BOOK I

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[Illustration: IMAGE OF THE BOOK'S COVER]

[Illustration: ON THE INSTANT HE RECOGNIZED THAT NO COMMON INTERVIEW LAY

BEFORE HIM (Page 61)]

DARK HOLLOW

By ANNA KATHARINE GREEN

Author of "The House of the Whispering Pines," "Initials Only," "That

Affair Next Door," Etc.

With Four Illustrations By THOMAS FOGARTY

[Illustration: COLOPHON]

NEW YORK DODD, MEAD & COMPANY

1914

CONTENTS

BOOK I

THE WOMAN IN PURPLE

I WHERE IS BELA?

II WAS HE LIVING--WAS HE DEAD?

III BELA THE REDOUBTABLE

IV "AND WHERE WAS I WHEN ALL THIS HAPPENED?"

V "SHE WORE PURPLE"

VI ACROSS THE BRIDGE

VII WITH HER VEIL DOWN

VIII WITH HER VEIL LIFTED

IX EXCERPTS

X THE SHADOW

XI "I WILL THINK ABOUT IT"

XII SOUNDS IN THE NIGHT

BOOK II

THE HOUSE AND THE ROOM

XIII A BIT OF STEEL

XIV ALL IS CLEAR

XV THE PICTURE

XVI "DON'T! DON'T!"

XVII UNWELCOME TRUTHS

XVIII REFLECTIONS

XIX ALANSON BLACK

XX WHAT HAD MADE THE CHANGE?

XXI IN THE COURT ROOM

XXII BEFORE THE GATES

XXIII THE MISFORTUNES OF MY HOUSE

XXIV ONE SECRET LESS

XXV "WHAT DO YOU THINK OF HIM NOW?"

XXVI THE TELEGRAM

BOOK III

THE DOOR OF MYSTERY

XXVII HE MUST BE FOUND

XXVIII THE FIRST EFFORT

XXIX "THERE IS BUT ONE THING TO DO"

XXX TEMPEST LODGE

XXXI ESCAPE

XXXII THE VIGIL

XXXIII THE CURTAIN LIFTED

XXXIV DARK HOLLOW

XXXV SUNSET

ILLUSTRATIONS

On the instant he recognised that no common interview lay before him

After one look he assumed some show of his old commanding presence and

advanced bravely down the steps

Silence! Not even Heaven spoke

"Tell me what this means," said he, but he did not turn his head as he

made this request

BOOK I

THE WOMAN IN PURPLE

I

WHERE IS BELA?

A high and narrow gate of carefully joined boards, standing ajar in a

fence of the same construction! What is there in this to rouse a whole

neighbourhood and collect before it a group of eager, anxious,

hesitating people?

I will tell you.

This fence is no ordinary fence, and this gate no ordinary gate; nor is

the fact of the latter standing a trifle open, one to be lightly

regarded or taken an inconsiderate advantage of. For this is Judge

Ostrander's place, and any one who knows Shelby or the gossip of its

suburbs, knows that this house of his has not opened its doors to any

outsider, man or woman, for over a dozen years; nor have his gates--in

saying which, I include the great one in front--been seen in all that

time to gape at any one's instance or to stand unclosed to public

intrusion, no, not for a moment. The seclusion sought was absolute. The

men and women who passed and repassed this corner many times a day were

as ignorant as the townspeople in general of what lay behind the grey,

monotonous exterior of the weather-beaten boards they so frequently

brushed against. The house was there, of course,--they all knew the

house, or did once--but there were rumours (no one ever knew how they

originated) of another fence, a second barrier, standing a few feet

inside the first and similar to it in all respects, even to the gates

which corresponded exactly with these outer and visible ones and

probably were just as fully provided with bolts and bars.

To be sure, these were reports rather than acknowledged facts, but the

possibility of their truth roused endless wonder and gave to the

eccentricities of this well-known man a mysterious significance which

lost little or nothing in the slow passage of years.

And now! in the freshness of this summer morning, without warning or any

seeming reason for the change, the strict habit of years has been broken

into and this gate of gates is not only standing unlocked before their

eyes, but a woman--a stranger to the town as her very act shows--has

been seen to enter there!--to enter, but not come out; which means that

she must still be inside, and possibly in the very presence of the

judge.

Where is Bela? Why does he allow his errands--But it was Bela, or so

they have been told, who left this gate ajar ... he, the awe and terror

of the town, the enormous, redoubtable, close-mouthed negro, trusted as

man is seldom trusted, and faithful to his trust, yes, up to this very

hour, as all must acknowledge, in spite of every temptation (and they

had been many and alluring) to disclose the secret of this home of which

he was not the least interesting factor. What has made him thus suddenly

careless, he who has never been careless before? Money? A bribe from the

woman who had entered there?

Impossible to believe, his virtue has always been so impeccable, his

devotion to his strange and dominating master so sturdy and so seemingly

unaffected by time and chance!

Yet, what else was there to believe? There stood the gate with the

pebble holding it away from the post; and here stood half the

neighbourhood, staring at that pebble and at the all but invisible crack

it made where an opening had never been seen before, in a fascination

which had for its motif, not so much the knowledge that these forbidden

precincts had been invaded by a stranger, as that they were open to any

intruding foot--that they, themselves, if they had courage enough, might

go in, just as this woman had gone in, and see--why, what she is seeing

now--the unknown, unguessed reason for all these mysteries;--the hidden

treasure or the hidden sorrow which would explain why he, their first

citizen, the respected, even revered judge of their highest court,

should make use of such precautions and show such unvarying

determination to bar out all comers from the place he called his home.

It had not always been so. Within the memory of many there it had been

an abode of cheer and good fellowship. Not a few of the men and women

now hesitating before its portals could boast of meals taken at the

judge's ample board, and of evenings spent in animated conversation in

the great room where he kept his books and did his writing.

But that was before his son left him in so unaccountable a manner;

before--yes, all were agreed on this point--before that other bitter

ordeal of his middle age, the trial and condemnation of the man who had

waylaid and murdered his best friend.

Though the effect of these combined sorrows had not seemed to be

immediate (one month had seen both); though a half-year had elapsed

before all sociability was lost in extreme self-absorption, and a full

one before he took down the picket-fence which had hitherto been

considered a sufficient protection to his simple grounds, and put up

these boards which had so completely isolated him from the rest of the

world, it was evident enough to the friends who recalled his look and

step as he walked the streets with Algernon Etheridge on one side and

his brilliant, ever-successful son on the other, that the change now

observable in him was due to the violent sundering of these two ties.

Affections so centred wreck the lives from which they are torn; and

Time, which reconciles most men to their losses, had failed to reconcile

him to his. Grief slowly settled into confirmed melancholy, and

melancholy into the eccentricities of which I have spoken and upon which

I must now enlarge a trifle further, in order that the curiosity and

subsequent action of the small group of people in whom we are interested

may be fully understood and, possibly, in some degree pardoned.

Judge Ostrander was, as I have certainly made you see, a recluse of the

most uncompromising type; but he was such for only half his time. From

ten in the morning till five in the afternoon, he came and went like any

other citizen, fulfilling his judicial duties with the same scrupulous

care as formerly and with more affability. Indeed, he showed at times,

and often when it was least expected, a mellowness of temper quite

foreign to him in his early days. The admiration awakened by his fine

appearance on the bench was never marred now by those quick and rasping

tones of an easily disturbed temper which had given edge to his

invective when he stood as pleader in the very court where he now

presided as judge. But away from the bench, once quit of the courthouse

and the town, the man who attempted to accost him on his way to his

carriage or sought to waylay him at his own gate, had need of all his

courage to sustain the rebuff his presumption incurred.

One more detail and I will proceed with my story.

The son, a man of great ability who was making his way as a journalist

in another city, had no explanation to give of his father's

peculiarities. Though he never came to Shelby--the rupture between the

two, if rupture it were, seeming to be complete--there were many who had

visited him in his own place of business and put such questions

concerning the judge and his eccentric manner of living as must have

provoked response had the young man had any response to give. But he

appeared to have none. Either he was as ignorant as themselves of the

causes which had led to his father's habit of extreme isolation, or he

showed powers of dissimulation hardly in accordance with the other

traits of his admirable character.

All of which closed inquiry in this direction, but left the maw of

curiosity unsatisfied.

And unsatisfied it had remained up to this hour, when through

accident--or was it treachery--the barrier to knowledge was down and the

question of years seemed at last upon the point of being answered.

II

WAS HE LIVING?--WAS HE DEAD?

Meantime, a fussy, talkative man was endeavouring to impress the rapidly

collecting crowd with the advisability of their entering all together

and approaching the judge in a body.

"We can say that we felt it to be our dooty to follow this woman in," he

argued. "We don't know who she is, or what her errand is. She may mean

harm; I've heard of such things, and are we goin' to see the judge in

danger and do nothin'?"

