step still more reluctantly than before.
I trembled. Outrageous as it may seem, I wished at this moment that
honor and dignity would allow me to call her back and question her as
to the motive and meaning of her extraordinary conduct. For the thought
had suddenly struck me that she might be a messenger--a most unworthy
and humiliating one it is true,--and yet in some sort of a way a
messenger, and my curiosity rose just in proportion as my pride
rebelled.
Anice, who was not lacking in wit, evidently felt, if she could not
see, the struggle she had awakened in my mind, for she turned and gave
me a look I no longer had the courage to resent.
"It is only something I overheard Mr. Guy say to his brother," she
faltered, opening and shutting her parasol with a nervous hand; then,
as I let my hair suddenly fall from my grasp, in the rush of relief I
felt, blurted out: "You have beautiful hair, miss; I don't wonder Mr.
Guy should say, 'One of us two must marry that girl,'" and was gone
like a flash from the room, leaving me in a state that bordered on
stupefaction.
This incident, so suggestive, and, alas! so degrading to my
self-esteem, produced a deep and painful effect on my mind. For hours I
could not rid my ears of that final sentence: "One of us two must marry
that girl." Nor could the events that speedily followed quite remove
from my mind and heart the sting which this knowledge of the Pollards'
base calculation and diplomacy had implanted. It had one favorable
consequence, however. It nerved me to carry out the expedition I had
planned, and gave to my somewhat failing purpose a heart of steel.
The old mill to which I have twice carried you, and to which I must
carry you again, was, as I have already said, a dilapidated and
much-dismantled structure. Though its walls were intact, many of its
staircases were rotten, while its flooring was, as I knew, heavily
broken away in spots, making it a dangerous task to walk about its
passage-ways, or even to enter the large and solitary rooms which once
shook to the whirr and hum of machinery.
But it was not from such dangers as these I recoiled. If Heaven would
but protect me from discovery and the possible intrusion of unwelcome
visitants, I would willingly face the peril of a fall even in a place
so lonesome and remote. Indeed, my one source of gratitude as I sped
through the streets that morning lay in the fact, I was so little known
in S----, I could pass and re-pass without awakening too much comment,
especially when I wore a close veil, as I did on this occasion.
Rhoda Colwell's house lay in my way. I took especial pains not to go by
it, great as the relief would have been to know she was at home and not
wandering the streets in the garb and character of the idiot boy.
Though I felt I could not be deceived as to her identity, the mere
thought of meeting her, with that mock smile of imbecility upon her
lip, filled me with a dismay that made my walk any thing but agreeable.
It was consequently a positive relief when the entrance to the mill
broke upon my view, and I found myself at my journey's end unwatched
and unfollowed; nor could the unpromising nature of my task quite dash
the spirit with which I began my search.
My first efforts were in a room which had undoubtedly been used as an
office. But upon inspecting the floor I found it firm, and, convinced I
should have to go farther for what I was seeking, I hastily passed into
the next room. This was of much larger dimensions, and here I paused
longer, for more than one board tilted as I passed over it, and not a
few of them were loose and could be shifted aside by a little extra
exertion of strength. But, though I investigated every board that
rocked under my step, I discovered nothing beneath them but the dust
and _debris_ of years, and so was forced to leave this room as I had
the other, without gaining any thing beyond a sense of hopelessness and
the prospect of a weary back. And so on and on I went for an hour, and
was beginning to realize the giant nature of my undertaking, when a
sudden low sound of running water broke upon my ears, and going to one
of the many windows that opened before me, I looked out and found I was
at the very back of the mill, and in full sight of the dark and sullen
stream that in times of yore used to feed the great wheel and run the
machinery. Consequently I was in the last room upon the ground-floor,
and, what struck me still more forcibly, near, if not directly over,
that huge vat in the cellar which had served so fatal a purpose only a
few short days before.
The sight of a flight of stairs descending at my right into the hollow
darkness beneath intensified my emotion. I seemed to be in direct
communication with that scene of death; and the thought struck me that
here, if anywhere in the whole building, must be found the mysterious
hiding-place for which I was in search.
