"I have no other than a woman's reason:
I think him so because I think him so."
--SHAKSPEARE.
Summer was at its height. Multomah had returned to its rural quietude;
the farmers were busy afield, the court-room was closed, the crowd gone.
The interest in the Heathcote case, and the interest in Ward Heathcote,
remained as great as ever in the small circle of which he and Helen had
formed part; but nothing more could happen until November, and as, in
the mean time, the summer was before them, they had found a diversion of
thought in discovering an island off the coast of Maine, and betaking
themselves thither, leaving to mistaken followers the belief that
Caryl's still remained an exclusive and fashionable resort. Beyond this
small circle, the attention of the nation at large was absorbed in a far
greater story--the story of the Seven Days round Richmond.
Word had come to Anne from the northern island that the little boy,
whose failing health had for so many months engrossed all Miss Lois's
time and care, had closed his tired eyes upon this world's pain forever.
He would no longer need the little crutch, which they had both grieved
to think must always be his support; and Miss Lois coming home to the
silent church-house after the burial in the little cemetery on the
height, and seeing it there in its corner, had burst into bitter tears.
For the child, in his helplessness and suffering, had grown into her
very heart. But now Anne needed her--that other child whom she had loved
so long and so well. And so, after that one fit of weeping, she covered
her grief from sight, put a weight of silent remembrance upon it, and
with much energy journeyed southward.
For Anne, Miss Lois, and Miss Teller were now linked together by a
purpose, a feminine purpose, founded upon faith only, and with outlines
vague, yet one none the less to be carried out: to go to Timloesville or
its neighborhood, and search for the murderer there.
Miss Teller, who had found occupation in various small schemes for
additions to Heathcote's comfort during the summer, rose to excitement
when the new idea was presented to her.
"We must have advice about it," she began; "we must consult--" Then seeing
in the young face, upon whose expressions she had already come to rely,
a non-agreement, she paused.
"The best skill of detectives has already been used," said Anne; "they
followed a track, worked from a beginning. We should follow no track,
and accept no beginning, save the immovable certainty that he was
innocent." She was silent a moment; then with a sigh which was a sad,
yet not a hopeless, one, "Dear Miss Teller," she added, "it is said that
women divine a truth sometimes by intuition, and against all
probability. It is to this instinct--if such there be--that we must
trust now."
Miss Teller studied these suggestions with respect; but they seemed
large and indistinct. In spite of herself her mind reverted to certain
articles of furniture which she had looked at the day before, furniture
which was to make his narrow room more comfortable. But she caught
herself in these wanderings, brought back her straying thoughts
promptly, and fastened them to the main subject with a question--like a
pin.
"But how could I go to Timloesville at present, when I have so much
planned out to do here? Oh, Anne, I could not leave him here, shut up in
that dreary place."
"It seems to me safer that you should not go," replied the girl; "it
might be noticed, especially as it is known that you took this house for
the summer. But I could go. And there is Miss Lois. She is free now, and
the church-house must be very lonely." The tears sprang again as she
thought of André, the last of the little black-eyed children who had
been so dear.
They talked over the plan. No man being there to weigh it with a cooler
masculine judgment, it seemed to them a richly promising one. Anne was
imaginative, and Miss Teller reflected Anne. They both felt, however,
that its accomplishment depended upon Miss Lois. But Anne's confidence
in Miss Lois was great.
"I know of no one for whom I have a deeper respect than for that
remarkable woman," said Miss Teller, reverentially. "It will be a great
gratification to see her."
"But it would be best, I think, that she should not come here," replied
Anne. "I should bid you good-by, and go away; every one would see me go.
Then in New York I could meet Miss Lois, and we could go together to
Timloesville by another route. At Timloesville nobody would know Miss
Lois, and I should keep myself in a measure concealed; there were only a
few persons from Timloesville at the trial, and I think I could evade
them."
"I should have liked much to meet Miss Hinsdale," said Miss Margaretta,
in a tone of regret. "But you know best."
"Oh, no, no," said Anne, letting her arms fall in sudden despondency. "I
sometimes think that I know nothing, and worse than nothing! Moments
come when I would give years of my life for one hour, only one, of
trusting reliance upon some one wiser, stronger, than I--who would tell
me what I ought to do."
