traffic was pressing upon us on every side. And I am sure it was all
that she heard, as, with hand pressed to her heart and eyes fixed on the
opposite shore, she waited for the event which was to determine whether
the man she loved was a criminal or only a being afflicted of God, and
worthy of her unceasing care and devotion.
As the sun cast its last scarlet gleam over the water, the boat
grounded, and it fell to my lot to assist Mrs. Zabriskie up the bank.
As I did so, I allowed myself to say: "I am your friend, Mrs.
Zabriskie," and was astonished to see her tremble, and turn toward me
with a look like that of a frightened child.
But there was always this characteristic blending in her countenance of
the childlike and the severe, such as may so often be seen in the faces
of nuns, and beyond an added pang of pity for this beautiful but
afflicted woman, I let the moment pass without giving it the weight it
perhaps demanded.
"The Doctor and his wife had a long talk last night," was whispered in
my ear as we wound our way along into the woods. I turned and perceived
at my side the expert physician, portions of whose diary I have already
quoted. He had come by another boat.
"But it did not seem to heal whatever breach lies between them," he
proceeded. Then in a quick, curious tone, he asked: "Do you believe this
attempt on his part is likely to prove anything but a farce?"
"I believe he will shatter the clock to pieces with his first shot," I
answered, and could say no more, for we had already reached the ground
which had been selected for this trial at arms, and the various members
of the party were being placed in their several positions.
The Doctor, to whom light and darkness were alike, stood with his face
towards the western glow, and at his side were grouped the Inspector and
the two physicians. On the arm of one of the latter hung Dr.
Zabriskie's overcoat, which he had taken off as soon as he reached the
field.
Mrs. Zabriskie stood at the other end of the opening, near a tall stump,
upon which it had been decided that the clock should be placed when the
moment came for the Doctor to show his skill. She had been accorded the
privilege of setting the clock on this stump, and I saw it shining in
her hand as she paused for a moment to glance back at the circle of
gentlemen who were awaiting her movements. The hands of the clock stood
at five minutes to five, though I scarcely noted the fact at the time,
for her eyes were on mine, and as she passed me she spoke:
"If he is not himself, he cannot be trusted. Watch him carefully, and
see that he does no mischief to himself or others. Be at his right hand,
and stop him if he does not handle his pistol properly."
I promised, and she passed on, setting the clock upon the stump and
immediately drawing back to a suitable distance at the right, where she
stood, wrapped in her long dark cloak, quite alone. Her face shone
ghastly white, even in its environment of snow-covered boughs which
surrounded her, and, noting this, I wished the minutes fewer between the
present moment and the hour of five, at which he was to draw the
trigger.
"Dr. Zabriskie," quoth the Inspector, "we have endeavored to make this
trial a perfectly fair one. You are to have one shot at a small clock
which has been placed within a suitable distance, and which you are
expected to hit, guided only by the sound which it will make in striking
the hour of five. Are you satisfied with the arrangement?"
"Perfectly. Where is my wife?"
"On the other side of the field, some ten paces from the stump upon
which the clock is fixed."
He bowed, and his face showed satisfaction.
"May I expect the clock to strike soon?"
"In less than five minutes," was the answer.
"Then let me have the pistol; I wish to become acquainted with its size
and weight."
We glanced at each other, then across at her.
She made a gesture; it was one of acquiescence.
Immediately the Inspector placed the weapon in the blind man's hand. It
was at once apparent that the Doctor understood the instrument, and my
last doubt vanished as to the truth of all he had told us.
"Thank God I am blind this hour and cannot see _her_," fell
unconsciously from his lips; then, before the echo of these words had
left my ears, he raised his voice and observed calmly enough,
considering that he was about to prove himself a criminal in order to
save himself from being thought a madman.
"Let no one move. I must have my ears free for catching the first stroke
of the clock." And he raised the pistol before him.
There was a moment of torturing suspense and deep, unbroken silence. My
eyes were on him, and so I did not watch the clock, but suddenly I was
moved by some irresistible impulse to note how Mrs. Zabriskie was
bearing herself at this critical moment, and, casting a hurried glance
in her direction, I perceived her tall figure swaying from side to side,
as if under an intolerable strain of feeling. Her eyes were on the
clock, the hands of which seemed to creep with snail-like pace along the
dial, when unexpectedly, and a full minute before the minute hand had
reached the stroke of five, I caught a movement on her part, saw the
flash of something round and white show for an instant against the
darkness of her cloak, and was about to shriek warning to the Doctor,
when the shrill, quick stroke of a clock rung out on the frosty air,
followed by the ping and flash of a pistol.
A sound of shattered glass, followed by a suppressed cry, told us that
the bullet had struck the mark, but before we could move, or rid our
eyes of the smoke which the wind had blown into our faces, there came
another sound which made our hair stand on end and sent the blood back
in terror to our hearts. Another clock was striking, the clock which we
now perceived was still standing upright on the stump where Mrs.
Zabriskie had placed it.
Whence came the clock, then, which had struck before the time and been
shattered for its pains? One quick look told us. On the ground, ten
paces at the right, lay Helen Zabriskie, a broken clock at her side, and
in her breast a bullet which was fast sapping the life from her sweet
eyes.