It was therefore with extra care that I directed my glances along the
uneven flooring, and I was scarcely surprised when, after a short
examination of the various loose boards that rattled beneath me, I
discovered one that could be shifted without difficulty. But scarcely
had I stooped to raise it when an emotion of fear seized me, and I
started back alert and listening, though I was unconscious of having
heard any thing more than the ordinary swash of the water beneath the
windows and the beating of my own overtaxed heart. An instant's
hearkening gave me the reassurance I needed, and convinced that I had
alarmed myself unnecessarily, I bent again over the board, and this
time succeeded in moving it aside. A long, black garment, smoothly
spread out to its full extent, instantly met my eye. The words of Rhoda
Colwell were true; the mill did contain certain articles of clothing
concealed within it.
I do not know what I expected when, a few minutes later, I pulled the
garment out of the hole in which it lay buried, and spread it out
before me. Not what I discovered, I am sure; for when I had given it a
glance, and found it was nothing more nor less than a domino, such as
is worn by masqueraders, I experienced a shock that the mask, which
fell out of its folds, scarcely served to allay. It was like the
introduction of farce into a terrible tragedy; and as I stood in a maze
and surveyed the garment before me till its black outline swam before
my eyes, I remember thinking of the effect which had been produced, at
a certain trial I had heard of, by the prisoner suddenly bursting into
a laugh when the sentence of death was pronounced. But presently this
feeling of incongruity gave way to one of hideous dread. If Dwight
Pollard could explain the presence of a domino and mask in this spot,
then what sort of a man was Dwight Pollard, and what sort of a crime
could it have been that needed for its perpetration such adjuncts as
these? The highwaymen of olden time, with their "Stand and deliver!"
seemed out of place in this quiet New England town; nor was the
character of any of the parties involved, of a nature to make the
association of this masquerade gear with the tragedy gone by seem
either possible or even probable. And yet, there they lay; and not all
my wonder, nor all the speculations which their presence evoked, would
serve to blot them from the floor or explain the mystery of which they
were the sign and seal.
So impressed was I at last by this thought that I broke the spell which
bound me, and began to restore the articles to their place. I was just
engaged in throwing the mask into the hole, when the low but
unmistakable sound of an approaching foot-fall broke upon my ears,
startling me more than a thunder-clap would have done, and filling me
with a fear that almost paralyzed my movements. I controlled myself,
however, and hastily pulled the board back to its place, after which I
frantically looked about me for some means of concealment or escape. I
found but one. The staircase which ran down to the cellar was but a few
feet off, and if I could summon courage to make use of it, would lead
to a place of comparative safety. But the darkness of that spot seemed
worse than the light of this, and I stood hesitating on the brink of
the staircase till the footsteps drew so near I dared not linger
longer, and plunged below with such desperate haste, I wonder I did not
trip and fall headlong to the cellar-floor. I did not, however, nor do
I seem to have made any special noise, for the footsteps above did not
hasten. I had, therefore, the satisfaction of feeling myself saved from
what might have been a very special danger, and was moving slowly away,
when the fascination which all horrible objects exert upon the human
soul seized me with a power I could not resist, and I turned slowly but
irresistibly towards the corner where I knew the fatal vat to be.
One glimpse and I would have fled; but just at the instant I turned I
heard a sound overhead that sent the current of my thoughts in a fresh
direction, and lent to my failing courage a renewed strength which made
flight at that moment seem nothing more nor less than an impulse of
cowardice. This was nothing more nor less than a faint creaking, such
as had followed my own lifting of the board which hid the domino and
mask; a noise that was speedily followed by one yet more distinct and
of a nature to convince me beyond a doubt that my own action was being
repeated by some unknown hand. Whose? Curiosity, love, honor, every
impulse of my being impelled me to find out. I moved like a spirit
towards the stairs. I placed my foot on one step, and then on another,
mounting in silence and without a fear, so intent was I upon the
discovery which now absorbed me. But just as I reached the top, just
when another movement would lift my head above the level of the floor,
I paused, realizing as in a flash what the consequences might be if the
intruder should prove to be another than Rhoda Colwell, and should have
not his back but his face turned towards the place where I stood. The
sounds I heard, feeble as they were, did not seem to indicate the
presence of a woman, and in another instant a low exclamation,
smothered in the throat almost before it was uttered, assured me that
it was a man who stood not six feet from me, handling the objects which
I had been told were in some way connected with a murder which I was by
every instinct of honor bound to discover, if not avenge.
