CHAPTER I

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THE

HOUSE IN THE MIST

_By_

ANNA KATHARINE GREEN

Author of

The Millionaire Baby

The Amethyst Box

The Filigree Ball, etc., etc.

NEW YORK

THE NEW YORK BOOK CO.

1913

COPYRIGHT 1905

THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY

* * * * *

APRIL

THE HOUSE IN THE MIST

I

AN OPEN DOOR

It was a night to drive any man indoors. Not only was the darkness

impenetrable, but the raw mist enveloping hill and valley made the open

road anything but desirable to a belated wayfarer like myself.

Being young, untrammeled, and naturally indifferent to danger, I was not

averse to adventure; and having my fortune to make, was always on the

lookout for El Dorado, which, to ardent souls, lies ever beyond the next

turning. Consequently, when I saw a light shimmering through the mist at

my right, I resolved to make for it and the shelter it so opportunely

offered.

But I did not realize then, as I do now, that shelter does not necessarily

imply refuge, or I might not have undertaken this adventure with so light

a heart. Yet, who knows? The impulses of an unfettered spirit lean toward

daring, and youth, as I have said, seeks the strange, the unknown and,

sometimes, the terrible.

My path toward this light was by no means an easy one. After confused

wanderings through tangled hedges, and a struggle with obstacles of

whose nature I received the most curious impression in the surrounding

murk, I arrived in front of a long, low building which, to my

astonishment, I found standing with doors and windows open to the

pervading mist, save for one square casement through which the light

shone from a row of candles placed on a long mahogany table.

The quiet and seeming emptiness of this odd and picturesque building

made me pause. I am not much affected by visible danger, but this silent

room, with its air of sinister expectancy, struck me most unpleasantly,

and I was about to reconsider my first impulse and withdraw again to the

road, when a second look, thrown back upon the comfortable interior I

was leaving, convinced me of my folly and sent me straight toward the

door which stood so invitingly open.

But half-way up the path, my progress was again stayed by the sight of a

man issuing from the house I had so rashly looked upon as devoid of all

human presence. He seemed in haste and, at the moment my eye first fell

on him, was engaged in replacing his watch in his pocket.

But he did not shut the door behind him, which I thought odd, especially

as his final glance had been a backward one, and seemed to take in all

the appointments of the place he was so hurriedly leaving.

As we met, he raised his hat. This likewise struck me as peculiar, for

the deference he displayed was more marked than that usually bestowed on

strangers, while his lack of surprise at an encounter more or less

startling in such a mist was calculated to puzzle an ordinary man like

myself. Indeed, he was so little impressed by my presence there that he

was for passing me without a word or any other hint of good fellowship,

save the bow of which I have spoken. But this did not suit me. I was

hungry, cold, and eager for creature comforts, and the house before me

gave forth not only heat, but a savory odor which in itself was an

invitation hard to ignore. I therefore accosted the man.

"Will bed and supper be provided me here?" I asked. "I am tired out with

a long tramp over the hills, and hungry enough to pay anything in

reason--"

I stopped, for the man had disappeared. He had not paused at my appeal

and the mist had swallowed him. But at the break in my sentence, his

voice came back in good-natured tones and I heard:

"Supper will be ready at nine, and there are beds for all. Enter, sir;

you are the first to arrive, but the others can not be far behind."

A queer greeting, certainly. But when I strove to question him as to its

meaning, his voice returned to me from such a distance that I doubted if

my words had reached him with any more distinctness than his answer

reached me.

"Well!" thought I, "it isn't as if a lodging had been denied me. He

invited me to enter, and enter I will."

The house, to which I now naturally directed a glance of much more

careful scrutiny than before, was no ordinary farm-building, but a

rambling old mansion, made conspicuously larger here and there by

jutting porches and more than one convenient lean-to. Though furnished,

warmed and lighted with candles, as I have previously described, it had

about it an air of disuse which made me feel myself an intruder, in

spite of the welcome I had received. But I was not in a position to

stand upon ceremony, and ere long I found myself inside the great room

and before the blazing logs whose glow had lighted up the doorway and

added its own attraction to the other allurements of the inviting place.

Though the open door made a draft which was anything but pleasant, I did

not feel like closing it, and was astonished to observe the effect of

the mist through the square thus left open to the night. It was not an

agreeable one, and, instinctively turning my back upon that quarter of

the room, I let my eyes roam over the wainscoted walls and the odd

pieces of furniture which gave such an air of old-fashioned richness to

the place. As nothing of the kind had ever fallen under my eyes before,

I should have thoroughly enjoyed this opportunity of gratifying my taste

for the curious and the beautiful, if the quaint old chairs I saw

standing about me on every side had not all been empty. But the solitude

of the place, so much more oppressive than the solitude of the road I

had left, struck cold to my heart, and I missed the cheer rightfully

belonging to such attractive surroundings. Suddenly I bethought me of

the many other apartments likely to be found in so spacious a dwelling,

and, going to the nearest door, I opened it and called out for the

master of the house. But only an echo came back, and, returning to the

fire, I sat down before the cheering blaze, in quiet acceptance of a

situation too lonely for comfort, yet not without a certain piquant

interest for a man of free mind and adventurous disposition like myself.

After all, if supper was to be served at nine, someone must be expected

to eat it: I should surely not be left much longer without companions.

Meanwhile ample amusement awaited me in the contemplation of a picture

which, next to the large fireplace, was the most prominent object in the

room. This picture was a portrait, and a remarkable one. The countenance

it portrayed was both characteristic and forcible, and so interested me

that in studying it I quite forgot both hunger and weariness. Indeed its

effect upon me was such that, after gazing at it uninterruptedly for a

few minutes, I discovered that its various features--the narrow eyes in

which a hint of craft gave a strange gleam to their native intelligence;

the steadfast chin, strong as the rock of the hills I had wearily

tramped all day; the cunning wrinkles which yet did not interfere with

a latent great-heartedness that made the face as attractive as it was

puzzling--had so established themselves in my mind that I continued to

see them before me whichever way I turned, and found it impossible to

shake off their influence even after I had resolutely set my mind in

another direction by endeavoring to recall what I knew of the town into

which I had strayed.

I had come from Scranton and was now, according to my best judgment, in

one of those rural districts of western Pennsylvania which breed such

strange and sturdy characters. But of this special neighborhood, its

inhabitants and its industries, I knew nothing nor was likely to, so

long as I remained in the solitude I have endeavored to describe.

But these impressions and these thoughts--if thoughts they were--presently

received a check. A loud "Halloo" rose from somewhere in the mist, followed

by a string of muttered imprecations, which convinced me that the person

now attempting to approach the house was encountering some of the many

difficulties which had beset me in the same undertaking a few minutes

before.

I therefore raised my voice and shouted out, "Here! this way!" after

which I sat still and awaited developments.

There was a huge clock in one of the corners, whose loud tick filled up

every interval of silence. By this clock it was just ten minutes to

eight when two gentlemen (I should say men, and coarse men at that)

crossed the open threshold and entered the house.

Their appearance was more or less noteworthy--unpleasantly so, I am

obliged to add. One was red-faced and obese, the other was tall, thin

and wiry and showed as many seams in his face as a blighted apple.

Neither of the two had anything to recommend him either in appearance or

address, save a certain veneer of polite assumption as transparent as it

was offensive. As I listened to the forced sallies of the one and the

hollow laugh of the other, I was glad that I was large of frame and

strong of arm and used to all kinds of men and--brutes.

As these two new-comers seemed no more astonished at my presence than

the man I had met at the gate, I checked the question which

instinctively rose to my lips and with a simple bow,--responded to by a

more or less familiar nod from either,--accepted the situation with all

the _sang-froid_ the occasion seemed to demand. Perhaps this was wise,

perhaps it was not; there was little opportunity to judge, for the start

they both gave as they encountered the eyes of the picture before

mentioned drew my attention to a consideration of the different ways in

which men, however similar in other respects, express sudden and

unlooked-for emotion. The big man simply allowed his astonishment,

dread, or whatever the feeling was which moved him, to ooze forth in a

cold and deathly perspiration which robbed his cheeks of color and cast

a bluish shadow over his narrow and retreating temples; while the thin

and waspish man, caught in the same trap (for trap I saw it was),

shouted aloud in his ill-timed mirth, the false and cruel character of

which would have made me shudder, if all expression of feeling on my

part had not been held in check by the interest I immediately

experienced in the display of open bravado with which, in another

moment, these two tried to carry off their mutual embarrassment.

"Good likeness, eh?" laughed the seamy-faced man. "Quite an idea, that!

Makes him one of us again! Well, he's welcome--in oils. Can't say much

to us from canvas, eh?" And the rafters above him vibrated, as his

violent efforts at joviality went up in loud and louder assertion from

his thin throat.

A nudge from the other's elbow stopped him and I saw them both cast

half-lowering, half-inquisitive glances in my direction.

"One of the Witherspoon boys?" queried one.

"Perhaps," snarled the other. "I never saw but one of them. There are

five, aren't there? Eustace believed in marrying off his gals young."

"Damn him, yes. And he'd have married them off younger if he had known

how numbers were going to count some day among the Westonhaughs." And

he laughed again in a way I should certainly have felt it my business to

resent, if my indignation as well as the ill-timed allusions which had

called it forth had not been put to an end by a fresh arrival through

the veiling mist which hung like a shroud at the doorway.

This time it was for me to experience a shock of something like fear.

Yet the personage who called up this unlooked-for sensation in my

naturally hardy nature was old and, to all appearance, harmless from

disability, if not from good will. His form was bent over upon itself

like a bow; and only from the glances he shot from his upturned eyes was

the fact made evident that a redoubtable nature, full of force and

malignity, had just brought its quota of evil into a room already

overflowing with dangerous and menacing passions.

As this old wretch, either from the feebleness of age or from the

infirmity I have mentioned, had great difficulty in walking, he had

brought with him a small boy, whose business it was to direct his

tottering steps as best he could.

But once settled in his chair, he drove away this boy with his pointed

oak stick, and with some harsh words about caring for the horse and

being on time in the morning, he sent him out into the mist. As this

little shivering and pathetic figure vanished, the old man drew, with

gasp and haw, a number of deep breaths which shook his bent back and did

their share, no doubt, in restoring his own disturbed circulation. Then,

with a sinister twist which brought his pointed chin and twinkling eyes

again into view, he remarked:

"Haven't ye a word for kinsman Luke, you two? It isn't often I get out

among ye. Shakee, nephew! Shakee, Hector! And now who's the boy in the

window? My eyes aren't what they used to be, but he don't seem to favor

the Westonhaughs over-much. One of Salmon's four grandchildren, think

'e? Or a shoot from Eustace's gnarled old trunk? His gals all married

Americans, and one of them, I've been told, was a yellow-haired giant

like this fellow."

As this description pointed directly toward me, I was about to venture a

response on my own account, when my attention, as well as theirs, was

freshly attracted by a loud "Whoa!" at the gate, followed by the hasty

but assured entrance of a dapper, wizen, but perfectly preserved little

old gentleman with a bag in his hand. Looking askance with eyes that

were like two beads, first at the two men who were now elbowing each

other for the best place before the fire, and then at the revolting

figure in the chair, he bestowed his greeting, which consisted of an

elaborate bow, not on them, but upon the picture hanging so

conspicuously on the open wall before him; and then, taking me within

the scope of his quick, circling glance, cried out with an assumption of

great cordiality:

"Good evening, gentlemen; good evening one, good evening all. Nothing

like being on the tick. I'm sorry the night has turned out so badly.

Some may find it too thick for travel. That would be bad, eh? very

bad--for _them_."

As none of the men he openly addressed saw fit to answer, save by the

hitch of a shoulder or a leer quickly suppressed, I kept silent also.

But this reticence, marked as it was, did not seem to offend the

new-comer. Shaking the wet from the umbrella he held, he stood the

dripping article up in a corner and then came and placed his feet on the

fender. To do this he had to crowd between the two men already occupying

the best part of the hearth. But he showed no concern at incommoding

them, and bore their cross looks and threatening gestures with

professional equanimity.

"You know me?" he now unexpectedly snapped, bestowing another look over

his shoulder at that oppressive figure in the chair. (Did I say that I

had risen when the latter sat?) "I'm no Westonhaugh, I; nor yet a

Witherspoon nor a Clapsaddle. I'm only Smead, the lawyer. Mr. Anthony

Westonhaugh's lawyer," he repeated, with another glance of recognition

in the direction of the picture. "I drew up his last will and testament,

and, until all of his wishes have been duly carried out, am entitled by

the terms of that will to be regarded both legally and socially as his

representative. This you all know, but it is my way to make everything

clear as I proceed. A lawyer's trick, no doubt. I do not pretend to be

entirely exempt from such."

A grumble from the large man, who seemed to have been disturbed in some

absorbing calculation he was carrying on, mingled with a few muttered

words of forced acknowledgment from the restless old sinner in the

chair, made it unnecessary for me to reply, even if the last comer had

given me the opportunity.

"It's getting late!" he cried, with an easy garrulity rather amusing,

under the circumstances. "Two more trains came in as I left the depot.

If old Phil was on hand with his wagon, several more members of this

interesting family may be here before the clock strikes; if not, the

assemblage is like to be small. Too small," I heard him grumble a minute

after, under his breath.

"I wish it were a matter of one," spoke up the big man, striking his

breast in a way to make it perfectly apparent whom he meant by that word

_one_. And having (if I may judge by the mingled laugh and growl of his

companions) thus shown his hand both figuratively and literally, he

relapsed into the calculation which seemed to absorb all of his

unoccupied moments.

"Generous, very!" commented the lawyer in a murmur which was more than

audible. "Pity that sentiments of such broad benevolence should go

unrewarded."

This, because at that very instant wheels were heard in front, also a

jangle of voices, in some controversy about fares, which promised

anything but a pleasing addition to the already none too desirable

company.

"I suppose that's sister Janet," snarled out the one addressed as

Hector. There was no love in his voice, despite the relationship hinted

at, and I awaited the entrance of this woman with some curiosity.

But her appearance, heralded by many a puff and pant which the damp air

exaggerated in a prodigious way, did not seem to warrant the interest I

had shown in it. As she stepped into the room, I saw only a big frowsy

woman, who had attempted to make a show with a new silk dress and a hat

in the latest fashion, but who had lamentably failed, owing to the

slouchiness of her figure and some misadventure by which her hat had

been set awry on her head and her usual complacency destroyed. Later, I

noted that her down-looking eyes had a false twinkle in them, and that,

commonplace as she looked, she was one to steer clear of in times of

necessity and distress.

She, too, evidently expected to find the door open and people assembled,

but she had not anticipated being confronted by the portrait on the

wall, and cringed in an unpleasant way as she stumbled by it into one of

the ill-lighted corners.

The old man, who had doubtless caught the rustle of her dress as she

passed him, emitted one short sentence.

"Almost late," said he.

Her answer was a sputter of words.

