CHAPTER IX

HUNTER'S INN

When Mr. Ransom re-entered the hotel, which he did under a swoop of wind

which turned his umbrella inside out and drenched him through in an

instant, it was to find the house in renewed turmoil, happily explained

by the landlady, whom he ran across on the stairs.

"Oh, Mr. Johnston!" she cried as she edged by him with a pile of

bed-linen on her arm. "Please excuse all this fuss. Another guest is

coming--I have just got a telegram. A famous lawyer from New York. Our

house will be full to-night."

"Where will you put him?" inquired Mr. Ransom with a good-natured air.

"There seem to be no unoccupied rooms on this hall."

"More's the pity," she sighed, with a half-inquiring, half deprecatory

look at this fortunate first comer. "I shall have to put him below, poor

man. I'm afraid he won't like it, but--" Mr. Ransom remained silent.

"But," she went on with sudden cheerfulness, "I will make it up in the

supper. That shall be as good a one as our kitchen will provide. Four

city guests all in one day! That's a good many for this quiet hotel."

"Four!" retorted Mr. Ransom as he turned towards his own door. "The

number has grown by two since I went out."

"Oh, I didn't tell you. The lady--her name's Mrs. Ransom--brings her

sister with her. The little girl who--yes, I am coming." This latter to

some perplexed domestic down the hall, who had already called her twice.

"I mustn't stand talking here," she apologized as she hurried away. "But

do take care of yourself. You are dreadful wet. How I wish the weather

would clear up!"

Mr. Ransom wished the same. To say nothing of his own inconvenience,

it was a source of anxiety to him that she should have to ride these

inevitable ten miles in such a chilling downpour. Besides, a storm of

this kind complicated matters; gave him less sense of freedom, shut him

in, as it were, with the mystery he was there to unravel, but which for

some reason, hardly explainable to himself, filled him with such a sense

of foreboding that he had moments in which he thought only of escape. But

his part must be played and he prepared himself to play it well. Having

changed his clothes and warmed himself with a draft of whisky, he sat

down at his table and was busy writing when the maid came in to ask if he

would wait for his supper till the coach came, or have it earlier and

served in his own room.

With an air of petulance, he looked up, rapped on the table, and replied:

"Here! here! I'm too busy to meet strangers. An early supper and an early

bed. That's the way I get through _my_ work."

The girl stared and went softly out. Work!--that? Sitting at a table and

just putting words on paper. If it was beds he had to drag around now, or

a dozen hungry, clamoring men to feed all at once, and all with the best

cuts, or stairs to run up fifty times a day, or--but I need not fill out

her thought. It made her voluble in the kitchen and secured him the

privacy which his incognito demanded.

His supper over, he waited feverishly for the coach, which ordinarily was

due at seven in the evening. To-night it bade fair to be late, owing to

the bad condition of the roads and the early darkness. The wind had gone

down, but it still rained. Not quite so tempestuously as when he roamed

the cemetery, but steadily enough to keep eaves and branches dripping.

The sound of this ceaseless drip was eerie enough to his strained senses,

waiting as he was for an event which might determine the happiness or the

misery of his life. He tried to forget it and wrote diligently, putting

down words whose meaning he did not stop to consider, so that he had

something to show to prying eyes if such should ever glance through his

papers. But the sound had got on his brain, and presently became so

insistent that he rose again and flung his window up to see if he were

deceived in thinking he heard a deep roar mingling with the incessant

patter, a roar which the wind had hitherto prevented him from separating

from the general turmoil, but which now was apparent enough to call for

some explanation.

He had made no mistake; a steady sound of rushing water filled the

outside air. A fall was near, a fall by means of which, no doubt, the

factories were run.

Why had he not thought of this? Why had its sound held a note of menace

for him, awakening feelings he did not understand and from which he

sought to escape? A factory fall swollen by the rain! What was there

in this to make his hand shake and cause the deepening night to seem

positively hateful to him? With a bang he closed the window; then he

softly threw it up again. Surely he had heard the noise of wheels

splashing through the pools of the highway. The coach was coming! and

with it--what?

His room was in the gable end facing the road. From it he could look

directly down on the porch of entrance, a fact which he had thankfully

noted at his first look. As he heard the bustle which now broke out

below, and caught the gleam of a lantern coming round the corner of the

house, he softly stepped to his lamp and put it out, then took his stand

at the window. The coach was now very near; he could hear the straining

of the harness and the shouts of the driver. In another moment it drew

lumberingly up. A man from the hotel advanced with an umbrella; a young

lady was helped out who, standing one moment in the full glare of the

lights thrown upon her from the open door, showed him the face and form

he knew so well and loved--yes, loved for all her mystery, as he knew by

the wild beating of his heart, and the irresistible impulse he felt to

rush down and receive her in his arms, to her great terror doubtless, but

to his own boundless satisfaction and delight. But strong as the

temptation was, he did not yield to it. Something in her attitude, as she

stood there, talking earnestly to the driver, held him spellbound and

alert. All was not right; there was passion in her movements and in her

voice. What she said drew the heads of landlady and maid from the open

door and caused the man with the lantern to peer past her into the coach

and backward along the road. What had happened? Nothing that concerned

the lawyer. Mr. Ransom could see him disentangling himself from the

coverings in front where he had ridden with the driver, but the sister

was not there. No other lady got out of the coach even after his young

wife had finished her conversation with the driver and disappeared into

the house.

"How can I stand this?" thought Mr. Ransom as the coach finally rattled

and swished away towards the stable. "I must hear, I must see, I must

_know_ what is going on down there."

This because he heard voices in the open hall. Crossing to his own

doorway, he listened. His wife and Mr. Harper had stepped into the office

close by the front door. He could hear now and then a word of what they

said, but not all. Venturing a step further, he leaned over the

balustrade which extended almost up to his own door. This was better; he

could now catch most of the words and sometimes a sentence. They all

referred to the sister. "Temper--her own way--deaf--_would_ walk in all

the rain and slush.--A strange character--you can't imagine," and other

similar phrases, uttered in a passionate and half-angry voice. Then

ejaculations from Mrs. Deo, and a word or two of caution or injunction in

the polished tones of the lawyer, followed by a sudden rush towards the

staircase, over which he was leaning.

"Show me my room," rang up in Georgian's bell-like tones; "then I'll tell

you what to do about _her_. She isn't easily managed."

"But she'll get her death!" expostulated Mrs. Deo; "to say nothing of her

losing her way in this dreadful darkness. Let me send--"

"Not yet," broke in his young wife's voice, with just the hint of

asperity in it. "She must trudge out her tantrum first. I think her idea

was to show that she remembered the old place and the lane where she used

to pick blackberries. You needn't worry about her getting cold. She's

lived a gipsy life too many years to mind wind and wet. But it's

different with _me_. I'm all in a shiver. Which is my room, please?"

She was now at the head of the stairs. Mr. Ransom had closed his door,

but not latched it, and as she turned to go down the hall, followed by

the chattering landlady, he swung it open for an instant and so caught

one full glimpse of her beloved figure. She was dressed in a long

rain-coat and had some sort of modish hat on her head, which, in spite of

its simplicity, gave her a highly fashionable air. A woman to draw all

eyes, but such a mystery to her husband! Such a mystery to all who knew

her story, or rather her actions, for no one seemed to know her story.

Events did not halt. He heard her give this and that order, open a door

and look in; say a word of commendation, ask if the key was on her side

of the partition, then shut the door again and open another.

"Ah, this looks comfortable," she exclaimed in great satisfaction. "Is

that my bag? Put it down, please. I'll open it. Now, if you'll leave me a

moment alone, I'll soon be ready. But you mustn't expect me to eat till

Anitra comes. I couldn't do that. Oh, she's a dreadful trial, Mrs. Deo;

you have a motherly face, and I can tell you that the girl is just eating

up my life. If she weren't my very self, deafened by hard usage, and

rendered coarse and wilful by years of a miserable and half-starved life,

I couldn't bear it, especially after what I've sacrificed for her. I've

parted with my husband--but I can't talk, I can't. I would not have said

so much if you hadn't looked so kind."

All this her husband heard, followed by a sob or two, quickly checked,

however, by a high strained laugh and the gay remark:

"I'm wet enough, but she'll be dripping. I'm afraid she'll have to have

her supper in her room. She got out at the new schoolhouse and started

to come through the lane. It must be a weltering pool. If I'm dressed in

time I'll come down and meet her at the door. Meanwhile don't wait for

us; give Mr. Harper his supper."

