as he turned his face toward the front of the building, and cried, in a
suppressed tone, full of ire and menace:
"It could have come but in one way; I am to be made a victim if----" He
turned upon me with a wild look in which there was something personal.
"Are you worth the penalty which my good name must suffer?" he
violently cried. "For I swear that to you and you only I owe the
position in which I now stand!"
"God help me then!" I murmured, dazed and confounded by this unexpected
reproach.
"Had you been less beautiful, less alluring in your dignity and grace,
my brother----" He paused and bit his lip. "Enough!" he cried. "I had
wellnigh forgotten that generosity and forbearance are to actuate my
movements in the future. I beg your pardon--and his!" he added, with
deep and bitter sarcasm, under his breath.
This allusion to Guy, unpleasant and shocking as it was, gave me a
peculiar sensation that was not unlike that of relief, while at the
same moment the glimpse of something, which I was fain to call a
revelation, visited my mind and led me impetuously to say:
"I hope you are not thinking of sacrificing yourself for another less
noble and less generous than yourself. If such is the clew to actions
which certainly have looked dubious till now, I pray that you will
reconsider your duty and not play the Don Quixote too far."
But Dwight Pollard, instead of accepting this explanation of his
conduct with the eagerness of a great relief, only shook his head and
declared:
"My brother--for I know who you mean, Miss Sterling--is no more
amenable to the law than myself. Neither of us were guilty of the
action that terminated Mr. Barrows' life."
"And yet," came in the strange and unexpected tones of a third person,
"can you say, in the presence of her you profess to respect and of me
whom you once professed to love, that either you or your brother are
guiltless of his death?" and turning simultaneously toward the doorway,
we saw gleaming in its heavy frame the vivid form and glittering eyes
of his most redoubtable enemy and mine--Rhoda Colwell.
He fell back before this apparition and appeared to lose his power of
speech. She advanced like an avenging Nemesis between us.
"Speak!" she vehemently exclaimed. "Are you--I say nothing of your
brother, who is nothing to me or to her--are _you_ guiltless, in the
sense in which she would regard guilt, of David Barrows' death?" And
her fierce eyes, shining through her half-closed lashes like lurid
fires partly veiled, burned upon his face, which, turning paler and
paler, drooped before her gaze till his chin settled upon his breast
and we could barely hear the words that fell from his lips:
"God knows I would not dare to say I am."
XIII.
GUY POLLARD.
I will tell you why.
--HAMLET.
There was a silence, then Dwight Pollard spoke again. "I have made a
confession which I never expected to hear pass my lips. She who has
forced it from me doubtless knows how much and how little it means. Let
her explain herself, then. I have no further business in this place."
And, without lifting his head or meeting the eye of either of us, he
strode past us towards the door.
But there he paused, for Rhoda Colwell's voice had risen in words that
must be answered.
"And where, then, have you business if not here? Do you not know I hold
your good name, if not your life, in my hands?"
"My good name," he slowly rejoined, without turning his head, "is
already lost in the eyes I most valued. As for my life, it stands in no
jeopardy. Would I could say the same for his!" was his fierce addition.
"His?" came from Rhoda Colwell's lips, in surprise. "His?" and with a
quick and subtle movement she glided to his side and seized him
imperatively by the arm. "Whom do you mean?" she asked.
He turned on her with a dark look.
"Whom do I mean?" he retorted. "Whom should I mean but the base and
unnatural wretch who, for purposes of his own, has made you the
arbitrator of my destiny and the avenger of my sin--my brother, my
vile, wicked brother, whom may Heaven----"
"Stop! Your brother has had nothing to do with this. Do you suppose I
would stoop to take information from him? What I know I know because my
eyes have seen it, Dwight Pollard! And now, what do you think of the
clutch I hold upon your life?" and she held out those two milk-white
hands of hers with a smile such as I hope never to see on mortal face
again.
He looked at them, then at her, and drew back speechless. She burst
into a low but ringing laugh of immeasurable triumph.