A man! and ah, he was so quiet, so careful! I could not even guess what
he was doing, much less determine his identity, by listening. I had a
conviction that he was taking the articles out of their place of
concealment, but I could not be sure; and in a matter like this,
certainty was indispensable. I resolved to risk all, and took another
step, clinging dizzily to the first support that offered. It was well I
had the presence of mind to do this, or I might have had a serious
fall. For no sooner had I raised my head above the level of the floor
than my eyes fell upon the well-known form of him I desired least of
all men to see in this place--my lover, if you may call him so--Dwight
Pollard.
XII.
DWIGHT POLLARD.
Oh, 'tis too true! how smart
A lash that speech doth give my conscience!
--HAMLET.
He was standing with his back to me, and to all appearance was
unconscious that he was under the surveillance of any eye. I had thus a
moment in which to collect my energies and subdue my emotions; and I
availed myself of it to such good purpose that by the time he had put
the board back into its place I was ready to face him. He did not turn
round, however; so, after a moment of silent suspense, I mounted the
last stair, and thinking of nothing, hoping for nothing, wishing for
nothing, stood waiting, with my eyes fixed on the domino he was now
rapidly folding into smaller compass.
And thus I stood, like a pallid automaton, when the instant came for
him to change his position, and he saw me. The cry that rose to his
lips but did not escape them, the reel which his figure gave before it
stiffened into marble, testified to the shock he had received, and also
to the sense of unreality with which my appearance in this wise must
have impressed him. His look, his attitude were those of a man gazing
upon a spectre, and as I met his glance with mine, I was conscious of a
feeling of unreality myself, as if the whole occurrence were a dream,
and he and I but shadows which another moment would dissolve.
But alas! this was no more a dream than were the other strange and
tragic events which had gone before; and in an instant we both knew it,
and were standing face to face with wretched inquiry in the looks we
fixed upon each other across the domino which had fallen from his
hands. He was the first to speak.
"Miss Sterling!" he exclaimed, in a light tone, cruelly belied by the
trembling lips from which it issued, "by what fortunate chance do I see
you again, and in a place I should have thought to be the last you
would be likely to visit?"
"By the same chance," I rejoined, "which appears to have brought you
here. The desire to make sure if what I heard about the mill having
been used as a secreting place for certain mysterious articles, was
true." And I pointed to the mask and domino lying at my feet.
His eye, which had followed the direction of my finger, grew dark and
troubled.
"Then it was your hand--" he impetuously began.
"Which disturbed these garments before you? Yes. And I shall make no
apology for the action," I continued, "since it was done in the hope of
proving false certain insinuations which had been made to me in your
regard."
"Insinuations?" he repeated.
"Yes," I declared, in an agony between my longing to hear him vindicate
himself and the desire to be true to the obligations I was under to Ada
Reynolds. "Insinuations of the worst, the most terrible, character."
Then, as I saw him fall back, stricken in something more than his
pride, I hastened to inquire: "Have you an enemy in town, Mr. Pollard?"
He composed himself with a start, looked at me fixedly, and replied in
what struck me as a strange tone even for such an occasion as this:
"Perhaps."
"One who out of revenge," I proceeded, "might be induced to attach your
name to suspicions calculated to rob you of honor, if not life?"
"Perhaps," he again returned; but this time with a fierceness that
almost made me recoil, though I knew it was directed against some one
besides myself.
"Then it may be," I said, "that you have but to speak to relieve my
mind of the heaviest weight which has ever fallen upon it. These
articles," I pursued, "have they, or have they not, any connection with
the tragedy which makes the place in which we stand memorable?"
"I cannot answer you, Miss Sterling."
"Cannot answer me?"
"Cannot answer you," he reiterated, turning haggard about the eyes and
lips.
"Then," I brokenly rejoined, "I had better leave this place; I do not
see what more I have to do or say here."
"O God!" he cried, detaining me with a gesture full of agony and doubt.