"Oh, the woman's all right," spoke up another voice. "She has a child

with her. Didn't you say she had a child with her, Miss Weeks?"

"Yes, and--"

"Tell us the whole story, Miss Weeks. Some of us haven't heard it. Then

if it seems our duty as his neighbours and well-wishers to go in, we'll

just go in."

The little woman towards whom this appeal--or shall I say command--was

directed, flushed a fine colour under so many eyes, but immediately

began her ingenuous tale. She had already related it a half dozen times

into as many sympathising ears, but she was not one to shirk publicity,

for all her retiring manners and meekness of disposition.

It was to this effect:

She was sitting in her front window sewing. (Everybody knew that this

window faced the end of the lane in which they were then standing.) The

blinds were drawn but not quite, being held in just the desired position

by a string. Naturally, she could see out without being very plainly

seen herself; and quite naturally, too, since she had watched the same

proceeding for years, she had her eyes on this gate when Bela, prompt to

the minute as he always was, issued forth on his morning walk to town

for the day's supplies.

Always exact, always in a hurry--knowing as he did that the judge would

not leave for court till his return--he had never, in all the eight

years she had been sitting in that window making button-holes, shown any

hesitation in his methodical relocking of the gate and subsequent quick

departure.

But this morning he had neither borne himself with his usual spirit nor

moved with his usual promptitude. Instead of stepping at once into the

lane, he had lingered in the gateway peering to right and left and

pushing the gravel aside with his foot in a way so unlike himself that

the moment he was out of sight, she could not help running down the lane

to see if her suspicions were correct.

And they were. Not only had he left the gate unlocked, but he had done

so purposely. The movement he had made with his foot had been done for

the purpose of pushing into place a small pebble, which, as all could

see, lay where it would best prevent the gate from closing.

What could such treachery mean, and what was her neighbourly duty under

circumstances so unparalleled? Should she go away, or stop and take one

peep just to see that there really was another and similar fence inside

of this one? She had about decided that it was only proper for her to

enter and make sure that all was right with the judge, when she

experienced that peculiar sense of being watched with which all of us

are familiar, and turning quickly round, saw a woman looking at her from

the road,--a woman all in purple even to the veil which hid her

features. A little child was with her, and the two must have stepped

into the road from behind some of the bushes, as neither of them were

anywhere in sight when she herself came running down from the corner.

It was enough to startle any one, especially as the woman did not speak

but just stood silent and watchful till Miss Weeks in her embarrassment

began to edge away towards home in the hope that the other would follow

her example and so leave the place free for her to return and take the

little peep she had promised herself.

But before she had gone far, she realised that the other was not

following her, but was still standing in the same spot, watching her

through a veil the like of which is not to be found in Shelby, and which

in itself was enough to rouse a decent woman's suspicions.

She was so amazed at this that she stepped back and attempted to address

the stranger. But before she had got much further than a timid and

hesitating Madam, the woman, roused into action possibly by her

interference, made a quick gesture suggestive of impatience if not

rebuke, and moving resolutely towards the gate Miss Weeks had so

indiscreetly left unguarded, pushed it open and disappeared within,

dragging the little child after her.

The audacity of this act, perpetrated without apology before Miss Weeks'

very eyes, was too much for that lady's equanimity. She stopped

stock-still, and, as she did so, beheld the gate swing heavily to and

stop an inch from the post, hindered as we know by the intervening

pebble. She had scarcely got over the shock of this when plainly from

the space beyond she heard a second creaking noise, then the swinging to

of another gate, followed, after a breathless moment of intense

listening, by a series of more distant sounds, which could only be

explained by the supposition that the house door had been reached,

opened and passed.

"And you didn't follow?"

"I didn't dare."

"And she's in there still?"

"I haven't seen her come out."

"Then what's the matter with you?" called out a burly, high-strung

woman, stepping hastily from the group and laying her hand upon the gate

still standing temptingly ajar. "It's no time for nonsense," she

announced, as she pushed it open and stepped promptly in, followed by

the motley group of men and women who, if they lacked courage to lead,

certainly showed willingness enough to follow.

One glance and they felt their courage rewarded.

Rumour, which so often deceives, proved itself correct in this case. A

second gate confronted them exactly like the first even to the point of

being held open by a pebble placed against the post. And a second fence

also! built upon the same pattern as the one they had just passed

through; the two forming a double barrier as mysterious to contemplate

in fact as it had ever been in fancy. In gazing at these fences and the

canyon-like walk stretching between them, the band of curious invaders

forgot their prime errand. Many were for entering this path whose

terminus they could not see for the sharp turns it took in rounding

either corner. Among them was a couple of girls who had but one thought,

as was evinced by their hurried whispers. "If it looks like this in the

daytime, what must it be at night!" To which came the quick retort:

"I've heard that the judge walks here. Imagine it under the moon!"

But whatever the mysteries of the place, a greater one awaited them

beyond, and presently realising this, they burst with one accord through

the second gate into the mass of greenery, which, either from neglect or

intention, masked this side of the Ostrander homestead.

Never before had they beheld so lawless a growth or a house so

completely lost amid vines and shrubbery. So unchecked had been the

spread of verdure from base to chimney, that the impression made by the

indistinguishable mass was one of studied secrecy and concealment. Not a

window remained in view, and had it not been for some chance glimmers

here and there where some small, unguarded portion of the enshrouded

panes caught and reflected the sunbeams, they could not have told where

they were located in these once well-known walls.

Two solemn fir trees, which were all that remained of an old-time and

famous group, kept guard over the untended lawn, adding their suggestion

of age and brooding melancholy to the air of desolation infecting the

whole place. One might be approaching a tomb for all token that appeared

of human presence. Even sound was lacking. It was like a painted

scene--a dream of human extinction.

Instinctively the women faltered and the men drew back; then the very

silence caused a sudden reaction, and with one simultaneous rush, they

made for the only entrance they saw and burst without further ceremony

into the house.

A common hall and common furnishings confronted them. They had entered

at the side and were evidently close upon the kitchen. More they could

not gather; for blocked as the doorway was by their crowding figures,

the little light which sifted in over their heads was not enough to show

up details.

But it was even darker in the room towards which their determined leader

now piloted them. Here there was no light at all; or if some stray

glimmer forced its way through the network of leaves swathing the outer

walls, it was of too faint a character to reach the corners or even to

make the furniture about them distinguishable.

Halting with one accord in what seemed to be the middle of the

uncarpeted floor, they waited for some indication of a clear passageway

to the great room where the judge would undoubtedly be found in

conversation with his strange guest, unless, forewarned by their noisy

entrance, he should have risen already to meet them. In that case they

might expect at any minute to see his tall form emerging in anger upon

them through some door at present unseen.

This possibility, new to some but recognised from the first by others,

fluttered the breasts of such as were not quite impervious to a sense of

their own presumption, and as they stood in a close group, swaying from

side to side in a vain endeavour to see their way through the gloom

before them, the whimper of a child and the muttered ejaculations of the

men testified that the general feeling was one of discontent which might

very easily end in an outburst of vociferous expression.

But the demon of curiosity holds fast and as soon as their eyes had

become sufficiently used to the darkness to notice the faint line of

light marking the sill of a door directly in front of them, they all

plunged forward in spite of the fear I have mentioned.

The woman of the harsh voice and self-satisfied demeanour, who had

started them upon this adventure, was still ahead; but even she quailed

when, upon laying her hand upon the panel of the door she was the first

to reach, she felt it to be cold and knew it to be made not of wood but

of iron. How great must be the treasure or terrible the secret to make

necessary such extraordinary precautions! Was it for her to push open

this door, and so come upon discoveries which--

But here her doubts were cut short by finding herself face to face with

a heavy curtain instead of a yielding door. The pressure of the crowd

behind had precipitated her past the latter into a small vestibule which

acted as an ante-chamber to the very room they were in search of.

The shock restored her self-possession. Bracing herself, she held her

place for a moment, while she looked back, with a finger laid on her

lip. The light was much better here and they could all see both the move

she made and the expression which accompanied it.

"Look at this!" she whispered, pushing the curtain inward with a quick

movement.

Her hand had encountered no resistance. There was nothing between them

and the room beyond but a bit of drapery.

"Now hark, all of you," fell almost soundlessly from her lips, as she

laid her own ear against the curtain.

And they hearkened.

Not a murmur came from within, not so much as the faintest rustle of

clothing or the flutter of a withheld breath. All was perfectly

still--too still. As the full force of this fact impressed itself upon

them, a blankness settled over their features. The significance of this

undisturbed quiet was making itself felt. If the two were there, or if

he were there alone, they would certainly hear some movement, voluntary

or involuntary--and they could hear nothing. Was the woman gone? Had she

found her way out front while they approached from the rear? And the

judge! Was he gone also?--this man of inalterable habits--gone before

Bela's return--a thing he had not been known to do in the last twelve

years? No, no, this could not be. Yet even this supposition was not so

incredible as that he should still be here and SILENT. Men like him do

not hold their peace under a provocation so great as the intrusion of a

mob of strangers into a spot where he never anticipated seeing anybody,

nor had seen anybody but his man Bela for years. Soon they would hear

his voice. It was not in nature for him to be as quiet as this in face

of such audacity.