But this cry of the young heart (brave, but yet so young) distressed
Miss Margaretta. If the pilot should lose courage, what would become of
the passengers? She felt herself looking into chaos.
Anne saw this. And controlled herself again.
"When should you start?" said the elder lady, relieved, and bringing
forward a date. Miss Margaretta always found great support in dates.
"I can not tell yet. We must first hear from Miss Lois."
"I will write to her myself," said Miss Margaretta, putting on her
spectacles and setting to work at once. It was a relief to be engaged
upon something tangible.
And write she did. The pages she sent to Miss Lois, and the pages with
which Miss Lois replied were many, eloquent, and underlined. Before the
correspondence was ended they had scientifically discovered, convicted,
and hanged the murderer, and religiously buried him.
Miss Lois was the most devoted partisan the accused man had gained. She
was pleader, audience, public opinion, detective, judge, and final
clergyman, in one. She had never seen Heathcote. That made no
difference. She was sure he was a concentration of virtue, and the
victim not of circumstances (that was far too mild), but of a "plot"
(she wanted to say "popish," but was restrained by her regard for Père
Michaux).
Miss Teller saw Heathcote daily. So far, she had not felt it necessary
that Anne should accompany her. But shortly before the time fixed for
the young girl's departure she was seized with the idea that it was
Anne's duty to see him once. For perhaps he could tell her something
which would be of use at Timloesville.
"I would rather not; it is not necessary," replied Anne. "You can tell
me."
"You should not think of yourself; in such cases ourselves are nothing,"
said Miss Teller. "The sheriff and the persons in charge under him are
possessed of excellent dispositions, as I have had occasion to prove; no
one need know of your visit, and I should of course accompany you."
Anne heard her in silence. She was asking herself whether this gentle
lady had lost all memory of her own youth, and whether that youth had
held no feelings which would make her comprehend the depth of that which
she was asking now.
But Miss Teller was not thinking of her youth, or of herself, or of
Anne. She had but one thought, one motive--Helen's husband, and how to
save him; all the rest seemed to her unimportant. She had in fact
forgotten it. "I do not see how you can hesitate," she said, the tears
suffusing her light eyes, "when it is for our dear Helen's sake."
"Yes," replied Anne; "but Helen is dead. How can we know--how can we be
sure--what she would wish?" She seemed to be speaking to herself. She
rose, walked to the window, and stood there looking out.
"She would wish to have him saved, would she not?" answered Miss Teller.
"I consider it quite necessary that you should see him before you go.
For you could not depend upon my report of what he says. It has, I am
sorry to say, been represented to me more than once that I have a
tendency to forget what has been variously mentioned as the knob, the
point, the gist of a thing."
Anne did not turn.
Miss Teller noted this obstinacy with surprise.
"It is mysterious to me that after the great ordeal of that trial, Anne,
you should demur over such a simple thing as this," she said, gently.
But to Anne the sea of faces in the court-room seemed now less difficult
than that quiet cell with its one occupant. Then she asked herself
whether this were not an unworthy feeling, a weak one? One to be put
down at once, and with a strong hand. She yielded. The visit was
appointed for the next day.
The county jail with its stone hall; a locked door. They were entering;
the jailer retired.
The prisoner rose to receive them; he knew that they were coming, and
was prepared. Miss Teller kissed him; he brought forward his two chairs.
Then turning to Anne, he said, "It is kind of you to come;" and for a
moment they looked at each other.
It was as if they had met in another world, in a far gray land beyond
all human error and human dread. Anne felt this suddenly; if not like a
chill, it was like the touch of an all-enveloping sadness, which would
not pass away. Her fear left her; it seemed to her then that it would
never come back.
As she looked at him she saw that he was greatly changed; her one glance
in the court-room had not told her how greatly. Part of it was due
doubtless to the effects of his wound, to the unaccustomed confinement
in the heats of a lowland summer; his face, though still bronzed, was
thin, his clothes hung loosely from his broad shoulders. But the marked
alteration was in his expression. This was so widely different from
that of the brown-eyed lounger of Caryl's, that it seemed another man
who was standing there, and not the same. Heathcote's eyes were still
brown; but their look was so changed that Gregory Dexter would never
have occasion to find fault with it again. His half-indolent
carelessness had given place to a stern reticence; his indifference, to
a measured self-control. And Anne knew, as though a prophetic vision
were passing, that he would carry that changed face always, to his
life's end.
