BOOK III

HAD BATSY LIVED!

XXX

WHAT FOLLOWED THE STRIKING OF THE CLOCK

It was the last day of the inquest, and to many it bade fair to be the

least interesting. All the witnesses who had anything to say had long

ago given in their testimony, and when at or near noon Sweetwater slid

into the inconspicuous seat he had succeeded in obtaining near the

coroner, it was to find in two faces only any signs of the eagerness and

expectancy which filled his own breast to suffocation. But as these

faces were those of Agnes Halliday and Amabel Page, he soon recognised

that his own judgment was not at fault, and that notwithstanding outward

appearances and the languid interest shown in the now lagging

proceedings, the moment presaged an event full of unseen but vital

consequence.

Frederick was not visible in the great hall; but that he was near at

hand soon became evident from the change Sweetwater now saw in Amabel.

For while she had hitherto sat under the universal gaze with only the

faint smile of conscious beauty on her inscrutable features, she roused

as the hands of the clock moved toward noon, and glanced at the great

door of entrance with an evil expectancy that startled even Sweetwater,

so little had he really understood the nature of the passions labouring

in that venomous breast.

Next moment the door opened, and Frederick and his father came in. The

air of triumphant satisfaction with which Amabel sank back into her seat

was as marked in its character as her previous suspense. What did it

mean? Sweetwater, noting it, and the vivid contrast it offered to

Frederick's air of depression, felt that his return had been well timed.

Mr. Sutherland was looking very feeble. As he took the chair offered

him, the change in his appearance was apparent to all who knew him, and

there were few there who did not know him. And, startled by these

evidences of suffering which they could not understand and feared to

interpret even to themselves, more than one devoted friend stole uneasy

glances at Frederick to see if he too were under the cloud which seemed

to envelop his father almost beyond recognition.

But Frederick was looking at Amabel, and his erect head and determined

aspect made him a conspicuous figure in the room. She who had called up

this expression, and alone comprehended it fully, smiled as she met his

eye, with that curious slow dipping of her dimples which had more than

once confounded the coroner, and rendered her at once the admiration and

abhorrence of the crowd who for so long a time had had the opportunity

of watching her.

Frederick, to whom this smile conveyed a last hope as well as a last

threat, looked away as soon as possible, but not before her eyes had

fallen in their old inquiring way to his hands, from which he had

removed the ring which up to this hour he had invariably worn on his

third finger. In this glance of hers and this action of his began the

struggle that was to make that day memorable in many hearts.

After the first stir occasioned by the entrance of two such important

persons the crowd settled back into its old quietude under the coroner's

hand. A tedious witness was having his slow say, and to him a full

attention was being given in the hope that some real enlightenment would

come at last to settle the questions which had been raised by Amabel's

incomplete and unsatisfactory testimony. But no man can furnish what he

does not possess, and the few final minutes before noon passed by

without any addition being made to the facts which had already been

presented for general consideration.

As the witness sat down the clock began to strike. As the slow,

hesitating strokes rang out, Sweetwater saw Frederick yield to a sudden

but most profound emotion. The old fear, which we understand, if

Sweetwater did not, had again seized the victim of Amabel's ambition,

and under her eye, which was blazing full upon him now with a fell and

steady purpose, he found his right hand stealing toward the left in the

significant action she expected. Better to yield than fall headlong into

the pit one word of hers would open. He had not meant to yield, but now

that the moment had come, now that he must at once and forever choose

between a course that led simply to personal unhappiness and one that

involved not only himself, but those dearest to him, in disgrace and

sorrow, he felt himself weaken to the point of clutching at whatever

would save him from the consequences of confession. Moral strength and

that tenacity of purpose which only comes from years of self-control

were too lately awakened in his breast to sustain him now. As stroke

after stroke fell on the ear, he felt himself yielding beyond recovery,

and had almost touched his finger in the significant action of assent

which Amabel awaited with breathless expectation, when--was it miracle

or only the suggestion of his better nature?--the memory of a face full

of holy pleading rose from the past before his eyes and with an inner

cry of "Mother!" he flung his hand out and clutched his father's arm in

a way to break the charm of his own dread and end forever the effects of

the intolerable fascination that was working upon him. Next minute the

last stroke of noon rang out, and the hour was up which Amabel had set

as the limit of her silence.

A pause, which to their two hearts if to no others seemed strangely

appropriate, followed the cessation of these sounds, then the witness

was dismissed, and Amabel, taking advantage of the movement, was about

to lean toward Mr. Courtney, when Frederick, leaping with a bound to his

feet, drew all eyes towards himself with the cry:

"Let me be put on my oath. I have testimony to give of the utmost

importance in this case."

The coroner was astounded; everyone was astounded. No one had expected

anything from him, and instinctively every eye turned towards Amabel to

see how she was affected by his action.

Strangely, evidently, for the look with which she settled back in her

seat was one which no one who saw it ever forgot, though it conveyed no

hint of her real feelings, which were somewhat chaotic.

Frederick, who had forgotten her now that he had made up his mind to

speak, waited for the coroner's reply.

"If you have testimony," said that gentleman after exchanging a few

hurried words with Mr. Courtney and the surprised Knapp, "you can do no

better than give it to us at once. Mr. Frederick Sutherland, will you

take the stand?"

With a noble air from which all hesitation had vanished, Frederick

started towards the place indicated, but stopped before he had taken a

half-dozen steps and glanced back at his father, who was visibly

succumbing under this last shock.

"Go!" he whispered, but in so thrilling a tone it was heard to the

remotest corner of the room. "Spare me the anguish of saying what I have

to say in your presence. I could not bear it. You could not bear it.

Later, if you will wait for me in one of these rooms, I will repeat my

tale in your ears, but go now. It is my last entreaty."

There was a silence; no one ventured a dissent, no one so much as made a

gesture of disapproval. Then Mr. Sutherland struggled to his feet, cast

one last look around him, and disappeared through a door which had

opened like magic before him. Then and not till then did Frederick move

forward.

The moment was intense. The coroner seemed to share the universal

excitement, for his first question was a leading one and brought out

this startling admission:

"I have obtruded myself into this inquiry and now ask to be heard by

this jury, because no man knows more than I do of the manner and cause

of Agatha Webb's death. This you will believe when I tell you that _I_

was the person Miss Page followed into Mrs. Webb's house and whom she

heard descend the stairs during the moment she crouched behind the

figure of the sleeping Philemon."

It was more, infinitely more, than anyone there had expected. It was not

only an acknowledgment but a confession, and the shock, the surprise,

the alarm, which it occasioned even to those who had never had much

confidence in this young man's virtue, was almost appalling in its

intensity. Had it not been for the consciousness of Mr. Sutherland's

near presence the feeling would have risen to outbreak; and many voices

were held in subjection by the remembrance of this venerated man's last

look, that otherwise would have made themselves heard in despite of the

restrictions of the place and the authority of the police.

To Frederick it was a moment of immeasurable grief and humiliation. On

every face, in every shrinking form, in subdued murmurs and open cries,

he read instant and complete condemnation, and yet in all his life from

boyhood up to this hour, never had he been so worthy of their esteem and

consideration. But though he felt the iron enter his soul, he did not

lose his determined attitude. He had observed a change in Amabel and a

change in Agnes, and if only to disappoint the vile triumph of the one

and raise again the drooping courage of the other, he withstood the

clamour and began speaking again, before the coroner had been able to

fully restore quiet.

"I know," said he, "what this acknowledgment must convey to the minds of

the jury and people here assembled. But if anyone who listens to me

thinks me guilty of the death I was so unfortunate as to have witnessed,

he will be doing me a wrong which Agatha Webb would be the first to

condemn. Dr. Talbot, and you, gentlemen of the jury, in the face of God

and man, I here declare that Mrs. Webb, in my presence and before my

eyes, gave to herself the blow which has robbed us all of a most

valuable life. She was not murdered."

It was a solemn assertion, but it failed to convince the crowd before

him. As by one impulse men and women broke into a tumult. Mr. Sutherland

was forgotten and cries of "Never! She was too good! It's all calumny! A

wretched lie!" broke in unrestrained excitement from every part of the

large room. In vain the coroner smote with his gavel, in vain the local

police endeavoured to restore order; the tide was up and over-swept

everything for an instant till silence was suddenly restored by the

sight of Amabel smoothing out the folds of her crisp white frock with an

incredulous, almost insulting, smile that at once fixed attention again

on Frederick. He seized the occasion and spoke up in a tone of great

resolve.

"I have made an assertion," said he, "before God and before this jury.

To make it seem a credible one I shall have to tell my own story from

the beginning. Am I allowed to do so, Mr. Coroner?"

"You are," was the firm response.

"Then, gentlemen," continued Frederick, still without looking at Amabel,

whose smile had acquired a mockery that drew the eyes of the jury toward

her more than once during the following recital, "you know, and the

public generally now know, that Mrs. Webb has left me the greater

portion of the money of which she died possessed. I have never before

acknowledged to anyone, not even to the good man who awaits this jury's

verdict on the other side of that door yonder, that she had reasons for

this, good reasons, reasons of which up to the very evening of her death

I was myself ignorant, as I was ignorant of her intentions in my regard,

or that I was the special object of her attention, or that we were under

any mutual obligations in any way. Why, then, I should have thought of

going to her in the great strait in which I found myself on that day, I

cannot say. I knew she had money in her house; this I had unhappily been

made acquainted with in an accidental way, and I knew she was of kindly

disposition and quite capable of doing a very unselfish act. Still, this

would not seem to be reason enough for me to intrude upon her late at

night with a plea for a large loan of money, had I not been in a

desperate condition of mind, which made any attempt seem reasonable that

promised relief from the unendurable burden of a pressing and

disreputable debt. I was obliged to have money, a great deal of money,

and I had to have it at once; and while I know that this will not serve

to lighten the suspicion I have brought upon myself by my late

admissions, it is the only explanation I can give you for leaving the

ball at my father's house and hurrying down secretly and alone into town

to the little cottage where, as I had been told early in the evening, a

small entertainment was being given, which would insure its being open

even at so late an hour as midnight. Miss Page, who will, I am sure,

pardon the introduction of her name into this narrative, has taken pains

to declare to you that in the expedition she herself made into town that

evening, she followed some person's steps down-hill. This is very likely

true, and those steps were probably mine, for after leaving the house by

the garden door, I came directly down the main road to the corner of the

lane running past Mrs. Webb's cottage. Having already seen from the

hillside the light burning in her upper windows, I felt encouraged to

proceed, and so hastened on till I came to the gate on High Street. Here

I had a moment of hesitation, and thoughts bitter enough for me to

recall them at this moment came into my mind, making that instant,

perhaps, the very worst in my life; but they passed, thank God, and with

no more desperate feeling than a sullen intention of having my own way

about this money, I lifted the latch of the front door and stepped in.

"I had expected to find a jovial group of friends in her little ground

parlour, or at least to hear the sound of merry voices and laughter in

the rooms above; but no sounds of any sort awaited me; indeed the house

seemed strangely silent for one so fully lighted, and, astonished at

this, I pushed the door ajar at my left and looked in. An unexpected and

pitiful sight awaited me. Seated at a table set with abundance of

untasted food, I saw the master of the house with his head sunk forward

on his arms, asleep. The expected guests had failed to arrive, and he,

tired out with waiting, had fallen into a doze at the board.

"This was a condition of things for which I was not prepared. Mrs. Webb,

whom I wished to see, was probably up-stairs, and while I might summon

her by a sturdy rap on the door beside which I stood, I had so little

desire to wake her husband, of whose mental condition I was well aware,

that I could not bring myself to make any loud noise within his hearing.

Yet I had not the courage to retreat. All my hope of relief from the

many difficulties that menaced me lay in the generosity of this

great-hearted woman, and if out of pusillanimity I let this hour go by

without making my appeal, nothing but shame and disaster awaited me. Yet

how could I hope to lure her down-stairs without noise? I could not, and

so, yielding to the impulse of the moment, without any realisation, I

here swear, of the effect which my unexpected presence would have on the

noble woman overhead, I slipped up the narrow staircase, and catching at

that moment the sound of her voice calling out to Batsy, I stepped up to

the door I saw standing open before me and confronted her before she

could move from the table before which she was sitting, counting over a

large roll of money.