Yet who could count upon the actions of an Ostrander, or reckon with the

imperious whims of a man mysterious beyond all precedent?--He may be

there but silent, or--

A single glance would settle all.

The woman drew the curtain.

Sunshine! A stream of it, dazzling them almost to blindness and sending

them, one and all, pellmell back upon each other! However dismal the

approach, here all was in brilliant light with every evidence before

them of busy life.

The room was not only filled, but crammed, with furniture. This was the

first thing they noticed; then, as their blinking eyes became accustomed

to the glare and to the unexpected confusion of tables and chairs and

screens and standing receptacles for books and pamphlets and boxes

labelled and padlocked, they beheld something else; something, which

once seen, held the eye from further wandering and made the

apprehensions from which they had suffered sink into insignificance

before a real and only too present terror.

The judge was there! but in what a condition.

From the end of the forty foot room, his seated figure confronted them,

silent, staring and unmoving. With clenched fingers gripping the arms of

his great chair, and head held forward, he looked like one frozen at the

moment of doom, such the expression of features usually so noble, and

now almost unrecognisable were it not for the snow of his locks and his

unmistakable brow.

Frozen! Not an eyelash quivered, nor was there any perceptible movement

in his sturdy chest. His eyes were on their eyes, but he saw no one; and

down upon his head and over his whole form the sunshine poured from a

large window let into the ceiling directly above him, lighting up the

strained and unnatural aspect of his remarkable countenance and bringing

into sharp prominence the commonplace objects cluttering the table at

his elbow; such as his hat and gloves, and the bundle of papers he had

doubtless made ready for court.

Was he living? Was he dead?--stricken by the sight of so many faces in a

doorway considered sacred from all intrusion? No! the emotion capable of

thus transforming the features of so strong a man must have a deeper

source than that. The woman was to blame for this--the audacious, the

unknown, the mysteriously clad woman. Let her be found. Let her be made

to explain herself and the condition into which she had thrown this good

man.

Indignation burst into words, and pity was beginning to voice itself in

inarticulate murmurs which swelled and ebbed, now louder, now more

faintly as the crowd surged forward or drew back, appalled by that

moveless, breathless, awe-compelling figure. Indignation and pity were

at their height when the strain which held them all in one common leash

was loosed by the movement of a little child.

Attracted possibly by what it did not understand, or simply made

fearless because of its non-comprehension of the mystery before him, a

curly-haired boy suddenly escaped its mother's clutch, and, toddling up

by a pathway of his own to the awesome form in the great chair, laid his

little hand on the judge's rigid arm and, looking up into his face,

babbled out:

"Why don't you get up, man? I like oo better up."

A breathless moment; then the horrified murmur rose here, there and

everywhere: "He's dead! He's dead!" and the mother, with a rush, caught

the child back, and confusion began its reign, when quietly and

convincingly a bluff and masculine voice spoke from the doorway behind

them and they heard:

"You needn't be frightened. In an hour or a half-hour he will be the

same as ever. My aunt has such attacks. They call it catalepsy."

III

BELA THE REDOUBTABLE

CATALEPSY!

A dread word to the ignorant.

Imperceptibly the crowd dwindled; the most discreet among them quite

content to leave the house; others, with their curiosity inflamed anew,

to poke about and peer into corners and curtained recesses while the

opportunity remained theirs and the man of whom they stood in fear sat

lapsed in helpless unconsciousness. A few, and these the most

thoughtful, devoted all their energies to a serious quest for the woman

and child whom they continued to believe to be in hiding somewhere

inside the walls she had so audaciously entered.

Among these was Miss Weeks whose importance none felt more than herself,

and it was at her insistence and under her advice (for she only, of all

who remained, had ever had a previous acquaintance with the house) that

the small party decided to start their search by a hasty inspection of

the front hall. As this could not be reached from the room where its

owner's motionless figure sat at its grim watch, they were sidling

hastily out, with eyes still turned back in awful fascination upon those

other eyes which seemed to follow all their movements and yet gave no

token of life, when a shout and scramble in the passages beyond cut

short their intent and held them panting and eager, each to his place.

"They've seen her! They've found her!" ran in quick, whispered

suggestion from lip to lip, and some were for rushing to see.

But Miss Weeks' trim and precise figure blocked the doorway, and she did

not move.

"Hark!" she murmured in quick admonishment; "what is that other sound?

Something is happening--something dreadful. What is it? It does not seem

to be near here yet, but it is coming--coming."

Frightened in spite of themselves, both by her manner and tone, they

drew their gaze from the rigid figure in the chair, and, with bated

breaths and rapidly paling cheeks, listened to the distant murmur on the

far-off road, plainly to be heard pulsing through the nearer sounds of

rushing feet and chattering voices in the rooms about.

What was it? They could not guess, and it was with unbounded relief they

pressed forward to greet the shadowy form of a young girl hurrying

towards them from the rear, with news in her face. She spoke quickly and

before Miss Weeks could frame her question.

"The woman is gone. Harry Doane saw her sliding out behind us just after

we came in. She was hiding in some of the corners here, and slipped out

by the kitchen-way when we were not looking. He has gone to see--"

But interesting as this was, the wonder of the now rapidly increasing

hubbub was more so. A mob was at the gates! Men, women and children

shouting, panting and making loud calls.

Breathlessly Miss Weeks cut the girl's story short; breathlessly she

rushed to the nearest window, and, helped by willing hands, succeeded in

forcing it up and tearing a hole in the vines, through which they one

and all looked out in eager excitement.

A motley throng of people were crowding in through the double gateway.

Some one was in their grasp. Was it the woman? No; it was Bela! Bela,

the giant! Bela, the terror of the town, but no longer a terror now but

a struggling, half-fainting figure, fighting to free itself and get in

advance, despite some awful hurt which blanched his coal-black features

into an indescribable hue and made his great limbs falter and his

gasping mouth writhe in anguish while still keeping his own and making

his way, by sheer force of will, up the path and the two steps of

entrance--his body alternately sinking back or plunging forward as those

in the rear or those in front got the upper hand.

It was an awful and a terrifying sight to little Miss Weeks and,

screaming loudly, she left her window and ran, scattering her small

party before her like sheep, not into the near refuge of the front hall

and its quiet parlours, but into the very spot towards which this mob

seemed headed--the great library pulsing with its own terror, in the

shape of the yet speechless and unconscious man to whom the loudest

noise and the most utter silence were yet as one, and the worst struggle

of human passion a blank lost in unmeaning chaos.

Why this instinctive move? She could not tell. Impulse prevailed, and

without a thought she flew into Judge Ostrander's presence, and, gazing

wildly about, wormed her way towards a heavily carved screen guarding a

distant corner, and cowered down behind it.

What awaited her?

What awaited the judge?

As the little woman shook with terror in her secret hiding-place she

felt that she had played him false; that she had no right to save

herself by the violation of a privacy she should have held in awe. She

was paying for her temerity now, paying for it with every terrible

moment that her suspense endured. The gasping, struggling men, the

frantic negro, were in the next room now--she could catch the sound of

the latter's panting breath rising above the clamour of strange

entreaties and excited cries with which the air was full; then a quick,

hoarse shout of "Judge! Judge!" rose in the doorway, and she became

conscious of the presence of a headlong, rushing force struck midway

into silence as the frozen figure of his master flashed upon the negro's

eyes;--then,--a growl of concentrated emotion, uttered almost in her

ear, and the screen which had been her refuge was violently thrust away

from before her, and in its place she beheld a terrible being standing

over her, in whose eyes, dilating under this fresh surprise, she beheld

her doom, even while recognising that if she must suffer it would be

simply as an obstacle to some goal at her back which he must

reach--now--before he fell in his blood and died.

What was this goal? As she felt herself lifted, nay, almost hurled

aside, she turned to see and found it to be a door before which the

devoted Bela had now thrown himself, guarding it with every inch of his

powerful but rapidly sinking body, and chattering defiance with his

bloodless, quivering lips--a figure terrible in anger, sublime in

purpose, and piteous in its failing energies.

"Back! all of you!" he cried, and stopped, clutching at the door-casing

on either side to hold himself erect. "You cannot come in here. This is

the judge's--"

Not even his iron resolve or once unequalled physique could stand the

sapping of the terrible gash which disfigured his forehead. He had been

run over by an automobile in a moment of blind abstraction, and his hurt

was mortal. But though his tongue refused to finish, his eye still

possessed its power to awe and restrain. Though the crowd had followed

him almost into the centre of the room, they felt themselves held back

by the spirit of this man, who as long as he lived and breathed would

hold himself a determined barrier between them and what he had been set

to guard.