"And you thought such a blow as this could come _from a man_! Dullard
and fool you must be, Dwight Pollard, or else you have never known
_me_. Why should he risk his honor and his safety in an action as
dangerous to him as ungrateful to you? Because he admires _her_? Guy
Pollard is not so loving. But I--I whom you taught to be a woman, only
to fling aside like a weed--Ah, that is another thing! Reason for
waiting and watching here; reason for denouncing, when the time came,
the man who could take advantage of another man's fears! Ah, you see I
know what I am talking about."'
"Speak!" he gasped. "How do you know? You say you saw. How could you
see? Where were you, demon and witch in one?"
She smiled, not as before, but yet with a sense of power that only the
evil glitter of her sidelong eye kept from making her wholly adorable.
"Will you come into the cellar below?" said she. "Or stay; that may be
asking too much. A glance from one of these windows will do." And
moving rapidly across the room, she threw up one of the broken sashes
before her, and pointed to a stunted tree that grew up close against
the wall. "Do you see that limb?" she inquired, indicating one that
branched put towards a window we could faintly see defined beneath. "A
demon or a witch might sit there for a half-hour and see, without so
much as craning her neck, all that went on in the cellar below. That
the leaves are thick, and, to those within, apparently hang like a
curtain between them and the outer world, would make no difference to a
demon's eyes, you know. Such folk can see where black walls intervene;
how much more when only a fluttering screen like that shuts off the
view." And, drawing back, she looked into his dazed face, and then into
mine, as though she would ask: "Have I convinced you that I am a woman
to be feared?"
His white cheek seemed to answer Yes, but his eyes, when he raised
them, did not quail before her mocking glance, though I thought they
drooped a little when, in another moment, they flashed in my direction.
"Miss Sterling," he inquired, "do you understand what Miss Colwell has
been saying?"
I shook my head and faltered back. I had only one wish, and that was to
be effaced from this spot of misery.
He turned again to her.
"Do you intend to explain yourself further?" he demanded.
She did not answer; her look and her attention were fixed upon me.
"You are not quite convinced he is all that I have declared him to be?"
she said, moving towards me. "You want to know what I saw and whether
there is not some loophole by which you can escape from utterly
condemning him. Well, you shall have my story. I ask nothing more of
you than that." And with a quiet ignoring of his presence that was full
of contempt, she drew up to my side and calmly began: "You have seen me
in the streets in the garb of my brother?"
"Your brother?" cried a startled voice.
It was Dwight Pollard who spoke. He had sprung to her side and grasped
her fiercely by the wrist. It was a picture; all the more that neither
of them said any thing further, but stood so, surveying each other,
till he thought fit to drop her arm and draw back, when she quietly
went on as though no interruption had occurred.
"It was a convenient disguise, enabling me to do and learn many things.
It also made it possible for me to be out in the evening alone, and
allowed me to visit certain places where otherwise I should have been
any thing but welcome. It also satisfied a spirit of adventure which I
possess, and led to the experience which I am now about to relate. Miss
Sterling, my brother has one peculiarity. He can be intrusted to carry
a message, and forget it ten minutes after it is delivered. This being
generally known in town, I was not at all surprised when one evening,
as I was traversing a very dark street, I was met and accosted by a
muffled figure, who asked me if I would run to Mr. Barrows' house for
him. I was about to say No, when something in his general air and
manner deterred me, and I changed it into the half-laughing, half-eager
assent which my brother uses on such occasions. The man immediately
stooped to my ear and whispered:
"'Tell Mr. Barrows to come with all speed to the old mill. A man has
been thrown from his carriage and is dying there. He wants Mr. Barrows'
prayers and consolation. Can you remember?'
"I nodded my head and ran off. I was fearful, if I stayed, I would
betray myself; for the voice, with all its attempted disguise, was that
of Guy Pollard, and the man injured might for all I knew be his
brother. Before I reached Mr. Barrows' door, however, I began to have
my doubts. Something in the man's manner betrayed mystery, and as Guy
Pollard had never been a favorite of mine, I naturally gave to this any
thing but a favorable interpretation. I did not stop, though, because I
doubted. On the contrary, I pushed forward, for if there was a secret,
I must know it; and how could I learn it so readily or so well as by
following Mr. Barrows on his errand of mercy?