* * * * *
We had to tell him, there was such pleading in her looks; and never
shall I forget the scream that rang from his lips as he realized the
truth. Breaking from our midst, he rushed forward, and fell at her feet
as if guided by some supernatural instinct.
"Helen," he shrieked, "what is this? Were not my hands dyed deep enough
in blood that you should make me answerable for your life also?"
Her eyes were closed, but she opened them. Looking long and steadily at
his agonized face, she faltered forth:
"It is not you who have killed me; it is your crime. Had you been
innocent of Mr. Hasbrouck's death, your bullet would never have found
my heart. Did you think I could survive the proof that you had killed
that good man?"
"I--I did it unwittingly. I----"
"Hush!" she commanded, with an awful look, which, happily, he could not
see. "I had another motive. I wished to prove to you, even at the cost
of my life, that I loved you, had always loved you, and not----"
It was now his turn to silence her. His hand crept over her lips, and
his despairing face turned itself blindly towards us.
"Go," he cried; "leave us! Let me take a last farewell of my dying wife,
without listeners or spectators."
Consulting the eye of the physician who stood beside me, and seeing no
hope in it, I fell slowly back. The others followed, and the Doctor was
left alone with his wife. From the distant position we took, we saw her
arms creep round his neck, saw her head fall confidingly on his breast,
then silence settled upon them and upon all nature, the gathering
twilight deepening, till the last glow disappeared from the heavens
above and from the circle of leafless trees which enclosed this tragedy
from the outside world.
But at last there came a stir, and Dr. Zabriskie, rising up before us,
with the dead body of his wife held closely to his breast, confronted us
with a countenance so rapturous that he looked like a man transfigured.
"I will carry her to the boat," said he. "Not another hand shall touch
her. She was my true wife, my true wife!" And he towered into an
attitude of such dignity and passion, that for a moment he took on
heroic proportions and we forgot that he had just proved himself to have
committed a cold-blooded and ghastly crime.
* * * * *
The stars were shining when we again took our seats in the boat; and if
the scene of our crossing to Jersey was impressive, what shall be said
of that of our return.
The Doctor, as before, sat in the stern, an awesome figure, upon which
the moon shone with a white radiance that seemed to lift his face out of
the surrounding darkness and set it, like an image of frozen horror,
before our eyes. Against his breast he held the form of his dead wife,
and now and then I saw him stoop as if he were listening for some tokens
of life at her set lips. Then he would lift himself again, with
hopelessness stamped upon his features, only to lean forward in renewed
hope that was again destined to disappointment.
The Inspector and the accompanying physician had taken seats in the bow,
and unto me had been assigned the special duty of watching over the
Doctor. This I did from a low seat in front of him. I was therefore so
close that I heard his laboring breath, and though my heart was full of
awe and compassion, I could not prevent myself from bending towards him
and saying these words:
"Dr. Zabriskie, the mystery of your crime is no longer a mystery to me.
Listen and see if I do not understand your temptation, and how you, a
conscientious and God-fearing man, came to slay your innocent neighbor.
"A friend of yours, or so he called himself, had for a long time filled
your ears with tales tending to make you suspicious of your wife and
jealous of a certain man whom I will not name. You knew that your friend
had a grudge against this man, and so for many months turned a deaf ear
to his insinuations. But finally some change which you detected in your
wife's bearing or conversation roused your own suspicions, and you began
to doubt if all was false that came to your ears, and to curse your
blindness, which in a measure rendered you helpless. The jealous fever
grew and had risen to a high point, when one night--a memorable
night--this friend met you just as you were leaving town, and with cruel
craft whispered in your ear that the man you hated was even then with
your wife, and that if you would return at once to your home you would
find him in her company.
"The demon that lurks at the heart of all men, good or bad, thereupon
took complete possession of you, and you answered this false friend by
saying that you would not return without a pistol. Whereupon he offered
to take you to his house and give you his. You consented, and getting
rid of your servant by sending him to Poughkeepsie with your excuses,
you entered a coach with your friend.
"You say you bought the pistol, and perhaps you did, but, however that
may be, you left his house with it in your pocket and, declining
companionship, walked home, arriving at the Colonnade a little before
midnight.
"Ordinarily you have no difficulty in recognizing your own doorstep.
But, being in a heated frame of mind, you walked faster than usual and
so passed your own house and stopped at that of Mr. Hasbrouck's, one
door beyond. As the entrances of these houses are all alike, there was
but one way by which you could have made yourself sure that you had
reached your own dwelling, and that was by feeling for the doctor's sign
at the side of the door. But you never thought of that. Absorbed in
dreams of vengeance, your sole impulse was to enter by the quickest
means possible. Taking out your night-key, you thrust it into the lock.
It fitted, but it took strength to turn it, so much strength that the
key was twisted and bent by the effort. But this incident, which would
have attracted your attention at another time, was lost upon you at this
moment. An entrance had been effected, and you were in too excited a
frame of mind to notice at what cost, or to detect the small differences
apparent in the atmosphere and furnishings of the two houses--trifles
which would have arrested your attention under other circumstances, and
made you pause before the upper floor had been reached.