As long as he lived and breathed. Alas! that would be but a little while

now. Already his head, held erect by the passion of his purpose, was

sinking on his breast; already his glazing eye was losing its power of

concentration, when with a final rally of his decaying strength, he

started erect again and cried out in terrible appeal:

"I have disobeyed the judge, and, as you see, it has killed him. Do not

make me guilty of giving away his secret. Swear that you will leave this

door unpassed; swear that no one but his son shall ever turn this lock;

or I will haunt you, I, Bela, man by man, till you sink in terror to

your graves. Swear! sw--"

The last adjuration ended in a moan. His head fell forward again and in

that intense moment of complete silence they could hear the splash of

his life-blood as it dropped from his forehead on to the polished boards

beneath; then he threw up his arms and fell in a heap to the floor.

They had not been driven to answer. Wherever that great soul had gone,

his ears were no longer open to mortal promise, nor would any oath from

the lip of man avail to smooth his way into the shadowy unknown.

"Dead!" broke from little Miss Weeks as she flung herself down in

reckless abandonment at his side. She had never known an agitation

beyond some fluttering woman's hope she had stifled as soon as born, and

now she knelt in blood. "Dead!" she again repeated. And there was no one

this time to cry: "You need not be frightened; in a few minutes he will

be himself again." The master might reawaken to life, but never more the

man.

A solemn hush, then a mighty sigh of accumulated emotion swept from lip

to lip, and the crowd of later invaders, already abashed if not

terrified by the unexpected spectacle of suspended animation which

confronted them from the judge's chair, shrank tumultuously back as

little Miss Weeks advanced upon them, holding out her meagre arms in

late defence of the secret to save which she had just seen a man die.

"Let us do as he wished," she prayed. "I feel myself much to blame. What

right had we to come in here?"

"The fellow was hurt. We were just bringing him home," spoke up a voice,

rough with the surprise of unaccustomed feeling. "If he had let us carry

him, he might have been alive this minute; but he would run and struggle

to keep us back. He says he killed his master. If so, his death is a

retribution. Don't you say so, fellows? The judge was a good man---"

"Hush! hush! the judge is all right," admonished one of the party;

"he'll be waking up soon"; and then, as every eye flew in fresh wonder

towards the chair and its impassive occupant, the low whisper was

heard,--no one ever could tell from whose lips it fell: "If we are ever

to know this wonderful secret, now is the time, before he wakes and

turns us out of the house."

No one in authority was present; no one representing the law, not even a

doctor; only haphazard persons from the street and a few neighbours who

had not been on social terms with the judge for years and never expected

to be so again. His secret!--always a source of wonder to every

inhabitant of Shelby, but lifted now into a matter of vital importance

by the events of the day and the tragic death of the negro! Were they to

miss its solution, when only a door lay between it and them--a door

which they might not even have to unlock? If the judge should rouse,--if

from a source of superstitious terror he became an active one, how pat

their excuse might be. They were but seeking a proper place--a couch--a

bed--on which to lay the dead man. They had been witness to his hurt;

they had been witness to his death, and were they to leave him lying in

his blood, to shock the eyes of his master when he came out of his long

swoon? No tongue spoke these words, but the cunning visible in many an

eye and the slight start made by more than one eager foot in the

direction of the forbidden door gave Miss Weeks sufficient warning of

what she might expect in another moment. Making the most of her

diminutive figure,--such a startling contrast to the one which had just

dominated there!--she was about to utter an impassioned appeal to their

honour, when the current of her and their thoughts, as well as the

direction of all looks, was changed by a sudden sense common to all, of

some strange new influence at work in the room, and turning, they beheld

the judge upon his feet, his mind awakened, but his eyes still fixed--an

awesome figure; some thought more awesome than before; for the terror

which still held him removed from all about, was no longer passive but

active and had to do with what no man there could understand or

alleviate. Death was present with them--he saw it not. Strangers were

making havoc with his solitude--he was as oblivious of their presence as

he had been unconscious of it before. His faculties and all his

attention were absorbed by the thought which had filled his brain when

the cogs of that subtle mechanism had slipped and his faculties paused

inert.

This was shown by his first question:

"WHERE IS THE WOMAN?"

It was a cry of fear; not of mastery.

IV

"AND WHERE WAS I WHEN ALL THIS HAPPENED?"

The intensity of the question, the compelling, self-forgetful passion of

the man, had a startling effect upon the crowd of people huddled before

him. With one accord, and without stopping to pick their way, they made

for the open doorway, knocking the smaller pieces of furniture about and

creating havoc generally. Some fled the house; others stopped to peer in

again from behind the folds of the curtain which had been only partially

torn from its fastenings. Miss Weeks was the only one to stand her

ground.

When the room was quite cleared and the noise abated (it was a frightful

experience to see how little the judge had been affected by all this

hubbub of combined movement and sound), she stepped within the line of

his vision and lifted her feeble and ineffectual hand in an effort to

attract his attention to herself.

But he did not notice her, any more than he had noticed the others.

Still looking in the one direction, he cried aloud in troubled tones:

"She stood there! the woman stood there and I saw her! Where is she

now?"

"She is no longer in the house," came in gentle reply from the only one

in or out of the room courageous enough to speak. "She went out when she

saw us coming. We knew that she had no right to be here. That is why we

intruded ourselves, sir. We did not like the looks of her, and so

followed her in to prevent mischief."

"Ah!"

The expletive fell unconsciously. He seemed to be trying to adjust

himself to some mental experience he could neither share with others nor

explain to himself.

"She was here, then?--a woman with a little child? It wasn't an

illusion, a--." Memory was coming back and with it a realisation of his

position. Stopping short, he gazed down from his great height upon the

trembling little body of whose identity he had but a vague idea, and

thundered out in great indignation:

"How dared you! How dared she!" Then as his mind regained its full

poise, "And how, even if you had the temerity to venture an entrance

here, did you manage to pass my gates? They are never open. Bela sees to

that."

Bela!

He may have observed the pallor which blanched her small, tense features

as this name fell so naturally from his lips, or some instinct of his

own may have led him to suspect tragedy where all was so abnormally

still, for, as she watched, she saw his eyes, fixed up to now upon her

face, leave it and pass furtively and with many hesitations from object

to object, towards that spot behind him, where lay the source of her

great terror, if not of his. So lingeringly and with such dread was this

done, that she could barely hold back her weak woman's scream in the

intensity of her suspense. She knew just where his glances fell without

following them with her own. She saw them pass the door where so many

faces yet peered in (he saw them not), and creep along the wall beyond,

inch by inch, breathlessly and with dread, till finally, with fatal

precision, they reached the point where the screen had stood, and not

finding it, flew in open terror to the door it was set there to

conceal--when that something else, huddled in oozing blood, on the floor

beneath, drew them unto itself with the irresistibleness of grim

reality, and he forgot all else in the horror of a sight for which his

fears, however great, had failed to prepare him.

Dead! BELA! Dead! and lying in his blood! The rest may have been no

dream, but this was surely one, or his eyes, used to inner visions, were

playing him false.

Grasping the table at his side to steady his failing limbs, he pulled

himself along by its curving edge till he came almost abreast of the

helpless figure which for so many years had been the embodiment of

faithful and unwearied service.

Then and then only, did the truth of his great misfortune burst upon his

bewildered soul; and with a cry which tore the ears of all hearers and

was never forgotten by any one there, he flung himself down beside the

dead negro, and, turning him hastily over, gazed in his face.

Was that a sob? Yes; thus much the heart gave; but next moment the

piteous fact of loss was swallowed up in the recognition of its manner,

and, bounding to his feet with the cry, "Killed! Killed at his post!" he

confronted the one witness of his anguish of whose presence he was

aware, and fiercely demanded: "Where are the wretches who have done

this? No single arm could have knocked down Bela. He has been set

upon--beaten with clubs, and--" Here his thought was caught up by

another, and that one so fearsome and unsettling that bewilderment again

followed rage, and with the look of a haunted spirit, he demanded in a

voice made low by awe and dread of its own sound, "AND WHERE WAS I, WHEN

ALL THIS HAPPENED?"

"You? You were seated there," murmured the little woman, pointing at the

great chair. "You were not--quite--quite yourself," she softly

explained, wondering at her own composure. Then quickly, as she saw his

thoughts revert to the dead friend at his feet, "Bela was not hurt here.

He was down town when it happened; but he managed to struggle home and

gain this place, which he tried to hold against the men who followed

him. He thought you were dead, you sat there so rigid and so white, and,

before he quite gave up, he asked us all to promise not to let any one

enter this room till your son Oliver came."

Understanding partly, but not yet quite clear in his mind, the judge

sighed, and stooping again, straightened the faithful negro's limbs.

Then, with a side-long look in her direction, he felt in one of the

pockets of the dead negro's coat, and drawing out a small key, held it

in one hand while he fumbled in his own for another, which found, he

became on the instant his own man again.

