trees came out clear, the city sparrows and robins chirped. The milk
carts rumbled loud, and here and there, even in that wealthy quarter, a
few early workers crossed the park paths. It was day. She rose, tied
a thick green veil over her hat and face, lifted the tin box by its
handle and opened her door softly. In that house it was still
midnight. She went quietly down the corridor, through a service hall,
down some narrow stairs, through the warm kitchen, clean for the new
labour of the day, then took out a key from her wallet, turned it
gently and stepped into the area-way. This had an iron gate and a
second key opened it: once through and the last gate locked, she put
her hand through the bars and slipped both keys under the metal frame
laid out ready for the milk bottles. No one was in sight. Alone in
the street, she gave one comprehensive, quick glance at the great
sleeping house, and drew a long, deep breath that seemed to stretch the
very depths of her lungs--one would have almost thought she had not
really breathed for a long time.
Then she turned her back, and grasping the box and umbrella strongly, a
plain, sturdy, middle-class figure of a travelling working-woman, she
walked to a car-line, lifted her box beside her, and sitting between a
negress with three children and a plumber's bag with a kit of tools,
made her way to the downtown wharves.
Here all was activity: the day was well along for these labourers, and
she had to push her way to reach the officer who would let her board
the steamer.
"Second class," she said briefly, producing her ticket.
He ran down a list quickly. "Number sixty-three," he said, "Mrs.
Stranger."
"Yes," she answered, and still carrying her box, went in the direction
he indicated.
It was not a large steamer and not very swift, and for ten days the
sturdy figure lay inert on her chair, silent and absorbed. She had no
book, no friend, no knitting. Silently she sat and stared at the
purple horizon-line, silently she ate, silently she bestowed the modest
gratuities that brought her what little assistance she needed. Her
only social act was the nursing of the two sisters who shared her
cabin, and this was done so quietly and competently that they were
certain she was a professional nurse on her vacation.
One of the sisters, a head clerk in a great department store, offered
her a newspaper on the third day out.
"It's old," she said, "but you may like to look it over. That's Mrs.
Elliot Lestrange in the picture. That was a grand banquet she had.
I'll bet she was proud, with all that fuss made of her! Isn't she a
lovely lady?"
"It is handsome lace," Mrs. Stranger agreed.
"My, it's a fortune! I've waited on her. She's fine--so aristocratic,
but no airs. I'd never have been here, but for her, maybe. She and
the other League ladies got us our vacations, they say, at our place,
and she started the lending fund so those that need it can get the
third week, by borrowing. That gives us the trip both ways, you see.
She must have a grand life--Sister says there's no house she couldn't
go into here or the other side, and every hour of the day is planned
out for her by a secretary she keeps. Sister says she wonders when she
ever has a moment to herself."
"Perhaps she will have--some day," said the other woman quickly. "I
agree with your sister, that she needs it."
"Sister says you look like her," the clerk went on, with a laugh. "The
hair and eyes, she says. Of course, I see what she means, but,
gracious--if you could have seen her the day she came in last winter!
A sable wrap to her knees, and her hair all waved, and besides, her
figure was different--much taller."
"All dark women with thick grey hair resemble each other, more or less,
I think," said Mrs. Stranger.
When she walked down the landing plank to the Tilbury dock, Mrs.
Stranger stood for a moment, scanning the little crowd that waited on
the water's edge. She appeared to expect some one, for her tin box lay
at her feet, and she stood negligently by it, her head raised rather
haughtily for a woman of her general appearance. Suddenly she smiled
oddly, drew again that deep-lunged breath of relief, stooped and picked
up the box, and carried it unassisted to the great train-shed.
From London she travelled south and west, and beyond purchasing at
Salisbury a warm red-hooded cape bought nothing and transacted no
business except for a brief cablegram to New York despatched from
London, signed with initials only, and a telegram to a small town in
the south of England. On arriving at this town, she waited fully an
hour at the little station, but if the time were wasted, she did not
seem to feel the waste annoying, for she sat comfortably on a bench,
her box and umbrella at her stout-shod feet, her eyes placidly on the
distance. A stray dog attached himself to her and laid his black head
on her umbrella; she made no motion to drive him away.
About noon a red-faced teamster drove into the square before the
station, looked about inquiringly, caught her eye and dismounted.
"Name o' Stranger?" he asked gruffly; she nodded.