Miss Teller had related to him their plan, their womans' plan. He was
strongly, unyieldingly, opposed to it. Miss Teller came home every day,
won over to his view, and then as regularly changed her mind, in talking
with Anne, and went back--to be converted over again. But he knew that
Anne had persisted. He knew that he was now expected to search his
memory, and see if he could not find there something new. Miss Teller,
with a touching eagerness to be of use and business-like, arranged pen,
paper, and ink upon the table, and sat down to take notes. She was still
a majestic personage, in spite of her grief and anxiety; her height,
profile, and flowing draperies were as imposing as ever. But in other
ways she had grown suddenly old; her light complexion was now
over-spread with a net-work of fine small wrinkles, the last faint
blonde of her hair was silvered, and in her cheeks and about her mouth
there was a pathetic alteration, the final predominance of old age, and
its ineffective helplessness over her own mild personality.
But while they waited, he found that he could not speak. When he saw
them sitting there in their mourning garb for Helen, when he felt that
Anne too was within the circle of this grief and danger and pain, Anne,
in all her pure fair youth and trust and courage, something rose in his
throat and stopped utterance. All the past and his own part in it
unrolled itself before him like a judgment; all the present, and her
brave effort for him; the future, near and dark. For Heathcote, like
Dexter, believed that the chances were adverse; and even should he
escape conviction, he believed that the cloud upon him would never be
cleared away entirely, but that it would rest like a pall over the
remainder of his life. At that moment, in his suffering, he felt that
uncleared acquittal, conviction, the worst that could come to him, he
could bear without a murmur were it only possible to separate Anne--Anne
both in the past and present--from his own dark lot. He rose suddenly
from the bench where he had seated himself, turned his back to them,
went to his little grated window, and stood there looking out.
Miss Teller followed him, and laid her hand on his shoulder. "Dear
Ward," she said, "I do not wonder that you are overcome." And she took
out her handkerchief.
He mastered himself and came back to the table. Miss Teller, who, having
once begun, was unable to stop so quickly, remained where she was. Anne,
to break the painful pause, began to ask her written questions from the
slip of paper she had brought.
"Can you recall anything concerning the man who came by and spoke to you
while you were bathing?" she said, looking at him gravely.
"No. I could not see him; it was very dark."
"What did he say?"
"He asked if the water was cold."
"How did he say it?"
"Simply, 'Is the water cold?'"
"Was there any foreign accent or tone, any peculiarity of pronunciation
or trace of dialect, no matter how slight, in his voice or utterance?"
"I do not recall any. Stay, he may have given something of the sound of
g to the word--said 'gold,' instead of 'cold.' But the variation was
scarcely noticeable. Country people talk in all sorts of ways."
Miss Teller hurriedly returned to her chair, after wiping her eyes,
wrote down "gold" and "cold" in large letters on her sheet of paper, and
surveyed them critically.
"Is there nothing else you can think of?" pursued Anne.
"No. Why do you dwell upon him?"
"Because he is the man."
"Oh, Anne, is he?--is he?" cried Miss Teller, with as much excitement as
though Anne had proved it.
"There is no probability. They have not even been able to find him,"
said Heathcote.
"Of course it is only my feeling," said the girl.
"But what _Anne_ feels is no child's play," commented Miss Teller.
This remark, made in nervousness and without much meaning, seemed to
touch Heathcote; he turned to the window again.
"Will you please describe to me exactly what you did from the time you
left the inn to take the first walk until you came back after the
river-bath?" continued Anne.
He repeated his account of the evening's events as he had first given
it, with hardly the variation of a word.
"Are you sure that you took two towels? Might it not be possible that
you took only one? For then the second, found at the end of the meadow
trail, might have been taken by the murderer."
"No; I took two. I remember it because I put first one in my pocket, and
then, with some difficulty, the other, and I spoke to Helen laughingly
about my left-handed awkwardness." It was the first time he had spoken
his wife's name, and his voice was very grave and sweet as he pronounced
it.
Poor Miss Teller broke down again. And Anne began to see her little
paper of questions through a blur. But the look of Heathcote's face
saved her. Why should he have anything more to bear? She went on quickly
with her inquiry.
"Was there much money in the purse?"
"I think not. She gave me almost all she had brought with her as soon as
we met."
"Is it a large river?"
