BOOK II

THE HOUSE AND THE ROOM

XIII

A BIT OF STEEL

"When are you going to Judge Ostrander's?"

"To-morrow. This is my last free day. So if there is anything for me to

do, do tell me, Mr. Black, and let me get to work at once."

"There is nothing you can do. The matter is hopeless."

"You think so?"

There was misery in the tone, but the seasoned old lawyer, who had

conducted her husband's defence, did not allow his sympathies to run

away with his judgment.

"I certainly do, madam. I told you so the other night, and now, after a

couple of days of thought on the subject, I am obliged to repeat my

assertion. Your own convictions in the matter, and your story of the

shadow and the peaked cap may appeal to the public and assure you some

sympathy, but for an entire reversal of its opinion you will need

substantial and incontrovertible evidence. You must remember--you will

pardon my frankness--that your husband's character failed to stand the

test of inquiry. His principles were slack, his temper violent. You have

suffered from both and must know. A poor foundation I found it for his

defence; and a poor one you will find it for that reversal of public

opinion upon which you count, without very strong proof that the crime

for which he was punished was committed by another man. You think you

have such proof, but it is meagre, very meagre. Find me something

definite to go upon and we will talk."

"Discouragement; discouragement everywhere," she complained. "Yet I know

John to have been innocent of this crime."

The lawyer raised his brows, and toyed impatiently with his watch-chain.

If her convictions found any echo in his own mind, he gave no evidence

of it. Doubtfully she eyed him.

"What you want," she observed at length, with a sigh, "is the name of

the man who sauntered down the ravine ahead of my husband. I cannot give

it to you now, but I do not despair of learning it."

"Twelve years ago, madam; twelve years ago."

"I know; but I have too much confidence in my cause to be daunted even

by so serious an obstacle as that. I shall yet put my finger on this

man. But I do not say that it will be immediately. I have got to renew

old acquaintances; revive old gossip; possibly, recall to life almost

obliterated memories."

Mr. Black, dropping his hand from his vest, gave her his first look of

unqualified admiration.

"You ring true," said he. "I have met men qualified to lead a Forlorn

Hope; but never before a woman. Allow me to express my regret that it is

such a forlorn one." Then, with a twinkle in his eye which bespoke a

lighter mood, he remarked in a curiously casual tone.

"Talking of gossip, there is but one person in town who is a complete

repository of all that is said or known this side of Colchester." (The

next town.) "I never knew her to forget anything; and I never knew her

to be very far from the truth. She lives near Judge Ostrander--a quaint

little body, not uninteresting to talk to; a regular character, in fact.

Do you know what they say about her house? That everything on God's

earth can be found in it. That you've but to name an object, and she

will produce it. She's had strange opportunities for collecting odds and

ends, and she's never neglected one of them. Yet her house is but a box.

Miss Weeks is her name."

"I will remember it."

Mrs. Scoville rose. Then she sat down again, with the remark:

"I have a strange notion. It's a hard thing to explain and you may not

understand me, but I should like to see, if it still exists, the

stick--my husband's stick--with which this crime was committed. Do the

police retain such things? Is there any possibility of my finding it

laid away in some drawer at Headquarters or on some dusty shelf?"

Mr. Black was again astonished. Was this callousness or a very deep and

determined purpose.

"I don't know. I never go pottering about at Headquarters. What do you

want to see that for? What help can you get out of that?"

"None probably; but in the presence of defeat you grasp at every hope. I

dreamt of that stick last night. I was in an awful wilderness, all

rocks, terrific gorges and cloud-covered, unassailable peaks. A

light--one ray and one only--shone on me through the darkness. Towards

this ray I was driven through great gaps in the yawning rocks and along

narrow galleries sloping above an unfathomable abyss. Hope lay beyond,

rescue, light. But a wall reared its black length between. I came upon

it suddenly; a barrier mighty and impenetrable with its ends lost in

obscurity. And the ray! the one long beam! It was still there. It shone

directly upon me from an opening in this wall. It marked a gate,--a gate

for which I only lacked the key. Where should I find one to fit a lock

so gigantic! Nowhere! unless the something which I held--which had been

in my hands from the first--would be found to move its stubborn wards. I

tried it and it did! it did! I hear the squeak of those tremendous

hinges now, and--Mr. Black, you must have guessed what that something

was. My husband's stick! the bludgeon with whose shape I was so familiar

twelve years ago! It is that and that only which will lead us to the

light. Of this I feel quite sure."

A short and ironical grunt answered her. Mr. Black was not always the

pink of politeness even in the presence of ladies.

"Most interesting," he commented sarcastically. "The squeak you heard

was probably the protest of the bed you were reclining on against such a

misuse of the opportunities it offered you. A dream listened to as

evidence in this office! You must have a woman's idea of the value of my

time."

Flushing with discomfiture, she attempted to apologise, when he cut her

short. "Nevertheless, you shall see the stick if it is still to be

found. I will take you to Police Headquarters if you will go heavily

veiled. We don't want any recognition of you there YET."

"You will take me--"

"The fact that I never go there may make my visit not unwelcome. I'll do

it; yes, I'll do it."

"Mr. Black, you are very good. How soon--"

"Now," he announced, jumping up to get his hat. "A woman who can take up

a man's time, with poetry and dreams, might as well have the whole

afternoon. Are you ready? Shall we go?"

All alacrity, in spite of the irony of his bow and smile, he stood at

the door waiting for her to follow him. This she did slowly and with

manifest hesitation. She did not understand the man. People often said

of her that she did not understand her own charm.

There was one little fact of which Mr. Black was ignorant;--that the

police had had their eye on the veiled lady at Claymore Inn for several

days now and knew who his companion was the instant they stepped into

Headquarters. In vain his plausible excuses for showing his lady friend

the curiosities of the place; her interest in the details of criminology

was well understood by Sergeant Doolittle, though of course he had not

sounded its full depths, and could not know from any one but Judge

Ostrander himself, her grave reasons for steeping her mind again in the

horrors of her husband's long-since expiated crime. And Judge Ostrander

was the last man who would be likely to give him this information.

Therefore, when he saw the small, mocking eye of the lawyer begin to

roam over the shelves, and beheld his jaw drop as it sometimes did when

he sought to veil his purpose in an air of mild preoccupation, he knew

what the next request would be, as well as if the low sounds which left

Mr. Black's lips at intervals had been words instead of inarticulate

grunts. He was, therefore, prepared when the question did come.

"Any memorial of the Etheridge case?"

"Nothing but a stick with blood-marks on it. That, I'm afraid, wouldn't

be a very agreeable sight for a lady's eye."

"She's proof," the lawyer whispered in the officer's ear. "Let's see the

stick."

The sergeant considered this a very interesting experience--quite a

jolly break in the dull monotony of the day. Hunting up the stick, he

laid it in the lawyer's hands, and then turned his eye upon the lady.

She had gone pale, but it took her but an instant to regain her

equanimity and hold out her own hand for the weapon.

With what purpose? What did she expect to see in it which others had not

seen many times? She did not know, herself. She was simply following an

impulse, just as she had felt herself borne on by some irresistible

force in her dream. And so, the three stood there, the men's faces

ironic, inquisitive, wondering at the woman's phlegm if not at her

motive; hers, hidden behind her veil, but bent forward over the weapon

in an attitude of devouring interest. Thus for a long, slow minute; then

she impulsively raised her head and, beckoning the two men nearer, she

directed attention to a splintered portion of the handle and asked them

what they saw there.

"Nothing; just stick," declared the sergeant. "The marks you are looking

for are higher up."

"And you, Mr. Black?"

He saw nothing either but stick. But he was little less abrupt in his

answer.

"Do you mean those roughnesses?" he asked. "That's where the stick was

whittled. You remember that he had been whittling at the stick--"

"Who?"

The word shot from her lips so violently that for a moment both men

looked staggered by it. Then Mr. Black, with unaccustomed forbearance,

answered gently enough:

"Why, Scoville, madam; or so the prosecution congratulated itself upon

having proved to the jury's satisfaction. It did not tally with

Scoville's story or with common sense I know. You remember,--pardon

me,--I mean that any one who read a report of the case, will remember

how I handled the matter in my speech. But the prejudice in favour of

the prosecution--I will not say against the defence--was too much for

me, and common sense, the defendant's declarations, and my eloquence all

went for nothing."

"Of course they produced the knife?"

"Yes, they produced the knife."

"It was in his pocket?"

"Yes."

"Have they that here?"

"No, we haven't that here."

"But you remember it?"

"Remember it?"

"Was it a new knife, a whole one, I mean, with all its blades sharp and

in good order?"

"Yes. I can say that. I handled it several times."

"Then, whose blade left that?" And again she pointed to the same place

on the stick where her finger had fallen before.

"I don't know what you mean." The sergeant looked puzzled. Perhaps, his

eyesight was not very keen.

"Have you a magnifying-glass? There is something embedded in this wood.

Try and find out what it is."

The sergeant, with a queer look at Mr. Black, who returned it with

interest, went for a glass, and when he had used it, the stare he gave

the heavily veiled woman drove Mr. Black to reach out his own hand for

the glass.

"Well," he burst forth, after a prolonged scrutiny, "there is something

there."

"The point of a knife blade. The extreme point," she emphasised. "It

might easily escape the observation even of the most critical, without

such aid as is given by this glass."

"No one thought of using a magnifying-glass on this," blurted out the

sergeant. "The marks made by the knife were plain enough for all to see,

and that was all which seemed important."

Mr. Black said nothing; he was feeling a trifle cheap;--something which

did not agree with his crusty nature. Not having seen Mrs. Scoville for

a half-hour without her veil, her influence over him was on the wane,

and he began to regret that he had laid himself open to this

humiliation.

She saw that it would be left for her to wind up the interview and get

out of the place without arousing too much attention. With a

self-possession which astonished both men, knowing her immense interest

in this matter, she laid down the stick, and, with a gentle shrug of her

shoulders, remarked in an easy tone:

"Well, it's curious! The inns and outs of a crime, I mean. Such a

discovery ten years after the event (I think you said ten years) is very

interesting." Then she sighed: "Alas! it's too late to benefit the one

whose life it might have saved. Mr. Black, shall we be going? I have

spent a most entertaining quarter of an hour."

Mr. Black glanced from her to the sergeant before he joined her. Then,

with one of his sour smiles directed towards the former, he said:

"I wouldn't be talking about this, sergeant. It will do no good, and may

subject us to ridicule."

The sergeant, none too well pleased, nodded slightly. Seeing which, she

spoke up:

"I don't know about that, I should think it but proper reparation to the

dead to let it be known that his own story of innocence has received

this late confirmation."

But the lawyer continued to shake his head, with a very sharp look at

the sergeant. If he could have his way, he would have this matter stop

just where it was.

Alas! he was not to have his way, as he saw, when at parting he essayed

to make a final protest against a public as well as premature reopening

of this old case. She did not see her position as he did, and wound up

her plea by saying:

"The public must lend their aid, if we are to get the evidence we need

to help us. Can we find the man who whittled that stick? Never. But some

one else may. I am going to give the men and women of this town a

chance. I'm too anxious to clear my husband's memory to shrink from any

publicity. You see, I believe that the real culprit will yet be found."