Her door closed, then suddenly opened again. "If she don't come in ten

minutes, let some one go to the head of the lane. But be sure it's a

careful person who won't startle her. I've got to put on another dress,

so don't bother me. I'll hear her when she enters her own room and will

speak to her then--if I dare; I'm not sure that I shall." And the door

shut to again, this time with a snap of the lock. Quiet reigned once more

in the hall save for Mrs. Deo's muttered exclamations as she made her

laborious way down-stairs. Had this good woman been less disturbed and

not in so much of a hurry, she might have noted that the door of her

literary guest's room was ajar, and stopped to ask why the lamp remained

unlit.

For five minutes, for ten minutes, he watched and listened, passing

continually to and fro from door to window. But his vigilance remained

unrewarded by any further movement in the hall, or by the sight of an

approaching figure up the road. He began to feel odd, and was asking

himself what sort of fool-work this was, when a clatter of voices rose

below, followed by heavy steps on the veranda. One or two men were going

out, and as it seemed to him the landlady too, for he heard her say just

as the door closed:

"Let me on ahead; she must see a woman's kind face first, poor child, or

we shall not succeed in getting her in. I know all about these wild

ones."

PART II

The Call of the Waterfall

CHAPTER X

TWO DOORS

The enthusiasm, the expectation in Mrs. Deo's voice were unmistakable.

This good woman believed in this rescued waif of turbulent caprices and

gipsy ways, and from this moment he began to believe in her too, and

consequently to share some of the excitement which had now become

prevalent all through the house.

His suspense was destined to be short. While he was straining his eyes to

see what might be going on down the road, a small crowd of people came

round the corner of the house. In their midst walked a woman with a shawl

or cape over her head--a fierce and wilful figure which shook off the

hand kind Mrs. Deo laid on her arm, and shrank as the great front door

fell open, sending forth a flood of light which, to one less wedded to

wild ways and outdoor living, promised a hospitable cheer.

"Georgian's form!" muttered Ransom involuntarily to himself. "And

Georgian's face!" he felt obliged to add, as the light fell broadly

across her. "But not Georgian's ways and not Georgian's nature," he

impetuously finished as she slipped out of sight.

Then the mystery of _the brother_ came rushing over him and he yielded

himself again to the wonder of the situation till he was reawakened to

realities by the shuffling of feet on the stairway and the raised tones

of Mrs. Deo as she tried to make herself understood by her new and

somewhat difficult guest. A maid followed in their wake, and from some

as yet unexplored region below there rose the sound of clattering dishes.

It was a trying moment for him. He longed for another glimpse of the

girl, but feared to betray his own curiosity to the two women who

accompanied her. Should he be forced to allow her to enter her room

unseen? Might he not better run some small risk of detection? He had

escaped discovery before; wasn't it possible for him to escape it again?

He finally compromised matters by first flinging his door wide open and

then retreating to the other end of the room where the shadows appeared

heavy enough to hide him. From this point he cast a look down the hall

which was in a direct line from his present standpoint, and was fortunate

enough to catch a glimpse of the girl with her face turned in his

direction. Her companions, on the contrary, were standing with their

backs to him, one beside the door she had just thrown open, the other

at his wife's door on which she had just given a significant rap.

Such was the picture.

The girl absorbed all his attention. The shawl--a gay one with colors in

it--had fallen from her head and was trailing, wet and bedraggled, over

an equally bedraggled skirt. Soused with wet, her hair disheveled, and

all her garments awry with the passion of her movements, she yet made his

heart stand still, as, with a sullen look at those about her, she rushed

into the room prepared for her use and slammed the door behind her with a

quick cry of mingled rage and relief. For with all these drawbacks of

manner and appearance she was the living picture of Georgian; so like

her, indeed, that he could well understand now the shock which his

darling received when, in the unconsciousness of possessing a living

sister, she had encountered in street or store, or wherever they had

first met, this living reproduction of herself.

"No wonder she became confused as to her duty," he muttered. "I even feel

myself becoming confused as to mine."

"Bring me up something to eat," he now heard this latest comer shout from

her doorway. "I don't want tea and I don't want soup; I want meat, meat.

And I shan't go down afterward, either. I'm going to stay right here.

I've seen enough of people I don't know. And of my sister too. She was

cross to me because I hated the coach and wanted to walk, and she shan't

come into my room till I tell her to. Don't forget; it's meat I want,

just meat and something sweet. Pudding's good."

All shocking to Mr. Ransom's taste, but more so to his heart. For

notwithstanding the coarseness of the expressions, the voice was

Georgian's and laden with a hundred memories.

He was still struggling with the agitation of this discovery when he

heard Mrs. Deo give another tap on his wife's door. This time it was

unlocked and pushed softly open, and through the crack thus made some

whispered orders were given. These seemed to satisfy Mrs. Deo, for she

called the maid to her and together they hurried down the hall to a rear

staircase, communicating with the kitchen. This was fortunate for him,

for if they had turned his way he would have had to issue from his room

and take open part in the excitement of the moment.

A few minutes of quiet now supervened. During these he decided that if

he must keep up this watch--and nothing now could deter him from doing

so--he must take a position consistent with his assumed character.

Detection by Georgian was what he now feared. Whatever happened, she must

not get the smallest glimpse of him or be led by any indiscretion on his

part to suspect his presence under the same roof as herself. Yet he must

see all, hear all that was possible to him. For this a continuance of the

present conditions, an open door and no light, were positively requisite.

But how avert the comment which this unusual state of things must awaken

if noticed? But one expedient suggested itself. He would light a cigar

and sit in the window. If questioned he would say that he was engaged

in deciding how he would end the story he was writing; that such

contemplation called for darkness but above all for good air; that had

the weather been favorable he would have obtained the latter by opening

the window; but it being so bad he could only open the door. Certain

eccentricities are allowable in authors.

This settled, he proceeded to take a chair and envelope himself in smoke.

With eyes fixed on the dimly-lighted vista of the hall before him, he

waited. What would happen next? Would his wife reappear? No; supper was

coming up. He could hear dishes rattling on the rear stairway, and in

another moment saw the maid coming down the hall with a large tray in her

hands. She stopped at Anitra's door, knocked, and was answered by the

harsh command:

"Set it down. I'll get it for myself."

The maid set it down.

Next instant Mrs. Ransom's door opened.

"Don't be too generous with me," he heard her call softly out. "I can't

eat. I'm too upset for much food. Tea," she whispered, "and some nice

toast. Tell Mrs. Deo that I want nothing else. She will understand."

The maid nodded and disappeared down the hall just as a bare arm was

thrust out from Anitra's door and the tray drawn in. A few minutes later

the other tray came up and was carried into Mrs. Ransom's room. The

contrast in the way the two trays had been received struck him as showing

the difference between the two women, especially after he had been given

an opportunity, as he was later, of seeing the ferocious way in which the

food brought to Anitra had been disposed of.

But I anticipate. The latter tray had not yet been pushed again into the

hall, and Mr. Ransom was still smoking his first cigar when he heard the

lawyer's voice in the office below asking to have pen and ink placed in

the small reception-room. This recalled him to the real purpose of his

wife's presence in the house, and also assured him that the opportunity

would soon be given him for another glimpse of her before the evening was

over. It was also likely to be a full-face one, as she would have to

advance several steps directly towards him before taking the turn leading

to the front staircase.

He awaited the moment eagerly. The hour for signing the will had been set

at nine o'clock, but it was surely long past that time now. No, the clock

in the office is striking; it is just nine. Would she recognize the

summons? Assuredly; for with the last stroke she lifts the latch of her

door and comes out.

She has exchanged her dark dress for a light one and has arranged her

hair in the manner he likes best. But he scarcely notes these changes in

the interest he feels in her intentions and the manner in which she

proceeds to carry out her purpose.

She does not advance at once to the staircase, but creeps first to her

sister's door, where she stands listening for a minute or so in an

attitude of marked anxiety. Then, with a gesture expressive of repugnance

and alarm, she steps quickly forward and disappears down the staircase

without vouchsafing one glance in his direction.

His vision of her as she looked in that short passage from room to

staircase was momentary only, but it left him shuddering. Never before

had he seen resolve burning to a white heat in the human countenance.

There was something abnormal in it, taken with his knowledge of her face

in its happier and more wholesome aspects. The innocent, affectionate

young girl, whose soul he had looked upon as a weeded garden, had become

in a moment to his eyes a suffering, determined, deeply concentrated

woman of unsuspected power and purpose. A suggestion of wildness in her

air added to the mysterious impression she made; an impression which

rendered this instant memorable to him and set his pulses beating to

a tune quite new to them. What was she going to do? Sign away all her

property? Beggar her heirs for--He could not say what. No; even such

a resolution could not account for her remarkable expression of

concentrated will. There was in her distracted mind something of more

tragic import than this; and he dared not question what; dared not even

approach this woman who, less than a week before, had linked herself to

him for life. The uneasy light in those fixed and gleaming eyes betrayed

a reason too lightly poised. He feared any additional shock for her.