"My look (and it was doubtless not a common look, for the sight of a

mass of money at that moment, when money was everything to me, roused

every lurking demon in my breast) seemed to appall, if it did not

frighten her, for she rose, and meeting my eye with a gaze in which

shock and some strange and poignant agony totally incomprehensible to me

were strangely blended, she cried out:

"'No, no, Frederick! You don't know what you are doing. If you want my

money, take it; if you want my life, I will give it to you with my own

hand. Don't stain yours--don't--'

"I did not understand her. I did not know until I thought it over

afterward that my hand was thrust convulsively into my breast in a way

which, taken with my wild mien, made me look as if I had come to murder

her for the money over which she was hovering. I was blind, deaf to

everything but that money, and bending madly forward in a state of

mental intoxication awful enough for me to remember now, I answered her

frenzied words by some such broken exclamations as these:

"'Give, then! I want hundreds--thousands--now, now, to save myself!

Disgrace, shame, prison await me if I don't have them. Give, give!' And

my hand went out toward it, not toward her; but she mistook the action,

mistook my purpose, and, with a heart-broken cry, to save me, ME, from

crime, the worst crime of which humanity is capable, she caught up a

dagger lying only too near her hand in the open drawer against which she

leaned, and in a moment of fathomless anguish which we who can never

know more than the outward seeming of her life can hardly measure,

plunged against it and--I can tell you no more. Her blood and Batsy's

shriek from the adjoining room swam through my consciousness, and then

she fell, as I supposed, dead upon the floor, and I, in scarcely better

case, fell also.

"This, as God lives, is the truth concerning the wound found in the

breast of this never-to-be-forgotten woman."

The feeling, the pathos, the anguish even, to be found in his tone made

this story, strange and incredible as it seemed, appear for the moment

plausible.

"And Batsy?" asked the coroner.

"Must have fallen when we did, for I never heard her voice after the

first scream. But I shall speak of her again. What I must now explain is

how the money in Mrs. Webb's drawer came into my possession, and how the

dagger she had planted in her breast came to be found on the lawn

outside. When I came to myself, and that must have been very soon, I

found that the blow of which I had been such a horrified witness had not

yet proved fatal. The eyes I had seen close, as I had supposed, forever,

were now open, and she was looking at me with a smile that has never

left my memory, and never will.

"'There is no blood on you,' she murmured. 'You did not strike the blow.

Was it money only that you wanted, Frederick? If so, you could have had

it without crime. There are five hundred dollars on that table. Take

them and let them pave your way to a better life. My death will help you

to remember.' Do these words, this action of hers, seem incredible to

you, sirs? Alas! alas! they will not when I tell you"--and here he cast

one anxious, deeply anxious, glance at the room in which Mr. Sutherland

was hidden--"that unknown to me, unknown to anyone living but herself,

unknown to that good man from whom it can no longer be kept hidden,

Agatha Webb was my mother. I am Philemon's son and not the offspring of

Charles and Marietta Sutherland!"

XXXI

A WITNESS LOST

Impossible! Incredible!

Like a wave suddenly lifted the whole assemblage rose in surprise if not

in protest. But there was no outburst. The very depth of the feelings

evoked made all ebullition impossible, and as one sees the billow pause

ere it breaks, and gradually subside, so this crowd yielded to its awe,

and man by man sank back into his seat till quiet was again restored,

and only a circle of listening faces confronted the man who had just

stirred a whole roomful to its depths. Seeing this, and realising his

opportunity, Frederick at once entered into the explanations for which

each heart there panted.

"This will be overwhelming news to him who has cared for me since

infancy. You have heard him call me son; with what words shall I

overthrow his confidence in the truth and rectitude of his long-buried

wife and make him know in his old age that he has wasted years of

patience upon one who was not of his blood or lineage? The wonder, the

incredulity you manifest are my best excuse for my long delay in

revealing the secret entrusted to me by this dying woman."

An awed silence greeted these words. Never was the interest of a crowd

more intense or its passions held in greater restraint. Yet Agnes's

tears flowed freely, and Amabel's smiles--well, their expression had

changed; and to Sweetwater, who alone had eyes for her now, they were

surcharged with a tragic meaning, strange to see in one of her callous

nature.

Frederick's voice broke as he proceeded in his self-imposed task.

"The astounding fact which I have just communicated to you was made

known by my mother, with the dagger still plunged in her breast. She

would not let me draw it out. She knew that death would follow that act,

and she prized every moment remaining to her because of the bliss she

enjoyed of seeing and having near her her only living child. The love,

the passion, the boundless devotion she showed in those last few minutes

transformed me in an instant from a selfish brute into a deeply

repentant man. I knelt before her in anguish. I made her feel that,

wicked as I had been, I was not the conscienceless wretch she had

imagined, and that she was mistaken as to the motives which led me into

her presence. And when I saw, by her clearing brow and peaceful look,

that I had fully persuaded her of this, I let her speak what words she

would, and tell, as she was able, the secret tragedy of her life.

"It is a sacred story to me, and if you must know it, let it be from her

own words in the letters she left behind her. She only told me that to

save me from the fate of the children who had preceded me, the five

little girls and boys who had perished almost at birth in her arms, she

had parted from me in early infancy to Mrs. Sutherland, then mourning

the sudden death of her only child; that this had been done secretly and

under circumstances calculated to deceive Mr. Sutherland, consequently

he had never known I was not his own child, and in terror of the effect

which the truth might have upon him she enjoined me not to enlighten him

now, if by any sacrifice on my part I could rightfully avoid it; that

she was happy in having me hear the truth before she died; that the joy

which this gave her was so great she did not regret her fatal act,

violent and uncalled for as it was, for it had showed her my heart and

allowed me to read hers. Then she talked of my father, by whom I mean

him whom you call Philemon; and she made me promise I would care for him

to the last with tenderness, saying that I would be able to do this

without seeming impropriety, since she had willed me all her fortune

under this proviso. Finally, she gave me a key, and pointing out where

the money lay hidden, bade me carry it away as her last gift, together

with the package of letters I would find with it. And when I had taken

these and given her back the key, she told me that but for one thing she

would die happy. And though her strength and breath were fast failing

her, she made me understand that she was worried about the Zabels, who

had not come according to a sacred custom between them, to celebrate the

anniversary of her wedding, and prayed me to see the two old gentlemen

before I slept, since nothing but death or dire distress would have kept

them from gratifying the one whim of my father's failing mind. I

promised, and with perfect peace in her face, she pointed to the dagger

in her breast.

"But before I could lay my hand upon it she called for Batsy. 'I want

her to hear me declare before I go,' said she, 'that this stroke was

delivered by myself upon myself.' But when I rose to look for Batsy I

found that the shock of her mistress's fatal act had killed her and that

only her dead body was lying across the window-sill of the adjoining

room. It was a chance that robbed me of the only witness who could

testify to my innocence, in case my presence in this house of death

should become known, and realising all the danger in which it threw me,

I did not dare to tell my mother, for fear it would make her last

moments miserable. So I told her that the poor woman had understood what

she wished, but was too terrified to move or speak; and this satisfied

my mother and made her last breath one of trust and contented love. She

died as I drew the dagger from her breast, and seeing this, I was seized

with horror of the instrument which had cost me such a dear and valuable

life and flung it wildly from the window. Then I lifted her and laid her

where you found her, on the sofa. I did not know that the dagger was an

old-time gift of her former lover, James Zabel, much less that it bore

his initials on the handle."

He paused, and the awe occasioned by the scene he had described was so

deep and the silence so prolonged that a shudder passed over the whole

assemblage when from some unknown quarter a single cutting voice arose

in this one short, mocking comment:

"Oh, the fairy tale!"

Was it Amabel who spoke? Some thought so and looked her way, but they

only beheld a sweet, tear-stained face turned with an air of moving

appeal upon Frederick as if begging pardon for the wicked doubts which

had driven him to this defence.

Frederick met that look with one so severe it partook of harshness;

then, resuming his testimony, he said:

"It is of the Zabel brothers I must now speak, and of how one of them,

James by name, came to be involved in this affair.

"When I left my dead mother's side I was in such a state of mind that I

passed with scarcely so much as a glance the room where my new-found

father sat sleeping. But as I hastened on toward the quarter where the

Zabels lived, I was seized by such compunction for his desolate state

that I faltered in my rapid flight and did not arrive at the place of my

destination as quickly as I intended. When I did I found the house dark

and the silence sepulchral. But I did not turn away. Remembering my

mother's anxiety, an anxiety so extreme it disturbed her final moments,

I approached the front door and was about to knock when I found it open.

Greatly astonished, I at once passed in, and, seeing my way perfectly in

the moonlight, entered the room on the left, the door of which also

stood open. It was the second house I had entered unannounced that

night, and in this as in the other I encountered a man sitting asleep by

the table.

"It was John, the elder of the two, and, perceiving that he was

suffering for food and in a condition of extreme misery, I took out the

first bill my hand encountered in my overfull pockets and laid it on the

table by his side. As I did so he gave a sigh, but did not wake; and

satisfied that I had done all that was wise and all that even my mother

would expect of me under the circumstances, and fearing to encounter the

other brother if I lingered, I hastened away and took the shortest path

home. Had I been more of a man, or if my visit to Mrs. Webb had been

actuated by a more communicable motive, I would have gone at once to the

good man who believed me to be of his own flesh and blood, and told him

of the strange and heart-rending adventure which had changed the whole

tenor of my thoughts and life, and begged his advice as to what I had

better do under the difficult circumstances in which I found myself

placed. But the memory of a thousand past ingratitudes, together with

the knowledge of the shock which he could not fail to receive on

learning at this late day, and under conditions at once so tragic and

full of menace, that the child which his long-buried wife had once

placed in his arms as his own was neither of her blood nor his, rose up

between us and caused me not only to attempt silence, but to secrete in

the adjoining woods the money I had received, in the vain hope that all

visible connection between myself and my mother's tragic death would

thus be lost. You see I had not calculated on Miss Amabel Page."

The flash he here received from that lady's eyes startled the crowd, and

gave Sweetwater, already suffering under shock after shock of mingled

surprise and wonder, his first definite idea that he had never rightly

understood the relations between these two, and that something besides

justice had actuated Amabel in her treatment of this young man. This

feeling was shared by others, and a reaction set in in Frederick's

favour, which even affected the officials who were conducting the

inquiry. This was shown by the difference of manner now assumed by the

coroner and by the more easily impressed Sweetwater, who had not yet

learned the indispensable art of hiding his feelings. Frederick himself

felt the change and showed it by the look of relief and growing

confidence he cast at Agnes.

Of the questions and answers which now passed between him and the

various members of the jury I need give no account. They but emphasised

facts already known, and produced but little change in the general

feeling, which was now one of suppressed pity for all who had been drawn

into the meshes of this tragic mystery. When he was allowed to resume

his seat, the name of Miss Amabel Page was again called.

She rose with a bound. Nought that she had anticipated had occurred;

facts of which she could know nothing had changed the aspect of affairs

and made the position of Frederick something so remote from any she

could have imagined, that she was still in the maze of the numberless

conflicting emotions which these revelations were calculated to call out

in one who had risked all on the hazard of a die and lost. She did not

even know at this moment whether she was glad or sorry he could explain

so cleverly his anomalous position. She had caught the look he had cast

at Agnes, and while this angered her, it did not greatly modify her

opinion that he was destined for herself. For, however other people

might feel, she did not for a moment believe his story. She had not a

pure enough heart to do so. To her all self-sacrifice was an anomaly. No

woman of the mental or physical strength of Agatha Webb would plant a

dagger in her own breast just to prevent another person from committing

a crime, were he lover, husband, or son. So Amabel believed and so would

these others believe also when once relieved of the magnetic personality

of this extraordinary witness. Yet how thrilling it had been to hear him

plead his cause so well! It was almost worth the loss of her revenge to

meet his look of hate, and dream of the possibility of turning it later

into the old look of love. Yes, yes, she loved him now; not for his

position, for that was gone; not even for his money, for she could

contemplate its loss; but for himself, who had so boldly shown that he

was stronger than she and could triumph over her by the sheer force of

his masculine daring.

With such feelings, what should she say to these men; how conduct

herself under questions which would be much more searching now than

before? She could not even decide in her own mind. She must let impulse

have its way.

Happily, she took the right stand at first. She did not endeavour to

make any corrections in her former testimony, only acknowledging that

the flower whose presence on the scene of death had been such a mystery,

had fallen from her hair at the ball and that she had seen Frederick

pick it up and put it in his buttonhole. Beyond this, and the inferences

it afterward awakened in her mind, she would not go, though many

present, and among them Frederick, felt confident that her attitude had

been one of suspicion from the first, and that it was to follow him

rather than to supply the wants of the old man, Zabel, she had left the

ball and found her way to Agatha Webb's cottage.