Miss Weeks, seeing the difference in him, and seeing too, that the

doorway was now clear of the wondering, awestruck group which had

previously blocked it, bowed her slight body and proceeded to withdraw;

but the judge, staying her by a gesture, she waited patiently near one

of the book-racks against which she had stumbled, to hear what he had to

say.

"I must have had an attack of some kind," he calmly remarked. "Will you

be good enough to explain exactly what occurred here that I may more

fully comprehend my own misfortune and the death of this faithful

friend?"

Then she saw that his faculties were now fully restored, and came a step

forward. But before she could begin her story, he added this searching

question:

"Was it he who let you in--you and others--I think you said others? Was

it he who unlocked my gates?"

Miss Weeks sighed and betrayed fluster. It was not easy to relate her

story; besides it was wofully incomplete. She knew nothing of what had

happened down town, she could only tell what had passed before her eyes.

But there was one thing she could make clear, to him, and that was how

the seemingly impassable gates had been made ready for the woman's

entrance and afterwards taken such advantage of by herself and others. A

pebble had done it all,--a pebble placed in the gateway by Bela's hands.

As she described this, and insisted upon the fact in face of the judge's

almost frenzied disclaimer, she thought she saw the hair move on his

forehead. Bela a traitor, and in the interests of the woman who had

fronted him from the other end of the room at the moment consciousness

had left him! Evidently this intrusive little body did not know Bela or

his story, or--

Why should interruption come then? Why was he stopped, when in the

passion of the moment, he might have let fall some word of enlightenment

which would have eased the agitated curiosity of the whole town! Miss

Weeks often asked herself this question, and bewailed the sudden access

of sounds in the rooms without, which proclaimed the entrance of the

police and put a new strain upon the judge's faculty of self-control and

attention to the one matter in hand.

The commonplaces of an official inquiry were about to supersede the play

of a startled spirit struggling with a problem of whose complexities he

had received but a glimpse.

V

"SHE WORE PURPLE"

The library again! but how changed! Evening light now instead of blazing

sunshine; and evening light so shaded that the corners seemed far and

the many articles of furniture, cumbering the spaces between, larger for

the shadows in which they stood hidden. Perhaps the man who sat there in

company with the judge regretted this. Perhaps, he would have preferred

to see more perfectly that portion of the room where Bela had taken his

stand and finally fallen. It would have been interesting to note whether

the screen had been replaced before the mysterious door which this most

devoted of servants had protected to his last gasp. Curiosity is

admissible, even in a man, when the cause is really great.

But from the place where he sat there was no getting any possible view

of that part of the wall or of anything connected with it; and so, with

every appearance of satisfaction at being allowed in the room at all,

Sergeant Doolittle from Headquarters, drank the judge's wine and

listened for the judge's commands.

These were slow in coming, and they were unexpected when they came.

"Sergeant, I have lost a faithful servant under circumstances which have

called an unfortunate attention to my house. I should like to have this

place guarded--carefully guarded, you understand--from any and all

intrusion till I can look about me and secure protection of my own. May

I rely upon the police to do this, beginning to-night at an early hour?

There are loiterers already at the corner and in front of the two gates.

I am not accustomed to these attentions, and ask to have my fence

cleared."

"Two men are already detailed for the job, your honour. I heard the

order given just as I left Headquarters."

The judge showed small satisfaction. Indeed, in his silence there was

the hint of something like displeasure. This surprised Sergeant

Doolittle and led him to attempt to read its cause in his host's

countenance. But the shade of the lamp intervened too completely, and he

had to be content to wait till the judge chose to speak, which he

presently did, though not in the exact tones the Sergeant expected.

"Two men! Couldn't I have three? One for each gate and one to patrol the

fence separating these grounds from the adjoining lot?"

The sergeant hesitated; he felt an emotion of wonder--a sense of

something more nearly approaching the uncanny than was usual to his

matter-of-fact mind. He had heard, often enough, what store the judge

set on his privacy and of the extraordinary measures he had taken to

insure it, but that a man, even if he aped the hermit, should consider

three men necessary to hold the public away from a two hundred and fifty

foot lot argued apprehensions of a character verging on the ridiculous.

But he refrained from expressing his surprise and replied, after a

minute of thought:

"If two men are not enough to ensure you a quiet sleep, you shall have

three or four or even more, Judge Ostrander. Do you want one of them to

stay inside? That might do the business better than a dozen out."

"No. While Bela lies above ground, we want no third here. When he is

buried, I may call upon you for a special to watch my room door. But

it's of outside protection we're talking now. Only, who is to protect me

against your men?"

"What do you mean by that, your honour?"

"They are human, are they not? They have instincts of curiosity like the

rest of us. How can I be made sure that they won't yield to the

temptation of their position and climb the fences they are detailed to

guard?"

"And would this be so fatal to your peace, judge?" A smile tempered the

suggestion.

"It would be a breach of trust which would greatly disturb me. I want

nobody on my grounds, nobody at all. Has not my long life of solitude

within these walls sufficiently proved this? I want to feel that these

men of yours would no more climb my fence than they would burst into my

house without a warrant."

"Judge, I will be one of the men. You can trust me."

"Thank you, sergeant; I appreciate the favour. I shall rest now as

quietly as any man can who has met with a great loss. The coroner's

inquiry has decided that the injuries which Bela received in the street

were of a fatal character and would have killed him within an hour, even

if he had not exhausted his strength in the effort he made to return to

his home and die in my presence. But I shall always suffer from regret

that I was not in a condition to receive his last sigh. He was a man in

a thousand. One seldom sees his like among white or black."

"He was a very powerfully built man. It took a sixty horse-power racing

machine, going at a high rate of speed, to kill him."

A spasm of grief or unavailing regret crossed the judge's face as his

head sank back again against the high back of his chair.

"Enough," said he; "tread softly when you go by the sofa on which he

lies. Will you fill your glass again, sergeant?"

The sergeant declined.

"Not if my watch is to be effective to-night," he smiled, and rose to

depart.

The judge, grown suddenly thoughtful, rapped with his finger-tips on the

table-edge. He had not yet risen to show his visitor out.

"I should like to ask a question," he finally observed, motioning the

other to re-seat himself. "You were not at the inquiry this afternoon,

and may not know that just as Bela and the crowd about him turned this

corner, they ran into a woman leading a small child, who stopped the

whole throng in order to address him. No one heard what she said; and no

one could give any information as to who she was or in what direction

she vanished. But I saw that woman myself, earlier. She was in this

house. She was in this room. She came as far as that open space just

inside the doorway. I can describe her, and will, if you will consent to

look for her. It is to be a money transaction, sergeant, and if she is

found and no stir made and no talk started among the Force, I will pay

all that you think it right to demand."

"Let me hear her description, your honour." The judge, who had withdrawn

into the shadow, considered for a moment, then said:

"I cannot describe her features, for she was heavily veiled; neither can

I describe her figure except to say that she is tall and slender. But

her dress I remember to the last detail, though I am not usually so

observant. She wore purple; not an old woman's purple, but a soft shade

which did not take from her youth. There was something floating round

her shoulders of the same colour, and on her arms were long gloves such

as you see our young ladies wear. The child did not seem to belong to

her, though she held her tightly by the hand. I mean by that, that its

clothes were of a coarser material than hers and perhaps were a little

soiled. If the child wore a hat, I do not remember it. In age it

appeared to be about six--or that was the impression I received

before--"

The sergeant, who had been watching the speaker very closely, leaned

forward with a hasty, inquiring glance expressive of something like

consternation. Was the judge falling again into unconsciousness? Was he

destined to witness in this solitary meeting a return of the phenomenon

which had so startled the intruding populace that morning?

No, or if he had been witness to something of the kind, it was for a

moment only; for the eyes which had gone blank had turned his way again,

and only a disconnected expression which fell from the judge's lips,

showed that his mind had been wandering.

"It's not the same but another one; that's all."

Inconsequent words, but the sergeant meant to remember them, for with

their utterance, a change passed over the judge; and his manner, which

had been constrained and hurried during his attempted description,

became at once more natural, and therefore more courteous.

"Do you think you can find her with such insufficient data? A woman

dressed in purple, leading a little child without any hat?"

"Judge, I not only feel sure that I can find her, but I think she is

found already. Do you remember the old tavern on the Rushville road? I

believe they call it an inn now, or some such fancy name."

The judge sat quiet, but the sergeant who dared not peer too closely,

noticed a sudden constriction in the fingers of the hand with which his

host fingered a paper-cutter lying on the table between them.

"The one where--"

"I respect your hesitation, judge. Yes, the one run by the man you

sentenced--"

A gesture had stopped him. He waited respectfully for the judge's next

words.

They came quickly and with stern and solemn emphasis.

"For a hideous and wholly unprovoked crime. Why do you mention it

and--and his tavern?"

