed it.

Mr. Clavering was sitting by the side of Eleanore when we entered

the drawing-room. He immediately rose, and drawing me to one side,

earnestly said:

“Before the courtesies of the hour pass between us, Mr. Raymond,

allow me to tender you my apology. You have in your possession a

document which ought never to have been forced upon you. Founded

upon a mistake, the act was an insult which I bitterly regret. If,

in consideration of my mental misery at that time, you can pardon

it, I shall feel forever indebted to you; if not----”

“Mr. Clavering, say no more. The occurrences of that day belong to

a past which I, for one, have made up my mind to forget as soon as

possible. The future promises too richly for us to dwell on bygone

miseries.”

And with a look of mutual understanding and friendship we hastened

to rejoin the ladies.

Of the conversation that followed, it is only necessary to state

the result. Eleanore, remaining firm in her refusal to accept

property so stained by guilt, it was finally agreed upon that

it should be devoted to the erection and sustainment of some

charitable institution of magnitude sufficient to be a recognized

benefit to the city and its unfortunate poor. This settled, our

thoughts returned to our friends, especially to Mr. Veeley.

“He ought to know,” said Mary. “He has grieved like a father over

us.” And, in her spirit of penitence, she would have undertaken the

unhappy task of telling him the truth.

But Eleanore, with her accustomed generosity, would not hear of

this. “No, Mary,” said she; “you have suffered enough. Mr. Raymond

and I will go.”

And leaving them there, with the light of growing hope and

confidence on their faces, we went out again into the night, and so

into a dream from which I have never waked, though the shine of her

dear eyes have been now the load-star of my life for many happy,

happy months.

THE END