Better that she should go down undisturbed to her adviser, who bore a

reputation which insured a judicious use of his power. What if she were

about to will away her fortune to the man she called brother? He himself

had no use for her wealth. Her health and happiness were all that

concerned him, and these possibly depended on her being allowed to go her

own way without interference. But oh, for eyes to see into the room into

which she had withdrawn with the lawyer! For eyes to see into her heart!

For eyes to see into the future!

His suspense presently became so great that he could no longer control

himself. Throwing up the window, he thrust his head out into the rain and

felt refreshed by the icy drops falling on his face and neck. But the

roar of the waterfall rang too persistently in his ears and he hastily

closed the window again. There was something in the incessant boom of

that tumbling water which strangely disturbed him. He could better stand

suspense than that. If only the wind would bluster again. That, at least,

was intermittent in its fury and gave momentary relief to thoughts

strained to an unbearable tension.

Afterwards, only a short time afterwards, he wondered that he had given

himself over to such extreme feeling at this especial moment. Her

appearance when she came quietly back, with Mrs. Deo chatting and smiling

behind her, was natural enough, and though she did not speak herself, the

tenor of the landlady's remarks was such as to show that they had been

conversing about old days when the two little girls used to ransack her

cupboards for their favorite cookies, and when their united pranks were

the talk of the town.

As they passed down the hall, Mrs. Deo garrulously remarked:

"You were never separated except on that dreadful day of the schoolhouse

burning. That day you were sick and--"

"Please!" The word leaped from Georgian in terror, and she almost threw

her hand against the other's mouth. "I--I can't bear it."

The good lady paused, gurgled an apology, and stooped for the tray which

disfigured the sightliness of the neatly kept hall. Then, nodding towards

a maid whom she had placed on watch at the extreme end of the hall, she

muttered some assurances as to this woman's faithfulness, and turned away

with a cordial good night. Georgian watched her go with a strange and

lingering intentness, or so it seemed to Ransom; then slowly entered her

room and locked the door.

The incidents of the day, so far as she was concerned, appeared to be at

an end.

CHAPTER XI

HALF-PAST ONE IN THE MORNING

Nothing now held Mr. Ransom to his room. The two women in whose fate he

was so nearly concerned, his sister-in-law and his wife, had both retired

and there was no other eye he feared. Indeed, he courted an interview

with the lawyer, if only it could be naturally obtained; and he had

little reason to think it could not. So he went down-stairs.

In a moment he seemed to have passed from the realm of dreams to that of

reality. Here was no mystery. Here was life as he knew it. Walking boldly

into the office, he ran his eye over the half-dozen men who sat there

and, picking out the lawyer from the rest, sauntered easily up to him and

sat down.

"My name is Johnston," said he. "I'm from New York; like yourself, I

believe."

The lawyer, with a twinkle in his light-blue eye, answered with a cordial

nod; and in two minutes a lively conversation had begun between them on

purely impersonal subjects suited to the intelligence of the crowd they

were in. This did not last, however. An opportunity soon came for them to

stroll off together, and presently Mr. Ransom found himself closeted with

this man who he had reason to believe was the sole holder of the key to

the secret which was devouring him.

A bottle of wine was on the table between them, and some cigars. As Mr.

Ransom filled the two glasses, he spoke:

"I have to thank you--" he began, but saw immediately that he had made a

wrong start.

"For what, _Mr. Johnston_?" asked the other coldly.

"For giving me this opportunity to speak alone with you," Ransom

explained with a nervous gesture. "An hour of unrestrained gossip is so

necessary to me after a day of hard work. Perhaps you don't know that I

am an author--have been one for seven whole hours. I find it exhausting.

You could give me great relief by talking a little on some foreign

subject, say on the one now engrossing every one in the house, the twin

ladies from New York. You were in the same coach with them. Did they

quarrel and did the most wilful of the two insist on getting out at the

foot of the hill and walking up through the lane?"

"I doubt if I have anything to say to Mr. Johnston on this subject," was

the wary reply.

"What if he added another name to the Johnston?"

"It would make no appreciable difference. The driver is a loquacious

fellow, talk to him."

Mr. Ransom felt his heart fail him. He surveyed closely the mouth which

had uttered this off-hand sentence and saw that it was set in a line

there was no mistaking. Little enlightenment was to be got from this man.

Yet he made one more effort.

"Did my wife sign the will?" he asked. "All pretense aside, this is a

very important matter to me, Mr. Harper; not on account of the money

involved, but because the doing of this simple act seemed to require such

an effort on her part."

"You are mistaken," was the quick reply, harshly accentuated. "She did

just what she wanted to do. She was not in the least coerced, unless it

was by circumstances."

"Circumstances! But that is what I mean. They seem to have been too much

for her. I want to understand these circumstances."

The lawyer honored him with his first direct look.

"I don't understand them myself," said he.

"You don't?"

"No."

Mr. Ransom set down the wineglass he had raised half-way to his lips.

"You have simply followed her orders?"

"You have said it. Your wife is a woman of much more character than you

think. She has amazed me."

"She is amazing me. I am here; she is here; only a few boards separate

us. But iron bars could not be more effectual. I dare not approach her

door; dare not ask her to accept from me the natural protection of a

lover and husband. Instinct holds me back, or her will, which may not

be stronger than mine but is certainly more dominant."

"Lawyers do not believe much in instinct as a usual thing, but I should

advise confidence in this one. A woman with a tremendous will like that

of Mrs. Ransom should be allowed a slack tether. The day will arrive when

she will come to you herself. This I have said before; I can say nothing

more to you to-night."

"Then there is nothing in the will you have drawn up to show that she has

lost her affection for me?"

The lawyer drained his glass.

"I have not been given permission to declare its terms," said he, when

his glass was again upon the table.

"In other words, I am to know nothing," exclaimed his exasperated

companion.

"Not from me."

And this ended the conversation. Ransom withdrew immediately up-stairs.

At ten o'clock he retired. The last look he cast down the hall had shown

him the drowsy figure of the maid still sitting at her watch. It seemed

to insure a peaceful night. But he had little expectation of sleep.

Though the wind had quieted down and the rain fell with increasing

gentleness, the roar of the waterfall surged through all his thoughts,

which in themselves were turbulent. He did sleep, however, slept

peacefully till half-past one, when he and all in the house were startled

by a wild and piercing cry rising from one of the rooms. Terror was in

the sound and in an instant every door was open save the two which were

shut upon Georgian and her twin sister.

CHAPTER XII

"GEORGIAN!"

Mr. Ransom was the first one in the hall. He had not undressed himself,

expecting a totally sleepless night. It was his figure, then, that the

maid encountered as she came running from her post at the end of the

corridor.

"Which room? which?" he gasped out, ignoring every precaution in his

blind terror.

"This one. I am sure it came from this one," she declared, knocking

loudly on Anitra's door.

There was a rustle within, a cry which was half a sob, then the sound of

a hand fumbling with the lock. Meanwhile, Mr. Ransom had bent his ear to

his wife's door.

"All still in here," he cried. "Not a sound. Something dreadful has

happened--"

Just then Anitra's door fell back and a wild image confronted him and

such others as had by this time collected in the passageway. With only a

shawl covering her nightdress, the gipsy-like creature stood clawing the

air and answering the looks that appealed to her, with wild gurgles, till

suddenly her hot glances fell on Roger Ransom, when she instantly became

rigid and stammered out:

"She's gone! I saw her black figure go by my window. She called out that

the waterfall drew her. She went by the little balcony and the roof. The

roof was slippery with the rain and she fell. That's why I screamed. But

she got up again. What is she going to do at the waterfall? Stop her!

stop her! She hasn't steady feet like me, and I wasn't really angry. I

liked her; I liked her."

Sobs choked the rest. Her terror was infectious. Mr. Ransom reeled, then

flung himself at Georgian's door. It resisted but the silence within told

him that she was not there. Neither was she in Anitra's room. They could

all look in and see it bare to the window.

"You saw her climbing past there?" he cried, forgetting she was deaf.

"Yes, yes," she chattered, catching his meaning from his pointing finger.

"There's a balcony. She must have jumped on it from her own window. She

didn't come in here. See! the door is locked on her side."

This was true.

"I woke and saw her. My eyes are like lynx's. I got out of bed to watch.