"Have you the wagon?" she asked.
"Horse ain't none too fond o' they engines," he responded. "He's
waiting by the Crown and Stirrup--will you step across?"
By the little sleepy inn stood a roomy, covered cart drawn by a solid
middle-aged bay, with heavy brass tips on his high collar. The vehicle
had evidently been freshly painted, for the red and black twinkled in
the sunlight and the harness looked strong and new. As Mrs. Stranger
lifted the back curtain and threw a quick, keen glance around the
interior she smiled briefly. Rows of tins, coppers and kettles hung
there; bales of cotton prints, notions and such lay on narrow,
fenced-in shelves on the sides; a sort of bunk filled one-half, covered
with a neat patch-work quilt, and thick waterproof curtains' were
rolled in readiness all around.
"There's oats in the box and a nose-bag," said the carter, "but there's
good cropping all about. Will that be your pup, Missis?"
"If no one else claims him," she said brusquely, and examined the horse
carefully, foot by foot. All seeming to suit her, she took a small
canvas bag from her wallet and handed it to him.
"Count it, please," she said and the carter with much biting and
inspection of each gold piece, signed a receipt and handed her,
formally, a new stout whip.
"You'll wet the bargain, I hope," the interested landlord suggested,
and Mrs. Stranger having ordered a quart of his best ale, and gravely
taken a glass, the carter finished the rest with due ceremony.
She mounted the seat deftly, nodded all 'round, and drove off at a
steady jog through the village, the dog under the cart.
"_That's_ no new hand," said the landlord. "It's well you provided a
good animal, carter!"
"First letter showed me I'd best do so," said the carter briefly. "A
tidy bit of savings she had, for a woman."
"She'll earn as much more, _I'll_ lay. There's money on the road, as
much as ever there was, for them as knows the business and don't
drink," said the landlord. "She'll be one of that gypsy sort, by her
looks."
Mrs. Stranger drove steadily along through the countryside. The road
lay clear before her, the emerald grass and the white may of the hedges
smelled sweet from a week's rain, the clap-clap of the big bay's feet
and the birds' twitter were the only sounds. She was between two
villages, and only a straggling farm or two at either side broke the
distant view; a grey church tower caught the sun far away. The
driver's eyes never left the road, as became a good driver, but they
seemed to be turned inward, too, and to see more--or less--than that
empty road offered to the ordinary sight. One would have said that
something other than the present unrolled before those absorbed brown
eyes under the straight, dark brows, but whether it was the past or the
future was not shown. Either was full enough, probably, in the case of
Mrs. Stranger.
Shortly after noon she began to study the roadside more carefully and
soon, pausing by a particularly lush, green spot, she dismounted, led
the horse off from the road and quickly traced the green area back to a
tiny bubbling spring. Unharnessing the horse deftly, she fastened him
to a pointed iron picket she took from the cart and drove firmly into
the ground, lifted out a little portable tin oven which she propped
between two rocks, kindled a fire from some dried fagots tied below the
axle-tree, and taking a slice of fresh beef from a stone crock on the
seat, cut it slowly into small pieces with an onion and a yellow turnip
from the crock. She filled a small iron pot at the spring, dropped in
the meat and vegetables, set a potato to bake in the ashes and measured
out a little coffee from a cannister. While the stew simmered, she
watered and fed the horse, threw a bone to the dog, and then spread her
red cloak on the ground, sat on it, and resumed her inward
contemplation. When the savoury fumes smelled rich enough, she threw a
pinch of pepper and salt into the pot from another small cannister,
poured boiling water from her kettle over the coffee, cut a slice from
a fresh cottage loaf, ladled her stew out on a new tin plate, and ate
and drank with a sort of eager deliberation, inhaling at intervals the
aroma of the coffee and the cooking food. When a generous plateful had
vanished, she gave the anxious dog the rest, cut herself a block of
orange-coloured dairy cheese and ate it with a handful of small
biscuits from a square tin. Then, leaning against the great rock from
under which the spring gushed, she took from her ample pocket a small
worn volume, opened it at random, filled and emptied her lungs with a
third great breath, like only two others in her life, and began to read.
The book's title page read, "Compensation, and Other Essays, by R. W.
Emerson," and on the fly leaf was written in a firm, masculine hand,
"L. L. from her father, Boston, 1870."