The lawyer dropped argument. When a woman speaks in that tone,

persuasion is worse than useless. Besides, she had raised her veil.

Strange, what a sensitive countenance will do!

XIV

ALL IS CLEAR

"This is my daughter, Judge Ostrander, Reuther, this is the judge."

The introduction took place at the outer gates whither the judge had

gone to receive them.

Reuther threw aside her veil, and looked up into the face bent

courteously towards her. It had no look of Oliver. Somehow she felt

glad. She could hardly have restrained herself if he had met her gaze

with Oliver's eyes. They were fine eyes notwithstanding, piercing by

nature but just now misty with a feeling that took away all her fear. He

was going to like her; she saw it in every trembling line of his

countenance, and at the thought a smile rose to her lips which, if

fleeting, lent such an ethereal aspect to her beauty that he forgave

Oliver then and there for a love which never could be crowned, but which

henceforth could no longer be regarded by him as despicable.

With a courteous gesture he invited them in, but stopping to lock one

gate before leading them through the other, Mrs. Scoville had time to

observe that since her last visit with its accompanying inroad of the

populace, the two openings which at this point gave access to the walk

between the fences had been closed up with boards so rude and dingy that

they must have come from some old lumber pile in attic or cellar.

The judge detected her looking at them.

"I have cut off my nightly promenade," said he. "With youth in the

house, more cheerful habits must prevail. To-morrow I shall have my lawn

cut, and if I must walk after sundown I will walk there."

The two women exchanged glances. Perhaps their gloomy anticipations were

not going to be realised.

But once within the house, the judge showed embarrassment. He was

conscious of its unfitness for their fastidious taste and yet he had not

known how to improve matters. In his best days he had concerned himself

very little with household affairs, and for the last few years he had

not given a thought to anything outside his own rooms. Bela had done

all--and Bela was pre-eminently a cook, not a general house-servant. How

would these women regard the disorder and the dust?

"I have few comforts to offer," said he, opening a door at his right and

then hastily closing it again. "This part of the house is, as you see,

completely dismantled and not--very clean. But you shall have carte

blanche to arrange to your liking one of these rooms for your

sitting-room and parlour. There is furniture in the attic and you may

buy freely whatever else is necessary. I don't want to discourage little

Reuther. As for your bedrooms--" He stopped, hemmed a little and flushed

a vivid red as he pointed up the dingy flight of uncarpeted stairs

towards which he had led them. "They are above; but it is with shame I

admit that I have not gone above this floor for many years.

Consequently, I don't know how it looks up there or whether you can even

find towels and things. Perhaps you will go up first, Mrs. Scoville. I

will stay here while you take a look. I really, couldn't have a strange

cleaning-woman here, or any one who would make remarks. Have I counted

too much on your good-nature?"

"No; not at all. In fact, you simply arouse all the housekeeping

instincts within me. I will be down in a minute. Reuther, I leave you

with the judge."

She ran lightly up. The next instant they heard her sneeze, then they

caught the sound of a window rattling up, followed by a streak of light

falling slant-wise across the dismal stairs.

The judge drew a breath of relief and led Reuther towards a door at the

end of the hall.

"This is the way to the dining-room and kitchen," he explained. "I have

been accustomed to having my meals served in my own room, but after this

I shall join you at table. Here," he continued, leading her up to the

iron door, "is the entrance to my den. You may knock here if you want

me, but there is a curtain beyond, which no one lifts but myself. You

understand, my dear, and will excuse an old man's eccentricities?"

She smiled, rejoicing only in the caressing voice, and in the yearning,

almost fatherly, manner with which he surveyed her.

"I quite understand," said she; "and so will mother."

"Reuther," he now observed with a strange intermixture of gentleness and

authority, "there is one thing I wish to say to you at the very start. I

may grow to love you--God knows that a little affection would be a

welcome change in my life--but I want you to know and know now, that all

the love in the world will not change my decision as to the impropriety

of a match between you and my son Oliver. That settled, there is no

reason why all should not be clear between us."

"All is clear."

Faint and far off the words sounded, though she was standing so near he

could have laid his hand on her shoulder. Then she gave one sob as

though in saying this she heard the last clod fall upon what would never

see resurrection again in this life, and, lifting her head, looked him

straight in the eye with a decision and a sweetness which bowed his

spirit and caused his head in turn to fall upon his breast.

"What a father can do for a child, I will do for you," he murmured, and

led her back to her mother, who was now coming down stairs.

A week, and Deborah Scoville had evolved a home out of chaos. That is,

within limits. There was one door on that upper story which she had

simply opened and shut; nor had she entered the judge's rooms, or even

offered to do so. The ban which had been laid upon her daughter she felt

applied equally to herself; that is for the present. Later, there must

be a change. So particular a man as the judge would soon find himself

too uncomfortable to endure the lack of those attentions which he had

been used to in Bela's day. He had not even asked for clean sheets, and

sometimes she had found herself wondering, with a strange shrinking of

her heart, if his bed was ever made, or whether he had not been driven

at times to lie down in his clothes.

She had some reason for these doubtful conclusions. In her ramblings

through the house she had come upon Bela's room. It was in a loft over

the kitchen and she had been much amazed at its condition. In some

respects it looked as decent as she could expect, but in the matter of

bed and bedclothes it presented an aspect somewhat startling. The

clothes were there, tossed in a heap on the floor, but there was no bed

in sight nor anything which could have served as such.

IT HAD BEEN DRAGGED OUT. Evidences of this were everywhere; dragged out,

and down the narrow, twisted staircase which was the only medium of

communication between the lower floor and this loft. As she noted the

marks made by its passage down the steps, the unhappy vision rose before

her of the judge, immaculate in attire and unaccustomed of hand, tugging

at this bed and alternately pushing and pulling it by main strength down

this contracted, many-cornered staircase. A smile, half pitiful, half

self-scornful curved her lips as she remembered the rat-tat-tat she had

heard on that dismal night when she clung listening to the fence, and

wondered now if it had not been the bumping of this cot sliding from

step to step.

But no! the repeated stroke of a hammer is unmistakable. He had played

the carpenter that night as well as the mover, and with no visible

results. Mystery still reigned in the house for all the charm and order

she had brought into it; a mystery which deeply interested her, and

which she yet hoped to solve, notwithstanding its remoteness from the

real problem of her existence.

XV

THE PICTURE

NIGHT! and Deborah Scoville waiting anxiously for Reuther to sleep, that

she might brood undisturbed over a new and disturbing event which for

the whole day had shaken her out of her wonted poise, and given, as it

were, a new phase to her life in this house.

Already had she stepped several times to her daughter's room and looked

in, only to meet Reuther's unquiet eye turned towards hers in silent

inquiry. Was her own uneasiness infectious? Was the child determined to

share her vigil? She would wait a little longer this time and see.

Their rooms were over the parlour and thus as far removed as possible

from the judge's den. In her own, which was front, she felt at perfect

ease, and it was without any fear of disturbing either him or Reuther

that she finally raised her window and allowed the cool wind to soothe

her heated cheeks.

How calm the aspect of the lawn and its clustering shrubs. Dimly seen

though they were through the leaves of the vines she had but partially

clipped, she felt the element of peace which comes with perfect quiet,

and was fain to forget for awhile the terrors it so frequently conceals.

The moon, which had been invisible up to this moment, emerged from

skurrying clouds as she quietly watched the scene; and in an instant her

peace was gone and all the thronging difficulties of her position came

rushing back upon her in full force, as all the details of the scene, so

mercifully hidden just now, flashed again upon her vision.

Perched, as she was, in a window overlooking the lane, she had but to

lift her eyes from the double fence (that symbol of sad seclusion) to

light on the trees rising above that unspeakable ravine, black with

memories she felt strangely like forgetting to-night. Beyond ... how it

stood out on the bluff! it had never seemed to stand out more

threateningly!... the bifurcated mass of dismal ruin from which men had

turned their eyes these many years now! But the moon loved it; caressed

it; dallied with it, lighting up its toppling chimney and empty, staring

gable. There, where the black streak could be seen, she had stood with

the judge in that struggle of wills which had left its scars upon them

both to this very day. There, hidden but always seen by those who

remembered the traditions of the place, mouldered away the walls of that

old closet where the timorous, God-stricken suicide had breathed out his

soul. She had stood in it only the other day, penned from outsiders'

view by the judge's outstretched arms. Then, she had no mind for bygone

horrors, her own tragedy weighed too heavily upon her; but to-night, as

she gazed, fascinated, anxious to forget herself, anxious to indulge in

any thought which would relieve her from dwelling on the question she

must settle before she slept, she allowed her wonder and her revulsion

to have free course. Instead of ignoring, she would recall the story of

the place as it had been told her when she first came to settle in its

neighbourhood.

Spencer's Folly! Well, it had been that, and Spencer's den of

dissipation too! There were great tales--but it was not of these she was

thinking, but of the night of storm--(of the greatest storm of which any

record remained in Shelby) when the wind tore down branches and toppled

down chimneys; when cattle were smitten in the field and men on the

highway; when the old bridge, since replaced, buckled up and sank in the

roaring flood it could no longer span, and the bluff towering overhead,

flared into flame, and the house which was its glory, was smitten apart

by the descending bolt as by a Titan sword, and blazed like a beacon to

the sky.

This was long before she herself had come to Shelby; but she had been

told the story so often that it was quite as vivid to her as if she had

been one of the innumerable men and women who had crowded the

glistening, swimming streets to view this spectacle of destruction. The

family had been gone for months, and so no pity mingled with the

excitement. Not till the following day did the awful nature of the event

break in its full horror upon the town. Among the ruins, in a closet

which the flames had spared, they found hunched up in one corner, the

body of a man, in whose seared throat a wound appeared which had not

been made by lightning or fire. Spencer! Spencer himself, returned they

knew not how, to die of this self-inflicted wound, in the dark corner of

his grand but neglected dwelling.

And this was what made the horror of the place till the tragedy of the

opposite hollow added crime to crime, and the spot became outlawed to

all sensitive citizens. Folly and madness and the vengeance of high

heaven upon unhallowed walls, spoke to her from that towering mass,

bathed though it was just now in liquid light under the impartial moon.

But as she continued to survey it, the clouds came trooping up once

more, and the vision was wiped out and with it all memories save those

of a nearer trouble--a more pressing necessity.

Withdrawing from the window, she crept again to Reuther's room and

peered carefully in. Innocence was asleep at last. Not a movement

disturbed the closed lids on the wax-like cheek. Even the breath came so

softly that it hardly lifted the youthful breast. Repose the most

perfect and in the form of all others the sweetest to a tender mother,

lay before her and touched her already yearning heart to tears. Lighting

a candle and shielding it with her hand, she gazed long and earnestly at

Reuther's sweet face. Yes, she was right. Sorrow was slowly sapping the

fountain of her darling's youth. If Reuther was to be saved, hope must

come soon. With a sob and a prayer, the mother left the room, and

locking herself into her own, sat down at last to face the new

perplexity, the monstrous enigma which had come into her life.