She fell--"

The noise of a breaking lock snapped her words in two. One of the men

present had flung himself against this communicating door. Immediately

they all crowded into the adjoining room. It was empty and bitterly cold

and wet. An open window explained why, and possibly the letter lying on

the bureau inscribed with her husband's name would explain the rest. But

he stopped to read no letters now.

"Show me the way to those falls," he cried, pocketing the letter as he

rushed by the disheveled Anitra into the open hall. "I'm her husband,

Roger Ransom. Who goes with me? He who does is my friend for life."

The clerk and one or two others rushed for their coats and lanterns. He

waited for nothing. The roar of the waterfall had told him too many tales

that day. And the will! Her will just signed!

"Georgian!"

They could hear his cry.

"Georgian! Georgian! Wait! wait! hear what I have to say!" thrilled back

through the mist as he stumbled on, followed by the men waving their

lanterns and shouting words of warning he probably never heard. Then his

cry further off and fainter. "Georgian! Georgian!" Then silence and the

slow drizzle of rain on the soggy walk and soaked roofs, with the far-off

boom of the waterfall which Mrs. Deo and the trembling maids gazing at

the wide-eyed Anitra shivering in the center of her deserted room, tried

to shut out by closing window and blind, forgetting that she was deaf and

only heard such echoes as were thundering in her own mind.

CHAPTER XIII

WHERE THE MILL STREAM RUNS FIERCEST

Two o'clock.

Three o'clock.

Two men were talking below their breaths in the otherwise empty office.

"That 'ere mill stream never gives up anything it has once caught,"

muttered one into the ear of the other. "It's swift as fate and in

certain places deep as hell. Dutch Jan's body was five months at the

bottom of it, before it came up at Clark's pool."

The man beside him shivered and his hand roamed nervously towards his

breast.

"Did Jan, the Dutchman you speak of, fall in by accident, or did

he--throw himself over--from homesickness, or some such cause?"

"Wa'al we don't say; on account of his old mother, you know, we don't

say. It was called accident."

The other man rose and walked restlessly to the window.

"Half the town is up," he muttered. "The lanterns go by like fire-flies.

Poor Ransom! It's a hopeless job, I fear." And again his hand wandered to

that breast pocket where the edge of a document could be seen. "I have

half a mind to go out myself; anything is better than sitting here."

But he sat down just the same. Mr. Harper was no longer a young man.

"The storm's bating," observed the one.

"But not the cold. Throw on a stick; I'm freezing."

The other man obeyed; then looking up, stared. A girl stood before them

in the doorway. Anitra, with cheeks ablaze and eyes burning, her

traveling dress flapping damp about her heels, and on her head the red

shawl she preferred to any hat. Behind her shoulder peered the anxious

face of Mrs. Deo.

"I'm going out," cried the former in the loud and unmodulated voice of

the deaf. "He don't come back! he don't come back! I'm going to see why."

The lawyer rose and bowed; then resolutely shook his head. He did not

know whether she had appealed to him or not. She had not looked at him,

had not looked at any one, but he felt that he must protest.

"I beg you not to do so," he began. "I really beg you to remain here and

wait with me. You can do no good and the result may be dangerous." But he

knew he was talking to deaf ears even before the landlady murmured:

"She doesn't hear a word. I've talked and talked to her. I've used every

sign and motion I could think of, but it's done no good. She would dress

and she will go out; you'll see."

The next minute her prophecy came true; the wild thing, with a quick

whirl of her lithe body, was at the front door, and in another instant

had flashed through it and was gone.

"It is my duty to follow her," said the lawyer. "Help me on with my coat;

I'll find some one to guide me."

"Here is a lantern. Excuse me for not going with you," pleaded Mrs. Deo,

"but some one must watch the house."

The New Yorker nodded, took the lantern offered him, and went stoically

out.

He met a man on the walk in front. He was faced his way and was panting

heavily.

"Hello," said he, "what news?"

"They haven't found her; but there's no doubt she went over the fall. The

fellow who calls himself her husband has just been reading a letter they

say she left on her bureau for him. It was a good-by, I reckon, for you

can't tear him from the spot. He says he'll stay there till daylight. I

couldn't stand the sight of his misery myself. Besides, it's mortal cold;

I've just been running to get warm. Who was the girl who just went

scurrying by out of here? It's no place for wimmen down there. One lost

gal is enough."

"That's what I think," muttered the lawyer, hurrying on.

He was not a very imaginative man; some of his best friends thought him a

cold and prosaic one, but he never forgot that walk or the sensations

accompanying it. Dark as it still was, the way would have been impassable

for a stranger, had it not been for the guidance given by the noisy

passing to and fro of the awakened townspeople. Those coming from the

river approached in a direct line from one spot; those going to it

advanced in the same line and to the same spot. A ring of lanterns marked

it. It was near, very near where the heavy waters fell into a deep pool.

No one now spoke of Anitra; she had evidently been warned by her first

encounter to move with less precipitancy.

As he approached the place of central interest, he moved more warily too.

The ground was very bad; he had never walked in such slush. Once and

again he tripped; once he came down upon his face. The boom of the waters

was now very near; he could see nothing but the flicker of the lanterns,

but he felt the near rush of the stream, and presently was at its very

edge. Startled by the nearness of his escape, for he had almost lost

his footing by his sudden halt, he started back, looked again at the

lanterns, took a turn and came upon the dozen or more men bending over

the edge of the stream where the waters ran most swiftly. But he did not

join them. Another sight attracted his eyes and presently himself. This

was the sight of Ransom crouched on the wet earth, staring down at a slip

of paper he held in his hands. A lantern set in the sand at his feet sent

its feeble rays over his face and possibly over the paper; but he was no

longer reading it, he was simply so lost in its sorrowful contents that

all power of movement had deserted him.

Harper approached to his side, but he did not address him. Something

stirred in his own breast and kept him silent. But there was another

person near who was not so deterred. As Harper stood watching Ransom's

crouched, almost insensible figure, he perceived a slight dark form steal

from the shadows and lay a hand on the stooping man's shoulder, then as

he failed to move or give any token of feeling this touch, he heard

Anitra's voice say in accents almost musical:

"You will get ill here; you are not used to the cold and the night air.

Come back to the house; Georgian would wish it."

The name roused him and he looked up. Their eyes met and a strange

gleam--a shock, perhaps, of sympathetic feeling, flashed upon either

face. The lawyer saw and instinctively retreated from out the circle of

light cast by the lantern; but the men at the stream's edge heard

nothing. The flash of something white had caught their eyes and one man

was reaching for it.

"Georgian," came in astonished repetition from the bereaved man's lips.

"She would wish it," persisted the other with still deeper and more

urgent meaning.

[Illustration: A slight, dark form stole from the shadows and laid a

hand on the stooping man's shoulder.]

Then in a whisper so penetrating that even Mr. Harper caught its least

inflection through all the thunder of the waterfall, "She loved you."

Ah! the enchantment, the feminine persuasiveness, the heart-moving

sincerity which breathed through that simple phrase! From lips so

untutored, it seemed marvelous. Ransom was not insensible to its power,

for he quivered under her hand and his eyes took on a look of wonder. But

he made no attempt to answer, even by a sign. He seemed content for that

one instant just to listen and to look.

The man hanging over the stream drew back his arm. He had been deceived

by a bit of froth; some of it clung yet to his fingers.

"Come," entreated the girl, her face emerging softly into the light, as

she stooped lower over the lantern. "Come!" she had taken him by the hand

and was drawing him gently upward.

With a leap he was on his feet and had thrown her off. Some memory had

come to make her entreaty hateful.

"No," he cried, "no! Here is my place and here will I stay. You are a

stranger to me! You drove her to this act, and you shall not cajole me

into forgetting it."

He had spoken loudly; not so much because he remembered her affliction,

but because of the roar of the fall and his own overwhelming passion. The

result was that the lawyer caught every word; possibly the workers at the

water-edge did also; for some of them quickly turned their heads. But

she, though she stopped short in the spot where he had pushed her, gave

no evidence of hearing his words or even of resenting his manner.

"Won't you come?" she falteringly pleaded, pointing towards the house

with its twinkling lights. "You are cold; you are shuddering; they will

do the searching who don't mind night or wet. Follow Anitra, Anitra who

is so sorry."

"No!" he shouted. His tone, his look, were almost those of a madman. He

even put out his hands towards her in repulsion. He seemed to cast her

away. This gesture, if not his words, reached her understanding. The

lawyer saw her sway, fling back her young head with its disheveled locks

to the night, and fall moaning pitifully to the ground. Here she lay

still, with the wet grass all about her and the last lingering drops of

rain beating on her huddled form.