XXXII

WHY AGATHA WEBB WILL NEVER BE FORGOTTEN IN SUTHERLANDTOWN

Meanwhile Sweetwater had been witness to a series of pantomimic actions

that interested him more than Amabel's conduct under this final

examination. Frederick, who had evidently some request to make or

direction to give, had sent a written line to the coroner, who, on

reading it, had passed it over to Knapp, who a few minutes later was to

be seen in conference with Agnes Halliday. As a result, the latter rose

and left the room, followed by the detective. She was gone a half-hour,

then simultaneously with her reappearance, Sweetwater saw Knapp hand a

bundle of letters to the coroner, who, upon opening them, chose out

several which he proceeded to read to the jury. They were the letters

referred to by Frederick as having been given to him by his mother. The

first was dated thirty-five years previously and was in the handwriting

of Agatha herself. It was directed to James Zabel, and was read amid a

profound hush.

DEAR JAMES:

You are too presumptuous. When I let you carry me away from John in that

maddening reel last night, I did not mean you to draw the inference you

did. That you did draw it argues a touch of vanity in a man who is not

alone in the field where he imagines himself victor. John, who is

humbler, sees some merit in--well, in Frederick Snow, let us say. So do

I, but merit does not always win, any more than presumption. When we

meet, let it be as friends, but as friends only. A girl cannot be driven

into love. To ride on your big mare, Judith, is bliss enough for my

twenty years. Why don't you find it so too? I think I hear you say you

do, but only when she stops at a certain gate on Portchester highway.

Folly! there are other roads and other gates, though if I should see you

enter one--There! my pen is galloping away with me faster than Judith

ever did, and it is time I drew rein. Present my regards to John--But

no; then he would know I had written you a letter, and that might hurt

him. How could he guess it was only a scolding letter, such as it would

grieve him to receive, and that it does not count for anything! Were it

to Frederick Snow, now--There! some horses are so hard to pull up--and

so are some pens. I will come to a standstill, but not before your door.

Respectfully your neighbour,

AGATHA GILCHRIST.

DEAR JAMES:

I know I have a temper, a wicked temper, and now you know it too. When

it is roused, I forget love, gratitude, and everything else that should

restrain me, and utter words I am myself astonished at. But I do not get

roused often, and when all is over I am not averse to apologising or

even to begging forgiveness. My father says my temper will undo me, but

I am much more afraid of my heart than I am of my temper. For instance,

here I am writing to you again just because I raised my riding-whip and

said--But you know what I said, and I am not fond of recalling the

words, for I cannot do so without seeing your look of surprise and

contrasting it with that of Philemon's. Yours had judgment in it, while

Philemon's held only indulgence. Yet I liked yours best, or should have

liked it best if it were not for the insufferable pride which is a part

of my being. Temper such as mine OUGHT to surprise you, yet would I be

Agatha Gilchrist without it? I very much fear not. And not being Agatha

Gilchrist, should I have your love? Again I fear not. James, forgive me.

When I am happier, when I know my own heart, I will have less

provocation. Then, if that heart turns your way, you will find a great

and bountiful serenity where now there are lowering and thunderous

tempests. Philemon said last night that he would be content to have my

fierce word o' mornings, if only I would give him one drop out of the

honey of my better nature when the sun went down and twilight brought

reflection and love. But I did not like him any the better for saying

this. YOU would not halve the day so. The cup with which you would

refresh yourself must hold no bitterness. Will it not have to be

proffered, then, by other hands than those of

AGATHA GILCHRIST?

MR. PHILEMON WEBB.

Respected Sir:

You are persistent. I am willing to tell YOU, though I shall never

confide so much to another, that it will take a stronger nature than

yours, and one that loves me less, to hold me faithful and make me the

happy, devoted wife which I must be if I would not be a demon. I cannot,

I dare not, marry where I am not held in a passionate, self-forgetful

subjection. I am too proud, too sensitive, too little mistress of myself

when angry or aroused. If, like some strong women, I loved what was

weaker than myself, and could be controlled by goodness and unlimited

kindness, I might venture to risk living at the side of the most

indulgent and upright man I know. But I am not of that kind. Strength

only can command my admiration or subdue my pride. I must fear where I

love, and own for husband him who has first shown himself my master.

So do not fret any more for me, for you, less than any man I know, will

ever claim my obedience or command my love. Not that I will not yield my

heart to you, but that I cannot; and, knowing that I cannot, feel it

honest to say so before any more of your fine, young manhood is wasted.

Go your ways, then, Philemon, and leave me to the rougher paths my feet

were made to tread. I like you now and feel something like a tender

regard for your goodness, but if you persist in a courtship which only

my father is inclined to smile upon, you will call up an antagonism that

can lead to nothing but evil, for the serpent that lies coiled in my

breast has deadly fangs, and is to be feared, as you should know who

have more than once seen me angry.

Do not blame John or James Zabel, or Frederick Snow, or even Samuel

Barton for this. It would be the same if none of these men existed. I

was not made to triumph over a kindly nature, but to yield the

haughtiest heart in all this county to the gentle but firm control of

its natural master. Do you want to know who that master is? I cannot

tell you, for I have not yet named him to myself.

DEAR JAMES:

I am going away. I am going to leave Portchester for several months. I

am going to see the world. I did not tell you this last night for fear

of weakening under your entreaties, or should I say commands? Lately I

have felt myself weakening more than once, and I want to know what it

means. Absence will teach me, absence and the sight of new faces. Do you

quarrel with this necessity? Do you think I should know my mind without

any such test? Alas! James, it is not a simple mind and it baffles me at

times. Let us then give it a chance. If the glow and glamour of elegant

city life can make me forget certain snatches of talk at our old gate,

or that night when you drew my hand through your arm and softly kissed

my fingertips, then I am no mate for you, whose love, however critical,

has never wavered, but has made itself felt, even in rebuke, as the

strongest, sweetest thing that has entered my turbulent life. Because I

would be worthy of you, I submit to a separation which will either be a

permanent one or the last that will ever take place between you and me.

John will not bear this as well as you, yet he does not love me as well,

possibly because to him I am simply a superior being, while to you I am

a loving but imperfect woman who wishes to do right but can only do so

under the highest guidance.

DEAR JOHN:

I feel that I owe you a letter because you have been so patient. You may

show it to James if you like, but I mean it for you as an old and dear

friend who will one day dance at my wedding.

I am living in a whirl of enjoyment. I am seeing and tasting of

pleasures I have only dreamed about till now. From a farmhouse kitchen

to Mrs. Andrews's drawing-room is a lively change for a girl who loves

dress and show only less than daily intercourse with famous men and

brilliant women. But I am bearing it nobly and have developed tastes I

did not know I possessed; expensive tastes, John, which I fear may unfit

me for the humble life of a Portchester matron. Can you imagine me

dressed in rich brocade, sitting in the midst of Washington's choicest

citizens and exchanging sallies with senators and judges? You may find

it hard, yet so it is, and no one seems to think I am out of place, nor

do I feel so, only--do not tell James--there are movements in my heart

at times which make me shut my eyes when the lights are brightest, and

dream, if but for an instant, of home and the tumble-down gateway where

I have so often leaned when someone (you know who it is now, John, and I

shall not hurt you too deeply by mentioning him) was saying good-night

and calling down the blessings of Heaven upon a head not worthy to

receive them.

Does this argue my speedy return? Perhaps. Yet I do not know. There are

fond hearts here also, and a life in this country's centre would be a

great life for me if only I could forget the touch of a certain

restraining hand which has great power over me even as a memory. For the

sake of that touch shall I give up the grandeur and charm of this broad

life? Answer, John. You know him and me well enough now to say.

DEAR JOHN:

I do not understand your letter. You speak in affectionate terms of

everybody, yet you beg me to wait and not be in a hurry to return. Why?

Do you not realise that such words only make me the more anxious to see

old Portchester again? If there is anything amiss at home, or if James

is learning to do without me--but you do not say that; you only intimate

that perhaps I will be better able to make up my mind later than now,

and hint of great things to come if I will only hold my affections in

check a little longer. This is all very ambiguous and demands a fuller

explanation. So write to me once more, John, or I shall sever every

engagement I have made here and return.

DEAR JOHN:

Your letter is plain enough this time. James read the letter I wrote you

about my pleasure in the life here and was displeased at it. He thinks I

am growing worldly and losing that simplicity which he has always looked

upon as my most attractive characteristic. So! so! Well, James is right;

I am becoming less the country girl and more the woman of the world

every day I remain here. That means I am becoming less worthy of him.

So--But whatever else I have to say on this topic must be said to him.

For this you will pardon me like the good brother you are. I cannot help

my preference. He is nearer my own age; besides, we were made for each

other.

DEAR JAMES:

I am not worldly; I am not carried away by the pleasures and

satisfactions of this place,--at least not to the point of forgetting

what is dearer and better. I have seen Washington, I have seen gay life;

I like it, but I LOVE Portchester. Consequently I am going to return to

Portchester, and that very soon. Indeed I cannot stay away much longer,

and if you are glad of this, and if you wish to be convinced that a girl

who has been wearing brocade and jewels can content herself quite gaily

again with calico, come up to the dear old gate a week from now and you

will have the opportunity. Do you object to flowers? I may wear a flower

in my hair.

Your wayward but ever-constant

AGATHA.

DEAR JAMES:

Why must I write? Why am I not content with the memory of last night?

When one's cup is quite full, a cup that has been so long in

filling,--must some few drops escape just to show that a great joy like

mine is not satisfied to be simply quiescent? I have suffered so long

from uncertainty, have tried you and tried myself with so tedious an

indecision, that, now I know no other man can ever move my heart as you

have done, the ecstasy of it makes me over-demonstrative. I want to tell

you that I love you; that I do not simply accept your love, but give you

back in fullest measure all the devotion you have heaped upon me in

spite of my many faults and failings. You took me to your heart last

night, and seemed satisfied; but it does not satisfy me that I just let

you do it without telling you that I am proud and happy to be the chosen

one of your heart, and that as I saw your smile and the proud passion

which lit up your face, I felt how much sweeter was the dear domestic

bliss you promised me than the more brilliant but colder life of a

statesman's wife in Washington.

I missed the flower from my hair when I went back to my room last night.

Did you take it, dear? If so, do not cherish it. I hate to think of

anything withering on your breast. My love is deathless, James, and owns

no such symbol as that. But perhaps you are not thinking of my love, but

of my faults. If so, let the flower remain where you have put it; and

when you gaze on it say, "Thus is it with the defects of my darling;

once in full bloom, now a withered remembrance. When I gathered her they

began to fade." O James, I feel as if I never could feel anger again.

DEAR JAMES:

I do not, I cannot, believe it. Though you said to me on going out,

"Your father will explain," I cannot content myself with his

explanations and will never believe what he said of you except you

confirm his accusations by your own act. If, after I have told you

exactly what passed between us, you return me this and other letters,

then I shall know that I have leaned my weight on a hollow staff, and

that henceforth I am to be without protector or comforter in this world.

O James, were we not happy! I believed in you and felt that you believed

in me. When we stood heart to heart under the elm tree (was it only last

night?) and you swore that if it lay in the power of earthly man to make

me happy, I should taste every sweet that a woman's heart naturally

craved, I thought my heaven had already come and that now it only

remained for me to create yours. Yet that very minute my father was

approaching us, and in another instant we heard these words:

"James, I must talk with you before you make my daughter forget herself

any further." Forget herself! What had happened? This was not the way my

father had been accustomed to talk, much as he had always favoured the

suit of Philemon Webb, and pleased as he would have been had my choice

fallen on him. Forget herself! I looked at you to see how these

insulting words would affect you. But while you turned pale, or seemed

to do so in the fading moonlight, you were not quite so unprepared for

them as I was myself, and instead of showing anger, followed my father

into the house, leaving me shivering in a spot which had held no chill

for me a moment before. You were gone--how long? To me it seemed an

hour, and perhaps it was. It would seem to take that long for a man's

face to show such change as yours did when you confronted me again in

the moonlight. Yet a lightning stroke makes quick work, and perhaps my

countenance in that one minute showed as great a change as yours. Else

why did you shudder away from me, and to my passionate appeal reply with

this one short phrase: "Your father will explain"? Did you think any

other words than yours would satisfy me, or that I could believe even

him when he accused you of a base and dishonest act? Much as I have

always loved and revered my father, I find it impossible not to hope

that in his wish to see me united to Philemon he has resorted to an

unworthy subterfuge to separate us; therefore I give you our interview

word for word. May it shock you as much as it shocked me. Here is what

he said first:

"Agatha, you cannot marry James Zabel. He is not an honest man. He has

defrauded me, ME, your father, of several thousand dollars. In a clever

way, too, showing him to be as subtle as he is unprincipled. Shall I

tell you the wretched story, my girl? He has left me to do so. He sees

as plainly as I do that any communication between you two after the

discovery I have this day made would be but an added offence. He is at

least a gentleman, which is something, considering how near he came to

being my son-in-law."