It had followed in natural sequence from a proposal made by the judge

that some attention should be given his long-neglected rooms. He had

said on rising from the breakfast table--(the words are more or less

important):

"I am really sorry to trouble you, Mrs. Scoville; but if you have time

this morning, will you clean up my study before I leave? The carriage is

ordered for half-past nine."

The task was one she had long desired to perform, and would have urged

upon him daily had she dared, but the limitations he set for its

accomplishment struck her aghast.

"Do you mean that you wish to remain there while I work? You will be

choked, Judge."

"No more than I have been for the last two days. You may enter any

time." And going in, he left the door open behind him.

"He will lock it when he goes out," she commented to herself. "I had

better hasten."

Giving Reuther the rest of the work to do, she presently appeared before

him with pail and broom and a pile of fresh linen. Nothing more

commonplace could be imagined, but to her, if not to him, there underlay

this especial act of ordinary housewifery a possible enlightenment on a

subject which had held the whole community in a state of curiosity for

years. She was going to enter the room which had been barred from public

sight by poor Bela's dying body. She was going to see--or had he only

meant that she was to have her way with the library--the room where she

had already been and much of which she remembered. The doubt gave a

tremulous eagerness to her step and caused her eye to wander immediately

to that forbidden corner soon as she had stepped over the threshold.

The bedroom door was open;--proof that she was expected to enter there.

Meanwhile, she felt the eye of the judge upon her and endeavoured to

preserve a perfect composure and to sink the curious and inquiring woman

in the diligent housekeeper.

But she could not, quite. Two facts of which she immediately became

cognisant, prevented this. First, the great room before her presented a

bare floor, whereas on her first visit it had been very decently, if not

cheerfully, covered by a huge carpet rug. Secondly, the judge's chair,

which had once looked immovable, had been dragged forward into such a

position that he could keep his own eye on the bedroom door. Manifestly

she was not to be allowed to pursue her duties unwatched. Certainly she

had to take more than one look at the every-day implements she carried to

retain that balance of judgment which should prevent her from becoming

the dupe of her own expectations.

"I do not expect you to clean up here as thoroughly as you have your own

rooms up stairs," he remarked, as she passed him. "You haven't the time,

or I the patience for too many strokes of the broom. And Mrs. Scoville,"

he called out as she slipped through the doorway, "leave the door open

and keep away as much as possible from the side of the room where I have

nailed up the curtain. I had rather not have that touched."

She turned with a smile and nodded. She felt that she had been set to

work with a string tied round her feet. Not touch the curtain! Why, that

was the one thing in the room she wanted to touch; for in it she not

only saw the carpet which had been taken up from the floor of the study,

but a possible screen behind which anything might lurk--even his

redoubtable secret.

Or had it another and much simpler explanation? Might it not have been

hung there merely as a shield to the window. The room must have a window

and there was none to be seen elsewhere. It would be like him to shut

out light and air. She would ask.

"There is no window," she observed, looking back at the judge.

"No," was his short reply.

Slowly she set down her pail. One thing was settled. It was Bela's cot

she saw before her--a cot without any sheets. These had been left behind

in the dead negro's room, and the judge had been sleeping just as she

had feared, wrapped in a rug and with uncovered pillow. This pillow was

his own; it had not been brought down with the bed. She hastily slipped

a cover on it, and without calling any further attention to her act,

began to make up the bed.

Conscious that the papers he made a feint of reading were but a cover

for his watchfulness, she moved about in a matter-of-fact way and did

not spare him the clouds of dust which presently rose before her broom.

She could have managed it more deftly,--would have done so at another

time, but it was her express intention just now to make him move back

out of her way, if only to give her an opportunity to disturb by a

backward stroke of her broom the folds of the carpet-rug and learn if

she could what lay hidden behind it.

But the judge was impervious to discomfort. He coughed and shook his

head, but did not budge an inch. Before she had begun to put things in

order, the clock struck the half-hour.

"Oh!" she protested, with a pleading glance his way, "I'm not half

done."

"There's another day to follow," he dryly remarked, rising and taking a

key from his pocket.

The act expressed his wishes; and she was proceeding to carry out her

things when a quick sliding noise from the wall she was passing, drew

her attention and caused her to spring forward in an involuntary effort

to catch a picture which had slipped its cord and was falling to the

floor.

A shout from the judge of "Stand aside, let me come!" reached her too

late. She had grasped and lifted the picture and seen--

But first, let me explain. This picture was not like the others hanging

about. It was a veiled one. From some motive of precaution or

characteristic desire for concealment on the part of the judge, it had

been closely wrapped about in heavy brown paper before being hung, and

in the encounter which ensued between the falling picture and the spear

of an image standing on a table underneath, this paper had received a

slit through which Deborah had been given a glimpse of the canvas

beneath.

The shock of what she saw would have unnerved a less courageous woman.

IT WAS A HIGHLY FINISHED PORTRAIT OF OLIVER IN HIS YOUTH, WITH A BROAD

BAND OF BLACK PAINTED DIRECTLY ACROSS THE EYES.

XVI

"DON'T! DON'T!"

In recalling this startling moment, Deborah wondered as much at her own

aplomb as at that of Judge Ostrander. Not only had she succeeded in

suppressing all recognition of what had thus been discovered to her, but

had carried her powers of self-repression so far as to offer, and with

good grace too, to assist him in rehanging the picture. This perfection

of acting had its full reward. With equal composure he excused her from

the task, and, adding some expression of regret at his well-known

carelessness in not looking better after his effects, bowed her from the

room with only a slight increase of his usual courteous reserve.

But later, when thought came and with it a certain recollections, what

significance the incident acquired in her mind, and what a long line of

terrors it brought in its train!

It was no casual act, this defacing of a son's well-loved features. It

had a meaning--a dark and desperate meaning. Nor was the study-wall the

natural home of this picture. An unfaded square which she had noted on

the wall-paper of the inner room showed where its original place had

been. There in full view of the broken-hearted father when he woke and

in darksome watchfulness while he slept, it had played its heavy part in

his long torment--a galling reminder of--what?

It was to answer this question--to face this new view of Oliver and the

bearing it had on the relations she had hoped to establish between him

and Reuther, that she had waited for the house to be silent and her

child asleep. If the defacing marks she had seen meant that the cause of

separation between father and son lay in some past fault of Oliver

himself, serious enough for such a symbol to be necessary to reconcile

the judge to their divided lives, she should know it and know it soon.

The night should not pass without that review of the past by which alone

she could now judge Oliver Ostrander.

She had spoken of him as noble; she had forced herself to believe him

so, and in profession and in many of his actions he had been so, but had

she ever been wholly pleased with him? To go back to their first

meeting, what impression had he made upon her then? Had it been

altogether favourable and such as would be natural in one of his repute?

Hardly; but then the shock of her presentation to one who had possibly

seen her under other and shameful conditions had been great, and her

judgment could scarcely have full play while her whole attention was

absorbed in watching for some hint of recognition on his part.

But when this apprehension had vanished; when quite assured that he had

failed to see in the widowed Mrs. Averill the wife of the man who had

died a felon's death in Shelby, had her spirits risen and her eyes

cleared to his great merits as she had heard them extolled by people of

worth and intellectual standing? Alas, no. There had been something in

his look--a lack of spontaneity which had not fitted in with her

expectations.

And in the months which followed, when as Reuther's suitor she saw him

often and intimately--how had she regarded him then? More leniently of

course. In her gratification at prospects so far beyond any she had a

right to expect for her child, she had taken less note of this

successful man's defects. Peculiarities of conversation and manner which

had seemed to bespeak a soul far from confident in its hopes, resolved

themselves into the uneasy moods of a man who had a home he never

visited, a father he never saw.

But had she been really justified in this easy view of things? If the

break between his father and himself was the result of nothing deeper

than a difference of temperament, tastes or even opinions, why should he

have shrunk with such morbid distaste from all allusions to that father?

Was it natural? She may have looked upon it as being so in the heyday of

her hopes and when she had a secret herself to hide, but could she so

degrade her judgment now?

And what of his conduct towards Reuther? Had that been all her mother

heart could ask of a man of his seemingly high instincts? She had

assured his father in her first memorable interview with him that it had

been perfectly honourable and above all reproach. And so it had been as

far as mere words went. But words are not all; it is the tender look,

the manly bearing, the tone which springs from the heart which tells in

great crises; and these had all been lacking. Generous as he attempted

to show himself, there was nothing in his bearing to match that of

Reuther as she took her quiet leave of him and entered upon a fate so

much bitterer for her than for him.

This lack of grace in him had not passed unnoted by her even at the

time, but being herself so greatly in fault she had ascribed it to the

recoil of a proud man from the dread of social humiliation. But it took

another aspect under the strong light just thrown upon his early life by

her discovery in the room below. Nothing but some act, unforgivable and

unforgettable would account for that black mark drawn between a father's

eyes and his son's face. No bar sinister could tell a stronger tale. But

this was no bar sinister; rather the deliberate stigmatising of one yet

loved, but banned for a reason which was little short of--Here her

conclusions stopped; she would not allow her imagination to carry her

any farther.

Unhappy mother, just as she saw something like a prospect of releasing

her long-dead husband from the odium of an unjust sentence, to be shaken

by this new doubt as to the story and character of the man for whose

union with her beloved child she was so anxiously struggling! Should it

not make her pause? Should she not show wisdom in giving a different

meaning from any she had hitherto done, to that stern and inexorable

dictum of the father, that no marriage between the two could or should

ever be considered?

It was a question for which no ready answer seemed possible in her

present mood. Better to await the time when some move had to be made or

some definite decision reached. Now she must rest,--rest and not think.

Have any of us ever made the like acknowledgment and then tried to

sleep? In half an hour Mrs. Scoville was again upon her feet, this time

with a determination which ignored the hour and welcomed night as though

it were broad noon day.

There was a room on this upper floor into which neither she nor Reuther

had ever stepped. She had once looked in but that was all.

To-night--because she could not sleep; because she must not think--she

was resolved to enter it. Oliver's room! left as he had left it years

before! What might it not tell of a past concerning which she longed to

be reassured?

The father had laid no restrictions upon her, in giving her this floor

for her use. Rights which he ignored she could afford to appropriate.

Dressing sufficiently for warmth, she lit a candle, put out the light in

her own room and started down the hall.

If she paused on reaching the threshold of this long-closed room, it was

but natural. The clock on Reuther's mantel had sent its three clear

strokes through the house as her hand fell on the knob, and to her

fearing heart and now well-awakened imagination these strokes had

sounded in her ear like a "DON'T! DON'T!" The silence, so gruesome, now

that this shrill echo had ceased, was poor preparation for her task. Yet

would she have welcomed any sound--the least which could have been

heard? No, that were a worse alternative than silence; and, relieved of

that momentary obsession consequent upon an undertaking of doubtful

outcome, she pushed the door fully open and entered.