Mr. Harper started to raise her, for Ransom stood petrified. But no

sooner had the lawyer made his presence known by this impetuous movement,

than Ransom woke from his trance and, darting down, lifted the girl in

his arms and began moving with her towards the house. As he passed the

lawyer he muttered between set teeth:

"She's caused me all my misery. But she looks too much like Georgian for

me to see another man touch her. God will care for my poor darling's

body."

CHAPTER XIV

A DETECTIVE'S WORK

Morning.

The living household was about its tasks for all the horror of the night

before, and the still unrelieved suspense as to the fate of one of its

members.

The maid, who had sat on watch in the upper hall for so many hours the

evening before, was again at her post, but this time with her eye fixed

only on one door, the door behind which slept the exhausted Anitra.

Ransom's room was empty; he was in the sitting-room below, closeted with

the lawyer.

Some one had been there before them. The tray of bottles and glasses had

been removed from the table, and in their place were to be seen a woman's

damaged hat and a small tortoise-shell comb. Mr. Harper's hand was on the

former, which was wound about with a wet veil.

"I think I recognize this," said he. "At least I have a distinct

impression of having seen it before."

"It was picked up with the veil still on it near the entrance of the

lane," explained Ransom.

"Then there can be no doubt that it is the hat Miss Hazen wore during

her journey. She tossed it off the moment her foot touched the ground,

and taking the shawl from her neck pulled it over her head instead. You

remember that she had no hat on when they brought her in."

"I remember. This is Miss Hazen's hat without any doubt."

The lawyer eyed the speaker with curious interest. There was something in

his tone that he did not understand.

"And this?" he ventured, laying a respectful finger on the comb.

"Found in the open field between the house and the mill-stream."

"Do you recognize it?"

"No. Georgian wore such combs, but I cannot absolutely say that this is

hers."

"I can. You see this little gold work at the top? Well, I have an eye for

such things and I noticed this comb in her hair last night. There were

two of them just alike."

Instinctively the two men sat with their eyes fixed for a minute on this

comb, then, equally instinctively, they both looked up and gazed at each

other long and hard. It was the lawyer who first spoke.

"I think that we should have no further secrets between us," said he.

"Here is Mrs. Ransom's will. There is a name mentioned in it which I do

not know. Perhaps you do." Here he laid the document on the table.

Mr. Ransom eyed it but did not take it up. Instead, he drew a crumpled

paper from his own pocket and, handing it to the lawyer, said: "First,

I should like you to read the letter which she left behind for me. My

feelings as a husband would lead me to hold it as a sacred legacy from

all eyes but my own; but there is a mystery hidden in it, a mystery which

I must penetrate, and you are the only man who can assist me in doing

so."

The lawyer, lowering his eyes to hide their own suspicious glint, opened

the paper, and carefully read these lines:

"Forgive. My troubles are too much for me. I'm going to a place of

rest, the only place and the only rest possible to one in my position.

I don't blame anybody. Least of all do I blame Anitra. It was not her

fault that she was brought up rudely, or that she knows no restraint

in love or in hate. Be kind to her for my sake, and if any one else

claims her or offers to take her from you, resist them. I give her

entirely to you. It's a more priceless gift than you think; much more

priceless than the one which I take from you by my death. I could

never have been happy with you; you could never have been happy with

me. Fate stood between us; a darker and more inexorable fate than you,

in your kindly experience of life, could imagine. Else, why do I

plunge to my death with your ring on my finger and your love in my

heart?

"Georgian."

"Ravings?" questioned Ransom hoarsely, as Mr. Harper's eyes rose again to

his face.

"It would seem so," assented the lawyer. "Yet there is intelligence in

all the lines. And the will--read the will. There is no lack of

intelligent purpose there; little as it accords with the feeling she

exhibits here for her sister. She leaves her nothing; and does not even

mention her name. Her personal belongings she bequeaths to you; but her

realty, which comprises the bulk of her property I believe, she divides,

somewhat unequally I own, between you and a man named Auchincloss. It

is he I want to ask you about. Have you ever heard her speak of him?"

"Josiah Auchincloss of St. Louis, Missouri," read Mr. Ransom. "No, the

name is new to me. Didn't she tell you anything about him when she gave

you her instructions?"

"Not a word. She said, 'You will hear from him if ever this will is

published. He has a right to the money and I entreat you to show your

respect for me by seeing that he gets it without any unnecessary

trouble.' That was all she said or would say. Your wife was a woman of

powerful character, Mr. Ransom. My little arts counted for nothing in any

difference of opinion between us."

"Auchincloss!" repeated Ransom. "Another unknown quantity in the problem

of my poor girl's life. What a tangle! Do you wonder that I am overcome

by it? Anitra--the so-called brother--and now this Auchincloss!"

"Right, Ransom, I share your confusion."

"Do you?" The words came very slowly, penetratingly. "Haven't you some

idea--some strange, possibly half-formed notion or secret intuition which

might afford some clew to this labyrinth? I have been told that lawyers

have a knack of getting at the bottom of human conduct and affairs. You

have had a wide experience; does it not suggest some answer to this

problem which will harmonize all its discordant elements and make clear

its various complications?"

Mr. Harper shook his head, but there was a restrained excitement in his

manner which was not altogether the reflection of that which dominated

Ransom, and the latter, observing it, leaned across the table till their

faces almost touched.

"Do you guess my thought?" he whispered. "Look at me and tell me if you

guess my thought."

The lawyer hesitated, eying well the trembling lip, the changing color,

the wide-open, deeply flushed eyes so near his own; then with a slow

smile of extraordinary subtlety, if not of comprehension, answered in

a barely audible murmur:

"I think I do. I may be mad, but I think I do."

The other sank back with a sigh charged with what the lawyer interpreted

as relief. Mr. Harper reseated himself, and for a moment neither looked

at the other, and neither spoke; it would almost seem as if neither

breathed. Then, as a bird, deceived by the silence, hopped to the window

sill and began its cheep, "cheep," Mr. Ransom broke the spell by saying

in low but studiously business-like tones:

"Have you thought it worth while to study the ground under her window or

anywhere else for footprints? It might not be amiss; what do you think

about it?"

"Let us go," readily acquiesced the lawyer, rising to his feet with an

honest show of alacrity; "after which I must telegraph to New York. I was

expected back to-day."

"I know it; but your duties there will keep; these here cannot. Your hand

on the promise that you will respect my secret till--well, till I can

assure you that my intuitions are devoid of any real basis."

The lawyer's palm met his; then they started to go out; but before they

had passed the door, Mr. Ransom came back, and lifting the comb from the

table he put it in his pocket. As he did this, his eye flashed sidewise

on the other. There were strange hints and presentiments in it which

brought the color to the usually imperturbable lawyer's cheek.

In going out they passed the office-door. A dozen men were hanging about,

smoking and talking. Among them was a countryman who had just swallowed,

open-mouthed, the story of the past night's tragedy. He was now speaking

out his own mind concerning it, and this is what these two heard him say

as they went by:

"Do you know what strikes me as mighty strange? That they should clear

that stone of the name of Anitra just in time to put Georgian's in its

place. I call that peculiar, I do."

The lawyer and the husband exchanged a glance.

"Mrs. Ransom had a deep mind," the lawyer remarked, as the door slammed

behind them. "She apparently thought of everything."

Ransom, directing a look down the street towards the factories and the

roaring mill-stream, uttered a shuddering sigh.

"They are still searching," said he. "But they will never find her. They

will never find her."

The lawyer pulled him away.

"That's because they search the water. We will search the land."

"That's half water, too; but it cannot hide every clew. You have eyes for

the imperceptible; use them, Mr. Harper, use them."

"I will; but this is a detective's work. Do not expect too much from me."

"I expect nothing. I do not dare to. Let us tread very softly, that is

all, and be careful to talk low, if we have anything to say."

By this time they had rounded the corner of the house and entered a

narrow walk, flagged with brick, which connected the space in front

with the rear offices and garden. This walk ran close to the walls which

were broken on this side by an ell projecting in the direction of the

mill-stream. It was from the roof of this ell that Anitra declared

Georgian to have slipped and fallen.

Their first care was to glance up at the roof. It was a sloping one and

Anitra's story seemed credible enough when they noted how much easier it

would be to drop upon it from the little balcony overhead than to

traverse the roof itself and reach the ground beneath without slipping.