"Rather deep; in breadth only a mill-stream."
Then there was a silence. It seemed as if they all felt how little there
was to work with, to hope for.
"Will you let Miss Teller draw on a sheet of paper the outline of your
left hand?" continued Anne.
He obeyed without comment.
"Now please place your hand in this position, and let her draw the
finger-tips." As she spoke, she extended her own left hand, with the
finger-tips touching the table, as if she was going to grasp something
which lay underneath.
But Heathcote drew back. A flush rose in his cheeks. "I will have
nothing to do with it," he said.
"Oh, Ward, when Anne asks you?" said Miss Teller, in distress.
"_I_ do not wish her to go to Timloesville," he said, with emphasis; "I
have been utterly against it from the first. It is a plan made without
reason, and directly against my feelings, my wishes, and my consent. It
is unnecessary. It will be useless. And, worse than this, it may bring
her into great trouble. Send as many detectives as you please, but do
not send her. It is the misfortune of your position and hers that at
such a moment you have no one to control you, no man, I mean, to whose
better judgment you would defer. My wishes are nothing to you; you
override them. You are, in fact, taking advantage of my helplessness."
He spoke to Miss Teller. But Anne, flushing a little at his tone,
answered him.
"I can not explain the hope that is in me," she said; "but such a hope I
certainly have. I will not be imprudent; Miss Lois shall do everything;
I will be very guarded. If we are not suspected (and we shall not be;
women are clever in such things), where is the danger? It will be
but--but spending a few weeks in the country." She ended hesitatingly,
ineffectively. Then, "To sit still and do nothing, to wait--is
unendurable!" broke from her in a changed tone. "It is useless to oppose
me. I shall go."
Heathcote did not reply.
"No one is to know of it, dear Ward, save ourselves and Miss Hinsdale,"
said Miss Teller, pleadingly.
"And Mr. Dexter," added Anne.
Heathcote now looked at her. "Dexter has done more for me than I could
have expected," he said. "I never knew him well; I fancied, too, that he
did not like me."
[Illustration: "HE OBEYED WITHOUT COMMENT."]
"Oh, there you are quite mistaken, Ward. He is your most devoted
friend," said Miss Teller.
But a change in Anne's face had struck Heathcote. "He thinks me guilty,"
he said.
"Never! never!" cried Miss Teller. "Tell him no, Anne. Tell him no."
But Anne could not. "He said--" she began; then remembering that
Dexter's words, "If I try, it will be for yours," were hardly a promise,
she stopped.
"It is of small consequence. Those who could believe me guilty may
continue to believe it," said Heathcote. But his face showed that he
felt the sting.
He had never cared to be liked by all, or even by many; but when the
blow fell it had been an overwhelming surprise to him that any one, even
the dullest farm laborer, should suppose it possible that he, Ward
Heathcote, could be guilty of such a deed.
It was the lesson which careless men, such as he had been, learn
sometimes if brought face to face with the direct homely judgment of the
plain people of the land.
"Oh, Anne, how can you have him for your friend? And I, who trusted him
so!" said Miss Teller, with indignant grief.
"As Mr. Heathcote has said, it is of small consequence," answered Anne,
steadily. "Mr. Dexter brought me here, in spite of his--his feeling, and
that should be more to his credit, I think, than as though he had
been--one of us. And now, Miss Teller, if there is nothing more to
learn, I should like to go."
She rose. Heathcote made a motion as if to detain her, then his hand
fell, and he rose also.
"I suppose we can stay until Jason Longworthy knocks?" said Miss
Margaretta, hesitatingly.
"I would rather go now, please," said Anne.
For a slow tremor was taking possession of her; the country prison,
which had not before had a dangerous look, seemed now to be growing dark
and cruel; the iron-barred window was like a menace. It seemed to say
that they might talk; but that the prisoner was theirs.
Miss Margaretta rose, disappointed but obedient; she bade Heathcote
good-by, and said that she would come again on the morrow.
Then he stepped forward. "I shall not see you again," he said to Anne,
holding out his hand. He had not offered to take her hand before.
She gave him hers, and he held it for a moment. No word was spoken; it
was a mute farewell. Then she passed out, followed by Miss Teller, and
the door was closed behind them.
"Why, you had twenty minutes more," said Jason Longworthy, the deputy,
keeping watch in the hall outside.