"It's the fault of that driver," she complained. "If he had taken one

drop more at the half-way house, I might really not have got here at

all. That would not have inconvenienced _you_. But oh! what a grudge I

would have owed that skinflint brother of ours"--here she shook her fist

at the picture--"for making our good luck depend upon our arrival within

two short strokes of the clock!"

"There are several to come yet," blandly observed the lawyer. But before

the words were well out of his mouth, we all became aware of a new

presence--a woman, whose somber grace and quiet bearing gave distinction

to her unobtrusive entrance, and caused a feeling of something like awe

to follow the first sight of her cold features and deep, heavily-fringed

eyes. But this soon passed in the more human sentiment awakened by the

soft pleading which infused her gaze with a touching femininity. She

wore a long loose garment which fell without a fold from chin to foot,

and in her arms she seemed to carry something.

Never before had I seen so beautiful a woman. As I was contemplating

her, with respect but yet with a masculine intentness I could not quite

suppress, two or three other persons came in. And now I began to notice

that the eyes of all these people turned mainly one way, and that was

toward the clock. Another small circumstance likewise drew my attention.

Whenever any one entered,--and there were one or two additional arrivals

during the five minutes preceding the striking of the hour,--a frown

settled for an instant on every brow, giving to each and all a similar

look, for the interpretation of which I lacked the key. Yet not on every

brow either. There was one which remained undisturbed and showed only a

grand patience.

As the hands of the big clock neared the point of eight, a furtive

smile appeared on more than one face; and when the hour rang out, a sigh

of satisfaction swept through the room, to which the little old lawyer

responded with a worldly-wise grunt, as he moved from his place and

proceeded to the door.

This he had scarcely shut when a chorus of voices rose from without.

Three or four lingerers had pushed their way as far as the gate, only to

see the door of the house shut in their faces.

"Too late!" growled old man Luke from between the locks of his long

beard.

"Too late!" shrieked the woman who had come so near being late herself.

"Too late!" smoothly acquiesced the lawyer, locking and bolting the door

with a deft and assured hand.

But the four or five persons who thus found themselves barred out did

not accept without a struggle the decision of the more fortunate ones

assembled within. More than one hand began pounding on the door, and we

could hear cries of, "The train was behind time!" "Your clock is fast!"

"You are cheating us; you want it all for yourselves!" "We will have the

law on you!" and other bitter adjurations unintelligible to me from my

ignorance of the circumstances which called them forth.

But the wary old lawyer simply shook his head and answered nothing;

whereat a murmur of gratification rose from within, and a howl of almost

frenzied dismay from without, which latter presently received point from

a startling vision which now appeared at the casement where the lights

burned. A man's face looked in, and behind it, that of a woman, so wild

and maddened by some sort of heart-break that I found my sympathies

aroused in spite of the glare of evil passions which made both of these

countenances something less than human.

But the lawyer met the stare of these four eyes with a quiet chuckle,

which found its echo in the ill-advised mirth of those about him; and

moving over to the window where they still peered in, he drew together

the two heavy shutters which hitherto had stood back against the wall,

and, fastening them with a bar, shut out the sight of this despair, if

he could not shut out the protests which ever and anon were shouted

through the key-hole.

Meanwhile, one form had sat through this whole incident without a

gesture; and on the quiet brow, from which I could not keep my eyes, no

shadows appeared save the perpetual one of native melancholy, which was

at once the source of its attraction and the secret of its power.

Into what sort of gathering had I stumbled? And why did I prefer to

await developments rather than ask the simplest question of any one

about me?

Meantime the lawyer had proceeded to make certain preparations. With the

help of one or two willing hands, he had drawn the great table into the

middle of the room and, having seen the candles restored to their

places, began to open his small bag and take from it a roll of paper and

several flat documents. Laying the latter in the center of the table

and slowly unrolling the former, he consulted, with his foxy eyes, the

faces surrounding him, and smiled with secret malevolence, as he noted

that every chair and every form were turned away from the picture before

which he had bent with such obvious courtesy, on entering. I alone stood

erect, and this possibly was why a gleam of curiosity was noticeable in

his glance, as he ended his scrutiny of my countenance and bent his gaze

again upon the paper he held.

"Heavens!" thought I. "What shall I answer this man if he asks me why I

continued to remain in a spot where I have so little business." The

impulse came to go. But such was the effect of this strange convocation

of persons, at night and in a mist which was itself a nightmare, that I

failed to take action and remained riveted to my place, while Mr. Smead

consulted his roll and finally asked in a business-like tone, quite

unlike his previous sarcastic speech, the names of those whom he had the

pleasure of seeing before him.

The old man in the chair spoke up first.

"Luke Westonhaugh," he announced.

"Very good!" responded the lawyer.

"Hector Westonhaugh," came from the thin man.

A nod and a look toward the next.

"John Westonhaugh."

"Nephew?" asked the lawyer.

"Yes."

"Go on, and be quick; supper will be ready at nine."

"Eunice Westonhaugh," spoke up a soft voice.

I felt my heart bound as if some inner echo responded to that name.

"Daughter of whom?"

"Hudson Westonhaugh," she gently faltered. "My father is dead--died last

night;--I am his only heir."

A grumble of dissatisfaction and a glint of unrelieved hate came from

the doubled-up figure, whose malevolence had so revolted me.

But the lawyer was not to be shaken.

"Very good! It is fortunate you trusted your feet rather than the

train. And now you! What is your name?"

He was looking, not at me as I had at first feared, but at the man next

to me, a slim but slippery youth, whose small red eyes made me shudder.

"William Witherspoon."

"Barbara's son?"

"Yes."

"Where are your brothers?"

"One of them, I think, is outside"--here he laughed;--"the other

is--_sick_."

The way he uttered this word made me set him down as one to be

especially wary of when he smiled. But then I had already passed

judgment on him at my first view.

"And you, madam?"--this to the large, dowdy woman with the uncertain

eye, a contrast to the young and melancholy Eunice.

"Janet Clapsaddle," she replied, waddling hungrily forward and getting

unpleasantly near the speaker, for he moved off as she approached, and

took his stand in the clear place at the head of the table.

"Very good, Mistress Clapsaddle. You were a Westonhaugh, I believe?"

"You _believe_, sneak-faced hypocrite that you are!" she blurted out. "I

don't understand your lawyer ways. I like plain speaking myself. Don't

you know me, and Luke and Hector, and--and most of us indeed, except

that puny, white-faced girl yonder, whom, having been brought up on the

other side of the Ridge, we have none of us seen since she was a

screaming baby in Hildegarde's arms. And the young gentleman over

there,"--here she indicated me--"who shows so little likeness to the

rest of the family. He will have to make it pretty plain who his father

was before we shall feel like acknowledging him, either as the son of

one of Eustace's girls, or a chip from brother Salmon's hard old block."

As this caused all eyes to turn upon me, even _hers_, I smiled as I

stepped forward. The lawyer did not return that smile.

"What is your name?" he asked shortly and sharply, as if he distrusted

me.

"Hugh Austin," was my quiet reply.

"There is no such name on the list," snapped old Smead, with an

authoritative gesture toward those who seemed anxious to enter a

protest.

"Probably not," I returned, "for I am neither a Witherspoon, a

Westonhaugh nor a Clapsaddle. I am merely a chance wayfarer passing

through the town on my way west. I thought this house was a tavern, or

at least a place I could lodge in. The man I met in the doorway told me

as much, and so I am here. If my company is not agreeable, or if you

wish this room to yourselves, let me go into the kitchen. I promise not

to meddle with the supper, hungry as I am. Or perhaps you wish me to

join the crowd outside; it seems to be increasing."

"No, no," came from all parts of the room. "Don't let the door be

opened. Nothing could keep Lemuel and his crowd out if they once got

foot over the threshold."

The lawyer rubbed his chin. He seemed to be in some sort of quandary.

First he scrutinized me from under his shaggy brows with a sharp gleam

of suspicion; then his features softened and, with a side glance at the

young woman who called herself Eunice, (perhaps, because she was worth

looking at, perhaps because she had partly risen at my words), he

slipped toward a door I had before observed in the wainscoting on the

left of the mantelpiece, and softly opened it upon what looked like a

narrow staircase.

"We can not let you go out," said he; "and we can not let you have a

finger in our viands before the hour comes for serving them; so if you

will be so good as to follow this staircase to the top, you will find it

ends in a room comfortable enough for the wayfarer you call yourself. In

that room you can rest till the way is clear for you to continue your

travels. Better, we can not do for you. This house is not a tavern, but

the somewhat valuable property of--" He turned with a bow and smile, as

every one there drew a deep breath; but no one ventured to end that

sentence.

I would have given all my future prospects (which, by the way, were not

very great) to remain in that room. The oddity of the situation; the

mystery of the occurrence; the suspense I saw in every face; the

eagerness of the cries I heard redoubled from time to time outside; the

malevolence but poorly disguised in the old lawyer's countenance; and,

above all, the presence of that noble-looking woman, which was the one

off-set to the general tone of villainy with which the room was charged,

filled me with curiosity, if I might call it by no other name, that made

my acquiescence in the demand thus made upon me positively heroic. But

there seemed no other course for me to follow, and with a last lingering

glance at the genial fire and a quick look about me, which happily

encountered hers, I stooped my head to suit the low and narrow doorway

opened for my accommodation, and instantly found myself in darkness. The

door had been immediately closed by the lawyer's impatient hand.

II

WITH MY EAR TO THE WAINSCOTING

No move more unwise could have been made by the old lawyer,--that is, if

his intention had been to rid himself of an unwelcome witness. For,

finding myself thrust thus suddenly from the scene, I naturally stood

still instead of mounting the stairs, and, by standing still, discovered

that though shut from sight I was not from sound. Distinctly through the

panel of the door, which was much thinner, no doubt, than the old fox

imagined, I heard one of the men present shout out:

"Well, that makes the number less by _one_!"

The murmur which followed this remark came plainly to my ears, and,

greatly rejoicing over what I considered my good luck, I settled myself

on the lowest step of the stairs in the hope of catching some word

which would reveal to me the mystery of this scene.

It was not long in coming. Old Smead had now his audience before him in

good shape, and his next words were of a character to make evident the

purpose of this meeting.

"Heirs of Anthony Westonhaugh, deceased," he began in a sing-song voice

strangely unmusical, "I congratulate you upon your good fortune at being

at this especial moment on the inner rather than outer side of your

amiable relative's front door. His will, which you have assembled to

hear read, is well known to you. By it his whole property--(not so large

as some of you might wish, but yet a goodly property for farmers like

yourselves)--is to be divided this night, share and share alike, among

such of his relatives as have found it convenient to be present here

between the strokes of half-past seven and eight. If some of our friends

have failed us through sloth, sickness or the misfortune of mistaking

the road, they have our sympathy, but they can not have _his dollars_."

"Can not have his dollars!" echoed a rasping voice which, from its

smothered sound, probably came from the bearded lips of the old

reprobate in the chair.

The lawyer waited for one or two other repetitions of this phrase (a

phrase which, for some unimaginable reason, seemed to give him an odd

sort of pleasure), then he went on with greater distinctness and a

certain sly emphasis, chilling in effect but very professional:

"Ladies and gentlemen: Shall I read this will?"

"No, no! The division! the division! Tell us what we are to have!" rose

in a shout about him.

There was a pause. I could imagine the sharp eyes of the lawyer

traveling from face to face as each thus gave voice to his cupidity, and

the thin curl of his lips as he remarked in a slow tantalizing way:

"There was more in the old man's clutches than you think."

A gasp of greed shook the partition against which my ear was pressed.

Some one must have drawn up against the wainscoting since my departure

from the room. I found myself wondering which of them it was. Meantime

old Smead was having his say, with the smoothness of a man who perfectly

understands what is required of him.

"Mr. Westonhaugh would not have put you to so much trouble or had you

wait so long if he had not expected to reward you amply. There are

shares in this bag which are worth thousands instead of hundreds. Now,

now! stop that! hands off! hands off! there are calculations to make

first. How many of you are there? Count up, some of you."

"Nine!" called out a voice with such rapacious eagerness that the word

was almost unintelligible.

"Nine." How slowly the old knave spoke! What pleasure he seemed to take

in the suspense he purposely made as exasperating as possible!

"Well, if each one gets his share, he may count himself richer by two

hundred thousand dollars than when he came in here to-night."

Two hundred thousand dollars! They had expected no more than thirty.

Surprise made them speechless,--that is, for a moment; then a

pandemonium of hurrahs, shrieks and loud-voiced enthusiasm made the room

ring, till wonder seized them again, and a sudden silence fell, through

which I caught a far-off wail of grief from the disappointed ones

without, which, heard in the dark and narrow place in which I was

confined, had a peculiarly weird and desolate effect.

Perhaps it likewise was heard by some of the fortunate ones within!

Perhaps one head, to mark which, in this moment of universal elation, I

would have given a year from my life, turned toward the dark without, in

recognition of the despair thus piteously voiced; but if so, no token of

the same came to me, and I could but hope that she had shown, by some

such movement, the natural sympathy of her sex.

Meanwhile the lawyer was addressing the company in his smoothest and

most sarcastic tones.

"Mr. Westonhaugh was a wise man, a very wise man," he droned. "He

foresaw what your pleasure would be, and left a letter for you. But

before I read it, before I invite you to the board he ordered to be

spread for you in honor of this happy occasion, there is one appeal he

bade me make to those I should find assembled here. As you know, he was

not personally acquainted with all the children and grandchildren of his

many brothers and sisters. Salmon's sons, for instance, were perfect

strangers to him, and all those boys and girls of the Evans' branch have

never been long enough this side of the mountains for him to know their

names, much less their temper or their lives. Yet his heirs--or such was

his wish, his great wish--must be honest men, righteous in their

dealings, and of stainless lives. If therefore, any one among you feels

that for reasons he need not state, he has no right to accept his share

of Anthony Westonhaugh's bounty, then that person is requested to

withdraw before this letter to his heirs is read."

Withdraw? Was the man a fool? _Withdraw?_--these cormorants! these

suckers of blood! these harpies and vultures! I laughed as I imagined

sneaking Hector, malicious Luke or brutal John responding to this naive

appeal, and then found myself wondering why no echo of my mirth came

from the men themselves. They must have seen much more plainly than I

did the ludicrousness of their weak old kinsman's demand; yet Luke was

still; Hector was still; and even John, and the three or four others I

have mentioned gave forth no audible token of disdain or surprise. I was

asking myself what sentiment of awe or fear restrained these selfish

souls, when I became conscious of a movement within, which presently

resolved itself into a departing foot-step.

Some conscience there had been awakened. Some one was crossing the floor

toward the door. Who? I waited in anxious expectancy for the word which

was to enlighten me. Happily it came soon, and from the old lawyer's

lips.

"You do not feel yourself worthy?" he queried, in tones I had not heard

from him before. "Why? What have you done that you should forego an

inheritance to which these others feel themselves honestly entitled?"

The voice which answered gave both my mind and heart a shock. It was

_she_ who had risen at this call. _She_, the only true-faced person

there!