But as they looked longer, each face betrayed doubt. The descent from the

balcony was easy enough, but how about the passage from Georgian's window

to the balcony? This latter was confined to the one window, and was

surrounded by an ornamental balustrade, high enough to offer a decided

obstacle to the adventurous person endeavoring to leap upon it from the

adjoining window-ledge. However, this leap, made in the dark and under

circumstances inducing the utmost recklessness, might look practical

enough from the window-ledge itself, and Mr. Harper, making a remark to

this effect, proposed that they should examine the ground rather than the

house for evidences of Mrs. Ransom's slip and fall as related by Anitra.

The only spot where they could hope to find such was in the one short

stretch--the width of the ell--underlying the edge of the sloping roof.

But this spot was all flagged, as I have already said, and when their

eyes strayed beyond it to the untilled fields, stretching between them

and the great rock at the verge of the waterfall from which she was

supposed to have taken her fatal leap, it was to find them as

unproductive of evidence as the brick walk itself. Not one pair of feet

but many had passed that way since early morning. The ground showed a

mass of impressions of all sizes and shapes, amid which it would have

been impossible for them, without the necessary experience, to have

followed up the flight of any one person. They had come to their task

too late.

"Futile," decided the lawyer. "There is no use in our going that way."

And he turned to look again at the ground in their immediate vicinity. As

he did so, his eye lighted on the triangular spot where the ell met the

side of the house under the kitchen windows. Here there was no flagging,

the walk taking a diagonal course from the corner of the ell to the

kitchen door.

"What are those?" he asked, pointing to two oblong impressions brimming

with water which disfigured the center of this small plot.

"They look like footprints," ventured Ransom.

"They are footprints," decided Mr. Harper as they stooped to examine the

marks, "and the footprints of a person dropping from a height. Nothing

else explains their depth or general appearance."

"Couldn't they be those of a person approaching the ell to converse with

some one above? I see others similar to these in the open place over

there beyond the kitchen door."

"It is a trail. Let us follow it. It seems to lead anywhere but towards

the waterfall. This is an important discovery, Mr. Ransom, and may lead

to conclusions such as we might not otherwise have presumed to entertain,

especially if we come upon an impression clear enough to point in which

direction the person making it was going."

"Here is what you want," Ransom assured him in a low and curiously

smothered voice. He was evidently greatly excited by this result of their

inquiries, for all his apparent quiet and precise movements. "It's a

woman's step, and that woman was going from the ell when she left these

tokens of her passage behind her. Going! and as you say not in the

direction of the waterfall."

"Hush! I see some one at the kitchen window. Let us move warily and be

sure not to confound these prints with those of any other person. It

looks as if a great many people had passed here."

"Yes, this is the way to the chicken-coops and out-houses. But in the

ground beyond I think I see a single line of steps again,--small steps

like these. Where can they be leading? They are deep like those of a

person running."

"And straggling, like those of a person running in the dark. See how they

waver from the direct line down there, turn, and almost come up against

that wood-pile! Whose steps are these? Whose, Mr. Harper? Quick! I must

see where they go. Our time will not be lost. The key to the labyrinth is

in our hands."

The lawyer was in the rear and the eyes of the other were fixed far

ahead. For this reason, perhaps, the former allowed himself a quiet shake

of the head, which might not have encouraged the other so very much, had

he caught sight of it. They were now on the verge of the garden, or what

would soon be a garden if these rains betokened spring. A path ran along

its edge and in this path the footsteps they were following lost

themselves; but they came upon them again among the hillocks of some old

potato-hills beyond, and finally traced them quite across the garden

waste to a fence, along which they ran, blundering from ploughed earth to

spots of smoother ground, and so back again till they came upon an old

turn-stile!

Passing through this, the two men stopped and looked about them. They

were in a road ridged with grass and flanked by bushes. One end ran east

into a wooded valley, the other debouched on the highway a few feet to

the right of the tavern.

"The lane!" exclaimed Mr. Harper. "The lead towards the waterfall was a

feint. It was in this direction she fled, and it is from this point that

search must be made for her."

Ransom, greatly perturbed, for this possibility of secret flight opened

vistas of as much mystery, if not of as much suffering, as her death in

the river, glanced at the sodden ground under their feet, and thus along

the lane to where it lost itself from view among the trees.

"No possible following of steps here," he declared. "A hundred people

must have come this way since early morning."

"It's a short cut from the Ferry. They told me last night that it

lessened the distance by fully a quarter of a mile."

"The Ferry! Can she be there? Or in the woods, or on her way to some

unknown place far out of our reach? The thought is maddening, Mr. Harper,

and I feel as helpless as a child under it. Shall we get detectives from

the county-seat, or start on the hunt ourselves? We might hear something

further on to help us."

"We might; but I should rather stay on the immediate scene at present.

Ah, there comes a fellow in a cart who should be able to tell us

something! Stand by and I'll accost him. You needn't show your face."

Mr. Ransom turned aside. Mr. Harper waited till the slow-moving horse,

dragging a heavily jogging wagon, came alongside, and he had caught the

eye of the low-browed, broad-faced farmer boy who sat on a bag of

potatoes and held the reins.

"Good morning," said he. "Bad news this way. Any better at the Ferry, or

down east, as you call it?"

"Eh?" was the lumbering, half-suspicious answer from the startled boy.

"I've heard naught down yonder, but that a gal threw herself over the

waterfall up here last night. Is that a fact, sir? I'm mighty curus to

know. My mother knew them Hazens; used to wash for 'em years ago. She

told me to bring up these taters and larn all I could about it."

"We don't know much more than that ourselves," was the smooth and

cautious reply. "The lady certainly is missing, and she is supposed to

have drowned herself." Then, as he noted the fellow's eyes resting with

some curiosity on Mr. Ransom's well-clad, gentlemanly figure, added

gravely, and with a slight gesture towards the latter:

"The lady's husband."

The lad's jaw fell and he looked very sheepish.

"Excuse me, misters, I didn't know," he managed to mutter, with a slash

at his horse which was vainly endeavoring to pull the cart from the rut

in which it had stuck. "I guess I'll go along to the hotel. I've a bag of

taters for Mrs. Deo."

But the cart didn't budge and the lawyer had time to say:

"Guess you didn't hear anything said about another lady I am interested

in. No talk down your way of a strange young woman seen anywhere on the

highway or about any of the houses between here and the Landing?"

"Jerusha! I did hear a neighbor of mine say somethin' about a stranger

gal he saw this very mornin'. Met her down by Beardsley's. She was goin'

through the mud on foot as lively as you please. Asked him the way to the

Ferry. He noticed her because she was pretty and spoke in such a nice

way--just like a city gal," he said. "Is it any one from this hotel?"

added the fellow with a wondering look. "If so, she walked a mile before

daylight in mud up to her ankles. A girl of powerful grit that! with a

mighty good reason for catching the train."

"Oh! there's an early train then?" asked the lawyer, ignoring the other's

question with unmoved good-humor. "One, I mean, before the 10:50

express?"

"Yes, sir, or so I've heard. I never took it. Folks don't from here,

except they're in an awful hurry. Will y'er say who the young woman is?

Not--not--"

"We don't know who she is," quietly objected the lawyer. "And you don't

know who she is either," he severely added, holding the yawping

countryman with his eye. "If you're the man I think you, you'll not talk

about her unless you're asked by the constable or some one you are bound

to answer. And what's more, you'll earn a five-dollar bill by going back

the road you've come and bringing here, without any talk or fuss, the man

you were just telling us about. I want to have a talk with him, but I

don't want any one but you and him to know this. You can tell him it's

worth money, if he don't want to come. Do you understand?"

"You bet," chuckled the grinning lad. "A five-dollar bill is mighty

clearing to the mind, sir. But must I turn right back before going on to

the hotel and hearing the news?"

"We'll help you turn the cart," grimly suggested Mr. Harper. "Get up

there, Dobbin, or whatever your name is. Here, Ransom, lend a hand!"

There was nothing for the fellow to do but to accept the help proffered,

and turn his cart. With one longing look towards the hotel he jerked at

the rein and shouted at the horse, which, after a few feeble efforts,

pulled the cart about and started off again in the desired direction.

"Sooner done, sooner paid," shouted the lawyer, as lad and cart went

jolting off. "Remember to ask for Lawyer Harper when you come back. I

won't be far from the office."

The fellow nodded; gave one grinning look back and whipped up his nag.

The lawyer and Ransom eyed one another. "It's only a possibility,"

emphasized the former. "Don't lay too much stress upon it."

"Let us speak plainly," urged Ransom. "Mr. Harper, are you sure that you

know just what my thought is?"

"The time has not come for discussing that question. Let us defer it.

There is a fact to be settled first."

"Whether the girl--"

"No; this! Whether your wife could have jumped from her window to the

balcony, as Anitra said. It did not look feasible from below, but as I

then remarked to you, our opinion may change when we consider it from

above. Will you go up-stairs with me to your wife's room?"