A smother of dust--an odour of decay--a lack of all order in the room's

arrangements and furnishings--even a general disarray, hallowed, if not

affected, by time--for all this she was prepared. But not for the wild

confusion--the inconceivable litter and all the other signs she saw

about her of a boy's mad packing and reckless departure. Here her

imagination, so lively at times, had failed her; and, as her eye became

accustomed to the semi-obscurity, and she noted the heaps of mouldering

clothing lying amid overturned chairs and trampled draperies, she felt

her heart grow cold with a nameless dread she could only hope to

counteract by quick and impulsive action.

But what action? Was it for her to touch, to rearrange, to render clean

and orderly this place of unknown memories? She shrank with

inconceivable distaste from the very idea of such meddling; and, though

she saw and noted all, she did not put out so much as a finger towards

any object there till--There was an inner door, and this some impulse

drove her to open. A small closet stood revealed, empty but for one

article. When she saw this article she gave a great gasp; then she

uttered a low PSHAW! and with a shrug of the shoulders drew back and

flung to the door. But she opened it again. She had to. One cannot live

in hideous doubt, without an effort to allay it. She must look at that

small, black article again; look at it with candle in hand; see for

herself that her fears were without foundation; that a shadow had made

the outline on the wall which--

She found herself laughing. There was nothing else to do. SHE with

thoughts like these; SHE, Reuther's mother! Verily, the early hours of

morning were unsuited for any such work as this. She would go back to

her own room and bed--But she only went as far as the bureau where she

had left the candlestick, which having seized, she returned to the

closet and slowly, reluctantly reopened the door. Before her on the wall

hung a cap,--and it was no shadow which gave it that look like her

husband's; the broad peak was there. She had not been mistaken; it was

the duplicate of the one she had picked up in the attic of the Claymore

Inn when that inn was simply a tavern.

Well, and what if it was!--Such was her thought a moment later. She

would take down the cap, set it before her and look at it till her brain

grew clear of its follies.

But after she had it in her hand she found herself looking anywhere but

at the cap. She stared at the floor, the walls about, the desk she had

mechanically approached. She even noticed the books lying about on the

shelves before her and took down one or two, to glance at their

title-pages in a blind curiosity she could not account for the next

minute. Then she found herself looking into a drawer half drawn out and

filled with all sorts of heterogeneous articles: sealing-wax, a roll of

pins, a pen-holder, a knife--A KNIFE! Why should she recoil again at

that? Nothing could be more ordinary than to find a knife in the

desk-drawer of a young man! The fact was not worth a thought; yet before

she knew it, her fingers were creeping towards this knife, had picked it

up from among the other scattered articles, had closed upon it, let it

drop again, only to seize hold of it yet more determinedly and carry it

straight to the light.

Who spoke? Had any one spoken? Was there any sound in the air at all?

She heard none, yet the sense of sound was in her ear, as though it had

been and passed. When the glance she threw about her came back to her

outstretched hand, she knew that the cry, if cry it were, had been

within, and that the echoes of the room had remained undisturbed. The

knife was lying open on her palm, and from one of the blades the end had

been nipped, just enough of it to match--

Was she mad! She thought so for a moment; then she laid down the knife

close against the cap and contemplated them both for more minutes than

she ever reckoned.

And the stillness, which had been profound, became deeper yet. Not even

Reuther's clock sounded its small note.

The candle fluttering low in its socket roused her at last from her

abstraction. Catching up the two articles which had so enthralled her,

she restored the one to the closet, the other to the drawer, and, with

swift but silent step, regained her own room where she buried her head

in her pillow, weeping and praying until the morning light, breaking in

upon her grief, awoke her to the obligations of her position and the

necessity of silence concerning all the experiences of this night.

XVII

UNWELCOME TRUTHS

Silence. Yes, silence was the one and only refuge remaining to her. Yet,

after a few days, the constant self-restraint which it entailed, ate

like a canker into her peace, and undermined a strength which she had

always considered inexhaustible. Reuther began to notice her pallor, and

the judge to look grave. She was forced to complain of a cold (and in

this she was truthful enough) to account for her alternations of

feverish impulse and deadly lassitude.

The trouble she had suppressed was having its quiet revenge. Should she

continue to lie inert and breathless under the threatening hand of Fate,

or risk precipitating the doom she sought to evade, by proceeding with

inquiries upon the result of which she could no longer calculate?

She recalled the many mistakes made by those who had based their

conclusions upon circumstantial evidence (her husband's conviction in

fact) and made up her mind to brave everything by having this matter out

with Mr. Black. Then the pendulum swung back, and she found that she

could not do this because, deep down in her heart, there burrowed a

monstrous doubt (how born or how cherished she would not question),

which Mr. Black, with an avidity she could not combat, would at once

detect and pounce upon. Better silence and a slow death than that.

But was there no medium course? Could she not learn from some other

source where Oliver had been on the night of that old-time murder? Miss

Weeks was a near neighbour and saw everything. Miss Weeks never

forgot;--to Miss Weeks she would go.

With instructions to Reuther calculated to keep that diligent child

absorbed and busy in her absence, she started out upon her quest. She

had reached the first gate, passed it and was on the point of opening

the second one, when she saw on the walk before her a small slip of

brown paper. Lifting it, she perceived upon it an almost illegible

scrawl which she made out to read thus:--

For Mrs. Scoville:

Do not go wandering all over the town for clews. Look closer home.

And below:

You remember the old saying about jumping from the frying pan into

the fire. Let your daughter be warned. It is better to be singed

than consumed.

Warned! Reuther? Better be singed than consumed? What madness was this?

How singed and how consumed? Then because Deborah's mind was quick, it

all flashed upon her, bowing her in spirit to the ground. Reuther had

been singed by the knowledge of her father's ignominy, she would be

consumed if inquiry were carried further and this ignominy transferred

to the proper culprit. CONSUMED! There was but one person whose disgrace

could consume Reuther. Oliver alone could be meant. The doubts she had

tried to suppress from her own mind were shared by others,--OTHERS!

The discovery overpowered her and she caught herself crying aloud in

utter self-abandonment:

"I will not go to Miss Weeks. I will take Reuther and fly to some

wilderness so remote and obscure that we can never be found."

Yet in five minutes she was crossing the road, her face composed, her

manner genial, her tongue ready for any encounter. The truth must be

hers at all hazards. If it could be found here, then here would she seek

it. Her long struggle with fate had brought to the fore every latent

power she possessed.

One stroke on the tiny brass knocker, old-fashioned and quaint like

everything else in this doll-house, brought Miss Weeks' small and

animated figure to the door. She had seen Mrs. Scoville coming, and was

ready with her greeting. A dog from the big house across the way would

have been welcomed there. The eager little seamstress had never

forgotten her hour in the library with the half-unconscious judge.

"Mrs. Scoville!" she exclaimed, fluttering and leading the way into the

best room; "how very kind you are to give me this chance for making my

apologies. You know we have met before."

"Have we?" Mrs. Scoville did not remember, but she smiled her best smile

and was gratified to note the look of admiration with which Miss Weeks

surveyed her more than tasty dress before she raised her eyes to meet

the smile to whose indefinable charm so many had succumbed. "It is a

long time since I lived here," Deborah proceeded as soon as she saw that

she had this woman, too, in her net. "The friends I had then, I scarcely

hope to have now; my trouble was of the kind which isolates one

completely. I am glad to have you acknowledge an old acquaintance. It

makes me feel less lonely in my new life."

"Mrs. Scoville, I am only too happy." It was bravely said, for the

little woman was in a state of marked embarrassment. Could it be that

her visitor had not recognised her as the person who had accosted her on

that memorable morning she first entered Judge Ostrander's forbidden

gates?

"I have been told--" thus Deborah easily proceeded, "that for a small

house yours contains the most wonderful assortment of interesting

objects. Where did you ever get them?"

"My father was a collector, on a very small scale of course, and my

mother had a passion for hoarding which prevented anything from going

out of this house after it had once come into it,--and a great many

strange things have come into it. There have even been bets made as to

the finding or not finding of a given object under this roof. Pardon me,

perhaps I bore you."

"Not at all. It's very interesting. But what about the bets?"

"Oh, just this. One day two men were chaffing each other in one of the

hotel lobbies, and the conversation turning upon what this house held,

one of them wagered that he knew of something I could not fish out of my

attic, and when the other asked what, he said an aeroplane--Why he

didn't say a locomotive, I don't know; but he said an aeroplane, and the

other, taking him up, they came here together and put me the question

straight. Mrs. Scoville, you may not believe it, but my good friend won

that bet. Years ago when people were just beginning to talk about

air-sailing machines, my brother who was visiting me, amused his leisure

hours in putting together something he called a 'flyer.' And what is

more, he went up in it, too, but he came down so rapidly that he kept

quite still about it, and it fell to me to lug the broken thing in. So

when these gentlemen asked to see an aeroplane, I took them into a

lean-to where I store my least desirable things, and there pointed out a

mass of wings and bits of tangled wire, saying as dramatically as I

could: 'There she is!' And they first stared, then laughed; and when one

complained: 'That's a ruin, not an aeroplane,' I answered with all the

demureness possible; 'and what is any aeroplane but a ruin in prospect?

This has reached the ruin stage; that's all.' So the bet was paid and my

reputation sustained. Don't you find it a little amusing?"

"I do, indeed," smiled Deborah. "Now, if I wanted to make the test, I

should take another course from these men. I should not pick out

something strange, or big, or unlikely. I should choose some every-day

object, some little matter--" She paused as if to think.

"What little matter?" asked the other complacently.

"My husband once had a cap," mused Mrs. Scoville thoughtfully. "It had

an astonishingly broad peak in front. Have you a cap like that?"

Miss Weeks' eyes opened. She stared in some consternation at Mrs.

Scoville, who hastened to say:

"You wonder that I can mention my husband. Perhaps you will not be so

surprised when I tell you that in my eyes he is a martyr, and quite

guiltless of the crime for which he was punished."

"You think that?" There was real surprise in the manner of the

questioner. Mrs. Scoville's brow cleared. She was pleased at this proof

that her affairs had not yet reached the point of general gossip.

"Miss Weeks, I am a mother. I have a young and lovely daughter. Can I

look in her innocent eyes and believe her father to have so forgotten

his responsibilities as to overshadow her life with crime? No, I will

not believe it. Circumstances were in favour of his conviction, but he

never lifted the stick which struck down Algernon Etheridge."

Miss Weeks, who had sat quite still during the utterance of these

remarks, fidgetted about at their close, with what appeared to the

speaker, a sudden and quite welcome relief.

"Oh!" she murmured; and said no more. It was not a topic she found easy

of discussion.

"Let us go back to the cap," suggested Deborah, with another of her

fascinating smiles. "Are you going to show me one such as I have

described?"

"Let me see. A man's cap with an extra broad peak! Mrs. Scoville, I fear

that you have caught me. There are caps hanging up in various closets,

but I don't remember any with a peak beyond the ordinary."

"Yet they are worn? You have seen such?"

A red spot sprang out on the faded cheek of the woman as she answered

impulsively:

"Oh, yes. Young Mr. Oliver Ostrander used to wear one. I wish I had

asked him for it," she pursued, naively. "I should not have had to

acknowledge defeat at your very first inquiry."