Anxiously I listened for her reply. Alas! it was one of action rather

than speech. As I afterward heard, she simply opened her long cloak and

showed a little infant slumbering in her arms.

"This is my reason," said she. "I have sinned in the eyes of the world,

therefore I can not take my share of Uncle Anthony's money. I did not

know he exacted an unblemished record from those he expected to enrich,

or I would not have come."

The sob which followed these last words showed at what a cost she thus

renounced a fortune of which she, of all present, perhaps, stood in the

greatest need; but there was no lingering in her step; and to me, who

understood her fault only through the faint sound of infantile wailing

which accompanied her departure, there was a nobility in her action

which raised her in an instant to an almost ideal height of unselfish

virtue.

Perhaps they felt this, too. Perhaps even these hardened men and the

more than hardened woman whose presence was in itself a blight,

recognized heroism when they saw it; for when the lawyer, with a certain

obvious reluctance, laid his hand on the bolts of the door with the

remark: "This is not my work, you know; I am but following out

instructions very minutely given me," the smothered growls and grunts

which rose in reply lacked the venom which had been infused into all

their previous comments.

"I think our friends out there are far enough withdrawn, by this time,

for us to hazard the opening of the door," the lawyer now remarked.

"Madam, I hope you will speedily find your way to some comfortable

shelter."

Then the door opened, and after a moment, closed again in a silence

which at least was respectful. Yet I warrant there was not a soul

remaining who had not already figured in his mind to what extent his own

fortune had been increased by the failure of one of their number to

inherit.

As for me, my whole interest in the affair was at an end, and I was only

anxious to find my way to where this desolate woman faced the mist with

her unfed baby in her arms.

III

A LIFE DRAMA

But to reach this wanderer, it was first necessary for me to escape from

the house. This proved simple enough. The up-stairs room toward which I

rushed had a window overlooking one of the many lean-tos already

mentioned. This window was fastened, but I had no difficulty in

unlocking it or in finding my way to the ground from the top of the

lean-to. But once again on terra-firma, I discovered that the mist was

now so thick that it had all the effect of a fog at sea. It was icy cold

as well, and clung about me so that I presently began to shudder most

violently, and, strong man though I was, wish myself back in the little

attic bedroom from which I had climbed in search of one in more unhappy

case than myself.

But these feelings did not cause me to return. If I found the night

cold, she must find it bitter. If desolation oppressed my naturally

hopeful spirit, must it not be more overwhelming yet to one whose

memories were sad and whose future was doubtful? And the child! What

infant could live in an air like this! Edging away from the house, I

called out her name, but no answer came back. The persons whom we had

heard flitting in restless longing about the house a few moments before

had left in rage and she, possibly, with them. Yet I could not imagine

her joining herself to people of their stamp. There had been a

solitariness in her aspect which seemed to forbid any such

companionship. Whatever her story, at least she had nothing in common

with the two ill-favored persons whose faces I had seen looking in at

the casement. No; I should find her alone, but where? Certainly the ring

of mist, surrounding me at that moment, offered me little prospect of

finding her anywhere, either easily or soon.

Again I raised my voice, and again I failed to meet with response.

Then, fearing to leave the house lest I should be quite lost amid the

fences and brush lying between it and the road, I began to feel my way

along the walls, calling softly now, instead of loudly, so anxious was I

not to miss any chance of carrying comfort, if not succor, to the woman

I was seeking. But the night gave back no sound, and when I came to the

open door of a shed, I welcomed the refuge it offered and stepped in. I

was, of course, confronted by darkness,--a different darkness from that

without, blanket-like and impenetrable. But when after a moment of

intense listening I heard a soft sound as of weariful breathing, I was

seized anew by hope, and, feeling in my pocket for my match-box, I made

a light and looked around.

My intuitions had not deceived me; she was there. Sitting on the floor

with her cheek pressed against the wall, she revealed to my eager

scrutiny only the outlines of her pure, pale profile; but in those

outlines and on those pure, pale features, I saw such an abandonment of

hope, mingled with such quiet endurance, that my whole soul melted

before it, and it was with difficulty I managed to say:

"Pardon! I do not wish to intrude; but I am shut out of the house also;

and the night is raw and cold. Can I do nothing for your comfort or

for--for the child's?"

She turned toward me and I saw a tremulous gleam of pleasure disturb the

somber stillness of her face; then the match went out in my hand, and we

were again in complete darkness. But the little wail, which at the same

instant rose from between her arms, filled up the pause, as her sweet

"Hush!" filled my heart.

"I am used to the cold," came in another moment from the place where she

crouched. "It is the child--she is hungry; and I--I walked

here--feeling, hoping that, as my father's heir, I might partake in some

slight measure of Uncle Anthony's money. Though my father cast me out

before he died, and I have neither home nor money, I do not complain. I

forfeited all when--" another wail, another gentle "hush!"--then

silence.

I lit another match. "Look in my face!" I prayed. "I am a stranger, and

you would be showing only proper prudence not to trust me. But I

overheard your words when you withdrew from the room where your fortune

lay; and I honor you, madam. If food can be got for your little one, I

will get it."

I caught sight of the convulsive clasp with which she drew to her breast

the tiny bundle she held, then darkness fell again.

"A little bread," she entreated; "a little milk--ah, baby, baby, hush!"

"But where can I get it?" I cried. "They are at table inside. I hear

them shouting over their good cheer. But perhaps there are neighbors

near by; do you know?"

"There are no neighbors," she replied. "What is got must be got here. I

know a way to the kitchen; I used to visit Uncle Anthony when a little

child; if you have the courage--"

I laughed. This token of confidence seemed to reassure her. I heard her

move; possibly she stood up.

"In the further corner of this shed," said she, "there used to be a

trap, connecting this floor with an underground passage-way. A ladder

stood against the trap, and the small cellar at the foot communicated by

means of an iron-bound door with the large one under the house. Eighteen

years ago the wood of that door was old; now it should be rotten. If you

have the strength--"

"I will make the effort and see," said I. "But when I am in the cellar,

what then?"

"Follow the wall to the right; you will come to a stone staircase. As

this staircase has no railing, be careful in ascending it. At the top

you will find a door; it leads into a pantry adjoining the kitchen. Some

one will be in that pantry. Some one will give you a bite for the child;

and when she is quieted and the sun has risen, I will go away. It is my

duty to do so. My uncle was always upright, if cold. He was perfectly

justified in exacting rectitude in his heirs."

I might have rejoined by asking if she detected rectitude in the faces

of the greedy throng she had left behind her with the guardian of this

estate; but I did not. I was too intent upon following out her

directions. Lighting another match, I sought the trap. Alas! it was

burdened with a pile of sticks and rubbish which looked as if they had

lain there for years. As these had to be removed in total darkness, it

took me some time. But once this debris had been scattered and thrown

aside, I had no difficulty in finding the trap and, as the ladder was

still there, I was soon on the cellar-bottom. When, by the reassuring

shout I gave, she knew that I had advanced thus far, she spoke, and her

voice had a soft and thrilling sound.

"Do not forget your own needs," she said. "We two are not so hungry that

we can not wait for you to take a mouthful. I will sing to the baby.

Good-by."

These ten minutes we had spent together had made us friends. The warmth,

the strength which this discovery brought, gave to my arm a force that

made that old oak door go down before me in three vigorous pushes.

Had the eight fortunate ones above not been indulging in a noisy

celebration of their good luck, they must have heard the clatter of this

door when it fell. But good eating, good drink, and the prospect of an

immediate fortune far beyond their wildest dreams, made all ears deaf;

and no pause occurred in the shouts of laughter and the hum of

good-fellowship which sifted down between the beams supporting the house

above my head. Consequently little or no courage was required for the

completion of my adventure; and before long I came upon the staircase

and the door leading from its top into the pantry. The next minute I was

in front of that door.

But here a surprise awaited me. The noise which had hitherto been loud

now became deafening, and I realized that, contrary to Eunice

Westonhaugh's expectation, the supper had been spread in the kitchen and

that I was likely to run amuck of the whole despicable crowd in any

effort I might make to get a bite for the famished baby.

I therefore naturally hesitated to push open the door, fearing to draw

attention to myself; and when I did succeed in lifting the latch and

making a small crack, I was so astonished by the sudden lull in the

general babble, that I drew hastily back and was for descending the

stairs in sudden retreat.

But I was prevented from carrying out this cowardly impulse, by catching

the sound of the lawyer's voice, addressing the assembled guests.

"You have eaten and you have drunk," he was saying; "you are therefore

ready for the final toast. Brothers, nephews--heirs all of Anthony

Westonhaugh, I rise to propose the name of your generous benefactor,

who, if spirits walk this earth, must certainly be with us to-night."

A grumble from more than one throat and an uneasy hitch from such

shoulders as I could see through my narrow vantage-hole testified to the

rather doubtful pleasure with which this suggestion was received. But

the lawyer's tones lost none of their animation as he went on to say:

"The bottle, from which your glasses are to be replenished for this

final draft, he has himself provided. So anxious was he that it should

be of the very best and altogether worthy of the occasion it is to

celebrate, that he gave into my charge, almost with his dying breath,

this key, telling me that it would unlock a cupboard here in which he

had placed a bottle of wine of the very rarest vintage. This is the key,

and yonder, if I do not mistake, is the cupboard."

They had already quaffed a dozen toasts. Perhaps this was why they

accepted this proposition in a sort of panting silence, which remained

unbroken while the lawyer crossed the floor, unlocked the cupboard and

brought out before them a bottle which he held up before their eyes with

a simulated glee almost saturnine.

"Isn't that a bottle to make your eyes dance? The very cobwebs on it are

eloquent. And see! look at this label. Tokay, friends, real Tokay! How

many of you ever had the opportunity of drinking real Tokay before?"

A long deep sigh from a half-dozen throats in which some strong but

hitherto repressed passion, totally incomprehensible to me, found sudden

vent, rose in one simultaneous sound from about that table, and I heard

one jocular voice sing out:

"Pass it around, Smead. I'll drink to Uncle Anthony out of that bottle

till there isn't a drop left to tell what was in it!"

But the lawyer was in no hurry.

"You have forgotten the letter, for the hearing of which you are called

together. Mr. Anthony Westonhaugh left behind him a letter. The time is

now come for reading it."

As I heard these words and realized that the final toast was to be

delayed and that some few moments must yet elapse before the room would

be cleared and an opportunity given me for obtaining what I needed for

the famishing mother and child, I felt such impatience with the fact

and so much anxiety as to the condition of those I had left behind me

that I questioned whether it would not be better for me to return to

them empty-handed than to leave them so long without the comfort of my

presence, when the fascination of the scene again seized me and I found

myself lingering to mark its conclusion with an avidity which can only

be explained by my sudden and intense consciousness of what it all might

mean to her whose witness I had thus inadvertently become.

The careful lawyer began by quoting the injunction with which this

letter had been put in his hands. "'When they are warm with food and

wine, but not too warm,'--thus his adjuration ran, 'then let them hear

my first and only words to them.' I know you are eager for these words.

Folk so honest, so convinced of their own purity and uprightness that

they can stand unmoved while the youngest and most helpless among them

withdraws her claim to wealth and independence rather than share an

unmerited bounty, such folk, I say, must be eager, must be anxious to

know why they have been made the legatees of so great a fortune, under

the easy conditions and amid such slight restrictions as have been

imposed upon them by their munificent kinsman."

"I had rather go on drinking toasts," babbled one thick voice.

"I had rather finish my figuring," growled another, in whose grating

tones no echo remained of Hector Westonhaugh's formerly honeyed voice.

"I am making out a list of stock--"

"Blast your stock! that is, if you mean horses and cows!" screamed a

third. "I'm going in for city life. With less money than we have got,

Andreas Amsberger got to be alderman--"

"Alderman!" sneered the whole pack; and the tumult became general. "If

more of us had been sick," called out one; "or if Uncle Luke, say, had

tripped into the ditch instead of on the edge of it, the fellows who

came safe through might have had anything they wanted, even to the

governorship of the state or--or--"

"Silence!" came in commanding tones from the lawyer, who had begun to

let his disgust appear, perhaps because he held under his thumb the

bottle upon which all eyes were now lovingly centered; so lovingly,

indeed, that I ventured to increase, in the smallest perceptible degree,

the crack by means of which I was myself an interested, if unseen,

participator in this scene.

A sight of Smead, and a partial glimpse of old Luke's covetous profile,

rewarded this small act of daring on my part. The lawyer was standing;

all the rest were sitting. Perhaps he alone retained sufficient

steadiness to stand; for I observed by the control he exercised over

this herd of self-seekers, that he alone had not touched the cup which

had so freely gone about among the others. The woman was hidden from me,

but the change in her voice, when by any chance I heard it, convinced me

that she had not disdained the toasts drunk by her brothers and

nephews.

"Silence!" the lawyer reiterated, "or I will smash this bottle on the

hearth." He raised it in one threatening hand and every man there seemed

to tremble, while old Luke put out his long fingers with an entreaty

that ill became them. "You want to hear the letter?" old Smead called

out. "I thought so."

Putting the bottle down again, but still keeping one hand upon it, he

drew a folded paper from his breast. "This," said he, "contains the

final injunctions of Anthony Westonhaugh. You will listen, all of you;

listen till I am done; or I will not only smash this bottle before your

eyes, but I will keep for ever buried in my breast the whereabouts of

certain drafts and bonds in which, as his heirs, you possess the

greatest interest. Nobody but myself knows where these papers can be

found."

Whether this was so, or whether the threat was an empty one thrown out

by this subtile old schemer for the purpose of safeguarding his life

from their possible hate and impatience, it answered his end with these

semi-intoxicated men, and secured him the silence he demanded. Breaking

open the seal of the envelope he held, he showed them the folded sheet

which it contained, with the remark:

"I have had nothing to do with the writing of this letter. It is in Mr.

Westonhaugh's own hand, and he was not even so good as to communicate to

me the nature of its contents. I was bidden to read it to such as should

be here assembled under the provisos mentioned in his will; and as you

are now in a condition to listen, I will proceed with my task as

required."

This was my time for leaving, but a certain brooding terror, latent in

the air, held me chained to the spot, listening with my ears, but

receiving the full sense of what was read from the expression of old

Luke's face, which was probably more plainly visible to me than to those

who sat beside him. For, being bent almost into a bow, as I have said,

his forehead came within an inch of touching his plate, and one had to

look under his arms, as I did, to catch the workings of his evil mouth,

as old Smead gave forth, in his professional sing-song, the following

words from his departed client:

"Brothers, nephews and heirs! Though the earth has lain upon my breast a

month, I am with you here to-night."

A snort from old Luke's snarling lips; and a stir--not a comfortable

one--in the jostling crowd, whose shaking arms and clawing hands I could

see projecting here and there over the board.

"My presence at this feast--a presence which, if unseen, can not be

unfelt, may bring you more pain than pleasure. But if so, it matters

little. You are my natural heirs and I have left you my money; why, when

so little love has characterized our intercourse, must be evident to

such of my brothers as can recall their youth and the promise our father

exacted from us on the day we set foot in this new land.