"I will go anywhere and do anything you please, so that we learn the

exact truth. But spare me the curiosity of these people. The crowd on

this side is increasing."

"We will go in by the kitchen door. Some one there will show us the way

up-stairs."

And in this manner they entered; not escaping entirely all curious looks,

for human nature is human nature, whether in the kitchen or parlor.

In the hall above Mr. Ransom took the precedence. As they neared the

fatal room he motioned the lawyer to wait till he could ascertain if Miss

Hazen would be disturbed by their intrusion. The door, which had been

broken in between the two rooms, could not have been put back very

securely, and he dreaded incommoding her. He was gone but a minute.

Almost as soon as the lawyer started to follow him, he could be seen

beckoning from poor Georgian's door.

"Miss Hazen is asleep," whispered Ransom, as the other drew near. "We can

look about this room with impunity."

They both entered and the lawyer crossed at once to the window.

"Your wife could never have taken the leap ascribed to her by the woman

you call Anitra," he declared, after a minute's careful scrutiny of the

conditions. "The balustrade of the adjoining balcony is not only in the

way, but the distance is at least five feet from the extreme end of this

window-ledge. A woman accustomed to a life of adventure or to the feats

of a gymnasium might do it, but not a lady of Mrs. Ransom's habits. If

your wife made her way from this room to the balcony outside her sister's

window, she did it by means of the communicating door."

"But the door was found locked on this side. There is the key in the lock

now."

"You are sure of this?"

"I was the first one to call attention to it."

"Then," began the lawyer judicially, but stopped as he noted the peculiar

eagerness of Ransom's expression, and turned his attention instead to the

interior of the room and the various articles belonging to Mrs. Ransom

which were to be seen in it. "The dress your wife wore when she signed

her will," he remarked, pointing to the light green gown hanging on the

inside of the door by which they had entered.

Ransom stepped up to it, but did not touch it. He could see her as she

looked in this gown in her memorable passage through the hall the evening

before, and, recalling her expression, wondered if they yet understood

the nature of her purpose and the determination which gave it such

extraordinary vigor.

Mr. Harper called his attention to two other articles of dress hanging in

another part of the room. These were her long gray rain-coat and the hat

and veil she had worn on the train.

"She went out bare-headed and in the plain serge dress in which she

arrived," remarked Mr. Harper with a side glance at Ransom. "I wonder if

the girl met on the highway was without hat and dressed in black serge."

Ransom was silent.

"Anitra's hat is below and here is Mrs. Ransom's. She who escaped from

this house last night went out bare-headed," repeated the lawyer.

Mr. Ransom, moving aside to avoid the probing of the other's eye, merely

remarked:

"You noticed my wife's dress very particularly it seems. It was of serge,

you say."

"Yes. I am learned in stuffs. I remarked it when she got into the coach,

possibly because I was struck by its simplicity and conventional make.

There was no trimming on the bottom, only stitching. Her sister's was

just like it. They had the look of being ready-made."

"But Anitra had no rain-coat. I remember that her shoulders were wet when

she came in from the lane."

"No, she had no protection but her blouse, black like her dress. I

presume that her hot blood resented every kind of wrap."

Again that sidelong glance from his keen eye. "She wore a checked silk

handkerchief about her neck--the one she afterwards put over her head."

"You were on the same train with my wife and sister-in-law," Ransom now

said. "Did you sit near them? Converse with them, that is, with Mrs.

Ransom?"

"I have no reason for deceiving you in that regard," replied Mr. Harper.

"I did not come up from New York on the same train they did. They must

have come up in the morning, for when I arrived at the place they call

the Ferry, I saw them standing on the hotel steps ready to step into the

coach. I spoke to Mrs. Ransom then, but only a word. My grip-sack had

been put under the driver's seat, and I saw that I was expected to ride

with him, notwithstanding the inclemency of the weather. Mrs. Ransom saw

it too and possibly my natural hesitation, for she turned to me after she

had seen her sister safely ensconced inside, and said something about her

regret at having subjected me to such inconvenience, but did not offer to

make room for me in the body of the coach, though there was room enough

if the other had been the quiet lady she was herself. But she was not,

and possibly this was Mrs. Ransom's excuse for her apparent lack of

consideration for me. Before we reached the point where the lane cuts in,

I became aware of some disturbance behind me, and when we really got

there, I heard first the coach door opening, then your wife's voice,

raised in entreaty to the driver, calling on him to stop before her

sister jumped out and hurt herself. 'She is deaf and very wild' was all

the explanation she gave after Miss Hazen had leaped into the wet road

and darted from sight into what looked to me, in the darkness, like a

tangled mass of bushes. Then she said something about her having had

hard work to keep her still till we got this far; but that she was sure

she would find her way to the hotel, and that we mustn't bother ourselves

about it for she wasn't going to; Anitra and she had run this road too

many times when they were children. That is all I have to tell of my

intercourse with these ladies prior to our appearance at the hotel. I

think it right for me to clear the slate, Ransom. Who knows what we may

wish to write upon it next?"

A slight shiver on Ransom's part was the sole answer he gave to this

innuendo; then both settled themselves to work, the eyes of either

flashing hither and thither from one small object to another, in this

seemingly deserted room. In the momentary silence which followed, the

even breathing of the woman in the adjoining room could be distinctly

heard. It seemed to affect Mr. Ransom deeply, though he strove hard to

maintain the business-like attitude he had assumed from the beginning

of this unofficial examination.

"She has confided nothing more to you since your return from the river

bank?" suggested the lawyer.

"No."

The word came sharply, considering Mr. Ransom's usual manner. The lawyer

showed surprise but no resentment, and turned his attention to the bag

both had noted lying open on two chairs.

"Nothing equivocal here," he declared, after a moment's careful scrutiny

of its remaining contents. "The only comment I should make in regard to

what I find here is that all the articles are less carefully chosen than

you would expect from one of your wife's fondness for fine appointments."

"They were collected in a hurry and possibly by telephone," returned the

unhappy husband, after a shrinking glance into the bag. "The ones she

provided in anticipation of her wedding are at the hotel in New York. In

the trunks and bags there you will find articles as elegant as you could

wish." Here he turned to the dresser, and pointed to the various objects

grouped upon it.

"These show that she arranged herself with care for her meeting with you

last night. How did she appear at that interview? Natural?"

"Hardly; she was much too excited. But I had no suspicion of what she

was cherishing in her mind. I thought her intentions whimsical, and

endeavored to edge in a little advice, but she was in no mood to receive

it. Her mind was too full of what she intended to do.

"Here's where she ate her supper," he added, picking up a morsel of crust

from a table set against the wall. "And so this door was found fastened

on this side?" he proceeded, laying his hand on the broken lock.

"It had to be burst open, you see."

"And the window?"

"Was up. The carpet, as you can tell by look and feeling, is still wet

with the soaking it got."

Mr. Harper's air changed to one of reluctant conviction.

"The evidence seems conclusive of your wife having left this room and the

house in the remarkable manner stated by Miss Hazen. Yet--"

This _yet_ showed that he was not as thoroughly convinced as the first

phrase would show. But he added nothing to it; only stood listening,

apparently to the even breathing of the sleeper on the other side of this

loosely hanging door.

As he did so, his eye encountered the hot, dry gaze of Mr. Ransom, fixed

upon him in a suspense too cruel to prolong, and with a sudden change of

manner he moved from the door, saying significantly as he led the way

out:

"Let us have a word or two in your own room. It is a principle of mine

not to trust even the ears of the deaf with what it is desirable to keep

secret."

Had the glance with which he said this lingered a moment longer on his

companion's face, he would undoubtedly have been startled at the effect

of his own words. But being at heart a compassionate man, or possibly

understanding his new client much better than that client supposed, he

had turned quite away in crossing the threshold, and so missed the

conscious flash which for a moment replaced the somber and feverish

expression that had already aged by ten years the formerly open features

of this deeply grieved man.

Once in the hall, it was too dark to note further niceties of expression,

and by the time Mr. Ransom's room was reached, purpose and purpose only

remained visible in either face.

As they were crossing the threshold, the lawyer wheeled about and cast a

quick look behind him.

"I observe," said he, "that you have a full and unobstructed view from

here of the whole hall and of the two doors where our interest is

centered. I presume you kept a strict watch on both last night. You let

nothing escape you?"

"Nothing that one could see from this room."

With a thoughtful air, the lawyer swung to the door behind them. As it

latched, the face of Mr. Ransom sharpened. He even put out a hand and

rested it on a table standing near, as if to support himself in

anticipation of what the lawyer would say now that they were again

closeted together.

