"Then _you_ think she strayed down to the water?"
"Yes; it would madden me to believe otherwise; loving her so well, and
her parents so well, I dare not think of a worse fate."
Taking advantage of her amiability and the unexpected opportunity it
offered for a leading question, I hereupon ventured to say: "You were
not at home, I hear, when she vanished from the bungalow."
"No; that is, if it happened before three o'clock. I arrived from the
station just as the clock was striking the hour, and having my little
nephew with me, I was too much occupied in reconciling him to his new
home, to hear or see anything outside. Most unfortunate!" she mourned,
"most unfortunate! I shall never cease reproaching myself. A tragedy at
my door"--here she glanced across the shrubbery at the bungalow--"and I
occupied with my own affairs!"
With a flush, the undoubted result of her own earnestness, she turned as
if to go. But I could not let her depart without another question:
"Excuse me, Mrs. Carew, but you gave me permission to seem importunate.
With the exception of her nurse, you were the one person nearest the
bungalow at the time. Didn't you hear a carriage drive through your
grounds at about the hour the alarm was first started? I know you have
been asked this before, but not by me; and it is a very important fact
to have settled; very important for those who wish to discover this
child at once."
For reply she gave me a look of very honest amazement.
"Of course I did," she replied. "I came in a carriage myself from the
station and naturally heard it drive away."
At her look, at her word, the thread which I had seized with such
avidity seemed to slip from my fingers. Had little Miss Graham's theory
no better foundation than this? and were the wheels she heard only
those of Mrs. Carew's departing carriage? I resolved to press the matter
even if I ran the risk of displeasing her.
"Mrs. Carew--for it must be Mrs. Carew I am addressing--did your little
nephew cry when you first brought him to the house?"
"I think he did," she admitted slowly; "I think he did."
I must have given evidence of the sudden discouragement this brought me,
for her lips parted and her whole frame trembled with sudden
earnestness.
"Did you think--did any one think--that those cries came from Gwendolen?
That she was carried out through my grounds? Could any one have thought
that?"
"I have been told that the nursery-governess did."
"Little Miss Graham? Poor girl! she is but defending herself from
despair. She is ready to believe everything but that the child is dead."
Was it so? Was I following the false light of a will-o'-the-wisp? No,
no; the strange coincidence of the threat made on the bridge with the
disappearance of the child on the day named, was at least real. The
thread had not altogether escaped from my hands. It was less tangible,
but it was still there.
"You may be right," I acquiesced, for I saw that her theories were
entirely opposed to those of Miss Graham. "But we must try everything,
_everything_."
I was about to ask whether she had ever seen in the adjoining grounds,
or on the roads about, an old man with long hair and a remarkable scar
running down between his eyebrows, when a young girl in the cap and
apron of a maid-servant came running through the shrubbery from the
Ocumpaugh house, and, seeing Mrs. Carew, panted out:
"Oh, do come over to the house, Mrs. Carew. Mrs. Ocumpaugh has been told
that the two shoes which have been found, one on the bank and the other
in the river, are not mates, and it has quite distracted her. She has
gone to her room and will let no one else in. We can hear her moaning
and crying, but we can do nothing. Perhaps she will see you. She called
for you, I know, before she shut her door."
"I will go." Mrs. Carew had turned quite pale, and from standing upright
in the road, had moved so as to gain support from one of the hedges.
I expected to see her turn and go as soon as her trembling fit was over,
but she did not, though she waved the girl away as if she intended to
follow her. Had I not learned to distrust my own impression of people's
motives from their manners and conduct, I should have said that she was
waiting for me to precede her.
"Two shoes and not mates!" she finally exclaimed. "What does she mean?"
"Simply that another shoe has been drawn up from the river-bottom which
does not mate the one picked up near the bungalow. Both are for the left
foot."
"Ah!" gasped this sympathetic woman. "And what inference can we draw
from that?"
I should not have answered her; but the command in her eyes or the
thrilling effect of her manner compelled me, and I spoke the truth at
once, just as I might have done to Mrs. Ocumpaugh, or, better still, to
Mr. Ocumpaugh, if either had insisted.
"But one," said I. "There is a conspiracy on the part of one or more
persons to delude Mrs. Ocumpaugh into believing the child dead. They
blundered over it, but they came very near succeeding."
"Who blundered, and what is the meaning of the conspiracy you hint at?
Tell me. Tell me what such men as you think."
Her plastic features had again shown a change. She was all anxiety now;
cheeks burning, eyes blazing--a very beautiful woman.
"We think that the case looks serious. We think from the very mystery it
displays, that there is a keen intelligence back of this crime. I can
not go any further than that. The affair is as yet too obscure."
"You amaze me!" she faltered, making an effort to collect her thoughts.
"I have always thought, just as Mrs. Ocumpaugh has, that the child had
somehow found her way to the water and was drowned. But if all this is
true we shall have to face a worse evil. A conspiracy against such a
tender little being as that! A conspiracy, and for what? Not to extort
money, or why these blundering efforts to make the child appear dead?"
She was the same sympathetic woman, agitated by real feeling as before,
yet at this moment--I do not understand now just why--I became aware of
an inner movement of caution against too great a display of candor on my
own part.
"Madam, it is all a mystery at present. I am sure that the police will
tell you the same. But another day may bring developments."
"Let us hope so!" was her ardent reply, accompanied by a gesture, the
freedom of which suited her style and person as it would not have done
those of a less impressionable woman. And, seeing that I had no
intention of leaving the spot where I stood, she moved at last from
where she held herself upright against the hedge, and entered the
Ocumpaugh grounds. "Will you call in to see me to-morrow?" she asked,
pausing to look back at a turn in the path. "I shall not sleep to-night
for thinking of those possible developments."
"Since you permit me," I returned; "that is, if I am still here. Affairs
may call me away at any moment."
"Yes, and so with me. Affairs may call me away also. I was to sail on
Saturday for Liverpool. Only Mrs. Ocumpaugh's distress detains me. If
the situation lightens, if we hear any good news to-night, or even early
to-morrow, I shall continue my preparations, which will take me again
to New York."
"I will call if you are at home."
She gave me a slight nod and vanished.
Why did I stand a good three minutes where she had left me, thinking,
but not getting anything from my thoughts, save that I was glad that I
had not been betrayed into speaking of the old man Miss Graham had met
on the bridge? Yet it might have been well, after all, if I had done so,
if only to discover whether Mrs. Ocumpaugh had confided this occurrence
to her most intimate friend.