"There were nine of us in those days: Luke, Salmon, Barbara, Hector,

Eustace, Janet, Hudson, William and myself; and all save one were

promising, in appearance at least. But our father knew his offspring,

and when we stood, an alien and miserable band in front of Castle

Garden, at the foot of the great city whose immensity struck terror to

our hearts, he drew all our hands together and made us swear by the soul

of our mother, whose body we had left in the sea, that we would keep the

bond of brotherhood intact, and share with mutual confidence whatever

good fortune this untried country might hold in store for us. You were

strong and your voices rang out loudly. Mine was faint, for I was

weak--so weak that my hand had to be held in place by my sister Barbara.

But my oath has never lost its hold upon my heart, while yours--answer

how you have kept it, Luke; or you, Janet; or you Hector, of the smooth

tongue and vicious heart; or you, or you, who, from one stock, recognize

but one law: the law of cold-blooded selfishness which seeks its own in

face of all oaths and at the cost of another man's heart-break.

"This I say to such as know my story. But lest there be one amongst you

who has not heard from parent or uncle the true tale of him who has

brought you all under one roof to-night, I will repeat it here in words,

that no man may fail to understand why I remembered my oath through life

and beyond death, yet stand above you an accusing spirit while you quaff

me toasts and count the gains my justice divides among you.

"I, as you all remember, was the weak one--the ne'er-do-weel. When all

of you were grown and had homes of your own, I still remained under the

family roof-tree, fed by our father's bounty and looking to our father's

justice for that share of his savings which he had promised to all

alike. When he died it came to me as it came to you; but I had married

before that day; married, not, like the rest of you, for what a wife

could bring, but for sentiment and true passion. This, in my case, meant

a loving wife, but a frail one; and while we lived a little while on the

patrimony left us, it was far too small to support us long without some

aid from our own hands; and our hands were feeble and could not work.

And so we fell into debt for rent and, ere long, for the commonest

necessities of life. In vain I struggled to redeem myself; the time of

my prosperity had not come and I only sank deeper and deeper into debt

and finally into indigence. A baby came. Our landlord was kind and

allowed us to stay for two weeks under the roof for whose protection we

could not pay; but at the end of that time we were asked to leave; and I

found myself on the road with a dying wife, a wailing infant, no money

in my purse and no power in my arm to earn any. Then when heart and hope

were both failing, I recalled that ancient oath and the six prosperous

homes scattered up and down the very highway on which I stood. I could

not leave my wife; the fever was in her veins and she could not bear me

out of her sight; so I put her on a horse, which a kind old neighbor was

willing to lend me, and holding her up with one hand, guided the horse

with the other, to the home of my brother Luke. He was a straight

enough fellow in those days--physically, I mean--and he looked able and

strong that morning, as he stood in the open doorway of his house,

gazing down at us as we halted before him in the roadway. But his temper

had grown greedy with the accumulation of a few dollars, and he shook

his head as he closed his door, saying he remembered no oath and that

spenders must expect to be beggars.

"Struck to the heart by a rebuff which meant prolongation of the

suffering I saw in my dear wife's eyes, I stretched up and kissed her

where she sat half-fainting on the horse; then I moved on. I came to

Barbara's home next. She had been a little mother to me once; that is,

she had fed and dressed me, and doled out blows and caresses, and taught

me to read and sing. But Barbara in her father's home and without

fortune was not the Barbara I saw on the threshold of the little cottage

she called her own. She heard my story; looked in the face of my wife

and turned her back. She had no place for idle folk in her little house;

if we would work she would feed us; but we must earn our supper or go

hungry to bed. I felt the trembling of my wife's frame where she leaned

against my arm, and kissing her again, led her on to Salmon's. Luke,

Hector, Janet, have you heard him tell of that vision at his gateway,

twenty-five years ago? He is not amongst you. For twelve years he has

lain beside our father in the churchyard, but his sons may be here, for

they were ever alert when gold was in sight or a full glass to be

drained. Ask _them_, ask John, whom I saw skulking behind his cousins at

the garden fence that day, what it was they saw as I drew rein under the

great tree which shadowed their father's doorstep.

"The sunshine had been pitiless that morning, and the head, for whose

rest in some loving shelter I would have bartered soul and body, had

fallen sidewise till it lay on my arm. Pressed to her breast was our

infant, whose little wail struck in pitifully as Salmon called out:

'What's to do here to-day!' Do you remember it, lads? or how you all

laughed, little and great, when I asked for a few weeks' stay under my

brother's roof till we could all get well and go about our tasks again?

_I_ remember. I, who am writing these words from the very mouth of the

tomb, _I_ remember; but I did not curse you. I only rode on to the next.

The way ran uphill now; and the sun which, since our last stop, had been

under a cloud, came out and blistered my wife's cheeks, already burning

red with fever. But I pressed my lips upon them, and led her on. With

each rebuff I gave her a kiss; and her smile, as her head pressed harder

and harder upon my arm now exerting all its strength to support her,

grew almost divine. But it vanished at my nephew Lemuel's.

"He was shearing sheep, and could give no time to company; and when,

late in the day, I drew rein at Janet's, and she said she was going to

have a dance and could not look after sick folk, the pallid lips failed

to return my despairing embrace; and in the terror which this brought me

I went down, in the gathering twilight, into the deep valley where

William raised his sheep and reckoned, day by day, the increase among

his pigs. Oh, the chill of that descent! Oh, the gloom of the gathering

shadows! As we neared the bottom and I heard a far-off voice shout out a

hoarse command, some instinct made me reach up for the last time and

bestow that faithful kiss, which was at once her consolation and my

prayer. My lips were cold with the terror of my soul, but they were not

so cold as the cheek they touched, and, shrieking in my misery and need,

I fell before William where he halted by the horse-trough and--He was

always a hard man, was William, and it was a shock to him, no doubt, to

see us standing in our anguish and necessity before him; but he raised

the whip in his hand and, when it fell, my arm fell with it and she

slipped from my grasp to the ground, and lay in a heap in the roadway.

"He was ashamed next minute and pointed to the house near-by. But I did

not carry her in, and she died in the roadway. Do you remember it,

Luke? Do you remember it, Lemuel?

"But it is not of this I complain at this hour, nor is it for this I ask

you to drink the toast I have prepared for you."

The looks, the writhings of old Luke and such others as I could now see

through the widening crack my hands unconsciously made in the doorway,

told me that the rack was at work in this room so lately given up to

revelry. Yet the mutterings, which from time to time came to my ears

from one sullen lip or another, did not rise into frightened imprecation

or even into any assertion of sorrow or contrition. It seemed as if some

suspense, common to all, held them speechless if not dumbly

apprehensive; and while the lawyer said nothing in recognition of this,

he could not have been quite blind to it, for he bestowed one curious

glance around the table before he proceeded with old Anthony's words.

Those words had now become short, sharp, and accusatory.

"My child lived; and what remained to me of human passion and longing

centered in his frail existence. I managed to earn enough for his eating

and housing, and in time I was almost happy again. This was while our

existence was a struggle; but when, with the discovery of latent powers

in my own mind, I began to find my place in the world and to earn money,

then your sudden interest in my boy taught me a new lesson in human

selfishness; but not, as yet, new fears. My nature was not one to grasp

ideas of evil, and the remembrance of that oath still remained to make

me lenient toward you.

"I let him see you; not much, not often, but yet often enough for him to

realize that he had uncles and cousins, or, if you like it better,

kindred. And how did you repay this confidence on my part? What hand had

ye in the removal of this small barrier to the fortune my own poor

health warranted you in looking upon, even in those early days, as your

own? To others' eyes it may appear, none; to mine, ye are one and all

his murderers, as certainly as all of you were the murderers of the

good physician hastening to his aid. For his illness was not a mortal

one. He would have been saved if the doctor had reached him; but a

precipice swallowed that good Samaritan, and only I, of all who looked

upon the footprints which harrowed up the road at this dangerous point,

knew whose shoes would fit those marks. God's providence, it was called,

and I let it pass for such; but it was a providence which cost me my boy

and made _you_ my heirs."

Silence as sullen in character as the men who found themselves thus

openly impeached had, for some minutes now, replaced the muttered

complaints which had accompanied the first portion of this denunciatory

letter. As the lawyer stopped to cast them another of those strange

looks, a gleam from old Luke's sidewise eyes startled the man next him,

who, shrugging a shoulder, passed the underhanded look on, till it had

circled the board and stopped with the man sitting opposite the crooked

sinner who had started it.

I began to have a wholesome dread of them all and was astonished to see

the lawyer drop his hand from the bottle, which to some degree offered

itself as a possible weapon. But he knew his audience better than I did.

Though the bottle was now free for any man's taking, not a hand trembled

toward it, nor was a single glass held out.

The lawyer, with an evil smile, went on with his relentless client's

story.

"Ye had killed my wife; ye had killed my son; but this was not enough.

Being lonesome in my great house, which was as much too large for me as

my fortune was, I had taken a child to replace the boy I had lost.

Remembering the cold blood running in the veins of those nearest me, I

chose a boy from alien stock and, for a while, knew contentment again.

But, as he developed and my affections strengthened, the possibility of

all my money going his way roused my brothers and sisters from the

complacency they had enjoyed since their road to fortune had been

secured by my son's death, and one day--can you recall it, Hudson? can

you recall it, Lemuel?--the boy was brought in from the mill and laid at

my feet, dead! He had stumbled amongst the great belts, but whose was

the voice which had startled him with a sudden 'Halloo!' Can you say,

Luke? Can you say, John? I can say in whose ear it was whispered that

three, if not more of you, were seen moving among the machinery that

fatal morning.

"Again, God's providence was said to have visited my house; and again

_ye_ were my heirs."

"Stop there!" broke in the harsh voice of Luke, who was gradually

growing livid under his long gray locks.

"Lies! lies!" shrieked Hector, gathering courage from his brother.

"Cut it all and give us the drink!" snarled one of the younger men, who

was less under the effect of liquor than the rest.

But a trembling voice muttered "Hush!" and the lawyer, whose eye had

grown steely under these comments, took advantage of the sudden silence

which had followed this last objurgation and went steadily on.

"Some men would have made a will and denounced you. I made a will, but

did not denounce you. _I_ am no breaker of oaths. More than this, I

learned a new trick. I, who hated all subtlety and looked upon craft as

the favorite weapon of the devil, learned to smile with my lips while my

heart was burning with hatred. Perhaps this was why you all began to

smile too, and joke me about certain losses I had sustained, by which

you meant the gains which had come to me. That these gains were many

times greater than you realized added to the sting of this good

fellowship, but I held my peace; and you began to have confidence in a

good-nature which nothing could shake. You even gave me a supper."

_A supper!_

What was there in these words to cause every man there to stop in

whatever movement he was making and stare, with wide-open eyes, intently

at the reader. He had spoken quietly; he had not even looked up, but

the silence which, for some minutes back, had begun to reign over that

tumultuous gathering, now became breathless, and the seams in Hector's

cheeks deepened to a bluish criss-cross.

"_You remember that supper?_"

As the words rang out again, I threw wide the door; I might have stalked

openly into their circle; not a man there would have noticed me.

"It was a memorable occasion," the lawyer read on with stoical

impassiveness. "There was not a brother lacking. Luke and Hudson and

William and Hector and Eustace's boys, as well as Eustace himself; Janet

too, and Salmon's Lemuel, and Barbara's son, who, even if his mother had

gone the way of all flesh, had so trained her black brood in the love of

the things of this world that I scarcely missed her when I looked about

among you all for the eight sturdy brothers and sisters who had joined

in one clasp and one oath, under the eye of the true-hearted immigrant,

our father. What I did miss was one true eye lifted to my glance; but I

did not show that I missed it; and so our peace was made and we

separated, you to wait for your inheritance, and I for the death which

was to secure it to you. For, when the cup passed round that night, you

each dropped into it a tear of repentance, and tears make bitter

drinking. I sickened as I quaffed and was never myself again, as you

know. Do you understand me, you cruel, crafty ones?"

Did they not! Heads quaking, throats gasping, teeth chattering--no

longer sitting--all risen, all looking with wild eyes for the door--was

it not apparent that they understood and only waited for one more word

to break away and flee the accursed house?

But that word lingered. Old Smead had now grown pale himself and read

with difficulty the lines which were to end this frightful scene. As I

saw the red gleam of terror shine out from his small eyes, I wondered if

he had been but the blind tool of his implacable client and was as

ignorant as those before him of what was to follow this heavy

arraignment. The dread with which he finally proceeded was too marked

for me to doubt the truth of this surmise. This is what he found himself

forced to read:

"There was a bottle reserved for me. It had a green label on it,--"

A shriek from every one there and a hurried look up and down at the

bottles standing on the table.

"A green label," the lawyer repeated, "and it made a goodly appearance

as it was set down before me. But you had no liking for wine with a

green label on the bottle. One by one you refused it, and when I rose to

quaff my final glass alone, every eye before me fell and did not lift

again until the glass was drained. I did not notice this then, but I see

it all now, just as I hear again the excuses you gave for not filling

your glasses as the bottle went round. One had drunk enough; one

suffered from qualms brought on by an unaccustomed indulgence in

oysters; one felt that wine good enough for me was too good for him,

and so on and so on. Not one to show frank eyes and drink with me as I

was ready to drink with him! Why? Because one and all of you knew what

was in that cup, and would not risk an inheritance so nearly within your

grasp."

"Lies! lies!" again shrieked the raucous voice of Luke, smothered by

terror; while oaths, shouts, imprecations, rang out in horrid tumult

from one end of the table to the other, till the lawyer's face, over

which a startling change was rapidly passing, drew the whole crowd

forward again in awful fascination, till they clung, speechless, arm in

arm, shoulder propping shoulder, while he gasped out in dismay equal to

their own, these last fatal words:

"That was at your board, my brothers; now you are at mine. You have

eaten my viands, drunk of my cup; and now, through the mouth of the one

man who has been true to me because therein lies his advantage, I offer

you a final glass. Will you drink it? I drank yours. By that old-time

oath which binds us to share each other's fortune, I ask you to share

this cup with me. _You will not?_"

"No, no, no!" shouted one after another.

"Then," the inexorable voice went on, a voice which to these miserable

souls was no longer that of the lawyer, but an issue from the grave they

had themselves dug for Anthony Westonhaugh, "know that your abstinence

comes too late; that you have already drunk the toast destined to end

your lives. The bottle which you must have missed from that board of

yours has been offered you again. A label is easily changed and--Luke,

John, Hector, I know you all so well--that bottle has been greedily

emptied by you; and while I, who sipped sparingly, lived three weeks,

you, who have drunk deep, _have not three hours before you, possibly not

three minutes_."

O, the wail of those lost souls as this last sentence issued in a final

pant of horror from the lawyer's quaking lips! Shrieks--howls--prayers

for mercy--groans to make the hair rise--and curses, at sound of which

I shut my ears in horror, only to open them again in dread as, with one

simultaneous impulse, they flung themselves upon the lawyer who,

foreseeing this rush, had backed up against the wall.