The horse grazed quietly, the dog rested a grateful head on her skirt,
the spring trickled on, and the woman read--if that can be called
reading where the eyes wander inward after every sentence.
After a little of this she was disturbed by a thick-set, middle-aged
farmer rattling by in a springless cart. At sight of her he stopped,
stared, but not too curiously, got out and addressed her:
"Peddler's goods, I see," he said.
She nodded.
"Had you any thoughts o' going up Endover way?" he inquired, "it's out
o' way, somewhat, but my wife was wishing only yesterday for some
cooking ware, and but that you need to make village by dark----"
"I do not need to, unless I choose," she assured him; "my time is my
own."
"Ay, is it?" he said. "There's few trades can say that, these
days,--is that why you gypsies take to this one, maybe?"
"Maybe," she said, smiling gravely.
"You're new to these parts, I think," he went on, "though there'll be
plenty o' your kind before summer's gone--few as thrifty to look at,
though. I'll lay your cloth's not rotten."
"That's true," she said, rising and beginning to wash her simple
cooking pots. "Which turn for Endover, farmer?"
"First to the left after Appleyard's woods," he began, and at her start
and cry of "Appleyard?" he explained, "Why, yes, it's hard to change
old names. Appleyards ran out when I was a boy, but the name sticks.
Hundred years ago, an old farmer Appleyard owned most o' what you'll
see from here. My granny knowed one of 'em well; a well-to-do woman
she was, and her husband got all the land, or near it, account o' the
brother's running away to foreign parts."
Her brown eyes held him and he warmed to his tale.
"You've heard all this, maybe?" he hazarded.
She shook her head.
"I knew there was such a family, once, somewhere about these parts,"
she said, "but I did not know just where----"
"Why, it was just here," he went on slowly, looking around, "here and
no other spot, whatever, Mrs. Peddler. Here's what granny called
'Gypsy's Spring,' 'account of their always searching the best water,
you see--like yourself. Gypsy Spring in Appleyard Lower Field, she'd
tell us, and there was where he met the gypsy and the land changed
hands and the name ran out."
"Who met the gypsy?" she asked, her eyes large and mellow on him.
"Who? Why, young John Appleyard, Mrs. Peddler, and married her, and
off with them both! They're all for roaming, you see--_you_ know.
'But she'll be back, sooner or later,' my granny used to say: 'Come
spring, back she'll be, if not him; for there's two things certain and
they won't change, my time or yours,' she said. 'An Appleyard must own
a good horse, and a gypsy woman must come back.' But, you see, for
once my granny was in the wrong of it, for 'twas a full hundred years
ago, what I'm telling ye, and they never came."
A slow, satisfied smile crept over the peddler woman's firm lips. Her
eyes rested on the great, browsing bay; her strong sea-browned hand
caressed the watchful dog's head; the odour of the may in the hedge
filled her nostrils. Life spread before her.
"No, farmer, your granny was right," she said gravely, "gypsy women
always come back."
THE WARNING
Weldon leaned forward slightly in his chair, his hands loose between
his knees, and faced the president steadily. The moment had come. All
his rehearsals of it, all his tremours, all his incredulities must end
here. He felt a distinct surprise at his collected coolness, his
almost amused grasp of the situation. Except for the tense, guarded
muscles that a month's racking, overworked strain had left conscious of
their possible trickiness, he was absolutely himself.
And yet, what had the doctor warned him? To be very cautious when he
felt so especially clear-headed and calm, after days of strain--yes,
just that. And when he had expostulated, "But, my dear Stanchon, how
foolish!" had not the doctor replied, "All right, old man, but didn't
you tell me that it was always after such little exaltations"--he had
shrugged impatiently at the phrase--"that you were subject to these
strange dozes you describe?"
"Not exactly dozes," he had objected. Dozes, indeed! Those months and
years of experiences that raced by--and one woke with a start, to
realise that the clock was still striking! It was this, too often
repeated, that had sent him against his will to the rising specialist:
he remembered so well the dark, sympathetic eyes of the office nurse
who had brought him the much-needed stimulant after he had yielded to
one of the curious fits at his very first consultation.
After he had passed out from the inner office with echoes of that
futile order to cease all business for six weeks (to stop, _now!_ to
leave with the fruit almost in his hand!) and commands as to a southern
sea-trip stimulating his taut, trembling nerves, he had sunk for a
moment into a chair near the door, just to rest his head in his hands a
bit and dream of the future, and the nurse had appeared from a misty
somewhere and stood beside him.