"Oh! you needn't care about that," laughed Deborah, in rather a hard

tone for her. She had made her point, but was rather more frightened

than pleased at her success. "There must be a thousand articles you

naturally would lack. I could name--"

"Don't, don't!" the little woman put in breathlessly. "I have many odd

things but of course not everything. For instance--" But here she caught

sight of the other's abstracted eye, and dropped the subject. The

sadness which now spread over the very interesting countenance of her

visitor, offered her an excuse for the introduction of a far more

momentous topic; one she had burned to introduce but had not known how.

"Mrs. Scoville, I hear that Judge Ostrander has got your daughter a

piano. That is really a wonderful thing for him to do. Not that he is so

close with his money, but that he has always been so set against all

gaiety and companionship. I suppose you did not know the shock it would

be to him when you asked Bela to let you into the gates."

"No! I didn't know. But it is all right now. The judge seems to welcome

the change. Miss Weeks, did you know Algernon Etheridge well enough to

tell me if he was as good and irreproachable a man as they all say?"

"He was a good man, but he had a dreadfully obstinate streak in his

disposition and very set ideas. I have heard that he and the judge used

to argue over a point for hours. And he was most always wrong. For

instance, he was wrong about Oliver."

"Oliver?"

"Judge Ostrander's son, you know. Mr. Etheridge wanted him to study for

a professorship; but the boy was determined to go into journalism, and

you see what a success he has made of it. As a professor he would

probably have been a failure."

"Was this difference of opinion on the calling he should pursue, the

cause of Oliver's leaving home in the way he did?" continued Deborah,

conscious of walking on very thin ice.

But Miss Weeks rather welcomed than resented this curiosity. Indeed she

was never tired of enlarging upon the Ostranders. It was, therefore,

with a very encouraging alacrity she responded:

"I have never thought so. The judge would not quarrel with Oliver on so

small a point as that. My idea is, though I never talk of it much, that

they had a great quarrel over Mr. Etheridge. Oliver never liked the old

student; I've watched them and I've seen. He hated his coming to the

house so much; he hated the way his father singled him out and deferred

to him and made him the confidant of all his troubles. When they went on

their walks, Oliver always hung back, and more than once I have seen him

make a grimace of distaste when his father urged him forward. He was

only a boy, I know, but his dislikes meant something, and if it ever

happened that he spoke out his whole mind, you may be sure that some

very bitter words passed."

Was this meant as an innuendo? Could it be that she shared the very

serious doubts of Deborah's anonymous correspondent?

Impossible to tell. Such nervous, fussy little bodies often possess

minds of unexpected subtlety. Deborah gave up all hope of understanding

her, and, accepting her statements at their face value, effusively

remarked:

"You must have a very superior mind to draw such conclusions from the

little you have seen. I have heard many explanations given for the

breach you name, but never any so reasonable."

A flash from the spinster's wary eye, then a burst of courage and the

quick retort:

"And what explanation does Oliver himself give? You ought to know, Mrs.

Scoville."

The attack was as sudden as it was unexpected. Deborah flushed and

trimmed her sails for this new tack, and insinuating gently, "Then you

have heard--" waited for the enlightenment these words were likely to

evoke.

It came quickly enough.

"That he expected to marry your daughter? Oh, yes, Mrs. Scoville; it's

the common talk here now. I hope you don't mind my mentioning it."

Deborah's head went up. She faced the other fairly, with the look born

of mother passion, and mother passion only.

"Reuther is blameless in this matter," she protested. "She was brought

up in ignorance of what I felt sure would prove a handicap and misery to

her. She loves Oliver as she will never love any other man, but when she

was told her real name and understood fully what that name carries with

it, she declined to saddle him with her shame. That's her story, Miss

Weeks; one that hardly fits her appearance which is very delicate. And,

let me add, having once accepted her father's name, she refuses to be

known by any other. I have brought her to Shelby where to our own

surprise and Reuther's great happiness, we have been taken in by Judge

Ostrander, an act of kindness for which we are very grateful." Miss

Weeks got up, took down one of her rarest treasures from an old etagere

standing in one corner and laid it in Mrs. Scoville's hand.

"For your daughter," she declared. "Noble girl! I hope she will be

happy."

The mother was touched. But not quite satisfied yet of the giver's real

feelings towards Oliver, she was not willing to conclude the interview

until she understood her small hostess better. She, therefore, looked

admiringly at the vase (it was really choice); and, after thanking its

donor warmly, proceeded to remark:

"There is but one thing that will ever make Reuther happy, and that she

cannot have unless a miracle occurs."

"Oliver?" suggested the other, with a curious, wan little smile.

Deborah nodded.

"And what miracle--"

"Oh, I do not wonder you pause. This is not the day of miracles. But if

my belief in my husband could be shared; if by some fortuitous chance I

should be enabled to clear his name, might not love and loyalty be left

to do the rest? Wouldn't the judge's objections, in that case, be

removed? What do you think, Miss Weeks?"

The warmth, the abandon, the confidence she expressed in this final

question were indescribable. Miss Weeks' conventional mannerisms melted

before it. She could no more withstand the witchery of this woman's tone

and manner than if she had been a man subdued by the charm of sex. But

nothing, not even her newly awakened sympathy for this agreeable woman,

could make her untruthful. She might believe in the miracle of a

reversal of judgment in the case of a falsely condemned criminal, but

not of an Ostrander accepting humiliation, even at the hands of Love.

She felt that in justice to this new friendship she should say so.

"Do you ask me?" she began. "Then I feel that I must admit to you that

the Ostrander pride is proverbial. Oliver may think he would be happy if

he married your daughter under these changed conditions; but I should be

fearful of the reaction which would certainly follow when he found that

old shames are not so easily outlived. There is temper in the family,

though you would never think it to hear the judge speak; and if your

daughter is delicate--"

"Is it of her you are thinking?" interrupted Deborah, with a new tone in

her voice.

"Not altogether; you see I knew Oliver first."

"And are fond of him?"

"Fond is a big word. But I cannot help having some feeling for the boy I

have seen grow up from a babe in arms to a healthy, brilliant manhood."

"And having this feeling--" "There! we will say no more about it." The

little woman's attitude and voice were almost prayerful. "You have

judgment enough for two. Besides the miracle has not happened," she

interjected, with a smile which seemed to say it never would be.

Deborah sighed. Whether or not it was quite an honest expression of her

feeling we will not inquire. She was there for a definite purpose and

her way to it was, as yet, far from plain. All that she had really

learned was this: that it was she, and not Miss Weeks who was playing a

part, and that whatever her inquiries, she need have no fear of rousing

suspicion against Oliver in a mind already dominated by a belief in John

Scoville's guilt. The negative with which she followed up this sigh was

consequently one of sorrowful acceptance. She made haste, however, to

qualify it with the remark:

"But I have not given up all hope. My cause is too promising. True, I

may not succeed in marrying Reuther into the Ostrander family, even if

it should be my good lot to clear her father's name; but my efforts

would have one good result, as precious--perhaps more precious than the

one I name. She would no longer have to regard that father as guilty of

a criminal act. If such relief can be hers she should have it. But how

am I to proceed? I know as well as any one how impossible the task must

prove, unless I can light upon fresh evidence. And where am I to get

that? Only from some new witness."

Miss Weeks' polite smile took on an expression of indulgence. This

roused Deborah's pride, and, hesitating no longer, she anxiously

remarked:

"I have sometimes thought that Oliver Ostrander might be that witness.

He certainly was in the ravine the night Algernon Etheridge was struck

down."

Had she been an experienced actress of years she could not have thrown

into this question a greater lack of all innuendo. Miss Weeks, already

under her fascination, heard the tone but never thought to notice the

quick rise and fall of her visitor's uneasy bosom, and so unwarned,

responded with all due frankness:

"I know he was. But how will that help you? He had no testimony to give

in relation to this crime, or he would have given it."

"That is true." The admission fell mechanically from Deborah's lips; she

was not conscious, even, of making it. She was struggling with the shock

of the simple statement, confirming her own fears that Oliver had

actually been in the ravine at the hour of Etheridge's murder. "Not even

a boy would hide knowledge of that kind," she stumblingly continued.

Then, as her emotion choked her into silence, she sat with piteous eyes

searching Miss Weeks' face, till she had recovered her voice, when she

added this vital question:

"How did you know that Oliver was in the ravine that night? I only

guessed it."

"Well, it was in this way. I do not often keep my eye on my neighbours

(oh, no, Miss Weeks!), but that night I chanced to be looking over the

way just at the minute Mr. Etheridge came out, and something I saw in

his manner and in that of the judge who had followed him to the door,

and in that of Oliver who, cap on head, was leaning towards them from a

window over the porch, made me think that a controversy was going on

between the two old people of which Oliver was the subject. This

naturally interested me, and I watched them long enough to see Oliver

suddenly raise his fist and shake it at old Etheridge; then, in great

rage, slam down the window and disappear inside. The next minute, and

before the two below had done talking; I caught another glimpse of him

as he dashed around the corner of the house on his way to the ravine."

"And Mr. Etheridge?"

"Oh, he left soon after. I watched him as he went by, his long cloak

flapping in the wind. Little did I think he would never pass my window

again."

So interested were they both, the one in telling to new and sympathetic

ears the small experiences of her life, the other in listening for the

chance phrase or the unconscious admission which would fix the suspicion

already struggling into strong life within her breast, that neither for

the moment realised the strangeness of the situation or that it was in

connection with a crime for which the husband of one of them had

suffered, they were raking up this past, and gossiping over its petty

details. Possibly recollection returned to them both, when Mrs. Scoville

sighed and said:

"It couldn't have been very long after you saw him that Mr. Etheridge

was struck?"

"Only some twenty minutes. It takes just that long for a man to walk

from this corner to the bridge."

"And you never heard where Oliver went?"

"It was never talked about at the time. Later, when some hint got about

of his having been in the ravine that night, he said he had gone up the

ravine not down it. And we all believed him, madam."

"Of course, of course. What a discriminating mind you have, Miss Weeks,

and what a wonderful memory! To think that after all these years you can

recall that Oliver had a cap on his head when he looked out of the

window at his father and Mr. Etheridge. If you were asked, I have no

doubt you could tell its very colour. Was it the peaked one?--the like

of which you haven't in your marvelous collection?"

"Yes, I could swear to it." And Miss Weeks gave a little laugh, which

sounded incongruous enough to Deborah in whose heart at that moment, a

leaf was turned upon the past, which left the future hopelessly blank.

"Must you go?" Deborah had risen mechanically. "Don't, I beg, till you

have relieved my mind about Judge Ostrander. I don't suppose that there

is really anything behind that door of his which it would alarm any one

to see?"

Then, Deborah understood Miss Weeks.

But she was ready for her.

"I've never seen anything of the sort," said she, "and I make up his bed

in that very room every morning."

"Oh!" And Miss Weeks drew a deep breath. "No article of immense value

such as that rare old bit of real Satsuma in the cabinet over there?"