He tried to stem the tide.

"I knew nothing of the poisoning," he protested. "That was not my reason

for declining the drink. I wished to preserve my senses--to carry out my

client's wishes. As God lives, I did not know he meant to carry his

revenge so far. Mercy! Mer--"

But the hands which clutched him were the hands of murderers, and the

lawyer's puny figure could not stand up against the avalanche of human

terror, relentless fury and mad vengeance which now rolled in upon it.

As I bounded to his relief he turned his ghastly face upon me. But the

way between us was blocked, and I was preparing myself to see him sink

before my eyes, when an unearthly shriek rose from behind us, and every

living soul in that mass of struggling humanity paused, set and

staring, with stiffened limbs and eyes fixed, not on him, not on me, but

on one of their own number, the only woman amongst them, Janet

Clapsaddle, who, with clutching hands clawing her breast, was reeling in

solitary agony in her place beside the board. As they looked she fell,

and lay with upturned face and staring eyes, in whose glassy depths the

ill-fated ones who watched her could see mirrored their own impending

doom.

It was an awful moment. A groan, in which was concentrated the despair

of seven miserable souls, rose from that petrified band; then, man by

man, they separated and fell back, showing on each weak or wicked face

the particular passion which had driven them into crime and made them

the victims of this wholesale revenge. There had been some sort of bond

between them till the vision of death rose before each shrinking soul.

Shoulder to shoulder in crime, they fell apart as their doom approached;

and rushing, shrieking, each man for himself, they one and all sought

to escape by doors, windows or any outlet which promised release from

this fatal spot. One rushed by me--I do not know which one--and I felt

as if a flame from hell had licked me, his breath was so hot and the

moans he uttered so like the curses we imagine to blister the lips of

the lost. None of them saw me; they did not even detect the sliding form

of the lawyer crawling away before them to some place of egress of which

they had no knowledge; and, convinced that in this scene of death I

could play no part worthy of her who awaited me, I too rushed away and,

groping my way back through the cellar, sought the side of her who still

crouched in patient waiting against the dismal wall.

IV

THE FINAL SHOCK

Her baby had fallen asleep. I knew this by the faint, low sweetness of

her croon; and, shuddering with the horrors I had witnessed, horrors

which acquired a double force from the contrast presented by the peace

of this quiet spot and the hallowing influence of the sleeping

infant,--I threw myself down in the darkness at her feet, gasping out:

"Oh, thank God and your uncle's seeming harshness, that you have escaped

the doom which has overtaken those others! You and your babe are still

alive; while they--"

"What of them? What has happened to them? You are breathless, trembling;

you have brought no bread--"

"No, no. Food in this house means death. Your relatives gave food and

wine to your uncle at a supper; he, though now in his grave, has

returned the same to them. There was a bottle--"

I stopped, appalled. A shriek, muffled by distance but quivering with

the same note of death I had heard before, had gone up again from the

other side of the wall against which we were leaning.

"Oh!" she gasped; "and my father was at that supper! my father, who died

last night cursing the day he was born! We are an accursed race. I have

known it all my life; perhaps that was why I mistook passion for love;

and my baby--O God, have mercy! God have mercy!"

The plaintiveness of that cry, the awesomeness of what I had seen--of

what was going on at that moment almost within the reach of our

arms--the darkness, the desolation of our two souls, affected me as I

had never been affected in my whole life before. In the concentrated

experience of the last two hours I seemed to live years under this

woman's eyes; to know her as I did my own heart; to love her as I did my

own soul. No growth of feeling ever brought the ecstasy of that

moment's inspiration. With no sense of doing anything strange, with no

fear of being misunderstood, I reached out my hand and, touching hers

where it lay clasped about her infant, I said:

"We are two poor wayfarers. A rough road loses half its difficulties

when trodden by two. Shall we, then, fare on together--we and the little

child?"

She gave a sob; there was sorrow, longing, grief, hope, in its thrilling

low sound. As I recognized the latter emotion I drew her to my breast.

The child did not separate us.

"We shall be happy," I murmured, and her sigh seemed to answer a

delicious "Yes," when suddenly there came a shock to the partition

against which we leaned and, starting from my clasp, she cried:

"Our duty is in there. Shall we think of ourselves or even of each other

while these men, all relatives of mine, are dying on the other side of

this wall?"

Seizing my hand, she dragged me to the trap; but here I took the lead,

and helped her down the ladder. When I had her safely on the floor at

the foot, she passed in front of me again; but once up the steps and in

front of the kitchen door, I thrust her behind me, for one glance into

the room beyond had convinced me it was no place for her.

But she would not be held back. She crowded forward beside me, and

together we looked upon the wreck within. It was a never-to-be-forgotten

scene. The demon that was in those men had driven them to demolish

furniture, dishes, everything. In one heap lay what, an hour before, had

been an inviting board surrounded by rollicking and greedy guests. But

it was not upon this overthrow we stopped to look. It was upon something

that mingled with it, dominated it and made of this chaos only a setting

to awful death. Janet's face, in all its natural hideousness and

depravity, looked up from the floor beside this heap; and farther on,

the twisted figure of him they called Hector, with something more than

the seams of greedy longing round his wide, staring eyes and icy

temples. Two in this room! and on the threshold of the one beyond a

moaning third, who sank into eternal silence as we approached; and

before the fireplace in the great room, a horrible crescent that had

once been aged Luke, upon whom we had no sooner turned our backs than we

caught glimpses here and there of other prostrate forms which moved once

under our eyes and then moved no more.

One only still stood upright, and he was the man whose obtrusive figure

and sordid expression had so revolted me in the beginning. There was no

color now in his flabby and heavily fallen cheeks. The eyes, in whose

false sheen I had seen so much of evil, were glazed now, and his big and

burly frame shook the door it pressed against. He was staring at a small

slip of paper he held, and, from his anxious looks, appeared to miss

something which neither of us had power to supply. It was a spectacle to

make devils rejoice, and mortals fly aghast. But Eunice had a spirit

like an angel and drawing near him, she said:

"Is there anything I can do for you, Cousin John?"

He started, looked at her with the same blank gaze he had hitherto cast

at the wall; then some words formed on his working lips and we heard:

"I can not reckon; I was never good at figures; but if Luke is gone, and

William, and Hector, and Barbara's boy, and Janet,--_how much does that

leave for me?_"

He was answered almost the moment he spoke; but it was by other tongues

and in another world than this. As his body fell forward, I tore open

the door before which he had been standing, and, lifting the almost

fainting Eunice in my arms, I carried her out into the night. As I did

so, I caught a final glimpse of the pictured face I had found it so hard

to understand a couple of hours before. I understood it now.

A surprise awaited us as we turned toward the gate. The mist had lifted

and a keen but not unpleasant wind was driving from the north. Borne on

it, we heard voices. The village had emptied itself, probably at the

alarm given by the lawyer, and it was these good men and women whose

approach we heard. As we had nothing to fear from them, we went forward

to meet them. As we did so, three crouching figures rose from some

bushes we passed and ran scurrying before us through the gateway. They

were the late comers who had shown such despair at being shut out from

this fatal house, and who probably did not yet know the doom they had

escaped.

* * * * *

There were lanterns in the hands of some of the men who now approached.

As we stopped before them, these lanterns were held up, and by the light

they gave we saw, first, the lawyer's frightened face, then the visages

of two men who seemed to be persons of some authority.

"What news?" faltered the lawyer, seeing by our faces that we knew the

worst.

"Bad," I returned; "the poison had lost none of its virulence by being

mixed so long with the wine."

"How many?" asked the man on his right anxiously.

"Eight," was my solemn reply.

"There were but eight," faltered the lawyer; "that means, then, all?"

"All," I repeated.

A murmur of horror rose, swelled, then died out in tumult as the crowd

swept on past us.

For a moment we stood watching these people; saw them pause before the

door we had left open behind us, then rush in, leaving a wail of terror

on the shuddering midnight air. When all was quiet again, Eunice laid

her hand upon my arm.

"Where shall we go?" she asked despairingly. "I do not know a house that

will open to me."

The answer to her question came from other lips than mine.

"I do not know one that will _not_," spoke up a voice behind our backs.

"Your withdrawal from the circle of heirs did not take from you your

rightful claim to an inheritance which, according to your uncle's will,

could be forfeited only by a failure to arrive at the place of

distribution within the hour set by the testator. As I see the matter

now, this appeal to the honesty of the persons so collected was a test

by which my unhappy client strove to save from the general fate such

members of his miserable family as fully recognized their sin and were

truly repentant."

It was Lawyer Smead. He had lingered behind the others to tell her this.

She was, then, no outcast, but rich, very rich; how rich I dared not

acknowledge to myself, lest a remembrance of the man who was the last to

perish in that house of death should return to make this calculation

hateful. It was a blow which struck deep, deeper than any either of us

had sustained that night. As we came to realize it, I stepped slowly

back, leaving her standing erect and tall in the middle of the roadway,

with her baby in her arms. But not for long; soon she was close at my

side murmuring softly:

"Two wayfarers still! Only, the road will be more difficult and the need

of companionship greater. Shall we fare on together, you, I--and the

little one?"

THE RUBY AND THE CALDRON

As there were two good men on duty that night, I did not see why I

should remain at my desk, even though there was an unusual stir created

in our small town by the grand ball given at The Evergreens.

But just as I was preparing to start for home, an imperative ring called

me to the telephone and I heard:

"Halloo! Is this the police-station?"

"It is."

"Well, then, a detective is wanted at once at The Evergreens. He can not

be too clever or too discreet. A valuable jewel has been lost, which

must be found before the guests disperse for home. Large reward if the

matter ends successfully and without too great publicity."

"May I ask who is speaking to me?"

"Mrs. Ashley."

It was the mistress of The Evergreens and giver of the ball.

"Madam, a man shall be sent at once. Where will you see him?"

"In the butler's pantry at the rear. Let him give his name as Jennings."

"Very good. Good-by."

"Good-by."

A pretty piece of work! Should I send Hendricks or should I send Hicks?

Hendricks was clever and Hicks discreet, but neither united both

qualifications in the measure demanded by the sensible and

quietly-resolved woman with whom I had just been talking. What

alternative remained? But one; I must go myself.

It was not late--not for a ball night, at least--and as half the town

had been invited to the dance, the streets were alive with carriages. I

was watching the blink of their lights through the fast falling snow

when my attention was drawn to a fact which struck me as peculiar. These

carriages were all coming my way instead of rolling in the direction of

The Evergreens. Had they been empty this would have needed no

explanation, but, as far as I could see, most of them were full, and

that, too, with loudly talking women and gesticulating men.

Something of a serious nature must have occurred at The Evergreens.

Rapidly I paced on and soon found myself before the great gates.

A crowd of vehicles of all descriptions blocked the entrance. None

seemed to be passing up the driveway; all stood clustered at the gates,

and as I drew nearer I perceived many an anxious head thrust forth from

their quickly opened doors and heard many an ejaculation of

disappointment as the short interchange of words went on between the

drivers of these various turnouts and a man drawn up in quiet resolution

before the unexpectedly barred entrance.

Slipping round to this man's side, I listened to what he was saying. It

was simple but very explicit.

"Mrs. Ashley asks everybody's pardon, but the ball can't go on

to-night. Something has happened which makes the reception of further

guests impossible. To-morrow evening she will be happy to see you all.

The dance is simply postponed."

This he had probably repeated forty times, and each time it had probably

been received with the same mixture of doubt and curiosity which now

held the lengthy procession in check.

Not wishing to attract attention, yet anxious to lose no time, I pressed

up still nearer, and, bending toward him from the shadow cast by a

convenient post, uttered the one word:

"Jennings."

Instantly he unlocked a small gate at his right. I passed in and, with

professional _sang-froid_, proceeded to take my way to the house through

the double row of evergreens bordering the semicircular approach.

As these trees stood very close together and were, besides, heavily

laden with fresh-fallen snow, I failed to catch a glimpse of the

building itself until I stood in front of it. Then I saw that it was

brilliantly lighted and gave evidence here and there of some festivity;

but the guests were too few for the effect to be very exhilarating and,

passing around to the rear, I sought the special entrance to which I had

been directed.

A heavy-browed porch, before which stood a caterer's wagon, led me to a

door which had every appearance of being the one I sought. Pushing it

open, I entered without ceremony, and speedily found myself in the midst

of twenty or more colored waiters and chattering housemaids. To one of

the former I addressed the question:

"Where is the butler's pantry? I am told that I shall find the lady of

the house there."

"Your name?" was the curt demand.

"Jennings."

"Follow me."

I was taken through narrow passages and across one or two store-rooms to

a small but well-lighted closet, where I was left, with the assurance

that Mrs. Ashley would presently join me. I had never seen this lady,

but I had often heard her spoken of as a woman of superior character and

admirable discretion.

She did not keep me waiting. In two minutes the door opened and this

fine, well-poised woman was telling her story in the straightforward

manner I so much admire and so seldom meet with.

The article lost was a large ruby of singular beauty and great

value--the property of Mrs. Burton, the senator's wife, in whose honor

this ball was given. It had not been lost in the house nor had it been

originally missed that evening. Mrs. Burton and herself had attended the

great foot-ball game in the afternoon, and it was on the college campus

that Mrs. Burton had first dropped her invaluable jewel. But a reward of

five hundred dollars having been at once offered to whoever should find

and restore it, a great search had followed, which ended in its being

picked up by one of the students and brought back as far as the great

step leading up to the front door, when it had again disappeared, and

in a way to rouse conjecture of the strangest and most puzzling

character.

The young man who had brought it thus far bore the name of John Deane,

and was a member of the senior class. He had been the first to detect

its sparkle in the grass, and those who were near enough to see his face

at that happy moment say that it expressed the utmost satisfaction at

his good luck.

"You see," said Mrs. Ashley, "he has a sweetheart, and five hundred

dollars looks like a fortune to a young man just starting life. But he

was weak enough to take this girl into his confidence; and on their way

here--for both were invited to the ball--he went so far as to pull it

out of his pocket and show it to her.

"They were admiring it together and vaunting its beauties to the young

lady friend who had accompanied them, when their carriage turned into

the driveway and they saw the lights of the house flashing before them.

Hastily restoring the jewel to the little bag he had made for it out of

the finger-end of an old glove,--a bag in which he assured me he had

been careful to keep it safely tied ever since picking it up on the

college green,--he thrust it back into his pocket and prepared to help

the ladies out. But just then a disturbance arose in front. A horse

which had been driven up was rearing in a way that threatened to

overturn the light buggy to which he was attached. As the occupants of

this buggy were ladies, and seemed to have no control over the plunging

beast, young Deane naturally sprang to the rescue. Bidding his own

ladies alight and make for the porch, he hurriedly ran forward and,

pausing in front of the maddened animal, waited for an opportunity to

seize him by the rein. He says that as he stood there facing the beast

with fixed eye and raised hand, he distinctly felt something strike or

touch his breast. But the sensation conveyed no meaning to him in his

excitement, and he did not think of it again till, the horse well in

hand and the two alarmed occupants of the buggy rescued, he turned to

see where his own ladies were, and beheld them looking down at him from

the midst of a circle of young people, drawn from the house by the

screaming of the women. Instantly a thought of the treasure he carried

recurred to his mind, and dropping the rein of the now quieted horse, he

put his hand to his pocket. The jewel was gone. He declares that for a

moment he felt as if he had been struck on the head by one of the hoofs

of the frantic horse he had just handled. But immediately the importance

of his loss and the necessity he felt for instant action restored him to

himself, and shouting aloud, 'I have dropped Mrs. Burton's ruby!' begged

every one to stand still while he made a search for it.

