My thought did not complete itself. In sudden apprehension of I knew not
what, I dashed from the room and made my way down stairs without further
ceremony.
The unnatural stillness which had attracted my attention above was
repeated on the floor below. No one in the rooms, no one in the
passages.
Disturbed as I had not been yet by anything which had occurred in
connection with this harrowing affair, I leaped to the nearest door and
stepped out on the lawn.
My first glance was toward the river. All was as usual there. With my
worst fears dispelled, but still a prey to doubts for which as yet I had
no name, I moved toward the kitchen windows, expecting of course to find
some one there who would explain the situation to me. But not a head
appeared at my call. The kitchen, too, was deserted.
"This is not chance," I involuntarily exclaimed, and was turning toward
the stables when I perceived a child, the son of one of the gardeners,
crossing the lawn at a run, and hailing him, asked where everybody had
gone that the house seemed deserted.
He looked back but kept on running, shouting as he did so:
"I guess they're all down at the bungalow! I'm going there. Men are
digging up the cellar. Mrs. Ocumpaugh says she's afraid Miss Gwendolen's
body is buried there."
Aghast and perhaps a trifle conscience-stricken, I stood stock-still in
the sunshine. So this was what I had done! Driven her to frenzy; roused
her imagination to such a point that she saw her darling--always her
darling even if another woman's child--lying under the clay across which
I had attempted simply to prove that she had been carried. Or--no! I
would not think that! A detective of my experience outwitted by this
stricken, half-dead woman whom I had trembled to see try to stand upon
her feet? Impossible! Yet the thought brought the blood to my cheek.
Digging up the bungalow cellar! That meant destroying those footprints
before I had secured a single impression of the same. I should have
roused her curiosity only, not her terror.
Now all might be lost unless I could arrive in time to--do what? Order
the work stopped? With what face could I do that with her standing by in
all the authority of motherhood--frenzied motherhood--seeking the
possible body of her child! My affair certainly looked dubious. Yet I
started for the bungalow like the rest, and on a run, too. Perhaps
Providence would favor me and some expedient suggest itself by which I
might still save the clue upon which so many hopes hung.
The excitement which had now drawn every person on the place in the one
direction, was at its height as I burst through the thicket into the
path running immediately about the bungalow. Those who could get in at
the door had done so, filling the room whence Gwendolen had disappeared,
with awe-struck men and chattering women. Some had been allowed to
descend through the yawning trap-door, down which all were endeavoring
to peer, and, fortified by this fact, I armed myself with an appearance
of authority despite my sense of presumption, and pushed and worked my
own way to these steps, saying that I had come to aid Mrs. Ocumpaugh,
whose attention I declared I had been the first to direct to this place.
Struck with my manner if not with my argument, they yielded to my
importunity and allowed me to pass down. The stroke of the spade and the
harsh voice of the man directing the work greeted my disquieted ears.
With a bound I cleared the last half-dozen steps and, alighting on the
cellar bottom, was soon able, in spite of the semi-darkness, to look
about me and get some notion of the scene.
A dozen men were working--the full corps of gardeners without doubt--and
a single glance sufficed to show me that such of the surface as had not
been upturned by their spades had been harried by their footsteps.
Useless now to promulgate my carefully formed theory, with any hope of
proof to substantiate it. The crushed bonbon, the piled-up boxes and the
freshly sawed hole were enough without doubt to establish the fact that
the child had been carried into the walled-up room above, but the link
which would have fixed the identity of the person so carrying her was
gone from my chain of evidence for ever. She who should have had the
greatest interest in establishing this evidence was leaning on the arm
of Miss Porter and directing, with wavering finger and a wild air, the
movements of the men, who, in a frenzy caught from her own, dug here and
dug there as that inexorable finger pointed.
Sobs choked Miss Porter; but Mrs. Ocumpaugh was beyond all such signs of
grief. Her eyes moved; her breast heaved; now and then a confused
command left her lips, but that was all. Yet to me she was absolutely
terrifying, and it took all the courage left from my disappointment for
me to move so as to attract her attention. When I saw that I had
succeeded in doing this, I regretted the impulse which had led me to
break into her mood. The change which my sudden appearance caused in her
was too abrupt; too startling. I feared the effects, and put up my hand
in silent deprecation as her lips essayed to move in what might be some
very disturbing command. If she heeded it I can not say. What she said
was this:
"It's the child--I'm looking for the child! She was brought here. You
proved that she was brought here. Then why don't we find her, or--or her
little innocent body?"
I did not attempt an answer; I dared not--I merely turned away into a
corner, where I should be out of the way of the men. A thought was
rising in my mind; a thought which might have led to some definite
action if her voice had not risen shrilly and with a despairing
utterance in these words:
"Useless! It is not here she will be found. I was mad to think it. Pull
up your spades and go."
A murmur of relief from one end of the cellar to the other, and every
spade was drawn out of the ground.
"I could have told you," ventured one more hardy than the rest, "that
there was no use disturbing this old clay for any such purpose. Any one
could see that no spade has been at work here before in years."
"I said that I was mad," she repeated, and waved the men away.
Slowly they retreated with clattering spades and a heavy tread. The
murmur which greeted them above slowly died out, and the bungalow was
deserted by all but our three selves. When quite sure of this, I turned,
and Miss Porter's eyes met mine with a reproachful glance easy enough
for me to understand.
"I will go, too," whispered Mrs. Ocumpaugh. "Oh! this has been like
losing my darling for the second time!"
Real grief is unmistakable. Recognizing the heartfelt tone in which
these words were uttered, I recurred to the idea of frenzy with all the
sympathy her situation called for. Yet I felt that I could not let her
leave before we had come to some understanding. But how express myself?
How say here and now in the presence of a sympathetic but unenlightened
third party what it would certainly be difficult enough for me to utter
to herself in the privacy of that secluded apartment in which we had met
and talked before our confidence was broken into by this impetuous act
of hers.
Not seeing at the moment any natural way out of my difficulties, I stood
in painful confusion, conscious of Miss Porter's eyes and also conscious
that unless some miracle came to my assistance I must henceforth play
but a sorry figure in this affair, when my eyes, which had fallen to the
ground, chanced upon a morsel of paper so insignificant in size and of
such doubtful appearance that the two ladies must have wondered to see
me stoop and with ill-concealed avidity pick it up and place it in my
pocket.
Mrs. Ocumpaugh, whose false strength was fast leaving her, now muttered
some words which were quite unintelligible to me, though they caused
Miss Porter to make me a motion very expressive of a dismissal. I did
not accept it as such, however, without making one effort to regain my
advantage. At the foot of the steps I paused and glanced back at Mrs.
Ocumpaugh. She was still looking my way, but her chin had fallen on her
breast, and she seemed to sustain herself erect only by a powerful
effort. Again her pitiable and humiliating position appealed to me, and
it was with some indication of feeling that I finally said:
"Am I not to have an opportunity of finishing the conversation so
unhappily interrupted, Mrs. Ocumpaugh? I am not satisfied, and I do not
believe you can be, with the partial disclosures I then made. Afford me,
I pray, a continuation of that interview, if only to make plain to me
your wishes. Otherwise I may fall into some mistake--say or do something
which I might regret--for matters can not stand where they are. You know
that, do you not, madam?"
"Adèle! go! go!" This to Miss Porter. "I must have a few words more with
Mr. Trevitt. I had forgotten what I owe him in the frenzy which
possessed me."
"Do you wish to talk to him _here_?" asked that lady, with very marked
anxiety.
"No, no; it is too cold, too dark. I think I can walk to Mrs. Carew's.
Will you join me there, Mr. Trevitt?"