"Do not leave me so; let me think. Let me weigh the situation and see
where I stand, in your eyes at least. Tell me what my enemy has said!"
he demanded, his face, his very form, flashing with a terrible rage
that seemed to have as much indignation as fear in it.
"Your enemy," I replied, in the steady voice of despair, "accuses you
in so many words--of murder."
I expected to see him recoil, burst forth into cursing or frenzied
declamation, by which men betray their inward consternation and
remorse; but he did none of these things. Instead of that he laughed; a
hideous laugh that seemed to shake the rafters above us and echoed in
and out of the caverned recesses beneath.
"Accuses _me_?" he muttered; and it is not in language to express the
scorn he infused into the words.
Stunned, and scarcely knowing what to think, I gazed at him helplessly.
He seemed to feel my glance, for, after a moment's contemplation of my
face, his manner suddenly changed, and bowing with a grim politeness
full of sarcasm, he asked:
"And when did you see my enemy and hold this precious conversation in
which _I_ was accused of murder?"
"Yesterday afternoon," I answered. "During the time of your mother's
funeral," I subjoined, startled by the look of stupefaction which
crossed his face at my words.
"I don't understand you," he murmured, sweeping his hand in a dazed way
over his brow. "You saw him then? Spoke to him? Impossible!"
"It is not a man to whom I allude," I returned, almost as much agitated
as himself. "It is a woman who is your accuser, a woman who seems to
feel she has a right to make you suffer, possibly because she has
suffered so much herself."
"A woman!" was all he said; "a woman!" turning pale enough now, God
knows.
"Have you no enemies among the women?" I asked, wearied to the soul
with the position in which my cruel fate had forced me.
"I begin to think I have," he answered, giving me a look that somehow
broke down the barriers of ice between us and made my next words come
in a faltering tone:
"And could you stop to bestow a thought upon a man while a woman held
your secret? Did you think our sex was so long-suffering, or this
special woman so generous----"
I did not go on, for he had leaped the gap which separated us and had
me gently but firmly by the arm.
"Of whom are you speaking?" he demanded. "What woman has my secret--if
secret I have? Let me hear her name, now, at once."
"Is it possible," I murmured, "that you do not know?"
"The name! the name!" he reiterated, his eyes ablaze, his hand shaking
where it grasped my arm.
"Rhoda Colwell," I returned, looking him steadily in the eye.
"Impossible!" his lips seemed to breathe, and his clasp slowly unloosed
from my arm like a ring of ice which melts away. "Rhoda Colwell! Good
God!" he exclaimed, and staggered back with ever-growing wonder and
alarm till half the room lay between us.
"I am not surprised at your emotion," I said; "she is a dangerous
woman."
He looked at me with dull eyes; he did not seem to hear what I said.
"How can it be?" he muttered; and his glance took a furtive aspect as
it travelled slowly round the room and finally settled upon the mask
and domino at my feet. "Was it she who told you where to look for
those?" he suddenly queried in an almost violent tone.
I bowed; I had no wish to speak.
"She is an imp, a witch, an emissary of the Evil One," he vehemently
declared; and turned away, murmuring, as it seemed to me, those sacred
words of Scripture, "Be sure your sin find you out."
I felt the sobs rise in my throat. I could bear but little more. To
recover myself, I looked away from him, even passed to a window and
gazed out. Any thing but the sight of this humiliation in one who could
easily have been my idol. I was therefore standing with my back to him
when he finally approached, and touching me with the tip of his finger,
calmly remarked;
"I did not know you were acquainted with Miss Colwell."
"Nor was I till yesterday," I rejoined. "Fate made us know each other
at one interview, if could be said to ever know such a woman as she is."
"Fate is to blame for much; is it also to blame for the fact that you
sought her? Or did she seek you?"
"I sought her," I said; and, not seeing any better road to a proper
explanation of my conduct than the truth, I told him in a few words of
the notice I had seen posted upon the mill, and of how I had afterwards
surprised Rhoda Colwell there, and what the conclusions were which I
had thereby drawn; though, from some motive of delicacy I do not yet
understand, I refrained from saying any thing about her disguise, and
left him to infer that it was in her own proper person I had seen her.