"This all occurred, as you must know, more than an hour and a half ago,

consequently before many of my guests had arrived. My son, who was one

of the few spectators gathered on the porch, tells me that there was

only one other carriage behind the one in which Mr. Deane had brought

his ladies. Both of these had stopped short of the stepping-stone, and

as the horse and buggy which had made all this trouble had by this time

been driven to the stable, nothing stood in the way of his search but

the rapidly accumulating snow which, if you remember, was falling very

thick and fast at the time.

"My son, who had rushed in for his overcoat, came running down with

offers to help him. So did some others. But, with an imploring gesture,

he begged to be allowed to conduct the search alone, the ground being in

such a state that the delicately-mounted jewel ran great risk of being

trodden into the snow and thus injured or lost. They humored him for a

moment, then, seeing that his efforts bade fair to be fruitless, my son

insisted upon joining him, and the two looked the ground over, inch by

inch, from the place where Mr. Deane had set foot to ground in alighting

from his carriage to the exact spot where he had stood when he had

finally seized hold of the horse. But no ruby. Then Harrison (that is

my son's name) sent for a broom and went over the place again, sweeping

aside the surface snow and examining carefully the ground beneath,--but

with no better results than before. No ruby could be found. My son came

to me panting. Mrs. Burton and myself stood awaiting him in a state of

suspense. Guests and fete were alike forgotten. We had heard that the

jewel had been found on the campus by one of the students and had been

brought back as far as the step in front and then lost again in some

unaccountable manner in the snow, and we hoped, nay expected from moment

to moment, that it would be brought in.

"When Harrison entered, then, pale, disheveled and shaking his head,

Mrs. Burton caught me by the hand, and I thought she would faint. For

this jewel is of far greater value to her than its mere worth in money,

though that is by no means small.

"It is a family jewel and was given to her by her husband under special

circumstances. He prizes it even more than she does, and he is not here

to counsel or assist her in this extremity. Besides, she was wearing it

in direct opposition to his expressed wishes. This I must tell you, to

show how imperative it is for us to recover it; also to account for the

large reward she is willing to pay. When he last looked at it he noticed

that the fastening was a trifle slack and, though he handed the trinket

back, he told her distinctly that she was not to wear it till it had

been either to Tiffany's or Starr's. But she considered it safe enough,

and put it on to please the boys, and lost it. Senator Burton is a hard

man and,--in short, the jewel must be found. I give you just one hour in

which to do it."

"But, madam--" I protested.

"I know," she put in, with a quick nod and a glance over her shoulder to

see if the door was shut. "I have not finished my story. Hearing what

Harrison had to say, I took action at once. I bade him call in the

guests, whom curiosity or interest still detained on the porch, and seat

them in a certain room which I designated to him. Then, after telling

him to send two men to the gates with orders to hold back all further

carriages from entering, and two others to shovel up and cart away to

the stable every particle of snow for ten feet each side of the front

step, I asked to see Mr. Deane. But here my son whispered something into

my ear, which it is my duty to repeat. It was to the effect that Mr.

Deane believed that the jewel had been taken from him; that he insisted,

in fact, that he had felt a hand touch his breast while he stood

awaiting an opportunity to seize the horse. 'Very good,' said I, 'we'll

remember that, too; but first see that my orders are carried out and

that all approaches to the grounds are guarded and no one allowed to

come in or go out without permission from me.'

"He left us, and I was turning to encourage Mrs. Burton when my

attention was caught by the eager face of a little friend of mine, who,

quite unknown to me, was sitting in one of the corners of the room. She

was studying my countenance in a sort of subdued anxiety, hardly

natural in one so young, and I was about to call her to my side and

question her when she made a sudden dive and vanished from the room.

Some impulse made me follow her. She is a conscientious little thing,

but timid as a hare, and though I saw she had something to say, it was

with difficulty I could make her speak. Only after the most solemn

assurances that her name should not be mentioned in the matter, would

she give me the following bit of information, which you may possibly

think throws another light upon the affair. It seems that she was

looking out of one of the front windows when Mr. Deane's carriage drove

up. She had been watching the antics of the horse attached to the buggy,

but as soon as she saw Mr. Deane going to the assistance of those in

danger, she let her eyes stray back to the ladies whom he had left

behind him in the carriage.

"She did not know these ladies, but their looks and gestures interested

her, and she watched them quite intently as they leaped to the ground

and made their way toward the porch. One went on quickly, and without

pause, to the step, but the other,--the one who came last,--did not do

this. She stopped a moment, perhaps to watch the horse in front, perhaps

to draw her cloak more closely about her, and when she again moved on,

it was with a start and a hurried glance at her feet, terminating in a

quick turn and a sudden stooping to the ground. When she again stood

upright, she had something in her hand which she thrust furtively into

her breast."

"How was this lady dressed?" I inquired.

"In a white cloak, with an edging of fur. I took pains to learn that,

too, and it was with some curiosity, I assure you, that I examined the

few guests who had now been admitted to the room I had so carefully

pointed out to my son. Two of them wore white cloaks, but one of these

was Mrs. Dalrymple, and I did not give her or her cloak a second

thought. The other was a tall, fine-looking girl, with an air and

bearing calculated to rouse admiration if she had not shown so very

plainly that she was in a state of inner perturbation. Though she tried

to look amiable and pleased, I saw that she had some care on her mind,

which, had she been Mr. Deane's _fiancee_, would have needed no

explanation; but as she was only Mr. Deane's _fiancee's_ friend, its

cause was not so apparent.

"The floor of the room, as I had happily remembered, was covered with

crash, and as I lifted each garment off--I allowed no maid to assist me

in this--I shook it well; ostensibly, because of the few flakes clinging

to it, really to see if anything could be shaken out of it. Of course, I

met with no success. I had not expected to, but it is my disposition to

be thorough. These wraps I saw all hung in an adjoining closet, the door

of which I locked,--here is the key,--after which I handed my guests

over to my son who led them into the drawing-room where they joined the

few others who had previously arrived, and went myself to telephone to

_you_."

I bowed and asked where the young people were now.

"Still in the drawing-room. I have ordered the musicians to play, and

consequently there is more or less dancing. But, of course, nothing can

remove the wet blanket which has fallen over us all,--nothing but the

finding of this jewel. Do you see your way to accomplishing this? We

are, from this very moment, at your disposal; only I pray that you will

make no more disturbance than is necessary, and, if possible, arouse no

suspicions you can not back up by facts. I dread a scandal almost as

much as I do sickness and death, and these young people--well, their

lives are all before them, and neither Mrs. Burton nor myself would wish

to throw the shadow of a false suspicion over the least of them."

I assured her that I sympathized with her scruples and would do my best

to recover the ruby without inflicting undue annoyance upon the

innocent. Then I inquired whether it was known that a detective had been

called in. She seemed to think it was suspected by some, if not by all.

At which my way seemed a trifle complicated.

We were about to proceed when another thought struck me.

"Madam, you have not said whether the carriage itself was searched."

"I forgot. Yes, the carriage was thoroughly overhauled, and before the

coachman left the box."

"Who did this overhauling?"

"My son. He would not trust any other hand than his own in a business of

this kind."

"One more question, madam. Was any one seen to approach Mr. Deane on the

carriage-drive prior to his assertion that the jewel was lost?"

"No. _And there were no tracks in the snow of any such person._ My son

looked."

And I would look, or so I decided within myself, but I said nothing; and

in silence we proceeded toward the drawing-room.

I had left my overcoat behind me, and always being well-dressed, I did

not present so bad an appearance. Still I was not in party attire and

naturally could not pass for a guest if I had wanted to, which I did

not. I felt that I must rely on insight in this case and on a certain

power I had always possessed of reading faces. That the case called for

just this species of intuition I was positive. Mrs. Burton's ruby was

within a hundred yards of us at this very moment, probably within a

hundred feet; but to lay hands on it and without scandal--well, that was

a problem calculated to rouse the interest of even an old police-officer

like myself.

A strain of music, desultory, however, and spiritless, like everything

else about the place that night, greeted us as Mrs. Ashley opened the

door leading directly into the large front hall.

Immediately a scene meant to be festive, but which was, in fact,

desolate, burst upon us. The lights, the flowers and the brilliant

appearance of such ladies as flitted into sight from the almost empty

parlors, were all suggestive of the cheer suitable to a great occasion;

but in spite of this, the effect was altogether melancholy, for the

hundreds who should have graced this scene, and for whom this

illumination had been made and these festoons hung, had been turned away

from the gates, and the few who felt they must remain, because their

hostess showed no disposition to let them go, wore any but holiday

faces, for all their forced smiles and pitiful attempts at nonchalance

and gaiety.

I scrutinized these faces carefully. I detected nothing in them but

annoyance at a situation which certainly was anything but pleasant.

Turning to Mrs. Ashley, I requested her to be kind enough to point out

her son, adding that I should be glad to have a moment's conversation

with him, also with Mr. Deane.

"Mr. Deane is in one of those small rooms over there. He is quite upset.

Not even Mrs. Burton can comfort him. My son--Oh, there is Harrison!"

A tall, fine-looking young man was crossing the hall. Mrs. Ashley called

him to her, and in another moment we were standing together in one of

the empty parlors.

I gave him my name and told him my business. Then I said:

"Your mother has allotted me an hour in which to find the valuable jewel

which has just been lost on these premises." Here I smiled. "She

evidently has great confidence in my ability. I must see that I do not

disappoint her."

All this time I was examining his face. It was a handsome one, as I have

said, but it had also a very candid expression; the eyes looked straight

into mine, and, while showing anxiety, betrayed no deeper emotion than

the occasion naturally called for.

"Have you any suggestions to offer? I understand that you were on the

ground almost as soon as Mr. Deane discovered his loss."

His eyes changed a trifle but did not swerve. Of course he had been

informed by his mother of the suspicious action of the young lady who

had been a member of that gentleman's party, and shrank, as any one in

his position would, from the responsibilities entailed by this

knowledge.

"No," said he. "We have done all we can. The next move must come from

you."

"There is one that will settle the matter in a moment," I assured him,

still with my eyes fixed scrutinizingly on his face,--"a universal

search, not of places, but of persons. But it is a harsh measure."

"A most disagreeable one," he emphasized, flushing. "Such an indignity

offered to guests would never be forgotten or forgiven."

"True, but if they offered to submit to this themselves?"

"They? How?"

"If _you_, the son of the house,--their host we may say,--should call

them together and, for your own satisfaction, empty out your pockets in

the sight of every one, don't you think that all the men, and possibly

all the women too--" (here I let my voice fall suggestively) "would be

glad to follow suit? It could be done in apparent joke."

He shook his head with a straightforward air, which raised him high in

my estimation.

"That would call for little but effrontery on my part," said he; "but

think what it would demand from these boys who came here for the sole

purpose of enjoying themselves. I will not so much as mention the

ladies."

"Yet one of the latter--"

"I know," he quietly acknowledged, growing restless for the first time.

I withdrew my eyes from his face. I had learned what I wished.

Personally he did not shrink from search, therefore the jewel was not in

his pockets. This left but two persons for suspicion to halt between.

But I disclosed nothing of my thoughts; I merely asked pardon for a

suggestion that, while pardonable in a man accustomed to handle crime

with ungloved hands, could not fail to prove offensive to a gentleman

like himself.

"We must move by means less open," I concluded. "It adds to our

difficulties, but that can not be helped. I should now like a glimpse of

Mr. Deane."

"Do you not wish to speak to him?"

"I should prefer a sight of his face first."

He led me across the hall and pointed through an open door. In the

center of a small room containing a table and some chairs, I perceived a

young man sitting, with fallen head and dejected air, staring at

vacancy. By his side, with hand laid on his, knelt a young girl,

striving in this gentle but speechless way to comfort him. It made a

pathetic picture. I drew Ashley away.

"I am disposed to believe in that young man," said I. "If he still has

the jewel, he would not try to carry off the situation in just this way.

He really looks broken-hearted."

"Oh, he is dreadfully cut up. If you could have seen how frantically he

searched for the stone, and the depression into which he fell when he

realized that it was not to be found, you would not doubt him for an

instant. What made you think he might still have the ruby?"

"Oh, we police officers think of everything. Then the fact that he

insists that something or some one touched his breast on the driveway

strikes me as a trifle suspicious. Your mother says that no second

person could have been there, or the snow would have given evidence of

it."

"Yes; I looked expressly. Of course, the drive itself was full of

hoof-marks and wheel-tracks, for several carriages had already passed

over it. Then there were all of Deane's footsteps, but no other man's,

as far as I could see."

"Yet he insists that he was touched or struck."

"Yes."

"With no one there to touch or strike him."

Mr. Ashley was silent.

"Let us step out and take a view of the place," I suggested. "I should

prefer doing this to questioning the young man in his present state of

mind." Then, as we turned to put on our coats, I asked with suitable

precaution: "Do you suppose that he has the same secret suspicions as

ourselves, and that it is to hide these he insists upon the jewel's

having been taken away from him at a point the ladies are known not to

have approached?"

Young Ashley bent somewhat startled eyes on mine.

"Nothing has been said to him of what Miss Peters saw Miss Glover do. I

could not bring myself to mention it. I have not even allowed myself to

believe--"

Here a fierce gust, blowing in from the door he had just opened, cut

short his words, and neither of us spoke again till we stood on the

exact spot in the driveway where the episode we were endeavoring to

understand had taken place.

"Oh," I cried as soon as I could look about me; "the mystery is

explained. Look at that bush, or perhaps you call it a shrub. If the

wind were blowing as freshly as it is now, and very probably it was, one

of those slender branches might easily be switched against his breast,

especially if he stood, as you say he did, close against this border."

"Well, I'm a fool. Only the other day I told the gardener that these

branches would need trimming in the spring, and yet I never so much as

thought of them when Mr. Deane spoke of something striking his breast."

As we turned back I made this remark:

"With this explanation of the one doubtful point in his otherwise

plausible account, we can credit his story as being in the main true,

which," I calmly added, "places him above suspicion and narrows our

inquiry down to _one_."

We had moved quickly and were now at the threshold of the door by which

we had come out.

"Mr. Ashley," I continued, "I shall have to ask you to add to your

former favors that of showing me the young lady in whom, from this

moment on, we are especially interested. If you can manage to let me see

her first without her seeing me, I shall be infinitely obliged to you."

"I do not know where she is. I shall have to search for her."