"The person who came to the door in answer to my summons was
fortunately Mr. Barrows himself; fortunately for me, that is; I cannot
say it was altogether fortunately for him. He had a little book in his
hand, and seemed disturbed when I gave him my message. He did not
hesitate, however. Being of an unsuspicious nature, he never dreamed
that all was not as I said, especially as he knew my brother well, and
was thoroughly acquainted with the exactness with which he always
executed an errand. But he did not want to go; that I saw clearly, and
laid it all to the little book; for he was the kindest man who ever
lived, and never was known to shirk a duty because it was unpleasant or
hard.
"I have said he knew my brother well. Remembering this when he came
down stairs again ready to accompany me, I assumed the wildest manner
in which my brother ever indulged, that I might have some excuse for
not remaining at his side while still accompanying him in his walk. The
consequence was that not a dozen words passed between us, and I had the
satisfaction of seeing him draw near the old mill in almost complete
forgetfulness of my proximity. This was what I wanted, for in the few
minutes I had to think, many curious surmises had risen in my mind, and
I wished to perform my little part in this adventure without hindrance
from his watchfulness or care.
"It was a very dark night, as you remember, Dwight Pollard, and it is
no wonder that neither he nor the man who came out of the doorway to
meet him saw the slight figure that crouched against the wall close by
the door they had to enter. And if they had seen it, what would they
have thought? That the idiot boy was only more freakish than usual, or
was waiting about for the dime which was the usual pay for his
services. Neither the clouds, nor the trees, nor the surrounding
darkness would have whispered that an eager woman's heart beat under
that boy's jacket, and that they had better trust the wind in its
sweep, the water in its rush, or the fire in its ravaging, than the
will that lay coiled behind the feebly moving lip and wandering,
restless eye of the seeming idiot who knelt there.
"So I was safe and for the moment could hear and see. And this was what
I saw: A tall and gentlemanly form, carrying a lantern which he took
pains should shine on Mr. Barrows' face and not on his own. The
expression of the former was, therefore, plain to me, and in it I read
something more than reluctance, something which I dimly felt to be
fear. His anxiety, however, did not seem to spring from his companion,
but from the building he was about to enter, for it was when he looked
up at its frowning walls and shadowy portal that I saw him shudder and
turn pale. They went in, however. Not without a question or two from
Mr. Barrows as to whom his guide was and where the sick man lay, to all
of which the other responded shortly or failed to respond at all, facts
which went far to convince me that a deception of some kind was being
practised upon the confiding clergyman.
"I was consequently in a fever of impatience to follow them in, and had
at last made up my mind to do so, when I heard a deep sigh, and
glancing up towards the doorway, saw that it was again occupied by the
dark figure which I had so lately seen pass in with Mr. Barrows. He had
no lantern now, and I could not even discern the full outlines of his
form, but his sigh being repeated, I knew who he was as certainly as if
I had seen him, for it was one which had often been breathed in my
ears, and was as well known to me as the beatings of my own heart. This
discovery, as you may believe, Miss Sterling, did not tend to allay
either my curiosity or my impatience, and when in a few minutes the
watcher drew back, I stole from my hiding-place, and creeping up to the
open doorway, listened. A sound of pacing steps came to my ears. The
entrance was guarded.
"For a moment I stood baffled, then remembering the lantern which had
been carried into the building, I withdrew quietly from the door, and
began a tour of inspection round about the mill in the hope of spying
some glimmer of light from one or more of the many windows, and in this
way learn the exact spot to which Mr. Barrows had been taken. It was a
task of no mean difficulty, Miss Sterling, for the bushes cluster thick
about those walls, and I had no light to warn me of their whereabouts
or of the many loose stones that lay in heaps here and there along the
way. But I would not have stopped if firebrands had been under my feet,
nor did I cease my exertions or lose my hope till I reached the back of
the mill and found it as dark as the side and front. Then indeed I did
begin to despair, for the place was so solitary and remote from
observation, I could not conceive of any better being found for
purposes that required secrecy or concealment. Yet the sombre walls
rose before me, dark and unrelieved against the sky; and nothing
remained for me but to press on to the broad west end and see if that
presented as unpromising an aspect as the rest.