He seemed to be both wonder-stricken and moved by the recital, and did
not rest till he had won from me the double fact that Rhoda Colwell
evidently knew much more than she revealed, while I, on the contrary,
knew much less. The latter discovery seemed to greatly gratify him, and
while his brow lost none of the look of heavy anxiety which had settled
upon it with the introduction of this woman's name into our colloquy, I
noticed that his voice was lighter, and that he surveyed me with less
distrust and possibly with less fear. His next words showed the
direction his thoughts were taking.
"You have shown an interest in my fate, Miss Sterling, in spite of the
many reasons you had for thinking it a degraded one, and for this I
thank you with all my heart. Will you prove your womanliness still
further by clinging to the belief which I have endeavored to force upon
you, that notwithstanding all you have heard and seen, I stand in no
wise amenable to the law, neither have I uttered, in your hearing at
least, aught but the truth in regard to this whole matter?"
"And you can swear this to me?" I uttered, joyfully.
"By my father's grave, if you desire it," he returned.
A flood of hope rushed through my heart. I was but a weak woman, and
his voice and look at that moment would have affected the coldest
nature.
"I am bound to believe you," I said; "though there is much I do not
understand--much which you ought to explain if you wish to disabuse my
mind of all doubt in your regard. I would be laying claim to a cynicism
I do not possess, if I did not trust your words just so far as you will
allow me. But----" And I must have assumed an air of severity, for I
saw his head droop lower and lower as I gazed at him and forbore to
finish my sentence.
"But you believe I am a villain," he stammered.
"I would fain believe you to be the best and noblest of men," I
answered, pointedly.
He lifted his head, and the flush of a new emotion swept over his face.
"Why did I not meet you two years ago?" he cried.
The tone was so bitter, the regret expressed so unutterable, I could
not help my heart sinking again with the weight of fresh doubt which it
brought.
"Would it have been better for me if you had?" I inquired. "Is the
integrity which is dependent upon one's happiness, or the sympathy of
friends, one that a woman can trust to under all circumstances of
temptation or trial?"
"I do not know," he muttered. "I think it would stand firm with you for
its safeguard and shield." Then, as he saw me draw back with an
assumption of coldness I was far from feeling, added gently: "But it
was not you, but Rhoda Colwell, I met two years ago, and I know you too
well, appreciate you too well, to lay aught but my sincerest homage at
your feet, in the hope that, whatever I may have been in the past, the
future shall prove me to be not unworthy of your sympathy, and possibly
of your regard."
And, as if he felt the stress of the interview becoming almost too
great for even his strength, he turned away from me and began gathering
up the toggery that lay upon the floor.
"These must not remain here," he observed, bitterly.
But I, drawn this way and that by the most contradictory emotions, felt
that all had not been said which should be in this important and
possibly final interview. Accordingly, smothering personal feeling and
steeling myself to look only at my duty, I advanced to his side, and,
indicating with a gesture the garments he was now rolling up into a
compact mass, remarked:
"This may or may not involve you in some unpleasantness. Rhoda Colwell,
who evidently attaches much importance to her discoveries, is not the
woman to keep silent in their regard. If she speaks and forces me to
speak, I must own the truth, Mr. Pollard. Neither sympathy nor regard
could hold me back; for my honor is pledged to the cause of Mr.
Barrows, and not even the wreck of my own happiness could deter me from
revealing any thing that would explain his death or exonerate his
memory. I wish you to understand this. God grant I may never be called
upon to speak!"
It was a threat, a warning, or a danger for which he was wholly
unprepared. He stared at me for a moment from his lowly position on the
floor, then slowly rose and mechanically put his hand to his throat, as
if he felt himself choking.
"I thank you for your frankness," he murmured, in almost inaudible
tones. "It is no more than I ought to have expected; and yet--" He
turned abruptly away. "I am evidently in a worse situation than I
imagined," he continued, after a momentary pacing of the floor. "I
thought only my position in your eyes was assailed; I see now that I
may have to defend myself before the world." And, with a sudden change
that was almost alarming, he asked if Rhoda Colwell had intimated in
any way the source of whatever information she professed to have.