"No," answered Deborah, with all the patience she could muster. "Judge

Ostrander seems very simple in his tastes. I doubt if he would know

Satsuma if he saw it."

Miss Weeks sighed. "Yes, he has never expressed the least wish to look

over my shelves. So the double fence means nothing?"

"A whim," ejaculated Deborah, making quietly for the door. "The judge

likes to walk at night when quite through with his work; and he doesn't

like his ways to be noted. But he prefers the lawn now. I hear his step

out there every night."

"Well, it's something to know that he leads a more normal life than

formerly!" sighed the little lady as she prepared to usher her guest

out. "Come again, Mrs. Scoville; and, if I may, I will drop in and see

you some day."

Deborah accorded her permission and made her final adieux. She felt as

if a hand which had been stealing up her chest had suddenly gripped her

throat, choking her. She had found the man who had cast that fatal

shadow down the ravine, twelve years before.

XVIII

REFLECTIONS

Deborah re-entered the judge's house a stricken woman. Evading Reuther,

she ran up stairs, taking off her things mechanically on the way. She

must have an hour alone. She must learn her first lesson in self-control

and justifiable duplicity before she came under her daughter's eyes. She

must--

Here she reached her room door and was about to enter, when at a sudden

thought she paused and let her eyes wander down the hall, till they

settled on another door, the one she had closed behind her the night

before, with the deep resolve never to open it again except under

compulsion.

Had the compulsion arisen? Evidently, for a few minutes later she was

standing in one of the dim corners of Oliver's musty room, reopening a

book which she had taken down from the shelves on her former visit. She

remembered it from its torn back and the fact that it was an Algebra.

Turning to the fly leaf, she looked again at the names and schoolboy

phrases she had seen scribbled all over its surface, for the one which

she remembered as, I HATE ALGEBRA.

It had not been a very clearly written ALGEBRA, and she would never have

given this interpretation to the scrawl, had she been in a better mood.

Now another thought had come to her, and she wanted to see the word

again. Was she glad or sorry to have yielded to this impulse, when by a

closer inspection she perceived that the word was not ALGEBRA at all,

but ALGERNON, I HATE A ETHERIDGE.--I HATE A. E.--I HATE ALGERNON E. all

over the page, and here and there on other pages, sometimes in

characters so rubbed and faint as to be almost unreadable and again so

pressed into the paper by a vicious pencil-point as to have broken their

way through to the leaf underneath.

The work of an ill-conditioned schoolboy! but--this hate dated back many

years. Paler than ever, and with hands trembling almost to the point of

incapacity, she put the book back, and flew to her own room, the prey of

thoughts bitter almost to madness.

It was the second time in her life that she had been called upon to go

through this precise torture. She remembered the hour only too well,

when first it was made known to her that one in closest relation to

herself was suspected of a hideous crime. And now, with her mind cleared

towards him and readjusted to new developments, this crushing experience

of seeing equal indications of guilt in another almost as dear and

almost as closely knit into her thoughts and future expectations as John

had ever been. Can one endure a repetition of such horror? She had never

gauged her strength, but it did not seem possible. Besides of the two

blows, this seemed the heaviest and the most revolting. Then, only her

own happiness and honour were involved; now it was Reuther's; and the

fortitude which sustained her through the ignominy of her own trouble,

failed her at the prospect of Reuther's. And again, the two cases were

not equal. Her husband had had traits which, in a manner, had prepared

her for the ready suspicion of people. But Oliver was a man of

reputation and kindly heart; and yet, in the course of time THIS had

come, and the question once agitating her as to whether Reuther was a

fit mate for him had now evolved itself into this: WAS HE A FIT MATE FOR

HER?

She had rather have died, nay, have had Reuther die than to find herself

forced to weigh and decide so momentous a question.

For, however she might feel about it, not a single illusion remained as

to whose hand had made use of John Scoville's stick to strike down

Algernon Etheridge. How could she have when she came to piece the whole

story together, and weigh the facts she had accumulated against Oliver

with those which had proved so fatal to her husband.

First: the uncontrolled temper of the lad, hints of which she was daily

receiving.

Secondly: his absolute, if unreasonable, hatred of the man thus brutally

assailed. She knew what such hatred was and how it eats into an

undeveloped mind. She had gone through its agonies herself when she was

a young girl, and knew its every stage. With jealousy and personal

distaste for a start, it was easy to trace the revolt of this boyish

heart from the intrusive, ever present mentor who not only shared his

father's affections but made use of them to influence that father

against the career he had chosen, in favour of one he not only disliked

but for which he lacked all aptitude.

She saw it all from the moment his pencil dug into the paper these

tell-tale words: I HATE OLD E to that awful and final one when the

detested student fell in the woods and his reign over the judgment, as

well as over the heart, of Judge Ostrander was at an end.

In hate, bitter, boiling, long-repressed hate, was found the motive for

an act so out of harmony with the condition and upbringing of a lad like

Oliver. She need look for no other.

But motive goes for little if not supported by evidence. Was it

possible, with this new theory for a basis, to reconstruct the story of

this crime without encountering the contradiction of some well-known

fact?

She would see.

First, this matter of the bludgeon left, as her husband declared,

leaning against the old oak in the bottom of the ravine. All knew the

tree and just where it stood. If Oliver, in his eagerness to head off

Etheridge at the bridge, had rushed straight down into the gully from

Ostrander Lane, he would almost strike this tree in his descent. The

diagram sketched on page 185 will make this plain. What more natural,

then, than for him to catch up the stick he saw there, even if his mind

had not been deliberately set on violence. A weapon is a weapon; and an

angry man feels easier with something of the kind in hand.

Armed, then, in this unexpected way, but evidently not yet decided upon

crime (or why his nervous whittling of the stick) he turned towards the

bridge, following the meandering of the stream which in time led him

across the bare spot where she had seen the shadow. That it was his

shadow no one could doubt who knew all the circumstances, and that she

should have leant just long enough from the ruins to mark this shadow

and take it for her husband's--and not long enough to see the man

himself and so detect her error, was one of those anomalies of crime

which make for judicial errors. John skurrying away through the thicket

towards Claymore, Oliver threading his way down the ravine, and she

hurrying away from the ruin above with her lost Reuther in hand! Such

was the situation at this critical moment. Afterwards when she came back

for the child's bucket, some power had withheld her from looking again

into the ravine or she might have been witness to the meeting at the

bridge, and so been saved the misery and shame of believing as long as

she did that the man who intercepted Algernon Etheridge at that place

was her unhappy husband.

The knife with the broken point, which she had come upon in her search

among the lad's discarded effects, proved only too conclusively that it

was his hand which had whittled the end of the bludgeon; for the bit of

steel left in the wood and the bit lost from the knife were to her exact

eye of the same size and an undoubted fit.

[Illustration: map]

Oliver's remorse, the judge's discovery of his guilt (a discovery which

may have been soon but probably was late--so late that the penalty of

the doing had already been paid by the innocent), can only be guessed

from the terrible sequel: a son dismissed, a desolated home in which the

father lived as a recluse.

How the mystery cleared, as she looked at it! The house barred from

guests--the double fence where, hidden from all eyes, the wretched

father might walk his dreary round when night forbade him rest or memory

became a whip of scorpions to lash him into fury or revolt--the stairs

never passed--(how could he look upon rooms where his wife had dreamed

the golden dreams of motherhood and the boy passed his days of innocent

youth)--aye, and his own closed-up room guarded by Bela from intrusion

as long as breath remained to animate his sinking body! What was its

secret? Why, Oliver's portrait! Had this been seen, marked as it was for

all men's reprobation, nothing could have stemmed inquiry; and inquiry

was to be dreaded as Judge Ostrander's own act had shown. Not till he

had made his clumsy attempt to cover this memorial of love and guilt and

rehanging it, thus hidden, where it would attract less attention, had

she been admitted to his room. Alas! alas! that he had not destroyed it

then and there. That, clinging to habits old as his grief and the

remorse which had undoubtedly devoured him for the part he had played in

this case of perverted justice, he had trusted to a sheet of paper to

cover what nothing on earth could cover, once Justice were aroused or

the wrath of God awakened.

Deborah shuddered. Aye, the mystery had cleared, but only to enshroud

her spirits anew and make her long with all her bursting heart and

shuddering soul that death had been her portion before ever she had

essayed to lift the veil held down so tightly by these two remorseful

men.

But was her fault irremediable? The only unanswerable connection between

this old crime and Oliver lay in the evidence she had herself collected.

As she had every intention of suppressing this evidence, and as she had

small dread of any one else digging out the facts to which she only

possessed a clew, might she not hope that any suspicions raised by her

inquiries would fall like a house of cards when she withdrew her hand

from the toppling structure?

She would make her first effort and see. Mr. Black had heard her

complaint; he should be the first to learn that the encouragement she

had received was so small that she had decided to accept her present

good luck without further query, and not hark back to a past which most

people had buried.

XIX

ALANSON BLACK

"You began it, as women begin most things, without thought and a due

weighing of consequences. And now you propose to drop it in the same

freakish manner. Isn't that it?"

Deborah Scoville lifted her eyes in manifest distress and fixed them

deprecatingly upon her interrogator. She did not like his tone which was

dry and suspiciously sarcastic, and she did not like his attitude which

was formal and totally devoid of all sympathy. Instinctively she pushed

her veil still further from her features as she deprecatingly replied:

"You are but echoing your sex in criticising mine as impulsive. And you

are quite within your rights in doing this. Women are impulsive; they

are even freakish. But it is given to one now and then to recognise this

fact and acknowledge it. I hope I am of this number; I hope that I have

the judgment to see when I have committed a mistake and to stop short

before I make myself ridiculous."

The lawyer smiled,--a tight-lipped, acrid sort of smile which

nevertheless expressed as much admiration as he ever allowed himself to

show.

"Judgment, eh?" he echoed. "You stop because your judgment tells you

that you were on the point of making a fool of yourself? No other

reason, eh?"

"Is not that the best which can be given a hard-headed, clear-eyed

lawyer like yourself? Would you have me go on, with no real evidence to

back my claims; rouse up this town to reconsider his case when I have

nothing to talk about but my husband's oath and a shadow I cannot

verify?"

"Then Miss Weeks' neighbourliness failed in point? She was not as

interesting as you had a right to expect from my recommendation?"

"Miss Weeks is a very chatty and agreeable woman, but she cannot tell

what she does not know."

Mr. Black smiled. The woman delighted him. The admiration which he had

hitherto felt for her person and for the character which could so

develop through misery and reproach as to make her in twelve short

years, the exponent of all that was most attractive and bewitching in

woman, seemed likely to extend to her mind. Sagacious, eh? and cautious,

eh? He was hardly prepared for such perfection, and let the transient

lighting up of his features speak for him till he was ready to say:

"You find the judge very agreeable, now that you know him better?"

"Yes, Mr. Black. But what has that got to do with the point at issue?"

And SHE smiled, but not just in his manner nor with quite as little

effect.

"Much," he growled. "It might make it easier for you to reconcile

yourself to the existing order of things."