"I accordingly recommenced my toilsome journey, rendered positively
dangerous now by the vicinity of the water and the steepness of the
banks that led down to it. But I did not go far, for as, in my
avoidance of the stream, I drew nearer and nearer the walls, I caught
glimpses of what I at first thought to be the flash of a fire-fly in
the bushes, but in another moment discovered to be the fitful glimmer
of a light through a window heavily masked with leaves. You can imagine
what followed from what I told you. How I climbed the tree, and seated
myself on the limb that ran along by the window, and pushing aside the
leaves, looked in upon the scene believed by those engaged in it to be
as absolutely unwitnessed as if it had taken place in the bowels of the
earth.
"And what did I see there, Miss Sterling? At first little. The light
within was so dim and the window itself so high from the floor, that
nothing save a moving shadow or two met my eye. But presently becoming
accustomed to the position, I discovered first that I was looking in on
a portion of the cellar, and next that three figures stood before me,
two of which I immediately recognized as those of Mr. Barrows and Guy
Pollard. But the third stood in shadow, and I did not know then, nor do
I know now, who it was, though I have my suspicions, incredible as they
may seem even to myself. Mr. Barrows, whose face was a study of
perplexity, if not horror, seemed to be talking. He was looking Guy
Pollard straight in the face when I first saw him, but presently I
perceived him turn and fix his eyes on that mysterious third figure
which he seemed to study for some signs of relenting. But evidently
without success, for I saw his eyes droop and his hands fall helplessly
to his side as if he felt that he had exhausted every argument, and
that nothing was left to him but silence.
"All this, considering the circumstances and the scene, was certainly
startling enough even to one of my nature and history, but when in a
few minutes later I saw Guy Pollard step forward, and seizing Mr.
Barrows by the hand, draw him forward to what seemed to be the verge of
a pit, I own that I felt as if I were seized by some deadly nightmare,
and had to turn myself away and look at the skies and trees for a
moment to make sure I was not the victim of a hallucination. When I
looked back they were still standing there, but a change had come over
Mr. Barrows' face. From being pale it had become ghastly, and his eyes,
fixed and fascinated, were gazing into those horrid depths, as if he
saw there the horrible fate which afterwards befell him. Suddenly he
drew back, covering his face with his hands, and I saw a look pass from
Guy Pollard to that watchful third figure, which, if it had not been on
the face of a gentleman, I should certainly call demoniacal. The next
instant the third figure stepped forward, and before I could move or
utter the scream that rose to my lips, Mr. Barrows had disappeared from
view in the horrid recesses of that black hole, and only Guy Pollard
and that other mysterious one, who I now saw wore a heavy black domino
and mask, remained standing on its dark verge.
"A cry, so smothered that it scarcely came to my ears, rose for an
instant from the pit, then I saw Guy Pollard stoop forward and put what
seemed to be a question to the victim below. From the nature of the
smile that crossed his lip as he drew back, I judged it had not been
answered satisfactorily; and was made yet more sure of this when the
third person, stooping, took up the light, and beckoning to Guy
Pollard, began to walk away. Yes, Miss Sterling, I am telling no goblin
tale, as you can see if you will cast your eyes on our companion over
there. They walked away, and the light grew dimmer and dimmer and the
sense of horror deeper and deeper, till a sudden cry, rising shrill
enough now from that deadly hole, drew the two conspirators slowly back
to stand again upon its fatal brink, and, as it seemed to me, propound
again that question, for answer to which they appeared ready to barter
their honor, if not their souls.
"And this time they got it. The decisive gesture of the masked figure,
and the speed with which Guy Pollard disappeared from the spot,
testified that the knowledge they wanted was theirs, and that only some
sort of action remained to be performed. What that action was I could
not imagine, for, though Mr. Pollard carried away the lantern, the
masked figure had remained.
"Meantime darkness was ours; a terrible darkness, as you may imagine,
Miss Sterling, in which it was impossible not to wait for a repetition
of that smothered cry from the depths of this unknown horror. But it
did not come; and amid a silence awful as the grave, the minutes went
by till at last, to my great relief, the light appeared once more in
the far recesses of the cellar, and came twinkling on till it reached
the masked figure, which, to all appearance, had not moved hand or foot
since it went away.