"Because of something I have lately heard in its connection. You know

that the old house has been all made over since that time and run as a

place of resort for automobilists in search of light refreshments. The

proprietor's name is Yardley. We have nothing against him; the place is

highly respectable. But it harbours a boarder, a permanent one, I

believe, who has occasioned no little comment. No one has ever seen her

face; unless it is the landlord's wife. She has all her meals served in

her room, and when she goes out she wears the purple dress and purple

veil you've been talking about. Perhaps she's your visitor of to-day.

Hadn't I better find out?"

"Has she a child? Is she a mother?"

"I haven't heard of any child, but Mrs. Yardley has seven."

The judge's hand withdrew from the table and for an instant the room was

so quiet that you could hear some far-off clock ticking out the minutes.

Then Judge Ostrander rose and in a peremptory tone said:

"To-morrow. After you hear from me again. Make no move to-night. Let me

feel that all your energies are devoted to securing my privacy."

The sergeant, who had sprung to his feet at the same instant as the

judge, cast a last look about him, curiosity burning in his heart and a

sort of desperate desire to get all he could out of his present

opportunity. For he felt absolutely sure that he would never be allowed

to enter this room again.

But the arrangement of light was such as to hold in shadow all but the

central portion of the room; and this central portion held nothing out

of the common--nothing to explain the mysteries of the dwelling or the

apprehensions of its suspicious owner. With a sigh, the sergeant dropped

his eyes from the walls he could barely distinguish, and following Judge

Ostrander's lead, passed with him under the torn folds of the curtain

and through the narrow vestibule whose door was made of iron, into the

room, where, in a stronger blaze of light than they had left, lay the

body of the dead negro awaiting the last rites.

Would the judge pass this body, or turn away from it towards a door

leading front? The sergeant had come in at the rear, but he greatly

desired to go out front, as this would give him so much additional

knowledge of the house. Unexpectedly to himself, the judge's intentions

were in the direction of his own wishes. He was led front; and, entering

an old-fashioned hall dimly lighted, passed a staircase and two closed

doors, both of which gave him the impression of having been shut upon a

past it had pleasured no one to revive in many years.

Beyond them was the great front door of Colonial style and workmanship,

a fine specimen once, but greatly disfigured now by the bolts and bars

which had been added to it in satisfaction of the judge's ideas of

security.

Many years had passed since Judge Ostrander had played the host; but he

had not lost a sense of its obligations. It was for him to shoot the

bolts and lift the bars; but he went about it so clumsily and with such

evident aversion to the task, that the sergeant instinctively sprang to

help him.

"I shall miss Bela at every turn," remarked the judge, turning with a

sad smile as he finally pulled the door open. "This is an unaccustomed

effort for me. Excuse my awkwardness."

Something in his attitude, something in the way he lifted his hand to

push back a fallen lock from his forehead, impressed itself upon the

sergeant's mind so vividly that he always remembered the judge as he

appeared to him at that minute. Certainly there were but few men like

him in the country, and none in his own town. Of a commanding

personality by reason of his height, his features were of a cast to

express his mental attributes and enforce attention, and the incongruity

between his dominating figure and the apprehensions which he displayed

in these multiplied and extraordinary arrangements for personal security

was forcible enough to arouse any man's interest.

The sergeant was so occupied by the mystery of the man and the mystery

of the house that they had passed the first gate (which the judge had

unlocked without much difficulty) before he realised that there still

remained something of interest for him to see and to talk about later.

The two dark openings on either side, raised questions which the most

unimaginative mind would feel glad to hear explained. Ere the second

gate swung open and he found himself again in the street, he had built

up more than one theory in explanation of this freak of parallel fences

with the strip of gloom between.

Would he have felt the suggestion of the spot still more deeply, had it

been given him to see the anxious and hesitating figure which,

immediately upon his departure entered this dark maze, and with feeling

hands and cautious step, wound its way from corner to corner--now

stopping abruptly to listen, now shrinking from some imaginary

presence--a shadow among shadows--till it stood again between the gates

from which it had started.

Possibly; even the hardiest of men respond to the unusual, and prove

themselves not ungifted with imagination when brought face to face with

that for which their experience furnishes no precedent.

VI

ACROSS THE BRIDGE

It was ten o'clock, not later, when the judge re-entered his front door.

He was alone,--absolutely alone, as he had never been since that night

of long ago, when with the inner fence completed and the gates all

locked, he turned to the great negro at his side and quietly said:

"We are done with the world, Bela. Are you satisfied to share this

solitude with me?" And Bela had replied: "Night and day, your honour.

And when you are not here,--when you are at court, to bear it alone."

And now this faithful friend was dead, and it was he who must bear it

alone,--alone! How could he face it! He sought for no answer, nor did he

allow himself to dwell for one minute on the thought. There was

something else he must do first,--do this very night, if possible.

Taking down his hat from the rack he turned and went out again, this

time carefully locking the door behind him, also the first gate. But he

stopped to listen before lifting his hand to the second one.

A sound of steady breathing, accompanied by a few impatient movements,

came from the other side. A man was posted there within a foot of the

gate. Noiselessly the judge recoiled, and made his way around to the

other set of gates. Here all was quiet enough, and sliding quickly out,

he cast a hasty glance up and down the lane, and seeing nothing more

alarming than the back of a second officer lounging at the corner,

pulled the gate quietly to, and locked it.

He was well down the road towards the ravine, before the officer turned.

The time has now come for giving you a clearer idea of this especial

neighbourhood. Judge Ostrander's house, situated as you all know at the

juncture of an unimportant road with the main highway, had in its rear

three small houses, two of them let and one still unrented. Farther on,

but on the opposite side of the way, stood a very old dwelling in which

there lived and presumably worked, a solitary woman, the sole and final

survivor of a large family. Beyond was the ravine, cutting across the

road and terminating it. This ravine merits some description.

It was a picturesque addition to the town through which it cut at the

point of greatest activity. With the various bridges connecting the

residence portion with the lower business streets we have nothing to do.

But there was a nearer one of which the demands of my story necessitate

a clear presentation.

This bridge was called Long, and spanned the ravine and its shallow

stream of water not a quarter of a mile below the short road or lane we

have just seen Judge Ostrander enter. Between it and this lane, a narrow

path ran amid the trees and bushes bordering the ravine. This path was

seldom used, but when it was, it acted as a short cut to a certain part

of the town mostly given over to factories. Indeed the road of which

this bridge formed a part was called Factory on this account. Starting

from the main highway a half mile or so below Ostrander Lane, it ran

diagonally back to the bridge, where it received a turn which sent it

south and east again towards the lower town. A high bluff rose at this

point, which made the farther side of the ravine much more imposing than

the one on the near side where the slope was gradual.

This path, and even the bridge itself, were almost wholly unlighted.

They were seldom used at night--seldom used at any time. But it was by

this route the judge elected to go into town; not for the pleasure of

the walk, as was very apparent from the extreme depression of his

manner, but from some inward necessity which drove him on, against his

wishes, possibly against his secret misgivings.

He had met no one in his short walk down the lane, but for all that, he

paused before entering the path just mentioned, to glance back and see

if he were being watched or followed. When satisfied that he was not, he

looked up, from the solitary waste where he stood, to the cheerless

heavens and sighed; then forward into the mass of impenetrable shadow

that he must yet traverse and shuddered as many another had shuddered

ere beginning this walk. For it was near the end of this path, in full

sight of the bridge he must cross, that his friend, Algernon Etheridge,

had been set upon and murdered so many years before; and the shadow of

this ancient crime still lingered over the spot, deepening its natural

gloom even for minds much less sympathetic and responsive to spiritual

influences than Judge Ostrander.

But this shudder, whether premonitory or just the involuntary tribute of

friend to friend, did not prevent his entering the path or following its

line of shadow as it rose and dipped in its course down the gorge.

I have spoken of the cheerlessness of the heavens. It was one of those

nights when the sky, piled thick with hurrying clouds, hangs above one

like a pall. But the moon, hidden behind these rushing masses, was at

its full, and the judge soon found that he could see his way better than

he had anticipated--better than was desirable, perhaps. He had been on

the descent of the path for some little time now, and could not be far

from the more level ground which marked the approach to Long Bridge.

Determined not to stop or to cast one faltering look to right or left,

he hurried on with his eyes fixed upon the ground and every nerve braced

to resist the influence of the place and its undying memories. But with

the striking of his foot against the boards of the bridge, nature was

too much for him, and his resolve vanished. Instead of hastening on, he

stopped; and, having stopped, paused long enough to take in all the

features of the scene, and any changes which time might have wrought. He

even forced his shrinking eyes to turn and gaze upon the exact spot

where his beloved Algernon had been found, with his sightless eyes

turned to the sky.