I may have answered. People do cry out when they are stabbed, sometimes,

but I rather think I did not say a word, only looked a disdain which at

that minute was as measureless as my belief in you. YOU dishonest?

YOU--Or perhaps I laughed; that would have been truer to my feeling;

yes, I must have laughed.

My father's next words indicated that I did something.

"You do not believe in his guilt," he went on, and there was a kindness

in his tone which gave me my first feeling of real terror. "I can

readily comprehend that, Agatha. He has been in my office and acted

under my eye for several years now, and I had almost as much confidence

in him as you had, notwithstanding the fact that I liked him much better

as my confidential clerk than as your probable or prospective husband.

He has never held the key to my heart; would God he never had to yours!

But he was a good and reliable man in the office, or so I thought, and I

gave into his hand much of the work I ought to have done myself,

especially since my health has more or less failed me. My trust he

abused. A month ago--it was during that ill turn you remember I received

a letter from a man I had never expected to hear from again. He was in

my debt some ten thousand dollars, and wrote that he had brought with

him as much of this sum as he had been able to save in the last five

years, to Sutherlandtown, where he was now laid up with a dangerous

illness from which he had small hope of recovering. Would I come there

and get it? He was a stranger and wished to take no one into his

confidence, but he had the money and would be glad to place it in my

hands. He added that as he was a lone man, without friends or relatives

to inherit from him, he felt a decided pleasure at the prospect of

satisfying his only creditor, and devoutly hoped he would be well enough

to realise the transaction and receive my receipt. But if his fever

increased and he should be delirious or unconscious when I reached him,

then I was to lift up the left-hand corner of the mattress on which he

lay and take from underneath his head a black wallet in which I would

find the money promised me. He had elsewhere enough to pay all his

expenses, so that the full contents of the wallet were mine.

"I remembered the man and I wanted the money; so, not being able to go

for it myself, I authorised James Zabel to collect it for me. He started

at once for Sutherlandtown, and in a few hours returned with the wallet

alluded to. Though I was suffering intensely at the time, I remember

distinctly the air with which he laid it down and the words with which

he endeavoured to carry off a certain secret excitement visible in him.

'Mr. Orr was alive, sir, and fully conscious; but he will not outlive

the night. He seemed quite satisfied with the messenger and gave up the

wallet without any hesitation.' I roused up and looked at him. 'What has

shaken you up so?' I asked. He was silent a moment before replying. 'I

have ridden fast,' said he; then more slowly, 'One feels sorry for a man

dying alone and amongst strangers.' I thought he showed an unnecessary

emotion, but paid no further heed to it at the time.

"The wallet held two thousand and more dollars, which was less than I

expected, but yet a goodly sum and very welcome. As I was counting it

over I glanced at the paper accompanying it. It was an acknowledgment of

debt and mentioned the exact sum I should find in the wallet--$2753.67.

Pointing them out to James, I remarked, 'The figures are in different

ink from the words. How do you account for that?' I thought his answer

rather long in coming, though when it did come it was calm, if not

studied. 'I presume,' said he, 'that the sum was inserted at

Sutherlandtown, after Mr. Orr was quite sure just how much he could

spare for the liquidation of this old debt.' 'Very likely,' I assented,

not bestowing another thought upon the matter.

"But to-day it has been forced back upon my attention in a curious if

not providential way. I was over in Sutherlandtown for the first time

since my illness, and having some curiosity about my unfortunate but

honest debtor, went to the hotel and asked to see the room in which he

died. It being empty they at once showed it to me; and satisfied that he

had been made comfortable in his last hours, I was turning away, when I

espied on a table in one corner an inkstand and what seemed to be an old

copy-book. Why I stopped and approached this table I do not know, but

once in front of it I remembered what Zabel had said about the figures,

and taking up the pen I saw there, I dipped it in the ink-pot and

attempted to scribble a number or two on a piece of loose paper I found

in the copy-book. The ink was thick and the pen corroded, so that it was

not till after several ineffectual efforts that I succeeded in making

any strokes that were at all legible. But when I did, they were so

exactly similar in colour to the numbers inserted in Mr. Orr's

memorandum (which I had fortunately brought with me) that I was

instantly satisfied this especial portion of the writing had been done,

as James had said, in this room, and with the very pen I was then

handling. As there was nothing extraordinary in this, I was turning

away, when a gust of wind from the open window lifted the loose sheet of

paper I had been scribbling on and landed it, the other side up, on the

carpet. As I stooped for it I saw figures on it, and feeling sure that

they had been scrawled there by Mr. Orr in his attempt to make the pen

write, I pulled out the memorandum again and compared the two minutely.

They were the work of the same hand, but the figures on the stray leaf

differed from those in the memorandum in a very important particular.

Those in the memorandum began with a 2, while those on the stray sheet

began with a 7--a striking difference. Look, Agatha, here is the piece

of paper just as I found it. You see here, there, and everywhere the one

set of figures, 7753.67. Here it is hardly legible, here it is blotted

with too much ink, here it is faint but sufficiently distinct, and

here--well, there can be no mistake about these figures, 7753.67; yet

the memorandum reads, $2753.67, and the money returned to me amounts to

$2753.67--a clean five thousand dollars' difference."

Here, James, my father paused, perhaps to give me a commiserating look,

though I did not need it; perhaps to give himself a moment in which to

regain courage for what he still had to say. I did not break the

silence; I was too sure of your integrity; besides, my tongue could not

have moved if it would; all my faculties seemed frozen except that

instinct which cried out continually within me: "No! there is no fault

in James. He has done no wrong. No one but himself shall ever convince

me that he has robbed anyone of anything except poor me of my poor

heart." But inner cries of this kind are inaudible and after a moment's

interval my father went on:

"Five thousand dollars is no petty sum, and the discrepancy in the two

sets of figures which seemed to involve me in so considerable a loss set

me thinking. Convinced that Mr. Orr would not be likely to scribble one

number over so many times if it was not the one then in his mind, I went

to Mr. Forsyth's office and borrowed a magnifying-glass, through which I

again subjected the figures in the memorandum to a rigid scrutiny. The

result was a positive conviction that they had been tampered with after

their first writing, either by Mr. Orr himself or by another whom I need

not name. The 2 had originally been a 7, and I could even see where the

top line of the 7 had been given a curl and where a horizontal stroke

had been added at the bottom.

"Agatha, I came home as troubled a man as there was in all these parts.

I remembered the suppressed excitement which had been in James Zabel's

face when he handed me over the money, and I remembered also that you

loved him, or thought you did, and that, love or no love, you were

pledged to marry him. If I had not recalled all this I might have

proceeded more warily. As it was, I took the bold and open course and

gave James Zabel an opportunity to explain himself. Agatha, he did not

embrace it. He listened to my accusations and followed my finger when I

pointed out the discrepancy between the two sets of figures, but he made

no protestations of innocence, nor did he show me the front of an honest

man when I asked if he expected me to believe that the wallet had held

only two thousand and over when Mr. Orr handed it over to him. On the

contrary he seemed to shrink into himself like a person whose life has

been suddenly blasted, and replying that he would expect me to believe

nothing except his extreme contrition at the abuse of confidence of

which he had been guilty, begged me to wait till to-morrow before taking

any active steps in the matter. I replied that I would show him that

much consideration if he would immediately drop all pretensions to your

hand. This put him in a bad way; but he left, as you see, with just a

simple injunction to you to seek from me an explanation of his strange

departure. Does that look like innocence or does it look like guilt?"

I found my tongue at this and passionately cried: "James Zabel's life,

as I have known it, shows him to be an honest man. If he has done what

you suggest, given you but a portion of the money entrusted to him and

altered the figures in the memorandum to suit the amount he brought you,

then there is a discrepancy between this act and all the other acts of

his life which I find it more difficult to reconcile than you did the

two sets of figures in Mr. Orr's handwriting. Father, I must hear from

his own lips a confirmation of your suspicions before I will credit

them."

And this is why I write you so minute an account of what passed between

my father and myself last night. If his account of the matter is a

correct one, and you have nothing to add to it in way of explanation,

then the return of this letter will be token enough that my father has

been just in his accusations and that the bond between us must be

broken. But if--O James, if you are the true man I consider you, and all

that I have heard is a fabrication or mistake, then come to me at once;

do not delay, but come at once, and the sight of your face at the gate

will be enough to establish your innocence in my eyes.

AGATHA.

The letter that followed this was very short:

DEAR JAMES:

The package of letters has been received. God help me to bear this shock

to all my hopes and the death of all my girlish beliefs. I am not angry.

Only those who have something left to hold on to in life can be angry.

My father tells me he has received a packet too. It contained five

thousand dollars in ten five-hundred-dollar notes. James! James! was not

my love enough, that you should want my father's money too?

I have begged my father, and he has promised me, to keep the cause of

this rupture secret. No one shall know from either of us that James

Zabel has any flaw in his nature.

The next letter was dated some months later. It is to Philemon:

DEAR PHILEMON:

The gloves are too small; besides, I never wear gloves. I hate their

restraint and do not feel there is any good reason for hiding my hands,

in this little country town where everyone knows me. Why not give them

to Hattie Weller? She likes such things, while I have had my fill of

finery. A girl whose one duty is to care for a dying father has no room

left in her heart for vanities.

DEAR PHILEMON:

It is impossible. I have had my day of love and my heart is quite dead.

Show your magnanimity by ceasing to urge me any longer to forget the

past. It is all you can do for

AGATHA.

DEAR PHILEMON:

You WILL have my hand though I have told you that my heart does not go

with it. It is hard to understand such persistence, but if you are

satisfied to take a woman of my strength against her will, then God have

mercy upon you, for I will be your wife.

But do not ask me to go to Sutherlandtown. I will live here. And do not

expect to keep up your intimacy with the Zabels. There is no tie of

affection remaining between James and myself, but if I am to shed that

half-light over your home which is all I can promise and all that you

can hope to receive, then keep me from all influence but your own. That

this in time may grow sweet and dear to me is my earnest prayer to-day,

for you are worthy of a true wife.

AGATHA.

DEAR JOHN:

I am going to be married. My father exacts it and there is no good

reason why I should not give him this final satisfaction. At least I do

not think there is; but if you or your brother differ from me--Say

good-bye to James from me. I pray that his life may be peaceful. I know

that it will be honest.

AGATHA.

DEAR PHILEMON:

My father is worse. He fears that if we wait till Tuesday he will not be

able to see us married. Decide, then, what our duty is; I am ready to

abide by your pleasure.

AGATHA.

The following is from John Zabel to his brother James, and is dated one

day after the above:

DEAR JAMES:

When you read this I will be far away, never to look in your face again,

unless you bid me. Brother, brother, I meant it for the best, but God

was not with me and I have made four hearts miserable without giving

help to anyone.

When I read Agatha's letter--the last for more reasons than one that I

shall ever receive from her--I seemed to feel as never before what I had

done to blast your two lives. For the first time I realised to the full

that but for me she might have been happy and you the respected husband

of the one grand woman to be found in Portchester. That I had loved her

so fiercely myself came back to me in reproach, and the thought that she

perhaps suspected that the blame had fallen where it was not deserved

roused me to such a pitch that I took the sudden and desperate

resolution of telling her the truth before she gave her hand to

Philemon. Why the daily sight of your misery should not have driven me

before to this act, I cannot tell. Some remnants of the old jealousy may

have been still festering in my heart; or the sense of the great

distance between your self-sacrificing spirit and the selfishness of my

weaker nature risen like a barrier between me and the only noble act

left for a man in my position. Whatever the cause, it was not till

to-day the full determination came to brave the obloquy of a full

confession; but when it did come I did not pause till I reached Mr.

Gilchrist's house and was ushered into his presence.