"I am reconciled to them simply from necessity," was her gentle

response. "Nothing is more precious to me than Reuther's happiness. I

should but endanger it further by raising false hopes. That is why I

have come to cry halt."

"Madam, I commend your decision. It is that of a wise and considerate

woman. Your child's happiness is, of course, of paramount importance to

you. But why should you characterise your hopes as false, just when

there seems to be some justification for them."

Her eyes widened, and she regarded him with a simulation of surprise

which interested without imposing upon him.

"I do not understand you," said she. "Have YOU come upon some clew? Have

YOU heard something which I have not?"

The smile with which he seasoned his reply was of a very different

nature from that which he had previously bestowed upon her. It prepared

her, possibly, for the shock of his words:

"I hardly think so," said he. "If I do not mistake, we have been the

recipients of the same communications."

She started to her feet, but sat again instantly. "Pray explain

yourself," she urged. "Who has been writing to you? And what have they

written?" she added, presuming a little upon her fascinations as a woman

to win an honest response.

"Must I speak first?"

If it was a tilt, it was between even forces.

"It would be gentlemanly in you to do so."

"But I am not of a gentlemanly temper."

"I deal with no other," said she; but with what a glance and in what a

tone!

A man may hold out long--and if a lawyer and a bachelor more than long,

but there is a point at which he succumbs. Mr. Black had reached that

point. Smoothing his brow and allowing a more kindly expression to creep

into his regard, he took two or three crushed and folded papers from a

drawer beside him and, holding them, none too plainly in sight, remarked

very quietly, but with legal firmness:

"Do not let us play about the bush any longer. You have announced your

intention of making no further attempt to discover the man who in your

eyes merited the doom accorded to John Scoville. Your only reason for

this--if you are the woman I think you--lies in your fear of giving

further opportunity to the misguided rancour of an irresponsible writer

of anonymous epistles. Am I not right, madam?"

Beaten, beaten by a direct assault, because she possessed the

weaknesses, as well as the pluck, of a woman. She could control the

language of her lips, but not their quivering; she could meet his eye

with steady assurance but she could not keep the pallor from her cheeks

or subdue the evidences of her heart's turmoil. Her pitiful glance

acknowledged her defeat, which she already saw mirrored in his eyes.

Taking it for an answer, he said gently enough:

"That we may understand each other at once, I will mention the person

who has been made the subject of these attacks. He--"

"Don't speak the name," she prayed, leaning forward and laying her

gloved hand upon his sleeve. "It is not necessary. The whole thing is an

outrage."

"Of course," he echoed, with some of his natural brusqueness, "and the

rankest folly. But to some follies we have to pay attention, and I fear

that we shall have to pay attention to this one if only for your

daughter Reuther's sake. You cannot wish her to become the butt of these

scandalous attempts?"

"No, no." The words escaped her before she realised that in their

utterance she had given up irretrievably her secret.

"You consider them scandalous?"

"Most scandalous," she emphatically returned, with a vivacity and

seeming candour such as he had seldom seen equalled even on the

witness-stand.

His admiration was quite evident. It did not prevent him, however, from

asking quite abruptly:

"In what shape and by what means did this communication reach you?"

"I found it lying on the walk between the gates."

"The same by which Judge Ostrander leaves the house?"

"Yes," came in faint reply.

"I see that you share my fears. If one such scrap can be thrown over the

fence, why shouldn't another be? Men who indulge themselves in writing

anonymous accusations seldom limit themselves to one effusion. I will

stake my word that the judge has found more than one on his lawn."

She could not have responded if she would; her mouth was dry, her tongue

half paralysed. What was coming? The glint in the lawyer's eye

forewarned her that something scarcely in consonance with her hopes and

wishes might be expected.

"The judge has seen and read these barefaced insinuations against his

son and has not turned this whole town topsy-turvy! What are we to think

of that? A lion does not stop to meditate; HE SPRINGS. And Archibald

Ostrander has the nature of a lion. There is nothing of the fox or even

of the tiger in HIM. Mrs. Scoville, this is a very serious matter. I do

not wonder that you are a trifle overwhelmed by the results of your

ill-considered investigations."

"Does the town know? Has the thing become a scandal--a byword? Miss

Weeks gave no proof of ever having heard one word of this dreadful

not-to-be-foreseen business."

"That is good news. You relieve me. Perhaps it is not a general topic as

yet." Then shortly and with lawyer-like directness, "Show me the letter

which has disturbed all your plans."

"I haven't it here."

"You didn't bring it?"

"No, Mr. Black. Why should I? I had no premonition that I should ever be

induced to show it to any one, least of all to you."

"Look over these. Do they look at all familiar?"

She glanced down at the crumpled sheets and half-sheets he had spread

out before her. They were similar in appearance to the one she had

picked up on the judge's grounds but the language was more forcible, as

witness these:

When a man is trusted to defend another on trial for his life, he's

supposed to know his business. How came John Scoville to hang,

without a thought being given to the man who hated A. Etheridge

like poison? I could name a certain chap who more than once in the

old days boasted that he'd like to kill the fellow. And it wasn't

Scoville or any one of his low-down stamp either.

A high and mighty name shouldn't shield a man who sent a poor,

unfriended wretch to his death in order to save his own bacon.

"Horrible!" murmured Deborah, drawing back in terror of her own emotion.

"It's the work of some implacable enemy taking advantage of the

situation I have created. Mr. Black, this man must be found and made to

see that no one will believe, not even Scoville's widow--"

"There! you needn't go any further with that," admonished the lawyer. "I

will manage him. But first we must make sure to rightly locate this

enemy of the Ostranders. You do detect some resemblance between this

writing and the specimen you have at home?"

"They are very much alike."

"You believe one person wrote them?"

"I do."

"Have you any idea who this person is?"

"No; why should I?"

"No suspicion?"

"Not the least in the world."

"I ask because of this," he explained, picking out another letter and

smilingly holding it out towards her.

She read it with flushed cheeks.

Listen to the lady. You can't listen to any one nicer. What she

wants she can get. There's a witness you never saw or heard of.

A witness they had never heard of! What witness? Scarcely could she lift

her eyes from the paper. Yet there was a possibility, of course, that

this statement was a lie.

"Stuff, isn't it?" muttered the lawyer. "Never mind, we'll soon have

hold of the writer." His face had taken on a much more serious aspect,

and she could no longer complain of his indifference or even of his

sarcasm.

"You will give me another opportunity of talking with you on this

matter," pursued he. "If you do not come here, you may expect to see me

at Judge Ostrander's. I do not quite like the position into which you

have been thrown by these absurd insinuations from some unknown person

who may be thinking to do you a service, but who you must feel is very

far from being your friend. It may even lead to your losing the home

which has been so fortunately opened for you. If this occurs, you may

count on my friendship, Mrs. Scoville. I may have failed you once, but I

will not fail you twice."

Surprised, almost touched, she held out her hand, with a cordial THANK

YOU, in which emotion struggled with her desire to preserve an

appearance of complete confidence in Judge Ostrander, and incidentally

in his son. Then, being on her feet by this time, she turned to go,

anxious to escape further embarrassment from a perspicacity she no

longer possessed the courage to meet.

The lawyer appeared to acquiesce in the movement of departure. But when

he saw her about to vanish through the door, some impulse of

compunction, as real as it was surprising, led him to call her back and

seat her once more in the chair she had so lately left.

"I cannot let you go," said he, "until you understand that these

insinuations from a self-called witness would not be worth our attention

if there were not a few facts to give colour to his wild claims. Oliver

Ostrander WAS in that ravine connecting with Dark Hollow, very near the

time of the onslaught on Mr. Etheridge; and he certainly hated the man

and wanted him out of the way. The whole town knows that, with one

exception. You know that exception?"

"I think so," she acceded, taking a fresh grip upon her emotions.

"That this was anything more than a coincidence has never been

questioned. He was not even summoned as a witness. With the judge's high

reputation in mind I do not think a single person could have been found

in those days to suggest any possible connection between this boy and a

crime so obviously premeditated. But people's minds change with time and

events, and Oliver Ostrander's name uttered in this connection to-day

would not occasion the same shock to the community as it would have done

then. You understand me, Mrs. Scoville?"

"You allude to the unexplained separation between himself and father,

and not to any failure on his part to sustain the reputation of his

family?"

"Oh, he has made a good position for himself, and earned universal

consideration. But that doesn't weigh against the prejudices of people,

roused by such eccentricities as have distinguished the conduct of these

two men."

"Alas!" she murmured, frightened to the soul for the first time, both by

his manner and his words.

"You know and I know," he went on with a grimness possibly suggested by

his subject, "that no mere whim lies back of such a preposterous

seclusion as that of Judge Ostrander behind his double fence. Sons do

not cut loose from fathers or fathers from sons without good cause. You

can see, then, that the peculiarities of their mutual history form but a

poor foundation for any light refutation of this scandal, should it

reach the public mind. Judge Ostrander knows this, and you know that he

knows this; hence your distress. Have I not read your mind, madam?"

"No one can read my mind any more than they can read Judge Ostrander's,"

she avowed in a last desperate attempt to preserve her secret. "You may

think you have done so, but what assurance can you have of the fact?"

"You are strong in their defence," said he, "and you will need to be if

the matter ever comes up. The shadows from Dark Hollow reach far, and

engulf all they fall upon."

"Mr. Black"--she had re-risen the better to face him--"you want

something from me--a promise, or a condition."

"No," said he, "this is my affair only as it affects you. I simply

wished to warn you of what you might have to face; and what Judge

Ostrander will have to face (here I drop the lawyer and speak only as a

man) if he is not ready to give a more consistent explanation of the

curious facts I have mentioned."

"I cannot warn him, Mr. Black."

"You? Of course not. Nobody can warn him; possibly no one should warn

him. But I have warned YOU; and now, as a last word, let us hope that no

warning is necessary and that we shall soon see the last of these

calumniating letters and everything readjusted once more on a firm and

natural basis. Judge Ostrander's action in reopening his house in the

manner and for the purpose he has, has predisposed many in his favour.

It may, before we know it, make the past almost forgotten."

"Meanwhile you will make an attempt to discover the author of these

anonymous attacks?"

"To save YOU from annoyance."

Obliged to make acknowledgment of the courtesy if not kindness prompting

these words, Mrs. Scoville expressed her gratitude and took farewell in

a way which did not seem to be at all displeasing to the crusty lawyer;

but when she found herself once more in the streets, her anxiety and

suspense took on a new phase. What was at the bottom of Mr. Black's

contradictory assertions? Sympathy with her, as he would have her

believe, or a secret feeling of animosity towards the man he openly

professed to admire?

XX

WHAT HAD MADE THE CHANGE?

"Reuther, sit up here close by mother and let me talk to you for a

little while."

"Yes, mother; oh, yes, mother." Deborah felt the beloved head pressed

close to her shoulder and two soft arms fall about her neck.

"Are you very unhappy? Is my little one pining too much for the old

days?"

A closer pressure of the head, a more vehement clasp of the encircling

arms, but no words.

"You have seemed brighter lately. I have heard you sing now and then as

if the joy of youth was not quite absent from your heart. Is that true,

or were you merely trying to cheer your mother?"