This latter place, singular in that it lay open to the opposite bank

without the mask of bush or tree to hide it, was in immediate proximity

to the end of the bridge he had attempted to cross. It bore the name of

Dark Hollow, and hollow and dark it looked in the universal gloom. But

the power of its associations was upon him, and before he knew it, he

was retracing his steps as though drawn by a magnetism he could not

resist, till he stood within this hollow and possibly on the very foot

of ground from the mere memory of which he had recoiled for years.

A moment of contemplation--a sigh, such as only escapes the bursting

heart in moments of extreme grief or desolation--and he tore his eyes

from the ground to raise them slowly but with deep meaning to where the

high line of trees on the opposite side of the ravine met the grey vault

of the sky. Darkness piled itself against darkness, but with a

difference to one who knew all the undulations of this bluff and just

where it ended in the sheer fall which gave a turn to the road at the

farther end of the bridge.

But it was not upon the mass of undistinguishable tree-tops or the line

they made against the sky that his gaze lingered. It was on something

more material; something which rose from the brow of the hill in stark

and curious outline not explainable in itself, but clear enough to one

who had seen its shape by daylight. Judge Ostrander had thus seen it

many times in the past, and knew just where to look for the one

remaining chimney and solitary gable of a house struck many years before

by lightning and left a grinning shell to mock the eye of all who walked

this path or crossed this bridge.

Black amid blackness, with just the contrast of its straight lines to

the curve of natural objects about it, it commanded the bluff, summoning

up memories of an evil race cut short in a moment by an outraged

Providence, and Judge Ostrander marking it, found himself muttering

aloud as he dragged himself slowly away: "Why should Time, so

destructive elsewhere, leave one stone upon another of this accursed

ruin?"

Alas! Heaven has no answer for such questions.

When he had reached the middle of the bridge, he stopped short to look

back at Dark Hollow and utter in a smothered groan, which would not be

repressed, a name which by all the rights of the spot should have been

Algernon's, but was not.

The utterance of this name seemed to startle him, for, with a shuddering

look around, he hastily traversed the rest of the bridge, and took the

turn about the hill to where Factory Road branched off towards the town.

Here he stopped again and for the first time revealed the true nature of

his destination. For when he moved on again it was to take the road

along the bluff, and not the one leading directly into town.

This meant a speedy passing by the lightning-struck house. He knew this

of course, and evidently shrunk from the ordeal, for once up the hill

and on the level stretch above, he resolutely forbore to cast a glance

at its dilapidated fence and decayed gate posts. Had he not done

this--had his eyes followed the long line of the path leading from these

toppling posts to the face of the ruin, he would have been witness to a

strange sight. For gleaming through the demolished heart of it,--between

the chimney on the one side and the broken line of the gable on the

other--could be seen the half circle of the moon suddenly released from

the clouds which had hitherto enshrouded it. A weird sight, to be seen

only when all conditions favoured. It was to be seen here to-night; but

the judge's eye was bent another way, and he passed on, unnoting.

The ground was high along this bluff; almost fifty feet above the level

of the city upon, which he had just turned his back. Of stony formation

and much exposed to the elements, it had been considered an undesirable

site by builders, and not a house was to be seen between the broken

shell of the one he had just left, and the long, low, brilliantly

illuminated structure ahead, for which he was evidently making. The

sight of these lights and of the trees by which the house was

surrounded, suggested festival and caused a qualm of indecision to

momentarily disturb him in his purpose. But this purpose was too strong,

and the circumstances too urgent for him to be deterred by anything less

potent than a stroke of lightning. He rather increased his pace than

slackened it and was rewarded by seeing lamp after lamp go out as he

approached.

The pant of a dozen motors, the shouting of various farewells and then

the sudden rushing forth of a long line of automobiles, proclaimed that

the fete of the day was about over and that peace and order would soon

prevail again in Claymore Inn.

Without waiting for the final one to pass, the judge slid around to the

rear and peered in at the kitchen door. If Mrs. Yardley were the woman

he supposed her to be from the sergeant's description, she would be just

then in the thick of the dish-washing. And it was Mrs. Yardley he wished

to see.

Three women were at work in this busiest of scenes, and, deciding at a

glance which was the able mistress of the house, he approached the

large, pleasant and commanding figure piling plates at the farther end

of the room and courteously remarked:

"Mrs. Yardley, I believe?"

The answer came quickly, and not without a curious smile of constraint:

"Oh, no. Mrs. Yardley is in the entry behind."

Bowing his thanks, he stepped in the direction named, just as the three

women's heads came simultaneously together. There was reason for their

whispers. His figure, his head, his face, were all unusual, and at that

moment highly expressive, and coming as he did out of the darkness, his

presence had an uncanny effect upon their simple minds. They had been

laughing before; they ceased to laugh now. Why?

Meanwhile, Judge Ostrander was looking about him for Mrs. Yardley. The

quiet figure of a squat little body blocked up a certain doorway.

"I am looking for Mrs. Yardley," he ventured.

The little figure turned; he was conscious of two very piercing eyes

being raised to his, and heard in shaking accents, which yet were not

the accents of weakness, the surprised ejaculation:

"Judge Ostrander!"

Next minute they were together in a small room, with the door shut

behind them. The energy and decision of this mite of a woman were

surprising.

"I was going--to you--in the morning--" she panted in her excitement.

"To apologise," she respectfully finished.

"Then," said he, "it was your child who visited my house to-day?"

She nodded. Her large head was somewhat disproportioned to her short and

stocky body. But her glance and manner were not unpleasing. There was a

moment of silence which she hastened to break.

"Peggy is very young; it was not her fault. She is so young she doesn't

even know where she went. She was found loitering around the bridge--a

dangerous place for a child, but we've been very busy all day--and she

was found there and taken along by--by the other person. I hope that you

will excuse it, sir."

Was she giving the judge an opportunity to recover from his

embarrassment, or was she simply making good her own cause? Whichever

impulse animated her, the result was favourable to both. Judge Ostrander

lost something of his strained look, and it was no longer difficult for

her to meet his eye.

Nevertheless, what he had to say came with a decided abruptness.

"Who is the woman, Mrs. Yardley? That's what I have come to learn, and

not to complain of your child."

The answer struck him very strangely, though he saw nothing to lead him

to distrust her candour.

"I don't know, Judge Ostrander. She calls herself Averill, but that

doesn't make me sure of her. You wonder that I should keep a lodger

about whom I have any doubts, but there are times when Mr. Yardley uses

his own judgment, and this is one of the times. The woman pays well and

promptly," she added in a lower tone.

"Her status? Is she maid, wife or widow?"

"Oh, she says she is a widow, and I see every reason to believe her."

A slight grimness in her manner, the smallest possible edge to her

voice, led the judge to remark:

"She's good-looking, I suppose."

A laugh, short and unmusical but not without a biting humour, broke

unexpectedly from the landlady's lips.

"If she is, HE don't know it. He hasn't seen her."

"Not seen her?"

"No. Her veil was very thick the night she came and she did not lift it

as long as he was by. If she had--"

"Well, what?"

"I'm afraid that he wouldn't have exacted as much from her as he did.

She's one of those women--"

"Don't hesitate, Mrs. Yardley."

"I'm thinking how to put it. Who has her will of your sex, I might say.

Now I'm not."

"Pretty?"

"Not like a girl, sir. She's old enough to show fade; but I don't

believe that a man would mind that. She has a look--a way, that even

women feel. You may judge, sir, if we, old stagers at the business, have

been willing to take her in and keep her, at any price,--a woman who

won't show her face except to me, and who will not leave her room

without her veil and then only for walks in places where no one else

wants to go,--she must have some queer sort of charm to overcome all

scruples. But she's gone too far to-day. She shall leave the Inn

to-morrow. I promise you that, sir, whatever Samuel says. But sit down;

sit down; you look tired, judge. Is there anything you would like? Shall

I call Samuel?"

"No. I'm not much used to walking. Besides, I have had a great loss

to-day. My man, Bela--" Then with his former abruptness: "Have you no

idea who this Mrs. Averill is, or why she broke into my house?"

"There's but one explanation, sir. I've been thinking about it ever

since I got wind of where she took my Peggy. The woman is not

responsible. She has some sort of mania. Why else should she go into a

strange gate just because she saw it open?"

"She hasn't confided in you?"

"No, sir. I haven't seen her since she brought Peggy back. We've had

this big automobile party, and I thought my reckoning with her would

keep. I heard about what had happened at your place from the man who

brought us fruit."

"Mrs. Yardley, you've seen this woman's face?"

"Yes, I've seen her."

"Describe it more particularly."

"I can't. She has brown hair, brown eyes and a skin as white as milk;

but that don't describe her. Lots of women have all that."

"No, it doesn't describe her." His manner seemed to pray for further

details, but she stared back, unresponsive. In fact, she felt quite

helpless. With a sigh of impatience, he resorted again to question.

"You speak of her as a stranger. Are you quite sure that she is a

stranger to Shelby? You have not been so very many years here, and her

constant wearing of a veil in-doors and out is very suspicious."