He was lying on the sitting-room lounge, looking very weak and

exhausted, while on one side of him stood Agatha and on the other

Philemon, both contemplating him with ill-concealed anxiety. I had not

expected to find Philemon there, and for a moment I suffered the extreme

agony of a man who has not measured the depth of the plunge he is about

to take; but the sight of Agatha trembling under the shock of my

unexpected presence restored me to myself and gave me firmness to

proceed. Advancing with a bow, I spoke quickly the one word I had come

there to say.

"Agatha, I have done you a great wrong and I am here to undo it. For

months I have felt driven to confession, but not till to-day have I

possessed the necessary courage. NOW, nothing shall hinder me."

I said this because I saw in both Mr. Gilchrist and Philemon a

disposition to stop me where I was. Indeed Mr. Gilchrist had risen on

his elbow and Philemon was making that pleading gesture of his which we

know so well.

Agatha alone looked eager. "What is it?" she cried. "I have a right to

know." I went to the door, shut it, and stood with my back against it, a

figure of shame and despair; suddenly the confession burst from me.

"Agatha," said I, "why did you break with my brother James? Because you

thought him guilty of theft; because you believed he took the five

thousand dollars out of the sum entrusted to him by Mr. Orr for your

father. Agatha, it was not James who did this it was I; and James knew

it, and bore the blame of my misdoing because he was always a loyal soul

and took account of my weakness and knew, alas! too well, that open

shame would kill me."

It was a weak plea and merited no reply. But the silence was so dreadful

and lasted so long that I felt first crushed and then terrified. Raising

my head, for I had not dared to look any of them in the face, I cast one

glance at the group before me and dropped my head again, startled. Only

one of the three was looking at me, and that was Agatha. The others had

their heads turned aside, and I thought, or rather the passing fancy

took me, that they shrank from meeting her gaze with something of the

same shame and dread I myself felt. But she! Can I ever hope to make you

realise her look, or comprehend the pang of utter self-abasement with

which I succumbed before it? It was so terrible that I seemed to hear

her utter words, though I am sure she did not speak; and with some wild

idea of stemming the torrent of her reproaches, I made an effort at

explanation, and impetuously cried: "It was not for my own good, Agatha,

not for self altogether, I did this. I too loved you, madly,

despairingly, and, good brother as I seemed, I was jealous of James and

hoped to take his place in your regard if I could show a greater

prosperity and get for you those things his limited prospects denied

him. You enjoy money, beauty, ease; I could see that by your letters,

and if James could not give them to you and I could--Oh, do not look at

me like that! I see now that millions could not have bought you."

"Despicable!" was all that came from her lips. At which I shuddered and

groped about for the handle of the door. But she would not let me go.

Subduing with an unexpected grand self-restraint the emotions which had

hitherto swelled too high in her breast for either speech or action, she

thrust out one arm to stay me and said in short, commanding tones: "How

was this thing done? You say you took the money, yet it was James who

was sent to collect it--or so my father says." Here she tore her looks

from me and cast one glance at her father. What she saw I cannot say,

but her manner changed and henceforth she glanced his way as much as

mine and with nearly as much emotion. "I am waiting to hear what you

have to say," she exclaimed, laying her hand on the door over my head so

as to leave me no opportunity for escape. I bowed and attempted an

explanation.

"Agatha," said I, "the commission was given to James and he rode to

Sutherlandtown to perform it. But it was on the day when he was

accustomed to write to you, and he was not easy in his mind, for he

feared he would miss sending you his usual letter. When, therefore, he

came to the hotel and saw me in Philemon's room--I was often there in

those days, often without Philemon's knowing it--he saw, or thought he

did, a way out of his difficulties. Entering where I was, he explained

to me his errand, and we being then--though never, alas! since--one in

everything but the secret hopes he enjoyed, he asked me if I would go in

his stead to Mr. Orr's room, present my credentials, and obtain the

money while he wrote the letter with which his mind was full. Though my

jealousy was aroused and I hated the letter he was about to write, I did

not see how I could refuse him; so after receiving such credentials as

he himself carried, and getting full instructions how to proceed, I left

him writing at Philemon's table and hastened down the hall to the door

he had pointed out. If Providence had been on the side of guilt, the

circumstances could not have been more favourable for the deception I

afterwards played. No one was in the hall, no one was with Mr. Orr to

note that it was I instead of James who executed Mr. Gilchrist's

commission. But I was thinking of no deception then. I proceeded quite

innocently on my errand, and when the feeble voice of the invalid bade

me enter, I experienced nothing but a feeling of compassion for a man

dying in this desolate way, alone. Of course Mr. Orr was surprised to

see a stranger, but after reading Mr. Gilchrist's letter which I handed

him, he seemed quite satisfied and himself drew out the wallet at the

head of his bed and handed it over. 'You will find,' said he, 'a

memorandum inside of the full amount, $7758.67. I should like to have

returned Mr. Gilchrist the full ten thousand which I owe him, but this

is all I possess, barring a hundred dollars which I have kept for my

final expenses.' 'Mr. Gilchrist will be satisfied,' I assured him.

'Shall I make you out a receipt?' He shook his head with a sad smile. 'I

shall be dead in twenty-four hours. What good will a receipt do me?' But

it seemed unbusinesslike not to give it, so I went over to the table,

where I saw a pen and paper, and recognising the necessity of counting

the money before writing a receipt, I ran my eye over the bills, which

were large, and found the wallet contained just the amount he had named.

Then I glanced at the memorandum. It had evidently been made out by him

at some previous time, for the body of the writing was in firm

characters and the ink blue, while the figures were faintly inscribed in

muddy black. The 7 especially was little more than a straight line, and

as I looked at it the devil that is in every man's nature whispered at

first carelessly, then with deeper and deeper insistence: 'How easy it

would be to change that 7 to a 2! Only a little mark at the top and the

least additional stroke at the bottom and these figures would stand for

five thousand less. It might be a temptation to some men.' It presently

became a temptation to me; for, glancing furtively up, I discovered that

Mr. Orr had fallen either into a sleep or into a condition of

insensibility which made him oblivious to my movements. Five thousand

dollars! just the sum of the ten five-hundred-dollar bills that made the

bulk of the amount I had counted. In this village and at my age this sum

would raise me at once to comparative independence. The temptation was

too strong for resistance. I succumbed to it, and seizing the pen before

me, I made the fatal marks. When I went back to James the wallet was in

my hand, and the ten five-hundred-dollar bills in my breast pocket."

Agatha had begun to shudder. She shook so she rattled the door against

which I leaned.

"And when you found that Providence was not so much upon your side as

you thought, when you saw that the fraud was known and that your brother

was suspected of it--"

"Don't!" I pleaded, "don't make me recall that hour!"

But she was inexorable. "Recall that and every hour," she commanded.

"Tell me why he sacrificed himself, why he sacrificed me, to a cur--"

She feared her own tongue, she feared her own anger, and stopped.

"Speak," she whispered, and it was the most ghastly whisper that ever

left mortal lips. I was but a foot from her and she held me as by a

strong enchantment. I could not help obeying her.

"To make it all clear," I pursued, "I must go back to the time I

rejoined James in Philemon's room. He had finished his letter when I

entered and was standing with it, sealed, in his hand. I may have cast

it a disdainful glance. I may have shown that I was no longer the same

man I had been when I left him a half-hour before, for he looked

curiously at me for a moment previous to saying:

"'Is that the wallet you have there? Was Mr. Orr conscious, and did he

give it to you himself?' 'Mr. Orr was conscious,' I returned,--and I

didn't like the sound of my own voice, careful as I was to speak

naturally,--' but he fainted just before I came out, and I think you had

better ask the clerk as you go down to send someone up to him.'

"James was weighing the pocket-book in his hand. 'How much do you think

there is in here? The debt was ten thousand.' I had turned carelessly

away and was looking out of the window. 'The memorandum inside gives the

figures as two thousand,' I declared. 'He apologises for not sending the

full amount. He hasn't it.' Again I felt James looking at me. Why? Could

he see that guilty wad of bills lying on my breast? 'How came you to

read the memorandum?' he asked. 'Mr. Orr wished me to. I looked at it to

please him.' This was a lie--the first I had ever uttered. James's eyes

had not moved. 'John,' said he, 'this little bit of business seems to

have disturbed you. I ought to have attended to it myself. I am quite

sure I ought to have attended to it myself.' 'The man is dying,' I

muttered. 'You escaped a sad sight. Be satisfied that you have got the

money. Shall I post that letter for you?' He put it jealously in his

pocket, and again I saw him look at me, but he said nothing more except

that he repeated that same phrase, 'I ought to have attended to it

myself. Agatha might better have waited.' Then he went out; but I

remained till Philemon came home. My brother and myself were no longer

companions; a crime divided us,--a crime he could not suspect, yet which

made itself felt in both our hearts and prepared him for the revelation

made to him by Mr. Gilchrist some weeks after. That night he came to

Sutherlandtown, where I was, and entered my bedroom--not in the

fraternal way of the old days, but as an elder enters the presence of a

younger. 'John,' he said, without any preamble or preparation, 'where

are the five thousand dollars you kept back from Mr. Gilchrist? The

memorandum said seven and you delivered to me only two.' There are

death-knells sounded in every life; those words sounded mine, or would

have if he had not immediately added: 'There! I knew you had no stamina.

I have taken your crime on myself, who am really to blame for it, since

I delegated my duty to another, and you will only have to bear the

disgrace of having James Zabel for a brother. In exchange, give me the

money; it shall be returned to-morrow. You cannot have disposed of it

already. After which, you, or rather I, will be in the eyes of the world

only a thief in intent, not in fact.' Had he only stopped there!--but he

went on: 'Agatha is lost to me, John. In return, be to me the brother I

always thought you up to the unhappy day the sin of Achan came between

us.'

"YOU were lost to him! It was all I heard. YOU were lost to him! Then,

if I acknowledged the crime I should not only take up my own burden of

disgrace, but see him restored to his rights over the only woman I had

ever loved. The sacrifice was great and my virtue was not equal to it. I

gave him back the money, but I did not offer to assume the

responsibility of my own crime."

"And since?"

In what a hard tone she spoke!

"I have had to see Philemon gradually assume the rights James once

enjoyed."

"John," she asked,--she was under violent self-restraint,--"why do you

come now?"

I cast my eyes at Philemon. He was standing, as before, with his eyes

turned away. There was discouragement in his attitude, mingled with a

certain grand patience. Seeing that he was better able to bear her loss

than either you or myself, I said to her very low, "I thought you ought

to know the truth before you gave your final word. I am late, but I

would have been TOO LATE a week from now."

Her hand fell from the door, but her eyes remained fixed on my face.

Never have I sustained such a look; never will I encounter such another.

"It is too late NOW," she murmured. "The clergyman has just gone who

united me to Philemon."

The next minute her back was towards me; she had faced her father and

her new-made husband.

"Father, you knew this thing!" Keen, sharp, incisive, the words rang

out. "I saw it in your face when he began to speak."

Mr. Gilchrist drooped slightly; he was a very sick man and the scene

had been a trying one.

"If I did," was his low response, "it was but lately. You were engaged

then to Philemon. Why break up this second match?"

She eyed him as if she found it difficult to credit her ears. Such

indifference to the claims of innocence was incredible to her. I saw her

grand profile quiver, then the slow ebbing from her cheek of every drop

of blood indignation had summoned there.

"And you, Philemon?" she suggested, with a somewhat softened aspect.

"You committed this wrong ignorantly. Never having heard of this crime,

you could not know on what false grounds I had been separated from

James."

I had started to escape, but stopped just beyond the threshold of the

door as she uttered these words. Philemon was not as ignorant as she

supposed. This was evident from his attitude and expression.

"Agatha," he began, but at this first word, and before he could clasp

the hands held helplessly out before her, she gave a great cry, and

staggering back, eyed both her father and himself in a frenzy of

indignation that was all the more uncontrollable from the superhuman

effort which she had hitherto made to suppress it.

"You too!" she shrieked. "You too! and I have just sworn to love,

honour, and obey you! Love YOU! Honour YOU! the unconscionable wretch

who--"

But here Mr. Gilchrist rose. Weak, tottering, quivering with something

more than anger, he approached his daughter and laid his finger on her

lips.

