The following day found Marcus Gard at the usual morning hour in
conference with Dorothy. The girl was radiant. The nurses had reported a
splendid sleep and a calm awakening. She had been allowed a moment with
her mother, whose voice was no longer faint, but was regaining its old
vibrant quality.
The doctor entered smiling and grasped Gard's extended hand.
"You said it," he laughed. "Whatever it was, you said it, all right.
Mrs. Marteen slept like a child, and there's color in her face to-day.
See if you can do as well again. I'll give you five minutes--no, ten."
Preceded by the doctor, he once more found his way through the
velvet-hushed corridors to the softly lighted bedroom, where lay the
woman who had absorbed his every thought. Her eyes, as they met his,
were bright with anxiety, and her glance at the doctor was almost
resentful. But it was not part of the physician's plan to interfere with
any confidence that might relieve the patient's mind. With a casual nod
to Mrs. Marteen, he called to the nurse and led her from the room, his
finger rapidly tapping the sick-room chart, as if medical directions
were first in his mind.
Left alone, Gard approached the bed, and in answer to the unspoken
question in her eyes, fumbled in his pocket and brought forth the thin
packets of letters and the folded yellow cheques. One by one he laid
them where her hands could touch them. He dared not look at her. He felt
that her newly awakened soul was staring from her eyes at the mute
evidence of a degrading past.
A moment passed in silence that seemed a year of pain; then, without a
sob, without a sigh, she slowly handed him a bundle of papers,
withholding them only a moment as she verified the count; then, with a
slight movement she indicated the fireplace. He crossed to it and placed
the papers on the coals, where they flared a moment, casting wavering
shadows about the silent room, and died to black wisps. Again and again
he made the short journey from the bed to the grate; each time she
verified the contents of the envelopes before delivering them to his
hand.
Last of all the two yellow cheques crisped to ashes. He stood looking
down upon them as they dropped and collapsed into cinders, and from
their ashes rose the phoenix of happiness. A glow of joyful relief
lighted his spirit. There, in those dead ashes, lay a dead past--a past
that might have been the black future, but was now relinquished forever,
voluntarily--gone--gone! He realized a supreme moment, a turning point.
Fate looked him in the eyes.
He turned, and saw a face transfigured. There was a light in Mrs.
Marteen's eyes that matched the glow in his own heart. Very reverently
he raised her hand and kissed it; two sudden tears fell hot upon her
cheeks and her lips quivered.
He had never seen her show emotion, and it went to his heart. He saw her
gaze at her hands with dilating eyes, and divined before she spoke the
question she whispered:
"Who killed Victor Mahr?"
He bent above her gravely. "His wife. The wife he had cruelly
wronged--his wife, who escaped at last from an asylum. She is quite
mad--now. She is in our hands, and to-night, at eleven o'clock, the
district attorney will be at my house to see her and have the evidence
laid before him--to save Teddy," he added quickly.