“And since we have discovered how the slip came into your room, we can
now proceed to the clearing up of this mystery,” I observed. “You can,
of course, inform me where you procured this clipping which you say you
brought into the house?”
“Yes. You may think it strange, but when I alighted from the carriage
that night, a man on the sidewalk put this tiny scrap of paper into my
hand. It was done so mechanically that it made no more impression on my
mind than the thrusting of an advertisement upon me. Indeed, I supposed
it was an advertisement, and I only wonder that I retained it in my hand
at all. But that I did do so, and that, in a moment of abstraction I
went so far as to pin it to my cushion, is evident from the fact that a
vague memory remains in my mind of having read this recipe which you see
printed on the reverse side of the paper.”
“It was the recipe, then, and not the obituary notice which attracted
your attention the night before?”
“Probably, but in pinning it to the cushion, it was the obituary notice
that chanced to come uppermost. Oh, why should I not have remembered
this till now! Can you understand my forgetting a matter of so much
importance?”
“Yes,” I allowed, after a momentary consideration of her ingenuous
countenance. “The words you read in the morning were so startling that
they disconnected themselves from those you had carelessly glanced at
the night before.”
“That is it,” she replied; “and since then I have had eyes for the one
side only. How could I think of the other? But who could have printed
this thing and who was the man who put it into my hand? He looked like a
beggar but--Oh!” she suddenly exclaimed, her cheeks flushing scarlet and
her eyes flashing with a feverish, almost alarming, glitter.
“What is it now?” I asked. “Another recollection?”
“Yes.” She spoke so low I could hardly hear her. “He coughed and----”
“And what?” I encouragingly suggested, seeing that she was under some
new and overwhelming emotion.
“That cough had a familiar sound, now that I think of it. It was like
that of a friend who--But no, no; I will not wrong him by any false
surmises. He would stoop to much, but not to that; yet----”
The flush on her cheeks had died away, but the two vivid spots which
remained showed the depth of her excitement.
“Do you think,” she suddenly asked, “that a man out of revenge might
plan to frighten me by a false notice of my husband’s death, and that
God to punish him, made the notice a prophecy?”
“I think a man influenced by the spirit of revenge might do almost
anything,” I answered, purposely ignoring the latter part of her
question.
“But I always considered him a good man. At least I never looked upon
him as a wicked one. Every other beggar we meet has a cough; and yet,”
she added after a moment’s pause, “if it was not he who gave me this
mortal shock, who was it? He is the only person in the world I ever
wronged.”
“Had you not better tell me his name?” I suggested.
“No, I am in too great doubt. I should hate to do him a second injury.”
“You cannot injure him if he is innocent. My methods are very safe.”
“If I could forget his cough! but it had that peculiar catch in it that
I remembered so well in the cough of John Graham. I did not pay any
especial heed to it at the time. Old days and old troubles were far
enough from my thoughts; but now that my suspicions are raised, that
low, choking sound comes back to me in a strangely persistent way, and
I seem to see a well-remembered form in the stooping figure of this
beggar. Oh, I hope the good God will forgive me if I attribute to this
disappointed man a wickedness he never committed.”
“Who is John Graham?” I urged, “and what was the nature of the wrong you
did him?”
She rose, cast me one appealing glance, and perceiving that I meant to
have her whole story, turned towards the fire and stood warming her feet
before the hearth, with her face turned away from my gaze.
“I was once engaged to marry him,” she began. “Not because I loved him,
but because we were very poor--I mean my mother and myself--and he had a
home and seemed both good and generous. The day came when we were to be
married--this was in the West, way out in Kansas--and I was even dressed
for the wedding, when a letter came from my uncle here, a rich uncle,
very rich, who had never had anything to do with my mother since her
marriage, and in it he promised me fortune and everything else desirable
in life if I would come to him, unencumbered by any foolish ties. Think
of it! And I within half an hour of marriage with a man I had never
loved and now suddenly hated. The temptation was overwhelming, and
heartless as my conduct may appear to you, I succumbed to it. Telling my
lover that I had changed my mind, I dismissed the minister when he came,
and announced my intention of proceeding East as soon as possible. Mr.
Graham was simply paralyzed by his disappointment, and during the few
days which intervened before my departure, I was haunted by his face,
which was like that of a man who had died from some overwhelming shock.
But when I was once free of the town, especially after I arrived in New
York, I forgot alike his misery and himself. Everything I saw was so
beautiful! Life was so full of charm, and my uncle so delighted with me
and everything I did! Then there was James Holmes, and after I had
seen him--But I cannot talk of that. We loved each other, and under the
surprise of this new delight how could I be expected to remember the
man I had left behind me in that barren region in which I had spent my
youth? But he did not forget the misery I had caused him. He followed
me to New York: and on the morning I was married found his way into the
house, and mixing with the wedding guests, suddenly appeared before me
just as I was receiving the congratulations of my friends. At sight of
him I experienced all the terror he had calculated upon causing, but
remembering at whose side I stood, I managed to hide my confusion under
an aspect of apparent haughtiness. This irritated John Graham. Flushing
with anger, and ignoring my imploring look, he cried peremptorily,
‘Present me to your husband!’ and I felt forced to present him. But
his name produced no effect upon Mr. Holmes. I had never told him of my
early experience with this man, and John Graham, perceiving this, cast
me a bitter glance of disdain and passed on, muttering between his
teeth, ‘False to me and false to him! Your punishment be upon you!’ and
I felt as if I had been cursed.”
She stopped here, moved by emotions readily to be understood. Then with
quick impetuosity she caught up the thread of her story and went on.
“That was six months ago; and again I forgot. My mother died and my
husband soon absorbed my every thought. How could I dream that this man,
who was little more than a memory to me and scarcely that, was secretly
planning mischief against me? Yet this scrap about which we have talked
so much may have been the work of his hands; and even my husband’s
death----”
She did not finish, but her face, which was turned towards me, spoke
volumes.
“Your husband’s death shall be inquired into,” I assured her. And she,
exhausted by the excitement of her discoveries, asked that she might be
excused from further discussion of the subject at that time.
As I had no wish, myself, to enter any more fully into the matter just
then, I readily acceded to her request, and the pretty widow left me.