ALL that afternoon and well into the evening, Darcy Cole, at the
Farmhouse, sat and wrote and wrote and wrote.
All that afternoon and well into the evening, Jack Remsen, at the
Bungalow, sat and smoked and mused and let his pipe go out and
relighted it and mused again.
All that afternoon and well into the evening, the four amateur sleuths
at the Lodge waited for a reply from Washington which didn’t come.
At a point a mile or so above these human processes a large, cold cloud
sprung a million leaks and sifted down a considerable quantity of
large, soft snowflakes, and continued so to do until the air was
darkened and the earth whitened with them.
Through this curtain, after a time, frightened but determined, tramped
Darcy Cole. Through this curtain tramped also Jack Remsen, deep in such
trouble of heart as he had never known before, and most undetermined.
Both were headed for the same spot, the mailbox at the entrance from
the main road to the byway which leads up to the Bungalow.
Having started considerably earlier than Jack, Darcy got there first.
She opened the box, dropped in her note, and proceeded to another
mail-box some distance along the road and opposite the Island, where
she deposited a second epistle. That left her two and a half hours in
which to make the ten miles of dark, heavy road to Meredith. If it were
too little, she had learned of a trail through meadowland and forest
which would cut off nearly two miles. Darcy didn’t like woods at
night—most of us don’t, if we’re honest with ourselves—but she proposed
to catch that train.
Now, an all-wise government has ordained that upon rural delivery boxes
there shall be a metal flag which works automatically with the raising
and the lowering of the lid. Upon reaching the Bungalow box, shortly
after the wayfarer from the Farmhouse had passed, Jack Remsen observed
with surprise that the flag, which he knew to have been down, was
raised.
“How’s this?” inquired the wayfarer, addressing the box. “I’ve been
here and got the noon delivery, and the postman comes only once a day.
Yet you’re flying signals.”
As the box did not respond, Remsen opened it and felt inside. Darcy’s
note rewarded his explorations. By the light of successive matches and
at the cost of scorched fingers, he read it:
Good-bye, Knight. Your service is over. It has been an ungrateful one.
But I am more grateful than I can say. You must not go. You must stay.
I have written to Helen—she is the kind one—and told her about it; just
how I dragged you into it to take the real Sir Montrose’s place. I had
to tell her who you were. But your secret won’t be betrayed. So you
won’t have to go away. You’ll be safe here. I’m glad. I like to think
of you here. It’s been good—hasn’t it? Perhaps when you are able to
come back to New York I’ll see you at Gloria’s some time.
I can’t say a millionth part of what I want to. I couldn’t even if
there were time. You’ve been so good to me—so good. And all you’ve had
for it is trouble. I’m sorry.
Good-night, Knight. D. C.
“Even if there were time.” As has been indicated, Jack Remsen’s mind
could, on occasion, work swiftly.
Time for what? Why should she be pressed for time? Obviously, because
she was going away. And she would leave that note only just before her
departure. That could mean only the eleven o’clock train from Meredith:
the train he had intended taking before she asked him to postpone his
departure until the morrow. Of course; so that he should get her note!
On her way to the station she would leave the explanatory and damnatory
letter for Helen Wood at the Island. Well, it would be a long time
before that letter reached its addressee!
Examination of the blanketed ground confirmed his reasoning. There were
the small, clear-set footprints, infinitely pathetic in the black
wildness of the night. As he well knew from experience, catching up
with Darcy Cole when she was set on getting somewhere was a job for the
undivided attention of the briskest pedestrian. He set out along the
road at a dogtrot.
His first stop was for the purpose of committing a felony, punishable
by several years in the Federal penitentiary. It took him about a
second to complete the crime, and, as he left the rifled mail-box
behind, his inside pocket quite bulged with the fat letter wherein
Darcy had set forth her circumstantial but by no means complete
confession which was to exculpate her partner and inculpate herself.
Remsen’s heart beat a little faster under that bulky epistle with its
contents of courage and self-sacrifice.
At the door of a late-autumnal cottage he borrowed a flash. With this
he could plainly discern the trail of the little feet, blurred but not
obliterated by the snowfall. His watch indicated a quarter after nine.
He jogged on with high hopes.
On a long, straight, level stretch he let himself out for a burst of
speed. Perhaps, from the summit of the hill in which it terminated, he
might catch a glimpse of her, for the moon was now trying its best to
send a struggling ray through the flying wrack of cloud. Tenderly he
pictured to himself the vision of her; head up to the storm, the
strong, lithe shoulders squared, skimming with that easy, effortless
pace of hers that had in it all the grace of perfectly controlled
vigor.
Halfway across the open space he slackened up to cast the light of the
flash on the road.
No footmarks were visible.
Remsen cried out, with the shock of his dismay. He cast about him on
all sides. No result.
Struggling to keep cool, he turned back, going slowly, careful to miss
no trace which intent scrutiny might discover. A quarter of a mile back
he picked up the trail where she had left the road to cross a brooklet
and take to the open fields. Her object he guessed; to cut across a
broad and heavily wooded hill, thus saving herself some two miles of
travel where the road took a wide double curve.
