THE LAST CARD
Mr. Brinsmade and the Doctor were the first to leave the little room
where Silas Whipple had lived and worked and died, Mr. Brinsmade bent
upon one of those errands which claimed him at all times. He took
Shadrach with him. Virginia sat on, a vague fear haunting her,--a fear
for her father's safety. Where was Clarence? What had he seen? Was the
place watched? These questions, at first intruding upon her sorrow,
remained to torture her.
Softly she stirred from the chair where she had sat before the piano, and
opened the door of the outer office. A clock in a steeple near by was
striking twelve. The Colonel did not raise his head. Only Stephen saw her
go; she felt his eyes following her, and as she slipped out lifted hers
to meet them for a brief instant through the opening of the door. Then it
closed behind her.
First of all she knew that the light in the outer office was burning
dimly, and the discovery gave her a shock. Who had turned it down? Had
Clarence? Was he here? Fearfully searching the room for him, her gaze was
held by a figure in the recess of the window at the back of the room. A
solid, bulky figure it was, and, though uncertainly outlined in the
semi-darkness, she knew it. She took a step nearer, and a cry escaped
her.
The man was Eliphalet Hopper. He got down from the sill with a motion at
once sheepish and stealthy. Her breath caught, and instinctively she gave
back toward the door, as if to open it again.
"Hold on!" he said. "I've got something I want to say to you, Miss
Virginia."
His tones seemed strangely natural. They were not brutal. But she
shivered and paused, horrified at the thought of what she was about to
do. Her father was in that room--and Stephen. She must keep them there,
and get this man away. She must not show fright before him, and yet she
could not trust her voice to speak just then. She must not let him know
that she was afraid of him--this she kept repeating to herself. But how
to act? Suddenly an idea flashed upon her.
Virginia never knew how she gathered the courage to pass him, even
swiftly, and turn up the gas. He started back, blinking as the jet
flared. For a moment she stood beside it, with her head high; confronting
him and striving to steady herself for speech.
"Why have you come here?" she said. "Judge Whipple--died--to-night."
The dominating note in his answer was a whine, as if, in spite of
himself, he were awed.
"I ain't here to see the Judge."
She was pale, and quite motionless. And she faltered now. She felt her
lips moving, but knew not whether the words had come.
"What do you mean?"
He gained confidence. The look in his little eyes was the filmy look of
those of an animal feasting.
"I came here to see you," he said, "--you." She was staring at him now, in
horror. "And if you don't give me what I want, I cal'late to see some one
else--in there," said Mr. Hopper.
He smiled, for she was swaying, her lids half closed. By a supreme effort
she conquered her terror and looked at him. The look was in his eyes
still, intensified now.
"How dare you speak to me after what has happened! she said. If Colonel
Carvel were here, he would--kill you."
He flinched at the name and the word, involuntarily. He wiped his
forehead, hot at the very thought.
"I want to know!" he exclaimed, in faint-hearted irony. Then, remembering
his advantage, he stepped close to her.
"He is here," he said, intense now. "He is here, in that there room." He
seized her wrists. Virginia struggled, and yet she refrained from crying
out. "He never leaves this city without I choose. I can have him hung if
I choose," he whispered, next to her.
"Oh!" she cried; "oh, if you choose!"
Still his body crept closer, and his face closer. And her strength was
going.
"There's but one price to pay," he said hoarsely, "there's but one price
to pay, and that's you--you. I cal'late you'll marry me now."
Delirious at the touch of her, he did not hear the door open. Her senses
were strained for that very sound. She heard it close again, and a
footstep across the room. She knew the step--she knew the voice, and her
heart leaped at the sound of it in anger. An arm in a blue sleeve came
between them, and Eliphalet Hopper staggered and fell across the books on
the table, his hand to his face. Above him towered Stephen Brice. Towered
was the impression that came to Virginia then, and so she thought of the
scene ever afterward. Small bits, like points of tempered steel,
glittered in Stephen's eyes, and his hands following up the mastery he
had given them clutched Mr. Hopper's shoulders. Twice Stephen shook him
so that his head beat upon the table.
"You--you beast!" he cried, but he kept his voice low. And then, as if he
expected Hopper to reply: "Shall I kill you?"
Again he shook him violently. He felt Virginia's touch on his arm.
"Stephen!" she cried, "your wounds! Be careful! Oh, do be careful!"
She had called him Stephen. He turned slowly, and his hands fell from Mr.