"I will wait by the hall door."

In a few minutes he returned to me. "Come," said he, and led me into

what I judged to be the library.

With a gesture toward one of the windows, he backed quickly out, leaving

me to face the situation alone. I was rather glad of this. Glancing in

the direction he had indicated, and perceiving the figure of a young

lady standing with her back to me on the farther side of a flowing lace

curtain, I took a few steps toward her, hoping that the movement would

cause her to turn. But it entirely failed to produce this effect, nor

did she give any sign that she noted the intrusion. This prevented me

from catching the glimpse of her face which I so desired, and obliged me

to confine myself to a study of her dress and attitude.

The former was very elegant, more elegant than the appearance of her two

friends had led me to expect. Though I am far from being an authority on

feminine toilets, I yet had experience enough to know that those

sweeping folds of spotless satin, with their festoons of lace and loops

of shiny trimming, which it would be folly for me to attempt to

describe, represented not only the best efforts of the dressmaker's art,

but very considerable means on the part of the woman wearing such a

gown. This was a discovery which altered the complexion of my thoughts

for a moment; for I had presupposed her a girl of humble means, willing

to sacrifice certain scruples to obtain a little extra money. This

imposing figure might be that of a millionaire's daughter; how then

could I associate her, even in my own mind, with theft? I decided that I

must see her face before giving answer to these doubts.

She did not seem inclined to turn. She had raised the shade from before

the wintry panes and was engaged in looking out. Her attitude was not

that of one simply enjoying a moment's respite from the dance. It was

rather that of an absorbed mind brooding upon what gave little or no

pleasure; and as I further gazed and noted the droop of her lovely

shoulders and the languor visible in her whole bearing, I began to

regard a glimpse of her features as imperative. Moving forward, I came

upon her suddenly.

"Excuse me, Miss Smith," I boldly exclaimed; then paused, for she had

turned instinctively and I had seen that for which I had risked this

daring move. "Your pardon," I hastily apologized. "I mistook you for

another young lady," and drew back with a low bow to let her pass, for I

saw that she thought only of escaping both me and the room.

And I did not wonder at this, for her eyes were streaming with tears,

and her face, which was doubtless a pretty one under ordinary

conditions, looked so distorted with distracting emotions that she was

no fit subject for any man's eye, let alone that of a hard-hearted

officer of the law on the look-out for the guilty hand which had just

appropriated a jewel worth anywhere from eight to ten thousand dollars.

Yet I was glad to see her weep, for only first offenders weep, and first

offenders are amenable to influence, especially if they have been led

into wrong by impulse and are weak rather than wicked.

Anxious to make no blunder, I resolved, before proceeding further, to

learn what I could of the character and antecedents of the suspected

one, and this from the only source which offered--Mr. Deane's affianced.

This young lady was a delicate girl, with a face like a flower.

Recognizing her sensitive nature, I approached her with the utmost

gentleness. Not seeking to disguise either the nature of my business or

my reasons for being in the house, since all this gave me authority, I

modulated my tone to suit her gentle spirit, and, above all, I showed

the utmost sympathy for her lover, whose rights in the reward had been

taken from him as certainly as the jewel had been taken from Mrs.

Burton. In this way I gained her confidence, and she was quite ready to

listen when I observed:

"There is a young lady here who seems to be in a state of even greater

trouble than Mr. Deane. Why is this? You brought her here. Is her

sympathy with Mr. Deane so great as to cause her to weep over his loss?"

"Frances? Oh, no. She likes Mr. Deane and she likes me, but not well

enough to cry over our misfortunes. I think she has some trouble of her

own."

"One that you can tell me?"

Her surprise was manifest.

"Why do you ask that? What interest have you (called in, as I

understand, to recover a stolen jewel) in Frances Glover's personal

difficulties?"

I saw that I must make my position perfectly plain.

"Only this. She was seen to pick up something from the driveway, where

no one else had succeeded in finding anything."

"She? When? Who saw her?"

"I can not answer all these questions at once," I smiled. "She was seen

to do this--no matter by whom,--during your passage from the carriage to

the stoop. As you preceded her, you naturally did not observe this

action, which was fortunate, perhaps, as you would scarcely have known

what to do or say about it."

"Yes I should," she retorted, with a most unexpected display of spirit.

"I should have asked her what she had found and I should have insisted

upon an answer. I love my friends, but I love the man I am to marry,

better." Here her voice fell and a most becoming blush suffused her

cheek.

"Quite right," I assented. "Now will you answer my former question? What

troubles Miss Glover? Can you tell me?"

"That I can not. I only know that she has been very silent ever since

she left the house. I thought her beautiful new dress would please her,

but it does not seem to. She has been unhappy and preoccupied all the

evening. She only roused a bit when Mr. Deane showed us the ruby and

said--Oh, I forgot!"

"What's that? What have you forgot?"

"What you said just now. I wouldn't add a word--"

"Pardon me!" I smilingly interrupted, looking as fatherly as I could,

"but you _have_ added this word and now you must tell me what it means.

You were going to say she showed interest in the extraordinary jewel

which Mr. Deane took from his pocket and--"

"In what he let fall about the expected reward. That is, she looked

eagerly at the ruby and sighed when he acknowledged that he expected it

to bring him five hundred dollars before midnight. But any girl of no

more means than she might do that. It would not be fair to lay too much

stress on a sigh."

"Is not Miss Glover wealthy? She wears a very expensive dress, I

observe."

"I know it and I have wondered a little at it, for her father is not

called very well off. But perhaps she bought it with her own money; I

know she has some; she is an artist in burnt wood."

I let the subject of Miss Glover's dress drop. I had heard enough to

satisfy me that my first theory was correct. This young woman,

beautifully dressed, and with a face from which the rounded lines of

early girlhood had not yet departed, held in her possession, probably

at this very moment, Mrs. Burton's magnificent jewel. But where? On her

person or hidden in some of her belongings? I remembered the cloak in

the closet and thought it wise to assure myself that the jewel was not

secreted in this garment, before I proceeded to extreme measures. Mrs.

Ashley, upon being consulted, agreed with me as to the desirability of

this, and presently I had this poor girl's cloak in my hands.

Did I find the ruby? No; but I found something else tucked away in an

inner pocket which struck me as bearing quite pointedly upon this case.

It was the bill--crumpled, soiled and tear-stained--of the dress whose

elegance had so surprised her friends and made me, for a short time,

regard her as the daughter of wealthy parents. An enormous bill, which

must have struck dismay to the soul of this self-supporting girl, who

probably had no idea of how a French dressmaker can foot up items. Four

hundred and fifty dollars! and for one gown! I declare I felt indignant

myself and could quite understand why she heaved that little sigh when

Mr. Deane spoke of the five hundred dollars he expected from Mrs.

Burton, and later, how she came to succumb to the temptation of making

the effort to secure this sum for herself when, in following the

latter's footsteps up the driveway, she stumbled upon this same jewel

fallen, as it were, from his pocket into her very hands. The impulse of

the moment was so strong and the consequences so little anticipated!

It is not at all probable that she foresaw he would shout aloud his loss

and draw the whole household out on the porch. Of course when he did

this, the feasibility of her project was gone, and I only wished that I

had been present and able to note her countenance, as, crowded in with

others on that windy porch, she watched the progress of the search,

which every moment made it not only less impossible for her to attempt

the restoration upon which the reward depended, but must have caused her

to feel, if she had been as well brought up as all indications showed,

that it was a dishonest act of which she had been guilty and that,

willing or not, she must look upon herself as a thief so long as she

held the jewel back from Mr. Deane or its rightful owner. But how face

the publicity of restoring it now, after this elaborate and painful

search, in which even the son of her hostess had taken part?

That would be to proclaim her guilt and thus effectually ruin her in the

eyes of everybody concerned. No, she would keep the compromising article

a little longer, in the hope of finding some opportunity of returning it

without risk to her good name. And so she allowed the search to proceed.

I have entered thus elaborately into the supposed condition of this

girl's mind on this critical evening, that you may understand why I felt

a certain sympathy for her, which forbade harsh measures. I was sure,

from the glimpse I had caught of her face, that she longed to be

relieved from the tension she was under, and that she would gladly rid

herself of this valuable jewel if she only knew how. This opportunity I

proposed to give her; and this is why, on returning the bill to its

place, I assumed such an air of relief on rejoining Mrs. Ashley.

She saw, and drew me aside.

"You have not found it!" she said.

"No," I returned, "but I am positive where it is."

"And where is that?"

"Over Miss Glover's uneasy heart."

Mrs. Ashley turned pale.

"Wait," said I; "I have a scheme for getting it hence without making her

shame public. Listen!" and I whispered a few words in her ear.

She surveyed me in amazement for a moment, then nodded, and her face

lighted up.

"You are certainly earning your reward," she declared; and summoning her

son, who was never far away from her side, she whispered her wishes. He

started, bowed and hurried from the room.

By this time my business in the house was well-known to all, and I could

not appear in hall or parlor without a great silence falling upon every

one present, followed by a breaking up of the only too small circle of

unhappy guests into agitated groups. But I appeared to see nothing of

all this till the proper moment, when, turning suddenly upon them all, I

cried out cheerfully, but with a certain deference I thought would

please them:

"Ladies and gentlemen: I have an interesting fact to announce. The snow

which was taken up from the driveway has been put to melt in the great

feed caldron over the stable fire. We expect to find the ruby at the

bottom, and Mrs. Ashley invites you to be present at its recovery. It

has now stopped snowing and she thought you might enjoy the excitement

of watching the water ladled out."

A dozen girls bounded forward.

"Oh, yes, what fun! where are our cloaks--our rubbers?"

Two only stood hesitating. One of these was Mr. Deane's lady love and

the other her friend, Miss Glover. The former, perhaps, secretly

wondered. The latter--but I dared not look long enough or closely enough

in her direction to judge just what her emotions were. Presently these,

too, stepped forward into the excited circle of young people, and were

met by the two maids who were bringing in their wraps. Amid the bustle

which now ensued, I caught sight of Mr. Deane's face peering from an

open doorway. It was all alive with hope. I also perceived a lady

looking down from the second story, who, I felt sure, was Mrs. Burton

herself. Evidently my confident tone had produced more effect than the

words themselves. Every one looked upon the jewel as already recovered

and regarded my invitation to the stable as a ruse by which I hoped to

restore universal good feeling by giving them all a share in my triumph.

All but one! Nothing could make Miss Glover look otherwise than anxious,

restless and unsettled, and though she followed in the wake of the

rest, it was with hidden face and lagging step, as if she recognized the

whole thing as a farce and doubted her own power to go through it

calmly.

"Ah, ha! my lady," thought I, "only be patient and you will see what I

shall do for you." And indeed I thought her eye brightened as we all

drew up around the huge caldron standing full of water over the stable

stove. As pains had already been taken to put out the fire in this

stove, the ladies were not afraid of injuring their dresses and

consequently crowded as close as their numbers would permit. Miss Glover

especially stood within reach of the brim, and as soon as I noted this,

I gave the signal which had been agreed upon between Mr. Ashley and

myself. Instantly the electric lights went out, leaving the place in

total darkness.

A scream from the girls, a burst of hilarious laughter from their

escorts, mingled with loud apologies from their seemingly mischievous

host, filled up the interval of darkness which I had insisted should not

be too soon curtailed; then the lights glowed as suddenly as they had

gone out, and while the glare was fresh on every face, I stole a glance

at Miss Glover to see if she had made good use of the opportunity just

accorded for ridding herself of the jewel by dropping it into the

caldron. If she had, both her troubles and mine were at an end; if she

had not, then I need feel no further scruple in approaching her with the

direct question I had hitherto found it so difficult to put.

She stood with both hands grasping her cloak which she had drawn tightly

about the rich folds of her new and expensive dress; but her eyes were

fixed straight before her with a soft light in their depths which made

her positively beautiful.

The jewel is in the pot, I inwardly decided, and ordered the two waiting

stablemen to step forward with their ladles. Quickly those ladles went

in, but before they could be lifted out dripping, half the ladies had

scurried back, afraid of injury to their pretty dresses. But they soon

sidled forward again, and watched with beaming eyes the slow but sure

emptying of the great caldron at whose bottom they anticipated finding

the lost jewel.

As the ladles were plunged deeper and deeper, the heads drew closer and

so great was the interest shown, that the busiest lips forgot to

chatter, and eyes, whose only business up till now had been to follow

with shy curiosity every motion made by their handsome young host, now

settled on the murky depths of the great pot whose bottom was almost in

sight.

As I heard the ladles strike this bottom, I instinctively withdrew a

step in anticipation of the loud hurrah which would naturally hail the

first sight of the lost ruby. Conceive, then, my chagrin, my bitter and

mortified disappointment, when, after one look at the broad surface of

the now exposed bottom, the one shout which rose was:

"_Nothing!_"

* * * * *

I was so thoroughly put out that I did not wait to hear the loud

complaints which burst from every lip. Drawing Mr. Ashley aside (who,

by the way, seemed as much affected as myself by the turn affairs had

taken) I remarked to him that there was only one course left open to us.

"And what is that?"

"To ask Miss Glover to show me what she picked up from your driveway."

"And if she refuses?"

"To take her quietly with me to the station, where we have women who can

make sure that the ruby is not on her person."

Mr. Ashley made an involuntary gesture of strong repugnance.

"Let us pray that it will not come to that," he objected hoarsely. "Such

a fine figure of a girl! Did you notice how bright and happy she looked

when the lights sprang up? I declare she struck me as lovely."

"So she did me, and caused me to draw some erroneous conclusions. I

shall have to ask you to procure me an interview with her as soon as we

return to the house."

"She shall meet you in the library."

But when, a few minutes later, she joined me in the room just designated

and I had full opportunity for reading her countenance, I own that my

task became suddenly hateful to me. She was not far from my own

daughter's age and, had it not been for her furtive look of care,

appeared almost as blooming and bright. Would it ever come to pass that

a harsh man of the law would feel it his duty to speak to my Flora as I

must now speak to the young girl before me? The thought made me inwardly

recoil and it was in as gentle a manner as possible that I made my bow

and began with the following remark:

"I hope you will pardon me, Miss Glover--I am told that is your name. I

hate to disturb your pleasure--" (this with the tears of alarm and grief

rising in her eyes) "but you can tell me something which will greatly

simplify my task and possibly put matters in such shape that you and

your friends can be released to your homes."

"I?"

She stood before me with amazed eyes, the color rising in her cheeks. I

had to force my next words, which, out of consideration for her, I made

as direct as possible.

"Yes, miss. What was the article you were seen to pick up from the

driveway soon after leaving your carriage?"

She started, then stumbled backward, tripping in her long train.

"I pick up?" she murmured. Then with a blush, whether of anger or pride

I could not tell, she coldly answered: "Oh, that was something of my

own,--something I had just dropped. I had rather not tell you what it

was."

I scrutinized her closely. She met my eyes squarely, yet not with just

the clear light I should, remembering Flora, have been glad to see

there.