"Be quiet!" he said. "Philemon is not to blame. A month ago he came to

me and prayed that as a relief to his mind I would tell him why you had

separated yourself from James. He had always thought the match had

fallen through on account of some foolish quarrel or incompatibility,

but lately he had feared there was something more than he suspected in

this break, something that he should know. So I told him why you had

dismissed James; and whether he knew James better than we did, or

whether he had seen something in his long acquaintance with these

brothers which influenced his judgment, he said at once: 'This cannot be

true of James. It is not in his nature to defraud any man; but John--I

might believe it of John. Isn't there some complication here?' I had

never thought of John, and did not see how John could be mixed up with

an affair I had supposed to be a secret between James and myself, but

when we came to locate the day, Philemon remembered that on returning to

his room that night, he had found John awaiting him. As his room was not

five doors from that occupied by Mr. Orr, he was convinced that there

was more to this matter than I had suspected. But when he laid the

matter before James, he did not deny that John was guilty, but was

peremptory in wishing you not to be told before your marriage. He knew

that you were engaged to a good man, a man that your father approved, a

man that could and would make you happy. He did not want to be the means

of a second break, and besides, and this, I think, was at the bottom of

the stand he took, for James Zabel was always the proudest man I ever

knew,--he never could bear, he said, to give to one like Agatha a name

which he knew and she knew was not entirely free from reproach. It would

stand in the way of his happiness and ultimately of hers; his brother's

dishonour was his. So while he still loved you, his only prayer was that

after you were safely married and Philemon was sure of your affection,

he should tell you that the man you once regarded so favourably was not

unworthy of that regard. To obey him, Philemon has kept silent, while

I--Agatha, what are you doing? Are you mad, my child?"

She looked so for the moment. Tearing off the ring which she had worn

but an hour, she flung it on the floor. Then she threw her arms high up

over her head and burst out in an awful voice:

"Curses on the father, curses on the husband, who have combined to make

me rue the day I was born! The father I cannot disown, but the

husband--"

"Hush!"

It was Mr. Gilchrist who dared her fury. Philemon said nothing.

"Hush! he may be the father of your children. Don't curse--"

But she only towered the higher and her beauty, from being simply

majestic, became appalling.

"Children!" she cried. "If ever I bear children to this man, may the

blight of Heaven strike them as it has struck me this day. May they die

as my hopes have died, or, if they live, may they bruise his heart as

mine is bruised, and curse their father as--"

Here I fled the house. I was shaking as if this awful denunciation had

fallen on my own head. But before the door closed behind me, a different

cry called me back. Mr. Gilchrist was lying lifeless on the floor, and

Philemon, the patient, tender Philemon, had taken Agatha to his breast

and was soothing her there as if the words she had showered upon him had

been blessings instead of the most fearful curses which had ever left

the lips of mortal woman.

The next letter was in Agatha's handwriting. It was dated some months

later and was stained and crumpled more than any other in the whole

packet. Could Philemon once have told why? Were these blotted lines the

result of his tears falling fast upon them, tears of forty years ago,

when he and she were young and love had been doubtful? Was the sheet so

yellowed and so seamed because it had been worn on his breast and folded

and unfolded so often? Philemon, thou art in thy grave, sleeping sweetly

at last by thy deeply idolised one, but these marks of feeling still

remain indissolubly connected with the words that gave them birth.

DEAR PHILEMON:

You are gone for a day and a night only, but it seems a lengthened

absence to me, meriting a little letter. You have been so good to me,

Philemon, ever since that dreadful hour following our marriage, that

sometimes--I hardly dare yet to say always--I feel that I am beginning

to love you and that God did not deal with me so harshly when He cast me

into your arms. Yesterday I tried to tell you this when you almost

kissed me at parting. But I was afraid it was a momentary sentimentality

and so kept still. But to-day such a warm well-spring of joy rises in my

heart when I think that to-morrow the house will be bright again, and

that in place of the empty wall opposite me at table I shall see your

kindly and forbearing face, I know that the heart I had thought

impregnable has begun to yield, and that daily gentleness, and a

boundless consideration from one who had excuse for bitter thoughts and

recrimination, are doing what all of us thought impossible a few short

months ago.

Oh, I am so happy, Philemon, so happy to love where it is now my duty to

love; and if it were not for that dreadful memory of a father dying with

harsh words in his ears, and the knowledge that you, my husband, yet not

my husband, are bearing ever about with you echoes of words that in

another nature would have turned tenderness into gall, I could be merry

also and sing as I go about the house making it pleasant and comfortable

against your speedy return. As it is I can but lay my hand softly on my

heart as its beatings grow too impetuous and say, "God bless my absent

Philemon and help him to forgive me! I forgive him and love him as I

never thought I could."

That you may see that these are not the weak outpourings of a lonely

woman, I will here write that I heard to-day that John and James Zabel

have gone into partnership in the ship-building business, John's uncle

having left him a legacy of several thousand dollars. I hope they will

do well. James, they say, is full of business and is, to all appearance,

perfectly cheerful. This relieves me from too much worry in his regard.

God certainly knew what kind of a husband I needed. May you find

yourself equally blessed in your wife.

Another letter to Philemon, a year later:

DEAR PHILEMON:

Hasten home, Philemon; I do not like these absences. I am just now too

weak and fearful. Since we knew the great hope before us, I have looked

often in your face for a sign that you remembered what this hope cannot

but recall to my shuddering memory. Philemon, Philemon, was I mad? When

I think what I said in my rage, and then feel the little life stirring

about my heart, I wonder that God did not strike me dead rather than

bestow upon me the greatest blessing that can come to woman. Philemon,

Philemon, if anything should happen to the child! I think of it by day,

I think of it by night. I know you think of it too, though you show me

such a cheerful countenance and make such great plans for the future.

"Will God remember my words, or will He forget? It seems as if my reason

hung upon this question."

A note this time in answer to one from John Zabel:

DEAR JOHN:

Thank you for words which could have come from nobody else. My child is

dead. Could I expect anything different? If I did, God has rebuked me.

Philemon thinks only of me. We understand each other so perfectly now

that our greatest suffering comes in seeing each other's pain. My load I

can bear, but HIS--Come and see me, John; and tell James our house is

open to him. We have all done wrong, and are caught in one net of

misfortune. Let it make us friends again.

Below this in Philemon's hand:

My wife is superstitious. Strong and capable as she is, she has regarded

this sudden taking off of our first-born as a sign that certain words

uttered by her on her marriage day, unhappily known to you and, as I

take it, to James also, have been remembered by the righteous God above

us. This is a weakness which I cannot combat. Can you, who alone of all

the world beside know both it and its cause, help me by a renewed

friendship, whose cheerful and natural character may gradually make her

forget? If so, come like old neighbours, and dine with us on our wedding

day. If God sees that we have buried the past and are ready to forgive

each other the faults of our youth, perhaps He will further spare this

good woman. I think she will be able to bear it. She has great strength

except where a little child is concerned. That alone can henceforth stir

the deepest recesses of her heart.

After this, a gap of years. One, two, three, four, five children were

laid away to rest in Portchester churchyard, then Philemon and she came

to Sutherlandtown; but not till after a certain event had occurred, best

made known by this last letter to Philemon:

DEAREST HUSBAND:

Our babe is born, our sixth and our dearest, and the reproach of its

first look had to be met by me alone. Oh, why did I leave you and come

to this great Boston where I have no friend but Mrs. Sutherland? Did I

think I could break the spell of fate or providence by giving birth to

my last darling among strangers? I shall have to do something more than

that if I would save this child to our old age. It is borne in upon me

like fate that never will a child prosper at my breast or survive the

clasp of my arms. If it is to live it must be reared by others. Some

woman who has not brought down the curse of Heaven upon her by her own

blasphemies must nourish the tender frame and receive the blessing of

its growing love. Neither I nor you can hope to see recognition in our

babe's eye. Before it can turn upon us with love, it will close in its

last sleep and we will be left desolate. What shall we do, then, with

this little son? To whose guardianship can we entrust it? Do you know a

man good enough or a woman sufficiently tender? I do not, but if God

wills that our little Frederick should live, He will raise up someone.

By the pang of possible separation already tearing my heart, I believe

that He WILL raise up someone. Meanwhile I do not dare to kiss the

child, lest I should blight it. He is so sturdy, Philemon, so different

from all the other five.

I open this to add that Mrs. Sutherland has just been in--with her

five-weeks-old infant. His father is away, too, and has not yet seen his

boy; and this is their first after ten years of marriage. Oh, that my

future opened before me as brightly as hers!

The next letter opens with a cry:

Philemon! Come to me, Philemon! I have done what I threatened. I have

made the sacrifice. Our child is no longer ours, and now, perhaps, he

may live. But oh, my breaking heart! my empty arms! Help me to bear my

desolation, for it is for life. We will never have another child.

And where is it? Ah, that is the wonder of it. Near you, Philemon, yet

not too near. Mrs. Sutherland has it, and you may have seen its little

face through the car window if you were in the station last night when

the express passed through to Sutherlandtown. Ah! but she has her burden

to bear too. An awful, secret burden like my own, only she will have the

child--for, Philemon, she has taken it in lieu of her own, which died

last night in my sight; and Mr. Sutherland does not know what she has

done, and never will, if you keep the secret as I shall, for the sake of

the life our little innocent has thus won.

What do I mean and how was it all? Philemon, it was God's work, all but

the deception, and that is for the good of all, and to save four broken

hearts. Listen. Yesterday, only yesterday,--it seems a month ago,--Mrs.

Sutherland came again to see me with her baby in her arms. Mr.

Sutherland is expected home, as you know, this week, and she was about

to start out for Sutherlandtown so as to be in her own house when he

came. The baby was looking well and she was the happiest of women; for

the one wish of his heart and hers had been fulfilled and she was soon

going to have the bliss of showing the child to his father. My own babe

was on the bed asleep, and I, who am feeling wonderfully strong, was

sitting up in a little chair as far away from him as possible, not out

of hatred or indifference--oh, no!--but because he seemed to rest better

when left entirely by himself and not under the hungry look of my eye.

Mrs. Sutherland went over to look at it. "Oh, he is fair like my baby,"

she said, "and almost as sturdy, though mine is a month older." And she

stooped down and kissed him. Philemon, he smiled for her, though he

never had for me. I saw it with a greedy longing that almost made me cry

out. Then I turned to her and we talked.

Of what? I cannot remember now. At home we had never been intimate

friends. She is from Sutherlandtown and I am from Portchester, and the

distance of nine miles is enough to estrange people. But here, each with

a husband absent and a darling infant lying asleep under our eyes,

interests we have never thought identical drew us to one another and we

chatted with ever-increasing pleasure--when suddenly Mrs. Sutherland

jumped up in a terrible fright. The infant she had been rocking on her

breast was blue; the next minute it shuddered; the next--it lay in her

arms DEAD!

I hear the shriek yet with which she fell with it still in her arms to

the floor. Fortunately no other ears were open to her cry. I alone saw

her misery. I alone heard her tale. The child had been poisoned,

Philemon, poisoned by her. She had mistaken a cup of medicine for a cup

of water and had given the child a few drops in a spoon just before

setting out from her hotel. She had not known at the time what she had

done, but now she remembered that the fatal cup was just like the other

and that the two stood very near together. Oh, her innocent child, and

oh, her husband!

It seemed as if the latter thought would drive her wild. "He has so

wished for a child," she moaned. "We have been married ten years and

this baby seemed to have been sent from heaven. He will curse me, he

will hate me, he will never be able after this to bear me in his sight."

This was not true of Mr. Sutherland, but it was useless to argue with

her. Instead of attempting it, I took another way to stop her ravings.

Lifting the child out of her hands, I first listened at its heart, and

then, finding it was really dead,--Philemon, I have seen too many

lifeless children not to know,--I began slowly to undress it. "What are

you doing?" she cried. "Mrs. Webb, Mrs. Webb, what are you doing?" For

reply I pointed to the bed, where two little arms could be seen feebly

fluttering. "You shall have my child," I whispered. "I have carried too

many babies to the tomb to dare risk bringing up another." And catching

her poor wandering spirit with my eye, I held her while I told her my

story.