"So I'm beginning to think. And there is something else, judge, which

makes me suspect you may be quite correct about her not being an entire

stranger here. She knows this house too well."

The judge started. The strength of his self-control had relaxed a bit,

and he showed in the look he cast about him what it had cost him to

enter these doors.

"It is not the same, of course," continued Mrs. Yardley, affected in a

peculiar way by the glimpse she had caught of the other's emotion

unnatural and incomprehensible as it appeared to her. "The place has

been greatly changed, but there is a certain portion of the old house

left which only a person who knew it as it originally was would be apt

to find; and yesterday, on going into one of these remote rooms I came

upon her sitting in one of the windows looking out. How she got there or

why she went, I cannot tell you. She didn't choose to tell me, and I

didn't ask. But I've not felt real easy about her since."

"Excuse me, Mrs. Yardley, it may be a matter of no moment, but do you

mind telling me where this room is?"

"It's on the top floor, sir; and it looks out over the ravine. Perhaps

she was spying out the path to your house."

The judge's face hardened. He felt baffled and greatly disturbed; but he

spoke kindly enough when he again addressed Mrs. Yardley:

"I am as ignorant as you of this woman's personality and of her reasons

for intruding into my presence this morning. But there is something so

peculiar about this presumptuous attempt of hers at an interview, that I

feel impelled to inquire into it more fully, even if I have to approach

the only source of information capable of giving me what I want--that

is, herself. Mrs. Yardley, will you procure me an immediate interview

with this woman? I am sure that you can be relied upon to do this and to

do it with caution. You have the countenance of a woman unusually

discreet."

The subtle flattery did its work. She was not blind to the fact that he

had introduced it for that very purpose, but it was not in her nature to

withstand any appeal from so exalted a source however made. Lifting her

eyes fearlessly to his, she responded earnestly:

"I am proud to serve you. I will see what I can do. Will you wait here

for just a few minutes?"

He bowed quietly enough; but he was very restless when once he found

himself alone. Those few minutes of waiting seemed interminable to him.

Would the woman come? Was she as anxious to see him now as she had been

in the early morning? Much depended on her mood, but more on the nature

of the errand which had taken her into his house. If that errand was a

vital one, he would soon hear her steps; indeed, he was hearing her

steps now--he was sure of it. Those of Mrs. Yardley were quicker,

shorter, more businesslike. These, now advancing through the corridor,

lingered as if held back by dread or a fateful indecision.

He would fain hasten them, but discretion forbade.

They faltered, turned, then, in an instant, all hesitation was lost in

purpose and they again advanced this time to the threshold. Judge

Ostrander had just time to brace himself to meet the unknown, when the

door fell back and the woman of the morning appeared in the opening.

VII

WITH HER VEIL DOWN

On the instant he recognised that no common interview lay before him.

She was still the mysterious stranger, and she still wore her veil--a

fact all the more impressive that it was no longer the accompaniment of

a hat, but flung freely over her bare head. He frowned as he met her

eyes through this disguising gauze. This attempt at an incognito for

which there seemed to be no adequate reason, had a theatrical look

wholly out of keeping with the situation. But he made no allusion to it,

nor was the bow with which he acknowledged her presence and ushered her

into the room, other than courteous. Nevertheless, she was the first to

speak.

"This is very good of you, Judge Ostrander," she remarked, in a voice

both cultured and pleasant. "I could hardly have hoped for this honour.

After what happened this morning at your house, I feared that my wish

for an interview would not only be disregarded by you, but that you

would utterly refuse me the privilege of seeing you. I own to feeling

greatly relieved. Such consideration shown to a stranger, argues a

spirit of unusual kindliness."

A tirade. He simply bowed.

"Or perhaps I am mistaken in my supposition," she suggested, advancing a

step, but no more. "Perhaps I am no stranger to you? Perhaps you know my

name?"

"Averill? No."

She paused, showing her disappointment quite openly. Then drawing up a

chair, she leaned heavily on its back, saying in low, monotonous tones

from which the former eager thrill had departed:

"I see that the intended marriage of your son has made very little

impression upon you."

Aghast for the moment, this was such a different topic from the one he

expected, the judge regarded her in silence before remarking:

"I have known nothing of it. My son's concerns are no longer mine. If

you have broken into my course of life for no other purpose than to

discuss the affairs of Oliver Ostrander, I must beg you to excuse me. I

have nothing to say in his connection to you or to any one."

"Is the breach between you so deep as that!"

This she said in a low tone and more as if to herself than to him. Then,

with a renewal of courage indicated by the steadying of her form and a

spirited uplift of her head, she observed with a touch of command in her

voice:

"There are some things which must be discussed whatever our wishes or

preconceived resolves. The separation between you and Mr. Oliver

Ostrander cannot be so absolute (since whatever your cause of complaint

you are still his father and he your son) that you will allow his whole

life's happiness to be destroyed for the lack of a few words between

yourself and me."

He had made his bow, and he now proceeded to depart, severity in his

face and an implacable resolution in his eye. But some impulse made him

stop; some secret call from deeply hidden, possibly unrecognised,

affections gave him the will to say:

"A plea uttered through a veil is like an unsigned message. It partakes

too much of the indefinite. Will you lift your veil, madam?"

"In a minute," she assured him. "The voice can convey truth as certainly

as the features. I will not deny you a glimpse of the latter after you

have heard my story. Will you hear it, judge? Issues of no common

importance hang upon your decision. I entreat--but no, you are a just

man; I will rely upon your sense of right. If your son's happiness fails

to appeal to you, let that of a young and innocent girl lovely as few

are lovely either in body or mind."

"Yourself, madam?"

"No, my daughter! Oliver Ostrander has done us that honour, sir. He had

every wish and had made every preparation to marry my child, when--Shall

I go on?"

"You may."

It was shortly said, but a burden seemed to fall from her shoulders at

its utterance. Her whole graceful form relaxed swiftly into its natural

curves, and an atmosphere of charm from this moment enveloped her, which

justified the description of Mrs. Yardley, even without a sight of the

features she still kept hidden.

"I am a widow, sir." Thus she began with studied simplicity. "With my

one child I have been living in Detroit these many years,--ever since my

husband's death, in fact. We are not unliked there, nor have we lacked

respect. When some six months ago, your son, who stands high in every

one's regard, as befits his parentage and his varied talents, met my

daughter and fell seriously in love with her, no one, so far as I know,

criticised his taste or found fault with his choice. I was happy, after

many years of anxiety; for I idolised my child and I had suffered from

many apprehensions as to her future. Not that I had the right to be

happy; I see that now. A woman with a secret,--and my heart held a woful

and desperate one,--should never feel that that secret lacks power to

destroy her because it has long lain quiescent. I thought my child safe,

and rejoiced as any woman might rejoice, and as I would rejoice now, if

Fate were to obliterate that secret and emancipate us all from the

horror of it."

She paused, waiting for some acknowledgment of his interest, but not

getting it, went on bitterly enough, for his stolidity was a very great

mystery to her:

"And she WAS safe, to all appearance, up to the very morning of her

marriage--the marriage of which you say you had received no intimation

though Oliver seems a very dutiful son."

"Madam!"--The hoarseness of his tone possibly increased its peremptory

character--"I really must ask you to lay aside your veil."

It was a rebuke and she felt it to be so; but though she blushed behind

her veil, she did not remove it.

"Pardon me," she begged and very humbly, "but I cannot yet. You will see

why later.--Let me reveal my secret first. I am coming to it, Judge

Ostrander; I cannot keep it back much longer."

He was too much of a gentleman to insist upon his wishes, but she saw by

the gloom of his eye and a certain nervous twitching of his hands that

it was not from mere impassiveness that his features had acquired their

rigidity. Smitten with compunction, she altered her tone into one more

deprecatory:

"My story will be best told," she now said, "if I keep all personal

element out of it. You must imagine Reuther, dressed in her wedding

finery, waiting for her bridegroom to take her to church. We were

sitting, she and I, in our little parlour, watching the clock,--for it

was very near the hour. At times, her face turned towards me for a brief

moment, and I felt all the pang of motherhood again, for her loveliness

was not of this earth but of a land where there is no sin, no--There!

the memory was a little too much for me, sir; but I'll not transgress

again; the future holds too many possibilities of suffering for me to

dwell upon the past. She was lovely and her loveliness sprang from a

pure hope. We will let that suffice, and what I dreaded was not what

happened, inexcusable as such blindness and presumption may appear in a

woman who has had her troubles and seen the desperate side of life.

"A carriage had driven up; and we heard his step; but it was not the

step of a bridegroom, Judge Ostrander, nor was the gentleman he left

behind him at the kerb, the friend who was to stand up with him. To

Reuther, innocent of all deception, this occasioned only surprise, but

to me it meant the end of Reuther's marriage and of my own hopes. I

shrank from the ordeal and stood with my back half turned when, dashed

by his own emotions, he bounded into our presence.