"I think it would be better for you to be entirely frank," said I. "It

was the only article known to have been picked up from the driveway

after Mr. Deane's loss of the ruby; and though we do not presume to say

that it was the ruby, yet the matter would look clearer to us all if

you would frankly state what this object was."

Her whole body seemed to collapse and she looked as if about to sink.

"Oh, where is Minnie? Where is Mr. Deane?" she moaned, turning and

staring at the door, as if she hoped they would fly to her aid. Then, in

a burst of indignation which I was fain to believe real, she turned on

me with the cry: "It was a bit of paper which I had thrust into the

bosom of my gown. It fell out--"

"Your dressmaker's bill?" I intimated.

She stared, laughed hysterically for a moment, then sank upon a near-by

sofa, sobbing spasmodically.

"Yes," she cried, after a moment; "my dressmaker's bill. You seem to

know all my affairs." Then suddenly, and with a startling impetuosity,

which drew her to her feet: "Are you going to tell everybody that? Are

you going to state publicly that Miss Glover brought an unpaid bill to

the party and that because Mr. Deane was unfortunate enough or careless

enough to drop and lose the jewel he was bringing to Mrs. Burton, she is

to be looked upon as a thief, because she stooped to pick up this bill

which had slipped inadvertently from its hiding-place? I shall die if

you do," she cried. "I shall die if it is already known," she pursued,

with increasing emotion. "Is it? Is it?"

Her passion was so great, so much greater than any likely to rise in a

breast wholly innocent, that I began to feel very sober.

"No one but Mrs. Ashley and possibly her son know about the bill," said

I, "and no one shall, if you will go with that lady to her room, and

make plain to her, in the only way you can, that the extremely valuable

article which has been lost to-night is not in your possession."

She threw up her arms with a scream. "Oh, what a horror! I can not! I

can not! Oh, I shall die of shame! My father! My mother!" And she burst

from the room like one distraught.

But in another moment she came cringing back. "I can not face them,"

she said. "They all believe it; they will always believe it unless I

submit--Oh, why did I ever come to this dreadful place? Why did I order

this hateful dress which I can never pay for and which, in spite of the

misery it has caused me, has failed to bring me the--" She did not

continue. She had caught my eye and seen there, perhaps, some evidence

of the pity I could not but experience for her. With a sudden change of

tone she advanced upon me with the appeal: "Save me from this

humiliation. I have not seen the ruby. I am as ignorant of its

whereabouts as--as Mr. Ashley himself. Won't you believe me? Won't they

be satisfied if I swear--"

I was really sorry for her. I began to think too that some dreadful

mistake had been made. Her manner seemed too ingenuous for guilt. Yet

where could that ruby be, if not with this young girl? Certainly, all

other possibilities had been exhausted, and her story of the bill, even

if accepted, would never quite exonerate her from secret suspicion

while that elusive jewel remained unfound.

"You give me no hope," she moaned. "I must go out before them all and

ask to have it proved that I am no thief. Oh, if God would have pity--"

"Or some one would find--Halloo! What's that?"

A shout had risen from the hall beyond.

She gasped and we both plunged forward. Mr. Ashley, still in his

overcoat, stood at the other end of the hall, and facing him were ranged

the whole line of young people whom I had left scattered about in the

various parlors. I thought he looked peculiar; certainly his appearance

differed from that of a quarter of an hour before, and when he glanced

our way and saw who was standing with me in the library doorway, his

voice took on a tone which made me doubt whether he was about to

announce good news or bad.

But his first word settled that question.

"Rejoice with me!" he cried. "_The ruby has been found!_ Do you want to

see the culprit?--for there is a culprit. We have him at the door;

shall we bring him in?"

"Yes, yes," cried several voices, among them that of Mr. Deane, who now

strode forward with beaming eyes and instinctively lifted hand. But some

of the ladies looked frightened, and Mr. Ashley, noting this, glanced

for encouragement toward us.

He seemed to find it in Miss Glover's eyes. She had quivered and nearly

fallen at that word _found_, but had drawn herself up by this time and

was awaiting his further action in a fever of relief and hope which

perhaps no one but myself could fully appreciate.

"A vile thief! A most unconscionable rascal!" vociferated Mr. Ashley.

"You must see him, mother; you must see him, ladies, else you will not

realize our good fortune. Open the door there and bring in the robber!"

At this command, uttered in ringing tones, the huge leaves of the great

front door swung slowly forward, revealing the sturdy forms of the two

stablemen holding down by main force the towering figure of--_a horse_!

The scream of astonishment which went up from all sides, united to Mr.

Ashley's shout of hilarity, caused the animal, unused, no doubt, to

drawing-rooms, to rear to the length of his bridle. At which Mr. Ashley

laughed again and gaily cried:

"Confound the fellow! Look at him, mother; look at him, ladies! Do you

not see guilt written on his brow? It is he who has made us all this

trouble. First, he must needs take umbrage at the two lights with which

we presumed to illuminate our porch; then, envying Mrs. Burton her ruby

and Mr. Deane his reward, seek to rob them both by grinding his hoofs

all over the snow of the driveway till he came upon the jewel which Mr.

Deane had dropped from his pocket, and taking it up in a ball of snow,

secrete it in his left hind shoe,--where it might be yet, if Mr.

Spencer--" here he bowed to a strange gentleman who at that moment

entered--"had not come himself for his daughters, and, going first to

the stable, found his horse so restless and seemingly lame--(there,

boys, you may take the wretch away now and harness him, but first hold

up that guilty left hind hoof for the ladies to see)--that he stooped to

examine him, and so came upon _this_."

Here the young gentleman brought forward his hand. In it was a

nondescript little wad, well soaked and shapeless; but, once he had

untied the kid, such a ray of rosy light burst from his outstretched

palm that I doubt if a single woman there noted the clatter of the

retiring beast or the heavy clang made by the two front doors as they

shut upon the _robber_. Eyes and tongues were too busy, and Mr. Ashley,

realizing, probably, that the interest of all present would remain, for

a few minutes at least, with this marvelous jewel so astonishingly

recovered, laid it, with many expressions of thankfulness, in Mrs.

Burton's now eagerly outstretched palm, and advancing toward us, paused

in front of Miss Glover and eagerly held out his hand.

"Congratulate me," he prayed. "All our troubles are over--Oh, what now!"

The poor young thing, in trying to smile, had turned as white as a

sheet. Before either of us could interpose an arm, she had slipped to

the floor in a dead faint. With a murmur of pity and possibly of inward

contrition, he stooped over her and together we carried her into the

library, where I left her in his care, confident, from certain

indications, that my presence would not be greatly missed by either of

them.

Whatever hope I may have had of reaping the reward offered by Mrs.

Ashley was now lost, but, in the satisfaction I experienced at finding

this young girl as innocent as my Flora, I did not greatly care.

Well, it all ended even more happily than may here appear. The horse not

putting in his claim to the reward, and Mr. Spencer repudiating all

right to it, it was paid in full to Mr. Deane, who went home in as

buoyant a state of mind as was possible to him after the great anxieties

of the preceding two hours. Miss Glover was sent back by the Ashleys in

their own carriage and I was told that Mr. Ashley declined to close the

carriage door upon her till she had promised to come again the

following night.

Anxious to make such amends as I personally could for my share in the

mortification to which she had been subjected, I visited her in the

morning, with the intention of offering a suggestion or two in regard to

that little bill. But she met my first advance with a radiant smile and

the glad exclamation:

"Oh, I have settled all that! I have just come from Madame Dupre's. I

told her that I had never imagined the dress could possibly cost more

than a hundred dollars, and I offered her that sum if she would take the

garment back. And she did, she did, and I shall never have to wear that

dreadful satin again."

I made a note of this dressmaker's name. She and I may have a bone to

pick some day. But I said nothing to Miss Glover. I merely exclaimed:

"And to-night?"

"Oh, I have an old spotted muslin which, with a few natural flowers,

will make me look festive enough. One does not need fine clothes when

one is--happy."

The dreamy far-off smile with which she finished the sentence was more

eloquent than words, and I was not surprised when some time later I read

of her engagement to Mr. Ashley.

But it was not till she could sign herself with his name that she told

me just what underlay the misery of that night. She had met Harrison

Ashley more than once before, and, though she did not say so, had

evidently conceived an admiration for him which made her especially

desirous of attracting and pleasing him. Not understanding the world

very well, certainly having very little knowledge of the tastes and

feelings of wealthy people, she conceived that the more brilliantly she

was attired the more likely she would be to please this rich young man.

So in a moment of weakness she decided to devote all her small savings

(a hundred dollars, as we know) to buying a gown such as she felt she

could appear in at his house without shame.

It came home, as dresses from French dressmakers are very apt to do,

just in time for her to put it on for the party. The bill came with it

and when she saw the amount--it was all itemized and she could find no

fault with anything but the summing up--she was so overwhelmed that she

nearly fainted. But she could not give up her ball; so she dressed

herself, and, being urged all the time to hurry, hardly stopped to give

one look at the new and splendid gown which had cost so much. The

bill--the incredible, the enormous bill--was all she could think of, and

the figures, which represented nearly her whole year's earnings, danced

constantly before her eyes. How to pay it--but she could not pay it, nor

could she ask her father to do so. She was ruined; but the ball, and Mr.

Ashley--these still awaited her; so presently she worked herself up to

some anticipation of enjoyment, and, having thrown on her cloak, was

turning down her light preparatory to departure, when her eye fell on

the bill lying open on her dresser.

It would never do to leave it there--never do to leave it anywhere in

her room. There were prying eyes in the house, and she was as ashamed of

that bill as she might have been of a contemplated theft. So she tucked

it in her corsage and went down to join her friends in the carriage.

The rest we know, all but one small detail which turned to gall whatever

enjoyment she was able to get out of the early evening. There was a

young girl present, dressed in a simple muslin gown. While looking at it

and inwardly contrasting it with her own splendor, Mr. Ashley passed by

with another gentleman and she heard him say:

"How much better young girls look in simple white than in the elaborate

silks only suitable for their mothers!"

Thoughtless words, possibly forgotten as soon as uttered, but they

sharply pierced this already sufficiently stricken and uneasy breast and

were the cause of the tears which had aroused my suspicion when I came

upon her in the library, standing with her face to the night.

But who can say whether, if the evening had been devoid of these

occurrences and no emotions of contrition and pity had been awakened in

her behalf in the breast of her chivalrous host, she would ever have

become Mrs. Ashley?

THE HERMIT OF ---- STREET

CHAPTER I

I COMMIT AN INDISCRETION

I should have kept my eyes for the many brilliant and interesting sights

constantly offered me. I might have done so, had I been ever eighteen,

or had I not come from the country.

I was visiting in a house where fashionable people made life a perpetual

holiday. Yet of all the pleasures which followed so rapidly, one upon

another, the greatest was the hour I spent in my window after the day's

dissipations were all over, watching a man's face, bending night after

night over a study-table in the lower room of the great house in our

rear.

Why did it affect me so? It was not a young face, but it was very

handsome, and it was enigmatic.

The day following my arrival in the city I had noticed the large house

in our rear, and had asked some questions about it. It had a peculiarly

secluded and secretive look. The windows were all shuttered and closed,

with the exception of the three on the lower floor and two others

directly over these. On the top story they were even boarded up, giving

to that portion of the house a blank and desolate air.

The grounds were separated from the street by a brick wall in our

direction; the line of separation was marked by a high iron fence, in

which I saw a gate.

The Vandykes, whom I had questioned on the matter, were very short in

their replies. But I learned this much. That the house belonged to one

of New York's oldest families. That its present owner was a widow of

great eccentricity of character, who, with her one child, a daughter,

unfortunately blind from birth, had taken up her abode in some foreign

country, where she thought her child's affliction would attract less

attention than in her native city.

The house had been closed to the extent I have mentioned, immediately

upon her departure, but had not been left entirely empty. Mr. Allison,

her man of business, had moved into it, and, being fully as eccentric as

herself, had contented himself for five years with a solitary life in

this dismal mansion, without friends, almost without acquaintances,

though he might have had unlimited society and any amount of attention,

his personal attractions being of a very uncommon order, and his talent

for business so pronounced, that he was already recognized at

thirty-five as one of the men to be afraid of in Wall Street. Of his

birth and connections little was known; he was called the Hermit of ----

Street.

I was not very well one day, and I had been left alone in the house.

At seven o'clock--how well I remember the hour!--I was sitting in my

window, waiting for the return of the Vandykes, and watching the face

which had now appeared at its usual place in the study. Suddenly my

attention was drawn from him to a window in the story over his head, by

the rapid blowing in and out of a curtain. As there was a lighted

gas-jet near by, I watched the gyrating muslin with apprehension, and

was shocked when, in another moment, I saw the flimsy folds give one

wild flap and flare up into a dangerous flame.

I dashed out of my room down-stairs, calling for the servants. But Lucy

was in the front area and Ellen above, and I was on the back porch and

in the garden before either of them responded.

Meanwhile, no movement was observable in the brooding figure of Mr.

Allison. I sprang through the gate and knocked with all my might on a

door which opened upon a side porch.

Confronting me with dilating eyes, he faltered slowly back till his

natural instincts of courtesy recalled him to himself, and he bowed,

when I found courage to cry:

"Fire! Your house is on fire! Up there, overhead!"

So intense were the feelings I saw aroused in him that I expected to see

him rush into the open air with loud cries for help. But instead, he

pushed the door to behind me, and locking me in, said, in a strange

tone:

"Don't call out, don't make any sound or outcry, and above all, don't

let any one in; I will fight the flames alone!" and seizing a lamp from

the study-table, he dashed from me toward a staircase I could see in the

distance.

Alas! it was a thrilling look--a look which no girl could sustain

without emotion; and spellbound under it, I stood in a maze, alone and

in utter darkness.

While my emotions were at their height a bell rang. It was the front

door-bell, and it meant the arrival of the engines.

As the bell rang a second time, a light broke on the staircase I was so

painfully watching, and Mr. Allison descended, lamp in hand, as he had

gone up.

What passed between him and the policeman whose voice I heard in the

hall, I do not know. I finally heard the front door close.

I must have met him with a pleading aspect, very much like that of a

frightened child, for his countenance changed as he approached me.

"My dear young lady, how can I thank you enough and how can I

sufficiently express my regret at having kept you a prisoner in this

blazing house?"

Had he stopped again? I was in such a state of inner perturbation that I

hardly knew whether he had ceased to speak or I to hear.

"May I ask whom I have the honor of addressing?" he asked, in a tone I

might better never have heard from his lips.

"I am Delight Hunter, a country girl, sir, visiting the Vandykes."

Then as my lips settled into a determined curve, he himself opened the

door, and bowing low, asked if I would accept his protection to the

gate.

Declining his offer with a wild shake of the head, I dashed from the

house and fled with an incomprehensible sense of relief back to that of

the Vandykes.

The servants, who had seen me rush toward Mr. Allison's, were still in

the yard watching for me. I did not vouchsafe them a word. I could

hardly formulate words in my own mind. A great love and a great dread

had seized upon me at once.