Philemon, I saved that woman. Before I had finished speaking I saw the

reason return to her eye and the dawning of a pitiful hope in her

passion-drawn face. She looked at the child in my arms and then she

looked at the one in the bed, and the long-drawn sigh with which she

finally bent down and wept over our darling told me that my cause was

won. The rest was easy. When the clothes of the two children had been

exchanged, she took our baby in her arms and prepared to leave. Then I

stopped her. "Swear," I cried, holding her by the arm and lifting my

other hand to heaven, "swear you will be a mother to this child! Swear

you will love it as your own and rear it in the paths of truth and

righteousness!" The convulsive clasp with which she drew the baby to her

breast assured me more than her shuddering "I swear!" that her heart had

already opened to it. I dropped her arm and covered my face with my

hands. I could not see my darling go; it was worse than death--for the

moment it was worse than death. "O God, save him!" I groaned. "God, make

him an honour--" But here she caught me by the arm. Her clutch was

frenzied, her teeth were chattering. "Swear in your turn!" she gasped.

"Swear that if I do a mother's duty by this boy, you will keep my secret

and never, never reveal to my husband, to the boy, or to the world that

you have any claims upon him!" It was like tearing the heart from my

breast with my own hand, but I swore, Philemon, and she in her turn drew

back. But suddenly she faced me again, terror and doubt in all her

looks. "Your husband!" she whispered. "Can you keep such a secret from

him? You will breathe it in your dreams." "I shall tell him," I

answered. "Tell him!" The hair seemed to rise on her forehead and she

shook so that I feared she would drop the babe. "Be careful!" I cried.

"See! you frighten the babe. My husband has but one heart with me. What

I do he will subscribe to. Do not fear Philemon." So I promised in your

name. Gradually she grew calmer. When I saw she was steady again, I

motioned her to go. Even my more than mortal strength was failing, and

the baby--Philemon, I had never kissed it and I did not kiss it then. I

heard her feet draw slowly towards the door, I heard her hand fall on

the knob, heard it turn, uttered one cry, and then----

They found me an hour after, lying along the floor, clasping the dead

infant in my arms. I was in a swoon, and they all think I fell with the

child, as perhaps I did, and that its little life went out during my

insensibility. Of its features, like and yet unlike our boy's, no one

seems to take heed. The nurse who cared for it is gone, and who else

would know that little face but me? They are very good to me, and are

full of self-reproaches for leaving me so long in my part of the

building alone. But though they watch me now, I have contrived to write

this letter, which you will get with the one telling of the baby's death

and my own dangerous condition. Destroy it, Philemon, and then COME.

Nothing in all the world will give me comfort but your hand laid under

my head and your true eyes looking into mine. Ah, we must love each

other now, and live humbly! All our woe has come from my early girlish

delight in gay and elegant things. From this day on I eschew all

vanities and find in your affection alone the solace which Heaven will

not deny to our bewildered hearts. Perhaps in this way the blessing that

has been denied us will be visited on our child, who will live. I am now

sure, to be the delight of our hearts and the pride of our eyes, even

though we are denied the bliss of his presence and affection.

Mrs. Sutherland was not seen to enter or go out of my rooms. Being on

her way to the depot, she kept on her way, and must be now in her own

home. Her secret is safe, but ours--oh, you will help me to preserve it!

Help me not to betray--tell them I have lost five babies before this

one--delirious--there may be an inquest--she must not be mentioned--let

all the blame fall on me if there is blame--I fell--there is a bruise on

the baby's forehead--and--and--I am growing incoherent--I will try and

direct this and then love--love--O God!

[A scrawl for the name.]

Under it these words:

Though bidden to destroy this, I have never dared to do so. Some day it

may be of inestimable value to us or our boy. PHILEMON WEBB.

This was the last letter found in the first packet. As it was laid down,

sobs were heard all over the room, and Frederick, who for some time now

had been sitting with his head in his hands, ventured to look up and

say: "Do you wonder that I endeavoured to keep this secret, bought at

such a price and sealed by the death of her I thought my mother and of

her who really was? Gentlemen, Mr. Sutherland loved his wife and

honoured her memory. To tell him, as I shall have to within the hour,

that the child she placed in his arms twenty-five years ago was an

alien, and that all his love, his care, his disappointment, and his

sufferings had been lavished on the son of a neighbour, required greater

courage than to face doubt on the faces of my fellow-townsmen, or

anything, in short, but absolute arraignment on the charge of murder.

Hence my silence, hence my indecision, till this woman"--here he pointed

a scornful finger at Amabel, now shrinking in her chair--"drove me to it

by secretly threatening me with a testimony which would have made me the

murderer of my mother and the lasting disgrace of a good man who alone

has been without blame from the beginning to the end of this desperate

affair. She was about to speak when I forestalled her. My punishment, if

I deserve such, will be to sit and hear in your presence the reading of

the letters still remaining in the coroner's hands."

These letters were certain ones written by Agatha to her unacknowledged

son. They had never been sent. The first one dated from his earliest

infancy, and its simple and touching hopefulness sent a thrill through

every heart. It read as follows:

Three years old, my darling! and the health flush has not faded from

your cheek nor the bright gold from your hair.

Oh, how I bless Mrs. Sutherland that she did not rebuke me when your

father and I came to Sutherlandtown and set up our home where I could at

least see your merry form toddling through the streets, holding on to

the hand of her who now claims your love. My darling, my pride, my

angel, so near and yet so far removed, will you ever know, even in the

heaven to which we all look for joy after our weary pilgrimage is over,

how often in this troublous world, and in these days of your early

infancy, I have crept out of my warm bed, dressed myself, and, without a

word to your father, whose heart it would break, gone out and climbed

the steep hillside just to look at the window of your room to see if it

were light or dark and you awake or sleeping? To breathe the scent of

the eglantine which climbs up to your nursery window, I have braved the

night-damps and the watching eyes of Heaven; but you have a child's

blissful ignorance of all this; you only grow and grow and live, my

darling, LIVE!--which is the only boon I crave, the only recompense I

ask.

Have I but added another sin to my account and brought a worse vengeance

on myself than that of seeing you die in your early infancy? Frederick,

my son, my son, I heard you swear to-day! Not lightly, thoughtlessly, as

boys sometimes will in imitation of their elders, but bitterly,

revengefully, as if the seeds of evil passions were already pushing to

life in the boyish breast I thought so innocent. Did you wonder at the

strange woman who stopped you? Did you realise the awful woe from which

my commonplace words sprang? No, no, what grown mind could take that in,

least of all a child's? To have forsworn the bliss of motherhood and

entered upon a life of deception for THIS! Truly Heaven is implacable

and my last sin is to be punished more inexorably than my first.

There are worse evils than death. This I have always heard, but now I

know it. God was merciful when He slew my babes, and I, presumptous in

my rebellion, and the efforts with which I tried to prevent His work.

Frederick, you are weak, dissipated, and without conscience. The darling

babe, the beautiful child, has grown into a reckless youth whose

impulses Mr. Sutherland will find it hard to restrain, and over whom his

mother--do _I_ call her your mother?--has little influence, though she

tries hard to do a mother's part and save herself and myself from

boundless regret. My boy, my boy, do you feel the lack of your own

mother's vigour? Might you have lived under my care and owned a better

restraint and learned to work and live a respectable life in

circumstances less provocative of self-indulgence? Such questions, when

they rise, are maddening. When I see them form themselves in Philemon's

eyes I drive them out with all the force of my influence, which is still

strong over him. But when they make way in my own breast, I can find no

relief, not even in prayer. Frederick, were I to tell you the truth

about your parentage, would the shock of such an unexpected revelation

make a man of you? I have been tempted to make the trial, at times. Deep

down in my heart I have thought that perhaps I should best serve the

good man who is growing grey under your waywardness, by opening up

before you the past and present agonies of which you are the unconscious

centre. But I cannot do this while SHE lives. The look she gave me one

day when I approached you a step too near at the church door, proves

that it would be the killing of her to reveal her long-preserved secret

now. I must wait her death, which seems near, and then--No, I cannot do

it. Mr. Sutherland has but one staff to lean on, and that is you. It may

be a poor one, a breaking one, but it is still a staff. I dare not take

it away--I dare not. Ah, if Philemon was the man he was once, he might

counsel me, but he is only a child now; just as if God had heard my cry

for children and had given me--HIM.

More money, and still more money! and I hate it except for what it will

do for the poor and incapable about me. How strange are the ways of

Providence! To us who have no need of aught beyond a competence, money

pours in almost against our will, while to those who long and labour for

it, it comes not, or comes so slowly the life wears out in the waiting

and the working. The Zabels, now! Once well-to-do ship-builders, with a

good business and a home full of curious works of art, they now appear

to find it hard to obtain even the necessities of life. Such are the

freaks of fortune; or should I say, the dealings of an inscrutable

Providence? Once I tried to give something out of my abundance to these

old friends, but their pride stood in the way and the attempt failed.

Worse than that. As if to show that benefits should proceed from them to

me rather than from me to them, James bestowed on me a gift. It is a

strange one,--nothing more nor less than a quaint Florentine dagger

which I had often admired for its exquisite workmanship. Was it the last

treasure he possessed? I am almost afraid so. At all events it shall lie

here in my table-drawer where I alone can see it. Such sights are not

good for Philemon. He must have cheerful objects before him, happy faces

such as mine tries to be. But ah!

I would gladly give my life if I could once hold you in my arms, my

erring but beloved son. Will the day ever come when I can? Will you have

strength enough to hear my story and preserve your peace and let me go

down to the grave with the memory of one look, one smile, that is for me

alone? Sometimes I foresee this hour and am happy for a few short

minutes; and then some fresh story of your recklessness is wafted

through the town and--What stopped her at this point we shall never

know. Some want of Philemon's, perhaps. At all events she left off here

and the letter was never resumed. It was the last secret outpouring of

her heart. With this broken sentence Agatha's letters terminated..

......

That afternoon, before the inquiry broke up, the jury brought in their

verdict. It was:

"Death by means of a wound inflicted upon herself in a moment of terror

and misapprehension."

It was all his fellow-townsmen could do for Frederick.

XXXIII

FATHER AND SON

But Frederick's day of trial was not yet over. There was a closed door

to open and a father to see (as in his heart he still called Mr.

Sutherland). Then there were friends to face, and foes, under conditions

he better than anyone else, knew were in some regards made worse rather

than better by the admissions and revelations of this eventful

day--Agnes, for instance. How could he meet her pure gaze? But it was

his father he must first confront, his father to whom he would have to

repeat in private the tale which robbed the best of men of a past, and

took from him a son, almost a wife, without leaving him one memory

calculated to console him. Frederick was so absorbed in this

anticipation that he scarcely noticed the two or three timid hands

stretched out in encouragement toward him, and was moving slowly toward

the door behind which his father had disappeared so many hours before,

when he was recalled to the interests of the moment by a single word,

uttered not very far from him. It was simply, "Well?" But it was uttered

by Knapp and repeated by Mr. Courtney.

Frederick shuddered, and was hurrying on when he found himself stopped

by a piteous figure that, with appealing eyes and timid gestures,

stepped up before him. It was Amabel.

"Forgive!" she murmured, looking like a pleading saint. "I did not

know--I never dreamed--you were so much of a man, Frederick: that you

bore such a heart, cherished such griefs, were so worthy of love and a

woman's admiration. If I had--"

Her expression was eloquent, more eloquent than he had ever seen it, for

it had real feeling in it; but he put her coldly by.

"When my father's white hairs become black again, and the story of my

shame is forgotten in this never-forgetting world, then come back and I

will forgive you."

And he was passing on when another touch detained him. He turned, this

time in some impatience, only to meet the frank eyes of Sweetwater. As

he knew very little of this young man, save that he was the amateur

detective who had by some folly of his own been carried off on the

Hesper, and who was probably the only man saved from its wreck, he was

about to greet him with some commonplace phrase of congratulation, when

Sweetwater interrupted him with the following words:

"I only wanted to say that it may be easier for you to approach your

father with the revelations you are about to make if you knew that in

his present frame of mind he is much more likely to be relieved by such

proofs of innocence as you can give him than overwhelmed by such as show

the lack of kinship between you. For two weeks Mr. Sutherland has been

bending under the belief of your personal criminality in this matter.

This was his secret, which was shared by me."

"By you?"

"Yes, by me! I am more closely linked to this affair than you can

readily imagine. Some day I may be able to explain myself, but not now.

Only remember what I have said about your father--pardon me, I should

perhaps say Mr. Sutherland--and act accordingly. Perhaps it was to tell

you this that I was forced back here against my will by the strangest

series of events that ever happened to a man. But," he added, with a

sidelong look at the group of men still hovering about the coroner's

table, "I had rather think it was for some more important office still.

But this the future will show,--the future which I seem to see lowering

in the faces over there."

And, waiting for no reply, he melted into the crowd.

Frederick passed at once to his father.