"I wouldn't be discouraged, Mr. Weldon," she had said kindly. "Your
case is not so uncommon--really. He has cured much worse."
"You're very kind, Miss--Miss Jessop," he had answered gratefully (her
rich, brown colouring was so restful, her hand on his shoulder so firm
and deftly powerful).
He had thought of her all the way home.
Now, curiously enough, perhaps because the president's desk was placed
in the same position as Dr. Stanchon's desk had been, he thought of her
again, irrelevantly. That was the trouble--not to be irrelevant!
The president's careless glance conveyed just such a tinge of critical
surprise as the occasion called for: he toyed with a slender
tortoise-shell paper-cutter. The pendulum of the sombre, costly
grandfather clock behind him swung tolerantly, silently; the murmur of
the bank beyond them was utterly lost behind the heavy double doors and
forgotten behind the bronze velvet curtains. The president's voice
sounded on--he seemed to Weldon to have been uttering pompous
platitudes since time began. His voice was as meaningless as a
cardboard mask: how could people pay attention to him? Weldon wondered
irritably.
"...Nor has it ever been my policy to render myself inaccessible to
my--my corps of assistants. No. Not in the slightest degree. Our
interests..."
Here Weldon's mind slipped softly from its moorings and drifted off on
seas that soon grew tropic: should it be Bermuda, after all? Oleanders
and a turquoise bay--what a relief to pavement-gritted eyes!
"Nevertheless, trivial, inconsequent interviews between one in my
position and those of my--my corps of assistants who may so far forget
themselves as to seek them, must always be deplored. They tend only to
weaken..."
And yet this man had a reputation for cleverness--nay, it was no empty
reputation. Did not Weldon know what he could do, know better than any
living man? And yet, how he babbled! Hark, here was his own name.
"You inform me, Mr. Weldon, that you have been ten years in the employ
of the bank, a gratifying but by no means unusual record. Our cashier,
you know, is now in his twenty-third year, if I am not mistaken. Yes.
Was it to inform me of this only that you requested this interview?"
"No," said Weldon wearily, for the president's voice hit like a dull
hammer on his ear. "No, it was not for that."
"I trust, Mr. Weldon, that your mention of the fact that your salary is
two thousand dollars was not intended in any way ... was not, in short,
to be regarded in the light of..."
"No, no, no," Weldon murmured impatiently, trying to shake off a
compelling drowsiness that threatened him.
"Because in that case ... in that case ... it was, I remember, only
upon Mr. Bingham's urgent recommendation that it was made two thousand.
The post has never carried but eighteen hundred. But your exceptional
work, according to Mr. Bingham ... I am glad to hear it is not a
question of salary. I never discuss..."
Again Weldon's mind slipped off, and this time groves of palms hovered
between the grooved Corinthian pillars of the president's office, palms
and frosty coral wreaths. To breathe that languid, blue-stained air!
"... May I ask, then, Mr. Weldon, for what purpose you have requested
this interview?"
Consciousness returned with a flash and Weldon straightened in his red
leather chair.
"I have been waiting for some time the opportunity to tell you, sir,"
he said coolly, and the angry start that greeted this positively
strengthened him. It was a natural start, at least.
"Mr. Deeping," he continued, with only a little catch of the breath,
"what you describe as my 'exceptional work' has led me to request this
interview. I believe it to be in many ways exceptional. During Mr.
Russell's illness I assisted Mr. Bingham, and after his recovery I
continued this assistance in other ways. Mr. Bingham has perhaps
intrusted me with more responsibility than was in every respect
wise--certainly with more than he realised. I was enabled to give him
some opportune help on the occasion of the last inspection, and this
gave me a fairly general survey----"
"One moment, Mr. Weldon."
The president glanced at the clock and laid the paper-cutter down with
a decisive motion.
"Let me suggest to you that whatever assistance you may have rendered
Mr. Bingham (for which, by the way, I consider you have received ample
compensation), you rendered it entirely of your own volition and on
your own responsibility. It is quite your own personal affair. I
could not for a moment consider----"
Weldon's taut control snapped short under these booming syllables.
"Damn it all!" he cried fiercely, "shall we talk here all night? This
should have been over long ago. Listen to me, if you can. I have been
for a month convinced that there is something vitally wrong in this
bank. In the beginning I couldn't tell why. Some men have an instinct
for false figures, a sort of scent for rotten conditions, I suppose.