"Miss Sterling, you have doubtless consoled yourself during this
narration with the thought that the evil which I had seen done had been
the work of Guy and a person who need not necessarily have been our
friend here. But I must shatter whatever satisfaction you may have
derived from the possible absence of Dwight Pollard from this scene, by
saying that when the lantern paused and I had the opportunity to see
who carried it, I found that it was no longer in the hand of the
younger brother, but had been transferred to that of Dwight, and that
he, not Guy, now stood in the cellar before me.
"As I realize that we are not alone, I will not dilate upon his
appearance, much as it struck me at the time. I will merely say he
offered a contrast to Guy, who, if I may speak so plainly in this
presence, had seemed much at home in the task he had set himself,
uncongenial as one might consider it to the usual instincts and habits
of a gentleman. But Dwight--you see I can be just, Miss
Sterling--looked anxious and out of place; and, instead of seeming to
be prepared for the situation, turned and peered anxiously about him,
as if in search of the clergyman he expected to find standing somewhere
on this spot. His surprise and horror when the masked figure pointed to
the pit were evident, Miss Sterling; but it was a surprise and a horror
that immediately settled into resignation, if not apathy; and after his
first glance and shuddering start in that direction he did not stir
again, but stood quite like a statue while the masked figure spoke, and
when he did move it was to return the way he had come, without a look
or a gesture toward the sombre hole where so much that was manly and
kind lay sunk in a darkness that must have seemed to that sensitive
nature the prototype of his grave."
"And is that all, Miss Colwell?" came with a strange intonation from
Dwight Pollard's lips, as she paused, with a triumphant look in my
direction.
"It is all I have to tell," was the reply; and it struck me that her
tone was as peculiar as his. "Minutes, seconds even, spent under such
circumstances, seem like hours; and after a spell of what appeared an
interminable waiting, I allowed myself to be overcome by the disquiet
and terror of my situation, and dropping from my perch, crept home."
"You should have stayed another hour," he dryly observed. "I wonder at
an impatience you had never manifested till then."
"Do you?"
The meaning with which she said this, the gesture with which she gave
it weight, struck us both aback.
"Woman!" he thundered, coming near to her with the mingled daring and
repugnance with which one advances to crush a snake, "do you mean to
say that you are going to publish this much of your story and publish
no more? That you will tell the world this and not tell----"
"What I did not see?" she interpolated, looking him straight in the eye
as might the serpent to which I have compared her.
"Good God!" was his horrified exclamation; "and yet you know----"
"Pardon me," her voice broke in again. "You have heard what I know,"
and she bowed with such an inimitable and mocking grace, and yet with
such an air of sinister resolve, that he stood like one fascinated, and
let her move away towards the door without seeking by word or look to
stop her. "I hold you tight, you see," were her parting words to him as
she paused just upon the threshold to give us a last and scornful look.
"So tight," she added, shaking her close-shut hand, "that I doubt if
even your life could escape should I choose to remember in court what I
have remembered before you two here to-day."
"And forget----" he began.
"And forget," she repeated, "what might defeat the ends of that justice
which demands a life for the one so wantonly sacrificed in the vat
whose hideous depths now open almost under your feet." And, having said
these words, she turned to go, when, looking up, she found her passage
barred by the dark form of Guy Pollard, who, standing in the doorway
with his hands upon either lintel, surveyed her with his saturnine
smile, in which for this once I saw something that did not make me
recoil, certain as I now was of his innate villainy and absolute
connection with Mr. Barrows' death.
She herself seemed to feel that she had met her master; for, with a
hurried look in his face, she drew slowly back, and, folding her arms,
waited for him to move with a patience too nonchalant not to be forced.
But he did not seem inclined to move, and I beheld a faint blush as of
anger break out on her cheek, though her attitude retained its air of
superb indifference, and her lips, where they closed upon each other,
did not so much as break their lines for an instant.
"You are not going, Miss Colwell," were the words with which he at last
broke the almost intolerable suspense of the moment; "at least, not
till you have given us the date of this remarkable experience of yours."
"The date?" she repeated, icily. "What day was it that Mr. Barrows was
found in the vat?" she inquired, turning to me with an indifferent look.
His hand fell like iron on her arm.