No one interrupted them during this solemn interview, but the large

crowd that in the halls and on the steps of the building awaited

Frederick's reappearance showed that the public interest was still warm

in a matter affecting so deeply the heart and interests of their best

citizen. When, therefore, that long-closed door finally opened and

Frederick was seen escorting Mr. Sutherland on his arm, the tide of

feeling which had not yet subsided since Agatha's letters were read

vented itself in one great sob of relief. For Mr. Sutherland's face was

calmer than when they had last seen it, and his step more assured, and

he leaned, or made himself lean, on Frederick's arm, as if to impress

upon all who saw them that the ties of years cannot be shaken off so

easily, and that he still looked upon Frederick as his son.

But he was not contented with this dumb show, eloquent as it was. As the

crowd parted and these two imposing figures took their way down the

steps to the carriage which had been sent for them, Mr. Sutherland cast

one deep and long glance about him on faces he knew and on faces he did

not know, on those who were near and those who were far, and raising his

voice, which did not tremble as much as might have been expected, said

deliberately:

"My son accompanies me to his home. If he should afterwards be wanted,

he will be found at his own fireside. Good-day, my friends. I thank you

for the goodwill you have this day shown us both."

Then he entered the carriage.

The solemn way in which Frederick bared his head in acknowledgment of

this public recognition of the hold he still retained on this one

faithful heart, struck awe into the hearts of all who saw it. So that

the carriage rolled off in silence, closing one of the most thrilling

and impressive scenes ever witnessed in that time-worn village.

XXXIV

"NOT WHEN THEY ARE YOUNG GIRLS"

But, alas! all tides have their ebb as well as flow, and before Mr.

Sutherland and Frederick were well out of the main street the latter

became aware that notwithstanding the respect with which his

explanations had been received by the jury, there were many of his

fellow-townsmen who were ready to show dissatisfaction at his being

allowed to return in freedom to that home where he had still every

prospect of being called the young master. Doubt, that seed of ramifying

growth, had been planted in more than one breast, and while it failed as

yet to break out into any open manifestation, there were evidences

enough in the very restraint visible in such groups of people as they

passed that suspicion had not been suppressed or his innocence

established by the over-favourable verdict of the coroner's jury.

To Mr. Sutherland, suffering now from the reaction following all great

efforts, much, if not all, of this quiet but significant display of

public feeling passed unnoticed. But to Frederick, alive to the least

look, the least sign that his story had not been accepted unquestioned,

this passage through the town was the occasion of the most poignant

suffering.

For not only did these marks of public suspicion bespeak possible

arraignment in the future, but through them it became evident that even

if he escaped open condemnation in the courts, he could never hope for

complete reinstatement before the world, nor, what was to him a still

deeper source of despair, anticipate a day when Agnes's love should make

amends to him for the grief and errors of his more than wayward youth.

He could never marry so pure a being while the shadow of crime separated

him from the mass of human beings. Her belief in his innocence and the

exact truth of his story (and he was confident she did believe him)

could make no difference in this conclusion. While he was regarded

openly or in dark corners or beside the humblest fireside as a possible

criminal, neither Mr. Sutherland nor her father, nor his own heart even,

would allow him to offer her anything but a friend's gratitude, or win

from her anything but a neighbour's sympathy; yet in bidding good-bye to

larger hopes and more importunate desires, he parted with the better

part of his heart and the only solace remaining in this world for the

boundless griefs and tragic experiences of his still young life. He had

learned to love through suffering, only to realise that the very nature

of his suffering forbade him to indulge in love.

And this seemed a final judgment, even in this hour of public

justification. He had told his story and been for the moment believed,

but what was there in his life, what was there in the facts as witnessed

by others, what was there in his mother's letters and the revelation of

their secret relationship, to corroborate his assertions, or to prove

that her hand and not his had held the weapon when the life-blood gushed

from her devoted breast? Nothing, nothing; only his word to stand

against all human probabilities and natural inference; only his word and

the generous nature of the great-hearted woman who had thus perished!

Though a dozen of his fellow-citizens had by their verdict professed

their belief in his word and given him the benefit of a doubt involving

his life as well as his honour, he, as well as they, knew that neither

the police nor the general public were given to sentimentality, and that

the question of his guilt still lay open and must remain so till his

dying day. For from the nature of things no proof of the truth was

probable. Batsy being dead, only God and his own heart could know that

the facts of that awful half-hour were as he had told them.

Had God in His justice removed in this striking way his only witness, as

a punishment for his sins and his mad indulgence in acts so little short

of crime as to partake of its guilt and merit its obloquy?

He was asking himself this question as he bent to fasten the gate. His

father had passed in, the carriage had driven off, and the road was

almost solitary--but not quite. As he leaned his arm over the gate and

turned to take a final glance down the hillside, he saw, with what

feelings no one will ever know, the light figure of Agnes advancing on

the arm of her father.

He would have drawn back, but a better impulse intervened and he stood

his ground. Mr. Halliday, who walked very close to Agnes, cast her an

admonitory glance which Frederick was not slow in interpreting, then

stopped reluctantly, perhaps because he saw her falter, perhaps because

he knew that an interview between these two was unavoidable and had best

be quickly over.

Frederick found his voice first.

"Agnes," said he, "I am glad of this opportunity for expressing my

gratitude. You have acted like a friend and have earned my eternal

consideration, even if we never speak again."

There was a momentary silence. Her head, which had drooped under his

greeting, rose again. Her eyes, humid with feeling, sought his face.

"Why do you speak like that?" said she. "Why shouldn't we meet? Does not

everyone recognise your innocence, and will not the whole world soon

see, as I have, that you have left the old life behind and have only to

be your new self to win everyone's regard?"

"Agnes," returned Frederick, smiling sadly as he observed the sudden

alarm visible in her father's face at these enthusiastic words, "you

know me perhaps better than others do and are prepared to believe my

words and my more than unhappy story. But there are few like you in the

world. People in general will not acquit me, and if there was only one

person who doubted "--Mr. Halliday began to look relieved--"I would fail

to give any promise of the new life you hope to see me lead, if I

allowed the shadow under which I undoubtedly rest to fall in the

remotest way across yours. You and I have been friends and will continue

such, but we will hold little intercourse in future, hard as I find it

to say so. Does not Mr. Halliday consider this right? As your father he

must."

Agnes's eyes, leaving Frederick's for a moment, sought her father's.

Alas! there was no mistaking their language. Sighing deeply, she again

hung her head.

"Too much care for people's opinion," she murmured, "and too little for

what is best and noblest in us. I do not recognise the necessity of a

farewell between us any more than I recognise that anyone who saw and

heard you to-day can believe in your guilt."

"But there are so many who did not hear and see me. Besides" (here he

turned a little and pointed to the garden in his rear), "for the past

week a man--I need not state who, nor under what authority he acts--has

been in hiding under that arbour, watching my every movement, and almost

counting my sighs. Yesterday he left for a short space, but to-day he is

back. What does that argue, dear friend? Innocence, completely

recognised, does not call for such guardianship."

The slight frame of the young girl bending so innocently toward him

shuddered involuntarily at this, and her eyes, frightened and flashing,

swept over the arbour before returning to his face.

"If there is a watcher there, and if such a fact proves you to be in

danger of arrest for a crime you never committed, then it behooves your

friends to show where they stand in this matter, and by lending their

sympathy give you courage and power to meet the trials before you."

"Not when they are young girls," murmured Frederick, and casting a

glance at Mr. Halliday, he stepped softly back.

Agnes flushed and yielded to her father's gentle pressure. "Good-bye, my

friend," she said, the quiver in her tones sinking deep into Frederick's

heart. "Some day it will be good-morrow," and her head, turned back over

her shoulder, took on a beautiful radiance that fixed itself forever in

the hungry heart of him who watched it disappear. When she was quite

gone, a man not the one whom Frederick had described, as lying in hiding

in the arbour, but a different one, in fact, no other than our old

friend the constable--advanced around the corner of the house and

presented a paper to him.

It was the warrant for his arrest on a charge of murder.

XXXV

SWEETWATER PAYS HIS DEBT AT LAST TO MR. SUTHERLAND

Frederick's arrest had been conducted so quietly that no hint of the

matter reached the village before the next morning. Then the whole town

broke into uproar, and business was not only suspended, but the streets

and docks overflowed with gesticulating men and excited women, carrying

on in every corner and across innumerable doorsteps the endless debate

which such an action on the part of the police necessarily opened.

But the most agitated face, though the stillest tongue, was not to be

seen in town that morning, but in a little cottage on an arid hill-slope

overlooking the sea. Here Sweetwater sat and communed with his great

monitor, the ocean, and only from his flashing eye and the firm set of

his lips could the mother of Sweetwater see that the crisis of her son's

life was rapidly approaching, and that on the outcome of this long

brooding rested not only his own self-satisfaction, but the interests of

the man most dear to them.

Suddenly, from that far horizon upon which Sweetwater's eye rested with

a look that was almost a demand, came an answer that flushed him with a

hope as great as it was unexpected. Bounding to his feet, he confronted

his mother with eager eyes and outstretched hand.

"Give me money, all the money we have in the house. I have an idea that

may be worth all I can ever make or can ever hope to have. If it

succeeds, we save Frederick Sutherland; if it fails, I have only to meet

another of Knapp's scornful looks. But it won't fail; the inspiration

came from the sea, and the sea, you know, is my second mother!"

What this inspiration was he did not say, but it carried him presently

into town and landed him in the telegraph office.

. . . . . .

The scene later in the day, when Frederick entered the village under the

guardianship of the police, was indescribable. Mr. Sutherland had

insisted upon accompanying him, and when the well-loved figure and white

head were recognised, the throng, which had rapidly collected in the

thoroughfare leading to the depot, succumbed to the feelings occasioned

by this devotion, and fell into a wondering silence.

Frederick had never looked better. There is something in the extremity

of fate which brings out a man's best characteristics, and this man,

having much that was good in him, showed it at that moment as never

before in his short but over-eventful life. As the carriage stopped

before the court-house on its way to the train, a glimpse was given of

his handsome head to those who had followed him closest, and as there

became visible for the first time in his face, so altered under his

troubles, a likeness to their beautiful and commanding Agatha, a murmur

broke out around him that was half a wail and half a groan, and which

affected him so that he turned from his father, whose hand he was

secretly holding, and taking the whole scene in with one flash of his

eye, was about to speak, when a sudden hubbub broke out in the direction

of the telegraph office, and a man was seen rushing down the street

holding a paper high over his head. It was Sweetwater.

"News!" he cried. "News! A cablegram from the Azores! A Swedish

sailor--"

But here a man with more authority than the amateur detective pushed his

way to the carriage and took off his hat to Mr. Sutherland.

"I beg your pardon," said he, "but the prisoner will not leave town

to-day. Important evidence has just reached us."

Mr. Sutherland saw that it was in Frederick's favour and fainted on his

son's neck. As the people beheld his head fall forward, and observed the

look with which Frederick received him in his arms, they broke into a

great shout.

"News!" they shrieked. "News! Frederick Sutherland is innocent! See! the

old man has fainted from joy!" And caps went up and tears fell, before a

mother's son of them knew what grounds he had for his enthusiasm.

Later, they found they were good and substantial ones. Sweetwater had

remembered the group of sailors who had passed by the corner of Agatha's

house just as Batsy fell forward on the window-sill, and cabling to the

captain of the vessel, at the first port at which they were likely to

put in, was fortunate enough to receive in reply a communication from

one of the men, who remembered the words she shouted. They were in

Swedish and none of his mates had understood them, but he recalled them

well. They were:

"Hjelp! Hjelp! Frun håller på alb döda sig. Hon har en knif. Hjelp!

Hjelp!"

In English:

"Help! Help! My mistress kills herself. She has a knife. Help! Help!"

The impossible had occurred. Batsy was not dead, or at least her

testimony still remained and had come at Sweetwater's beck from the

other side of the sea to save her mistress's son.

. . . . . .

Sweetwater was a made man. And Frederick? In a week he was the idol of

the town. In a year--but let Agnes's contented face and happy smile show

what he was then. Sweet Agnes, who first despised, then encouraged, then

loved him, and who, next to Agatha, commanded the open worship of his

heart.

Agatha is first, must be first, as anyone can see who beholds him, on a

certain anniversary of each year, bury his face in the long grass which

covers the saddest and most passionate heart which ever yielded to the

pressure of life's deepest tragedy.

THE END