I'm one of them. I've been working at it for a month. And now I know."
The president laid the paper-cutter gently down again, and Weldon
realised that he must have picked it up. As it touched the polished
desk one half of it was seen to be at the least angle from the other:
it was in two parts.
"And now you know, Mr. Weldon?" he repeated quietly. "You surprise me.
What do you know?"
Weldon smiled approvingly at him. There was stuff in this babbler,
this hypnotist, this phrase-maker.
"I know that one of the cleverest frauds in the history of banking has
been accomplished in this bank, Mr. Deeping, and I know by whom and how
it has been accomplished. I know how Mr. Bingham has been used in the
matter and how ignorant he is of the tool he has been. I know how
completely the directors have been deceived and how ably the books have
been doctored. I know precisely where the discrepancies are and how
great they are."
"You have been very diligent, Mr. Weldon," said the president gently.
"I presume you to have the proofs of all you assert?"
Weldon put his hand into an inner pocket and drew out a slip--a small
slip--of paper.
"You must, of course, have a memorandum by which to check this," he
said a little huskily, but meeting the older man's eyes steadily, "so I
made it as condensed as possible. You will understand it, however, I
am sure."
Without a moment's hesitation the president put out his hand and took
the slip. Weldon touched his thumb and it was like an icicle. For a
brief space he studied the close, tiny figures, then he raised his eyes
from them.
"You are to be congratulated, young man," he said, pausing slightly
between his words, "on the possession of a very keen mind and abilities
far from ordinary. I believe you said you had no assistance in all
this?"
"I did not say so," Weldon replied, "but it is true."
"And no confidants, I infer?"
"Absolutely none."
"It would be idle," said the president, "to assume ignorance of your
motive in obtaining this interview."
Weldon bowed in silence.
"I will merely inquire of you what guaranty I have, in case I arrange
for the purchase of this slip from you, that the terms will be final?"
"Only my word to that effect," said Weldon composedly, "which I do not
think I have broken since I was eighteen. Also the fact that I intend
to leave the country--finally, to the best of my belief."
"But you must have a duplicate of this slip?"
"None. I have a mass of rough memoranda, from which I could after some
trouble reconstruct it, but this I should destroy. After that, unless
I had free access to the bank, I should be helpless. And in six
months, barring accidents, you will be able to set everything straight:
you have left the way open admirably."
The president folded the list small, and pushing aside the tail of his
frock-coat, put the square of paper into his hip pocket--an odd
selection, it seemed to Weldon.
"And where did you say you were going?" he inquired, in his perfunctory
voice.
"I did not say," Weldon returned, marvelling at the man's control, "but
I am going south somewhere."
"No," said the president quickly, still pushing the list deep into his
hip pocket, "you are not. You are going to die, Mr. Weldon," and
something shone in his hand on the flap of the pocket.
His elbow was crooked back; his muscles were those of an elderly man,
not quite coordinated with his tongue. In a breath, a space too short
for thought, Weldon flung himself across the gap between them and drove
his head and shoulders straight at the rounded, broadcloth vest: under
his impact the elaborate swivel-chair slipped, swayed, crashed to the
ground, and they went down together, Weldon's weight on the bent arm.
He raised himself cautiously, hands pressed on the fat shoulder under
him.
"The old fox! The old fox!" he muttered aggrievedly. "Shoot me, would
he? Murdering old fox!"
There was no heaving in the heavy body under him, but he was not to be
easily hoodwinked now--he had had a taste of the man's mettle. He held
his breath and listened: the clock ticked tolerantly, wealthily; the
flames flickered in the open, sea-coal fire; there were no other sounds
at all.
Reaching with infinite care around the relaxed, portly body he felt for
the hip pocket and drew out the small revolver, then sprang quickly
backward.
"Get up, Mr. Deeping!" he said softly, "get up, sir, some one may come."
But it seemed that for once the president was indifferent to
appearances, for he did not move, but lay as he had fallen, with one
bent arm. Weldon walked over to him and lifted the coat-tail from his
face. Then he perceived that it was improbable that Mr. Deeping would
ever get up again. His face had long been a mask, but never had it
been coloured in this way, and Weldon knew that the artist responsible
for that tinting never worked on any subject but once.