Eased in his breathing by the enforced slowness of the search, he was
now able to accelerate his pace. Halfway up the open hillside a sudden
fury of storm descended, lapping him in whirling darkness. Ahead of him
stretched the dead-black line of woodland. More by luck than direction,
he came upon a gateway, and thus set foot to the forest path, less
difficult to discern in such conditions than the open trail of the
meadows. With his light he could follow it quite easily. But when he
thought of Darcy, lightless and inexperienced in woodcraft, with only
her strength and her courage to help her, wandering in that wilderness,
his spirit sickened with terror. The numbed fingers of the hand which
gripped the flash warned him of dropping temperature. One might easily
freeze on such a night, in the open. Worst of all, the marks in the
snow were now all but invisible under the fresh fall.
He blundered desperately onward, shouting her name into the gale as he
went. There was an answering call. He threw his light on. She rose from
a fallen tree-trunk into the arc of radiance.
“I’ve been lost,” she said, and walked straight to his arms.
Just for the comfort and safety and relief of it she clung to him, with
no other or further thought than that where he was no harm could reach
her. But now that she was found, Remsen’s self-control broke under the
reaction. His arms closed about her. With a shock of sweetness,
amazement, and terror she felt his lips on hers—and answered them. For
the briefest instant only. The thought of Gloria pierced through the
rapture of the moment, a poisoned dart. She thrust herself back from
him, her hands on his breast.
“Go away!” she sobbed. “You’ve no right. You know you’ve no right!”
As she had thought of Gloria, so now he thought of the Briton oversea,
fighting in his country’s service.
“I know,” he groaned. “Forgive me.”
She stood back from him, staring with bewildered, dismayed eyes.
“I forgot for the moment that I’m only a counterfeit,” he pleaded.
“You forgot—many things,” said she slowly.
“Forgive me, Darcy,” he said again. “It—it swept me off my feet—the
sweetness of it. It was base—dishonorable—anything you want to call it;
but when I felt you in my arms—”
“Oh, _don’t!_” she wailed.
“Will it make it better or worse if I tell you that I love you as I
never loved or thought I could love any woman?”
“Worse! Worse! Infinitely worse!”
“This is the end of me,” he said. He spoke quietly and in a flat, even
tone as a man might speak who knew that he was giving up everything in
life worth having. “I’ll not offend again. But—after I’d kissed you—you
had to know. I couldn’t let you think it anything less than it was, the
going out to you of a heart that I could no longer control.”
“In dishonor!”
“If you will have it so. The dishonor is mine. You are untouched by
it.... Now, let us get to other matters. Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Then you can follow me back?” he said. “Where?”
“To the Farmhouse.”
“I’ll never go back to the Farmhouse.”
“You must. I’m going away on this train.”
“What good would that do? Haven’t you read my note to you?”
“Of course. Otherwise I shouldn’t have got on your trail.”
“Then you must know that I’ve written the whole thing to Helen Wood,
and even if I wanted to go back, now—”
“Dismiss that letter from your mind. I got it, on my way here.”
“_You_ took my letter to Helen? Did you read it?”
“Do you think me dishonorable in everything?” he returned quietly.
“Oh, I’m sorry!” cried the girl impetuously. “I don’t think you
dishonorable. I know you’re not. I don’t know what to think or do.”
“Take this light and hurry back to the Farmhouse. I’ve still got time
for the train. Or I’ll take you back and make the morning train.”
“One thing I cannot and will not do: spend another night at the Farm.”
“Is that your last word?”
“Yes.” Obstinacy itself was in the monosyllable.
“Then I’ll go with you to Meredith.”
“I won’t let you.”
“I’ll go,” he retorted in a tone which ended that discussion.
Under his guidance and in silence they regained the main road. At
Center Harbor he succeeded in getting a team to take them the rest of
the way. Not until the end of the journey did Darcy speak to him.
“What shall you do now?”
“I don’t know. Go somewhere,” said he gloomily.
“You must go back.”
“Boulder Brook—without you?” he said passionately.
“But where else can you go?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
They stood in silence until her train pulled in.
“I shan’t see you again, shall I?” he said wretchedly.
“You’ve made it impossible. Oh, why did you do it?” she wailed softly.
With no further word she turned from him and went into the car. Remsen
stood, dazed with misery. Forward, something was shunted from an
express car with a heavy crash. There was a babel of voices, a moment’s
delay. Darcy flashed out upon the steps again, her eyes starry. Remsen
jumped to meet her. She caught his hands in hers with a swift,
forgiving little pressure.
“I couldn’t leave you so,” she said tremulously. “You’ve been too good
to me. Good-bye, and—forget.”
Before he could answer she was gone again.
Until the tail-light of the train glimmered into obscurity around the
curve, Remsen stood uncovered in the gale. Then he turned to the miles
of lonely road.