"I am afraid I was trying to cheer the judge," came in low whisper to

her ear. "When I hear his step in the study--that monotonous tramp,

tramp, which we both dread, I feel such an ache here, such a desire to

comfort him, that I try the one little means I have to divert him from

his thoughts. He must be so lonely without--"

"Reuther, you forget how many years have passed since he had a

companion. A man becomes used to loneliness. A judge with heavy cases on

his mind must think and think very closely, you know."

"Oh, mamma, it's not of his cases our judge is thinking when he walks

like that. I know him too well, love him too well, not to feel the

trouble in his step. I may be wrong, but all the sympathy and

understanding I may not give to Oliver I devote to his father, and when

he walks like that he seems to drag my heart after him. Mamma, mamma, do

not blame me. I have just as much affection for you, and I suffer just

as keenly when I see you unhappy. And, mamma, are you sure that you are

quite happy to-day? You look as if something had happened to trouble

you--something more than usual, I mean."

They were sitting in the dark, with just the light of the stars shining

through the upper panes of the one unshaded window. Deborah, therefore,

had little to fear from her daughter's eye, only from the sensitiveness

of her touch and the quickness of her ear. Alas, in this delicately

organised girl these were both attuned to the nicest discrimination, and

before the mother could speak, Reuther had started up, crying:

"Oh, how your heart beats! Something has happened, darling mother;

something which--"

"Hush, Reuther; it is only this: When I came to Shelby it was with a

hope that I might some day smooth the way to your happiness. But it was

only a wild dream, Reuther; and the hour has come for me to tell you so.

What joys are left us must come in other ways; love unblessed must be

put aside resolutely and forever."

She felt the shudder pass through the slender form which had thrown

itself again at her side; but when the young girl spoke it was with

unexpected bravery and calm.

"I have long ago done that, mamma. I've had no hopes from the first. The

look with which Oliver accepted my refusal to go on with the ceremony

was one of gratitude, mother. I can never forget that. Relief struggled

with grief. Would you have me cherish any further illusions after that?"

Mrs. Scoville was silent. So, after all, Reuther had not been so blind

on that day as she had always feared.

"Oliver has faults--Oh, let me talk about him just for once, darling

mother," the poor, stricken child babbled on. "His temper is violent, or

so he has often told me, coming and going like a gust of--No, mamma,

don't make me stop. If he has faults he has good traits too. He was

always gentle with me and if that far-away look you did not like would

come at times and take him, as it were, out of our world, such a sweet

awakening would follow when he realised that I was waiting for his

spirit to come back, that I never minded the mystery, in my joy at the

comfort which my love gave him."

"My child, my child!"

"Mother, I can soothe the father, but I can no longer soothe Oliver.

That is my saddest thought. It makes me wish, sometimes, that he would

find another loving heart on which he could lean without any

self-reproach. I should soon learn to bear it. It would so assure his

future and rid me of the fear that he may fail to hold the place he has

won by such hard work and persistence."

A moment's silence, then a last appeal on the part of the mother.

"Reuther, have I ever been harsh to you?"

"No, no."

"Then you will not think me unkind or even untender if I say that every

loving thought you give now to Oliver is hurtful both to yourself and to

me. Don't indulge in them, my darling. Put your heart into work or into

music, and your mother will bless you. Won't it help you to know this,

Reuther? Your mother, who has had her griefs, will bless you."

"Mother, mother!"

* * * * *

That night, at a later hour, Deborah struggled with a great temptation.

The cap which hung in Oliver's closet--the knife which lay in the drawer

of Oliver's desk--were to her mind positive proofs of his actual

connection with the crime she now wished to see buried for all time in

her husband's grave. The threat of that unknown indicter of mysterious

letters, I KNOW A WITNESS, had sunk deep into her mind. A witness of

what? Of anything which the discovery of these articles might

substantiate? If so, what peril remained in their continued preservation

when an effort on her part might so easily destroy them.

Sleep, long a stranger to her pillow, forsook her entirely as she faced

this question and realised the gain in peace which might be hers if cap

and knife were gone. Why then did she allow them to remain, the one in

the closet, the other in the drawer? Because she could not help herself.

Instinct was against her meddling with these possible proofs of crime.

But this triumph of conscience cost her dear. The next morning found her

pale--almost as pale as Reuther. Was that why the judge surveyed her so

intently as she poured out the coffee, and seemed more than once on the

point of addressing her particularly, as she went through the usual

routine of tidying up his room?

She asked herself this question more than once, and found it answered

every time she hurried by the mirror. Certainly she showed a remarkable

pallor.

Knowing its cause herself, she did not invite his inquiries; and another

day passed. With the following morning she felt strong enough to open

the conversation which had now become necessary for her peace of mind.

She waited till the moment when, her work all done, she was about to

leave his presence. Pausing till she caught his eye, which seemed a

little loth, she thought, to look her way, she observed, with perhaps

unnecessary distinctness:

"I hope that everything is to your mind, Judge Ostrander. I should be

sorry not to make you as comfortable as is possible under the

circumstances."

[Illustration: SILENCE! NOT EVEN HEAVEN SPOKE]

Roused a little suddenly, perhaps, from thoughts quite disconnected with

those of material comfort, he nodded with the abstraction of one who

recognises that some sort of acknowledgment is expected from him; then,

seeing her still waiting, added politely:

"I am very well looked after, if that is what you mean, Mrs. Scoville.

Bela could not do any better--if he ever did as well."

"I am glad," she replied, thinking with what humour this would have

struck her once. "I--I ask because, having nothing on my mind but

housekeeping, I desire to remedy anything which is not in accordance

with your exact wishes."

His attention was caught and by the very phrase she desired.

"Nothing on your mind but housekeeping?" he repeated. "I thought you had

something else of a very particular nature with which to occupy

yourself."

"I had; but I have been advised against pursuing it. The folly was too

great."

"Who advised you?"

The words came short and sharp just as they must have come in those old

days when he confronted his antagonists at the bar.

"Mr. Black. He was my husband's counsel, you remember. He says that I

should only have my trouble for my pains, and I have come to agree with

him. Reuther must content herself with the happiness of living under

this roof; and I, with the hope of contributing to your comfort."

Had she impressed him? Had she played her part with success? Dare she

lift her eye and meet the gaze she felt concentrated upon her? No. He

must speak first. She must have some clew to the effect she had produced

before she risked his penetration by a direct look.

She had to wait longer than her beating heart desired. He had his own

agitation to master, and possibly his own doubts. This was not the

fiery, determined woman he had encountered amid the ruins of Spencer's

Folly. WHAT HAD MADE THE CHANGE? Black's discouraging advice? Hardly.

Why should she take from that hard-faced lawyer what she had not been

willing to take from himself? There must have been some other

influencing cause.

His look, his attitude, his voice, betrayed his hesitations, as he

finally remarked:

"Black is a man of excellent counsel, but he is hard as a stone and not

of the sort whose monitions I should expect to have weight with one like

you. What did he put in the balance,--or what have others put in the

balance, to send your passionate intentions flying up to the beam? I

should be glad to hear."

Should she tell him? She had a momentary impulse that way. Then the

irrevocableness of such a move frightened her; and, pale with dismay at

what she felt to be a narrow escape from a grave error of judgment, she

answered with just enough truth, for her to hope that the modicum of

falsehood accompanying it would escape his attention:

"What has changed my intentions? My experience here, Judge Ostrander.

With every day I pass under this roof, I realise more and more the

mistake I made in supposing that any change in circumstances would make

a union between our two children proper or feasible. Headstrong as I am

by nature, I have still some sense of the fitness of things, and it is

that sense awakened by a better knowledge of what the Ostrander name

stands for, which has outweighed my hopes and mad intentions. I am sorry

that I ever troubled you with them."

The words were ambiguous; startlingly so, she felt; but, in hope that

they would strike him otherwise, she found courage at last to raise her

eyes in search of what lay in his. Nothing, or so she thought at first,

beyond the glint of a natural interest; then her mind changed, and she

felt that it would take one much better acquainted with his moods than

herself to read to its depths a gaze so sombre and inscrutable.

His answer, coming after a moment of decided suspense, only deepened

this impression. It was to this effect:

"Madam, we have said our say on this subject. If you have come to see

the matter as I see it, I can but congratulate you upon your good sense,

and express the hope that it will continue to prevail. Reuther is worthy

of the best--" he stopped abruptly. "Reuther is a girl after my own

heart," he gently supplemented, with a glance towards his papers lying

in a bundle at his elbow, "and she shall not suffer because of this

disappointment to her girlish hopes. Tell her so with my love."

It was a plain dismissal. Mrs. Scoville took it as such, and quietly

left the room. As she did so she was approached by Reuther who handed

her a letter which had just been delivered. It was from Mr. Black and

read thus:

We have found the rogue and have succeeded in inducing him to leave

town. He's a man in the bill-sticking business and he owns to a

grievance against the person we know.

Deborah's sleep that night was without dreams.

XXI

IN THE COURT ROOM

About this time, the restless pacing of the judge in his study at nights

became more frequent and lasted longer. In vain Reuther played her most

cheerful airs and sang her sweetest songs, the monotonous tramp kept up

with a regularity nothing could break.

"He's worried by the big case now being tried before him," Deborah would

say, when Reuther's eyes grew wide and misty in her sympathetic trouble.

And there was no improbability in the plea, for it was a case of much

moment, and of great local interest. A man was on trial for his life and

the circumstances of the case were such that the feeling called forth

was unusually bitter; so much so, indeed, that every word uttered by the

counsel and every decision made by the judge were discussed from one end

of the county to the other, and in Shelby, if nowhere else, took

precedence of all other topics, though it was a Presidential year and

party sympathies ran high.

The more thoughtful spirits were inclined to believe in the innocence of

the prisoner; but the lower elements of the town, moved by class

prejudice, were bitterly antagonistic to his cause and loud for his

conviction.

Did the judge realise his position and the effect made upon the populace

by his very evident leaning towards this dissipated but well-connected

young man accused of a crime so brutal, that he must either have been

the sport of most malicious circumstances, or a degenerate of the worst

type. The time of Judge Ostrander's office was nearly up, and his future

continuance on the bench might very easily depend upon his attitude at

the present hearing. Yet HE, without apparent recognition of this fact,

showed without any hesitancy or possibly without self-consciousness, the

sympathy he felt for the man at the bar, and ruled accordingly almost

without variation.

No wonder he paced the floor as the proceedings drew towards its close

and the inevitable hour approached when a verdict must be rendered. Mrs.

Scoville, reading his heart by the light of her recent discoveries,

understood as nobody else, the workings of his conscience and the

passion of sympathy which this unhappy father must have for misguided

youth. She began to fear for his health and count the days till this

ordeal was over.

In other regards, quiet had come to them all and less tempestuous fears.

Could the judge but weather the possible conviction of this man and

restrain himself from a disclosure of his own suffering, more cheerful

days might be in store for them, for no further missives were to be seen

on the lawn, nor had anything occurred for days to recall to Deborah's

mind the move she had made towards re-establishing her husband's

innocence.