Mr. Harper was not without his reasons for a corresponding agitation, but

he naturally controlled himself better, and it was with almost a judicial

air that he made this long-expected but long-deferred suggestion:

"You had better tell me now, and as explicitly as possible, just what is

in your mind. It will prevent all misunderstanding between us, as well as

any injudicious move on my part."

Mr. Ransom hesitated, leaning hard on the table; then, with a sudden

burst, he exclaimed:

"It sounds like folly, and you may think that my troubles have driven me

mad. But I have a feeling here--a feeling without any reason or proof to

back it--that the woman now sleeping off her exhaustion in Anitra's room

is the woman I courted and married--Georgian Hazen, now Georgian Ransom,

my wife."

"Good! I have made no mistake. That is my thought, too," responded the

lawyer.

CHAPTER XV

ANITRA

A few minutes later they were discussing this amazing possibility.

"I have no reason for this conclusion,--this hope," admitted Mr. Ransom.

"It is instinct with me, an intuition, and not the result of my judgment.

It came to me when she first addressed me down by the mill-stream. If you

consider me either wrong or misled, I confess that I shall not be able to

combat your decision with any argument plausible enough to hold your

attention for a moment."

"But I don't consider you either wrong or misled," protested the other.

"That is," he warily added, "I am ready to accept the correctness of the

possibility you mention and afterwards to note where the supposition will

lead us. Of course, your first sensation is that of relief."

"It will be when I am no longer the prey of doubts."

"Notwithstanding the mystery?"

"Notwithstanding the mystery. The one thing I have found it impossible to

contemplate is her death;--the extinction of all hope which death alone

can bring. She has become so blended with my every thought since the hour

she vanished from my eyes and consequently from my protection, that I

should lose the better part of my self in losing her. Anything but that,

Mr. Harper."

"Even possible shame?"

"How, shame?"

"Some reason very strong and very vital must underlie her conduct if what

we suspect is true, and she has not only been willing to subject you and

herself to a seeming separation by death, but to burden herself with the

additional misery of being obliged to assume a personality cumbered by

such a drawback to happiness and even common social intercourse as this

of the supposed Anitra."

"You mean her deafness?"

"I mean that, yes. What could Mrs. Ransom's motive be (if the woman

sleeping yonder is Mrs. Ransom) for so tremendous a sacrifice as this you

ascribe to her? The rescue of her sister from some impending calamity?

That would argue a love of long standing and of superhuman force; one far

transcending even her natural affection for the husband to whom she has

just given her hand. Such a love under such circumstances is not

possible. She has known this long lost sister for a few days only. Her

sense of duty towards her, even her compassion for one so unfortunate,

might lead her to risk much, but not so much as that. You must look for

some other explanation; one more reasonable and much more personal."

"Where? where? I'm all at sea; blinded, dazed, almost at my wits' end. I

can see no reason for anything she has done. I neither understand her nor

understand myself. I ought to shrink from the poor creature there,

sleeping off--I don't know what. But I don't. I feel drawn to her,

instead, irresistibly drawn, as if my place were at her bedside to

comfort and protect."

At this impulsive assertion springing from a depth of feeling for which

the staid lawyer had no measure, a perplexed frown chased all the

urbanity from his face. Some thought, not altogether welcome, had come to

disturb him. He eyed Mr. Ransom closely from under his clouded brows. He

could do this now with impunity, for Mr. Ransom's glances were turned

whither his thoughts and inclinations had wandered.

"I would advise you," came in slow comment from the watchful lawyer, "not

to be too certain of your conclusions till doubt becomes an absolute

impossibility. Instinct is a good thing but it must never be regarded as

infallible. It may be proved that it is your wife who has fled, after

all. In which case it would be a great mistake to put any faith in this

gipsy girl, Anitra."

Mr. Ransom's face hardened; his eyes did not leave the direction in which

they were set.

"I will remember," said he.

His companion did not appear satisfied, and continued emphatically:

"Whether the woman now here is Mrs. Ransom or her wild and irresponsible

sister, she is a person of dangerous will and one not to be lightly

regarded nor carelessly dealt with. Pray consider this, Mr. Ransom, and

do not allow impulse to supersede judgment. If you will take my advice--"

"Speak."

"I should treat her as if she were the woman she calls herself, or, at

least, as if you thought her so. Nothing--" this word he repeated as he

noted the incredulity with which the other listened--"would be so likely

to make her betray herself as that."

"Let us go back and listen again at her door," was Mr. Ransom's emphatic

but inconsequent reply.

The lawyer desisted from further advice, but sighed as he followed his

new client into the hall. At the turn of the staircase they were stopped

by the sound of wrangling voices in the office below. Mr. Harper heard

his name mentioned and hastened to interfere. Assuring Mr. Ransom of his

speedy return, he stepped down-stairs, and in a few minutes reappeared

with a middle-aged man of characteristic appearance, whom he introduced

to Mr. Ransom as Mr. Goodenough. The sight of the uncouth head of their

youthful acquaintance of the morning peering up after him from the foot

of the stairs was warranty sufficient that this was the man who had met

the strange young lady on the highway early that morning.

At sight of him Mr. Ransom felt that inner recoil which we all experience

at the prospect of an immediate and definite termination of a long

brooding doubt. In another instant and with one word this uncultured and

hitherto unknown man would settle for him the greatest question of his

life. And he did not feel prepared for it. He had an impulse almost of

flight, as if in this way he could escape a certainty he feared. What

certainty? Perhaps he could not have answered had he been asked. His mind

was in a turmoil. He had feelings--instincts; that was all.

The lawyer, noting his condition, undertook the leadership of affairs.

Beckoning Mr. Goodenough into Mr. Ransom's room, he softly closed the

door upon the many inquiring ears about, and, assuming the manner most

likely to encourage the unsophisticated but straightforward looking man

with whom he had to deal, quietly observed:

"We hear that you met this morning a young girl going towards the Ferry.

There is great reason why we should know just how this young girl looks.

A lady disappeared from here last night, and though, from a letter she

left behind her, we have every reason to believe that her body is

somewhere in the river, yet we don't want to overlook the possibility

of her having escaped alive in another direction. Can you describe the

person you saw?"

"Wa'al, I'm not much good at talk," was the embarrassed, almost halting

reply. "I saw the gal and I remember just how she looked, but I couldn't

put it into words to save my soul. She was pretty and chipper and walked

along as if she was part of the mornin'; but that don't tell you much,

does it? Yet I don't know what else to say. P'raps you could help me

by asking questions."

"We'll see. Was she light-complexioned? Yellow hair, you know, and blue

eyes?"

"No; I don't think she was. Not what I call light. My Sal's light; this

gal wasn't like my Sal."

"Dark, then, very dark, with a gipsy color and snapping black eyes?"

"No, not that either. What I should call betweens. But more dark than

light."

Harper flashed a glance at Ransom before putting his next question.

"What did she have on her head?"

"Bless me if I can tell! It wasn't a sun-bonnet, nor was it slapped all

over with ribbons and flowers like my darter's."

"But she had some sort of hat on?"

"Sartain. Did you think she was just running to the neighbors?"

"But she wore no coat?"

"I don't remember any coat."

"Do you remember her frock?"

"No, not exactly."

"Don't you remember its color?"

"No."

"Wasn't it black? the skirt of it, at least?"

"Black? Wa'al, I guess not. A gal of her age in black! No, she was as

bright as the flowers in my wife's garden. Not a black thing on her. I

should sooner think her clothes were red than black."

Harper showed his surprise.

"Not a black skirt?" he persisted.

"No, sir'ee. I haven't much eye for fixin's but I've eye enough to know

when a gal's dressed like a gal and not like some old woman."

Harper's eye stole again towards Ransom.

"Checkmate in four moves," he muttered. "The person we are interested in

could have worn no such clothing as Mr. Goodenough describes. Yet

clothing can be changed. How, I cannot see in this instance; but I will

risk no mistake. The trail we followed led too surely in the direction of

the highway for us to drop all inquiries because of a colored skirt and a

hat we cannot quite account for. If the face is one we know (and I

really believe it was), we can leave the other discrepancies to future

explanation." And turning back to the patient countryman, he composedly

remarked: "You are positive in your recollections of the young lady's

features. You would have no difficulty in recognizing her if you saw her

again?"

"Not a bit. Once I get a picter in my mind of a man or a woman I see it

always. And I can see her as plain as plain the moment I stop to think.

She was pretty, you see, and just a little scared to speak to a stranger.

But that went as she saw my face, and she asked me very perlite if she

was on the right road to the Ferry."