"It was while going up the stairs that you took out your pistol, so that
by the time you arrived at the front-room door you held it ready cocked
and drawn in your hand. For, being blind, you feared escape on the part
of your victim, and so waited for nothing but the sound of a man's voice
before firing. When, therefore, the unfortunate Mr. Hasbrouck, roused by
this sudden intrusion, advanced with an exclamation of astonishment, you
pulled the trigger, killing him on the spot. It must have been
immediately upon his fall that you recognized from some word he uttered,
or from some contact you may have had with your surroundings, that you
were in the wrong house and had killed the wrong man; for you cried out,
in evident remorse, 'God! what have I done!' and fled without
approaching your victim.
"Descending the stairs, you rushed from the house, closing the front
door behind you and regaining your own without being seen. But here you
found yourself baffled in your attempted escape, by two things. First,
by the pistol you still held in your hand, and secondly, by the fact
that the key upon which you depended for entering your own door was so
twisted out of shape that you knew it would be useless for you to
attempt to use it. What did you do in this emergency? You have already
told us, though the story seemed so improbable at the time, you found
nobody to believe it but myself. The pistol you flung far away from you
down the pavement, from which, by one of those rare chances which
sometimes happen in this world, it was presently picked up by some late
passer-by of more or less doubtful character. The door offered less of
an obstacle than you anticipated; for when you turned to it again you
found it, if I am not greatly mistaken, ajar, left so, as we have reason
to believe, by one who had gone out of it but a few minutes before in a
state which left him but little master of his actions. It was this fact
which provided you with an answer when you were asked how you succeeded
in getting into Mr. Hasbrouck's house after the family had retired for
the night.
"Astonished at the coincidence, but hailing with gladness the
deliverance which it offered, you went in and ascended at once into your
wife's presence; and it was from her lips, and not from those of Mrs.
Hasbrouck, that the cry arose which startled the neighborhood and
prepared men's minds for the tragic words which were shouted a moment
later from the next house.
"But she who uttered the scream knew of no tragedy save that which was
taking place in her own breast. She had just repulsed a dastardly
suitor, and, seeing you enter so unexpectedly in a state of
unaccountable horror and agitation, was naturally stricken with dismay,
and thought she saw your ghost, or, what was worse, a possible avenger;
while you, having failed to kill the man you sought, and having killed a
man you esteemed, let no surprise on her part lure you into any
dangerous self-betrayal. You strove instead to soothe her, and even
attempted to explain the excitement under which you labored, by an
account of your narrow escape at the station, till the sudden alarm from
next door distracted her attention, and sent both your thoughts and hers
in a different direction. Not till conscience had fully awakened and the
horror of your act had had time to tell upon your sensitive nature, did
you breathe forth those vague confessions, which, not being supported by
the only explanations which would have made them credible, led her, as
well as the police, to consider you affected in your mind. Your pride as
a man, and your consideration for her as a woman, kept you silent, but
did not keep the worm from preying upon your heart.
"Am I not correct in my surmises, Dr. Zabriskie, and is not this the
true explanation of your crime?"
With a strange look, he lifted up his face.
"Hush!" said he; "you will awaken her. See how peacefully she sleeps! I
should not like to have her awakened now, she is so tired, and I--I have
not watched over her as I should."
Appalled at his gesture, his look, his tone, I drew back, and for a few
minutes no sound was to be heard but the steady dip-dip of the oars and
the lap-lap of the waters against the boat. Then there came a quick
uprising, the swaying before me of something dark and tall and
threatening, and before I could speak or move, or even stretch forth my
hands to stay him, the seat before me was empty and darkness had filled
the place where but an instant previous he had sat, a fearsome figure,
erect and rigid as a sphinx.
What little moonlight there was only served to show us a few rising
bubbles, marking the spot where the unfortunate man had sunk with his
much-loved burden. We could not save him. As the widening circles fled
farther and farther out, the tide drifted us away, and we lost the spot
which had seen the termination of one of earth's saddest tragedies.
* * * * *
The bodies were never recovered. The police reserved to themselves the
right of withholding from the public the real facts which made this
catastrophe an awful remembrance to those who witnessed it. A verdict of
accidental death by drowning answered all purposes, and saved the memory
of the unfortunate pair from such calumny as might have otherwise
assailed it. It was the least we could do for two beings whom
circumstances had so greatly afflicted.
THE END.
THE INCOGNITO LIBRARY.
A series of small books by representative writers, whose names will for
the present not be given.
In this series will be included the authorized American editions of the
future issues of Mr. Unwin's "PSEUDONYM LIBRARY," which has won for
itself a noteworthy prestige.
32mo, limp cloth, each 50 cents.
I. THE SHEN'S PIGTAIL, and Other Cues of Anglo-China Life, by
Mr. M----.
II. THE HON. STANBURY AND OTHERS, by Two.
III. LESSER'S DAUGHTER, by Mrs. Andrew Dean.
IV. A HUSBAND OF NO IMPORTANCE, by Rita.
V. HELEN, by Oswald Valentine.
These will be followed by volumes by other well-known authors.
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