Hopper's cowering form as his eyes met hers. Even he could not fathom the
appeal, the yearning, in their dark blue depths. And yet what he saw
there made him tremble. She turned away, trembling too.
"Please sit down," she entreated. "He--he won't touch me again while you
are here."
Eliphalet Hopper raised himself from the desk, and one of the big books
fell with a crash to the floor. Then they saw him shrink, his eyes fixed
upon some one behind them. Before the Judge's door stood Colonel Carvel,
in calm, familiar posture, his feet apart, and his head bent forward as
he pulled at his goatee.
"What is this man doing here, Virginia?" he asked. She did not answer
him, nor did speech seem to come easily to Mr. Hopper in that instant.
Perhaps the sight of Colonel Carvel had brought before him too, vividly
the memory of that afternoon at Glencoe.
All at once Virginia grasped the fulness of the power in this man's
hands. At a word from him her father would be shot as a spy--and Stephen
Brice, perhaps, as a traitor. But if Colonel Carvel should learn that he
had seized her,--here was the terrible danger of the situation. Well she
knew what the Colonel would do. Would. Stephen tell him? She trusted in
his coolness that he would not.
Before a word of reply came from any of the three, a noise was heard on
the stairway. Some one was coming up. There followed four seconds of
suspense, and then Clarence came in. She saw that his face wore a
worried, dejected look. It changed instantly when he glanced about him,
and an oath broke from his lips as he singled out Eliphalet Hopper
standing in sullen aggressiveness, beside the table.
"So you're the spy, are you?" he said in disgust. Then he turned his back
and faced his uncle. "I saw, him in Williams's entry as we drove up. He
got away from me."
A thought seemed to strike him. He strode to the open window at the back
of the office, and looked out, There was a roof under it.
"The sneak got in here," he said. "He knew I was waiting for him in the
street. So you're the spy, are you?"
Mr. Hopper passed a heavy hand across the cheek where Stephen had struck
him.
"No, I ain't the spy," he said, with a meaning glance at the Colonel.
"Then what are you doing here?" demanded Clarence, fiercely.
"I cal'late that he knows," Eliphalet replied, jerking his head toward
Colonel Carvel. "Where's his Confederate uniform? What's to prevent my
calling up the provost's guard below?" he continued, with a smile that
was hideous on his swelling face.
It was the Colonel who answered him, very quickly and very clearly.
"Nothing whatever, Mr. Hopper," he said. "This is the way out." He
pointed at the door. Stephen, who was watching him, could not tell
whether it were a grim smile that creased the corners of the Colonel's
mouth as he added. "You might prefer the window."
Mr. Hopper did not move, but his eyes shifted to Virginia's form. Stephen
deliberately thrust himself between them that he might not see her.
"What are you waiting for?" said the Colonel, in the mild voice that
should have been an ominous warning. Still Mr. Hopper did not move. It
was clear that he had not reckoned upon all of this; that he had waited
in the window to deal with Virginia alone. But now the very force of a
desire which had gathered strength in many years made him reckless. His
voice took on the oily quality in which he was wont to bargain.
"Let's be calm about this business, Colonel," he said. "We won't say
anything about the past. But I ain't set on having you shot. There's a
consideration that would stop me, and I cal'late you know what it is."
Then the Colonel made a motion. But before he had taken a step Virginia
had crossed the room swiftly, and flung herself upon him.
"Oh, don't, Pa!" she cried. "Don't! Tell him that I will agree to it.
Yes, I will. I can't have you--shot." The last word came falteringly,
faintly.
"Let me go,--honey," whispered the Colonel, gently. His eyes did not
leave Eliphalet. He tried to disengage himself, but her fingers were
clasped about his neck in a passion of fear and love. And then, while she
clung to him, her head was raised to listen. The sound of Stephen Brice's
voice held her as in a spell. His words were coming coldly, deliberately,
and yet so sharply that each seemed to fall like a lash.
"Mr. Hopper, if ever I hear of your repeating what you have seen or heard
in this room, I will make this city and this state too hot for you to
live in. I know you. I know how you hide in areas, how you talk sedition
in private, how you have made money out of other men's misery. And, what
is more, I can prove that you have had traitorous dealings with the
Confederacy. General Sherman has been good enough to call himself a
friend of mine, and if he prosecutes you for your dealings in Memphis,
you will get a term in a Government prison, You ought to be hung. Colonel
Carvel has shown you the door. Now go."
And Mr, Hopper went.